“No, sadly, I must stay in London. My family has made it quite clear it’s high time I married and settled down there. I’m very happy to search for a wife.”
“Ah, you’ll be married next time I see you then.” Jeffrey walked past Mr. Withers and clapped him on the shoulder warmly.
Confused, Gerard’s hand slipped on his ale a little. He caught the glass before he could drop it completely.
“I thought ye were to marry Lady Charlotte? The Earl of Winchester’s daughter?” Gerard didn’t ask the question with any tact at all. It just blurted out of him in a rush.
“Lady Charlotte? Pah!” Mr. Withers laughed warmly, sitting back in his chair and shaking his head. “I tried to dance with her that one time you and I crossed paths at a ball, but nothing more has passed between us.”
“Ye are nae courtin’?”
“No.” Mr. Withers shook his head again. “Though I now understand why you were so upset with me that night if you did believe we were courting. No wonder you demanded a dance from her.” He found this highly amusing, laughing. “I cannot blame you for it at all.”
Gerard could not summon any words. He wasn’t going to correct Mr. Withers and say that at the ball, he’d had no idea there was a connection between the two of them and had just demanded the dance out of pure jealousy.
“Where did you hear they were courting, Gerard?” Jeffrey asked with interest. He now sat down in the chair beside Gerard and topped up both of their drinks for them.
“Someone mentioned it in passin’. That’s all,” Gerard lied. He had no wish to admit he’d heard it from Charlotte’s own lips. “Do ye mean to say that there is no understandin’ between ye and Lady Charlotte at all?”
“None.” Mr. Withers shook his head. He no longer laughed but held Gerard’s eye with complete sincerity. “I will not deny she is a beauty, Your Grace. A fine woman indeed, and if I had the chance to court her, well, what man would say no?”
Gerard’s jealousy piqued once again. He balled a hand into a fist but hid this down his side from the other two men.
“I do not think I have ever even managed to dance with Lady Charlotte.” Mr. Withers shook his head, thoughtfully. “In fact, I thought that you were the one courting her, Your Grace.”
“Me?” Gerard spluttered around his ale.
“He would not be the only man to have made that assumption in London,” Jeffrey confirmed under his breath. Gerard sent him a quick glare, but Jeffrey merely shrugged his shoulders.
“Yes. After your dances with Lady Charlotte that night you and I met, I was quite convinced of it. I just presumed the two of you had chosen to not make the engagement public yet.” Mr. Withers continued on. “It seems I was mistaken.”
“Yes, mistaken,” Jeffrey answered him when Gerard could not summon any words. “I think you could call my friend fond of Lady Charlotte, but no, there is no understanding between them. So, Mr. Withers, who do you have an eye on in theton?”
Gerard was no longer paying attention.
Engagement… he thought Charlotte and I were engaged.
He raised his glass to his lips and drank thirstily from the ale. It seemed that many people had thought there was a connection between them and not just Jeffrey.
It was some time later when Gerard realized he hadn’t paid any attention to their conversation at all that he excused himselffrom the room. He pleaded needing to use the privy, but in fact, he just needed to escape.
He left Jeffrey and Mr. Withers behind, laughing about something, though he hadn’t paid attention long enough to figure out what it was. Traipsing up the stairs in his house, he climbed three flights into the top of the tower to his bedchamber.
Flinging the door shut behind him, he hurried across the room and paced up and down. He flung the tailcoat off his body, angrily, then reached for the ridiculous cravat he was wearing and could not stand, throwing that down too.
As he paced, he slipped on it, then kicked it away. It landed somewhere in the corner of his room, though he didn’t turn to look properly where it had gone. Next, he pulled off his waistcoat and flung that to the side too.
Only when he was free of all of the refinery he had to wear these days could he slow down his pace, and feel a little more like himself.
“She lied to me,” he grunted aloud. “She lied!”
It was just like everyone else in his life after all. He had put Charlotte in a separate box, even perhaps placed her on a pedestal as someone who was different from the rest, but she was just the same. As his mother had lied to him about his origins, Charlotte had lied about her future.
The anger coursed through his body, unrelenting.
“How could she do this?” he snapped into the air. “How could she lie. Why? Why did she lie?” He punched the bedpost, the stinging pain ricocheting up his arm, though he didn’t care.
In his mind’s eye, he saw the moment again in his living room when she had told him she intended to marry Mr. Michael Withers. Why do that? Why tell him such a lie in that moment?
