Chapter Sixteen
“Iguess this makes me your mistress now.” Charlotte regretted the words the minute she said them.
She meant for it to be a joke, thumbing her nose at his absurd proposition.
Instead, she felt Benjamin stiffen beside her.
She could kick herself. Why did she have to shatter the beautifully delicate thing between them?
Something had changed.
She had no experience with this. But she was sure that what had passed between them had not been usual. Or had it been? Was she the only one shattered and burned anew by what they had just shared?
She had been unsteady. Scrambling for something to say—something to acknowledge what they were to each other now.
But the words had cheapened the entire experience—made it feel sordid and transactional.
She wanted to sink into the tilled floor and disappear forever.
Instead, she turned her head to Benjamin.
His jaw was clenched tight, and he did not meet her eyes. Her heart squeezed at the distance she saw in his posture. He was gone again.
“I am sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“If that is what you would like. It is certainly preferable to years of paperwork.” With that, he pushed himself from the ground and pulled on the rest of his outer garments. He reached down to help her up but refused to meet her eyes.
Part of her wanted to grab his face and make him listen to her.
That she did not mean it that way. It had been said in poor judgement, and nothing about what they shared had anything to do with the debt she owed him.
But the walls were back up between them.
She could not bridge the gap any more than she could take back her words.
“I will have my solicitor draw up the contract,” Benjamin declared brusquely.
“Contract?” she squeaked.
When he looked at her, his blue eyes were cold. “Yes. Contract. You would be surprised how quickly mistresses lose sight of their agreement once involved in the affair. Especially when they feel they can get more out of it than originally planned.”
Charlotte did not know whether to be affronted or miserable. She considered contradicting him or maybe delivering a well-placed slap. Instead, she held her chin high and said nothing.
Is this what it was like, then? Intimacy and trust traded in some sick game for power? He thought she was a Jezebel—ready to bleed him dry for her own gain. Using the precious thing that had just passed between them to enrich herself. The thought stung her pride and broke her heart.
∞∞∞
Charlotte stared uncomprehendingly at the document before her. The lines of impersonal text were so baffling and infuriating that she could not bring herself to sign at the bottom.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” she spoke the thought out loud, forgetting there was another person in the room.
“Sign, my lady.”
The solicitor had arrived at the door shortly after nine in the morning.
If the Aston house still had a cook, she likely would have been in the middle of her breakfast. Luckily, she had tossed and turned all night until she gave up and clumsily dressed for the day.
She had been in the study before the sun rose, with a measly tray of stale oat cakes and an especially weak pot of tea.
Since the November before, when she had run out of money for flour after buying the other household staples, she had taken to reusing tea leaves once or sometimes twice to make the purchase stretch longer.
Thus, when she had offered the unusually young and handsome solicitor tea, she was supremely relieved when he politely declined.
Looking down at the contract again, her vision swam.
She had spent the entire morning trying to tally the sums paid to each of Freddie’s creditors so she might have a more accurate view of the debt they owed to Benjamin.
She must have been doing a terrible job, for the number listed under the debt exchanged for one month of services rendered was enough to make a nun swear.
Even with the sale of the house and the income from her writing, they would barely be able to make up the cost. There would be only just enough to cover the price of a small flat across town, not to mention the boy’s tuition, which she fully meant to repay to Benjamin with interest.
And then there were the new debts. She did not know how much Freddie owed Deering. It was likely a king’s ransom if he was only willing to forgive it in return for a wife.
The idea of marrying that snake of a man was enough to turn her stomach. She would go to debtor’s prison before she submitted herself to him for the rest of her earthly existence. But it was not only her well-being she had to consider.
The paper was still clenched in her hands when a polite cough from the solicitor caught her attention. Mr. Colwell? No, Mr. Collier? Was that what he said his name was?
Her eyes focused again. Debtor’s prison was a genuine possibility. As real as being left destitute with two growing twelve-year-old boys to care for. As real as being forced to marry Lord Deering.
Perhaps it was these horrors mounting one after another that compelled her to pick up the quill beside her and hold it over the document.
Then again, perhaps it was the memory of the previous afternoon in the pavilion that moved the quill to touch the page.
This was the last thing she could do for her family.
Or was it the last thing she would allow herself to do for herself?
Either way, she watched as the sloping lines of her name flourished from the tip of the pen and onto the paper.
It was done. It did not matter why.