Once Again a Bride

Seventeen



Alec sat at his desk without really seeing the piles of papers there. It was late, and the house was quiet, and he was thinking about Charlotte. He thought of little else these days, despite the many calls on his time and attention. He neglected his work; he lost the thread of conversations in memories of the enticing scent of her, the feel of her soft curves against him, her lips demanding and yielding. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any woman. And if that had been all… ah, if only that had been all. He could have dealt with desire. One way or another. He didn’t think she would be averse; she’d given him reason enough to think quite the opposite. The image of Charlotte naked in his bed quickened his pulse.

But desire wasn’t all. Charlotte—the idea of her, the reality of her presence—attracted every nuance of feeling, as the Earth’s gravity drew each object down. Whatever he did or thought, she was somehow woven in. He was pulled and pulled with an inevitability he resented and mistrusted. He was not “falling in love.” He would not. Alec stood and began to pace his study. He despised the phrase and everything people seemed to mean by it. “Falling in love” brought idiotic decisions and a lifetime of regret. It seemed to make people stupid, laughably credulous. His case was quite different. He was moved by desire and… compassion perhaps, respect, warm regard. What paltry words. Damn it all to hell!

Edward, he’d meant to think about Edward. Alec returned to his desk, sat down again. He needed to talk to his cousin, and he didn’t want to. He didn’t like him. Had he ever liked him? Whether he had or not, when he saw him drape his arm along the back of Charlotte’s chair…

Edward. As young children they’d been closer, while Alec and his family were fixed at their grandparents’ home. Edward had lived nearby and often visited. Later, they’d encountered each other once a year at the Christmas holidays, after Alec’s parents moved to an estate inherited by his mother down toward Leicester. They could have visited more often, but the tensions of the senior Wylde household were intolerable. And his father wasn’t a man for visiting. He hadn’t cared for people much, Alec thought, beyond his wife and children. It occurred to him there was some similarity to Uncle Henry in that—far less extreme, of course—really quite different. The idea was ridiculous. His father had cared about his tenants, who were nothing at all like a collection.

After their grandfather died, when Alec was nine and Edward twelve, they’d seen each other even less. On the face of it, they should have had much in common. Older parents—Alec’s father had been thirty-seven when he’d set out to find a suitable bride. He’d done it for the sake of an heir to the baronetcy, but in the end, Alec thought, his parents had been contented. Or perhaps he’d just been told that his mother didn’t miss London seasons, was happy with her gardens and her four children. He couldn’t actually know; she’d died of complications of childbirth when he was eleven years old. Had that marriage simply been too short for unhappiness? The thought chilled him.

He did remember his mother as a warm presence, games on the lawn, reading at bedtime. But mostly, he remembered Frances, who’d come to stay right before his mother died. Frances had certainly seemed happy; that he could recall. She’d been more than kind to all of them, serene and competent until—well, until his father died. Since then, she’d gone moody and unpredictable. Had she been in love with his father, Alec wondered suddenly? He’d never imagined such a thing, not even once. As he thought of it now, he felt dizzy with memories realigning, assumptions turning on their heads. What people called love so often seemed something else entirely; yet here was a nameless, unacknowledged thing that might well have been love. What else had he failed to notice? Why was he noticing now?

He shook his head. He was thinking about Edward. Edward had also lost a parent young. His father died when he was ten, right before he went off to Harrow. Why had Aunt Bella sent him there? The Wyldes went to Eton. They would have become better acquainted at school. He shrugged. They hadn’t. Then, Edward hadn’t bothered with university. He’d come to London and established himself in society with the careless grace that Alec sometimes envied and sometimes despised. By the time Alec arrived, his cousin was a fixture, and only too ready to laugh at a young man’s awkwardness among the ton.

Alec knew he was never at his best around Edward. His cousin brought out every vestige of self-doubt that was in him. He remembered a Christmas twenty years ago, when Edward had lured him into singing a song before the family. It was to have been the two of them; Alec, reluctant, definitely in the secondary role. But Edward had led him to the center of the room and then vanished. Standing in that circle of expectant adults, at a loss, had been excruciating; it still made him flush to think of his grandmother’s open mockery, his father’s embarrassment.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Alec said aloud. How had he gotten bogged down in the past? He reached for a pen and the inkwell and dashed off a note to his cousin. The visit was not a choice but a necessity. Edward would most likely refuse to see Hanks. And Charlotte’s position was insupportable. He sanded the wet ink, folded the page, and addressed it. Leaving the note on the hall table for delivery in the morning, he went upstairs to bed.

