Charlotte gazed blankly at the floor, pressing the heel of her hand to her forehead. Trying to deal with her mother"s vagaries these days was almost as hard as dealing with her father"s demands. Too many crystal expectations. And far too many encased in shadow.
Father would yell that explanations were for the weak. That she should always know what to do. That she needed to be perfect.
But Father wouldn"t be back until the morning, so she had a respite before she received her castigation about her lack of ducal offers. Or her failure to entice the marquess that eve.
Every time she had thought of anything marriage-related, though, the balloon had simply extended. Knuckles bathed in blood and light eyes dark with promise pus.h.i.+ng into her thoughts instead.
Why she would be thinking such things was the question foremost on her mind. For she was used to her father"s threats and her mother"s apathy and cutting remarks. No reason to feel the need to rebel now. Perhaps just knowing the end was near . . . but, no, she needed to keep to the plan. Nothing could go wrong as long as the Chatsworths followed the plan. As long as her father didn"t do something stupid.
As long as she didn"t.
Her fingers brushed a bright swath of pink fabric that had been placed over the banister rail, forgotten by its owner two weeks past, finally sorted from the rack to be returned to an armoire above stairs. Charlotte pulled her fingers along the pink. Perhaps she could ask . . . yes. The thought brought a smile to her lips. One that didn"t pull or hurt. Her schedule could be rearranged surely for a few days next week?
An abrupt banging interrupted her forming plans.
She turned to see her father stumble inside, brus.h.i.+ng off the butler"s helping hands.
"Let go of me," he roared, eyes bloodshot. The butler"s face remained stoic as he closed the door and stood to the side, waiting.
Charlotte swallowed, fingering the pink fabric. She couldn"t remember the last time her father had returned home for the night.
He looked up, his eyes meeting hers, rage in their depths. She froze-surely news of her lack of success that night had not circulated so quickly? She bowed her head, pretending deference, watching his physical movements for any sign of his emotional state, which might indicate how she should respond. The shaking of his hands seemed to indicate some sort of personal devastation.
"Girl, follow me. Now," he barked.
She stiffly followed, still fully dressed in the elaborate navy-and-white gown she had worn all evening. It was hard not to feel as if the bare walls and surfaces she pa.s.sed had been bled, leeched, into the cloth encasing her. Stripped paint and sacrificed heirlooms clinging to her, demanding she make everything right once more.
"A good evening to you, Father," she stated as she entered his study and closed the door behind her so that any remaining servants would have to press an ear to the door to hear. "It is a pleasure to see you this night."
He ignored her, violently shuffling through the piles on his desk.
She stood for a minute watching. "And I was thinking perhaps Emily-"
"Emily?" He didn"t look up as he searched unsuccessfully through the scattered papers. "b.l.o.o.d.y peasant fodder. And as useless to me tonight as always."
Charlotte tried to control her own anger. Caution. "I was thinking-"
He sliced a hand through the air. "Don"t think, for G.o.d"s sake. Just get rid of her in the morning. Send her back to the country. G.o.d knows she can"t keep her gob shut." Though his ruddiness pointed to obvious alcohol consumption, there was something overly controlled about his movements and words.
Charlotte"s unease grew. "She is already in the country, Father. She has been for two weeks. In fact, I thought perhaps I too could-"
"What?" he asked coldly, running a hand through his hair, causing it to stick out in strange angles. The strands were thin now, where they had once been thick and strong. "Go to the country? Hide with your useless sister?"
Charlotte held herself still, stiff. "Emily is not useless. And yes, I-"
"You can"t, you have an appointment tomorrow night in the heathen"s den," he spat.
Ladies didn"t sweat. It was a rule.
Nevertheless, Charlotte could feel the br.i.m.m.i.n.g moisture in her hairline-cold, not hot-frosty like the icicles gathering in the very marrow of her bones. "I believe I heard you incorrectly, Father."
She wasn"t sure how her voice remained so even because she was certain she had heard quite correctly, indeed, no matter her words.
Bennett Chatsworth looked away for a moment, fingers playing at the flap of his disheveled jacket, stroking the pocket watch there, an ill look to his features. The rage momentarily gave in to the devastation that simmered beneath.
"You will be staying the night elsewhere tomorrow. I will have your mother make your excuses to the Drumhursts."
