The Lady of Charlotte, Part 1

In which we meet Charlotte...

Good morrow, fair readers! I hope you are well, and I offer my thanks to you for being a paid subscriber!

What follows is the first of ten scenes in The Lady of Charlotte—my rom com novelette about Charlotte Caruthers, a somewhat scatterbrained but well-meaning experimental archaeologist at a tourist trap in the Ozarks.

PLEASE NOTE: while I have edited this on my own, I haven’t had any sort of professional help or critique partner help! I know it’s not perfect (far from it). It’s also very not on brand for me. But I had fun when I wrote it last year, and I hope you have fun reading it.

Now scroll down to dive in, and stay tuned for the next scene arriving tomorrow!

Photo by Ben Howells on Unsplash

Chapter One

Charlotte Caruthers should have seen it coming.

Everything had been going just a little too smoothly lately. Sure, the medieval mill that was the entire basis of her professional tenure here at Ozark Medieval Castle wasn’t as far along as it needed to be, and sure, she was getting frazzled around the edges trying to navigate her nearly empty bank account. But if life were a line graph, hers would definitely have been on the upward trend.

She loved working at this tourist trap slash archaeological experiment, where they were building a Proper Castle using only medieval tools and methods in backwoods Missouri. She loved spending her time at the nearly-finished water mill, gradually assembling it plank by plank. And she loved-loved-loved getting to see the wide-eyed tourists amble by each day, as enraptured by the past as she was (weather permitting, of course).

It only made sense, then, that something had to go awry in Charlotte’s slice of thirteenth century heaven. That was just how the universe operated.

And in this instance, that something was named Harry Monroe. Her cheating, good for nothing, fabulously wealthy, fabulously smart, and fabulously handsome ex-fiancé.

In hindsight, it only made sense. If the crew from Labouré were coming here, then there was a chance Harry would be coming with them. She had assumed not since he had made it clear back in France that he missed London and badly wanted to go home. And she had assumed not because when people had mentioned the names of future arrivals, his had never popped up. Plus, only two of the rooms in the castle were ready to be rendered—i.e. painted with authentically crafted medieval paint. So Charlotte had assumed the Ozark team would wait until more rooms were ready before bringing over the renderers like Harry.

But Charlotte was wrong, and now Harry was here. At the Ozark Medieval Castle, all ready to roll up his sleeves and paint ye olde castle walls white and clean.

She suppose she should be grateful she’d at least had a little warning. One of the site administrators had mentioned a hot blond guy who was coming to renter? re-ander? reddit? the castle interiors. Then an hour after that, while in the kitchen gathering a heaping salad as well as the fresh bread the on-site cook made each day, Charlotte had heard a different administrator shout to the Master Mason, Etienne, “Monroe is here!”

Monroe. Hot blond guy who “reddits.” Harry.