by Jenna Jaxon
Charlotte stared at her, stunned beyond belief. “You did?” A sinking sensation began in her stomach and radiated out toward her limbs, down to her fingers and toes.
“Yes. He is such a kind man, with such charming manners. I do wish now I had danced with him at the house party, although I suspect I shall have another chance shortly.” Georgina sat back, a satisfied smile on her face.
“You do?” A sense of foreboding gripped Charlotte with icy fingers.
“Why, yes. Don’t you plan to have dancing at your upcoming party?” The girl cocked her head, as if puzzled, but a twinkle of mischief showed clearly in her eyes.
“Of course I do. Georgie . . .” Oh, drat it. At this point, her nerves stretched tighter than a violin string, she didn’t care about propriety. “Did Lord Wrotham . . . ask you something?”
“Oh, yes. I meant to tell you.” Georgie leaned toward her.
Charlotte steeled herself for the blow.
“He asked me about you.”
Charlotte stared at her, relief cascading through her. “He did?”
“Yes, just before he asked me to marry him.”
“What?” Her blood froze in her veins. She stared into her friend’s smiling face and simply wanted to die.
“It wasn’t the grand romantic gesture Isaac made, going down on one knee and bringing me flowers, but it was a proposal.” Georgie’s face lit up at the fond memory.
“So I am to wish you happy, Georgie?” Numb all over, Charlotte wasn’t quite sure what to say. She didn’t want to accept what she’d just heard, but she had no choice. Lord Wrotham had taken her at her word and found another woman to be his wife.
“Oh, no, I didn’t accept him, Charlotte.” Georgie shook her head, her red ringlets bobbing beside her face. “I simply couldn’t do that.”
Warmth flooded Charlotte’s cold body, as though the sun had come out radiantly after days of snow and ice. She gasped and covered her face, fighting tears. After a few breaths to steady herself, Charlotte recovered enough to ask, “Why not, Georgie?”
“Because, my dear, I don’t love him.” She grasped Charlotte’s hands. “I am not unaware of the honor it would be to become the Countess of Wrotham. And I confess I did consider it during the house party.”
Charlotte nodded. “I suspected as much. You seemed to get on well with Lord Wrotham.”
“Jemmy broached it to me. He made me see how good a match it would be. He even hinted that it might reconcile me with Father.” She smiled wistfully. “Lord Wrotham is a very amiable gentleman. He looked out for me at The Bull, helped me be part of the conversation.”
“You were flirting shamelessly with him, Georgie.”
Her trilling little laugh filled the room. “I did, didn’t I?” She sounded quite proud of it. “Quite astonishingly, he made me want to have fun again. Something I never thought I’d do after Isaac died.” Her face sobered and a fierce light shone in her eyes. “But I had true love in my first marriage. I’ll not settle for less the second time.” She patted her lips, laid her napkin down, and rose. “I must write to Jemmy. He will be disappointed, I fear, but he will understand when I explain it to him.”
“How did Lord Wrotham take your refusal?” Charlotte folded her napkin, carefully keeping her eyes down.
“He seemed a bit confused,” she said, frowning at the memory. “As if he didn’t think he’d heard me correctly. Then I told him I understood the great honor he bestowed upon me by asking me, but I thought it would be a mistake.”
Charlotte’s head came up. Georgie had mettle she’d never dreamed of.
“He didn’t protest at all.” She smiled straight at Charlotte. “I believe he knew I was right.”
After Georgie left, Charlotte stayed at the table, her head spinning with her friend’s story. She needed to confront the earl immediately. He had meant it when he said he wanted a wife. If she didn’t act fast, she might find he had already asked yet another woman, although she could think of no reason for such haste on his part. Still, if she wanted to secure Lord Wrotham, she had best do it now.
