Highest Stakes (75 page)

Alerting Letty, Charlotte packed enough belongings to maintain her for a few days should her business require it. She had waited anxiously for Philip's departure before calling for her carriage, fretful that he might discover her plans. She had departed shortly after Philip went out, directing her coachman to the London address copied from Mr. Roberts's calling card.

  She arrived in the capital six hours later, dusty and travel-weary but beyond caring. Her coach halted at the elegant Mayfair address, and with her maid in tow, the Countess of Hastings descended. Squaring her shoulders, lifting her chin, and adopting her haughtiest demeanor, she rapped sharply upon the door.

  The answering footman had little opportunity to question or protest. Lady Hastings stepped boldly into the foyer and presented her card. "Pray inform Mr. Roberts that the Countess of Hastings wishes to speak with him." Her tone evoked no refusal.

  "Indeed, my lady. Is the gentleman expecting you? I distinctly recall his mentioning an afternoon appointment with
Lord
Hastings."

  "You may inform him that the countess is come in his stead," she snapped imperiously. "It is a matter of personal business. Please conduct me to a place where I may await the gentleman's pleasure, unless you would have it about that said gentleman would leave a countess standing on his door stoop."

  The beleaguered servant, knowing not what to make of this, dared not challenge her any further. He replied with due deference, "No indeed, my lady. If you and your maid will follow me, I shall notify Mr. Roberts of your request."

  Charlotte seated herself on a sofa near the hearth while Letty took an inconspicuous chair by the window. In a matter of minutes, the door opened to admit Mr. Lee. "Lady Hastings, we meet again. 'Tis a most unexpected surprise. How might I be of service?"

  "Mr. Lee," she said with a terse nod, "I fear you are not the gentlemen with whom I wish to speak."

  "My sincerest apologies to disappoint, but Mr. Roberts is otherwise engaged."

  "As my business with him is of the utmost consequence, I shall be happy to await his pleasure." She regarded him stubbornly.

  "I see." Now thoroughly disconcerted, he considered his response. "I shall be happy to show you to my office, where perhaps you might be kind enough to enlighten me. As his agent in London, I have the privilege of conducting the majority of Mr. Roberts's affairs. Whatever your concern, you may be assured of my utmost attention, diligence, and discretion in resolving it on his behalf."

  Perceiving she would make little progress otherwise, Charlotte nodded agreement and followed the gentleman up the wide staircase and down the brightly lit hallway to the large doors leading into a darkly paneled office. A massive mahogany desk was positioned near the heavily draped windows, and two of the walls were teeming with Latin and legal texts, with the third opening into an antechamber. Although the connecting door stood slightly ajar, Charlotte could see nothing beyond it.

  The gentleman gestured to a large, comfortable-looking chair, but Charlotte perched stiffly on the edge of the seat. He regarded her expectantly, but still composing her muddled thoughts, Charlotte did not immediately speak. Suddenly at sea, she wondered what on earth she was going to say to this perfect stranger now that she had come.

  "Perhaps you would care for some tea, Lady Hastings?" he offered in an effort to set her at ease.

  "So kind of you, Mr. Lee, but no thank you."

  He waited patiently.

  Finally, she took a breath to speak. "I suppose there can be little cause for conjecture. I think you must know why I have come."

  "Indeed not, my lady." His reply was somewhat disingenuous. "You find me quite confounded."

  "My concern relates to Lord Hastings's wager with Mr. Roberts."

  "But I fail to see how this should involve
Lady
Hastings."

  "Lord Hastings had no right to make such a wager."

  Lee's countenance darkened. "I am afraid I do not follow you, my lady."

  "The Hastings stud, it is mine. When Philip, Lord Hastings, made the wager with Mr. Roberts, he should have known that a defeat would cost the entire Hastings stud. It was not his to wager."

  "You mean to say that
you
are the legal owner of the Hastings stud?"

  "N-n-o, not strictly speaking," Charlotte said, stammering her reply. "As a woman, I have no property rights, but in reality, the horses are mine. I have worked seven long years to breed champions. I selected the broodmares and the sires. I raised the foals and personally supervised every aspect of their training. The success of the Hastings stud was due to the sweat of
my brow an
d none other.

  "Now the threat of losing all I have worked for has brought me to this state of… of… desperation! I have no other word for it. Do you still not comprehend why I have come?"

  "Lady Hastings, while entirely sympathetic to your plight, this is no concern of Mr. Roberts's. He and Lord Hastings agreed to a sporting wager, and the earl unfortunately lost. Any concerns you have regarding
how
the wager is to be paid are best discussed with your husband. I am afraid there is nothing I can do for you."

  Having been dismissed with such detached indifference, Charlotte boiled over with frustration, indignation, and outrage. "No! You shall not brush me off so easily! You know nothing of my plight! I am not come to beg forgiveness of Lord Hastings's debt. On the contrary, he entered the wager and is obligated to pay. The debt, however, is his and only his. It is not my debt to pay, and I shall never allow the sacrifice of the stud to pay it!

  "The racing stud was
my dream
, the dream I inherited from the man I loved, who was cruelly taken from me by the very one to whom I am now legally bound." Charlotte caught herself, suddenly aware of the very personal revelations her outburst had exposed.

  "Lady Hastings," Mr. Lee said in tempered tones, "I shall not patronize you further with false displays of pathos. I can again only recommend you take the matter up with your… with Lord Hastings," he quickly amended. "The wager must be paid." He came around the desk and offered his hand. "It shall be my pleasure to guide you back to your maid, my lady."

