Christmas Charity

by Oakley, Beverley

  There was a silence. “Do you know, that is the first time I’ve ever heard you voice doubt. Tonight, of all nights.”

  Charity bowed her head. “You make me ashamed of myself. If Hugo doesn’t come back, it’s because he cannot. But in his absence, he has given me the greatest gift.” She raised her head and looked about her. Jewels and sumptuous clothing adorned all those who’d crowded into the large reception room. There were artists rubbing shoulders with duchesses, oil magnates and publishing moguls hobnobbing with actresses.

  “He’s given me a place in the world,” she said. “A place where I can be proud of who I am.”

  “He’s made you the most sought-after woman in all of London town,” said Cyril, coming around to her other side and raising her hand to his lips. “Here’s to our cause celebre as her benefactor takes to the stage and sings the praises of my cousin.” He cocked one eyebrow and sent Charity his most lascivious look. “Of whom I am insanely jealous.”

  Charity tossed her head. “But who is soon to wed the lovely Miss Dermot — thanks in part to me, I might add — who is heading this way flanked by, if I’m not mistaken, Lady Margaret Ponsonby….” She dropped her voice to a whisper, and added, “if one didn’t know any better.”

  Chapter 14

  It was as if he were still aboard a rocking boat. Hugo stepped out of the carriage and nearly fell flat on his face. Though he was exhausted from the rough and gruelling crossing, nothing was going to stop him seizing Charity and taking her home to safety.

  Yes, he’d forgo his inheritance. He’d have to work hard to earn a living any way he could. But he was a man of education and, somehow, he could provide for two people.

  He ran the back of his hand across his eyes and prayed for the strength to do what he had to do.

  But try as he might, he could not rid himself of the anger that had been simmering since his parting from his uncle. It seemed it wasn’t enough for Cyril to ruin Hugo and see him banished. Now, Cyril had stolen Charity from him after helping ensure she’d been made destitute.

  Through the actions of Cyril’s own father. And with Hugo’s own father as an accomplice.

  For a moment Hugo could only stare at the grand edifice, the assembly hall Emily had said Charity had been taken to for some grand entertainment.

  “With Cyril Adams?” Hugo had asked her, barely able to focus on her face due to his swimming vision.

  “Yes, Mr Adams will be there,” she’d said as he’d stumbled down the steps, ignoring her cries that he didn’t seem to understand; suggesting he was feverish, that perhaps he should rest rather than hunt down Charity in such a state.

  Hunt down Charity? Was she suggesting that in only one year his beloved could have switched allegiance so that Hugo was hunting her down rather than seeking her out?

  He staggered a little and a gentleman assisting a lady from the carriage that had drawn up by the front steps sent him a disapproving look before shepherding his companion indoors.

  The warmth that hit him as a pair of footmen opened the double doors onto the disorienting spectacle was like a furnace when he was already burning up.

  It took a few moments to see straight. The room seemed to be swimming in and out of focus.

  He was surprised at how quiet everything was when there were so many people here. Then he realised someone was on stage, speaking. He glanced up at the gentleman, a distinguished-looking man who seemed to have the crowd in thrall, and who stood beside a drawing which, he realised with a start was of Charity.

  Hugo tried to attend to what he was saying but he caught only the words “my daughter” which seemed to create something of a sensation. He could sense the emotion around him but he couldn’t understand anything, least of all why the gentleman should be standing on stage surrounded by paintings Hugo had drawn.

  He shook his head, for of course he was dreaming, and then saw the man hold out his arm to indicate someone, at which point the crowd parted and he could see, as clearly as if she stood in a halo of sunshine, his beloved Charity.

  She looked like a goddess in a sheath of white silk adorned with blue velvet ribbons and his heart swelled as he saw her smile.

  But she wasn’t smiling at him, he now saw. She was smiling at Cyril who was raising her hand to his lips.

  For a moment Hugo felt suspended above reality.

  Everything was a dream. It had to be.

  Until a waft of cool air from the doors opening behind him brought him face to face with this cruel world, and pain like he’d never felt before seared his heart. Swaying as his hopes fragmented into a million shards, he realised the futility of his life from here on towards meaningless eternity. He reached out for something to balance him but there was nothing. He was as alone as he’d been before he met Charity.

  And ever would be, now that he’d discovered his love had been in vain.

  Frozen to the spot, swaying as his vision coalesced into hues of scarlet and black, he confronted his options.

  He could either quietly leave and never see Charity again, ceding her to Cyril, the man who had won. Again.

  That would be the path of nobility. He’d make no fuss. He’d sink into quiet obscurity, just as he’d lived his whole life. In his father and cousin’s shadow. A disappointment. The boy who simply wasn’t up to scratch.

  Or he could make his feelings quite clear and direct, before walking out of Charity’s life.

  Leaving her the option to follow if she chose.

  He drew his shoulders back. The crowd had broken into applause but were quiet now. Hugo had no idea what the man on stage was saying, and he didn’t care.

  All he cared about was navigating to where Cyril stood with his bland, unctuous expression, thinking he could possess Charity. Thinking he could walk roughshod over Hugo as he had all his life.

