Charlotte

by Virginia Taylor

  Her face stiffened. “I’m teasing you. I’m not as giddy as you think.”

  “Sarah is far from giddy.” Charlotte entered the room with Alfred. She looked calm and cool and unutterably beautiful in emerald green and blue. “I’ll be seeing you in Stirling, Sarah. I’ve just dashed off a note to Nell telling her I changed my mind and will join her and Tony.”

  Sarah put down her fork. “I wish you’d decided this sooner. I would rather have stayed with the Hawthorns, too. Will they pick you up this afternoon? Perhaps I could—No, that would be rude.”

  Nick concentrated on the silver epergne in the center of the table. A harsh beam of light hit the middle crystal bowl, monetarily blinding him. “Neither of you need to stay with others. Our house is there. I’m sure my father wouldn’t object to opening the place up. This is the time of year he usually goes away.” He queried his father with his eyes.

  “And I would have if I thought the rest of you were leaving. As it is, I put my plan back a couple of weeks, for when the peaches ripen. I suppose I could go now instead.”

  Charlotte put her hand over Alfred’s. “We don’t intend to change your plans. Sarah is happy with the young ladies, and I will very much enjoy being with Nell and the baby. Please don’t let us disrupt you.”

  “It would be a different matter if Nick were coming, too.” Sarah began eating with appetite. “Though I must say I’m not sure of the need to cobble together new plans for a mere two weeks.”

  “Nor I.” Nick continued eating breakfast while Charlotte described the Stirling countryside to Sarah. In his belly lurked a yawing pit of regret for Charlotte’s original mistake about him. As a small boy, he had chased small girls who wanted to be chased, but his advice to Sarah about Luke held true for himself, too. Now older and more experienced, he no longer chased females who hoped to be caught. If his wife wanted him, she could have him, but he wouldn’t be manipulated into ruining her life with a monster child.

  He stood when he had finished his last mouthful, said his good-byes to the ladies, and headed off to Dixon’s, where he planned not to drink himself into oblivion, but to punch a bag until he had accepted that he couldn’t change his past.

  Charlotte wanted him to reverse his decision about a baby, but his decision was irrevocable. If their relationship had any hope of surviving, it could only be on his terms.

  Chapter 17

  “The house sounds empty,” Alfred said, peering at his roast beef. “You get used to the ladies, don’t you—the way they talk all the time and the way they fill a room? The house doesn’t even look the same.”

  Nick, sitting in the sweltering dining room, noted the same furniture, the same curtains, and the unusual emptiness. “Flowers. That’s what’s missing. I’ll tell Mrs. Wishart we want flowers in the house, as usual.”

  “Did we have flowers in the house before we had the ladies?”

  Nick rubbed his chin. “I think so.” He hadn’t spent a lot of time in the house before they had the ladies. “And while I’m about it, I’ll tell her I like starch in my collars. I’m sure I had starch in my collars until two days ago.”

  “It’s a plot,” his father said dourly. He put his knife and fork on his plate. “This meat’s tough enough to sole my boots. I’ve a good mind to eat at my club. And breakfast—not worth getting out of bed for.”

  “I suspect Cook is just as uncomfortable in this blistering heat as we are.”

  His father lifted a sweating, miserable face, but didn’t speak.

  “Are you staying for me? Don’t. I can survive without Cook. Like you, I can eat at my club.”

  “When I go up to Stirling in a couple of weeks, as planned, I’ll leave Cook with you and the ladies. Mrs. Potter will do for me alone in the country house.”

  Nick shook his head. “As it happens, a brief sojourn to the hills now and Mrs. Potter’s cooking would suit me well enough. You’re worrying about your peach crop, and I wouldn’t mind inspecting the workers’ cottages. You’ll give me a free hand there, I hope?”

  Alfred nodded and sat taller, taking up his knife and fork. “I’m too hungry to go to my club. This meat doesn’t taste so bad after all. Ring the bell and tell Mrs. Wishart you and I are moving to the hills tomorrow. We should have gone days ago with our ladies.”

