CHAPTER SEVEN

“Y ou really don’t have to come in. Charlotte will be ready and her mother is awful, Jasper. She’ll try to keep you there all morning.”

Jasper waved off his sisters’ concerns as he helped them from the carriage the next morning.

To answer would be to explain his reasoning for calling on the lady. And the truth was, he didn’t particularly want to examine his actions.

He knew that Miss Forrester had a difficult time of it with a mother who was desperately trying to reclaim some social standing. And he knew that being called upon, even briefly, by the Earl of Fenwick would have the older woman in paroxysms for weeks, which would mean an easier life for her daughter.

He didn’t like that he was doing this for Charlotte. But he couldn’t help himself wanting to do it all the same.

“It’s simple good manners,” he said as they ascended the steps of the townhouse.

The twins snorted. “You sound worse than Mama sometimes,” Harriet muttered.

But there was a lightness to the complaint. A teasing that had been missing from their relationship ever since their father passed away.

He thought back to his encounter with the beautiful wallflower yesterday. The moments before he’d nearly made a colossal mistake and kissed her like he’d so desperately wanted to. It had been years since he’d allowed himself to be ruled by his hormones. But standing there with her yesterday, those big brown eyes gazing at him. Well, he’d very nearly reverted to his old self. And that simply couldn’t happen.

But the conversation before the slip, that had been enlightening. He hadn’t realized just how rigid he’d become in his quest to set a good example. Miss Forrester had opened his eyes to that. Just as she’d made him see how much his sisters might just want their brother back.

They’d been so pleased that he apparently wanted to join them on their frivolous little excursion today that they hadn’t even complained when he’d insisted on attending the theater last night with the Lord Flatson and his boring-as-sin sister last night.

Compromise. Just as Miss Forrester had suggested.

“Careful,” he said with faux severity. “Or I’ll invite Lord Pruitt to join us.”

They were still teasing each other when the door opened and they were whisked inside as soon as they were announced.

“My lord, what an incredible honor it is to welcome you to our home.”

As soon as they reached the drawing room there was Mrs. Forrester, curtsying so deeply he wasn’t sure she’d make it back up on her own. “And of course Ladies Harriet and Joanna. We are so very honored to have you, too. Won’t you sit?”

The twins groaned in unison, quietly enough that Mrs. Forrester didn’t hear, but loud enough to let Jasper know that they wouldn’t behave for long.

“Sit,” he commanded earning himself matching glares. But they sat nonetheless.

“Can I offer you some refreshments, my lord?” Mrs. Forrester simpered making to ring her bell but Jasper had no intentions of staying for longer than necessary.

“No, thank you,” he answered. “I am afraid this will have to be a short visit. Your daughter has made quite the impression on my sisters.” And me, he thought. “They are eager to get to the fair.”

“Of course, of course,” she responded enthusiastically. “She has just gone to fetch her cloak. You are too kind, my lord, to offer to escort her. Charlotte and her sister Jane.” Whatever the lady had been about to say was cut off, her face blanching at what he assumed was the accidental mention of her oldest daughter. “F-forgive me,” she mumbled, pale-faced and jittery. “I forget myself when I’m tired. Charlotte and I attended Lady Thornton’s musicale yesterday evening and it went on rather late.”

There was a tensely awkward silence and Jasper bizarrely felt a wave of anger, even revolt for the woman before him. To treat her own daughter as a shameful secret, as something that shouldn’t even be mentioned, was disgusting.

He knew the archaic rules of this world of theirs as much as the next person. But even if the rest of Society turned their backs on one of the twins, he never would. And he certainly wouldn’t allow the other to be treated as though she was tainted somehow. Less than, somehow. Most of all, he wouldn’t drag her around London forcing her to sit in corners being ignored just so she might receive a scrap of respect from people who didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as her.

Thornton and his horrible wife were two of the worst snobs in Christendom and he could only imagine how terribly they would have treated Charlotte. How meek and hidden away she would have had to be just to survive such an evening.

How bastards like that Answel cad would try to take advantage of her circumstances.

How she was left without her sister, without a friend in the world through no fault of her own. How she managed to suffer her odious mother, and the censure of the ton and still show kindness to two irascible young ladies, still laugh and smile and bear it all with a strength that so few possessed.

“Good morning.” Her bright voice from the doorway thankfully pierced the stilted atmosphere and the twins jumped up, already chattering to her.

Jasper merely took her in for a moment; the deep, burgundy cloak, the hint of white skirts beneath it. The delectable pink blush as she caught his eye and smiled.

