Charlotte's candle had burned down at least an hour before. She glanced towards the fireplace, at the glowing embers there, and rolled onto her side again, as if a change in position were all she needed to clear her mind and drift off into slumber.
The house was quiet, and yet every thump, every creak was as loud as cannon fire. Another footstep from somewhere above her, and she let slip a curse and threw back the covers. Her bare feet sought out the floor, and she reached blindly for the threadbare dressing gown she knew she had tossed onto the end of the bed before dropping her head onto the pillow.
Rubbing her arms through the thin sleeves, she paced towards the fire and prodded at the coals with the poker, sending up a spray of spark that banished the shadows to the corners of the room. The last chime of the clock had marked the time as a quarter past two. She straightened up and replaced the poker before adding another scoop of coal to the burgeoning flames. After several minutes of waiting for them to ignite, she glanced at the window and counted the hours until morning. If she wanted any sleep this night, it would most likely not be until dawn brightened the edges of the sky.
It was the constant patter of her thoughts that kept her awake. It had only been a few hours since she'd bid farewell to Lord Cowden, since her stepmother had retired to her room and left Charlotte to fend for herself for the remainder of the evening. And so she'd gone to the kitchen to filch a few cream tarts, and picked out a book from the her father's shelves before climbing the stairs to her tiny room near the attic.
Now the tarts sat heavy in her stomach, and the book sat forgotten on a chair near the fire. And here she stood, gazing out a small, poorly glazed window that fogged beneath her breath as she counted down the days until her departure for her Wales.
Twelve days. And she said it again aloud, as if those words held the power to draw a path between herself and the moment she would arrive at the home of this Lord Lynley with his overwhelmed wife and their passel of children.
Of course, she did not have to go. It was something she told herself over and over again. She was not a child, though her passage into the realm of adulthood had not brought her any greater freedom with it. It was an easy thing, to pretend that she was no longer bound to any of her stepmother's demands. But what would happen to her if she were to leave? If she chose to forge her own road forward, she would be doing so with little more than the clothes on her back and the few coins she had in her reticule. And by rights, not even that much truly belonged to her.
She had considered looking for work. She was in possession of enough of an education that seeking employment as a teacher or a governess was not beyond her abilities. Or even a seamstress working in a dress shop, if it came to that. But she would need help in doing so, wouldn't she? No one would hire her off the street, and simply using her father's name as recommendation would only count against her, for how would it look for the oldest daughter of a marquess to be wandering the streets of London, seeking out employment like a common member of the working classes?
And Lady Alvord would never allow her to earn an income in exchange for her labor. Send her to Scotland to help with the running of the household? Journey on to Wales to serve as a companion and possible nursemaid to a large family? Easily borne, as long as Charlotte didn't earn a coin in exchange for her troubles. And so she was trapped, bound by the rules society set on gentlewomen, making it vulgar for them to earn their keep. But as a woman and, worse still, a fortuneless one, she had absolutely no power to do as she wished.
Charlotte leaned forward until her forehead thunked against the window. And there was Lord Cowden, hovering at the fringes of her thoughts. A man who would not consider marriage to her, would not even touch her for fear of ruining her. She should at least have felt some gratitude towards him for that much, but all it did was serve to remind her that her life, her choices, were not her own. Even should she want to risk destroying her reputation...
She pushed back from the window, cursing the very word. Her precious reputation, kept intact so that she might be bustled from place to place at Lady Alvord's whim, unsullied and pristine as she proceeded into a life of cold and passionless spinsterhood.
The floor creaked beneath her feet as she padded back towards the bed. She bent down, feeling in the dark for the slippers she'd kicked off before climbing beneath the covers several hours before. Without a real intention in mind, she began the routine of dressing herself, searching through the various drawers and her wardrobe for stockings, a clean shift, a sturdy gown that would keep her warm. Ignoring her stays, she put on a soft, wrapped corset, more like what she wore when not under her stepmother's critical eye. Plain boots went on her feet, and she reached into the back of her wardrobe for her warmest cloak, a grey wool creation that showed stains and fraying at the edges, but would succeed in keeping the warmth in and the damp of the early morning out.
Fully dressed, she stood in the middle of her bedroom, only then admitting her intended destination to herself. She knew where Lord Cowden lived, or at least the approximate neighborhood in which his townhouse stood. As she pulled on her gloves and grabbed her simplest bonnet, her breath caught at the sheer audacity of what she was about to do. She gave no thought as to what she would do once she arrived, if she could even find a means of traveling there, or of even being let into his house at this time of the day. But a lack of sleep had instilled a sense of daring into her, the same feeling that had driven her to climb into bed with Lord Cowden weeks before. Or perhaps she was mistaking the perceived courage for utter foolishness.
