Charlotte stared down at the loom and her heart soared like a roseate spoonbill taking flight. “Helena, you’ve done it!”
“Of course I have,” scoffed Helena. But as the mill erupted with whoops, her mouth curled into a smile.
It was late afternoon by the time the three companions piled back into the carriage for the journey home, and the sky was low, gray, and overstuffed, as if someone had packed it with tufts of wool. It grizzled down at them, not quite rain and not mist either, but more of a wet, plaintive splatter.
“Charlotte.” Elizabeth touched her sleeve. “Are you quite all right? I rather thought we’d be celebrating.”
Charlotte tried for a smile. “I am celebrating.”
“I see. Celebrating with a good stare out the window?”
“Lord, I must seem ungrateful. Helena, you weremagnificenttoday. Only, the Jacquard loom is quite rare, and the fact that my mill has a working one makes the whole operation considerably more valuable.”
Helena tilted her head. “And that makes you… sad?”
“If it’s more valuable, it’s considerably easier tosell,” said Charlotte. “I’m still nine thousand pounds short on my mother’s debt and the summer’s nearly over. I thought perhaps I’d have found a husband by now and we’d set aside some of the marriage settlement for her, or that I’d come up with something good.” Charlotte stared out again at the heavy gray sky. “I haven’t.”
“Oh.” Elizabeth’s voice was soft as mist. “I do see.”
“Idon’t,” said Helena. “It’s your mother’s debt, not yours—why should you tear yourself up to take it on? Lizzie, you’re just the same with our mother.” A thought occurred to her. “It would be quite fascinating to study the role of the firstborn daughter in—”
“Fascinating, but perhaps not helpful at the moment?” Elizabeth turned away from her sister. “Charlotte, it does seem to me that you have one quite promising suitor. Won’t you consider Warrick?”
Charlotte nearly barked a laugh. She’d done nothing but consider Wolfgang.My nemesis, my own black cloud, the thorn in my side I can never quite bring myself to remove.
She hunched her shoulders and turned her head to the window again, but Elizabeth wasn’t put off so easily.
“I’ve known you forever and watched you flirt your head off, but never with an ounce of feeling. With Warrick all I see is feeling, and not an ounce of reason. You’re terribly guarded for someone who flits around causing scandals, you know.”
Charlotte could only close her eyes. Scandals were easy, but feelings made her want to howl. Wasn’t it right to be guarded?
There was a wound at the center of her family, and all these years later it still hadn’t healed. They all twisted themselves around it in different, unnatural ways, trying not to feel how it throbbed. Charlotte had twisted herself so tightly and for so long that she wondered if her bones had hardened into strange, unworkable shapes. And now she was meant to try for a love match of her own, with Wolfgang of all people, who churned her up like no one else?
She might as well crack open her chest and expose her inner organs.
“What business do I have, with my parents’ marriage, to think of…” Charlotte ground to a halt.
“I do understand what it’s like to be the daughter of a difficult marriage, but would you say I’m a hopeless case?” asked Elizabeth. “You’renothinglike your parents.”
“None of us are,” said Helena.
The truth of that statement settled over the three young ladies, and they sat in silence for a while, absorbing it or perhaps turning their own troubles over in their heads. Elizabeth kicked off her slippers and Helena nestled deeper into her corner, and Charlotte felt lighter having them near.
“Do you have a buyer in mind for the mill?” Helena asked, over the clip-clop of the horses.
“No. There are plenty of people who’d be willing, but only a few Josephine could stomach as a partner, or who’d agree to hiring Spitalfields women. I refuse to bring in someone horrible and leave everyone in the lurch.”
Elizabeth sighed. “I wish I had the money. I’ll always bet on you, but this one seems a particularly good investment.”
A particularly good investment.
Charlotte stared, so electrified it was as if the skies had parted and a lightning bolt had zapped her directly in the head.
“My silk millisa good investment, shockingly good!” She sat up straight. “My brother’s man of business can’t denythat, not after the success we’ve had this summer.”
Helena seemed puzzled. “Why would he want to?”
“He doesn’t want to! He desperately wants to cover Mother’s debt for me, but he won’t send me such a massive sum of money without security to back it. Now the mill’s up and running with substantial orders and a Jacquard loom, too—it’s become a valuable asset, you see. I must write to him at once!”