***

Edward Danforth’s rooms in Duke Street were precisely what a young man on the town would desire, Alec thought at eleven the next day. The large sitting room combined comfortable furniture and relaxed untidiness—a toasting fork on the hearth, a litter of invitations on the table, an assortment of bottles ready for a convivial evening. An open door revealed a spacious bedchamber with a dressing room beyond. There was no dust, just bachelor clutter—no females to watch over, nothing to consider but his own wishes and pleasures.

Edward lounged in a broad chair, one leg draped over the arm. “To what do I owe the honor of a visit, cuz?” It was his usual tone, implying that Alec was too serious, a touch tedious, and of course, amusing.

Alec gritted his teeth. “I came to talk to you about Uncle Henry.”

“That old bore?” Edward picked up a snuffbox and turned it over in his fingers.

“He was killed,” Alec pointed out.

“Well, I do know that.”

“We need to discover who did it.”

“We?” His cousin raised an elegant brow. “I mean, of course it’s outrageous. Footpads running rampant in the streets, and so on. But it isn’t really our business to deal with them.”

“I disagree. I have hired a Bow Street Runner…”

“There you are then.”

“He is having difficulties getting information.” Alec didn’t want to tell him about the accusation against Charlotte; he didn’t trust his cousin not to repeat it. “That is why I wanted to ask you about Uncle Henry. You saw him often at his club?”

Edward sighed and put the snuffbox down. “We’re both members. If I happened to run into him, I’d say a few words. Mama was always after me to do it. She thought he’d leave me his money. Favorite nephew and all. You know how she is about inheritances.” He gave Alec an arch look, which he ignored. “It made sense, so I went along.”

“So you had expectations?”

Edward shrugged. “I thought there was a chance. I was the oldest of his nephews, if not a precious Wylde, and I listened to him drone on about his blasted antiquities every now and then. Lord, how he could talk.”

Somehow, Edward’s manner always annoyed him. Alec was certain he knew that and did it on purpose. “Perhaps you thought it was a long wait for the legacy?”

His cousin laughed in his face. “Are you asking if I sneaked out after Uncle Henry and attacked him in the street? On the off chance he meant to leave me something? Really, Alec! I’d no idea you had such an active imagination.”

Alec, watching him, could see only amusement in his face. Everything was amusing to Edward. He didn’t seem to care a great deal about anything.

“It would have been a fine joke on me if I had, eh?” He shook his head. “A museum! Only Uncle Henry could imagine that anyone would want to come and see his musty old bits.”

“Which turned out to be fakes, practically worthless.” Alec tried to peer beneath his cousin’s smooth surface, without success.

“Really? So if he had left them to me, I’d have been disappointed. Particularly if I’d killed him for them. Fortunate thing I didn’t.”

“Indeed.”

Edward laughed again. “A fine joke on him, though. He spoke about that rubbish as if it were a king’s ransom. The old fellow must be writhing in his grave.” His cousin leaned back, crossed his leg over a knee. “The thing I can’t believe is that he got Charlotte to marry him. Where did he find her?”

Like his mother, though not as actively, Edward gathered bits of gossip. Alec didn’t want to answer, but he had no real excuse to refuse. “He corresponded with her father. They met at Bath, where her father often went for his health.”

“Bath? What was Uncle Henry doing at Bath? Ah, he went there to snag Charlotte, I suppose. Can’t blame him. Taking little thing. And well endowed.”

Alec couldn’t help stiffening. He saw Edward notice it with a sly smile.

“Dowried, I mean. She says he spent a tidy sum that was hers.”

“Indeed,” was all Alec could find to reply. Again.

“Pretty now that she’s better dressed,” Edward insinuated. “A lovely package altogether. Did you find her so when she was staying at your house?”

He used that tone to goad him. Alec knew it, and still his muscles tightened further. “Did Uncle Henry ever say anything to you that would help solve his murder?”

Edward looked at him with half-lidded eyes, like a cat who was considering whether to continue tormenting an unresponsive mouse. Finally, he shrugged. “Good God, I never listened to him, Alec. Couldn’t bear it. All that tedium, and he let me charge the wine he drank to my tab. Aren’t uncles supposed to treat you?”

Why had he expected anything from Edward, Alec wondered? His cousin thought only of himself.

“Although… he did say something rather odd a few months ago.”

“What?”

“He offered me some advice.” Edward raised his eyebrows at the absurdity of the notion. “Told me never to rely on people, no matter how long I’d known them or what the relationship might be. No one could be trusted.”

“That’s all?”

Edward nodded.

“Had he been talking about antiquities dealers? Perhaps he’d discovered some deception?”