The corridor was dark, but not so dim that Charlotte could not see. She crept along slowly, keeping her feet on the narrow strip of rug that ran along the middle of the floor. The servants' staircase curved down a steep, bare set of steps, but she dared not risk the openness of the main stairs.
Down again and through the kitchen, and out the back entrance where she was faced with a small, cobbled courtyard that faced the mews. There would be no taking one of Lady Alvord's carriages without everyone in the household being alerted to her departure. And so she walked around to the front of the house, the noise of other traffic still moving about on other avenues reaching her ears.
It was not yet three in the morning, and she assured herself that a vast number of London society was still out and about, some of them not seeking their beds until sunrise. She left Bedford Square, her boots striking the pavement with a ring of confidence that had yet to instill itself in her bones. Another street along, and then another, and a row of cabs came into view, lined up outside another townhouse, the building's windows fully lit and the silhouettes of guests casting their shadows onto the street below.
She walked up to the first cab in the queue, her chin tilted upwards, her shoulders back. "Excuse me, sir. Are you for hire?"
The driver, a man with an abundance of whiskers on his face and a wide mouth that nestled like a cave behind them, rubbed his nose with the back of his hand before shifting his attention down to her. "For anyone who has the coins to pay, ma'am." He shifted on his seat behind the horses, but did not chase her off as she might have imagined. No matter that it was doubtful he was regularly approached in the middle of the night by unaccompanied ladies near Bedford Square.
"I have money." Charlotte produced a small, leather purse from within the folds of her cloak. "To St. James's Street?"
"Aye, I can take you there. And whereabouts are you headed, ma'am? D'ye have a specific destination in mind?"
She moved to step up into the cab, her heart pounding so quickly her ears had begun to ring. "Would you know where Lord Cowden lives, which house belongs to him?"
The driver sniffed, gave his nose another rough swipe, and spit over his shoulder onto the pavement below. "McCardell House, do you mean?" he asked, referring to the name the house had been christened with before Lord Cowden's family had earned its title.
"Yes," she said, giving her chin another lift, feigning a height and breadth to which she could not lay claim. "McCardell House. And I'll double the fare if you make haste."
The interior of the cab was cold, and the seats did nothing to spare her backside as they rumbled over every pothole and pile of refuse left behind by the other horses. Charlotte tucked her hands beneath her thighs and pressed her head back, squeezing her eyes shut until she saw spots and stars behind her eyelids. Such a fool, she thought, as she clenched her teeth and forced herself to breathe slowly. Though she did not know if she referred to only her own behavior, or if the insult extended to Lord Cowden as well.
His actions left her frustrated and infuriated in equal measure. To follow her down from Scotland, to call upon her stepmother, invite them to the theater, to tease her with comments about wanting her in his bed, wanting her as his wife, and then to snatch back the image he'd dandled before her eyes...
He'd confessed to needing her, that it was more than mere lustful attraction that had dragged him across the country in her wake. She did not want to allow herself to hope that he would offer marriage, and yet she did not want to force him into it, to make him feel that he was only shackling himself to her in order to save her the fate of being labeled either a mistress or a spinster. At the same time, she knew that a life with him would not always be an easy one.
There were demons in his head he had yet to conquer, if indeed he would ever conquer them entirely. She had not known him before the unfortunate fight during which he'd ended a man's life. But something had set him on a road to self-ruin even preceding that event, and she suspected there would always be some measure of a battle waged within himself, one fought to keep him from succumbing completely to whatever dark thoughts lurked in the corners of his mind.
The cab bounced to a halt much sooner than she anticipated. She glanced out the window at the building she assumed to be McCardell House, scanning its windows for any sign of life beyond the panes of glass. There was a dim glow from one of the rooms on the first floor, but nothing else. Pulling in another breath, she descended from the carriage, paid the promised fare, and marched up the steps to the front door.
And then... she hesitated. Past three in the morning, fully dressed and standing on the doorstep of a single man, with her reputation - what little she had of one - facing the threat of shredding to tatters if even a whisper of this pre-dawn jaunt became public. And now she found she could not raise her hand to ring the bell or even land a feeble knock on the massive panel of painted wood before her.
"Fool," she whispered to herself, and reached up to ring the bell.
Her mind was too awhirl with the riot of her thoughts to keep track of how many seconds ticked away as she stood there. She drew the edges of her cloak around herself, gazed up at the sky, and was just about to consider giving the bell another pull when a lock clicked and the door was opened three inches and no more.
