Fortune Knocks Once (14 page)

“Poor Colin,” Charlotte whispered.

How terrible for him. To leave when his mother and sister were sick and to know he may never see them again.

“The other two girls became sick after he left, one, then the other. When his mother died, Colin snuck home to see her before the burial and then refused to leave again. His father caned him to force him away, but he wouldn’t leave. He was present when his youngest sister died and I don’t think he has ever recovered completely.”

Charlotte lowered her eyes from Lizzie’s face and lowered her head into her hands.

My poor husband - to lose everyone so swiftly and cruelly.

“He told me that he changed when they all died. He stopped caring about people. Colin thinks he is incapable of love now. He told me he has never loved a woman since then and never will. He was the oldest and absolutely doted on his younger sisters.”

“His father was always a cold man, but after that all love between Colin and him was gone. Gil was the one who really raised Colin after that.”

Lizzie lifted Charlotte’s chin and looked into her face.

“Colin is a kind, dear man. He was kind to me when I most needed a friend and there isn’t a stray cat or dog in his neighborhood that he doesn’t take care of….but he is always aloof from people…never getting too close…protecting himself. You must see that?”

Charlotte looked into Lady Elizabeth’s eyes as she spoke. “B-b-but those people, those women he w-was w-w-with.”

One of those women put her arm around his waist and stroked his arm! I wanted to pull her away and…and…and hit her with my fan! I would have too if I hadn’t been dancing at the time… and his drinking...

“Men are not faithful to their wives, darling. You know that. It won’t do for you to become morose and moody over so natural a phenomenon as a husband enjoying the company of women other than his wife,” Lizzie said patiently.

“He c-could barely s-s-stand. How c-can he d-d-do that to himself?” Charlotte whispered dejectedly.

“Oh, my darling. You shouldn’t have been watching him that closely. You must learn to remain oblivious to his comings and goings. You must develop an indifference to him or you are destined for a lifetime of misery.”

Charlotte just stared back at her with eyes full of despondency.

Lizzie sighed heavily and bundled her up in a big hug. Then she led her out of the room, made arrangements for their carriage to be brought around and escorted her home. When they arrived, Lizzie helped her undress and tucked her into bed, instructing Molly to prepare a tisane to help her sleep and promising to return bright and early the next day.

As the carriage navigated the dark London streets, Colin sat swaying with the rhythm of the movement, his eyes dark and brooding, unfocused on anything around him.

He had been in ill temper since leaving the ball. Lately it seemed he was always out of sorts. What was wrong? Everything should be perfect - no more money troubles, estate getting back in order, better class of friends and acquaintances than ever before. But none of that seemed to matter anymore. He couldn’t shake off the melancholy that was clouding him.

Colin leaned back in the carriage and looked around at his four companions. They were all well gone with drink, not unlike himself. He should be numb by now. The worse he felt, the more he drank, but that didn’t seem to be working very well.

He wished he could stop thinking about Charlotte and they way she had stared at him earlier at the ball. He should have danced with her. Damn, why didn’t he dance with her? But he knew why. He hadn’t wanted her to get a close look at him or get a whiff of his breath. Damn her eyes and that face! All the hurt, all the pain of the past few weeks in London was there for all to see.

He wasn’t doing anything wrong, not really. And not from lack of opportunity either, he thought churlishly. Plenty of women threw themselves at him every day now. And beautiful ones too! Ha, now they noticed him! They had ignored him completely when he hadn’t had a feather to fly with. Before Charlotte…before his fragile, quiet Charlotte…

She certainly had changed since coming to London, Colin mused. Lizzie had worked an amazing transformation there. She was lovely and elegant now. And he wasn’t the only one to notice. He had seen the other men fluttering around her at the ball. Dirty bastards!

Maybe he would go home right now and toss her. She was so sweet in bed. That would make all right in the world again. That’s all he needed to do. He smiled in expectation.

Thirty minutes later, as she was slipping into sleep, Charlotte heard Colin open the door between their rooms, bang into the door jam, knock over a small table, and lurch toward the bed. His whispered curses echoed through the room. All the sympathy she had felt for him during Lizzie’s recitation of his tragic childhood evaporated in the face of his drunken bumbling.

His lordship wishes to exercise his marital rights no doubt.

Since arriving in London, Colin’s visits to her bed had been erratic. The few times they had made love were unsatisfactory and almost seemed sordid and ugly. At first, before she understood his London patterns, she had stayed awake and waited expectantly for him to come to her room, more times than not, in vain.

Once after tiring of waiting for him to come to her, she had donned one of the sinfully sheer nightgowns purchased with Lizzie and gone to him. But he had been so drunk and fumbling he wasn’t even able to perform and it had ended with her new nightgown torn and ruined by his drunken groping. She had been horrified to face him the next morning fearing his wrath or even worse his apologies, but he obviously hadn’t even remembered it because he never mentioned the incident.

