“I do.” She started to lower her gaze at discussing something so personal with practically a stranger.
“No,” he said, “look at me right here. For I like to think I am a good judge of character, and most people’s show plainly in their eyes.”
“My sister doesn’t need to be interrogated by you,” Amity said. Her tone was soft but with a heart of pure iron. Unfamiliar as it was, Charlotte shivered.
“That’s all right. I can look Lord Waverly or anyone in the eyes and declare my love and my fidelity. Charles didn’t give me the chance, but I am determined he will.”
Another long moment, and then Lord Waverly nodded, looking satisfied. “I am at your service if I can help. But if I were you, I would wait until at least noon tomorrow before you seek him out. Otherwise you might find him at his worst, and nothing makes a man quicker to temper and poor judgment like a pounding head and a sour stomach.”
CHARLES SAT IN HIS study and considered his future. Waverly had tried to dissuade him from drinking too much. Naturally, he’d failed. Regardless, no matter how many glasses of brandy, Charles felt as sober as a priest. Eventually, he’d given up trying to drive Charlotte out of his heart with liquor and had headed home.
On the carriage ride, he’d realized what he needed to do. It was his turn to leave.
Not forever, but for the time being, until he didn’t feel ... anything. Not for Charlotte. He didn’t want to go to Pelham’s baby’s christening and see her there. He didn’t want to drop by Pelham’s house and run into her. He didn’t want to go into a restaurant and be offered a Rare Confectionery.
By the time he’d vacated his carriage — annoyingly realizing that even his own driver reminded him of Charlotte, or at least her maid — he’d decided to go for a tour of the Continent. He’d missed out on such a whimsical thing, what with studying to be a barrister and taking care of his father.
He grimaced into the glass of plain water he was now nursing so he wouldn’t ache all over in the morning. And he would drink at least two more before bed, a trick he’d learned while spending too many nights at one pub or another with Waverly when they were at school together. All the more helpful a trick when exams loomed the following day.
His father, who would abhor thinking he’d ever been “taken care of,” was the singular impediment. How could Charles up and leave him? Or he should say, how could he leave himtoo?
If he thought for one moment the earl would go with him, he would welcome him as a traveling companion, but his father had made his feelings quite clear on ever leaving the isle of Britain. “Not on your life.”
The few times Charles had been away, just for a week to France or Spain, he’d been with Waverly, always looking for women, or with Pelham, always searching out the best cup of coffee. Or with both.
Actually, he didn’t mind going alone. Charles would talk to the earl in the morning, making certain his father knew, despite his intent to stay away for an extended period, that it was temporary. At the end of that time, he would return as the dutiful son he’d always been. Tomorrow, he would turn over his court cases to one of his associates and then depart from the coast with all due haste.
And quite a bit of haste was due as far as he was concerned.
Before he weakened and changed his mind.
Before he gave in to the desire to see her face again and let her lie to him so sweetly.
To punish himself for such weakness, he dredged up the image of Charlotte moving into the circle of the stranger’s arms just before Charles had made his presence known to them.If he hadn’t, would he have had to watch her kiss another man?
Feeling his stomach turn, he drank down the water and lifted the glass to hurl it at the wall. His hand was trembling and his heart pounding. After a moment, he breathed a calm, steadying breath, set the glass down, and refilled it from the pitcher his butler had left. He had let her unexpected betrayal rob him of his civilized nature once that day. He wouldn’t let it happen again.
“DEPARTED?” CHARLOTTE repeated the word. The startling information had come from her mother’s lips, making it even stranger. “Lord Jeffcoat has departed? For where? And how do you know this?”
Charlotte had simply gone into work as usual, intending to go to Charles’s home later in the day, as Lord Waverly had advised. At that moment, she held a piece of lacy, cream-colored fabric, shot with small blue flowers in one hand and a peacock feather in the other, as they designed the curtains and the interior of the café.
As casually as possible, she’d said, “I’m sorry to say Lord Jeffcoat and I had a ... a falling out yesterday, but I intend to see him and sort it all out.” Armed with the knowledge from the duke, she thought she could get to the heart of the issue of Charles’s trust and make him understand she was not like his mother.
And then her mother had said those puzzling words indicating Charles would not be found at home. Felicity stared at her.
“Now that the police are holding Mr. Tufts in jail, your father wanted to discuss the lawsuit with Lord Jeffcoat. He went to Lincoln’s Inn this morning but was told your viscount had turned over all his cases, including ours, to other barristers and taken a leave of absence.”
It was already noon. “Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you came in?”
Her mother blinked. “Naturally, I thought you knew.”
Charlotte snapped her mouth closed. Of course her parents would assume she knew where he was going. But she didn’t. All she knew was he was no longer her betrothed, and if she didn’t hurry, he might slip away from her forever thinking she’d betrayed him.
“How can I find him?” she asked out loud, not caring what her mother thought of her youngest daughter’s carelessness in losing her brand-new fiancé.
“You could ask his father. If anyone knows, it will be the earl.”
NOT HALF AN HOUR LATER, Charlotte, with her mother at her side, stood in the cheerless parlor when the Earl of Bentley entered. He had agreed to see her immediately. In the next instant, she knew why.
