Chapter 29 - Charlotte #2
She turned her attention to the other papers still scattered across his desk, the ones she hadn’t examined in the kitchen. “I haven’t looked at these yet.”
Charlotte lifted the next sheet and began reading.
The breath left her lungs halfway through the first paragraph, cold flooding her veins.
Her hands started shaking as she reached for another sheet, then another, frantically gathering what she now realized were letters—three of them, all saying variations of the same impossible thing.
“What is it?” Her father stepped closer, alarm rising in his voice. “Charlotte, what’s wrong?”
She had no voice left to answer. She extended the letter toward him and watched devastation spread across his features as he read what she’d just discovered.
“Papa?” Charlotte’s voice came out small. “Is it true? Did Mama—“
“No.” The word came out sharp, certain. “No, Charlotte. This isn’t your mother’s handwriting.”
“But it says—“
“I know what it says.” He pulled open another drawer and drew out a small bundle of letters, his movements careful and reverent as he selected one and unfolded it beside the others. “Look. Compare the writing.”
Charlotte leaned closer, studying both pages in the lamplight. The forged letters were elegant and flowing, but her mother’s actual handwriting was different—smaller, with a distinctive slant to each letter that the forgeries completely lacked.
“They’re fake.” Her father sank into his chair, still holding both sets of letters.
Tears began sliding down his face as he compared them again, as if needing to be certain.
“I thought—for weeks I’ve been carrying this weight, thinking she’d—“ His voice broke.
“But the writing is completely different. Your mother never…”
He didn’t need to finish the sentence because Charlotte already understood what he was going to say.
“This was the blackmail,” she said quietly.
Her father went very still. Then he nodded slowly, as if something had just clicked into place. “That’s why you’ve been so…” He trailed off. “How long have you known?”
“I overheard Lord Penrose speaking with someone weeks ago at a ball.” She kept her voice steady. “I knew he was blackmailing us with something, I just didn’t know what it was.”
“Charlotte…” He looked at her, guilt written across his face. “I should have told you. Should have trusted you with the truth instead of just pushing you toward him without explanation.” He wiped his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“Papa, it’s all right.” Charlotte stepped to his side and rested her hand on his shoulder. “You were protecting Mama’s memory.”
“But these aren’t even real.” He gestured at the forged letters with something close to fury. “He was going to destroy your mother’s reputation with lies, was going to force you into marriage by threatening to publish fabricated evidence of an affair that never happened.”
“I know.” Charlotte’s voice came out barely above a whisper. “But we have the truth now. And we have the coal. We can pay off the debts ourselves.”
Movement in the hallway froze them both. Footsteps coming fast and purposeful, the sound growing louder until the door burst open without warning.
Aunt Margaret filled the doorway, her face set in severe lines despite the shawl hastily wrapped over her nightdress. Her gaze traveled from Charlotte’s sodden appearance to her father’s tear-streaked face.
“What on earth is going on? I heard raised voices.” Her eyes fixed on the papers spread across the desk. “What is all this?”
“Your proof.” Charlotte’s voice came out steadier than she felt. “The blackmail you insisted I was inventing. Lord Penrose has been using forged letters claiming Mama had an affair to force this marriage.”
Her aunt’s face went pale, then flushed red, then paled again. She stood frozen in the doorway as though the words needed time to sink in.
“And we don’t need his money anymore.” Charlotte lifted one of the documents. “These surveys prove there’s coal on our land. Valuable coal. We can settle the debts ourselves, which means I don’t have to marry him. We can end the engagement.”
For a long moment, her aunt said nothing. When she finally spoke, her voice came out flat.
“You can’t.”
“But we don’t need—“
“How did you obtain these documents, Charlotte?” Her aunt’s voice cut sharp across the study. “Did Lord Penrose hand them to you willingly?”
The question hung in the air between them, and Charlotte felt the walls closing in around every possible answer.
She could say a servant had given them to her—that much was true—but the moment she admitted to meeting anyone alone, unchaperoned, her aunt would demand details she couldn’t provide.
Which servant? When? Where? Each question would peel back another layer until the whole truth lay exposed between them, and with it, her complete ruin.
The silence stretched a moment too long, and her aunt’s expression hardened with understanding.
“I see.” Her aunt moved toward the desk, her movements measured and deliberate.
“So we would need to explain to all of London how you came to possess private documents from Lord Penrose’s private study, documents he clearly never intended you to see.
” She didn’t touch the papers, just studied them from above as if they carried some contamination.
“Which means admitting to theft, or conspiracy with servants, or any number of acts that would destroy your reputation as completely as any broken engagement ever could.”
“But the letters are forgeries.” Charlotte’s father gestured at the evidence spread before them. “We can prove Elizabeth’s handwriting is completely different. Anyone who looks can see that.”
“And in proving it, you would ensure every scandal sheet in London prints the contents for all of society to read and dissect and speculate about.” Her aunt’s voice remained steady, relentless in its logic.
“The truth wouldn’t matter, Harold. The damage would be done the moment those accusations became public.
The Fairmont name would be dragged through every drawing room in the city, and people would wonder and whisper regardless of what you proved afterward.
And Charlotte would have no marriage prospects left.
No respectable family would align themselves with a name tainted by such scandal. ”
Charlotte watched the color drain from her father’s face, leaving him looking suddenly diminished.
“Even if you could prove the forgeries without a scandal,” her aunt continued, her tone softening by the smallest degree though the certainty never wavered, “you still cannot prove Lord Penrose commissioned them. He would simply claim he was deceived as well, that someone created these letters to manipulate him just as they did you.” She paused, letting the implication settle over the room.
“Meanwhile, Charlotte would be the woman who broke her engagement with accusations she cannot substantiate, who obtained her evidence through means she cannot explain, who dragged one of London’s most powerful families through public scandal based on documents she has no legitimate right to possess. ”
Silence filled the study, broken only by the steady tick of the mantle clock. Charlotte stared at the documents spread across her father’s desk—her freedom and her destruction both contained in the same pages.
“So I simply marry him?” The words came out barely above a whisper, scraped raw against her throat. “Knowing what he is? What he’s done to us?”
Her aunt’s shoulders sagged slightly as she looked away.
“I know I pushed for this match from the very beginning. I thought I was acting in your best interest given our circumstances, thought I understood what was necessary for this family’s future.
” She stopped, drew in a breath that seemed to cost her something.
“I was wrong about Lord Penrose’s character.
Clearly, terribly wrong. But breaking this engagement now, even armed with all of this evidence, would destroy you more than the marriage itself ever could. ”
Charlotte turned to her father, willing him to argue, to insist there was another path forward. But the resignation in his face told her everything before he could speak, and cold certainty spread through her.
Her aunt was right.
“I’m so sorry.” Her father’s voice dropped to barely a whisper. “If there were another option…”
But there wasn’t.
She was going to marry Lord Penrose, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.