Page 30 of Unmasked by the Marquess
Almost.
First they had to entertain a swarm of ladies and gentlemen, a Northumberland village’s worth of people contained in one tatty drawing room. She caught Lord Gilbert’s eye and gave him an apologetic wave. It would be impossible for her to make her way through the crowd to talk to him.
She loved it. She adored the hum of well-bred chatter, the lively banter, the press of people around her. Louisa sat prettily on the sofa, pouring tea—Keating was going to wear himself out carrying up all the hot water this gathering would require—and acting only vaguely surprised by the attention. Perfect.
Charity was tempted to rub her hands together and cackle in the manner of a villain in a play.
After that long-ago visit to the Alnwick market, she asked Robbie whether he had known that there were positively hundreds of people in Britain. She was helping him with all those verbs he could never seem to properly conjugate, and he had looked up at her with a curious tilt of his head.
The next day he taught her to ride so she could get herself a bit farther than the borders of Fenshawe. “We’ll take a peek at the sheep-shearing over near Harbottle,” he had said, as if it were a perfectly reasonable suggestion. Indeed, the house was in a state of perpetual disarray due to the master being so ill, so nobody noticed the absence of the heir, a housemaid, and a pair of horses.
They had been fast companions until the day he had sent her off to Cambridge. “I can’t leave, not when Daisy’s in foal. Besides, what’s the use of your knowing all those Latin verbs if you’re not going to university?” he had insisted, as if Charity were the one being annoyingly stubborn in suggesting that she instead stay at Fenshawe to sweep out the grates and beat the carpets.
It had been the market day at Alnwick that had sealed her fate, she now realized. She had gotten a glimpse of the world and of the people in it. They were everywhere, laughing and working, and she could never be happy again at sleepy, isolated Fenshawe, no matter how much she loved the Selbys.
And shehadloved the Selbys. She had changed Louisa’s nappies, she had spoon-fed old Mr. Selby his last meal. She would never run out of tears for Robbie.
Even if she hated every minute of this sham, she would have done it anyway if it meant Louisa would be taken care of. But she loved it. And by God, she was not going to feel guilty about the pleasure she was taking in this masquerade and all the freedom it afforded her.
“Have you seen my brother?” Against the odds, Lord Gilbert had managed to reach her side.
“No.” She raised her voice to be heard over the din. “I didn’t expect him, though.”
“Really? After that dance, I’d have thought he would have nowhere else to be.”
There was an edge to his voice, something faintly hostile and disapproving. It took Charity a mortified moment to realize that of course he was referring to Alistair’s dance with Louisa, not his waltz with Charity.
“Oh, he would never allow himself to be one of a crowd,” she said lightly. But, come to think of it, whywasn’the here? Not for Louisa, but for Charity herself? Surely he could have predicted what today would bring for Louisa and what it would mean for Charity. After the intimacy they had shared—she absolutely wouldnotblush—did he not want to see her?
Evidently he did not, and the realization was enough to dampen her joy at today’s success. He had likely woken up this morning and been overwhelmed with more kinds of shame than he even could identify.
Shame was a luxury of the rich, as far as Charity could tell. Everybody else had to worry about getting food in a way that didn’t land them in a noose, but marquesses had time and pride to spare. She wondered what aspect of their connection he found most regrettable. Was it that she was a thief, a foundling, a former servant, a liar, or simply that she dressed as a man? Likely she was objectionable in ways she hadn’t even thought of yet.
The knowledge of his shame shouldn’t bother her. Shame wasn’t contagious. His disapproval couldn’t make her think less of herself. Charity had always known that she wasn’t one of those blessed few who had the luxury of keeping their hands clean.
But she hated being the dirt that soiled the Marquess of Pembroke.
Alistair’s ancestors were not renowned for their exploits on the battlefield or in Parliament. The fact that there were still de Laceys owed more to their talent in avoiding beheadings than it did to any greatness. While other noblemen were killing one another for power and proximity to the throne, the de Laceys were eloping, seducing, and scandalizing. Alistair’s grandfather and great-grandfather had had the knack of keeping their heads down and their breeches fastened, but they were the black sheep of the family; theirs were the lone portraits in the gallery at Broughton that didn’t exude a palpable air of dissipation.
Considering this mainly unbroken lineage of womanizers and inebriates, it was especially galling that Alistair could not, for the life of him, figure out what to do about Robin.
That was not quite true. He had many ideas of what he’d like to do with Robin, but not a single notion of how to bring those dreams to fruition without compromising everything he believed in.
He did not want a mistress. He did not want to make a Mrs. Allenby out of his Robin. The very idea revolted him enough to nearly kill his desire, and the thought of siring a bastard on her made his blood run cold. On the other hand, the Marquess of Pembroke could not very well marry the likes of Charity Church. It was quite impossible. A housemaid turned impostor could never be the Marchioness of Pembroke. God forgive him for even formulating the thought.
So he quite gave up on trying to find a solution, and instead determined to calmly explain to Robin that anything between them was utterly impossible. They could—must—be friends, but not the sort of friends who dance in the garden and grope one another. She was charming, she was lovely, and they would never touch one another again.
As simple as that. When all else failed, he could still rely on his aptitude for self-denial.
But first he had to find her. He considered paying a visit to her at home, but Gilbert had complained that the Selbys’ house was a veritable anthill of would-be suitors. He caught a glimpse of her riding in the park—not on his horse, he realized with a stab of irritation—but it was too crowded to do more than salute her from a distance.
“Where the devil is Selby keeping himself?” he asked Gilbert one morning when the younger man had come for breakfast.
“He has his hands full with Miss Selby and Amelia,” Gilbert responded in between bites of ham.
“Amelia?” Alistair repeated, his fork poised halfway to his mouth.
“Yes, our sister.” Gilbert slammed his own fork back onto the table. “You’ve heard of her?”
