Chapter Eighteen
“I’m sorry,” Charlotte repeated, before Mary could make excuses. “I did not see anything.”
Mary blinked. “Charlotte, there was nothing to see. You mistake me.”
Something about the way Mary had looked at Pitt—so intimately, so deeply amused—had scorched through Charlotte’s innards. The wound burned, making her feel as if she were about to vomit. The dragon of jealousy, it seemed, had a tongue made of pure fire. “It is none of my business. I—”
“You mistake me,” Mary repeated. Her fingers flexed, curling into fists and splaying widely again and again. “And I had thought you understood—well. No matter. Suffice it to say that Pitt is not interested in courting me. Or, for that matter, any other woman. Nor are the footmen. In fact, every servant in this house courts a more…” She cleared her throat. “A secret kind of love.”
Charlotte opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. “Oh.”
“Indeed.” Mary’s eyes were blazing. “My aunt has a particular fondness for those the rest of society considers beneath them. They reside here in safety, for to be caught is death for men. It is the one circumstance in which women have it easier. I thought…well. I thought you might have got the clue from Barton’s diary.”
“Barton’s…” Charlotte trailed off, feeling very foolish. To my beloved P. “I’d thought it referred to a young lady.”
“It refers to our very own Pitt. And I’m sorry if that offends your delicate sensibilities.” There was something under Mary’s anger that Charlotte couldn’t quite grasp. A hurt, perhaps, though for what reason she could not guess. “I am aware that your marriage to a parson might have convinced you that such things are sinful and wrong but I can assure you, the kind of love that exists between two men or two women is just as pure as—”
A giggle rose in Charlotte’s throat, high and shrill and completely unstoppable.
“What on earth are you laughing about?” Mary demanded, flushing with anger.
“I warned you not to take me for such a prude, and yet you did. I already saw—”
“Well, pardon me for not immediately introducing my most secret desires to a clergyman’s wife.”
“Your most secret…” The laughter had died, replaced by the burning embers of anger, disappointment, and embarrassment.
“Yes, I’m just like them. I should have known you’d had no idea. I was foolish to think that—” She broke off, a muscle jumping wildly in her jaw. “Well.”
Mary hadn’t been flirting with her; Mary hadn’t even thought Charlotte capable of doing so. Charlotte was not even the tiniest ship on Mary’s horizon, and yet she had been so open with her affection towards Miss Highbridge at the ball. Had they shared a bed, held hands, just as she and Mary had done? She’d been foolish to think there anything more between them. Charlotte had been so wrong in so many ways that it was mortifying to comprehend them all at once; there was nothing between she and Mary but friendship, and perhaps even less of that than she’d thought.
“I merely misunderstood.” The words were a struggle, each one a small agony. “But if we are such good friends as you profess, then why did you not tell me sooner? I would have welcomed Miss Highbridge as your…” Charlotte struggled to find a suitable word, and couldn’t help the bitterness that edged the word, “lover. If only you’d told me.”
It was a half-truth at best. Certainly she’d have been polite to the girl’s face, and squashed down her own feelings more deeply, though she could never have welcomed any lover of Mary’s with any real joy.
“Delia?” Now it was Mary’s turn to laugh, though the sound was a harsh, bitter one. “We are simply close friends. I assure you, she is no lover of mine and never has been. Whyever would you think that?”
“But you… But I heard her say…” Charlotte trailed off.
Now Mary’s eyes were blazing in quite a different way. “You heard her say what?” She took a single step towards Charlotte, and it was as if all the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room.
Charlotte froze like a frightened rabbit. “She called you quite in love, and you did not deny it.” Mary continued to stare at her, those dark eyes steady and blazing. “It is nothing,” Charlotte added hastily. “I would never repeat anything of the sort to others—that is—” Stop it , she scolded herself. You are ruining everything. Take a breath and say what you mean, for if ever there was a time to be bold, then is it. “I will keep your confidences, of course,” she blurted, and Mary’s eyes darkened further.
“I should hope so. I thought we had formed an understanding, Charlotte. I told you that I would never divulge your secrets, and I expect the same in return. My friendship is entirely conditional upon trust and respect.”
“As is mine,” she snapped. This conversation was going so badly. Her friendship, nothing more . You utter fool, Charlotte . The words stung much more than she was expecting. “Do you think me so callous as to go blabbing all over Hertfordshire? To put good men in danger of being hanged for something so uncontrollable as their hearts?”
“In that case, what on earth is wrong with you?” Mary demanded, her voice rising. “You are acting quite unlike yourself.”
“Perhaps you do not know me as well as you thought.” It was a foolish thing to say, and clearly untrue, but she was still smarting from just-friends and the words were out before she could fully comprehend their consequences.
“Is that so?” Mary took another step towards her, and another. Her voice was raw now, and rasping. Charlotte backed up until she hit the armchair, and still Mary kept coming. “I know much more than you think, Charlotte Lucas. I know that you are unhappy. I know that you have never been happy. I know that you go out of your way to deny yourself happiness even when it is within your grasp. Mr Innes showed you such attention as to make his interest clear—an offer which would solve your problems easily and expeditiously—and yet you demurred. What could possibly be holding you back from such an opportunity? When will you start giving yourself permission to go after what you want, Charlotte? Or do you intend to die alone, satisfied in the knowledge that you lived only to please everyone else around you?”
