Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
THREE MONTHS LATER
“I love you more than words can yield the matter.”
The water running over my hand was cold. Chill bumps erupted over my arm and I sighed, enjoying the soothing coolness of the stream on my skin. It was finally warm enough to venture outside. I had never been keen on adventure before, but any form of escape was worth every precious moment.
I stood and brushed the dirt off my skirts and wiped the hair away that had fallen in my eyes.
The woods were thick behind Bentford Manor, and I had discovered this little stream only a week before.
Since then it had become a fortress of relief and distance from a certain much-too-watchful gentleman.
I had spent hours alone here, practicing my writing with my left hand, sketching the trees, and hoping Mr. Webb wouldn’t find me.
Taking a deep breath, I filled my lungs with the fresh spring air and looked up at the sky through the trees.
It was grey with heavy clouds. I watched them move through the sky, a slow roiling that captivated me.
It would rain soon. I knew I should go inside, but I couldn’t look away.
The color reminded me of the sky in Craster, and I took a moment to wonder whether or not James was standing under the same colored sky, and if it were possible that he thought of me as much as I thought of him.
Kicking the grass ahead, I slipped my gloves back over my hands and walked out of the woods. Almost immediately, I heard a familiar shout.
“Miss Lyons! There you are!” Mr. Webb’s voice cracked with exertion as he ran toward me. He stopped, breathing heavily. He doffed his hat and extended his arm to me. A sheen of sweat covered his forehead. “Are you unwell?”
“I could ask the same of you,” I said.
He laughed and wiped his forehead with his sleeve.
His wavy auburn hair was sticking to the sides of his head.
His eyes settled on me, a brown color that I had come to associate with the mud on the bottom of the stream.
“I could run miles and miles, dear Charlotte, if it meant I could see your beauty once again. Your eyes remind me very much of the blue satin bow my cat wore when she was just a kitten.”
“Oh?” My voice was flat. He had offered the same comment on at least two other occasions.
“Yet I fail to make any comparison that would adequately describe the color of your eyes. I have never seen anything like it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Webb. You are too kind.”
He shrugged and flashed a winning smile.
Then he went on to tell me every detail of his meeting with his man of business, and how he had acquired another small inheritance from a distant cousin.
“Would you like to take a ride into town? I know how much you like to see the new fabrics in the shop. You like that, do you not?”
“I do, but we did go yesterday.” I didn’t know if I could endure another ride with him.
He stopped walking. “Well, I know a few other things you like.” He grinned. “Lilacs, summer breezes, ribbons, lace, dancing.”
I gave a polite smile. Those things were true, but I could never tell him the things I really liked. Playing the pianoforte, sketching alone in the woods, eating lemon tea cakes, rocky coasts, the sea, and beautiful memories that I had taken for granted.
“I forgot one thing!” he said emphatically. He turned to face me, pulling me close. Sunlight filtered through his pale lashes and glinted off his sweat. “Me!” He laughed and spun me around. “You like me most of all, I think.”
I dislodged myself from his arms as quickly as possible and faked a smile. “Of course.”
He brushed my hair from my eyes. “You are so very beautiful,” he said again.
I didn’t have the energy or the desire to reply. I stepped back, feeling sick and empty and more lonely than I had ever felt in my life. “I must go. I need to prepare for dinner.”
He nodded with understanding. “Oh! Please wear your lavender gown tonight. It is my favorite.”
I didn’t look back. But I made a promise to myself that I would never wear my lavender gown again.
Mr. Webb was a good man. He was friendly and agreeable, but disconcerting at the same time.
Mama had been married just a month before, and shortly after she returned home from her wedding trip, she had assured me that I was well on my way to securing a marriage with him.
She had smiled, and although I had expected her words of approval and her smile to comfort me, they left me dry and cracked inside.
I lived day by day, hour by hour, always dreading the next.
I was miserable.
I hated hiding the truth, wearing that stuffed glove day after day, not because I hated the sight of my hand, but because Mama did.
Every time she looked at me, her eyes flickered to that glove, glinting with disapproval.
I felt choked and trapped by it, and I didn’t know how to escape. I doubted I ever would.
Dinner came at its usual time, and I wore my brown dress with the ivory ribbons.
