A Passionate Endeavor (20 page)

He did not even try to speak. He must get her
to talk as much as he could, otherwise she would retreat into the
horror of it all.

“I shall survive this, have no fear,” she
said, looking down at her hands.

“Listen to me.” Nicholas took her hands in
his own and squeezed them gently. “I have no doubt of your strong
constitution. It is your future with which I am concerned. I assure
you that you will never want for anything. I do not want you to
worry on any account.”

“It is a characteristic of all gentlemen,
this need to reassure females of their protection. It is
unnecessary. I refuse to burden someone who will be far away in
some distant place, working or fighting for the British Crown.
Please do not say anything right now.”

Without hesitation, he responded. “There is
nothing that would bring me more happiness than assuring your
protection.”

Her face had taken on a blank expression. He
feared she was in shock. A great sense of peace enveloped Nicholas
as he took his decision. He would do what he had known he would do
as soon as he found the lifeless form of Dr. Kittridge in the
field.

“Miss Kittridge… Charlotte, would you do me
the great honor of becoming my wife?”

“What?” she asked, in a daze. “It is out of
the question.”

He wanted desperately to envelope her within
his embrace to comfort her, insist on her obedience, reassure her
of his care, but he would not. He knew she would resist it.

“I am sorry, I spoke in haste. I must give
you time to recover from the shock.” He tucked a stray wisp of hair
away from her tear-streaked face. “But, Charlotte, I will help you,
no matter how much you resist.”

The sound of the rusty hinge on the front
door sounded, indicating someone’s arrival. Nicholas rose to his
feet and rearranged the blanket about her thin shoulders before
beginning preparations for the rest of Charlotte’s life, whether
she wanted him to or not.

“
Half the sum of attraction, on either
side, might have been enough, for he had nothing to do, and she had
hardly anybody to love
.”

—Persuasion

THE funeral was all things bleak and
mournful, occurring in a steady rain. Charlotte looked at the
gathering of mourners through her black veil and thought they
looked like a flock of crows. She pushed up the too-long sleeves of
her borrowed black finery, grateful for Rosamunde’s generosity. A
robin stood on the ground nearby, singing in the pouring rain,
competing with the jumble of sonorous words pouring from the lips
of the good vicar, Mr. Llewellyn.

The church had been cold and somber. But she
had refused to leave the coffin after. She had insisted on
following the pallbearers to the graveyard. And she supposed the
others had come because they pitied her.

She felt the weight of the presence of the
thirty-odd people. At least she was outside now, so the crowd did
not suffocate her and the promise of open fields beckoned behind
her.

Was her father’s spirit there? She kept
wanting to turn around, sure he would be behind her shoulder. She
longed to touch his shiny pate again, to feel the scratchy wool
fibers of his coat on her cheek, to smell the faint herbal scent
always surrounding his person.

Charlotte closed her eyes and failed
miserably at concentrating on the vicar’s words, the promises of
heaven, and the goodness of God. She felt like screaming at them
all.… There was no fair God, no heaven, no promises. What God would
allow the death of both her parents? She looked across the open
hole in the earth to the cool, arrogant mask of the Duchess of
Cavendish.

A hand gripped her arm, steadying her just as
she realized she was swaying.
His
strong hand. James gripped
her other arm. They must think she was about to flee. They were
right.

The duchess had visited Charlotte and James
two days after their father’s death to inform them that they were
most welcome to the use of the cottage for another fortnight or two
given their father’s service to the duke. James had sputtered their
thanks, unsure if Her Grace had been generous or paltry in her
offer. Charlotte had not enlightened her brother as to her
opinion.

Had the duchess known that the heir had
offered for her, Her Grace might have considered it more reasonable
to offer a roof over their heads for at least two months. Or
perhaps she would have chased Charlotte away with a horsewhip. Yes,
that was much more likely.

The thud of the first clumps of muddy soil
and rock hitting the simple pine coffin jarred her out of her
reverie. Charlotte shook at the sound of the second shovel-full.
She could not endure this agony further.

