The Coveted Countess

Chapter 5

"Growth in love comes from a place of absence, where the imagination is left to it's own devices and creates you to be much more then reality would ever allow." Jamie Weise

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Chapter Five

Charlotte had wanted to thank Nate properly. Regardless of what had happened in the past, he'd still saved her life with his quick thinking. Without him, she might've suffocated.

"Not that I'm unhappy," Emmett said as he pushed the wooden cricket stumps into the green. "But I find it interesting that you would be the one to invite Nate for lunch and a cricket match." Once the three stumps were in the ground, he placed the bale on top.

"Would you be quiet?" Bess snapped, comically slapping her husband's chest. "If she wants Nate and Maggie as guests then she shall have them."

Charlotte placed her hands on her hips, now free from any restricting corset, and stared at her. "I know what you're doing, I hope you realise." Bess' interferences had suddenly all made sense. She had been delaying Charlotte while Nate was returning. Why he was returning, she still did not know. Perhaps he'd tired himself of America? Regardless, Bess was trying to stall her wedding and reunite her and Nate. But there was nothing really to reunite. All they'd had together were a few stolen moments and some shameless flirtation. He'd never promised her anything. He'd never kissed her, nor touched her. He'd just called her a child and dismissed her.

"What am I doing?" she asked innocently.

"Yes, what are you doing?" Emmett questioned.

"I have a fiancé if you haven't forgotten, Elizabeth," Charlotte reminded her icily. "My silly obsession with Nathaniel Swift is over. Eric can give me a life." He could give her a wonderful life. He had a wonderful home in London and a glittering circle of friends. She'd never have to think about Nate again with all of those distractions.

"There, you see," Emmett said to Bess. "They can just be good friends now. I finally have my brother back. I don't want any mention of the goings on two years ago."

Of course he didn't. It was his fault. Charlotte reminded herself not to be bitter. It had taken Marie twenty years to let go of her bitterness. Even now she could still be a little moody. She could be pleasant.

"Fine," Bess agreed. "Maggie is awfully cute, isn't she?" she said, changing the subject. "I'd had no idea he'd taken in a child. He'd never mentioned her in his letters."

Maggie was indeed a very pretty girl. "She is." Charlotte nodded. "She'll add some much-needed entertainment to some of the bland parties we attend when she's older." There were some, Charlotte knew, who would ridicule Maggie. People didn't like, nor understand, people who were different from them. It was ignorance. She just hoped that Maggie's skin was thick enough to ignore it.

"Do you suppose he knew her mother?" Emmett asked.

Charlotte pursed her lips at the mention of something that had crossed her mind several times. Had Nate been intimate with Maggie's mother?

"Emmett," hushed Bess.

"No, it's something I've thought also. Her mother must have been exceptionally beautiful to produce a girl like Maggie," Charlotte replied. One would not find a woman with such a skin tone as Maggie's in England. She had to have some sort of exotic background. Perhaps Spanish or South American?

Bess looked at Charlotte apologetically. "Come now. Let's go inside and make sure everything is set for luncheon. I do hope Maggie is pleased with our spread. Thank the Lord Mrs Weston had those recipes."