Lady Charlotte Always Gets Her Man

by Violet Marsh

Genres: Female Sleuths; Historical Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

Family secrets, a brother's best friend romance, and scandalous mystery combine in this delightfully witty historical rom-com -- perfect for fans of Evie Dunmore, Enola Holmes, and Netflix's Bridgerton!

Release date: March 5, 2024

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 368

Sample

This gown will be perfect for the betrothal ball.”

Panic and horror flooded Lady Charlotte Lovett at her mother’s offhand statement. The two of them were standing in front of an ornate mirror at their favorite modiste’s shop and surrounded by sinfully soft silks, delicate laces, and finely woven woolen cloth. It was not the setting for dramatic, life-changing announcements. Yet Charlotte could not escape the feeling that her mother’s seemingly innocent observation was actually a harbinger of doom.

“Whose betrothal ball?” Charlotte’s heart pounded desperately against her stays as she prayed her suspicions were unfounded.

“Yours,” her mother replied crisply. She circled around Charlotte as she checked the new dress for any flaws. Pursing her lips, Mother yanked the stomacher downward. Turning sharply to the dressmaker, she instructed in a clipped tone, “The bodice is not framing Charlotte’s décolletage. She must be turned out absolutely perfectly.”

“I… I am engaged?” The words flew from Charlotte’s lips even though she had suspected the truth. Her gut clenched so violently that she nearly flinched.

“Do not act so surprised,” Mother said absently as she continued to arrange the front piece of the gown. “You should have been married ages ago. Your father and I decided it was past time to stop humoring your missish qualms and conduct the arrangements entirely ourselves.”

Missish qualms? Every last one of their candidates had possessed the hallmarks of a tyrant—a rich, connected tyrant, but a tyrant all the same. It was why Charlotte was still unmarried at the grand age of five-and-twenty. She had tried offering her own suggestions, but her father would not hear of it. He wished to create a dynasty, and her opinions were obviously inconsequential.

“Who is the groom?” Lady Charlotte managed to ask. Nausea sloshed through her. She squeezed her eyes closed as if she could stop not just the queasiness but the entire farce.

Please let it not be the ancient Lord Paltham, who inquired after the natural shape of my hips beneath my petticoats. He is much too obsessed over whether I could bear him Paltham heirs, who he claims are always brawny babes.

“This is hardly the place, Charlotte.” Her mother’s lips tightened ever so slightly as she nodded with her chin toward the modiste. The dressmaker was doing a commendable job of pretending to be too absorbed in her work of stretching the silk skirts over the pannier to overhear the conversation.

“Madame Vernier, could you please give us a moment?” Charlotte asked, refusing to allow her mother any excuse to prevaricate.

“Why, of course, mademoiselle.” Madame Vernier bobbed her head as she made a hasty retreat.

As soon as the woman shut the heavy door behind her, Charlotte turned from the mirror to stare directly into her mother’s eyes. Observing her parent’s detached expression, Charlotte wondered with a pang of frustration why she’d even bothered. She would find no empathy there.

“Who is the groom?” Charlotte demanded, not even bothering to temper her voice.

Her mother arched one of her exceedingly thin eyebrows, but she did not otherwise scold Charlotte for her tone. “William Talbot, Viscount Hawley.”

Every fiber within Charlotte shrieked in silent horror, but she, herself, made no sound. Anyone—even the uncouth Lord Paltham—would be preferable to the monstruous Hawley. An image of the smirking, handsome man rose in Charlotte’s mind. The fiend’s chiseled beauty could not distract from the cold, hard meanness that lurked in his crystalline eyes.

“Hawley shall make you a duchess when his father, the Duke of Lansberry, passes,” her mother continued, as if the title were all that mattered. But then, from the perspective of Charlotte’s parents, social standing was paramount to everything, especially after the taint that her aunt’s marriage had left upon the family.

