Don't Look Back

Chapter 54

Charlotte paced a moment as the men left.

"What if he is dead Susan?" Charlotte asked feeling on the edge herself.

Susan shook her head. "Oh hush now. I think this is all part of your Mr. Parker's plan."

Allyson still stood by confused.

"Pardon me, but does anyone wish to perhaps tell me what I stumbled in on?" she asked.

Both women with a heaving sigh as they turned to look at the younger woman in their midst who had barged in most indelicately.

"Lord Babington, Mr. Crowe, and Sir Radmore came to bring troubling news to Charlotte of Mr. Sidney Parker." Lady Susan explained. "But I think we should not overreact." she composed herself.

"Overreact!" Charlotte cried out. "Susan!"

Lady Susan's shoulders drooped. "I know, I know... It does seem quite dire. Even if it is a ruse, what a scandal." she put her hands together and clasped them tightly. "And good heavens, this news will be upon the street before the morning breaks... If it isn't already."

Turning Charlotte stopped at the threshold. "I don't know what to do," she whispered to herself.

Allyson was the one to step forward now. "Charlotte," she whispered. "Mr. Parker entrusted Flora to you."

Her voice broke across Charlotte's mind like crashing waves.

"You need to do what he asked of you." her sister's voice ghosted through her turning mind as she remembered being entrusted to watch Georgiana and how poorly that had turned out.

Nodding she took her sister's hand.

"You are right," she whispered, tears filling her eyes. "I must focus on that and hope all is well with him for her sake and not my own."

Lady Susan nodded and went to Charlotte putting her hands on her shoulders comfortingly. "Why don't you go on up to bed and rest. Have a good cry, and I will send up three sherry's to help you sleep." she smiled with a maternal squeeze.

Nodding Charlotte wiped her eyes. "I would, but I should focus on Flora. I will go fetch my pelisse and bonnet. Perhaps I can find her and the nurse nearby."

As she left Lady Susan turned to look at Allyson.

"So...Mr. Crowe has crawled under your skin, as you have him?" she winked.

Allyson frowned. "That vile man?" she rolled her eyes. "He is always unpleasant."

Lady Susan smiled. "I recall another man acting in far more deplorable ways, but yet was head over heels for the woman he mistreated so much. It is not the way a gentleman should act, but it is often the way of men who had a poor masculine role model and absent or departed mothers."
"You think Mr. Crowe is interested in me?" Allyson looked agog at Lady Susan.

Susan smiled. "Well why not, you are lovely and desirable as your sister was at your age and still is. The man is besotted and acts a fool because you are obviously being courted by Mr. Stringer."

Allyson frowned and bit her lip in thought. "I had not thought... No, I do not believe it," she whispered.

Lady Susan shrugged. "What do I know, I possibly sent a man to his death in his efforts to separate from his wife."

——

Outside the cool breeze whipped against her face and she could not find flora upon the sands, so she went in search within the streets of the growing town still busy in the building despite the activity of the season.