"Charlotte."
Charlie turned about slowly across the room and moving, she kept her body between Henry and her trunk lying open behind her. Her chin came up, her eyes daring her uncle to treat her with anything less than respect.
"Nessie. I require a word with my niece." His eyes never left Charlie, his brow furrowing lower and lower on his forehead until his eyebrows were one forbidding scowl.
Nessie hesitated, her desire to obey colliding with her loyalty to Charlie.
"It'll be alright, Ness. I'll ring for you when I'm done."
Her lady's maid gave an abrupt curtsy, but her blue eyes were trained on Charlie, a pleading look from below her brows. If it was a look meant to not upset Henry unnecessarily or for allowing Nessie to be called elsewhere, she didn't know. As soon as the door shut behind Nessie, her uncle stalked closer. "What happened?"
Charlie laughed, the taste bitter on her tongue. "Is that supposed to be your attempt at claiming your innocence? Because it has failed utterly," she said, watching as Henry's brow furrowed. As if in confusion. Charlie found her patience had gone, any residual fear she might have had disappearing into smoke. She didn't know this man at all, it would seem. "No need to fret, Uncle. I can assure you that Lord Simpton did exactly as ordered. A commendable business associate, but a poor excuse I must admit for a gentleman."
His gaze flickered with something she couldn't identify. If she didn't know better - hadn't had a close encounter with the truth of his person - she would have assumed it was sorrow.
Pain.
Guilt, more like, Charlie was sure.
Her ire built, her palm tingling with the urge to strike out, her shoulders stiff, ready, as if at any moment, she would need to protect herself.
Her uncle had begun to pace. A lock of brown hair, so similar to her own, slid onto his downturned face, tumbling into his eyes. The silence was deafening with only the thrum of his steady foot treads.
Henry stopped abruptly, running a hand through his wavy locks. She had seen desperation enough times with the gentlemen Henry dealt with to know he was afflicted in a similar fashion. Charlie might have cared once, but no longer.
"I didn't know...I didn't mean for that to happen -"
Charlie scoffed. "He was quite forthcoming about the whole business. In fact, it was Simpton's declaration that he could force my hand 'in any way that he wished' that sticks in my mind!"
Her voice had risen steadily until she ended her speech with a shout. It echoed in the room.
"I told him to win your affections," Henry urged, taking a step in her direction. "He took my words for his own purposes, Charlotte-"
"It's Lady Charlotte, Uncle," Charlie broke in. She took a deep breath, releasing it in a steady exhale. It hardly mattered, she reminded herself. By morning, she would be gone. When Charlie was calm enough, her eyes locked with her uncle's. "You have ceased the privilege of addressing me by my name two seconds after you inherited my parent's position in society so happily."
Henry turned on his heel. He stood with his back to her, glaring at the carpeting, his hand clasping his neck. "You know nothing of what has happened. If I hadn't taken over as your guardian, done things that needed to be done, even now, you could be destitute. Perhaps find yourself in the care of a third cousin who could have married you off as soon as he was able!" Henry visibly shook. He faced her, glowering. "You know nothing of what I have had to do to keep -"
"I know of everything you have done!" Charlie gestured to the gown lying beaten and muddy in the middle of her bedchamber. "By God, you had him attack me! I had his hands upon my flesh, and you endorsed his behavior -"
Her uncle glanced at the garment, and for a brief moment, his gaze found Charlie's. That elusive emotion Charlie had caught sight of before, something she couldn't decipher, flickered. A vulnerability, perhaps - a tenderness - that she had thought her uncle incapable of. Still thought, Charlie amended, refusing to be gulled into believing it otherwise.
His jaw clenched and spasmed. "I will not allow your remonstrations, Niece, if you refuse to heed my explanations -"
Charlie, fed up with his lies, grasped the ruined dress from the floor, holding it out in her hands. "Would father have approved?" Henry jerked, eyes stricken. "Your brother," she continued, balling the fabric in her hands, "would he be glad of your lack of decency? Your lack of honor and protection of his daughter? Would -"
"My brother -"
"Your brother would have been ashamed!"
The strike came unexpectedly. Charlie stumbled back, her palm cradling the burning skin. She looked up at him through narrowed eyes.
Henry's chest heaved, his legs spread apart. His brown eyes were wide in his face, his mouth opening and closing as if he had surprised even himself. Henry's hands spread before him; he was glancing at them as if the answer to his behavior resided within his palms. Glancing up, Charlie saw the guilt in his tightened skin.
The patent disbelief.
The horror.
"God, Charlotte..." Henry shook his head, helplessly. His hands clenched tightly into his hair, pulling. "I don't know what came over me -"
His body shook, but Charlie knew better. He would not win her understanding nor her forgiveness. Not even her pity. Charlie pointed to the door, her finger shaking. "I must ask you to leave, my lord."
The jerk of his shoulders told her he didn't like the honorary term on her lips. Good, she thought, for her words were thrown like darts dipped in poison.
"Forgive me, Charl-" At her narrowed gaze, her uncle broke off. His pleas were lost in the bevy of doubts and evidence Charlie had seen and experienced to the contrary.