  Hugo managed to cross the carpeted expanse without falling over. That was one small victory.

  “Cyril.”

  The moment his cousin turned, Hugo raised his fist and clipped him across the jaw.

  The satisfaction of seeing the horror on Cyril’s expression was short-lived, swallowed up as it was by the sound of his Charity’s scream.

  And then, neatly, and quietly, Hugo crumpled to the floor, disappearing into merciful oblivion.

  Chapter 15

  Sunshine sparkling on a carpet of snow was one of the most beautiful sights Charity had ever seen as she looked through the window of her attic room for the last time while Emily laced her into her dress.

  She heard Madame’s heavy tread on the stairs and turned, but for once her body did not go rigid with fear.

  “Ma cherie, you are a picture of purity!” Madame swept forward and, for the first time in Charity’s adult life, she was embraced in a motherly hug. “I knew this day would come! That you would be my first real success!”

  “You did?”

  Madame nodded as she occupied herself with tweaking the folds and ruffles of Charity’s exquisite wedding gown.

  “From the moment I saw the love between you and Mr Hugo, I knew you’d be my first girl to step directly from my establishment and into the arms of society.”

  Charity didn’t want to suggest that Madame was reviewing the past year through rose-coloured glasses. There had been many times Charity had feared Madame was about to sell her to the highest bidder.

  “Even when Mr Hugo didn’t write for more than six months and Charity had not a bean to live on?” Emily asked as she arranged Charity’s curls, emboldened, clearly, by Madame’s unusually expansive mood.

  “I’ll admit I harboured doubts about Mr Hugo. Not his fidelity, for my dears, I have never seen a young man more desperately in love. Why, I believe he’d even give up his art for you, Charity.”

  “But his art is what saved Charity,” said Emily between a mouthful of hair pins.

  “No.” Charity shook her head. “Hugo’s love did that.”

  She remembered, with emotion, that extraordinary night when Cyril had escorted
her to the launch of Hugo’s book.

  When her father had stood on stage, surrounded by paintings and drawings Hugo had created — not just of Charity, but scenes of daily life in India, sweet vignettes of the children, and exquisite pictures of sunsets — she’d never felt prouder.

  That is, until the man she’d never called anything other than Mr Riverdale, the man whose zeal and enthusiasm she admired, whose kindness — not apparent, initially — she’d come to appreciate, had publicly acknowledged her.

  She’d never forget the sense of unreality she’d felt as he paused, indicated Hugo’s paintings, then said to a hushed audience, “It is to this young artist, who cannot be here tonight, that I owe the greatest debt. Not just because early indications suggest that this book will be Riverdale & Son’s greatest commercial success. But because Mr Hugo Adams’ talent has reunited me with someone I had thought lost to me forever. Someone I have grown to love, very dearly. Someone I might never have seen again had his drawings not revealed the identity of…”

  Charity’s pulse had quickened when she heard this. She’d bitten her lip until she tasted blood, releasing her pent-up breath in a cry of disbelief when he’d finished, “my beautiful, kind, ever-forgiving long-lost daughter, Charity.”

  Her body still thrummed with the extraordinary joy of being accepted by her father and being reunited with her lover. Within minutes. Certainly, those few moments had had their problems but, if nothing else, her father had proved himself a magician when it came to turning a potentially disastrous moment of confrontation and sensation into a moment that seemed to have cemented the adoration of a hitherto merely curious and admiring public.

  He’d also artfully whitewashed Charity’s past.

  “Ah, Charity, mon petit chou! You are a sight for sore eyes. Are you ready?”

  Charity nodded at Madame, her hand on the older woman’s arm as she was led towards the establishment’s secret entrance, via a staircase and tunnel that went beneath the cobbled street and exited from an innocuous row of dwellings where Charity knew her carriage would be waiting.

  Indeed, there was Cyril beside the handsome equipage, his reception full of admiration.

  “You look like an angel. Or a princess.” He swept his arm wide. “Can you hear them singing about you and Hugo?”

  Charity put her head on one side to listen to the pure notes of a group of carollers, children mostly, standing just across the road, singing Joy to the World. They’d reached the third verse and the words spoke to her heart:

  “No more let sins and sorrows grow,

  Nor thorns infest the ground;

  He comes to make His blessing flow

  Far as the curse is found,

  Far as the curse is found,

  Far as, far as the curse is found.”

  “Joy to the world,” Charity repeated, thoughtfully, as she put her foot on the bottom of the carriage steps. “I hope you’re feeling it, too, Cyril. And that your jaw isn’t too sore.”

  “Oh, Hugo was too sick and weak to do much damage,” he said, carelessly, touching the spot where Hugo’s fist had collected with his face three weeks earlier. “Which is just as well. Now that he’s quite recovered, I can see that Mabel might have been peevish if I’d spoiled the wedding photographs for her.”

  “Mabel could never be peevish. She’s too nice for that!” said Charity with a laugh, thinking how marvellous it was that she’d be able to publicly attend Cyril’s wedding in two weeks’ time with Hugo. They’d decided to delay their own wedding trip for the event.

