She didn’t press the point. “Come, let me look after you,” she said, kneeling on the bed beside him after she’d ordered him to lie on his back.
Hugo closed his eyes and let his mind wander, revelling in her gentle touch and the quiet comfort of her presence as she rubbed in the soothing lotion.
“I love you so much,” he whispered.
“I know you do.” Rhythmically, she massaged his chest, avoiding pressure on his injured side. “And you mustn’t despair, Hugo.”
Hugo felt the lump in his throat grow. How could he not despair? His actions had ramifications that could destroy the angel beside him. How could he have been such a fool as to take the bait Cyril had offered? He’d never trusted his cousin when they were children so why had he accepted that fatal final whiskey and that ridiculous challenge? First Hugo had lost to Cyril, then Cyril had suggested he could win back, not only what he’d lost, but a vast sum more from another bosky fellow who clearly had been in on the ruse.
He clenched his fists and fought the tears — and the little voice always perched on his shoulder that parroted the poison his father had spouted his whole life: you’re worthless, you’re a fool. You deserve nothing!
He was a fool and he certainly didn’t deserve Charity. But allowing himself to be defeated so easily was hardly going to save Charity from the sordid life to which he’d condemned her if he didn’t do something to rectify the situation.
Sitting up abruptly, he put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. Blue and beautiful and pools of innocence. She was innocent and he’d give his life to keep her as safe and protected as she was in this moment.
Right now, she had him to pay the bills that would keep her benefactress satisfied, and a roof over her head and food on the table. He paid for her clothes and any other necessities and entertainments. It was a modest life but at least it meant she didn’t have to take on other clients. And it seemed to satisfy Madame Chambon.
“I sold a painting this morning. It didn’t fetch much.” No need to know that Lord Cowdril had haggled Hugo down to half his asking price after he’d voiced appreciation having seen the picture by chance when he’d stopped Hugo in the street. Hugo had been on his way to give it to Charity. “Also, a couple of pieces of my mother’s jewellery and my boxing gloves and fencing equipment. It’s very little but it’ll buy you a couple of weeks.” His heart was pumping. It all sounded so inadequate. What were two weeks when he needed to cover one hundred and three? That was how many remained until his twenty-fifth birthday when he’d come into his grandfather’s inheritance. “I’ve spoken to Madame Chambon and she’s promised to continue to house you provided I keep the funds coming.”
Charity stroked his cheek. “You’re sweet. The girls are very jealous of me, you know.” Her smile was gentle. She was trying so hard to make this easy for him. Yet he knew how terrified she must be feeling inside. He had to make sure she knew he’d not let her down. That he’d send her whatever he could.
“Jealous? That you’ve allied yourself with a good-for-nothing who loses his entire fortune at the gaming table so he can’t follow through on his promises?”
Charity shrugged, then leaned into him, drawing his head against her breast and stroking his cheek. “What other gentleman here visits with anything else on their minds other than their own self-gratification?”
“I swear you will never become one of Madame Chambon’s girls! You’re my girl and I’ll find some way to look after you until we can marry.” He closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet scent of her freshly bathed skin. She was intoxicating. “When I sail you will lose my protection here,” he whispered.
She was silent a long time, digesting his words. She knew how much he wanted her. Needed her. “Perhaps I could join you, later?”
It was painful to answer. “Don’t think I’ve not gone over every such possibility but…” He shook his head, shifting so he could look at her. “There’s a reason none of the other fellows take wives until they’re thirty. One needs to be in a decent financial position and able to settle down somewhere that’s safe for a wife and family. The conditions are intolerable. The heat, malaria…Diseases like cholera and dysentery are rife. It’s no place for a woman, or so I’ve been told by anyone who’s experienced it.”
The lamp flickered and Hugo stared at the red flock wallpaper as his mind did its ever-revolving circuit of drawing in one possibility or another, only to discard each one. “My father will keep me on short rations, while my uncle will be ever vigilant. Father is determined I marry whom he deems a respectable wife.”
Charity let out a short laugh. Hugo could not believe her restraint in letting him off the hook when she could have wept and thrown things at him for ruining what they had and for destroying their future together.
No, jeopardising their future together. He would be back. He had to believe he’d not die of jungle fever before he’d returned to London to save Charity.
“The irony, my darling,” she went on, almost as if she were at a tea party and discussing some amusing on-dit. “If my respectable papa had honoured his promise to marry my once-respectable late mama, I’d have been the legitimate daughter of a viscount.”
The irony had often struck Hugo, too.
“Sadly, there are many of us by-blows in similar positions to me,” she went on, indicating her sordid surroundings, her voice lighter than it ought to have been, considering the sorry truth of it. “It’s all too easy for an entitled gentleman to have a bit of fun with the staff. He wouldn’t dream of marrying one of them, though.” She shrugged. “Or acknowledging a bastard. It’s just not the done thing, my darling.”
Hugo looked her in the eye. She rarely spoke about her father but a sudden hope had taken root. “Do you know who your father is? Where he is?”
