“And here I thought you would be dancing with happiness over being married to the woman you have been desperately in love with for the last decade.”
“I’m not in love with her.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I am not in love with her.”
Still grinning that annoying, omniscient grin as only he could, Sebastian raised his glass cheerfully with every word. “Yes. You. Are.”
Sin closed his eyes, hoping his brother would be long gone when he opened them again, but to no use. The imp still sat in the other chair, his green eyes shining with mirth and his red hair sparkling in the light from the fireplace.
It was amazing that two brothers could be as different as he and Sebastian, both in looks and in personality. Sin was a typical Darling when it came to his looks, brown-haired and gray-eyed. Tall and broad shouldered. He had a tendency to brood and act with too much seriousness, but it all came from feeling the weight of being the heir and all the responsibility that brought. He usually didn’t talk too much, which was somewhat odd, as he happened to be part of a family that never stayed silent, not even if their lives depended upon it.
Sebastian, on the other hand, was the worriless imp, always full of mirth, driving everyone crazy with his pranks and smooth tongue. He had inherited their mother’s Irish looks, with his red hair and green eyes. Their father insisted he also had inherited their mother’s Irish temper—but only when she didn’t overhear, of course.
Their sister Francesca—the youngest of the three siblings—was a perfect mix of them both, with the Darling coloring and the Irish mirth.
“Come on, Sin, everyone knows you have been yearning for her ever since you came to the age when girls suddenly weren’t as awful as you first thought.”
“Everyone?”
“Everyone but Fanny. Our dear sister is not very sensitive when it comes to feelings. She wouldn’t recognize a feeling if she were hit in the face with it. When you come to think about it, it’s amazing she succeeded in getting married at all, and that to a man who actually loves her.”
Sin sighed again, defeated. Who was he kidding? He had been in love with Charmaine ever since she turned into a young woman, desperately so. But she had never looked at him twice, which probably was the sole reason he hadn’t joined her constant crowd of admirers.
Or maybe it was his fear of having to converse with her. He was not as smooth when it came to the ladies as most of his male relatives were. His uncle Rake was an infamous libertine who left piles of crushed hearts behind him, and even his own father had been quite the rogue in his day, not once stumbling upon words.
Sin knew he was a somewhat attractive man, the number of starry-eyed young misses surrounding him at parties and assemblies told him as much. But he usually pretended not to notice them and escaped their clutches as soon as he could.
This had of course created a reputation for him of being elusive, but it didn’t seem to stop the misses’ eagerness to become Lady Chilton. Instead he had his own entourage wherever he went, a frustrating mix of determined mamas and their eyelash-batting offspring. He had more than once told Francesca that if he ever found her batting her eyelashes at a man he would grab a pair of scissors and cut them off.
“What’s wrong?” For once Sebastian lost his usual mirth and looked as sober as his brother, and Sin sighed heavily.
“I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“Trust me, it is. She’s not what I thought her to be. I always believed Fanny to be wrong when she ranted on about how awful Charmaine really was, and that under the beautiful exterior only rotten eggs remained. But now…”
Tasting the delicious wine, he braced himself, aware that he couldn’t hide the truth from his brother. It was just that somehow it felt as if saying it out loud made it true, and for some strange reason he was stupid enough to still nurse a pathetic hope about her being better than she seemed.
But she wasn’t.
“She is the most shallow, selfish, coldhearted person I’ve ever encountered, and I can’t believe I have thought so highly of her for such a long time.”
“Come on, Sin, it’s Charmaine we’re talking about. Our neighbor. The one we have known most of our lives and who might not have behaved with warmth toward us—or anyone else for that matter—but who we know loves her sister very much.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
Sebastian looked genuinely surprised over Sin’s harsh honesty. “She doesn’t?”
“No.”
“And how would you know this?”
“She just told me.”
“She said she didn’t love her sister?”
Sin felt like growling. “Not straight out, but she made it perfectly clear, and when I questioned her about it she didn’t deny it.”
“Bloody hell.”
“My sentiment exactly.” Sin sighed, with a compassionate look toward his confused brother. “And now I don’t know what to do. At first I could hardly believe my luck. By some strange twist of fate I was able to marry the only woman I ever considered for my wife. But then I started to wonder why. Why did she want to marry me? She has never shown any interest in my person before, hardly greeted me when we happened to meet…”
“I thought it was you who took the chance when it was presented to you and made sure you two had to become husband and wife.”
Sin shook his head again. “No. That was all her doing. She tripped me, and I fell down on top of her just as Mother and Father walked through the door.”
“Interesting.”
Sebastian wiggled his eyebrows impishly, not taking the situation as seriously as he should, but Sin didn’t take him to task for it. This was his brother, after all, and Sebastian never stayed serious for more than a few minutes at time.
“I have asked her over and over again why, but she refuses to answer me. Instead she tells me to stop questioning her and be grateful for having her as my wife. That’s the word she used—grateful.”