The wave of desire wasn’t new. He was a base enough creature to admit that he had wanted her from that first night in the study. But the fierce protectiveness? The desire to shield her from everything and everyone who would do her harm? That was new and terrifying.

He could be in trouble here, he realized, as he took his leave of the odious mother. Very real trouble.

***

C harlotte could sense that something wasn’t quite right the moment she settled into Lord Fenwick’s carriage.

The twins were as spirited as ever but Lord Fenwick? He seemed a little out of sorts. Perhaps he was annoyed that she’d manipulated him into spending the morning with them. But no, he hadn’t seemed angry about it yesterday.

She’d been shocked to find him in the drawing room with the twins. All tall and darkly handsome in his charcoal greatcoat. Shocked and pleased, truth be told. And of course Mama would have been ecstatic.

Although now that she thought about it, Mama hadn’t seemed ecstatic. She’d seemed oddly nervous. Embarrassed even.

And then it hit her.

Heaving a sigh she looked around at her companions. “How long did it take my mother to say something awkward?” she blurted.

The twins stared at her open-mouthed for a moment before they laughed. “About two minutes,” Joanna confessed.

“Ah. Let me guess, she embarrassed you with effusive praise?” Though it was a general question, she kept her gaze trained on the quietly stewing earl.

“Only to start with,” Harriet supplied.

“Very well.” Charlotte paused and made a show of pondering. “She waxed lyrical about Lady Thornton’s musicale even though only two people spoke to her?” she offered.

This earned a fleeting clench of his jaw but nothing else.

“No, actually. She barely mentioned it,” Joanna said. “She – um.” Joanna’s quick, unsure glance at her siblings set Charlotte’s stomach clenching. Only one thing would cause such discomfort.

“Ah. My sister.” At this, that ice-blue gaze flew to her face and Charlotte’s heart sank. Was this why she sensed annoyance from him? Had the mention of Jane somehow reminded him how little he wanted her around his sisters? Around him?

She was surprised that Mama had mentioned Jane at all. Usually her parents tried to pretend Jane didn’t exist.

“An accidental mention, I presume?” She could hear the bitterness in her tone but was helpless to do anything about it. She was bitter. Bitter than Jane’s name was treated as something bad. Bitter that Mama had ruined whatever fledgling friendship had grown between she and the earl. And that he might remember that he didn’t want her around his sisters. Or around him.

“Seemed to be,” Harriet offered softly.

Charlotte didn’t know what to say so she just looked out the window at the city passing them by. It had snowed this morning, not too heavily but enough to blanket everything in white. It looked like a painting outside. But the visage did nothing to soothe her sick stomach.

To her relief, Joanna came to the rescue. “We heard that you had to suffer through a musicale last night. Is it true Lady Thornton’s daughter sounds like a cat being strangled?”

Charlotte couldn’t help her burst of laughter and the tension in the carriage dissipated as she regaled them with tales from the musicale. It had been easy to see all the goings on from her spot in the corner where not one person spoke to her all evening, except to say something cruel.

The three ladies shared stories from their equally dull evenings until the carriage finally rolled to a halt amongst the other conveyances gathered at the entrance to the fair.

And Charlotte was just finished telling them about Lady Thornton’s daughter Esther’s snide remark about Charlotte’s presence sullying the household when the doors opened and a footman was placing the steps onto the icy ground.

The earl, who’d remind quiet for the entire journey stepped out first, handing out both his sisters then turning back to Charlotte.

Wordlessly he held a hand out of her and she hesitated a moment before grabbing it. Even through the material of his black, leather gloves and her own tanned ones, she felt the heat of the contact and it set her heart hammering.

He helped her out but when her feet hit solid ground, he didn’t let go.

Charlotte looked up in inquiry and her breath caught at the intensity in his eyes. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, to break the odd silence. But he got there first.

“I don’t like hearing tales of people’s cruelty toward you.” It was a simple sentiment, softly spoken, yet its impact rocked Charlotte’s entire world. It felt monumental, this small, sincere confession of his but it shifted something inside of her.

This grumpy, beautiful man quietly confessing that he cared about how people treated her. She blinked away the tears that suddenly threatened and forced a smile, determined to hide the maelstrom he was creating inside her.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered conspiratorially. “She’s just another sheep. When she wasn’t looking, I hid her fan in a potted plant. I dare say it will be quite ruined when they finally dig it out of the soil.”

He’d blinked at her in something like awe then thrown his head back and laughed. “Another point to the wolf,” he’d said with a wink before leading her toward the fair.

They joined his sisters and Charlotte thought that her painful evening might have been worth it just for that laugh alone.