by Tessa Dare
“Pretense?”
“There’s no spider, and I know it.”
Charlotte’s shoulders sank. “You do?”
Mrs. White smiled. “My dear, you were correct. We do have something in common. I, too, know what it is to be young and confused. Wondering if you’ll ever meet a soul who understands the desires in your heart.”
“Really?”
Charlotte held her breath. Never mind the bonnet or the hair. Perhaps the woman was going to confess. This was going better than she’d dared to hope.
“There are many like us,” Mrs. White continued. “So many more than you’d think. You needn’t feel alone. I can’t say it will be easy, but there are ways to follow your heart.”
“What ways?”
“You could follow my example, marry an older man. Just a few years of submitting to his”—she cleared her throat—“attentions gave me a lifetime of security and freedom. My darling Emmeline, on the other hand . . . Well, the dear thing couldn’t countenance the prospect of marriage. She went straight into service. We took different paths, but somehow we found each other.”
Charlotte frowned in confusion. “But Mrs. White—”
“Oh, we can’t attend balls and picnics together. But in our own home, no one troubles us. We’re happy. You will find that happiness, too.” The widow pressed a fingertip over Charlotte’s lips. “You are a lovely young lady. So pretty and lively. There will come a day when you needn’t resort to imaginary spiders. Save your kisses for someone else.”
Save her kisses?
Her kisses.
“Oh, dear.” She forced a little laugh. “Mrs. White, I do beg your pardon. I think I’ve been misunderstood.”
“It’s all right. I’m rather flattered, truly. And I’d never dream of telling a soul.”
With a genuine, sympathetic smile, Nellie White turned and walked back toward the picnic gathering.
Well.
Charlotte was left to stand there, blinking at the Nottinghamshire landscape and absorbing the enormity of her foolishness.
She still hadn’t learned the color of Mrs. White’s hair, but apparently it didn’t matter. The widow wasn’t interested in the company of men.
Her investigation had reached another blind end.
Had she missed someone else on the list of guests? Had the perfume shopkeeper lied about the dark hair? Her deductions must have gone wrong somewhere.
So unspeakably frustrating.
Everything hung in the balance. Her reputation, the Grand Tour with Delia . . . the entirety of her future. And yet, Charlotte was most disappointed simply because she’d gotten it wrong.
Her talents didn’t make for impressive exhibitions. She wasn’t an artist like Delia, or a scientific scholar like her sister Minerva. Foolish as she imagined it would sound to others—in particular, to Piers—solving this mystery had taken on deeper meaning for her. It was her chance to claim an accomplishment. With each suspect she’d crossed off her list, she’d felt herself closer to the moment where she could stand back and say, “I did that.”
And now, it seemed, she hadn’t done anything. Except waste a great deal of effort and time, and further damage a treasured friendship. Her entire visit in Nottinghamshire had been one mistake heaped on another.
For the first time all fortnight, a sense of true despair came over her. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.
In a week’s time, all her foolish errors would be exposed to the world. She had only a few days remaining.
What was she even doing here? She should return to spend the afternoon with Delia, before Delia stopped speaking with her at all.
Chapter Thirteen
After completing what seemed like an hour-long, painfully audible stream of urination, Sir Vernon buttoned his falls and stepped out from behind the tree, tugging on his tweed waistcoat.
“Nothing like a good ride to hounds to get the bodily humours flowing. Eh, Granville?”
Piers completed his unnecessary inspection of his gelding’s girth and saddle. “Pity the hunt was for naught.”
“Oh, it’s never for naught. No, no. It’s not the fox we’re after. It’s the chase. The thrill. We sportsmen can’t live without it, can we? Feeds one appetite as surely as it works up another.” He gave Piers an elbow in the ribs. “Now let’s turn our sights to prettier quarry, shall we? The ladies will be waiting for us on the hill. There’s a vixen there you should be chasing. I understand Miss Highwood made the ride out, even though Delia wouldn’t. She must want to share a picnic with a certain gentleman.”