She shook free of her captors and forced
herself past the onlookers, feeling all at once frantic at her
inability to burst free from the small crowd. It was Paris all over
again, without the gleeful bloodthirsty shouts of encouragement to
the murderers controlling the guillotine’s heavy blade.

She heard a strangled cry and realized it
emanated from her own throat. Her brother appeared at her side and
parted the sea of black in an instant with his words and his huge
umbrella. He forced her to slow to a fast walk when he gripped her
elbow.

They walked a good twenty minutes through the
fields in silence before she forced herself to stop and speak.
“James, I posted several letters to London yesterday. I am certain
to find a good position as a lady’s nurse. We both know I have had
many offers in the past. And I know you prefer London. And I will
find another position whenever and wherever you find a living.”

“Yes,” he said.

They continued walking again, side by side.
But she could feel his reluctance to speak to her. “What is it,
James?”

“Would you be very sad if I didn’t take
orders, Charlotte?”

“What else could you do? We have not the
funds for a new field of study,” she said, peering anxiously into
his eyes.

“Well, I am considering a very generous and
kind offer.… Lord Huntington has suggested that using his
connections, he might be able to secure a commission for me in his
regiment, despite the current peace. Many are selling out.”

“And who would pay for this commission?
No—wait, allow me to guess,” she said, with a touch of anger. “Lord
Huntington? James, you cannot accept such a gross amount of
money.”

“He insisted. He said after all our father
had done for the duke, it was the very least he could do. And the
duke seconded the idea.” The bright glow of excitement overspread
her brother’s face as he spoke.

“And I see you did not choose to argue the
point. That it is impossible to accept a debt of gratitude of this
magnitude.”

“Charlotte, I will not go if you do not want
me to,” he said, with a glum expression. “I promised Father long
ago that I would always watch over you.”

She could not take it away from him. But
letting him go meant facing her greatest fear: The fear of being
left all alone had grown inside her seven-year-old form that
horrible night. Thoughts of that evening’s events made her inhale
sharply.

She could still remember the flames of the
torches surrounding the great house, her mother pushing her out the
side door along with the governess, the obscenities, the hounds’
barking coming from every direction, the smell of Mademoiselle
Barr’s hands when she covered Charlotte’s mouth as they tread water
among the reeds of a secluded pond. And worst of all, being left
alone with a stranger when her governess had not wanted to risk
going all the way to Paris with her. The terrorized woman had paid
a man to take her, on the back of his dogcart, to an unknown
address in the city. He had tipped back a bottle every mile or so.
Halfway there, he had told her to get out “and find your own way,
you little bugger.” Charlotte shivered. She could not ever remember
the many miles she had walked or how she had managed to find the
town house.

James took her hands in his own and squeezed
them. “Charlotte? I shan’t desert you,” he assured her.

She shook her head. “I will not withhold your
fondest dream, James.”

“I told him you were the most kindhearted
sister in the world,” James said, with a cautious degree of hope.
“Perhaps I could follow the drum. Come with you… There must be a
great need for nurses.”

James blanched.

“No, I can see that would not work,” she
said, doing an excellent job of controlling herself. “Charlotte, I
will make sure you are settled in an excellent position before I
go.”

“Do you mind if I continue on alone a bit. We
can talk a little later, to sort out all the details. It has been
such a horrid last four days.…” She would not cry in his presence,
‘ere he take pity on her and not follow his heart.

He hugged Charlotte, squeezing the breath out
of her as he kissed the top of her head before turning away.

There, she had done it. She had had no
choice. She was certain that within a few weeks the grim reality of
her future would force her to wonder if she had taken complete
leave of her senses to acquiesce to her brother’s plan. But, she
had made a promise to herself to stop worrying about the
future.

She had fine skills that would provide a room
and nourishment, and with any luck, it would be in a comfortable,
fine house in London.

