Silence. Charlotte glanced over her shoulder at Dewhurst. “That is the story you and your poetic cousin concocted, is it not?”
He glared at her, his eyes sharp and hard like emeralds now. She raised a brow, and his look darkened. “I see what you’re trying to do, Charlotte, and it won’t work.”
“What I’m trying to do?” she said. “I’m trying to save my friend and ensure my one thousand dollars.”
“It’s one thousand pounds. And that’s your only objective?”
“Of course. What else?” She stared at him, saw the way he scrutinized her, and couldn’t help but let out a loud laugh. “Oh, heavens. What were you thinking, Alfred? That my pleas for your presence at home were a ploy to get you to fall in love with me? To capture your heart and your title in truth?”
He didn’t respond, but she saw the faintest flicker of affirmation in those emerald eyes. Good. She’d set him straight. Set herself straight as well.
“Allow me to let you in on one tiny, little secret.” She sashayed up to him in her best imitation of a Southern belle. “Believe it or not—and I’m sure you do not—I am not interested in your heart or your title.” She reached up and traced a finger along the stiff cravat knotted at his throat. “I am not interested in London or your ton or all your silly rules. What I am interested in, sir, is my friend Cade Pettigru and getting back to Charleston. I am interested in the one thousand dollars you owe me, and I intend to be paid.”
He stared at her, face hard and expressionless as she wound two fingers around the cravat’s knot, circling it tightly.
“So you go out to your clubs and your women and your fancy society, but I will get what I want—one way or another.” She released his cravat and turned to sashay away, but Dewhurst gripped her shoulder and spun her round.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Charlotte,” he growled. “One you don’t know the rules to and against an opponent you’ve sorely misjudged. I don’t play to lose.”
She looked him straight in the eye. “Nor do I, sir.”
He nodded. “Very well. Let the games begin.”
She smiled. “Oh, they already have.” He released her shoulder and turned back to the dressing room door. “Oh, and Mr. Dewhurst”—she neglected his title deliberately—“if I’m to be sleeping so close to you at night, I really must insist on owning the key for this door. If you would please hand it over, I would be much obliged to you, sir.”
He stopped mid-stride and looked back at her. “And I would be obliged if you would call me Lord Dewhurst, but we can’t all get what we want, can we, Charlotte?”
And he slammed the door.
Chapter Eight
Charlotte would have laughed if Dewhurst hadn’t made her so angry. As though a pampered British aristocrat could even conceive of the notion of not getting what he wanted.
She had not been born into a wealthy family, but her father and mother had worked hard and improved their position until they were one of the well-to-do families in Charleston. Charlotte’s mother had been from an aristocratic British family and was the niece of a former governor of Georgia. When she’d married Charlotte’s father, they’d taken her small dowry, invested it, and built from there. By the time Charlotte was born, their wealth—all new money, which in Charleston was not the same as old money and never would be—had gained them an entrée into some of the best circles. From all accounts, life for the Burtons had been perfect.
And then the first of the cracks in their porcelain life had appeared. Charlotte had been too young to remember the illness that took her mother. She remembered only snatches of her—her voice, her smell, her laugh. As expected, her father took the loss of his wife hard, but his remedy had been to throw himself into his work. Burton & Son Shipping grew and became one of the most successful companies in South Carolina. When Charlotte had come out at sixteen, she’d done so in the company of young women from the best families. And she had not disappointed. She had glittered and dazzled like the best of them.
And then the porcelain had cracked again.
Her father, whom she had loved more than anything—excepting her brother, Thomas—had begun coming home drunk or not at all. And then one night Cade Pettigru had pounded on her door in the middle of the night. She’d thrown on a wrapper and ushered him into the parlor. His face had been ashen and his eyes dark and haunted.
“What is it?” she said, coming to sit beside him on the settee. “Is it Thomas?”
He shook his head. “No,” he said gruffly. “It’s—let’s have a drink first, Charlotte. Do you have any brandy?”
She gave him a surprised look but rose to fetch it. Thomas was away on one of the company ships, a routine trading run to New York that was scheduled to return late next week.
“Pour yourself a glass as well,” Cade said from behind her, and a flood of fear swelled and threatened to overwhelm her. She did as he asked, and when she was again seated beside him, took a slow, measured sip, trying to hide the growing trembling in her fingers.
“It’s not Thomas,” he’d said, after draining his glass. “It’s your father. Charlotte, I just came from Adelaide Cooper’s.”
Adelaide Cooper was the proprietor of a whorehouse and casino in town. Charlotte knew her father often gambled there. Cade loosened his neck cloth and looked down at the empty glass in his hands. Without a word, Charlotte went to refill it. When he’d warmed the liquid between both hands again, he said, “He’s lost it, Charlotte.”
Charlotte inhaled sharply. “What does that mean, Cade? Lost what?”
Cade sighed heavily, putting his head in his hands. “The business, Charlotte. Perhaps the house by now as well.”
Charlotte stared at him. His words made no sense to her. She understood them, but it didn’t seem possible that her father—the man who’d caught her effortlessly to prevent her childhood falls, the man who’d danced with her at her debut, the man who’d always left a lamp burning during thunderstorms because he knew without being told that they terrified her—that man had let her down. That man had let them all down.
