It was the foul odor of smelling salts that brought John to consciousness. His eyes flew open, and he made the grave mistake of inhaling. Blurgh. He retched and retched again. When his eyes focused, it wasn’t Charlotte who leaned over him, face filling his vision.
“Lady Luella? What’s happening?” She was not the person he wanted to see right now. Charlotte. Where was Charlotte?
“You swooned, Mr. Barnesworth.” The crowd around them tittered.
Damn. He remembered now. The room had been hot, and he’d been out of breath from running. The perfume had been cloying. Even now, as the scent of smelling salts dissipated, the sweetness of the air made him gag.
“Where is she?” he asked Luella, propping himself up on his elbows. If Charlotte had been in the room, she would be there.
“Good God, you’re both idiots,” Luella replied. “Lady Charlotte left an hour ago.”
He sat upright, the room spinning as he did so. “Where did she go?” Could he possibly track her down before his ship sailed?
“She went after you.”
He sighed. Damn. Charlotte had gone to the docks.
* * *
“Well, brother, what do we do now?” Charlotte asked as they stood on the wharf and looked out at the many, many ships in port. They all looked exactly the same to her, except for the flags that flew, and searching each of them for John would take more time than they had.
“We ask questions.” William rubbed his hands together. That was one thing the war hadn’t changed about him—he loved to be involved in mischief, and Charlotte racing to the docks to declare her love was exactly that.
She’d toyed with the idea of coming alone, but she knew John would be upset if she did. It was late and dark, and she was unfamiliar with the area, so she’d snuck back into Wildeforde House and begged Will to join her. Seeing men stumble and sway as they walked the wooden boardwalk was enough to assure her she’d made the right decision.
“What was the name of the ship?”
“The Lutetiana.”
“And it leaves at first light? Damn, Charlie. Could you not have come to your realization a few days ago?”
A few days ago, she’d been in self-imposed isolation, determined to fix the wrong problem. She’d been trying to see if she could change who she was rather than trying to make who she was fit new circumstances.
“I needed help to settle on the right decision. It came from the most unlikely of sources—you have no idea.” It weighed on her that she now owed Luella a debt. Even the recovery of Luella’s letters wouldn’t satisfy it, especially given Luella did not know of Charlotte’s involvement. At least in Boston, she wouldn’t have to face her nemesis again to say thank you. She shuddered at the horror of that prospect.
A group of men were stumbling down the wharf, singing a sea shanty, something about a sunny linguist that made her ears go hot. She swallowed before approaching them, waving her hand nervously.
They stopped, except for the man at the rear, whose voice continued the tune until he walked into the back of another.
“Excuse me, sirs. Do you know where the Lutetiana is stationed?”
The leery expressions directed her way made her thankful for Will’s presence. He was six feet and two inches of muscle at her back.
“It’s not anywhere at this end,” a grizzle-haired man said. “You might try further down.”
“Thanks, friend.” William put a hand on Charlotte’s shoulder and steered her away. “I think you’re daft,” he said as he tucked her arm into his and they strolled down the wharf, sticking as close as possible to the lamplight. “What are you going to do in Boston?”
“I’m going to do what I do here, hopefully. There’s bound to be some charities to work with—that will keep my days busy. John is going to have colleagues, so we’ll have them over. It won’t be to the scale of Edward’s political dinners, but I can still be a hostess even if I’ve only one cook and no footman to help me.”
Will leaned toward her, nudging her shoulder with his. “I’m going to miss you, Charlie. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.”
Charlotte tightened her grip on his arm and swallowed hard. Leaving Will and Ned would be the most difficult thing she’d ever done. All of her life, she had loved her brothers above all else. She had put her brothers above all else. After all, they were all each other had.
Except now Ed had Fiona, and she had John. Everything had changed and Will…Well, he would find someone too. He just needed to forgive himself first for whatever it was that haunted him.
“You’ll survive just fine without me,” she said. “You survived a real-life battlefield. You can certainly live without a meddling little sister.”
Will shook his head, chagrin crossing his face. “I shouldn’t have said that. That was undeserved. You do not meddle.”
Charlotte arched a brow.
“You do meddle, but with good intention.”
“Thank you, brother. And do not fret. It won’t take long for John and me to be settled and then you can come to stay as long as you like.”
He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. Another group of men approached. Will disentangled his arm from hers and went to speak with them. One man pointed farther down the dock.
“It’s that ship there,” Will said when he rejoined her.
“Right.” Charlotte strode in that direction, only slowing when she realized William couldn’t keep up. It was once they’d reached the pier that they realized there was no gangplank leading onto the ship. Only a handful of lights shone through the windows belowdecks, and the deck itself was empty.
William leaned over to study the breadth of water between them and the boat, holding his hand to his nose.
“Tell me, Charlie, do you love him enough to swim through that?”
The lamplight caught on the slimy film that covered the water. She held back a sudden heave of her stomach. “If I must,” she said weakly. “But I’d prefer to get their attention without taking a dip, if possible.”
