1794_Charlotte

by Karen Hawkins

  “Someone with an eye to murder, that’s who,” Lucy said grimly.

  “Well, it wasn’t a murder, so you can keep those thoughts to yourself,” Verity replied testily. “The family was traumatized enough without such nonsense. I’m just hoping things are better now. Which is why we’re here. My brother and his wife are in London visiting their son John, who is a captain in the Navy and has been temporarily brought to dock while awaiting repairs on his ship. So I’m to chaperone Charlotte until their return.”

  “It’s quite kind of you to do so, my lady, but I still think—”

  “Then stop. We are here to help, not make things worse by blathering about murders and what not, and all with no proof, mind you. No one would have wished harm upon Caroline. Everyone loved her.”

  “She seems a paragon. Does Miss Charlotte look like her sister?”

  “Oh no, not at all. Although they are twins, they are as—I’m sorry—they were as different as day and night. Caroline looked just like my sister-in-law Olivia, blonde with silver gray eyes, and just as lovely and proper. Meanwhile, Charlotte has my brother Jack’s coloring, auburn hair and deep blue eyes. She has . . .” Verity pursed her lips thoughtfully, searching for the right word. “Charlotte has character.”

  “Character?” Lucy looked unconvinced. “What does that mean?”

  “It means she has a great deal of spirit and far too much intelligence for a girl her age.” Verity hesitated, and then added, “She’s not perfect, of course. There are . . . things that aren’t quite as they should be with Charlotte.”

  “What do you mean by that?” The maid leaned closer. “My lady, is something wrong with Miss Charlotte?”

  “No, of course not! There’s nothing wrong with Charlotte! She just fine as she is. It’s just that Caroline was always so perfect, at least by society’s standards, that poor Charlotte was forever being compared to her sister, which was massively unfair.”

  “By society’s standards, eh?” Lucy’s thick brows rose. “But not by yours, my lady?”

  “Never by mine. Charlotte was always my favorite. She has a restless soul, never lets her problems keep her from accomplishing things, and is always searching for . . . well, I don’t know what. But something. Of course, that was before her sister passed.” Verity stared out the window at the approaching house, a weight on her heart. “Her mother says Charlotte is quite different now. She’s settled down and is even engaged to be married.”

  “That’s good news, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so,” Verity said without conviction. “She’s marrying a viscount. He’s been a friend of the family for quite some time. He’s the grandson of a local landowner, and is quite handsome, well bred, and very plump in the pocket.”

  Lucy nodded her approval. “A love match, then.”

  Verity didn’t answer. To be honest, the engagement was the reason she’d accepted Olivia’s request for assistance. Verity usually found the responsibilities of serving as chaperone too taxing, and would make excuses to avoid the task. But the news of Charlotte’s engagement within months of her sister’s death had been unsettling.

  Verity rarely questioned her brother’s and sister-in-law’s judgement, for they were loving and kind parents. But she feared that Olivia and Jack were too bruised from Caroline’s death to see what was occurring with their remaining daughter. Charlotte had experienced more than enough pain as it was, and Verity wasn’t about to let her favorite niece make a mistake that might bring her yet more grief.

  The coach rolled to a stop in front of the Hall. A footman leapt down to open the door and put the stepstool in place. Verity drew her cloak closer, turned her panniers so that they would fit through the door, and then stepped down onto the drive. A faint wind fluffed her skirts while her boots crunched upon the gravel. Behind her, Lucy gave instructions to the footmen about the many trunks tied to the back of the coach.

  Verity eyed the house before her. The mist, oddly enough much thicker now even with the sun well overhead, rolled over their boots like waves, breaking against Nimway’s silvered walls and then dissipating into the damp air.

  Lucy came to stand beside Verity, her thin nose almost quivering as she looked around. “There’s an odd feeling to this place,” she announced. “I can see why the locals tell tales. It feels enchanted.”

  “La, how you go on! It’s not enchanted, and you’d be wise to remember that. Now come, let’s find my niece and—"

  The door to the great house opened.

