Madam Charlie

by Sahara Kelly

  Jordan quietly entered the room and took a seat behind his desk.

  Charlie appreciated the gesture. Keeping space between them would make this difficult conversation easier.

  “You are well?” His voice was steady and showed none of the emotion he’d released when he’d held her tight earlier.

  “Thank you, yes. A few bumps and bruises, that sort of thing. I’m really very lucky.”

  “Thanks to Elizabeth. Truly an intrepid young woman.” Jordan’s mouth twitched into a grin.

  Charlie couldn’t help but smile back. “Indeed she is. I wanted to pop in and see her, but Sir Spencer is prowling the corridor, absolutely forbidding anyone to disturb her rest.”

  “He’s quite the possessive martinet where she’s concerned. I doubt that she’ll get the chance to do any more naked target shooting if he has any say in the matter.”

  Charlie paled at his words as they brought the memories back.

  “Charlie, we must talk.”

  “I know. Let me start, please, by saying I’m sorry that you had to find out who I was in that terrible way.” She stared down at her lap and found she’d laced her fingers together tightly. She forced them apart and struggled for her control.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you? How could I, Jordan? I was supposed to be dead. The world believed that Philip Calverton and his bride died that night. The bride being me. I didn’t want anything more to do with the name of Calverton.”

  “Even me?”

  “Especially you. You were a very real threat to my secrets. Then when fate threw us together…”

  “And we found passion together.”

  “Yes,” she swallowed and failed to meet his eyes, “when that happened, I was truly in a muddle.”

  She stood and paced the room nervously. “It was one thing for you to have an affair with…with a Madam from a brothel. It was another for you to have an affair with your step—something or other. The Dowager Countess of Calverton sleeping with the current Earl? Can you just imagine what the Ton would do with that little tidbit of information? It would ruin you, Jordan.”

  She stared from the window, blindly, not seeing the sunshine as it swept the green lawns.

  “I would have told you. At some point, I would have told you. It wasn’t because I didn’t trust you that I didn’t say anything. Never think that. It was because…”

  “Because?”

  “Because I was…I was happy. For once in my life I’d found someone who made me happy in so many ways I can’t even begin to count them. And I was greedy. I wanted more days of pleasure, of joy. Something to keep me warm and remember when I’m old and gray. So I put off telling you, Jordan. Even when you brought us here, I couldn’t tell you. There were no servants from before, everything was new. I had no idea that Dobbs was still working in the stables, biding his time. And you never knew his name, did you?”

  Sighing, Jordan shook his head. “No. If I had, perhaps something would have clicked before this morning, but it didn’t.”

  “I am glad of one thing, however.” She turned and faced Jordan, resting against the low windowsill. “At least I know I didn’t kill Philip Calverton.”

  Jordan frowned. “Of course you didn’t. The fire did. There is no question of that…”

  Charlie closed her eyes against the love that shone from his gaze. She couldn’t permit herself the luxury of enjoying it. The pain of leaving it would be too great.

  “I went to his room that night, Jordan. I knew he wanted to try again and I was unwilling. So I dawdled. I even sent Maria a message, supposedly from Philip. I hoped that if she were there, they wouldn’t want me. But they did. And when I got there, she was…she was—well, let’s just say she was pleasuring him. And I got sick to my stomach, and knocked a candle over on my way to find a chamber pot.”

  She opened her eyes again, not realizing that the pain of years was reflected in their gray depths for Jordan to see.

  “I thought it was my candle that had started the fire, Jordan. All these years, I lived with the knowledge that I had probably killed my husband and his mistress.”

  * * * * *

  Jordan’s mind was in turmoil. The woman he loved beyond life itself was not who he thought she was, but was in fact the widow of a very distant relative. Although her existence did not negate his inheritance, it certainly complicated it. His heart went out to Charlie as she revealed her innermost fears. What must it have been like to live with such guilt?

  It certainly explained her regal and unapproachable demeanor and her rigid self-control.

