I write this letter to I want you to know I am unworthy of your affection. You are, my dear, the most divine creature I’ve met with wit, charm, and talent I thought never to possess. When first I saw you, When I first beheld your You cannot know how my heart leapt when first we met. You cannot know how lonely has been my life, how empty my home, surrounded by contr manipula heartless women who seek to control me. My words may fall on deaf ears, but I must be heard. I’m not an eloquent poet and prefer we speak in person, but as I cannot as we are parted hell and damnation we are separated by an insurm a great an immeasurable distance, this letter is my means my heart my only way to damnation I hate writing I want to be with you and only you. Have I mentioned you’re beautiful? Damnation.
Charlotte stared at the unfinished letter, dazed. He thought her controlling and heartless. She couldn’t deny she’d spurned him on more than one occasion, but she wasn’t heartless. Reading the words of adoration that could only describe another woman brought fresh tears, all the pain resurfacing.
All too clearly, he felt separated from his mistress, not willing to risk going to her. Had they been writing this whole time, lovers estranged by the controlling and heartless wife, only able to express their affection through missives? If she didn’t leave the room, she’d be sick on his desk.
The letter supplied enough evidence to convince Charlotte he was a liar and a cheat, but it wasn’t enough to force a confession. There was, after all, no salutation. Knowing Drake, he’d claim he was talking about his horse. No, if she were to confront him again, she needed irrefutable proof. And then what? Would his confession give her peace of mind so she could wash her hands of him once and for all?
A week later, Stella slipped into the parlor with a tea tray, shutting the door behind her.
“He’s requested the carriage for this evening, Your Grace, and according to Philip, he’s going to her,” Stella whispered as she set down the tray.
“Thank you, Stella. Is everything prepared? No second thoughts?” Charlotte asked the maid, noticing the tell-tale blush when Stella mentioned Philip’s name.
“If you insist, we will oblige. James, the coachman, is most upset about it, if you’ll pardon my candid reply. He doesn’t know which will get him dismissed, following your orders or not following your orders.”
“No one will be dismissed. His Grace wouldn’t dare. Besides, this was my idea. I will take full blame for the consequences. What time should we meet?” Charlotte poured the tea as though they were friends conversing about the weather rather than conspirators. The task steadied her restless hands.
“Seven. The shift change is a quarter ‘til, so I’ll have the hall to myself for a half hour,” the maid answered. “Third door on the left.”
With an inclination of the duchess’ head, Stella took her leave.
Charlotte savored her tea and watched Captain Henry climb to the top of his tree and back down, then once more for the tenth time. Her calm affect belied the inner turmoil.
So, Drake would be going to his mistress at last. He’d waited two weeks since Charlotte’s confrontation. Should she feel betrayed or triumphant? After stewing over the letter for nearly a week, it was about time something happened.
The plan for the evening was risky and wholly scandalous. Charlotte didn’t care. Her determination to prove him a cheat overpowered all sense of propriety. It wasn’t as though the plan weren’t well thought-out enough to work, but if one aspect failed, she would be left in a far worse situation than she was in now.
What else was she to do? Allow him to humiliate her further? No. No longer would she be made a fool by this family. It was time she took charge. It all started with this daft plan.
The new tiger, Philip, who was smitten with Stella, devised the plan himself after Charlotte suggested she follow Drake’s carriage on horseback to catch him with the woman. Philip had pointed out every flaw in her idea and crafted his own in its place.
All the parts were now set into motion. No one would find out until she burst in on Drake and his mistress, catching them together. He couldn’t deny his affair then! It would destroy every hope she ever had of love, fairy tale romance, and a dazzling hero, but she couldn’t sit around being made a fool of by him. Drake’s wrath in the aftermath wasn’t a concern since she would find him in a wholly compromising position, making anything he said in response hypocritical.
An hour later, dressed for dinner, she was assured Beatrice would guard her room. Should anyone call on her, the lady’s maid would say her mistress suffered from a migraine and should not be disturbed.