Did she want to secure him? The outrageous thumping of her heart when she had thought him betrothed to Georgie told her she had already made her choice. Her interest in him, which had begun that night at Almack’s, had grown stealthily over the ensuing weeks and months. His admission to saving Edward, if nothing else, would make her esteem him above all other men. His manner toward her during the house party had persuaded her that he might have similar feelings for her. Of course, their encounter in the library left no doubt whatsoever of his attraction and his intentions. A pity he would consider nothing other than marriage, but if the man was bound and determined to have her as his wife, she would renounce her independence. And perhaps be happy at last.
Contentment flowed through her like a river of joy. She would go now. An urgency swept through her, a desire to see him again, to touch and hold him before she lost him. The sensible thing would be to send a footman to Wrotham Hall, requesting him to call on her. Her stomach twisted at the thought of waiting even an hour. No, she must do something. Go to him, pursue him. Her last act of freedom.
A scandalous proposition for her to visit a bachelor household unaccompanied, but a necessity in this case. She wanted him to herself, without a companion in tow. If she went on horseback rather than in the carriage, she could go to him and return with no one the wiser.
Both Rose and Georgina would try to dissuade her from this rash action, so she must employ stealth. Her next problems, therefore, would be how to change into her riding habit and escape the house and stables undetected. She would address those obstacles first. Planning her capitulation to Lord Wrotham could wait until she was underway.
* * *
Contrary to her expectations, donning her black wool riding habit undetected had been simple. She had summoned Rose, who had assisted Charlotte with her gown, and told the maid she would be riding alone in the park.
“You aren’t taking anyone with you, my lady?” Rose pretended to be removing a piece of lint from the tailored jacket when she cut her eyes slyly toward Charlotte.
“A little solitude after all the constant company in London will be a welcome respite.” Charlotte placed her most fetching bonnet on her head and adjusted it to her satisfaction.
“As you say, my lady,” Rose sniffed. “You’ve put on fine feathers to impress the grooms, it seems.” Her eyes widened as she clamped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, my lady. Not . . . not again?”
Charlotte cocked her head, truly befuddled. Then it dawned on her. Rose had been her maid since her come-out. She had been with her all through the miserable debacle of her secret affair with Edward.
With a laugh, Charlotte squeezed the maid’s hand. “No, I promise, I am not in love with James or Clarence. But who knows who may see me going to or from the stable? One should always be dressed impeccably, no matter what.”
Rose’s shoulders slumped, her worried frown lifting. “Well, you’ll certainly turn the head of whoever sees you, my lady.”
Charlotte smiled at the compliment. She prayed the woman spoke true.
Rose headed into the dressing room to put away the discarded day dress and Charlotte slipped out into the hall. No one stirred, but she wasn’t sure where Georgie might be. The secrecy might seem silly, but she didn’t want anyone to know what she was up to until she returned, a betrothed woman. She hurried to the end of the corridor and down the servants’ staircase to the kitchen. At the bottom of the stairs, she paused to listen to Mrs. Hatchette giving orders to the scullery maid about the dishes.
Holding her breath, Charlotte eased across the archway unseen and quietly opened the door to the garden. She ducked around the side of the house and, once out of sight of any of the kitchen staff who might look out the back door, stood gauging the next part of her adventure—the stable.
Chapter 19
From the kitchen garden, Charlotte fled stealthily toward the stables. Now how to saddle up w
ithout anyone being the wiser? If she took her groom, even if she swore him to secrecy, he still might talk. Such tittle-tattle in the servants’ hall was as good as an on-dit in the Times. But drat it, she had no idea how to saddle a horse.
Why hadn’t she gotten Edward to show her how to do it? Of course, she’d thought he’d always be there to do it for her. And then, they had had more important things to do, like eloping. She paused, prepared for the ache to settle in her heart as it always had when thinking of him.
Over the years since that horrible night, she’d thought of Edward almost constantly. First, in grief over his loss, then as an escape from life with Sir Archibald. She would lay in bed at night and remember the first time she and Edward had kissed. They had ridden out, even though the sky had threatened rain. As they approached the far side of the estate, it had begun to pour. He had called, “I told you so” and led their horses to a thick copse of trees. She’d slid off Bella straight into his arms and then raised her face to his. The touch of his lips had been both expected and completely surprising. He had held her to his strong chest as the rain drenched them and she had been overwhelmed by a sense of safety and happiness she’d never experienced before in her life.
