“Come now,” he said, leaning in to his wife and kissing her on the cheek. “Leave her be. There are some things that are sacred, you know.”
“Aaron is my brother.”
“And he is her soon-to-be husband,” Edward said. “Let’s speak of something else.”
Charlotte sat back and listened to their conversation with half an ear. Her emotions, not settled at the best of times, were in turmoil. When she found another man that she was obliged to marry—she could hardly feel as though she wanted to when her heart lay back in Hexham—and broke off the engagement, she would be disappointing more than her mother.
For the first time, the enormity of their decision fell on her shoulders. As the gentleman in their arrangement, Aaron could not break off the engagement—not now he had acknowledged it—without condemnation from theton. She would have to be the one. And everyone would, without exception, be surprised and want to know the reason. There would be whispers, rumors, especially if she was to marry again not long after.
They had not thought this plan through. Aaron could perhaps stand to be jilted, but would he want to? Would he consent to Charlotte appearing to throw him over in favor of another, invariably less eligible, gentleman?
And yet, what was the alternative? They could not marry. Charlotte, for one, refused to be bound to a man such as the Duke of Hexham if he could not love her, and although he may have been inclined to matrimony from a purely practical standpoint, there was little to recommend her family to his.Especiallyin light of this most recent development.
Charlotte spoke little for the remainder of the journey, and when they finally arrived in London, two days later, she was inordinately glad to see the familiar streets and houses that marked her home. Not merely because she’d long ago had enough of traveling either with Constance and Edward or her mother, but because while traveling, they were in a state of limbo. She hadn’t a chance to speak with Aaron and decide on a way forward; she, in truth, had chance to do little other than think, and the subject of her thoughts were not happy ones.
When Hexham Manor finally drew up through the mist, its lamps burning in anticipation of their arrival, she could hardly leave the carriage fast enough. And once she was inside with her mother safely on her arm, she lost no time in announcing that they must return home.
Aaron raised an eyebrow. “Tonight? Surely you can’t think of returning home so late.”
“We must, Your Grace.”
If he noticed her return to their more formal address, he didn’t comment on it. “Is your house prepared for your arrival? Have you given notice?”
“I have.” He regarded her for another moment with his blue eyes. She had memorized the color almost without realizing, and she could have pictured them now even without them before her. She knew them better than she knew her own; she could read every emotion he allowed to cross them as well as she knew the feelings that lingered in her breast.
Today, however, he allowed no emotions to pass across his eyes.
“I presume you have no objections, Lady Lowood?” he asked her mother.
Anastasia, who had barely recovered from such a long drive, hung on Charlotte’s arm with almost her entire weight. “I merely wish for a bed,” she said weakly, “whether it is my own or someone else’s.”
“I would not wish to intrude on your kindness any longer,” Charlotte said firmly, wishing Constance would not look at her with such unrestrained curiosity, wishing Aaron would just agree and let them go so she didn’t have to suffer the prompting of politeness to give in and accept the rooms he had offered them.
It would be polite for her to stay, but it would be prudent for them to leave. The less thetonsaw them together and knew them to be together, the easier their eventual separation would be.
“Of course,” Aaron said, inclining his head. “Whatever would make you most comfortable.”
“Thank you,” she said fervently.
“You must, however, allow me to see you off. Constance, see to your husband’s comfort. Lady Lowood, Lady Charlotte, allow me.”
Charlotte was, by dint of his unyielding politeness, left with no choice but to accept Aaron’s arm as he guided her back outside, and they instructed their carriage to take them the short distance back home. In good weather, during the daytime, the short mile between their houses was imminently walkable, but it was distinctly evening, and Charlotte’s nerves were too frazzled from the long journey to even contemplate walking.
Not, of course, that Aaron would have allowed her to walk. And for once she didn’t mind.
After he handed her mother into the carriage, he tightened his grip on her hand. “I have one question,” he said, his gaze boring into hers. “Your insistence on leaving—is that because you’re still angry at me over my behavior with Constance?”
“I’m not still angry at you.”
“Then why are you leaving so very abruptly?”
“Because we’re in London,” she said, her heart aching at whatbeing in Londonmeant, “and that means we have to think to the future. And what the future means for us.”
“You mean with the engagement?”
“The engagement that is shortly to come to an end,” she said, freeing her hand from his. “Perhaps it has been simple for you to pretend—”
“It has not been simple—”
