A Scandalous Publication (21 page)

As the carriage pulled away down the Haymarket, she struggled again to find the right words, to soften the blow her confession would deal him, but the words wouldn’t come. She sat in stricken silence, an almost overwhelming sense of sick apprehension flooding secretly through her. Courage was something she had never lacked before, but now it deserted her completely. By the time they reached Henrietta Street it was too late.

Richard and Mrs. Wyndham were alone in the house, and it was immediately apparent that they too had learned about the book. They expressed their sorrow at what had happened, assuring Max that they did not for a moment give credence to the lies printed in
Kylmerth.
He stayed for a while while they discussed the situation, and Charlotte sat miserably with them, not saying anything and wishing that she could find the courage to tell the truth. But her tongue seemed frozen, turned to ice by the bleakness of Max’s cold fury at what had been done.

How she endured the remainder of that dreadful evening she didn’t know. She moved in a dream, as if she wasn’t really there but was observing everything from afar. She felt utterly devastated, plunged into the depths of despair by the actions of a jealous, discarded mistress who bore her only malice and who had undoubtedly succeeded in what she had set out to do.

When Max had gone, having again promised her that he would leave no stone unturned in his quest for the culprit, she went back in to the drawing room, knowing that she must tell Richard and her mother what she had been too afraid to tell Max.

Richard had already observed that there was more to his niece’s strained silence than just upset at being the focus of so much unwelcome attention. He went to her as she came back into the drawing room, put his arm around her shoulder, and squeezed her gently. “Are you going to tell us what’s really wrong?”

Mrs. Wyndham smiled anxiously as well. “Yes, Charlotte, are you? It’s obvious even to me that there’s something very distressing on your mind.”

Tears suddenly flooded into Charlotte’s eyes. “I wrote the book,” she whispered. “I wrote it, and it was stolen from my wardrobe.”

They both stared at her.

“Oh, please don’t look at me like that,” she pleaded. “I’m so miserable I wish I was dead!” Flinging herself onto a sofa, she hid her face, her shoulders shaking convulsively with her sobs.

Mrs. Wyndham went hurriedly to comfort her. “Charlotte, Charlotte my dear, please don’t cry.”

“I don’t know what to do. I feel so wretched. I wanted to tell him, but he was so cold and angry that I just couldn’t. He’s bound to find out, and then he’ll hate me. He set such store upon my believing in him, so what will he feel when he discovers that I wrote all those things?” Charlotte’s heart was breaking; happiness was fleeing from her outstretched fingertips, and try as she would, she knew she couldn’t cling to it or gather it back safely again.

Mrs. Wyndham was almost in tears herself at seeing her daughter so distraught. “Please, Charlotte,” she begged, “don’t take on so, You’ll make yourself ill. Richard, bring a glass of cognac
.
”

He had been standing there, not knowing what to do. “Yes. Yes, of course.” He hurried out.

Mrs. Wyndham shook Charlotte’s shoulders gently but firmly. “Charlotte,” she said a little sternly, “take a grip on yourself immediately. This won’t do at all and it just isn’t like you. Now, then, sit up and take this handkerchief.”

The firm tone had a calming effect, and taking gulping breaths to try to steady herself, Charlotte sat up, taking the handkerchief.

Richard came back in. “It seems the admiral had the last of the bottle earlier. Mrs. White’s sent Polly down to the cellar to bring another one. It won’t be long.” He went to Charlotte, taking her shaking hand. “Are you feeling a little better now?”

She took another deep, tremulous breath. “Yes,” she said almost inaudibly, “at least, I think so.”

At that moment Polly came hurrying in with a tray on which stood the decanted cognac and several glasses. Seeing the maid, whom she suspected of assisting Judith, Charlotte rose swiftly to her feet, fixing the startled maid with a furious gaze. “You did it, didn’t you, Polly? You saw that manuscript in my wardrobe and knew what it was, so that when Lady Judith approached you and offered you money if you could tell her anything to harm me, you took my book and gave it to her. Didn’t you?”

Polly’s eyes were as round and frightened as a rabbit’s and she began to shake so much that she would have dropped the tray had not Richard rescued it. “M-Miss Charlotte? I d-don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“I heard Mrs. White talking to you about seeing you with a lady in a yellow carriage.”

