Holly and Hopeful Hearts

by Caroline Warfield

  He frowned, his confusion plain.

  Her laugh stopped immediately. “You’re serious?”

  “It is a considerable collection…”

  “I beg your pardon, I thought you were taking the piss. I promise not to buy any jewels.” Charlotte ran a hand over her eyes. “How do you know Monsieur Archambault?” she asked casually, trying not to pry.

  “He’s a distant cousin,” Apollo supplied. “Not close enough to inherit, unfortunately. If the Archambaults were next in line, I would not be so desperate for an heir.”

  Her cheeks warmed in shame. She was a burden to him, and it would not do for her to forget that.

  He coughed. “Not to say I am not honored by your very presence. I hope you know that I am, Charlotte.” His eyes softened and warmed her to her toes. “Allow me to summon a carriage to take you to the shops.” He began down the hall toward the kitchen.

  “Thank you. Apollo?”

  He turned, face flushed and eyes bright with exertion or something like it. Out of a formal suit, he looked younger still and oddly lovely. Though his face was comprised of the most fascinating angles, there was a softness to his complexion that was almost feminine. Charlotte had never fancied hirsute or brawny gentlemen, and Somerton was neither. She was drawn to his peculiar beauty; he was thin as a whip and pretty as a girl.

  Wishful thinking, Charlotte.

  She commanded herself back to the present to ask her question. “I had hoped to go back to my Bankside apartment to retrieve some things. Would you mind…?”

  He shook his head as though dispensing with an inconvenient thought. “Of course. Townsend will take you anywhere you’d like. Will you require a chaperone? I’m sure Mrs. Phillips would oblige.”

  A chaperone? She was nearly thirty and had been prowling the streets of London alone for fifteen years. “That won’t be necessary, thank you.”

  Apollo nodded politely and headed toward the kitchens. Charlotte ambled behind at a distance, taking in the family portraits that lined the walls. As she reached the foot of the stair, a footman opened the door to a foppish gentleman. “Is he in?” he asked.

  The footman cleared his throat. “Good morning, Mr. Rothschild. Lord Somerton is otherwise engaged for the time being. If you would be willing to wait for a moment—”

  “Hello,” the gentleman purred as he noticed Charlotte in the hallway. “Who do we have here?”

  “Sir, if you will wait—”

  The man pushed his way past the footman and slithered into the hall. As he fixed his gaze on her and licked his lips, Charlotte felt the unusual impulse to cover herself. Her stomach revolted for the second time that morning. If he wasn’t careful, she’d vomit on his shoes.

  He wasn’t unhandsome, she supposed, but he had a lascivious manner and she disliked him immediately. He was young yet, but looked older than Somerton. He had the air of a boy who’d snuck out of his lessons to sneak gin and ogle girls. “Does your mother know you’re here, miss…?” he asked, undressing her with his eyes.

  “Does yours?” she countered.

  He guffawed, but his eyes were cold. “Oh, to be Somerton! What I wouldn’t give to have ladies at my beck and call at all hours. Watch yourself, miss, or you’ll find your reputation quite ruined.”

  Charlotte rolled her eyes. Had he drunk enough that morning to not see beyond the girl’s dress she wore? “It’s a bit late for that, mate,” she muttered, slipping back into her natural accent. She could mimic Somerton’s when speaking to his peers, but she suspected irritation would always draw the docks out of her.

  He heard it, recognition creeping across his face. “Have we met before?”

  “Miles,” Somerton greeted from the hall, the word more reproach than name.

  The man’s face fell. He straightened his spine and puffed up his chest like a pigeon. “Pol.”

  The tension between them was palpable. If Apollo had had his foil on him, Charlotte suspected he might run the man through. She dearly wanted to get out of the way.

  Apollo stepped in front of her, putting himself between her and his guest. He was clearly on edge, but when he spoke, his voice was nothing but pleasant. “Charlotte, allow me to introduce my cousin, Mr. Miles Rothschild. Miles, this is Miss Charlotte Halfpenny.”

