Charlotte rubbed her tired eyes and gazed across yet another breakfast room in yet another inn. Leeds. Now they were in Leeds.

Every day brought them inexorably closer to London. Closer to the past she was desperate to forget. Closer to Anthony spending the rest of his future in debtors’ gaol.

She would rather never return at all. She had no fond memories of England. Beau Brummell had fled to France to escape his creditors. To Charlotte, life in France didn’t sound half bad. Anthony could avoid prison and she could avoid everyone who knew her past. They could present themselves as a perfectly respectable country couple. With no particular pretensions to grandeur and nary a sordid scandal in their completely fictional history.

To her, it sounded like heaven. But to Anthony, hell.

He had family in London. Friends all over England. People who cared about him, who respected him, who missed him. How lucky he was! If that were Charlotte’s life, she would never leave. So how could she expect Anthony to?

“Mrs. Fairfax?” came a breathless voice from beside the breakfast table.

Charlotte glanced up and coaxed her weary face to smile at the elderly widow who’d spent the previous evening pouring her fears out to Charlotte over several cups of tea.

“How do you do this morning, Mrs. Rowden?” she asked. “Is something amiss?”

“Quite the opposite.” Mrs. Rowden clasped her liver-spotted hands together and beamed at Charlotte. “Thank you so much for allowing me to bend your ear last night. Your advice was right on the mark. Before I retired for the night, I sent my son a letter informing him of my presence.”

This time, Charlotte’s smile was genuine. “I am so pleased to hear it. Uncertainty is one of the worst emotions to suffer. You’ve taken action, and soon you’ll know. I do hope he accepts your apology.”

“As do I.” Mrs. Rowden wrung her hands. “Oh, how I’d love to meet my grandchildren. How big they must be by now!”

After chatting with Mrs. Rowden, Charlotte left the breakfast room and returned to her bedchamber to pack the valises.

Anthony had been out somewhere since well before dawn, hoping to earn a few coins doing this or that. She couldn’t help but be proud of his efforts. Despite it all.

So far, he’d managed to earn more than enough to cover their travel expenses, but even with the contents of the purses they’d won in Scotland, their funds were meager compared to the size of his debt.

Yet he refused to give up.

It was incomprehensible. Noble. She hated that it was destined to fail. Hated that she couldn’t stop herself from caring far too much.

She had to struggle to keep her shield intact so that she would not be destroyed if she lost him. He was the one person who unfailingly treated her as if she mattered. No matter how determinedly she reinforced her defenses, the walls crumbled a bit more every day. With him, happiness was no longer an illusion. He made her believe it was within her grasp… if only they could be assured of a future together.

She was just latching her trunk when a key turned in the door.

Anthony stepped into the room.

She grinned at him like a smitten halfwit. She couldn’t help herself.

His chestnut hair was damp with sweat. His fancy clothes badly wrinkled. But the look of peace, of satisfaction, on his exhausted countenance as he handed her a trio of gold sovereigns made him as beautiful as an angel.

“How was it?” she asked.

“Wonderful,” he answered without hesitation.

Her lips twitched. Wonderful was his reply every time she inquired. After a lifetime of living inside the hopelessness of her own mind, his boundless positivity was fast becoming one of her favorite traits.

Nothing bothered him for long. Not his creditors, not jarring hackney rides, not grass stains on expensive breeches. Not even the ignominy of having a light-skirt’s illegitimate child for a wife.

When she was with him, sometimes she forgot her past altogether.

He dipped a handkerchief in the basin and blotted his forehead. “Do I have time to ring for a bath? What time did you reserve a hack?”

“I have already summoned a bath. The hackney will arrive within the hour.”

His grateful expression filled her with warmth. She enjoyed doing her part. They had to make the most of however much time they would have together.

A knock on the door indicated the innkeeper had noted Anthony’s return and had sent servants with a tub and steaming water. They set up the bath on the opposite side of a folding screen and assisted Anthony with a shave and the rest of his toilette.

Not for the first time, Charlotte was grateful for the presence of servants. The thought of her handsome husband nude… No. She would not think of such things. Not yet. If she allowed herself to take even a step down that path, losing him to Marshalsea prison would rip her soul to shreds.

Life had taken too much from her already for her to willingly let Fate rip a lover from her, too. Especially if it meant losing Anthony.

“I saw you holding court in the common area last night,” he called from the other side of the privacy screen. “Have you given more thought to taking their money?”

She winced at the indiscretion. Servants were still in the room. Listening.

“Charging for your time, I mean,” Anthony clarified.

She knew what he meant. And now, so did the footmen freshening his bathwater. Charlotte sighed. She doubted Anthony even registered their presence. She, on the other hand, knew all too well what it was like to be invisible. For everyone’s sake, private matters were best left private.

“Can we discuss this later?” she called back.

“If you’re worried about trade not being good ton,” he continued blithely, “you’re not ton and you never will be. Try to be practical.”

She gritted her teeth. His honest words stung. She knew she would never be high society. She just wanted to be a member of regular society. To not give anyone any other reasons to look down their noses at her and judge her. Her nails bit into her palms. Even the footmen tending to Anthony’s bathwater now knew not to mistake her for someone respectable.

Rather than open her heart in front of servants feigning deafness to the one-sided conversation, Charlotte threw herself diagonally across the mattress and closed her eyes to calm the familiar wave of embarrassment and powerlessness. Deep breath in. Slowly let it out. She blocked out Anthony’s opinions and the sound of bathwater and instead concentrated on relaxing her toes inside her tightly laced half-boots. Then her ankles. Then her legs.

She imagined herself floating weightless as a cloud as each section of her body relaxed into nothingness. Her shoulders. Her neck. Now even her cares could slip away one by one, until all that was left was peace.

