"When someone is forced to do something, they are not empowered. [It is] when they choose to do something, even if they are afraid, even if it is terrible, even if it is a hard choice, a bad one, or a wrong one, [that] they are."
- Michi
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Charlotte dismounted from her horse as she viewed the ramshackle stables before her. The building was in disrepair, boards half rotted and various spots where the structure was left open to the elements. It appeared as if its skeleton would withstand one more harsh wind before it bowled over completely.
Taking a deep breath, Charlotte reached for the parchment that her adversary had left her, her eyes scanning the contents.
If you would like to see your earl remain in good health, you will journey north. You have until the day after next. Choose wisely. I wouldn't wish to see the family reduced to ruin because of your actions.
Charlotte swallowed, the feeling of being watched raising the hairs on the back of her neck. She kept her features serene, knowing with a certainty that she had come upon the right place.
She glanced at her surroundings, her eyes flickering over every inch of the space. There was nothing but rolling hills and wooded land farther off in the distance. Charlotte glanced back the way she had come, wondering if the earl was still abed.
If the cry had been raised that she had disappeared...
Some part of her still wondered if it wasn't for the best. She thought of the confusion and harm she had caused thus far, the choices she had made. The last thing they needed was Mr. M- threatening them still. Charlotte hoped that whatever the reason for M-'s calling upon her, she could see Greyson's future mired in peace.
But Charlotte knew that for what it was.
Naivete.
Mr. M- wouldn't stop. Charlotte had known it with a surety that had brought her into Greyson's bedchamber the night before. It was either her or Mr. M- that wouldn't leave the situation alive, and Charlotte had wanted to spend every possible last moment she had with the earl.
That he would have that one evening of her truth.
She wouldn't take back any moment of that evening. The soft touch of his lips on her skin. The way she had clutched at his hair, whispering her words of love in his ear. The tear she had shed for everything she might be giving up.
And yet...
Charlotte knew that she would make the same choice. She would fight for him regardless of the consequences.
Despite the pain, and the sorrow, and the hint of death dogging her heels.
She refused to be a pawn in the game of men. Moved to and fro without a care for her well being or safety. It was only within Greyson's stables, within his arms, that she had felt more than a piece of artwork shuffled and bandied about, but a lady who was enlightened as to why she must move. Why it was in everyone's best interest to do so.
For Greyson, she had realized, she would move.
Charlotte owed Greyson her life.
And now, she was determined to repay it.
So Charlotte had followed Mr. M-'s directive and ended up here, standing before a dilapidated stable yard that looked as if no one had tread into its domain for centuries. The wind whipped the hair before her eyes stinging her cheeks as dark clouds stretched their fingers in her direction. Charlotte's head tilted back, and she thought she felt the first raindrop land on the tip of her cheekbone. She wiped away the moisture, straightening her spine.
Dust filled her lungs as she walked towards the building. She lead Sir Rupert to the entrance way, patting his mane as she whispered soothing words. Charlotte didn't know if they were for her horse, or for her.
Then she walked in.
The glow of a single lit lantern marked her path into the dense darkness before her. It flickered over the distended stables as she passed rows of empty stalls, the entire space riddled with broken saddles, discarded bits and rusted racks for the accoutrements.
Most of the wood was rotted, spiderwebs tracking along the beams above her. Charlotte wondered at being stuck within this building. Spending the last few moments within its skeletal claws.
A gate creaked as wind gusted through an opening in the outer wall, a few boards having clattered uselessly to the ground. Charlotte watched the gate swing on the rusted hinge. It was as if it was pleading, holding on for dear life before it met its final resting place - another item in the discarded heap this structure had become.
The far end was nothing but darkness, and Charlotte halted, the hairs on her arms standing up. Her eyes tracked each shadow.
Mr. M- was here.
A scuffle reached her ear and before Charlie could turn, an arm wrapped firmly around her waist. The cold press of a pistol landed on her temple.
Fear snaked through her limbs when she heard a voice whisper harshly in her ear. The voice of the man who had attacked her in Greyson's stables.
Mr. M-? She wondered.
The pistol tracked down her face, hooking over a strand of her shortened locks and pulling it away from her face. The man's stubbled cheek scraped her own.
"My dear," said the voice of her attacker. "As promised, I wouldn't leave without you."