  A pillock of the first order. Charlotte remembered Apollo’s description of his cousin and understood some of his desperation to pass his estate on to anyone else.

  “Halfpenny!” Miles grinned. “I knew I’d seen her somewhere before. She’s Marksby’s piece. Trading up, are you sweetheart?”

  Apollo clenched his jaw. “Miles, Miss Halfpenny is my intended and I’ll thank you to address her respectfully.”

  He blinked. “Intended what?”

  “Wife,” he clarified. “We’re to be married over the holiday.”

  Miles narrowed his eyes at Apollo, as though looking for a lie.

  Apollo met his gaze with a look cold enough to chill the room.

  “My congratulations,” Miles said at last, a testy smile tracking his face. “Where?”

  “Hollystone Hall, like as not. We’ve been invited to spend Christmas with the Duke and Duchess of Haverford.”

  “What a happy coincidence.” Miles laughed. “So have I.”

  Chapter 5

  As Charlotte stepped out of Somerton’s coach into the street, she was acutely aware people were staring at her. In the morning dress and a scarlet kerseymere pelisse, she was the brightest thing in sight. The December wind whipped the dress around her ankles and the brilliant white made her think of Iphigenia’s gown from Agamemnon. The poor girl had thought she was marrying an impossibly handsome prince, but instead she was sacrificed by her father for favorable winds.

  Charlotte grasped the fur-lined lapels of the pelisse and attempted to pull it closer over her chest, hoping very much that she was not the Iphigenia of this piece. It was not a part she knew, but in playing the girl’s mother, Clytemnestra, she’d had the distinct pleasure of murdering Agamemnon in the bath.

  She found herself mouthing the familiar words again as she looked up at the flat, drab face of her home of three years, not quite ready to go inside.

  “Now your sentence is my exile from the city, and to have the townsmen's hatred and the people's spoken curse, although earlier you made no opposition to Agamemnon here. He took no special account, just as if it were the death of an animal from his teeming woolly flocks of sheep, when he sacrificed his own daughter, the dearest pain of my womb, as a spell against Thracian winds.”

  The driver hopped down from his seat and approached hesitantly. “Would you like a hand, milady?”

  It took Charlotte several seconds to realize he was addressing her. “No, thank you—Townsend, was it?”

  He doffed his cap in agreement.

  She smiled graciously, knocked firmly off her axis at the courtesy. “I won’t be a moment.”

  “As you wish. Give us a shout if you need aught.”

  Unable to delay longer, Charlotte went inside.

  Though she had only been away for a night, she felt more like a stranger trespassing into the house than someone returning home. Marksby had told her to leave. She was no longer welcome in the room he’d rented for her, the room where they had spent nights, days, weeks together at his pleasure during the months he’d been back from the war.

  She turned her key in the lock and let herself in, surprised to see her landlady had not yet thrown her things into the street. The woman had never taken to her, but she had taken Marksby’s money just the same.

  In all her years on stage, Charlotte had never made much, so most of the few things in the room had been gifts from Marksby or other lovers. Most of the clothing she’d worn had been costumes, property of the theaters she’d all but lived in for the better part of a decade. Flowers wilted in a chipped vase beside the lumpy bed. The table’s only drawer was filled with odd bits and bobs, a dried-out pot of rouge, half a dozen cundums, a broken bracelet of paste pearls, a
nd a stack of letters tied with a frayed red ribbon.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, pulled the ribbon off, and flipped through them. There was a poem from Lord Byron, a letter from Coleridge, a begrudging compliment from Sarah Siddons she’d been so bewildered to receive she’d had to write it down, and every note she had ever received from Rosemary.

  Charlotte let out a long sigh and opened the last one, the ink smudged from nights’ worth of tears. Years later, it still hurt to read it.

  We cannot continue in this fashion. You know I have loved you as you, I believe, have loved me, but what we have cannot endure. I must seize this chance I have with Thomas, and I will endeavor to make him a suitable wife. I trust you will see this is for the best when you have chosen a man of your own from your many ardent suitors. I hope you can forgive me, and remember me fondly for the happy hours we have passed in each other’s company.

