Jacob tilted his head. “Hiding? Why would she be hiding?”
She blinked, caught. “Who knows with Charlotte? Like I said, her faculties are not all there.”
“Doesn’t that concern you that she is all alone?”
“Of course it does, Lord Ashland. That was why I asked for your help, and now she has been out there far longer than is acceptable. I’ve tried to keep this quiet, but eventually friends will notice that she is absent, and her reputation will suffer.”
There was so much Jacob wanted to say to that. “I’m sure your friends will realize that a feeble-minded girl wandering away from home is not a social pariah but rather someone to be pitied.”
“Of course.” She was getting tripped up in her lies, and her hands, still clutching the Bible, were white with the effort.
“Does she have friends I can speak to? Maybe they will know where she is.”
“None.”
“No friends? None at all?”
“We don’t go out much, just to church and occasionally to the market.”
“She has no church friends?”
“No.”
“What about Edmund? Would he know where to look?”
“Of course not.” She seemed horrified by the idea.
“That doesn’t give me much to work with.”
“Just find her, Lord Ashland. Find Charlotte and deliver her back to me.”
Chapter Eighteen
Charlotte entered Jacob’s office and stopped short.
The two men stood, Jacob shifting from one foot to the other. Bringing Chadley into this was a calculated risk, and he had been aware that Charlotte would be angry, but after his discussion with Lady Morris, he also knew they needed more help than he could offer.
“What are you doing here?” She directed her question toward Chadley but glared at Jacob, his betrayal clear in her angry look.
“Lord Ashland asked me to come,” Chadley said.
“Why?”
“I think we need help,” Jacob said.
She looked at Chadley again, then back at Jacob. “You told him, didn’t you?”
Jacob hesitated. “Yes.”
Tears filled her eyes. “How could you?”
“I spoke to your aunt this morning.” He spoke quickly.
“You did what?” Her whispered words came through bloodless lips. “Is there no end to your deception?”
“Charlotte—” Chadley said, but Jacob held out his hand to stop him.
“I had to know,” he said to her. “Sometimes knowing your enemy is the best defense, and I needed to know more about her.”
“I know all there is to know about her and about her son.”
“She’s claiming that you are feeble-minded and not fit to take care of yourself.”
Charlotte hesitated but did not seem surprised. “I was afraid she would do something like that.”
He told her all of the conversation just like he had told Chadley. Both he and Chadley were concerned for Charlotte’s safety, and the marquess agreed that something needed to be done about it. Something drastic.
“She is going to try to convince people that I am a raving lunatic, and they will force me to return to her, and she will make sure that I am forever silenced,” she whispered.
“That is why I asked Lord Chadley to help us. You have no one to defend you. She kept you away from everyone for so long that there is no character witness we can use.”
Her fingers were folded into fists at her sides. “This proves more than anything that I need to leave England. I’ll be much safer in America.”
“We don’t think that is a good idea,” Chadley said.
“Excuse me, my lord, but you have no right to your opinion about me or what I do.”
“I want to help, Charlotte. I want to make up for everything my family did to you.”
“I don’t need your type of help.”
“Charlotte, please,” Jacob said.
She passed a shaking hand over her eyes. “The only help I need is to get a new identity, reference papers, and passage to America.”
“I can’t believe you would leave him to keep killing,” Jacob said, disappointed in her for once. She was a fighter, but this seemed to be one fight she wanted to walk away from.
“That’s not fair,” she whispered. “I’m trying to save myself.”
“You’re putting more women at risk. If the killer truly is Edmund, then he must be stopped.”
“And if I come forward, my aunt will have me labeled as incompetent and a fool, and no one will believe me.”
“We have a solution to that,” Chadley said.
Suddenly Jacob’s hands were sweating and his heart was pounding. Never in any of his wild imaginings had he thought he would marry again, let alone under these circumstances. But he was also determined. This was exactly what he wanted to do. This was exactly what he needed to do to save Charlotte, and saving Charlotte was more important than anything else right now.
“Marry me,” he said. His voice was calm. He’d stopped shaking, and it all seemed so right.
She blinked, her gaze bouncing between the two of them before her brows drew together. “This is nonsense. Even more insane than my aunt claims I am. How could that possibly help?”
“She can’t get to you if you have a husband,” Chadley said. “By marrying Lord Ashland you will take every argument that Lady Morris has and bury it.”
“You’ll be safe,” Jacob said. “And that is the most important thing of all.”
She looked at them both in disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”
Jacob turned to Chadley. “Can you give us a moment alone?”
…
“Do you truly want to marry me?” Charlotte asked Jacob once they were alone. “Or is this just part of a silly plan?”
Her mind was desperately trying to process everything she had learned in such a short amount of time—the viciousness of her aunt, followed quickly by Jacob’s outrageous proposal and Chadley’s involvement in all of this.
“I do,” Jacob said. “I really do. I know this has come out of nowhere and it seems like I’m asking only because there doesn’t appear to be an alternative option, but that’s only part of the reason.”
