A Passionate Endeavor

by Sophia Nash

  “Ah, but you do not know me very well, then. I do not flatter where I do not see potential. And I find the idea of teaching you a few methods of madness quite, quite intoxicating now that you are a more, shall we say, experienced coquette? I promise you I could lead you to heights unknown,” he said with a wicked grin. Alexandre wiped his hands on the cloth, giving up his creative efforts. He came around behind her and placed his arms around her waist. “You are enchanting,” he whispered into her ear.

  She swatted him lightly. “And you are nothing but a charming tease.”

  He nibbled at her neck and blew a kiss under her ear. Funny, it did not feel as pleasant as when Nicholas had done the exact same thing to her two weeks earlier.

  Since then, after moving into the oppressive abbey and witnessing the departure of her brother, Charlotte had spent more and more time in her private clay room, away from her rooms in the abbey, which Nicholas never attempted to enter. For the first three nights after her wedding night, she had waited for him in her chambers, sure he would cross the threshold to take her in his arms again. They had shared so much that first night. She had been sure he would come to her. But, he had not.

  On the fourth night, she had fortified herself with a large glass of secreted brandy and had gone, with shaky spirits, to his door and knocked loudly. Three times. He had refused to answer. So, she had her answer. He did indeed want the marriage of convenience he had originally proposed.

  Alexandre fluttered light kisses on her neck, bringing her back to the present.

  At that precise moment, Nicholas chose to cross the threshold of her sanctuary with nary a knock of warning. Her damnable cousin chuckled and released her after languidly running his hand down her arm, perilously close to her breast.

  Nicholas stood stock still, taking it all in without a word. “You have remarkably bad timing, my lord,” said Alexandre. “And you, sir, show a lamentable lack of good judgment.”

  Charlotte had never seen Nicholas appear so coldly contained. “You misunderstand, Nicholas. Alexandre was just keeping me company while I worked.” She knew her voice was not well modulated. “He meant no harm.”

  “I see,” he replied, looking back and forth between them. A long silence encroached. “And what have we here?” he continued, pointing to the bust in front of her. He began walking around the worktable. “You have decided to switch from birds to humans?” he asked, looking again to Alexandre.

  Charlotte threw a damp cloth over the figure, hiding it from view, “Well, in fact, yes,” she said. “And I am not to have the pleasure of studying your work?”

  “No,” she said, looking down at her tools.

  “I see. But your dear cousin does have that privilege,” he said, with a hard edge.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I advise you to beware that he does not claim any other sort of privilege, my dear. For if I cannot demand fidelity, I can and will demand discretion.”

  “It will be with the utmost discretion that Charlotte and I continue to become reacquainted since our childhood, my lord,” Alexandre said.

  She longed to kick Alexandre and run from the room. The two of them were behaving abominably. If she possessed a witty bone in her body she was sure she would have been able to turn the moment and have them all laughing at the ridiculous set of circumstances.

  She could feel Alexandre run his knuckles along her jaw.

  Nicholas bowed and left the room. Only the sound of the outer door being slammed indicated the intensity of his anger.

  “How could you? How am I ever to make it right? He has every right never to acknowledge me again.”

  “How could I not, cherie? You will thank me. You will see. If this does not get him into your, ahem, culottes, nothing will. Mark my words. And if it does fail, I assure you, I will be pawing at your door in three nights’ time. Now that you have been awakened to the pleasures of the flesh, we cannot have you wilting again, can we?” He threw back his head and laughed.

  Three miserable days followed, in which Nicholas remained as pokerfaced as Stevens the butler, and the entire household at the abbey had become as depressed as the never-ending rain. Charlotte looked out the window of the library and could not decide if she felt more wretched because she missed her father or because her brother had left. Deep down she knew it was because of Nicholas. And try as she might to discourage Alexandre’s continued witty remarks designed to further infuriate her husband, her cousin seemed to redouble his efforts. But he was the only one who paid any attention to her. Even Rosamunde was listless and inattentive. And the infuriating guests at the abbey continued to stay on.

