by Sara Portman
He was lost. Well and truly lost. What the devil was going on here?
“No one will gossip to me about Charlotte,” Emma continued matter-of-factly. “How could I start a rumor? I believe Lady Markwood started that one.” She scowled in thought. “Or was it Lady Blythe? I’m not sure. Only I know for certain it was not Aunt Agatha. Aunt Agatha was assigned the raised-by-gypsies story. And a new one—daughter of a Drury Lane actress.”
He could only stare, his heart growing heavy in his chest. “Dear God, Emma, what have you done?” What had he allowed her to do?
She ignored him, tapping one finger on her chin. “No, I was right, the kitchen maid story was definitely assigned to Lady Markwood. Lady Blythe had the story about escaping from an Australian-bound convict ship.” She beamed proudly up at him. “That one was particularly brilliant in its outlandishness.”
“Why?” he asked. “Why would you do this to Charlotte? After all the trust she’s placed in you—that I have placed in you—why would you sabotage her in this way?”
Emma shook her head. “We are not sabotaging Charlotte’s debut. We are saving it.”
“I should have you committed for lunacy.”
“Listen,” Emma coaxed. “There were already rumors—awful rumors—circulating about Charlotte before we arrived in town. Any of them, if believed, would have been damaging to her reputation. The only way to directly discredit each rumor would be to provide the truth.”
That reasoning was at least sound. John had just given the same explanation to Brydges. “Go on,” he said.
“Since the truth is just as damaging to Charlotte’s reputation as any of the rumors, we concluded we could not discredit any one rumor, but could discredit the whole lot by making it into a bunch of ridiculous nonsense—the more ridiculous the better.”
John peered at her. He no longer could say if she required commitment for lunacy or a knighthood for brilliance. “Do you mean to tell me, you and your cohort of ladies have been circling the room, intentionally spreading rumors about Charlotte all evening?”
“Not quite. Not me, as I’ve already explained. And not all evening. Each lady was assigned just one or two stories, and she was only to tell her story to one other, carefully selected, gossip. And she did not tell her story directly to the most notorious gossips, but to a known intimate friend of the most notorious gossips. That way, by the time the stories really began circulating, they were several steps removed from their source, and no one really knew where they originated.”
John said nothing. He had no bloody idea what to say. The music stopped. The dance had ended. Should he still collect Charlotte as he planned?
“Have faith, John,” Emma said in whisper soft tones. “I have accomplished what you asked of me. I would have told you how I intended to accomplish it, if you had been able to spare a moment of your time over this past week, but now it is done. If just one story, no matter how false, had been allowed to take hold of everyone’s imagination, we could never have overcome it. Instead, the stories will be so great in number and so absurdly outrageous that every sensible person will eventually discount all of them as patently false. What else could they conclude? There will always be some mystery surrounding Charlotte, but she is a success.”
“How can you be so sure there are enough ‘sensible’ people to conclude the stories are all bollocks?”
She grinned at him. “That is second part of our plan.”
He nearly smiled back. “You are disturbingly strategic, madam.”
Her grin widened. “Each lady was to launch a story or two at the beginning of the evening to add to those that would already be circulating. Once the stories have made the full rounds of the room, each lady is to separately plant the seed that the entire nonsense is an affront to sensible people. Gypsies, really?” Emma said in feigned, superior tones. “Sheer stupidity, if you ask me.”
John looked around the room. He sighted the ladies in question, all in different corners of the ballroom, all engaging in animated conversations with groups of tittering ladies. He did not, however, see Charlotte. “You may have miscalculated one factor in your stratagem,” he told her.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Charlotte.”
“How so?”
“What if Charlotte happens to hear one of these horrible rumors? Worse yet, what if she hears the truth?”
“Oh, Charlotte is fully aware of the game,” Emma said. “She held an important role.”
John was afraid to ask what sort of role Charlotte had played in this game. “Do not tell me, you had Charlotte attempting to spread her own rumors?”
“No, nothing like that,” Emma assured him. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Not directly, anyway.”
“How would Charlotte indirectly start rumors?”
“Charlotte was tasked with saying one vague, mysterious thing to each of her dance partners, but never the same thing twice, leaving them all guessing as to what sort of clue it may be to her true background. A Spanish word here. A reference to a storybook childhood there. She’s been having such fun. She really is creative, that one.”
The strains of the next piece of music reached them and John looked to the dancers to observe his sister in this unlikely task. “Where is she?” he asked.
Emma looked as well. “I don’t see her. That’s odd. This set was spoken for. She should be dancing.”
Chapter Forty-One
Hugh charged into the ballroom and strode directly toward Charlotte. John Brantwood was a damned fool. What on earth was the bloody idiot thinking? Charlotte was his sister for God’s sake.
He cleared his throat quite loudly once he reached her. “Lady Charlotte, you will need to come with me for a moment.” When she only stared, he added, “Your brother has sent me to fetch you.”
“But I am promised for the next set,” Charlotte said. She turned to look at her present partner, but the young pup had managed to disappear into the assembled revelers.
He was probably intimidated. Possibly due to the frightening scowl Hugh had sent in his direction for just that purpose.
