Chapter Three
They had locked her in her room, but Chantelle wasn’t worried, not yet.
It wouldn’t be the first time she had gone out through the window, though many years had passed since she had last left the house that way.
But it could be done. She did have that option.
She just wasn’t ready to go yet. She had to wait for the house to quiet, gather a few things, form a plan—but mainly she had to calm down, for at the moment she was so angry she felt she could actually kill Charles Burke.
She had arrived home only that afternoon, but it seemed she had been angry for the past week, ever since Charles’ letter had come.
Instead of the money she was expecting, she had received an order to return immediately to Dover, and that high-handed idiot hadn’t even included the wherewithal for the journey.
Ellen had to sell another piece of jewelry, which had really been the last straw.
Chantelle was so furious she hadn’t even waited for her aunt to close up the cottage to accompany her.
Against Ellen’s protests, she had left the very next day.
She was going to show cousin Charles that she wasn’t some silly twit who could be treated this way.
He had a lot to answer for, especially his leaving her dependent on her aunt when Ellen couldn’t afford it.
She had planned to have it out with him. But that wasn’t how it had turned out.
She had been shown into the parlor as if she were a guest in her own house. The butler was new. The carpeting, the furniture, were new. She felt like a guest. And the entire clan had been there.
Chantelle remembered them all from their one visit to her in Norfolk, soon after their arrival in England.
And the difference between then and now was not immediately noticeable.
Before, they had been the poor relations from America come to offer their condolences, mindful that Chantelle was a lady born and bred, whereas not even Charles among them could claim nobility, until now, that is.
Charles was her father’s uncle’s second son, Charles’ own father having been no more than a carpenter’s apprentice.
It had been Chantelle’s grandfather who had won the baronetcy from a grateful monarch, but he had been a rich man beforehand, and it was his wealth that had been left to Chantelle.
Charles had in fact left England nearly thirty years ago, escaping debtors’ prison in the process.
You wouldn’t know it to look at him now.
Big, pale, looking older than his forty-nine years, with the stamp of the Burkes on him in his brown hair and blue eyes.
He was done up in the finest of fashions, as was his family.
And they all exuded the confidence and condescension of the newly prosperous.
There was Charles’ red-haired wife, Alice, who, according to the tardy solicitor’s report, was the daughter of a tavern owner in Virginia, a tavern where Charles had been no more than an employee.
Two of their daughters were present: Marsha, fourteen, and Jane, who was the same age as Chantelle, homely-looking girls with their mother’s red hair and hazel eyes not helping to improve their plain looks.
There was an older, married daughter, too, but she had elected to remain in America with a new husband, her second, according to the solicitor’s report.
Charles’ son, Aaron, had brought his wife, Rebecca, and their two young children to England, and they were all present, too.
And to think if her aunt hadn’t lived near the ocean, Chantelle would have returned sooner to this bunch of interlopers who had taken over her home.
She might even have come to like them, especially the younger children, who were rather awed by everything around them.
She would have introduced them to the beach below Dover cliffs, which had been her playground as a child.
Gathering shells, swimming, sailing with her father, exploring the caves, or just sitting on the cliffs, sometimes for hours at a time, waiting to sight a passing ship, had been the essence of her childhood years.
Yes, if the beach hadn’t been within walking distance of her aunt’s cottage, she would have missed it too much and come home, maybe before Charles got it into his head that he could marry her off to just anybody, and that anybody was Cyrus Wolrige, a man old enough to be her grandfather.
He was present, too, an old lecher who leered at her throughout the entire interview.
She knew him. He lived not a quarter mile away from her.
She had seen him often in church, snoring through the sermons, ogling the young women afterward in the churchyard.
Emmy, her maid, had always called him a dirty old man.
And here Charles’ very first words to her had been: “Ah, Chantelle, my dear. Meet your fiancé, Mr. Wolrige. You’ll be married in the morning.”