  Charlotte sighed. If the lot of them departed as well as her well-intentioned cousin, Charlotte believed that she had a small chance of forging a companionable if not loving marriage. As it stood, Lady Susan had augmented her efforts at securing Alexandre now that the heir was taken. And Alexandre continued to cause havoc with flirtations in every corner, upstairs and down.

  The storms had effectively put a stop to the small but constant flow of ill or injured neighbors to the cottage. Charlotte had only been able to go see Mrs. Roberts, Owen’s wife, who had been suffering from a mysterious illness for the last two weeks.

  Charlotte was sad and bored, unused to idleness. She had sought the stillness and privacy of the library, knowing no one in the abbey shared her ardor for books.

  But there were no novels to be found to tempt her. Only books of sermons, and history, and philosophy, all subjects that had fascinated her until she had delved into the forbidden pages of novels. Now she was insatiable. Nothing else would do. She longed to step into the shoes of a bold heroine like Elizabeth Bennett for several pleasurable hours.

  Instead, she moved to the large desk and looked at the tall ledgers before her. She opened the one nearest to her and looked at the long rows of columns with dates, entries, and numbers. She understood little other than the nature of the simple entries. This one seemed to be filled with household expenses. She opened another and another, until six ledgers overspread the desk. She could not put her finger on it, but something was not right. It wasn’t the numbers, or the dates. What was it?

  Startled, she looked up to encounter the cold, hard gaze of Nicholas at the doorway.

  “Good morning, my lord,” she said, not knowing if she should rise to make a small curtsey or not.

  “Good morning, Charlotte,” he replied in his deep baritone voice, which had always made her insides constrict. “I did not know you had an interest in estate management,” he said, arching an eyebrow as he walked toward the desk.

  “I do not, but I couldn’t find any book to interest me.”

  “So, naturally, you began reviewing Wyndhurst’s ledgers?”

  “I did not know they were forbidden to members of the family.” She hated to sound defensive. “But then, I am not really a proper member of the family, am I?”

  “I suppose you consider our vows before God quite meaningless, then? But then I forget, a learned member of the scientific world might hold different views. Especially one who has a handsome cousin to turn her pretty head.” He looked angry now. “Ah, but you have deftly changed the subject. Why are you reviewing the ledgers? Do you not trust our family to ensure the proper care of this estate?”

  “The real question is, do you? And if you do, then why?” she asked. “Something is obviously very wrong. Why do we eat like kings when there are entire families starving not a mile from the elegant gates of the abbey? These are people who have depended on the dukedom for generations. And why are all the habitations so poorly maintained?”

  Once she began, she couldn’t seem to stop the torrent of accusations pouring from her. She knew he was not to blame, but she had to hurt him. His continual refusal to touch her, even kiss her, something he had done before they had married, hurt her deeply. “I know you are trying to remedy some of the problems by starting the brewery, and the flock of sheep, as well as the other plans. But it is not enough, Nichol
as. There are too many families, too many problems that need to be addressed and corrected. You are responsible for them, not your father, and certainly not your horrid brother or Her Grace. Tell me you are not using your family’s ridiculous claims of your intellectual inferiority to stop you? You are one of the most brave and intelligent gentlemen of my acquaintance. Just because you can’t read as well as other people doesn’t mean you can relinquish your role as leader of your family.” There, she had said it. The things that could not be said. That should not be said to the man she loved if she had any desire for him to return her love.

  “And that is what you think of me? By your account my actions are reprehensible indeed.”

  Almost the same words Darcy had said in response to Eliza Bennett’s spurning of his proposal. But she had not Eliza’s backbone.