“But I didn’t tell her ladyship anything,” wailed the maid. “I said that there wasn’t anything to know and that she shouldn’t ask me. Please, Miss Charlotte, you must believe me.”

Charlotte was shaking with distress again. “I can’t believe you when I know you spoke to her. You have access to my room every single day. Do you really expect me to believe you didn’t know the manuscript was there?”

Polly was distraught too. “I saw it
—of course I saw it—but I didn’t know what it was.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“But, Miss Charlotte,” whimpered the maid, her cheeks wet with tears, her little apron crumpled between her trembling hands, “the manuscript could have been anything. I can’t read.”

Charlotte stared at her.

“I can’t read. I saw only sheets of paper with writing on, that’s all. You must believe me. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, truly I wouldn’t.”

“Oh, Polly,” whispered Charlotte, conscience-stricken. “I’m so sorry, please forgive me. I could only think that you gave it to Lady Judith.”

“I wouldn’t do that, Miss Charlotte, nor would Mrs. White. Whoever took your book to her ladyship, it wasn’t anyone in this house; it was an outsider.”

Charlotte lowered her eyes and nodded.

“Can
—can I go now please?”

“Yes, of course.”

The maid scuttled out thankfully.

Mrs. Wyndham took a deep breath. “Charlotte,” she said reproachfully, “you should be a little more sure of your facts before you accuse someone like that.”

“I thought I
was
sure, now I just don’t know. Someone took the manuscript and gave it to Judith.”

“Are you even sure that Judith is responsible?”

“She promised to have her revenge, and if you’d seen her at the theater tonight, well, you’d have seen that she’d done it. She was like a great yellow cat, licking its paws after the finest dish of cream ever set before it.”

Richard led her to a chair. “Sit down and tell us all about it, from the very beginning.”

In halting tones she told him how the story of Rex Kylmerth had come into being, starting with the inspiration she’d been given by
Glenarvon
and ending with the last time she’d put the manuscript away in the wardrobe and forgotten all about it. “The book that has in so short a time set society by the ears is mine,” she finished. “It’s the same in every detail except that Judith has altered the ending to include my seduction. Apart from that, I recognize my work only too well.”

Mrs. Wyndham looked sadly at her. “Oh, my poor dear,” she murmured, “what a fix you’ve got yourself into.”

“What am I going to do? I know that I should have told Max the moment I realized, but I just couldn’t. I tried, more than once, but I simply couldn’t put it into words. I love him so much, but he’s going to hate me when he finds out. He’s going to the publisher in Covent Garden tomorrow afternoon, and he’ll recognize my writing, I know he will. I’m going to lose him and I don’t think I can bear it.”

Richard put a firm hand on her shoulder. “Max may be angry now, but when he realizes that you wrote the book before there was anything between you, and when he understands that you never had any intention of having it published
—”

“He’ll still despise me. He went out of his way to convince me of his innocence, Richard. He told me that it mattered more than anything to him that I believed in him. He’s going to see this book as a betrayal of everything.”

“It’s a risk you’re going to have to take if you’re to have any chance of salvaging your love.”

“I know.”

“If he’s going to this Mr. Wagstaff tomorrow afternoon, I strongly suggest you and I go there in the morning. You must have all the facts, there’s no other way.”

“What point is there?” she cried despairingly. “The book is mine, there’s no gainsaying it.”

“Maybe, but
you
didn’t take it to be published; someone else did. We’ll go in the morning and find out if it was Judith.”

She nodded wearily. “If you think it best.”

“I do. And when you’ve found out what you need to, you must go to Max immediately. There’s to be no more dilly-dallying, Charlotte.”

“Very well.”

“It isn’t lost yet, you know,” he said softly.

She didn’t reply.

“You mustn’t give up, Charlotte.”

“I don’t think you understand the depth of his feeling about these lies, Richard,” she said emptily. “They’ve taken on a significance that once would never have existed.”

He glanced sadly at his sister and fell silent.

Mrs. Wyndham got up then. “Do you know, in the heat of all this, we’ve quite forgotten to tell her your good news, Richard.”

“So we have. Somehow, now doesn’t seem the right time.”

Charlotte looked at him. “What good news?”

“Sylvia accepted me tonight.”

She managed a smile, because she was genuinely pleased. “I’m so glad for you, Richard, you and she were meant for each other.”

