Anger raced through him again, except this time, he didn’t have a man’s face to release it upon. He’d been approaching Rare Confectionery when he saw her come out, a delicious pretty pink-and-white vision, reminding him of a present to be unwrapped. Before he could hail her, she’d jumped into a cab. His heart set on spending time with her, Charles had followed her all the way to the park and then onto the island, wondering at her whimsical adventure.Only to discover she was meeting with a man!
It had been hard for his eyes to believe, even harder for his brain to accept as the first wash of fury flowed through him.
“Charles, may I explain?”
“Do you know him?” His voice sounded hollow and strange to his ears. Moreover, he wasn’t sure why he asked that question first. Yet if this had been a chance meeting somehow, if she’d been taking an innocent stroll and the man had surprised her, they might salvage everything. Then, she would have to forgive his terrible assumptions.
“Yes, we used to—”
He held up his hand to stop her. He had no interest in what they used to do or mean to each other.
He’d unexpectedly won the court case that day. And even more unexpectedly had his heart broken. His worst fears were realized — he’d fallen for a woman just like his own duplicitous, disloyal mother.
“Come with me,” he said. Even if she could no longer be in his life — as, from that day onward, Charlotte would mean absolutely nothing to him — yet he could not leave her alone on that wretched island. It wasn’t safe.
At his words, she brightened. Her relief was palpable. She truly thought he would give her another chance to deceive him.
He reached out his arm to her, and her smile settled on her face as she placed her hand through his.
“We won’t be able to stay this way,” she chattered. “The path narrows too many times.”
He nodded, gutted at her knowledge of the island to which he’d never been before. Obviously, she had. As she correctly predicted, they had to separate when bushes and trees crowded the narrow trail, and he let her lead the way.
Once they were back on the park’s main path, she turned to take his arm, but he didn’t give it to her.
Shaking his head, he started to walk away. She was safe enough now by herself. The sun wouldn’t set for hours, and there were plenty of cabbies at the park’s various entrances.
“Charles?”
He turned to her and her questioning expression. In his mind, he saw his father, doubled over with grief and was grateful for the small blessing of having found out before he made the mistake of marrying her.
“Miss Rare-Foure, we are finished. It may be too much for me to hope that I’ll never see you again, but that is my fervent wish.”
Turning on his heel, he walked away.
“Charles,” she shouted after him, unbothered that there were other people on the paths. “How can you say that? Don’t you love me?”
Inside, he didn’t hesitate. His heart screamedyes, echoing futilely in his brain. Instantly he was anguished and bone-weary. However, she hadn’t asked the correct question. She should have asked if he trusted her. And the answer to that was a resoundingno!
Chapter Thirty
Luckily, Amity’s house was nearby, or Charlotte might have sat in the park and cried for hours. As it was, after watching Charles’s broad-shouldered figure storming away from her, she quickly reached her sister’s door and sobbed her heart out in private. Or, at least, as private as could be in Amity’s drawing room with a new baby and a nursemaid and her sister’s diligent husband hovering every few moments.
As it turned out, the duke was more helpful than Amity. While Charlotte’s sister kept trying to soothe her and explain how everything would be all right, her husband wanted details, seeming determined to “repair” whatever damage had been done.
“You shouldn’t have met with the man,” he said, after Charlotte had got a hold of her emotions for the second or third time with the help of multiple cups of chocolate and some handkerchiefs.
“He gave me no choice. Or so I thought. Mr. Evans certainly didn’t want us to be discovered. He wanted to hold it over my head until I married and then blackmail me into paying him.”
“The scoundrel,” Amity said. The word was strange from the lips of a nursing mother, dressed all in pale-blue, soft cotton. Charlotte felt almost as if she’d brought harshness and filth into their home.
“Nevertheless,” the duke protested, “we are family. You should have come to me or, at the very least, to your own father.”
“No,” Charlotte disagreed. “I should have spoken to Charles first.”
She thought Henry would agree at once, but he didn’t. “My dear friend is a little prickly when it comes to the fidelity of women.”
“Of course I am faithful!” Charlotte protested. “And I always will be. I have no interest in Lionel Evans or in any other man. I have given Charles my entire heart, and now I am lost without him.” She started to cry again, recalling the tone of his voice and the harshness of his words, not to mention the quelling look in his beautiful blue eyes, so icy when they had last looked at her.
