They moved outside to the back lawn and sat across from each other beneath the shade of a mulberry tree. Plucking a fallen leaf from the small, circular wooden table, Charlotte twirled it absently between her fingers while she discreetly studied her new surroundings.
Everything in sight was manicured with ruthless precision. Not a single blade of grass grew out of line. There were no flowers. Thick green hedges higher than her head formed a barrier around the lawn, preventing anyone from looking out or, she thought as the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck tingled with awareness, anyone from looking in.
What monstrosities had happened here in this stale, stagnant place? How long had the duke’s wives suffered in silence before they died? A chill ran down Charlotte’s spine as she imagined them trapped like pretty birds in a cage, unable to break free. Allison, his first wife, had tried to escape. Tried and ended up with a broken neck. Did the same fate await her?
She jumped when she felt fingers close around her wrist, and with a visible shudder she tried to pull free of the duke’s hand but he held on, his fat, fleshy fingers clinging to her arm with shocking strength.
“You have very soft skin,” he murmured as he skimmed his thumb across her knuckles before his grip tightened, wringing a soft cry from Charlotte’s lips.
She had petted an iguana once. The lizard’s skin had been cold and dry, and even though its tongue had flicked in and out and its round eyes had followed her every movement, she felt as though she were touching a dead thing. Paine’s flesh reminded her of the same, and the bile she had managed to suppress upon entering the house rose yet again. “Your Grace, I do not believe this is proper—”
“We are engaged to be married. Surely a simple touch here”–his fingers began to inch their way up her arm–“or there would not hurt anyone.”
Charlotte stood up so fast her chair was knocked sideways. The momentum pulled the duke halfway across the table before he was forced to release her, his tight grip resulting in a row of angry red marks on her skin from his bruising fingers.
“Do not touch me!” she said sharply, clutching her arm to her chest.
His cheeks suffusing with color, Paine heaved himself to his feet. “Impertinent wench,” he growled, his top lip curling. “You would do well to address me with respect.”
Charlotte’s tenuous hold on her temper gave way with an audible snap. “Why? You are a pitiful, sad, miserable excuse for a man and if you were the last person on earth I would not marry you. I will not marry you,” she declared, driving the heel of her boot into the soft ground for emphasis.
The sound of his quiet laughter sent an unpleasant shiver racing down her spine, and she stared at him incredulously. “What is so amusing about that? Did you not hear what I said? I am not going to marry you. I refuse!” The moment the words were past her lips she felt as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. There would be no wedding. There would be no marriage. She should have put her foot down–both literally and figuratively–weeks ago.
It would cost her. Bettina would be enraged when she discovered what had happened, and there was a high possibility Charlotte would find herself turned out. But homelessness was preferable to hopelessness, and she knew she’d made the right decision.
The only decision.
“You stupid, foolish girl,” Paine sneered. “Did you think it would be as easy as that? Did you think once I had you I would ever let you go? No. No, once gained I do not let my possessions slip through my fingers so easily. You are mine. You belong to me.”
Charlotte stiffened. “I belong to no one, least of all you!”
“Oh, but you do, and I have the betrothal contract that says exactly that, signed by Bettina Vanderley. I keep it right beside the deed to your townhouse in London, that embarrassing excuse of an estate in Hampshire, and all the belongings they contain. Burn one contract, my sweet, and you burn the others along with it. We will be married at the end of the month and there is nothing you can do about it. Unless you’d choose to beggar your own mother?”
“No,” Charlotte whispered, even as her insides turned to ice and all the blood drained from her face. “No, my mother would never agree to those terms.”
Paine smiled. “Desperate women will do desperate things, Charlotte my dear. You will learn that lesson soon enough. Here comes the tea. Do sit down. You appear rather pale.”
