Page 43 of Unmasked by the Marquess
Evidently he did. That’s precisely what he thought. He supposed she put on the character of Robert Selby the way one might wear a new hat, and that she could just as easily dispense with that persona and return to being Charity Church. And he thought Charity Church, who the last anybody had heard had been a foundling and disgraced housemaid, could simply slip into the role of Lady Pembroke.
Charity Church. She felt like she was being asked to resurrect someone long dead. She had been eighteen when she first cut her hair and put on Robbie’s clothes. She had experienced over five years of love and loss and fear and hope, but she felt like all those things happened to somebody other than Charity.
There was a scratching at her door. Charity sat up in bed. “Come in.” She didn’t want to see anyone, but at this point any distraction would be welcome.
It was Aunt Agatha, wearing a voluminous dressing gown, her gray hair in a plait down her back. “I brought you a sleeping draught. I heard you tossing and turning and thought you might need it.”
“Thank you,” Charity said, reaching for the glass. Aunt Agatha was not a regular visitor to her bedchamber. They didn’t even usually converse. Charity had sometimes wondered whether the elderly lady even remembered that Charity wasn’t really her nephew. She certainly never acknowledged it. For Charity’s part, she had long since stopped thinking of the lady as Miss Cavendish.
The older woman didn’t sit, instead standing at the foot of Charity’s bed. “Is it true that you’re considering a match with the marquess?”
Charity bent her head over the glass to hide her surprise. There was no shilly-shallying around the matter for Agatha Cavendish, was there? “Considering is too strong a word. He made an offer and I declined.” And how had Aunt Agatha even guessed that marriage was even on the table?
She took a tentative sip of the sleeping draught. It smelled like orange water but tasted like honey mixed with something much more nefarious. Likely laudanum. Good. Charity couldn’t think of any other way she would fall asleep tonight.
“If he keeps asking, will you have the strength to keep refusing? I recall you being highly persuadable where handsome men are concerned.”
Of all the things she had to remember, it had to be that? True, Robbie had persuaded her to go to Cambridge, had persuaded her into his bed, had persuaded her to participate in all manner of harebrained schemes. But she had wanted to go to university. She had certainly wanted to go to bed with him. It hadn’t taken all that much in the way of persuasion. It was part of their game. By God, they had been so very young.
“Would it be so bad if I did accept?” she asked. “I’m very fond of him.”
“Child.” She shook her head. “I know you’re fond of him. That’s the problem.”
It was. If only she didn’t like him so much. If only she didn’t love him. Then she could... she didn’t rightly know what. Her head was starting to feel like it was stuffed with cotton wool.
“What am I to do?” She spoke aloud, but didn’t expect an answer. There was no answer.
“Young Robert did you a disservice when he raised you above your station. I wish I knew what will become of you when this is over, but I can assure you that Lord Pembroke has no part in it. A man like him, if he knew half of what you had been up to, would have you sent to Newgate as soon as look at you.”
But he did know. He knew a good deal more than half, in fact. If only her head were clearer, she would calculate the precise percentage of her wrongdoings that he was aware of. And for all that knowledge, he hadn’t sent her to Newgate. Instead, he had offered to marry her.
She was about to explain this to Aunt Agatha, but she was so very tired. She was going to fall asleep, and it was such a relief to know that her eyes would close and she could spend a few hours not turning this matter over and over in her mind. She lay back on her pillow and let sleep overtake her.
Chapter Fourteen
Charity didn’t even need to lift her head from the pillow to know that something was wrong. The room was too bright. She was used to rising before eight, but now it looked to be nearly midday.
Stranger still, the house was oddly quiet. The walls were cheap and thin and the carpets were worn and not plentiful. Footsteps echoed down corridors and between rooms. But today it sounded like Charity might be alone in the house.
She threw on the clothes she had worn yesterday and made her way downstairs. The drawing room was empty and no fire burned in the grate.
“Louisa?” Nothing. “Aunt Agatha?” Still nothing. She crossed to the dining room. Empty. Perhaps they had a garden party or luncheon that Charity had forgotten about. Perhaps they had gone to the dressmakers or the fabric warehouse.
In the vestibule, Louisa’s evening gloves still lay on the table by the door. Why had none of the maids brought them to her bedchamber? Why hadn’t Louisa done it herself? She flew down the final flight of stairs to the kitchen. It was quite empty. She rummaged through her brain for any useful information—it was not the servants’ usual half day off, nor was it a holiday.
“Mr. Selby, sir?” A small voice. She turned and saw the little maid who lit the fires in the morning. She had on a gray frock a good two inches too short. Maybe it was the lingering effects of the sleeping draught—the sleeping draught, goddammit, what had been in it?—but for a moment it seemed only yesterday that Charity had been the child with a soot-smeared face and a too-small dress.
“Janet, where is everybody?”
“Lud, sir, we thought you’d gone off with the others.” The child’s Cockney accent did something to break the spell. “The old lady gave us the day off. Gave us sixpence apiece too, she did. I only came back early because it looks about to rain.”
“Bear with me Janet. I fear that I’m at a total loss. Strong drink, you know. Ruins the mind. Remind me where Miss Selby and Miss Cavendish have gone, will you?”
“They went with Lord Gilbert. I don’t rightly know where, but Miss Selby had me help pack her portmanteau. She was crying something terrible. I thought mayhap somebody died, but the lady didn’t pack any black clothes.”
Surely Louisa would have left a note if she had been called away on an emergency. No, this business smelled of deceit and secrecy and nobody knew that scent better than Charity herself.
Her head still felt slow and filthy and basically useless, like a bad drain. She tried to puzzle out half-remembered fragments of her conversation with Aunt Agatha. The old lady had been worried about Charity marrying Alistair. No, she hadn’t said precisely those words, had she? She had been worried that Charity would agree to a match. She smacked her aching forehead. It was not her own marriage, but Louisa’s, that Aunt Agatha had been contemplating. Louisa, too, had been worried about Charity’s plans. Now Louisa and Gilbert’s urgent whispers and sudden silences took on a new and troubling light.
