by Erica Ridley
Laird, preferably.
She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a horrified, choking laugh. In her innocent quest to save her reputation, she’d only managed to make it even worse. And for what? Approbation she should have known she could never have?
Anthony reached for her shoulder. “Charlotte…”
She jerked away. She couldn’t stand his touch right now. Couldn’t stand her own skin. Couldn’t stand her willful naivety. Couldn’t stand her determination to believe in a fantasy. Embarrassment heated her cheeks. What did she know about her alleged father other than he was supposed to be a laird called Dìonadair, from Scotland? Wouldn’t there have been more information other than his legendary angelic goodness, if any of it had been real?
The rubies. God only knew where the rubies had come from. Undoubtedly one of her mother’s admirers. But obviously not from a Scottish laird named Dìonadair. There was no such man. She had no father.
“You can have the jewels,” she said dully. She yanked the bobs from her ears and flung them in Anthony’s direction. “They’re meaningless. It all is.”
Her lungs heaved as she fought against the stinging in her eyes. In her dreams, Scotland was meant to be paradise. Her father’s homeland. Perhaps her future home, too.
She had come all this way for love, for acceptance. Her father was to be the one person capable of sweeping her past under the rug. He’d give her a fresh start, a respectable name, a home.
Miss Charlotte Dìonadair she’d called herself, all those long, lonely nights, trying to pretend she couldn’t hear the noises coming from her mother’s chamber.
Charlotte Dìonadair was the daughter of a laird. Beautiful. Practically a princess. Charlotte Dìonadair was allowed into all the shops. She could play with all the other children. She was proud to speak her name.
Charlotte Dìonadair was more than respectable… Charlotte Dìonadair was beloved.
Charlotte Dìonadair was a lie.
Dreams. Useless, foolish dreams. When they vanished, her heart shattered with them. There would be no happy ever after for her. She swallowed brokenly.
Welcome back to reality. She wasn’t the daughter of a laird, or a beautiful princess. She wasn’t allowed into all the pretty places. She couldn’t rub shoulders with those above her station. She wasn’t proud to speak her name. She didn’t even have one.
Her mother was a whore and a liar. Which meant she hadn’t the least idea who Charlotte’s father was.
And now Charlotte never would either.
Chapter 9
Charlotte’s pulse pounded in her ears. The dawning realization on her husband’s face was all too clear.
“You’ve never known who your father was.” He leaned back. Away from her. “You’re…”
“A bastard,” she said beneath her breath. “Yes.”
He licked his lips. “Charlotte—”
She pushed away from the dining table before her husband could ask any more questions she didn’t want to answer. Once again, she was a spectacle. Unable to bear the other guests staring at her, she stumbled through the corridors and into their small chamber.
Anthony joined her in silence, her discarded earrings in his palm.
She couldn’t bear to look at him. Not after seeing her like this. What a fool he must think her, to follow a dream only a child’s blind faith could believe in. A fiction her mother had sold her.
The necklace she’d been proud of for years now bit into her skin like a swarm of ants. She had to get it off. Never wanted it to touch her again.
She pulled up her skirt in order to reach the binding round her ribs.
Anthony turned away to grant her privacy.
It didn’t matter. Her desperation wasn’t about him. It was about getting rid of the poisonous lie she’d been carrying next to her heart.
She yanked the necklace out from under the binding cloths and hurled the rubies onto the dressing table. She pulled the money pouches free as well and threw them next to the necklace. Their winnings couldn’t help her. She was just what she’d always been—the daughter of a prostitute. With no father and nowhere to go.
Shivering, she unwrapped the linen binding her breasts and tossed it aside. No more hiding. She was who she was. There was no sense trying to playact any longer.
She let her skirt fall to the floor, then turned toward the looking glass. The masking powder she had always added to her hair to make it dull and lifeless, the subtle face paint she had used every morning to make her complexion tired and gray and less like her mother’s… What did any of it matter?
It took very little of the icy water in the basin to wash away what she’d spent a lifetime trying to hide.
She was not her father’s daughter. She was her mother’s. They were two sides of the same coin. The same rosy cheeks and golden ringlets that had made her wide-eyed mother so irresistible to men stared right back at Charlotte in the mirror.
Her shoulders crumpled. She could run away from home, flee those who spat at her in the street—if they acknowledged her at all—but she could never escape her own reflection.
She jerked away from the looking glass and directed her wooden legs toward a wingback chair. Its cushions no longer comforted her. She was no longer on a path to adventure and approval. She was adrift at sea.
Anthony knelt by the fireplace to coax steady flames from the embers. But the warmth did not reach her.
She stared listlessly at the grate. What would become of her now? The sole hope on her horizon had been stripped away. While her father’s money was meant to save Anthony, her father’s love was meant to save Charlotte.
Her gaze inexorably traveled toward her husband. Her heart sank. It would be foolish to develop an attachment to him. He, too, would be taken from her before long.
Then she would have no one. Just like before.
He pulled the chaise longue next to her chair and settled beside her.
She said nothing. She couldn’t trust herself to. If she spoke, she might shatter.