A face stared out at her. The face belonged to an older man, his eyes narrowed beneath greying brows, a cap on his head and an indentation cutting a straight line across his face, such as one would get from resting on a pillow for some time.
"I'm sorry," she blurted out the moment she realized she'd pulled the man from his sleep. "Is Lord Cowden at home?"
The butler—she assumed it was the butler, though appearances could be deceiving—rolled one eye upwards as he ground his knuckles into the other eye. "May I inquire as to who is calling?" His voice, at least, presented a more polite contrast to the expression he still worked to clear from his face.
"Miss Claridge." Pride shot through her that she pronounced it without a stumble. A thought had flitted through her head, that she should've presented a false name, to better preserve herself from scandal, but she had gone so far now, why suffer under a sudden bout of squeamishness and attempt to hide? "Is he in bed?"
The butler made no immediate reply. He glanced behind him, his eyes narrowing again as he seemed to debate whether or not he should simply slam the door in her face. "You'll find him in the study," he finally told her, and opened the door wide enough for her to step inside. "Though I cannot promise you'll find him in a state to receive visitors."
She walked into the foyer, then up the stairs towards where the butler directed. He'd made no offer to relieve her of her bonnet or cloak, though she could not fault him for it. The man seemed determined to return to the bed she'd snatched him from, and seemed not to care whether she was an old friend of Lord Cowden's or a cutthroat determined to leave his body cold and his pockets empty.
Another thought struck her, that the butler didn't seem to find anything out of the ordinary about unaccompanied women knocking on Lord Cowden's door at all hours. But she tucked that curiosity away before it could nag at her too much and completed her trek to the top of the stairs.
Only one room on the first floor showed a partially open door, and with some amount of light spilling out into the hall. She slowed her steps as she approached, recalling the butler's warning about his master's current state. Did he mean that Lord Cowden was merely asleep? Or had be taken to drink again, and was even now inebriated and weaving across the carpet?
Charlotte paused in the doorway. There was the light from the fireplace, and a few candles set here and there, the accumulation of wax showing that they'd been left burning for several hours. Her gaze returned to the fire and there she saw the chair drawn up quite near to the grate, Lord Cowden slumped down with his chin on his chest, his legs stretched out before him as if he had been half-dragged from his seat and left partially sprawled on the floor.
Asleep, then. She searched the room for any evidence that he'd brought on his slumber with the aid of wine or something else, but there were no glasses in sight, nor there were any bottles or decanters set out in any obvious location.
A few steps forward, her shoes sounding lightly on the floor, but he did not stir. Emboldened, she moved to the side of his chair. She had not forgotten how he looked in sleep, how some of the years fell away from him when he was at rest. But there were new lines, she noticed. His brow was furrowed, even in slumber, and his jaw was clenched, the muscles corded in his neck down to his shoulder. Something disturbed him, some demon that he could not escape, and she found herself kneeling down beside him, her teeth tugging at her glove before she laid her bare hand across his forehead.
"Hartley," she whispered. She swept her fingers back into his hair, his skin and his scalp soaked with more sweat than what the warmth of the fire should have brought out of him. He grimaced at the sound of his name, his teeth clenching tighter as he groaned and attempted to twist away from her.
"Wake up, my lord." She moved so that she was in front of him, leaning over his lap. "Open your eyes and look at me."
He gasped as if frightened, but Charlotte slid her hand down, cupping his cheek in her palm until he blinked, his lashes flashing.
"Look at me," she instructed him, her fingers now gripping his jaw so that he could not turn away.
His eyes were wide, the white rimmed with red. His gaze darted about for several seconds before settling on her face.
"Have you been drinking?" She posed the question bluntly, her hand still on his chin.
He shook his head, and when he opened his mouth to speak, his voice cracked on the first syllable. "No," he said, continuing to shake his head. "Nothing."
"Good." She straightened up, removed her other glove, and fought with the ribbons of her bonnet before tossing that aside as well. "Why are you not in bed?" she asked as she slipped her cloak free from her shoulders. "Surely you cannot be comfortable in such a position."
The heels of his boots scraped on the floor as he struggled to push himself into something that vaguely resembled an upright position. But his eyes were bright, his expression showing tremendous weariness, though he showed no signs of having imbibed anything during the hours since they'd left the theater and her arrival at his home. "I prefer to sleep down here," he said, or growled, for as much as it resembled a human voice. He shifted again, leaning forward until his elbows rested on his knees, his head resting in his hands.
"Have you eaten?" She tried not to sound as brusque as before, but her attempt to lend some manner of cajoling to her voice warred with her worry at seeing him still battling the same difficulties that would not permit him to rest as had plagued him when she'd been with him at Ellesferth.
