The two left, and Charlotte collapsed back on the creaky chair, relieved that she’d survived her first callers. She would have to speak to Jacob about where to put people if they continued to come by on a daily basis. Lady Crawford warned Charlotte that once word spread that the newest earl had already wed, people would be stopping by to meet the new countess.
It all sounded so exhausting.
Mrs. Smith poked her head in, her eyes wide. “There are more.”
Charlotte frowned. “More?”
“More people. More callers.”
Charlotte grabbed the edge of the chair she was sitting in. “No.”
She looked around wildly as if she could jump out the window and run away and hide until they all left. She fervently wished Jacob were here, but she didn’t know if it was to berate him for putting her in this position or hold her up and see her through it.
“Who?” she asked.
“Says she’s Dowager Lady Armbruster.”
The Countess of Armbruster? Oh, dear. This was not going to go well, and she probably couldn’t tell Mrs. Smith to tell this woman that she was out because she probably saw Sarah and her mother leave.
“I’ll bring more tea.” Mrs. Smith disappeared, and Charlotte wanted to call after her to come back. Even Mrs. Smith’s presence would be a comfort.
A tall, elegant, absolutely beautiful woman with black hair and the lightest blue eyes that Charlotte had ever seen walked in. She didn’t so much as walk, Charlotte thought, as she glided. She was dressed in a deep purple gown, trimmed in black lace, her hair—and there seemed to be quite a lot of it—was piled on top of her head in such a way that it seemed it would all come tumbling down if she moved suddenly.
Charlotte tugged on the ends of her short hair. Compared to this woman she felt like a country urchin, still clothed in Cora’s cast-off gowns that were woefully out of style.
“Lady Ashland.” The woman’s voice was deep and sultry, but her lips lifted in what appeared to be a genuine smile.
“Lady Armbruster.”
“Oh, please, call me Nora. I have a feeling we will be seeing quite a bit of each other in the future.”
Oh, dear Lord. What does that mean? Who is this woman?
“Then, please, call me Charlotte.” Was that appropriate? She had no idea. “I apologize that I don’t have a formal sitting room to accept callers. Jacob, that is, Lord Ashland has used his home as an office for quite a while.”
Lady Armbruster chuckled and settled into the straight-backed chair as if she were accepted into every home like this. With an inward sigh Charlotte sat, too. This accepting callers thing was tiring.
“I know you have no idea who I am, dear. You’ve met my son, Lord Armbruster.”
She hardly seemed old enough to have born the cynical, wildly handsome, irascible Lord Armbruster.
“Yes, Armbruster,” Charlotte said. “I understand that he and Jacob have been tight friends for quite some time.”
“They met in school and have been nearly inseparable since. Quite the odd combination those two make. I couldn’t have been happier when I heard Jacob had become an earl. Although I hear he’s been quite reluctant about the whole business.”
Charlotte didn’t comment on that, feeling it wasn’t her right, and neither did she know this woman enough to suddenly spill confidences.
Mrs. Smith brought more tea in, and Charlotte poured, hoping she wasn’t making a fool of herself. Again she wondered how in the world she thought she could teach Americans to behave like English ladies when she couldn’t even do so.
But Nora either didn’t care, didn’t notice, or Charlotte was doing it correctly, so she didn’t comment.
“I came to discuss the ball with you,” Nora said.
Charlotte nearly fumbled her teacup, just barely refraining from spilling it. “Pardon me?”
“The ball. It’s to be next week. Oh, dear. Please tell me that Jacob mentioned it to you?”
Charlotte shook her head numbly.
“I asked Armbruster to say something to you yesterday. I assume he didn’t?”
“N-no.” Suddenly Charlotte was cold all over, and then hot. Her teacup rattled in the saucer, and she quickly put it on the edge of Jacob’s desk.
“Please, tell me about this ball.”
“It was meant to be a small affair. I threw it together rather quickly as a way to introduce Jacob into Society as the new Earl of Ashland. All of those annoying matchmaking mamas are always dying to get their little girls in front of the eligible men, and I knew Jacob would probably be overrun with women thrusting their daughters under his nose. He sometimes can be quite oblivious to such matters.”
“Quite,” Charlotte murmured because Nora seemed to expect her to say something.
“After all, someone needed to ‘bring him out’ into Society, and since he’s so much like a son to me and I love hosting parties, I thought it should be me. But the guest list just grew and grew, and it went from a small dinner party to a ball nearly overnight. And then there was the wonderful news from Armbruster that Jacob was marrying. Why, we were all stunned. We didn’t even know Jacob had his eye on anyone. And then come to find out that you are the niece of the Marquess of Chadley. Well, that was quite the coup for Jacob. Armbruster says you two are madly in love.”
Nora took a sip of tea, and Charlotte’s head spun. There was quite a lot of information in that short monologue. Apparently, Charlotte was a coup. Nora was hosting a dinner party-turned-ball, and Jacob was more like family to the Armbrusters. He’d downplayed that particular piece of information.
“So now that Jacob has been firmly taken off the marriage mart—and there are some very disappointed mothers and debutantes out there, so beware, dear—I’ve decided to make this ball into a coming-out for the both of you. An introduction to Society of the Earl and Countess of Ashland.”
