Christmas Charity

by Oakley, Beverley

  Charity drew in a quick breath but Patience, one of the older girls, let out a harsh laugh before saying with heavy irony, “What a charming piece that fellow is. Vain, selfish, and parsimonious, he is. Or, so I’ve heard.”

  “And also, Hugo’s cousin,” Charity said in a soft voice.

  “I thought there was something havey-cavey going on,” muttered Madame, tucking into another muffin before she’d finished her last mouthful of the first. “Though, of course, I had no idea your young Mr Adams had just given you up.”

  “He was going to marry me,” Charity said softly. “Properly!” she added, before realising her error and casting an anguished look at her friend, Violet.

  Violet, one of the most poised and beautiful young women at Madame Chambon’s — in Charity’s opinion — was about to embark on a sham marriage to a young lord. In fact, Charity herself would be present at the church as one of the witnesses.

  Charity didn’t miss the spasm of pain that crossed her friend’s face. Quickly hidden, of course. Violet didn’t reveal her feelings, though Charity knew Violet was deeply in love with young Lord Belvedere, an unlikely customer. A very dashing and charming one, too.

  But a sham marriage was all it would be.

  Violet patted Charity on the shoulder. “Please don’t feel bad on my account. I never expected a proper marriage...but you were promised it and, knowing Mr Adams so well, as we all do, now, we had expected it.”

  “Indeed! It’s not uncommon for true love to blossom under my roof — but for it to lead to legal marriage is a fine thing.” Madame looked remarkably fiery as she pushed out her impressive bosom and stared down the table at the six girls gathered there. “I gave that cousin of Mr Hugo’s short shrift, I can tell you.” She shook her head, taking another mouthful as she added sorrowfully, “But now Mr Hugo has let you down, I don’t know what will be done.”

  Charity didn’t know either. Clearly, Madame would come up with something. She waited, holding her breath.

  “You need not fear, Charity. I shall not sacrifice you to the first stranger who seeks your services. Not so soon after your terrible let-down. I have some compassion.”

  But you’d happily sacrifice me to the second within the week if his offer was good enough, Charity thought with more terror than bitterness.

  The moment’s silence suggested the other girls thought the same.

  Until Rosetta said tentatively, “It would appear we are not the only ones who think poorly of Mr Adams.”

  As she was not one to voice opinions, the girls looked at her with surprise.

  “Well, girl, you don’t make remarks like that without backing them up,” Madame barked.

  Charity tried not to roll her eyes. This was not the approach to take with Rosetta if one wished for elaboration.

  It was Violet who put her hand on Rosetta’s arm and said gently, “What can you tell us about Mr Adams? Perhaps it’s important in view of him poking his nose around here so soon after Charity’s terrible disappointment.” She sent Madame a significant look and Charity smiled gratefully. Violet was so calm and agreeable. She always knew what to say.

  “The gentleman I entertained two nights ago said one of the few men in London he’d not game with was Mr Cyril Adams.” She blushed and looked down. “But perhaps it’s nothing. One can’t believe everything a gentleman says.”

  “One certainly can’t,” Violet agreed. “But it is an interesting observation. Perhaps more than just a coincidence. What do you think, Charity?”

  Charity nodded. Violet sounded so cultured yet she’d never divulged the real reasons she’d landed on Madame’s doorstep several years before with nothing but a carpetbag of belongings yet looking and sounding every inch the well-heeled young lady. Violet had declared that she wanted to work as one of Madame’s girls as if she’d really meant it and Charity, who’d been making her way along the passage, had been brought up short as she’d heard her declaration to Madame through Madame’s half open study door.

  “Hugo said his cousin had plied him with drink then pressured him to play at dice.” Charity could barely summon the energy to sit straight in her chair. “Hugo never plays. And he doesn’t like his cousin. Oh lord, what would he do if he knew his cousin had come asking for me?” She managed to choke down the sob. “Is Mr Adams really that dreadful?” She shuddered at the thought of having to do with anyone what she’d done with Hugo. “I know they’re competitive but — ”

  “Mr Adams is held in the highest disregard.” It was Emily, now, adding her tuppence worth. “I heard from one of my fellers that Mr Adams palms cards and that’s why he’d never play him.”

