Every ‘should have’ weighed more heavily on his shoulders than the last. If only he had not followed her outside to the stables to begin with, let alone kissed her. It had been selfish of him to ambush her, and unkind. But he hadn’t been satisfied with his one glimpse of her across the crowded ballroom. He’d needed to see her up close. To smell her. To touch her. To taste her. To ensure the heavenly creature with the soft blonde curls and sad blue eyes was in fact flesh and blood; not an angel sent from above to torment him with her otherworldly beauty.
“I despise you for what you did to her,” Charlotte spat, jerking her chin so he could see the full extent of her wrath lurking in her tumultuous gaze. Hatred emanated from her in waves, crashing over him like a frothy surf against sharp rocks. “I want you to know that.”
“The feeling is mutual,” he said quietly.
Uncertainty softened the hard lines creasing Charlotte’s forehead as she studied him a moment longer. Her mouth parted in preparation to speak, but with a tiny humph of breath she turned on her heel and marched into the blue parlor without a word, the long train of her pelisse fluttering in her wake.
Mindful of all the vases and other delicate glass objects his mother had set about the parlor, Miles followed at once, boot heels echoing off the wooden floorboards. Fortunately, it seemed the worst of Charlotte’s temper had passed. Looking rather pensive, she took a slow turn around the room, lingering at the windows that overlooked the front of the estate. Dapples of sunlight played across her face, highlighting the faint smattering of freckles on her nose and the subtle hints of chestnut in her auburn hair.
As a child her entire face had been covered in freckles, Miles recalled, and her hair had been more red than auburn. She’d worn it in two braids that were always unraveling, the ribbons tattered and worn from catching on bushes and tree branches and any other matter of things.
It was funny that after so many years he should remember something so random and unimportant as a hair ribbon, and yet not entirely surprising. After all they’d grown up together; he, Dianna, and Charlotte.
The bond between Dianna and Charlotte had been strong for as long as he could recall, and in the months between May and August when the skies were a brilliant shade of blue and the air filled with the scent of honeysuckle, they’d been nigh on inseparable.
As a young boy with better things to do than entertain a couple of girls, Miles had done his best to avoid them, although sometimes it proved impossible. Staring at Charlotte’s back, he remembered another time her temper had run high and her anger hot. On that day, just like on this one, he’d been the recipient of it.
“You let it fly too high! Now you’ve lost it!”
Blowing a hank of dark hair out of his eyes, Miles peered up into the branches of the towering oak and tried to hide his grimace of dismay when he saw the white tails of the kite trailing down amidst the diamond edged leaves. “I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said defensively, jerking his chin down so he could return Charlotte’s glare. “And you were the one who asked me to fly it.”
“You did ask him.” Looking more crestfallen than angry, Dianna stepped out from behind Charlotte and, after an apologetic glance at Miles, gave her best friend a tiny nudge with her shoulder. “Remember?” she whispered.
“Well I did not ask him to fly it into a tree!” Charlotte pointed out crossly. “What are we going to do?”
Sometimes Miles caught himself wishing his quiet, impeccably mannered fiancée was a bit more like Charlotte. This, however, was not one of those times. Looking back and forth between them, he could not imagine two more different people and wondered, not for the first time, how they were friends.
Charlotte stood with her skinny arms akimbo, upper lip curled into a scowl. Her bonnet was gone, her hair a frizzy mess of red curls. There were grass stains smeared down one entire side of her ivory dress from where she taken a tumble in her attempt to run fast enough to get the kite airborne, and her pantalettes boasted several tears.
In direct contrast Dianna’s blonde hair was still neatly pinned beneath her bonnet and not so much as a smudge of her dirt marred her white dress or matching undergarments. Even her ankle boots were clean, a rather remarkable feat given they’d been tromping through the field behind her parent’s estate for the better part of an afternoon.
As though she could feel his gaze on her Dianna turned her head and caught him staring. She looked away quickly, a soft blush blossoming in the apples of her cheeks.
