Chapter Ten
“Why did you not tell me Mr. Travers was not to your liking?” Charlotte’s father posed the question over breakfast the next morning, quite without warning.
“He was never to my disliking,” she said, picking at her toast. “He would be kind to me, and most young ladies would consider themselves fortunate simply to have avoided unkindness. I had not set my sights much higher than that.”
“But you have set them on Mr. Vernon?” Her father was sharp. He always had been. She ought to have realized he hadn’t been unaware of her efforts.
“He is a good person,” Charlotte acknowledged. “And he would—”
“Not be unkind?” Father finished for her. “And that is what you were hoping for.”
“I know enough of the world to understand why marriages are contracted, and that the hearts and hopes of those being matched are seldom the topmost consideration. I was attempting to at least avoid misery.”
He looked as though she’d wounded his feelings. “Do you believe I would choose someone who would make you actually miserable?”
“I hoped not, but it has happened before. It has happened in our family. Aunt Tottie was so displeased with your father’s choice that she fled London and has steadfastly refused to return ever since.”
“I would never treat you the way he treated her,” Father insisted. “I wish to see you settled as you ought to be, looked out for, cared for, with someone dependable and reliable.”
“Would it be so terrible if that person also had a tenderness for me and I for him?” she asked quietly.
He studied her. “You speak as though you already have someone in mind.”
Truth be told, she did. But she couldn’t imagine her father was ready for that confession. “Are you absolutely determined to see me wed by the end of the Season? The speed with which we are approaching this makes it difficult for me to believe that the outcome will be a good one.”
He was clearly empathetic to her concerns, but he did not seem convinced by her arguments.
“Even the daughter of an earl runs out of time, dear. Four Seasons is more than most are granted before being seen as a spinster. I would not wish for you to miss out on your opportunity for something more than what your aunt Tottie currently claims.”
“But I do sometimes wonder if I would be more discontented in a marriage I did not like than I would be if I were unmarried entirely.”
Again, he seemed to understand why she would feel that way, but did not give any indication he was softening to her line of thinking.
“You seemed satisfied with Mr. Vernon and Mr. Travers until Lord Wesley began interfering.” Father took a sip of his tea.
“I did not realize until coming to know Lord Wesley better that I could enjoy someone’s company as much as I enjoy his.”
Father set his cup down with a bit of a clang. “He is not suitable.”
“In what way is he not suitable?” She kept her tone conciliatory but also firm.
“He has, on many occasions, stood my champion. He is not arrogant like Sir Duncan, and he is able and willing to quell that haughtiness without making the situation worse. He has a title and an estate. We have seen for ourselves that he is making inroads in Society and is being well received.”
Father rose and paced away. “His title does him no credit. His predecessors were spendthrifts, and it is known that his estate is in disrepair and his finances do not bear scrutiny.”
“But none of those things are reflections on his character,” Charlotte insisted. “That he is not a copy of his grandfather or father or any of the other members of his family whose behavior has colored your assumptions about him ought to be a mark in his favor.”
“Even if he proved, in time, to be the very opposite of the family who raised him, I cannot consider myself a good father if I resigned you to a life spent in a house in disrepair and with an insufficient and unstable income.”
“I do have a dowry,” she reminded him.
He grew more resolved. “That is not its purpose.”
Its purpose was not to secure her happiness. Was it any wonder she hadn’t been certain her father would choose to accept a suitor who brought her happiness?
“If Lord Wesley were to obtain ￡1,000 through means other than my dowry and set his estate to rights, that would satisfy you?”
Her father’s mouth turned a bit in pondering. “Do you suspect he is soon to be the recipient of such a sum?”
She squared her shoulders. “If I have any say in the matter, yes.”
“Where would this ￡1,000 be coming from?”
“Believe me, Father, if I knew the answer to that, we would be having a very different conversation.” She rose, smoothing the front of her morning gown.
“￡1,000 is a significant amount of money, and by June 6, he will be in possession of it. Please give me until then to prove to you that he is worthy of your consideration, that he is the good and kind and considerate gentleman I have found him to be.”
Father didn’t agree, but neither did he immediately object. Hoping that meant he was at least considering, she excused herself and left the breakfast room, only allowing herself to breathe once she reached her bedchamber.
She had until her birthday. A mere week.
***
Julian received a summons from the Earl of Tarrant to meet him at their club. They were members of the same one, but had never interacted there in the past. The difference in their ages and Julian’s hesitation to reenter Society had more or less guaranteed that.
The earl was in a quiet corner in the library when Julian arrived. He was invited to sit with the gentleman and did so.