“Well, you should be. Now you have every right to do whatever you want with her. She is yours and yours only. When it comes to her, no one can deny you anything, not even she. So stop fretting over her turning out worse than you thought and instead get to know the true her. She is your wife now, for life.”
“Are you telling me to bed her?”
“Yes.”
“It is my right...”
“It is.”
“She can’t deny me.”
“No, she can’t.”
An image of a naked Charmaine waiting for him in his bed crossed his mind, and his heart started to pound heavily. The mere thought of being able to kiss those luscious lips and caress her soft skin made him weak with lust, and he knew he couldn’t go through with it.
He loved her.
It might be naïve and stupid, but he couldn’t act as cold toward her as she did to him. This one week of unhappy marriage didn’t erase all the years of longing he had lived through, all those horrible times when he had thought she was on the verge of getting married to someone else.
His heart still ached when he thought about the time she had been courted by Lord Dane, a goodhearted fellow who Sin had liked immensely before he made Charmaine blush prettily every time he looked at her.
He had died a thousand deaths during those months, as the happy couple came closer and closer to a wedding, not knowing how to continue with life if she married her beau but too unsure to do anything about it. And then Lord Dane suddenly left London, marrying another woman within a month’s time.
Charmaine, Francesca had told him, didn’t even blink when she heard about it. Unaffected by what should have been devastating news for her, she didn’t seem to notice Lord Dane’s disappearance from her side, instead focusing on—or ignoring—the next beau in line.
But she didn’t blush anymore.
“I must confess I do wonder why she never accepted a proposal,” Sebastian interrupted Sin’s tormenting thou
ghts. “She must have received hundreds of them since her debut two years ago. One would think that at least one of those men should have made her heart flutter a little.”
“But she didn’t accept anyone, and I can’t help feeling sorry for poor Lord Nester, who had to listen to all these men spilling their hearts out, unable to give a suitor a favorable answer. If anyone is happy over this marriage, it must be him.”
“Are you feeling sorry for that awful man? Have you already forgotten what he did to our dear Penny?”
Sin shook his head. “No, I haven’t. And for what it’s worth, Charmaine made a heroic effort when she ran the whole way here in the middle of the night to tell us about her father taking Penny to London, ready again to give his own daughter to the sadistic Lord Bolton, the sick bastard.”
“I still find it hard to believe a father can do something so evil against his own child. Without remorse to give away one daughter to save the other. Love is strange.”
Sin couldn’t help but laugh.
Sebastian sure was right about that. Of all strange things, love was the strangest. Charmaine’s odd family situation was evidence of that.
All her life she had been spoiled rotten by her devoted parents, who at the same time had ignored her younger sister. For as long as Sin could remember, Lord Nester had always bragged about his older daughter, puffing about how proud he was of her, and kept informing anyone who happened to listen about her popularity.
Not once did he mention the daughter just one year younger, who also was a very beautiful young woman only not as astounding as the magnificent Charmaine. His lack of feelings for Penelope couldn’t have been clearer than when his old friend Lord Bolton had demanded Charmaine as wife and Nester coldheartedly had given him Penelope instead, to use in any way the man liked.
Penelope had managed to escape and had found a refuge with the Darling family, forever cut off from her own family. Charmaine had never said a word about it, continuing with her life as she always had, still letting her father spoil her despite what he had done to her sister.
“How is Penny, by the way? I haven’t seen her for a while, not since Uncle Rake rescued her from Bolton’s townhouse.”
Sin made a sad face. “Neither have I, but Mother says she’s still in shock, although it’s hard to tell if it is because of her experience in London or because of Uncle Rake leaving her.”
“Poor Penny.”
“Indeed. I hope she will find her way back to happiness soon and that Uncle Rake will change his mind and realize how much he needs her.”
Sebastian snorted with disbelief. “I can’t believe how idiotically you men in love behave. I hope I’ll never fall in love with someone. If I ever turn into such an ass because of fancying myself in love, I promise you I’m going to kill myself.”
With those last words Sebastian stood up, leaving his brother to broodingly stare into the crackling fire, still angry and confused but not as seething as earlier.
Why had she tripped him?
It didn’t matter how much she denied the fact, she still was the cause to their forced marriage. It frustrated the hell out of him, not knowing what lay behind such odd behavior. He knew without a doubt she didn’t love him, and he couldn’t think of one thing she had to gain by marrying him instead of someone else. So perhaps the tripping hadn’t been planned.
But the question still remained—why had she not protested the marriage when the opportunity presented itself?
He knew he was one of the most sought-after bachelors of the ton, being the heir to one of the richest families in England. But he didn’t think it mattered to her. Or at least he used to think so, before she became his wife and turned his whole image of her upside down.
“So what are you going to do about Charmaine?”
He looked up into the worried face of his grandmother, the Duchess of Berkeley, who seemed to have emerged out of nowhere to stand beside the chair Sebastian had just left. It was obvious she had overheard their conversation, and he couldn’t help feeling a bit embarrassed when he thought about how openly emotional he had been, admitting loving the minx and all.
