Packing up the cards, he wished her a good night at her door and lay awake for an hour or so more. Even a former drunk with an inclusive taste in women could be reformed for the sake of love, and so he would show her.
* * * *
“Mr. Luke Worthing,” Thomas said with an efficient smile as Luke entered the drawing room where Charlotte sat tying wrist ribbons onto dance cards.
“You are receiving visitors, I hope?” Luke ignored Thomas, who left. “And in a new and very smart room. Your touch?”
Although Nick said she wasn’t to see Luke alone, she could hardly ask him to leave. She nodded. “Please sit. Are you recovered from the strenuous cricket matches and tea parties of Stirling?”
“I am. I wanted to make sure you are well. Nick said he hustled you away because he was concerned for your health.”
She took her attention back to her ribbons. “What a fib,” she said lightly. “He was concerned for his own. He missed me. Our plan worked, you see, but perhaps too well.”
“He’s been dogging me lately. I’m not sure why.”
“Let’s hope he is trying to renew your friendship after being so suspicious of ours.”
Something clattered in the hall outside.
“Sorry,” Sarah called. She arrived so quickly into the room that she almost skidded. Her skirts didn’t quite catch up, and her crinoline bounced. “I dropped the card tray while I was counting the replies to our supper dance.” Her voice sounded stiff. “Ah, Mr. Worthing. How delightful to see you here.”
Luke inclined his head, rose to his feet, and waited until they were both seated before he spoke again. “I, too, received an invitation for your supper dance and will be delighted to attend.” He smiled at Charlotte. “This will be your first function as Mrs. Nicholas Alden. I suppose you’re rather nervous.”
“This will be my first time as a guest of honor,” Sarah said before Charlotte could answer. “And I’m not in the least nervous.” Her glance at Charlotte was unreadable.
Charlotte tied another bow. “I’m enjoying the preparations. Yesterday I auditioned string quartets, three of them, a very lulling experience much needed as I’m having a rostrum built in the hall for the musicians tomorrow. I doubt we’ll be able to hear ourselves think while the workers are here.”
“It’s fortunate I called today, then.”
“We’ve invited a hundred people.” Sarah gazed at the backs of her hands. “The house will be swarming with eligible bachelors.”
Luke pulled out his fob watch and stood. “I’m sure you are both wishing me elsewhere while you’re so busy. Glad to see you looking so well, Charlotte. Sarah.”
“That must have been the shortest call in the history of calling,” Sarah said as she watched him leave.
“He didn’t come to gossip. He just wanted to make sure, um.”
“Um, what?”
“Nick hurried me out of Stirling. I think people wondered why.”
Sarah sat, unmoving. “Was there a reason?”
“He was alone here. That’s a good enough reason.”
“I don’t know why you left him alone.” Sarah stood, staring narrow-eyed at Charlotte, as if waiting for an explanation.
“Perhaps because I thought it might do him a certain amount of good to be left on his own.”
“Well, in your case, absence did make the heart grow fonder. You have interesting ways and means of achieving your ends. I don’t doubt I can adapt a few to my own purpose.” With a tilt of her eyebrows, Sarah bustled off as quickly as she had arrived.
Sighing, Charlotte finished the dance cards, spent an hour in the kitchen, sampling, admiring, and rechecking the various dishes that were being organized for the supper dance, before changing into a walking gown. Harvey arrived at the door to drive her to the Adelaide Women’s Hospital, where she toured the long, stark birthing ward.
During the next few days, acceptances to the supper-dance piled high while Sarah managed to be elsewhere most of the time. Nick was supportive without interfering. If possible, he had grown more appealing. His bronze hair gleamed, his skin glowed with health, his eyes shone with mischief and his fastidiously cut suits showed the rakish elegance of his honed body. She looked forward to his presence at dinner each night where he entertained her with comments about the alphabet tastings.
