“Rant?” she hissed. “You think I rant?”
“Well, I must admit you do talk a lot. You can’t help it, though. You are, after all, a dweller.”
Penelope gasped, outraged, and Rake’s eyes darkened until they were almost as black as Sin’s, which made his wife blush instead.
“You look tired, my love. Why don’t we go up to that bedroom of yours again, so you can get some sleep?”
Penelope quickly stood and grasped her husband’s outstretched hand, and they disappeared up the stairs without even saying goodbye.
“I don’t think she will get much sleep.”
Charmaine giggled. “No, I don’t think so either. Thank God he finally came. My belief that he would was starting to falter a bit, and I could see Penelope’s was, too. She looks so happy…”
“They both do.” Sin squeezed her hand under the table. “And you look happy for her. You love her very much, don’t you?”
She looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Of course I do. She’s my sister, and until now the most important person in my life.”
“Until now?” Sin grinned, and she blushed just as much as Penelope had.
“Until now.”
He sat silent for a while, just watching her tenderly with his dark eyes, and her heart responded to him. Every day her feelings for him grew stronger, and as they finally had managed to reconcile, she couldn’t possibly be any happier than at this moment.
He was such a wonderful man, even though he had a tendency to bring up the past when he was angry with her. But she didn’t mind. He was so refreshingly honest in his reactions to her, and being able to read him so easily made her feel even more secure with him. She’d had enough of secrets in her life and wanted nothing more than openness and honesty.
“You too look a bit drowsy, my dear wife. What do you say to going upstairs and taking a little nap?”
His eyes told her how little rest she would get, and her blush intensified as she nodded. With a grin, he stood and offered her his arm. She put her hand in the crook of it, amazed how wonderful it felt to belong to this man.
Slowly he led her through the inn toward the stair, not stopping for anyone they met, until a clipped voice was heard behind them.
“Look at the happy couple, all smiles and not a thought of all the broken hearts in their wake.” Lord Dane’s usually jovial face was stern, with lines she’d never noticed before clearly visible.
“Lord Dane.” She curtsied politely, and he returned her courtesy with a bow just as polite.
“Lady Chilton, I presume?”
“Yes, she’s still my wife,” Sin scoffed and pulled Charmaine closer to his side, where she could feel the warmth of him.
Lord Dane sighed deeply. “Just checking. When I woke up the day after I met you last, I thought it might have been merely a bad dream, but I guess that was the liquor speaking.”
“I’m so sorry,” Charmaine said compassionately, and she meant it with all her heart because she was truly sorry for him.
For them.
Once he had been everything she’d dreamt of, and her stepfather had made sure that dream would never come true. She had been devastated when she heard of his marriage just one short month after he had proposed to her, promising her everlasting love.
But then, she knew him. Lord Dane wasn’t the dwelling kind, and she had assumed he had simply moved on with his own life. That he had been forced by his mother to marry another woman had never crossed her mind.
And then there were his letters. What if her stepfather hadn’t snatched them away from her? What if she had read them and been enlightened about what was happening, what he really felt? Would things have ended differently then?
Knowing herself, she assumed she would have decided to wait for him. Even though she wanted nothing more than to get away from her stepfather, she wouldn’t have thrown away her one chance of love.
But for how long?
The fact was that, even if she had received his letters, Lord Nester would still have given Penelope to Lord Bolton. Charmaine would still have been caught in her stepfather’s web, unable to save her sister or herself.
Lord Dane might have waited for her for a while, but sooner or later his mother would have succeeded with her plans and had him married to the woman of her choice. The snare would still have tightened around Charmaine, and in the end she would still have had to force someone into marriage to save herself. She would still have been standing here, looking at Lord Dane as someone else’s wife.
“You have such a kind heart, my dearest Charming.” Lord Dane smiled sadly as he used the nickname he’d once given her, and she heard the grief in his voice.
“Will you be all right?”
He nodded solemnly. “I think so. At least I hope so. But I will miss you. I’ve been so set on spending the rest of my life with you, and now I don’t know where to start over.”
“I have missed you.”
Her admission brought a smile back on his face.
“Thank you. I needed to hear that. I’ve missed you so much too. Being caught in an old drafty castle in northern Yorkshire is not much fun. The girl I married was kind, but there was no laughter there. No dancing. Just talk.”
“She became a good friend to you?”
“Sort of, I guess. I did like to talk to her, but then again—there was not much else to do.”
“Were there no servant girls to entertain you?” Sin added coldly to the conversation, and Lord Dane shrugged indifferently.
“Some, but no big challenge there, I’m afraid.”
It took a minute for her to grasp what Sin had meant, but after a night in his arms, learning more about what could happen between a man and a woman, she caught the implication in his words. She almost gasped as she caught how blasé Lord Dane’s answer was.
Sin, who must have sensed her hidden outrage, grinned mischievously, and she had to bite her lip hard to keep from lashing out at him.
“I’m so sorry she died,” she continued from where they had been before Sin’s interruption, and Lord Dane gazed, confused, at her.
“Who died?”
“Your wife.”
