Chapter Eleven
After a few unsuccessful attempts, Charlotte reigned herself in. Her side was splitting from the force of the laughter, and her cheeks ached and burned. She had not laughed like that in a long time, not since she could remember.
She pressed her good hand to her stomach. “You cannot be serious.”
“I cannot?” Benjamin Scarsdale regarded her curiously from across the hearth. He had not shifted position since his preposterous proposition, and his relaxed, lounging form looked like a panther resting in its domain—in control and always ready to pounce.
She swallowed another gulp of air. “Of course, you cannot. Gaming hell owners do not have unmarried ladies as their mistresses. It is absurd.”
“I am hardly just a gaming hell owner.”
He picked up a filigreed letter opener from the table beside him and rolled it negligently along the upholstered chair arm.
She knew as well as the rest of London how much more this man was.
There was no place in this city his reach did not extend—the whole of England, really.
He was a dangerous man, and she would do well to remember that.
Funny how easy she found it to forget all of that.
“Is this rule written somewhere? I admit I have never read of it myself.” He drew the flat of his thumb across the blade. Her breath caught at the perfect display of controlled power and intimidation—and something else… Sensuality?
“Oh, my God. You are serious.” All the laughter fell away, and in its place emerged an uncomfortable tingling awareness. Dread, she supposed.
“Of course I am serious. Do I look like a man to waste my own time?” One perfect dark eyebrow arched mockingly at her.
She could not find a response to that, so she shook her head.
“In payment of your brother’s debts, I offer you the position of my mistress for.
..” He tilted his head, pulling the thoughts from the heavy air as he spoke, “A month.” He set down the letter opener and plucked an empty glass tumbler from the small, ornate chess table that sat beside his chair, twirling it in his hands.
Those strong, lethal hands. They could never be still.
“Beyond that, I will pay you one thousand pounds in order to provide for your family after our arrangement has ended, so you may have time to find another means of income at your leisure.”
Charlotte was speechless.
“I must say it would be a considerably smaller commitment than that of working off his debt by writing letters for me for the foreseeable future. But of course, the decision is completely up to you.”
He regarded her with cool blue eyes. They were icy and predatory in a way that made her want to back into the chair’s cushions—or lean forward.
This was madness. She could not seriously be considering this. Her head was swimming. The pain in her shoulder had begun to shoot down her arm and back, and the room felt impossibly warm, yet her hands were freezing.
She had no other options. This was the lifeline she had needed, cast out by the most alluring man she had ever met. How could she say no? How could she say yes?
Something of her thoughts must have played across her face, for he leaned forward, bracing strong arms on his legs, the expensive fabric of his superfine jacket and expertly tailored buckskin breeches doing nothing to conceal the raw power of those limbs.
She had the sudden, queer impression that the two of them were playing a game of cards—the highest stakes game of cards she had ever played in her life—and he was about to lay down his ace.
“How is your Italian, Lady Charlotte?” His words were benign. His cultured accent almost lazy in its relaxed tone. A casual question, much more suited to a sun-dappled drawing room and a polite afternoon call.
Her mouth went dry. Her tongue was coated in heavy sawdust.
He knew.
How?
His lips quirked, as if she had asked the question out loud.
His eyes were sharp and, if she were not sitting so close, she would say amused.
But the emotion behind them was not nearly so straightforward.
There was more there. Calculation. Power.
She had the fleeting thought that anyone in her shoes might see the devil himself peering back at her.
And perhaps it was her own feelings she saw reflected back at her. Deep behind all the cunning and subterfuge, she saw pain. Desperation.
“My Italian is passable. Though my education on the subject was cut short.” She managed to force the words out, and she caught the fleeting spark of surprise in his eyes. He recognised her challenge then. Good.
He leaned back, and she felt herself drifting.
Lord, but he was handsome. And perhaps he really was the devil.
It was particularly hot in here. “I cannot give you a proper answer just now. I have to think on it.” Her head felt fuzzy, and all the events of the day—of the week—seemed to finally be catching up to her.
She watched in wonder as he processed her answer. First, he looked pensive, then his face broke into a shocking, dazzling smile, and her heart skipped a beat.
“Spoken like a true woman of business.” His face grew serious as if he were trying to rein in his reaction. “So you will consider it?”
“Yes, I will consider your offer, Mr. Scarsdale.” The admission felt like a weight lifted from her shoulders, and she breathed a dizzying sigh of relief.
Was she truly entertaining his proposition?
His threat was clear enough. But she was not sure it even mattered.
She was not sure it would have any bearing on her decision.
He took her left hand in his, placing a delicate kiss on the back and then the palm, sending shivers up her arm. She should not be allowing such liberties, a small voice in the back of her mind was saying. But she did not pay the voice any heed.
“Call me Benjamin, please.”
“Then I suppose you should call me Charlotte. Though I have not actually accepted your proposal.” The word was wrong.
“Proposition,” she corrected. Her head felt full of cotton.
She could not make her gaze focus on his face.
“Did you slip something into my drink again?” She could feel the frown weighing down her eyes.
“I am still furious about that, by the way.”
“Charlotte, are you alright?” His voice sounded far away, and she felt his hand on her cheek, then brushing hair from her forehead. She frowned. The touch was surprisingly gentle, and she leaned into it.
“No, I am not alright. You shot me. Remember?” That was all she could manage before she floated away.
∞∞∞
“Infection has set in. The bandage should have been changed twice a day. It looks like this wound has not been cleaned in at least thirty-six hours.” Doctor Price wiped his hands on a clean cloth after irrigating and redressing the wound.
