Gentlemen Prefer Scandal - Chapter 5

Dearest Charlotte,

So much has happened since I last wrote to you.

But first—I am not telling tales. In your previous letter, you expressed suspicion at the honesty of my report, which I suppose you are right to do. Before this month, the most exciting thing I ever did was waltz with a princess in Paris, and I didn’t even know she was a princess until the dance had long finished. I must seem so unlike myself to you.

Of course, I do embellish some of the details. What good storyteller doesn’t? I wrote in my journal that I slept in a barn, but really it was more of a stable, or a carriage house, a bit less rustic but no less uncomfortable.

I was led there by a mysterious hooded figure who emerged from the woods just as Rupert and I were about to be captured by henchmen. I don’t know if they meant us any harm—most likely they just meant to frighten us, to stop us from looking into the Glyde fortune any longer. But I was grateful for the person who pulled us into the dark forest and led us to an old property that hasn’t been occupied since last season.

They bent to light a small lantern. And then they wheeled around to face us and I got my first good look at their face.

Rupert with long hair.

Almost.

But the face was too narrow, and the frame too slender.

By the looks of the stable, she’d been staying there for at least a few days.

I won’t hold you in suspense any longer. The woman was Sarah, Rupert’s half-sister!

Relief spread across Rupert’s face to see her unharmed. He was worse off from his tumble out of the carriage—the henchmen dug a trench, Charlotte!

We sat beside each other atop plush bales of hay, shimmering gold in the lantern light. Every movement made me wince. Even in repose, my entire right side ached with bruising, and the deep scratches in both hands burned.

I will try now to write out what Sarah said, to the best of my recollection:

‘The elder Mr Glyde was a kind man. In his later years, he wasn’t…fully there, really, but he was kind as ever. He was gentle, and lonely. He always hoped Percival would return someday, and in the last year, he acted as though his son were just in the other room. It’s a sad story and it’s made even sadder by this…this imposter, who is trying to take a home that does not belong to him. I know he’s a fraud. I just know.’

I asked Sarah how she knows, and there are plenty of details—none of them provable, unfortunately. She says the old man used to talk about his son’s dark brown eyes, but the current Percival has a hazel pair. The father and son shared a love of reading and chess, but in the days Sarah still worked at the manor, she didn’t see the jmposter engage in these activities once. Everything she noticed was discounted by the people she told—Lord Glyde’s memory was failing, they told her. Percival is different now. Disaster and grief can change a man.

But Sarah could feel deep in her gut that this was wrong, all wrong. Rupert trusts Sarah, and that makes me trust her too.

‘But why did they come for you?’ Rupert asked his sister.

She didn’t know what he was talking about. Her suspicions alone had driven her to leave London—to come out to the Glyde property and spend the week spying on the imposter. Her eyes widened when we told her of the mess that had been made of her rooms. She couldn’t think why a servant would be important enough to come looking for.

There was only one explanation: Sarah was close to uncovering their wretched scheme.

My breath rose like smoke in the icy evening air. They would still be looking for her. And now they were looking for us too.

‘What about the men who hired you?’ I asked.

You may remember from my first letter on this matter that Rupert was hired by a group of men to help them solve the case. Surely they could help keep Sarah safe, if she was helping Rupert.

But no, dear Charlotte, they could not keep Sarah safe. It turns out there is no group of patrons at all, and no money funding this operation. I knew something was awry when Sarah stared at me blankly, when Rupert—usually so talkative—could only look sheepishly at the ground.

I wanted to be cross, I really did. He lied to me—but he barely knew me then. Why wouldn’t he lie? I had yet to prove myself trustworthy, and by making his cause seem more legitimate, he was more likely to win me over.

‘Well,’ I said, a little helplessly, ‘what do we do? Is there any way to prove any of this?’

‘There’s one,’ Sarah said. ‘A ledger-book. Mr James uses it to record all his income and all his expenses, licit or otherwise.’ It’s somewhere in the house, and Sarah knows the place inside and out—given enough time, she could probably find it. That’s why she’s been hiding out near the manor, but she hasn’t had a chance to sneak in yet.

Sarah struck the bale beneath her and sighed, frustrated. ‘It’s either that or force a confession. I can think of nothing else.’

Oh, Charlotte, I can practically hear what you’d say to me now. And?? You’d look at me with those expectant eyes, and you’d hold me firm in your gaze until I confessed what happened next. You never were one for long and winding stories—you just want to know how it ends.

