Page 33 of An Unwilling Earl
Charlotte felt like a heavy, wet blanket had been draped across her shoulders, as if she could feel Jacob’s pain at losing his beloved wife. He was such a kind and gentle soul that it must have nearly killed him.
“And the baby?” she asked softly.
Mrs. Smith sniffed. “Died a few days after his mum of the same fever. Took them both. They’re buried together, the babe in his mother’s arms.”
Charlotte blinked back tears, thinking of her own mother dying while struggling to push Charlotte into the world. Her father had never made her feel as if she were the cause of her mother’s death, but there had always been something inside Charlotte that blamed herself.
“Now don’t you go blabbing to his lordship that I told you. He’ll be right angry at me. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just that looking at you in that gown, well, it reminded me of her. She was such a beautiful lass.”
Charlotte smoothed down the skirts of the yellow gown. It felt strange to be wearing a dead woman’s clothing.
“He’s waiting for you,” Mrs. Smith said. “In his study. Just down the hall on the right.”
Charlotte nodded, thinking about the Bakers and the love they had for each other and how it had ended so tragically, and then about her parents and their love for each other and how that had ended tragically. Maybe love wasn’t meant to last.
But no, she refused to believe that. If she fell to that thinking then all was lost. There was no hope for humanity at all.
After Mrs. Smith left, Charlotte stared at herself and the gown in the mirror.
“I know why you have this need to save me, Jacob Baker-Lord Ashland. It’s because you couldn’t save your wife.”
Chapter Eleven
Jacob entered his study and pulled up short. His heart stopped in his chest.
Charlotte was standing by the bookcase, perusing the titles on the shelves, but for a small moment he didn’t see Charlotte. He saw Cora. Cora when they had first been married, before she became with child, before the fever had whittled her away to nothing.
In that moment he thought that it had all been a horrible, terrible nightmare and she really hadn’t died. That she was alive and looking at his books, waiting for him to go into dinner.
But then Charlotte turned her head, and the spell was broken and the grief came raging back, consuming him like it hadn’t in a long time. It was the gown. Only the gown that brought it all back.
The woman looking back at him was not Cora. Cora had had dark brown hair, long and shining, and hazel eyes. Cora had been quiet, introspective. She’d listened, watched, and drew conclusions that she’d discussed with him later.
Charlotte was a doer. Charlotte took life by the horns, and if she didn’t like the way things were going, she changed it. Charlotte took control and wrestled a problem to the ground.
“By the shocked expression on your face I imagine you never thought you would see me clean.” She held out her arms. “And in a gown, no less.”
Jacob licked dry lips and pushed the image of Cora away. “You could say that.”
“Mrs. Smith burned my other clothes. She said you wouldn’t mind if I wore this.”
By the concern in her eyes he guessed that Mrs. Smith had told Charlotte far more than that. “There is a trunk full of gowns that you may wear.”
“You don’t mind?”
He hesitated. “They’re just moldering away.”
“Mrs. Smith told me—”
“I can imagine what Mrs. Smith told you.”
Charlotte blinked at his curt tone. “If it’s too uncomfortable for you—”
“It’s fine. Truly.”
She nodded. “Very well. Thank you.”
“Yellow looks good on you.”
