There was a long pause before William answered. When he did, his voice sounded tight. “If I am, then there are fewer people to complain about it. There’s no one else in the guest wing, and the walls have rather more insulation than the boardinghouse did.”
It wasn’t the answer she wanted. “Are you still drinking?”
There was a sharp rap on the door, wood against wood, one of his new canes, perhaps. “Would you believe not one person in this house will bring me a brandy? After all these years of being the servants’ favorite Stirling brother.”
He might joke about it, but she knew in her heart that Will would not get any better until he stopped using alcohol to mask whatever caused him such pain. But she’d also finally realized that there was little she could actually do about it. She could not help him if he would not help himself. She certainly couldn’t help him from America.
“What are you doing in there? Fi says you haven’t left your room in a week.”
She hesitated before answering. Truthfully, her entire plan sounded batty. Certainly, the longer it went on, the crazier she felt. “John has asked me to go with him to America. I’m trying to see what it would be like to not have people around all the time.”
“And how’s it working out for you?” From his tone of voice, she could tell that he knew the answer already.
She couldn’t hold back a small sob. “It’s miserable.I’mmiserable. I’m trying my damnedest to make friends with the birds that sit on my windowsill, but they care nothing for me. I’m crying all the time. I don’t think that I can do it. I don’t think that I could leave you or Edward or Fi. I don’t think that I can go live on the very edge of society and not in the middle of it. I don’t think that I can marry him.” She hugged her knees in close and sobbed. It had all seemed so perfect and then gone so horribly wrong.
“Charlie, please open the door.”
Opening the door would make it final. Opening the door would be admitting that it was over in a way that saying the words didn’t.
“You’re sitting alone on the floor in tears. Is this not the proof you need that this will not work?”
Chapter 29
She isn’t coming, Newton. I think we must resign ourselves to that fact.” John stood on the pier and watched as the ship’s crew loaded his trunks. They would set sail at first light, and the captain wanted to be ready tonight.
Newton looked up at him and whined.
“It’s all right, boy.” At least, that was what he was trying to tell himself. It was all right that Charlotte didn’t want to marry him. A life together might have made sense when he was Viscount Harrow and he could work productively for something here in England and she could be the grand lady of thetonas she had always dreamed.
But there was nothing for him to work toward now. Not once he’d sold the firm and lost the title. He could ask Fiona and Asterly for a position. They’d hire him in an instant, but he couldn’t bring himself to work as an employee at the place he’d built. Even if he could ignore his wounded pride, no working man’s salary could fund an aristocratic lifestyle.
John slung the single bag not yet stowed away over his shoulder. “Come on, Newton. Let’s go get something to eat.”
The public house where he’d been staying had clean rooms and good food. As he entered, his stomach growled. He stopped first at the front desk. “Have there been any letters?” He’d given Mosely the address of where he was staying. If Charlotte had sent word, Mosely would see it forwarded.
“No, sir.”
John tried not to let the disappointment show. “And have there been any visitors?” He hoped Charlotte wouldn’t come down to the docks in person, but there was every chance she’d ignore the danger. She had prior form in that arena.
The clerk nodded. “Yes, sir. He is waiting for you in the dining rooms.”
He.Not Charlotte, then. John nodded his thanks. He could take Newton back up to his room, but on the off chance Walter had come to say good-bye, he wanted his dog with him. Walter hated Newton and petty as it was, John wanted to watch his brother shrink back in the deerhound’s presence.
It wasn’t Walter, though. Wildeforde sat at a table in the corner, nursing a large beer glass. The duke rarely drank beer unless he was trying to blend in or make someone else comfortable.
John sighed. He’d been cowardly to think he could avoid this confrontation. He and Charlotte had ended their gambling scheme, but John had still broken Charlotte’s heart. He deserved Wilde’s wrath.
He took a seat opposite his friend and signaled to a passing serving girl for a drink and a bone from the kitchen for Newton.
“Were you truly going to leave without saying good-bye?” Wilde asked.
A kernel of guilt lodged beneath John’s ribs. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me. I assume Charlotte told you everything.”
“About your engagement? Or about William’s debt and the scheme you were running to pay it off? She told me about the former and my man discovered the latter.”
John dropped his head into his hands. “I never meant for any of this to happen. It was an idea that started moving and just kept picking up speed. I could barely catch it, let alone stop it.”
Edward chuckled, taking another swig. “That sounds like Charlotte. You might be one of the most brilliant physicists in the world, but she is still a bigger force than you can reckon with.”
