If she loved him, wouldn’t she at least try?
A life with John in his tiny cottage in the wilderness would mean no servants, no house calls, no conversation with family or friends beyond letters and the six-week delay between them.
He said he’d wait a week before he left for America. She had six days left to work out if a life with him there was something she could survive.
***
Five days later, Charlotte was going out of her dratted mind. After the second day, Edward and Fiona had given up trying to convince her to come out of her room and had left her alone, just as she’d asked.
But a week of silence was taking its toll. She was now conversing regularly with her bed, her hairbrush, and her plant by the window, which, to be fair, was better conversation than many men of thetoncould manage.
Charlotte couldn’t read a book without providing extended verbal commentary to the thin air and she desperately, desperately needed to know what was going on in the world outside her bedroom.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said to the ficus. “The newspaper is right on the other side of that door. But I shan’t. London gossip will take months to reach me in Boston; I must learn to live without it.”
Grace had been leaving the day’s papers on a tray with breakfast. Each morning Charlotte’s hand hovered over it, tempted to leave the toast and snatchThe Times, but each morning she’d resisted, leaving her physically nourished but starved of enjoyment.
For the umpteenth time, she picked up a book, read the first paragraph, and then put it down. Books had distracted her somewhat in those first few days. She’d made her way through three full novels, but the novelty had worn off. Books were a poor substitute for people.
Her eyes tracked back outside to John’s garden. She hadn’t seen him again since that first day, nor had Newton been running about. Perhaps John had moved to different lodgings. After all, living with the old Lord Harrow would be awful.
Worry gnawed at her. What if John hadn’t waited for her? What if he’d given up and left for America already? She had refused him, after all. Perhaps he was done with her.
“He hasn’t written,” she said accusingly. The ficus didn’t answer. “His were the only letters that Grace was told to let through and there have been none.”
He would wait. Surely he would wait. “But what is he waitingfor? I still cannot give him an answer.” This self-imposed isolation was supposed to make it clear—either she loved him enough to forgo society, or she didn’t.
Nothing was clear. It couldn’t be muddier, in fact. The lack of society was driving her mad, but her love for him had not changed.
Tap, tap, tap.Charlotte’s heart leapt at the prospect of an upcoming conversation, no matter how mundane it might be. Then she quenched that excitement. She did not need to be excited by conversation with her lady’s maid. If she went to live with John in America, there would be no lady’s maid and the entire purpose of this exercise was to prove to herself that she was capable of living such a life.
“Thank you, Grace, but I have no need of you at the moment.” She was going to spend the day as she had every other day this week—in her nightclothes.
“It is not Grace.” William’s deep voice came from the other side of the door.
She rushed to it, pressing her palms against the wood as though she could feel his hands on hers. She missed human touch almost as much as she missed conversation.
“Will? Are you well?” The last time they’d spoken, he’d been suffering such intense headaches he’d sent her away as soon as she’d gone to see him.
The doorknob rattled, but she had locked it after bringing in her breakfast. “Charlie?” His voice was clear, steady, without the slur of drink or the fogginess of laudanum. It was as close to the sound of his old voice, his prebattle voice, as she’d heard.
She rested her head against the door. She wanted so badly to see him. They’d parted on such awful terms, and she hated it. She wanted to wrap him in her arms the way she’d done since they were children.
“I can’t come out.” The words almost died in her throat.
A pause. “Then, can I come in?”
She sighed. “No.”
“Can we talk through the door?”
It pushed the boundaries of the rules she’d made for herself—more than pushed them. It almost entirely erased them—but starved of conversation, she couldn’t say no. She slid down the door until her arse thwacked on the carpet. A second thump a moment later indicated that Will had done the same.
“Are you well?” she asked. “How is your leg?”
“Improving. Wilde gave Private James access to the household accounts, and the lad has purchased half a dozen different walking canes. I might need to keep the limp so as not to disappoint the boy.”
He would do it too. Will might be completely irresponsible, but he was softhearted and gave to others even when he shouldn’t. “And are youwell, Will? Are you still having nightmares?”