She didn’t want to keep him out of her bedroom forever, and she knew she shouldn’t fear he would expose the secret of her birth. He had as little reason as she did to want the truth known. However, the fact that he twice alluded to her parentage hurt. If he had any feelings for her, he would simply accept her for herself.
* * * *
After her morning ride, Charlotte washed her hair. In two days, a canopy would be set over the front walk to protect almost one hundred guests who would arrive for the supper dance. With the temporary rostrum built in the hall, the quartet chosen, the extra chairs hired, and the flowers selected, she sat at her dressing table and combed out her tangles.
She stared into the mirror, gazed closely at the slight darkening of the skin under her eyes, leaned back, blinked, and saw another face staring back at her. With her hair wet and flat, she saw familiar blue eyes, thick dark lashes, etched cheekbones, and a straight nose, but not her own. Yesterday, when James had come to call for Sarah, he’d removed his hat to greet Charlotte. His hair had been slicked back, as hers was now.
All his features were hers, though his nose was stronger and his chin more square. He had a tiny dent in his chin. Sarah had mentioned a likeness, but Charlotte could see more. She could be his twin. And James looked very much like Tony.
She covered her suddenly dry mouth with her hand and put together certain numbing facts. Tony had tried to keep James from courting her. He had questioned her friends about her family, and he had tried to question her. After her marriage, he had been inexplicably kind. He had given her a valuable horse from his stables. Clearly he knew, as Charlotte didn’t, that they had a parent in common.
Nell knew, too. More than a month ago, Nell had taken her to St. Luke’s Church where her grandfather had once presided, ostensibly to make a donation for the repairs to the nave. Charlotte hadn’t left the brougham, afraid to show too much interest in what was, after all, a simple stone building. Possibly, Nell had either hoped to spark a confession from her or to confirm the truth.
Charlotte buried her Hawthorn face in both her hands. She had accepted Nell’s friendship without considering an ulterior motive. The fashionable wife of a wealthy property owner had no need to recognize the nobody who had married a friend of her husband, no need to draw her into a special relationship—unless she wanted her cooperation. Nell would, of course, not want Charlotte to flaunt her reprehensible parentage, and Charlotte would grab the bribe of acceptance rather than a monetary payout. She had left herself open to complete humiliation, which she could possibly bear—but not for Sarah, too.
Poor trusting Sarah had always accepted Joseph Davies as Charlotte’s father, and she wanted to marry James. The wealthy Hawthorns wouldn’t consider a bride related to their illegitimate half sister. Naturally, because of this knowledge, James assumed he could have Sarah without marriage as his father had assumed he could have the parson’s daughter, Adelina Dunbar, without marriage.
Because of Charlotte, Sarah wouldn’t have the opportunity to wed the man she loved. All her life, Charlotte had prevented Sarah, by no means deliberately, from achieving her goals.
She pressed her cold fingers into her flushed, shamed cheeks. Never would she be able to put herself in Sarah’s place as a poor, well-born relation. Sarah had been brought up in a home where she was second to a baseborn cousin whose wonderful future had been perfectly orchestrated. Charlotte couldn’t change the truth, couldn’t give Sarah anything but a come-out party where the world would laugh at her if they knew of Charlotte’s shameful birth.
She sat blotchy and dry-eyed with no solution. Eventually, she rang for Vera to hel
p her dress, and she went down to breakfast long after everyone else had finished. “Is Mr. Nick in?” she asked Thomas.
“In Mr. Alden’s study with Mr. Wickerby.”
“I won’t disturb him, then.” She could wait until after his father’s man of business had left to make her full confession, hoping that Nick would…what? She couldn’t tell him the full truth, not until after the supper dance. If, too ashamed, he canceled the function, her cousin would be left with nothing.
She consoled herself with the thought that the only difference between today and yesterday was that she now knew her mother’s secret. The Hawthorns had not confronted her with the truth, which meant they were prepared to bide their time. And so, to bide hers, she resignedly settled her skirts in the drawing room, reading the musician’s suggestions for tomorrow’s program when Thomas came to the door. “The dressmaker has arrived with Miss Sarah’s gown.”