Charlotte sat back, breathless, as if she were the one who had imparted all of that information, instead of the other way around. Her head was spinning with so many things. Most of it dread.
She didn’t want to attend a ball. She had nothing to wear. She wanted to throttle both Jacob and Lord Armbruster, and she wanted to run back to the rookery where life seemed much less complicated than it did now.
And to top it all off, once it was announced—and in such a grand and spectacular fashion, if this woman was doing it—that Charlotte Morris was now the Countess of Ashland, her aunt would find out, and Charlotte didn’t know what the woman would do then.
Nora seemed to sense Charlotte’s thoughts and patted her on the knee. “Don’t worry, dear. There is nothing for you to do except show up and look radiant on your new husband’s arm. I will do the rest.”
And that was part of what Charlotte feared.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jacob entered his office and threw his hat on the chair, exhausted from another meeting with Armbruster’s man-of-business, who had been combing through the former Earl of Ashland’s books. His head was stuffed full of numbers and plans and future prospects.
On the bright side, he’d discovered that he now owned a townhouse in Hyde Park, and all he could think about after that was rushing home to tell Charlotte, thinking she would be very pleased to learn that they were moving to Hyde Park.
He found her waiting for him in his office, her lips drawn into a tight line and her eyes narrowed.
She appeared to be on the verge of tears. Lord, he hoped she wasn’t going to cry. He didn’t know what to do with a crying woman.
“How was your day?” he asked, watching her warily. Truth be told, he felt he should circle her carefully.
“I had callers today,” she said, her words clipped.
He opened his mouth to say that he thought that was a good thing and that she needed more friends, but she cut him off, and he realized these callers weren’t really a good thing after all.
“Sarah and her mother, Lady Crawford. It was awful. I didn’t have anywhere to put them, so I h
ad to put them in here, but there is nowhere to serve tea or to sit. We sat in these chairs.” She waved her hand toward the pair of straight-backed chairs that had been perched in front of his desk for so long he couldn’t remember a time when they weren’t there. “But then there was nowhere to put the tea service. Mrs. Smith had to put it there.” She halfheartedly flapped her hand toward the edge of his desk where the tea service still sat. “It was all so very awkward and embarrassing, but they were really rather kind about it, realizing that you’ve been a bachelor for a number of years.”
He wanted to protest that just because he had been a bachelor did not mean he was a Neanderthal but thought better of it.
“I apologized, of course, but luckily it was Sarah. We’ve been friends for years, as you know, and her mother was friends with my mother, and they all thought it rather quaint. At least I think they thought it quaint.” Her brows furrowed as she pondered whether serving tea in his office was quaint.
“I was pleased they visited,” she said, obviously discarding her thoughts on being quaint. “But I was also pleased when they left. Do you know how very tiring it is to take callers? Lady Crawford is good at small talk, so that made things easy. But I wasn’t finished. Oh, no. Do you know who arrived after the Crawfords left?”
She looked at him accusingly, and his mind went blank. He couldn’t have recalled one familiar name of an acquaintance if he’d tried. Luckily, she didn’t make him try.
“The Dowager Lady Armbruster. Lord Armbruster’s mother. His mother, Jacob!”
Apparently, this was not a good thing. Jacob would admit that Lady Armbruster was a force to be reckoned with and sometimes you just had to go with whatever she wanted done. He did feel a bit bad that Charlotte had to endure her first meeting with Lady Armbruster alone.
“A lovely lady,” Charlotte was saying. “If a bit strong-willed.”
Yes. That would be a good word to describe Lady Armbruster.
“She wanted to meet me.”
Jacob hesitated. Was he required to speak here? He had to admit that he was a bit lost in all of this and didn’t know what his reaction should be. Charlotte appeared outraged. Was he supposed to be outraged as well?
“Before the ball.”
He closed his eyes while his insides seemed to shrivel up. “Charlotte—”
“Apparently there is to be a ball in our honor next week.”
“I’m sorry—”
“You and Armbruster were supposed to tell me when Armbruster was here for our wedding.”
“That day was very much a whirlwind—”
“She said it was supposed to be like a coming-out dinner for you, so she could introduce the new Earl of Ashland to Society. Apparently, you were to be the newest marriage opportunity for several young women.”
His mouth dried up, and his tongue stuck to the roof.
“But I ruined that. Oh, she didn’t say so in so many words. In fact, she’s pleased that you wed so high. To the niece of a marquess. How she knew all of that I don’t know.”
“That would be my fault.”
But Charlotte didn’t seem to want to hear an explanation. She was in fine form, her color high, her back straight, and chin up. “So this dinner is now a ball to introduce the Earl and Countess of Ashland.”
“It’s just one night. And we should be properly introduced to Society.”
“Jacob, I served tea off your desk. I had no idea what to do with callers. I’d never had a caller in my life. I’m wearing your dead wife’s clothes! I have nothing to wear to a ball. I don’t want to go to a ball. I don’t know what to say, what to do. How to eat correctly. I don’t know how to be a countess!” By now tears were slowly dripping down her face, and Jacob realized she wasn’t so much angry as she was overwhelmed.