“You should come with me,” he told her.
“Whatever for?”
God, she was lovely. Whoever had created that dress she wore was a cruel, cruel woman.
“Do not argue, Charlotte. Come with me. Do not make a scene of it. Just take my arm and I will lead you to your brother.”
He led her to her brother’s study, shut the door, and stood in front of it, barring any attempt to exit.
“Where is my brother?”
“I lied to you, Charlotte. Your brother is not here. I have brought you here because I will not allow you to return to that room full of jackals.”
“Are you mad? You will not allow me to return to my own debut ball? You’re ridiculous.” She marched forward to stand in front of him and stared upward, considerably less intimidated by his scowls than the schoolboy she’d been dancing with. “Allow me to pass, immediately.”
“You cannot go out there.”
“Why not?”
“Your reputation is at stake.”
One dubious eyebrow rose to register her disbelief in that statement. “I may not be an expert as yet with the rules of English high society, but I’m quite certain it is far more damaging to a young girl’s reputation to be alone behind a closed door with a rakish gentleman than to be dancing in the middle of a ballroom with a hundred pairs of eyes watching.”
God, she had no idea. His eyes raked over her. “It may be more dangerous to your virtue, love, but in this circumstance your reputation is far safer here.”
Charlotte’s confident expression faltered. She stepped back. “Why?”
He stepped forward. She would not cooperate unless he told her why, but he did not want to tell her. He wanted her to be daring and furious and alive with fire, as she usually was. He did not want her to see her meek, unsure, and saddened by the rejection of an entire society. “There is untrue gossip
circulating about you. A lot of it. It is all quite damning to your reputation. I won’t allow you to blindly move about in an entire room full of people who are so cruelly abusing you.”
“Why do you care? You have been cruelly abusing me for weeks?”
His tone softened. “I won’t let them hurt you, Charlotte. I will protect you.”
Accusation flared in her sapphire eyes. “Don’t look at me that way. Don’t give me that pitying look.” She crossed her arms tightly in front of her chest and cocked her head to one side. “I know what falsehoods are circulating about me. I also know which rumor is true, scandal or not. I worked in a kitchen. It’s not as though I sold myself.”
Hugh advanced slowly into the room, never taking his eyes from her. “A lady doesn’t speak that way.”
“You know I have never been and never will be a lady.”
She said it as if it didn’t matter, as though a lady were the last thing she’d ever aspire to be, but it was a lie. He’d have known that even if her eyes weren’t glassy with unshed tears.
He stepped to her, took her fisted hands, opened them, and kept them captive as he beheld her. “You are a better lady than any of them will ever have a chance to be.”
Charlotte sneered and tugged to free her hands, but he did not yield them. “It’s a game,” she said, her voice rising. “It’s all a game the duchess devised. There were already too many rumors to start, so instead of attempting to quash them, we are adding to them, until there are so many and they are so ridiculous that no one could possibly believe them.”
Hugh stared. “A game?”
“Why do they want so badly to find a scandal where there doesn’t need to be one? Why am I working so hard to become one of those hateful people?”
Hugh stared down into the blue pools of pure misery and failed to find the words to relieve her distress. With no other way of giving her comfort, he released her hands and crushed her to him instead, cradling her head against his chest.
He waited for her to pull away, but she didn’t. She released a small, muffled sob and clutched him tightly.
In that moment, he vowed revenge on every person who had ever dared to breathe a single disparaging word about this spirited, resilient, nymph-sized girl who’d never done anything to harm any one of them. He longed to lower his face to hers and kiss away every salty tear. He would take her into his arms the way he wanted and show her just how desirable she was, if only she wouldn’t hate him for it.
Charlotte released a sigh. She lifted a hand to wipe at her tears.
Hugh reached down to place his hand beneath her chin and tilt her face to his. He meant to say something clever—something teasing that would raise her ire and pull her out of tear-soaked misery. He meant to be the hero.
Instead, he was the villain. He made the terrible mistake of crushing his lips to hers and pouring every bit of fierce protectiveness into bruising kisses as though the strength of his passion could somehow overcome any weakness to which she had succumbed.
To his wonderment, she did not resist. Her arms stole around his neck, and Charlotte—his Charlotte—returned his kisses as urgently as he gave them. Unable to turn away what she gave so sweetly, his hands slid down her back to where he could lift her bottom and hold her firmly against him.
For this moment, just this moment, he would believe he nobly provided what Charlotte so desperately needed, and not that he had taken callous advantage.
Chapter Forty-Two
“What the bloody hell?”
Emma had trailed John out of the ballroom, so she heard the curse before she saw its cause. She picked up her skirts and hurried after him.
She stopped short as soon as she passed through the door. Mr. Brydges stood in the middle of John’s study, trying to push Charlotte behind him in an attempt to position himself between Charlotte and John. John stood just a few paces away from Emma and glared menacingly toward them both.
Emma’s shoulders slumped Perhaps she should have alerted John to her suspicions regarding Mr. Brydges and Charlotte. She sighed. Discussions with her husband would have required time spent in his presence and she had not been allotted that this past week. “John, wait.”