  “Matty was here at the time, I take it?” he asked, more for something to say than a need to know.

  “Yes. She managed to get me out when we realized how much of Calverton was on fire. It was a poorly kept house, Jordan. There was much disrepair and it went up like a tinderbox. A piece of burning wood fell on Matty as we left, and that’s what gave her the scars. In spite of that, she’d taken…”

  “Taken what, Charlie?”

  “She’d always said I was too good for Calverton,” Charlie attempted a small smile. “She said I should have been married to a nice man and have had several children. So as we were running from the fire, she grabbed a couple of the pieces of jewelry I’d brought with me. And thanks to her foresightedness, we had enough to buy the Crescent.”

  “Buy the Crescent? You didn’t inherit it?”

  “No. It belonged to Matty’s cousin. I wanted Matty to have it, but she said no, she’d rather stay as she was. I didn’t want anyone to know where I was or who I was, so for some time I dressed as a boy. I was simply Charlie, errand boy from the Crescent. It was actually fun.”

  Jordan stared at her as if learning her features all over again. How could she make him understand?

  “I don’t know if I can explain how wonderful it was to be free, Jordan. Free from a marriage that was more torture than anything else, but also free from any of the restrictions that our society places on a woman. As Charlie, I could go anywhere, do anything, say anything, and learn whatever I wanted. It was that kind of freedom that was so attractive.”

  She sighed and resumed pacing. “I was able to go about the city unnoticed. I could go to the Exchange and indulge my interest in business. Gentlemen are always happy to show off their expertise to an up and coming lad. If I’d gone as a woman, I’d have been given tea and shown the door.”

  Jordan nodded in silent agreement.

  “I got to know the girls too. Oh they guessed my secret, but they realized I had no other choice. They didn’t know who I was, of course, just that I was hiding out and being useful. I took the money we got for my jewelry and started investing it. Turns out I have a talent for investments, because by the time Anne fell ill and we knew the Crescent came up for sale, I had more than enough to buy her out. I think she was happy to let it go, knowing it would come to me.”

  “And you began to improve the lot of the girls working for you.”

  Charlie jumped a little at his words. “You’ve been doing your research.”

  “Indeed.”

  She shrugged. “Someone had to make a start. I just knew that none of my girls would ever suffer what I suffered if I could possibly avoid it. It wasn’t much but it helped me sleep better.”

  “And now?”

  There it was. The big question. Hanging in the air between them like a cloud of smog on a winter’s day in London.

  “Now? Now I don’t know what to do.”

  Jordan stood and approached her.

  Charlie backed away not wanting him near her. Not yet wanting to know the pain that leaving him was going to bring her.

  “May I make a suggestion?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. Jordan, this…this whatever it is we’ve had between us. It has to end. Here and now.”

  Silence fell as Jordan watched her, toying with a quill pen from the set on his desk.

  She couldn’t meet his
eyes.

  “Why?” His question ricocheted off the bookcases. “Because you don’t care for me?”

  She snorted. “Don’t be stupid. That has nothing to do with it.”

  She turned away from him and missed the smile that lit up his features.

  Charlie continued, voice level, hands twisting together. “It has everything to do with who we are. And we have to face up to who we are. No more hiding. Not for us, anyway.”

  She turned back and pulled her dignity into place, becoming the impenetrable and elegant woman of the Crescent.

  “I was the Countess of Calverton, married to and widow of Philip, the Sixth Earl, and your…whatever he was. Third cousin twice removed. Or something.” She waved away the annoying details.

  “I am also Madam Charlie, owner and proprietor of the Crescent, a house of pleasure. You are Colonel Jordan Lyndhurst, war hero and now the Seventh Earl of Calverton. Any future for the two of us is impossible.”

  “Impossible?”

  “Yes. Completely. It would finish you socially to be known as the man who slept with his predecessor’s widow. It might also ruin you socially were your association with Madam Charlie to emerge. Although not quite so badly. For some reason the Ton takes such matters more lightly.”