  * * * *

  The journey to Alden View twisted up the hill for miles along a steep dirt road. In Nick’s younger days the journey had been plagued by the gulley-men, robbers who relieved travelers of their money or goods, but these days none lurked behind the scrubby growth. The area had settled into small towns now, and most of the wealthy built summer retreats in the cool valleys to avoid the worst of the summer heat. Even the governor had a residence in Belair.

  Five red brick chimneys identified Alden View from the distance. The closer view revealed rows of grape vines, apples trees, and the new peaches, Alfred’s pride and joy. The warm sweetness of ripening fruit hung in the air. The carriage bumped down a long gravel drive to a coach house settled at the side of the two story main house built of natural stone. Nick hadn’t been here since the cricket match last year although this place of his boyhood happiness had always been his retreat.

  “Seems strange to be here knowing our ladies are staying elsewhere. They’ve never seen this house, have they?” Alfred stepped down from the carriage and stared at the rows of tall proud windows, arched at the top. “We have all the fruit growing here that the little miss could want. Best place for her. She’d regain her condition here better than she would gallivanting around the city.”

  Nick gave his father a light punch on the shoulder, and his father went into a defensive pose with a grin. Clearly, the cooler air invigorated his spirits, too. When Nick had last been here eight months ago, he hadn’t spent the night. Instead, he’d been sent back to Adelaide with a bruised head. Almost cheerfully, he took his valise up the stairs to the suite he had used since childhood, and left the sparsely packed bag in his dressing room. His old clothes from before he had left for Cambridge had never been moved, and he chose favorites, slightly unfashionable light trousers and a utilitarian jacket. The trousers were a comfortable fit. The jacket pulled across his shoulders.

  Four years ago, before he had deserted Adelaide with Clara, he would have whistled for a dog outside, but he doubted any would remember him. Harvey was, as usual, lurking around the stables. He had driven the traveling coach up and now appeared to have nothing to do.

  “Get me a horse,” Nick said, rectifying the problem. He waited amid the sounds of horses snorting and stirring and in the stalls. The clatter of shod hooves on stone preceded Harvey who appeared with a tall, well-fed bay.

  Nick tested the animal’s pace along the pot-holed and rutted track lined by native pines that separated the Alden lands from Luke’s family holdings, an estate currently owned by the lawyer’s older brother. For some time, Nick’s horse, which clearly hadn’t been exercised for some time, occupied him by shying at shadows.

  In the distance, he spotted a stationary wagon. As he approached, he saw the driver crouched by the back left wheel. He pulled up his bay. “A problem, driver?” he asked the shirt-sleeved laborer who looked defeated.

  “The road,” the man said dourly, wiping trails of sweat from his face with his neck scarf. “I shoulda’ taken the front way, but ‘come around the back,’ Mr. Worthing said, and I do come around the back like he ordered. Knowed this road was bad. Told him so. Now I’m stuck in this here hole.”

  “What’s your load?”

  “Bricks. Wouldn’t you know? If I’da had feathers, wouldn’t be no problem, but he didn’t order no feathers.”

  “I suspect you’ll have to unload.”

  “Sent the lad up to the house.” The man’s bristled chin pointed toward a narrow path that led to Luke’s rough stone outbuildings. “I’ll want help.”

  “I’ll help you make a start.” Nick dismounted, tethered his skittish horse to a fence post, and r
emoved his tight jacket. Glancing at the load, he took off his tie and waistcoat, too.

  With the driver, he hefted bricks onto the road. Every now and again, the driver went to his horse’s head, trying to move him along. Nick suspected that almost the full load would need to be shifted, and he didn’t mind a bit. These days, healthy exercise seemed to clear his brain. He saw no reason why he shouldn’t call on the Hawthorns tomorrow or even wait until the next day just to show Charlotte that he was used to the manipulative ways of females and didn’t mind her absence one bit. The road being entirely private, he removed his shirt as well.

  “Now, there’s a fine horse for a laborer,” said a familiar voice.

  He glanced up at Luke who accompanied a lad no more than fourteen years old who, by the look of his overlarge nose and dirty shirt, was related to the driver.

