The Winter Wallflower: Revenge of the Wallflowers, #40

PROLOGUE

"Do you have any idea what you’ve done? You have ruined us all."

Charlotte Forrester gripped hold of the banister and peered over the staircase into the foyer below. She shivered in the cold night air and wished she’d taken the time to don slippers, but the commotion that had awoken her had sent her flying from her rooms without thought of pausing.  

Now she stood here, wide-eyed and scared while her father, who usually barely spoke to them all, bellowed loud enough to rock the chandelier above him; her mother wailed and wept and hung from their Father as though she couldn’t stand on her own, two feet.  

And across from them was Jane. Her older sister and best friend, chin tilted upward in its usual, stubborn jut, a stranger by her side.  

Jane! Ignoring the fact that she was obviously interrupting something monumental, Charlotte flew down the stairs and threw herself into her sister’s arms. It had been weeks since she’d seen her older sister. Charlotte had woken up one morning, and Jane was just gone, just like that.  

As it transpired, she had left a note which had caused an absolute uproar. A note that Charlotte had been absolutely forbidden from reading. Naturally, she’d gone looking anyway, but the note hadn’t been anywhere she could find.  

But now, here she was. She’d reappeared and didn’t look hurt or harmed in any way.  

Jane wrapped her arms around Charlotte’s shorter frame for a brief moment before she Charlotte was rather violently pulled back. Get back to your rooms, Charlotte. Now.  

But why? she asked in response to her father’s demand. What has happened?  

Charlotte. Jane’s attempt at speaking was cut off by Mama’s wail of distress. "What has happened? She has ruined her life, and worst of all, she has ruined yours. Your debut Season. Your chance of a good match? All gone. Destroyed."  

Charlotte’s stomach swooped at Mama’s words. Her Come Out was all planned. A modiste all the way in London was already working on her gowns. She’d been practicing with her fan for weeks. She knew every dance. Every social cue. She was so prepared, and she couldn’t understand how Jane could have ruined it. Why Jane would have ruined it.  

I’m sorry, Lottie. For the first time since Charlotte had stumbled upon this dreadful scene, Jane’s shoulders slumped, and her eyes, so much brighter than Charlotte’s deep, dark brown, filled with tears. I never meant for this to hurt you.   

For what to hurt me? Charlotte asked insistently. Her eyes darted to the young man to whom anyone had yet to speak. He was tall and handsome and had a concerned, slightly volatile look stamped on his face. Well-dressed but not as fine as a peer or gentleman of the ton. And more importantly, she wasn’t Sir Gerald, to whom she was engaged.  

Lottie, I – I –  

She ran away to Gretna, their mother spat. She ran away and got herself pregnant and married to a nobody. And good society will never welcome us into their homes again.  

CHAPTER ONE

Charlotte sat and wondered how these rooms seemed to grow unbearably stuffy even with the chill outside and less than half of the usual attendees.  

Christmas in Town was by no means as grand an affair, even less so when she was a social pariah. Despite the last few years of attending gatherings and being the cut direct, not receiving vouchers to Almack’s despite Mama’s desperation for them, receiving no callers and being received in no drawing rooms, her poor mother still insisted on dragging her to every conceivable social event, few though they may be.  

In truth, things had improved greatly since Jane’s scandal broke that dreadful spring. They had gone from absolute outcasts who’d been shunned by everyone they’d ever known to being thrown a sympathy invitation to the occasional soiree or party.  

This, she had found over time, tended to be doubly true during winter, when most of the Quality had returned to their country seats. Charlotte desperately wished to do to the same. She was so much more comfortable in the manor house they’d hidden in when they’d become persona non-grate among the ton.  

But a year after Jane had absconded and broken her engagement with the baron, a duke’s daughter had married a reverend and had set the ton on its head so much that Mama had felt it safe to risk coming back to London. She’d been both right and wrong. Right, because the duke’s daughter had caused enough of a kerfuffle to make it safe for them to return. Wrong because returning was not the same as being welcomed. And Mama was still unable to come to terms with the very clear, very uncomfortable difference.  

Which was why Charlotte was dragged along to every single event Mama managed to scrounge an invitation to. No matter how dull. No matter how boring. If someone took pity, or Mama called in a favor from years gone by, and a card was delivered, Charlotte would be in attendance.  

That’s why she found herself sitting her against the wall, being ignored by almost everyone, and wishing that she’d flouted Mama’s wishes and joined Jane and her husband for the winter when offered.  

Mama was in an odd state of delusion. She really seemed to think that if Charlotte just showed up to enough of these embarrassing events, she’d land herself a husband of Quality and all would be forgiven. The Tinsley name would be restored, and people would pardon Jane for having the unmitigated audacity to marry a man she loved.  

To be fair to Mama, though, there was a certain method to her madness. For example, people actually greeted Charlotte now. Stiffly and not exactly in a friendly manner, but they almost acknowledged her existence. That was a definite improvement on how things had been last year.  

She wasn’t exactly welcomed into the ladies’ little cozes, and no gentlemen called with hot-house bouquets and requests to court her. But she was here. And that would have to do. Besides, being ignored was far superior to what would inevitably happen later in the evening when the gentlemen began to get foxed. They would seek her out, deciding that because she was an unwanted wallflower, one of few since Town wasn’t overflowing as it was in the Season, that she was free to be used and insulted. They would say inappropriate things and try to coax her away. They would offer her carte blanche and tell her she was far too pretty not to be enjoyed.  

Most of the time, she was able to send them off with a few well-placed insults. A time or two, it took a good stomp to the foot. Once, she’d had to upend a glass of punch on a fellow. Mama had been furious, worried the incident would set them back. Charlotte had hoped it would. Alas, since people usually tried to ignore her existence, nobody had seen her, and their family’s reputation was free to limp on and try to live another day.  

It was all utterly tiresome. And because it was so tiresome, Charlotte had developed her own methods of entertainment. She allowed herself an infinitesimal, secret smile as she remembered Mrs. Pottering’s musicale last month when she’d first started her schemes, when two not-so-pleasant young ladies had blatantly talked ill of her, sniggering behind their fans and accidentally-on-purpose standing on her gown. So, when the opportunity arose, she’d escaped into Mrs. Pottering’s Garden. Though the spring and summer months were better for insects,