Chapter Twenty-Eight
Charlotte could not believe her eyes—or her ears. The boys before her were like strangers—joyful, jubilant strangers.
Their precious youthful faces had grown and stretched, in that awkward way of adolescence—full of echoes of their childhood selves but not yet the adults they would soon become.
It was jarring, and Charlotte had spent the whole first hour of their conversation looking back and forth between the two, trying to reconcile her memories with the people sitting across from her in the little coffeehouse.
As promised, after the boys had come down and given Charlotte exuberant embraces, Carons had led them to the little shop where the proprietress greeted them warmly and brought them to a quiet table in the back.
She plied them with tea and cakes, and chocolate.
Sweets aside, the boys had hardly stopped for a breath since setting eyes on Charlotte.
“And Randolph is going to lend me his cricket paddle because it is wider than the other one—”
Henry interrupted Marcus for what seemed like the hundredth time since they sat down. “The tutor would not even let me explain my reasoning. He just marked me wrong and—”
“But I do not think cricket is even that sporting, and they won’t let us try for the polo until we are—” Marcus cut back in as if Henry had not said a word.
Charlotte had forgotten just how dizzying the two of them could be. When they were young, she had prided herself on juggling conversation with the two of them better than anyone else in the household. It was sweet to do it again, but she felt an ache in her chest to realise she was out of practice.
And would remain that way. Reality was hovering only a few weeks away, casting a pall on the joy of the moment, of the day, the week.
This would probably be the last time she could see the twins for a while.
Years maybe. Her work up north would help support them.
She could care for them but not be near them; she could not await their return home from term every summer at their country estate like the other families of the ton.
But she would not let that spoil the moment—or the twins’ happiness at getting to talk to—at—her again.
“Thank you so much for the accounts, Charlie.” Henry had stumbled his way into a new topic, and Charlotte was not sure she had kept track.
“Yes, thank you, Charlie! With our allowance now, we can keep up with the other boys. But I promise we’ll only use it for school or sport. No betting, just like you said.”
Marcus seemed to be suddenly on the same subject as Henry. They did that every once in a while, their meandering paths criss-crossing over each other here and there.
“What accounts?” Charlotte asked.
She hated that they had felt the pinch of the purse strings the last couple of years.
Not that they did not have everything they needed here at school, but she knew the social price of not having an allowance.
Burdened estates kept other boys from titled families in check, she was sure; theirs was not the only family that faced the spectre of genteel poverty.
But she wanted more for them. She wanted them to live their carefree boyhood to the fullest—though that same wish had not done Freddie much good.
What accounts were these that were dispensing allowances to her young brothers? She was sure she already knew.
But the topic was already forgotten, the boys forging onwards into different subjects of interest, and Charlotte was left reeling, trying to keep track of the two again and give them her full attention.
∞∞∞
After bidding the boys goodbye and promising to visit them once more before she left—though she was not entirely sure when that would be, not having been involved in the planning of this surprise trip—she followed Carons back through the quaint streets to the Royal Arms. It had been presumptuous of Benjamin to procure lodgings, but the idea of travelling back to London that evening, no matter the company, was wholly unappealing.
The inn was a respectable red-brick building with a cheery crown on its sign and a convivial rumble coming from the supper room on the ground floor.
Carons held open the carved oak door and bowed her inside.
The smell of stew and meat pies and the yeasty waft of ale came on a warm gust that rushed past her into the cool evening air.
Carons stepped inside and guided her to the staircase at the back of the establishment.
“Oh, one moment, Carons.” She placed a staying hand on the boy’s arm and turned back to the bar, where a woman stood polishing glasses.
“Excuse me.” Charlotte gave the woman a smile, trying to snare her attention from where her sharp eye roved the dining room.
She seemed the type of no-nonsense proprietress who ran a tight ship in this town overrun with privileged young lordlings.
“Yes, madam? How may I help you?” Upon spying Charlotte, she turned all things solicitous, but her address confirmed she did not know her true identity.
