Authors: Jane Ashford
The Bride Insists (29 page)
***
When Lucy pulled back the curtains, Charlotte swam slowly up from her belated sleep. Her memory sputtered and cleared. She sat up. “You should have told me, Lucy.”
“Told you what, Miss Charlotte?”
“That Henry spends nights away from home. The knowledge could hardly hurt my feelings at this point.”
“Awayâ¦?”
“Come, Lucy, the household knows these things.”
“They don't talk to me.” Was this it then?
He
hadn't come home last night?
“I know they haven't befriended you, but there must be gossip⦔
“Never, miss. I don't know what you're talking about.” Lucy opened the wardrobe and surveyed the row of gowns. “Except⦠Mr. Holcombe's in a right taking this morning.”
Charlotte threw back the covers. “I'll dress at once and see him.”
“You know he don't like to be⦔
“I don't care.” And she didn't. Not a whit. Holcombe might be the most insolent of all the servants, but Charlotte was finished with being cowed.
She hurried Lucy through their morning routine. She would demand that Holcombe appear, and if he refused, she would hunt him down wherever he lurked and force him to tell her the truth. Chin up, eyes steely, Charlotte marched out of her bedchamber and down the hall. In what passed for a drawing room in this house, she jerked the bellpull. Minutes ticked by; no one answered the summons. Charlotte rang again, then gave it up and started for the stairs.
A heavy knock fell on the front door; it sounded as if someone were striking it with a stick. Charlotte looked over the banister. The knock came again, echoing through the house. Who could be calling at this hour?
The housemaid hurried out and began to undo the bolts. Charlotte heard the swinging door at the back of the hall and knew that other servants were behind her. The front door swung open.
“Miss,” said a deep voice from the stoop. “Is there a gen'lmun at home pr'haps?”
Charlotte hurried down the stairs.
“Who wants to know?” demanded Holcombe, surging out of the back hall.
“It's the watch,” replied the deep voice. “Are youâ¦?”
Charlotte moved faster. “I am the mistress of this house,” she said, more for Holcombe's benefit than the visitor's. “My husband is apparently not at home.” A glance at Holcombe showed him pale and anxious, completely unlike the snake who delighted in taunting her. Charlotte turned her attention to the burly individual on her doorstep. Bearded, in a long stuff coat and fingerless gloves, he looked like any of the men who patrolled the streets of London. His staff was tall beside him.
“Ma'am,” he said, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. “Er⦔
“Is there a problem?”
The man held out a visiting card, which seemed so incongruous that Charlotte just stared at it. “I wonder if you might recognize that, ma'am?”
She took the small pasteboard square and read it. “This is my husband's card.”
“Ah.” The watchman didn't seem surprised. “Might you want to sit down, ma'am?”
“Just tell us what has happened!” exclaimed Holcombe, typically ignoring her authority, her very existence.
“Yes, please tell us,” Charlotte agreed.
The man on the step stood straighter. “Regret to inform you, ma'am, that there has been an⦠incident. A gent'lmun was found earlier this morning. His purse was missing, but he had a card case in his waistcoat pocket. That there card was inside it.”
“But⦠what happened? Is he hurt? Where have you takenâ¦?”
“Sorry, ma'am.” The visitor grimaced, looking as if he wished very much to be elsewhere. “Regret to tell you, the gent'lmun is dead. Footpads, looks like. Caught him as he was⦔
“Dead?” Somehow, Lucy was at Charlotte's elbow, supporting her. “But how⦠are you sure? I cannot believe⦔
The man shuffled his feet. “Somebody must come and identify him for sartain, ma'am. Mebbe aâ¦?”
“I shall go!” interrupted Holcombe. He glared at Charlotte, at the watchman, at the other servants. No one argued with him. The watchman looked relieved.
They all stood in stunned silence as Holcombe ran for his coat and departed with the watch. Charlotte never remembered afterward how she got back up to the drawing room, only that she was sitting there when Lucy entered some indeterminate time later and said, “It's him. He's dead.”
Charlotte half rose. “Holcombe isâ¦?”
“He's back with the news. Right cut up, he is.” Lucy's lip curled.
“Henry is dead?” She couldn't help repeating it.
“Seems he is, Miss Charlotte. Happens more often than we had any notion, Holcombe says. Streets aren't half safe, after dark. London!” Lucy knew that many people saw the city as thrilling, with every sort of goods and amusement on offer. She hated the filth and the noiseâwheels clattering, people shouting at you to buy this or that from the moment you stepped into the street. Strangers shoving past if you walked too slow. She had discounted Holcombe's horror stories, however. He enjoyed scaring the scullery maid out of the few wits she possessed with tales of hapless servants who wandered into the wrong part of town and never came out. Lucy had refused to show any fear just to irk him. Now it seemed he was right, after all.
Charlotte sank back onto the sofa. She hadn't wanted this, not anything like this. She'd longed for change, but she'd never wishedâ¦
“Can I get you something? Tea? You haven't eaten a crumb.”
“I couldn't.”
“You have to eat.”
“Not now.”
Lucy bowed her head at the tension in her voice. “Shall I sit with you?”
“No. No, I'd like to be alone for a while.”
Lucy hesitated, then bobbed a curtsy and went out. Charlotte folded her hands tightly together, pressed her elbows to her sides. This wasn't change; this was life violently turned upside down. This was the fabric of daily existence ripped right in two.
She hadn't ever loved Henry. She had tried to like him, almost thought she did, before he made that impossible. In these last months, she hadn't hated him, had she? No, she hadn't gone that far. She had wished, over and over, that he had never entered her life. But she hadn't wished him dead. Yesterday, at about this time, he had been haranguing her about his tea, and now he was removed from the face of the earth. How could this be?
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