“I’m sorry we can’t find your father,” he said quietly.
She closed her eyes. “I don’t have one.”
“You did,” he said. “Once. Everyone did. If he chose not to stay, I’d say you were better off without someone like that in your life.”
“Of course you would say that,” she said through clenched teeth. He had undoubtedly been loved and flattered all his life. “You have your parents. Both of them. You can’t possibly know what it was like for me as a child. No one does.”
“Then tell me,” he said simply.
Ah. If only it were that simple.
Charlotte stared at the dancing flames until her vision blurred orange. How was she supposed to tell him? She’d hidden beneath makeup and layers of cloth. Lied about her name, her heritage, anytime she was somewhere she might not be recognized. Cleaved to the idea of a man who had never existed.
“Even the poorest children were better than me,” she said at last. Her voice was as unsteady as her pulse.
Anthony kept his silence.
“We didn’t live in the worst parts of London. We had too much money for that—yet not enough respectability to live anywhere fashionable. So we lived where we could. On streets where the others couldn’t be too choosy about who their neighbors were. Yet next to houses where the children didn’t just know who their parents were… They lived together. As a family.”
The crackling of the fire was the only sound.
“Charlotte the harlot,” she singsonged with a harsh laugh. “That was my name growing up. Because that’s what my mother was. A light-skirt. A fancy one.”
Anthony brushed the back of her hand with his own.
Her breath caught at the gentle touch. How could he have compassion? She was telling him he was married to a prostitute’s bastard daughter! Suddenly, the words came tumbling out.
“The life of a courtesan is only glamorous while she’s out at the opera, riding in fast carriages, presiding at
balls, twirling beneath the stars in a gown to rival a princess. But her home is never her home. It’s a place of negotiation. The give and take of power. Mother lost her edge because she was saddled with me.”
He frowned as if he’d never given much thought to a courtesan’s private life before. He probably hadn’t. No man ever did.
Or was he frowning because he just realized what a huge mistake he’d made by leg-shackling himself to her? Charlotte’s throat tightened.
“One of the first things I learned was that there are good clients and there are bad clients. Some would leave me a treat or a dolly. Others…” Her voice cracked. “Sometimes it was best to stay under the bed, or in a dark corner of my wardrobe.”
His eyes filled with sympathy.
She dropped her gaze so she wouldn’t have to meet his. The memories suffocated her. She’d tried so hard to forget.
“The one thing I wanted was to be respectable. To be accepted. The one thing I didn’t want was to be anything like my mother. No matter how much I love her.” Her throat rasped. “Sometimes the gowns and jewels she wore were dazzling to the eyes. At other times, her only adornment was bruises on her wrists or her face.”
He winced and reached for her.
She pulled away. If he touched her, she would not be able to stop the tears. And if she let herself fall apart, she might not be able to put herself back together.
“I don’t know how old I was when I realized I would never be respectable. That no matter how well I succeeded in my quest not to follow my mother’s footsteps, it would never be enough. I’m not just a bastard. I’m a whore’s by-blow. A mistake. No man would want me as anything other than what I’d been born to be. No ladies would lower themselves to accept my friendship, for the slightest association with me could lower their reputations as well. The only person who would ever love me was my mother.”
He made no objections to these claims. No false attempt to insist she was valuable, desirable. Respectable. They both knew she was not. She appreciated his honesty. Even if it made her shrivel inside. She had wanted Anthony to like her. Had let herself believe in the fantasy they’d created of a respectable newlywed couple. Had desperately yearned for the lie to be true.
She risked a glance up at him through her lashes. He hadn’t stormed off in disgust, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t plotting to leave. Why should he stay? They weren’t a real couple. Now they would never be.
Before, they had planned for an annulment only if he couldn’t avoid debtors’ prison. After this conversation, Anthony wouldn’t want to wait even a fortnight.
Yet he deserved to know the truth.
“At some point, I latched on to the idea of a father. The baker’s daughter, the cobbler’s daughter, the fishmonger’s daughter—they were all not only more respectable than me, but they also knew who they were. They had someone’s arms to come home to. A family. A future.” Her voice broke. “I wanted that, too. But I couldn’t have it. Not as me.”
His eyes were dark with sympathy.
She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t acknowledge his empathy. Sympathetic gazes couldn’t change her situation. Nothing could. No matter how hard she wanted it.
“I was small when my mother gave me that jewelry. The strongbox was hidden in my wardrobe, not hers. The rubies fascinated me. Once my mother realized her mistake, how desperate I was to find my father, she commanded me never to seek him, and then refused to speak of him ever again. I went looking for him once. She struck me.” Charlotte tried to swallow the old hurt. Her throat stung. It never got easier. “I dreamed of him every night. Of a new life. A different me.”
His gaze was unfathomable. At least now he knew the truth.
“But I’m not different. I’m Charlotte the harlot, bastard daughter of a common courtesan. And now you’re saddled with me, too.”
He took her hand and refused to let her jerk free. “Look at me. What are you afraid of? That I’ll reject you, too? That my association with you will ruin my pristine reputation? In case you’ve forgotten, I’m a hairsbreadth away from being tossed into debtors’ prison.” He forced her to meet his eyes. “I’m human, Charlotte. So are you. The circumstances of your birth are not your fault. How could I blame you for it?”