She was more worried about Alexandre, the
more she thought about it. Oh, he had borne her father’s death with
real grief. But he had accepted the revelation of the meager
accumulation of her father’s income with even greater sorrow.

It was obvious Alexandre had gambled on a
notion that her father had hoarded a nice bit of income, some of
which would come to her in the form of a dowry. What he had not
figured was her father’s staunch refusal to turn away any patient,
and to often provide medicines without reimbursement. Her father
was
un vrai sans culottes
of the first order. The murderous
French peasants who caused the revolution should be proud to call
him one of their own.

She hopped over a low stile to continue her
way through the edge of an open field. One benefit of their poverty
was that Alexandre had abruptly changed. In the last four days, he
had become her confidante and friend—and she was pleased. He seemed
to love her as a favored sister, once he had shed his false front,
something he did but when they were alone.

During the plans for the hasty funeral, she
had come to rely on Alexandre more so than her own brother. He was
very good at giving orders. He pretended that his newfound role of
dependable cousin was really a desire to show off his manly
character to the ladies at Wyndhurst Abbey. Charlotte knew
better.

He had agreed to move to the abbey when it
was decided by the duchess that it was unseemly for the viscount to
remain in a cottage with only a brother to watch over a spinster
female. One positive effect of his removal had been the return of
Doro, who had practically thrown Alexandre’s valises out of the
cottage door to the waiting arms of the beleaguered footmen of the
abbey.

And given the fact that everyone seemed to
have changed their spots within the last four days, it was not
surprising that Lord Huntington had followed suit by halting all
visits to the cottage. This was slow torture—constant looking
through the window, eager to see his figure. She had come to depend
on Lord Huntington’s visits. She had not realized how much she
looked forward to just the sight of him, the scent of him, the
comfort of his presence. He had given her the illusion that perhaps
he cared for her, maybe just the slightest bit. But no. He was like
all the others that had gone before him. Just when she began to
believe in the impossible, they disappeared into thin air.

He obviously regretted his impetuous proposal
and now was embarrassed to have to face her without the safety of
others about him. Lord, he probably worried that she expected him
to offer for her again now that the burial was over.

Until this morning at the church, she had not
seen him since the day he had brought her father’s lifeless body
back to the cottage. And today he had barely said three words and
only touched her when she swayed as the earth hit the coffin. She
dreaded their next meeting.

A drop of rain fell on her nose, and
Charlotte looked up to find that the umbrella had sprung a leak.
She sighed and turned toward the direction of the cottage. There
was no escaping the future.

For four days he had planned a proper
proposal, then deconstructed it, and re-planned it again, and
again. The first time he had been too hasty and ill-prepared in the
heat of the moment and the shock of death. This time it would be
different.

As he walked to her cottage the morning after
the funeral, he thought about his tactics one last time. He would
not relent no matter what flimsy line of reasoning she offered.
Nicholas had prepared rational counterarguments to her every
possible hesitation. He must get past her pride, past her defenses,
and he would do it in a much more facile manner than if it had been
any other lady. He would use logic, as that is what it would take
to win over a cerebral female such as Charlotte.

There was not a single doubt in his mind that
he must take care of her. Her brother thought she would be able to
find a good position in London as an elderly lady’s companion or
nurse. Nicholas snorted in disgust. He had promised James that he
would ensure Charlotte’s employment was everything good and secure.
But unlike her brother, he was not willing to desert her, whether
she valiantly argued against him or not. Oh, he would win her all
right, as he had won almost every battle during the war. And he
would do it because she had cut through his hardened shell as
swiftly and easily as a surgeon with a sharpened knife She had
taught him how to hope again, to never give up. Perhaps he would be
able to read and write with a degree of proficiency that would live
up to an abbreviated set of expectations. He highly doubted he
would ever master enough to allow him to oversee the Cavendish
wealth and properties. And it mattered little in his role as an
officer as long as Charley stood by him. Reading was of little
value in the corridors of war.