Piers thought about Charlotte waiting with the ladies on the hill. Her golden hair coming loose, her cheeks pink from exercise, and her eyes the same bright, clear blue as the sky. He thought about sitting next to her, accepting morsels of cheese and meat from her fingertips, and watching her suck the juice from a ripe, red berry.
He thought about pushing her back on that picnic blanket to taste those berry-stained lips.
And then he thought better of the entire plan.
Even though Sir Vernon saw him as a fellow gentleman of leisure, Piers had a task to complete. He couldn’t let pass the opportunity to have Parkhurst Manor to himself for a period of some hours. At last, he could get to opening those locked drawers in the library.
In the grand scheme of his career, this was an insignificant assignment. But to Piers, it had become vital. He needed to prove to himself that he could still carry out his role. Because if he couldn’t . . . ? All the shame and guilt he’d been outrunning for the past twenty years would catch up to him.
He would die inside.
“Thank you,” he said, “but I’ll ride back to the manor. I must see to some correspondence. If I mean to announce the engagement before the end of my visit, the betrothal contracts need to be settled.”
Sir Vernon gave a deep belly laugh. “I never met the female mind what was wooed by contracts. You need to pass some time with the girl, Granville. Our fox might have run to ground today, but you can’t have Miss Highwood doing the same.”
Piers began to reply, but the older man interrupted.
“Now, now,” he said, in a manner of confidentiality. “You’re a man of tremendous achievement. No one can dispute that. But if Miss Highwood changed her mind about the wedding, we both know that wouldn’t be without precedent. Your previous would-be bride slipped away.”
Piers bristled at Sir Vernon’s implication. Clio had not “slipped away.” Piers had stayed away from her, and for good reason. Her safety had depended on Piers keeping his distance, and who could have known the war would drag on so long? In any event, their betrothal had been a friendly arrangement between families, not a love match. He didn’t blame her for seizing happiness with Rafe.
To be sure, Piers hadn’t rushed to find a bride that first season back in London. Nor the second. He’d been occupied. Much too busy for courtship, or even for casual affaires. If he had wished to marry, however, he would have had his choice.
“Miss Highwood,” he said, “will not be slipping away.”
“Good. Good. I hope you won’t fault me for asking, Granville. Deserved or not, the girl has a bit of a reputation. You did an honorable thing in offering for her. I’d merely like to be assured that you’ll have this settled by fortnight’s end. I’ve my own daughters to think about, and I wouldn’t want any hint of scandal landing on them.”
This struck Piers as a strange concern, coming from a man who was, by all available evidence, embroiled in a scandal of his own making.
“I give you my word,” Piers said tightly. “The engagement will be secured.”
“Just don’t neglect her. The ladies like a bit of chasing.” Sir Vernon clapped him on the back. “That’s a sport.”
As he headed back to Parkhurst Manor, Piers was met by an arresting sight.
Charlotte, riding overland toward him on horseback. Just as he’d imagined her in his fantasy—her golden hair streaming behind her, her complexion bright, her blu
e eyes . . .
Closed?
As he got a better look, he noticed her desperate grip on the horse’s mane. Her terrified expression. No doubt as to why.
The mare was headed directly for the stream. The stream that was nearly a river this time of year, with high, mossy banks on either side.
It was a jump that would have challenged even a seasoned horseman, and nothing about Charlotte’s white-knuckled, eyes-closed, breakneck approach to the obstacle said “seasoned.”
It said “inexperienced” and “idiotic” and “dangerous as hell.”
“Miss Highwood!” he called, nudging his own gelding into a trot—and then, as soon as possible, a full-speed gallop.
But it wasn’t any use.
There simply wasn’t enough ground between her and the stream.
He wouldn’t reach her in time. He couldn’t.
There was nothing he could do.