  “The bay? He’s not bad. This road is, though. When did it get this way? Years ago, I would say.”

  Luke shrugged. “Your workers use it. Mine travel across the fields. I suspect your father lost heart when you left. What are you doing here?”

  “Just jaunting around the property.”

  “I mean in the hills,” Luke said, hands on his hips and his gaze a challenge. “You don’t want to be here. You’ll be bored to death. Other than the same social life you scorn in the city, there’s nothing to do if you’re not interested in orchards.”

  Nick shrugged. “I don’t need to be entertained. I’m here merely to watch over Sarah. I don’t want you misleading her.”

  “Strangling her comes more easily to mind.”

  Nick raised his eyebrows. “You have no interest in her?”

  “I’ve done my best to warn her off.”

  “Ah, so, I haven’t been imagining anything.”

  “And I haven’t been misleading her.”

  “If you do, you’re going to be dealing with me.”

  “You’ve appointed yourself to be the guardian of my morals?” Luke lifted an eyebrow. “That’s like leaving the devil in charge of putting out the fire. Your back’s marked. Did you know?”

  Nick straightened. “Every now and again I get lucky,” he said in his most casual tone. Nevertheless, he walked to the fence and struggled his sweaty body into his shirt. Charlotte must have been more passionately involved during their moonlight encounter than he had realized.

  Luke watched father and son unload the bricks. “You haven’t changed your tastes in women, have you?”

  “Probably not. I still tend to choose those who respond eagerly.” More than putout, Nick snatched up his waistcoat, too. “I’ll get this road seen to.”

  He dressed in silence, not too tidily, amazed that an insult to his wife could anger him, and he left Luke to unload his own damned bricks.

  * * * *

  Charlotte sat with Nell, Sir Patrick, and Lady Grace in the Graces’ over decorated drawing room, cozy in the absence of the youngsters. Sarah, Daphne, and Chrysanthe had decided to inspect the new plantings of camellias, azaleas, and soft English trees. The Graces grew fruit and vegetables but only for household consumption.

  “It’s such a shame Nick couldn’t come up, too,” Lady Grace said to Charlotte. “But so kind of Luke to take his place as your escort.”

  “He’s been a good friend.” Charlotte, well aware of the talk about Nick being absent and Luke being far too present during the past four days, didn’t let her smile waver. If Nick heard that the wife he had let go didn’t care, all to the good. And Luke was a good friend. He’d told her that Nick had arrived in Stirling yesterday.

  “I find that easy to believe,” Sir Patrick said, crossing his legs. “He was always a good friend to Nick, and he ought to be the same to you.”

  “He is far more severe than my husband.” Charlotte clasped her hands primly in her lap. “He told me the hat I wore yesterday was silly.”

  “How disgraceful. I can’t see anything silly about wearing a box tied with ribbons.” Nell kept her expression hooded.

  “It wasn’t a real box,” Charlotte said, apologetically. “I just arranged the fabric to make it look that way. In which case, I find his comment very harsh.”

  The assembled company laughed and a housemaid entered the room, followed by Nick.

  “Mr. Alden, ma’am,” she said to Lady Grace, who smiled at Nick.

  “How nice that you could come,” the lady said as Nick kissed her cheek.

  He inclined his head at Nell and his gaze met Charlotte’s.

  Just a simple meeting of his eyes caused her heart to thud and her chest to ache. Her fingers tightening, she managed her “pleasantly surprised” smile.

  “It’s taken half the day to track you down.” He turned his back on the other ladies and focused entirely on her.

  “Today?” She found a space on the side table to place the tiny cake she now couldn’t finish.

  “I had it on the highest authority that your calendar was full yesterday. As it happens mine was, too.”

  “Who on earth would be the highest authority?” Nell stood, collecting her reticule.

  “I had a border dispute with Luke yesterday.”

  “You’re staying at your place, are you? Well, if you saw Luke, he could have told you where we would be today. However, we’ll be home in another fifteen minutes,” Nell said, shaking out her layered skirts. “We must go. It’s been delightful, Lady Grace, as always.” She took her hostess’s hands in hers, kissing the older woman on the cheek.

