“A promise, dear Juliet,” he insisted. “Meet me today at our paradise in miniature.”
His meaning was clear. Duck Island in St. James’s Park, where they’d once met. She’d scrambled by a fence, nearly tearing her cloak, and hurried past the bird-keepers’ cottage where she knew she ought not to go as the public weren’t welcome. She’d met him assuming he would propose or declare himself, at the least.
“I will come if I may bring my sister or my maid.”
“Absolutely not. What fun would there be in that?” Suddenly, he plonked himself down on the edge of the small garden, not even bothering with the stone bench. “You must come alone or I...,” he trailed off.
She waited, but when he said nothing more, she wondered if he’d fallen asleep in a drunken stupor.
“Lionel?” she prompted, about to shut the window.
“Or I shall tell everyone how ill you used me?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lionelwasmad! Perhaps he’d been eating some of his oil paint. Charlotte had heard it could drive a painter as batty as a march hare.
“What on earth do you mean?” she demanded.
“Your feminine wiles were more than I could handle,” he pouted.
He’d had no problem leaving her and her wiles behind. When she started to say as much, he rose to his feet again.
“Meet me at ... at noon,” he said in a more demanding tone.
“That’s impossible. I must work today.” She hoped that would put him off. Besides, he would be sound asleep before noon, she had a feeling, and that would be the end of it.But what if he returned with his loud voice and menacing words?
“Then when you close up shop,” he amended. “I will await you on the island amongst the water fowl.”
Something was foul, all right, and not merely the ducks. Charlotte clenched her fists.What did he hope to accomplish?
“Promise,” he added. “Or I will stay here until forever. And also return daily.”
If he stayed, how could he return?He was truly a terrible drunk.
“All right. I will be there by six o’clock.” She shuddered at the notion of doing something so sly as to illicitly meet a man who wasn’t her fiancé.
“But you must promise me after that, you will never come here again,” she insisted. “You will leave me alone.”
“If you wish,” he said softly, sounding less inebriated than before. “It will be hard to wait until I see you again.” And he walked away without teetering or stumbling.
CHARLES SAW THE ANNOUNCEMENT in the paper, which he read with his morning pot of tea — a day late as often happened, since he hadn’t had a spare moment for newspapers or tea the day before. The effect of seeing his name linked with Charlotte’s was a welcome one, and he gave a sigh of relief. Somehow, seeing their engagement in black and white made it real, irrevocable. Charlotte Rare-Foure was going to be his capable, warm, loving wife. They would have many babies and many happy years together.
He had to spend the day in court on a case he didn’t expect to win but hoped to see his fiancée later, making any potential legal loss fade into utter irrelevance.
Fiancée!He realized he was smiling to himself for the umpteenth time simply by thinking of the word. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t expected one day to have one. But to suddenly be able to acknowledge he’d bound himself to someone, to the impossibly wonderful Charlotte, had elevated his happiness.
Hisbetrothed— he smiled again, another good word! — had told him the stairs were finished and the shop was close to reopening. She and her mother had started working on the upstairs ahead of schedule. With her insight into what people liked, Charlotte’s new café would be a resounding success.
And he was determined to support her in whatever way he could. For one thing, Pelham had taught him how to live with a wife who worked, and how to steer the conversation away from that very fact when necessary, under certain circumstances. He wasn’t ashamed of her middle-class status and didn’t mind at all that she couldn’t play piano or sing. If they needed entertainment, he would hire it, not expect Charlotte to provide it.
It was rather insulting when one thought of it that way — prancing out one’s wife to amuse people in his drawing room the way one brought out the winning horse at the Ascot racecourse or even a prize pointer at one of those newfangled dog shows in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
And for those times when he could safely sing her praises without embarrassing her or inviting censure, then he would do that, too. To the right group of his friends, he would proudly tell them his wife was a confectioner who made the creamiest, smoothest marzipan.
Perhaps he could increase the Rare-Foure’s business simply by patronizing it, just like Pelham. Maybe Charlotte would even name something after him.
The Jeffcoat marzipan. He grimaced at the silly notion. Maybe not.