After that day, she’d plotted incessantly how they could be together. Edward had been reluctant at first, but she’d coaxed him to help her plan their escape. She’d known it would be a shocking mésalliance—she would be shunned by everyone in the ton—but she hadn’t cared. All she had cared about had been Edward’s arms around her, his kiss on her lips, and a life with love and happiness and children.
That dream had been snuffed out in Whetstone. And for six years, whenever she had thought of him, her heart had ached for what might have been.
This time, however, only excitement and anticipation at the thought of seeing Lord Wrotham pulsed within her. Another sign, perhaps, that her present course was the true one. That Nash had been the one to save Edward still left her in awe. Did that circumstance have anything to do with her current affection for the Earl of Wrotham? She had certainly thought more of him and less of Edward since his revelation. Perhaps it was time to put aside her dreams of Edward and embrace Nash wholeheartedly. The two men resembled one another physically only in their height and dark coloring. But in their manner, in their caring natures and regard for her, they seemed almost as one. If she could make a life with Nash, she might finally find the love and happiness she had been denied for so long.
Charlotte crept into the stable, beguiled anew by the warm, comforting smell of horses, hay, and manure. Now to devise a way to have the groom saddle her horse without asking any questions.
The answer came with such startling clarity and simplicity that it took her breath.
She squared her shoulders and strode into the middle of the stable. “Clarence! James!” At her bold call, the grooms came scampering out of several stalls, one tucking the tail of his work shirt into his pants.
“Yes, my lady?”
“Please saddle Ajax for me immediately.” She glanced from James, perhaps fifteen years old, to Clarence, who might be a pair of years older, both local lads who had been on the property when she took possession. She’d had little interaction with them herself, usually sending word to have her horse readied for a ride.
They exchanged a glance before looking back at her.
“Will there be others in the party, my lady?” Clarence asked, looking behind her.
“No. I’ll ride alone today.” Charlotte raised her chin and tried to affect a nonchalant air. In truth, her stomach twisted itself in knots.
“Very well, my lady. Clarence, I’ll ready her ladyship’s horse. You get yours saddled so you can accompany her.” James turned toward the stall where her horse whinnied.
“That won’t be necessary, Clarence. I am going for a short ride in the park today. I won’t need a groom with me.”
It had occurred to Charlotte, out of the blue, that she was mistress here. She need not answer to father, husband, or stable boy. If she wanted to ride without a groom, then by God she would. Who could stop her?
“Ride alone, my lady?” James stared, uncomprehending. “But you always ride with one of us to protect you.”
“I’ll not be gone long, and I doubt I’ll need protection in my own park.” Why would the lads argue with her?
“There’s robbers about, my lady,” Clarence said, his face grave. “It’s not safe no more.”
“Well, I doubt they will accost me in the little time I wish to be out. Please saddle my horse now.” She firmed her tone to a command. If it took that to get her way in this, so be it.
“Yes, my lady.” The boys spoke in unison and jumped into action. In less time than it had taken to persuade them, Charlotte found herself up on Ajax and headed out the stable door with the admonition to be careful ringing in her ears.
A thrill of power rushed through her. She had gainsaid someone and gotten her way for the first time since her marriage. Even if they were only stable boys in her employ, she hoped it boded well for her coming meeting.
She headed the gelding toward the park, just in case the grooms were watching. When she topped a rise near a stand of trees, she turned left and struck out for the road that led to the drive at Lyttlefield. According to Lord Wrotham, Wrotham Hall lay two miles farther down the road. A quick ride on a cantering horse, he had declared. She decided to test his word and touched her heel to Ajax.