  “Mr Adams obviously cheated your Hugo!” Rosetta said but Charity shook her head. “Hugo rolled the dice with everyone watching him.”

  “The dice could have been loaded,” Violet said.

  “It is possible, Violet, to make dies that favours particular numbers.” Rosetta glanced between Violet and Lizzie. “Perhaps you might make a few discreet inquiries amongst your gentlemen as to what else they know about Mr Adams and his enthusiasm for gaming.” She looked over to Charity. “Perhaps we can uncover some misdeeds that will reverse Hugo’s situation.”

  Charity’s smile lacked conviction. With no independent funds, Hugo was in an impossible situation if his father was determined to send him out of the country.

  Could she be the real reason? she wondered.

  Could it be that she wasn’t good enough for Mr Adams’ son, and never would be?

  As she tried to pay attention and be grateful for all the suggestions her friends were bandying around, the terrible thought kept running around her head: If Hugo hadn’t lost his independence at the gaming table, would his father have found another means of separating them?

  In which case, what hope was there for them to ever be together?

  * * *

  It took Hugo a full five minutes to pace the length of the long drawing room and back while he waited for his father to make an appearance.

  How he hated this place and how glad he’d be to see the last of it. It was a house, not a home, with no evidence of a woman’s touch since his mother had died so many years before.

  No flowers in vases or paintings other than austere landscapes and portraits.

  No feminine, decorative touches.

  His father channelled his wealth into accoutrements that showcased his success, his power. Not his appreciation of culture for he had none. He’d been a lad when his father had amassed his fortune. Thomas Adams’ own home had been modest for the first few years of his life, his schooling rudimentary. Success was based on grit and grind and, as far as he was concerned, anything soft or beautiful indicated weakness.

  Of course, a potential wife from the upper classes might present herself as soft and beautiful but it would be her breeding papers that would concern Thomas Adams.

  Having failed to fulfil his own marital ambitions — Hugo knew this from the servants’ whispers — Thomas Adams wanted just the right wife for his son. He’d go to his grave having overseen the Adams family’s elevation from traders to aristocrats within his lifetime.

  Hugo stopped by a wall of paintings. Landscapes and horses, mostly. Turners and Constables. It was Hugo’s favourite room in the house but he doubted his father considered the artworks themselves. He’d bought them as investments.

  Just as he’d seen it as an investment to nip Hugo’s love of beauty in the bud by sending him off to boarding school.

  However, a gruelling regime at Eton had only reinforced Hugo’s hatred of vigorous pursuits rather than turning him into the man his father wanted him to be. Fencing lessons, pugilism bouts with the English heavyweight champion, and various other efforts to desensitise Hugo in the hope he’d develop manly interests and abandon his whimsies, had had the opposite effect.

  Hugo moved to the end of the landscapes and stood facing a portrait of a pretty, finely dressed young woman standing by a horse. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised
that his mother had been relegated to the shadows. His father never spoke of his late wife. She’d been a solicitor’s daughter, too inferior to fulfil his marital ambitions, yet beguiling enough to entice Thomas Adams into a sexual indiscretion he’d regretted his whole life. The resulting pregnancy had required that honour be fulfilled but the marriage had been doomed. Twelve years of miscarriages had finally resulted in Hugo. His mother had died five years later giving birth to another son who’d died within the week.

  Hugo turned away with a sigh.

  His father was keeping him waiting for effect. He wanted to rattle Hugo so he’d have the advantage.

  Footsteps sounded in the corridor. Loud and intimidating, as they were intended to be. Hugo squared his shoulders and positioned himself with his back to the fireplace as the door opened. The room was cold but the warmth from the flames would provide some meagre bolstering, he hoped.

