Chapter Thirty-Six
It was strange returning to the townhouse.
Charlotte had only said goodbye a month ago, but already, she felt as if she were stepping into another life.
The familiar rooms and corridors in which she had spent much of her life were now empty of all sentiment.
She would have thought the setting would bring back memories of, if not of better times, then of simpler ones.
But there was nothing. It was just an empty house.
The new tenants were not meant to arrive for two more days, and she was not sure if there were even enough linens left behind to make a serviceable bed.
Charlotte wondered if perhaps she should spend the night at an inn instead.
But the journey had been long and without respite, and the idea of seeking out a suitable establishment and paying for it with her limited funds was too daunting.
She would make do with what she could find.
The one part of the house Charlotte felt compelled to check was Freddie’s room.
Freddie had moved his things to the earl’s chambers upon their father’s death, but as he rarely spent time at home since he came of age, Charlotte found it funny that she still thought of them as Freddie’s chambers.
No other part of Freddie’s life had adopted the trappings of an earldom.
The heavy wooden door did not creak as she pushed it open.
Despite the relative disrepair of the house since the staff had been dismissed, some things still bore the mark of the care and dedication devoted to them over the years.
Charlotte felt the echo of guilt at the depths to which she had seen her family fall.
She would not take any more of the blame upon her shoulders than she already had, but it had always been her self-imposed mission to keep the family standing strong through all of their trials and tribulations.
But that was a lifetime ago. She had done what she could. And now she was doing what she must.
As she stepped into the bare room, she stood a moment, basking in the emptiness.
There was no trace of the generations of earls who had laid their heads here.
Even the ornate four-poster bed had been dismantled and sold off months before she left.
Freddie had never even noticed. Or if he had, he had not said anything to her about its absence.
Looking around, she felt nothing; no stirrings of regret, no true guilt for her decisions.
It was something of a relief to realise that she was free of the memories of this house—the bitterness of the past. It was liberating to be ruined.
There was nothing left to tiptoe around, and the farce that her old life had become was now over.
She would collect the twins at the end of the week and find a solution for their situation, and then they would all move on with their lives.
With a deep breath of the stale, dusty air, Charlotte felt the desperation of the last days on the road receding.
Now that she was here, she could figure something out. All would be well.
And yet, there was something odd about this room. She felt a lingering sense of wrongness. After puzzling over it and scanning the room again, she could not put her finger on the sensation. Likely, it was just the weariness of the journey and the enormity of her life stretched out before her.
With that thought, she hefted the basket with what remained of the food from her trip from the doorway and made her way down the hall to her old room.
Pulling her travelling cloak around her, Charlotte stretched out on the bare mattress that was once her bed and let the deep sleep of a weary traveller take her.
∞∞∞
She was not sure what woke her. Judging from the quality of darkness out the window, it was likely still an hour before dawn. It took a moment for her senses to adjust to being awake—she had not slept so deeply in quite a while, and it was disorientating to awaken in her empty childhood bedchamber.
And then, all at once, she knew precisely what had awakened her.
The figure in the corner was not moving, but its muculent breathing filled the room. Charlotte scrambled up as far back as the wall would allow. The figure did not move.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” The words whooshed out of her as if panic was squeezing them from her chest.
A gravely laugh morphed into a cough. “My dear, you ask such silly questions.”
Charlotte felt glued in place. Somehow, she forced her legs to shift to the side of the bed.
She stood and pressed against the wall, as if she could somehow get more space between her and the intruder.
He was in the corner beside the door. If she were fast, she might have been able to jump over the bed and make it to the exit, but he need only reach out an arm to grab her. No, she could not risk that.
“What are you doing here?” she asked again, hoping to draw him out somehow, to buy herself time to get out of here.
This time, the voice was more perturbed. “Come now, Charlotte, do not play coy with me.” And then she knew the voice. She recognised the condescending way Lord Deering whined her name. “It is a husband’s prerogative to visit his wife on their wedding night.” Husband? Wedding night?
“Lord Deering? What are you doing in my bedchamber? What do you speak of? We are not married.” Her voice was shaky as she shimmied along the wall slowly, hoping to reach the window before he moved. Perhaps she could throw it open and scream for help before he pounced.
“Charlotte, I am growing tired of this game. Be a good girl and come to your husband. I am your master now, or do you not remember the vow you took to obey?”
“No!” Charlotte’s urge for caution was overwhelmed by the desperation to convince Deering he was mistaken. “We are not—we did not wed!” Surely he was confused.
He could not think they were married—or that it was acceptable for him to be in her room, in her family’s abandoned home. No, he was clearly out of his mind. She had to escape.
Deering stood and stepped toward her. Charlotte pushed herself even further back, the wooden panelling of the wall pressing into her back painfully. “I take exception to your tone, Lady Deering. There will be consequences for your impertinence.”
He had always been a large man, but something about him had always given the impression of sloth.
She could never have imagined he could move with such agility.
In the blink of an eye, he was upon her, his hot breath fanning her face.
There was a putrid odour, something like the stink of rotten fish, that made her gag.
The streetlight from below illuminated his face, and Charlotte thought she must be dreaming—this could not be real.
For it was not Lord Deering’s face above her but the rotting, lesioned visage of nightmares. The bridge of his nose had collapsed, giving his long face a skeletal air that propelled her back even further, though there was nowhere to go.
Too late, she saw him raising his hand above her, and when she tried to duck away, the back of one ringed fist caught her across the temple.
The glancing blow would surely have felled her if she had not moved when she did.
Even still, she was knocked off balance and fell to the side just as he raised his hand again.
Hunched as she was, she saw that, though he had moved quickly, Deering did not seem terribly steady on his feet.
Seeing her chance, she kicked out with her booted foot—thank goodness she had not seen fit to undress for bed—and connected with the flesh of his knee.
The blow was effective, and the force of her kick sent him reeling and swearing.
“Damn you, you worthless slut!” he bellowed, and Charlotte jumped away just as he lunged for her neck.
She was over the bed and an arm’s length from the door before he grabbed hold of the hem of her cloak, yanking her back by her neck.
A choked scream came from her, and she scrambled at the fastening.
By some miracle, and likely due to the garment's age and wear, she was able to tear the clasp from the seam, not stopping to gasp for breath as she tore open the door and sprinted down the hall.
“HELP! SOMEBODY, HELP!” Charlotte screamed at the top of her lungs as she took the stairs two at a time, nearly tumbling down the two-storey landing.
As if in answer to her prayers, the front door banged open and Benjamin Scarsdale stood there before her, pistol drawn and chest heaving in the streetlight. Never had she seen a more blessed sight in her life.
“It is Deering! He is here!” she screamed as she hurtled towards him.
Before she made it to the doorway, she heard a bellowing roar.
It sounded as if a pack of wild boars was bearing down on her.
She glanced over her shoulder at the diseased monster rampaging down the stairs.
Benjamin was closing the distance between them, taking the stairs two at a time, but it wasn’t enough.
Benjamin made to fire, then appeared to change his mind.
Deering was closing the distance, making the shot too dangerous with Charlotte in the lead.
She would not make it. She could not believe it. She would not make it.
Just as Deering’s stride ate up the last steps between them, she heard another yell.
This one was a vicious cry of a warrior flying into battle.
Before she knew what was happening, Benjamin collided with Deering, and the impact of their bodies sent a gust of air past her face.
The gun in Benjamin’s hand clattered to the landing.
The two men tumbled down the last of the stairs, blows raining as they wrestled on the bare marble floor of the foyer.