But she was already running as fast as her heavy, wet skirts would let her, back to the safety of the boarding house.
Chapter Eleven
THE SUN HUNG LOW INthe sky as Mark watched Charlotte disappear toward town. The touch of her lips against his lingered, and his arms felt empty without her in them. She hadn’t even looked backward as she’d run away.
What had he done?
Nothing. Well, nothing except fall headlong into what she’d given him. She couldn’t be angry with him for that, could she? She certainly didn’t seem upset in the moment. Nor did she look at him as if she was mad at him afterward.
It had to be something else.
And he had to find out what it was, or at least ensure she was all right. He made his way along the river, back toward the depot, walking at a slower clip to make sure he gave Charlotte enough time to return to the boarding house and sort through her thoughts.
It was nearly sunset when he arrived. The door to the boarding house was already locked for the night. The woman who usually sat at the desk answered his knock.
“It’s too late for visiting,” she said with her usual friendly smile. “You’ll have to come back in the morning.”
Mark couldn’t imagine sitting with this uncertainty all night. If Charlotte felt the same about him as he felt about her, he needed to knownow. Or, at the very least, he had to make sure she didn’t despise him. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t get a wink of sleep.
“I’ll only be a moment, I promise. Please.”
She eyed him a moment, and then opened the door just wide enough for him to slip through. “I’ll fetch Miss Montgomery. Five minutes, and then you must leave.”
He nodded gratefully and waited in the doorway of the parlor. He was far too antsy to take a seat.
Not more than a minute later, the woman’s footsteps sounded on the stairs.
“Miss Montgomery did not answer the door. I presume she’s gone to sleep,” the woman said when she reached the bottom step.
It was hardly late enough to turn in for the night. Mark glanced past the woman to the stairs, as if he could suss out why Charlotte didn’t answer simply by looking up to the second floor.
“I’ll be just a moment.” And moving quickly so that he couldn’t change his mind and the proprietor couldn’t stop him, he bounded around her and up the stairs.
“Sir!” Her normally friendly voice had grown much sharper. “Sir, you can’t go up there!”
He cringed at the thought that he might be the reason that poor woman wound up hiring someone to keep out men just like him, who broke the rules with hardly a second thought.
