Night Storm (26 page)

“Why so coy now, madam?” He slid the backs of his fingers down her arm. “After such an intimate, public display with your handsome gentleman, I wouldn’t think you’d be missish about the subject.”

“Do not touch me, sir.”

Henry stepped into the fray. “Should I go fetch Mr. Adair, ma’am?”

Hermann perked up at the mention of a name. Charlotte’s muscles contracted with dread. Armed with Cameron’s identity, Hermann would now have something solid to lay before the warden. She glanced up at Henry’s anxious face and realized she couldn’t be upset with him. He’d recognized the tension between her and Hermann and had sought to put her at ease.

“That won’t be necessary, Henry. If you’ll assist me into the cab, I’ll wait inside. With the shade drawn.”

Before she could gather her skirts to ascend, Hermann said, “In the space of a single afternoon, you’ve worked your wiles not only on Murdoch, but this Adair chap, too.” A triumphant smile spread across his wide, fleshy face. “It is my moral duty to inform the board of your whoring ways, and they will once and for all remove your privileges.”

A tide of anger swept over her. She was tired of sidestepping this small-minded, disgusting man. “You can’t have it both ways, Mr. Hermann.”

“What do you mean?”

“Earlier today, you suggested the only way I gained entry to the Society’s resources was by sharing my favors with the warden and other board members. Why would they now get missish because I added Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Adair to my list of conquests?”

A bewildered silence followed her statement before Hermann sputtered and snarled, “You filthy whore.” He lunged forward. “I’ll make sure you never set foot—”

Henry inserted himself between Charlotte and the vile Mr. Hermann. But the young porter wasn’t what stopped Hermann’s angry advance. It was the viselike hold of the arm that clamped around the assistant’s neck.

“You weren’t intending to lay a hand on my friend, Mrs. Fielding, were you?” Cameron asked in the coldest voice Charlotte had ever heard. He stood several inches taller than the assistant, making it easy to restrain the man.

Hermann attempted a reply, but Cameron’s arm must have tightened, for the assistant’s response came out garbled.

“Henry,” Cameron said, “would you mind escorting Mrs. Fielding home? I have a few things I need to discuss with Mr.—” He glanced at his captive.

“Hermann,” the idiot man croaked out.

“Hermann, yes.”

“Not at all, sir,” Henry said.

“No need to bother yourself, Henry,” Jules said, shouldering his way to her side. “I’ll escort Mrs. Fielding home.”

Charlotte met Cameron’s hard, glittering gaze. For what? Confirmation? Permission? Irritation? She didn’t know why, but the visual touch seemed natural and fitting, as if she had done so all her life. And it annoyed her to no end.

For the first time, she really understood why Sydney Hunt thought him ruthless. Cameron appeared on the verge of inflicting serious damage on the assistant. Had he heard Hermann’s hateful words, or had he read the tension in her body? An empathetic shiver for the misogynist started at the base of her skull and scampered all the way down to her toes.

Cameron nodded his agreement, then shared a tome full of information in the glance he directed at Jules. With a small smile playing across his lips, Jules tilted his head in acknowledgment and offered Charlotte a hand up. She tried not to speculate on what silent communication had just passed between the two men. But her active mind came up with a half dozen different conversations in the space of three seconds.

“I—I’m afraid I can’t stay,” Hermann said, trying to pull away from Cameron’s grasp. “Have an important appointment I must attend.”

Cameron’s arm contracted around the other man’s throat. “This won’t take long.” His focus shifted to Charlotte. “I’ll check in on you later, Mrs. Fielding.”

“Mr. Adair,” she began, feeling as though she should soften the set down Cameron was about to deliver. “Perhaps it would be best—”

“Mrs. Fielding, please let me hand you into the carriage,” Jules interrupted, taking her hand and all but pushing her inside the cab.

The hansom lurched forward. Charlotte stared at the curtained window, straining to hear raised masculine voices or indications of fisticuffs. Only silence spoke to her—that, and Jules’s circumspect look as he watched her reaction to all that had just occurred.

# # #

“Do you think it’s safe to leave them alone together?” Charlotte asked.