Charlotte refused to show her discomfort. Instead, she scoffed softly, the sound lost in another cold, biting wind. "No, you said you would leave with me that evening. But you were stupid enough to tangle with the earl of Claymore, weren't you?"
The man didn't give her the reaction she had expected. He chuckled darkly instead. "It wasn't the earl with whom I wished to tangle."
Charlotte twisted, wanting to see the face of Mr. M-, but it was an entirely different, but familiar face that greeted her instead. She barely stopped the gasp as Lord Simpton's blue eyes stared at her, gleaming with triumph. The chip in his front incisor showed through his thin lips.
"What the devil are you doing here?"
She realized she had said that out loud when his eyes darkened, the same mutinous expression tilting the corners of his mouth and drawing his black brows deeper. "Rather foolish of you, my dear. Those words, gathering that I am the one holding the pistol."
It suddenly made sense.
The piece of the puzzle that had eluded her.
I have come for you, the man had whispered, and this time, I intend to leave with you.
All this time? Charlotte thought incredulously, her head shaking. The man was still reeling over the evening of the ball when she wouldn't allow him to compromise her?
Charlotte could have kicked herself for not seeing it sooner. Not recognizing the hands gripping her flesh. The heat of his breath in her ear.
If only...
Charlotte stiffened as Simpton's threat echoed back to her, casting off her shock.
She turned her head, despising the coil in the pit of her belly at the sight of the gleaming revolver in her vision. "Rather foolish of you to think I will be any more willing to leave with a coward like you today than I had been that first evening."
Before Simpton could say another word, a laugh penetrated the silence. Charlotte's head twisted around as the gruff, dark sound sent chills down her spine.
A shadow - a rather large one - disjointed from the pitch darkness before her, and Charlotte knew that this, this was the elusive Mr. M-.
He was garbed all in black, a calling card if ever there was one, Charlotte thought. Unfortunately, he looked and sounded as unfamiliar as Simpton had been familiar. She would have remembered meeting someone so blasted tall, so filled with...a menace that had her muscles tensed in preparedness.
It could have been the nerves, the sense that she had walked into a situation that might have been more than she could handle, or the fact that these two ruffians had been behind everything that had been happening to Greyson.
Whatever it was, Charlotte found herself saying, "Now, who the devil are you?"
The man chuckled as he stalked closer. A hood cloaked his face, revealing nothing more than a jutting chin from its dark folds. The cloak covered him to his scuffed boots.
"I can see why the earl is so taken with you," the man said, his boots walking over loose boards and nails, the scattered dust motes and straw making way for his body. "Hell, why this coward has an obsession with you," Simpton's arm tightened about her waist and Charlotte twisted, trying to keep as much distance between them. "You are spirited, I'll give you that."
The man stopped a few feet from Charlotte, and she was chagrined to realize that she had to tilt her head up to see the man's face. Or where it should have been.
"But to answer your question," he said, dipping into a mocking bow. "Moreland. At your service, my lady."
"What is it you want?" Charlotte demanded, not waiting for Moreland to straighten before the words were cast between them. Fear, it seemed, had made her bold, even the trilling of fear rattled beneath her skin and her legs beneath her skirts trembled. "Why am I here?"
She could hear the smile behind the cloak. "I am never one to let an advantage pass me by."
Moreland began a slow revolution around her and Simpton. Charlotte could feel his eyes dissecting every inch of her. Lingering on her hair, the dip of her dress, the press of Simpton's arm about her waist. "Just like your parents."
Charlotte's breath was knocked from her and she gasped, her eyes meeting Moreland's shadowed face. "We were right."
His head cocked.
"You used them to draw out Greyson's father."
A grin was in Moreland's words as he said, "I can see you also have a brain in that head of yours." Moreland halted once more in front of her, his gloved hands cool against the skin of her chin as he clasped it. "Benjamin was as much of a recluse as your dear earl. What's a few lives when the one I want is within my grasp, hm?"
Something in his speech drew Charlotte's spine straight. The threat inherent in them.
The horror of the truth left her numb. Assuming her parents had been minor casualties to him was thoroughly different from knowing it as so. This man had disposed of her parents with a flick of his wrist, with no more thought or concern than a minor annoyance.
That's when another thought struck her.
Her father hadn't broken his promise.
