Page 11 of Unmasked by the Marquess
Charity was surprised by the vehemence in Louisa’s voice. Louisa was usually so mild, so easy to get along with. “He’s done us a great favor—”
“I sincerely doubt it,” she retorted, her blue eyes glittering by the light of the candle she held in her hand. “He doesn’t seem the sort of man to do favors.”
That observation was uncomfortably in accord with what Pembroke himself had told her not five minutes earlier.
“Regardless,” Charity said, “it would be odd if I refused his invitation to join his club. I didn’t drink all that much, and I didn’t lose any money at the tables. I promise that there’s nothing for you to worry about.” At least, nothing more than the usual. “Besides, since when do you object to a gentleman having a bit of harmless fun?”
Louisa stared at her, mouth hanging open. “Charity, you arenota gentleman,” she whispered.
Charity felt herself blush. It wasn’t as if she could protest, but the fact of the matter was that she felt more like a gentleman than she did anything else. Cheeks hot, she said, “You know what I meant.”
They stood there for a moment, regarding one another—Louisa in her white dressing gown and hair in curling papers, Charity in rumpled evening clothes, cravat rakishly askew.
“What are you going to do after I marry, Charity?” Louisa asked, breaking the silence.
“I don’t know.” Charity glanced away from Louisa’s face, taking in the peeling paint on the door frame. “There’s the gamekeeper’s cottage at Fenshawe. I could stay there,” she said, knowing it for a lie.
Louisa wrapped her dressing gown tightly around her. “But we won’t own Fenshawe after Cousin Clifton inherits.”
The “we” was generous. Charity had never owned anything, least of all the estate of Fenshawe. Robbie had owned it. And since it had been entailed, it ought to have passed to his cousin. But when Robbie died, Charity had already been attending Cambridge under his name. Her thoughts muddled by grief and confusion, it didn’t seem so terrible to keep quiet about Robbie’s death and step into his shoes at home as well. The cousin, living in Dorset, could be kept in ignorance.
Sometimes when Charity was having a hard time falling asleep, she tried to think of exactly how many laws she had broken, how many ways she ought to have been hanged or transported. But Robbie had scarcely any property that wasn’t entailed. Louisa, not yet sixteen, would have been destitute and homeless. For the two years since Robbie’s death, they had stinted and scraped together enough money out of the estate’s income to fund this season in London and put together a modest dowry for Louisa. The plan was for Louisa to marry and then they would figure out a way to set things right, to let the cousin inherit and to allow Charity to go back to being herself.
Whoever that was.
“I could live with you, after your marriage,” Charity countered, already knowing that it could never happen.
“I’d love nothing more,” Louisa said, and Charity believed it. “But I just realized that whoever I marry will recognize you as my brother. You can’t very well put on a gown and hope nobody notices the resemblance.”
Charity had known that from the beginning. There could be no happy ending to this deception. Even when Robbie was alive and healthy and brash and persuasive, she had understood that if she went to Cambridge in his stead, there would be no going back to being plain Charity.
Even if there were, she didn’t want any part of it. There would be no more gowns, no more floors to scrub.
Neither could she continue as Robert Selby one minute longer than strictly necessary. Charity didn’t have the stomach for it.
She would be alone, adrift, with no name and no friends. She would, in fact, be in much the same situation she had been in before arriving at Fenshawe over fifteen years ago. The only difference was that this time her aloneness would be the result of her own choice, a sacrifice she had made to protect the one person who was left to her. She looked fondly at Louisa.
“Charity, where will you go?” Louisa asked with her eyes wide. “What will we do?”
She leaned forward and kissed Louisa on the cheek. “Never mind that, my girl. I have it all in hand,” she lied.
Chapter Four
Every time Charity turned around, the silver tray in the front hall bore a new assortment of calling cards and letters.
“Another batch.” Keating unceremoniously dumped a pile of invitations onto Louisa’s writing desk.
“Do try to behave like a respectable butler, Keating.” Charity adopted an arch tone. “You’re serving in a very fashionable household now.”
“I sometimes forget. Can’t imagine why. Could be that I can’t be arsed to care.” The two of them were alone in the drawing room, so they could speak freely.
“Or it could be that you’re a scoundrel and a reprobate.”
“Takes one to know one.” He threw a pointed glance at Louisa’s mountain of invitations. “I hope you know what you’re getting into.”
All Charity knew or cared about was that the drawing room was full to bursting nearly every afternoon. After having lived in virtual isolation at Fenshawe since Robbie died, this was a welcome change. The two most frequent visitors were Amelia Allenby and Lord Gilbert de Lacey. They often arrived together, Lord Gilbert bringing Miss Allenby in his curricle. Lord Gilbert’s purpose was ostensibly to call on Mr. Robert Selby, but any fool could see that he was there to moon over Louisa.
As for Amelia Allenby, Charity looked upon her as a gift from the gods. She had never had a female friend besides Louisa, and as much as she loved Louisa, that was more a family connection than a friendship born of common interests. Miss Allenby, though, was somebody Charity could talk to on any number of subjects. She had read all the poetry that had been popular among the undergraduates in Cambridge and was even on familiar terms with a number of the poets.
