Page 75 of To Seduce a Stranger

The black crape made her think of George, as it was of course intended to do. How much had happened in the short time since he had died. How much had changed. Had she betrayed her husband’s memory by giving herself to Edward? Certainly, Society would see it that way. But she rather thought that George would have winked and told her to be happy.

Pray God she had not destroyed her best chance at happiness by concealing part of the truth.

Although it was early, the house was stirring. Footsteps thundered above her head—what she judged as the likely location of the nursery. Once she had packed her few things in her valise, nestling the book and its contents carefully among them, she peered up the empty staircase and then ventured one floor higher, in search of Jane.

She found her tying the younger boy’s shoes, while the other eyed the lace-edged handkerchief he had been given, as if its use was unfamiliar to him. “Now, boys, you mustn’t—oh! Your Grace.” Jane tugged on the older boy’s wrist to draw him down into a bow. Sally wandered in, covered head to toe in jam, and the baby chose that moment to begin crying. Beneath the ruckus, she heard Jane sigh.

“Here,” Charlotte said, snatching the unused handkerchief from the older boy and applying it to Sally’s sticky hands. “Let me tell you a story while your aunt Jane tends the baby.”

The elder boy—Richard, wasn’t it?—shot her a doubtful look, but Sally and Charles gamely came to her side as she wedged herself into one of the tiny chairs at the nursery table. She knew lots of stories, had regaled her younger French cousins with them time and again. But she had never told one aloud in English. Her stumbling start seemed to reward Richard’s skepticism, but a few moments in, she had all three of them at her feet, rapt. Even the baby stopped crying as Jane came to the edge of the circle and stood, rocking and bouncing her, as she listened.

“Another!” Sally demanded when she had finished, and before Jane could admonish her niece, Charlotte launched into a second. At the request for a third, however, she shook her head. “I cannot. I have something I must attend to this morning.”

There was some grumbling, but Jane prompted them to remember their manners. “Thank you, ma’am,” they each mumbled, with obvious reluctance.

“No, thank you.” She smiled down at them. “It has been too long since I told those stories.” She had almost forgotten their magic.

At a nod from their aunt, the three eldest scurried downstairs to greet their parents for the day. “Where did you learn those marvelous tales, ma’am?” Jane asked when they had gone. “Did you read them in a book?”

“Why, no. They came from my own head.”

Jane’s lips quirked in surprise. “I’d no idea you’ve a way with children, ma’am. You ought to write those stories down.”

With a small smile, Charlotte accepted the compliment, exaggerated though it was. Perhaps it was possible her wild imagination wasn’t entirely a curse, as Aunt Penhurst had always claimed. What was it Edward had called it? Her gift for inventiveness.

Would he call it that still?

“Now, what was that urgent business you spoke of?” Jane asked.

Charlotte stood and smoothed her inky skirts. “I have to say goodbye, Jane.”

“Where are you going?” she demanded with wide eyes. “To your aunt? Back to France?”

“If I tell you this time, Jane, you must promise not to try to stop me.”

“Not to—him?”

“I’m afraid I must.”

After a long moment, in which Jane struggled valiantly to contain her impulse to argue, she at last nodded and turned to go call a cab. “Are you sure, ma’am?” she asked, pausing on the threshold.

Blinking away a prickle of tears, Charlotte managed a steadying breath. “Not in the least, Jane. But I really haven’t any choice.”

She would never be free if she did not confront Robert—and perhaps not even if she did.

Chapter 20

Though it was far too early for a social call, the door of Blakemore House opened promptly to her knock, almost as if she had been expected. She had not, of course. That much was clear when the butler, an unfamiliar man with droopy features, actually gasped when she lifted her dark veil to reveal her face.

“You’re—Your Grace,” he corrected with a bow so abrupt it threatened to snap him neatly in two.

“I wish to speak with the duke.” From whence this sudden show of firmness had come, she did not know. She felt certain the driver of the hackney must have been able to hear her knees knocking together.

“I shall inform His Grace you are here,” he said, offering no practiced pretense that the duke might not be at home.

“No.” She stepped up beside him as he turned to ascend the stairs. “I do not wish to be announced. Take me to him.”

Something like panic flickered behind the man’s sad eyes. Was she condemning him to lose his place over this? But he jerked his head in a stiff nod. “Very good, ma’am. Right this way.”