by Sara Reinke
* * * *
Charlotte could hear James Houghton’s voice booming along the corridor, even before she joined her family and guests at the breakfast table.
“…an outrage, nothing more!” he declared, and Charlotte hunched her shoulders at the sound, groaning inwardly. “I assure you, Lord Epping, such offense will not go unanswered within my father’s lands. I have sent word to him. These scoundrels will be brought to bear. By my breath, my lord, I will see to that.”
“It is not your fault, Lord Roding,” Charlotte heard her aunt, Lady Chelmsford, say. “You did all that was within your power to keep us safe. You even hired that brave Mr. Cheadle—a thief-taker no less—to escort us in proper fashion.”
“Aunt Maude, a thief-taker is generally a thief himself,” Charlotte said, forcing a smile of unconcerned good cheer and steeling herself mentally for the onslaught she was about to face as she walked into the room. “One with even less scruples than most, I might add, as they mete out a living in between thefts by turning in their fellows for rewards.”
Her mother, Lady Epping rose to her feet to see her, and Charlotte struggled not to grimace as James stood quickly, beating Lady Epping in her advance and hurrying around the side of the table toward her.
“Charlotte, darling!” he exclaimed. She despised it when he called her darling; even now, when he was affecting overwhelming concern for her, he uttered it in a condescending tone that made her bristle. He spoke to her as though she was a small child, and no matter how often, how sweetly or even firmly she had asked him not to, he remained oblivious and insistent.
James took her hands, nearly drawing her into a stumble as he pulled her near, his brows lifted. “Darling,” he said again. “Here you are at last. My heart has been seized with such worry for you!”
“Lord Roding, what a surprise,” Charlotte said, trying to dislodge his hands. “How kind of you to come, though I scarcely see need to worry.”
“Need?” James asked. “My man, Cheadle, comes to me in the night to tell me my lady has been ravaged and robbed, and you see no need?” He leaned toward her, kissing her brow. “My brave darling,” he murmured. “Feigning such nonchalance, lest the rest of us fret.”
“You know me well, James,” Charlotte muttered, abandoning the polite pretense of gentle tugging and jerking her hands away from him. Lady Epping had followed James, and Charlotte turned, allowing her mother’s arms to enfold her.
“Did you sleep well, darling?” Lady Epping asked, kissing Charlotte’s cheek, cradling her face between her hands. Before Charlotte could offer reply, her mother’s brows pinched slightly. “Look at these shadows… no, you did not. I am sure you tossed and turned all night, overwrought and filled with fright. I will call for Una.
Some powder should disguise—”
“I am all right, Mother. No cause for a fuss,” Charlotte assured her, smiling.
“Only you could be so dismissive in lieu of such an assault,” her sister Caroline said, waddling forward, her breasts and belly nearly distended into one indiscernible swell. Charlotte leaned precariously over the broad hump of her womb to accept her kiss.
“It was scarcely an assault, Caroline,” Charlotte said. “More of an inconvenience than anything, truly…”
“Do not play coy. James has told us of Mr. Cheadle’s account,” Caroline said. She blinked at her sister, wide-eyed and flushed with excitement, her mouth unfurled in a delighted smile. “Accosted by highwaymen—the notorious Black Trio, no less! I cannot fathom! How your heart must have fluttered!”
“It was not precisely an accosting…” Charlotte began.
“They were savages,” Lady Chelmsford declared from her seat at the table, flapping her hand at her face as though she felt overcome. “Dreadful men, those scoundrels, laying their hands upon our darling Charlotte and frightening the lot of us terribly!”
“They lay their hands upon you?” Caroline asked Charlotte, grinning broadly.
“Not precisely,” Charlotte said, growing aggravated. “And not they. It was only the one, and he wedged his fingers down my stay, that is all. He was trying to—”
“None of this would have come to pass if you had been properly married,” Lady Epping said as she and Caroline led Charlotte toward the table, where a plate of breakfast had been set for her.
All at once, Charlotte’s appetite—which before entering the room had been fairly well stirred—had waned, and the sight of the poached egg and sliced cheeses left her vaguely nauseous. She struggled not to frown. “It is not as though we traveled with a broadside tacked to the coach declaring my marital status, Mother,” she said.
“My lady,” Charlotte’s father, Lord Epping said, just as Lady Epping had drawn breath to reply. “Do you not think it might be distressing for Charlotte to recount such a harrowing experience so soon after the suffering?”
Lady Epping blinked at this as a servant drew her chair back for her, allowing her to lower herself in a swell of skirts against her seat.
“Perhaps,” Lord Epping suggested gently. “Charlotte might enjoy hearing of some more light- hearted matters this morning.”
“Well, I…” Lady Epping said, as the servant draped her linen napkin against her lap. “I suppose, yes, my lord.”
Charlotte glanced at her father, grateful for his intervention. He met her gaze briefly, long enough to drop a wink and make her smile.