William squatted and picked up a pebble, hefting it in his hand a few times before tossing it to her.
“You’re not suggesting I’m capable of hitting the boat with this?”
He grinned. “Surely, your love is powerful enough to give you the strength you need.”
She scowled, but then turned toward the water to lob the stone anyway. It didn’t make it even a third of the way across.
Will cocked his head. “Are you sure you love him?”
She had been praying for Will’s improvement for weeks. She simply wished his teasing hadn’t been the first part of his personality to return.
“You are a fiend. My love is very strong, thank you.” She reached down and examined the pebbles at her feet. Selecting one with a nice flat surface, she crouched, drew her arm back, and spun it across the river. It almost, almost, hit the ship.
True to form, Will saw her near success as a challenge and picked up his own stone and skimmed it. He hit the side of the boat, the stone making a quiet tap.
Charlotte’s heart thrummed, and she stood on tiptoes to scan for any sign of movement. There was nothing. Will’s efforts had gone unnoticed. She huffed, picked up another stone, and spun it. It reached farther this time; she saw a splash of water against the hull. She couldn’t help giving her brother a smug look.
Will’s next stone followed with a soft clunk of pebble against wood. Again, no one belowdecks noticed.
“Drat,” she said. “Maybe it is time to swim.” A rope ladder hung down the side of the ship. She eyed the river with apprehension.
“Or we wait here until the sunrise and we catch somebody’s attention then. It’s only a few hours away.” He slid down the lamppost and brushed the dirt from the ground next to him as best he could so that Charlotte could sit.
She did, folding her skirts and leaning her head against his shoulder. “I am going to miss you, brother. I love you and Ned so, so much, but I can’t spend the rest of my life being your sister first, and me second.”
“I know.” He entwined his fingers with hers and squeezed gently. Together they sat and watched the play of light on the lapping waves.
* * *
“Excuse me, miss. Miss?”
As Charlotte woke, the buzzing ballroom of her dream morphed into an unfamiliar hustle and bustle. Raising one hand to ward off the brightness, she cracked an eye open. There was a silhouette against the blue sky. A man’s figure looking down on her. Next to her, a body shifted.
“Damn you, Private. It’s too bloody early to be awake.” William’s blurred tone set everything rushing back to her: her race to find John. Their inability to make contact with his ship.
Putting a hand on Will’s shoulder, she shook him awake. “Brother.”
“Charlie?”
Leaving him to wake up and realize where he was on his own, she sat upright, adjusted her sleeves, smoothed her skirts, and tried to seem for all the world as though she were expecting to wake up on a London dock surrounded by strangers.
“My apologies, Mr.…”
“Captain,” he said sternly, reaching out a hand for her to grab hold of. “Captain Ainsley. Do you need one of my men to escort you to an inn where you can sleep off the aftereffects of your evening?”
A hot flush of embarrassment crawled over her. “No, thank you.” Around them, the dock was alive with activity. Men were carting trunks and crates down the pier, looking at her rather than where they were going, curious expressions on their faces. Thank goodness the ship was still loading.
“My apologies, Captain. This must seem rather unexpected. But I need to speak with one of your passengers before you set sail.”
“Well, you could have saved yourself an uncomfortable night’s sleep. We don’t leave for another day.”
Relief washed over her, all her muscles loosening, but only for the briefest second. “John—Mr. Barnesworth—said that you were leaving at dawn on the twelfth. It is the twelfth, is it not?”
She looked over the captain’s shoulder and her heart sank. There along the front of the bow was the ship’s name: the Sydney Jack. It had been too dark to see the ship properly last night. She hadn’t seen the words painted on it. Her gaze whipped to the river where several ships were already only a speck in the distance.
She grasped the captain’s hands. “The Lutetiana. Where is it docked?”
The captain extricated his fingers from hers, looking at her as though she had three heads. “It was docked about a hundred yards downriver.” The captain pointed to an empty pier. “But it departed an hour ago.”
The blood drained from Charlotte’s face as her heart sank. She stumbled backward. Only a steadying hand from the captain stopped her from tumbling off the pier and into the Thames.
She had come for John, and he didn’t know it. He’d left for America thinking that she’d chosen London and her life here instead of the life they could have built together.
The captain’s expression had shifted from patronizing to concerned. “Are you all right, miss? Can I have my men fetch you a glass of water?”
She shook her head, swallowing hard to hold back the tears. They could fall later, when she was alone.
Will took her elbow in his hand, a quiet reminder of his presence. She leaned against him, resisting the urge to turn into his chest and sob.
“It’s all right, Charlie,” he murmured. “He’s not dead. He’s just on a ship. You could write to him now and for all we know, your letter will arrive before he does.”
She nodded, her throat tight and painful. John had left an address in Boston that she could write to. She knew where he was going.
She knew where he was going.
“I don’t need to write,” she said, her throat straining at the words. “I need to bathe.” The stench of the Thames had seeped into her skin and her clothes overnight. “Then I need to pack my things. I’m going to America.”