Page 64 of Unforeseen Affairs
“What?” she whispered. “What is it?”
He shook his head, his face flushing.
“Nothing, nothing. You’re quite right—I accept responsibility for that.”
Slowly Charlotte moved down the length of the counter, her fingertips sliding loosely across the surface until she reached the hinged part. Without breaking her gaze, she lifted it up and slipped through, then lowered it gently behind her.
Now, with no barrier between them, she looked him directly in the eye, from equal height.
“Something’s bothering you,” she murmured. “Something’sbeenbothering you.”
He looked away, his flush deepening.
What was it?
Charlotte drifted closer, forcing her hands into fists in the folds of her skirts as she drew near, lest she reach for him again and send them down another heated, confusing path.
“Is it your brother? Mrs. Stone could attempt to make—”
“No, no, please.” He held up one hand as the other shielded his eyes. “Please, Miss Sedley, I beg you, speak no more of it. I’m quite alright.”
He looked up with a pained smile.
“See? Right as rain.”
Charlotte blinked.
“Very well.”
So she was not the only one lying to the other. She did not like it. Suppressing his feelings did not suit him, in her estimation. Sir Colin was so open, so earnest and full of goodwill. She couldn’t bear to see him be so false with himself.
You could tell me, she wanted to say.I could keep your secret,she’d explain, and that was true. Charlotte could be as silent as a tomb. But this moment felt too intimate, too close to that night in the alleyway when they’d allowed themselves too much.
So she simply nodded.
“Right. The next opportunity, then, to course-correct?” Sir Colin asked.
“We shall follow Mr. Bass to Manchester.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Manchester. Mr. Bass is scheduled for several engagements a week there, at the Gaiety Theatre. For the next month, as I understand it.”
Her plan, she hoped, should buy her at least two nights of unchaperoned freedom. The perfect amount of time to infiltrate one of Mr. Bass’s theater shows and finally put an end to his fraudulent career.
“Manchester,” Sir Colin repeated, clearly dubious.
She raised her brows.
“And just how, pray tell, ought we attend one of these… events in Manchester?”
Sir Colin’s words were gentle, but she could hear the real question underneath his hesitancy:How in the blazes are we to get away with something so outlandish? How could I answer to your family after absconding with their young, marriageable daughter?
She smiled. This undertaking had blossomed into an adventure she’d never anticipated; these nascent feelings he brought about in her offered a welcome change from the humdrum day-to-day her life had been.
“I might introduce you to one of the miracles of modern living: the railway.”
A queer look passed over his face.
