Shelby pulled a chair from the corner and sat down. “Why are you doing this?” He waved his hand to indicate Charlotte, David and the medicine.
So, Charlotte’s father wasn’t satisfied with the answer given him when he first arrived. Not surprising. No unrelated man, even one who was a good friend, belonged in a woman’s bedroom, much less sitting watch over her. So, well…so be it. David glanced toward Miss Marsden, who sat in the corner, and lowered his voice.
“We’ve formed an attachment. No one other than her servants will know I’ve been here, and Charlotte trusts them to be discreet.”
Shelby’s eyes narrowed, and a vein at his temple began to visibly pulse. “I don’t care what your connection is.” Spittle flew with his emphatic words. “You don’t belong here.”
Blast the man. This wasn’t the time for a confrontation, but nothing and no one was expelling David. “I don’t intend to leave until she’s better.”
The two men stared at each other. No doubt Shelby’s severe, thin-lipped look of displeasure made his subordinates hie to attention, but David had other worries. “I’m concerned how Charlotte ingested the arsenic,” he pointed out.
Shelby’s gaze darted back to his daughter. “Has she been able to tell you anything?”
“No. But there’s evidence. She was someone’s intentional victim.”
“Evidence?” Shelby’s gaze, sharp and analytical, returned to David.
“First the footpad’s assault, then Persa’s poisoning, and now this.”
Shelby’s chin dropped. “Slow down, Scott. You’d better back up and tell me everything.”
David expected a man with Shelby’s intelligence to be a little quicker putting things together, but perhaps he hadn’t realized the severity of the injuries Charlotte suffered in the assault. And he might not have heard about Persa.
“Just last week her dog was poisoned and nearly died. And Charlotte sustained unnecessary injuries when her reticule was stolen.”
“I didn’t know any of this.”
“I thought you sent the candy because of the assault.”
Shelby’s face grew even grimmer. “I didn’t send any candy.”
“Miss Marsden,” David called. “Lady Haliday brought some candy home the night she got sick. Do you know where it is?”
The maid hurried to the fireplace and retrieved the tin from the mantel. Carrying it as though it might explode, she brought it over and opened it. It looked as though several pieces were gone.
David took the tin and raised it to his nose. It smelled the way it looked—like it was full of rich, fruity candy.
“Has anyone else eaten it?”
“No,” Miss Marsden said.
Mind reeling, David closed his eyes. Charlotte had joked how unusual it was for her father to send candy, and her instincts had been right. The fudge would have to be tested to confirm the presence of arsenic, but David’s gut told him they’d discovered how the poison was delivered.
He pushed aside his rage long enough to feed Charlotte another spoonful of medicine. “A servant delivered it to the office saying it was sent by you.”
A red flush spread over Shelby’s face and neck. “First that damnable tale of Vivian Garret’s two years ago, and now this. I’ll tell you one thing, Scott. Charlotte didn’t earn or deserve any of it.”
David leveled his gaze on Shelby the way he’d once sighted down his Enfield. “I imagine you have a few enemies. Is someone trying to get to you through Charlotte?”
Shelby almost growled. He crossed his arms and for a long minute looked toward the window. With a quick shake of his head he stood, pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket and opened the face cover. The click as he snapped it closed seemed to spur him to action.
“Sometimes business dealings give rise to hostility. If this is the result of some sort of misplaced revenge, I’ll know soon enough.” He strode for the door then turned. “You’ll send word if her condition changes?”
The man had shifted from outrage at David’s presence to assigning him guardianship? David almost laughed. Yet, why should he be surprised? The little bit he knew of Shelby, this wasn’t a man to sit vigil at Charlotte’s bedside.
“Of course,” he said. “Could you also make a report to the constable? Someone needs to do so, and it would probably be best if it were you.”
Shelby gave David a nod and strode from the room. By attacking the mystery of Charlotte’s poisoning, Shelby would feel as if he were doing his duty as her father. It would also conveniently rid him of the expectation that he be present at his dangerously ill daughter’s side. His departure was a relief.
