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"You are unaccountably strange," May said She’d said it many times before, so the sentence floith practiced ease "All I can say is, thank goodness it isn’t the Duke of Beau of you with his last breath You’d never live that one down!"

"How many times must I tell you," Charlotte said between clenched teeth

"I know," May said, "but you e Here you are, practically a spinster, Charlotte, if you don’tso Neither of us ever had a shard of interest fro chased around by dukes It’s--it’s odd"

Charlotte folded up the letter "I’ll drop my card at Villiers’s house on my way to buy soain, and Cook wants mustard to make up a poultice"

"You could send Roberts," May observed "It isn’t ladylike for you to traipse off to the market for herbs"

"I’e "And I need some fresh air It’s quite odd to receive a letter froine what everyone will think of it! I just hope they don’t think that you were as close to Villiers as you supposedly are to Beauhed shrilly at the very idea and trotted off

Charlotte didn’t bother to change her dress She was neatly attired in a si nor particularly fashionable, but it served She stared down at it for ahow resplendent the Duke of Villiers always appeared, clothed in fantastically e that fatal duel, he looked white, but gorgeous

It was so sad And now she thought of it, sad for the Earl of Gryffyn as well One had to suppose that he would have to flee the country now that his opponent had died

Stupid men and their stupid duels The butler was nowhere to be seen, so she had Roberts hail her a hackney She wasn’t in a ht around froenteel poverty revealed in every rusty spot on that carriage

"Fifteen, Picadilly," she told the driver When they pulled up in front of Villiers’s town house she realized for the first time the problem with a hackney There wasn’t a footman to deliver her card "Here, driver!" she called "Will you be so good as to deliver ed his cap and took the card obediently enough She watched through theas he trundled up to the door, his driver’s cape blowing in a stiff wind It wasn’t proper; one’s card should be delivered by a footet over the fact that Villiers was dead Dead men presumably didn’t care for niceties

A butler answered the door and took the card, but when Charlotte expected the driver to trundle directly back to the carriage, he didn’t do so Instead a footman slipped past the butler and cae

"If you please," he said, bowing

"I’ horribly embarrassed Who knohat that foolish driver had told them? "I didn’t come to pay a call; I would never do that at this moment of turmoil I didn’t mean to disturb the house hold, so we’ll be on our way"

The footain "Your presence is requested, madam"

Charlotte pursed her lips But who could see anything untoward in visiting the house of a dead un could hardly be viewed as likely to steal one’s virtue

So she clie andand cold, and she arrived feeling as if her cheeks were red and her clothes all in a twist

"We are very grateful for your call," a butler said, bowing

"I’an, but before she quite kneas happening, her pelisse was gone and she was being bundled up the stairs "I don’t wish to view the body!" she said And then, thinking the butler hadn’t heard her, she stopped on the stair and said, "I a, if you please"

The butler turned at the head of the stairs and peered down at her "You wish a viewing? A viewing of what?"