He slowly walked up to her, still a bit wary of this mood she was in, and gathered her in his arms, pressing her head against his chest.
“I don’t know how to be an earl, so I think we are well matched in that.”
“I didn’t realize any of this,” she said between gulps of air. “I didn’t realize that people would want to see me just because I am a countess or that they would want to meet me. I’m not ready for this.”
He smoothed the back of her hair. “I’m not ready, either. But it is what it is, love. We’ll simply soldier on together and learn these people’s ways together, and when it becomes too much we’ll retreat and regroup.”
She pushed away from him and sniffed. “Don’t you see?”
Well, he thought he was seeing, but apparently he wasn’t?
“I wanted to go to America and teach American women how to be English so they could find husbands like…like you. I thought it would be about teaching them to be reserved and about the way we spoke and about the hierarchy of our system. Today I realized that I don’t know the first thing about any of this. I would never have been successful in America.”
She sniffed and fresh tears flowed, and Jacob wondered what this was really about. Was it about stumbling through her first set of callers, unprepared and unexpected? Or was it about the death of a dream? Or maybe the death of her future plans?
“I can’t go to America,” she said softly.
He was suddenly cold inside, fearful that she thought she was stuck with him because her other plans had fallen through.
“Is that a bad thing?” he asked.
She looked away and bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
Her eyes were red and wet and her face blotchy, but she’d stopped crying, and she looked more beautiful to him right at this moment than she’d ever had before because this moment was real. This moment was honest.
“I wouldn’t be upset if you stayed my countess forever.”
She stopped biting her lip, and it was plump and moist, and he desperately wanted to kiss it, to remind her that they were perfectly matched in bed, and maybe that would allay all of her fears. But being good in bed was shallow and only a small part of what made a marriage work.
“I think you might be stuck with me,” she whispered.
He nodded soberly. “I can handle that.”
But he wasn’t sure he could handle many more scenes like this one. The fact that she was so upset, and it was because of him, because he’d made her a countess without thinking of the consequences—hell, he still wasn’t aware of all of the consequences—nearly killed him.
She tried to smile, but her lips trembled, and the smile fell away before it was fully formed. “What are we going to do, Jacob?”
“We are going to take this one step at a time. A new countess needs a new wardrobe. I just came from a meeting with Armbruster and his man-of-business, and we went over the books of the estate. We will not only get you an entire new wardrobe, but a grand ball gown for your first ball as well. We will drop the jaws of all of the people who come to honor us at our first ball.”
…
“Watch your step.” Jacob guided Charlotte up the wide stone stairs. She held his arm tightly, her steps tentative. “Just a few more.” He glanced up at the door with the large knocker and felt a thrill.
After Charlotte’s experience with the callers the day before, Jacob knew how he was going to tell her about their new home. He would surprise her. No longer would she have to accept callers on rickety wooden chairs in his home office.
“Jacob, where are you taking me? Where are we? I don’t like this.”
She had been hesitant to put the blindfold on, and he supposed it was her testament of trust toward him that she finally did and allowed him to lead her down the street and up these steps. Charlotte trusted very few people, and he was proud that he was becoming one of them.
They entered the cool interior, and Charlotte stiffened, sensing the change in temperature and light.
He carefully unknotted the blindfold at the back of her head and let it fall away then stepped back to watch her reaction.
She blinked a few times and turned her head to captu
re the entirety of the large entryway. She looked up at the soaring rotund ceiling, her gaze sweeping toward the staircase that hugged the rounded wall.
She looked down at the black and white marbled floor at her feet.
“Where are we?” she whispered.
“This is our new home.”
Her gaze darted around the entryway one more time, before meeting his.
“What are you saying?” She was still whispering as if they had walked into someone else’s house.
“I inherited this from the former earl. It’s ours now.”
With her hands clutched in front of her, as if she were afraid to touch anything, she walked around the entryway, her heels clicking in the loud silence. She stopped in front of a small table on which was perched a large black and white vase.
“I can’t believe this,” she said.
“Follow me.” He headed for a closed door, opened it, and stood back to let her enter first. She approached hesitantly and poked her head inside the room.
“Jacob,” she whispered.
Jacob followed her into the dimness. The curtains had been pulled tight since the house had sat unused for so long, and the furniture was covered in sheets to protect it from the dust, but none of that affected the sheer size of the room nor the elegance of it.
A fireplace big enough for Jacob to stand in was directly across from the door with a grouping of chairs and couches in front of it. The mantel was an intricately carved monstrosity with a very large, gilt-framed mirror perched atop it.
The room was mostly white with accents of gold and yellows.
“I think you can accept callers comfortably in here,” he said to the hushed silence.
Charlotte moved through the room, lightly touching the covered furniture as she passed. She turned to him, and even from this far away, even in the dim light, he could see the sparkle in her eyes.
“This is all ours?”
He threw his arms wide. “All of it.”
“But how? Why? I mean, I know why, but…I’m speechless.”
“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? There is no staff. Just a caretaker who comes in once a week to check on it. We’ll have to hire some people.”
An Unwilling Earl Page 18