David cupped Charlotte’s face and brushed his thumb across her cheek. After the last time they made love, he’d kissed her there, stroked her satiny flesh, and she’d turned her head and sought his mouth. Now he was rewarded by the lifting of long eyelashes and the slight curve of her lips. Recognition lit her remarkable eyes. Although he’d been able to rouse her sufficiently to get the sesquioxide of iron down her, she’d remained lethargic, weak and confused. This was the first time she’d smiled at him and really appeared present.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he said, his own smile stretching his tight face. It felt as if he hadn’t smiled in years.
Charlotte curled her hand around his, first weakly, then with growing strength. The painful knot in his chest eased, and in its place relief produced a sort of deep trembling.
“You’re here. You won’t leave, will you?” she asked.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She sighed and her eyes drifted closed. Her fingers relaxed. “I love you,” she murmured.
David froze. His heart surged to his throat.
“Bluebell?”
She’d fallen asleep. He wanted to wake her and demand she repeat what she’d said, confirm not only that she knew what she’d told him but that she meant it. Because, God help him, despite what he’d said, despite what he knew would be best for them, there was nothing he wanted more than Charlotte’s love.
#
When she opened her eyes, the first thing Charlotte saw was David. He slept in his wheeled chair, one shoulder burrowed lower than the other, head tipped back and to the side, lips parted. She’d never seen his hair so mussed, as if he’d been pulling it in fifty different directions. It made her want to comb her fingers through the glowing locks. Red-gold stubble covered his jaw, and the faint lines that had bracketed his mouth now scored his cheeks. His loosened tie, wrinkled shirt and unbuttoned waistcoat hung limply. He looked exhausted, uncomfortable and thoroughly rumpled.
Charlotte skimmed her gaze over David’s long legs. His trousers hid the lax and somewhat shrunken appearance of his lower legs and left thigh, while the fabric conformed to his noticeably larger, well-muscled right thigh. When they’d begun their affair, she’d been afraid to touch his legs—had feared hurting him, feared how touching the appendages might make her feel. That had lasted until the night he woke in agony with a muscle cramp in his calf. Alarmed, close to frantic, she’d tried to knead the knot from the muscle, and when his moans of pain turned to groans of relief, she continued massaging his limbs and found them warm and dusted with the same red-gold hair as his forearms. He could move his feet and toes a little, and once she understood he enjoyed her touch, her fear disappeared. She loved touching him—all of him—and after that night she’d regarded his injured legs as just another part of him.
The weak light flooding through the east window told her it was morning, but she had no idea how many mornings had passed while she lay abed. She thought perhaps more than two. She licked her tongue over her lower lip and discovered it dry and chapped.
This morning she seemed able to think, and her stomach had settled, but she felt heavy, as if leaden air pressed her body deep into the mattress. She raised her arms and found them impossibly weighty. Just that small exertion made her heart quicken, her breath come faster, and her thoughts and memories spun in a confused whirl.
/> She remembered pieces of the past few days. She’d been poisoned. Perhaps nearly died. During it all, she’d hung on to David. David, gentle and ever-present, with his calloused hands, with his fierce, watchful eyes, their depths overflowing with concern. Whenever she’d felt as if she were drifting away, he’d pulled her back and anchored her.
Tears filled her eyes. Persa had been poisoned, too. Someone would kill her dog to cause her anguish? How could someone hate her so much? She’d been told she was sent fudge laced with arsenic. The cruelty terrified her.
She felt fragile, as if even the mildest vexation might break her into pieces. She’d been just this hollow sitting at her mother’s bedside and awaiting her mother’s last breath. She’d been the object of cruelty then, too, when her father’s indifference stole her mother’s last precious hours. For years the sound of a clock in a quiet room could take her back to that day, how the tick of that clock interspersed the slow cadence of Mama’s labored breaths.