Mr. Webb’s smile faltered when he saw my dress, and when he cleared his throat he sounded frustrated.
We hardly spoke at all throughout the meal, and I could feel Mama’s eyes on me the entire time, digging a hole into the side of my face.
When the dishes were cleared away and the women were preparing to move to the drawing room, Mr. Webb stood. His throat bobbed with a swallow. “I would like to request a private conversation with Miss Lyons.”
Mama’s eyes rounded, but returned to normal within a second.
“Oh, yes. Of course.” She looked as if it took all her concentration not to leap from her chair and drag Louisa and Eleanor from the room by their ears.
“Stepdaughters. Mr. Bentford.” She stood and they followed her from the room, a quiet clattering of chairs and muffled footsteps.
I stood too fast, panic throbbing through my veins. I knew what he was going to say. “Mr. Webb, I—”
“Miss Charlotte Lyons, I cannot express to you the extent of my feelings.” He stepped close to me. “I find you enchanting, and I expect that I never should grow tired of gazing upon you.”
My stomach lurched.
“I believe that it is much to your advantage and mine, if you agree to be my wife.” His face broke into a smile, as if his explanation and proposal had been horribly romantic rather than an equation. “Marry me, Charlotte. I daresay we shall make a lovely couple.”
My mind spun. This was not right. Was this really what I had always dreamed of?
Mr. Webb was growing wealthier by the day.
I had seen his estate, and it was beautiful beyond words.
He would eventually be a viscount, and I could be a viscountess.
All my dreams were laid out in front of me, gazing through a pair of muddy eyes, but they appeared in this moment as nothing more than a trap, a ruse, a thorn disguised as a rose.
I didn’t want this. I was shaking my head now, and the smile on Mr. Webb’s face was fading.
“Do you really know me at all?” I asked, my voice hard and fast.
His brow wrinkled. “Of course! I have been courting you these last three months.”
I shook my head again and stepped away from him.
“But we shall come to know one another even better in time. We have years to be together!”
The thought of spending years with Mr. Webb, seeing his face every day, and always wondering what it would have been like if I had stayed in Craster…
I couldn’t bear it. The walls of the room seemed to be closing in, and I could hardly breathe.
“You are a good man, Mr. Webb. And I believe you could make someone very happy, but that woman is not me.”
“Please, Charlotte! Why do you refuse me?”
“Why do you want to marry me?”
He was silent. “Because I have never seen a woman more beautiful, more lovely, more magnificent—”
I stopped him. “That is the problem. One day I will be old and ugly, and you will wish you had never met me.”
“That is not true,” he said in a low voice. “You are perfection.”
Releasing a sigh of frustration, I tore my glove away from my right hand and threw it to the ground. I lifted my hand up to where he could see it. His eyes flew open and he stumbled back.
“Does this change your mind?” I didn’t look away from his face, even as much as it hurt me to see the disgust in his eyes.
“What—how?” he stammered. It was all he could manage to say.
“I didn’t show you before because I knew what you would think.
These pretenses were not acceptable and I do apologize.
But even so, my answer remains the same.
I will not marry you. And if my suspicions prove correct, you won’t wish to marry me now either.
” I watched as his gaze slid over my hand and back to my face.
His expression was contorted in quiet shock and a bit of guilt. He didn’t speak.
“Be careful, Mr. Webb. You will be hunted for your fortune and there are many women like me who might have said yes just now.” I walked backward toward the door and paused in the open doorway. “Do take care.”
He nodded and I saw him slump down in his seat the moment I closed the door behind me.
I took a breath to calm myself. I hadn’t noticed how my legs were quaking and how fast my heart was beating. It was over. There was no way to recover now. I stared at the puckered scars on my hand pressed against the wall. What had I done?
“Charlotte!”
I turned at the sound of Mama’s voice.
“Charlotte!” Her gaze landed on my uncovered hand. An eerie stillness settled on her face. “You have made a dreadful mistake.”
My eyes stung with tears, but I stood tall, feeling more free and brave than I had in months.
“No. I made a mistake when I decided to return here. I cannot—I will not deceive any longer. I will not be the woman you taught me to be. One of your daughters managed to make an acceptable match for you, but I will not.”