Louisa stared at her, mouth hanging open. "Charity, you are not a gentleman," she whispered.
They stood there for a moment, regarding one another—Louisa in her white dressing gown and hair in curling papers, Charity in rumpled evening clothes, cravat rakishly askew.
"What are you going to do after I marry, Charity?" Louisa asked, breaking the silence.
"I don't know." Charity glanced away from Louisa's face, taking in the peeling paint on the door frame. "There's the gamekeeper's cottage at Fenshawe. I could stay there," she said, knowing it for a lie.
The "we" was generous. Charity had never owned anything, least of all the estate of Fenshawe. Robbie had owned it. And since it had been entailed, it ought to have passed to his cousin. But when Robbie died, Charity had already been attending Cambridge under his name. Her thoughts muddled by grief and confusion, it didn't seem so terrible to keep quiet about Robbie's death and step into his shoes at home as well. The cousin, living in Dorset, could be kept in ignorance.
Sometimes when Charity was having a hard time falling asleep, she tried to think of exactly how many laws she had broken, how many ways she ought to have been hanged or transported. But Robbie had scarcely any property that wasn't entailed. Louisa, not yet sixteen, would have been destitute and homeless. For the two years since Robbie's death, they had stinted and scraped together enough money out of the estate's income to fund this season in London and put together a modest dowry for Louisa. The plan was for Louisa to marry and then they would figure out a way to set things right, to let the cousin inherit and to allow Charity to go back to being herself.
"I could live with you, after your marriage," Charity countered, already knowing that it could never happen.
Charity had known that from the beginning. There could be no happy ending to this deception. Even when Robbie was alive and healthy and brash and persuasive, she had understood that if she went to Cambridge in his stead there would be no going back to being plain Charity.
Even if there were, she didn't want any part of it. There would be no more gowns, no more floors to scrub.
Neither could she continue as Robert Selby one minute longer than strictly necessary. Charity didn't have the stomach for it.
She would be alone, adrift, with no name and no friends. She would, in fact, be in much the same situation she had been in before arriving at Fenshawe over fifteen years ago. The only difference was that this time her aloneness would be the result of her own choice, a sacrifice she had made to protect the one person who was left to her. She looked fondly at Louisa.
She leaned forward and kissed Louisa on the cheek. "Never mind that, my girl. I have it all in hand," she lied.
To celebrate the release of UNMASKED BY THE MARQUESS, we're giving away one paperback copy of THE RUIN OF A RAKE by Cat Sebastian!
GIVEAWAY TERMS & CONDITIONS: Open to US shipping addresses only. One winner will receive a paperback copy of The Ruin of a Rake by Cat Sebastian. This giveaway is administered by Pure Textuality PR on behalf of Avon Romance. Giveaway ends 4/22/2018 @ 11:59pm EST. Avon Romance will send the winning copies out to the winner directly. Limit one entry per reader and mailing address. Duplicates will be deleted. CLICK HERE TO ENTER!
Cat Sebastian lives in a swampy part of the South with her husband, three kids, and two dogs. Before her kids were born, she practiced law and taught high school and college writing. When she isn't reading or writing, she's doing crossword puzzles, bird watching, and wondering where she put her coffee cup.
Sounds like one I will love.
Hi, Cat, and welcome to Karen's Killer Book Bench. I love it when Regency females jump into the male world. It's rife with conflict and the Regency males don't know what hit them. 🙂 Can't wait to read this one. Thanks for sharing with us today!
Sounding quite interesting. I look forward to reading and seeing how it all works out.