Still, she had felt a pang of something—something for which she had no word, either in French or English—when he had brushed her knuckles with dry lips and wished her good night before retiring to his separate chambers. She had always been so very lonely, especially at night, when the house grew still but her mind did not.
She had let herself imagine that, perhaps, married life would be different.
Entering from the dressing room on silent feet, Jane must have caught the direction of Charlotte’s gaze, for she said only “Oh,” in a quiet, knowing way.
Jane knew how things had stood between her mistress and her husband, of course. Such matters could hardly be kept from one’s personal servants. How many others suspected the truth? Could Robert somehow use it as evidence against her? The late duke’s mind had been perfectly sound, but all in her marriage had not been as it should have.
“They won’t do you as they did poor Lady Cleaves, will they?” Jane asked.
With fingertips suddenly turned to claws, Charlotte gripped the windowsill for support. She had forgotten all about the Cleaves affair, although it had been on everyone’s tongue just over a year ago. Lord Cleaves had accused his wife of unfaithfulness and announced his intention of suing for a divorce. Lady Cleaves had countered with a petition for an annulment on the grounds of her husband’s impotence, claiming their four-year marriage had never been consummated. Detailed accounts of the proceedings had been published in the papers and laughed over in none-too-hushed tones. Aunt Penhurst, for one, had enjoyed snickering over the stories of Lord Cleaves’s failed attempts to demonstrate his capacity in front of the officers of the court. Meanwhile, Lady Cleaves had been forced to undergo physical examination by two midwives to prove she was . . . What had been the legal term bandied about? Ah, yes. Virgo intacta. Then, Charlotte had not been quite sure what it meant.
Now, however, she knew all too well.
Heat swept up from Charlotte’s chest, across her cheeks, and settled in the tips of her ears, leaving her fingers cold.
The world could laugh at her if it chose. She was half-French, the daughter of a loose woman. She was used to derision, used to suspicion. She had never cared a jot for the world’s good opinion, and she knew she had done nothing to earn its censure.
But she could not bear to think of anyone laughing at a man who had been so very, very kind.
As she stared down into the greenery, her eyes unfocused, a movement on the edge of the garden caught her attention. Someone in dark, nondescript clothes, neither servant nor gentleman, stood almost hidden by the stone pillar at the corner of the fence. Perfectly positioned to see both the house and the mews. A thief? But it was broad daylight.
“There’s a man,” she began, turning away from the window and gesturing behind her.
Jane nodded eagerly and came forward. “Now, that’s the ticket, ma’am. A man. There must be some chap you took a fancy to, once upon a time. Someone you’d like to . . . That is, you might be a widow, but you’re still just a bride at heart, and a bride has a right to look forward to—well, you know what I mean. No one would have to be any the wiser.”
Charlotte’s jaw had grown slack as understanding dawned, so that it was an effort to muster a sound. “Jane!” She giggled nervously once more—drat it all. Dropping her gaze to the carpet, she said, in what she hoped was a scolding tone, “Surely you aren’t suggesting that I—that I indulge in—?”
“Me? Why, ’twas you who mentioned a man,” said Jane, leaping to her own defense.
“Yes. A man. Standing just outside the garden gate.” Charlotte nodded toward the window, still unable to raise her eyes. “I wonder what business he could have there?”
Jane hurried across the room to take a peek, then shook her head. “Not a soul about, ma’am. He must’ve moved on.”
Charlotte looked again, but Crescent Lane was empty, just as Jane had said. She scoured every cranny she could see from the window before pushing away and turning back into the room. What foolishness. Robert’s threat had made her jittery, that was all. She had nothing to fear from some poor fellow out for an afternoon stroll. Probably just the kitchen maid’s new beau.
“We are going to London, Jane,” she announced, forcing herself to straighten her shoulders. Duchesses did not slouch. To say nothing of giggle.
“Ma’am?” Jane spun away from the window and looked her up and down. “Now?”