Charlotte had known her father sat behind her, his mouth tight, his wooden ladder-back chair tilted against the wall. She’d felt his gaze when it came to rest on her back.
“It’s time for you to go, Charlotte,” he said.
Disbelief, rage and hurt had boiled up from her core, mixed with the pain she’d borne the past five days as she sat vigil, melded into a toxic mélange. How could he make her leave for school now? She’d convinced herself he wouldn’t really do it, even as she pleaded, begged, and watched his eyes harden and his mouth grow tight.
“I spent a bloody fortune and called in favors I curried for years to get you in this school. And in spite of all that, if you don’t arrive by their specified time they’ll give your spot away.”
His terse words were too harsh, too loud, and not to be questioned—though she knew the school didn’t want her. Mrs. Brewster’s School for Gentlewomen was a boarding school for the aristocracy. Daughters of noblemen lived there and learned the skills necessary to become wives of dukes, earls and marquesses. Her father must have given them a great deal of money to convince them to accept the twelve-year-old daughter of London’s most prominent common-born industrialist. He’d certainly gloated when she was granted admission. The finest school, the finest young ladies in England, and she’d be among them. But obviously Mrs. Brewster hadn’t wanted her. She’d included a stipulation with the offer of admission: If Charlotte didn’t present herself by six o’clock, she needn’t bother presenting herself at all.
“You can’t expect me to leave now, Papa.” She’d struggled to get the words out without breaking down. Tears wouldn’t sway Papa, they’d make him angry. Proof of female weakness, he called them. They’d only increase his impatience.
“We’ve been over and over this, Charlotte. Don’t pretend you’re shocked.” His face could have been hewn from rock. “You know I’ll send word when she passes.”
She’d turned back to her mother, who was pale, her skin moist with cold sweat, her slight form barely lifting the covers. Mama’s normally pink lips were an unhealthy purplish color. This illness had struck with the fierceness of God’s hand, and Mama had succumbed to insensibility within three days. The physician Papa called had explained the congestion of the lungs was due to a weakness of her heart. He advised they pray.
Charlotte had. She’d pleaded and bargained, but God remained silent and distant, just like her father. As the hours passed, an unwelcome knowledge took root: There would be no miracle.
Mama. The youngest child of an impoverished baron, she had always been reserved and soft-spoken, given to a deep-seated shyness. Her father had overcome his reluctance to allow her an alliance with a man not even a gentleman because Charlotte’s papa offered enough money to repair Grandpapa’s estate and pay all his bills. Charlotte’s papa had made no secret of the pride he’d felt, obtaining Mama’s hand with the same brute force he utilized in his business deals. Mama provided him the entrée he sought to aristocratic society.
Charlotte had inherited her mama’s refined features and admirable form, but her bold coloring was her father’s. He’d often commented that she got her brain and stubbornness from him, too, although those characteristics didn’t always please him—like when she’d wanted to stay and he intended to make her leave.
“Mama needs me.” If she left, Mama would have no one with her who loved her.
Papa’s front chair legs had hit the floor with a thump. “She doesn’t even know you’re here, Charlotte. Now say your good-byes. You know she’d understand.”
That much was true. No one understood Papa like Mama. She’d always tried to give Charlotte an extra measure of love to make up for his absence and his remote manner, so how could Charlotte leave Mama as she passed from this life to the next? She couldn’t!
“I’m not going.” He’d have to carry her out.
He stood. “Yes, you are.”
The hard certainty in his voice had made her quake inside. As much as she struggled to hold back her tears, they clouded her vision. The cold, brittle emptiness that had sat in her belly for days got colder and sharper and filled every part of her. If she refused to walk, would he truly carry her out? Would her father really do that to her?
She’d stood, stroked Mama’s hair for the last time, kissed her cheek and tried not to listen to her rapid, raspy breaths. Mama’s eyes, barely open and frighteningly blank, were glazed. Could she see her? Hear her?
