by Jane Lark
‘Only to speak to you. I just… I had to speak to someone.’
He squeezed her fingers gently. ‘I am glad you did. I am glad you felt able to. I am sorry I let you down yesterday.’
‘But you did not let me down today, did you? I am sorry I am upset. I am sorry I did not come to you yesterday. I am sorry I stole the jewellery.’
His fingers brushed over her cheek. It was damp with tears again. ‘May I kiss you?’ He did not want to if her memories were too overwhelming.
There was another small nod.
He leant and pressed his lips against hers and her arms lifted and settled on his shoulders as she embraced him, as she’d first done. He held her too and when the kiss ended he stroked her hair again. ‘All will be well. We shall make it so, Charlie…’ There was another last small nod against his shoulder. ‘Let me take you back in.’
She breathed out as she pulled away from him.
He led her out of the stall by the hand. ‘I was going to let my father sleep in the room hired for us, if you are happy to stay with my mother and Ginny?’
‘Yes. I do not want to leave Ginny. Even if she does not really want me there, I—’
‘I am sure she is glad that you rescued her, Charlie.’
‘Yes.’
He opened the door to the inn. ‘And I am sure, even if it does not seem so, your presence is a comfort to her.’
‘Perhaps.’
There was no one in the hall. He held her hand still and lifted his free hand and cradled her head, then kissed her again, another press of lips.
Then he opened the taproom door and walked her through it to the stairs.
‘I can go up alone,’ she said, when they reached the steps.
‘Then I will see you in the morning.’
‘Yes.’
‘Good night.’ He kissed the back of her fingers, then let them go.
‘Good night,’ she answered before she hurried off.
He returned to the table, where his father poured him a fresh drink and slid it over.
‘Thank you.’
‘Is all well?’ Rob asked him.
‘All is difficult, as you can imagine,’ Harry answered.
When he shared a bed with his father they did not immediately try to sleep but talked quietly. His father told him the whole story of how he came to save Harry’s mother. Then Harry told him Charlie’s story.
~
After a brief goodbye, Harry and his father had put the women in the carriage and sent them back to John’s this morning. Poor Charlie had looked as though she had slept no more than him. Her eyes were red and shadowed and she had been glancing towards her sister constantly, as though she sought to ensure she was safe and happy and yet as though she sought her sister’s affection too.
Sadly, he could not make Ginny love Charlie any more than he could take away Charlie’s memories, and they had become a greater concern than his own.
He had kissed her before she climbed up into the carriage, said goodbye and whispered an encouragement to speak to his mother, if she had need of someone, and then that had been it. There had been no more opportunity to speak to her privately.
His Uncle Robert, Henry and Drew had accompanied the women on horseback to see them safely back. Immediately after, they had all left the other carriage had been sent to fetch Charlie’s mother, sister-in-law and niece and take them to John’s.
Harry had remained here to pursue her brother’s release, even though he did not like the man. But Cotton had come here to protect his youngest sister, at least, and that had redeemed him a little in Harry’s eyes, and it was the one thing Harry could physically do to help Charlie.
His father, Rob, John and he hired horses from the inn and rode out to the barracks. A small rescue party.
The men on guard at the gate saluted as Harry rode up. They had been his men before he had been assigned to another regiment. ‘Captain Marlow.’
‘You have someone called Cotton in custody,’ Harry said. ‘We have come to see him.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The gate was opened and they all rode in. ‘Dismount here,’ Harry said in a low voice in the courtyard. ‘The men will look after the horses.’
With the horses in the care of others, Harry led the men of his family into the place that had been his home, on and off, for years. They had never entered before. It was the first time that he, the soldier and the man, had come together here.
He caught his father’s eye as he walked through the halls towards the cells. His father smiled. He had rarely been the child who had heard the word ‘pride’ and yet in the last hours his father’s gaze and expression had screamed the word at him and even John was deferring to Harry’s judgement today.
‘Harry!’
He looked back. Then turned around.
‘Gareth.’ Harry walked back, pushing past the others.
‘What brings you back?’ Gareth said as they embraced.
‘Cotton,’ Harry said as he let Gareth go. ‘He is Charlie’s brother.’
‘Charlie…’
Harry smiled. ‘My wife’s brother. My brother-in-law.’
‘You did marry her.’
‘Yes.’ The man standing before Gareth was a very different man from the one who had lived in these barracks but days before. His heart had been cracked open like a soft egg and his view of the world was a thousand miles wider. He had lived with eyes that saw the world through a microscope. Now he viewed it from horizon to horizon.
‘Congratulations. I suppose.’
‘Thank you.’ Harry turned. ‘Gareth, meet my brothers, Rob and John, and my father.’ Gareth bowed as they did and then they shook hands before turning to walk towards the cells.
‘Cotton?’ Gareth asked, when they reached the cells.
‘Third on the right, sir.’
Even if he had not seen him before, Harry might have guessed it was Charlie’s brother. He had the same auburn hair, only his curls were cut close to his head. He was a muscular man and a tall man, though. A man who should have been able to support himself with labour rather than run to his sister to beg her to return to whoring to save his family.