  Charlotte carefully folded the letter, the pain of her lover’s desertion having long since faded into the dull ache of nostalgia. Last she’d heard, Rosemary was living in Brighton with the man she’d married, happy, by all accounts, with a couple of small children. The world was not friendly to women who preferred the company of their own sex, and most, like Rosemary, ultimately married men. Though Charlotte had entertained a great number of gentlemen over the years and had, indeed, enjoyed their company, she had only ever fallen in love with women.

  She always thought she’d be brave enough to live with one if they were brave enough to live with her. Now she was marrying a man, just like all the others.

  Granted, Somerton was titled, wealthy, and had so far been very kind. He was also the most attractive man she had the pleasure of meeting; she could hardly hold his sex against him. She needed him, and after meeting his horrid cousin that morning, she understood he needed her.

  Charlotte gathered the few things she had of any sentimental value and slipped them into an old purse. The rest she piled into a sheet and slung it over her shoulder, then hurried down the stairs without a backward glance. She was done with that place, and ready to put it behind her.

  Her landlady waited at the bottom with a scowl on her face and her hands on her hips. She looked Charlotte up and down, her sparse eyebrows raising as she took in the beautiful borrowed dress. “Where you off, then?”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Laird,” she greeted with a weary sigh that was half groan. Charlotte had hoped she wouldn’t encounter the woman at all. She was such a busybody, no doubt half the city would know by nightfall that Charlotte had left Bankside. There wasn’t a gossip for miles Mrs. Laird didn’t know.

  In fact, there wasn’t a better person to spread the fiction she had Somerton had come up with together.

  She grinned. “I am vacating my apartment immediately. I’m to be married.”

  The woman jerked backward in obvious surprise. “Married!”

  “Yes, indeed. I’ve retired from the stage and I’m to marry a gentleman, but it has not been announced yet, so you must keep this quiet, you understand.”

  “Marksby?” she asked, not bothering to lower her voice.

  Charlotte waved a hand as if swatting away a ridiculous notion. “Over. I’ve left him for a better man. An old flame of mine, in fact.”

  Mrs. Laird’s eyes widened so far at the whiff of good gossip, they looked ready to pop from her head. “Who?”

  “I could not possibly say, but I’ll wager you’ll hear soon enough.” Charlotte tried and failed to keep the cheer from her voice. The woman had never been anything but disparaging toward her, and she was enjoying this. Charlotte leaned in and whispered, “If you should receive any correspondence for me, please forward it to Somerton House.”

  The woman’s gasp was loud as a gale. “Somerton? Not the earl?”

  “The very one,” Charlotte sighed. “Can’t live without me, the poor duck. We’re to be married immediately. Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. Laird. Merry Christmas.”

  Charlotte felt the woman watching her as she left the building for the last time. The driver held open the door for her, and she climbed inside, slinging the purse and the sheet full of old clothes onto the bench beside her. “Thank you, Mr. Townsend. Might we stop by the home for unwed mothers? I’ve some old things I’d like to give them.”

  “Certainly, milady.”

  He closed the door after her and she stole a glance out the window. Mrs. Laird and the other tenants watched her from the open door. Every one of them and many on the street had seen her climb into Somerton’s coach in finery, had heard Mr. Townsend address her as ‘milady’. It was satisfying to shock her awful landlady, and more than that, it served a purpose. Within hours, everyone would be so occupied with her sudden marriage to Somerton that they were bound to forget she had ever been associated with Marksby at all.

  Charlotte waved at Mrs. Laird through the window, happier than she’d been in ages.

  Chapter 6

  The staircase creaked as Charlotte tiptoed down in satin slippers, her bare hand dragging along the dark wood of the bannister. She tugged on her new frock as she reached the bottom, adjusting the long skirt. A rather exotic concoction the rich shade of wisteria bound with an indigo sash beneath her breasts, it was more to her taste and temperament than the snowy morning gown. She hoped Apollo liked it.

