by Abigail Agar
As Charlotte watched her sister walking away, determination swirled inside of her. She was not sure how, but she wanted to help Mary. She thought that she was the one who needed help, but as it turned out, she was the one who was needed to help.
What can I do? she thought desperately as she walked through the house. How can I help Mary? Who can I turn to?
There was one person, but Charlotte could not tell whether or not it was a good idea. There were many arguments in her head for and against the plan. On the one hand, the girls could not deal with this alone, and without any direct family surviving, there was not anyone else … but he had also hurt their family, and Mary might never want to see him again.
It was a dilemma, but Charlotte needed to figure something out.
With a burst of determination, she decided to head to her husband’s writing desk to pen out a letter. Maybe she would send it; maybe she would decide against it, but doing something felt much better than doing nothing. She had spent the last six years of her life doing nothing, and it had not gotten her anywhere. She would not let the same happen to her sister.
Mary felt numb as she collapsed onto her bed sheets; she was utterly stunned by the events of the day. One moment, she was having a normal conversation with Charlotte, and the next she was having the foundation of her life pulled out from underneath her. Everything that she had depended on was gone, and now she had absolutely nothing to look forward to.
Could there be some other explanation? She still searched desperately within for something other than a shattered life. Could Walter be up to something much more innocent?
But deep down, she knew. Things like that did not happen. Now, she would be the centre of gossip, and everyone would be talking about her. Everyone would know about her terrible situation.
For some reason, the person whose opinion about all of that which bothered her most was Edmund’s. It should not have been; he certainly did not care what she thought when he kissed another Lady, but she could not help herself. She just did not want him to find out ever. She could not stand his pity, maybe his bemusement since she had been so dismissive of him; she did not want him to learn of this.
And now I cannot escape London, at least not without great difficulty. It seems that I am stuck here, with all of my mistakes around me, for a very long time.
Chapter 22
‘Your Grace,
I apologise for writing to you in this way, especially since you do not know me, but I feel that it is important that you are aware of what is going on.
My name is Charlotte Jones (nee Roberts). I believe you know my sister, Mary Roberts, well, and I am also fairly certain you are aware of Mr Walter Thompson who was in charge of the will and my late father’s estate. If you are not, I shall fill you in on the details.
When my father passed away five years ago, he left a clause in his will for my sister. He wanted her to inherit the family home, but only if she married first. I believe that the person our father wanted her to marry was you because he worked with you at some point. I am terribly sorry if this is wrong, I am only giving you the knowledge that I am aware of.
You have met my sister, and you have had your ups and downs. Of course, I have only heard one side of the story, so I am not passing judgement here at all. I still think that you would like to know what is going on. If so, then please continue to read.
Because of the complications, Mary asked Mr Thompson to sell the family home and to give her enough money for her to get started. It appeared that would happen, but since then things have gone very wrong. Mr Thompson sold the house, and he left with the money, leaving my sister with nothing.
I understand that this is not your problem, and I know that you might not care about what I have told you, but I need to tell someone. We do not have our father anymore, so there is no one to ask for help. I do not know where else to turn.
I shall write my address on the back of this letter if you wish to communicate with Mary. She does not know that I have sent you this letter, but I do not think she will be angry.
Yours sincerely,
Lady Charlotte Jones (nee Roberts).
“Why does she not turn to her own husband for help?” Iris asked Edmund curiously. “I mean, I do think it is very nice that she has come to you for help, but she is wed to a Lord. Could he not help out her sister?”
“I do not know,” Edmund answered a little helplessly. “It is all so very strange. I have never spoken to Lady Jones in my life, so as you can imagine, even receiving this letter was a surprise.”
Iris narrowed her eyes at Edmund and examined him closely. Her son had not been acting like himself for a while now, and she had been struggling to get to the bottom of it. She assumed it had something to do with the situation with Mary, but since he would not talk to her about anything, it was hard for her to work it out for sure.
Well, it was time for him to start talking.
“So, if the contents of this letter are to be believed, which in my opinion, I would think so, then Mary has suffered a very terrible time recently. She has had her whole life turned upside down. Have you been in touch with her for a while?”
“She made it very clear that she did not want to speak with me,” Edmund replied through thin tight lips. “At least for the foreseeable future. She was not happy with the whole situation regarding Lady Victoria Hartmon. I kept away because I thought it best to give her some space. If I had known that all of this was going on …”
“Yes, I know. You would have stepped in to help.” Iris reread the details of the letter again, trying to read between the lines. She could tell that there were a lot of things that Lady Jones was not saying with her words; she simply could not work out what they were. “I admit, I had heard a rumour about something like this happening, but I did not know the name. If I had thought for just one second that it was someone we knew …”
“So, people are talking about it?” Edmund asked, a red-hot rage bubbling inside of him. One of the things that he liked least about society was the tendency that everyone had to gossip about things that were nothing to do with them. In his opinion, everyone was so happy that the bad things were not happening to them that they did not care what damaging effect their words had on other people. “Everyone knows?”