He stood as Harry and the others looked through the bars in the door at him.
Harry glanced at the guard. ‘Will you let me in with him?’ He had no right to give orders here any more and yet he asked the question in the voice of an order instinctively.
‘Yes, sir.’ The man stepped forward with a key. ‘But just you, Captain Marlow.’
He nodded as the door was unlocked. Then walked through the gap. He was then locked into the cell with Cotton.
The man looked as though he thought Harry might be here to interrogate him. He was a coward. He had not deliberately killed Hillier. The man did not have it in him. He had been doing what he’d said, trying to stop Hillier and that was all and he was afraid of Harry because only days ago Cotton had been urging Charlie to come back here for the wrong reasons.
‘Where is Ginny?’
‘Safe. With my mother and Charlie, as your mother and your family will be soon.’
‘‘Ave you seen Ginny?’
‘Yes. I was the one who found her last night.’
‘Was she ‘urt?’
Harry did not answer but his demeanour must carry the answer. Yes, but not as Charlie was, not as Charlie had been for years, and why do you not care about her? And why did you turn her sister against her?
‘I did no’ mean for him t’ fall. I was tryin’ to protect Ginny. I was tryin’ to make ‘Illier let ‘er go.’
‘It is a shame you did not do the same for Charlie years ago,’ Harry uttered in a low tone. The man stared at him.
But the past was the past, it could not be changed. The future, though… ‘We are doing our best to convince the authorities of that. I saw him lose his seat on the horse and fall.’
Cotton stared at him, then acknowledged. ‘Thank ‘e. As long as Ginny is safe and my wife and child.’
At least he was thinking of his youngest sister’s and his wife’s plight not his own.
‘We will look after them all and my family have influence. They will do their utmost to see you freed.’
Cotton gave him a glance that said he knew all about the influence of Harry’s family and that he disliked and envied people who had wealth and power.
He had imagined he would dislike Charlie’s brother, and he did.
But he loved Charlie and he would help her brother because of that. It was all that he seemed able to do.
He bowed his head slightly. Then said, ‘My brother has offered your mother and wife a home. I will let you know when they are safe with us.’ Harry turned away. The door was opened and the others faced him as he walked out; they had heard the conversation, but there was no judgement of his choice of in-laws in either his father’s or John’s eyes.
They rode back to the inn with Gareth and they ate in the taproom, discussing their campaign to free Cotton. And while they talked Harry had never felt so connected to his father. His father was the only man here who knew how he felt.
Chapter 15
The maid, who had become Charlie’s personal maid for the last five days, secured the buttons at the back of Charlie’s evening dress as Ash sat near them watching. Charlie’s fingers ran across the fabric over her stomach, smoothing it. Harry had bought her dresses with buttons at the back because, in his world, every woman had a maid to help her dress, but in India she would have no maid and he would not be there each morning to secure her buttons if he was on duty.
So many silly little thoughts like that had crossed her mind since she’d returned here. She could not imagine life in India, yet she had been trying very hard to think of that and not of Ginny, who hid from everyone, preferring solitude and silence, or of her brother, who was still in gaol.
She no longer had to worry over her mother. She had arrived yesterday in a very grand carriage, in clothes that were old, wearing a white linen bonnet with only a sheet wrapped about her few possessions. The duchess would have given her one of the plush rooms as she had insisted that Charlie’s mother was a part of their family, but her mother had refused the notion. Her mother was, instead, upstairs in a garret room near the nursery, and now Ginny was there too.
But it was strange to meet her mother after seven years. She had become grey-haired and her face had many lines that had not been there in Charlie’s memory and she was colder in nature than Charlie had recalled. She had not even hugged Charlie when she arrived. Charlie’s life in the village before she’d made that foolish decision at fourteen to accept a carriage ride for jam, cake and tea, had really been a fairytale that she’d concocted in her head. Her image of Rodney had not been real and nor had her memories of her mother been true.
Harry’s mother, Ellen, had held her many times in the last five days. She had stayed with Charlie in this room listening as Charlie had talked and holding her when she’d cried. She had told Harry’s mother everything and she had wept over Ginny’s silence because it felt as though Ginny was afraid of her. But too much time had gone by and Ginny had been too young when Charlie had left her and too much had happened. They were no longer sisters. Ginny had been waiting for their mother to turn to for comfort.
Ellen had also helped Charlie talk to the others. They had spent an afternoon in Katherine’s sitting room with Caro and the three women had helped her begin to sew a shirt for Harry and then they had played cards and it all had seemed a very kind ploy to protect her mind from thinking the thoughts she did not want to hear.
Harry’s family were lovely. She was no longer intimidated by their wealth or their blue blood. They had treated her as they would anyone of their own class. While her mother and her sister had kept to themselves and excluded Charlie.
‘There ma’am.’
She smiled over her shoulder at the maid. ‘Thank you. You may go.’ Hark at her ordering the Duchess’s servants! She smiled at herself in the mirror as her heart spread an ache through her body—a longing for Harry.