“I did not know she had not been changing it. I did not even know she had gone home. She was not supposed to leave my townhouse.” Benjamin felt especially defensive when Price glanced up at him through his thick spectacles. Those glasses—what was the use of a doctor who could hardly even see?
“Well, it doesn’t matter now. Either the fever breaks the infection or…” He trailed off and did not look at Benjamin.
He could have throttled the old man at that moment.
“You will need to keep an eye on her. And try to keep her cool. She is in a lot of pain and discomfort. A cool cloth on the forehead will be heaven sent.”
Benjamin just nodded. He did not trust himself to speak.
He was furious. But he knew the bulk of the anger was directed at himself.
And a bit at Charlotte. How irresponsible could she be?
She was in no condition to be striking out on her own and wandering the streets of London at all hours of the night.
Doctor Price took his leave, and Benjamin stood above the bed, his bed—again—looking down at the sleeping woman.
How had she—in so short a time—managed to upend his life so completely?
He had to put his foot down somewhere. He would not allow her to push him any further from the fierce control he had spent his entire life cultivating.
No, he would let Charlotte Aston into his bed, but he would not let her into his life—into his heart.
There was no heart left for her, anyway.
With that resolution firmly in place, he sat in the chair beside his bed and dipped a sponge in the basin of cool, fresh water he had called for. He was in control.
∞∞∞
Charlotte wove in and out of bizarre fever dreams. She was laughing and chasing Freddie through a field.
She was helping her stepmother with the twins.
She was feeding her own children. She did not have children.
She never would. Someone was firing a pistol at her.
Lord Deering was breathing down her neck.
Someone was wiping her forehead with a cool, gentle touch.
Around and around she went in this tumultuous ride of dreams. Each time she felt herself surfacing from the land of slumber, she was sucked back in again.
At one point, she heard someone pleading with her to break the surface.
Open your eyes, Charlotte. Just for a moment.
She tried, but she could not.
∞∞∞
It was worse than Benjamin had feared it would be. Even Doctor Price’s face this morning when he had come for the first of his twice-daily check-ups, had been flat and resigned.
“It is the way of fevers. Sometimes they are more than the body can handle. She is young, so I hoped she would pull through. But young people die of fever all the time. Perhaps her body is just too tired. Prolonged stress, or underfeeding.” He tilted Charlotte’s wrist in his hand as he took her pulse.
The sharp bones looked small and fragile in the old man’s thick fingers.
“If she has already worn away her reserves, then her youth may not be the saving grace we would hope it to be. Time will tell.”
Time will tell.
The doctor’s words ricocheted around his skull like a death knell in the stuffy room. Long after the man had left and come and left again, Benjamin could hear those words.
Time will tell.
Why? Why did he have to wait for time? Why could he not just fix it now? Wield some strategic force and will Charlotte to stave off the infection. He had seen the fire in her. She was a woman of unparalleled spirit. Why could she not just burn the fever out?
He began speaking to her.
She would not leave if she knew there was an argument to be had. He was sure of it.
“I really do not think women should be writing news columns. It is a waste of feminine energy.” Even as the words left his mouth, he expected a slap. His own pulse jogged at the mischievous thrill of getting a certain rise out of her.
But then: nothing.
The utter and complete lack of response knocked the breath from his lungs. It took him a number of moments, head down on the counterpane beside her limp hand, to regain his breathing and marshal his feelings.
“Ladies do not belong in the Seven Dials, and you were foolish to risk your neck like that for some frivolous hobby.” Again, he braced. Already sure he knew her well enough to know she would not stand for his domineering or any belittling of her craft.
Again, nothing.
The disappointment this time—though expected—was more acute than before. He had to push his fist into the hard plane of his breastbone, willing the pain to pass. He could not do it again.
“Truthfully, it is a noble thing you are doing.” He scowled at the basin of water beside the bed, warm now that he had bathed her brow so many times, trying to get her temperature down. He should ring for it to be changed.
“The people there…we are hard. Life makes you like that out there. The things you see. The things you have to do—just to survive. It is like an axe suspended over your head at all times. Just waiting to drop. And it feels like even if you do everything you can, even if you scrape something together, that effort might not actually stop it. It might not even matter. That swift drop is just coming at you always—and yet you never know when.” The fire crackled in the hearth, and somewhere, far beyond the windows, a dog started barking.
“It is not something you can understand unless you have faced it. And actually, I am sure you have a better idea than most with what your family has lost.” This time, he did not expect her to reply.
“But even before then, you cared. I cannot fathom why. Or how. But you did. And not in the way that the missionaries do—when they come in preaching about poverty and redemption. Even the good ones who bring food—they don’t really understand.
It does not help in the end. A full belly is a gift.
But why are the children starving to begin with?
It is not because of some original sin. And it is not through any fault of their parents—the vices on the street are a symptom, not the problem.
” The words were picking up speed, but his pulse slowed, his breathing evened out—almost as if he had fallen into a trance.
“And you do something. You care. You listen.” He could not even see her chest rise and fall with the shallowness of her breath anymore.
“And you give those people a voice. Something they never had. And miraculously, people read it. I do not know if you know this. Or have realised it in your employer’s leniency.
But your column has attention. People are reading it.
People are talking about it. You are doing something. Just by caring.”
The room was cooling. He needed to put more logs on the fire. But his face was wet, and he could not look away from Charlotte’s impassive face. “Your humanity is doing something, Charlotte. Do not let it slip away. Do not abandon this. You cannot. I cannot let you.”
He could not breathe. “I will not let you leave, Charlotte. Open your eyes now. Come back to me, please.”