His heart thudded in his chest, drumming even louder than the hoofbeats pounding the mud.
“Charlotte!” Even his shout died in his throat, ineffectual.
It was rare that he experienced the sensation of true helplessness. In fact, he couldn’t recall feeling it since he’d been a boy of seven years old.
He’d known even then, he didn’t like it.
He’d resolved to never, ever feel that way again.
And here he was, watching Charlotte Highwood race toward disaster, powerless to do anything but watch.
The mare, it turned out, didn’t want to make the jump any more than Charlotte did.
The horse skidded to a halt on the far bank. Charlotte, however, kept moving. The momentum catapulted her over the horse’s head in a cartwheel of dark velvet and golden hair. She landed headfirst in the stream, making a prodigious splash.
Piers pulled his gelding to a halt. He held his breath, waiting for her to emerge onto the bank.
An eternity passed in every heartbeat. Emotions exploded inside him like buried grenades. Anger, confusion, fear, despair. Everything he’d sworn to never feel again.
His mind shattered into bleak fragments, and each one was edged in blood.
She’s hit her head on a rock. She’s broken her neck. She’s drowned.
She’s gone, she’s gone.
You can’t do anything.
She’s gone.
A few moments ago, Charlotte would have said she’d rather be anywhere other than on the back of that dratted horse.
She would have been wrong.
Being on the dratted horse was better—marginally—than hurtling through the air like a cannonball.
And both those things were better—considerably—than being plunged headfirst into a swift, icy stream.
The water helped break her fall, and she was lucky enough to avoid striking her head—but she banged her shoulder hard against the rocky bank. The emerald-green velvet riding habit she’d been so enamored with in the London dressmaker’s shop acted like a sponge, soaking up all the water in Nottinghamshire, it seemed.
Within the space of a moment, she was disoriented, chilled, swollen to twice her size, and generally feeling like a drunken whale.
Eventually she managed to get a foot under her, brace it against a stone, and flex her leg muscles enough to stand.
She drew a gasping breath.
Then the moss made her slip, and she lost all the ground she’d gained, finding herself submerged to her ears once again.
The rushing water carried her downstream, introducing her to a boulder with a helpful smack.
Ouch.
In retaliation, she clung to the rock with both hands, using it to catch her breath. She’d stopped drifting, but she wasn’t gaining any ground, either. And the water was chilling her further by the second. Her fingers began to numb, and her legs felt heavy.
She would have to make her escape soon, or she’d end up floating all the way to the sea.
She braced her feet beneath her, flexed her arms, and made a lunge for the bank.
Her fingers scrabbled and slid over loose rocks and clumps of turf. The stream’s current tugged at her skirts, tangling them into a knot about her legs. She kicked to little avail, struggling for the leverage to push herself out.
She dug her fingernails into the dirt.
Come on then, Charlotte.
A large, gloved hand gripped her wrist.
The hand’s owner pulled her out.
She emerged from the water slowly. Not by choice, but by necessity. The sparkling green velvet had become a choking mat of seaweed. Her hair was plastered to her face in stringy clumps, obscuring her vision.
And it made perfect, tragic sense when she made her ungainly collapse on the grassy bank, parted the slimy curtains of her hair, and blinked away the remaining river water to take a look at her rescuer to find—
Piers.
“Of course,” she muttered between labored breaths. “Of course it’s you.”
“You don’t seem happy about it.”
She looked down at herself. There was no fetching mermaid or selkie to be found in this scene. No painted Ophelia, clasping her hands at her breast as the waters claimed her with poetic dignity. Charlotte looked as though she’d been tied to the keel of a ship, dredged up and down the Thames a few times, and then left to the eels and barnacles for a year or two.
And he was gorgeous, naturally. Not a knight in shining armor, but as close as a modern girl could find to it. He practically gleamed in his fitted black riding coat, buckskin breeches, polished Hessian boots, and a cravat of crisp white.
His hair was perfect.
