Chapter 17 - Stephen
Stephen
Earlier today…
Spring had transformed London overnight.
The morning felt gentle as Stephen walked toward the post office, trees showing the first hints of green and the air finally losing winter’s sharp edge, replaced by something softer that made the city feel almost welcoming.
Mary’s letter sat tucked inside his coat. She’d caught him before breakfast, her hands shaking slightly as she’d given him the correspondence and a coin she could barely afford. Her sister in Cornwall had found her a position, if Mary could save enough for the journey.
“Post it today?” she’d asked, her eyes bright with equal parts fear and anticipation. “Before I lose my nerve?”
He’d promised he would.
The errand also let him slip out before Phillips found him. The butler had been waiting for an answer about Edinburgh, and Stephen wasn’t ready to watch his face when he gave it. Wasn’t ready for the quiet disappointment, the arguments about the risks of staying.
But Lady Jersey’s musicale would settle it.
She had requested additional staff from Lord Rutland’s household, her own servants overwhelmed by fifty expected guests.
Stephen would simply be there when the evening began.
One look at him standing at his post, and Phillips would have his answer, delivered without a single word between them.
He cut through Hyde Park, taking the faster route. The paths were nearly empty at this hour, just a few nursemaids with their charges and—
“I’ve always found conventional behavior rather dull, my lord.”
Stephen froze.
The voice cut through the morning quiet, achingly familiar. Every part of him wanted to turn, to look, but his livery—the black coat and crisp white shirt that marked him as a servant—would give him away instantly.
He stepped quickly behind a massive oak, pressing his back against the rough bark as his heart hammered. She couldn’t see him like this. Not with the uniform making a lie of everything he’d told her.
He peered cautiously around the trunk.
Charlotte walked perhaps twenty yards ahead, sunlight catching the copper threads in her hair and setting them ablaze. She wore a pale morning dress that made her seem almost ethereal against the spring green, and the sight of her drove the air from his lungs.
God, she was beautiful.
But it was how she held herself that made something crack open inside him. Spine straight, shoulders back, maintaining the smallest possible distance from the man next to her. Her body was a study in polite rejection, in the subtle art of creating space where none existed.
Penrose stopped their progress, his stance shifting to trap her more completely beside him.
His voice carried across the quiet park.
“You know, I find myself in the rather awkward position of needing to address last evening. The whiskey at White’s was particularly potent, I’m afraid. My memories are… fragmentary.”
Stephen’s pulse roared in his ears.
“Perhaps you might help fill in these troublesome gaps?”
Charlotte went very still.
Would she tell him? Give Stephen away to protect herself? Part of him almost wanted her to — anything to keep Penrose from hurting her again.
Stephen tensed as he watched Charlotte flinch, the reaction so small he almost missed it. If Penrose hurt her again, if his fingers pressed any harder, Stephen would cross the distance between them and make good on his threat. Livery be damned.
“Charlotte! What a delightful surprise!”
Miss Bellamy appeared with remarkable timing. Stephen sagged back against the tree as she extracted Charlotte from Penrose’s grasp.
Relief washed over him. He pressed his arm across his eyes while his breathing slowly evened out and his heart gradually stopped trying to hammer through his chest. He just needed a moment to collect himself, to push down everything that had nearly sent him charging across that park.
“Turner?”
He jerked away from the tree, arm dropping as he spun. Mrs. Price was some distance away on the servants’ path behind him, market basket over her arm and shopping list in hand, already making her way toward him.
“I thought you were at the post office.” Her gaze moved past him toward the path, then back to his face. “Yet here you are, hiding behind trees.”
Stephen followed her gaze, dread coiling tight in his chest, but the path lay empty—everyone gone, nothing to see except a glimpse of fabric and copper curls disappearing over the rise toward Mayfair’s residential streets.
Thank God Mrs. Price had arrived too late to see anything.
“I thought I recognized someone,” he managed. “But I was mistaken.”
“I see.” Mrs. Price studied his face, and Stephen felt suddenly transparent, every half-truth laid bare. She looked back toward the empty path, her eyes lingering there for a moment before returning to him. “Well, we all get distracted from time to time.”