“Char… ya ‘wake luv?” he said in a stage whisper that boomed throughout the room.

Charlotte rolled over and stared at Colin standing beside the bed, moonlight pouring in through the window illuminating his disheveled clothes and eyes at half-mast. He was swaying on his feet and attempting to remove his neckcloth.

At her movement in the bed, he stopped pulling on his clothes and looked at her face. A broad, drunken grin spread across his features. “Y’r a-a-‘wake. H-h-h-help me sweet…mush be knotted…cann get it off…” Colin resumed yanking on his clothes, attempting to undress, then snorted and extended both arms out to Charlotte in supplication.

“Eh, luv? Give…give a help…wanna fuck…eh?”

Without saying a word Charlotte rolled away from him and pulled the covers over her face.

“Char…baby…sweet…don do that…turn round…don ya want me? You always wan me! Right? I saved ya…shining armor…no, no, thass not right. knight in shining armor, right? Thass me, talk to me baby, ya never talk to me.”

As he mumbled Colin sat on the side of the bed opposite Charlotte and then flopped down beside her.

“Less talk…ya talk to Lissie…an Gil…jus’ not me.”

Slowly the murmuring slowed and then stopped completely as Colin passed out, stretched out across the bed with one leg and foot still on the floor.

Charlotte rolled back over and watched Colin for several minutes, his drunken snores filling the room. Unhappiness rose from within her and seemed to settle like a cloud over the bed. Tears formed in her eyes as she surveyed the wreckage that her husband had become and she faced her own impotence at this moment. Suddenly nothing seemed as important as getting him out of her bed.

I adored you! I asked for nothing from you! Brought my fortune…gave you my complete surrender in love…and have gotten exactly nothing from you! But then why should you be any different than the others in my life?

Charlotte snorted to herself and threw off her covers and slipped quietly out of bed.

You aren’t sleeping here husband of mine. And I am not waking Gil. He has spent far too many nights losing sleep waiting up…undressing you…putting you to bed. Not tonight, by God.

She looked about the room and spotted a small rug in front of the hearth. Pulling it over to where Colin was dozing, she pulled him off the bed and onto the rug. She waited expectantly to see if he would wake from her rough handling. When he didn’t, she grasped the rug at two ends and pulled the rug, with him on it, into his room. Dropping the corners of the rug, wiping her hands dramatically, she looked down at him.

Goodnight dear husband. Sleep tight.

Then leaving him on the floor, she returned to her room, closing and locking the door between them. Slowly she crawled back into the comfort of her bed, pulled the covers up to her chin and cried herself to sleep.

~~~

Charlotte and Lizzie slowly circled the room at the crowded musicale, sipping lemonade, and nodding their heads to everyone they passed, waiting for the program to begin. Lizzie was lecturing Charlotte as she had done so arduously in the first days of their acquaintance.

“Charlotte, you can’t continue mooning over Colin like this - acting like he hangs the moon and the stars,” Lizzie said in a drawling, leisurely tone.

Charlotte and Colin had been in London for weeks and weeks now and their patterns were firmly established. Each had his own social schedule and they rarely spent any time together. Colin continued to associate with the hard-drinking, wild-living set that Charlotte and Lizzie generally avoided.

If occasionally they crossed paths at the same event, Colin might dance with Charlotte once or stroll with her for a short walk in the moonlit gardens, but he maintained a detached and aloof manner with her when he was sober, which was rare, and was boisterously irreverent and mocking when he was drunk, which was his usual state.

Now she had taken to avoiding him when she detected he was in his cups, not wishing to repeat that awful experience when he had passed out in her bedchamber – not when she could remember the tender, achingly sweet moments they had shared in Ireland. She felt betrayed and abandoned and couldn’t keep those feelings from invading her spirits, no matter who she was with or where she was.

“Other husbands will expect to be likewise adored and no wife in London will have anything to do with you. You will be positively ostracized. And it isn’t good for Colin either; he is difficult enough without you acting this way. It will go to his head if it hasn’t already.”

Charlotte looked at her forlornly.

I wish I had stayed home. Even in the middle of a crowd, I feel so alone. Oh, not totally alone, you are always there, aren’t you Lizzie?

“W-w-what w-w-would I d-do w-w-without you?” Charlotte whispered softly.

Lizzie took her arm and pulled her close. “I know you are unhappy but I am so glad you roused yourself to come, Charlotte. Poor Mr. Colson would have been devastated if you had not come to witness his triumph,” Lizzie murmured softly.

“He w-would n-n-not,” Charlotte flung back almost too quickly. Her face flushed crimson as she turned her head away from Lizzie’s observant gaze.

“I think we both know about Mr. Colson’s, oh, shall we say, infatuation?” Lizzie spoke slowly and loftily. “Let us not pretend to be unaware of the tendre he feels for you, my dear.”