Charlotte shook her head as she continued to move backwards. “I do not know,” she said quietly. “I do not know how long it will take. I think I need some real space. I think ...” She was scared to say it, but she needed to at least try to do this rationally. Maybe Lord Jones would just understand, and this would be simple. She did not know if this was possible, but she had to at least give it a try. “I think I need to go away for a while to get my head together.”
“What?” Lord Jones turned a funny shade of red. He stepped closer and grabbed onto Charlotte’s arms too hard, already going back on his inner promise not to hurt his wife again. “What do you mean? What will everyone think if my wife just vanishes into thin air?”
“Is that all you care about?” Charlotte hissed, yanking herself way. “All you are concerned about is everyone else? Who cares what they think of us, our marriage is just for us is it not?”
Lord Jones did not have anything to say to that. He could not fathom what Charlotte was saying. Of course their marriage was in the public domain, it was no different to everyone else. It was the courtesans on the side that were kept secret and only discussed between the men. He could not understand what would happen next. He needed to make things right with Charlotte and did not have any choice.
“Charlotte, you are being so ridiculous. I cannot believe what you are even saying here. You cannot leave; that just is not possible. We have to just get past this and move on. We have our baby coming.” He reached forward to touch her belly, but Charlotte batted him away. “We need to sort out these problems in our marriage.”
Charlotte could not hear his words anymore; they were cutting through her like a knife. She stomped past her husband, practically knocking him out of the way as she went, and she moved back into the same room as Mary. Her sister was pressed up against the door, so she knocked her backwards as she did, but Charlotte hardly noticed that.
“I am ready for this,” she declared fiercely. There was no longer a fog inside her brain; she had never felt more crystal clear in her entire life. “We are going to do this.”
“We are?” Mary’s heart raced again. She expected Charlotte to come in here to tell her to go alone again, which would have left Mary speechless. She would not have known what to do from there. But now she was hearing everything that she wanted to hear, and it made her anxious. “Yes,” she said much more firmly. “Yes, we are.”
“I shall go and get my stuff together now. I need to pack right away.”
Mary grabbed gently onto her sister’s arm, twisted her around and pulled her to look at her. “Charlotte, are you sure about this? You are not acting out of anger? And how will you get your things together with Lord Jones around?”
Charlotte did not like her sister’s assumption. “I know exactly what I am doing,” she hissed. “This is what I want now. I am certain. My husband will be back into his office now, hiding away until he thinks that I have calmed down from my temper tantrum.”
Mary let Charlotte go, hoping that she was doing the right thing. It seemed that they were really going now ... on to a new life.
Chapter 30
The darkness shrouded Mary as she moved as quietly as a mouse through the house. She only had a small bag with her, and she was wearing her least fancy dress just because it was practical. Mary was not concerned with what she looked like; she was just worried about what was going to happen next.
“Charlotte?” she whispered as she saw a shadow moving along the hallway. She hoped that it was because anyone else could spell trouble. “Is that you?”
“It is.” Mary’s heart flooded with relief. Thank God. It seemed that Charlotte was still on board. A lot of time had passed now, and Charlotte had been given plenty of time to calm down from her rage earlier on, so if she still wanted to go, then she had to really mean it. “I do not have much with me; I hope that this is alright.”
“I do not know,” Mary confessed. “I am sure that it will be fine. I do not have much with me either.”
The girls looked at one another through the blackness of the night, both lost in their individual concerns about what the future held for them. Charlotte felt calm; there was a sense of justice about her now after her conversation with her husband, and she was ready to go. She was just concerned about where they would end up now. Mary was frightened, far more scared than Charlotte which was ironic considering everything. She trusted Duke Smith and where he would take them, but the journey to get there frightened her.
Still, it was too late now. There was no turning back. They had to get moving now; it was the only way.
“Come on then.” Mary linked her arm through Charlotte’s and pulled her towards the door. “Let us go; it is almost midnight.”
Opening the front door was not an easy experience for either of them. They desperately did not want to wake up anyone in the house, and their nerves gave them shaky fingers. Dealing with an iron lock when they could not keep still, never mind see, was not an easy task.
“I just hope we do not have to come back in,” Charlotte admitted quietly. “I hope that His Grace does not let us down.”
Mary was confident that he would not. She had full faith in Edmund. He would not make them risk so much to let them down. He knew that it would not be easy to escape this house at this time of the night, so he would ensure that the carriage was there. “We will be fine,” she reassured her sister. “The carriage will be there; we just need to get outside.”
Charlotte nodded, trusting her sister, and she focused her attention on getting the door open. She wanted to feel the cool brisk air of the night; she needed to see the moonlight, she needed that – it would make her feel safe.
Finally, with a little force, the door swung open, only it made a lot of noise in doing so, which caused both girls to freeze on the spot. They sucked in and held their breath as their limbs froze. They listened intently, both hoping and praying that no one would hear them. It was a loud sound, but it was the middle of the night. With a bit of luck, everyone would be fast asleep ...
“I think we got away with that,” Mary said quickly. “Come on, we need to go.”
Charlotte hesitated, but only for a second. She wanted to get going; she knew that this was the right thing to do, but at the same time, this had been her life for a very long time. She needed just a tiny second to say a mental goodbye to it. Not all of it was good, in fact, most of it was not, but it had still been her life for a long while.
Now it was on to brighter pastures.
“I think I see it,” Mary whispered as she stepped forward to the street. “It is down the end, so we need to be quick. I just hope that no one has heard it.” It was possible, but if Edmund was true to his word, then it would hardly matter by the time they had gone. “Come on, we need to go now.”