If Charlotte could have found Braddock, she would have confronted him with the truth of what had happened between Lord James and Denbigh. But a note Charlotte penned to his London address early the next morning was returned unopened with a second note saying the duke had left London. All Charlotte’s efforts to locate Braddock over the next few days were futile. It was as though he had disappeared off the face of the earth.
Livy was disconsolate.
Lion felt vindicated.
Charlotte bided her time, waiting for Braddock to show his face in company. Unless he had gone back to India, and gossip did not suggest it, the man would have to turn up sooner or later. When he did, Charlotte would be waiting for him.
Meanwhile, the idea that there was more to Lady Alice’s story than she, or even Denbigh knew, niggled at her. She could not imagine how a woman who loved one man could end up in bed with another. Unless … unless Lord James had blackmailed Alice somehow. Or had got her drunk at a house party and taken advantage of her. Or made a bet with one of his cronies that he could have her and forced himself on her.
There were infinite possibilities, if one only had the imagination to think of them. Charlotte had a wonderfully vivid imagination … but absolutely no way of proving anything, since both of the parties involved were dead.
She was desperate to know the truth. Her whole life depended on it. And all because she was falling in love with a man who barely tolerated her. A man who was determined to change her into someone he could admire, as though Charlotte Edgerton, lately from America, was not an admirable person. She did not understand how it could have happened. It scared her to think she had no choice in the matter. The love was there. She could not seem to extinguish it.
The problem was, her heart had settled on someone incapable of loving her in return. The blasted man was convinced he could not trust himself to know real love when he saw it. After all, Denbigh believed he had been badly mistaken with Lady Alice. That betrayal made him chary of trusting another woman. Clearly, something had to be done to change his mind, or her love was doomed.
The simplest solution was to prove Lady Alice had loved Denbigh all along, and that some other provocation had resulted in her coupling with Lord James. Then, and only then, Denbigh might be willing to take the chance of loving someone else … of loving her. Then, and only then, could they have a chance of living happily ever after.
Of course, Denbigh had a few shortcomings that needed to be corrected in order to make him the perfect husband. Not that Charlotte needed a perfect husband, but Denbigh was so far from perfect, he had long way to go. He tended to be dictatorial at times. And stubborn as a mule. And set in his ways. While she searched for an answer to Lady Alice’s inexplicable behavior, she began working diligently to enlighten Denbigh to his faults, so he could correct them.
She attacked his resistance to change by constantly changing herself, and his tendency to order her around by not kowtowing to his ultimatums. The stubborn part would give way, she believed, as the other two faults were mended.
She began with small changes, like a bow in her hair.
At first she thought he might not even notice, but at supper he said, “You look thirteen, Charlotte. Bows are for lapdogs and children.”
“Bows are for anyone who wants to wear them,” she countered.
“Social custom decrees—”
“That is your first mistake,” she said. “Who makes up social custom? Why, it is all of us! So all we have to do is suit ourselves, you see, and the customs will change to suit us.”
He took a sip of port, set down his glass, folded his hands in front of him—to keep from reaching for her throat?—and said, “If you wish to defy custom and wear a bow in your hair, you are the one who will suffer the consequences.”
“Exactly!” she said, rewarding him with a smile for having been so clever as to figure that out. “And since I am perfectly happy with my bow, where is the harm?”
Once he began accepting small changes without protest, she tried something a bit more dramatic. She got the idea from her new maid, Sally, who said, as she was brushing Charlotte’s waist-length hair one night before bed, “You should think about cutting off all this long, heavy hair. It is all the rage now for a lady to have her hair trimmed into a small cap of curls around her face.”
When the deed was done, Charlotte was a little shocked at how different she looked. “Oh, Sally. Maybe this was not such a good idea.” She felt a spasm of remorse as she looked down at all the golden locks that lay fallen around her.
“You look a pretty sight, I promise you,” Sally said.
Charlotte reached up to touch her shorn head, amazed at how the curls framed her face and made her eyes look bigger. “Maybe you are right. The question is, will the earl feel the same?”
She decided not to wear a bow in her hair when she presented herself to the earl for the first time with her new haircut. That would be adding insult to injury. She put on a charmingly innocent sprigged muslin day dress, with capped sleeves and a high, square neck, and a feminine flounce at the hem, of which she knew he would approve.
“Are you busy?” she asked, as she stuck her head inside the study, where he was working.
“You forgot to knock, Charlotte,” he reminded her without looking up from the papers he was perusing at the desk.
Charlotte stepped inside, closed the door behind her, and knocked on it. “May I come in?”
“I’m busy, Charlotte.”
“I won’t take much of your time.” She kept waiting for him to look up, wanting to see his reaction to this change in her appearance. But he was determinedly focusing on the work before him.