“Now.”
Fortunately, her trunk was ready. She had come to her marriage with only a few dresses, and those had been replaced too soon by a new wardrobe—of somber black crape, rather than the lavish spring gowns her husband had urged her to buy. The old dresses had already been packed away.
Into a valise Jane placed a few necessaries and a black gown almost identical to the one Charlotte was wearing. A second valise was soon filled with a similar set of items for Jane, all that would be needed for a night—or perhaps two, given the rapidly lowering sky—on the road.
To the first bag Charlotte added one final item: a battered volume of French poetry, found when she was a girl and which she chose to believe had belonged to her mother. That connection would have been enough to make it precious to her, of course, but of greater practical interest were the banknotes now tucked inside. Interleaving the book’s thin pages was everything that remained of the pin money she had been granted on her wedding day. Six weeks ago it had seemed an exorbitant sum. Now, however, if Langerton had his way, it might be all that stood between her and an ignominious return to Aunt Penhurst.
If she would even be willing to take Charlotte back.
When the footman arrived to carry down the trunk, Charlotte placed her bonnet on her head, lowered its lacy black veil over her face, and strode from the house. Jane followed, a valise in each hand.
By the time the driver stopped to change horses at a coaching inn east of Chippenham, the fine morning had indeed turned to rain. The inn yard was a slurry of mud and worse, as travelers either hurried to depart before the weather got worse, or lingered in hopes of improvement. Charlotte and Jane picked their way to the door of the inn and were shown to a private parlor to wait.
From the window, Charlotte watched as people darted among the carriages, their faces hidden beneath umbrellas or the brims of hats, the brighter hues of servants’ livery contrasting sharply with dull-colored, sensible travel garments. Everyone eager to get to the place they belonged.
All except Charlotte, who had never really belonged anywhere.
Under the eaves of the stable, one man stood apart, not hurrying to get out of the weather but looking up at the windows of the inn. A man in a dark, nondescript coat. Despite the blur of raindrops against the window and the distance between them, she felt certain it was the same man she had seen outside the garden that morning.
And he was watching her watch him. Her heart battering against her breastbone, she forced her suddenly frozen fingers to release the curtain. It swung back into place, leaving only a square of muslin where the reflection of her face had been.
An awful suspicion began to form in her mind. Had her stepson ordered her watched?
She shivered now as she had not allowed herself to shiver when Robert’s cold eyes had skimmed over her in the library. He would stop at nothing to piece together a suit that might keep her from inheriting. Whatever information this stranger could gather might easily be twisted into evidence of her bad character, proof that she was not the sort of woman a duke would choose to wed. At least, not if the duke were in his right mind.
No. Impossible. Robert was not the sort to go about hiring spies. Aunt Penhurst had been right. She must stop letting her imagination run away with her.
But what if it weren’t her imagination?
Her anxious gaze settled on Jane, pouring tea at a table nearer the hearth, clad in one of the better dresses Charlotte had given up for mourning. Jane was so similar in size and shape to Charlotte, the spotted cambric had required almost no alteration.
“I’ll be glad to get back to London, Your Grace,” Jane said. As Charlotte took the steaming cup she offered, the spoon rattled in the saucer. “Gracious, ma’am! You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
“No.” Charlotte clamped the silver against the china with her thumb. “Not a ghost.” She felt certain her vision had been all too real. “Have you a sweetheart in town, Jane?”
“No, ma’am.” The girl reinforced the denial with a vigorous shake of her head, but a blush pinked the apples of her cheeks. “Not to say so.”
“Family, then?”
A nod this time. “My sister. Married to a butcher in Clerkenwell.”
It was not as if she were sending the girl into the abyss, Charlotte tried to reassure herself. Jane was eager to return home. Charlotte, on the other hand, had no real home to which she could return.
She stood and studied their paired reflection in the mirror above the mantelpiece. Jane was prettier than she, with her plump cheeks and upturned nose. The veil would hide those features, though, and the coif of nearly black hair behind might have been Charlotte’s, but for its tendency to curl.