Mary’s chest heaved. Charlotte’s heart hammered in her ears. She wanted to declare that Mary was right. She wanted to say, Mr Innes is a continuation of a road I have already walked down, albeit one with a more pleasant view. She wanted to scream that regardless, it was not what she wanted, that Mary had awoken some fire in her that refused to go out, that something in her chest had unfurled the very first moment Mary’s knee had brushed hers under the table, and that trying to stuff it all back inside her small, withered heart was as impossible as leashing a cloud and bending it to one’s will.
“You make it all sound so easy.” She sounded choked and indeed, she could barely swallow or breathe, as if something in her chest was trying to clamber up her windpipe and out onto her tongue. The truth; as heavy as a stone, and equally as unlimber.
“Is it not?” Mary took another step towards her and reached for Charlotte’s shoulders, her hands fluttering there, her movements hesitant. “I cannot bear to see you look so. I am sorry that I…” She sighed. “My temper often gets the better of me, and my tongue is too blunt. Tell me what ails you, please. I cannot understand this behaviour.”
Yet she could not, not with Mary’s eyes on her. Humiliation yawned, a black chasm too slow to draw her inside. Mary dipped her head, forced their gazes to meet. “Charlotte? What made you so insistent that I must be with one or the other?” Charlotte bit her lip. Something in Mary’s eyes changed. A dawning recognition. “Could it be that…”
Her voice was low, husky, almost like the tone she’d used in the rose garden at the Cromleys’ ball. Charlotte desperately wanted to hear it again, but her tongue would not cooperate. Say you want her , she shouted at herself. Say you think of her all the time. For goodness’ sake, say something!
Tentatively, Mary pressed a kiss onto Charlotte’s left cheek, then her right. Their noses brushed. It would be the work of a moment for Charlotte to incline her head, to move just so and let their mouths meet.
She could never. She could never. She could never. She could—
To hell with it , she decided, and lunged forward. Women were so often described as the softer sex, all curves and coils, but Mary was sharp angles against her, strong fingers digging hard into her hips, eliciting a pleasurable pain. Charlotte kissed back hard enough to feel teeth clack against her own. A thirst, rather than a hunger. A deep and insatiable thirst, scorching up her thighs and pooling low in her belly, setting her ablaze in places she had never even known coals could abide. Sensations deluged all thought, rendering the world a blank canvas but for the press of Mary’s mouth, hot against her own, an even hotter tongue swiping over Charlotte’s lower lip.
Charlotte pulled back, panting. Alarm, abrupt and rapacious, overtook her, dousing the flames in her stomach with ice water. This was something beyond the pale, something she had only ever dreamed about doing with any woman. This was all too confusing and new and what if she had ruined her friendship with Mary entirely and Lord but how she wanted to kiss her again and again until the breath had been fairly knocked from them both and—
The sound of footsteps echoed in the passageway. Fighting every part of her body, which yearned to return to the embrace, Charlotte edged backwards, putting several feet of distance between them.
“I’m so sorry. That should never have happened.” She put a hand to her chest, her heart aching with every beat. Prior to this moment, she’d thought that to have touched Mary, kissed Mary, even once would have been enough. Now, she knew that she would be thinking about the memory for the rest of her life, and to make matters worse, she had likely ruined a wonderful friendship from a single impulsive action. “I should return to Kent tomorrow. Tonight, perhaps, if there is a coach.”
Mary looked as if she were struggling, her cheeks flushed with high colour. “Charlotte, please.” Her voice was still low, still rasping, and the sound of it was almost enough to undo Charlotte’s control. “Can we talk about this? I think you misunderstand—”
It was a mistake, the little voice screamed. She’s going to tell you it was a mistake. Even if she likes women, why would she ever want to kiss someone like you? It was a moment of weakness on her part, of course, and nothing more. A pity kiss, at best, for you are nothing but pitiable. “No, please.” Her blood thundered, her visions dancing with flashing spots, bright and sparkling, black-red and crinkling like lit paper at the edges. It took all her energy not to faint. “I cannot stay here. I will not. It would not be proper. I am sorry that I…that I did that to you.”
Mary stepped forward. “If you wish to leave, I will not stop you. But you must know that I do not wish you to go.” She was standing still, not blocking Charlotte’s path to the door, not moving. “And you did nothing which I have not been desperately hoping for.”
Charlotte gaped at her. “You…what?”
“Listen,” Mary said calmly, though her hands were rapidly curling into fists and uncurling as she spoke. “My list of wants is quite simple. I want no further misunderstandings between us. I want you to stay. I want to kiss you again, though I will not do so until you give me leave. If you meant it, then I need to know now. And if this was simply a strange notion on your part, then I am quite prepared to set it aside and never speak of it again. Only you must tell me now which one it shall be.”
Charlotte’s breath came in shuddering gasps, though true to her word, Mary did not move. Little by little, her vision came back to normal. “I thought I was the only one who had such feelings,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. The shock of the earlier sight of Mary and Pitt had faded, leaving her weepy with exhaustion. She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling the ache. A lifetime’s worth of repression spilling out. “I thought I was quite alone.”
“Oh, dear heart,” Mary sighed, tugging her into an embrace. “You have never been alone.”