Chapter Twenty-Four
The footman guided Charlotte to an alcove where he reached behind a curtain and pulled a corner of moulding to reveal a door very similar to the one she had been shuffled through last time.
“Boyd will show you the way, my lady.” With that, the noise of the crowded gambling floor was shut out behind her, and she stood a moment, almost blind, as her eyes adjusted to the dimmer candlelight of the small corridor.
“G’d evening, m’lady,” a bright voice came from just to her left, making her jump.
“Oh.” Charlotte put a hand to her chest, hoping to steady her racing heart.
It was just the fright, not the anticipation of her illicit rendezvous. Not rendezvous. Appointment. As far as Benjamin was concerned, she was a paid employee. The thought was lowering and made the champagne in her stomach turn.
Her eyes had adjusted, and she saw a young boy before her. “Good evening.”
His face was cleanly scrubbed, and he was dressed in a tidy miniature version of the footman’s livery, but his straight black hair was obstinately sticking up at odd angles.
He absentmindedly smoothed a patch at the back, only making the cowlick more pronounced.
His cheeks were full and rosy as if he ate well and often, but he could have been no older than ten.
Maybe eleven. Certainly not old enough to be working in a gaming hell.
“Did not mean to frighten you, m’lady. The name is Boyd.” He bowed chivalrously but teetered a bit on the ascent.
“Pleasure to meet you, Boyd. I am—”
“Lady Charlotte, I know. You are the master’s new friend. Not like the ladybirds, though.” From the mouths of babes. Leave it to a child to cut straight through the fat. “If you will follow me, my lady.” He scampered down the corridor, and Charlotte was left with no choice but to follow.
“Is Boyd your family name or your Christian name?” Charlotte asked, following the ever-moving shadow through the rabbit warren of the club’s inner workings.
“Dunno, m’lady. Both, I s’pose.”
Upon her first visit, she had taken little stock of her surroundings—likely already battling the infection. The second, she had still been too stunned by the novelty of her new situation to much care what things looked like.
Now she looked around the bare halls, hoping for more insight into the institution and, more specifically, the man running it. A footman crossed their path here and there, but the back halls were mostly empty. It seemed there was far too much to do for employees to be loitering in the corridors.
Boyd pushed a swinging door and held it so it would not hit her as she followed through.
“Thank you.” Charlotte caught her skirt’s hem before it snagged in the closing door. “What do you mean you do not know?”
“Just that. Don’t have no family. And can’t think of a Christian name. Everyone just always called me ‘boy.’ Was not until I got here that Sir says I need a proper name. So we choosed Boyd. It is easy for me cause it sounds the same.”
The child’s rosy countenance did not waver, but Charlotte felt her world tilt a little on its axis.
“That is a very fine name, Boyd.” She wanted to know more about how he had come to be here and what his life was like working under Benjamin. “How do you like living here?”
“Oh, it is just swell, innit? Cook lets me eat all I want, even though he is French and grumbles when I get my ‘dirty street mitts’ in his sauces. And the other footmen say I can be out on the floor one day if I keep my toes straight on the line. I even have my own bed upstairs. I never had my own bed before. No bed at all, actually. Not one I can remember.” His little dark head was bouncing ahead of her as he rattled off his excited list. “Sir said I could even get reading and writing lessons and maybe work in the offices with him.”
“That all sounds very nice, Boyd.” It was clear the boy idolised Benjamin. She would have to tread carefully if she wanted to get any real information about his employer out of him. “How did you come to work for Mr. Scarsdale?”
“Here we are, m’lady.” Boyd pointed to a staircase that led to a landing above them. “Sir’s rooms is up there.”
He gave her another lopsided bow and bounded down the hall, leaving Charlotte to consider the information she had gleaned and look up at the door that the man waited behind. How in the world had life brought her here?
Before she could get lost in her introspection, the door at the top of the landing opened. “Coming up?” The low, gentle roll of his voice sent gooseflesh prickling along her whole body, starting a low simmer in her abdomen.
“How did you know I was here?”
“Boyd’s stomping.” His mouth curved in a slow smile as he crossed his arms and leaned against the framework. He had abandoned his evening coat, and his cravat was already untied, hanging loosely around his neck. “He has not yet mastered his exuberance.”
“I should think not.” Charlotte collected her skirts and proceeded up the stairs with her chin high, as if she entered her lover’s abode in the bowels of a gaming hell as a matter of course. “He is only a child, after all.”
Benjamin stood, allowing her to pass by him and enter the suite of rooms while he closed the door behind them. “Childhood does not last long on the streets.” The certainty in his voice made her turn, searching his face for more clues about his history.
“No, I suppose it does not.” She folded her hands together, unsure of what to do with them. “It was good of you to hire him.” And house him, and feed him, and name him, she added silently.
He just nodded. “I saw many—When I was…” He stopped and chewed the inside of his cheek. “I have the means to get them off the street. It is cheap labour anyway.” He waved a hand and made his way over to the sideboard. “Would you like something to drink?”
