“Well,” Harris said. “I await many more dances with you.”
Charlotte’s deceit tore at her. Why couldn’t Christopher go away? She glanced over her shoulder and saw her mother stumble into the room.
“Oh dear,” Christopher mumbled, also noticing. “She’s about to make a fool of herself. I already told George and Joseph to usher most guests out the other way, but we’d best get her to her room as fast as possible. Ainscough, will you help me since you’ve already seen her thus?”
Ainscough gave a good-natured smile and said to Charlotte, “If I don’t see you again tonight, I wish you sweet dreams, and I’ll see you in the morning.” He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.
“Thank you,” Charlotte eked out, the touch of his lips cold on her skin.
The men rushed away, each taking one of her mother’s arms and helping her up the stairs.
Charlotte knew she needed to act now. Another pang of sadness for Harris resounded against her conscience, but time was of the essence.
She hurried to her room and called her maid. Once she was in only her shift, she excused her abigail and hurried into her easiest day dress. She laid a shawl on the bed and folded another dress on top of it with a second shawl. Then she tied the edges into a bundle. Her warmest shawl went around her shoulders, and she grabbed all the coins from her armoire and tucked them into her reticule. She donned her garnet necklace and laced her sturdiest boots, penning a quick note to George, pleading with him to delay explaining her absence for as long as possible. Then she wrote a note to Lord Ainscough, explaining and giving her apologies.
Her apparel proved to be a mixed ensemble, especially for a wedding day, but she didn’t care. She’d spent enough of her life appearing externally poised in gorgeous dresses whilst feeling internally trapped. This simple gown seemed to her the truest and most romantic trousseau she could imagine.
Ready and determined, she tiptoed to her door and listened to the quiet passageway. Just when she was about to open the door, she heard footfalls down the corridor. She waited a little more, eased her door open a hair, and saw the shadowy retreating form of a man she assumed was one of her brother’s valets.
After waiting another minute, she slipped silently into the corridor. No light led her way, but she knew these walls by heart.
She wasn’t sure she breathed the entire distance from her bedroom to the conservatory downstairs near the main-floor corridor, but once she slipped into the moonlight and gently clicked the servants’ door behind her, she heard a welcome, familiar voice.
“Are you ready for your escape, then?”
Charlotte spun toward the dark shadow. “You are here!”
“Of course.” Alex laughed. “Did you think I was in jest about this whole dangerous endeavor?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I was more afraid I dreamed it.”
He raised her hand and kissed it. His touch brought reassurance, but the hairs on the back of her neck still seemed wary. She whipped her head around, sure she had heard someone.
“Chris isn’t here. He had a full night of drinking and celebration,” Alex said, sending a calm hand around her shoulders and then tugging her farther into the garden. He led her down a more secluded path, and she saw his horse tied behind a few trees.
Despite the loveliness of Alex’s hand in hers, she couldn’t stifle her growing anxiety. “Perhaps I should turn back. I’m so nervous. As soon as Christopher realizes I am missing, he’ll send out a whole party of people.” Charlotte heaved a tight breath. “Then he will find you, and when he does—”
“This is going to work. Have faith, Stars.” Alex stopped and turned around, placing both hands on her shoulders.
“Stars?” That name warmed her, and the cool night air met her hot cheeks. With one hand he brushed his thumb against her face. “You still remember my nickname?” she asked.
“I could never forget,” he breathed, leading her by a secluded hedge. They must make it to his horse straightaway, but he was looking at her like he never had before, and that look seemed capable of chasing all her fears away.
She squeezed his hand. “All these years, I thought you’d forgotten me, but I’d look to the stars from my window and wish I could see you again. I thought God too was far away, and I thought He didn’t care. But the stars... at least those seemed real and steady, and I hoped, somehow, you saw them too and maybe thought of me.”
Her eyes searched his, and he clasped her trembling hands. He glanced at the dark night and then back at her. “God allowed us to find each other again, Charlotte. Is it clear yet that He cares about you, as do I?”
Her eyes closed. “Yes.” She sighed. She wanted to stay in his arms forever and let her belief in both ideas blossom into certainty. “I believe that now. I’m no longer alone.”
“And you never will be, Stars.”
They should be escaping. They shouldn’t be lingering in the garden. But with one gentle motion, he brought his hand up to her chin, pulled it a fraction of a degree closer to his own face, and his mouth met hers in a blessedly welcome kiss.
***
The kiss he’d longed for for so long, the kiss he’d dreamed of and thought impossible, finally happened. Charlotte returned every bit of his feeling with her warm, kind lips. Care and longing and anticipation and excitement compounded, and whatever Alex had imagined so many times, this was infinitely better. The touch of her skin, the embrace of her arms—every part of it was perfect, and time seemed to slow as they basked in the warmth of each other’s touch despite the coolness of the evening.
“Stop!”