Jules settled into the squabs and folded his hands over his flat stomach as though he hadn’t a care in the world. “No need to worry about Adair. Men whose only power comes from harassing women are no match for our friend.”

“Cameron’s welfare isn’t what has me concerned.”

Jules’s lips twitched. “I certainly wouldn’t want to be in…”

“Lawrence Hermann,” she supplied. “He’s an assistant at the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries.” At Jules’s blank stare, she clarified. “An organization that’s vitally important to my livelihood.”

“Ah, I see. Hermann. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes at the moment.”

“You’re not helping.”

“Because I wasn’t trying to. Please tell me you’re not wasting good sympathy on such a man. He’s not worth a thought, let alone any tender concerns for his well-being.”

“No matter how awful a person he is, I’m not interested in having anyone get hurt on my account.”

“Forgive me for saying so, Charlotte, but such naïve thinking is a disservice not only to you, but others of your sex. Hermann’s a cannon with a lit fuse. It’s only a matter of time before he explodes and hurts someone.”

“How can you know that? You’ve barely spent five minutes in his company.”

“Adair and I both caught the last part of your exchange with him and noted his reaction to your fighting back.” He paused to grin at her. “Which, by the way, was quite masterful. Hermann clearly believes himself to be superior to women and needs a lesson in manners before he injures someone—if he hasn’t already.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened. She hadn’t thought about the assistant harassing other women. She’d assumed his animosity was directed solely at her for invading his male domain.

“I’ve never seen Cameron so furious.”

“I’ve seen him even more so.” His voice grew solemn. “He didn’t take your leaving well.”

Nor did I.

She peered down at her gloved hands. “I never meant for things to go so wrong. I’m not even in a position to understand how they did.”

“Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

She lifted her gaze to his. “Would it matter if I did?”

“Likely not.” His twinkling eyes assessed her a moment. “Did you think Adair would remain in London, cooling his heels, while you journeyed to Scotland for five years?”

“No, never. A woman like me does not hold the attention of a man like Cameron for long.” She shook her head. “Honestly, I can’t think of any woman who would.”

“Then why did you leave him? He nearly went mad with the depth of his anger and resentment.”

Regret stung the backs of her eyes. She tilted her head back to rest against the cabin wall, hoping against hope the tears would not fall. “Because my parents had gone to great lengths to give their only child an opportunity to work with the renowned apothecary-surgeon Angus Buchanan.”

“They could not find an apothecary-surgeon in London who would take you under his wing?”

“No.” She couldn’t keep the sadness from her voice. “You might not have noticed, Jules, but there is a dearth of female apothecaries in our fair city. Scotland, especially Edinburgh, has made its mark on the world through its many medical innovations. Accepting a female apprentice in the field is another way the Scots have proven themselves more open-minded than the English.” She chuckled. “Good thing my friend Lachlan Murdoch isn’t nearby. He would never let me forget that praise of his countrymen.”

Jules was silent a moment. “By dearth, I assume you mean nonexistent.”

“Yes. If it were up to Hermann, there would be no female apothecaries allowed within a league of the hallowed walls of Apothecaries Hall.”

“After today, I suspect you won’t ever be bothered by him again.”

“Sounds wonderful.” She too became thoughtful. “There are moments when I look back on that fatal conversation with Cameron and think I was either the most courageous young woman who ever lived, or the most foolish.”

“Forgive me for saying so,” Jules said. “But most parents tend to secure their daughter’s future by marrying them off. Your parents chose a most unconventional path for you. I wonder… Why?”

Beneath Jules’s question lurked another, more evocative, inquiry. A question she instinctively knew he would have the answer for. And that terrified her a little.

Not in the mood for playing word games, Charlotte clasped her hands together and impaled her friend with one of her no-nonsense stares. “I’m a miserable opponent when it comes to chess. All those rules, all those stratagems. All that puttering this way and that way. My sport of choice—if I were to indulge in such things—would be archery. Aim. Shoot. Score. Straightforward and to the point.”

Jules produced a genuine, appreciative smile. “Allow me to rephrase my question, then. Did you know your father paid Adair a visit a few days before you announced your intention to spend five years in Scotland?”