“Mother, how COULD you?” Charlotte’s wail of despair echoed throughout the entire house. Throwing herself onto a velvet settee, she hugged her legs to her chest and glared accusingly at Bettina over the top of her knees. “Father provided well for us and—”
“Your father provided us with nothing,” Bettina snapped. The uncharacteristic vehemence in her tone shocked Charlotte into silence. Her mother never lost her temper or raised her voice. Ever. “It was all I could do to keep a roof over our heads after he died. I had to sign the contracts. I had no choice. Do you think it has been easy, raising a daughter on my own?”
Deciding it would not be the wisest time to point out that a governess had, in fact, done most of the raising, Charlotte bit her lip and obediently shook her head from side to side. She had not always been the easiest child; she knew that. But surely that didn’t excuse her mother from entering into a deal with the devil!
“I did the only thing I could do to ensure our survival,” Bettina raged on. “Anyone else would be grateful for what I have done and what I have sacrificed, but not you!”
“Grateful?” Charlotte sputtered in disbelief. “I should be grateful you want to trap me in a loveless marriage to a monster?”
“Love,” Bettina sneered. Her face contorted, and suddenly she did not look so elegant or graceful anymore. “I married your father for love, and look where it has gotten us. Heaven knows Paine is not young, but he is wealthy and generous. You will be taken care of for your entire life, Charlotte. You shall want for nothing.”
“If he is so wonderful, then you marry him!” Jumping up from the settee, she stalked past her mother, intent on barricading herself in her bedroom. Bettina reached out her hand to detain her, and in a fit of temper Charlotte slapped it away. The sound of flesh striking flesh echoed in the sudden silence, and Bettina’s mouth dropped open.
“You struck me!” she cried.
Charlotte set her jaw. “I am sorry, Mother, but I fear I have had enough of being manhandled for one day.” Without another word she walked out of the room, up the stairs, and collapsed on her bed after making sure to lock the door. And only then, where there was no one to see or hear her, did she finally allow herself to cry.
Chapter Seven
As the date of the wedding drew closer and closer, Charlotte’s spirits plummeted lower and lower. She moved listlessly through the house, refusing any and all callers with the exception of Dianna. Her best friend made it a point to visit every day, plying Charlotte with pastries to get her to eat, as her appetite had waned along with her feisty nature.
“You are wasting away to nothing,” Dianna observed one afternoon while the two women were enjoying a stroll around the gardens behind Charlotte’s townhouse.
It was uncharacteristically warm for early April and they both had shed their hats and shawls in favor of soaking in some of the rarely seen sun. Pausing to nudge at an emerging tulip with the toe of her shoe, Charlotte sighed. “Every time I try to eat, I think of him”–she was refusing the say the duke’s name–“and I lose my appetite. The wedding is in eight days. How did it get here this quickly?”
“I do not have the vaguest notion.” Dianna fluffed a hand through her blonde curls and frowned. “But there is still time. We will think of something. We will,” she insisted when Charlotte looked at her dubiously. “I am sure of it.”
Dianna was the only person Charlotte had confided in about the betrothal contract. Her friend had been suitably outraged on her behalf, but thus far had been unable to come up with a single legitimate idea to free Charlotte from it.
When it came righ
t down to it, she could always refuse to attend the wedding–even a duke could not get away with dragging his fiancée screaming down the church aisle–but then she would have to suffer the guilt of knowing she had cost her mother everything. She knew it shouldn’t have mattered. She knew she shouldn’t have cared; by all appearances Bettina didn’t care about her. But she was still her mother, and Charlotte’s heart wasn’t yet so calloused that she could toss Bettina out on the street without a shilling to her name.
Stopping in front of a shyly blossoming cherry tree, she plucked a small pink bud and tucked it absently behind her ear. “I met someone,” she said slowly, staring off across the low stonewall that divided the courtyard from the neighbor’s. “At the Nettle ball,” she clarified when Dianna looked at her blankly.
She had been debating for quite some time whether to share her secret encounter with Gavin or not. Since their kiss he had lingered in the back of her mind, a painfully constant reminder of what she was giving up by becoming a duchess.
Heart stopping passion. Pulse quickening desire. All consuming love. Did she not deserve those things? Not because she was a lady, but because she was a woman. A woman who wanted to know what it was like to desire and be desired in return.
