CHAPTER TEN

I f nothing else good came from this evening, Charlotte thought, at least she knew now to trust her instincts.

The evening had been an unmitigated disaster from start to finish.

From the time she’d entered the carriage of the slimy little comte she’d known this was a mistake. They’d sat in the booth while the gentlemen partook of libation after libation, then wandered to the gardens, with the comte making all sorts of inappropriate comments and promising them a night they wouldn’t forget as soon as they met with his friends.

His friends, as it turned out, were just as bad as he was and by the time they got to the private box he’d procured, Charlotte was looking for a way out.

Because it was winter, a lot of the gardens and their attractions were closed which was both good and bad. Good because at least if Jasper got her note they’d be found quicker. Bad because when she convinced the twins to take a walk through the lanterns with her, it took the comte only minutes to catch up.

“I’m not sure I like him very much anymore,” Harriet whispered as the comte took hold of Joanne’s arm and forced her to walk alongside him.

“Come, beautiful ladies,” he called out. “My friends are signaling, our drinks have arrived. You have never tasted anything as delicious, I promise you.” He winked at Charlotte and it was all she could do to keep her face straight. “Not yet, anyway. Perhaps later.”

She caught his meaning and stared daggers at him but he didn’t seem to care. He steered Joanna back to the booth and because Charlotte didn’t want to let either of the girls out of her sight for a moment, she had no choice but to follow.

“I really wish we’d left that note for Jasper now,” Harriet mumbled miserably.

Charlotte turned a look of shock on her friend. “Harriet, you promised,” she chided.

“I know but we would have been in so much trouble, Charlotte,” she sniffed miserably. “And things have been wonderful with Jasper. We even agreed that we’d start behaving ourselves. After tonight,” she added after a pause.

Charlotte laughed in spite of herself. It was just such a Harriet thing to say.

“Come on,” she tried rallying Harriet’s spirits and keep her own worry at bay. “We’ll just wait it out until Jasper gets here.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Harriet hissed as they made it to the box. “We didn’t leave him a note.”

“No,” Charlotte answered a little meekly given that she’d sort of broken their agreement. “But I did.”

She half wondered if Harriet would be cross with her but in the next moment she threw her arms around Charlotte’s neck, her relief palpable. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Ladies, come and share some of that affection, won’t you?”

The uninteresting English friend turned out to be the dissolute son of a viscount who fancied himself something of a Lord Byron. He was pompous and disgusting and the very last thing Charlotte wished to do was pay him any mind. He’d also picked up some strays while the ladies had been walking, and now the booth was filled with strange gentlemen watching them as they came closer.

The comte had strong-armed Joanna into sitting pressed into the corner while he put himself uncomfortably close to her, effectively trapping her beside him and placing a goblet in her hand.

“What is it?” she asked, eyeing it suspiciously.

“The Gardens are quite famous for their punch,” the comte explained. “Come, my beauties. Come and try some.”

Charlotte’s temper spiked along with her fear and she marched forward, snatching the goblet from Joanna’s shaking hands. “No, thank you,” she said, trying to ignore the tremble in her voice and hoping it was noticeable only to her. “In fact, the Earl of Fenwick is on his way right now to meet us, so we should wait by the gates. Joanna, come along.”

“I don’t think so.” Suddenly, the faux joviality was gone from the man’s voice and a shiver of trepidation ran up Charlotte’s spine. The men had been drinking heavily from the moment they’d arrived. In fact, from what she could gather, and from the fumes in his carriage, the comte had been thoroughly foxed when he’d arrived to collect her.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked.

“It wouldn’t be safe to have three such lovely young things wandering around in the dark all alone,” he continued. “Best to stay here and enjoy our evening together.”

Charlotte took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. She knew how things went in these pleasure gardens, how as the night wore on inhibitions were thrown out the window and behavior became more than a little wild. She hadn’t expected it in the winter, but clearly she’d underestimated the desire for debauchery around Christmas time.

It had started to snow on the way here, making the gardens look deceptively beautiful and calm, and the temperature was dropping by the second. She could feel Harriet shivering against her, whether from fear or the freezing cold, she didn’t know.

Her mind racing, she tried to think of a way out of this mess.

“Very well,” she said eventually. “But it is frightfully cold. I think I should like something hot to drink. Ladies, why don’t we go and find some tea?”

The comte’s smirk told her that he knew exactly what she was up to. “We couldn’t let you go alone. Alonso, why don’t you accompany Miss Forrester to fetch her tea? Lady Harriet and Lady Joanna can wait here with us.”