  Charlotte, too, her manners intact, rose to her feet. “Perhaps we’ll see you tomorrow, Nick. We have to go back to the Hawthorn’s now for an early dinner. Then we’re off to a harp recital at the town hall.”

  Lady Grace detained Nick with her hand. “You must stay and catch us up on the town gossip. Charlotte, as you can imagine, is very busy with old friends. She used to spend quite a bit of time with us here before she married, and she not only knows anyone who is anyone, but everyone who isn’t, though I oughtn’t say anyone isn’t anyone. So snobbish of me. Still, you understand, I am sure.”

  Charlotte couldn’t stop her wry smile outside the door. Her determinedly loyal friends seemed only too glad to help her evade Nick.

  As she pulled on her gloves, she heard him saying that he would be very sorry to miss seeing Sarah and the three Grace daughters, whom he had known since their various births, but he had urgent matters awaiting him on the estate and a father who needed his presence.

  “Why do you think he was trying to track me down?” she asked Nell in the carriage.

  Nell shrugged. “If it was anything other than possessiveness, he would have made sure of explaining.”

  Charlotte nodded. In all likelihood, Cook had been taking advice from the housekeeper as to the menus, which would be biased more toward Alfred’s tastes than Nick’s. Or his manservant had gone back to his old ways, or the housemaids were spending more time with the grooms than in the rooms. Charlotte knew she made the house more comfortable for the gentlemen, but she doubted they did.

  And she wouldn’t go home to be a silly little flower arranger again. If she wasn’t appreciated for herself, she refused to be appreciated for her unobtrusive skills.

  * * * *

  Nick wouldn’t dream of asking to go with his wife to one of her dull entertainments. Harp music, when property matters occupied his mind! He’d tried to find her out of mere politeness. Had he not, the gossips would have wondered about their marriage.

  He left the Graces as soon as manners permitted, deciding to set the orchard workers to the task of grading the access road, and consequently discovered that gravel was running short. Since the day was beginning to end, he would order more from the Stirling village tomorrow.

  The next day, dressed like a laborer himself, he took the rangy bay and a dog to Stirling, where a wave from the saddler stopped him. “We all want to congratulate you on your recent marriage.” Lachy’s shop smelled of leather and oil, and Nick as a la
d had been allowed to punch holes in belts for the man he had known forever. “Lovely lady. A real beauty. Nice, too. Has a word for all of us. Mr. Worthing has been taking good care of her for you, all right. Bedazzled a bit himself, I’d say, with respect.” He let go of the stirrup strap.

  “I’m a lucky man, there’s no doubt, and lucky in my friends, too,” Nick added, his expression careful. “Mumbles Hogan is still around, I take it?”

  “You’ll be wantin’ to fix the road.”

  Nick frowned. “I expect the whole place knows what I’m about to do before I do.”

  Lachy grinned. “We talk some, among ourselves. I won’t keep you. Looks like rain.”

  As Nick moved the bay into the yard where Mumbles Hogan presided, the first big splat of warm summer rain hit him on the nose. He dismounted as Mumbles approached.

  “You’re wantin’ stone.” Mumbles kept little more in his yard than second-hand marble headstones, adorned with names he could chisel off when needed, rolls of trodden wire, tins of all sizes and types, wheels—none new—and terracotta pots, also in all sizes. His use was in being able to obtain, through contacts, almost anything needed, legally or illegally. “Should have a load on your place by tomorrow, ordered as it was by me yesterday.” He wiped his sleeve across his wet face.

  Nick turned up the collar of his jacket against the downpour and angled his hat lower on his forehead. “I would have saved myself a wetting by leaving you to organize the whole thing.”

  Mumbles chortled. “Me and Harvey keeps in contact. Do you want shelter until the rain stops? Shouldn’t be long. It’s too heavy to last.” He indicated a dilapidated shed to one side of the leaning front gates.

  “I’ll go somewhere more convivial.” Nick swung up onto his horse and headed toward the local tavern, where he realized he didn’t wish to be. The thought of ale was too appealing and not something he wanted to experiment with during this time of his sobriety.