“You met someone? A male someone?” Dianna clapped both hands over her mouth and released an ear-splitting squeal when Charlotte nodded. “Who was he? What did he look like? What did he say? Oh, tell me everything!”
Dianna’s breathless enthusiasm was not out of the ordinary. Ever since they were children, the demure blonde had lived vicariously through Charlotte. She was the epitome of a gently raised lady, always saying the right thing–which was often nothing at all–and never doing anything that would be considered untoward. Dianna would never consider kissing a stranger in a dark study, but that didn’t mean she did not want to hear all about it. Sweeping her skirts to the side, she perched on the edge of a stone fountain that sat unused in the middle of the yard. “Everything,” she repeated firmly, her blue eyes sparkling. “At once.”
Charlotte sat beside her friend and began to absently swing her legs to and fro. “After my first dance at the ball I could not stand the stares and the whispers, so I left. The engagement announcement had just been printed—”
“I remember.”
“—and so it was all anyone was talking about. Or at least it seemed that way. I retreated to a room nearby. The lighting was dim, and I thought at first I was alone, but someone was already there. It was a man,” she said after a quick peek at the solarium doors to ensure no one was eavesdropping.
“This is quite scandalous,” Dianna decided. “Do go on. Did he see you?”
“He not only saw me, he accused me of tracking him down on purpose for the sake of ruining myself and trapping him into marriage!” Charlotte’s face grew warm as she recalled the way Gavin had stared at her, his gray eyes lingering on every inch of her exposed flesh. Wolf eyes, she thought now. Watchful and cunning and wicked. “Apparently women do that quite often where he is concerned.”
“That’s rather arrogant, isn’t it?” Dianna frowned. “To presume you sought him out with the intention of forcing his hand in marriage.”
Charlotte snorted. “That’s what I said!”
“Well, who was he? A duke? An earl?”
“No.” Charlotte shook her head. “And no. He did not have a title at all, actually.”
“No title? Was he a servant?” Dianna clucked her tongue in distress. “Oh Charlotte, you did not have a moment of passion with a servant, did you?”
Charlotte wondered if her cheeks were as red as they felt. “How do you know we had a moment of…of passion?”
“Please. It is written all over your face.”
“He was not a servant. But we did have a moment of passion,” Charlotte admitted, her lips curving in a slow, shy smile when Dianna shrieked loudly enough to send a pair of mourning doves flying out of a nearby bush.
“Tell me his name right now!”
“Mr. Graystone. Mr. Gavin Graystone. What?” she asked when Dianna’s jaw dropped. “Have you heard of him?”
“I do not know how you have not heard of him.”
“Well, I have been a bit preoccupied,” Charlotte reminded her.
“I suppose being forced to marry a lecher against your will is as good excuse as any,” Dianna allowed. Standing, she began to pace back and forth in front of the fountain, her violet skirts fluttering gracefully at her heels. “Last month I had tea at Lady Harrington’s house. Now, you know I never repeat gossip—”
“Never,” Charlotte said dryly.
“—but she spoke at quite some length about a certain Mr. Graystone. Apparently no one had heard of him up until six months ago, and then he was everywhere. He purchased the Shire House on Bleaker Street, you know.”
“The one facing the park?” Charlotte’s eyebrows rose.
“Precisely. And the house next to it as well. The word is he intends to combine them, which would give him one of the largest mansions in all of Berkley Square.”
Charlotte could not quite contain her surprise. Who knew Gavin possessed such wealth? It would have been difficult for a duke to undertake a renovation of such magnitude and expense, let alone a commoner. Although it finally explained his initial suspicion of her. He thought she was after his money!
“No one knows exactly where he comes by his fortune. Ill means, I would assume.” Dianna’s lips pursed. She, like the rest of the ton, was naturally wary of anyone who worked for his or her money. Amidst the peerage it simply was not done, which meant the more wealth Gavin accrued, the more apparent he made it to everyone that he was not of their lineage, nor of their blood.
