Fortune Knocks Once (3 page)

“When did anyone ever win money off Ormonde? Tricky bastard, comes around …drinks up everything in sight…jus’ disappears,” her uncle grumbled.

“Oh…lay off him. You been moaning since he left. He’s an upright fellow. Just down in the pockets, poor bastard,” someone else in the room shouted in defense of the absent man.

“Heard he’s in a pretty bad way,” mumbled another.

“Ormonde is in dun territory now, no doubt about that,” her uncle crowed happily. “Don’t know what he’ll do now, estate’s a mess, tenants practically starving…” he slurred. Her uncle always assumed that the misfortunes of others were designed to entertain him, providing cheer and merriment to his petty and despicable life.

Charlotte shivered in disgust at her uncle and his mean-spirited comments about the man who had looked at her with such gentleness.

In eight years in this house, the only ray of hope I have ever experienced came from him, and my “beloved” uncle can only delight in his misfortunes.

He was Lord Ormonde. She didn’t think he was one of her uncle’s regular crowd of degenerate, drunken revelers. She hadn’t seen him before and she closely watched the men who came and went around her.

She closed her eyes and lifted her head, dreaming about him - his life - his family - how he spent his time.

Does he move in London Society? If I could attend musicales, dinner parties or especially, balls, would I see him? Would he ask me to dance? Would he like me?

Her head dropped to her chest and her shoulders sagged. Her hands fingered her shabby clothes absently.

Not likely, since I am certainly not beautiful or stylish or witty, especially not witty!

“I wouldn’t worry about him, with his looks and title he’ll find some unwitting twit, some heiress to get him back in the blunt again,” said another man.

“No bloody chance, it’s an Irish title, no self-respecting English gel or especially, her father, is going to go for him.”

“Ain’t he been trying for the past three years? ‘at’s why he came to London…needs to marry a rich bitch.”

“I say, Treadwell, Ormonde could marry your niece.” Stanton piped in, obviously proud of himself. “Ain’t bloody likely anyone else will want her, such a strange little thing, never talking. She ain’t ugly but wouldn’t call her pretty neither. Her inheritance is enough, eh? You could be rid of her once and for all.”

“Are you insane,” Treadwell raged back at him suddenly roused out of his drunken languor. “Do you imagine I want to be done with managing her money as well? Marry her off…send the chit’s vast inheritance with her. I’d be in a pretty pickle – left with nothing. You’re an idiot Stanton.”

“Say, what’s it worth to you Treadwell? For us to keep our mouths closed? Nobody knows you keep her locked up here away from Society, never going anywhere,” joked another man in a voice thick and slurred from drink.

Her uncle snorted. “I don’t lock her up - don’t need to. Addlepated twit…never talking…bloody Ghost… nobody would want her… not going anywhere. But it ain’t because I lock her up. Got nowhere to go…she knows it. Nobody would have her, hah, hah.”

Her uncle laughed and must have thrown something at the would-be blackmailer because she heard something crash against the far wall.

Charlotte straightened, her entire body numb with shock from the vision of her future that had suddenly flashed in her mind with vivid clarity at her uncle’s words.

He will never let me go. I have no hope of escape from this living hell.

Suddenly the library door opened and a man lurched into the hall and almost knocked her over in her position listening right at the door. For a minute both hovered in shock, staring in disbelief. Then before she could gather her wits and run, he laughed wildly, grabbed her arm roughly, and pulled her into the room.

“Look what I found,” he said leering at her as he spoke. “Treadwell, didn’t know you had arranged entertainment.”

Hoots and howls emerged from the other occupants of the room as several came to their feet. Horror flooded her stomach as she slowly understood why the men in the room were looking at her.

They want to…oh, my God.

She darted a glance at her uncle and immediately realized her dangerous position. It was unlikely he could defend her against so many others and from the look of fury in his eyes, his mouth twisted with rage, he might not even attempt it.

She struggled fiercely against the man’s hold, her head down and her hair hanging in her face. Her struggle only caused him to tighten his grip. “Oh no, darlin’. You aren’t going anywhere.”

With despair, she whimpered and pulled, vainly trying to get free until suddenly in desperation, she lowered her face and bit his hand, sinking her teeth deep into his thumb. Released so quickly she fell to the floor, Charlotte crawled away as fast as she could and made for the door.

“You fuckin’ bitch.” Her abductor shrieked wildly, cursing and waving his hand in the air, lurching in her direction.

Suddenly she was seized from the floor, the door swept open and she was shoved through it so hard she fell to the floor, her head bouncing off the opposite wall.