“At least something good has come from your brother’s association with Lansberry’s youngest son, Matthew,” Mother continued. “Why Alexander chose to be friends with the third in line rather than Lord Hawley, I shall never understand. But Alexander’s relationship with the family expanded our sphere of influence to include the duke, which in turn has ultimately resulted in this betrothal.”

Charlotte ignored her mother’s musings about Matthew Talbot, a physician and naturalist, who was nothing like the rest of his brutish relatives. What mattered at the moment was the elder brother.

“Lord Hawley is not even nine-and-twenty, yet he has twice been widowed within a span of three years. The mourning period for his second wife hasn’t even ended. If he were a woman, he would be in seclusion and couldn’t remarry for another six months.” Charlotte couldn’t keep an edge of desperation from her voice.

“As the heir apparent, the viscount has a duty to quickly remarry and produce male issue,” her mother continued in her usual clipped tone. “Both wives died in tragic accidents, the poor man. But there is no reason to think you would succumb to the same fate. It is not as if a curse is upon the family.”

No, it wasn’t bad luck that had befallen Hawley’s young brides but, according to whispers, something much more suspicious and sinister. Fear pumped through Charlotte as she scrambled for a way to make her mother see beyond the man’s title to his dangerous character. “People who cross the viscount have a tendency to end up dead.”

Her mother sniffed. “Do not be melodramatic, dear. It doesn’t suit you.”

“When Mr. Monroe beat Lord Hawley at whist, he was found with his throat slit—only the winnings had been taken and no other valuables.”

Her mother shrugged. “It was in an extremely seedy section of London. What do you expect?”

“After Lord Hawley’s mistress threw him over for another man, both she and her new lover burned to death in a house fire.” Charlotte grabbed her mother’s arm as if the gesture would somehow make her words miraculously heeded.

“You listen too much to prurient gossip, darling. It is not an admirable trait, especially for an unmarried miss, who is fast becoming an old maid.” Her mother deliberately lifted Charlotte’s fingers from her silk-clad arm. “Do you really imagine that an heir apparent to a dukedom is lurking about dark alleys attacking people and torching buildings?”

“He would not need to personally. I have heard that he associates with questionable…” Even Charlotte could hear how frantic her normally even-toned voice had become, but she could do nothing to staunch the fear seeping from her.

Her mother held up a gloved hand, her facial features set in elegant, yet unyielding lines. “That is enough, Charlotte. I will not listen to more of this drivel. Your father and I spoke with the Duke of Lansberry before he left to address an urgent matter on his Scottish estate. All of the details have not only been finalized but agreed to. We would announce immediately, but the duke wished for us to wait until he returned from the Highlands in two months’ time. At least that will give us ample opportunity to prepare for the betrothal ball and the wedding. Both events must be grand enough to be discussed in drawing rooms, not for just this Season but for decades to come. Our families do have reputations in Society to uphold.”

Two months. Two damnable short months. That was all Charlotte had to extricate herself from a marriage to a young man who had already buried two wives.

“The bodice of this dress is just not right.” Charlotte’s mother had turned her attention back to the gown and was staring at Charlotte’s stomacher as if she could glare the fabric into submission like she did to everything and everyone else.

“Perhaps you should review fashion plates with Madame Vernier,” Charlotte suggested, desperate to escape her mother, her current situation, and her whole bloody cosseted life.

Her mother nodded. “I am glad you have returned to being reasonable.”

“Of course, Mother,” Charlotte lied. She had no doubt that her mother detected the falsehood, but that would not bother the Society matron. Charlotte had stopped arguing and acquiesced as she always did. It was of no import how she actually felt. It never was, as long as she acted outwardly demure and pleasant.

Mother strode to the door and opened it, but she paused before crossing the threshold. “Are you not accompanying me to review the samples?”

“I need a few moments to compose myself.” Charlotte pressed her lips into a sweet smile.

Her mother’s expression turned impenetrable. “Do not dawdle too long, darling. Women of our breeding do not sulk.”

“Understood, Mother,” Charlotte said.

