by Regina Scott
“Yes,” Charlotte admitted.
Fortune hopped back up on the table and eyed Charlotte’s plate.
Meredith picked her up and handed her to the waiting footman this time. “Then this position is turning out better than I’d hoped. Carry on, my dear.”
~~~
Charlotte was still trying to determine how to carry on the next day when Lilith called. This time Meredith and Fortune were both in the withdrawing room when Mr. Cowls showed in Charlotte’s friend. Always statuesque, Lilith had emphasized her height today with a blue velvet shako topped with a lustrous ostrich plume. The celestial blue matched the color of her satin spencer and dotted the white muslin of her gown. But her color was as high as her head as she threw a broadsheet onto the sofa between Charlotte and Meredith.
Fortune raised her head off Meredith’s thigh to eye it.
“You’ve assigned her to a monster,” Lilith announced.
Charlotte blinked in surprise. Meredith’s eyes narrowed at the Amazon glaring at her.
Fortune pounced on the broadsheet, sending it flying off the sofa. Charlotte bent to retrieve it.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Villers,” Meredith said coolly. “How might I assure you that all is well?”
“You can cancel Miss Worthington’s contract immediately,” Lilith declared. “I won’t have her abused.”
Paper in one hand, Charlotte straightened with a frown. “What are you talking about, Lilith?”
Lilith waved a hand. “It’s all right there. They were selling the wretched things on the street corners everywhere I went, shouting the news to the skies. Mother read every word twice before taking to her bed. All of London is agog.”
Charlotte looked down at the paper. Prince’s Pet Has Teeth, the headline read, followed by a subhead, Mother of Beast of Birmingham Tells of Violent Past.
Cold doused her.
“What does it say?” Meredith asked, voice surprisingly gentle.
Charlotte couldn’t make herself read further. She held out the cheap paper, and Meredith took it from her fingers. Her lavender eyes moved back and forth as she scanned down the page. Then she tossed the sheet aside, where Fortune promptly pounced on it again, rumpling it into a ball.
“Rubbish,” Meredith pronounced.
Charlotte sagged. “Oh, good. That is, I’m glad there was no truth to it.”
Lilith’s face was white. “And easy assumption. Villains hide all the time.”
Charlotte rounded on her. “Sir Matthew is no villain.”
“Are you certain?” Lilith challenged. “His own mother denounces him.”
“His mother,” Charlotte informed her, “died years ago.”
“The Mrs. Bateman quoted must be his stepmother,” Meredith put in, mouth curled in distaste. “A thoroughly disagreeable person who would like nothing more than to see Sir Matthew suffer. I cannot give her sordid tale any credence.”
Lilith’s gaze dropped to the carpet, where Fortune was batting about the rumpled paper. “Just because a person is unpleasant doesn’t make her a liar.”
Lilith had been known for being unpleasant herself, but she was nothing to what Charlotte had experienced with Mrs. Bateman.
“In this case,” Charlotte said, “I fear it might.”
Lilith took a step back. “I should go. I only intended to warn you. Charlotte, may I have a word with you in private first?”
Meredith rose and gathered Fortune, who had been ripping off pieces of the paper and spitting them out. “I must change for an outing. Take as much time as you like. Mrs. Villers.”
“Miss Thorn.” Lilith stood, head high, as the employment agency owner sailed past. Fortune stared at her with baleful eyes as if warning her not to try taking back her new toy.
Lilith moved closer to Charlotte, dark eyes troubled. “I know you don’t want to believe this story, but I worry for you. This Mrs. Bateman claims Sir Matthew is a brute, beating his sisters and her.”
Charlotte felt ill at the very thought. “That cannot be true. His sisters show no fear in his company. On the contrary, they run to him for comfort and advice. They look for excuses to spend time with him, encourage him in every way. Surely that would not be so if he harmed them.”
“Perhaps.” Lilith twisted the cords of her reticule around her fingers. “But I heard of a man once, a gentleman in every way to his friends and acquaintances, who spoke so harshly and with such cruelty to his wife and daughter that they despaired.”
