The lovely brunette in spring green fluttered her eyelashes at her husband. “I’m sure it was worth every penny, my love.”
Stone placed a tragic hand to his brow. “What does it matter if I feed our children on stale bread and water, as long as their mother’s taste for baubles is satisfied?”
“See?” Helena turned to West. “That’s the right attitude. You could learn a lot from my brother.”
Stone, rich enough to bedeck a hundred wives in diamonds, directed a woebegone look at his best friend. “You never think before you speak, do you, old man?”
West’s expression held a hint of smugness. “No need to thank me, chum.”
“Then I won’t.”
“Sir Charles, see what you’ve got to look forward to when you take a wife?” Helena said.
Sally was still avoiding looking at him. He struggled to hide his disquiet and raised his glass to his lovely hostess who, while not as elaborately dressed as Sally, was stylish in teal silk. “Apparently a lifetime of buying diamonds.”
“Oh, you’re going to make some lucky woman a wonderful husband,” Caro said, sending Stone a sly look.
“I do hope so,” Charles said, but his hard-won smile faded when out of the corner of his eye, he caught Sally’s unguarded expression. The glitter had disappeared as if it had never been. Instead she looked stricken and pale, and her eyes were dark with misery.
Hell, what did all this mean? Had she somehow guessed he meant to propose tonight and the idea filled her with horror? Dear God, surely that couldn’t be the problem.
Sally looked like her best friend had just died. What in creation was the matter? He racked his brains, but he still for the life of him couldn’t work out any reason for her behavior.
She caught him looking at her, and she plastered on a smile. But the bitter unhappiness lingered in her eyes.
He loathed seeing her like this. He wanted to battle all her dragons, keep her safe, make her happy. But right now, he fought an invisible enemy.
“Shall we go through to dinner?” Helena gestured to Charles to take her into the dining room.
As the others made up couples, with the exception of Brandon who sauntered in last, they went through and found their places.
Charles had hoped to sit beside Sally, where he had a chance at a private word, but Helena had placed him on her right. A position of honor certainly—he wished to God he appreciated it.
“Don’t give up hope,” Helena murmured as he helped her to her seat.
Charles’s faint laugh was tinged with displeasure. “What in Hades? Are you all aware of my plans?”
Helena’s glance fell on Sally who sat further down the table. She was glittering at Carey who looked appropriately dazzled. “No, I don’t think we all are. But you’ll get there in the end.”
Charles studied his beloved, and couldn’t help feeling Helena was overly optimistic. Tonight Sally seemed set on captivating every male here, with the exception of the one who wanted to marry her.
He supposed he should be grateful that the party included two happily married men and a pair of striplings not yet twenty-one. But watching the woman he loved preen and flirt with those two handsome young pups set his teeth on edge.
* * *
Charles was grateful that discussion centered on politics when the gentlemen lingered behind for their port. He avoided Stone’s meaningful looks and took an extra glass, but the premonition of disaster looming ahead only tangled his gut into tighter knots.
Over dinner, Sally had been witty and incandescent—and she still hadn’t looked at him. He’d combed his memory for some way that he’d offended her. But he couldn’t think of a thing. When they’d parted after seeing West’s art collection, she’d seemed as friendly as ever.
To think, he’d found that cause for complaint.
When the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room, Sally looked up at his entrance, then her gaze slid off him and landed on West and Silas. Charles braced for more blasted glittering, but she remained quiet. And strangely sad, despite the smile fixed to her face. The smile wasn’t terribly convincing.
“What do you think this weather is going to do?” Caro asked from the sofa, where she sat beside Helena.
“Spring rain here can settle in and last for days, I’m afraid.” West moved forward to rest his hand on his wife’s shoulder. Helena glanced up with a soft smile.
Charles ground his teeth. It wasn’t the night for him to appreciate other people’s marital bliss.