  “Your trunks have gone ahead of you, boy?”

  It was the kind of greeting he’d have expected having not seen his father for three months. The scathing correspondence had become a torrent, but his father was more economical in speech.

  Hugo nodded. “They have.”

  “And what do you have to say for yourself.”

  “I was a fool.”

  “A fool to squander the inheritance your great aunt kept in trust, enabling you, these past two years, to enjoy a freedom most young men can only dream of.”

  “It was not much but I was glad not to have to call on you, Father.”

  “But now I’m the one who has to get you out of this mess of your making.”

  “If sending me to India is what you mean by that, then yes. I, as you well know, would prefer to remain in London and make my own way in the world until I come into my inheritance in two years.”

  “So you can marry your little whore? I don’t think so.”

  Hugo steeled himself to remain impassive. His father would goad and goad until he forced the passionate response he was after. He’d done it so many times before, but Hugo was older and wiser now. Charity had helped him see that biting back was futile. And although he despised himself for not defending her good name right now, he felt sure she’d be the first to counsel him against rash words.

  Just the thought of what he’d condemned her to was enough to make his knees buckle and his mind whirl with shame.

  Though, strangely, it seemed the skills and fortitude Hugo had reluctantly acquired were proving their value. He wasn’t shaking like the seven-year-old who’d wept when his father had beaten him. Or his nanny, for that matter. Her swing was, if anything, even more deadly, and Hugo hadn’t mourned her for a moment when she’d dropped dead in front of him on his eleventh birthday.

  The first time any woman — or man, for that matter — had shown him tenderness was when his father had shoved him into a bedroom at Madame Chambon’s and he’d found himself face to face with a trembling, equally terrified, girl.

  Now, there was a thought to bolster him.

  In the nearly two years since he’d met Charity, Hugo’s life had become something he could bear. Something that gave him pleasure, in fact.

  He swallowed past the lump in his throat. Now he’d ruined it as effectively as if he’d blown it up with gunpowder.

  “You’ve done your best by me, Father, and I know you want me to show the gratitude you feel is your due. But I have no gratitude when my hand is forced. I do not want to leave England.”

  “But fools who lose at the gaming table deserve no sympathy, and I am doing what any concerned parent would do who only desires their son to become a man and not throw away his future.” Thomas Adams’s moustache twitched. He moved towards a cluster of chairs but neither sat nor invited his son to sit. This interview would be over within a couple of minutes. And, within the week, Hugo would be on a boat for far distant shores and his father would be shooting grouse at his country estate.

  “Cyril — ”

  “Made you do it? Come now! You’d blame your cousin for your own actions? That’s beyond anything. Disgusting! I can’t bear to hear you blather excuses like that. Your cousin is twice the man you’ll ever be, and I only wish he were my son.”

  “He’ll be a willing pupil if I should perish and he finally becomes what he and you have always wanted — your heir.”

  “What rot! Blood will out, and I still have hope that you will become a man I can be proud of. Just because Cyril was with you when you dropped a fortune is of no account to me.”

  Hugo knew better than to ask his father if he’d put Cyril up to it. His father would have no compunction in using a left hook to defend his dubious practises and Hugo did not want Charity’s last sight of him to be in the guise of the victim with a bloodied nose. At least let him face her with what dignity he could.

  “Nothing to say for yourself, as usual?”

  Hugo shrugged. It was safer to remain silent when his father was in this mood. He concentrated on the clock on the mantelpiece rather than his father’s face, though he could tell by the air of tense anticipation that his father was spoiling for a fight and would be disappointed if Hugo didn’t bite.

  “So, that’s it then.” The older man looked disappointed. He rolled his shoulders and balled his fists briefly before adding, “Your uncle will meet you at the docks at dawn the day you leave.”

  “Then I wish you all the best, father,” Hugo said without warmth though nearly lightheaded with relief that this interview was over as he took a step towards the door.

