Fortune Knocks Once (17 page)

As noise from new arrivals to the house party filtered up from the entryway to the library, Charlotte looked up in shocked recognition of a familiar voice.

“Unnerstan’ my wife is here…where iss she hidin’?” Colin said a little too loudly. A woman’s voice shushed him quickly and Charlotte wondered with irritation who it was.

Was it the red-haired bitch?

“We will find your quiet little mouse of a wife, all in good time, darling,” drawled the female with him. “You’ve come with me. Don’t be a bore and start making eyes at your wife now. I shall be quite put out and shall punish you wickedly,” the woman purred.

Charlotte bristled with rising indignation and imagined all types of horrors she could visit upon the person of the woman who dared to steal Colin’s company from her. But by the time Colin made his way to the library and greeted her cheekily, all Charlotte’s anger was focused on him as she stood to confront him.

Insensible to the simmering rage she was harboring, Colin strolled over to her and planted a casual kiss on the top of her head and wrapped her in a hug.

“If my hands don’ deceive me, ya’ve put on some weight in the past few weeks, my Kitten,” Colin drawled. “After our wedding…you were nothin’ but sticks and straw, you were.  Now you’re a delicious handful…lovely curves. Dinnit feed you at your uncle’s house? But no complaints now, eh?”

He leaned down to kiss her lips but she ducked under his arms and away from his reach.

“You’re d-d-d-drunk,” she threw out tartly.

“Ya don’t miss a thing do ya, luv,” Colin slurred as he swayed gently.

“Why are you here?” Charlotte screamed, rage and frustration spilling out of her.

Can you not leave me in peace? You have all of London to carouse and revel in. Must you befoul my time in the country, too? You chase me from London with your disgraceful behavior and now you bring your
whores to where I am. You are determined to confront me with it, aren’t you?

Colin looked at her in surprise, oblivious to her question. “Ya donn’ stutter when ya yell. Ain’t that funny?” He started to move toward her.

She turned her back on him and started to leave the room.

“No, no…don’ leave. Talk to me, baby. I don’t bloody well care if you stutter, just talk to me. We never talk anymore.”

At his words, she turned around slowly and walked back to stand directly in front of him.

“You want to talk?” she shouted, not caring who overheard them or how much gossip resulted from their contretemps. “Then listen to this. You have done everything you can to let me know that you will never love me, that I will never be enough for you.

“Well, I understand now. And now you must understand me. I am leaving and returning home. You are not to follow me and certainly not to bring any of your degenerate friends to the castle. If you do, I will not be responsible for my behavior. If you think that is a threat, you are correct.”

When she finished, breathing heavily from the exertion, she glared at Colin, daring him to respond, to make excuses, to try to assuage her indignation. Then she continued in a small whisper.

“I have been m-m-meek and s-submissive and have taken enough from you. But it is time I acted as a w-woman and a m-moth…as a w-woman,” she faltered just for moment. With a final look at him, she turned sharply and walked stridently toward the door where she halted.

“And I am taking Boots with me,” she shouted back at him.

“Boots? What the hell are you talking about?”

“N-n-never m-m-mind,” she spat back at him.

Charlotte opened the door and left the room, slamming the door on her way out.

Colin stared at the door for several long seconds, wondering what he was to do next. Suddenly sober, all signs of his intoxication obliterated, he realized the ache he was feeling would not get better with her leaving. Bloody damn hell! He should be happy. She was going home. He could stay in London leading the life he chose without seeing her hurt, without feeling the guilt that had plagued him over the last few weeks.

The guilt that had driven him to drink more than he intended, more than he knew he should. He wouldn’t have to see those wide, brown eyes looking at him with pain and confusion, feelings that he had put there intentionally.

Why am I such an ass, he thought sullenly. Why can’t I just enjoy the lovely, fey creature that fate has thrust in my path? And she was exceedingly lovely now. On their first acquaintance she had been thin and almost starved – not for food, starved for attention and love. She had exuded a desperation that had positively terrified him.

But in the last few months, she had changed. He hadn’t been too drunk to notice it. She had blossomed under Lizzie’s guidance and it wasn’t just the new clothes. He had lied when he had told Gil he didn’t like her the way she was now. She was elegant and exquisite and brilliant.

He had always been attracted to her, even at first, but now she was almost irresistible. Her quiet dignity seemed to pull him in, sparking his desire, weakening his resolve to go his own way and protect his independence. That is what had drawn him here, even knowing as he did that it wasn’t a good idea to join her. Well, things were settled now, he thought. Good and settled, it seemed.

