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“We can only wait,” she concluded for him.
“I hadn’t meant to upset you, not tonight of all nights.”
“But…” she thought carefully about how next to phrase her thoughts, “Does this not mean that at last, you are free?”
Benjamin’s face was unreadable. “From Harper, aye.”
“Then, why are you so sad?”
Suddenly, he reached up to brush her cheek with the back of her fingers. “Because… I would have killed him myself if it meant keeping you safe from harm. I hate that.”
Charlotte’s breath caught in her throat. She understood, without having him say it, that whatever Harper had sought had involved her. “It’s not so terrible a thing to fight for…” She stopped herself from saying,To fight for the things we love.
Benjamin seemed to understand all the same. To her surprise, his hand drifted down to the back of her neck. He pulled her in for a kiss, and she let him. It was tender, a product of his sadness and her relief. She trapped his lower lip with her own, not wanting to part just yet. She hadn’t realized how desperately she hadmissedhis taste. Every kiss felt stolen, and she couldn’t understand why. They were not promised to others. They were enemies no more. Something else still lay between them, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
Softly, Benjamin pried himself away. As soon as he had, there was a new knock at the door, and Josephine let herself in, a small plate of sweets in hand.
“Forgive me,” Benjamin whispered against Charlotte’s mouth before the door could yawn wide, “I shall meet you downstairs.”
With a sheepish nod to Josie, he slipped through the door.
“My lady,” the maid gasped, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, “I didn’t know—“
Charlotte brought a few fingers before her lips and cut her maid off with a shake of her head. “There was nothing for you to know.”
“Of course,” Josephine stammered. She set down the plate of Turkish delights on the writing desk. And then, curiously, she waited.
“Is there something else?”
The maid suckled at her lip. “There is.” Prying a letter from her apron, she tended it to Charlotte. “One of the footmen received this.”
“The post was delivered hours ago,” Charlotte stated, picking up a sweetmeat from the tray. In another swoop, she took the envelope from Josie to look it over. It had been penned by the Duke of Gamston, and it wasnotaddressed to Charlotte. “This says it’s for Mr. Huxley.”
“A messenger came by the Duke’s estate, or so the story goes,” the maid replied, turning her hands in the fabric of her dress.
“Might the story explain why you have swiped it and delivered it tome?” Josephine was silent, so Charlotte pressed her again, “Josie?”
“After everything that has happened, I—“ she began, then slapped a hand over her mouth as if surprised she had theimpertinence to speak. “I am so sorry, my lady. I know—it is not my place… but after all that has happened with you, the Duke, and Mr. Huxley…” She let out a self-reprimanding groan. “I did not want you taken unawares again.”
“I suppose I understand.” Charlotte’s finger danced at the wax seal emblazoned with Gamston’s family crest. “It wouldn’t be right to open it,” she said aloud, though her finger immediately betrayed her, cutting through the wax. She gasped, as did Josie.
She knew it was beneath her to pry. Whatever the Duke had to say to Benjamin, it should have been none of her business. However, she could not help but worry it was a threat of some sort or something equally painful and Benjamin was in no place to accommodatemorepain. Really, she was doing him a kindness by prying—or so she told herself.
She tore the letter from the envelope and almost choked on her sweet as she read:
Fletcher,
I have no right to ask a thing of you, so I ask you this without right—do not embroil Lady Charlotte in a marriage of lies. Ask for her hand when she is presented with all the facts: the truth of your birth. I will not burden you with my fathering after so many years of estrangement, but I consider myself a father to her.
Think carefully before next you act,
A.P
Charlotte had to read the letter over four times before she could evenchanceof understanding what it all meant. She had been right of one thing: Gamston was threatening Benjamin. Withwhat, exactly, she could not say. To have written of lies again, ofthe truth of his birth…to have spoken of fathering. It made no sense.
Over and over, she scanned the lines until, finally, she began to read between them. Gamston, for whatever reason, was suggesting that Benjamin was his son.
“No…” she breathed, and it stirred Josie before her. She felt her feet failing and stumbled back into a chair. “This cannot be.”