Fascinated by the change a bit of color brought to Dianna’s face, Miles shocked himself by saying, “I can get it. I can get the kite.”
“Get the kite?” Charlotte scoffed. “You can do no such thing. Look how high it is!”
Miles did not need to look. He knew exactly how high the bloody kite was. He’d been the one to fly it into the tree, hadn’t he? And if it were only Charlotte standing in front of him he would have walked away without a flicker of guilt. But one glance into Dianna’s big blue eyes was all it had taken. He would retrieve her kite for her, or he’d break his neck trying.
Shrugging out of his jacket, he tossed it on the ground and began to roll up the cuffs of his sleeves.
“Miles, wait!” Brow creased in worry, Dianna ran forward and grabbed his wrist just as he moved to place his palm on the oak’s rough bark. “Please don’t do this,” she begged, her eyes wide and imploring as she gazed up at him. “You will hurt yourself. It ‘tis only a kite. I can get another.”
“Oh let him go,” Charlotte said. “The worst thing that will happen is he’ll kill himself, and then you won’t have to marry him.”
At Dianna’s sharp intake of breath, Miles automatically put his hand on her shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze. “I will be fine,” he said quietly. “You trust me, don’t you?”
Worrying her bottom lip between her teeth Dianna began to fidget from side to side, a sure sign she was truly upset. “Yes,” she said at last, “but-”
“If you’re so worried, why not give me a kiss? For luck,” he said with a grin when all of the color drained from her face, leaving her white as a ghost.
“A k-kiss?” Dianna stuttered. “Oh, I don’t think… That is to say, I don’t know…”
“On the cheek,” Miles said, turning his head obligingly to the side. “It will make me feel better.”
“I am going to be sick,” Charlotte complained.
Just as Miles thought Dianna was about to turn away, she shocked him by pinching her eyes shut and puckering her lips together. He’d meant the kiss to be a jest; a way to get her to laugh and to ease her worry. He never imagined she would actually go through with it.
Butterflies that had nothing to do with the dangerous climb he was about to undertake erupted in his belly, beating their wings in time with his racing pulse. Unconsciously his grip on Dianna’s shoulder tightened as he drew her subtly towards him, moving her close enough so that when he leaned down her mouth pressed against his cheek.
At the soft contact her eyes flew open and she gasped, color returning to her face in a flood of deep red. It was the first time they’d kissed, and the answering rush of adrenaline Miles felt pumping through his veins filled him with a sense of protectiveness.
“Good luck,” Dianna whispered before she retreated to where Charlotte was standing.
With a look of disgust for them both the redhead looped an arm around Dianna’s waist and muttered something in her ear Miles couldn’t hear. Whatever it was caused Dianna’s blush to intensify before she gave a quick, hard shake of her head.
“Well get on with it,” Charlotte called out with an impatient wave of her arm, making Miles realize he’d been standing and staring at them like a dimwitted fop. “We do not have all day, you know.”
Turning his attention to the oak, he began to climb.
It took nearly an hour to navigate the twisted limbs of the tree - many of which were rotting or broken - but when Miles finally emerged from the leafy canopy he did so triumphant
ly, dragging the battered kite behind him. A bit red in the face and sporting a cut on his chin, he held out the kite to Dianna, brandishing the rather sad looking toy as though it were a great treasure.
She took the kite and held it close to her chest. “Thank you,” she said, and the reverent way she gazed up at him made Miles’ chest swell with pride.
“You are welcome,” he said solemnly.
Looking back and forth between the two of them, Charlotte sniffed and crossed her arms. “It’s only a kite,” she said, making a face.
For once Miles did not reply, for as he stared at Dianna and saw a shy smile slowly blossom across her face he knew it was much more than that.
“I cannot stay long,” Charlotte announced, drawing Miles abruptly back into the present. Turning from the window she removed her pelisse and draped it across the back of a chaise lounge before making herself comfortable in an oversized wicker chair. Crossing her legs at the ankle, she looked up to meet his gaze. “But I would like a glass of lemonade. And some scones. Blueberry, if you have them.”