Edward frowned, then shrugged again. “No idea. I told you, I couldn’t listen to him for more than a minute. Had to think of something else or go mad.”

Alec tried other questions, but Edward remembered nothing useful. When he began to twit Alec about turning up at parties when Charlotte was in attendance, Alec took his leave.

He returned to a house that felt rather empty. Anne was out at a dancing class, Lizzy on a visit arranged by Aunt Earnton, Frances somewhere, elsewhere. For him, there were the piles of paper on his desk and the frustration of a wasted morning.

***

Lady Isabella had invited Charlotte to accompany her on a round of morning calls, to “extend her education” in the ways of society. Charlotte had accepted out of politeness and gratitude, and curiosity. Lady Isabella’s kindness to her had been such that she would do whatever she asked. And she was interested in seeing the haut ton in all its aspects. However, as the morning wore away, it seemed that the visits were chiefly designed to gather and distribute bits of gossip. Stories heard at one house were retold at the next, in exchange for other tales that could be carried on to a further drawing room. She soon noticed that those who had nothing new to offer a hostess were less valued callers—the poor in social currency.

The morning might have been more interesting, she admitted to herself, if she’d been acquainted with the people involved and their histories, as everyone else seemed to be. But she wasn’t. She was also a novice in the language of looks and gestures that embellished these conversations, implying much more than was said for those in the know.

They ended at Mrs. Prine’s house. Squeezed between two mansions, it was even smaller than Henry’s, though in a far more fashionable neighborhood. The inside was like a jewel box, each element lovely and obviously chosen with care. Charlotte complimented their hostess as they were ushered into a parlor hung with gold brocade, and Mrs. Prine looked pleased.

The two older women began to pool the gleanings of their mornings, not only exchanging tales but also dissecting them in an almost professional way. As they decided between themselves which calls they would make on the morrow, Charlotte was reminded of two generals planning a campaign. She had no doubt they would find out whatever they wanted to know.

Tea arrived, and the two turned their attention to Charlotte. “You know, my dear, you really must order a few more gowns,” said Lady Isabella. “You can’t be seen in the same ensemble too many times.” Mrs. Prine nodded her agreement.

“I can’t afford any more,” Charlotte admitted, clearly shocking Mrs. Prine—whether because of her poverty or her willingness to speak of it she didn’t know.

Lady Isabella waved this away like an unpleasant smell. “As to that, one must… allocate. Some small economies at home—invisible—can help you support a creditable appearance.”

Mrs. Prine nodded again, and Charlotte wondered what she knew about it. Everything in her house was obviously costly. Neither of these women could have any idea of what it was like to watch every penny.

“I’m sure my modiste would be quite accommodating in extending credit,” Lady Isabella added. “I can speak to her…”

“No. I will have to make do with what I have. Mrs. Trask… that is, I know a good seamstress, and we are going to see if we can alter some of my old dresses to make them more modish.” This idea had emerged when she found Mrs. Trask at her fancy work, completing a dress for one of her granddaughters that might have come from the finest shop on Bond Street.

Mrs. Prine looked scandalized, far more shocked than she’d been by any gossip they shared. Briefly, Charlotte considered telling her that the seamstress was her cook, but Lady Isabella seemed annoyed, so she kept this to herself.

They left soon after, embarking on the long drive to Charlotte’s neighborhood. “I was wondering about Henry,” she ventured. She’d been considering this topic all morning, and now she had the opportunity.

Lady Isabella turned to her with raised brows. “Henry?”

Sir Alexander had advised her not to talk about what they’d found in Henry’s rooms, but surely Henry’s sister must know things about him. They’d spent the first ten years of Henry’s life in the same house, and school holidays for years after that. “He wasn’t very… communicative, you know. And since he died, I’ve been wondering… oh, why he never married before he met me.” The earrings in his hidden cupboard showed that other women had figured in his life. “Was he never attached or engaged when he was young?”

“Henry?” Lady Isabella repeated.

“Young men are… susceptible. Surely when he was first presented to society, he…”

“Henry never attended a ton party in his life,” Lady Isabella interrupted. She said it as if the idea was ludicrous. “Or any other sorts. He was such a… morose person.”

“Even when he was young?”

“He wasn’t.”

“Wasn’t…?”

“Young. He seemed fussy and old even when he was a child. At university, they say he spent all his time buried in the library. Everyone knows that young men get up to all kinds of mischief at college, but not Henry.”

“And then he came down to London,” Charlotte said.

“He leased that house—close to the British Museum, can you imagine?—and then bought it with his inheritance after Father died, I suppose.”