Charity’s smile was indulgent. “Yes. But I’m not going to approach him, if that’s what you’re implying. Mama tried that and the distress of his dismissal nearly undid her. He questioned whether I was his. He’ll hardly say any different, now, more than ten years later.”
Hugo hung his head, then, on a swift thought, dropped his hand to her belly. “You couldn’t possibly be — ?"
“I’m not,” she reassured him. “Madame makes certain her girls know how to protect themselves from at least that inconvenience.”
“Lord, Charity, all I want to do is marry you and have children with you.”
“And paint and write poems.”
“Yes, but it’s only because of you that I can do that. Thinking of you unleashes something inside me that makes me feel intoxicated with possibility.”
“Then think of me when you’re gone, and send me those pictures and poems, because that’s what’s going to sustain me while you’re off hunting tigers and picking tea leaves, and laying railway tracks, my darling Hugo.” She drew him down beside her and snuggled into his warmth.
Visually tracing the pressed metal ceiling with his gaze while he thought of how he might incorporate it in a sketch, he said, “I’ve brought you a painting and a poem I‘ve been working on all week. Christmas Charity it’s called. Or Christmas Wedding, I can’t decide which.”
“I’ll treasure both,” she said, reaching up to stroke his face. “But please don’t think of me as a charity case. Between us, we will find a way to grasp the future we thought we had.”
* * *
She didn’t believe it but Hugo needed to hear it. And as he kissed her, Charity tried to stop herself from wondering how many more times she’d feel the touch of his lips.
But she was determined to be brave.
“Please don’t go,” she begged when he rolled off her and sat up. “We don’t have much time. I want to make the most of every minute.”
He smiled, his mouth turned up but his eyes grim as he whipped back the covers and kissed the two rosy buds on her breasts, then her belly button and, finally, the mound at the juncture of her legs.
“As do I but my main priority right now is ens
uring that you are safe when I’m gone. By God, if I could marry you this moment and not negate my claim to everything that will one day be both of ours, I would.” For a moment he was quiet as he stood over her. “Charity, do you resent me for not whisking you down the aisle? That is, if we had enough time for the banns to be read before I sailed?”
She drew the covers up to her chin and averted her eyes. A small part of her did. “I’d marry you if you were a prince or a pauper,” she whispered, instead.
“But if I marry you now, I will forever be a pauper. We truly would have nothing. My father would pull every string he had to ensure we suffered in perpetuity. I’d have nothing to offer you.”
He leaned over and kissed her lips with even greater tenderness. “Believe me, Charity, if we can survive the next two years, our future is secure. I want to be able to sail back into Southampton to claim my inheritance and marry you in a public ceremony full of pomp and circumstance.” He reached for something and straightened, branding a piece of parchment. “Here’s my poem. Read it when I’m gone. You think I’m capable only of daydreams but I will prove to you that where I am motivated by my muse, I am capable of anything. Now I really do have to leave, my precious. There are still some people I must see in the hopes of finding some respectable employment for you that I can supplement with the wages I shall send you while I’m away.”
* * *
Charity tried to be heartened by Hugo’s poem but it only made her cry even harder. How could he imagine a society wedding, with a church filled with guests truly wishing them both the greatest happiness, could ever be their destiny? How could he imagine these same people would be smiling and tossing rose petals at them as Charity and Hugo stepped into a carriage and were borne away into the sunset, towards the estate that would one day be Hugo’s — if he remained unmarried until his twenty-fifth birthday?
Hugo was the sweetest, kindest, most honourable man Charity knew but he was a dreamer.
And so was Charity if she thought there could be a happy ending to their tragic love story.
* * *
And now it was her dear friend’s wedding.
In Violet’s small first-floor bedchamber, Charity stared at the girl who’d been so kind to her, a vision in bridal white as the two of them stood before the mirror.
Normal young women in such a setting would have hearts full of joy.
But they were not normal young women and this was not a normal situation.
Violet smiled sadly. She must have seen the tears gathering in Charity’s eyes for she turned to pat her shoulder and whisper, “There now, it’s not a happy ending for me, either. But this is today. Think what could happen tomorrow.”
Violet was always so sanguine about life. Sanguine yet optimistic enough to believe that tomorrow could be better.
Charity touched the exquisite lace veil that partly obscured her friend’s beautiful face. “You have so much more to complain about than I. Yet tonight will be your greatest sorrow for having to acknowledge that your wedding is a lie.”
“He’d marry me if he could — just as Hugo would marry you. Now, come.” Violet held out her hand and together they went out into the cold night air where a hackney was waiting to convey them to the church.
Charity’s role as a witness — a charade — was a revelation. She was unused to being out in the real world amongst society people. To see the genuine tears of joy wet the cheeks of the elderly aunt of the man Violet was pretending to marry gave her a small measure of pleasure.
