Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
BENNET HALL, SURREY - JULY 25, 1816
LEE
Brigsby’s knock the next morning was sharp, reproachful. It also signified that I had managed an entire night staring at the ceiling, unblinking.
“My lord?”
“Yes?” I sounded even more wrung out than I felt, hoarse and weak.
“I do not suppose Lady Champaign is in here by any chance?” he asked, striding in unbidden.
“No…”
“Then I do believe we may have a problem.” Brigs rarely, if ever, skirted around an issue, preferring to confront it—me—with sarcasm and insults. That he was doing so now had me shooting upright in the bed. “You see, sir, she is not in her chambers.”
I glanced at the clock. “She is in the breakfast room, surely.”
“She is not.”
The bed coverings tangled around my feet, trapping me while I flailed. “The music room.”
“Empty.”
“Library?” Finally free of the blankets, I made a search for my banyan.
“Also bereft of ladies.” His tone belied the serious implication of his statement.
“Well where the devil is she?”
“We were hoping you might have an idea. One of the scullery maids saw her headed toward the stables in quite a hurry last evening.”
Stables.
Carriage.
My Charlotte.
My knees wobbled and my stomach dropped, a familiar copper tang filling my mouth. Banyan—needed my peppermints. Not spread across the bed. Not hanging on the screen. Where was it?
Already the darkness was encroaching, my periphery dimming. I wasn’t going to find it, not in time. I collapsed back on the bed, my heart palpitating without rhythm. I dragged my fingers along the bed covering, desperate to keep myself here. But I felt nothing beyond the familiar, hateful tingling sensation.
Brigs was crouched before me, still visible in the pinhole that remained free of the darkness. But I heard nothing. His hand found my knee, but there was no accompanying sensation. And then the darkness overtook everything. Just like it always did.
The biting scent of peppermint brought me out of it, minutes, hours, days, years later.
My chest was still tight, but my heart pounded in regular time. The throbbing ache behind my eyes was always one of the first sensations upon my return.
“Breathe.”
At once, my lungs obeyed his command. The air sliced along my impossibly dry throat and left me hacking desperately.
A cup of tea appeared beneath my still coughing face without a word. I took a sip and choked it down.
“How long?”
“A few minutes only.”
I shook my head. “How long has she been gone?
Brigsby’s expression was unimpressed. “Ten hours, perhaps twelve.”
“Have my horse saddled.” I threw back the bed coverings for the second time this morning before I was met with Brigsby’s stern hand on my chest, pushing me back down.
“She never arrived at the stables.”
“What?”
“Which word was confusing?”
“Brigs…” I broke off with a sigh. If she hadn’t set off in a carriage… It had rained last night. Hard. And for a long while. She wouldn’t have stayed out in that, surely. My countess was not one for discomforts.
The observatory.
It had to be. It was the only significant shelter between the house and the stables.
“I need clothing. Now.”
“Of course. Will you be requiring the hairpins that were scattered across the floor as well?”
I cursed impertinent valets the world over, as was my usual practice, and shucked on my breeches before dragging a shirt over my head. I batted away the cravat in his hands. If she wasn’t in the observatory… I couldn’t afford to waste time dressing.
I strode around him, all but racing down the hall and stairs and out toward the other building.
The path was more mud than gravel with puddles interspersed every few feet.
The structure’s exterior seemed no different than it usually did—no indication that she was inside, but no evidence that she was not either.
My breath hitched before I turned the handle, a perfunctory, involuntary effort to steel myself against disappointment.
What I found inside saw my heart clenched painfully. Charlotte was curled into a small ball on the chaise I sometimes used for precisely the same purpose. She was burrowed underneath the great coat I’d left here some time ago. Her breathing was slow, even, and shallow. And she was safe. Safe and here . And perfect.
CHARLOTTE
He was carrying me. My ridiculous husband was carrying me like a child. Or not like a child, he had one arm under my knees and the other around my back, but my point remained. How, precisely, had he come to the conclusion that this was the better solution than waking me?
