Page 30 of To Tame the Wild Rake
14
Charlotte threw herself into the campaign to shape the story about Sarah’s and Nate’s romance. The couple had powerful allies. The twins’ mother and aunt came to town to put their weight behind the marriage, as did the Suttons, the duke’s heir Jamie and his wife Sophia. The Duchess of Haverford added her voice.
Meanwhile, the men of her family organised with other peers and powerful influencers in the government to quell the troubles in the slums. Aldridge wasn’t part of that activity. He left the notorious former Lady Ashbury to be interrogated by his brother, David Wakefield, and departed for Haverford Castle near Margate in Kent, where his father was incarcerated due to the madness that had descended upon him.
Mr Wakefield also spent time with Tony, and brought his wife and children to meet him. His other visitors were the Duchess of Haverford and her wards, who must be Tony’s aunts if their brother Lord Jonathan was his father. Mr Wakefield and Aldridge were satisfied of the truth, though it was too early for Lord Jonathan to have received their letter asking whether he’d known Tony’s mother.
Her Grace was convinced enough with the identification to invite Tony to join her and the rest of her family for Christmas, and Mr and Mrs Wakefield also extended an invitation. Charlotte wanted him to come to Winds’ Gate, with her. But it would be Tony’s decision.
Nate moved into Sarah’s bedchamber,as is only right when they have been apart so long. When Sarah asked if she would mind, what was Charlotte to say? “Nate will be welcome, dearest. He is your husband, after all, and I must love him for your sake.”
“You shall love him for his own once you know him,” Sarah promised, and Charlotte was determined to do so. Certainly, Sarah and Elias did, and both were thrilled to be planning their new life. A life as the family they were meant to be.
Charlotte had to be very careful not to venture out of her bedchamber until she was fully dressed. No more breakfasting in their private sitting room in a robe and slippers. It wouldn’t have been the same, anyway, with Nate there, as well as Sarah.
For a start, the conversation was three-way, instead of two, and Sarah would often interrupt something Charlotte was saying to explain the context to Nate.
For another thing, the couple usually took only their morning drink (chocolate for Sarah and coffee for Nate) before going up to break their fast in the nursery with Elias, leaving Charlotte to breakfast alone.
And during the remainder of the day, they were uncomfortable for a third party to live with. They could not be in the same room without touching. They had a tendency to retire to the bedchamber at all kinds of odd times during the day, only to emerge an hour or two later looking smug.
Charlotte was happy for her sister. She really was. Her reaction to the couple’s absorption with one another was her own problem. She would not hint by word or action that she was feeling abandoned. Nor that their evident delight in the physical aspects of marriage had her yearning to understand, and thinking of Aldridge, his nakedness poorly covered by his untied banyan, far more often than was comfortable.
When Winshire held a ball a week after the kidnapping, and joined Lord Lechton in toasting Sarah and Nate as Lord and Lady Bentham, thetonwas ready to embrace the couple and their son. Even the Earl of Sodfield, that most conservative of lords, was heard to say, “Winshire was injudicious, I must say. Abducting a gentleman’s son and throwing him into the navy as a common soldier. Sad about the little boy, too. Very injudicious.” The more sentimental members of Society declared the former duke a wicked old man, who was probably roasting in Hell.
On the day after the ball, the Winshires and the Lechtons met at Fournier’s pastry shop—a last outing before leaving London. Charlotte was standing with Tony just inside the building talking to Sophia and Ruth, when they heard a woman shriek, followed by shouting. Several of those still inside tried to get through the door at the same time. Before Charlotte could take her turn, she heard a loud bang followed immediately by another.
“That sounds like gunshots,” Ruth commented, even as another retort was followed by a woman’s shriek. She called, “Has someone been shot? Let me through.”
Charlotte was one of the last to exit, and was immediately deputed to help look after the children while Nate and Ruth attended to Lord Lechton, who had been shot protecting Elias with his own body. Most of the other men had pursued the sharpshooter, and Jamie and Drew came back to report him caught. It had all been a tragic mistake. The Beast had paid him to shoot Tony. “The gunman didn’t know there were two boys,” Drew said. “They simply shot at the first to exit.”
The earl’s death meant a change of plans, of course. The family stayed on to support Nate and Sarah through the coroner’s inquest, and then travelled to Lechford for the funeral.
Charlotte would have stayed on for Christmas if she’d thought Sarah needed her, but—on the contrary—she rather thought she was in the way.
Sarah was absorbed in learning her new responsibilities as Countess of Lechton and mistress of Lechford Hall. The dowager countess, Libby, confessed she had never truly taken up the reins, and had allowed herself to be intimidated by the husband-and-wife team who were butler and housekeeper. She and Sarah were well on the way to becoming friends, and she was delighted to be able to hand over supervision of the staff.
Further, Sarah turned to Nate (as she should) when she was excited about something, or worried, or in need of a listener so she could talk through a plan or a problem. The first time it happened, Charlotte had been caught out.
It was early afternoon. They were all in the room that served as both library and study, the sisters and Libby restoring order to the much-neglected books, which had been sorted by no known system, while Nate worked at the desk set up in the bay window.
Sarah had been called away and was gone for some time. When she returned, she began talking as she crossed the room. “I am sorry I was so long. Just a minor crisis, but it had its moments. Darling, do you have a moment? I’d like to show you...”
Charlotte finished sliding in the book she was shelving and turned to answer her sister only to realise that she wasn’t the darling addressed. Nate had already risen, and was saying, “Of course, my love,” as he crossed the room to his wife.
After that, when Sarah used an endearment instead of a name, Charlotte checked to see who she was looking at. Nine times out of ten, it was Nate.
As a result, Charlotte was packed and ready when, with a week to go until Christmas, the Winshire party took their leave to make the trip from Oxfordshire to Shropshire.
“We will be there before Twelfth Night,” Sarah promised, hugging her sister as if she was reluctant to let her go. Nate enfolded her in a hug, too. “I will look after Sarah and Elias, sister,” he promised. “You don’t need to worry about them.”
She kissed his cheek, and thanked him, conscious that he was giving her more credit than she deserved. It was not Sarah she was worried about but herself. She could see the years stretching lonely ahead of her, even as she berated herself for being selfish and melodramatic.
She had intended to be single all her adult life. But she had always assumed that her twin would be single alongside her. She settled into the carriage and pasted a smile on her face for the benefit of her maid. Thank goodness Drew and Uncle James had chosen to ride. She was not up to making cheerful conversation.
The Duke of Haverford was gone, leaving behind only a monster, grotesque in body and mind—what could be seen of him between the bands of cloth that wrapped him to the bed on which he lay. “You keep him bound all the time?” Aldridge asked the nurses—or warders might be a better description.
The larger of the two currently on duty sounded apologetic. “Except for washing him twice a day, my lord, and that takes at least four of us. Had to, after he near killed himself banging his head against the walls.”