In what seemed truly no time, Charlotte turned between the huge carved marble pedestals, lions rampant as though daring her to enter and beard her lion in his den. She ignored the fanciful thought and continued to canter down the drive, until the grand edifice of Wrotham Hall came into view.
Nothing the earl had said about his home had prepared her for the vast mansion that rose before her. She slowed Ajax to a trot, eventually stopping completely to gawk at the amazing structure. A yellow-white Palladian house sprawled amid manicured lawns, woodland rising in the distance behind it. Three stories high and perfectly proportioned in width, with four flattened columns, two on either side of the front door, the house appeared to be a model of Georgian architecture. The symmetry and grandeur quite took her breath away. To be mistress of such a house, to put her own stamp on this magnificent estate, would be such an exciting challenge. Much more so than her efforts at Lyttlefield, which she had enjoyed immensely.
Finally recalled to her purpose, Charlotte urged her mount forward. By the time she had arrived at the front portico, a groom had appeared to hold her reins and assist her to the ground. She thanked him, marched up to the imposing oak and ironwork door. Focusing only on her purpose, she summoned all her courage and raised her hand to the knocker.
* * *
Nash stared at the list of names, fighting not to crush it in his fury. He needed the information it contained, although he’d read its contents often enough he’d almost committed it to memory. Six of his tenant families had been attacked in the last week by this gang of what purported to be ex-soldiers. Unable to secure work after the war, they had taken matters into their own hands by robbing and pillaging in hopes of stealing enough for their families to survive.
Nash shook his head. Soldiers. He could scarcely credit it.
He’d received the report late last night and this morning, he’d ridden out to the latest victim, James Wright, a wheelwright by trade. What he had found had not been pretty. He closed his eyes and swore under his breath.
There was a knock at the door, and Acres opened it to announce, “Lady Cavendish is here, my lord. She’s in the small reception room.”
Nash’s head jerked up. Charlotte? He tossed the list onto his cluttered desk and all but ran from the room. He strode swiftly into the green chamber and stopped. She stood in the middle of the room, severe in a black riding habit, but with a ravishing hat sitting jauntily on her head, its ostrich feather trailing over her shoulder. Like an invitation to likewise run his fingers down her back.
“My lady, what a love
ly surprise.” Nash rushed toward her and raised her hand to his mouth. He let his lips linger as he studied her face. What could have brought her here without a companion?
“I am so pleased to see you, my lord. I recently returned from London and wanted to call on you.” She stared back at him, eyes bright, smile wide. Then she squeezed the hand he still kissed. Not as if to say, “Let go.” Rather as though . . . good Lord, was the woman flirting with him?
Taken aback by this possibility, Nash released her hand and bowed. “I am delighted to see you again as well, my lady. When I heard you had removed to London, I feared we would be deprived of the pleasure of your company for quite some time to come. I am pleased to see that those fears were unfounded.”
Her brilliant smile went straight to his heart.
“Please, my lord. I believe we are beyond the formalities. Will you not call me Charlotte?”
A rush of hot blood shot from his head straight to his groin. His breathing came sharper and a metallic taste flooded his mouth.
“I would be delighted to do so . . . Charlotte.” The name sounded like liquid gold.
Her eyes crinkled, as though she enjoyed it as well.
“Then you must call me Nash.”
“Nash.” She tried it out, elongating the single syllable, savoring it.
His heart raced like a runaway carriage.
“You have been well, Nash?” Her eyes sparkled and she hummed with the same energy as that night at Almack’s.
“I have been very well, thank you.” The memory of his errand this morning, unfortunately, sobered him from the giddy aura her presence had created.
“Is something wrong?” Even her frown was charming.
“I rode out earlier to see one of my tenants who had been burned out last night.”
“What?” The flirtatious woman fled like a lantern snuffed; in her stead was an outraged landowner. The lines on her face deepened. “Who?”
“James Wright, the village wheelwright, is the latest victim of the gang that’s been terrorizing Kent for the last two months.” He motioned her to a leather wing-backed chair and sat in its companion beside her.