Charlotte did not agree with Dianna’s way of thinking, but she had always been very careful not to impress her radical ideas upon her friend. Dianna was always unfailingly polite to the lower class, but she did not believe them to be her equals, which was why Charlotte was shocked down to her very core when Dianna grabbed both her hands and pulled her to her feet.
“I’ve got it! Oh Charlotte, I know how to rescue you from the duke! It is a perfect plan.”
Having schemed enough in her youth to know no plan was ever perfect, Charlotte narrowed her eyes and tried to withdraw her hands from Dianna’s grip, but her friend held fast. “This does not have anything to do with Mr. Graystone, does it?”
“This has all to do with him!” Dianna cried, nearly bouncing up and down with excitement. “He is your solution. Don’t you see?”
What Charlotte saw was more trouble than she needed. “No,” she said emphatically, shaking her head from side to side. “No, no—”
“If you ruin yourself with Mr. Graystone, the duke will have to withdraw his offer for marriage! Mr. Graystone will be forced to marry you instead, and his money will save your mother from financial disaster!”
“—no,” Charlotte finished weakly.
Oh dear.
Had Gavin known his future was being plotted without his knowledge, he would have been infuriated. As it happened he was already quite angry, although it was for a very different reason.
“I have given you three months, Newmore. Your loan has come due,” he said, speaking through clenched teeth to a tall, heavyset man who sat opposite him behind an enormous mahogany desk that could have paid off the debt owed three times over.
That was the crutch of the nobility, however: they would take the shirt off their back before they gave up their possessions, for heaven forbid anyone visiting their home guess they were in financial straits.
Lord Newmore straightened in his chair and slapped his hands on the desk. His gold signet ring caught the late afternoon sun flickering in through one of the windows, drawing Gavin’s eye. Newmore’s lip curled in disgust beneath his salt and pepper moustache.
“Don’t have one of these, do you boy?” he asked tauntingly, holding up his hand. “Do you know why? Because you are not one of us. You might wear fancy clothes and buy fancy houses, bu
t your blood is as tainted and impure as it was the day you were born. You think you can come in here and bully me? You are nothing more than an insolent mongrel scavenging for scraps. A social outcast who will never amount to–MMPH!” The rest of Newmore’s words came out gargled, for it was quite difficult to speak clearly when one had a hand wrapped around one’s throat.
Papers flew in the air as Gavin launched himself across the desk, knocking over a vase in the process. It shattered on the floor and Newmore’s eyes widened in horror.
“That w-was a Clifton!” he wheezed.
Gavin’s grip tightened. “Two days,” he said, his tone deceptively calm. “Two days to send what is owed to me or I will come back here and I will break more than a vase. Are we clear?”
“As c-crystal,” Newmore choked out.
“Excellent.” Gavin opened his hand, and the lord sagged in his chair, his face a rather alarming shade of purple above the crisp white collar of his cravat. Picking up his jacket and tossing it negligently over his shoulder, Gavin strolled out of the study without a bothering to look back.
Shire House was only a few blocks away and as the skies were clear and the weather crisp, he waved his carriage on. He sank into deep thought as he walked, his head echoing with the things Newmore had said. The man may have been a pansy livered muckworm, but he was still right on all accounts.
No matter how much money Gavin made, he would always feel second class to those born above him on the social ladder. He could not escape his past. He wore it like a brand on his forehead, for despite his endless voice lessons and expensive carriages and tailored clothes it took only a whisper, a sideways glance, a smirk, and he felt as he had all those years ago standing over his mother’s bed: worthless.
Cupping his jaw, he rubbed at the shadow of scruff he had not shaved since yesterday morning. Perhaps there was one thing that would gain him the respect of his peers. One thing he had once thought to avoid at all costs, but he was weary of feeling as though he did not belong, weary of the gossip and the stares, weary of lurking on the edges of the ton like a beggar, staring hungrily through the window at something he could see but never have.
Runaway Duchess (London Ladies Book 1) Page 6