That was fair. Preferable even. But it wasn’t Charlotte’s point. “As loath as I am to become involved in your affairs, I feel you should know that Lord Harrow is not an honorable man. He’s an irresponsible wastrel who is not being honest with you. Even you can do better than that.”
Luella’s face twisted first with outrage, then with frustration, and then a look even Charlotte didn’t have words for.
“How certain are you he’s lying to me?”
“Very.”
Luella turned back to the window, her hands gripping on to the frame. “Well then, won’t our family holidays be interesting? The four of us under one roof, barely a shred of fondness between us.”
Charlotte came to stand next to her. The outside garden had been lit with dozens of lamps.
“John and Walter aren’t the type for family holidays, so we would never have been subject to that, thank goodness. But the point is moot. John is returning to America.” As she said the words, her fingers pressed into the wood of the window frame as though the pressure could somehow keep the hurt at bay.
“He’s returning without you?” Luella was the first person to say out loud what Charlotte knew everyone was thinking but too polite to say.
“Yes. He has a cabin outside of Boston.”
“Surely you’re not so foolish.” Charlotte had been on the receiving end of many different looks from Luella, but none so contemptuous.
“What do you know of being a fool?”
Luella swallowed, her lips pursing. As she faced Charlotte, her hands fisted. “I know what it is to love someone, and if there were the slightest chance that love wastrulyreturned, then there is nothing in the world that I wouldn’t do to keep it.” Her voice wavered as she spoke, and Charlotte wondered if she was thinking of Walter’s betrayal or of Lord Berridge’s.
“It isn’t that simple. He wants me to leave England. I can’t do that.” She’d tried. She’d failed.
“Why not?”
Was Luella serious? “Leave my family? My friends? I would be so wretchedly lonely. I cannot bear the thought.” She would have John, but she knew herself well enough to understand that he simply would not be enough for her, no matter how much she loved him.
Luella rolled her eyes. “You’re an idiot. Everybodylovesyou. You make friends more easily than most men make fools of themselves. It’s the thing I detest the most about you.”
“Pardon?”
“Go to Boston and you’ll have more friends in a night than most people make in a lifetime.”
“I…” Luella made it sound so simple, but it couldn’t be, could it? She’d spent all week trying to find an answer to this deplorable situation. The solution couldn’t be as simple as just going.
“Only a coward gives up on love because they’re afraid life may not be perfect.” Luella’s expression was full of contempt, and Charlotte hated the thought of being bested in this argument.
“Only a coward marries a man like Walter because she’s worried she’ll never find another.” It was the truth. Luella needed to hear it.
Luella narrowed her eyes. “You are so bloody infuriating.”
“Ditto.”
“Ditto.”
Before either girl could wrap her hands around the other’s throat, Luella stalked back to the mirror, primped her perfect coiffure, and then left without a backward glance.
Charlotte watched her leave. A chasm opened up in front of her, bottomless and swirling with a fog of uncertainty.
She’d been so sure of her decision not to go to America with John. As much as it had broken her heart, she’d been certain. But Luella’s words caused cracks in that certainty, and within those cracks, hope grew.
Perhaps her archnemesis was right, as loath as she was to admit it. Perhaps she had let her fear of being alone dictate her choices. Perhaps a life in Boston could work.
She wasn’t sure of it, but if she was no longer sure that staying in England was the right choice, then she couldn’t let John leave.
She turned to the attendants. “Fetch my coat.”