The maid shut the door. Ash came to Charlie’s side and nuzzled her fingers.
Charlie’s hand ran over the dog’s head, then lifted and rested against her stomach again. Her courses were late. But only by days. Yet even so, the thought that there might be a child was moving.
She smiled at herself again. She was going down to dinner alone and she did not even feel scared and that was because Harry’s mother was so wonderful. She had taken Charlie downstairs with her grandchildren on one day and they and Harry’s youngest brother and sisters had gone out into the garden and spent most of the day playing games. So she had been accepted by the youngest people here too.
That approach had been Harry’s mother’s preferred method to help Charlie, by working her in to groups. She had taken tea with his older sisters, female cousins and sisters-in-law, and they had all gathered around a piano and sung; she had immediately felt included by it as she’d leant on the grand piano, which was apparently the Duke’s. To sing with others was easier than speaking. She had laughed along with them when the harmonies went awry.
Yesterday the men and boys and some of the girls and Harry’s sister, Mary, had decided to play cricket. So Harry’s mother had sat on a rug beside Charlie, pointing out exactly who was who and explaining all of the married couples. Charlie had then been encouraged to speak to some more of the men, though Harry’s mother had not applied pressure on her to speak to anyone.
Charlie had been a stranger to Harry’s mother and Harry’s mother had spoken to her from the day she’d walked through the door here, as though Charlie was her own daughter. Her own mother had arrived just before dinner yesterday. She had looked awkward and smiled, and spoken to Charlie as though Charlie was a stranger. But when Ginny had come out she had opened her arms and embraced Ginny with relief and love. The sense of exclusion had cut even deeper then and it still did. It had been a sharp knife in Charlie’s dreams sawing at her heart all night.
Charlie turned away from the mirror to leave the room.
She had gone to her mother’s room last evening, intending to eat with her family. She had expected to be received with gladness. She had convinced herself that her mother’s restrained greeting had been due to Harry’s family being around them and the opulence of the house. She had thought that privately, in the attic room, it would be different. It had simply been more awkward to be with Ginny and her mother when she was not welcome. Her mother spoke to Ginny and they told her about Rodney’s wife and child. His wife had chosen not to come here and her mother said she had only come to see Ginny.
Charlie had not eaten with them, she’d left the room, walked downstairs and spent the entire evening in the company of Harry’s mother. She had sat beside her before dinner, during dinner and after. She intended to do the same this evening.
She held her skirt and the bannister as she walked downstairs to the first floor and then on to the ground floor.
It was strange that for years she had craved a happy, simple family life in a humble cottage. Something she had thought she’d once known but which had been only a fairytale. She could never have imagined that she would marry the grandson and brother of a duke and come to a place like this, which ought to be a fairytale.
Voices rose from the drawing room, where Harry’s family always gathered before walking into the dining room.
She looked up at the ceiling as she walked down the last wide, shallow flight of stairs. She was becoming used to all the ornate paintings and carvings in the plaster and she had reached a point that she desperately wanted Harry to point at the portraits and tell her how the people painted in them were related to him. She saw resemblances in some of the faces.
In the hall below there was a sudden rise in sound and movement, servants swelled into the hall like the crest breaking on a wave, then the front door opened and they flowed out.
Someone had arrived.
Her feet moved quicker, running down the last half a
dozen steps. Harry… Her heartbeat leapt into a race. Harry!
She hurried across the hall, then looked out of the door. Yes. Yes! Harry climbed out of the carriage.
Charlie gripped her skirt in both hands, lifted it above her knees and ran towards him as she would have run at fourteen, before anything bad had happened to her.
He saw her.
‘Harry!’
His arms opened as Charlie continued running towards him, her skirt and petticoats bouncing against her legs in a froth of cotton and muslin. The garments fell as her arms lifted and then they wrapped about his neck.
She was clasped in his embrace and lifted off her feet as their lips pressed together.
Love. Yes, she loved him. She had thought it before. But now she knew it. After days of being without him, she never wished to be without him again. ‘I am so happy you are back.’
‘I am happy to be back and your brother will be here in a moment. He travelled with John.’
Charlie smiled her gratitude. Oh, he was a clever man.
Harry smiled too. His eyes told her that he cared for her, even though they had never voiced such emotions.
Self-disgust, regret and guilt swept through her with the sharp, abrasive stroke of a besom broom, calling her unworthy of this grand man’s love. The thoughts and feelings she had battled beside him in that dark stable were all still there. But it was Mark’s guilt she carried, not hers. Not mine. Harry’s mother had made her learn those words in the last few days; that everything that had happened to her had not been her fault.
She looked back at the house and thought of the warmth and security she had discovered among Harry’s family. This was a wonderful fairytale, with its towers of protection and its knight, her cavalry man with his glistening sword, and, yes, there had been a demon, but the demon was now dead.
‘My mother is here too,’ she told Harry.
‘That must make you happy.’ He squeezed her shoulder as his arm hung about her, while her hand still gripped about his waist.
