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“Do we not have to make our charade somewhat believable? A laugh will go a fair way.” He paused, slowing their gait. “Now, are you sure you want to go through with this? There is time still for us to—“
“Benjamin,” she whispered, cautioning him against speaking more. “I would not be working so ardently to make our match believable if I had any doubt. Unless...youare the one who is getting cold feet.”
“God above, no,” he protested, a little too eagerly. “What I mean is, there is no risk to my reputation if this goes awry.”
“Because your reputation is artifice.”
“Exactly.”
She grinned, a little twisting side-smile that made his heart lurch. “Is your worry for me all part of our act? Is it Huxley who seeks to protect me from my own folly, or is it Fletcher?”
Benjamin dismissed the question with a scoff. Clearly, he had underestimated her ability to make him hot under the cravat. He could still not quite make sense of Charlotte, what drove her. Part of him wondered whether she was not simply bored, looking to make a final stand for freedom not out of any vibrancy of her character but out of petulant rebellion. He supposed he should not question it either way. With it, he was lining his pockets.
“Funny thing, this morning,” he drawled. Charlotte cocked her head. “Mr. Pollock said we have been ground on the rumor mill. You wouldn’t happen to know a thing about it, would you?”
Charlotte blushed pink. “I may have had a word with a socialite or two.”
“May have?”
She nodded. “As I said, I shan’t keep you trapped unfairly in a betrothal of no consequence for long. Better to play the queen and watch the pawns fall.” They came to the base of a small jetty leading out onto the water. It was private enough that they could speak without whispering. “Speaking of pawns, God bless his soul; I have spoken to my father about the... potential of my finding a love match.”
Benjamin simpered. “I take it from your expression he was hardly pleased.”
Charlotte opened her mouth to speak, but she considered her words some more before saying, “He is not convinced by the suitability of a match with a man who is not a peer.” She suckled at her lip. “One thing I failed to mention when I lured you into my scheme is this—the man who my father wishes me to marry is a duke. The Duke of Gamston, to be precise.”
Benjamin could hardly believe his ears. “What did you say?”
“The Duke of Gamston. He lauds over—“
“I know precisely who the Duke of Gamston is, Charlotte.” His chest swelled in anger, but he tried his best to tuck it away. It felt like a joke of sorts, that it was too good to be true—or perhaps, too cruel to be true. “I know the man. I know his ways, too.”
Charlotte scowled. “I fear I don’t understand.”
“My mother,” he muttered, but the last syllable caught in his throat. He tugged at his dratted cravat. “She once worked for the Duchess as her lady’s maid.”
“That can’t be.”
“Itcanbe.” He acquiesced and looked over the lake. “That was, until she passed.”
“The Duchess, you mean?”
“My mother seceded her by some years, but not many.”
The lady wrung her reticule in her hands. “How old were you when your mother passed?”
Benjamin tasted bile. If there was one thing he detested discussing more than any other, it was his childhood. Second only to this mother’s death. He didn’t have the heart to shoot her attempts at cordiality out of the sky. It was the least he could do for her philanthropy, to balance out his other lies, too. “I was eight or so. I was a babe when they dismissed her from service with little notice.”
“A vicious thing to do.”
Benjamin shrugged. “From what I know of her situation, they employed her as a curiosity. My mother was Italian, you see. She couldn’t speak a word of the Crown’s tongue when she first arrived. She learned over the years, but I can only imagine she was discarded when French maids came into fashion or for some other equally vapid reason.”
Charlotte pinched at the fabric of his coat when he tried to turn away. He stilled, and she retreated. “If you don’t mind my asking, what took her in the end?”
“Melancholia.” He smiled sadly. “No, I couldn’t tell you. She was not herself for many years after her dismissal. She received a pension from a distant aunt, so she said… most of it was guzzled away.” Their gazes met once he found the courage to look back at her. He loathed the aspect of pity in her eyes. “You needn’t gawk at me like that. I found my own way.”
She dropped her gaze to his cheek, to the cut she had drawn along the bone. It almost seemed, for a moment, as though she considered reaching up and stroking the skin there. Charlotte pulled her hand back. “You are a resilient soul, aren’t you?”
“Don’t let my tragedy fool you into thinking I’m a good man, Charlotte. There are plenty of quarries who do unspeakable things.” He rolled back his shoulders. “You’re without a mother.”