Charlotte shook her head. “That would indeed be horrible, if it was true. You know how the ton loves its gossip.”
Lilith’s shoulders tightened in her celestial blue spencer. “It is no false tale, Charlotte. I experienced it for myself. The man in question was my father.”
“Oh, Lilith!” Charlotte pressed her fingers to her lips, not knowing what else to do.
Her friend took a step back as if to prevent Charlotte from offering solace. “It was a nightmare. Mother retreated to her bed and refused to rise. I avoided contact with others, convinced I was the ugly, stupid girl he called me.”
Charlotte had to reach out a hand, touch her friend’s arm in sympathy. “Did Gregory do nothing?” she asked, thinking of Lilith’s gentle giant of a brother.
“Gregory never knew. I thought he must, and I was very angry with him for many years. But I realized later how careful Father was never to show himself in front of Gregory.”
“I’m so sorry to hear this, Lilith,” Charlotte murmured. “I wish I’d known. I would have assured you that you are beautiful and clever.”
Lilith managed a smile. “I had to come to believe it myself. Beau helped. He sees me as a marvelous being, and so I try to be my best self for him.”
“I’m glad he brings you joy,” Charlotte said.
“More than I thought possible,” Lilith assured her. “And I want to see you as happy. Your Beast is not to be trusted. If this woman is telling the truth of what she’s seen, you aren’t safe with him.”
How very strange. From the first time she’d met Matthew, she’d been drawn to him because he made her feel safe. The death of her mother and father had left her shaken, unsure. She and Worth had clung to each other, but she’d soon realized she couldn’t fully depend on her brother either. Worth’s clever mind led him here and there, like a lark darting on the breeze. She never knew what mad start would move him next.
Matthew was solid, steady, dependable. He had come into her life at a time when she’d been hurt by John Curtis’s defection, when Worth had begun receiving notes that threatened death and destruction. Matthew had protected her and her brother, rescued Worth from calamity several times. He’d saved the prince’s life!
She could not see him as a bully who terrorized the women in his life. Her heart refused to accept it.
“A villain should not be suffered to succeed,” she told her friend. “Bullies must be shouted down. But I am in no danger from Sir Matthew. He would do anything for his sisters. I’d stake my life on it.”
Lilith lay a hand over hers. “Be careful, Charlotte, for I fear you’ve done just that.”
Chapter Seventeen
By Thursday morning, Matthew was convinced he could behave like a gentleman in Charlotte’s company. He would be calm, cool, and sophisticated. That was what everyone expected of a knight of the realm. He should get used to it.
But everything seemed against him.
He still didn’t see the need for a valet when he had been dressing himself since he was four. His cravat disagreed that morning. No matter how carefully he handled the material Betsy had ironed and starched, his fingers felt thick. His shirt points wilted under the strain. The thing ended up in a bedraggled knot. When he descended the stairs at last, he was acutely aware of the scuffs on his brown leather boots, the sag in the seat of his brown breeches.
Who was he fooling? For all the prince’s ridiculous elevation and Charlotte’s hard work and kind instruction, he was still a bruiser, the fellow hauling sacks from t
he mill, the man grappling in the back alley for gold.
He felt the scowl settling on his face as he ate the porridge Anna served. Ivy and Daisy, sitting down the table from him, exchanged glances as if they noticed it.
He set down his spoon. “I’m no good at this.”
Petunia, at the end of the table with Rufus at her feet, frowned at him. “Since when? You can put away porridge with the best of them.”
Despite his doubts, he smiled. “That I can, Sweet Pea. But then, you eat your share too.”
“And mind that you eat it,” Ivy put in to their little sister. “Porridge isn’t for dogs.”
Tuny’s hand slipped under the table. “Rufus doesn’t mind.”
“No, but he won’t much like porridge,” Matthew told her. “There should be better scraps in the kitchen.”
“He eats well enough,” Ivy assured them both. She turned to Matthew. “But you’re not eating this morning. What’s troubling you, Matty?”