“I believe everyone knows at least something.”
Edmund paced up and down the room, racking his brain for a way to make this right. “What do you think I should do, Mother?” he asked Iris desperately.
“Well, that all depends on what you want to do,” Iris told him. “It says in this letter that Mary does not know that it has been sent. If this is a situation that you would not like to get entangled up in, especially when you are going through your own troubles with your reputation, then you can just do nothing. There is no reason why you should have to …”
Edmund tried to imagine just doing nothing, but the image would not come to mind. He had not wanted things to end with Mary, not after they got over their initial hump of not liking one another. He liked her a lot; he could feel himself falling in love with her. If only it had not been for Lady Hartmon and her lies; if only he had not gone to the ball that night, they would have still been planning their wedding. Everything would have been alright. Maybe he would have been more involved with Mr Thompson and his meetings so he could have stopped all of this from happening.
No, doing nothing was not an option.
“… or,” Iris continued. “You also now have the address of where Mary is staying, so if you feel like maybe you do want to do something, then you can go and see her.”
“What if she still does not want to see me? There has to be a reason that she has not been in touch with me.”
“Edmund, she has not been in touch with you because she has been suffering the loss of everything. She has also had to contend with the idea that everyone believes you tried to ruin Lady Hartmon.”
“But that is not true …”
“Oh, I know that. But that is what
people are saying. Just in the same way that people are now talking about Mary.” Iris could see that her son just needed a little push in the right direction. Just a boost to encourage him. A little bit of reverse psychology usually did the trick. “Maybe this is not the right time for you to be rushing into anything to do with Mary,” she said with a shrug. “Maybe you are not strong enough because you need to deal with your own things first.”
Edmund got his back up at that comment, just as Iris knew that he would. “I do not think that is the case at all,” he said seriously. “I am strong enough; that is not the issue. I just do not want to upset Mary further, and I am afraid that my presence will do that.”
“Her sister has written to you. I think that is a sign. This Charlotte will only have Mary’s best interests at heart. If she assumed that her sister would be too upset by your presence, she never would have asked you. She would not want to upset her sister any more. She is going through enough.”
Edmund glanced at the large clock that sat in the corner of the room, noticing the time. “It is much too late for me to go now; I shall have to wait until morning. That will give me enough time to work out what I am going to say.”
Edmund left Iris with a smile on her face. She knew her son would do the right thing, and she also could not help hoping that this would get things back on track with him and Mary. With her, he was the happiest that she had ever seen him be. She was the key to Edmund’s future happiness; she just knew it.
Hopefully, some good can come from this tragedy, she thought. I hope that they both get what they want.
***
Edmund checked the paper again to ensure that he had the right address. He did, he felt certain of it, but he was still far too afraid to take that step forward. The fact that Mary was inside there, in a state of distress, crushed him, but he did not know what her reaction was going to be to seeing his face again.
He spent all night long tossing and turning in the sheets of his bed, trying to work out how he felt about all of it. While giving Mary her space, he had tried to distance himself too. He had tried his hardest to push his feelings right down so he could keep on going because he did not want to get too upset about everything. He did not want to lose himself in the idea that he had lost the only woman that he could ever see himself falling for … but the emotions had not gone anywhere. His feelings for Mary were still there, very strong, circling his chest.
I have to do this; I have to face up to everything. I need to see her, to help her.
He did not know how he would have felt about marrying Mary now before his own reputation was ruined, but he did not think that he would care. He had always wanted to find the sort of love that he shared with her; he did not think that anything else would matter … but now, after what he had suffered himself, he cared even less. Even with a ruined reputation, no inheritance, no dowry or family fortune, he still wanted to be married to Mary.
He just hoped that she would have him.
With a bolt of determination, Edmund stepped cautiously forward and reached the front door of the home. He lifted up a trembling hand and pressed the doorbell. His pulse raced nervously, but he could not ignore that there was a bit of excitement sitting in his stomach too. He wished that it were under better circumstances, but he was looking forward to seeing Mary again.
The door swung open to reveal a butler standing on the other side. He asked Edmund who he was looking for which made him pause for just a second. Was it rude to go to a home and ask to speak with someone who was not the Lord or Lady of the home? It probably was, so just to be safe, he decided to ask for Charlotte instead. She was the one who had sent him the letter after all.
“I would like to meet with Lady Jones if I may. Please inform her that Duke Smith is here to see her about the letter she sent.”
“Of course.”
Edmund stood in the foyer, just inside the house, as he waited for Charlotte to arrive. He did not know what to expect of Mary’s sister, but he felt certain he was about to find her angry. She said in the letter that she reserved no judgement for what he was said to have done, but Edmund knew that could not be true. Of course Charlotte would have a coloured opinion of him.
Oh, my goodness.