“Wh—” She licked her dry lips. Her heart was pounding, but only part of it was due to the fear that her aunt could have her committed. “What are the other reasons?”
“I like you, Charlotte. I admire your tenacity. I admire your bravery. Not many women would have run to the rookery and survived. You have spirit and a strength that I envy. I don’t know if I could have been that strong.”
“Many people admire each other, but they don’t marry. It’s a thin reason to wed.”
“You want me to tell you I love you, but I don’t know if I can. I loved Cora with my whole heart, and when she died I didn’t want to live. It took me a long time to regain my will to live, and I still miss her.”
“Then why marry me?”
He seemed to think about it, and she wondered at a man who asked a woman to marry him but needed to think of a reason.
“Because I like you a lot. I like coming home to find you here every day. I like telling you about my day, and I like hearing about yours. I like that we are comfortable enough together that we can sit in silence or we can talk in depth. But more than that this solution seems right. I truly believe that this is the only way to save you from your aunt.”
She seemed to consider him for a long time.
“I more than like you, Jacob, but I can’t marry someone that doesn’t feel the same way about me.”
She was putting everything on the table now—her feelings and possibly her own life. But she wanted a life like her parents had. She wanted someone who would defy Society and their family and risk everything to be with her. Like her mother had for her father.
“Charlotte.” He reached a hand toward her but let it drop between them.
“Yes, we suit. We get along well. We have s
imilar likes and interests, and we can talk for hours, but that feeling, that pounding of the heart—you lack that. When you kissed me, did you feel anything?”
“Yes.” He closed his eyes. “God, yes.”
“What? What did you feel?”
He opened his eyes and looked deep into hers. “Like I wanted you more than I’ve wanted another woman in a long time. Like if I didn’t have you I would combust.”
Something deep inside of her tightened in an answering need. She wanted to marry this man. She wanted more kissing and much, much more than that. But she wouldn’t compromise her dreams. She wouldn’t settle for a man who didn’t love her as completely and fully as she deserved to be loved.
“Do you feel that you were betraying Cora because you were kissing another woman?”
He seemed to think about that. “I’m not going to lie to you. Yes, I felt guilt, but that is only natural. I loved her completely. I thought she was the only woman for me, but you… You make me question everything I believed before.”
“Marriage is forever, Jacob. That’s a long time to be with someone on a spur-of-the-moment decision.”
“What other solution do you have? I know you, Charlotte. You can’t in good conscience go to America and leave your cousin to continue his killings.”
“You know everything I know. You can go to the police and tell them. You don’t need me anymore.”
“And you will spend the rest of your life hiding in America?”
“I will spend the rest of my life living the life I chose for myself.”
“I can give you a better life. I have an estate in the country now. Armbruster says that I can profit handsomely from it.”
She looked at him in sadness. “Is that what you think of me? That I want riches? An estate? Country living? I want love, Jacob. A love like my mother and father had. Maybe I can find that in America.”
“I would make a good husband. I would take care of you.”
“I want more than to be taken care of.”
Her heart physically hurt. She could say yes, spend a lifetime with this man, and easily fall in love with him, but she would die a little bit each day knowing he didn’t love her the same way she loved him. She would wither away, knowing he still pined for his dead wife.
“The funny thing is,” she said softly, “I would have said yes. If only you felt more for me than a sense of duty.”
Chapter Nineteen
Charlotte tried not to let the soaring ceilings or the luxurious surroundings intimidate her, but it was difficult not to gape. This was where her mother had come from. This was what her mother had walked away from for the love of a man. It was hard to imagine her mother living here, with the grand staircase and the ceiling-high windows that looked out over Hyde Park and the nearly invisible staff who flitted about in their black-and-white uniforms.
She’d always pictured her in the small, bright cottage that Charlotte had grown up in, among the roses in the flower garden that her father had tended until his dying day.
The love that Harriet had felt for George Morris must have been immense to walk away from all of this.
Charlotte was grounded enough to know that money did not buy happiness and that Harriet’s father, Charlotte’s grandfather, had not been an easy man to live with, which might have made the decision to leave a bit easier.
She sat primly on the edge of a settee, her ankles and knees together to keep her body from trembling. She thought of her mother looking down on her from heaven, and Charlotte wanted to make her mother proud.
Would Harriet have wanted Charlotte to be here? To reach out to her uncle? So many times she’d wished her mother were alive to talk to, none more than this moment.
Her talk with Jacob the night before had kept her awake until the sun crested over the buildings of London. Now, more than ever, she knew that leaving England was the only choice. There truly was nothing here for her except bad memories, unrequited love, and a family she didn’t really know.
Jacob and her uncle could take the information that she had on Edmund to Scotland Yard, and they could do with it what they wanted. It was out of her hands now, and she felt better knowing that someone else knew.