She felt the cold certainty spread to her stomach. She unconsciously clutched the silk of her skirt. Of her investment. One of many that cluttered her wardrobe, robbing the rest of the house of its once-glorious grandeur.
Unreal. Like a dream. She"d wake and find herself in the country, three years younger and eagerly awaiting her debut, everything in the past two years a fading nightmare. "I am also expected at the Mandells" and the-"
"Yes, yes," he said sharply, interrupting her wooden recital. "I"ll have your mother cancel everything. Only thing she is useful for these days."
This existence she now found herself in was real, of course. She had painfully pinched herself far too many times in the past only to have the throb remain. She schooled her expression, closing the cold pane over her features, not allowing anything to show on her face. "Very well, Father. And where might this heathen"s den reside?"
"It doesn"t matter. No one will know of it, not even your mother, and the less you know the better."
Bitter laughter bubbled, and she fought to keep it down. What was he planning to tell Viola? That Charlotte was spending some choice time with his mistress in order to learn the trade? "Afraid I"ll do something to ruin our marriage chances?"
"Don"t get smart with me." He shook a finger in her direction, darkness in his expression. "Trant will fix things should they go awry."
So he had lost to Mr. Trant. And somehow a bet had been undertaken before that loss. Given his attention in the past few weeks, Trant was hardly a surprise aspirant for her hand. But she hadn"t antic.i.p.ated that other aspects might be negotiated first.
She should only be surprised that it had taken her father this long to venture down this avenue. Selling her to the highest bidder in marriage was little more than stringing together a lifetime of sold nights.
"I see. You chose to skip the direct route to marriage. I thought you were aiming for an earldom. Trant won"t even make your grandson a peer."
"If only that were it."
She narrowed her eyes on his face, watching the expressions that he had once kept close to his chest-it seemed so long ago now-expressions that every day grew more obvious, furtive, and desperate. "Who exactly did you lose to, Father?"
"It is of no consequence. He did it on a lark, as he seems to do everything." Bennett Chatsworth fisted his watch. "Makes money hand over fist, despite it. How? Blasted n.o.bodies. His reputation though . . ." Her father shuddered. "He will destroy us if the bet is not satisfied."
The ice turned to dead stone as the circ.u.mstance grew tangible. "What did you do? Who did you sell me to, Father?"
Overheard conversations overlapped her lifeless thoughts. Charlotte Chatsworth doesn"t know how lucky she is. Did you see her standing there, nose in the air? She thinks she is better than all of us.
Those girls in the retiring room had no concept of the definition of "lucky."
Her father turned without answering. "I will tell your mother you have taken sick."
Nothing felt closer to the truth.
"I-you can"t mean for me to spend the night alone with some gentleman?" Or with someone who couldn"t . . . even be deemed such.
His silence was answer enough.
"What-what if it gets out?"
These things always did.
Years of sc.r.a.ping and posing, holding together her pride under constant barrage, showing calm in the face of gathering anxiety and increasingly pressing desperation. All lost to her father"s gambling and greed. And Emily . . .
"It won"t."
"But-"
"Then you"ll do what needs to be done to fix it," he said harshly. "That is all, Charlotte." He moved toward the door, conversation finished.
She reached out and gripped his sleeve. "Father." Please, echoed, unsaid. Don"t do this to me.
Everything she had endured. For him. For the family. For her own small, desperate longings.
He ripped his sleeve from her grip and strode from the room, taking her remaining courage with him, along with what was left of the packed snow dripping from her chipped ice. So lucky. So arrogant. Having to stand there night after night and hold herself together with pick, with axe, with painfully gathered snow.
She sank onto a hard wooden chair in her beautiful ball gown and tried not to let the tears fall.
Tried not to think of what would happen to Emily.
Tried not to think of what would happen to her.
Tried to pull together cold pride to save her once more. For one day soon, she was simply going to melt and drain away instead, just like her tears.
Roman watched his brother throw back a shot of coa.r.s.e whiskey. Andreas was angry. Furious. Livid, as expected. But had said nothing until they were alone. Also, as expected.
"Tell me again why I should not throttle you, Roman?"
"Because you love me more than your flesh-and-blood kin?"
Andreas shot him a look of distaste. Roman was used to it. Used to Andreas darkly stomping the sensibilities of all in his path. But Roman didn"t allow much to faze him, and long ago he"d waited out Andreas"s savagery and found the man beneath.
