Those days were behind her. Now she no longer slaved away to earn coin to help support her family. With that burden lifted, she actually enjoyed fashion again. Sewing it. Wearing it. She could once again pick up a needle and thread without a bone-weary sigh. She could study the fashion plates and it no longer felt like a chore, like something she must do in order to stay abreast of the current trends.
“What are you accusing me of, Charlotte?” Nora asked indignantly.
“There was something in that cordial last night!” She stabbed a finger toward her younger sister.
“Well, obviously there was something in it,” Nora replied smoothly. She was never rattled. Many a time, Charlotte had lost her temper with her and Nora weathered it all with equanimity. “I wasn’t giving you a dose of tea.”
“Oh! Don’t be wippish with me. This is very serious! There was something . . . foul in the draught . . .”
Nora looked her up and down. “Why are you so distressed? Have a seat. Clearly you are well today. Your color is exceedingly fine. You don’t look ill. You didn’t die. What is amiss, love?”
“What is amiss?” she echoed almost shrilly and then she did something totally out of character. She laughed.
She laughed uproariously, holding her sides until they ached.
Nora’s eyes widened. “Dear God. You’ve gone mad.”
Suddenly Marian strode into the room. She stopped and looked back and forth between them.
Nora waved at Charlotte helplessly. “She’s gone mad.”
Marian tsked and shook her head. “I can hear you two down the hall. Why are you bickering? We’re going to be late for church. Can you not choose another time for one of your arguments?”
Nora waved her hand at Charlotte as though that was explanation enough.
Charlotte shook her head, trying to regain her composure, but she couldn’t seem to stop the absurd laughter.
“Talk to her,” Nora encouraged. “The girl is daft. Look at her, would you? Listen to her!”
Frowning in concern, Marian turned on Charlotte. “Char, are you well?”
Charlotte shook her head wildly. “No,” she got out between gasps of mad laughter. “No. I am not well. I am not fine at all, thank you for asking.” She stabbed another finger at her younger sister. “This idiot poisoned me with an aphrodisiac last night.”
There. She said it. It was out.
Aphrodisiac.
The word had been swimming in her head ever since she’d first scrambled off Kingston in the library. Ever since she’d taken her pleasure of him without so much of a “by your leave.”
She was a well-read individual. True, perhaps a little sheltered and lacking in worldliness. And yet she knew what an aphrodisiac was. Up until last night she had thought it entirely fiction. A thing of lore. An invention of fantastical works. Something one would read about in a Shakespearean play.
Not real. Not possible.
Except it was.
It was possible.
She knew because she had experienced it.
There was no other explanation for her behavior. It wasn’t in Charlotte to accost a strange man and seduce him. The things she had done to him were not even in her knowledge. Her actions had been led by pure primal instinct.
The silence stretched on forever at her declaration until Marian finally found her voice. “Charlotte.” She said her name slowly as though speaking to someone slow to comprehend. “Are you still feeling unwell?”
She and her sisters exchanged looks—as though she were some poor demented creature—and that only infuriated her.
“I am not ill,” she said in her steadiest voice. “I am of sound mind.” Now she was at least.
Marian released an uneasy laugh. “Yes, well then. There is no such thing as an aphrodisiac, my dear. That’s just absurd. Certainly you know that.”
Charlotte nodded. “Indeed. I would have thought the same thing until last night.”
“Last night?” Nora’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What happened? We left you asleep in bed.”
Marian’s eyes widened. “What could have happened to you . . . in your bedchamber . . . in your bed?” She looked faintly ill as her words penetrated. Evidently her mind was drifting through terrible scenarios.
“Indeed. You left me sleeping in bed. And then I woke up,” she snapped, heat firing her body as she recalled waking up and all that had transpired after that. “My body was in a rage.”
“A rage?” Marian echoed, her expression wary.
“Because of the aphrodisiac Nora gave me. I could not sleep.”
“Stop calling it that,” Marian bit out, her composure slipping. She was clearly exasperated. “It’s mad. Is it not, Nora? You did not give her anything that could have done such a thing. It’s impossible. Tell her so.”
Nora winced and shrugged. “I cannot. As I mentioned, the tonic wasn’t exactly the same one I usually administer to her, so there was no way of knowing how this combination of ingredients might affect her.”
Charlotte nodded, satisfied Nora was at least not denying her assertion that the tonic functioned as an aphrodisiac.
“Well.” Charlotte tossed her hands in the air and spoke with great sarcasm. “We know now. Now we know how it might affect me.”
Myriad emotions flickered across Marian’s face. “Let me understand this. You said you woke because of the . . . tonic?” Marian stared at her expectantly, clearly unable to name the tonic for what it was—what Charlotte alleged it to be.
Charlotte had no such compunction.
“Yes. The aphrodisiac woke me. I was in . . . agony. I left the room to see Nora.” She nodded to her sister. “I thought if anyone could help me it would be the person who poisoned me in the first place.”
Nora rolled her eyes at her choice of words.
“Why do you think this tonic was an . . . aphrodisiac?” Marian spit out the final word as though it were something foul on her tongue.
And that vexed Charlotte. Why should it be so difficult for Marian to say it? To utter the mere word? Charlotte was the one who had endured it. Who had gone through the anguish of it and compromised herself with Kingston. Multiple times.
Charlotte angled her head sharply. “Oh, I am fairly certain. For no other reason would I have ravished your husband’s brother in the corridor last night.”
Silence met her declaration. The loud kind of silence one could actually hear.
Marian cleared her throat. “Nathaniel’s stepbrother? Kingston?”
Could I be talking about anyone else? She bit back the sarcastic reply and instead nodded.
“Oh, he’s a handsome chap,” Nora blurted. “Bit of a rogue, from what I understand.” Her eyes danced as though this was clearly an enhancement of his character and not a detraction.
“Nora!” Marian reprimanded. “That’s neither here nor there.”
Nora twisted one shoulder up in a shrug. “I think it’s a little bit . . . here.”
Marian ignored Nora and continued, “And when you say ravished . . .”
Charlotte expelled a breath. “I launched myself at him and used him to . . .” This part she did not even know how to explain. The words were not even in her sphere of knowledge. Her face burned in mortification.