Meg, for once, wasn’t talking about horses. Instead she was flicking through a fashion magazine at a table in the corner. Brandon and Carey were absent. Charles guessed they were playing billiards. With great glee, they’d discovered the table this morning. Perhaps that was why Sally was sad—she’d lost her audience for her flirting.
Charles no longer held out any hope of proposing tonight. But he badly wanted to know what had upset Sally, and if he could do anything to help. He hated knowing that despite her show of effervescence, she was wretched.
He smiled at her. “Lady Norwood, I’m keen to see West’s Caravaggios by candlelight. Would you like to accompany me?”
“Perhaps not this evening, Sir Charles,” Sally said in a dull tone. And while every eye in the room focused on her with varying degrees of curiosity, Sally still talked to someone invisible standing just behind him.
She straightened, and he saw that she was still unusually pale. When she reached out to grip the mantelpiece, her long, slender fingers were rigid with tension.
What the devil? Even more concerned, Charles stepped forward. “Lady Norwood, aren’t you well?”
He saw her begin to shake her head, then she gave a jerky nod. “I have a slight headache.”
Helena’s expression held more speculation than sympathy, Charles noted. “Perhaps it’s being cooped up inside all day.”
Sally sent her a shaky smile. Hard to believe this was the creature who had scintillated with coruscating brilliance only half an hour ago. Perhaps she was genuinely ill, but the more Charles looked at her, the less he believed it.
No, something had upset her. He just wished to Hades he knew what it was. The sight of Sally Cowan fighting to contain her distress made him insane. He loathed that she shut him out.
If he’d ever doubted that he loved her, the way he felt now when he saw her unhappy confirmed that he was irrevocably hers.
“I’m sure that’s it.” Sally went back to addressing Charles’s right shoulder. “However I think Meg would love to see the paintings. She has a great enthusiasm for chiaroscuro.”
Charles stifled a derisive retort. Not unless Chiaroscuro was the name of a racehorse, she didn’t. He waited for Meg to make some excuse.
To his surprise, the girl closed the magazine. “I’d love to.”
Good God, the world turned upside down. Charles remembered his manners in time to bow to Meg. “Capital. Shall we?”
He lifted a lit candelabra and offered his arm. Meg stood and curled her hand around his elbow. “We shall.”
“Have fun,” Sally said after them, and he could swear he heard a crack in her voice.
Puzzled, he glanced back as he and Meg reached the door. For the first time all evening, Sally was staring directly at him.
She was no longer pale. Instead she looked like she suffered a fever. She bit her lip, and her chin trembled. Growing up with four sisters told him she tried with all her might to hold back tears.
What the hell?
Then she realized he was looking at her, and she dredged up that careless smile, no more convincing than it had been earlier.
The memory of the strain in her piquant face haunted him as he left the drawing room with Meg at his side.
* * *
Chapter Six
* * *
Meg was uncharacteristically quiet as Charles escorted her into the shadowy gallery. They progressed past gilded frames and portraits mysterious in the candlelight to the first Caravaggi
o. Meg dutifully turned to face the huge canvas, although he’d wager a thousand guineas that the girl wasn’t remotely interested in the painting.
“Here it is.” He raised the candelabra to reveal the Madonna sorrowing at the foot of the Cross. Mary was lit with bright gold light, while the rest of the desolate landscape lay shrouded in darkness.
Meg studied the sublime painting with a disgruntled expression. “There are no horses.”
The response, while predictable, made him laugh. He’d felt so low when he’d left the drawing room, he was surprised that he could. He placed the candelabra on a side table. “You, Miss Meg, are a Philistine.”
Without shifting her gaze from him, she shrugged. “Of course I am.”
He leaned one shoulder against the wall and surveyed her, wondering what she was up to. Because she was undoubtedly up to something.
“So why this sudden interest in West’s art collection?” It was a deuced pity that Sally hadn’t seen fit to come with him. The silence and isolation were just right for passionate declarations.
Charles stiffened in sudden horror. Good God, was this girl having similar thoughts?