When she opened her eyes, the bath and the servants were gone and Anthony was at the mirror, folding his neck cloth.

He glanced at her in the looking glass. “Were you asleep?”

“No.” She sat up and re-pinned a stray hair. “I just… turned off my senses for a bit. It helps when I need to relax. Or escape.”

His forehead creased. “Turned off your senses? Which one? Sight?”

She shrugged. “Sight, sound, sensation. All of them.”

He turned to stare at her. “You can do that?”

She set down her pins. He was right. She would never blend with society. She and the beau monde could never view their world through the same eyes.

“When I was young, my mother taught me to do it.” It was not a memory she enjoyed revisiting. “At first, I thought she invented the technique to keep me quiet and calm while she entertained her… guests. Sometimes there were sounds no mother would wish her daughter to overhear.”

Anthony paled. His voice softened. “And then?”

“Then one day, I was old enough to understand what the sounds meant. That some of my mother’s lovers treated her like a duchess while others… did not.” Her voice wobbled as she tried to staunch the memories. It didn’t work. “I realized the relaxation technique was a strategy she used to survive. When she had no choice but to close off her emotions, her hearing, her sensation, and try to live through another night. Another hour.”

Anthony’s expression was horrified.

To Charlotte, it was just life. One learned to live with the horror. Somehow.

“Her relaxation technique was the most helpful gift she ever gave me.” She gave a crooked smile despite the lump in her throat. “Closing myself off has often been the one thing that has helped me survive.”

He rushed to the bed and pulled her into his arms. He stroked her hair as he held her close. “You don’t have to shut yourself off anymore. Now you have me. We’ll fight the world together.”

If only that were true. Her eyes pricked. She did not have him. He was the reason she’d needed to retreat inward.

She didn’t relax into the warmth of his embrace. He would be gone in little over a week. His supportive presence was ephemeral, his affection a temporary salve to a lifetime of wounds.

The idea of him—the intoxicating fantasy of being loved, or even cared about, now and forever—was the precise lie she needed to protect her scarred heart against. These days in his company had been the closest to “normal” life she’d ever experienced. She longed to believe it could last. But there was no denying the truth. They had less than a week left.

A knock sounded upon the door. “Mrs. Fairfax? Your hackney is here.”

Grateful for the interruption, she sprang out of Anthony’s arms to open the door. A pair of footmen lifted their luggage and hefted it out to the street.

Charlotte hurried to follow.

Anthony reached her side in an instant. He placed her hand on his arm, but asked no further questions. Made no hopeful promises. Perhaps he didn’t have any.

Or perhaps he’d realized some truths were better left unspoken.

As they crossed the common area toward the exit, footsteps rushed up from behind them and a strong hand nearly jerked Charlotte’s arm from its socket. She spun about in alarm.

A wild-eyed Mrs. Rowden stood before her, tears streaming down her face.

“Mrs. Fairfax… Oh, Mrs. Fairfax.” The widow swiped at her cheeks.

Charlotte’s heart twisted. The poor woman must have received terrible news. But no matter what the outcome, Charlotte’s advice had been sound. Once Mrs. Rowden knew where she stood with her family, she could finally move on. “Your son responded to your letter?”

“Tea,” she whispered, as if that single syllable held all the power of the universe. Her breaths hitched. “He’s invited me for tea, this very afternoon. It’s not an invitation to stay overnight, much less to spend a few weeks with them—but it is more than I dreamed. My grandchildren will be there. I’ll finally get to meet them.”

Joy coursed through Charlotte’s tense muscles. “That is marvelous. I was worried about you. I’m glad we ran into each other again so that you could let me know.”

“I don’t just want to tell you. I want to thank you.” Mrs. Rowden fumbled for her reticule and thrust the banknotes therein into Charlotte’s hand. “Money doesn’t begin to repay your kindness. You’ve given me my life back. You’ve given me my son’s life, and my grandchildren’s lives. Bless you, child. I will never be able to thank you enough.”

“I…” Words failed her.

“Thank you again.” Mrs. Rowden gave Charlotte a warm embrace. “I wish you Godspeed.”

Charlotte’s head was topsy-turvy as the older woman rushed off to prepare herself for her tea. Mrs. Rowden credited Charlotte with reuniting her family. And had hugged her in thanks. In front of witnesses!

“That was incredible,” she mouthed as Anthony helped her into the coach and climbed in beside her. She still couldn’t quite comprehend what had just happened.

He rescued the banknotes from her trembling fingers.

“I’ll be damned,” he breathed in obvious shock. “She gave you twenty pounds!”

Charlotte hadn’t even thought of the money. She was still floating at the experience of being seen. Remembered. Appreciated. Mrs. Rowden had not just sung Charlotte’s praises—she’d acknowledged her publicly, in front of everyone. She’d treated Charlotte like an equal.

“Twenty pounds,” Anthony repeated, his wide eyes stunned. “For one piece of advice.”

His words punctured Charlotte’s fog of pleasure. She seized the notes from his hand to count them herself.

Eighteen… nineteen… twenty. Her mouth fell open. She clutched the bills to her chest. Mrs. Rowden had given her twenty pounds for helping her reunite with her son.

As the jarvey set the hack in motion, Charlotte stared out the window in a state of unreality. Her mind bubbled with dizzy joy. Twenty pounds was as much as Anthony could earn doing odd tasks for an entire week. He was right. Counseling wealthy people was more than profitable. It was astonishing. Hope wriggled into her heart.

What if she could pay off Anthony’s debt?

He didn’t want her money, said his vowels were his responsibility—plus their current finances couldn’t come close to resolving the matter—but what if she could? Perhaps not today, perhaps not in a fortnight, but even if the creditors took him away… she might still get him back.

Then, once he had his freedom, she could talk him into staying as far away from London as possible.