“I’ll not wait,” he roared, pointing frantically in the couple’s direction. “I’ve just discovered my oldest friend accosting my sister! Have you no scruples, man? Take your hands off her.”
Cringing at the volume of her husband’s bellow, Emma rushed to close the door. Rumors were one thing; a scene with witnesses would be an entirely different matter.
Charlotte pushed herself out from behind Mr. Brydges. “John, stop. No one was accosted.”
“Then you were a willing participant,” he bellowed. “That is no better! Your family has been working to protect your reputation, and you sneak out in the middle of your debut to behave like a harlot!”
Mr. Brydges pushed Charlotte behind him again. He stepped forward and stared at John with cold, hard eyes. When he spoke, his words were slow and deliberate. “Old friend or no, you had better mind your manners in speaking of Charlotte.”
John advanced on him. “Take your hands off her.”
“Not while you’re attacking her.” His chin and chest rose. “You can accuse me of whatever you like, but you may accuse Charlotte of nothing. She was cast aside by her family as a child, forced to live like a pauper, and lost her mother only to be uprooted from everything she knows and dragged across the ocean so you could make her into an English lady then abandon her when she needed you most.” His eyes flashed as he advanced another step. “Maybe I’ve mistreated her because I had no right to love her, but you’ve given up on her and you are supposed to love her.”
John halted. He stared. “You love her.” It was more revelation than question.
“You’re damned right I love her.”
“Well, you’d better bloody well marry her now,” John thundered as he advanced on the two of them.
“Of course I plan to bloody well marry her,” Mr. Brydges shouted back.
Charlotte stepped forward with hands on her hips and shouted at both of them. “Don’t you think someone ought to bloody well ask me?”
Mr. Brydges turned his thunderous expression on Charlotte. “Well, are you going to marry me or aren’t you?”
There was a pause. Charlotte gaped up at him as though she hadn’t really expected him to do it. Then her arms flew around his neck and she peppered his face with laughing kisses. “Yes. Yes. Of course, yes.”
John’s stared mutely at the two of them. Then he turned to Emma, his complexion mottled with anger even while his eyes clouded with confusion. “Did you know about this?”
She stiffened. “I did.”
He shook his head as though the jumbled thoughts might somehow fall in line, then his hands closed into fists in front of him. “How is it,” he said through a clenched jaw, “that I have no bloody idea what the devil is going on in my own house!” His volume rose over the course of his question and culminated when he slammed the side of his fist against the bookcase.
Charlotte only gaped.
Brydges glared.
Emma hoped it hurt. She hoped it smarted for days. What did he want? She had given him what he asked. They had all given him what he professed to want. Charlotte’s reputation was spared. Moreover, she was happy. Happy? She was delirious. She was clutching the arm of a man who had just vowed his fierce protection and declared his great love and desire to marry her.
But how could John understand that any woman might want that? A cage of bitterness clamped around her ridiculous hope of proving her worth to her blind, uncaring husband. The cage closed and tightened until she had nothing left but exasperation.
When she spoke into the silence, her voice was low and unfamiliar. “Clearly you didn’t know. You have no idea what love looks like. How could you possibly recognize it under your very nose?” She spun on her heel and walked out. She was still the duchess. And she still had a ballroom full of people and rumor
s to quell.
Chapter Forty-Three
John paced. His head ached because he’d drunk too much scotch the night before. He should close his eyes to drown the dim light of his study. He should ring the bell and have someone bring him a cold damp cloth for his pounding skull.
But he paced. And became angry at himself for being contrary. To himself.
Damn.
What reason had he to feel so disgruntled? It was done. He had done his part. Everyone had done their God damned part. Emma, in particular, had been brilliantly clever. Why didn’t he feel relieved? Why was he plagued with restlessness?
There was a rap on the door.
“Come,” he bade. He would ask for the damn cloth after all.
The door swung wide and slammed the wall opposite with a merciless thud. It reverberated through his throbbing head.
“There you are,” Charlotte chirped at an excessively loud volume.
“Here I am,” he confirmed unnecessarily. “I know why I am here. Why are you here?”
Charlotte ignored the question and approached, undaunted, sharp eyes peering at him. “You are worse than I thought.”
He flashed her an annoyed look for her impertinence and retreated to the seat behind his desk. “I am fine, Charlotte,” he said, making what he considered a noble attempt to keep the edge from his tone. “I am tired and my head aches. I need nothing more than the absence of company.”
He chided himself as soon as the words were out. His foul mood was not due to Charlotte. It wasn’t due to anything that he could discern.
Charlotte was too thick-skinned to be put off by his cantankerous mood or thinly veiled request for solitude. “I don’t think you have any idea what you need,” she said, calmly settling into a chair opposite his desk.
“Whatever does that mean?”
She smiled. “Let us begin another way,” she suggested lightly, her mood impervious to the blackening influence of his own. “I’ve come to convey my gratitude. You’ve turned your entire life on its end for me. I may not have shown the proper gratitude all of the time, but I wish to show it now. I am beyond fortunate to have you as my brother. And as I am currently rather pleased with my situation, which I owe in no small part to you. I thank you.”