Well, Charlotte, I know how this story is going to end: soon I shall be safe and comfortable in my old life, the case solved and the adventure behind me. I will have proved I am capable of being exciting, and I will embrace a life of quiet solitude. You will roll your eyes at this, I’m sure, but this story has not reached its ending quite yet.

For one thing, when the time comes, I’m not sure how I will get Rupert out of my mind. Back in the carriage house he was lying on a woolen blanket, padded by a thick pile of hay. Sarah went to fetch some water from God knows where, and I lay beside him, feeling his forehead and searching his body for bruises.

I had only known him, until this moment, as strong and confident, reliant on himself and ready to take on whatever the world threw at him. I had only known the heave of his laughing chest, the quick bounce in his step, the restlessness of a body that would not stay still.

But he was so still that night, Charlotte. And it changed everything.

There was no magnetism to pull me in anymore, but I felt compelled to stay nonetheless. His malleable face, shifting between pain and exhaustion, had none of the handsome charm I was used to seeing. His body was dappled with sweat, sometimes trembling but mostly limp. He used the last of his energy to talk with Sarah—now he was lost to the ache of a throbbing headache and cracked skin and what may turn out to be a sprained ankle. I had to care for him. Comfort him. Open my heart to the helpless man in the hay.

‘I haven’t asked about you,’ he said after a while, after Sarah had returned with water and went to bed on the stable’s upper level. I was washing dirt and dried blood from his hair, gently, something I had never done to another person before. Something I never anticipated doing.

‘I’m quite alright,’ I said with a smile. He saw through it, instantly.

‘Hurt?’ He didn’t have many words in him that night, but I could see everything I needed to know in his eyes. He was concerned for me, genuinely so. He was frustrated too, that he was the one being taken care of. He hadn’t anticipated a moment like this any more than I had.

‘Mostly shaken up,’ I told him. ‘My heart…it was beating so fast. I feel nauseous, even still. I’m not hurt—not as badly as you are, at least. But I’m—’ I’m ashamed to say I wasn’t exactly honest here. Not as much as I could have been. I wanted to say frightened, Charlotte, but then he would know me. The real me. Fragile and quiet and easily spooked. He wouldn’t fancy me anymore, I just know it, and even though we’ll part ways soon, I wanted to bask in this temporary romance for as long as the night would let me.

‘I’m not sure what we do now,’ I pivoted.

I was growing tired, and I let myself sink into the wool beside him. Our shoulders touched, and he did not move away. He placed his head tenderly on my shoulder. Our fingers intertwined, and I felt the steady lift of his breathing. All the charisma had left his body, but I was just as enchanted as I had been before.

Caring for people is messy, Charlotte. I know you try to avoid it if you can—and I don’t say that in judgement. Your recent trysts with Imogen Barlow sound wonderful, just as they are. But what do you do when your casual lover lies injured in your arms, warm and vulnerable and wanting no one but you to hold them through the night? What do you do when the glamour of the moment has faded but your desire to stay hasn’t?

‘I’m so sorry,’ Rupert said softly. ‘I…I got you into all of this and—’

‘I got myself into this,’ I said, gingerly lifting a hand to his cheek. ‘And I’d do it again.’

He ran his fingers up my swollen arm. ‘But…why?’

We were face-to-face now, our exhalations meeting and mingling in swirling clouds. The light of the lantern danced in miniature over Rupert’s wide, golden eyes.

‘You’re a good man, Rupert Wynn,’ is what I decided to say. It was a simple truth.

He chuckled softly, then winced. ‘Sometimes I forget who that is, with all the parts I play.’

And then— Oh, Charlotte, you would be so proud. I always think of the best lines too late, but not this time.

‘Who do you want to be, tonight?’ My voice was sultry and earnest and nervous all at once.

But he remembered. ‘Yours,’ he whispered.

I leaned upward, and he leaned down, and our lips came together.

And I was freezing, and I was on fire. I was floating amidst the stars, and I was lying atop the hay, and I was home.

I wrapped my arms around his back, and I ran my fingers through his hair—just as I’d seen him do a hundred times.

And he cradled me in his warm, sturdy arms.

And I was his.

And he was mine.

We fell asleep like that, wrapped up in each other, utterly entangled.

The dent our bodies made in the hay only grew overnight, and by morning we were on the floor. My muscles will likely ache for days, but I do believe it was worth it.

Yours forever,

Nathaniel Fletcher