With regal grace, her mother swept into the hallway, not even bothering to shut the oak door behind her. Charlotte walked across the room and gently closed it, wishing she could shut out her parents’ ambitions just as easily.

Sinking back against the wood, Charlotte found herself staring at the French doors opposite her that Madame Vernier had installed years before to inject a bit of the Continent into her London shop. The early spring day was unseasonably warm, and Madame Vernier’s staff had left the massive glass slightly ajar—enough to let in air but not enough for people passing by on the street to catch glimpses of the clients. The drawn drapes fluttered in the breeze, beckoning to Charlotte.

An unholy energy, fueled by panic, buzzed through her. When pulled back, the French doors would present an opening large and grand enough even to accommodate Charlotte’s ridiculously large skirts. Moreover, the room was on the first floor.

Consumed by the urge to flee, Charlotte grabbed a swatch of gauzy material that Madame Vernier had been using as a makeshift neckerchief for Charlotte. Luckily the material had not been cut and served as a perfect veil. Pulling the sheer material over her head, Charlotte crossed over to the French doors. Parting them, she stepped through and onto the street.

Then she ran.

At first, Charlotte did not have a direction in mind as she dashed through London. Instinctively, she headed away from the crowded streets frequented by the upper classes. She barely registered the shocked expressions of passers-by at the sight of a lady dressed in court attire dashing pell-mell along the cobblestones. Several times, she had to move her body at odd angles to avoid whacking someone with her pannier. Yet she did not slack her pace, not even when the buildings became older and less meticulously maintained. Fine ladies and their maids no longer populated the thoroughfare.

A painful stitch in Charlotte’s side finally caused her to pause. As she leaned against the rough brick facade of a nearby building, surprise shot through her. She’d traveled all the way to Covent Garden—and not a very savory part of it. Scooching into a side alley, she tried to gather her frenetic thoughts and emotions and put her intelligence to use.

Running from the modiste had accomplished nothing. Although Charlotte possessed a small inheritance from a great-aunt, it would not be enough to live on for the rest of her life. She had no choice but to return to her parents and their machinations. All she had done was gotten herself woefully lost in an unfamiliar and likely dangerous section of the city.

Forcing herself to breathe in and out, Charlotte focused on the most urgent problem: finding her way through the warren of streets she’d blundered into. Her only incursions into Covent Garden had been strictly limited to attending the Theatre Royal. This part of the city was more the realm of her twin brother.

Peeking around the corner, she scanned the larger street for any landmark that Alexander might have mentioned. Everything looked drab and unremarkable. Coffeehouses blended into alehouses and perhaps even a bordello or two, and then back into coffeehouses. An incongruous laugh rose inside Charlotte, who for the first time in her life found herself on the verge of having the vapors.

To think, she had yearned to accompany her brother to this section of London! Although she had no interest in the drinking establishments or the brothels, she’d long wanted to visit a coffeehouse, choke down some of the bitter brew, and engage in a debate unfettered by the rules of polite society. She and her friends had secretly fantasized about visiting the noisy spaces instead of enduring the suffocating atmosphere of her mother’s especially strict salon and its endless decorum. But coffeehouses were barred to women, except for the proprietresses.

Stifling another inappropriate giggle, Charlotte tried to soberly take an accounting of the street. Richly clad aristocratic young rogues mixed with laborers. Not all the better-dressed men, however, had the bearing of the peerage or gentry. Instead, their demeanor seemed hard, coarse, and most assuredly deadly. A chill slithered over Charlotte as she wondered if she was espying some of the fabled highwaymen who dressed like fops; or perhaps these hardened fellows were smugglers or river pirates. This, Charlotte realized, was a world that Lord Hawley would frequent as he discarded his Society trappings and donned his true persona. The truth of the villain could be found in places like Covent Garden, not at the balls, soirees, and musicales that Charlotte attended.

But there was one coffeehouse where she might at least be able to seek temporary shelter and arrange for a hackney carriage: the Black Sheep. Not only was it her twin’s favorite haunt, but one of the proprietresses was Charlotte’s cousin—estranged, but still family. And Alexander told such stories about the establishment.

