Chapter 12 - Charlotte #2
The memory of his possessive touch, the coldness beneath his smile, made Charlotte’s stomach turn. “Then perhaps you should ask yourself why.”
“I don’t need to ask. You’re being foolish and dramatic, just like—“
“Just like who? My mother?” Charlotte took a step toward her. “Why did you hate her so much?”
An almost pained expression crossed Aunt Margaret’s face.
“I didn’t hate her. She loved your father genuinely, and I respected that.
” The words came out stiffly, as though they cost her.
“But she was reckless. She argued at balls, challenged men who had no patience for it, made a spectacle of herself. Do you know how many doors closed to this family because of it? How many alliances were never made because your mother said the wrong thing to the wrong person?” Her aunts mouth pressed into a thin line.
“And she raised you exactly the same way. You have her tongue, her stubbornness and her absolute certainty that being right matters more than being safe.”
Charlotte was quiet for a moment before she shook her head gently. “I don’t think that’s the insult you intend it to be.”
A sharp knock at the front door froze them both. Charlotte heard Mills cross the entrance hall, followed by low murmurs. When Mills appeared in the doorway moments later, his elderly face was carefully neutral, revealing nothing of what he thought about the tension still crackling between them.
“Lord Penrose has arrived, madam,” he announced. “He requests the honor of calling upon Miss Fairmont to discuss matters of mutual interest.”
Charlotte almost laughed, the sound catching somewhere in her throat before it could escape. Mutual interest. As if there were anything remotely mutual about any of this.
“Of course,” Aunt Margaret began, her voice taking on a bright, artificial quality as she reached to smooth her already-perfect skirts. “Mills, please show Lord—“
“No.”
The word dropped between them like a stone.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said no.” Charlotte felt her voice strengthen even as her hands began to tremble. “I won’t see him. Not today.”
“Don’t be ridiculous—“
“How dare you.” The words came out raw and jagged. “One day. That’s all I’m asking for. One day out of three hundred and sixty-five to remember my mother without having to pretend I’m fine, and you can’t even allow me that.”
Aunt Margaret’s mouth opened but no sound came out, and for the first time in memory, she seemed at a complete loss for words.
Charlotte turned toward the door before her aunt could recover, before the guilt creeping in could make her take the words back. Tears were already threatening to spill, and she refused to shatter in front of an audience.
“Miss Fairmont?”
The voice made her freeze in place. Lord Penrose stood just beyond the threshold, his expression perfectly composed though she could see the slight tension at the corners of his mouth. Behind him, Mills hovered with an apologetic face that suggested he’d tried and failed to prevent this intrusion.
“Forgive the interruption.” Penrose’s gaze moved between Charlotte and her aunt. “I couldn’t help but overhear raised voices. I do hope everything is quite all right?”
Heat flooded Charlotte’s face. How much had he heard? Her refusal to see him, certainly. Possibly more.
For a single, treacherous moment, hope flickered in her chest. Perhaps he would surprise her, would show the understanding and compassion everyone else seemed to believe he possessed.
But when she forced herself to meet his gaze, she saw no compassion there despite the concern written across his features.
She saw displeasure, perhaps, or the particular annoyance of someone whose schedule had been disrupted.
He appeared almost insulted, as though her pain were somehow a personal affront.
“I’m afraid I’m feeling rather unwell, my lord.
” It was more true than he could possibly know.
Grief had hollowed her out from the inside, left her temples throbbing with the weight of tears she refused to shed, made even the simple act of standing feel like it required more strength than she possessed.
“A terrible headache. I fear I’m quite unfit for company at present. ”
“Perhaps tomorrow,” Aunt Margaret interjected, desperately. “I’m certain Charlotte will be feeling much improved by then, once she’s had proper rest.”
“I do hope so.” Lord Penrose’s mouth curved into what should have been a sympathetic smile, but his eyes remained strangely expressionless. “These headaches can be quite debilitating.” The words came out slightly too measured, as though he were following a script.
“If you’ll excuse me.” Charlotte’s fingers tightened around the letters until the paper bit into her palm.
“Of course.” Penrose stepped aside.
