Free Potent Pleasures by Eloisa James

invariably returned to the kitchen as if a rejoicing family of ten had surfeited themselves. It was part of his campaign to keep Renoir happy, and he knew that the underfootmen, Fred and Cecil (a ridiculous name for a footman), would never reveal that they too enjoyed duck à l’orange or poulet à la diable of an evening.
    Charlotte wandered back up to her bedchamber rather disconsolately. She could dress and follow her mother to Lady Bridgeplate’s fête but it would look rather odd. And what if her mother had gone on to another party, something she was quite capable of doing? Charlotte would arrive and find herself without a chaperone, and Lord knows that would be bad for her reputation.
    Her maid was down in the kitchens, so Charlotte pulled open the doors to her wardrobe and looked at the array of gowns. She hadn’t done much about her apparel lately. She realized it was partly an act of pique, a way of telling her mother to leave her alone. But now she gazed with dislike at her dresses. They weren’t exactly out of fashion (her maid, if no one else, would never let her wear something actually dated), but they weren’t in the newest style either. And perhaps even worse, they were all naive pastels, the soft buttery colors of innocence and youth.
    And I, Charlotte thought savagely, am not young! So why should I dress that way? She began ruthlessly pulling out dresses and throwing them on the bed. When Marie entered the room some ten minutes later, never expecting to find her mistress in her chambers, she was dumbfounded to see piles of gowns on the bed, and her mistress gazing with a satisfied expression at four or five morning gowns left in her wardrobe.
    “Mon dieu!” Marie breathed, wondering if Charlotte had suddenly gone mad. Her mistress, she privately thought, was already as odd as could be. Perhaps she’d decided to join those nudists who were emigrating to America!
    “Marie!” Charlotte said, without turning her head. “I’ve decided to make a change. Tomorrow I shall go to Madame Brigette’s and order a whole new wardrobe. Everything. From top to bottom.”
    Marie instantly grasped what was happening. Her mistress had finally woken up to the truth: A woman needs a man. At least, that was what Marie had confided over and over to her beloved, the second footman Cecil, when they were lying snug in Marie’s room. Campion and Mrs. Simpkin, the housekeeper, didn’t know that , of course, but Marie’s French sensibilities did not require that she adhere to English morality. She and Cecil could not get married until she had sufficient money for a dot , but until then she saw no reason to deny herself or Cecil the pleasure of occasional company.
    Marie’s eyes brightened. “And your hair, my lady! Shall I summon Monsieur Pamplemousse?”
    “Yes, Marie, that’s a very good suggestion.” Charlotte perched on top of the bed and looked into the mirror over her dressing table, unthinkingly crushing four or five layers of delicate dresses. She pulled her hair from its ribbon at her neck. “I think I shall have something entirely different … perhaps I shall cut my hair!”
    “Oh, Lady Charlotte, I’m not certain,” said Marie, thinking of the beauty of her mistress’s silky black curls as they dried before the fire. “Men like such things, long hair,” she said, her Gallic accent pronounced. Marie’s parents had immigrated from France some ten years ago, when she was just a girl, but she tended to slide into a thick French lisp in moments of excitement.
    “This short hair … well, it’s very new , isn’t it? Lady Marion Carolly cut all hers off, of course, and Pearl Clotswild, the American heiress, and …” Marie’s voice trailed off. She was an avid reader of the gossip columns, and she knew that cropped hair was one of the most daring things a young lady could do.
    Marie came around the bed and pulled Charlotte’s heavy black hair off her shoulders. Together they stared into the mirror