There had to be a way out of this. There had to be a fix. “My dowry,” she blurted.
John laughed darkly. “Your brother didn’t approve of our union even when I had a title and the firm. He’ll hardly approve of it now that I have nothing.”
That was true. Ned had his own notions of what would make Charlotte happy, as ridiculous as those were. “We’ll go back to the gaming rooms.” Perhaps they could eke out a living that way, as much as she hated the idea. As much as it terrified her. But even if they managed to live that life without another beating, how long could she pretend to be Mrs. Brown without her ruse being discovered?
John turned to her, took her hands in his. “Come with me back to America. I still have my cottage there. It’s not a London town house, but it’s something. I can find a job in Boston. It won’t be the life you’re used to, but at least we will be together.”
She blanched. Surely he didn’t realize what he was asking? “Leave London? My family? My friends?” The very idea set her heart racing. Spending time in the country was one thing; it was only for a few weeks at a time and usually with one friend or another. Moving to America was something else entirely. To be separated from her loved ones by an entire ocean?
She would know no one. She’dhaveno one other than John, and while she loved him with her whole body, she’d be a fool to think that he could be everything for her. She loved him, but she needed other people in a way that he couldn’t understand.
“I can’t.”
His grip on her hands tightened. “You can. I know it’s not what we discussed and naturally you’d be apprehensive, but you could come with me.” His expression was so earnest, so hopeful. He truly thought it was a good idea.
She pulled her hands away. “But I don’t want to.” It hurt her to say it, but she would be miserable alone.
His face twisted, as though she’d stuck a knife in him. His eyes shone with tears. “I can’t stay in England, Charlotte. There is no life for me here. I gave that up. Isoldit to save an estate that isn’t even mine.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry. I love you, but I can’t leave.”
He swallowed, nodding along as though the truth of her words was wending its way through his mind. As though this moment was finding its place in the vault of his memories and cementing itself there.
“Very well.” He stood and then offered his hand to her, helping her stand. She gripped his fingers as hard as she could. He was slipping away from her. What they had, this morning so tangible, now felt as amorphous as a foggy breath on a winter morning.
“John.” Her voice cracked, and her throat closed up completely.
He twisted his hand out of her grip. “I love you, and I’ll wait a week before I leave, just in case you change your mind.”
She wouldn’t change her mind, though. She couldn’t bear the thought of the life he proposed. He seemed to sense that, because he stepped back and bowed coldly. Already something between them had broken.
Then she watched him walk down the drive and out of her life.
Chapter 27
John walked home. The fire in his lower back was a welcome relief to this pain in his chest, the cut of rejection he hadn’t allowed himself to feel since he was a child. He’d spent decades building thick walls around his heart precisely to avoid this kind of situation, yet within weeks Charlotte had blasted holes right through it. Agony seeped in through that damage, twisting his insides until it hurt to breathe.
He tried to turn his mind to other things. He rummaged through the archives in his brain for something, anything, to distract himself from her. But his mind had been corrupted. Every image he reached for became Charlotte. Charlotte smiling. Charlotte laughing. Charlotte leaning over to whisper in a friend’s ear. Charlotte naked beneath him. Charlotte studying her cards. Charlotte scratching Newton behind the ears.
All his life he’d been cursed to remember everything he saw—every page, every person, every street scene. But now there was nothing but her. The image that came to mind most often was of her lips as she said the words “I don’t want to” over and over until they became the beat his feet marched to as he stalked home.
She was right, though. She did not belong in his house in the wilderness. She wasn’t wrong to choose her life here in London. He was wrong for asking her to do otherwise, when clearly he would never be enough for her.
The weight of that awareness settled on him, making each movement sluggish as though he were walking through water.
He was grateful for the night, and he kept away from the flare of lamplights. She had been his light, one that had burned brighter than physics allowed for. Now there would be only darkness.
Logically, he knew that their relationship was over. He had nothing to offer her here in London and she did not belong in Boston. But something in his traitorous heart kept sparking.
Perhaps she would change her mind.
Perhaps she would choose him.
Perhaps she would come.
And so he would do as he said he would. He’d wait a week before he left England for good.
***
