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She breathed a laugh. “Was that a question?”
“More so a fact to illustrate my point.”
“My mother withered away with age. She had always been sickly. I cannot claim any tragedy over it.” She wiped the hair from her face and forced a smile. “Golly, look at us. What terrible sad-acts! A couple of Pierrots. Let us speak of happier things for a while.”
Benjamin agreed, tending an arm for her to take as he walked her back to her brother. “What have you in mind?”
“I was thinking—“
“With that empty head of yours?”
She groaned. “If we are to make your act convincing, if I am to ever chance at publishing another poem for as long as I live, it might do for the two of us to meet outside of our performances.” She dropped her voice low. “I could teach you a thing or two about contemporary poetry, should the topic come up in conversation. You might help me in your own way by delivering poems for me to Hathaway.”
As St Chett came into view, the other Fitzroy girl and Pollock having joined him, Benjamin found himself not wanting to return. “I’m disinclined to give you ideas of abandoning me, but why, pray, do you not simply publish your work under a new alias?”
Charlotte stopped dead in her tracks. “I won’t lie to you. I had considered it.”
“However…?”
“However, I could no more abandon Charles Huxley than I could abandon myself. To that end,” she leaned in close, not so much to cause a scandal but enough to set his nerves alight, “I have found a spot for us to meet. You need only meet me there.” She slipped him a small roll of paper, and he pocketed it as slyly as he could. “Shall we say three on the morrow?”
“Three on the morrow.”
Benjamin pressed open the door to his home, and it groaned its welcome unconvincingly. It was barely dusk, but the sky had clouded over since his walk with Charlotte. Having asked Pollock’s driver to park a fifteen-minute walk from Walden Street, he had hauled the packets of his new affairs all the way home like a packhorse.
He turned to close the door, resting his head against its pane to catch his breath. There would be no reprieve, for as soon as he slid the lock into place, a rumble came from the stairway.
“You’re out late, Fletch.” It was Lamb. Benjamin turned to see his friend, incensed. “What could have taken your fancy so long, I wonder? Brought back a present for me, have you?”
Benjamin had no desire to bicker. He pressed past Lamb on the stairs, stomping up to his attic room. He lay his new garments atop his desk. To his dismay, Lamb had trailed after him. The door crashed into the wall behind it for his lumbering entrance, and the lace curtains blew for the breeze, kicking up motes of dust.
“I asked you a question; I did,” Lamb slurred. “What? Too good to speak to me now, are you? Don’t go thinkin’ you’re better than me because you’re dressed a pansy, I’m tellin’ you, Fletch—”
“Don’t pick a fight you won’t win, Lamb,” he warned. It was not usual for Tommy to lose his wit when he drank, but Benjamin feared something else had provoked him—something that had everything to do with his recent friendship with their betters. “Tell me—should I be flattered you waited all afternoon for my return so we could squabble like women? If you have something to say, say it.”
“Nah, Fletch. I ain’t got nothing to say to you no more. And you ain’t got time for me neither, not with your new lady.” He bared his teeth, and Benjamin’s stomach churned. “You must think I’m stupid, but I know more than you think. Lady Charlotte, was it? Oh, her friend wasn’t so bright as your woman. Now she’s got you dressing like a girl. What else do you do for her, Lieutenant? Do you bend over nice and—“
Benjamin spun on his heel. He marched towards Lamb, smelling the alcohol on his breath before he even neared him. Lamb made to strike him, but Benjamin pushed him back, pinning him to the wall behind them with an arm across the neck. He twisted his other arm to thwart any retaliation. “Don’t forget who I am, Tommy boy,” he growled low. “I can dress the gentleman, but I’ll always be your master.” He pressed his arm into his neck with a shock of strength. “You’re going to go downstairs, and you’re going to get in bed, and we’re going to forget you ever tested my patience.”
Without another word, he pulled himself back, watching as his last friend in the world walked away.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
The lace hem of Charlotte’s gown swept across the cobblestones of the garden path. She took a moment to breathe in the morning air, staring up through the canopy of joined willow and oak leaves above her. The sun fell in dappled spots at her feet, spots which danced in the breeze. If she had not been so anxious about meeting with Mr Benjamin Fletcher, she might have tried to pen a poem while she waited.
She looked over to where Josie sat at the base of the willow. She was reading an illustrated novel Charlotte had lent her, humming a gentle song as they waited before the greenhouse. It was a building abandoned a few years past. The townhouse to which it belonged had been deserted by a knight of licentious repute, laughed out of London two Seasons ago. The blooms within had long turned to mulch, and the grass had grown to knee-length. It was a beautiful spot and secluded enough that no one should come knocking.
Josie let out a soft laugh at something she had read, and Charlotte’s chest seized with guilt. She loathed having to drag Josephine into her mess, but she could think of no other way to explain her long, frequent absences to her father. She had not used the same excuse as before with the groom—this time having pretended a bout of shopping. Thankfully, none of the men in the house had connected the dots between Charlotte’s airings and her recent admission of courtship with a certainMr. Huxley.
Suddenly, the front gate to the garden, nestled between the Knight’s home and the one beside it, ground open with the screech of metal. In strode Benjamin, his hands in his pockets, eyes darting around. He smiled as he caught sight of the women, and Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief.
“He is here,” she whispered to herself, motioning for Josephine to stand. “Head inside where it is warmer, Josie. I won’t have you sitting on the paddock in this weather. Take the book with you and retrieve me within the hour—in all haste, should anyone come looking for us.”
Josephine nodded. “Yes, my lady.” She rushed up the garden path, her dark coat trailing behind her. Benjamin stopped her, presumably with a greeting, but something he had said made Josie laugh. They parted, and he moved toward Charlotte. Each cobble was like a checkpoint until finally he was before her.
“Good morning, Benjamin.”
“Good morning to you.” He looked behind her at the greenhouse. “When I arrived, I wondered whether you had led me into a trap. The place is abandoned, then?”