Alonso turned out to be the name of the vile Byron pretender and he stumbled toward her, his eyes glassy and unfocused. “My pleasure,” he sneered. “Why don’t we take the more scenic route?”

Before she could get away from him, he had hold of her arm and was dragging her toward the gardens.

“Charlotte,” Harriet cried, her distress evident in her tone.

Charlotte didn’t even time to answer before Alonso had spirited her away.

***

J asper was beyond furious , something his friends understood for they were unusually quiet. Not even Rafe was teasing him.

His mind was racing. There was worry, of course, since his sisters had been foolish enough to make plans with a damned stranger. Anger and even hurt that they’d gone behind his back when he’d been trying so hard to loosen the reins on them.

But most of all, there was worry. Worry that the three women he cared most about in the world were in a potentially dangerous situation and it was taking damned eons to get to them.

He’d barked enough at his driver to know that the man was going as quickly as he could, but the snow was worsening which was only slowing them down.

The thought of any of them being scared, or alone, being abused by one of these unnamed men. It was enough to send him to Bedlam.

He looked down at the note scrunched up in his hands, the delicate scrawl etched in his brain.

Jasper,

I know you’ll be angry and probably think it my bad influence, but your sisters and I are going to the Mediterranean Pleasure Gardens with some friends they met last week. I only know that one of them is Venetian nobility whose name escapes me now.

I have to go with them, I cannot leave them alone in such unsure circumstances but cross as you will no doubt be, I am still hoping that you will get this note and come find us.

C.

He scoffed as he re-read the words. “Cross” didn’t even begin to cover how he was feeling. Incandescent was closer to the truth. But he would deal with the anger once he had the three of them safely under his protection.

The garden entrance finally came into view, and he didn’t wait for the coach to come to a complete stop before he was out and racing for the gates.

The crowd was nowhere near as big as these things were in the height of Summer and for that he was grateful. He barged through, noticing that the evening had already gotten to the point where he didn’t want his little sisters, or his, well, Charlotte anywhere near it.

His eyes scanned the boxes in the dim light from the lanterns. There were things going on in some of these boxes that made his stomach turn. He was far from a prude but the idea of the ladies here was making him ill.

He was about to lose his damned mind when he heard one shrill voice above the cacophony of sounds. “Charlotte.”

Whipping his head toward the sound, he thought he caught a flash of bright gold before it was gone again. But he hurried in that direction nonetheless.

“Jasper. They’re here.”

Jasper’s knees nearly buckled with relief when Gabe called out to him, he changed course heading toward where his friend was aiming, a thunderous expression on his dark face, Rafe unusually glowering at his side.

It was only seconds until Jasper had caught up to them and sure enough there were his sisters, Joanna pinned against the veranda like a damned mouse in a trap, Harriet pushing away a goblet that was being forced into her hands.

He saw red.

Within seconds he was up the stairs to the booth, his fist slamming into the face of the man accosting Harriet.

All hell broke loose around him, but Jasper barely noticed. He had hold of Harriet and pushed her toward Gabe before turning to grab hold of Joanna. Rafe however was already there, pulling his sister to her feet and toward where Gabe had a protective arm around Harriet and so there was nothing for Jasper to do but knock the man who he assumed was the Venetian onto his arse.

He cast a wild look around the booth, his heart stopping dead in his chest. She wasn’t here. Where the hell was she?

“Jasper.” He spun toward a crying Harriet. “Th-the other man, he d-dragged Charlotte away. She was trying to g-get us away from them and he just dragged her off.”

Fury and fear unlike anything he’d ever felt coursed through Jasper, so much so that his entire body froze for a moment as he tried to process it. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think beyond hearing that she was potentially unsafe.

“Jasper.” It was Gabe’s hand on his shoulder that forced him to move again, to take action.

“Where did they go?” he asked, his voice eerily calm even to his own ears.

“T-the Chinese lantern paths,” Harriet managed past her sobs. Joanna hadn’t cried, but she hadn’t spoken either, just stared at them all wide-eyed.

They looked unbearably young standing there scared and shaking. “Get them out of here,” he instructed Rafe and Gabe. “Take the carriage and get them home.”

Rafe frowned at him. He glanced at the two unconscious men slumped over. The others had wisely slunk away. “What about you and Miss Forrester?”

“We’ll get a Hackney,” he answered. “I just don’t want them here any longer than they need to be.”

His friends nodded their understanding. They both removed their coats, wrapping them around his shivering sisters and coaxing them away.

Right before they left, Joanna looked up at him, her eyes glistening and dazed. “We’re sorry, Jasper,” she whispered.

He couldn’t find the words, and his throat was painfully tight anyway, so he just nodded then turned away to find Charlotte.