  “Yes, and no,” she replied, looking away from him. And then in a rush, “Oh, don’t you see? You could do so much more—”

  “More?” he interrupted her. “You think I should do more? I have served my king and my country, obeyed my father, tried to provide as well as I could for our neighbors with the means that I possess, and married you. What more do you want? I will never be able to live up to your standards, Charlotte.”

  She drew in her breath sharply, in pain. “I realize the honor you paid me by marrying me, and providing for me. But, you must remember that I tried to tell you it was not necessary, that I could provide well enough for myself. My defenses were weakened over the shock of my father’s death when I acquiesced to your plan. I wish now that I had not. And by the by, I am sorry you feel the need to live up to my standards. I never intended my words to be taken that way.”

  “Well, I think enough has been said. I am sorry to have intruded. Perhaps it would be better if you did not take it upon yourself to review the ledgers again. And I will consider a plan that will alleviate the need for us to be under each other’s inspection.”

  With that he was gone, and Charlotte threw herself into the leather high-backed chair. With an anger seldom expressed, she slammed the ledgers closed and rearranged them on the edge of the desk as tears ran unchecked down her cheeks. She must leave this horrible, depressing place. Nicholas not only pitied her now, he hated her.

  She was so tired of it all. She missed her father and her brother. Worst of all, she couldn’t bear the sadness within these walls, the loneliness, or rather, the aloneness she suffered despite Nicholas’s presence and all the others. She must find Alexandre and beg him to take her away to London. Her cousin would find inexpensive lodgings for her until she could form a more suitable long-term proposition.

  She could go back to her original idea of caring for an older lady. She did not think she could accept her husband’s offer of the use of his elegant town house, not when she had criticized his actions so thoroughly. She could not feel beholden to him. She would not play the hypocrite.

  There were very few items to pack in her old trunk Aside from the beloved yellow gown, wrapped in tissue, and the two serviceable day gowns, Charlotte had nothing else save two mourning gowns, the bust of her mother and several drawings she had sketched of her father and brother. She would arrange for the medical books to be sent to her in London when she had permanent living quarters. She would leave all her other books behind. Even the novels. Especially the novels.

  It had been two days since Charlotte had last seen Nicholas in the library. He had made himself as scarce as he had promised in anger. The words were imprinted in her memory: “I will consider a plan that will alleviate the need for us to be under each other’s inspection.”

  She would not force him from his father’s deathbed. She would leave. It had all been settled yesterday with Alexandre. He had left for London last night, and she would follow tomorrow. Surprisingly, he had been most willing to follow Charlotte’s plans.

  “La Susanne has become insupportable. Her diamonds are quite beautiful, yes, but she has become the most clinging little barnacle. All hope of frolic and amusement in Wiltshire evaporated when she banished her delightful maid. I suppose the description of a ménage a trois was too much for her.” Alexandre had left with a kiss and a smile. “Ma petite cousine, you are not to worry another moment. I shall make you the gay duchess-to-be in town, whom everyone will be dying to meet. And we will live quite well with the funds your fusty, cold husband shall provide.”

  She had not had the heart or the nerve to tell him that she had no intention of entering the social whirl, much less accepting a tuppence from her husband.

  A knock sounded at her bedchamber door.

  The formidable form of Nicholas’s grandmother brushed past and ensconced herself on a sturdy chair with what seemed to be a grim determination to remain fixed there for a long duration.

  “It is as I thought, then,” the older lady said, glancing at the trunk. “You are determined to leave him and ruin whatever chance of happiness this family had.”

  Charlotte took a deep breath, and continued to pack her nightclothes as well as her brush and pins. “I am sorry you have formed such an ill opinion of me, Your Grace.”

  “I have no ill opinion of you—only of your nitwit behavior. Don’t tell me you subscribe to that silly notion that absence makes the heart grow fonder? Stuff of willy-nilly poets that is. If you leave, ten to one he will fall in with the duchess’s fondest wish and never see you or anyone else in the abbey again. He will flee to battle if he can find a war to fight in.”

