Charity’s world came tumbling down around her. Everything made sense. Terrible, awful, painful sense. She could not bear to hear another word. She rushed past the woman she had always known as her aunt for the entirety of her life.
Lies!Nothing but lies and manipulations!
Her eyes stung with tears. Her heart was racing. And her feet were flying.
As she had done so many times before, Charity ran.
Chapter 10
Neville could not seem to stop whistlingI Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Hallsas he prepared for dinner that evening. The song was in his mind, and it had been ever since Charity had sung it so beautifully whilst he played the piano. His heart was happy and light. Lighter than it had been in as long as he could recall.
Charity loved him.
She had agreed to become his wife.
This house party could not have had a better, nor a more surprising, outcome.
“You are in excellent cheer, my lord,” Anderson observed as he finished Neville’s necktie.
He wanted to shout from the roof of Fangfoss Manor that he was betrothed. But he and Charity had yet to make their announcement, leaving their understanding a secret for now. A treasured one.Hell.Themosttreasured one of his life, aside from the time he had spent in her chamber and in her bed.
“I am pleased with the progress of the house party,” he offered as explanation.
What an understatement that was.
“You have secured a lady’s affections, then?” Anderson’s nimble fingers finished the knot and he stepped back, surveying his handiwork.
“I have,” he said. “No thanks to you and your mustache.”
Anderson winced. “The rash was regrettable, my lord. I have used the glue hundreds of times without such an occurrence.”
He gave his valet a wry grin. “Just my fortune.”
However, he did not mind. If he had never dressed as Shakespeare, he may not have met his Flora in the gardens, and if he had never suffered the reaction to Anderson’s mustache and beard glue, Charity would never have met him in the library to give him her cold cream. The whole affair had set his future in motion. He could be grateful for that. Life was odd and unpredictable and sometimes awful.
But Charity and the love he had found with her had shown him that, most importantly of all, it was wonderful, too.
A sudden, frenzied rapping at his door ended further conversation. Thinking it odd, Neville answered himself to find Lady Louise Manners in tears.
His heart sank.
“What is the matter, my lady?”
“Forgive me, my lord, but it is Lady Charity.” She paused, her gaze flitting over his shoulder to where Anderson moved about the chamber.
Neville crossed the threshold, closing the door at his back to grant them privacy. “Tell me.”
“Oh Lord Wilton,” she began, then paused to press a hand to her lips and stifle a sob. “I am afraid I have upset her dreadfully. She has run off and I have no notion of where she has gone. I followed her into the gardens, but I am no match for her youth, and I lost her in the maze.”
Neville’s legs were moving down the blessedly empty hall, eating up the distance between himself and the gardens. “How have you upset her, my lady?”
“I told her the truth,” Lady Louise said quietly, out of breath as she hastened along with him.
Had his suspicions been correct?
He slanted the elder woman a searching glance without slowing his pace. “What truth?”
“That I am her mother,” Lady Louise admitted.