  Recognizing the fruitlessness of her errand, Charlotte had no choice but accept defeat. She rose, ignoring Lee's outstretched hand, determined to comport herself with dignity before melting into a great pile of weeping hysteria. Yet struggling for this composure, she remarked a noise, as of someone restlessly pacing on the other side of the door.

  "One moment, Ludwell. I would speak with Lady Hastings."

  The voice from the adjoining chamber rang a familiar peal through

Charlotte's near-delirious brain. That voice! It couldn't be! She must be hysterical.

Charlotte spun around to face… a ghost.

C harlotte's
gaze locked on Daniel Roberts. Her breath seized in a great gasp. Her world whirled about her. Her vision blurred. Her body quivered. Her knees threatened to buckle and give way. She frantically clutched the chair for balance, desperate for support.

  "Robert," she whispered, her eyes incredulous.

  Instinctively he advanced, as if to lend her support, but abruptly caught himself several feet away.

  "Ludwell, pray excuse us," he said to his friend more harshly than intended.

  Mr. Lee regarded him questioningly but was more than happy to comply. The tension in the room had become overwhelming.

  Charlotte found her voice. "You were dead. I thought you were dead!"

  "You were correct, Lady Hastings." His glib answer masked any trace of emotion. "The man to whom you refer ceased to exist eight years ago. Do not be deceived that the one standing before you is the same one you knew."

  "They
told me
you were dead!" Her head reeled, and her stomach churned. "They lied to me! Why did they lie?"

  Her voice broke into a sob that wrenched his gut, tore at his insides. He longed to go to her, take her into his arms, but his long-cultivated need for self-preservation was stronger than the call of his conscience.

  "They told you what I insisted they tell you. There was no point in holding on to something that could never be, so I released you. I set you free to live your life." As her legs gave way, and she collapsed limply into the chair, he moved not a muscle, did not even blink an eye.

  "Could never be, you say? Your very existence is proof to the contrary! Why did you not send for me? Why?" she asked in a shrill voice hardly recognizable as her own.

  He was paralyzed with uncertainty. It had all been clear to him
before
he saw her, but her words planted seeds of doubt and confusion. Her anguished eyes were a debilitating distraction.

  "It was too late for that, Charlotte," he replied softly. "You were already wed to Philip, and then he came into his property and title. What had I to offer you in comparison? What is a Virginia planter to an earl?"

  "But don't you understand? I desired none of it! I cared nothing for titles and privilege. I craved only love, genuine respect, and affection. Could you not find it in your heart to fulfill those simple desires?" She lost her struggle with the flood of hot, angry tears.

  He turned from her, moving toward the books, running his hand absently over the leather covers while imagining how he might have used these same hands to sooth and comfort her. He abruptly shook away the vision, composing himself anew.

  Choosing his words with utmost care, he posed his reply. "Are these simple desires you speak of not fulfilled by your husband, Lady Hastings?" He stole a furtive glance at her, surreptitiously studying yet not daring to hope. Hope had been a great deceiver in his life and the author of his greatest despair.

  "Don't call him my husband! There is only one I have loved, one whom I thought long dead, but I now learn abandoned me."

  He ached to accept her words as truth, but
her truth
would paint him as the false lover, the betrayer of her trust, and the villain. He was not prepared for any reality other than what he had imagined.
No, it just could not be so. It was all another deception.
He had nearly played right into her hand.

  Roberts advanced, his countenance hardening. "My compliments, Countess. You perjure yourself most convincingly."

  Her face wet with tears, flushed with simmering ire. "I told you the night we spent together that the marriage was nothing more than a legal bondage. I am wed to a man I despise. Why do you think the Earl of Hastings has never begotten an heir?"

  "Do you mean to persuade me that in eight years you never succumbed to Philip's bed; that for eight long years you have languished for a lost love, leading a chaste and lonely existence?" His words dripped with irony. "Why don't you tell me why you have
really come? Ha
s Philip sent you to beg for clemency? If so, he vastly overestimates your powers of persuasion." His hardened blue gaze swept over her.

  Charlotte colored at his insolence.

  He drew closer, so close his warm breath grazed her neck. Charlotte closed her eyes, and an unbidden wave of nearly forgotten desire swept over her. Her heart pounded when he murmured in caressing tones, "Mayhap his lordship places more worth on the allure of your charms than on your powers of persuasion. Does he propose to offer his countess in lieu of payment?"

  The force of her hand viciously stung his face. He blinked. His breath came harder, but he didn't move.

  Charlotte observed, trancelike, the flesh of his cheek slowly effusing in an angry red flush. She had lost control, but in this single act found no release. Her rage had only begun to surface. Mentally replaying his filthy insinuation, his contemptuous words, she erupted like a volcano. Releasing all vestiges of restraint, she assailed him, blindly, frenetically, with all her fury.

  "You bastard!" she shrieked. "I loved you! I would have gone to the ends of the earth with you, but you made me believe you dead! You deceitful, lying sod!"

  Charlotte attacked with the passion she'd withheld. She raged for years of loneliness and despair; for years of frustrated, self-imposed celibacy that had suppressed the yearnings of her young body; for years of lying alone at night, mourning the loss of her only love. This same love now mocked and cheapened all she held dear, blighted all she had believed.