  She had no idea if the frock was at all the thing a countess ought to wear, but the color did make her feel rather less like she was about to be sacrificed. It swirled around her ankles as she followed the trail of lit sconces through the shadows to the dining room. Though she drew comfort from the warm smell of good bread, the house itself set her nerves on edge. She had grown up immersed in noise and light and later, as an actress, she’d had to fight tooth and nail for a moment of peace backstage or in the many boarding houses she’d stayed in.

  Nothing in her life could have prepared her for the vast darkness of Somerton House. It was not unlike a crypt, its somber silence ideal for a place of rest. What it needed was some noise. Perhaps there was a piano or a harp somewhere among the odd furnishings. She was far from accomplished, but anything would be better than nothing at all.

  Charlotte gasped as she reached the dining room. The clutter had been cleared away and every surface gleamed in the warm light from the silver candelabras on the long table. Apollo sat at the head, the blazing fire of the hearth framing him like Hades on his throne. His short black hair shone like fresh tar, his handsome face lost in thought. The apprehension she had been feeling transmuted into interest as she wondered how many women—people, even—had seen the earl in such an intimate setting. Did he have a lover of his own?

  He looked up as she appeared in the doorway, his gaze meeting hers with something like relief. “Charlotte,” he whispered as he stood.

  She stopped her curtsey halfway through, feeling faintly ridiculous. “Lord Somerton… Apollo.”

  He moved to offer her a chair at the far side of the table, but she stopped him. “May I sit beside you? It’s such a long table, I worry I may not be able to hear you at the end of it.”

  Caught off guard, his smile was like a secret between friends. “Of course.” At her behest, he returned to her side and offered her the chair beside his own.

  She took it with no small degree of satisfaction. In three years, Marksby had not once offered her such a courtesy. There were women they supped and women they tupped; Charlotte had always been the latter.

  As Somerton took his own seat, she gave him her best smile.

  He blinked, looking faintly dumbstruck.

  Charlotte’s heart rose with pride. She still had it.

  “Did you have a pleasant day?” he asked her.

  “I did, thank you. You’ll be pleased to hear I limited myself to half a dozen modestly-priced frocks and a ball gown. I’ve had to watch my pennies so long, spending them does not come as naturally to me as I thought it would…” She stopped talking as she realized she was prattling. Didn’t the wealthy hate talking about their wealth?
/>   “You can have anything you like,” he pledged. “Is that a new gown?”

  She nodded. “Perhaps it is a little bright…?”

  “It’s beautiful,” he said, his gaze not straying from her eyes. “The color suits you.”

  She blushed at the compliment.

  Two servants brought their supper from the kitchens and served it all at once on three silver plates, as they were eating alone. Roast guinea fowl was served with fresh bread, rosemary potatoes, fresh peas, and carrots smelling faintly of honey. Modest for an earl, perhaps, but it was a long way from the bubble and squeak she’d had for her lunch.

  “How was your day?” she asked, slicing into a potato.

  “Busy,” he replied. “After Miles and Alexandre left, I took some things down to the school for Christmas. Everything is packed for our journey now, apart from the things you purchased today.”

  The carrots were even better than they smelled. “School?”

  He nodded. “Yes, the petty school on Love Lane in Southwark. My family have been patrons for generations. That and the orphanage.”

  Visions of the orphan’s homes she’d seen sprung to her mind and she nearly choked. “Like a workhouse?”

  “Lord, no,” he scoffed. “It is an extension of the school. There are many children in Southwark in need of homes, and it is my privilege keep it up and running. It is my fondest wish to put an end to workhouses in Britain.”

  Charlotte’s heart melted a little at this statement. “I imagine that’s not a popular position in the House of Lords.”

  He made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort. It was the least gentlemanly thing she’d seen him do. She smiled.

  “Alas, it is not. I am not one to follow conventions, to say the least.”

  The statement was loaded, and Charlotte assumed he was referring to her as much as his advocacy for London’s orphans. “Fortunately.”

  His eyes met hers over the rim of his wine glass. “Fortunately.”

  They ate in silence for several minutes. As much as she enjoyed the heavenly food, the quiet seemed to close in on her and she wracked her brain trying to think of something charming to say.