The Black Sheep—even the name called to something inside Charlotte, not just to her current panic but to the misfit part of her that wanted to debate and maybe even defy the rules prescribed to ladies. What would it be like to live as her cousin did—freed from Society, owning a place that was a hotbed for revolutionary ideas? Would it be similar to how she imagined her grandmother and great-aunt’s salon? Mother had stifled its daring philosophical atmosphere after Charlotte’s aunt had run away with a pirate, but how magnificent it must have been in its heyday.

Just a few weeks ago, her cousin and product of that shocking union, Hannah Wick, had approached Alexander about investing in an expansion of her coffeehouse. The space adjacent to the Black Sheep had recently become available for rent, and Hannah had wished for help in paying the lease. The sum was not a grand one, but Charlotte’s brother didn’t have the funds.

Suddenly, a brilliant plan ripped through the doom encasing Charlotte. She had the money—her inheritance! What if she transformed her dreams of a coffeehouse where women could attend into reality? She knew such a place would attract scores of customers, and customers meant blunt, and blunt meant she would have an income separate from her parents. If she was a co-owner of the Black Sheep, she would have access to all its customers, including those with criminal connections who might know of Hawley’s misdeeds.

Good lord, perhaps Charlotte had been running somewhere after all. An almost giddy excitement collided with her anxiousness. A part of Charlotte warned her that she should not plunge into murky, unknown waters, but she ruthlessly silenced the doubts. If she wanted freedom, she had to be bold.

Afraid that further consideration would sway her into dismissing the scheme, Charlotte burst into the larger street. A flower seller pushing her cart seemed the most approachable person. After hurrying to catch up to the woman, Charlotte blurted out, “Miss. Please. Can you tell me where to find the Black Sheep coffeehouse?”

The female peddler blinked, likely in shock over Charlotte’s formal appearance and polished accent. Too startled and confused to protest or even to ask for coin, she jabbed her finger to the right. “Four streets that way, milady, then toward the south.”

“Thank you!” Charlotte wished she could pay the flower seller, but she had left her reticule at the modiste’s. Instead, she gave a friendly salute before she wove through the crowd in the direction indicated.

Within three minutes, her breath coming in gasps both from anticipation and exertion, Charlotte stood before the famed Black Sheep. At this hour, it was not open to the public, which meant she could talk to the proprietresses alone.

Charlotte raised her gloved hand to rap at the sturdy wooden door, but her heart seemed to knock instead. Before nerves could stop her, Charlotte let her knuckles fall against the oak. Once. Twice. Thrice.

The door opened to show Charlotte’s cousin. Until now, Charlotte had only spied Hannah in passing, but she had no trouble recognizing her. After all, it was a bit like peering into her own looking glass. They had the same Titian red hair and pale white skin with a light smattering of freckles over the bridge of their noses. Unlike Charlotte, however, Hannah did not hide the brown flecks with powder. Since their mothers had been identical twins, it was no wonder they looked similar, despite the widely divergent paths their immediate families had taken.

“Hello, Hannah Wick,” Charlotte said rather clumsily as her throat unexpectedly tightened. She was rather at a loss about exactly how to greet this relative to whom she’d never spoken. Charlotte briefly pulled back her veil, and Hannah’s green eyes widened. Within mere moments, the young woman regained her composure—an asset for the owner of a rowdy coffeehouse.

“Come in straight away, Cousin. You’ll be set upon by every cutpurse and filching thief in Covent Garden dressed in that finery.”

At Hannah’s hastily spoken command, Charlotte attempted to slip through the opening between the coffeehouse’s heavy wooden door and its half-timber exterior. Unfortunately, she had entirely forgotten about her massive hoop petticoat. The stiff pannier collided with the wattle and daub. Charlotte found herself bouncing backward into a gaggle of smartly dressed gentlemen walking down the street.