  Verity stepped forward in expectation, but no auburn-haired young lady came flying out to greet her. Instead, a tall, pinch-faced servant padded into the courtyard. He bowed as soon as he reached them. “Lady Barton, how are you? We’ve been expecting you.”

  “Thank you, Simmons.” She looked over his shoulder at the open, empty doorway. “Where’s Miss Charlotte?”

  His thin lips folded in displeasure. “I fear she is out riding. She’s been gone a few hours now and I’m not certain when she’ll return.”

  “Heavens! Should we send someone to look for her?”

  “I’m sure she’s fine. She rides every morning and mentioned she might stop by the vicar’s house and leave some flowers. I daresay the vicar’s wife invited her to stay for lunch.”

  “Playing Lady of the Manor while her mother’s gone, is she? Well, good for her.”

  Simmons didn’t look as if he agreed. Indeed, he looked more as if he’d just swallowed a lemon, but after a moment of pained-faced struggle, he gave a short, polite nod.

  Verity laughed. “Enough of your doom and gloom, Simmons! I’ve just spent hours in a coach and I haven’t the stomach for it.”

  Simmons’s mouth twitched, and a faint smile slipped out. “Yes, my lady. May I say that it will do Miss Charlotte good to have a visitor? It will do us all good.”

  “It will do me some good, too, for I’m quite fagged to death from attending balls and dinners and soirees. If I do not see another glass of orgeat until next year, it would please me greatly. I—Oh dear. I haven’t yet introduced you to my new maid. Simmons, this is Lucy Hull. She’ll need to know which rooms are ours so she can direct the delivery of the luggage.”

  “Of course, my lady. Miss Hull, welcome to Nimway Hall.” He gestured to a nearby footman, who dashed up and, bowing, escorted Lucy toward the growing pile of luggage. Simmons turned back to Verity. “Lady Barton, I hope you don’t mind, but when I saw your coach pulling up, I took the liberty to have a tea tray prepared and delivered to your bed chamber. I assume you still take a daily nap?”

  “Why yes, I do. Thank you for remembering. You know how I enjoy my naps.”

  The butler’s smile softened. “That I do, my lady.”

  “Good. Now come, let’s get out of this damp air. It’s making my curls sag, and that I cannot stand. Besides, I should at least find a comfortable chair while I’m waiting on Charlotte’s return.”

  Still smiling, Simmons bowed and led the way inside.

  Chapter 2

  “Mannaggia la miseria! We are lost.” The servant, an elderly man with a shock of white hair and sun-browned skin, eyed the surrounding trees as if offended by their very existence.

  “I said as much an hour ago,” Marco di Rossi answered shortly. “But you’d hear none of it. In fact, we’ve passed that tree three times now.”

  “Three times?” Pietro Luca, a master stonemason and an impossible assistant, cocked a disbelieving eye at the tree. “Impossibile!”

  Marco’s black gelding snorted his disgust. Marco patted the horse’s neck and murmured, “You are right, Diavolo. He is stubborn like an old mule and will not listen to anyone.”

  “I should have ridden with the cart to Nimway Hall,” Pietro muttered.

  “I suggested that, too, but again you would have none of it,” Marco said shortly. As irked as it made him, he never took Pietro’s grumbling to heart. The stonemason was an old man, his hair so white it gleamed even in the shadow of the trees. No one knew his real age,
including Pietro, although he claimed to be over ninety. Marco, having witnessed the old man’s strength and his indefatigable love of women, thought it closer to sixty.

  However old he was, Pietro had one allegiance and that was to the di Marco family, which had rescued the Luca family from poverty and given them decades of employment in a variety of tasks. Pietro, who’d been just a youth when his grandfather had become head groomsman for the famous di Rossi stables, had been taught the valuable art of stonemasonry and had shown such a talent for selecting quality blocks of Carrara marble that by the time he was thirty, he’d become the master stonemason for the house.

  From a young age, Marco had taken Pietro’s knowledge of stone and turned it into art. And thus the perfect partnership had been born.

