ghosts and failed promises.
Charles folded the note. “Have the carriage readied, Thomas.”
He smirked to himself as his valet departed. It truly had been far too long since Charles had seen Lottie.
It had indeed been a considerable amount of time since Charles had seen Lottie. He nearly did not recognize the sultry woman standing before him in the sumptuously decorated drawing room. It was too finely appointed for a vicar’s daughter—as was her tightly fitted gown of deep red silk far too tawdry. Especially when compared to the modest high-necked gown he’d last seen her in.
Gone was the wide-eyed innocence of her smoky blue eyes, and in its place was a smoldering vixen with a length of midnight curls tumbling over one nearly naked shoulder. A courtesan.
Charles stared a moment longer than was polite while the five years stretched out in the silence between them. Her fingers twisted against one another at her waist—a childhood show of nerves even her new guise could not mask.
“I’m sorry about your father.”
“I’m sorry about you,” he replied.
Lottie winced and looked away. “I didn’t have a choice, Charles. There is no choice when your father dies and leaves you destitute.”
Charles shifted his weight. The crisp new Hessians he wore pinched at his feet, and the slight discomfort was nearly unbearable when coupled with such agitation. “You could have wed.”
Lottie’s chest swelled and those damn fingers of hers started twisting again. “I could not.”
“What is this prattle?” Charles paced over the thick carpet. “Lottie, you’re lovely. You’ve always had the attention of men. How could you not find a husband?”
“I didn’t say I couldn’t find one.”
“If you could find a husband why would you not—” Comprehension washed over him like cold rain.
Lottie scoffed at his apparent consternation. “Now you understand.”
Oh, he understood.
Lottie had been compromised.
The little girl who had tagged along behind him until he had finally allowed her to join him at play. The girl he had regarded with the same undying affection one would a younger, more vulnerable sister. And some rake had ruined her.
“Who is the scoundrel?” he growled.
“No one I’ll ever confess to you.” She strode across the room, away from him. But not before he saw the hopeless misery in her eyes.
She still loved the man.
Charles followed her. “Why didn’t you ask me for help?”
She drew a bottle of amber liquid from a shelf and pulled free the stopper. “Even if I could have found a way to contact you I have never been one for charity.” She splashed a finger of liquor into a cut-crystal glass and pushed it into his hand.
He accepted the drink and took a long sip. Scotch. Very fine Scotch. “It wouldn’t have been charity,” he protested.
She regarded him with quiet bemusement. “Oh? And what, pray tell, would it have been?”
“Securing a future for you.”
A sad smile plucked at the corners of her mouth. “I’m not your responsibility, Charles.”
He settled his palm on her shoulder, the same way he’d done when she was a girl and had needed comfort: when her kitten had scaled a tree too high for her to climb, the time she’d skinned her knee and torn a new gown, the day her mother had died. He’d always been there for her.
Except, apparently, when she’d needed him most.
“You know I’ve always regarded you as a sister. I’ve always cared for you as if you were.”
“But I’m not your sister.” She waved him off. “You’re going to make me cry with all that.”
Indeed, her nose had gone rather red. She poured a second glass of Scotch and carried it over to a chaise, where she settled comfortably.
“I tried the opera first. I did well there, and...and offers began.”
Charles took the seat opposite her and swallowed the rest of his Scotch at the word “offers.”
Lottie pulled at a corner of the window coverings and peered into the darkness. “I resisted at first, of course,” she continued. “But the expense of such a life was more than the income it generated. After a while, I couldn’t refuse.”
Charles stared into the bottom of his empty glass and savored the burn trailing down his insides, pushing past his heart and splashing into his gut.
“This is far grander than I’ve ever lived before.” She indicated the room.
It was indeed fine. The dark wood furniture was polished to a shine, the walls were covered with a luxurious red silk, the floors layered with soft carpets.
“You intend to continue in this...this occupation for a while?” he asked.
She leaned toward the window and glanced out once more. “No. At least I have the hope not to. Which is part of the reason I’ve called you here.”
“What the devil are you looking for out there?” He got to his feet and glanced out the window to the quiet street below.
“A new opportunity.” She beamed up at him and traded his empty glass with her full one.
A warning prickled along the back of Charles’s neck. “I don’t know what scheme you’re up to, but please presume I’ll want no part of it.”
Lottie crinkled her nose and laughed, reminding him all too well of the girl she’d been.
“Nothing like that. Oh, Charles, you do know how to make me laugh.”
She shook her head and the length of midnight curls swished against the disconcerting swell of her nearly exposed bosom.
“I’m waiting for a countess’s daughter to arrive. A young lady who has fallen on rather unfortunate times. I’m to instruct her in the art of flirtation.”
Charles eyed Lottie skeptically.
She put her fingertips to the bottom of his glass and lifted it higher, toward his mouth. “I could use the help of a gentleman,” she said. “It would do well for her to have someone to practice on.”
The glass was to his lips now, but he resisted and pulled his face away. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Plying you with drink isn’t going to work, I take it?”
She gave a little mock pout he’d never seen before. The type of expression made by a petulant mistress rather than a well-mannered vicar’s daughter.
He didn’t like it.
“I think you know me better than that.”
“Very well.” Lottie lowered her hands and freed his glass. “She’s the daughter of the Earl of Westix.”
Charles lifted the Scotch to his lips once more. Of his own volition. And drank.
The Earl of Westix.
The Adventure Club would never have disbanded had it not been for the Earl. Charles’s father would still have all the journals and would have been able to find the Coeur de Feu on his own had it not been for the Earl. Charles would never have been such a disappointment in failing to fulfill that one final wish.
And Lottie knew all of