“Hmm?” Mary smiled, though there was still a crease between her eyebrows. “Not at all. We shall come two days hence, if it please you?”
Mr Mellor agreed that the date did please him, and so the matter was settled to everybody’s satisfaction. By the time Mary had drained her glass, she was looking well again, chattering away as lively as ever, though Charlotte knew that there was something wrong. She just didn’t know how to fix it.
Or perhaps she was the problem.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You see,” Mary said, in the carriage on the way home. “I did warn you about Mrs Tremaine.”
“She certainly had her claws out tonight.”
“It is nothing to do with you, really.” Mary sighed. “She has taken it upon herself to be as unkind as possible to me and all my acquaintances, no matter who they are. Apart from Mr Mellor, whom she is afraid of.”
“Oh. I had no idea.” Alarm prickled between Charlotte’s shoulder blades. “Do you think she suspects us of being more than friends?”
“Only because she suspects me of bedding every friend I dare spend time with.”
“I am sorry that I did the same thing.” Shame roiled in Charlotte’s stomach. “I thought you were with Miss Highbridge, and then—”
“You are nothing like Mrs Tremaine,” Mary said, her tone sharp. “In any case,” her voice softened a little, “I am grateful that you attended the salon and, I must confess, deeply amused that you were the one to put her in her place. These meetings have meant a great deal to me in the past years, and lately she has been intolerable.”
“Then it is I who is honoured.” Charlotte leaned closer. “Would you like to stay with me tonight?”
“I’m afraid I have a bit of a headache.” She waved a hand in the air. “All that smoke, you see. I do so hate the smell of pipe tobacco, but one cannot expect a gentleman to forgo pleasure in the safety of his own home.”
“Of course.” Charlotte bit her lip.Is that really true, she wondered,or was it the mention of Anne Carlisle which has caused her to shut down?
The rest of the carriage ride was silent, though they held hands the entire way home. Mary did at least kiss her goodnight in the hallway before returning to her room and closing the door without a backwards glance. Worry plagued Charlotte for the rest of the evening, though she could not precisely pinpoint the reason—she did not even know for certain that Miss Carlisle and Mary had had a former attachment, yet it seemed plain enough from the clues she had gathered.Just how attached had Mary been?The notion kept Charlotte awake until the small, hours of the morning; she tossed and turned interminably before finally falling into a broken, troubled sleep.
* * *
In the morning, Charlotte came to breakfast to find Mary scowling over a letter. “Good morning,” said she, throwing the parchment aside with a vehemence that was quite unexpected. She did not look up at Charlotte, but instead stared at the plate of eggs in front of her, which lay untouched. “Did you sleep well?”
Pitt gave his mistress an odd look as he poured the tea. Nothing was obviously wrong, but a certain tension in the room made the hair on the back of Charlotte’s neck prickle. “Yes, thank you. Though I missed you terribly last night. How’s your head?”
“What?” Mary continued to stare into her eggs. “Oh, yes. Fine.”
Pitt cleared his throat. “Would you like me to reheat your food, ma’am?”
“You needn’t hover over me like a nursemaid,” Marysnapped. “If the eggs are cold, it is my own fault for leaving them so long, is it not?”
Pitt raised an eyebrow, his lips thinning. “Of course, ma’am.”
Charlotte stared at Mary, perplexed, as Pitt marched out of the room. “What on earth is wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You once told me I ought not to saynothingwhen something evidently was wrong.” She meant it to be teasing, but Mary only glowered at her.
“Anne wrote to me. Miss Carlisle, I mean.” She sighed. “I cannot expect you to understand all the ways in which this news discomfits me. I had hoped Mrs Tremaine was merely needling me for sport last night, but…”
“I see.” Charlotte buttered a piece of toast, though her appetite was gone. “You needn’t tell me anything you would rather not share. I understand that Miss Carlisle,” oh, and how that name tasted like ashes in her mouth, “was important to you once upon a time.”And evidently still is, she thought.
She was rather hoping Mary would correct her, but no such correction came. Mary continued to glare at her eggs as if each one had personally affronted her. “She sent me a drawing of herself a few weeks ago. Someone else drew it, of course—it was not done in her hand, which is far less expert. She meant to make me jealous, for she thinks that by doing so she can pick me up again like a book whenever she returns to Canterbury.”
Charlotte had always known this was coming, though she’d thought it would happen weeks or months from now, long after she was back in Meryton. She had already pictured the letter which beganDear Charlotteand endedI hope you will understand, and done her best to make peace with the idea. Their own brief romance of a few days could not compare to what had evidently been a complex relationship, to say nothing of the fact that Miss Carlisle had likely become well acquainted with Mary’s body over their time together, while Charlotte still hadno experience whatsoever. The notion stung like a wasp. Mary was kind and tender-hearted, and the idea of letting Charlotte down, however gently, was no doubt troubling her.
“I will leave you to your thoughts,” Charlotte said, rising abruptly from the table. She could feel the prickle of oncoming tears at the back of her nose, and she would not make things harder for Mary by crying about the situation in front of her. “I do believe I have a book to finish reading.”