  “And much too nice for me since she’s forgiven me everything. I really don’t deserve her.” He was suddenly too serious for Charity’s liking when Charity felt close to bursting with happiness.

  “Everything?” she asked playfully with arched eyebrow.

  He had the grace to look uncomfortable. “I admitted to the gambling and the cheating. Only on two significant occasions, I might add, though I was guilty of a few threats, having learned early how to make others afraid of me when, really, I was no threat at all. Father was a good model.” With a rueful smile, he added, “The only part I haven’t told her was about Rosetta. And, really, I was paying Rosetta to help me be what Mabel would want. You won’t tell her? Mabel, I mean?”

  Charity laughed at his alarm. “I shall tell no lies but I shall not volunteer anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. Now, the carollers have moved on and there’s nothing keeping us here. I suggest it’s time I meet my father if he’s to get me to the church in time. Hugo might think I’m not coming and decide to go away again.”

  * * *

  For the third time in five minutes, Hugo glanced at his timepiece.

  Cyril patted him on the shoulder. “She hadn’t changed her mind when I saw her half an hour ago.”

  “You definitely deposited her safely with her father?” Hugo couldn’t remember feeling this agitated, ever.

  “I did. And he was as excited as she was at the prospect of coming here.”

  “She was excited?”

  Cyril rolled his eyes. “Lord, Hugo, but you always were exasperating.”

  “Hush! I think she’s here!”

  Hugo twisted his neck, tingles of excitement shooting through his extremities as the door opened and the organ began to play. The church was filled to capacity, but he barely glanced at the rows of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen who were here for what had been touted as the most intriguing and anticipated event of the season.

  Two people who were not in attendance, and who would not be missed, were Hugo’s father and uncle.

  Mr Riverdale had not shied away from citing their cruelty towards son and nephew as the reason for denying the two young lovers what they longed for and what they deserved. He’d woven their roles into a tale that tugged at the heartstrings and, with its virtuous heroine, talented, driven and hard-done-by hero, together with the evil, controlling, manipulative relatives, made excellent news copy.

  Didn’t the public love a reason for displaying strong emotion, whether love or disapproval? No, Septimus and Thomas Adams would not have been welcome in church that day.

  Hugo held his breath as Charity stepped into the church, at first a dark, mysterious figure with the sunlight at her back. A snippet of competing song made his ears prick up. A band of carollers was singing Joy to the World, and his heart swelled before the door closed behind Charity and her father, and Charity became, in the dim light of London’s most fashionable church, a figure of breathtaking poise and beauty as she slowly progressed up the aisle on her father’s arm.

  A young woman whose smile radiated all the love and forgiveness and goodness that was the essence of her being.

  That was what had sustained him through the long, empty year he’d been away from her.

  Briefly, he gripped her hand. “You waited for me.” His voice felt hoarse with emotion.

  “I never doubted you’d be back to keep your promise,” she whispered as she settled herself at his side in front of the parson who cleared his throat, ready to begin the ceremony that would bind them together, forever, as husband and wife. “And a year early, too.” She gave his hand one last squeeze before dropping it, adding the words that reflected the sentiments that had sustained him through such pain and hardship.

  “Though I’d have waited a lifetime.”

  THE END

  Chistmas Charity is book 5 in my Fair Cyprians of London series about a group of enterprising young women enticed through trickery or desire to work for a high-class London House of Assignation in the 1870s. I hope you enjoyed it!

  Other Books in the Series

  SAVING GRACE (BOOK 1)

  Grace Fortune trusts no one after she was betrayed by the man she once loved.

  Now, she's the most popular 'Cyprian' at Madame Chambon's high-class London House of Assignation, consort of aristocrats and princes.

  As Faith prepares for her next job as the special initiation ‘gift’ procured by a mother in fashionable M
ayfair for her son’s twenty-first birthday, she plans her revenge.

  But revenge has a strange habit of turning the tables.

  (This book was originally published by Pan Macmillan Momentum and has since been revised.)

  Heartfelt, sizzling and with a note of redemption that'll please even the cynics.

  Buy here.

  FORSAKING HOPE (Book 2)

  Honour? Or her heart's desire?

  When Felix discovers the divine "Miss Hope" in his bed, his betrayal is acute.

  Two years ago, he’d been on the verge of proposing to the beautiful governess who had taught his neighbour’s children. Ignoring his family’s objections, he’d been determined to make her an honourable offer.

  But Hope had suddenly vanished.

  Now, to Felix’s shock and dismay, Hope is the surprise gift his friends have sourced from London's most exclusive House of Assignation in the hopes of lifting his dark depression.

  Despite the pain of the past, Felix can't bear to lose her again.

  But Hope Merriweather is bound to her new life by a dark secret. She sacrificed Felix two years before.

  Now, she must choose again: Honour or her heart's desire?

  Here’s what reviewers are saying:

  “So very different from most of the historical romance books I've read. Well written with plot twists and hinting but not quite divulging what is the behind cause. Truly enjoyed this book.”

  “Oh, I like this series! …I started reading a bit late in the evening and had to read late into the night as I did not want to stop. Lots of tension. Good balance of dialog and action, some of it steamy.”

  Buy here.

  KEEPING FAITH