  “Even you do not have faith in his intelligence and ability.” Charlotte closed the trunk and latched it. “No, my dear. It is you who does not have faith. You are a fool not to grab happiness when it is before you on a platter, yours for the taking.”

  “I do beg your pardon. You are one to talk. You are lecturing me on the importance of love when you—”

  “Aha! I knew you loved him!”

  “I did not say that.”

  “Well, do you?” the old woman asked.

  “What does it signify? You love the vicar, do you not? And yet, you have not married him. And would I be right in guessing he has asked you on numerous occasions?”

  The older lady’s face turned a darker shade. “Why, that is none of your affair. We were talking about—”

  Charlotte interrupted. “No. My ill-fated marriage is none of your affair.”

  “It most certainly is! Everything about this family is my affair,” the dowager duchess harrumphed.

  “Well, do not expect me to follow a course you are not willing to tread.”

  Her Grace sighed pitifully, and Charlotte hardened her heart. When had she discarded her timid personality for that of a bold and independent creature who cared little of what others thought of her and less of polite conversation?

  “You’re leaving with that trouble-making cousin of yours, aren’t you? You will bring scandal on us all, as well as ruin my Nicky’s life. But tell me this, once and for all, do you love the Frenchman?”

  “No,” Charlotte admitted. “Alexandre left last night. He has promised to secure lodgings for me in London. Really, this is for the best.”

  A loud rapping interrupted the conversation.

  The butler entered with a flushed expression. “Your Grace, Lady Charlotte, the duchess asked me to request your immediate presence in the salon.”

  “Come, come Stevens, what is the matter? I have never seen you so ruffled. Is it my son?” asked the dowager duchess.

  “No, no. I believe it has something to do with Lady

  Susan. One of our chambermaids found a note on ‘er bed. A bed that ‘ad not been slept in, I might add,” he said with a conspiratorial wink. “It seems the young chit, I mean lady, ‘eighed off to London with that smooth-talking Frenchy,” the butler said. In his excitement he was dropping his aitches and betraying his roots.

  “What!” exclaimed Charlotte and Her Grace simultaneously.

  Nicholas rubbed his eyes and tried to shake the gnawing headache that had invaded the edges of his mind. He had close
ted himself in the library all day, refusing to allow anyone to enter, despite repeated knocks. Trying to decipher the ledgers was actually easier than he had thought; he could read the simple entries and the numbers. And he could add the figures in his mind. The problem was that the ciphers did not make sense.

  It was the small numbers that caught his eye. Each time an entry was made for the father, it varied by ten to fifteen pounds. But in reviewing the stable charts, the number of horses shod never varied. And the variance did not occur in the off-season, when some of the horses’ shoes were taken off for longer rests. Then the income from selling a small portion of the hay that had been recently harvested was off by five and twenty pounds. He was sure of this, because he had witnessed the sale.

  Nicholas added Mr. Coburn’s neat rows of figures three times. They did not add up. The expenses should have been two-thirds the stated amount. The profits should have been a quarter higher. When he glanced down at a notation involving the sum of five hundred pounds and its payment for rethatching tenant cottages, Nicholas squeezed his eyes shut and slammed his fist down on the ledger.

  He had been a blind fool.

  He had allowed his embarrassment and failures to evade the ultimate responsibility of his birth. Charlotte, of course, had been correct in all her accusations. He dragged himself to his feet and groped for the almost-spent candle, hating what he would have to do next, fearing how it might affect his father. But by the time he reached his sire’s door, he had armed himself with ironclad resolve.

  Charley, bless his soul, was asleep in the chair next to the duke’s bed. He woke the boy and bade him go to his small chamber off Nicholas’s own, then turned toward his father’s bedside and saw that the older man’s eyes were half open.

  “What is it, my son? Is someone finally willing to tell me what all the running and thumping around is about? Everyone seems too afraid to tell me anything anymore, afraid I’ll pop off at the smallest provocation.”