When Charlotte entered the lesser dining room, she stopped dead at the sight of Drake.
Sparkling diamonds encrusted his cravat and each of his fingers were ringed with jewels and gold bands. His silk breeches, waistcoat, and matching coat were a royal blue with elegant, silver embroidery, tailored to perfection to fit his striking form like a second skin. He took her breath away.
She’d not seen him dressed this stunningly since their wedding. Under different circumstances, she might have swooned. She recalled wistfully when he first called on her in London, arriving at her aunt’s townhouse with a multi-caped cloak, ringed fingers, a bejeweled cravat and looking marvelously delicious.
She flushed with anger. All his denials of not having a mistress, and here he stood fit for a ball. He couldn’t have made his plans more obvious unless he announced it in the paper.
She took her seat at the table, the tension palpable. Each time she stole a glance at him, he stared back at her, shifting in his chair.
When the footmen brought the first course, Charlotte could do nothing more than stare at the plate, unable to eat a bite. Her stomach churned. To avoid drawing attention to her missing appetite, she poked at the food on her plate.
Oh, blast. Why did he have to look so dashing for someone else?
“Drake,” his mother said after a silent first course. “You are dressed well for dinner this evening. To what do we owe the honor?”
Charlotte nearly choked before he answered. She coughed and sputtered as the family stared at her curiously.
“I’m to attend a rout after dinner, Mother,” Drake said, eyeing Charlotte with brows raised as if to question her coughing fit. “Small gathering, nothing worth mentioning. I don’t wish to be late, so I’m leaving immediately after dinner.”
Bother! That wouldn’t give her enough time to change. She would have to be swift and hope the coachman could detain him.
“A rout, you say,” Catherine replied. “Distastefully disorganized events. Unfashionable.” Turning to Charlotte, she said, “I see from your choice of attire, you have the good sense not to attend such rubbish.”
Swallowing against the lump in her throat, she said, “No, Mama Catherine, I will be staying in this evening. I fear I will retire early with wishes not to be disturbed. I feel the onset of a headache.”
The dowager inclined her head in approval. “Learn a thing or two from your wife, Drake. She knows which parties to attend and which to avoid.”
Drake grinned. “I suspect this is not her scene. Although….” He angled towards her, his eyes reflecting the diamonds in his neckcloth. “If you wish to attend, I have no objections. Selfish of me not to invite you sooner. Shall I wait for you to dress?”
Her jaw slackened as she gaped at him. What was this trickery? The entire staff knew he was going to his mistress, yet he dared invite Charlotte to go with him. Was all her scheming for naught? Her head spun with confusion and contradictions. Perhaps this was his way of hiding in plain sight, fabricating this rouse, knowing she’d say no. It certainly made him look innocent.
Before she could reply, Mary whined over her dinner plate. “It’s not fair. I never get to go to parties. I want to go to a party.”
“I will not stand for your petulance,” Catherine scolded.
They bickered for
the remainder of the course.
Charlotte could feel Drake’s eyes boring into her as he waited for an answer. She couldn’t meet his gaze. Wringing her hands in her lap and chewing on her lip, she stressed. If she said yes, where would he take her? If she said no and went through with her plan, would she learn he really was going to an innocent party? This had to be a trick. He must have planned all along to invite her at the last minute to appear innocent. But wouldn’t that be too risky—she could, after all, say yes? Oh, botheration!
By the time dessert arrived, she’d still not given an answer.
Drake stood, his dessert unfinished.
“I apologize to you all, but I’m afraid I really must take my leave of you, unless, that is, my wife has decided to join me and would like time to change?”
Staring up at him, her eyes wide, her thoughts jumbled, she said, “No, I have a migraine.”
Drake bowed and left the room.
Had she made the right decision? The servants must be wrong. He couldn’t possibly be going to his mistress if he had invited her to go with him.
