Besides, Adelaide had other problems. Charlotte’s ball may have been a success but Charlotte herself was not. She spent hours in her room painting. She went to balls only when threatened with terrible punishments like the removal of her canvases. She hung listlessly around the edges of rooms full of her chattering contemporaries, and complained of boredom. She developed a cool, impenetrable glance that ranged over the assembled ranks of men and dismissed them all. It was a brave twenty-two-year-old who requested a second dance with her, since she seemed to have no small conversation and terrified empty-headed young gentlemen by asking them what they thought of events on the Continent.

After a while, Adelaide forgot about the dark eyes of Alexander the senior and the velvety voice of Patrick the junior. And Charlotte presumably forgot about her tryst in the garden … at any rate, it was never mentioned between them again. Mother and daughter spent their time, if the truth be known, bickering over Charlotte’s refusal to attend society functions and her contemptuous air when she did.

Adelaide didn’t understand that, to Charlotte, the young men she met paled next to the memory of his face; Charlotte didn’t understand her mother’s growing terror at the prospect of her daughter’s marriageless future. She had taken to painting flowers, and she was happiest in her room, delicately copying the dusky gold shade of a lily.

To Charlotte, the future was clear. She wouldn’t marry one of the silly boys she had met so far; she probably wouldn’t marry at all. The prospect didn’t bother her too much. What did bother her was wasted time and slow dances, tepid lemonade and too-tight dresses.

By a year later she too thought only rarely about the man she met in the garden. When she did think about the experience, she saw it as a lucky event that made her a woman overnight and taught her to see what she wanted. Without it, she’d have been herded into some man’s arms by the end of her first season, Charlotte thought contemptuously. She’d probably be pregnant by now, and her husband would be romping at Ascot while she was left at home.

Charlotte stood back from her easel, looking at her latest picture, of a tawny tiger lily. The lines of the stem were not perfect, but the color was splendid. This, she thought, was a far better life.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

London, England
May 1801

The spring Charlotte turned twenty, her family gave up hope of her marrying. In the three seasons since she had come out she had done surprisingly well, considering that she rarely attended balls and had to be coaxed into attending garden parties and tea parties and rides in the park, the normal activities for gently bred young ladies.