“Jane, I wish you to change dresses with me.”
Dark brows shot up her forehead. “Ma’am?”
“I want you to go on to London, alone. We shall switch clothing before we return to the carriage, so anyone who saw us enter may think I am you, and you are I. Before the carriage leaves, I shall slip out and away.”
Jane’s eyes grew wider still. “Why on earth would you do such a thing, Your Grace?”
“Because I wish—” The answer was easy enough, really. Nothing more or less than she had always wished. Charlotte had often been lonely. But she had never been left alone. Widowhood, for all its sorrows, had held out the promise of independence to her. Langerton, and whatever mischief he planned, threatened to take even that away. A challenge to the will, scandalous aspersions heaped upon her, a watcher at every window—she would be little better than a fish in a bowl. “I wish some time out of the public eye. To—to grieve. And I hope in that time, the new duke will come to his senses.”
“But where will you go?”
“I don’t know.” North—a little cottage in the Lake District, perhaps? Or south, back to France? The possibilities were limited only by the number of banknotes she had stashed away. “But even if I did, I would not tell you.” When Jane looked offended, she explained, “So if anyone asks, you may say honestly that you haven’t any idea where I’ve gone.”
Jane shrugged and began to unpin her dress. “If you wish it, ma’am,” she said in a tone that quite clearly communicated her suspicion Charlotte had gone ’round the bend.
When the innkeeper announced that their carriage was ready, two women departed exactly as they had come: one all in black, drawing surreptitious glances of sympathy even as her own expression remained hidden behind her dark veil; and another, a servant, equally invisible to the eyes of the other travelers, carrying two small bags.
Once inside the carriage, Charlotte strained her ears to hear over the patter of rain on the carriage roof, waiting for the sounds of the postilion mounting, the rattle of the whip in its socket. Then she gave Jane’s hand a squeeze, picked up her valise, and slipped out the door opposite just as the carriage rumbled into motion, intending to disappear into the anonymous bustle of the inn yard.
At almost the same moment, two other carriages started away, a lone rider arrived, and all was in chaos, but one sweeping glance revealed no sign of the man in the dark clothes. He must have fallen for their deception and followed the coach. Now she needed only to board the next stage, wherever it was bound. Any direction, that was, but the one in which the Duchess of Langerton was believed to be traveling.
With fumbling fingers, she tugged the hood of Jane’s cloak more securely into place, then reached into her bag for the book, for her money. Nothing but fabric met her touch. She dug deeper, up to her elbow in the satchel’s meager contents, before opening it wider and forcing herself to look, to confront the truth her fingertips had already revealed. No book. No black crape. Just her second and third best dresses and Jane’s underthings.
In her haste to escape the coach, she had picked up the wrong valise.
Even as she groped frantically for her reticule, she remembered slipping it around Jane’s wrist to complete the costume. She had nothing with which to complete her journey to a new life. No money for coach fare, not even a coin for dinner at the inn.
Growing wetter and colder by the moment, she stumbled blindly back in the direction of shelter. There would still be a way to go on, there must be a way, if she just took a moment to think—
She saw the valise fly up and heard the seam of her dress rip almost before she felt the hand on her arm jerk her to safety. A mail-coach thundered through the place where she had been standing a moment before, spraying her with mud and the driver’s curses as it passed.
“Look sharp!” someone shouted from his place at the rear of the coach, and just as quickly as it had come, the danger was past.
“Are you harmed?”
A man’s voice, low and close—accompanied by the realization that the wall against which she had been thrown was actually a man’s chest, that the pounding in her ears was his heart hammering beneath her cheek.
Although her knees shook with the exertion, she forced herself upright and away from his support, determined not to draw more attention her way. “No,” she said.
Or at least, that was what she had meant to say. But the word curved in her throat and left her lips as “Non.”