There was only one way to find out. Knowing how unusual it must look, but not wanting her plans to go awry, she stood moments after his departure.
“I, too, apologize, but my headache is so severe I must retire immediately.” Without waiting for a response, she fled the room.
She raced to the servant’s hall, hoping Stella would be there and the coachman would find a reason to delay departure long enough for her to take her place unseen.
It wasn’t too late to back out. Did she really want to see him in the arms of another woman? Why not accept his word and live happily in denial, excusing his absences and nights away as being evenings with friends, nothing more?
Her feet wouldn’t obey. They marched her towards certain doom, straight through the servant wing and into Stella’s quarters. The maid sat waiting, looking as anxious as Charlotte felt.
“Oh, no, you’re too early!” Stella shrieked. “We can’t let them see you leaving my room dressed as a tiger! They’ll think Philip has been in my room, and Mrs. Fisk will dismiss me as soon as rumor spreads.”
“It’s not my fault. He left in the middle of dessert. Are you positive he’s going to her?”
“Yes, I’m positive, Your Grace. The instructions were to go to her house after dinner. Having doubts?”
“Yes. No. Not enough to stop me.”
Stella nodded. “If you still want to go through with it, follow me. I have an idea.”
The maid tucked the tiger livery into a blanket, then directed Charlotte down the hallway. They headed to the side door that would lead them out to the waiting carriage and stopped in the hall. Opening a broom closet, Stella ushered Charlotte inside.
“You must be joking, Stella. I’m not going into a broom closet,” Charlotte said with a laugh.
“But you must! You can’t dress in my room until the shift change, and by then he’ll have left. James can only delay departure for so long. Go in! I’ll stand guard outside the door.”
“You can’t shove me in a broom closet alone, Stella!” Charlotte stammered, short of breath. Nothing was turning out as planned. “I’ve no way to undress myself without help.”
With an exasperated exhale, Stella said, “I’ll help you, but we must hurry. Will you get into the closet before someone sees us?”
They crammed into the space, Charlotte feeling like a prized idiot. Only a few weeks ago, she’d been a proud bride with the most eligible of men on her arm. Now, she was an insanely jealous woman hiding in a broom closet with a parlor maid. Her sister wouldn’t believe her if Charlotte told her. Her aunt would faint from vapors. Her cousin would deny her as a relation. The dowager duchess would have heart failure. Her father would be the only one to laugh and say she was a chip of the same block.
Stella struggled with the ties of Charlotte’s dinner dress, fumbling in the dark with unfamiliar finery. With a concentrated effort, she succeeded in undressing Charlotte and then dressing her in Philip’s livery, a coat with orange and black stripes, earning the horseman’s name of tiger.
The breeches, much too tight in the hip, and the layers of coats made Charlotte distinctly uncomfortable, as did the heavy fabric knotted taut around her bosom to hide her femininity. Her own stays were useless since they accentuated her bosom rather than hid it. Stella was to be credited for the fabric idea, though the compression against her breasts was almost painful. Stella pinned Charlotte’s hair under the cap, pulling the brim low over her forehead.
This was the only way. She couldn’t very well climb up next to the coachman in her dinner dress.
“Keep your head low, and all he’ll see is the cap,” Stella said, adding a few more hairpins to trap Charlotte’s curls. “No one notices the groom, much less the tiger, so he will have no cause to look at you closely. If you keep your head down, you’ll go unnoticed. James will assure your safety. This whole plan makes him ever so nervous.”
Charlotte felt guilty for involving them in this harebrained scheme. She shouldn’t have put them in this position, but this was the only way.
Stella poked her head out of the broom closet, checked the coast was clear, and waved Charlotte forward.
Together, they walked outside to the waiting carriage. With each step, her heart rate accelerated. This was madness! What was she doing?
A frenzy of grooms worked at the back of the carriage, tightening one of the wheels at the direction of the coachman. Everyone who would be on the carriage with her was already in attendance, all except Philip, of course, since Charlotte was to take his place, posing as him for the journey.