“I honestly don’t know.” He took a deep sip of the wine to settle his roaming emotions. “I seem to get nowhere with her. Every time I try to talk to her it ends with me leaving, even angrier than before. She’s just too stubborn.”
He took a calming breath as he felt anger rise inside him again at the mere thought of her cold selfishness.
The duchess sat down in Sebastian’s abandoned armchair and reached for the wineglass he unbeknownst had left for her.
“I think there is more to Charmaine than you see, my dear Sinclair.”
“I used to think so too, but during this week of marriage she has proven me wrong over and over again. There is no goodness inside her. She doesn’t care about anyone or anything but herself, and then especially her beauty. It sickens me to think how I’ve been defending her against Fanny all these years and it turns out my sister was right all along.”
“It’s not the poor girl’s fault you put a halo over her head and called her a goddess and are now unable to stand her turning out to be a mere human.”
He hated to admit his grandmother had a point there. He had glorified Charmaine over the years, secretly admiring her from afar. Of course he didn’t know what she really was like; he had never been closer to her than dancing with her now and then, and that only when he had mustered enough courage to ask. Shallowly, he had fallen in love with her astounding beauty, and now he had to live with the fact that she was a magnificent but empty shell.
“You have to give her a chance to explain herself, as I still think there is more to this than meets the eye. Am I wrong if I assume she’s behind the whole getting-caught-in-bed happening?”
“Of course she is. I would never…”
“Of course you wouldn’t, my dear,” the duchess interrupted him politely. “I know you would never do something as spontaneous as letting your feelings rule your actions.”
“Thank you. I think.”
“You are welcome, my dear.”
They sat silent for a while, sipping their wine while enjoying the crackling fire. Sin loved his grandmother dearly, and his wish was to find a woman as courageous and loyal as she. Anna Darling was not his relative through blood, as she was his grandfather’s second wife. Sin’s father, George Darling, the Marquis of Newbury, was the firstborn son in the first marriage, but that didn’t matter in anyone’s eyes.
Many years ago Anna had visited George at Chester Park, together with some mutual friends, and had fallen helplessly in love with his father, the much older Hannibal Darling, the Duke of Berkeley.
It had taken her a long time to make him realize, first of all, she wasn’t too young for him, and, secondly, he couldn’t live without her. Such courage amazed Sin. The couple still were happily in love with each other after all these years, and the duchess had more than once confessed she wouldn’t know how to live without his grandfather.
“You say she doesn’t love her sister, which I find quite strange. Charmaine might be a bit spoiled…”
“A bit?”
“Yes, dear. A bit.”
“She’s spoiled rotten, that’s what she is. Do you remember how her parents denied Penny new clothes for her debutant season, all because Charmaine needed more outfits? That’s not a bit spoiled in my book.”
“I know what Lord and Lady Nester did, but I don’t think it was Charmaine’s fault. She never asked for more clothes. It was her parents’ decision, not hers.”
“She could have refused.”
The duchess looked at him with her intelligent eyes, smiling secretively as if she knew something he didn’t. “Could she, now?”
He frowned, not liking where she was taking this. “Yes, she could have. It’s not so hard to say the word ‘no.’ Hell knows she’s said it enough to her suitors.”
“Did she, now?”
“Grandmother, stop this! You can’t pos
sibly make Charmaine into something better than she is. You can’t turn night into day. It’s impossible.”
The duchess leaned back into the chair, glaring patronizingly at him. “And yet you did. You made her into something she isn’t, and now you’re furious with her because she isn’t what you supposed her to be. Have you ever considered it’s not so easy being the Incomparable Queen with two doting parents surrounding you? You just said it yourself while speaking to Sebastian—they never cared for Penny, only for Charmaine.”
“That was a private conversation.”
Ignoring his silent reprimand, the duchess continued stubbornly. “It wasn’t Charmaine’s fault.”
“Maybe not. But it still doesn’t mean she cared about Penny being left out.”
“And yet Penny still claims her sister loves her, something Charmaine has proven more than once since arriving the night Penny was abducted.”
Sin slumped deeper into his chair, broodingly crossing his arms over his chest in a quiet rebellion against her logic. He really didn’t need to hear this right now. All he wanted was to get drunk and fall asleep and hopefully spend a night without hot dreams about the woman sleeping in the connecting bedroom.
“She hasn’t left Penny’s side during the last week. Is that something a selfish and unloving sister would do?”
“She has nothing else to do here but sit at Penny’s side. The façade is everything, after all.”
The duchess sighed ruefully, for now giving up her quest to make him more favorable toward his wife. “You are an impossible and stubborn man, and I feel sorry for poor Charmaine, who doesn’t stand a chance against your prejudice.”
He resisted a childish need to stick his tongue out at her retiring back. Instead, he emptied his wineglass before refilling it again. His mission had been to get drunk, and he was behind schedule.
As he downed his fourth glass in a row, a welcoming numbness settled in his mind and, relieved to be so near his ultimate goal, he filled another glass. And then another.
It didn’t help, though; he still dreamt about her.
Chapter Three
“What’s wrong with you?”
The Beauty of You Page 2