Chantelle’s reaction was to laugh at the absurdity of it. Cyrus Wolrige wasn’t offended, though. He just sat there smiling, supremely confident that by tomorrow she would be his bride. His look gave her the chills and sobered her instantly.
Chantelle rounded on her cousin, violet eyes impaling him. “You are joking, sir, and in bad taste.”
“I assure you the holy state of matrimony is nothing to joke about,” he told her.
She had gathered her breeding around her like a cloak to keep from shouting at him. “Then I assure you, sir, that I refuse Mr. Wolrige’s suit.”
“You can’t, my dear,” Charles replied with a tight smile and an apologetic nod to Mr. Wolrige. “I have already accepted for you.”
He went on to impress on her that she had no say in it, that they didn’t need her permission in order to see her married, that because she was underage, her guardian’s permission was all that was required.
It was too much. They all sat there staring at her in different degrees of gloating pleasure, except Aaron, who actually seemed resentful of the situation. And Chantelle found out why later from Emmy.
Emmy had originally accompanied her to Norfolk but had stayed no more than a month, returning to Dover when her mother took sick. And since Ellen’s cottage was really too small for three people, she had returned to work here later, tending to the new ladies of the house.
She brought Chantelle a dinner tray that night and stayed long enough to warn her that these Burkes were serious about seeing her married off.
There had been a terrible row in the family because Aaron was already married.
They seemed to think it would have been ideal if he could have been the one to wed Chantelle.
There had even been talk of his divorcing his wife, who made a big stink about that, and things hadn’t been right between Aaron and Rebecca since.
But that news was nothing to Chantelle. It didn’t change the plans they had for her now.
She was furious, and made no bones about it, but to no avail.
In the end, she was still locked in her room, she would still be married to Wolrige in the morning—or so they thought.
She wouldn’t be here, however. Where she would be she wasn’t exactly sure yet, but it wouldn’t be here.
It was midnight before Chantelle had calmed down enough to make some immediate plans, and several hours more before she was ready to leave.
The main thing was to get out of the house and hide somewhere while she decided what to do next.
And she knew the perfect place. The caves.
Some of the things she had stashed there as a child might even still be there—blankets, kindling, dishes, her shell collection.
Blankets were the important thing, for she intended to spend the rest of the night there, and all day tomorrow, while the Burkes futilely combed the countryside for her.
Then tomorrow night she would leave Dover, destination still undecided.
London, most likely, and a job, maybe with one of her aunt’s friends, where she could also get in touch with Ellen, who might have some other ideas.
But the first place Charles would look for her would be in Norfolk, so she would have to be careful when contacting Ellen.
In the meantime, she would definitely need some type of employment.
Chantelle grinned for the first time that day. Her stay with her aunt had been a training of sorts for which she could now be grateful. A year ago she might very well have accepted the fate Charles had planned for her, but not now.
Yet it was daunting. Pampered and adored all her life by her father, who had showered her with attention to make up for the loss of her mother at an early age, Chantelle had never known hardship, had never had to make decisions on her own.
Certainly she had done without the luxuries she was accustomed to while living with her aunt, but she didn’t consider that a hardship.
Having no servants to wait on her, learning to cook, to clean, to go to market to buy her own food, had been an adventure, but only because she had shared the experience with her aunt.
With anyone else she probably would have felt deprived.
But Ellen was special and Chantelle loved her dearly.
Her aunt had seen the world; she was independent; she wasn’t one to accept only the straight and narrow path, but considered all options, the good with the bad.
Oh, if only she’d listened and waited for Ellen to come to Dover with her, the older woman might have been able to do something.
No, that wasn’t true. Chantelle wasn’t that ignorant of the law.
No one could do anything if her guardian was adamant about her marrying old Wolrige.
There was nothing for it. She had to disappear for two years until she reached her majority, and hope that Wolrige wouldn’t agree to a marriage with a missing bride.