Swerving en masse like a herd of disgruntled sheep, the fops murmured something about slatternly morts. One even rudely elbowed her with his brightly clad arm. Charlotte was accustomed to receiving vastly different treatment from the opposite sex, but given the circumstances, their crude responses actually soothed her.

The young bucks hadn’t recognized her as they continued to gambol south along the thoroughfare. Thank goodness Charlotte had grabbed that veil. But even if the gauzy fabric had shielded her this time, it might prove less effective in another close encounter with the peerage.

Wasting no more time in reaching safety, Charlotte turned sideways and pushed. The delicate silk of her dress caught on a splinter in the wooden doorjamb. Ignoring both the tug and the sound of ripping fabric, she continued to shove her body and massive skirt forward. As much as she loved a pretty gown, she did not appreciate this one.

“Gadso! What is she wearing?”

Still wedged in the door like an entire loaf of bread, Charlotte could not spy the second female speaker as she peered into the long, narrow building with its white daub walls. But even if she didn’t know the identity of the other occupant, she really had no other choice but to continue trying to enter the Black Sheep.

“A gown for my betrothal ball.” Charlotte could not help but spit out the last two words as she finally burst into the building. Sour panic churned, and her innards twisted again. Right now she would eagerly trade her ridiculous, delicate attire for the serviceable linsey-woolsey short dress and practical skirts that her cousin wore.

“Why are you here? It is not as if our families are on speaking terms.” Hannah regarded Charlotte with wary intensity. Since it was a look that Charlotte’s own mother often employed, Charlotte was well-accustomed to such scrutiny. In fact, it ironically rebalanced her. An examination was something Charlotte could handle with aplomb.

“My brother does frequent your establishment.” Charlotte straightened her shoulders and smoothed down the ripped silk in an attempt to hide a glimpse of her linen undergarments. She wished, however, that her hands did not have a slight tremor.

“Coffeehouses do not serve women, so you cannot be here for the brew. If you’re a runaway bride seeking shelter, I suggest you try a more hospitable host. Since my mother was cut off by yours for following her heart, do not expect sympathy.”

“I am not a runaway bride.” Not precisely, at least, Charlotte thought as she removed the veil. “I only fled a dress fitting.”

“Where the word ‘betrothal’ was bandied about? You’re quibbling.” The second speaker’s voice again came from the back of the narrow room. Charlotte scanned past the long, empty tables. Finally, her gaze lit on who she assumed was, from her brother’s description of the other proprietress, Miss Sophia Wick, Hannah’s paternal cousin. Like Hannah, she wore a white linen cap and clothes of linsey-woolsey. The hard edge of Sophia’s London accent was softened with hints of the Caribbean, but her golden-brown eyes held an unmistakable challenge. Neither of the mistresses Wick were pleased with Charlotte’s unexpected appearance.

An anxious flutter beat against Charlotte’s breast. Normally, she could address any social situation, but this wasn’t the type of gathering she’d been bred to navigate.

“I have come with a business proposition.” When Charlotte heard the words burst from her own lips, she should have felt absurd. But she didn’t. Instead, a wellspring of hope flooded her, and with it, her old confidence.

The Wick cousins exchanged a glance before they both doubled over in laughter. The guffaws pricked at Charlotte’s rediscovered poise but didn’t pop it entirely.

Sophia recovered first. “You expect us to believe that the daughter of a duke wishes to do business with the children of pirates?”

Charlotte smiled warmly just as she did when greeting guests at the literary salon. “You’re not the offspring of any old buccaneer, though, are you? Your mother is royalty in that world.” Sophia was the daughter of a pirate princess with African, Dutch, and Taíno ancestry. According to legend, Sophia’s mother had rescued and then fallen in love with Sophia’s father, a white English ragamuffin who’d been deported with his brother to the New World.

“Aye,” Sophia acknowledged, her lips tilting upward with pride. “She is. I’ll give you credit for a honeyed tongue, but that is not enough for me to entertain whatever foolish scheme you’ve devised.”

