“You were whimpering,” he said. “I shook your shoulder, but it didn’t wake you. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I’m fine.” It was a croak, through a throat still too tight and tense to manage more. She extracted her hand from his, and her arms trembled as she pushed herself upright. “It was only a dream.”
“A nightmare, more like,” he said, climbing to his feet once more to settle beside her upon the sofa. “Your…er, friend implied that you had them upon occasion. The war?”
“You make me soundmad.”
“Not mad,” he said. “Not unless you’d count me mad, as well. I have them myself, upon occasion. Not often, not anymore. But when I do, they are brutal. It’s like—”
“Being back in the thick of it,” she said hollowly. “The smell, the noise.”
“God. Yes.” He shuddered, as if the words alone had sent a shiver up his spine. “I don’t think much of anyone could understand it. Unless they’d lived it.”
“I don’t like to think of it,” Charity said, clasping her hands in her lap. “It’s not as severe as once it was, but there are still things that can take me back there in a moment.” She gave a wretched little laugh, twisting her fingers. “Sometimes the littlest things. A scent, a sound—even the wrong word. I cannot even make myself attend nighttime events at the pleasure gardens,” she said. “The fireworks—”
“Sound too much like gunfire,” he said. “And the scent they leave in the air. It’s too familiar.” Out of instinct, she thought, his hand sought hers, taking the sort of comfort from the clasp of her fingers that he once had when she had sat at his bedside for long hours in the night. Not the cold, clammy sensation she remembered in those last terrible days—but warm, strong, and solid. That, more than anything else, relaxed the knot of tension that had woven itself through her chest, and she drew in a full, deep breath.
“It’s occurred to me,” he said, his thumb stroking her knuckles, “that I never asked how you ended up as a courtesan. I remember how you ended up at Waterloo. But the bits between then and now—I’ve never asked of them.”
“Oh,” she said. “It’s not so unusual a story, I’m afraid. A desperate girl in desperate circumstances.” She offered a little shrug. “I recovered from my illness at a hospital in Brussels,” she said. “Mr. Bell had paid for my care, you see. But he died before I had fully recovered, and Felicity’s school fees had come due. They were well beyond what I could have afforded to pay on my own, even if I could have found suitable employment. But there was an English doctor in training there who had overseen my care, and he was young and handsome. He hadn’t the time for a wife, and his family was far too well-to-do for me to have harbored any aspirations of becoming one. But he was willing, it so happened, to put me up in a little house and to pay my expenses—and Felicity’s school fees.”
“Did you never aspire to marriage?” he asked.
“Not really,” she said. “At least, not once I was old enough to know better. To have seen what wreckage a bad one could leave in its wake.” His hand squeezed hers, and a feeling of comfort bloomed in her chest. “Much better to be independent. To be answerable only to myself. That was always my goal, you see. And that young doctor, he helped me to achieve it. He taught me to speak like the lady I wasn’t, how to carry myself like an aristocrat, how to become the sort of woman who commanded attention. I was with him for a few years, and I grew quite fond of him. And when he eventually contracted a marriage, we parted ways as friends.”
“And from there?” he asked.
“Well, by that point he had brought me home to England,” she said. “But I had months left on the lease of my little house, and money enough not to be quite so desperate. My doctor was kind enough to leave me in a position where I could well afford to be selective. And so I was. There were more, of course—though not so many as theTonwould imply. Men do love to boast, even if it is false. I chose my benefactors with care. They were not always young or handsome. But they were always kind to me. Men I could respect and feel some manner of affection for. It so happened that my particularity made me much in demand, allowed me to command a fortune in return for the privilege of my favors. And I found that I enjoyed many aspects of my vocation. I don’t regret it in the least. Becoming a courtesan saved me in the end. And Felicity, as well.” Who had been far too young to support herself when Charity had first become a courtesan. Who would otherwise have been cast adrift in the world, with nowhere to go—except home to Father.
“I know society would say that you should harbor regrets,” he said, as she turned her cheek against his shoulder, breathing in the fresh, clean scent of his shaving soap. “But I don’t believe there should be shame in surviving, however it must be done. I believe you made the best choices you could at the time, for yourself and for your sister.”
She hadn’trequiredhis vindication of her character, her morals—but she liked that he had offered it, anyway. At last her heart had recovered its normal beat, the final remnants of the nightmare shaken free of her brain. “I meant to ask,” she said, sighing against his throat and feeling the bob of his Adam’s apple with his long, hard swallow. “How goes your pursuit of Lady Cecily?”
“If you don’t mind,” he said, his voice deepening as he turned his head to meet her lips. “I’d rather not speak of her just now.”
And that was all right, she thought to herself as he bore her back down upon the sofa. Just now, she found that she did not particularly wish to speak of Lady Cecily, either.
Chapter Eighteen
Other than the maids tasked with keeping the house presentable, Anthony supposed the last woman to have been in his room must have been his mother. And yet, here now was Charity, buried in the depths of his dressing room and examining his clothing with an eye even more critical than any valet could have managed.
He had come down to greet her in the drawing room this evening only to find himself dragged immediately back up the stairs, his clothing for the first time having failed to meet her approval. And she had taken it upon herself immediately to rid his wardrobe of anything that might offend her faultless sense of fashion.
“Not this,” she said dismissively, casting out what had looked to him to be a perfectly good coat. It landed on the floor in a heap.
“What’s wrong with it?” he asked as he settled into a wingback chair before the hearth, craning his neck to watch her at her work.
“You might be in mourning,” she said, “but you are notdead. And the only way it would be acceptable to be seen in that coat would be if you were on your way to your own funeral. Really,” she muttered to herself as she ducked back into the closet once more, “I ought to have gone through your wardrobe ages ago. And I will certainly give you the direction of a proper tailor, for when you are out of mourning attire.”
Somehow, in these past several weeks, she had wrested some sort of order out of the wreck of his life. From dancing lessons and the art of conversation—and things far less proper—to the slow and subtle mend in the rift of his family. Now, it seemed, she would put his wardrobe in order as well. And if he could not himself see the particular fault she had found in the coat, well, then, he trusted that it was there.
A pair of trousers consigned to perdition with just the careless flick of her fingers. She asked, “How are the girls?”
He said, “Somewhat less quiet than once they were.” Nolonger haunting the house in tense silence as if they were afraid of making too much noise. There was still an air of melancholia, the lingering weight of grief. But Helen did not tiptoe around him as if he might explode at any moment. Esther had joined him in the library on a few occasions to read in companionable silence. Even little Evie had come to perch upon his knee a time or two, seeking comfort. Fromhim. “The house is…a bit lighter.” As if some sense of security, however minor, had returned to it. Some tenuous mending of its crumbling foundation.
The lone holdout lately was Mother.
“Good,” she said. “That’s good.” A scoff as she tossed out a waistcoat. “You can get better fabrics than this. You’re a duke.”