  Pietro sniffed loudly. “The post boy at the inn lied. There is no shortcut. He’s probably even now laughing at me. Why I should hunt him down like the dog he is and slit his throat for—”

  “Boh! You waste your time with that halfwit. We must find Nimway Hall. The cart will already be there, and those fools cannot set up my workshop without instruction.” The cart had gone ahead with two of Pietro’s assistants, brawny lads brought to handle the large marble slabs Marco had brought with him. As soon as the marble was unloaded, they’d return to Italy and leave him and Pietro on site to finish the assignment.

  Assignment. Curse is more like. He hadn’t wanted to accept the overly generous offer from Mrs. Harrington to carve a ‘unique to my home’ marble fireplace to serve as a centerpiece for her dining room. But Marco’s father, who’d once been a famous painter in his own right, had pointed out that the English market was ready for a favorite Italian sculptor and it would be foolish to turn down an assignment from someone so well connected. Marco couldn’t disagree, especially after Mrs. Harrington casually mentioned that she couldn’t wait to share her new treasure with the Queen, with whom she had more than a passing acquaintance.

  It was one thing to sell one’s work for mere money. But a recommendation to royalty? Ah . . . that was something else. And as the family fortune now rested solely on Marco’s shoulders, he found that he couldn’t say no.

  He stifled a sigh and looked at the sun where it shone through the trees. At least the heavy mist was gone. That was helpful as it made the wood seem less . . . active. Marco grimaced at his own imagination. It was a normal wood, this. Slightly confusing, true, with its inclines and rambling pathways that all looked alike, but it was nothing more than that.

  An owl hooted as if in defiance of his thoughts.

  Pietro started, and his horse pranced nervously. The horse, a fat but small piebald the stonecutter fondly called ‘Goliath’ after the animal’s unusually huge appetite, looked as if he was ready to bolt.

  But then so did his rider. “Why is that owl awake at this time of the day?” Pietro asked loudly, suspicion in his voice.

  “Perhaps we woke him, tromping under his perch over and over.” Marco stared at the tree from where the hooting had come. Odd, he remembered all of the trees in this clearing except that gnarled oak. The tree was twisted and turned as if it had fought untold elements, its leaves fluttering in the wind as if trying to shake off a bad thought. On impulse, Marco turned Diavolo toward the crooked tree and rode past it, the owl hooting softly as they went. “Come, Pietro.”

  Grumbling, the stonemason followed, Goliath snorting nervously. They pushed through some shrubs and the path appeared before them.

  Marco pulled up Diavolo and grinned. “Look! We’ve found the path again.”

  “We found a path,” Pietro said in a flat tone. “I can only hope it’s the right one.”

  “It is. I recognize that boulder.”

  Pietro looked at the large rock. His eyes flew wide and he made the sign of the cross. “That looks like a screaming spirit.”

  “It does not,” Marco said sharply, although privately he thought Pietro was right; the boulder did look a little like a screaming face. But only a little.

  Still, it was more than enough for Pietro, who said in a dark tone, “There’s evil at work here.”

  Marco chuckled. “You are ridiculous. What do you think will happen? The angel of death will jump out of the woods and eat you—”

  A white mare burst onto the path before them, scattering leaves and twigs. A girl – for she could be no more than sixteen, if that – sat astride the huge horse, the voluminous skirts of her sapphire blue habit flowing about her. Diavolo shied wildly. For a moment Marco held the animal in check, but somehow that damned knobby tree, which Marco had thought well behind him, managed to get in the way. His cloak tangled with some low hung branches and ensnared him.

  He was more than a match for one or the other – the bolting horse or tangling with the low branches – but not both. The horse reared and, caught by the branches, he was thrown to the ground, his cloak ripping on a tree limb.

  He landed on his back with a hard thud. Moments passed and all he could do was stare up at the flecks of blue sky visible between knotted branches, and fight for breath.

  It was then it happened – an apparition blocked his view of the tree tops, one as vivid as it was surprising, a heart-shaped face surrounded by tousled dark red hair entangled with leaves, and freshly pinkened cheeks that contrasted with the bluest eyes he’d ever seen.