He leaned back. “I realize I’m to be an example to you all. I don’t feel like I’m doing my part.”
That won cries of dismay from his sisters.
“You’re a fine brother,” Ivy protested, face puckering.
“You treat us better than she ever did,” Daisy agreed with a toss of her brown curls.
“We like you,” Tuny declared.
Their indignation that he should think otherwise warmed him.
“Not quite a gentleman though, eh?” he said.
“Better than some,” Daisy answered. “You wouldn’t slight us.”
His frown returned. “Who’s slighting you?”
“No one of any importance,” Ivy said with a look to Daisy. “But I agree with Daisy, Matthew. We’ve had the opportunity to meet several gentlemen. You outshine them all.”
“Except maybe the Marquess of Kendall,” Daisy said with a sly smile.
Ivy colored. “Even him. Many gentlemen keep themselves hidden behind a proper smile and polished words. You allow people to see your character, Matty. I find that commendable.”
Matthew picked up his spoon, the creamy porridge suddenly looking more palatable. “Too bad others don’t think the way you do.”
“To quote a gentleman I admire,” Ivy said, “what do you care what they think?”
Matthew chuckled. “You three are good to have around. You keep a fellow honest and humble.”
Tuny nodded. “That’s what we’re supposed to do. We’re your sisters.”
Breakfast tasted finer after that. His spirits recovered, he gave up on perfecting his attire and spent the next hour in the rear yard, practicing.
Many gentlemen on the ton practiced their boxing in elegantly appointed salons, where they could boast to their peers about their prowess. Now and then they hired a real pugilist to come spar with them. Lord Worthington had been more practical. He’d converted a room at the top of one side of his double townhouse, roughened the hardwood floors so he wouldn’t slip as he moved about, and added cupboards to hold equipment and hooks for hanging mufflers and coats. And he’d sparred with Matthew at least once a day to keep his skills sharp.
Matthew didn’t have a spare room or a sparring partner handy. The best he could do was improvise.
He stripped off his coat and hung it on the door handle, then moved out, brittle grass crunching under his feet. Still needed to do something about the yard.
Did knights garden?
He smiled as he took up his stance, feet placed shoulder-width apart, one ahead of the other. Fists raised, thumbs out, elbows close.
Knights didn’t garden. They hired someone to garden. Ought to take a gardener an hour to deal with this pitiful patch of grass.
He began punching: right, left, under, over. He imagined a fellow taller and broader than him, considered how to get under his guard, how to stay away from his reach. He danced forward, back, fists flashing.
Humble, remember? Don’t be so sure you’ll win. Be ready. Be strong.
A movement caught his eye—the door swinging open. Betsy going to the coal shed, perhaps, or Tuny letting Rufus out now that he’d finished his breakfast and hers. He kept punching until his breath came fast and sweat cooled his neck.
But no one passed him for the coal shed, and no hound tried to catch his moving feet. Matthew paused, wiping perspiration from his eyes with one hand, and turned.
Charlotte stood in the doorway, watching. Her grey eyes were wide, her pink lips slightly open, as if her breath came as quickly.
Matthew started toward her. “Is something wrong?”
She snatched his coat off the handle and thrust it at him. “No, yes. That is, we must talk.”
~~~
Charlotte couldn’t catch her breath. She’d seen Worth in his shirtsleeves before, had even interrupted him when he was practicing fencing in his salon at the top of the house. But he was her brother.
And he wasn’t anywhere as good at the art of boxing as Matthew.
The grace he displayed as he moved about the yard—the precision, power, and speed of his fists—held her in awe, and she hadn’t been able to speak to alert him to her presence.
He took his coat from her and slipped it over his broad shoulders. “Talk? About what?”
Belatedly she realized that she’d promised they would talk about the kiss. That promise had been a mistake. She couldn’t talk about kissing him, couldn’t stop thinking about kissing him. Didn’t want to notice how close he was, how easy it would be to kiss him again.