She spotted Drake standing by the carriage, scowling and tapping an impatient foot. Her heart skipped a beat, and her breath caught. Immediately, she bowed her head, training her eyes to the ground, and widened her steps to appear manlier. All she could do was pray he wouldn’t find a reason to get too close to her. At a distance, in the dark, there should be no reason for recognition, but if he stepped too close….
As soon as the coachman saw Stella and the disguised tiger approach, he shouted to the duke, “The wheel is ready, Your Grace! We’ll be on the road now. I’m only glad I spotted the problem in time.”
“You try my patience,” Drake grumbled, climbing into the carriage. He leaned out of the window and added, “All of this should have been sorted before I finished dinner. I’m eager to be on the road. The sooner we leave, the sooner we return. Get on with it, man!”
Beneath her cap, Charlotte saw Stella making a break for it back to the house, leaving her alone with the footmen. She stood in the gravel yard, lost and uncertain. Nothing about this idea was logical. It wasn’t too late to back out. He was probably going to a boring rout with Winston and his friends. This was a complete waste of time.
The coachman made a wide arc in his walk from the back of the carriage to the front, catching her attention and flicking his head towards the back of the carriage. When she glanced back, she saw the platform on which she was to stand for the entirety of the ride, supposedly ready to help with any horse issues that might arise. Should anyone see the carriage, they wouldn’t question her as the tiger, as such a position was prized for youthfulness, short stature, and slenderness. It was the perfect disguise in the dark.
As she approached the platform, a footman caught himself just as he began to bow and help her ascend. With a reassuring smile to the poor chap, whose name she believed to be Algie, if memory served, she steadied herself on the platform and held on for dear life as the carriage sprang to action.
Chapter 15
She must be mad, she told herself. Her mind had taken a turn around the bend and launched her into full blown insanity. How else could she explain standing on the back of a carriage, wearing a male servant’s livery, hoping to catch a man in an intimate pose with a woman? Madness. Sheer madness.
&
nbsp; Clinging to the leather strap attached to the coach for balance, she wondered how to proceed with the remainder of the night. She could only catch him if she were in the house, but why would the groom assigned to tend to the horses be traipsing around a person’s house? The only possibility she saw was to peek through windows until she saw them together.
Unless they were upstairs. Blast. She hadn’t thought about them going upstairs. A footman would stop her if she tried to enter and walk up the stairwell. Oh, please don’t let them go upstairs, she begged. This whole plan survived on her wit alone, with her thinking on her feet, which she had never been good at. Her sister was good at thinking on her feet, but not Charlotte. Charlotte had to plan things meticulously in advance. Impulse and spontaneity were not her strong suits.
Yet this night depended on her ability to think fast or she would fail in her mission. Her being seen by Drake was ultimately inevitable, but by then it wouldn’t matter, because she would have caught him in that woman’s arms. Being seen before he assumed a compromising position would be disastrous.
By the time the carriage reached a stately cottage about the size of Charlotte’s home in Cornwall, her legs quivered like jelly. The ride had taken an hour. An hour in which she stood on the back of a bouncing carriage, clinging to a strap of leather and praying she didn’t fall to her death. She had a newfound respect for her servants. As soon as she could arrange a private word with the steward, she’d give them all a raise.
Charlotte stepped off her platform and ran to the front of the carriage to steady the horses, as was her job as the tiger. She only hoped she didn’t inadvertently spook the animals. Algie, the footman, hopped off the carriage once she settled the horses, or more aptly once the horses settled her, and ran to the side of the coach to open the door for Drake.
She kept her eyes on the ground, listening to Drake’s boots meet gravel. After two steps, the sound ceased. Her heart raced. Had he seen her? She strained to listen to every movement. A click, followed by a sniff. Ah, his snuff box. Realizing she had been holding her breath, she exhaled in relief.
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