Now I was left with the absurd choice of stirring in his arms or feigning sleep the entire way back to the house. I was not particularly fond of either option.
“I can hear you rolling your eyes.” His voice was a low grumble, the vibrations drumming against my cheek. I did roll them before blinking them open, this time in a conscious choice.
“What thought process, precisely, led to this course of action?”
Lee gave a thoughtful hum before replying. “Well, I assumed you would still be cross with me, and I wanted to delay the sight of the little pout you give when you’re angry for as long as possible. But you looked cold.” His gate was smooth. I would never admit it, not to him, but it was quite nice to be carried save for the childishness of it. “See there, pouting.”
“That is merely my face. Are you going to put me down?”
“I hadn’t planned on it. And while you do make that expression quite often, it is not merely your face.” We were nearing the house now, within sight of the windows at least. I wriggled, trying to force his hand but he merely tightened his hold.
“Put me down. I am still cross with you.”
“Charlotte, the ground is wet and muddy. You’ll ruin your slippers and gown. Surely you do not wish to spite me that badly.”
That was, perhaps, the only thing he could have said that would have convinced me to stay where I was. I did like the slippers and the gown. I wrapped a reluctant hand around his neck while he sidestepped a puddle.
At last we reached the house and there was Brigsby, opening the door with a smirk. “My lady, you had us worried.”
“Apologies,” I retorted, ensuring no apologetic note crept into my voice. I wiggled once again and finally Lee deposited me onto my feet with a put upon sigh.
“I am quite sincere, my lady. Lord Champaign was nearly senseless with worry.” Brigbsy emphasized the word in a way I couldn’t quite interpret. Lee’s glare at the man indicated that the comment was intended for my husband regardless.
“Yes, well, I am quite tired. I do believe I’ll retire for a few more hours if you have no need of me.”
Lee muttered something under his breath I couldn’t quite catch beyond the words “great need.” I ignored the comment in favor of my promised respite.
I trudged down the hall with far less grace than was my want. Whatever aspect of human nature was responsible for the desire to poke a bruise had me turning to peer through the cracked nursery door.
And there I saw it—tiny, yellow paw prints scattered all over the floor and the bottom foot of the painted wall.
I was a lady. I behaved with decorum. I had never once in my life screeched. But right then, in that moment, that was the only descriptor for the inhuman sound that escaped me.
Massive footsteps thudded up the stairs faster than should have been possible. Lee rounded the top of the landing and skittered to a stop mere inches from crashing into me.
“What? What is it? Where are you hurt?” The questions poured so rapidly from him, it took a minute to parse them. In the interim, his hands had found my shoulders, my sides, my face, seemingly searching for some unseen injury.
“Your cat.”
“What?” He wheezed out between panted breaths.
“Your cat,” I repeated, pointing into the open doorway.
His expression shifted from one of panic to one of anguish. Widened eyes downturned and the tension left his form, shoulders slumped, and lips relaxed into a loose frown.
“Charlotte…”
“I closed the paints. I know I did.”
“No, I know. I’m…”
“I am not responsible for this.” My tone was sharp and tight through the knot in my throat. I couldn’t bring myself to set foot into the room, to catalog the damage. There must have been a hundred individual paw prints. The damn cat probably had to dip its feet more than once.
The floor was a bother in a practical sense. It would likely need to be completely refinished. But the wall… last night I had been set to paint over it, a stark, blank slate. Now that it was destroyed, and not by my hand, the tears welled up without permission.
Lee stepped past me and fell to his knees before the wall. Gently, he touched a finger to one of the prints, then pulled it away and examined his hand. From his crestfallen expression I knew the paint was dry.
My vantage from the hall offered a view of the paints I had set across the floor. And every. Single. One. Was closed. The yellow was no exception.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to rest for a few minutes. Since it’s already dry there’s no point in trying to clean it now.”
“Charlotte…”
“Good night, Lee.” It wasn’t night or good. But I could not have this conversation with him. Or any other. Not without irrational tears and I was not willing to be irrational with him at the moment. Or any moment.
If I shut the door to my rooms harder than necessary… well, I was angry.