“Dash it all, Miss Meg, you’re not expecting something to happen, are you?”
It wasn’t the most coherent of questions, but there was nothing wrong with Meg’s brain. She understood immediately, and gave a reassuringly contemptuous snort. “Like a proposal? Don’t be silly.”
He laughed again, too relieved to be offended, and folded his arms. “So why are we here?”
“Because I want to talk to you, and it’s almost impossible to get any privacy. Propriety is a devil of a pest.”
Charles heartily agreed. If only he’d got Sally alone tonight, he’d have winkled out the cause of her troubles. But as a single man unrelated to her, he had to behave circumspectly. Even here, among friends. “So what is it you want to say?”
Meg’s stare intensified. “Aunt Sally thinks you want to marry me.”
“What on earth?” Shock made him stand up straight and uncross his arms.
The girl studied him curiously. “Do you want to marry me?”
Biting back the urge to curse like a sailor at this unexpected turn, he shook his head. He felt so nonplused, his answer emerged with more frankness than tact.
“Not a bit of it.” He frowned. “Do you want to marry me?”
“No. You’re too old for me.”
Despite everything, a huff of amusement escaped him. “Well, that puts me in my place.”
“I beg your pardon.” Meg’s blush was visible, even in the candlelight. “That was rude.”
“But true.” Then the full significance of what Meg had told him deflated all humor. “Sally thinks I want to marry you?”
Damn, damn, damn.
Hurt, frustration, and confusion crashed into one another and left him reeling. Don’t say he and Sally had been at cross purposes from the beginning. Was this why she didn’t respond to his overtures, because she’d consigned him to her charming, but completely incompatible niece?
The idea beggared belief. Surely she knew him better than this. But when he looked at Meg’s face, he saw no hint of teasing. Furious disappointment rammed his gut and left him winded.
Meg nodded. “She thinks that’s why you’ve been so attentive.”
“Dash it, I’ve been so attentive because—” He stopped, unsure how much he wanted to reveal to this self-assured chit.
“Because you’re in love with Aunt Sally.”
“Meg…”
She sent him a sharp look. “Are you going to deny it?”
“Not at all.” Feeling as if he’d entered a world where nothing made sense, he crossed to slump into one of the gilt armchairs set opposite the Caravaggio.
“Good.” Meg followed him and took the chair beside his.
He hardly knew how to respond. As he examined the unpalatable truth, his stomach churned with angry disbelief. “So that’s why she’s been so nice to me.”
“Don’t be a blockhead, Sir Charles. She likes you.”
“As a husband for her niece.” His voice emerged as a growl. He raised his head and studied Meg. “She doesn’t see me as her suitor at all, does she?”
Meg’s expression made her look much wiser than her eighteen years warranted. “Don’t be angry with her.”
“I’m not.” Which was a blatant lie. At the moment, he burned to corner Sally and insist that she came to her senses.
“Yes, you are, and I don’t blame you. But it’s not her fault. I want you to see that.”
“How the devil can I see that?”
Meg sighed. “Because I’m going to break a few confidences and tell you things you couldn’t know.”
He frowned, as curiosity set a brake on his rising temper. “Are you sure?”
“Do you really love her?”
“With every beat of my heart.”
“And you want to marry her?”
Despite the moment’s seriousness, his lips twisted into a wry smile. “Do you have the right to ask me that?”
Meg shrugged. “She has nobody else to look after her.”
“What about your father?”
“He has enough on his plate, with six daughters to marry off. The affairs of his youngest sister come well down on his list of things to worry about. So do you mean marriage?”
“Of course.” He sighed, and enough resentment lingered to add an edge to his words. “I hoped she’d come around to my way of thinking in her own time, but I hadn’t counted on her asinine plans to marry us off.”
“I think if you leave it to Aunt Sally, she’ll never come around to the idea that you want to marry her.”