It all made her suddenly, irrationally vexed.
“Are you injured at all?”
“I’m fine.”
He offered a hand. “Let me help you stand.”
“I don’t need help. Just leave me be.”
“I will not leave you be. You were thrown from a horse and nearly drowned. You’re chilled, alone, possibly injured, and your mount is on the other side of the stream.”
“Thank you, my lord, for recounting every facet of my mortification so efficiently.”
She pushed herself to her feet, plucking clumps of moss from her riding habit.
His tone gentled, and he put a hand to her waist. “Charlotte. Allow me to—”
She bristled way from him. “I can’t. It’s what she expects, don’t you see?”
“What who expects?”
“Frances. She hates me. She gave me that demonic horse.”
Charlotte flung an arm in the direction of Lady. The dappled gray mare was currently chewing clover in a picture of rustic tranquillity.
“Well, she looks harmless now. But I tell you, she’s possessed.”
“Yes, I saw,” he said.
“I know you did.” She disentangled a dead leaf from her hair.
Charlotte knew she was being churlish, but she couldn’t help it. Everything had gone all wrong. She’d abandoned Delia. She’d discovered a critical error in her investigating. She’d made unwanted romantic advances toward a local widow. Now she had little hope of ever finding the mystery lovers, and even if she could—it wouldn’t matter how long she traveled the world. Women like Frances would never let her live down the Desperate Debutante. They would keep needling, keep whispering about her, even if—no, especially if—she appeared in London married to Piers. Charlotte told herself she shouldn’t care about gossips, but it was all so demoralizing.
“Let’s return to the manor. We can both ride on my gelding.”
“I’ll walk.” She set about wringing the excess water from her skirt. “I can just imagine Frances’s ire if she thinks I landed shrieking at your feet and forced you to come to my aid.”
“No one forces me to do anything.”
“They don’t need to. You do it to yourself.” She huffed a sigh, exasperated. “Piers, I’m not accomplished. My dowry is small. My connections are fathoms beneath yours. You’ve never needed to treat me like a respectable lady. Look around you. No o
ne else does.”
“You,” he said, taking her by the shoulders, “will be a lady. My lady. I will treat you with the respect that title deserves. As will Miss Frances Parkhurst, her friends, the entirety of the ton, the Royal Court, and anyone else who wishes to avoid my extreme displeasure.”
By the hint of barely concealed violence in his voice, Charlotte wondered if his “extreme displeasure” involved sharp edges or blunt objects.
“Why?” She searched his face. “And don’t answer me with that nonsense about wanting and desire. At the moment, I must look about as desirable as pile of wet rags.”
He glanced down at her body and raised a brow. “You’d be surprised.”
She gave him a damp, ineffective thump in the shin and tried to wriggle away.
His grip tightened on her arms.
“Let me go,” she insisted, almost shouting.
His reply was every bit as angry. “I can’t.”
She looked up at him, breathing hard.
“I can’t let you go, Charlotte. I couldn’t that first night in the library. I most assuredly as hell won’t let you walk away from me now.”
His hands framed her face. Not tenderly, but with impatient force. She couldn’t have turned away if she’d wanted to.
He searched her face with a penetrating gaze. “It wasn’t enough for you to invade my thoughts, was it? Oh, no. You had to get under my skin, as well. Sometimes I think you’ve found a way into my blood.”
The dark note of anger in his voice intrigued and aroused her. His gloved thumbs pressed against her cheeks.
“And now you have the temerity to demand I let you go. It’s too late for that, darling. It’s done.” He released her face. “And I’m done discussing it.”
Without another word, he plucked her off her feet—heavy, waterlogged velvet and all—and lifted her up on his horse. Then he mounted behind her, lashed one arm around her waist, and spurred his mount into a canter, carrying her off into the countryside. As if they were characters in some demented fairy tale.
The Prince and the Sea Monster.
Chapter Fourteen