Charlotte searched through years of memories and came up blank. “I’m sorry. I don’t recall with any certainty one way or the other.”

“According to Adair, he did. A fortnight later, you were making your way up the Great North Road.”

Her pulse slowed, became sluggish. “Did he tell you what my father discussed with him?”

“He asked Adair to leave you be.”

Ice cracked somewhere in the vicinity of her heart. Images from the past flooded her mind. Her mother making a point of introducing her to well-situated young men. Her father commenting on Cameron’s lack of prospects. Both of them voicing concern about Cameron’s wild ways.

“My parents were certainly worried about Cameron’s ability to support a family. But never once did they prevent me from seeing him.”

“Some parents have a natural ability to know how far to push their children to achieve the result they desire. Others ignore the warning signs and actually throw their children into all-out rebellion.”

“Cameron’s wildness made me feel alive, though it also scared me; I suspected I would not be interesting enough to hold his attention for long. Still, I was willing to grasp whatever time he gave me and be thankful for it.” She sent Jules a self-deprecating smile. “Pathetic, yes?”

“Precious, more like. If you had such strong feelings for him, why choose Scotland?”

“I didn’t choose Scotland.”

He lifted a brow.

“I didn’t,” she insisted. “I asked him to come with me. He hadn’t yet established a career in London at that point. So I thought he would find the notion of going to Scotland exciting. Unlike me, who found the idea terrifying.”

“True.” A new note of awareness entered Jules’s voice. “Of the three of us, Cameron was always the most adventurous. How did he react to your proposition?”

“He was upset. Accused me of being naïve, which I didn’t understand at the time, though now his accusations make more sense.”

“Then what?”

“He countered my suggestion with an ultimatum. One I didn’t take well.”

“Care to share?”

Oh, she cared. Very much. But she had revealed every other sordid part of their story to Jules. Why stop now?

“The two options he gave me were quite straightforward, actually. Stay and marry him, or leave and no marriage. Ever.”

Jules nodded slowly; his brilliant mind analyzing and connecting the pieces of the worst time in her life. “Adair must have figured you were in league with your parents and only offered the Scotland option as a means to bypass your parents’ intention of separating the two of you.” He reflected a moment. “I could see him comparing the situation to the lot of a courtesan. Keep her safely hidden away from family and friends, bringing her out only when you wanted to play.”

“Jules! You can’t be serious.”

In answer, he again raised a brow. She was beginning to dislike that particular mode of communication. All the same, she thought hard about what he’d said, trying to see the situation from Cameron’s perspective, especially given her father’s interference. The answer caused her to have an immediate physical reaction.

“Oh my God,” she said. The delicious food she had consumed at Jules’s hotel soured in her stomach, making it heave like a ship trapped inside a typhoon. “Despite appearances, how could he believe I would do such a thing?”

“When a gentleman’s pride is damaged and logic has vanished, he’ll act on raw, emotional instinct.”

Hadn’t she said as much to Piper the other day? About how fragile men were? Except then, she had been talking about an entirely different sort of male pride.

All this time, Charlotte had believed Cameron had been upset by her desire to work, rather than dedicate her existence to caring for him and the home and the family they would eventually create together.

The idea of a traditional marriage was as foreign to her—as a woman working outside the household—as it was comforting to those who lived and breathed by society’s conventions and by a firm belief in the traditional roles of the husband and wife within a marriage.

Charlotte was the fifth generation of female healers in her family. Women who were not content with simply raising a family. Women driven by an inner need to help others.

Rubbing the center of her forehead, she released a long shaky sigh. “Five years, Jules. Five years scarred by false notions and unrelenting pain. Five years lost to anger, tears, and a terrible resentment.”
Five lonely, heartbreaking years.

He crossed over to Charlotte’s side of the carriage and pulled her into his arms. Immediately, the sting of tears became overwhelming and she crumpled. Sobs rocked her body and she grew limp and, finally, silent. A handkerchief materialized in front of her gritty eyes. She tried to sit up, but he held tight, gentling her with calm shushing noises.