She made herself open her reticule and draw out the remains of the broadsheet, which she’d rescued from Fortune and forced herself to read.
“This is making its way around London,” she told him, offering him the page. “I thought you should see it before I warn the girls.”
He took it and frowned down at the words. His face darkened.
“Lies,” he said, shoving it back at Charlotte. “But then, it’s part and parcel to who she is.”
“I’m beginning to understand that,” Charlotte said, accepting the loathsome report. “But the rest of the ton may not be so understanding.”
“Anyone who believes that rubbish isn’t worth my notice,” he said.
Charlotte sighed. “Normally, I’d agree, but we must think of Ivy and Daisy. This could affect their already tenuous standing.”
“So, what do you want me to do?” he challenged. “If I confront the publisher, I confirm his tale. Isn’t a gentleman supposed to be above such things?”
“Yes,” Charlotte allowed. “But even a gentleman protests when he’s been maligned. Really, the report is scurrilous. She claims your father was a drunk and that you maimed a man.”
He looked away. “She’s not wrong there.”
Once more Charlotte’s breath left her. “What?” she managed.
His shoulders tightened, straining the seams of his coat. “My father was injured on the job more than once, but he never stopped working. His way of forgetting the pain was to drink himself into a stupor. I didn’t understand when I was a lad, but by the time I was twelve, I thought enough of myself to try to convince him he could do better. The back of his hand was my answer.”
Something inside her wept for the boy he had been. “I’m sorry he treated you that way, Matthew.”
“I was sorry too, that I’d even bothered to try to help him. I moved out when I turned fourteen to work at the mill carting goods all over the city. I started fighting when I was sixteen. I lived in the back of the mill, helped at the closest inn for scraps so I could send every penny I earned home to Mum. I didn’t want her to worry whether she and the girls would have enough to eat after he’d drunk his pay. Then Tuny came, and Mum left us, and I kept working and fighting to take care of my sisters.”
She had never lived such a life, knew no one who had, yet the tale touched something inside her. She reached out, took his hand. “They are fortunate to have you.”
“Not so very fortunate,” he murmured, but he didn’t pull away. �
�You saw the woman my father married. She gave him more reasons to escape into a bottle. He fell into a ditch on the way home from the public house and froze to death. And the new Mrs. Bateman was only too happy to keep taking my money.”
“That’s why you brought the girls to London,” Charlotte realized.
He nodded. “I agreed to a big fight, a proper fight with a square, bottlemen and kneemen, and umpires. Everyone said I’d lose, and they came to see me beaten. Even my opponent, Mitch Cassidy, the Giant of Lancaster, mocked me. Someone must have told him about my father, because he jeered at me in the square that I was no better. Weak stock, he called us. Drink was the only fuel capable to getting a weakling like me into the square with him.”
He pulled away from her. “I’m not proud of what I did that day, Charlotte. It was like my soul cracked open, and a beast emerged. I pummeled Cassidy within an inch of his life, put all my anger into every blow. The umpires had to pull me off him. I won, but he never walked again. He was the acquaintance who died a few weeks ago.”
Tears were streaming down her face, for his father, his mother, for him and this Cassidy and the girls. “You were pushed beyond all expectation,” she murmured. “Anyone might have reacted the same.”
“A gentleman wouldn’t,” he countered. “A knight of the realm wouldn’t. I swore never to fight again, to find ways to atone for what I’d done.”
“That’s why you took the job protecting me and Worth,” she said.
He shrugged, threatening his seams even further. “It was useful, clean work.”
“You saved our lives,” she told him.
He met her gaze, and his eyes widened. “Charlotte, please don’t cry. I’m not that man anymore. I’d never hurt you.”
“I know,” Charlotte told him. “You’re not a beast, Matthew. I’m crying for all the things you and your sisters have had to endure. I’m crying because I don’t have the power to go back and make things right, to help you the way you helped me.”
He reached out, caught a tear on his finger, his touch as light as a caress. “I want the same thing, to change the past.”