Admittedly, Charlotte came as a little bit of a surprise to Edmund for three reasons. One, she looked very much like her sister. Their colourings were a little bit different, and it was clear that they both took after different parents, but there was a glint in their eyes that they shared. The second thing was the rounded belly. He was not sure why, but he did not think that Lady Jones would be pregnant, although there was no reason at all for him to think that. The third, and most terrifying of all, was the bruise that stained her cheek. It was not an obvious one, maybe if he had not caught it under a specific shade of the light he would not have seen it, but he did, and now he felt worried.
Maybe that is the reason she did not ask her husband for help. Maybe he is a brute!
“I … I have come to visit,” he rasped, trying to pull himself together. “Because of the letter that you sent me.”
Charlotte eyed him curiously; she looked as if she was trying to work out what his motivation was for turning up out of the blue. She probably expected him to send a letter first.
“Thank you, Your Grace. Would you like to come and sit with me for a while? I can give you some more information. I could only really give you the basics in the letter. I hope you understand why.”
“Of course, yes.” Edmund was so keen to see Mary that he could hardly wait, but Charlotte was right. He did need all of the information first. “That would be lovely.”
As he followed Lady Jones through her home, he could not help admiring the place. She had certainly taken a step up in the world from the home that she had come from, not that the Roberts home was a bad place, yet she was clearly not happy. And Edmund knew why.
Once they took their seats, and Charlotte delved into the full extent of the story, she felt a weight lifting off of her chest. She had been carrying around a huge burden and struggling under the pressure of that because Mary was suffering so badly. Now she had someone else she could share these problems with. Maybe His Grace had done some bad things, but if he was here to help, that was what they needed right now. Maybe Mary would even find it in herself to forgive him, especially if it turned out that Lady Victoria Hartmon was to blame, which Charlotte definitely thought was the case.
“Now that you know,” Charlotte finished while pushing herself into a standing position, “would you like to see Mary? She does not know that you are coming, but I am sure she will want to see you.”
Edmund gulped down the nerves and nodded. He wanted it more than anything in the world. He just hoped that she did too.
Chapter 23
“Mary?”
Mary slid from the bed and made herself sit when she heard Charlotte’s voice. Everything had been feeling too difficult for days now; she could barely even force herself awake and get dressed. Being asleep was preferable because while she was asleep she could imagine that she was not trapped inside a nightmare. It was only when she was awake that she truly had to face reality. No money, no home, watching her sister suffer through a terrible marriage … all of it was getting to her, bringing her down. Mary was starting to feel like soon there would be nothing left of her at all.
“Mary, how are you feeling today?”
Mary shrugged. She could not even drag her eyes off the ground to meet her sister’s gaze. As soon as she saw that sympathy, she would fall apart all over again.
“I have something to tell you,” Charlotte continued, knowing that she had to persevere, even though it felt incredibly challenging to do so. “Something important and … well, I am not too sure if you are going to like it or not.”
That was enough to get Mary’s attention. There was only one thing that she understood at the moment, and that was bad news. It kept coming at her like a tsunami, a never-ending wave that she did not know how to prevent. �
�What now?”
“It is nothing terrible.” As Charlotte saw that familiar look on Mary’s face, she realised her incorrect choice of words. She had to stop beating around the bush, to just dive right into it. “There is someone downstairs who wishes to speak with you.”
“Is it Walter?” Still, even now Mary could not let go of hope. It was only a gossamer-thin thread, but it was all that she had. “Has he come at last?”
“No, no it is not.” Charlotte felt ice-cold guilt run through her as Mary’s face fell. “It is actually …” She gulped loudly. “It is His Grace, Duke Smith.”
“What?” Mary’s head fell back onto the pillow. She suddenly felt absolutely certain that she was still right in the middle of a nightmare. “What do you mean? What is he doing here?”
“Well … he wishes to speak with you.” Charlotte’s heart raced; maybe this was not the best plan after all. “I know you probably do not wish to speak with him, but I believe he might be able to help us.”
Mary propped herself onto her elbows to glare at Charlotte. “Why would he be able to help us? And how does he even know where I am?”
“I … I told him.” Charlotte could feel her cheeks heating up as she spoke. “I sent him a letter informing him of what Mr Thompson had done.”
Mary felt sick to her stomach at her sister’s betrayal. She could not believe that Charlotte would go behind her back like that. Had they not grown close recently? Had they not gotten to a stage where they did not keep secrets anymore?
“He did not need to know that.” Mary stood and paced across the room to the window. She wanted to look out the window because nature was a better sight than her sister’s guilty face right now. “That was nothing to do with him.”
“But he was part of the inheritance; I thought he deserved …”
“He deserved nothing,” Mary interrupted angrily. “He was supposed to be a part of the inheritance only in the way that he had to marry me. The home would not go to him.” Even Mary knew that he would have control over it because he was the man, but that point did not help her argument right now. “He did not need to know about Walter. You forget what he did to Lady Hartmon.”