“She did? Ah, yes. Yes, she did.”
It wasn’t so hard to see the man was lying his teeth off, and this time Charmaine didn’t hide her outrage.
“She’s still alive?”
“Eh…”
“My God, Lord Dane! Are you telling me the wife you told me was dead—isn’t?”
“Eh… No.”
He fidgeted uncomfortably, and she looked up into Sin’s laughing gray eyes, not knowing what to think. She could hardly believe what Lord Dane had done.
What if she hadn’t been married to Sin? Missing Lord Dane as much as she had, she would probably have suggested they should sneak away and get married and face the consequences—and her stepfather—afterwards.
And she would have married an already married man.
“What were you thinking? What would you have done if I hadn’t been married to Sin? Married me anyway?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
Her voice was a mere squeak as she repeated his answer. The nerve of the man!
He shrugged again, just as indifferently as before. “Well, sooner or later she would’ve died, and if I’d been able to keep the two of you apart I would have had the best of both worlds.”
“The best of…”
Charmaine’s voice trailed off as disgust at his attitude overwhelmed her, making her want to cry for the loss of her good memories of him. Now all she could think was how inconsiderate he really was.
Sin, who again astonished her with his insight, pushed her toward the stairs. “If you’ll excuse us, Lord Dane, my wife and I have something to do.”
“Ah, yes. Good, good.”
Without mercy Sin pushed her toward the stairs, where he grabbed her hand and didn’t let go until they reached the privacy of the small salon.
As husky lau
ghter was heard from Penelope’s room, he continued into theirs, dragging Charmaine with him. Not until he had closed the door behind him did he open his mouth. But not to talk. Instead he howled with laughter, not once caring about her pursed mouth as she watched him cry with joy until his whole body convulsed with mirth.
“Can you believe the man?” Charmaine spat when he started to calm down enough to listen to her, and she paced to and fro over the wooden floor. “Can you believe how callously he told me his wife was dead? To even consider marrying me although he already was married…”
Sin dried his eyes as he finally managed to compose himself. “He’s just burning his candle at both ends. But I must admit I found this quite amusing. Lord, I almost wish you had married the chap, as long as I could have been there to watch when you found out that not only were you not legally married to the man but he already had a wife.”
Charmaine threw off her coat as she moved around in the small room, close to exploding. How could she ever have thought herself madly in love with that man? She had thought the best of him, and in the end he turned out to be one of the worst examples of mankind.
That poor girl he married!
As she passed Sin for the umpteenth time, he grabbed the opportunity and pulled her into his arms.
“Don’t let the man get to you. He’s just a fool who is too used to having things his own way to even consider how impossibly he behaves.”
He had her stand between his legs while, carefully, he started to unbutton the small buttons of her lovely dress.
“Don’t think about Lord Dane and his outrageous and selfish behavior toward you. It’s better if you use your lovely head to think about the reason we were heading this direction in the first place. As I recall, we were on our way up here for a purpose.”
She frowned at him, not able to cast Lord Dane’s treason aside at first, but when Sin started to place small kisses on her naked shoulder she couldn’t withstand him for long, and soon she was moaning with pleasure.
Their lovemaking was just as consuming and satisfying as it had been earlier. Afterwards, as he placed a light, thankful kiss on her sweaty forehead, she couldn’t think of any other place she would have preferred being than here in his arms.
Had it not been for the problem with her stepfather, she would have been perfectly happy and content. But as long as Penelope stayed unmarried she wouldn’t be able to let her guard down. There was no one who could stop him. He was her legal guardian, and…
She sat straight up as the truth hit her, Penelope was married. She was now the very much beloved wife of Lord Richard Darling—and out of their father’s evil clutch.
Penelope was married.
She was safe.
“What is it?” Sin mumbled drowsily as he noticed she wasn’t lying beside him anymore.
“Penny’s married.”
“Eh, yes.”
“She’s married!”
“Yes, she is married. And we are upset over this because…?”
Too relieved to speak, she threw herself into his arms, hugging him closely. His chest rumbled as he chuckled, amused at her frantic cuddling.
“I must admit I don’t mind you being a bit upset, if this is how you deal with it.”
She snuggled her nose into the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of him. His large hands softly caressed her back, removing more and more of the tension from her body with every tender touch.
The truth was almost too much for her to take in. After all these years of living with the stress of her father’s desperate attempts to be near her, to touch her, she could finally relax and enjoy every minute of life as everyone else did.
Finally, she was free.
Chapter Eleven
“For goodness sake, Uncle Rake, stop staring at Penny and concentrate on the game.”
“I’m not staring at Penny.”
“Yes, you are. Constantly. It’s getting quite old, you know.”
“What is getting old? You?”
“Says he who is at least five years my senior.”
“At least?”
“It’s hard to tell, you know. It seems much more than a mere five years when one looks upon your wrinkled old face.”
“Caroline, I think your youngest son is losing his eyesight!”
“Don’t you try to get me to join your silly discussion.”
“Silly?” Sebastian grinned mischievously, and his mother shook her head with a sigh.