She crossed to the desk. Eyed the spindly legs to gauge if they would hold her. And sat on the edge.
“That’s what chairs are for, Charlotte,” he said, an annoyed edge in his voice, still purposefully ignoring her.
She settled farther onto the desk.
He threw down his quill and looked up.
It was hard to tell, from the expression on his face, whether he liked what he was seeing. She tried a smile, to see if that would help him make up his mind.
“Charlotte!” he roared. “What have you done to your hair?”
He was on his feet and had snatched her off the desk by her shoulders before she knew what had happened. At first she thought he was going to shake her, like a terrier shakes a rat, but once he had hold of her, his grip merely tightened.
“It’s all the crack,” she said brightly.
“Social custom dictates—” He cut himself off.
At least he had learned that lesson, Charlotte mused.
“What possessed you to do such a thing?” he demanded.
She could not very well admit that she had done it merely to help him learn to accept change, rather than always fighting it. Changing herself to make a point was fine. But she wanted to be attractive to Denbigh, as well. Cutting off all her hair had obviously been a serious error. The expressions most apparent on his face were dismay and disapproval.
“You don’t like it,” she said, her chin quivering. “To be honest, I could have cried when I saw all those curls on the floor. In fact, I think I might cry now.”
His gaze softened, or maybe it was only that she was seeing him through a blur of tears.
“You are never predictable, Charlotte. I will grant you that.”
“It will grow back, Lion. I won’t always look like this,” she said woefully.
His lips curved in a tender smile. “You look charming just as you are.” His hands left her shoulders and sifted into the curls at her nape, causing a shiver to roll down her spine. He angled her head upward and lowered his mouth.
The kiss was unexpected.
That is, she had not come into the study looking for it. But he gave her plenty of warning before his lips touched hers. She could have backed away. She could have told him that kisses were only going to complicate the situation. Or reminded him that kisses between unmarried couples in broad daylight were strictly forbidden by social custom.
But if he was willing to ignore social custom, who was she to argue?
This kiss was different from the first, or even the second. She was not sure exactly why, unless it had something to do with the change in her feelings for Denbigh.
Or a change in his feelings for her.
This kiss was hungry. His mouth claimed hers like a lover’s would, and his tongue probed the seam of her lips, demanding admittance.
She let him in.
He gathered her up in his arms and held her tight enough that she could feel the strength of his shoulders and his pounding heart.
Nothing had prepared her for the feelings inside her. Not only the physical reactions—the melting knees, the thready pulse, the difficulty breathing—but the emotional tumult of knowing she was being held by the man she loved, and that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.
His tongue was wet and warm and welcome.
The feel of his large hand cupping the underside of her breast briefly distracted her from what he was doing to her with his mouth and teeth and tongue. When he brushed her nipple with his thumb, she was frightened by the intensity of the sensation. She would have pulled away, except he soothed her fears with murmured words that made no sense, but offered reassurance.
As his warm hand closed completely around her breast, she groaned and arched toward him. His other hand slid down to her buttocks and pulled her close. She did not know why it felt so good, only that it did. His body was hot and hard, and rubbing herself against him, even through layers of cloth, produced pleasure she had never imagined. She did what came naturally, and produced the results that nature had intended.
The male hand that had been cupping her buttocks, encouraging her to move against him, suddenly held her still. “Wait,” Lion rasped. “Stop.”
She pushed against him, nudging the hard part of him with her body, trying to find the exact way to press herself against him that would produce the wonderful sensations.
Abruptly he separated them. “We have to stop,” he said in a harsh voice.
She looked at him and saw his eyes were heavy-lidded, his lips full, his body taut. He was aroused, and for some reason she did not understand, angry.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“This. This is wrong,” he said, letting go of her entirely, taking a step back, and shoving a frustrated hand through his hair. Apparently even that was not enough distance, because he turned and paced away from her.
“Damn and blast, Charlotte! Whenever I get near you, I seem to lose all sense of common decency. I have no business kissing you, because I have no intention of marrying you!”
Charlotte did not know what to say. She did not want to marry him, either, if he could not love her. And as she was quickly coming to realize, love and desire were not at all the same thing.
“I only wanted to show you my hair,” she managed to say past an aching throat.
“It’s fine,” he snapped. “Now, if you don’t mind, I want to be alone to finish my work.”
She retreated. But only so she could muster her forces to begin the fight again.
After Denbigh’s lapse of control in the study, she noticed he was careful never to be closeted alone with her. If she came into a room where he was by himself, he left. He invited his grandparents to join them. And his sister.
Which was a good thing, because Olivia needed the company.