All of this time, in a part Charlotte wasn't proud of, in a part where she was still ten and hopeful and oblivious to the world and its evils, she had been quite selfish indeed. If she wasn't to trust another promise, another man, than nothing could hurt her.
She had mistakenly believed that she was in control of such things, when she hadn't been anything more than the same as her parents. An advantageous token that had fallen in his lap.
It sent a surge of rage through her, but she tamped it down.
Charlotte knew that somewhere within her, it had become inconsequential whether she survived or not. The man was destined to hurt Greyson, to cause events to transpire against the son on some vendetta Moreland had had with someone else entirely.
He was done messing with Greyson's life, because Charlotte was determined to win.
Strike Moreland where it hurt.
And take away his revenge...
"I think the better question, however, is why are you here? Was it hope? Perhaps I would be content with you, or perhaps show mercy-" Moreland scoffed, releasing her chin as he turned on his heel. "That I would allow your earl to win."
Charlotte snorted. "I expected nothing."
"Is that so?" Moreland asked. "Everyone expects something. Everyone makes a choice with some meager strand of hope -"
"Is that what you have done?" Charlotte asked, pouncing on the revealing words. "Some hope that mayhap your revenge will alleviate what's left of your soul? That you would somehow receive the comeuppance that would make your shriveling hide of a life justifiable-"
The fist came like a shadow. It struck her jaw and her head was thrust back. Clenching her teeth, Charlotte swallowed the cry of pain as she watched Moreland from under her lashes.
"You know nothing of which you speak." She heard the creak of leather as Moreland clenched his fists. It was in the stiffening of his body, the set of his shoulders as he breathed deeply, silently. Before it was gone, and Charlotte wondered if she had spotted the weakness.
"You are quite brave, my lady. I will give you that," Moreland said, heading back into the shadows.
"Quite noble of you," his voice said, before his tall form separated once more. What she saw in his hands froze the breath in her lungs. It was a hay hook. It filled Moreland's palm, the blade gleaming in the flickering lantern light, blade sharp, as he approached. "To face me alone, although - truth be told - rather pointless, considering."
Charlotte licked her dry lips watching his boots kick up bits of dust in his wake.
"I have awaited a decade for just this moment. How advantageous for me that not only do I get to destroy the earl himself, every piece of his land, his family and his estate. But I get to take away his woman too."
Charlotte's breath picked up, and she dared him with her eyes to try. She noticed the dank corner on her right was where she had passed the remnants of the tack room. Saddle racks, spades, a wooden brush or two, the tail of a lone whip.
"I thought I was to h...have the gel."
Charlotte's eyes skidded back to Moreland's face as Simpton's harsh whisper tore through the stables.
Was he...frightened of this man as well?
Charlotte narrowed her eyes as the gun wobbled in Simpton's grip.
If he accidentally pulled that trigger...Charlotte vowed to haunt the cowardly prick for all eternity.
"It hardly matters," was what Moreland said, his boots clacking on the broken shards of the flooring as he walked. "Neither one of you will be walking out alive."
"But...but you said..."
Moreland's hands lifted to the edges of his hood. He pulled it slowly from him and Charlotte watched, transfixed, as each curve of his face was revealed to her.
A full head of dark brown hair, streaks of white at his temples. A high forehead. Aqualine nose. And a scar that covered half his face. The scar bisected his left eyebrow, pulling the skin taut until it had lost all pigments of color. It was deep, carved into his cheek as if from a paring knife. The scar ended at the corner of his lips, drawing them up into a permanent grimace.
Moreland's dark gaze appeared almost black as his eyes turned to Simpton. "I promised nothing, but your chance to have her. Which you shall. It will kill the earl to see his woman returned to him mutilated...." His eyes met Charlie's.
"And in pieces."
The hook pressed right below Charlotte's eye. She tried to twist away, but his other hand caught her chin, holding her in place as he dragged it down. Charlotte hissed as beads of blood laced her cheek.
Moreland pulled back and that was when the press of Simpton's pistol left her temple. The arm about her waist loosened as Simpton pointed the pistol at Moreland's temple. "I don't believe that will work for me."
It trembled in his grasp, his distraction exactly what Charlotte had been waiting for. With a twist and a cry, she cast off his grip, her hand contacting with his forearm. The pistol went off, a grunt of pain behind her as the pistol went airborne, skittering away from them all.
