Page 18 of Unmasked by the Marquess
“At this hour?”
Charity had no idea what hour it was, only that the sun hadn’t yet set, and that she was going to wear a path in the already threadbare carpet if she didn’t stop pacing. She might as well walk outside, where at least she wouldn’t trouble Louisa any further. There was nothing Louisa could do to help, nothing she could say to set Charity’s mind at ease, so there was no sense in plaguing her with doubts and worries.
“There’s always India.” Keating was waiting by the door with Charity’s greatcoat. “Or South America. I could have us on a ship this time tomorrow.”
That would never do. Keating was nearly fifty, with a bad leg and one ear that was completely deaf after years spent in the boxing ring. His only skills were being an indifferent servant, an aged prizefighter, and a loyal friend. She had hoped that Louisa, once married, could find a place for Keating in her gatehouse or stables.
“Thank you,” she said. “I know you mean it.”
She walked all the way down to the river, and then followed it up to Westminster before her nerves turned to outright misery. What was to become of all of them? She stopped at a sweet shop and bought a packet of lemon drops, immediately popping one into her mouth. The burst of tart sweetness did nothing to distract her from her worries.
When she looked up she had reached St. James’s Park. In only a month this city had become as familiar to her as Fenshawe, which she had always considered the nearest thing to a home she was ever likely to find. From there she walked to St. James’s Square, only then realizing that she was too close to White’s and would doubtless run into someone she knew. She hardly felt capable of polite, cheerful conversation.
What she really wanted was a friend. Someone to sit with, share space with, someone who would understand if she needed to spend the evening grumpily pitching wadded up balls of paper into the fire instead of being entertaining.
She walked to Grosvenor Square without pausing to consider whether Pembroke actually fit that description, but held steadfast to the hope that he might.
She found him sprawled on the settee by the fire, book in hand, spectacles slipping down the patrician slope of his nose. He glanced up and grinned when he saw her. She attempted a smile in return but must not have carried it off because his own, genuine smile immediately dropped away, replaced by a look of concern.
“What’s the trouble?” he asked, crossing the room to stand before her. He tipped her chin up so she had to face him, and the familiarity of the contact sent warmth through her body. “Anything I can help with?”
She shook her head. “I’m not feeling at all the thing. I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Ridiculous. Of course you should have. I was reading that book you wanted to borrow. Since you’re here you might as well take it off my hands.”
“No, you finish it first. I have a headache and won’t be reading much of anything until tomorrow at best.”
“That bad, is it?” When she didn’t answer, he gestured to the settee that still held the book, spine up. “I’ll read it out loud to you, then.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Of course I don’t,” he sniffed. “I don’t have to do a damned thing. But I will anyway. Sit.” He folded his long frame into one corner of the settee, leaving her the remaining three quarters, an absurd amount of space given their relative sizes. This, she guessed, was to prevent her from getting any ideas of hugging and petting him the way she had the other night. Her face went hot with mortification. She on the opposite end of the settee, her hip pressed against the arm. When she glanced shyly over at him, he was regarding her with a raised eyebrow.
“I’m not going to eat you,” he said, his voice low.
“Likewise,” she managed, and felt the flush spread from her face down to her chest.
He flipped back to the beginning of the book and started reading from the start, despite how boring it must have been for him to reread the pages.
She let herself get carried away by the tale. Mad nuns and locked passageways, that was exactly what she needed on a night like this. What was a case of stolen identity, impending poverty, and criminally fraudulent behavior compared to murderous bandits in pursuit across swamps and over mountains? It put one’s own trials in perspective.
She had read these sorts of tales to Robbie and Louisa. That was how she had come to be friends with the Selby children. Just the three of them—sick old Mr. Selby hardly counted, and the cook and other servants seldom left the kitchen—in the middle of nowhere. It was hardly to be wondered at that they sought companionship in one another.
Charity had come to Fenshawe when she was eight, right after Mrs. Selby died, and had taken to telling stories to calm Louisa, who was little more than a lonely baby. Some were stories of her own devising, some were local fables, and some were from books she brazenly took from the library once she realized there was nobody at Fenshawe who cared to stop her. Robbie had at first listened at the nursery door, then edged in closer and closer until he too begged Charity for his nightly story.
But nobody had ever read to her. Robbie had never been much for books and Louisa preferred to sew while Charity read aloud. Tonight was a rare treat. And Pembroke even did different voices for the characters, which she might have thought beneath him if she had ever thought about it at all, which she certainly had not.
He also offered wry asides for her amusement. He would pause, glancing up over the rim of his spectacles. “She never even considered selling the emeralds and hiring a solicitor to find her missing half sister. Instead she gads about through tombs. Deplorable.”
“Too right.” Charity yawned. “Do they not have pawnbrokers in Italy? I have to say I’m rooting for the nun. She at least has some ambition.”
A low rumble of a laugh. “Youwouldroot for the nun, you wretch.”
The nervous energy that had fueled her walk through London began to evaporate, leaving her spent and exhausted. She leaned against the corner of the seat and closed her eyes, letting Pembroke’s rich voice and the drama of the story lull her nerves into something like peace.
She must have fallen asleep, because when she opened her eyes again, Pembroke was no longer reading. The book was open in his lap, but he was silent, regarding her instead of the pages.
Embarrassed, she sat up abruptly. “How long was I—”