Hope dared to stir in her chest. Harsh reality tamped it down. She shook her head. “Others do. You can’t change society. And what about your friends and family? What will they say when they discover you’ve wed the offspring of a whore?”
“My friends and family are no strangers to scandal.” His tone was rueful, but his eyes held no trace of regret. “My sister married her husband the same week that she gave birth. One needn’t have a head for figures to realize they must have taken a few liberties with the proper order of events. Sarah certainly won’t judge you harshly. Nor do I.”
Charlotte stared at him in amazement, scarcely able to comprehend his meaning. She had told him her darkest secrets, the very things she had spent a lifetime fighting to hide, and… it didn’t change his view of her in the slightest?
She was human, he’d said without hesitation. Without realizing she’d struggled her entire life to be treated like a whole person. Her breath caught. She’d dreamed of society accepting her… but perhaps it was enough to be accepted by one man.
This man.
Still unable to believe he’d accepted her despite it all, she gave him a wobbly smile. He pulled her into his arms and just held her. Letting his strength comfort her. She hugged him tight. He would make a wonderful husband.
If only he weren’t destined for gaol.
Chapter 10
Anthony cradled his sleeping bride in his arms as their hired hack rattled across the border into England. Charlotte had packed her valise without a word. There was nothing left for them in Scotland.
He had never been the sort of person who could sleep in a moving carriage, but he was not in the least surprised to see his wife succumb to her exhaustion. She had slept fitfully at best, after having realized her lifelong obsession with being reunited with her father had never been anything more than an impossible dream.
As for the confession that followed… Entering the parson’s trap with a courtesan’s daughter was perhaps not the most ideal of circumstances, but when had Anthony ever done the ideal thing? He could scarcely hold Charlotte accountable for something that had occurred prior to her birth.
Besides, Anthony was painfully cognizant of the fact that he was no fine catch himself.
He had considered the situation over and over again—some might say dwelled upon the matter to the point of nausea. The only honorable way out of his scrape was to earn the owed sums himself.
The issue was how to buy more time.
London was the most viable city for easy employment. And the only place he could repay his debt, since Gideon’s gaming parlor lay within city borders. But, given the new information about Charlotte, ’twas little wonder she had no interest in returning to a city that constantly made her feel worthless.
How could he sit behind a writing desk somewhere while his wife was suffering elsewhere? Yet he had to earn back the money, or risk leaving her even worse off than they were now.
At least they were on the move, heading south. His spirits brightened. Not just because they’d left the debt collector’s ruffians behind, but because all of England still lay ahead.
London was not the only fashionable city. They could go to Bath. Perhaps there, Charlotte wouldn’t be recognized or disparaged… And perhaps there, Anthony could scare up enough blunt to save his life—and his marriage.
He caressed the back of her hand.
She was so beautiful. So fragile, yet so strong. He longed to wrap his arms about her and keep her safe. Keep her close. He didn’t want a marriage in name only. He wanted a union of hearts, of bodies. He wanted his Lady Luck to feel fortunate to have him. Wanted to prove that their marriage didn’t need to be a mistake. That their relationship didn’t have to be temporary.
Bu
t now was not the moment to make promises about the future or take irreversible action. Neither of them was in a position to consummate a marriage whose future would come to an abrupt halt in less than a fortnight. But he would fix his mess. Once he deserved the title of husband, Charlotte would be his. Completely.
His throat dried. What if that day never happened? What if he managed to pay off his creditors and be the best man he’d ever been in his life, and it still wasn’t enough? She hadn’t chosen him. What if she would still prefer not to be wed to him, even if he did pay off his debts? He glanced over at Charlotte.
In his heart of hearts, he’d always dreamed his future wife would be a paragon. Not full of herself or high in the instep, but someone who was… complete without him. Someone who chose him because she wanted him, not because she was enamored by the baubles he bestowed upon her when he was flush.
If he did raise the blunt, what if Charlotte only stayed married to him because it was financially her best option, not because she loved him?
He swallowed. Did it matter anymore? Beggars could not be choosers. He had no particularly redeemable qualities, which left spoiling his loved ones when his pockets were flush his only option.
But if he focused on raising funds solely to stay out of gaol and keep his wife, he’d be teaching her to value him solely for money—just like he’d done with his nephews.
So what was he meant to do with Charlotte? How could he appeal to her heart so that she would want to stay with him, rather than his money… or merely to salvage her reputation from the stigma of divorce?
He drummed his fingers against the carriage squab in frustration. Besides a father, the thing she wanted most was societal approbation—and he couldn’t give it to her. No one could. She would never be accepted at high society gatherings, much less be granted an Almack’s voucher to mingle with the crème de la crème. Even he couldn’t do that.
She could probably be accepted into the societal fast set—rakes and gamblers and courtesans—but although Charlotte could move in those circles more freely, scandalous company wasn’t what she desired. The gossiped-about set wasn’t where she would wish to belong, or who she wanted to be.