Chapter Twenty-One #2
Charlotte smiled, this time more genuinely—though Benjamin could not understand why. “I am happy to hear that, Lady Catherine.”
Catherine’s gloved hand tightened on her fan. “So how do you know dear Benji?” Benjamin cringed at the nickname he had many times asked her not to use.
Charlotte arched an eyebrow and regarded him briefly before turning back to Catherine. Those damned eyebrows—they would drive him mad.
“Mr. Scarsdale is an acquaintance of my brother. He was kind enough to invite me to the opening night when I had mentioned in passing my interest in the opera.”
“Yes, Benji has always been quite considerate.” Benjamin wanted to roll his eyes at her blatant innuendo.
This was not how he wanted Charlotte to think of him; in the arms of this—now he could see—petty and vindictive woman.
“But you must feel quite at home here, Benji.” She turned her gaze back to him again.
“Your mother was an opera singer, if I am not mistaken.”
Benjamin felt his chest seize at that, a cold, prickling hand gripping his neck and spreading down his back.
He nodded only once, and Catherine smiled, turning back to Charlotte.
“I hear she was the voice of her age. So enchanting that the Duke of Winden could not help but whisk her off to his country home and jealously guard her from her other admirers.”
Charlotte’s gaze flicked to his. He could see she had not known about his mother. The thought of discussing her now was enough to make Benjamin sick. He wanted to bolt out of the claustrophobic box.
“Indeed?” Charlotte’s smile was cool. “You must know so much about these opera legends. I know your father is also a devotee of the opera.”
Benjamin fought to keep his mouth from falling open. Not only did Charlotte know of the Viscount’s long-standing mistress plucked straight from the stage, but she had also wielded the knowledge with the cool precision of a master swordsman cutting the opponent down to size in one elegant swoop.
There was a tense silence in which the two women regarded each other with cool, assessing stares behind the masks of politeness. After a moment, Benjamin considered stepping in to diffuse this standoff, but the blundering Nisbet saved him from the task.
“I cannot say I recall the last time I saw you out, Lady Charlotte. Have you been out of town?” Well, this was worse.
“What is all this chattering?” A grumbling voice came from the back of the box. Lady Iona Gordon pushed herself from her seat and frowned at the gathering before her. “Is the opera not a place for quiet reflection?”
“Lady Gordon,” both Nisbet and Catherine gave the chaperone respectful greetings.
Despite her eccentricities, Lady Iona Gordon was a formidably elegant woman who had spurned the nonsense of English society and come out victorious.
Her whole family was uniquely immune to the scorn of the ton and lived by their own rules, yet still somehow managed to retain a degree of respectability in their varied society circles.
In that moment, Benjamin was relieved to have landed her as their chaperone.
Perhaps her indifference to scandal would go a long way in shielding Charlotte as well.
Lady Gordon gave the box’s guests only a cursory glance before proclaiming, “Now, was that the gong? You had best return to your seats before we miss the second act.”
“Quite. Quite.” Despite the interruption, Catherine gave Nisbet a fond smile.
The two were clearly relishing the prospect of returning to their seats, but not, Benjamin wagered, to enjoy the second act.
The social capital they had just secured would be priceless as they sat to mingle with their fellow operagoers.
“Lady Charlotte, it has been a pleasure to see you again. Perhaps I may call on you tomorrow? You are still in residence at the same address, are you not?”
A tendon in Charlotte’s jaw twitched. “Yes. I am. Though we are having some renovations done at the house. Unfortunately, I will not be able to receive callers.”
“Oh, that is a pity.” Catherine gave a serene smile as she looped her hand through Nisbet’s outstretched arm.
“Then perhaps we will meet again at some function soon. With the season in full swing, there will be so much excitement. And it is never too late to catch someone’s fancy.
” With that, she smiled over her shoulder as Nisbet guided her from the room.
When the door shut behind them, Benjamin strode to Charlotte, grasping her hands in his, an unreasonable urge to comfort her seizing him. He hated the pinched look around her eyes and between her brows that appeared the second the door closed behind the intruders.
“I am terribly sorry. I should have turned them away cold.”
“No, no.” Charlotte shook her head and extricated one of her hands to rub between her brows. “That would have just fanned the flames. It was bound to come out, eventually. One could have only wished it were not Catherine Sutton to make the discovery.”
“Quite right, my dear.” Lady Gordon settled back into her chair, clearly with every intention of returning to her nap.
“They will batter it about. But they cannot do anything if you don’t let them see you blink.
” With that, she gave Charlotte an audacious wink and settled back, the first strings of the orchestra picking up again.
∞∞∞
“Your mother was a singer?” Charlotte sat across from him, surrounded by the satin cushions of his carriage. They had deposited Lady Gordon at her sister’s home and carried on through Mayfair. The question was soft and kind, as if she wanted him to know he could decline to answer if he so chose.
“Yes.” It came out too sharp—too raw—and Benjamin had to take a few deep breaths to collect himself again.
Charlotte only waited, letting the unhurried silence wrap around the two of them as the carriage rolled on.
He was starting to understand how she managed to get all those stories from even the most untrusting, jaded residents of London.
He rubbed a hand over his face, years of sour memories crowding in on him.
“My father was the Duke of Winden. We lived on his estate, in a small house away from the manor, until his death. He had been relatively generous with us, as far as dukes and their bastards go. Delia and I had tutors and riding instructors.” He had to stop; his breathing was already choppy.