“I love you, Mama. I’m sorry. I don’t want to go.” And then Charlotte had collapsed, shaking with silent sobs.
Papa wasted no time. He’d picked her up and carried her to the carriage.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
She hadn’t thought anything could ever hurt as much as her father carrying her from her mother’s bed to his carriage. So far she’d been right. As bad as being poisoned was, it was somewhat better than that skirmish with Father. Charlotte had lost that campaign against him and survived; she could survive this.
After her husband’s murder, when she’d come out of mourning and returned to London, she thought herself a woman tempered by fire. She’d overcome the devastation of her mother’s death, her husband’s betrayal, and scandal. She’d borne her father’s lifelong indifference. What more could the world throw at her? She’d vowed to live without the benefit of a husband or her father meddling in her affairs, to lead a life of independence. She’d been smug and satisfied. But this attack changed everything. Instead of strong and independent, Charlotte felt tenuous and vulnerable. When she searched herself, she found fear and loneliness.
She looked at David, asleep in his chair. No, that wasn’t right. She didn’t feel alone. Frightened and confused, yes, but not alone.
David had watched over her. Every time she opened her eyes, David was there. She suddenly remembered looking at him and realizing she loved him. Did she also remember telling him she loved him? Could she have done that?
She plucked at a nightdress button with a restless finger. Was it possible to love him if she didn’t trust him not to hurt her? She closed her eyes. David had far more capability to hurt her than Haliday ever had. David could hurt her as deeply as her father had.
That thought, coming out of nowhere, stunned her.
Her father?
Yes. Because the pain of her father’s lifelong dissatisfaction never stopped hurting. And because somehow, in spite of everything, the tiny flicker of hope she carried deep inside had never been smothered. Part of her loved him and still yearned for his affection in turn.
It felt secure and right when David wrapped his arms around her. She loved to rest her head on his shoulder and run her fingers over his curly chest hair. She’d follow its tapering trail down to his taut abdomen and slide her hand around his narrow waist, and she remembered how it had felt when he was deep inside her, sighing and murmuring her name, his blue eyes shining with a light that left every part of her glowing and open and connected to him. Yes, she felt more for David than she had ever had for her husband. Far more.
But if she let down her barriers and allowed herself to trust him, how would she ever remain independent? She’d vowed to never again be subject to the whims of a man. If she put her trust in David and he didn’t love her enough in return—or if he stopped loving her—how would she ever survive the loss?
She wouldn’t. So it would be even worse than the betrayal of her father.
A pulse of pain spiked in her temple. Wonderful. Her headache was probably returning.
She placed her hand atop David’s knee and squeezed. When she said his name, he woke. Initially startled, he quickly straightened and then smiled and took her hand.
“Good morning, Bluebell. You’re looking better. How do you feel?” As tired as he looked, his eyes were smiling.
“The nausea and headache are gone, I think.”
“Good. How would you like a cup of tea? Doctor Bliss left instructions for when you felt able to eat.”
“Tea sounds good.” She’d wait and see how the tea sat before trying anything else in her stomach, which at present felt like an empty cavern. “David, how long has it been?”
He brushed a lock of hair away from her face, securing it behind her ear. “Four days.”
Right now she didn’t want to think about how she’d lost so much time. The last day she recollected somewhat clearly, but the days prior held only fragmented memories. “How long have you been here?”
“Three days.” He lifted a small bell from the bedside table and rang it. “Have you heard bells ringing in your dreams? They gave me this so I wouldn’t have to move away from you if I needed to call for help.”
“Three days.” She considered his red-rimmed eyes. “Have you eaten or slept?”
His brows bunched together and he gave her an exasperated look. “Yes, I’ve eaten. And slept as much as I needed to. It may not look like it, but I even washed and changed. I commandeered one of your guest rooms.”
From the look of him, he hadn’t done much sleeping, washing, or changing, but she wasn’t inclined to argue with him.
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