He had never seen her so fired up - never known that pale complexion to flush so red and her eyes to blaze with such fire. No, he thought dismally, that wasn’t completely true. He had seen that passion during their lovemaking in Ireland. In their own little world at the castle, just the two of them, loving and being loved, she had revealed her passionate nature with wild abandon. Well, he had turned that around right enough, he thought with disgust.

Colin left the library, enquired after his accommodations and belongings and made his way to his assigned room, noticing with irritation that his hostess had not lodged him in close proximity to his wife’s room. He wondered if that was out of consideration of his feelings and need for privacy, or hers. He found Gil was unpacking his clothes noisily and forcefully.

“I hear the missus is leaving,” Gil said.

“Yes, that she is,” Colin replied distractedly.

“It’s proud of yourself you should be, my lord.”

Colin looked at him sharply, alert to his butler’s mood now. “What are you about, Gil?”

“I’ve kept me peace these weeks ’cause I know my place and it ain’t for me to tell the likes of you what’s what. But this be the last straw so to speak.” Gil pulled himself taller as he spoke, overcoming any initial hesitation and angrily warming his voice.

“You come here with a woman that ain’t fit to wipe the hem of your lady’s dress, to the shame of that good woman and I can’t be still any longer. You’ve no pa to knock you down and I don’t know what he was fit to do it anyway. He was a weak man himself and should have done better by you when your ma and the girls died.

“But all and still, she deserves better than that. That’s all. I’ve said me piece. If it costs me my position, so be it.”

“Gil,” Colin said softly. “You are the closest I have to family. You raised me to all intents and purposes. I’ll not fire you over something so trivial as you speaking your mind.”

With a great sigh, Colin put his hand on Gil’s shoulder and ushered him to the door. “Since you feel the way you do, I think it best if you escort her home. I can’t leave her to make her way alone and she certainly doesn’t want my company. Besides, I need to be back in London in a few days. Her uncle’s suit will come before the bar and I need to be there. It is all but dead in everyone’s minds but still and all, I best be there.”

As the carriage that was to carry Charlotte home pulled away from the house, she unconsciously straightened her shoulders and forced her mind to think about the future. She was to have a child! The wonder and awe that she felt at that idea was tempered with melancholy and the dismal realization that she would have to resolve to a life separated from Colin and removed from the fantasy of the family life she had harbored in her mind since her wedding.

~~~

Charlotte had been ensconced with the housekeeper for the past hour reviewing various household details that required attention, making decisions on matters that came up, and planning ahead for the coming months. Before the housekeeper left the room Charlotte asked her to send Colin’s steward to her later in the day.

Since Charlotte was here on the estate and Colin was not, the steward had taken to meeting with her daily and covering the needs of the estate with her. He also had come to rely on her to express her opinions and to help with making decisions that he wasn’t completely comfortable making on his own.

She sat at the desk that she had commandeered as hers and gazed out the window wistfully, feeling a strange restfulness. The agitation and disquiet of all the days in London were over. Coming home to Kilkenny was definitely the proper course for her, she thought.

This is home for me now. Colin is not able to make all my silly childish dreams come true. But that is of no consequence now. I have much to occupy me and soon I’ll have a baby all to myself…all mine.

She reflected on all the things that had changed in the three weeks since she had returned, not the least of which were the changes in her.

I can finally admit that I am powerless against his wayward life in London. Nothing I did or would do was going to change him. I will recognize what I can do and admit what I cannot. What I can’t change, I won’t brood about. And I won’t let him hurt me anymore with his drinking and carousing.

Charlotte shook her head to clear her thoughts, rose from her chair and moved to the door. Time for her daily walk, then she needed to return to the cleaning of the baby’s room and the room for Lizzie who was coming to visit in two weeks.

It will be wonderful to be with Lizzie again. And the estate management is challenging, keeps me busy. I will raise my child, make a life for the two of us. It is not the life I dreamed about on that night that now seems so long ago, when I proposed to Colin. But it is a better life than I had before and a better life than many have.

She walked down the hall and suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and stared down in shock as she felt movement inside her. She placed her shaking hands on her stomach and stood absolutely still, reveling in the thrill of the moment.

The baby is moving! It’s real...it’s mine…

When the movement subsided, she looked up excitedly and started to move quickly down the hall instinctively wanting to tell someone about this momentous event. Her heart beat double-time and elation flushed through her face, while an underlying fear in the pit of her stomach drove her forward to share the event with someone, anyone.

Then slowly she calmed down and stopped a second time. She realized that the one person she burned to tell and couldn’t, was Colin.

This is why I gambled everything that terrifying day I searched him out. Why I risked everything I had for a dream that I didn’t really even believe possible. That seems like so long ago…so much in the past.