  She was older than he’d thought, although not by much. If she was over twenty years of age, he’d have been surprised, and she was every bit as taking up close as she had been from a distance. The woman obviously didn’t fear the sun, which became her greatly and added a faintly exotic air to what was already a fascinating collection of features. She reminded him of a painting he’d once seen in Naples of Venus arising from the sea, her long auburn tresses entwined with seaweed instead of leaves.

  “Are you injured?” Her voice was low and musical, as comely as the rest of her.

  Am I injured? He couldn’t breathe well, and now he was seeing visions in blue.

  “I should call for help.” She started to rise.

  He caught her wrist. The second his fingers touched her bare skin, a surge of pure, blazing fire ripped through him. His senses roared to life and all the air he’d thought he’d lost came racing back, filling his lungs and making him gasp at the shock.

  She must have felt something as well, for she flushed and then yanked her wrist free, cradling it as if it were burned, her eyes wide, her lips parted.

  He sat upright, his path as clear as if someone had whispered it into his ear. He leaned forward at the same time she did, and their lips met. It was almost as if someone had placed a hand on the back of each of their heads and gently led them together. They kissed, meeting with a furiously hot-blooded passion that roared like a wild fire racing through a too-dry forest. Oddly, there was none of the awkwardness of a first kiss. Instead, they kissed deeply as if they’d kissed a million times before, his hands buried in her silky hair as she clutched his coat, straining toward each other, desperate for more even as they consumed one another.

  Her mount snorted noisily, breaking the moment. Their gazes locked and they froze, staring at one another, startled and shocked.

  The woman gasped, her breath sweet on his lips before she scrambled to her feet. “We—I—" Hand pressed to her mouth, she whirled around and went to her horse, lurching a bit in her hurry. Once there, she clung to the saddle as it was the only thing holding her upright. “We—That was—” She shook her head as if trying to clear her thoughts.

  She looked as bemused as he felt. She had a fascinating face, this bewildering woman who’d kissed him with such burning passion but now wouldn’t even meet his gaze. His first impression had been right; she was beautiful, although not in the traditional sense of bland symmetry. Her beauty was more piquant, and less classical in natural. Her face was heart-shaped, but her nose bold and her jaw firm. Her sun-kissed skin was intriguingly marked by a scatter of freckles, while her deep blue eyes were fringed with long, thick lashes that gave her a slightly
impish look.

  Marco climbed to his feet, slightly stung by his bruised pride. It had been years – almost decades – since he’d been thrown from a horse in such a humiliating manner. Although, truth be told, that damned kiss had offset him far more than being thrown to the ground. Dio, what a kiss. He was still dizzy from it, which was incomprehensible. What in the hell just happened?

  Overhead, as if in approval, the owl hooted, and drew the woman’s bemused glance.

  Marco read her curious expression and explained, “We woke him when we rode under his tree.”

  The woman’s gaze flickered to the woods behind him, her brows arching. “We?”

  Marco looked around but saw only Diavolo standing a few yards away, stomping the ground to express his displeasure. Pietro and his grumpy mount were gone. That fool. Marco bit back an irritated sigh. “My assistant was here. He seems to have left in the madness.” It was more likely that Goliath had left, and had taken Pietro with him, but Marco didn’t feel like explaining.

  He turned back to the woman and allowed himself a smile. “Of course, were he here, then that kiss wouldn’t have—”

  “There was no kiss,” she said sharply.

  His smile slipped. “What?”

  “There was no kiss.” Her gaze pinned him in place, not giving an inch.

  Why would anyone – this woman, much less – want to deny what had been so pleasurable? “Say what you will, but I know what I know,” he returned. “I was there, too, and I can still taste it.”

  Her cheeks deepened in color. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She looked so proud, her chin in the air, her mouth set in a mulish line, that his irritation slowly vanished, and was quickly replaced with amusement. Why not? he decided. Perhaps she is right, and that is a safer road for us both. He shrugged. “Fine. If that is what you wish, then there was no kiss.”

  “I don’t even know how we—But no.” She shook her head. “It should never have happened.”