Charlotte didn't think. She drew back her knee, and unlike the night so long ago, this time it contacted with its mark. Simpton released a high pitched warble as he went down.
A breeze ruffled the hair at her collarbone as she turned, only for a hand to collide with her chest. She was thrown back, her body propelling through a stall. She landed with a thud, her breath lost in her chest as she brought herself onto her hands and knees.
She saw two bodies colliding. A punch, a kick.
Blood littered the ground and Charlotte narrowed her eyes, realizing that Moreland had been injured by the gunshot.
Simpton's hand landed and Moreland shouted, the distraction enough that Simpton ran from him, shuffling away. He glanced back, his eyes briefly meeting Charlotte's before he grinned. The lantern was off its hook and, lifting it above his head, it crashed down into a pile of boards dusted with hay.
It sparked, aggravated as Simpton's boots kicked the ashes until a fire blazed.
His cackle of laughter disappeared as the conflagration blocked the only exit to the stables.
That rat bastard!
A rough laugh penetrated through the crackling of timber, and Charlotte's gaze went to Moreland, who had regained his feet. He had been watching her. Swiping his sleeve across his forehead, he wiped away the sweat, his boots tracking over the various obstacles between them.
Charlotte falterd to a stand, the twinges in her back and her jaw and face stinging. His steps went into a lunge at the last second and Charlotte twisted her body, rolling in the other direction. A nail sliced through the skin of her arm. Then she was being dragged up by the collar of her gown. The breath fell from her throat as the punch to her stomach brought tears to her eyes.
He cast her to the side and her body collided with the outside wall of the stables. She sank into a crouch watching as the flickering flames drew ever nearer. A creak sounded above her and Charlotte's eyes went upwards, watching in dismay as the boards caved in, losing the fight to neglect and heat and pressure.
Her earlier thought came back to her and a burble of laughter left her lips. By God, but she was going to experience her last few moments in here before it all crumbled into dust.
"I am going to take pleasure in sending you back to Greyson, my lady." Moreland's voice was a low rumble against the roaring of the fire. He crouched down, his back against the remnants of a stall as he leaned in. "This used to be my stables, you know. Before it was taken from me."
Charlotte coughed, sweat dripping down the contours of her face and stinging the open wound of her cheek. "You...took it away...from yourself."
The man's hand came to her cheek, the leather now warm from the conflagration that burned only feet from them both. Another groan as its bones were ready to shatter at any moment. Her eyes shifted over Moreland's shoulder, The rivets in the wood from disuse.
Her hand shifted into her skirts.
"These pompous lords with their ideals of honor and privilege and moral rightness," Moreland said, one hand playing with a strand of her hair. She turned her face to the side, the meager show of defiance doing little against the heat licking at her toes. "It's my duty to teach them otherwise, my sweet. You should feel...honored," he grinned, "that you were the chosen for the task."
His hand wrapped around her throat. The groan of wood dragged Moreland's attention above him. It was all Charlotte had needed.
Her hand came from her skirts and drawing the last of her energy, the glint of Moreland's knife - the black and gold filigree warm in her palm, she raised it above her head. Time seemed to slow as Moreland's eyes tracked her movements, his eyes narrowed as the knife arched towards him. At the last moment, Charlotte tilted the knife towards his overcoat. The knife shredded through the heavy fabric and lodged into the knick of a thick board behind him.
Moreland's shock turned into a growl as he reached for her. His steps faltered as the knife pulled his coat taut.
Charlotte ran, fire licking at the tails of her dress as she burst through the flames, Greyson's name a chant upon her lips, over and again.
And then she was outside, right as the building's last groan rumbled like thunder and it collapsed like a great beast folding into itself. Moreland's roar was lost as the boards above clattered to the ground first, the gray timbers streaked with sparks of red and burnt orange flame.
The sides of the stables, now without their meager support, tumbled atop it, further burying the last traces of all that had remained of her adversary.
A cloud of fire and ash billowed into the sky from the force of its defeat, streaking into the sky like thousands of grenades.
The fire muted to a crackle as Charlotte collapsed heavily onto the ground. She thought she heard muffled shouts coming from the left, but she couldn't be sure over the pounding of her heart and the shortness of her breath.
She laid back as the sky chose that moment to open, and it poured.