Chapter 25
Jasper’s long-suffering butler, Gibbons, opened the door with the expression of a man expecting a delivery of port or perhaps a corpse, but certainly not a young lady in a cloak and bonnet.
“Miss Tolliver,” he said slowly, blinking behind his spectacles. “Unchaperoned in the middle of the night. I do hope I am mistaken.”
“You are not,” said Lottie, stepping smartly across the threshold. “Please inform Mr Deverell that Mr Charleston has come to settle his account.”
Gibbons cleared his throat before inhaling and exhaling through his nose. “Very good, madam. Though I daresay I ought to summon a constable instead.”
“You may summon whom you wish, Mr Gibbons,” Lottie said, unbothered. “Though I do recommend haste. It is rather chilly, and I have climbed over two garden walls. I am damp and cross, sir.”
The butler gave her a look that could have soured milk. “This way, if you please.”
He ushered her up the stairs and down the corridor to Jasper’s rooms. She gave the butler a wink, but he did not seem pleased.
Jasper was in his half-dressed, tousled, and looking like sin distilled into a man.
Papers were scattered across the desk, his ink-stained fingers still curled around a pen.
He looked up, blinked in surprise, and threw the latest letter into the fire in panic.
“Miss Tolliver—Charlotte—what in God’s name? ”
She pulled off her gloves one finger at a time. “I am here to pay my debts.”
He stared at her.
She adopted her deepest, silliest baritone. “A gentleman always pays his debts. And as I am, on occasion, a gentleman…”
He laughed. “You have come to pay it at midnight?”
“I daresay I do my best work at night, Mr Deverell,” she said in Mr Charleston’s voice. “Though I should not like to examine that statement too closely.”
He stood slowly, still watching her closely. “Gibbons is going to extort me for the rest of his natural life.”
“Then he shall have something to occupy him in retirement.”
She stepped further into the room. Her heart was beating a little too hard for her liking, which was absurd.
“I take it, then, that Bellamy’s did not entirely cure you of my company.”
“Bellamy’s cured me of several things. Port, for one. Men altogether, very nearly. Dukes, absolutely.”
“A pity. I thought the evening ended rather well.”
She snorted inelegantly. “You won a great deal of money, whereas I was imprisoned in a carriage with Langley and Morleigh while they took turns being morally wounded. Then I was sick into the street.”
Jasper winced. “Ah.”
“Yes. Ah.”
“In my defence, Mr Charleston bore himself with remarkable fortitude until the very end.”
“That is true, I suppose. But now Mr Charleston is to be handed off like a parcel to whichever titled idiot presents himself first with an income not visibly encumbered by debt.”
His expression shifted. “What are you talking about?”
“My sisters,” she said bitterly. “And my mother. Georgie’s damned lists.
I am to attend Lady Malverne’s wretched house party under heavy supervision and secure a proposal before the end of the Season, or else I shall be paired with some vinegar-scented viscount who speaks entirely in hunting metaphors. ”
Jasper’s brow furrowed. “A proposal.”
“Yes. Apparently my future has been placed upon a timetable.”
“And you came here because—”
“Because I should like to choose my own disaster, thank you very much. And I suppose we shall be supervised too closely at the garden party for you to claim your forfeit there. Apparently, I am such a source of alarm that I now require full chaperonage by both parents and a duke who glowers like the world personally offended him. I should scarcely be permitted to sneeze without commentary! And why? Because I lost a wager and drew on a moustache and had the gall to enjoy myself.”
She began pacing, throwing her hands around in animation. “And now I am to be paraded at Lady Malverne’s blasted garden party like a prize heifer before auctioneers at a cattle fair!”
“Charlotte—”
“I am not finished!” she snapped. “I am this close to being married off to the son of a marquess who collects antique bird skulls and calls his mother ‘Mummy’ in public!”
He ran a hand through his hair. “You are being very unreasonable.”
“Oh, am I?“ Her voice rose. “Forgive me for intruding upon your tranquil evening, my lord. Clearly I ought to have made an appointment before throwing myself at your mercy. I should have arrived at tea, perhaps. In a cravat. With a calling card and a fainting couch!”
“You barged into my house,” he said, exasperated. “At midnight.”
“Yes!” she shouted. She was breathless now, her voice pitched with a kind of defiant panic.
“Do you know what it is to be watched? Every step, every glance, every word scrutinised for impropriety, dissected for scandal? No, of course you do not. You may drink brandy in your chambers, lose fortunes at cards, disappear into half the clubs in London, and be called charming for it. If I do it, the full machinery of family honour falls upon my head!”
“I did not mean to…” Jasper began, taking a step closer. “I’ve been trying to write… to explain… that I wish to—“
“Oh, do not begin with explanations! Everyone has an explanation. ‘It is for your protection, Lottie.’ ‘You shall thank us one day, dearest’ ‘It is only a dance, Charlotte.’ But now it is no longer a dance, is it? It is marriage. A life sentence!”
“I was going to say—”
“And I shall be forced to choose between a man who smells of cabbage and collects his own toenail clippings,” she continued furiously, “or some aging earl whose last wife died of boredom and whose idea of passion is falling asleep during the marital act! Oh yes, that is my future. I shall be expected to lie back and think of England, while Lord Wretchington groans and wheezes and perspires over me in the dark!”
“I beg you to stop.”
“Oh, I have barely begun. And afterwards, I shall be handed a congratulatory cup of tea by a housemaid named Prudence and be expected to smile about his rotting seed inside me!”
“Lottie,” he said slowly, holding up a hand, “you are being—”
“If you say hysterical, I swear to all that is holy—”
“Hysterical,” he said calmly, and dared to smile.
“Oh, you absolute bastard.”
He held up a finger. “Now, hear me out—”
She was already storming across the room, hands clenched into fists and hair falling from its pins in furious coils.
He backed towards the door, his eyes widening as if he had a terribly wicked idea. “Wait here.”
“What?”
“Do not move,” he said with maddening cheer. “Stay right there.”
“Jasper, I swear—”
He was already at the door, pulling it open. Before she could reach him, he stepped out, shut it again, and locked it. She heard the click and nearly screamed.
“Jasper Deverell! Unlock this door at once!”
“Give me five minutes,” came his voice from the other side. “Ten, if you insist on being difficult.”
“I am going to murder you!”
“You are going to thank me.”
“I will never!”
After a beat, clicked back again. “There,” he called. “It was tempting, but I value my life. Stay there anyway.”
The sound of his boots retreated down the corridor, as casual as if he were off to fetch a biscuit and not evading the wrath of an unchaperoned Tolliver at midnight.
Lottie paced once, twice, then caught sight of the writing desk and the mess upon it. Papers were strewn across the surface, but it was the fireplace that drew her, where a half-curled scrap of parchment had failed to burn entirely.
She hesitated, then, very slowly, she reached for it.
The paper was still warm to the touch. When she smoothed it open, she saw his handwriting, messy at the edges where his thoughts clearly outpaced his hand.
Charlotte,
You are, quite possibly, the most marvellous disaster I have ever invited into my life. And if I have any hope of surviving you—
Her heart was thudding again, but not with anger. Lottie read the line twice more. She could not help it. The most marvellous disaster…
She swallowed hard, suddenly unsure what to do with her hands, before folding the scrap gently—far more gently than such a phrase deserved—and tucked it into her cloak pocket.
“Marvellous disaster,” she muttered. “I ought to throw you out the window.”
The lock clicked again. Lottie whipped around, already prepared to unleash every cutting remark in her arsenal, but Jasper had not returned empty-handed.
He stepped through the door, his expression far too pleased with himself, and holding a small, polished wooden box.