Page 60 of Unmasked by the Marquess
The happy couple knew of her situation: she was here, and Alistair was not. They knew her heart was broken while their own hearts were full of joy. This disparity made any connection impossible. But still they tried, because they were kind and lovely people, and it wasn’t their fault she wanted to scream at the sight of them.
Over supper the first night at the inn, they proposed that Charity come live with them in Kent.
“Kent?” Charity asked.
“My brother is letting us have the use of his estate near Maidstone. I think he means it as a marriage present.”
To give Gilbert use of an entire estate was a level of generosity she hadn’t expected of Alistair. She knew how carefully he counted his pennies.
They must have mistaken her look of surprise for one of dismay, because Louisa nudged Gilbert and whispered, “I told you not to mention him!”
Charity drained her tankard of ale and excused herself to bed.
Judging by the blushing glances and lingering touches between the lovers the following morning, Charity supposed they had spent the night anticipating their marriage vows. And good for them. She certainly didn’t care—they were going to be married in a matter of days, for God’s sake. But all that blushing and stammering—Christ, her stomach wasn’t strong enough for this.It’s just fucking, she wanted to scream.People have been doing it for thousands of years. Mice manage it. So do sheep. It’s nothing to fuss yourselves over.
But it was, though. That last night with Alistair wasn’t the kind of thing a person could get over so easily. He had treated her like she was precious to him. She had done her damnedest to return the favor, every moment knowing it would only make their parting more difficult. If Alistair had been here now, they might very well be the ones blushing and making excuses to touch one another.
He wasn’t, though, and he never would be again. It was the height of absurdity for Louisa to imagine that Charity could live with her and Gilbert in a house owned by Alistair, where he might show up at any moment.
For that matter, it was already impossible for Charity to live with Louisa, but she hadn’t quite told Louisa that yet. When Louisa and Gilbert asked why they still had to be married in Scotland, despite having both a special license and the presence of Louisa’s putative guardian, she only explained that she didn’t want the validity of Louisa’s marriage to depend on a forged signature. In Scotland a minor could marry without a guardian’s permission, and Louisa’s marriage would be valid without any deception on Charity’s part.
The rest of it they would discover later.
The road to Scotland took them straight through Northumberland, right into Alnwick, the town whose market square had given her that first glimpse of a world beyond Fenshawe. It was fitting that this was where that episode of her life would come to an end.
“I’m turning off here,” she said while Gilbert and Louisa awaited a fresh set of carriage horses at an inn.
They both looked at her blankly.
“You’ll be in Scotland this afternoon,” she explained. “You don’t need me to be with you. Marry, and then...” What? Send word? Write a letter? All impossible. “Take care of one another.” She looked pointedly at Gilbert, willing him to remember what she had asked of him.Take care of Alistair.
“Where are you going?” Louisa asked.
“Fenshawe is an hour’s ride.”
“Charity,” Louisa protested, sounding panicked. “Please.”
She wanted to leap off the horse and hug them both, to tell Louisa she had loved her like a sister, like her own child. But if she got any closer she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from weeping, and that would only spoil the happiness of Louisa’s day. So she kept her distance.
“Don’t be silly,” she said, trying to keep her voice light even as she took one last look at Louisa’s face. “You don’t want me on your honeymoon, and Scottish weddings make me maudlin anyway.” There, let Louisa think Charity was remembering her own elopement. Oh God, now she really was going to cry. The tears were already pricking her eyes. She smiled brightly, “Now, be off with you!”
She turned west to Fenshawe.
Alistair went over his ledgers so carefully that his eyes were starting to hurt, but it had to be done. First, because at least this would give him something to do besides pace the floor and worry about Robin. But his other reason was that he wanted to see precisely how much more recklessness this estate could take.
Not recklessness, he decided. Nor extravagance.Generosity.
A few weeks at a lamentable inn, wages for the maid, a barnyard’s worth of fowl for the farmers, clothes and books for Charity, a gift for Mrs. Potton, the special license, and couriers to and from London. None of it had ruined him. Even discounting the income from the Kent property that would now be Gilbert’s, he wasn’t stretched quite as thin as he thought he might be.
He had hoped that with a few more years of careful investment and reasonably frugal living, he would know that the estate was safe for future generations. That plan had gone out the window the minute he had met Robin. But a new plan was beginning to take shape in his mind, and it would not come cheap.
This was what money and power were for: not to hoard up in the name of prudence and security, but to spend and use to take care of the people who needed it. The people who needed him, or at least whose lives would be better for a bit of help. Two months of knowing Robin, and his sense of value had twisted around so that he could scarcely recognize it anymore.
How long would it take without her for his sense to return? Best to act now, then.
He ran his finger down the column of figures one final time, confirmed that he had calculated correctly, and called for his carriage.
So this was how people felt when they were about to do something intensely stupid, like diving off a cliff or climbing a snow-covered mountain. Alistair was not a man who was much given to feats of daring. He had always assumed that men who chased danger were half-mad. But here he was, standing at Mrs. Allenby’s door, about to pledge a sizable part of his income to his half sisters.