And beneath was a man who would die defending those he loved. Of course, Roman only knew two people who fit that bill, so to most people Andreas was a bit of an ogre.
"That measure is in place for emergencies. The virginal fate of some fool"s daughter is not an emergency, Roman." Andreas"s arms were clenched so tightly that Roman was afraid they might splinter right off his tall frame. "I could murder you where you stand."
"But then I"ll never get to enjoy my ill-gotten spoils." Roman smiled charmingly. Charm that rarely failed him. Even with someone as immune to it as his brother.
"They"ll lock you up in Newgate," Andreas said harshly.
"Then you"ll have to bust me free. Two picklocks. Maybe a little bribery." Roman waved his forefinger around in a circle.
"This is not amusing, Roman. Trant suspects you cheated. Rumors need little to evolve-you know that- you use that . And Cornelius is just looking for an opportunity . . ."
Andreas"s lips were white.
"I know." Roman couldn"t help it-his voice tightened, smile dropping. Their entire operation ran on their hands being clean when it came to the tables.
"I know," he said more softly. He"d deal with Trant later. And put Cornelius, the latest man vying to usurp their position in the underground, out of business for good. "I"ll make it up to you."
He shouldn"t need to make anything up. He shouldn"t have played the hand. He knew that. And yet . . . everything in him said he would still do it if he had to play it all over again. As if bewitched.
"If you take this night with her, and the ton finds out, we will be the ones blacklisted. And I see your eyes, Roman. You will take the night with her. You will risk everything." His brother"s harsh lips twisted, his dark patrician features mirroring his frustration. "Why? Beautiful, yes, but you know better than anyone not to be swayed by a pretty face."
Roman said nothing for a long moment, the memory of blue eyes haunting him. "There"s something about her, Andreas."
"For G.o.d"s sake, you just met her, Roman. h.e.l.l, you didn"t even meet her. You picked up some bauble of hers from the floor. After nearly killing a man in front of her eyes."
"Yes. Yet . . ." He rolled a pair of dice in his hand absently. "Yet I have found her fascinating for a long time. I must know her somehow. This morning made me sure of it. I can feel it."
"Then drag some jacka.s.s in front of her house. Beat the snot out of him. See if she drops something from her window for you to retrieve."
Roman looked at the dice in his hand. Sixes. "You know we can"t ignore my gut." Ignorance of it had always resulted in death.
"I can ignore it if the feeling is emanating from your genitals. My G.o.d, you normally don"t look at the same woman twice, and now this?"
"I couldn"t let it happen."
"Let what happen? One night in bed with the man who won her? And what are you going to do? Play chess with her?"
"Do you think she"s any good?"
"Roman." Andreas"s mouth thinned into a dangerous line.
Roman rolled the dice more roughly in his palm, gaze drawn to a navy handkerchief on the table, carelessly discarded during the game. "Did you see her eyes this afternoon? The girl deserves a better fate."
"Than marrying a wealthy man of the ton ?" Andreas gave a dark laugh, old bitterness rising. "That is quite the worst fate I can think of for a girl fis.h.i.+ng the mart."
Roman didn"t immediately respond. Instead, he turned over the facts he knew about Charlotte Chatsworth against his own perception and awareness after meeting her. "She reminded me of Little Penny."
"Don"t try to blame this on your d.a.m.n savior complex."
"No." He rolled the dice again between his fingers, giving them an extra twist before looking. Sixes again. "She intrigues me. She has since the Delaneys first mentioned her six months past."
"Enough to risk everything?" Andreas asked harshly.
The easy, charmed answer was, "Of course not." But Roman said nothing. It would cheapen the entire incident. And worse yet, there was something that tickled the edges of his emotion when he thought of the girl. The tickling of fate. He"d had it when he met Andreas that day long ago.
He looked up at his brother.
As furious as the tick in his jaw stated, Andreas had given him the card tonight. Had relinquished a piece of his honor and given it to Roman, even to use in perceived folly. Because Roman had asked.
He would support Roman even in this, because Roman had asked.
Furious, Andreas might be. But on Roman"s side and at his back? Always.
The deep tie was part of what made them unstoppable, something even beyond what a flesh-and-blood sibling, if Roman had ever possessed one, could claim.
"I will make it up to you," Roman said in a low tone. A promise. "Even if everything goes rocks up and hampers your revenge. I will fix it."