“I know what will keep her mind from such unpleasantries,” Caroline said brightly, as she, too, resumed her seat. She leaned toward Charlotte, even as a servant struggled to find enough lap around her swollen belly upon which to deposit her napkin. “You can expect to find a familiar face at all of Margaret’s pre-wedding festivities,” she said. “Lord Woodside has emerged once more into our social circles after all of these months of seclusion.”
“Lord Woodside?” Charlotte asked. “You mean Lewis Fairfax’s father?”
Lewis Fairfax had been a childhood friend to their older brother, Reilly. Charlotte remembered countless summers when Lewis would come to stay at Darton Hall and play with Reilly, or Reilly would in turn be shipped east to Woodside Hall, the home of Lewis’s father, the baron. In adulthood, Reilly and Lewis had enlisted as officers in the Royal Navy together; most recently, they had been sent across the Atlantic to the English colonies.
“No,” Caroline said, and her brows lifted in sudden dismay. “Oh, lamb, has no one told you? Baron Woodside died six months ago. A terrible fever came upon him. Lewis received an honorable discharge from His Majesty’s service and came home to Essex. He is the new Lord Woodside. He has mourned awhile, of course, but emerged again these past months here and there.
They will be so pleased to see you again, Charlotte. Truly, it has been ages.”
“They?” Charlotte asked, puzzled.
Caroline smiled. “Yes, the Fairfaxes are back in full, the both of them,” she said. “Is it not delightful?” When Charlotte still looked perplexed, she said, “Do not tell me you have forgotten Kenley Fairfax? He and Lewis came to visit Reilly nearly every summer for a time, along with that little stable boy of Lord Woodside’s…what was his name? Anyway, the four of them as fast as thieves. Surely you recall.”
Lady Epping snorted softly as she sipped her tea. “We are precious few in the entire county, then, who can claim recollection of the boy,” she said. “He has kept from our circles rather neatly all of these years.”
“Mother,” Caroline said patiently. “He has been abroad, a Grand Tour in Germany and Italy all the while. He only returned when Lewis sent word to him of his uncle’s grave illness.”
“And it does not take a scholar to know why the former Lord Woodside dispatched him so,” Lady Epping said, her mouth turned disagreeably, as though she had tasted something unpleasant. “The boy was a ruffian and a scoundrel. I never approved of Reilly’s time spent with him. He never saw a moment’s discipline or instruction in proper manners. His uncle allowed him to behave as boorishly as he pleased. Though what
should one expect, sired by the likes of Lord Theydon?”
“My lady…” Lord Epping began, trying to quiet her.
“Baron Theydon was a drunkard and a brute, my lord,” she said, frowning. “He hung himself rather than face debtor’s prison. His poor wife suffered so with his character. It is no small wonder the strain of childbirth drove her to her grave, as taxed as she was married to that man. He gambled away his lands until he had nothing left, not a haypenny to his purse. Kenley Fairfax only has the Theydon title and acres to call his own because Lord Woodside bought and held them. Why is beyond my understanding. Fruit never falls far from the tree that bore it. You can mark me at that. Kenley Fairfax has always been no more than trouble, and will prove no less than—”
“My friend, Mother,” said a voice from the doorway. “One of the dearest I have ever known, and I would thank you kindly not to disparage him so within my ready earshot.”
Charlotte turned, her eyes flown wide, her mouth spreading in a broad, sudden grin. “Reilly!” she cried, nearly toppling her chair as she leaped to her feet. She rushed toward her brother, her arms flung wide, and he laughed as she fell against him, throttling him in a fierce embrace. “Reilly! You are home again!”
“I have been here awhile, lamb. It is you who is home again,” Reilly said, lifting her from her feet and squeezing her against him. He set her daintily on the ground once more, and she stared up at him, wide-eyed and delighted.
“I have missed you, you bloody yob!” she cried, slapping the sleeve of his justicoat. “How dare you return to England and not send me as much as a jotting to let me know!”
“Charlotte, do not hit your brother,” Lady Epping said. “And your mouth! Where have you learned such dreadful—?”
“My return was meant to be a surprise,” Reilly said to Charlotte, leaning down and kissing the corner of her mouth. “How many times in the last six months has Mother written to Aunt Maude, asking you to visit? You have proven obstinate in your excuses not to come back to Epping. I damn near had to marry Margaret Houghton myself to bring you home.”
Charlotte laughed and hugged him again. It had been nearly two years since she had seen Reilly; only an occasional letter in the meanwhile had proved he was even still alive. She clung to his neck as though she was afraid to turn loose of him. “You do not know how wonderful it is to see you,” she gasped against his ear.
He had always been her staunchest supporter, Charlotte’s advocate against her mother’s efforts to force her into proper thought and marriage. As he held her, Reilly’s eyes swept the table, settling briefly upon James Houghton, and he laughed softly. “I can just imagine,” he said.
