Within three minutes, her breath coming in gasps both from anticipation and exertion, Charlotte stood before the famed Black Sheep. At this hour, it was not open to the public, which meant she could talk to the proprietresses alone.
Charlotte raised her gloved hand to rap at the sturdy wooden door, but her heart seemed to knock instead. Before nerves could stop her, Charlotte let her knuckles fall against the oak. Once. Twice. Thrice.
The door opened to show Charlotte’s cousin. Until now, Charlotte had only spied Hannah in passing, but she had no trouble recognizing her. After all, it was a bit like peering into her own looking glass. They had the same Titian red hair and pale white skin with a light smattering of freckles over the bridge of their noses. Unlike Charlotte, however, Hannah did not hide the brown flecks with powder. Since their mothers had been identical twins, it was no wonder they looked similar, despite the widely divergent paths their immediate families had taken.
“Hello, Hannah Wick,” Charlotte said rather clumsily as her throat unexpectedly tightened. She was rather at a loss about exactly how to greet this relative to whom she’d never spoken. Charlotte briefly pulled back her veil, and Hannah’s green eyes widened. Within mere moments, the young woman regained her composure—an asset for the owner of a rowdy coffeehouse.
“Come in straight away, Cousin. You’ll be set upon by every cutpurse and filching thief in Covent Garden dressed in that finery.”
At Hannah’s hastily spoken command, Charlotte attempted to slip through the opening between the coffeehouse’s heavy wooden door and its half-timber exterior. Unfortunately, she had entirely forgotten about her massive hoop petticoat. The stiff pannier collided with the wattle and daub. Charlotte found herself bouncing backward into a gaggle of smartly dressed gentlemen walking down the street.
Swerving en masse like a herd of disgruntled sheep, the fops murmured something about slatternly morts. One even rudely elbowed her with his brightly clad arm. Charlotte was accustomed to receiving vastly different treatment from the opposite sex, but given the circumstances, their crude responses actually soothed her.
The young bucks hadn’t recognized her as they continued to gambol south along the thoroughfare. Thank goodness Charlotte had grabbed that veil. But even if the gauzy fabric had shielded her this time, it might prove less effective in another close encounter with the peerage.
Wasting no more time in reaching safety, Charlotte turned sideways and pushed. The delicate silk of her dress caught on a splinter in the wooden doorjamb. Ignoring both the tug and the sound of ripping fabric, she continued to shove her body and massive skirt forward. As much as she loved a pretty gown, she did not appreciate this one.
“Gadso! What is she wearing?”
Still wedged in the door like an entire loaf of bread, Charlotte could not spy the second female speaker as she peered into the long, narrow building with its white daub walls. But even if she didn’t know the identity of the other occupant, she really had no other choice but to continue trying to enter the Black Sheep.
“A gown for my betrothal ball.” Charlotte could not help but spit out the last two words as she finally burst into the building. Sour panic churned, and her innards twisted again. Right now she would eagerly trade her ridiculous, delicate attire for the serviceable linsey-woolsey short dress and practical skirts that her cousin wore.
“Why are you here? It is not as if our families are on speaking terms.” Hannah regarded Charlotte with wary intensity. Since it was a look that Charlotte’s own mother often employed, Charlotte was well-accustomed to such scrutiny. In fact, it ironically rebalanced her. An examination was something Charlotte could handle with aplomb.
“My brother does frequent your establishment.” Charlotte straightened her shoulders and smoothed down the ripped silk in an attempt to hide a glimpse of her linen undergarments. She wished, however, that her hands did not have a slight tremor.
“Coffeehouses do not serve women, so you cannot be here for the brew. If you’re a runaway bride seeking shelter, I suggest you try a more hospitable host. Since my mother was cut off by yours for following her heart, do not expect sympathy.”
“I am not a runaway bride.”Not precisely, at least, Charlotte thought as she removed the veil. “I only fled a dress fitting.”
“Where the word ‘betrothal’ was bandied about? You’re quibbling.” The second speaker’s voice again came from the back of the narrow room. Charlotte scanned past the long, empty tables. Finally, her gaze lit on who she assumed was, from her brother’sdescription of the other proprietress, Miss Sophia Wick, Hannah’s paternal cousin. Like Hannah, she wore a white linen cap and clothes of linsey-woolsey. The hard edge of Sophia’s London accent was softened with hints of the Caribbean, but her golden-brown eyes held an unmistakable challenge. Neither of the mistresses Wick were pleased with Charlotte’s unexpected appearance.
An anxious flutter beat against Charlotte’s breast. Normally, she could address any social situation, but this wasn’t the type of gathering she’d been bred to navigate.
“I have come with a business proposition.” When Charlotte heard the words burst from her own lips, she should have felt absurd. But she didn’t. Instead, a wellspring of hope flooded her, and with it, her old confidence.
The Wick cousins exchanged a glance before they both doubled over in laughter. The guffaws pricked at Charlotte’s rediscovered poise but didn’t pop it entirely.
Sophia recovered first. “You expect us to believe that the daughter of a duke wishes to do business with the children of pirates?”
Charlotte smiled warmly just as she did when greeting guests at the literary salon. “You’re not the offspring of any old buccaneer, though, are you? Your mother is royalty in that world.” Sophia was the daughter of a pirate princess with African, Dutch, and Taíno ancestry. According to legend, Sophia’s mother had rescued and then fallen in love with Sophia’s father, a white English ragamuffin who’d been deported with his brother to the New World.
“Aye,” Sophia acknowledged, her lips tilting upward with pride. “She is. I’ll give you credit for a honeyed tongue, but that is not enough for me to entertain whatever foolish scheme you’ve devised.”
“It’s not only my plan. It is both of yours as well.” Charlotte kept her voice amiable. “My brother said you have a desire to expand the Black Sheep, is that not true?”
Once again, the cousins glanced in each other’s direction. This time neither laughed.
Good. Charlotte would sway them.
“Your brother declined.” Hannah’s red brows drew downward. “Why are you keen when he was not?”
Because Alexander receives a paltry allowance from our father.
But even though the duke’s disdain for his heir apparent was an open secret among the upper echelons of Society, and likely much of the lower rungs as well, Charlotte would not embarrass her brother by saying so. Instead, she ignored the question entirely.
“I received a small bequest a year ago,” Charlotte explained, the words tumbling out quickly as she prayed these women would give her more credence than her own mother did. “From what you told my brother, it will be just enough to cover the lease for half a year. By then, the profits from the expansion will be enough to pay rent.”