In these days of revolution and war, most people seemed to be alarmed, even repelled by her French heritage, but on at least one memorable occasion, it had been an excuse for unwelcome familiarity. Would the strong hand still cupping her elbow drop away or grip her harder?
The stranger did neither. “Vous êtes française,” he merely said. You are French. It was not a question.
Something about his accent disoriented her. He did not speak French like an Englishman—at least, not like an English gentleman, one who had been tutored in the language from childhood, had spent time in Paris on the Grand Tour, and thought himself a fine fellow when he dropped a romantic phrase or two in some unsuspecting girl’s ear.
Still less did he sound like a Frenchman, though.
She mustered the strength to take another step backward, to free herself from his touch, to look at him while she formulated a reply.
If she had imagined his voice unsettling, she was totally unprepared for his eyes, which were the soft, welcoming blue of a summer sky, startling in a deeply tanned face. He must have lost his hat during the rescue, for rain dripped from dark curls plastered to his forehead and ran in rivulets down his cheekbones and along his strong jaw.
His clothes offered no more enlightenment as to his status than had his voice: plain, well-tailored, but not elegant—even aside from being spattered with mud. No one would mistake him for a man of fashion. A merchant, perhaps. That might explain his having a few French words at his disposal. But he was as broad-shouldered and brown as a farmer.
Zut alors! Had she grown as snobbish as Robert? What bearing did the cut of the man’s coat have on the fact that he had snatched her from almost certain death beneath the hooves of those horses? Even less did it matter how blue his eyes or how broad his shoulders. Although those shoulders, and the strong arms beneath them, certainly had played their part. And as for his eyes . . .
Even as she watched, a shadow flickered across them, and she found herself being looked at for the second time that day with a sort of curious frown.
Tugging off his glove, he raised his hand and brushed the pad of his thumb beneath her eye, flicking away a clump of mud. Beneath his surprisingly warm touch, her own skin felt cold. She shivered, then darted her gaze away from his face to discover her dress and Jane’s cloak were all but ruined. Although the state of her clothes was the least of her worries, she found herself blinking away tears.
Shock. She drew her shoulders back and lifted her chin. “I must t’ank—thank you for saving my life,” she said, marshaling every trick she had learned to make her English sound perfectly . . . well, English. And failing miserably.
Nevertheless, he paid her the compliment of replying in the same language. “I was simply in the right place at the right time. May I be of some further assistance, Miss . . . ?”
The hesitation at the end of his question begged for an introduction. “Lottie Blake—” she began, unthinkingly. Blakemore, she had been about to say, as if she could afford to go about revealing her real name to anyone who asked.
But it little mattered, because before she could finish, his brows dove downward. “ ‘Lottie’?” he echoed disapprovingly. “Charlotte, surely.”
She had never really been fond of the nickname. Her aunt had begun it, disliking how Charlotte rolled off a French tongue. Before that, Charlotte could hardly remember having been called anything at all.
It felt doubly strange, then—doubly good?—to hear her given name now, even on the lips of a perfect stranger.
“Yes. Charlotte,” she agreed, “Charlotte Blake.” It was a comfortable alias, at least as fitting as Her Grace, the Duchess of Langerton had ever been. Although the muscles in her legs still quivered, she managed a curtsy. “Very pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.”
“The pleasure is mine, Miss Blake.” He bowed in return. “Edward Cary, at your service.”
photo credit: Vicky Lea, Hueit Photography
A love affair with historical romances led SUSANNA CRAIG to a degree (okay, three degrees) in literature and a career as an English professor. When she’s not teaching or writing academic essays about Jane Austen and her contemporaries, she enjoys putting her fascination with words and knowledge of the period to better use: writing Regency-era romances she hopes readers will find both smart and sexy. She makes her home among the rolling hills of Kentucky horse country, along with her historian husband, their unstoppable little girl, and a genuinely grumpy cat. Find her online at www.susannacraig.com.
To Tempt an Heiress Page 29