Mrs. Wyndham nodded. “They were indeed, so it wasn’t before time tonight that he took a firm line with her. She positively basked in his masterfulness.” Her smile faded then. “Oh, dear.”

“What is it?” asked Charlotte.

“I was thinking of how this wretched book is going to affect Henry and Sylvia, for it resurrects all the whispers about Anne’s death. The ball tomorrow night is going to be a dreadful strain for us all.”

“I won’t be going,” said Charlotte quickly. “I could possibly have endured it if the book wasn’t mine, but not now, when I know that it is and that by this time tomorrow night Max will hate me.” Her voice broke on a sob, and gathering her skirts, she got up and hurried out.

Mrs. Wyndham made to follow her, but at that moment someone knocked at the front door. Charlotte had fled up the stairs to her room when Mrs. White emerged from the kitchens to admit Sylvia and the admiral, who had come the moment news of the book reached them.

Sylvia looked very pale and shaken as she sat down, and the admiral looked distressed. “Sophia,” he said straightaway, “what can I say? It’s too dreadful. Poor Max and poor Charlotte, what an infamous ordeal for them both.”

Sylvia clasped her trembling hands in her lap, her eyes lowered to the floor. “It wasn’t me,” she said suddenly. “You must believe that it wasn’t me. I didn’t write it. I know I’ve said all those things about Max, but I didn’t write it. Tonight I’d decided never to accuse him of anything again, I was so happy because Richard and I are to be married that I wanted everything to start anew. I was going to tell Charlotte that, I was going to say that I would be a changed person where Max was concerned and that I would do my best to put the past well and truly behind me. You must believe me,” she pleaded again, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

Richard went to her quickly, sitting at her side and drawing her close. “We know you didn’t do it, sweetheart,” he said gently, “because Charlotte wrote it herself, she told us so.”

The admiral was so startled that he almost jumped. “Eh? What did you say? Charlotte wrote it? That can’t possibly be so!”

Mrs. Wyndham gave a wan smile. “But it is, Henry.” She explained everything, just as Charlotte had done earlier. “So you see,” she finished, “someone stole the manuscript from Charlotte’s wardrobe and took it to that horrid man in Covent Garden. Charlotte says that Lady Judith Taynton is the one responsible, and it seems that this must indeed be the case.”

The admiral nodded. “The wretched wench may be related to me, but I have to confess to thinking she probably did do it; it’s just the sort of thing she would do. She was a loathsome brat of a child; now she’s still the same, only bigger and more venomous than ever. Where’s poor Charlotte now?”

“In her room, crying her heart out,” replied Mrs. Wyndham. “I feel so desperately sorry for her.”

“Does Max know yet?”

“No. That’s the real problem. She tried to tell him but he was so very angry about the whole business that she simply couldn’t. I’ve never seen her so distressed before, it’s quite out of character, she’s usually so strong. She’s been my strength in the past, anyway. Now I wish I could be strong for her. Oh, how I despise those Tayntons! I’ve never liked any of them; they’re as poisonous a nest of vipers as anywhere in England, and Judith is the worst of them all. I’ve done my best to ignore her malice in the past, but if she was here right now, I swear I
—I’d choke her with my bare hands.”

Richard nodded heavily. “To have done the foul thing she’s done, she doesn’t deserve anything else. She’s ruthlessly and contemptuously destroyed Charlotte’s happiness. I feel only revulsion for anyone who could do such a thing.”

At his side, Sylvia found it all too much. She began to cry, hiding her face against his shoulder, her arms around him, clinging tight. He held her close, gently stroking her short dark hair.

After weeping bitterly until well toward dawn, Charlotte at last fell into a fitful sleep, only to be wakened by the murmur of voices in the street outside. She lay there for a moment, fleetingly forgetting all that had happened the night before, but then memory returned, sweeping through her with a swingeing force that made her sit up with a gasp of utter wretchedness. It wasn’t a nightmare, it was all real…
.

The voices intruded into the room once more, and she got up from the bed, putting on her wrap as she went to the window to look out. A small crowd had gathered there, vulgar persons who were staring curiously at the house, pointing and talking. So, the book’s fame had already passed beyond fashionable drawing rooms. Looking up toward Cavendish Square, she saw that there was a little gathering outside the Parkstone residence as well.