“So he never mentioned anyone…”

“My dear, he didn’t even tell us when he married you!” Lady Isabella looked as if her nose for gossip had been roused. “Why do you ask?”

Charlotte thought of telling her about the earrings, but Sir Alexander had been so adamant. “It’s just strange, knowing so little about a man one was married to.”

“Husbands are always a mystery, my dear,” was the airy reply. “Now, in the much more important matter of your wardrobe…”

“I really cannot spend any more, Lady Isabella. I’m sorry. If you feel my… appearance reflects poorly on you, I would not blame you…”

She waved this aside. “If you were to sell some small things from…”

“I can’t…”

“Because of Henry’s ridiculous will, I know. But you might easily find a way around that. You must know that people from the very highest rungs of society occasionally need to… exchange items they have inherited for… cash. Which they do not want known, of course. So embarrassing. There are people who manage such transactions and would never breathe a word of the sale…”

“It isn’t that. Well, it is. But I don’t think such people would be interested, you see. Henry’s collection is practically worthless.”

“What?”

“We had a man in from the museum to evaluate it, and he said one or two pieces are authentic and worth something, but the rest is just… well, more or less clutter.”

Lady Isabella seemed stunned. “But… nothing?”

“Henry spent thousands of pounds on objects that are good for nothing but paperweights.” Charlotte couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice.

“Thousands of…” Lady Isabella looked devastated.

Charlotte was touched by her concern. She hadn’t realized that Lady Isabella had taken her situation so to heart. She tried to lighten the mood. “The burglar would have been quite disappointed if he’d managed to steal anything.”

“The… yes. Quite a joke on him.” Lady Isabella recovered herself. She gave a trilling laugh. “Well, I am very sorry, my dear. I had hoped to be of some help.”

“And I appreciate your kindness.” The carriage pulled up, and she prepared to get down. “Thank you for a… lovely morning.”

“Of course.”

Charlotte used her key to enter as the carriage moved off and was startled to find Callie sitting in the front hall, tail curled around her front paws, as if waiting for her. “Hello, Callie.” Two heads popped over the banister above her, and Lucy and Tess came hurrying down. “Is something wrong?”

“Well, Miss Charlotte, the cat had a… a relapse, like,” replied Lucy.

“She tore a fine linen dishtowel to shreds,” added Tess. “Mrs. Trask said it ain… isn’t even good for rags.”

They both stared accusingly at Callie, who ignored them. She was gazing so steadily at a bit of wall behind Charlotte that she had to turn and look. There was nothing visible but paneling. “That is very disappointing to hear,” she told the cat. “I thought you were a… a reformed animal.” She was trying not to laugh, and Lucy saw it.

“It was one of the new dishtowels, Miss Charlotte.”

It was true that they couldn’t afford to replace many household items. “Very bad. You are a bad cat.”

Callie remained oblivious. Lucy sniffed.

“Mrs. Trask must have scolded her at the time,” Charlotte said.

“She did, miss, but…”

“Well, we shall hope it doesn’t happen again.” What else did they think she could do? Charlotte was just deeply grateful that Callie had not turned her destructive attention to the “exhibits” on this floor. She started up the stairs. The two maids headed for the kitchen. The cat slipped past her and when she reached her bedchamber, Charlotte found Callie already there. “You miss Anne and Lizzy, don’t you?” she said as she took off her hat. “I do, too.”

***

Lucy yawned and folded up her mending. “I’m off to bed,” she said to the rest of the staff. She kept her voice casual, but Mrs. Trask gave her a glance that made Lucy nervous. No one was better than Mrs. Trask at putting two and two together. Still, Ethan had said his good-byes a good quarter hour ago.

She paused a moment outside the room, but nothing was said about her departure, so she hurried up the stairs and slipped out the back door. Ethan was waiting at what she now thought of as “their” bench. He rose as soon as she appeared, a large dark shape with open arms. Lucy could do nothing but walk into them.

Enfolded, held against him like a treasure, she couldn’t keep hold of her doubts and worries. The feel of his coat against her cheek, the heady smell of him, drowned out everything else. She rested there for a needful bit of time, then raised her head and laced her arms around his neck.

The kiss enflamed every inch of her. Heat blossomed from deep in her belly and ran out to her finger ends, and then farther still, as if her soul touched his where their lips met. This couldn’t be wrong. It was meant to be. Ethan’s big hands slid up her sides. His thumbs grazed her breasts under the stuff gown, and Lucy heard herself groan softly. She pressed closer. One of Ethan’s hands dropped to cup her body and pull her closer still. The other continued its circling, circling, until she thought he’d drive her mad with wanting him.

Abruptly, he pulled away. A wordless sound of protest escaped her.