Knowing he was evading her interest, but unsure of how these arrangements usually went, Charlotte let the deflection go.
If he preferred her to think of him as an unfeeling opportunist, then she would let him.
It did not change the fact that she suspected there was a lot more to this man than he was letting on.
Already, she knew that what had happened to his mother and sister had shaped him deeply.
Clearly, whatever had befallen him afterwards had changed him as well.
∞∞∞
Benjamin poured two tumblers of scotch and handed one to Charlotte.
She was regarding him with a slight furrow in her brow.
Of course, she would be curious about his unconventional staff and their hiring methods.
He knew enough about her nature and interests to know she could not resist poking her nose into any proverbial dark corners.
Truth be told, he admired that about her.
She had a heart for justice and a head for words.
It was a noble streak that motivated seemingly every one of her decisions.
Unfortunately, he was less noble, motivated by the pure ambition of survival.
Though it had been some time since he was truly at risk of being on the streets again, or even of approaching material discomfort, it was not a switch one could simply turn off.
The thought of her weaselling her way into his empire, his secrets, his heart, was enough to have a cold sweat break out across his neck.
Her presence in his world alone was a threat—why could he not just be rid of her?
But watching her delicate neck move as she sipped the spirits, and the rosy flush that coloured her cheeks in its wake, he could no sooner fathom expelling her from his life than he could cut off his own arm. He just needed to distract her from further investigation. That he could do.
“The dress fits.” It was a deliberate understatement, and he let his roaming gaze belie the passive words.
She glanced down, as if only just remembering what she had on. “You would know.” She arched a teasing eyebrow up at him, making his breath catch. The minx.
“I had Lizzy get your measurements when you were staying at the townhouse.” He leaned back against the sideboard, balancing his tumbler in the crook of his elbow.
“You mean when I was a captive in your home?” She gave him another challenging glance and took a sip of the scotch, moving to survey the sitting room that adjoined his bedchamber.
It was still strange seeing her in his rooms. The furnishings were distinctly masculine. He rarely had female company here, and the more muted tones were soothing to his senses after long nights in the revelry of the club or his other holdings.
Seeing her lithe, silk-swathed form floating through the space was almost jarring. A blinding shaft of sunlight after living for years with his eyes adjusted to the darkness.
“I do not usually have female guests here.” Where had that comment come from? She looked over her shoulder at him, the exposed skin of her back soft and tempting in the candle and firelight, but did not say a word. “I mean—” What did he mean? Dammit. “I usually prefer to go to them.”
He could not say why it felt so important that he tell her this. Some part of him wanted to assure her that this was different. She was different.
Charlotte just nodded. “But my home is hardly fit for entertaining.”
She had misunderstood him. She thought it was her family’s circumstances that made this different from his other liaisons. Unable to think of a better explanation that did not relinquish an unacceptable amount of power, Benjamin let it go.
“The dresses are too much.” She spoke to the landscape on the wall instead of to him.
He frowned. “You do not like them?”
Charlotte glanced toward him and back again at the painting. “I love them. But they are too much.” She seemed almost… nervous? It was not as if they had not already done this before. This being increasingly all he could think of.
Standing there across the room from him, she was too far away. He needed to reach out and touch her hair, the satin of her skin. He could hardly drag his thoughts from trailing his mouth across her whole body.
“No, they are not.” The words came out too forcefully, and he had to cough to clear the gravel from his throat. “These are precisely the type of gifts a mistress would expect to receive. In fact, they are paltry compared to the fare of a usual arrangement such as this.”
He expected her to balk at that. He knew the arrangement needled her. But she surprised him and kept her face serene, not looking away from the landscape.
“I would prefer it if you did not give me such lavish gifts. Prototypical or not.”
Instead, it was his turn to be needled. “But it is no less than you deserve.”
She raised a cool eyebrow at that, and he could not stop himself from crossing the room over to her.
Reaching a hand up, he unfastened the silk domino from behind her head, revealing her lovely face.
Despite the smooth fabric, she had a few lines pressed into the tops of her cheeks from where she had fastened it too tight.
Those lines reminded him of how precarious her situation was.
Only a scrap of fabric standing between her and scandal.
He knew already there were rumblings about their association.
Catherine had ensured that after their run-in at the theatre.
But no one knew the whole of it yet. It was wise of Charlotte to take such precautions, fastening the domino firmly against it all.
Still, the fine indentations tugged at his conscience.
He drew a fingertip along the line, running it lightly outside one side of her eye, over the bridge of her nose, and across the other cheek.
She did not say a word, but he saw her eyes widen and her pupils dilate.
For all his misgivings, it was supremely gratifying to see that she wanted to be here as much as he wanted her.
“Charlotte?” Her name was barely a whisper, but her lips parted in response.
“Yes?”
“I am going to kiss you now.” The words fanned over her lips just before he lowered his head to hers.