As the days turned into a full two weeks with no word from Braddock, Charlotte watched the light die in Livy’s eyes. The butterfly who had emerged from her chrysalis under Braddock’s admiring eye, folded her wings and transformed herself into … a mouse. Not an easy feat, when one considered the biology involved.
But the resemblance to a mouse was definitely there. Livy wore browns and grays. She peeked around corners before entering rooms. She never spoke without being spoken to. Even in company, she was quiet … as a mouse.
Charlotte damned Braddock aloud every chance she got for disappearing without a word, but Olivia also felt the lash of her tongue.
Things came to a head one morning when Olivia joined Charlotte in her bedroom to share hot chocolate and toast, while Sally tried out another original creation with Charlotte’s hair.
“Braddock is not the only handsome man in the world,” Charlotte railed.
“He’s the only one for me,” Olivia replied calmly.
Charlotte whipped around to challenge Olivia and nearly pulled the curling iron out of her maid’s hands.
“Sit still, Charlie,” Sally said. “Otherwise I’m going to end up either searing your scalp or yanking your hair out by the roots.”
In the mirror, Charlotte saw Olivia shake her head in dismay, but whether it was because she encouraged her maid to speak to her as an equal, or because Charlotte was lecturing Livy again about Braddock, she didn’t know.
Charlotte examined herself in the mirror. Her head was covered in tiny golden ringlets. “This new arrangement looks awfully … curly,” she remarked to Sally.
“That is what generally occurs when one uses a curling iron,” Sally replied.
“What do you think, Livy?” Charlotte asked. “Do you think your brother will like it?”
“I doubt Lion will notice the difference,” Olivia replied.
Charlotte scowled. “How could he miss noticing this?” she said, pointing to her head. “I look like Medusa with a headful of golden snakes.”
“Give me a chance to finish before you complain,” Sally said.
Charlotte stuck her elbows on the dressing table and dropped her chin in her hands. “It’s useless. He’s hopeless.”
“Who is hopeless?”
“Lion. Who else have I been speaking about?”
“Braddock,” Livy said.
“Speaking of Braddock,” Charlotte said, perfectly willing to change the subject, “I wish you would stop moping over the man.”
“I don’t notice any difference in my behavior,” Livy said.
Charlotte snorted. “What happened to having hopes and dreams?”
“I have accepted my lot in life, that’s all.”
“Accepted your lot? What does that mean?”
“I know I will never marry.”
“What about Braddock?” Charlotte asked.
“Braddock is gone. He and lion … with the enmity between them … it would never have worked.”
“What I don’t understand,” Charlotte raged, furious that Olivia seemed determined to go back into her hidey-hole and remain there the rest of her life, “is why you didn’t tell Braddock that Lord James had compromised Lady Alice the first time you had the chance!”
Livy had just taken a swallow of chocolate. She choked when she tried to speak before she had swallowed it. “How …?” She set down her cup, coughed and choked and coughed again.
Charlotte jumped up from her seat in front of the mirror, leaving Sally standing alone with a hot curling iron, and pounded Olivia on the back.
“Are you all right?” Charlotte asked.
“How—did you—find out?” Olivia gasped between coughs.
“Oh. I figured it out from clues Lion gave me. First he said he had a good reason for killing Lord James. Then he confessed that Alice had betrayed him. I simply put one and one together and got … two men dueling.”
“Do you know all of it?” Olivia asked.
Charlotte tsked. “Now, Livy, what sort of question is that? If I didn’t already know it all, I would certainly know there was more I should ask about.”
Olivia flushed. “I cannot believe Lion told you … everything. What happened was so terrible … and so sad.”
Charlotte took Olivia’s hands in hers. “He told me Alice was carrying Lord James’s child when she died.”
“I could hardly believe it myself when I heard,” Olivia whispered.
“Why didn’t you tell Braddock what you knew?” Charlotte asked. “It might have helped him to understand why your brother challenged Lord James to a duel in the strange way he did. Why Lion did not want the world to know the real reason he killed James. That if the truth were exposed, it would only hurt more innocent people, including Braddock himself.”
“I stayed silent,” Olivia said, “because I was Fool enough to believe an explanation was not necessary. I believed Braddock wanted me badly enough to take me no matter what Lion had done. I realize my folly, now that it’s too late.”
“When Braddock returns, you’ll have a chance to make amends,” Charlotte promised. “What puzzles me is why Lady Alice betrayed your brother with Lord James. You must have seen Lion and Alice together, Livy. Did it seem to you that she loved him?”
Olivia’s lips pursed. “I am not the one to be asking. I thought Braddock cared for me, and look how wrong I was about that.”