She had had enough.
"I want you out."
"You mustn't think-"
"What is done has been done, my lord. I don't care to hear anything further." Charlie turned away, walking to the edge of her bed where her wrapper was laid out. She folded it around her person, the cold chill in the air pimpling her skin.
"Lady Charlotte," his voice began, soft and low, "I think it best if you marry."
Charlie's head whipped around, her hair flying about her face. "I beg your pardon?"
"Within the week, you will be married. Perhaps not to Simpton, but someone else -"
"You must be joking. Perhaps you hit your head or blacked out because you are under the misguided notion that I am beholden to any command you utter." It seemed she had once more prodded him to anger, but this time, Charlie raised her throbbing cheek, daring him to strike her once more.
She would not cower like an unwanted mongrel.
"Mayhap I would have considered your suggestion a week ago, but I have no intention of doing anything you like from this day forward."
Her uncle cursed, spinning around again. It was then that Charlie noticed his undressed state. Her uncle had always prided himself on keeping up appearances, being the lordship with his aristocratic lineage on display, his person the respectable and wealthy gentleman.
Unlike now, when his cravat was not in its usual place about his neck. His hair, usually styled with pomade, lay limply, the strands sticking up on end. Henry's shirt was untucked, his trousers wrinkled. The tanned skin looked rather pale, sweat dampening his upper back, and his hands shook as they made another sweep in his hair.
"Out of time...I must do something...No, no, no, no." The desperate mumblings interrupted her minute study of the man currently possessing her uncle. Henry halted his musings, turning abruptly to face her, his eyes glinting.
"It does not matter what you wish anymore, Charlotte. Within the week, you will be married."
Charlie fumed, letting her eyes glare daggers at the man who was her relative by blood. How could Henry have been born in the same household, brother to the best man she had ever - and would ever- know?
She didn't get her answer. Charlie wouldn't. For Henry, his command placed, left as quickly as he had entered. The door slammed behind him.
Charlie stood in silence for a moment. Then two.
Before she moved. Her wardrobe was first, grasping handfuls of fabrics - silks and taffeta and lace. They settled on the trunk with a thud before she was returning for the slippers and petticoats and bonnets. Anything she could see in her panic was loaded in the trunk, scattered across her coverlet.
The door opened with a whisper. She didn't stop her frantic movements. Instead, she bustled to the vanity, scattering everything on the table as she grasped bottles and implements.
"My lady -"
Charlie hurried past her, emptying the contents of her arms. She made another pass to the vanity only to find her body surrounded by arms, her head tucked beneath Nessie's chin.
Charlie crumbled. Unable to hold back the tears, she let them fall unbidden down her throbbing cheek, curling over her chin and resting somewhere upon her nightrail. The sobs were deep, aching things, crying for everything she had lost. For everything she still had to lose. Her parents, gone after a promise of chess and a routine ball in London. Her innocence, gone with Lord Simpton's questing fingers and gruff grunts and moans in her ear. Her future, gone with Henry orchestrating her ruination. Her home, her safety, her inheritance.
All gone.
"Now, now, deary," Nessie murmured, voice low. "Nothing will happen to ye. I vow it."
Charlie didn't know how long she let the weakness of tears wrack her frame. But sometime between when Nessie merely held her, her words of comfort petering off, and Charlie's tears, having gone dry, her face tight, she had found her composure.
And for the oddest reason. At some point, Charlie's head had lifted, and she found herself staring at her reflection. It reminded her of the night her parents had died. When the chessboard had shattered the mirror, glinting her face back in her direction, the slimmest of shards. Now, however, with her head on Nessie's shoulders, her hair was pulled back in such a way that she marveled at how young she looked.
Not like a lady, at all.
Her hair appeared shorn short, coming to her ears, making that particular appendage stand out from her head. Her violet eyes were luminous in her face from her tears, but widely set. An oval shaped face, her cheekbones rounded. She noticed her chin was slight with an uncommon dimple dipped between.
She rather looked like a -
Charlie froze.
Bloody hell, she cursed silently. She pulled from Nessie's arms to get a closer look. Could it be the answer? Charlie secured her hair in one hand, clasping it at the back of her head. She twisted her face to the left. To the right.
Charlie's eyes narrowed. Her features were neither overtly feminine nor were they distinctly masculine. She had a gangly frame, still not quite the shape of the women of the ton. She was not willowy and elegant or plump with soft curves. She cast a brief glance at her bosom, not substantial enough to pose much of a problem she would assume.
Could she pass as a lad not yet grown into his manhood?
When the cry went up that his niece was missing, all of London would be searching for a lady. Never a lonesome gentleman...
Charlie smiled. Her eyes caught Nessie's who stood behind her in the reflection. "Bah!" Nessie said, backing up from Charlie's person. "I know that look. Whate'er yer plannin', missy, I don' want no part in it!"
Nessie made her way across the room, picking up scattered clothing and the remnants of her toilette. Charlie paid her no attention. She knew what she had to do.