“I wondered if perhaps you could send a bath up to my room?”
“Why, of course, it is already done. Your husband requested one to be ready for your return.”
“My—” She stopped herself short. Her husband. The words struck her so squarely in the chest, she could barely manage a breath, let alone a thank you and good night.
She followed Carons up the narrow staircase to the first landing and down a hall where the footman knocked on a door and, following a summons she had not heard, opened the door and bowed her inside.
“Is there anything else you may need, my lady?”
Charlotte surveyed the room, prim but well-appointed with faded striped wallpaper and heavy wood furniture, all orbiting a large, four-poster bed piled with pillowy linens. A copper slipper tub sat before the hearth, and lavender-scented steam wafted from its basin. The room was empty.
“No, thank you, Carons, that will be all.” She wanted to ask where the boy’s employer was, but something told her the footman’s loyalty would prohibit him from sharing what was not his to share—if he even knew.
Besides, Benjamin would appear eventually. For now, the tub was crying too strong a siren call to resist.
Not long after Carons shut the door, a knock had Charlotte jumping, arms tangled in her pelisse as she tried to wriggle free on her own—a feat that was still tricky with the stiffness that settled in her shoulder at the end of a long day.
“Yes?” It was a silly squeak of a question, but she could not think who would be knocking. Benjamin would surely come straight in—it was his room, after all.
“I am here to help you with your bath, ma’am.” It was a woman’s voice.
“Oh, alright then.”
Charlotte was not sure what to do. She could not turn the maid away, but she also was not used to having the help of a lady’s maid. Even with Lizzy, she had still bathed alone, except for the cleaning of her shoulder.
A young woman stepped in and closed the door behind her.
Her face was pert and freckled in a charming, country-lass way, and her dark hair curled becomingly from her mobcap.
And yet, when she looked at Charlotte, there was something sour about her countenance.
Charlotte was sure she looked foolish; the travelling companion of such a well-heeled gentleman—his wife, as far as this girl knew—wrestling her way out of years-worn travelling clothes without the help of a lady’s maid. It was enough to make her cheeks warm.
She fought the urge to explain herself as the woman dipped a shallow curtsy and crossed the room, silently helping her out of the layers of her wool gown.
When the maid, who had not given Charlotte her name, hung the garments in the wardrobe and returned to lift her chemise, Charlotte almost shied away. But that was foolish.
The maid offered her a hand as she stepped into the bath and sank into the warm, fragrant water. It was heaven. Charlotte was sure she would continue to melt straight through the floor.
“Oh!” The maid’s voice drew her gaze back up where the woman’s eyes were fixed on the gnarled scar at her shoulder. Damn.
“Thank you, that will be all.” The masculine voice came from the door, and Charlotte did not need to look over her shoulder to see who stood there.
Relief surged through her. She would not need to explain the scar to the maid—and, more importantly, Benjamin had not abandoned her to the night as she had feared. He was here. And she was stark naked in a bath with a beautiful woman between them.
Charlotte watched the familiar expressions play across the woman’s face.
Surprise—Benjamin was arrestingly handsome.
Desire—it was a natural step. And then, calculation.
The maid dropped Charlotte an assessing look and then turned back to Benjamin as if she were nothing more than a loose cushion, fluffed and deposited on a sofa, free to be disregarded.
The maid dropped into a deep curtsy, her full bosom on display in the firelight.
Charlotte had to admit, it was a beautiful display. The maid had a womanly shape that commanded the men of London—and beyond. She sashayed towards the door, her hip brushing Benjamin’s leg as if the doorway were too small for anything else.
“G’night, sir. If ye be needing anything, just come find me. Anything.”
If Charlotte did not feel the humiliating burn of embarrassment, she might even admire the woman’s boldness.
As it was, sitting naked in the tub, the day’s grime still clinging to her, the bones of her hips protruding more than was fashionable after months of lean grocery budgets, and a gnarled scar at her shoulder, Charlotte felt decidedly foolish.