Miles’ eyebrows rose, but he merely nodded and stepped out of the parlor to find a maid.
While the household was set to run on a series of bells, he’d never felt comfortable summoning the help by ringing for them when a short walk into the next room accomplished the same exact thing. Discovering a maid dusting in the library, he made his requests and waited until she’d scurried off in the direction of the kitchen before he returned to the parlor.
“The refreshments should be out… shortly…” Miles froze in the doorway. In the wicker chair Charlotte had fallen fast asleep, her head tilting down into her palm as the faintest of snores passed through her open mouth. He waited for her to wake, but as one minute passed into two and two into five, he realized this was no lighthearted slumber. Not at all certain what one was supposed to do in such a circumstance, he quietly cleared his throat. Unfortunately, the tiny sound had no apparent effect. “Er, Mrs. Graystone…”
“I thought I told you to dispense with that formality nonsense.” Blinking sleepily, Charlotte lifted her head and promptly rolled her eyes when she saw his expression. “Oh, do not look at me like that. I am not ill, if that is what you are thinking. Nor crazed, though I am sure my husband would beg to disagree. I am in a delicate situation. Pregnant, you fool,” she said in exasperation when Miles continued to stare at her blankly. “I am pregnant. Breeding. In the family way.” Her hand waved in the air. “Et cetera, et cetera.”
He cleared his throat a second time. “I… see.”
“I do not know why on earth I am telling you of all people,” she continued, glaring at him as though it were his fault she’d fallen asleep in the parlor, “but now you know. Gavin thinks it is going to be a boy, but I know it is a girl. We are thinking about doing a wager.” She huffed out a breath and sat up a little straighter. “But I did not come here to tell you that.”
Cautiously stepping further into the room, Miles recovered enough to dryly say, “Yes, thank God you did not tell me you are expecting a child.”
“Are you trying to be amusing?” Charlotte drummed her fingertips along the armrest and lifted both brows. “You were never amusing before.”
“You certainly never thought so.” Growing weary of all the words going unsaid, Miles sat heavily onto the edge of a blue sofa situated directly across the parlor from Charlotte’s chair. With only a mahogany coffee table between them, he was able to meet her gaze without hindrance and he did so, green eyes boring into amber. “For once, let us be honest with each other. You never liked me before, and you do not like me now.”
“I never liked you for Dianna,” Charlotte corrected. “You were far too self-centered. You thought only of your own needs, your own wants. She may have been blind to your faults, but I wasn’t. I saw you for who you were, and even though I was dismayed when you abandoned Dianna on the day of the wedding, I cannot say I was not surprised.”
“I was not ready to be a husband.” It was as close as Miles had ever come to admitting the truth.
Charlotte nodded as though he’d just told her something she’d known all along. “You should have said the same to Dianna before you left her. She was devastated, you know. Absolutely and completely devastated.”
His gut twisted. “I know.”
“A true gentleman would have stayed,” Charlotte continued mercilessly, “or at the very least given an explanation. You owed her that, if nothing else. Heaven knows why, but she loved you and you tore her apart. We were all she had, you and I. You know how her parents were. How they treated her. And still you left.”
And still I left, Miles echoed silently. Except he had not only left, he’d stayed away. For four long years he’d avoided the pain and retribution his return would bring, and now he could do nothing but accept Charlotte’s scathing character assassination as his due.
He ran a hand down his face, fingertips tracing all the grooves and angles before he leaned back and settled his arms along the sloping edge of the sofa. “Why have you come here, Charlotte?” One corner of his mouth lifted in a humorless smile. “Other than to remind me of my shortcomings, that is.”
She opened her mouth to answer, only to close it when a maid entered and carefully set down a silver serving tray between them.
“Good afternoon, my lord,” she said, performing a small curtsy. “Would you care for two glasses of lemonade or one?”
“Two. Thank you, Laura.”
Miles waited with jaw clenched while the maid filled two crystal glasses with lemonade and carefully stirred a spoonful of sugar into each one. When she was finished she wiped her hands on her apron, curtsied again, and exited the parlor as silently as she’d entered it.