“It’s not only my plan. It is both of yours as well.” Charlotte kept her voice amiable. “My brother said you have a desire to expand the Black Sheep, is that not true?”

Once again, the cousins glanced in each other’s direction. This time neither laughed.

Good. Charlotte would sway them.

“Your brother declined.” Hannah’s red brows drew downward. “Why are you keen when he was not?”

Because Alexander receives a paltry allowance from our father.

But even though the duke’s disdain for his heir apparent was an open secret among the upper echelons of Society, and likely much of the lower rungs as well, Charlotte would not embarrass her brother by saying so. Instead, she ignored the question entirely.

“I received a small bequest a year ago,” Charlotte explained, the words tumbling out quickly as she prayed these women would give her more credence than her own mother did. “From what you told my brother, it will be just enough to cover the lease for half a year. By then, the profits from the expansion will be enough to pay rent.”

“Why sully your hands with trade? You are a lady. You would have no social standing left if it were discovered that you were the co-owner of a coffeehouse known for attracting eccentrics, including those of the criminal variety.” Sophia moved closer, and the light from one of the narrow windows washed over her light brown skin. She looked striking in the sunbeam, and it was not hard to imagine her commanding a ship like her mother.

“Perhaps in certain circles I would lose my status. In some though, such notoriety would bring me renown.” Charlotte spoke bluntly, even as her chest constricted with the enormity of her proposal. If she were found out, the flawless reputation she had worked so hard to create would unravel, yet perhaps that unspooling would also loosen the bonds immobilizing her.

“So this is a scheme to make yourself appear daring?” Hannah’s green eyes sparked with rage. “Some sort of lark? A wager?”

“No.” Charlotte spoke with a coolness that belied the fiery tempest inside her. “It is a bid for independence. My inheritance is not enough to sustain me over the years without another source.”

Hannah snorted, sending tendrils of red hair flying against her mobcap. “How much do you think we earn? It is hardly ample enough to keep the likes of you satisfied. Marry an indulgent man instead.”

“My parents insist upon selecting my bridegroom. I assure you, indulgent is not a quality they seek out. Rather the opposite,” Charlotte said as she battled back the clawing dread that had chased her through the streets of London.

“I find it hard to dredge up sympathy for a noble,” Hannah said drily.

“Your mother was one originally,” Charlotte pointed out, careful not to allow a single ripple of frustration or panic to disrupt her calm tone. After all, she needed the Wick cousins much more than they required her. She could not run a coffeehouse herself. “I do not need to live in high style.” Just not in a gilt prison.

And Charlotte wanted more than financial security. If she was to unearth evidence of Hawley’s perfidy and stop the wedding, this was her best chance, really her only chance, to do it.

“Silly ol’ bird.” The dreadful squawk seemed to bounce off the spartan interior as a lime-green parrot flapped into the room from a doorway Charlotte had overlooked. The palpable disdain in the creature’s voice was matched by the pure malevolence in its single eye. Staring at her the entire time, it landed on Hannah’s shoulder.

Normally, Charlotte would have laughed at the absurdity of a glorified bag of feathers calling her foolish. She didn’t, due to a couple reasons.

For one, the avian creature had twisted its head so dramatically that its beak now pointed toward the timbered ceiling. It made for a rather intimidating stance, especially coupled with the dastardly gleam in its amber iris. The winged beast seemed more than capable of not only taking offense but enacting revenge.

Even more salient, however, Charlotte half feared that she agreed with the parrot’s harsh assessment. Her plan to save herself and learn Viscount Hawley’s secrets was flimsy at best… dangerous at worst. It was a half-formed scheme built on unrealized dreams and desperation.

“I believe our pet Pan said it very aptly.” Sophia Wick clasped her elegant fingers together. “Any business started as a ploy to escape an aristocratic marriage is doomed to fail.”

Even more doubts began to press upon Charlotte’s precious bubble of hope, threatening to puncture it entirely this time. But she earnestly clung to her optimism and to her comp. . .