“Why don’t I ever learn? I tell you this—never enter a discussion between Darling men. It will only bring you frustration and sorrow,” Lady Newbury enlightened Charmaine, who sat beside her mother-in-law on one of the plush sofas filling the salon where the Darling family gathered every afternoon for tea. It wasn’t the quiet affair it had been at her childhood home, as the Darlings hadn’t it in them to be quiet. Ever.
They were constantly discussing various things, and it didn’t matter to them if it was a bump in the carpet or how much flour the cook used when she baked her delicious scones. They still made it into a war of words.
“Sorrow?” Rake chuckled, his eyes never leaving the game of cards he was playing with two of his brothers and his nephew Sebastian. “I get the frustration part. But sorrow?”
“Nursing a headache every evening that’s been caused by this family’s constant bantering makes one feel sorry for oneself.” Lady Newbury’s grave voice sounded almost hollow, and the duchess, who sat on a sofa facing them, nodded just as gravely in agreement.
“It most certainly does. I don’t know where they get it from. Hannibal is, as you all know, not the most talkative person, and neither am I.”
All the men in the room started to cough, and the duchess put on her best injured expression, together with her wettest puppy eyes.
“They are not very respectful toward their elders, either.” Lady Newbury sighed, and her mother-in-law turned her head toward her so quickly she almost snapped her neck.
“And who are you calling elderly?”
“Oh, God.” Lady Newbury sank back deeper into the sofa, looking mortified, and Charmaine bit back a smile as the duchess humpfed on the other side of the sofa table.
“Elderly…”
“So how did you find Gretna Green, Charmaine?” the duke asked kindly, and this time she didn’t hold back her smile.
“Very nice. It was such a beautiful place, and we met lots of new people, some of whom became really good friends.”
“Do you mean that girl Lydia, who keeps sending three letters a day?” He frowned at her with his bushy, white eyebrows. “She’s got speed in her fingers, I have to say.”
“And way too much time to spend writing.”
“Rake!” Penelope glared at her husband. “Lydia Woodley is a sweet, caring girl who became a dear, dear friend to us.”
“I’m only saying she needs to find a man to fill up all those empty hours of hers.”
“It’s not so easy to find a man, especially when they tend to run in the opposite direction,” Penelope admitted with a wry smile, and her husband raised an amused eyebrow as the other men howled with laughter.
“Really, my love? Aren’t you being a bit harsh against your friend now?” he drawled, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Am I?” Penelope asked sweetly, something which Charmaine thought should have told Rake he was walking on thin ice. But Rake was too busy sharing gloating gazes with his manly relatives to think twice about how deceptive Penelope could be in all her innocence.
“I think you are. I met the dear Lydia, you know, and I don’t think she’s such a hag as you make her sound. She is a bit…” He made a grimace as he searched for the right word. “She is just a little bland, I would say.”
“Homely, you mean,” Sebastian offered, and Rake nodded gratefully.
“Thank you, Ian. To say the dear Lydia is blandly homely describes her perfectly. She is a nice girl, even though she tends to talk too much most of the time. And she stares a lot, especi
ally at men. But otherwise…”
“Sounds like a catch,” Sebastian drawled, and Rake grinned wickedly in response.
“Doesn’t she?”
Penelope winked at her sister, her eyes twinkling with mirth, and Charmaine had to bend her head so she could hide the laughter which threatened to escape. Penelope was such a minx sometimes, and it surprised her Rake didn’t catch how she was pulling him along. But she had to admit he was pushed into it by the other Darling men, who joyfully engaged themselves in cheering him along against his wife.
“She is a catch, I agree with you there,” Penny said, holding her hand up in front of her as if inspecting her nails. “The problem for dear Lydia is how most men seem to not notice that. I’m glad she never had a London season. The poor girl would have had an awful time, abandoned in a corner by all the eligible men. Some people are just destined to become wallflowers.”
“Penny, what a low comment to make about your own gender.” Sin scowled at her. “Being homely doesn’t equal being a social failure.”
“Of course it will. She’s no great beauty, and she has no money to speak of. She is the youngest child to a penniless country squire without social connections. She’s made to be a wallflower.”
“No one is made to be a wallflower.”
Penelope raised her eyebrows at Sebastian, who had sounded just a bit too self-assured. “I tell you, Ian, looks and money are all that matter to men. And even if she had been somewhat pretty she still wouldn’t have been wanted by the men of the ton.”
“Oh, come on, Penny.” Edward, the fourth of the duke’s seven sons, snorted. “Among us we could make any girl just as Incomparable as our Charmaine here. It wouldn’t be a problem for us at all.”
Our Charmaine.
It was amazing how much one little word could affect a person. Charmaine’s throat lump grew as her happiness caused problems with her breathing. Not that she minded. She belonged.
“Now you are exaggerating,” Penny mocked Edward, and he shook his head in response.
“No, I’m not. With a little work, we could turn her into a diamond of the first water.”
“Eh, no, we couldn’t,” Rake put in as he finally grasped what his sweet little wife was after, but too late. Edward had already walked straight into Penny’s trap, and now he was caught.
The Beauty of You Page 12