“I think Miss Sarah is still in her room. Take the gown to her, please.”
Within five minutes, Vera appeared in the doorway. “I can’t find Miss Sarah anywhere. We wanted to do the final fitting of her gown this morning.”
“She must have an engagement elsewhere. Let the dressmaker go. I can fit the gown this afternoon, if need be.”
“T’ain’t right. You’ll have enough to do finishing off your own.”
“I might do that now. That will be all, Vera.”
Not willing to be annoyed by Sarah’s casual attitude toward her gowning, Charlotte went to her room and inspected the dress she planned to wear tomorrow night, the blue currently decorated with rows of green ribbon on the skirts and shoulders. She wanted to look severely plain at the supper dance, for she planned to wear her diamond necklace.
Within half an hour, she had removed the ribbon and given the gown a comprehensive examination. With long white gloves, she would look elegantly matronly, a good contrast for Sarah’s soft peach skin, stunning apricot hair, and glimmering white gown.
Still Sarah didn’t arrive home. Nick had finished his business and disappeared, and with a feeling of reprieve, Charlotte asked Thomas to call Harvey with the brougham to the front door. The weather had turned dusty. Dressed in her burgundy gown and a lime green hat tied with a burgundy bow on the side, she gathered up the four tiny baby gowns she had made and asked Harvey to drive her to her house in Stepney, where four unwed mothers and their babies had settled two days ago.
The door was opened by the youngest, a sixteen-year-old, and the others stood back shyly. After they had settled in the parlor, she set her bag on her knee. “Now, you’ve all seen the work room?” she asked, handing out her gifts.
They nodded, each examining their baby gowns, cooing and smiling.
“I don’t intend to send you out to earn your board, but I thought if we could somehow earn our way, we could help even more women in your position.”
“Seems only fair, ma’am. No one else would give us a place to live, not fallen women like us. While we live together, we can take turns baby-minding while the others work.”
“You’ve already discussed this?” Charlotte beamed at the girl, Peggy. “Later, I’ll teach you hat-making, and we’ll see where we can go from there.”
“We just need a start,” said the tallest, a nineteen-year-old with a bad leg. “We won’t want charity forever.”
Charlotte hauled in a breath. The charitable contributions she hoped for would not be forthcoming if she were to be exposed in society as the bastard daughter of Herbert Hawthorn. Likely her generous allowance from Alfred, one of Herbert’s contemporaries, would be stopped. Refusing to feel sorry for herself, for she had snatched the bed she lay on and she would somehow work this out, she spent the afternoon discussing various craft ideas with the mothers.
The best she could do for the women at this point was to teach them to take advantage of their situation while they could. And she would take advantage of her own while she could.
* * * *
Nick leaned back against the ropes, sweaty, gazing at the youngster who had challenged him to a round. “You did well. Practice,” he said, “stay off the drink, and try again next year.” He grinned, and the youngster, his face shining with suppressed joy, untangled himself from the ropes and stepped out of the ring into the back slaps of his energetically encouraging peers.
The group moved off, and Nick rubbed his face with his towel.
“Stay off the drink?” Rossdale Luscombe, a red-faced bully at school, who had developed a paunch since marrying an heiress, rested a hand on the ropes. He had stripped for a bout with a punching bag. “Only a month or two back, you were drunk in every tavern in town. It’s all very well to beat lads, but how would you go with a real man, eh?”
“You being that person? I think we found that out ten years back.”
“And you’re afraid of a rematch?”
“There’s a time and place, don’t you think?” Nick slung his towel over his shoulder.
“I have time now and this is the perfect place.”
“I’m expected home,” Nick said, surprised to hear himself say so. For the first time in years, he was expected to be present for meals, and he found great enjoyment in being part of his family.