"I'm not hungry," he said, his head still down. He looked up quickly, blond eyebrows pinched together as if he were seeing her for the first time. "Jesus, woman. What are you doing here?"
She regarded the question for a moment, unsure if she could answer it with only a few words. "I wanted to see you." It was the simplest reply, and also the one nearest to the truth. She wanted to see him, to witness for herself if nighttime was still when he endured the most suffering. "I could not sleep, not knowing how you fared."
He pushed his hand through his hair, making it stick straight out from his head in some places. "How did you come here? I take it Lady Alvord has no idea you've traipsed halfway across London to foist yourself on a single gentleman's hospitality at..." He squinted up at the mantel. "What time is it?"
"A few hours before dawn," she supplied. "And no, my stepmother does not know I'm here. At least, I hope she doesn't. But she's a heavy sleeper and rarely rises before noon. I should be able to return long before she's even begun to stir."
He scooted forward in his chair, lifted one foot off the floor, and tugged at his left boot. "And that's all that's brought you here? Checking up on me and nothing more?" The first boot slid off and he dropped it onto the rug. As he reached for the other, he looked up at her, his green eyes narrowed slightly. "You'd risk everything, your entire future, on a midnight excursion?"
Charlotte watched as he removed the second boot, as he let it fall beside the first. He did not glance at her again, his attention drifting towards the fire—or what was left of it—instead. "For you," she said, regardless of whether or not he wished to acknowledge her. "Yes, I would."
His chair scraped backwards an inch as he pushed himself out of it. There he stood, in his stockinged feet, his shirt clinging to the perspiration on his chest. She couldn't read the look on his face, whether the set of his jaw was due to anger at her for being there, or exasperation with himself for not immediately calling for his carriage in order to send her home.
"You shouldn't be here."
Those four words, and nothing more. He did not directly tell her to leave, nor did he move from his place before the fire. Ignoring his comment, she took a single step forward, towards him.
"Why are you here?" she asked, turning his query around. "In London, calling at my home, inviting us to the theater. What is your intention? Or do I give you too much credit by assuming you even have one?"
He began to shake his head before she'd even finished speaking. "I don't... I don't know..." he said, and faltered.
"You do know." She picked up his fallen thread, moving forward another step. "I suspect you simply won't admit it to yourself. And so instead you wander from place to place, toying with other people's emotions, with their wants and desires, because you're too wrapped up in your own misery to see anything beyond what pertains to yourself."
He closed his mouth, his lips drawn into a thin line. "Your wants and desires?"
"Yes." She bit the word off quickly. "Despite who I am, how I'm treated by others, no matter that I am a woman—a penniless one, at that—that I am old enough to be regarded and summarily dismissed as a spinster, I do have them." She swallowed over a lump that had lodged itself in her throat. "No matter that you've gone and taken it upon yourself to decide how you'll make your mark upon my life, I still harbor some foolish dream that I'll be loved, and wanted, and appreciated." Another step, and then another. She was close enough to touch him, but she kept her hands firmly at her sides. "Now, before I turn around and leave you to your dark dreams and your melancholy, tell me why you left Scotland and why, for all your claims of unworthiness, you will not leave me be."
It was Lord Cowden who moved first, one hand reaching out as if to stroke her cheek. But before he touched her, his fingers near enough that Charlotte felt the warmth emanating from them, he stopped. And so she crossed the remainder of the distance herself, rising up to the balls of her feet as she propelled herself forward and against him.
He gave way without another moment's hesitation. As her mouth found his, as her thumbs grazed the dark stubble that decorated his jaw, he pulled her closer, nearly lifting her off her feet. She gasped at that, and then again as his tongue touched the edges of her lips. It was a continuation, she realized, from where they'd left off that morning so many weeks before, when she'd woken up in his bed.
But this time, there was a difference. It was still hours before sunrise, the servants all tucked into their rooms for the brief amount of time before their work would call them from their slumber. For now, there was no risk of being interrupted, nothing to stop them should they allow matters to follow their natural course.
Her hands moved around to the back of his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair. A voice in the back of her mind told her that she needed to put a halt to this. But as Lord Cowden's mouth traveled along the line of her jaw, as his tongue touched her earlobe before he kissed his way down to the collar of her gown, every coherent thought, every worry about her imminent departure for Wales and her stepmother's disapprobation should her visit here be discovered...
It all dissipated, like so much smoke into the ether.
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As mentioned earlier, I'm going ahead and posting the next two finished chapters as soon as this one is published. So read on and enjoy!
Quenby Olson