“Is there a reason, Lord Wesley, why my daughter is convinced that you will be the recipient of ￡1,000 on her birthday?”
Without losing his composure in the least, Julian turned the question around. “Is there a reason the convergence of those two things specifically has struck you so entirely?”
Lord Tarrant released a breath as he nodded, slowly and ponderously.
“Let me tell you a story, and we will see if we can’t answer each other’s questions that way.
” He entwined his fingers and set his woven hands on his lap.
“There is a wager on the books of this club, one that declares should Lady Charlotte Duchamps not be married by her twenty-first birthday, the anonymous wagerer will pay Lord Wesley a sum of ￡1,000.”
Good heavens. Was Lord Tarrant the one who had placed the wager after all?
“This wager was recorded twenty years ago.”
Julian’s eyes pulled wide. Someone had bet against Charlotte’s matrimonial prospects while she was still an infant?
“My sister, Tottie, still went about in Society at the time, though she’d had two unsuccessful Seasons and had given every indication that she did not intend to undertake a third.
She was the recipient of a lot of unkindness on the matter, not the least of which came from our father.
He arranged, by the end of her final Season, for her to marry a man with whom she would have been miserable. Utterly and entirely.”
Julian listened closely, unsure of the connection between past and present but hoping to understand better so he could help more, so Charlotte might not be as mistreated as it seemed her aunt Tottie had been.
“I would like to believe our father would have been kinder in his choice had he not felt desperate to see her married quickly,” Lord Tarrant said. “She was turning twenty-one soon, and that was not a milestone he felt he could afford to reach with her still unwed.”
Afford. The pieces were suddenly falling firmly into place. “What is your sister’s Christian name, Lord Tarrant?”
“Charlotte.”
That would make her Lady Charlotte Duchamps, just like her niece.
The wager had been placed twenty years ago, when she would have likely been nearly twenty-one years old.
And there had been a Lord Wesley at that time who would not have minded being connected to a wager that was potentially harmful to a lady.
“I was horrified when I learned of the wager,” Lord Tarrant said.
“I love my sister, and she did not deserve to have her name bandied about. Upon discovering our father had placed the wager and was willing to throw away her happiness in order to win it, I was more angry than I ever remember being with him. Tottie fled London to avoid the match being forced on her, and she has never returned. She has never trusted anyone enough to do so, unfortunately not even me.”
“Then the inconsiderate wager is not a recent one and does not involve the current Lady Charlotte or Lord Wesley?”
The earl shook his head. “It is not and does not. That Lady Charlotte was ruined by the wager. And that Lord Wesley received his ￡1,000 and lost it the next day on a horse race.”
“I can understand why you despise my family so much.”
“Mine was not entirely innocent in the matter,” Lord Tarrant generously added. His shoulders squared a moment later. “What was it you did when you learned of the wager?”
It would be hypocritical of him to be dishonest with the gentleman after he’d been so forthcoming.
“At first, I hoped to delay any suitors from successfully pressing their suit. Delay, you understand, not prevent or discourage. But then I discovered that the gentlemen who were closest to success were unlikely to be a good match for her. She didn’t smile when they were nearby or seem delighted to spot their arrival.
She didn’t seem to miss them when they left.
And nothing in her interaction with them gave me the least reason to think Lady Charlotte would actually be happy if married to either one of them, and I couldn’t bear that thought. ”
The earl watched him in silence.
“The wager quickly slipped quite low on my list of concerns. She deserves to be happy every bit as much as your sister did. I need that ￡1,000; I’ll not deny that.
But I would give up every penny I do have if it meant she didn’t have to flee London and hide herself away for the rest of her life. She deserves better.”
“Do you?” the earl pressed.
“Life has dealt me an unfair hand, and there is little I can do about that. Unless, of course, someone else places an irresponsible wager and makes me the recipient of another fortune.” He tried to smile, but the expression slipped away almost immediately.
Charlotte was not the focus of the insulting wager, which he was grateful for.
And this conversation might very well save her from an unhappy match, which set his mind at ease.
But he now had no hope whatsoever of obtaining the money he needed to undo the damage his grandfather had done.
And that ended what little chance he had of building a life with the lady he’d come to love.
He stood even as his heart dropped to his feet. “Perhaps making certain Lady Charlotte is treated with greater respect and consideration than your sister was will allow us to atone in some small way for the treatment Lady Tottie experienced at the hands of our predecessors.”
Julian left the earl to ponder that. He himself couldn’t manage any thought beyond the unshakable realization that happiness had been within his grasp, and he’d lost it.