  She paused for breath.

  “While my business would probably profit were word of our association to become public, it would only be because men would be lining up to take your place once our liaison concluded. I will not have that.”

  Jordan’s jaw had tightened at her speech and the quill between his fingers snapped in two.

  “I see you would dislike it also,” she added wryly. “Therefore, I must leave, Jordan. I have made arrangements to return to the Crescent shortly, as soon as my belongings are packed. The sooner I go, the sooner you can clean up this business with Dobbs. The authorities will want some explanation of his death, but I’m sure you and Sir Spencer will be able to keep Elizabeth out of it and satisfy all concerned.”

  She crossed to the door, trying to keep her head high and her tears at bay. She couldn’t, however, look at Jordan.

  “I must thank you for your complete and amazing devotion to my protection. You said you’d keep me safe and you did. For that, I owe you more than I can ever repay. The best thing I can do for you now is to leave, and ask that you forget me. Your future and mine lie along different paths.”

  She risked a look at him as a tap sounded on the door.

  Arthur quietly poked his head in. “Beg pardon, Sir. Lady Charlotte’s carriage is ready for her.”

  Jordan nodded and Arthur withdrew.

  “Charlie.” His voice stopped her in her tracks. “I love you.”

  A sob escaped from her throat. “Don’t, Jordan. For the love of God don’t make this harder.” She closed her eyes as the tears flooded them.

  “Why not? You’re leaving me. I don’t want you to go for some stupid reasons of appearance or reputation.”

  “They’re not stupid and you know it. I have no other choice. Do you think I want to leave you?”

  “I don’t know, Charlie. What do you want?”

  There it was, that aggravating question she’d asked Elizabeth some lifetimes ago.

  She gathered every ounce of her courage in her hands and walked across the room to Jordan, head held high, tears kept at bay by sheer willpower.

  “What I want is for you to be happy, Jordan. What I want is for you to know that you’ve made me a new person. Someone who is free from many of her burdens, someone who’s left her shadows behind. Someone who now has memories enough to last a lifetime. And they’re good ones, Jordan, thanks to you.”

  She reached her hand out and brushed his cheek, watching his sherry brown eyes burn as they devoured her face.

  “I want you to know that I’ve never loved anyone before you, Jordan, and I’ll never love anyone again. That’s why I have to leave.”

  She leaned forward and brushed her lips softly against his.

  Turning, she left the room and within moments was settled in her carriage.

  “Goodbye, Lady Charlotte, have a safe journey,” said Arthur as he swung the carriage door closed.

  “Thank you Arthur. It’s been a pleasure knowing you.”

  Arthur grinned at her.

  She supposed he was happy to see the back of her. The horses pulled the carriage away, and Charlie glanced out of the window. This time she wasn’t leaving a pile of burning rubble.

  She was leaving her soul.

  * * * * *

  Jordan sat in his empty study and listened as the horses rolled away down the gravel driveway of Calverton Chase and took Charlie away from him, back to London.

  His lips tightened at the emptiness he felt, not only in the room but in his heart.

  He wanted her. Beside him now, right at this moment, and for the rest of their lives. Somehow he had to make it happen.

  She’d left him for all the right reasons and many of the wrong ones.

  Society, he knew, would lacerate both of them were their familial relationship to become public knowledge. While there were absolutely no blood ties between them, the merest whisper of anything resembling incest would finish them both.

  He grimaced as he recalled the unpleasantly titillating rumors that were already circulating about Byron and his sister, following the birth of her daughter last year.

  He had no illusions that his fame was as widespread as the poet’s, nor that his own reputation was as sullied with scandal, but the fact remained that he was engaged in a sexual liaison with the widow of the Earl from whom he’d inherited his title.

  The Ton wouldn’t care about relationships. The Ton would simply invent their own to suit their jaded and gossipy needs.

  No, drastic measures were called for in this situation, and Jordan knew it was time for him to make some major decisions about the course of his life.