But he wanted to get this out—wanted her to know the truth from him—not the dregs the gossip mill might turn up.
Charlotte just sat there, her face open and warm, her skirts touching his legs where they stretched alongside her. One of his feet was tucked between hers, his boot covered by gold satin.
“After he died, the Duchess threw us out. Fair enough, I suppose. It was an insult to her and her children that we even existed—let alone lived on the same grounds.”
He could sense her question before she asked. “We did not know his children. They were kept far away from us. I suppose they are my half-siblings, but I do not even recall their names.”
Lie. He knew every minute detail about each of their lives.
Had watched as the new duke had ventured into London, timid and rather dull.
And as his two sisters had married equally timid and dull peers, moving along through each step of their aristocratic lives, blithely unaware of his existence.
No inkling of the fact that their half-sister had died alone and destitute in a flea-infested boarding house.
The memories made his jaw clench, but he pushed more words out. “Our house was on the property line with the Wells estate. I spent more time with Jonathan than with any of my blood siblings.”
“Jonathan is the Duke of Wells?”
Benjamin only nodded, carrying on. “My mother was an opera singer. A successful one too. So, when she packed up what little was ours in the house that now belonged to my half-brother and moved us to London, I was eleven, and I thought she wanted to go to London to sing again. That we would live in an opera house, and she would sing and all would be well.”
He could still feel the crushing disappointment when he had realised that would not be the case.
That they had left their quiet country life behind for nothing.
“But she did not sing. We stayed in a rented flat for a time. Delia tried to get her to take us to the opera house where she had once worked. But she refused. She spent the days in bed. Would not get up for anything. It scared me.”
He was there again, in their modest little flat with fading green wallpaper and worn-down furniture, begging his mother to return and replace the listless figure that lay in her bed and stared at the ceiling.
She had been such a warm, vibrant woman, always quick with a joke and a comforting embrace. They had left that woman in Devonshire.
“Delia went out for work. She tried for a few governess posts, but without a name or a reference, she could not find any. She was a child herself. Families did not want a fifteen-year-old for a governess. Finally, she got an interview with a housekeeper in Mayfair. With her education and bearing, she thought she might be a lady’s maid.
But again, she had no experience, so she was put in the kitchens. But it was something.
“One day.” He felt the bile rising in his throat.
“One day, Delia woke me and told me we must leave.” He could still feel the confusion, wanting to lie back down in his small, warm bed.
Delia’s strained cheerfulness as she tried to conceal her panic.
“She took me to the front room, grabbed my coat, and packed some of my clothes. She told me not to go into our mother’s room. ”
But he had. He had wondered why she was not coming with them on this strange, early-morning trip.
Thinking to help her get ready, he had walked to the door, giving it a gentle knock before pushing it open.
Delia had burst from the other room, grasping for him and shouting for him to stop.
She had yanked him back and pressed his face into her chest. But not before he had seen the blood.
Dark red streaks, already drying after dripping down to the rough wood floor.
“She had killed herself.” The words were flat, matter-of-fact, as if recounting figures from a ledger he had read.
Charlotte let out a whooshing breath, reaching across the space to grasp his icy hands in hers. He expected the empty, comforting words that people said now. The scrambling for something in the face of horror.
But she merely held his hands in hers. “Oh, Benjamin. How old were you?”
“It was two days before my twelfth birthday.” She only nodded, a calm, quiet understanding giving him the space to continue.
“And you know what happened after—to Delia.” How had he already shared so much with this woman?
Things he had told no one. She nodded again.
“I know it was beyond her—my mother. That she was suffering. But somehow, I cannot forgive her. Her foolish love for a man who did not care if she lived or died. It killed her. It killed Delia. She chose that dead love over us. And I cannot forgive her.”
It was a simple thing to say, but somehow, it stunned him.
He had never said those words. Had never spoken to anyone about his life and how he had come to be here.
Wells knew his life before they left. And he knew his life once he had found him again when he was sixteen.
But he knew nothing of the time in between.
And Benjamin had never wanted to tell him.
Telling Charlotte brought it all back together.
For years, he had pretended he had lived two lives, his childhood and the life he lived now.
The years on the street, the other life to be secreted away, even though it haunted his every move.
Now, however, they had fitted back into place.
The different parts bleeding together, spilling over one another in a painful, raw mix.
But they were one—whole. In telling her, he had restored a part of himself he had not realised was missing. And it was too much.
“We have arrived,” he said with a relieved gasp. They had indeed pulled up in front of the Aston townhouse.
“Benjamin.” Charlotte was still holding his hands, infusing life into his numb fingers.
“Thank you for accompanying me, my lady. The night was a joy.” He beat the footman to the door, unfolding the steps and handing Charlotte down in a swirl of golden silk.
“Benjamin.” Her voice was soft and almost pleading.
“I will see you again soon. Do not hesitate to call if you wish.”
He paused, the formal words sounding strange in his voice.
Charlotte was looking up at him, the glow of a streetlamp gilding her features and making the tenderness in her eyes sparkle.
He felt his shoulders soften. He leaned in to press a soft kiss to one cheek, then the other, and then a lingering, chaste kiss to her lips.
Her eyes fluttered open as he pulled away.
“Will you not come in?”
“Good night, Charlotte.”