Luscombe chortled. “And you wouldn’t want that nose of yours pushed out of joint. I’d say it already is. Ask Worthing.”
Nick laughed. “He hasn’t managed that yet. Nor will you.” He untied his gloves.
“He’s doing it right now. I went past his place not an hour ago, and your wife was steadying her horse slap outside his door. She might have been heavily veiled but everyone knows that horse of Hawthorn’s.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t be spreading stories about my wife.”
“You and Worthing both like the same sort of easy pickings,” Luscombe said, his slack upper lip curled.
“Easy pickings?” Nick asked, looking down his nose. “If you heard tales that I had your wife before you, they’re not true. She didn’t make my list.” He waited.
Luscombe tried to vault over the rope where Nick stood, but overweight and angry, he tripped. Nick didn’t need to touch him. The hoots from the youngsters ended the bout before it began.
Chapter 21
Nick rapped with the brass doorknocker. Luke lived in rooms off his office on the ground floor of a bluestone Georgian construction on North Terrace, entered into from a private gate on the side. Luke opened his door, a gray hat and a pair of gray gloves in his hand.
“Just home?” Nick asked, edging through the doorway.
Luke moved back, a wary expression on his face. “Just about to leave. But of course, if you want to chat…”
“I hear Charlotte came to see you today.” Nick pushed his hands into his trouser pockets, his reflection flickering in the tall mirror above the hall table, flanked on one side by a rack holding a buff collared greatcoat and an umbrella.
Luke frowned and he shook his head. “Who on earth told you that?”
“Rossdale Luscombe,” Nick said with a hard smile. “I saw him in Dixon’s, and he was certain you were entertaining my wife.”
“This is a gentleman’s residence. I don’t entertain ladies here as a rule.”
Nick rubbed his jaw. He had expected a denial. “He was also sure he recognized her horse.”
“He doesn’t know a horse from an ass. Charlotte hasn’t been here. The man was always a fool and you know it.” His face stiff, Luke indicated the front door. “Now, if you’ve finished throwing uninformed accusations at me, may I go about my business?” His glance flickered.
Luke’s defensiveness puzzled Nick. Barely two weeks ago, he had edged his way around the subject of his wife and Luke having an affair, which even now he could not believe. “So, on the word of a gentleman, Charlotte has not been here today?”
“On the word of a gentleman.” Luke placed his hand over his heart. “I don’t know why Luscombe would want to start such a rumor, but that was a
lways his way. He used to taunt you about being as pretty as a girl and he’d throw a punch at you, hoping he had distracted you enough to get a hit in.”
Nick nodded. Luscombe and creatures of his ilk had initially been the cause of him learning to box. Later, after he’d made the sport his own, they’d done their best to beat him, giving him the elating task of trying not to damage them. Although he enjoyed his champion status, now achieved, he used his fists during exercise only. He turned to leave and noted a flash of bright color on the skirting board under the greatcoat. Very slowly, he bent and picked up a long single curled emerald feather.
“From your Sunday best hat, no doubt?” he said in an aching breath.
Luke shook his head, his voice awkward. “Believe me, I don’t know where that came from.”
Nick took one step forward, and with gritted violence threw a punch at Luke’s jaw.
Luke fell back into the table. Dazedly shaking his head, he straightened, spread his feet, and raised two clenched fists in front of his rigid face. “Try that again. I could give you more competition than almost anyone.”
Nick made a sound of contempt. “Even drunk I could lay you out quicker than I could take my next breath. The least you could have done was tell me the truth.”
Luke dropped his gaze and his stance. Nick slammed out of the hallway.
In the busy thoroughfare outside, he flipped a coin to the lad watching his horse. “There’s another for you if you can tell me if a lady on a tall chestnut was here earlier.”
The lad nodded, his dirty face solemn. “’er ’orse was sidesteppin’ bad. She lost her ’at and the critter walked all over it. On purpose, I’d say.”
“Did she stay long?”
The lad shrugged. “An hour, I reckon.”
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