“Get the bloody hell out of here or I’ll give you to ’em. Maybe then you’d leave me alone…I could be rid of you,” her uncle growled as she pulled herself up despite the throbbing in her skull and ran down the hall.

“I’ll teach her some manners. Get out of my way, Treadwell. She’s going to get what she deserves.”

“Ha! Ya’ wanna rematch? If she bests ya’ again, we’ll beat ya’ on principle...you’re an idiot.”

“Right, Rowly,” sniggered another man. “You let a girl beat you…and a little one too…not even one those big, lusty Amazons Treadwell has working in the kitchen.”

“I’m bleeding!” the wounded man sputtered.

“Hope she don’t have rabies.”

“You’re marked for life.”

“Want us to bring her back and hold her down for you? Give you a fightin’ chance?”

Rude remarks and raucous laughter filled the room as the men turned on the bitten man, who was shaking his hand in the air and shouting back curses and threats.

She raced down the hall and up the stairs toward her room expecting to be pursued. She paused at the head of the stairs to the fourth floor to listen and run down the servants’ stairs to hide outside if necessary. But she realized no one was coming.

Losing no more time, she hurried back up to the safety and security of her bedroom, flung herself into her small, rumpled bed and pulled the covers over her head.

Shaking uncontrollably, her teeth chattering, she thought about her narrow escape and anticipated her uncle’s reaction when his friends went home and he sobered up. Her flesh crawled with revulsion as she contemplated her immediate danger and her bleak future stretching out unrelentingly.

Meanwhile, two flights below, the library erupted into the sounds of men pushing and wrestling, furniture being pushed and shoved out of the way, items falling off tables and amid oaths and swearing, the sound of fists connecting with flesh.

~~~

As she approached the door to the unfamiliar London terrace house, Charlotte realized the immensity of her folly.

How am I going to do this if I am beside myself with fear?

She held out her hand and saw it shaking as she lifted it to the doorknocker. If she didn’t pull herself together quickly she would never be able to convince him. Thankfully she had thought to compose the letter and could rely on that to do the talking for her.

The door was opened by a large man with a scar cutting across the right side of his face. “Whadda ya’ want?” he growled, eyeing her from head to toe, knowing no decent woman of any age would be standing outside the home of a notorious bachelor at this time of night. For an unwed girl of her age to be here was beyond scandalous.

Please don’t send me away.

Her tongue wouldn’t move and it was all she could do to tentatively hand the letter to him with her shaking hand. The letter was folded and sealed and beautifully addressed to Lord Ormonde. Charlotte had worked on it for three days.

“For his lordship, eh?” he said. “Took a chance he’d be up, did you? I’ll take it up to him. Guess you want to wait for an answer, huh?”

She nodded in relief. She had been worried that the servant would send her away without allowing her to see him and she wasn’t sure if getting out of the house would work a second time. Her uncle and his servants didn’t watch her. There had never been a need for them to do so.

But if she was caught this time, and after her narrow escape a few nights ago, she doubted there would be another opportunity like tonight.

After the servant made his way upstairs, she heard the sounds of male voices and loud drunken laughter coming from the same direction. Obviously, his lordship had company and it was most certainly not the type of company she would want to encounter.

She shivered with fear and began imagining the unspeakable liberties that could be visited upon a girl foolish enough to approach a group of drunken men who were unlikely to respect the code of gentlemanly conduct that women of her station relied on so completely.

It was her Defect that caused her generally to avoid company of all types and which insured that she would never move in Society freely or easily. Only her complete desperation had allowed her to overcome her dismay at being forced to confront a stranger and to seize the one possible chance she had for escape from an unrelentingly dismal future.

She knew her choices were limited and her future was very bleak indeed if this plan didn’t work. Actually, even if it did work, she thought ruefully, it didn’t necessarily bode well for her future.

Is Lord Ormonde really a solution? Or, all things working out as planned, will he be just another miserable chapter in my life?

She wasn’t sure whether this was folly or not. But she knew without mistake that staying with her uncle for much longer meant at best more endless, unhappy days and at worst a spiraling descent into an ever-worsening existence as he brought his treacherous, menacing friends around and gambled away her inheritance.

After several minutes, she heard a loud bark of deep male laughter from upstairs above the din of the other voices. After a mumbled exchange between two men, she heard the sounds of footsteps coming down the stairs into the entrance hall.

When he appeared, she could see that he wasn’t wearing a coat or waistcoat, which would have been horribly shocking to any normal gentlewoman, but not to Charlotte. Her uncle paraded through the house in all manner of disarray.

“Is this someone’s idea of a great joke?” slurred Lord Ormonde as he approached her standing just inside the front door where she had remained since stepping inside. He weaved across the hall floor to stand in front of her and stare down into her face.