  “You can save your farewells for I shall be on the quay, also.” His father stopped him with a mirthless laugh. “No need to look surprised. I’m doing my due diligence to ensure you don’t bring your little harlot on board. The captain has also been given orders to keep an eye out for stowaways.”

  Hugo clenched his teeth and turned. “Her name is Charity and she is the most decent and honest woman I have ever met,” he muttered.

  “Well, I’m sure she knows better than to knock at my door asking for my charity when you’re gone.” His father laughed as if he’d made the greatest joke.

  Hugo waited for his mirth to subside. “Charity is the proudest woman I’ve met. She’d rather die than beg.”

  “Shows how little you know women, my boy,” his father said, still seemingly light-hearted from his unusual foray into levity. “A girl’s got to eat and you’re no longer her meal ticket. She’ll be spreading her legs for the next fellow she’s already got lined up before your boat has left harbour — "

  His sentence was truncated by a cry of outrage rather than pain as Hugo’s fist shot out, collecting him on the jaw.

  But the response was quicker than Hugo could see coming.

  As he knew it would be.

  “Puling, pathetic creature,” his father taunted, looking down at Hugo lying at his feet. “Wipe that bloody nose and get out of here.” With a hefty kick that collected Hugo’s rib cage, his father loomed over him, his eyes bulbous over his thick nose and luxuriant moustache. His teeth were bared and his pleasure was genuine for, once again, he could end his latest altercation with his son as the clear victor. “It’s a big bad world out there, my boy, and you need to learn that it’s deeds and actions that make a man. Not pretty words and paintings.”

  Chapter 3

  Hugo wove his way through the streets and alleyways, holding his ribcage and trying not to limp, until he was in Soho. He could navigate his way to Madame Chambon’s blindfolded if he had to.

  And right now, he’d never been more desperate for a pair of tender arms to fall into and a kind word. He didn’t deserve any of it, of course, and if he wanted to be truly hard on himself, he’d deny himself even this pleasure — if he didn’t know how much Charity also needed whatever comfort he could give her.

  She ran down the stairs with a cry of pleasure when he was announced while the other girls looked on with mixed expressions. He could read the pity and the condemnation in their eyes, but that didn’t matter compared with being
alone with the only girl he cared about. The only girl he ever would care about.

  “Hugo, I wasn’t sure when I’d see you again!”

  “I’ll see you every moment I can until I’m dragged away,” he muttered, taking her hand and leading her to the stairs. “Come, dearest, there are some matters I need to talk to you about.”

  “Oh, but Hugo, you’re hurt!” She stopped halfway up the stairs, gasping when she saw him wince. “Your cheek is swollen. And why are you holding your side? Who did this to you?”

  Her concern and outrage that someone should have harmed him made up for all the other times there’d been no one to dress his cuts or offer him a word of sympathy. Gently he kissed the top of her head before squeezing her hand and indicating that they continue to her room. She didn’t need to know how powerless he was in the face of his father’s determination that Hugo be removed from her orbit. It might make her lose heart when, even in his darkest hours, he still held out hope that one day, yes, one day, they might be reunited when he’d carried out his sentence and regained his freedom.

  He wouldn’t deserve her if, by some miracle, she was there waiting for him on the docks in two years, but right now it was the only hope he had.

  After a long look, Charity forbore to question him, pressing herself close to his uninjured side, as if in silent solidarity with the pain she instinctively knew he was suffering.

  Charity didn’t need to be told what he was feeling. She was like some angel of goodness sent to earth to give him the strength he needed to navigate each day.

  With the door closed behind them, she pointed to the bed, all practicality. “Now, take off your shirt and let me see the bruising. I’ll find some liniment.” She helped him loosen his clothes, trailing her hand gently down his side.

  “Will you tell me who did this to you? And why?” Her voice was infinitely tender.

  Hugo shook his head. “It’s best I don’t, my love.”