“Perhaps not logical, Marcel, but this is ridiculous. How can Charlotte be ruined by a man who hasn’t the capability to ruin her?”

“That’s as may be,” Marcel said obstinately. “The fact is, everyone is watching her now because she’s with him. They are simply waiting for her to misstep and they’ll be on her like a hawk with a pullet. Charlotte must give him his marching orders, now.”

“All right,” Adelaide said finally. “I’ll speak to her. But there’s something odd about all this, dearest. Alexander is pursuing Charlotte as if … well, he’s been so marked in his behavior that I would think it the most romantic match I’d ever seen, if there wasn’t this problem.”

“I know, I know,” said her husband testily.

“So why does he want to marry her?”

Marcel frowned over this for a moment. His mind boggled at the idea that Alexander Foakes was lonely, or that he wanted Charlotte’s dowry. Why, he had three times the blunt that Marcel himself had.

“It must be the competition,” he said slowly. “Why, remember when I was courting you, Addie? All those coxcombs and macaroni that were buzzing around you. I didn’t pay them any mind, of course, but when you accepted my suit it did add a certain sense of victory.” He thought back, remembering all the sapskulls he had beaten to the punch when Adelaide accepted his hand.

“There was a squire—quite a good fellow, remember him, Addie?”

“Squire Noland,” she said with a little smile.

“Well, he caused me a bit of worry,” Marcel said cheerfully. “My God, now I think of it, they were betting on me. I remember Glimflabber, we used to call him—what was his name? Something dreadfully pedestrian like Glassblower, but that wasn’t it. Well, he strutted up to me right in the middle of Paul’s and told me that you had graced him with a second dance, and I should just withdraw my suit at that very moment. Ha!”

Adelaide listened patiently. “It was Glendower, darling, not Glassblower.”

Marcel turned to her. “You accepted me that very night, Addie. And it was rare to see Glendower so out of countenance over the announcement. He scuttled away the next time I laid eyes on him, and finally put it about that you’d taken me only because of my title. Sour grapes.”

Adelaide rose, dropping a kiss on her husband’s head. “I’ll speak to Charlotte now.”

Marcel caught her hands in his. “You tell her, Addie. This is not a request. I will not accept Alexander Foakes’s marriage proposal if he makes one. And the only reason I’m not talking to her myself is … is … the delicacy of the whole situation. But I will not countenance the man as my son-in-law.”