She adjusted her basket. “I’m off to the market to see what might be available for tomorrow’s supper. You should be getting to that post office before the morning rush starts.”
“Of course.” He nodded. “I shouldn’t keep you.”
Her expression softened into something almost maternal. “You seem troubled these days, Turner. Not that it’s my place to pry, but…” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “A clear mind makes for better service. Especially on busy nights like tonight.”
Stephen felt himself snap back into focus, as if her words had physically pulled him out of whatever fog he’d been moving through. She was right. He’d been careless. “Thank you, Mrs. Price.”
She offered a small smile before continuing toward the village.
He continued toward the post office, his mind racing.
Whatever doubt he might have had about staying in London died the moment he’d seen Penrose’s hand on Charlotte’s arm.
Phillips could offer him Bristol a hundred times, but Stephen wasn’t leaving.
Wherever Charlotte was, that’s where he needed to be
By evening, Stephen stood in the servants’ corridor of Lady Jersey’s townhouse with the other borrowed staff, receiving assignments. Phillips moved among them with his usual efficiency, cataloging every detail as he distributed tasks.
When he spotted Stephen, his face hardened almost imperceptibly.
The butler had expected an answer by now, or at the very least an empty room and a packed bag. Instead, here stood Stephen in Lord Rutland’s livery, awaiting instructions like any other servant.
For a long moment, Phillips simply stared, disappointment and resignation flickering across his usually impassive features.
“Turner.” The word came out clipped. “You’ll oversee the music room entrance. Position yourself near the library doors where you can monitor both spaces.”
“Yes, sir.”
Phillips held his gaze a moment longer, and in that silence Stephen heard everything the butler wasn’t saying. You’ve made your choice, then. Don’t expect me to save you when it all falls apart.
Phillips moved to the next name on his list, and Stephen released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.
The music room was already beginning to fill as he took his position near the library doors, partially concealed by an ornamental column. From here, he had a clear view of the entrance—every guest arriving, every smile and curtsy, every whispered conversation.
Couples drifted past in evening finery, their silk rustling and voices blending into a gentle hum as musicians tested instruments on the small stage.
A flash of auburn caught the corner of his eye, and his head snapped toward the doorway.
Charlotte stood framed in the entrance, teal silk catching the light with each breath. Her hair had been arranged into elegant curls pinned up, with a few soft tendrils escaping to frame her face.
He’d known she’d be here, that Penrose would make sure she would attend.
But somehow, in all his planning, he’d forgotten how hard it would be to stay away.
To stand in this livery, invisible to her, watching her from across the room when everything in him wanted to close the distance.
Three days suddenly felt impossible. How was he supposed to wait to speak to her when she was right there?
In that moment, he would have given anything—his position, his future, his very life—for the right to stand beside her. To reach for her hand in a ballroom full of people and have no one question it. To wake each morning knowing she was his and he was hers.
Lord Penrose appeared at her side, and reality crashed back. He leaned close, whispering something, his lips nearly brushing her temple.
Stephen’s jaw clenched, and he forced himself to look away before he did something foolish.
“Ladies and gentlemen, pray be seated.” Lady Jersey’s voice cut through the murmur of conversation, sharp and commanding. “Miss Fairmont has graciously agreed to begin our evening’s entertainment.”
Stephen’s attention snapped back despite himself. Charlotte had separated from Penrose, making her way toward the stage. The room settled into expectant quiet as she ascended, her slippers whispering against polished wood.
He hadn’t meant to watch so intently, should have kept his gaze fixed somewhere safer. But then she searched the crowd—
And stopped on him.
Time stopped.
The connection lasted only seconds — a handful of heartbeats — but in them, he saw what he had been telling himself for weeks wasn’t there.
He had convinced himself that she didn’t feel it, that the pull between them was something only he had noticed, that he would only be breaking his own heart.
But the way her face changed when she found him across that room made that impossible to hold onto.
The brightness that came into her eyes, the almost imperceptible way her shoulders eased, the way she stilled as though she had found what she had been looking for.
She felt it too. And knowing that was both the best and worst thing that had happened to him all evening.