Chapter Seventeen
“Yes, but how did she seem?” Benjamin was pacing the length of his office, clenching and unclenching his hands. He had expected to be relieved that the contract was properly seen to. He hated getting bogged down in legalities, and diligent contracts were the best way to avoid it.
Elliot Collier watched him impassively from his place beside the desk. “I was not aware part of my job was to report on ladies’ comportment.”
Elliot Collier, though younger than the seasoned geysers that normally served peers and successful businessmen like himself, was the best solicitor Benjamin had ever had.
He was likely the best London had ever had.
He was hardworking, methodical, and brilliant.
What Collier could not do with the law was not worth doing.
“True, but you are a man with all his functioning faculties. All you have reported to me is that the contract signing was successful and legally binding. I am asking you for more. I damn well pay you enough for a bit more insight.”
Collier arched an eyebrow and clasped his hands.
“I do not think it would be professional of me to comment on such things in the capacity of your solicitor. However, if I were just a friendly acquaintance who occasionally makes house calls to your female associates, I would say I have never seen a woman so reluctant to enter such a profitable agreement.”
Benjamin stilled at that. “Reluctant?”
Collier nodded. “Yes, sir. The lady looked like she was signing her soul away.”
Benjamin frowned. What a strange reaction for a woman who had shown no reluctance the day before.
She had given him her virtue, for Christ’s sake.
That was not the act of a reluctant woman.
Despite himself, he revelled in the memory of her beautiful body on the floor of the glass pavilion, the sound of rain patter twining with her gasps and sighs.
“Well, that must have been a pretty act. She knew what she was getting into. She planned for this.”
Benjamin did not know why he was so mad about the whole ordeal. After all, it had been his rash idea to begin with. Who was he to look down on Charlotte for taking him up on the offer? It was not as if a better solution was likely to come along.
Collier gave Benjamin another sceptical look. “I doubt it was an act, sir. From what I could tell, she had all but forgotten I was in the room.”
“From what you could tell? What makes you think you are such a good judge of a lady’s motives?” Benjamin was being rude and pig-headed, and he knew it. He took a deep breath and forced himself to drop his shoulders. “Apologies, Collier. You find me a bit out of sorts today.”
“I will take my leave, then.” The man gave a small bow of his head and turned on his heel, leaving Benjamin alone with his thoughts once again.
If he was not careful, he was going to lose his best solicitor. And Lord knew it would be damned difficult replacing such a competent man as Collier. He strode across his office and yanked the bellpull.
“You rang, sir?” Boyd tried to press down the ever-errant tuft of hair that sprang from the back of his head.
“Yes, thank you, Boyd. Have a case of scotch sent to Mr. Collier’s offices.”
“The good stuff, sir?”
Benjamin could not help smiling. “Yes, Boyd. The good stuff.”
∞∞∞
Charlotte stood outside the entrance to Elysium, uncharacteristically uncertain.
She had waited all afternoon and evening until she was sure the doors to Elysium would be open.
She had planned to storm in full of righteous fury at Benjamin’s audacity to serve her that accursed contract.
Through a stranger, no less! She would demand he burn it and forget the whole thing.
But now, she stood outside the elegant building and considered going home.
Had she not signed that contract? Was she not just as culpable in these sordid dealings as he was?
It was all a muddle now, anyway. She could not reconcile the depth of the experience she had had with him and the cold dealings of such employment that followed.
He should have laughed at her mention of the proposition.
Surely they had surpassed that—meant more to each other now.
It had not felt sordid in the pavilion. His hands on her under the blanket of rain had not made her feel cheap and base like signing that paper in the drawing room had.
But now it was done. She had agreed to his proposition, and she could not put any more blame on him than she deserved herself.
And why should there be blame at all? Work was work.
She could use the funds to clear the way for the twins and ensure Freddie would not get thrown in the poorhouse.
Then maybe she could leave London and start her own life.
It was a tempting vision.
The only concern she had—though her upbringing really should have fostered more than the one—was that she was not sure she could pretend this was only a job.
There was nothing professional or detached about the way she was drawn to Benjamin Scarsdale.
If she did not tread carefully, she would find herself in a world of trouble and heartbreak.
If she were to do this, she would have to keep the man at arm’s length and keep her wits about her.
He had sent over a contract, for goodness’ sake!
After what they had shared in the pavilion, he had served her legal documents.
No good would come from letting such a man past her defences.
She would have to be as cold as he if she had any hope of surviving this.
She wanted to survive this. And more frighteningly—she wanted to do this.
She had spent her adult life living under the strain of her own shame—her family’s shame.
And it had done no good. Nothing had been solved by her making herself small; hiding from the mistake bred only by innocent naivete.
It had not stopped her father from dying.
It had not stopped Freddie from ruin. She had given everything to make amends, and it had left her with nothing.
The life of a ruined spinster was long and lonely, and she knew the years ahead would be much the same.
So she would seize this chance. A chance to be held, to be touched, to live.
And then, after their month was done, she would set off into the rest of her life.
She battled through these thoughts as she stared up at Elysium’s elegant facade, well-sprung carriages pulling up and depositing well-heeled and common patrons alike.
It was imposing in its vibrancy—this world of secrets and vice, filled with her own peers and yet completely foreign to her.
A part of her knew that stepping into that building tonight would be the making or breaking of her.
And yet, her fear was miles away, eclipsed by anticipation.
They would proceed only on her terms. She was here to set that straight. She would not be a concubine or a whore. She was an equal part of this—contract or no. Charlotte squared her shoulders and faced the doors of Elysium, refusing to let the past pull her away from fixing the future.
∞∞∞
There she was.
Benjamin had been prowling the gambling floor as he was wont to do on restless nights.
It did him good to be amongst his patrons—seeing the fruits of his labours: cheering patrons, spinning roulette wheels.
The living cloud of cigar smoke and laughter that hung over the floor on a busy night brought him a measure of solace.
It made him feel like all the suffering that led him here had been for something. He had succeeded.
Tonight, he had taken to the floor with more pent-up agitation than usual.
And to his dismay, the routine was not bringing him the calm that he had hoped.
Instead, he felt more and more like a caged lion, ready to bolt.
He resisted the urge to do so because he knew where he would bolt. And that was not acceptable.
He refused to be the one to push. She would come to him when she was ready. He could not bear the thought of forcing her hand any more than fate already had. Fate, and himself.
She had agreed to his proposition because she thought she had no other options.
She did not know that he would never let her fall into the hands of that villain, Deering.
He had purposely withheld the fact that Delia had been employed in the Deering household.
He had not explained that Deering’s son had been her attacker, and that before his death, he had always been the rotten apple fallen from the baron’s cruel and twisted tree.
Deering had been the one to beat Delia for her “transgression” when his son was through with her.
And he had been the one to throw her out of his house with no reference and no pay, condemning her as he had to countless maids who had met the same fate at the hands of him and his son over the years.
Deering had concealed his son’s crime and punished his victim in the worst possible way, and Benjamin had spent the better part of a decade collecting secrets with the express intention of toppling the baron and his legacy.
Benjamin knew that if he had told her of his vendetta against Deering, it would have changed how she saw the situation.
He was not sure if his revelation in the pavilion would have been enough to show her he would never let her fall into his clutches.
He would pay off all her family’s debts and find them a safe means of support.
No questions asked. Or maybe she would assume, according to his ruthless reputation, that he was playing her as a pawn against the lecher.
Either way, she likely would not have surrendered her virtue with only the promise of a cheap contract—though that truth had settled more comfortably than the idea that she had given him such a gift for nothing at all. Preposterous.