As Charlotte moved past him, his voice dropped just low enough that only she could hear. “Until tomorrow.”
It wasn’t a threat. Just a statement. But something about the certainty in his tone made her stomach tighten. She managed a nod and hurried past, her feet barely making a sound against the carpet as she fled toward the stairs.
She took them faster than was proper, her free hand gripping the banister for balance. Voices murmured below, but the words faded into nothing as she climbed higher. She needed to get away. Needed to be anywhere but here.
Her feet carried her forward without conscious direction, moving past her own chamber door, past the linen closet and the guest room that never saw guests.
She barely registered where she was going until she found herself standing at the end of the corridor, her hand already reaching for a knob she usually avoided.
Her mother’s bedchamber.
The hinges creaked softly as the door swung open, revealing the room exactly as it had been five years ago— frozen in time, waiting for someone who would never return.
Dust motes drifted in the gray morning light, illuminating a room that felt less like a sanctuary than a shrine to everything Charlotte had lost. The bed lay perfectly made with its rose-patterned coverlet, the writing desk still held a half-finished letter, and the wardrobe doors hung slightly ajar, as if her mother had simply stepped out for a moment and might walk back through the door at any second.
Charlotte stepped inside and let the door close behind her, the soft click echoing in the stillness.
The air held that particular mustiness of rooms left too long unoccupied, spaces where life had stopped moving and breathing.
But beneath the staleness, if she inhaled deeply enough, she could still catch the faintest ghost of rosewater and lavender.
For a long moment she simply stood there, uncertain what she’d come here seeking. Comfort, perhaps. Or permission to fall apart. She set the crumpled letters on her mother’s writing desk without looking and move toward the wardrobe.
She opened the doors fully to reveal gowns hanging in neat rows, their colors softened by the dim light.
Her fingers found the jade silk, remembering how her mother had worn it to the opera, how she’d laughed at something Charlotte’s father had whispered in her ear, her face flushed with joy and completely unrepentant when other patrons turned to stare.
Charlotte pulled the gown free and lifted it to her face, pressing the silk against her nose as she breathed in, desperately searching for her mother in the weave of fabric.
But the scent was barely there anymore, just the faintest ghost beneath the smell of dust and storage.
The knowledge that it was disappearing, that one day it would be gone entirely, cracked something deep inside her chest.
Soon there would be nothing left but memory. No physical trace, no scent to ground her, no proof beyond her own recollections that her mother had been real and alive and here.
Charlotte returned the silk, her eyes moving over the interior of the wardrobe, taking in the familiar gowns and shawls she’d seen a hundred times before, until her gaze caught on something she’d never noticed.
A wooden box tucked far back on the top shelf, half-hidden behind a hat box her mother had never used.
Charlotte reached for it carefully, stretching up on her toes until her fingers closed around the smooth wood, and pulled it down. The weight of it felt significant somehow, as though it contained more than just objects, and Charlotte settled onto the floor with her back against the bed.
The lid opened with a soft creak, revealing treasures her mother had kept hidden away—a pressed flower still holding faint pink despite the years, letters bound together with ribbon that had faded from white to cream, a hair comb missing several teeth.
Charlotte reached for the letters, lifting the ribbonbound stack until her father’s handwriting on the topmost envelope caught her attention.
My dearest Elizabeth.
Three words, written in a hand that had been confident once, before grief had stolen that steadiness along with everything else that had made him the man he’d been.
Charlotte stared at them, feeling the weight of all the years compressed into that single line.
She couldn’t read them today, couldn’t face whatever tenderness or promises they contained. She set the bundle aside gently.
Beneath the letters, she found a book she recognized immediately. Evelina, worn soft from years of reading, its spine broken in so many places it barely held together. She pulled it free, opening it slowly, and her mother’s observations greeted her, scattered across the margins.
Such spirit, a lady should never apologize for having wit, she’d written beside one passage. And later, in different ink: Harold says Miss Burney is quite improper for young ladies. I told him Evelina herself would disagree most strenuously.
She closed her eyes and held the book to her chest, a laugh escaping her despite the tears already sliding down her cheeks.