“I begin to wonder if you’re right.” He was starting to realize that a man could bash himself to pieces against the barriers Sally raised against the world and still make no crack in her defenses. “What do you suggest? Pouncing?”
Somewhat to his relief, Meg’s giggle brought her back to looking like an eighteen-year-old girl. “It might be something to consider. You’re always so careful with her. I’ve noticed, even if Aunt Sally hasn’t.”
“It’s odd—she’s so bright and vital, yet at heart, there’s something fragile about her.”
“You are the right man for her.” Meg’s smile glowed with approval. “I always thought so, and you just proved it.”
“While she thinks I’m right for you,” Charles snapped, still stung at how badly Sally had misjudged him.
Meg sighed. “Aunt Sally is clever about people—mostly. But she’s completely blind when she looks at herself. She believes she’s past the age where romance and marriage are possible.”
“I know. She told me. It’s so deuced frustrating.” With an impatient gesture, he ran his hand through his hair. “She’s only thirty-one.”
“She’s convinced she’s too old to attract a husband—at least one who doesn’t want a sensible woman to run his house and comfort his last years.” Meg’s eyes sharpened. “Did you know my late uncle, Lord Norwood?”
“No.”
“Lucky you.” Her mouth turned down in contempt. “He was an awful man. Dull, stolid, sure he knew best on every matter under the sun. A bore and a bully. I don’t know how my aunt lived with him for nearly ten years without coshing him with a fire iron. And he never did much to hide his disappointment about not siring an heir.”
“I suppose he blamed Sally.” Meg painted a vivid picture of Sally’s first husband.
Charles shouldn’t be surprised at what he heard. He’d picked up immediately that Sally bore scars from the past. His anger gradually dissipated.
“He never said so in my hearing, although we all knew he did. It speaks volumes for her strength of character that she managed to keep as much spirit as she has.”
Poor Sally. Charles had no difficulty understanding how marriage to such a man had damaged her generous soul. Lord Norwood’s conceit and crassness would eat away at her sense of herself as worthy of affection. Domest
ic tyranny was a cruel punishment for such a lively creature.
And there was no escape if a woman believed the marriage vow sacrosanct, as he suspected Sally did. She’d never seek reassurance in another man’s arms. Instead she’d endure with as much grace and courage as she could, while loneliness grew and grew, until it threatened to devour her.
Compassion so strong it was like a physical pain gripped him as he imagined her ten years with Norwood. She couldn’t even find consolation in the love of her children. After observing Sally’s dealings with Meg and Amy and Morwenna, he knew that the woman he wanted to marry had a huge capacity for love.
It was one of the things he found most powerfully attractive about her.
His anger returned, this time directed at Lord Norwood. “He didn’t mistreat her, did he?”
The idea of anyone hurting Sally made his stomach heave. He clenched his hands against the arms of the chair. He wanted to fight dragons for her, but it turned out the dragon blighting her life was dead and eternally out of his reach. Bugger it.
Meg shook her head. “There was no talk in the family that he did. But violence isn’t the only cruelty. He used to leave her alone in the country month after month and come up to Town to chase Cyprians. The fatter the better. And if I know that, I’m sure Aunt Sally does.”
He frowned at Meg. “You shouldn’t understand such things.”
She shrugged. “Society acts like young girls have neither ears nor the brains to work out what those ears are hearing. Of course I know about the ladies of Covent Garden and their sisters.”
What was the point of disapproval? He shook his head in disbelief at this coil he found himself in. No wonder his courtship hadn’t prospered. “If Sally’s so willfully blind to her attractions, how the devil is a man to break through to her?”
Meg studied him thoughtfully. “Perhaps pouncing is the way forward.”
“I doubt it. Tonight she wouldn’t even look at me—and she flirted with every dam…dashed fellow in that room. Every fellow but me.”
“Actually that might be a good sign.”
He regarded Meg in disbelief. “How the deuce could that be a good sign?”
Charming Sir Charles (Dashing Widows Book 5) Page 5