Charlotte took a long, slow slip of her freshly prepared drink, seeming to savor Miles’ growing impatience. “Oh dear, I am terribly sorry,” she said at last, setting her glass aside with a loud clink. “Have I been making you wait? How rude of me. At least it was only four minutes, instead of four years.”
“You have spoken your mind,” Miles growled. He was willing to accept Charlotte’s condemnation... to a point. But he had his own temper to contend with, and while he managed to keep a tight rein on it more often than not, he felt his grip beginning to slip. “Now tell me why you came here looking for Dianna.”
“Very well.” Leaning forward until her elbows touched her knees, she met his gaze and gave a long, slow blink. “She has gone missing. Interesting,” she murmured under her breath when Miles leaped to his feet, nearly upending the coffee table and its contents in the process.
“Missing? What the bloody hell do you mean, Dianna has gone missing? How does a person go missing with so many people around? Why weren’t you watching her?”
“Dianna is not a dog,” Charlotte said derisively. “I am her friend, not her keeper. She went for a walk in the gardens with Lord Herring this morning after breakfast. He has since returned, but she has not. I would not worry, but given her abysmal sense of direction…”
“She could easily become lost,” Miles concluded. A tightness took hold of his chest, making it difficult to draw a deep breath as he imagined Dianna wandering through the fields of Ashburn on her own. While she had made a valiant effort to keep up with him and Charlotte when they were children, she’d never had any natural sense for the outdoors and he doubted her awareness had improved in the past four years. She could easily twist an ankle. Slip and fall into a pond. Be set upon by wild wolves or highwaymen. The possibilities were endless, each one he imagined worse than the last, and as they played through his mind on an endless loop a tinge of red born of fear darkened the edges of his vision.
“Why did you not tell me this when you first arrived?” he demanded, muscles tensing as he fought the urge to drag Charlotte out of the wicker chair and give her a good, hard shake. How could she sit there so calmly sipping lemonade when Dianna’s life was in danger?
“Because I have little doubt she will be waiting for me at Ash
burn when I return. Knowing Dianna she merely became turned around. I only came here because I thought you might have come across her.” Charlotte’s shoulders rose and fell in a careless shrug that brought Miles’ blood near to boiling. “I see now I was mistaken, but I am glad we had this little chat.” She stood up and gathered her pelisse, folding the garment twice over before tucking it under an arm. “Thank you for the lemonade. I found it a bit tart, although surprisingly refreshing. Now if you will excuse me, I must return to Ashburn before my husband sends out a second search party.”
Miles followed her out of the parlor and into the foyer. “I will go with you.”
Pausing with one hand on the doorknob - the butler, no doubt at Lady Radnor’s request, was nowhere to be seen - Charlotte glanced back at him over her shoulder. “No,” she said as her thumb depressed the tiny latch and the door swung outwards, “I think not.”
The carriage she had arrived in still waited in the middle of the circular drive. As Charlotte walked briskly towards it with Miles one step behind, boots crunching loudly on crushed stone, a scrawny fellow with a thatch of dirty blond hair snapped to attention and leaped down off the driver’s seat to open the door.
“Missus,” he said, tipping his cap. “Did ye get what ye came for?”
“I did indeed, Ernie.” Taking his offered hand, Charlotte used it to hoist herself up into the gleaming black carriage. Before Miles could follow her in, however, she leaned forward and shut the door smartly in his face. “I believe I said no.”
Miles’ teeth grinded together. Fueled by frustration, his palm bounced harmlessly off the side of the carriage in a loud slap that left a perfect imprint of his hand on the glossy finish. “I can help you look for her. Dammit Charlotte, be reasonable!”
Looking down her nose at him through the open window, she arched a brow. “I think you have helped quite enough, don’t you? Your concern is touching, Radnor, truly. Unfortunately, I fear it has come four years too late. Ernie, if this man” - she pointed at Miles - “attempts to follow us, please shoot him.”
London Ladies (The Complete Series) Page 39