Page 2 of To Tame the Wild Rake
He grimaced. “That is what my mother tells me. Is there nothing I can say that would change your mind? You would be an outstanding duchess.”
No. She really wouldn’t. Like everyone else, he saw only the duke’s granddaughter, not the woman within. Perhaps, if he had been a man of lesser estate, if he had spoken about affection and companionship, she might have risked it. Not love. Charlotte did not trust love.
Again, he read something of her mind, for he sighed again, and gave her a wry smile and the very words she wanted. “We were friends once, my Cherry, were we not? Long ago?”
Her resolve softened at the nickname he had given her that golden summer, before it all went wrong. “I was very young and you were very drunk,” she retorted.
He huffed a brief laugh. “Both very true. Still, we could be friends again, I think. I have always hoped for a wife who could also be my friend.” He frowned. “Is it my damnable reputation? I am not quite the reprobate they paint me, you know.”
Charlotte shook her head, then rethought her response. His reputation might outrun his actions, but he was reprobate enough, and the lifestyle he brushed off so casually had destroyed her brother. And her, as well, though not through her own fault.
“Not that, though if I were disposed to marry, I would not choose a rake. Marriage is not for me, however.” She should at least hint at the reason. “I cannot be your duchess, Aldridge.” She hesitated. How should she tell him? Blurt it out? Make a story of it?
The words wouldn’t come, and he must have assumed that she’d finished. His social mask dropped back into place, proud though affable. “I have told your grandfather we will not suit. He asked if you had told me what he called ‘your maidenly reservations’, and I assured him I had not spoken with you. I let him think that the marriage arrangement was my father’s idea, and not mine.”
Marrying her had been Aldridge’s idea? Charlotte put that away to think about later. “Thank you. He has had me locked in until I agreed to receive your proposal.”
Aldridge nodded, unsurprised. The mother network must have included that information. “I am afraid my repudiation of the arrangement made him ill again. I’m sorry to say he took a fit.”
Charlotte shrugged. She couldn’t be sorry, even if that made her a horrible person. Again, Aldridge seemed to know what she was thinking.
“He, like my own sire, is too used to everyone leaping to his commands. We can’t let their refusal to brook denial shape our lives any more than they must.” He stood. “Still, I must hope I haven’t killed him. Will you let me know?”
“I will. And thank you.” She held out her hand in farewell, and he took it, turning it over and placing a kiss in the palm.
Once again, his mask dropped away, and something unfathomable stirred in his eyes. “If you change your mind, or if you ever have need of anything I can do for you, let me know, Cherry. I will always come at your command.”
With that, he dropped her hand and strode for the door, leaving Charlotte less happy than she expected. If he had been a yeoman farmer, or a lawyer, or some other humble man to whom she might aspire—someone who did not require from her the primary duty of a peer’s wife—they might have been happy together. But then, he would not have been Aldridge.
1
October 1814
Wintermount Street had gone down in the world since its heyday in the middle of the last century, when the houses that lined it were occupied by comfortably placed widows, younger sons with a creditable profession, and merchants with pretensions to the gentry.
Travelling the old street’s length from west to east, Charlotte’s carriage also traversed its slide into penury and disgrace. At the western end, a few of the houses still clung to the remnants of their former grandeur, a little scuffed and down at heel. Halfway down the street, boarding houses abounded, offering rooms for respectable ladies of diminished means, or gentlemen down on their luck, but never the two together. The eastern end merged almost indiscernibly into the slums of the streets beyond.
By design, the school—Charlotte’s destination—was almost at that end. It was within an easy scurry through shadows for the children who sought a future away from the grog shops, the gangs, and the brothels. It was outside of the territory of the slum masters who might object to even their least significant subjects escaping their command.
The carriage pulled up in front of the school. Charlotte remained seated as she had promised the Duke of Winshire, her uncle, back when a Winshire carriage was attacked in a London street not dissimilar to this one. The attack had been the year before last, but still, he insisted on supplying her with armed footman and two of his personal retainers as outriders on the days that she taught here.
She made no attempt to evade the escort, since she had grown to love her uncle, who was a very different man to his father and brother. She knew he loved her and worried for her safety this far from the wealthier streets where ladies were safe with no more escort than a maid.
One of her outriders knocked on the door, and only when it opened did a footman throw wide the door of the carriage, and offer a hand to help Charlotte descend. The outrider at the door would come with her into the school. The rest of her escort would return to the Winshire townhouse with both horses and the carriage, and would collect her again in two hours.
“Lady Charlotte.” The matron waited at the door, unsmiling, and Charlotte hid a sigh. Mrs Porter was devoted to her work, but her preconceptions made managing her a challenge. Charlotte hoped that the thirty minutes she had allotted to taking tea with the woman would be enough to give the shrew’s thoughts a better direction. From Mrs Porter’s expression, it would probably take longer.
Inside, the house was austere, clean and quiet. Not silent, precisely. Young voices chanted times tables, the sound muffled. The little ones, presumably. Her own mathematics class had advanced well beyond such chants.
Charlotte allowed Mrs Porter to usher her into the matron’s sitting room and pour her a cup of the inferior tea that the house offered its aristocratic patronesses and volunteers. Presumably, it was the same as the tea they drank themselves, which was very egalitarian of them. Charlotte instructed herself to admire their principles and sipped the tea without complaint.
It took ten minutes of general platitudes about the weather, the price of flour, and the progress of the war before Mrs Porter returned to the same arguments Charlotte had been hearing since she first offered herself as a volunteer teacher.
“These children have no use for anything but the simplest of arithmetic, Lady Charlotte. They are workers’ children, at best. Not even that, most of them. Few of them are fit to be servants even in the home of a merchant or tradesman, and none of them can expect a more exalted role. What use is algebra to them? Or trigonometry? It is a ridiculous waste of your time.”
Years of practice allowed Charlotte to keep her voice even. “It is my time to use as I see fit, Mrs Porter.”
“The children, however, are my responsibility. You encourage them to defy me, Lady Charlotte. It is hard enough running a school in this neighbourhood without one of my teachers undermining me at every turn.”