“Ah, Lucy.” He was breathing hard. So was she, Lucy noticed, and her knees seemed about to buckle under her. “We’d best stop before I do something I oughtn’t.” He pulled her down onto the bench, keeping hold of her hand. “Ah, Lucy,” he said again.

For a brief while they simply sat there, breathing.

“I asked about the job,” Ethan said finally. “It’ll be all right, seemingly. The cottage and all, for us to live in.”

Lucy’s mood soared and then came crashing down, weighted by all the worries his touch had erased. “That’s fine then… for you. Just what you wanted.” He’d leave London at the end of the season, and he’d never come back.

“For us.”

Tears clogged her throat. “I want to go; most all of me wants to go. Maybe I should be able to just take off… But I can’t. It’s stupid!”

“No, it isn’t. It’s the way you are.” He squeezed her hand. “Look, we all know there’s lots of servants who’re nothing but that. They come and go, and nobody cares much except those as have to find replacements. Then there’s some who’re more like family. It can’t be just them that thinks so, of course. That’ll get you into trouble, and no mistake. But your Miss Charlotte feels the same. Anyone can tell that.”

Lucy took a shaky breath. “You say that even though you want me to give notice?”

“I want you to come away and marry me and be with me all my life long. But I want you to do it freely and gladly. I want you to be happy and not regret one thing.”

Lucy’s tears escaped. He was just the man for her. Couldn’t she marry him and never look back? Shouldn’t she—and he—be happy? If she spoke to Miss Charlotte… Miss Charlotte would tell her to go and not look back. Then the Trasks would leave, and there’d be just young Tess and whatever town-bred strangers she found to take the other positions. Miss Charlotte would be unhappy—not as unhappy as she’d been this last year, maybe, but sad and alone. And she wouldn’t begrudge a bit of it.

Lucy thought of herself married to Ethan, snug in her neat country cottage. She longed for it with her whole being. But to sit at the hearth knowing Miss Charlotte was here without any tie to her old happier life in Hampshire…

She’d do it, Lucy realized. She’d go. She couldn’t give him up. But her heart would be sore at the way of it.

Ethan’s arm had gone round her shoulders. “Don’t cry, Lucy. I can’t stand it. Look… I have an idea how things might all come out right.”

She sniffed, looking up at him. “What do you mean?”

“I’m thinking… that is, I have a notion that Sir Alexander is… fond of Miss Charlotte. Interested in her, like.”

Lucy frowned, trying to take this in.

“And maybe she likes him as well. If they was to get together…”

“Marry, you mean? Miss Charlotte’s just got out of a horrible marriage. She won’t be wanting another one.”

“Now, who’s to say that? Sir Alexander is nothing like this Henry Wylde seems to have been.”

“No…”

“He’s well-liked in the servants’ hall and at home among the tenants. He’s right good to his sisters. According to Jennings, he’s a prime match as well.”

“Are you selling him to me then?” asked Lucy, a thread of amusement running through her.

“Just saying he’s a different kettle of fish entirely from his uncle.”

“Maybe so.” Lucy thoughts ran back over the last few weeks. Was Miss Charlotte sweet on Ethan’s master? It might explain some oddities she’d noticed. It was possible. Then again… was she just being swayed by selfish hopes? “Even if there is some… something between them, what’s it to do with us?”

“Well, we could… encourage it, like.”

“How?” Before he could answer, she added, “Anyway, we’ve got no right to interfere.”

“We wouldn’t be interfering. Just helping things along.”

“I don’t know.” As Lucy tried to state her doubts, the lamplight went off in a basement window.

“It’s late,” Ethan said. “They’re locking up. You’ve got to go. You’re coming with the others to my aunt’s house tomorrow evening?”

Lucy had been invited to a celebration for Ethan’s cousin, home on leave from the navy. The Trasks were going, of course, and she and Tess had been invited as well. “Miss Charlotte said I should, but it’ll leave her all alone here.”

“Just for a few hours. She could go visit Miss Anne and Miss Lizzy.”

“That’s a good thought. I’ll tell her.” Ethan stood. “I worry about you walking in the streets at this time of night.”

“I know how to go, and I’ve got a stick,” he assured her, hefting a large cudgel he’d leaned against the garden wall. He swept her up for a last kiss, and Lucy forgot everything else in the dazzle of it. Then he was gone, and Lucy was slipping through the back door just ahead of Mr. Trask locking up. At the foot of the stairs to the upper floors, she found Callie sitting like a guard dog. She edged past her, followed by the stare of two yellow eyes, thanking her lucky stars that cats couldn’t talk.