  A life that included Charlie. He’d never believed that a woman could become so important to him that his entire existence would need to be reorganized for her. And yet there was not a question in his mind that he was about to do exactly that.

  A life without Charlie was unimaginable. Even now he was feeling the pain of her departure. She’d been gone ten minutes and he was lonely. In a new and unpleasant kind of way. As if someone had taken his arm or his leg away, by mistake.

  The door opened, interrupting his confusing ruminations, and Arthur popped his head in.

  “You’ll be wanting me to pack then, will you?”

  Jordan sighed. The man was uncanny at times.

  “Arthur, you’ll be the death of me yet. Would you find Spence and ask him to spare me five minutes? Tie him up and use a sword if you have to in order to pry him away from Elizabeth, but I need to ask his advice. And come back with him yourself. I need to run a few ideas through your brilliant mind as well.”

  Arthur snorted. “About time, if you ask me.”

  Jordan raised one eyebrow at his unfazed valet. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. I’ve been watching you tomcatting around for nigh on ten years, hoping that you’d find that one woman what would satisfy more than just that…” Arthur waved his hand scornfully at Jordan’s cock. “It looks like now’s the time.”

  Jordan grinned at him. “You think so, do you?”

  “I do indeed, Colonel. And in my humble opinion, she’s a good choice.”

  “Arthur, you are truly a man of great perspicacity.”

  “I’ve always thought so,” Arthur agreed, modestly.

  “And there’s not a humble bone in your body.”

  “Well, of course not. I’m your valet, aren’t I? We served together, didn’t we? We’ve fucked through some of the best whorehouses in Europe together, haven’t we?”

  Jordan shook his head and laughed. “Those days are long gone, my friend. A new adventure awaits us both. Are we up to it, do you think?”

  Arthur drew himself up to his full height. He was about level with Jordan’s
chin. “Nothing is beyond the ‘Fighting 95th’.”

  The motto of their old battalion fired Jordan’s soul. “Then let’s get cracking. Get Spence for me and pull out the trunks. We’re taking a trip.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The noise in London was overwhelming.

  Why hadn’t she ever noticed how loud everything was? Charlie stood at the window of her room in the Crescent and watched the people in the street as they celebrated the downfall of England’s archenemy, and sang the praises of England’s newest hero.

  In fact, the capital was drowning in good cheer. The name of Wellington was responsible for many a hangover, because just the sound of the Duke’s name was sufficient to cause a toast to be drunk. Many times.

  The grand spectacles of the “Amazing Victory at Waterloo” were springing up all over the place. Drury Lane was going patriotic, Vauxhall rushing national pride displays of fireworks into production for every single night since the news broke, and no one, it seemed, could get enough of the mighty Union Jack.

  England’s flag could be seen on everything from the Tower of London flagpole, to Lady Jersey’s hat, to the common streetwalker’s bodice.

  Yes, it was a wonderful time to be British.

  Unless you had a broken heart.

  Charlie had returned to a Crescent bedecked with flags and a bunch of residents who were excited about the Victory, thrilled to see her back, and busy as always with their own lives.

  Within hours, it was as if she’d never left.

  Never traveled to Calverton Chase or been assaulted one final time by Johnny Dobbs.

  Never met Elizabeth or Spencer Marchwood.

  Never lain beneath Jordan Lyndhurst and given him her body, her heart and her soul.

  It seemed that only Matty could sense the desolation that lurked beneath her calm exterior. “We had a message that you were coming home, dearie. The Colonel made sure we’d know when to expect you. His rider got here about an hour ago,” she’d said as she welcomed Charlie with a big hug and a tea tray.

  “And don’t you worry your head about Ponsonby and his man. They were found two days ago—dead. The authorities say it was an argument between them. We got the message probably about the same time as Calverton did, but with all that was going on, I don’t expect you heard,” she added, shepherding Charlie upstairs and fussing over her.