“You were not wrong about Braddock,” Charlotte insisted. “He has simply gone away on business somewhere. I expect him to show up at the door any day.
“But let us put that aside for a moment and go back to Lady Alice. Do you believe she loved Lion?” Charlotte asked.
“She did.”
The voice that answered was not Olivia’s. Both women turned to look at Sally, who was standing by the mirror, still holding the curling iron, her eyes brimming with tears.
Charlotte rose to her feet. “Sally, did you know Lady Alice?”
“I was her maid. I was with her that day … the day she … I was there when the earl found her.”
Olivia’s face blanched. “How could you have ended up here, working in his house, where he might see you and be reminded of … of her?”
Sally let the curling iron fall on the dressing table and dropped her bulk to her knees in front of Charlotte. “Please, Lady Charlotte, don’t throw me out into the street. I didn’t know the earl lived here at first, and when I found out, I had no place else to go.
“I have tried not to let him see me, but even so, we crossed paths once. Only, he did not seem to know me. Please don’t send me away, I beg of you.”
“Up off your knees, Sally,” Charlotte said. “It’s no place for a woman unless she’s sitting beside her husband at the fireplace or scrubbing floors.”
“I’ll scrub floors,” Sally babbled. “I’ll do anything—”
“Stubble it,” Charlotte said.
Sally closed her mouth.
“She has to go, Charlie,” Olivia said. “She simply cannot stay.”
“Why not?” Charlotte said. “You’ve already heard her say that Lion did not recognize her.”
“That does not mean he won’t in the future,” Olivia said. “And be distressed by her presence.”
“Sally was not to blame for what happened,” Charlotte said. “I don’t see why she should be made to suffer any more than she already has. Imagine losing your position because your mistress—”
“That will suffice, Charlie,” Olivia interrupted.
Charlotte turned a speculative eye on the maid. “And Sally may know Lady Alice’s reasons for what she did.”
Olivia looked thoughtful. “Perhaps you have a point.” She directed her gaze at Sally. “You said Lady Alice loved my brother. How do you know?”
“Oh, she said so many times, milady.”
Charlotte frowned at Sally for using the more formal address, but it appeared the maid was taking no chances of offending Olivia.
“Then why did she take up with Lord James?” Charlotte asked.
“I cannot tell you.”
“But you know?” Charlotte asked excitedly.
Sally nodded. “It was told to me in confidence by my lady. She made me swear on the cross she wore about her neck that I would tell no one. And I have not.” She straightened her shoulders and said, “I have kept her secret as I promised, milady, even from the earl.”
“Damn and blast!” Charlotte said. “What a coil!”
“Yes,” Olivia agreed. “Quite.”
“What are we going to do now?” Charlotte said to Olivia as she paced the room, her curls bouncing. She flung a hand toward Sally. “Here is the one person with the answers to all our questions, and she cannot tell them to another living soul for fear of eternal damnation. What are we to do?”
“A promise made on a cross is inviolable,” Olivia said glumly.
“I know,” Charlotte said. “But maybe I can come up with some way around it, if I think about it long enough.” She turned to Sally and said, “I don’t suppose you would consider breaking your vow.”
“I cannot,” Sally said. “Even if you threaten to kick me out in the streets,” she added, to show how hopeless any possibility of learning the truth was.
Charlotte sighed. “At least we know a little more now than we did before.”
“We do?” Olivia said.
“We know for certain that Lady Alice loved your brother. Which means we know for certain that Lord James used some sort of coercion to have his way with her.”
“We have no proof of any of that,” Olivia said.
“We have Sally.”
“She’s not talking,” Olivia pointed out.
“But Lord James may have,” Charlotte said. “All we have to do is find out who his friends were and ask them a few questions.”
“We can’t do that!” Olivia protested.
“Why not?”
“Because when we begin asking questions, people will begin to ask why we are asking questions. What happened to Lady Alice was a tragedy. If more were known, it would create a scandal.”
“We’ll be discreet,” Charlotte promised.
“I could help,” Sally offered.
“How?” Charlotte asked.
“I’m not sure,” Sally said. “But if you need to know anything that I did not promise to keep secret, I will be glad to tell it to you.”
“Thank you, Sally,” Charlotte said. She turned to Olivia and said, “Just think, Livy, if Lion could be made to see that Lady Alice did not willingly betray him, his memories of her might be less painful. He might become a less bitter man.”
“That is a goal worth trying to achieve,” Olivia conceded. She took a sip of her chocolate and made a face when she discovered it was cold. She set her cup aside and said, “All right, Charlotte. I’ll help you.”
“You won’t be sorry, Livy,” Charlotte promised. “And don’t worry. We’ll be subtle. And sly. No one will even suspect us of interrogating them.”