Page 120 of My Lady Marzipan
Charlotte nodded. “I wouldn’t treat my beloved husband in such a fashion no matter if anyone ever found out. Even if one could get away with it in perfect secrecy, one would know it deep down and feel its sting the rest of one’s life. Don’t you think? I don’t know how anyone lives with the guilt.”
“Nor I,” he agreed, staring into her eyes.
He leaned down and kissed her, relishing the way she turned in her seat and lifted her arms so she could clasp her fingers behind his neck. Already, they were acting with impropriety, but it wasn’t the type of thing that would get into the scandal sheets. The gossipmongers feasted on the type of unseemliness that hurt. It was a blood sport amongst theton, and if someone didn’t go away wounded and bleeding from the scandal, then they didn’t consider it a proper disgrace!
How could he make her understand how it would crush him?
When he drew back and they both could breathe again, she fixed him with her deep-brown gaze.
“I would never do to you or our children what your mother did.” Her quiet words reached him in the space of a heartbeat and across the span of years from the time he was a child, watching his father’s despair.
Charles gasped, raising his eyes to hers. He didn’t need to make her understand. She already did.
“We would win the flitch of bacon,” he vowed. “Be it a year and a day or a hundred years go by, I shall have no regrets marrying you.”
“We would win the whole pig,” she agreed.
AS SOON AS CHARLOTTE awakened in her husband’s arms, in her new home, she was ready to tumble out of bed and rush to New Bond Street.
However, Charles stirred and dragged her back against him for early morning kisses ... and more. A long while later, she stretched and proclaimed herself famished.
“After breakfast, I shall go see how everything is progressing.” Arising, she wandered to the window to see what her morning view would be. Amazingly, Hyde Park stretched out across the street westward into the distance, with Kensington Gardens at its far end. In her mind though, she was already at Rare Confectionery.
“What if the stairs collapsed or the tables don’t look right, or someone has painted the peacocks in the wrong colors?” She wasn’t truly worried. Life was too good to borrow trouble. She simply missed the shop and her family.
“We arrived on British soil yesterday,” Charles protested. “Must you go to work today?”
“I’ve been idle too long. You didn’t marry an upper-class sluggard.”
“Watch your words, woman. Not all upper-class people are sluggards.” Jumping out of bed, he chased her as far as her new dressing room, where he let her figure out her clothing in peace. Soon, she hoped Delia would be there, too.
“Will your father be at breakfast?” she asked through the closed door.
Her new father-in-law had welcomed them back the night before. They’d been too exhausted from the past days of travel to do more than enjoy a celebratory glass of brandy while he toasted their nuptials before they’d retired.
“I don’t know,” Charles confessed. “You’ll get used to his ways, sometimes crabby, sometimes ... well, if not exactly cheerful, then at least wryly humorous.”
“That’s fine, my love. He is your father, and I will love him.” She hadn’t told Charles about her meeting with the earl before she’d raced to Dover tracking her fiancé like a dog at the hunt. She hoped to get her father-in-law alone before she left for New Bond Street and urge him to confess to her husband that his own mother had not abandoned him.
It was the best wedding present she could think of.
An hour later, having kissed Charles goodbye, she was in her husband’s carriage, being driven to New Bond Street. The coachman’s cheery face reminded Charlotte she must speak with Delia later that day, not only to apologize for abandoning her on the dock but also to do a little matchmaking.
And then she sent a fervent prayer that all went well in the townhouse behind her. She’d left the two tall men, father and son, talking quietly. When she got home that evening, she hoped a most important disclosure had been made and Charles’s heart could start to heal.
The familiar bell tinkled as she pushed the door open. Charlotte couldn’t help the loud whistle of happiness that escaped her at seeing Rare Confectionery re-opened, with customers already at the counter. Every head turned at her loud entrance.
Her mother didn’t have the heart to look annoyed at her uncivilized youngest daughter. Felicity had written to Charlotte while she was away, telling her they’d had a visit from aHeraldreporter, who had praised the confectionery and the décor of the café, so much so that Londoners were chomping at the bit for it to open.
Even then, her mother was filling a white bag. Beatrice, who a moment before looked sour at being in the front of the store, grinned at Charlotte and nodded toward the staircase. White lacquer with sapphire blue curlicues painted down its skirtboard, it was whimsical and magnificent.
Edward came down the stairs carrying some tins, giving her a happy smile and nod by way of greeting. He had to duck under a blue satin ribbon that blocked anyone from going up to the second level. They’d been as good as their word, promising not to open the café without her.
She went through the opening between the counters.
“Greetings, My Lady Marzipan,” Beatrice exclaimed. “We’re so glad to have you back.”
All Charlotte could do was smile as she hurried into the back room for her apron. It was good to be home!
The End