The door opened, and her uncle walked in, all smiles. He was a nice man. It was such a shame that his father had been such an old goat who couldn’t see past Society’s strictures. He’d lost his daughter because of his narrow-minded beliefs. And his granddaughter. But that was all in the past now.
Charlotte stood, very aware that she was the poor relation wearing a dead woman’s gown.
“My lord,” she said with a curtsy.
“Really, Charlotte, I think you can call me David. Or uncle. Whichever you prefer.”
She tilted her head in acknowledgment. “Uncle.”
“I was surprised to hear that you had come.” He held up a hand. “Not that you aren’t more than welcome. This is your home, too.”
It wasn’t her home, and they both knew it. Her uncle lived here with his wife and children. Even if Harriet were alive and had wed per her father’s orders, she would not be living here.
“The marchioness would love to meet you, but she didn’t want to come barging in and make you feel uncomfortable.” He raised a brow in query, silently asking for her opinion.
Charlotte didn’t want to meet her aunt. She didn’t want to become embroiled in this family any more than she had to, because she was leaving and there was no reason to forge attachments that would not last.
So Charlotte bypassed the question altogether. “I’ve come to ask a favor.”
Disappointment tightened his features, but he smoothed it away. “Of course. Anything.”
He was so eager to please. So eager to put the past behind them and make amends, but Charlotte could not let go of the fact that her mother had died thinking her family had forsaken her. Maybe if Harriet had received the blessing of her father, she and Charlotte’s father would not have had to live in the country, away from the doctors that could have saved her mother. Then Charlotte would have known her mother and she would never have had to live with Lady Morris.
“As you know, I have plans to travel to America. I would like to educate the American heiresses who are interested in securing a marriage with an English noble. I feel I am quite suited to this task.”
Her uncle hesitated. “I was under the impression that you were to wed Lord Ashland.”
“That was Lord Ashland’s and your plan. It was never my plan.”
“But…it’s a good match. A solid match.”
“Because he is an earl and I am the granddaughter of a marquess?”
“Because you two suit.”
“Do we?”
“From what I could tell, yes.” He indicated the settee she had risen from. “Please, let’s sit.”
Reluctantly she sat, smoothing her lavender skirts. This was the closest gown she could find that suited her own style, and still she was well aware it was not her own, that she owned nothing. And she was here to beg for money.
Humiliation warmed her cheeks, but she pushed it away. She would do what it took to get the life she wanted.
“Uncle. Jacob only wants to wed me to help me out of the predicament I am in. He feels he can save me from my aunt who seems to want to have me committed.”
“I don’t think you’re seeing the broader picture, Charlotte.”
“Jacob loves his dead wife. He still pines for her. I can’t replace her in his eyes, nor do I want to.”
“I think with time—”
“I don’t have time. Lady Morris wants to keep me controlled. I need to escape England as soon as possible.”
“If you don’t want to marry Ashland, then move in with us. I can help you.”
She nodded briskly. “And that is exactly why I am here. I need your help.”
“We have plenty of room. Donna, that is, my wife and your aunt, would be ever so pleased to have you.”
Charlotte was becoming frustrated. She di
dn’t want to be the poor relation, taken in by her mother’s family out of kindness and pity. She wanted her own life. She wanted to forge her own path.
“Your offer is gracious and appreciated. I’m sure my mother would be pleased if she were looking down on us right now. But I don’t want to live here. I want to go to America and begin a new life, and I was wondering if you could write me a letter of recommendation. And possibly loan me the funds to travel to America. I will pay you back,” she added hastily, her face burning in humiliation again. “As soon as I find employment I will send you a monthly payment. You can even tell me how much to send.”
Her uncle’s face closed up, and she could feel her last chance slipping away. If she didn’t get the traveling funds from him she didn’t know what she was going to do. Asking Jacob was out of the question since she’d turned down his proposal. He’d already done far too much for her to ever repay.
“I think you’re making a terrible mistake,” her uncle said.
Charlotte’s heart dropped. “I think this is for the best.”
“You’re running away from your problems.”
“I like to think I’m escaping to a better life. My aunt won’t be happy until I am back in her clutches, and I won’t go back there. I won’t.” She was mortified to hear her throat close up with tears, and she swallowed them away. She wouldn’t resort to tears to get her way, no matter how much she wanted to cry.
But she felt her last chances slipping through her fingers, and she was becoming desperate.
“I would never allow her to take you,” he said. “But you can’t run from this. You are the only one who knows what your cousin is doing. You need to go to the police.”
“Jacob knows, and you know. I’m sure they will believe a marquess and an earl over me, anyway.”
“Charlotte. Please reconsider. Take some time. A week. Take a week and think about this and help us convince the police that they need to investigate Lord Morris. After a week, if you still want to go, I will help you.”
Charlotte didn’t want to wait a week. She wanted to go now. A ship was leaving in three days, and she wanted to be on it, but it looked like her uncle wouldn’t help her unless she agreed to his terms.
An Unwilling Earl Page 14