Lord Belvedere, Violet’s intended who was waiting at the altar, also looked surprisingly in love considering this was a sham marriage to please his dying aunt who desired to see him wed above all else. Innocent Miss Thistlethwaite had no idea who Violet was. Or, more to the point, what Violet really was. She thought her a shop girl yet still she was pleased she was marrying her nephew. Which meant that she thought Charity was a shop girl, too, and yet she was happy enough to say to her, as if they were on an equal footing, “When a girl is as lovely as dear Violet, she can do no wrong.” Then, disconcertingly, she’d asked, as they took their places in church, “And where do you hail from, my dear? Who are your people?”
A reckless gambler? A lowly governess? Charity had not known what to say for one hardly admitted to being the illegitimate offspring of such a mismatched union.
So, she merely lowered her eyes and said demurely, “No one you’d know, ma’am.”
“Come now, my dear. We cannot choose the station into which we are born. And honest toil is always to be commended for that is what this nation has been built upon.”
Emboldened, partly by the woman’s kindness and partly by her own long-held resentment, Charity replied, “My mother was a good and honest woman but my father was not so prudent.”
And now Charity’s only chance of happiness was again to be foiled by excess and vice; the lure of chance at a gambling table.
Miss Thistlethwaite who could not have known the details of Hugo’s ruin and banishment, said, with a shake of her head, “Reckless young men are too rarely called upon to account for the havoc they cause.”
And then she was turning towards the priest, silent and expectant, while her words resonated in Charity’s head.
Who was the reckless young man in all this? It wasn’t only Hugo. It was his slippery cousin who had enticed Hugo as if his main purpose was to ruin him.
Charity recalled what the other girls had said about him and his reputation. Clearly, she wasn’t the only one who thought Mr Adams needed to be called to account.
A deep hush had fallen over the sparse congregation as bride and groom stood before the man who, to all intents and purposes, was officiating over their shared future.
What a terrible sham this all was, and all because some entitled gentleman thought he could run roughshod over the happiness of those more vulnerable than themselves.
At least Violet’s handsome Lord Belvedere had been honest from the outset. The first night he’d met Violet, in fact.
Cyril had simply resorted to slippery deeds to achieve his aims.
Well, he would not succeed.
Even at this late stage, when common sense told Charity that it was far too late to change their destinies, she felt the anger within like a flaming torch.
Charity had always been sweet and passive.
And look where that had got her poor, dead, disgraced mother?
Watching Violet intone her vows in a voice that was pure and charged with emotion, Charity decided the time had come when no risk was too great. If Hugo was not able to marry, support or even be with Charity, then what did Charity have to lose.
Surely there was some way of proving Mr Adams the cheat he was?
And, in doing so, maybe — just, maybe — she could save them both.
Chapter 4
Only three more days. Shivering in her thin dressing gown, Charity marked off the calendar on her wall then went to sit on her bed to think.
It was late morning and she could hear a little movement in the house. The chink of buckets wielded by the servants and muted conversation from several of the other girls who were in the passageway.
She heard Rosetta protest something too loudly, as was her wont, and, on impulse, Charity threw open the door of her bedchamber to call after them. Time was running out and she was panicking.
“I need to help Hugo,” she said without preamble. She knew she must look as desperate as she felt. She’d thought she and Hugo might try and come up with a plan together, but Charity feared Hugo didn’t have enough aggression and fire within him to counteract the evil Cyril, when, after a night of deep contemplation, she’d decided that was what was needed.
Emily sat on the bed. “I know he’s a regular at a gambling den called The Red Door.”
“And,” said Emily, “my Thursday gentleman, Mr Mortimer, is willing to let us in, as long as we’re discreet. Yes, you asked for our help, but we’re ahead of you, Charity.”
“We though
t you’d be too naïve to know where to start,” said Rosetta, examining her fingernails. She glanced at her friend, then said in a rush. “All of us girls have been discussing it. We don’t want you to have to earn your living like the rest of us. That’s why we’re discovering everything we can so that — ” she shrugged — “you’ll avoid our terrible fate.” Her tone was harsh but Charity recognised the sentiment behind them and tears stung her eyes. These women had been forced into the kind of work Charity was terrified of and appalled by but they still had enough goodness in their hearts to try and protect her from it.
She clasped her hands together. “Thank you,” she said softly. “For both your sakes, I will try and be less naive and — ” she cleared her throat — “more underhand and devious for I do appreciate all the effort you’re going to.”
“I think you shouldn’t try to be underhand and devious unless it’s specifically under our direction,” said Emily hastily with a meaningful look at Rosetta. “We’ve had lots of practise and there’s nothing that can ruin a plan so quickly as a novice with good intentions.”
“Then what should I do?” asked Charity, relieved of course that she’d been let off the hook — to a certain extent, at any rate.
“Come to the Red Door with us on Thursday.”
Charity nodded. A great weight seemed to fall from her shoulders. It was all very well to decide that Mr Cyril Adams should be called to account but, in truth, she’d not had the first idea as to how she could go about it.
Rosetta and Emily, however, were well versed in the ways of this treacherous world.
The fact that they were so motivated to help her made her realise that, with such friends, somehow, Charity would survive.
* * *
The red satin gown was lavishly ornamented with bows and sparkles while the feathers in Charity’s hair were the perfect complement.
Christmas Charity Page 3