“Tell me why, and I might.”
“I can’t.”
Her voice was only a whisper, yet he heard her clearly, and with a sigh he opened one of the heavy ledgers, making sure she could see he was dismissing her. “If I’m not mistaken, we have had this conversation regarding another subject before, and just as I said then, I want to know why. If you’re not able to show me enough respect to tell me, please leave. I have more important things to do, as you should be aware.”
She didn’t say one more word.
She just stood there silently, staring at him with those unreadable blue eyes before turning and leaving him alone in the study. Again he felt a sting of guilt, but he immediately erased the feeling.
So he hadn’t listened to her. Why was she surprised? He was a man, after all, and men weren’t known for their intellectual and spiritual conversations with women. That kind of talk you had with your male friends and relatives.
He ignored the little voice telling him his mother and grandmother probably would have killed him if they’d heard what he was thinking, not to mention what his sister would have done to him. Instead he forced himself to concentrate on the numbers he had abandoned earlier.
Five minutes later he put his pen down with a defeated sigh. It was no use. His head wasn’t able to concentrate on figures. All he could think about was Charmaine and her fear that he might be in danger.
Why hadn’t he listened to her?
He stood and crossed to the large window, looking out over the garden that was so lush in summer. Now it was clad in snow and painted a lovely and undisturbed canvas for his tired eyes and aching head.
He couldn’t help feeling as if they’d never had a chance from the beginning, that their marriage was doomed before it began. Her trapping him into matrimony had indeed been a bad start, and refusing to tell him why hadn’t exactly eased the tension between them. But then she had tried, he had to give her that, and he had a sinking feeling it was his own fault their marriage had become this farce.
He had fancied himself in love with her for so many years, secretly yearning for her from afar, but when she was dumped into his lap he just hadn’t known what to do with her. He’d always hoped her cold and selfish air was just that—an air—and that she would be different when he got to know her. But to his frustration she had seemed even worse than Francesca had said for so many years, and he had started to loathe himself for falling so shallowly in love with her. All the shame he had felt over his own feelings he took out on her, not giving her any chance to come clean with him, or with herself, for that matter.
The month in Gretna Green had been an eye-opener, and he had met the Charmaine he had always dreamt about, but yet again he had managed to turn the budding romance into nothing when they returned home, putting his work ahead of his feelings for her, and keeping her as far away from his heart as possible.
And to no use.
He was too much in love with both the old and the new Charmaine to ever be able to let her go. And now, when she had tried to reach out to him, he had behaved worse than before, not listening to her at all, and humiliating her with his tasteless jokes.
He closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cold window. Sebastian had been right earlier when he said Sin ignored his wife. He had been doing that all his life, ever since he first laid eyes upon her and found her perfect.
What he should have done back then was to stop his hiding and instead told her just how adorable he found her. Maybe they still wouldn’t have been an item, but at least he would have done the honest thing toward both of them.
Lost in his musings, eyes still shut, he never saw Lord Nester enter the garden, smiling cruelly as he saw Sin standing still in full view. Quietly his father-in-law lifted the gun he carried, aiming at his easy target.
The window broke as the bullet went through it, and Sin spun around as it hit him. With a groan of pain he fell out through the now windowless frame and down into the cold snow. With a shudder, his large body became still, and slowly a puddle of blood built under him, growing larger by the minute. Small snowflakes fell on him, trying to cover his unmoving body.
Lord Nester walked up to his victim and kicked him hard in the side, but Sin was gone and didn’t make a sound.
“Now she’s mine,” the attacker hissed before hurrying back into the garden, his mad laughter echoing behind him.
When the servants came crashing through the door, Lord Nester was long gone, and later, when the Chester Park hunters went out with their dogs to search for the perpetrator, all footprints had disappeared under the newly fallen snow, and there was no scent left for the bloodhounds to catch.
It was as if the cold hand of a ghost had touched Chester Park.
Chapter Fourteen
Sitting silently in the same chair where she had spent the last four weeks, Charmaine stared teary-eyed at her husband. Heavy curtains on the windows effectively hid the fact that spring had arrived and that it was already a week into the month of March.
“Please wake up,” she whispered, as she had so many times before, but as always he didn’t stir, his breathing never changing its pace.
“It’s a lovely day outside. Why don’t you leave this room for a while?” Lady Newbury entered the room and laid a hand on Charmaine’s shoulder before going to her son and putting a light hand on his cheek as she had done every day since the day he was shot.
Charmaine shook her head. “No.”
“You should go out. Or at least do something else. Spend some time with your sister.”
“No.”
Lady Newbury sighed. “Who am I fooling? We have been sitting in here for a month now, you and me, and had the same conversation every day, and yet we both know that neither of us will leave.”
Charmaine smiled, amused against her will. “Not until someone drags us out of here, at least.”
“Poor George,” Lady Newbury breathed. “He’s been so supportive and strong in spite of what has happened, but this is really beginning to get to him. He said today it feels he’s not only lost his son but also his wife. But I just can’t leave Sinclair. What if he wakes up and needs me and I’m not here?”
Charmaine swallowed hard. “He thinks we’ve lost Sin?”
Lady Newbury nodded, dabbing at her eyes with a wrinkly handkerchief, one already soaked with hundreds of tears. “He’s been so angry lately, and last night he lost his temper completely, shouting like a maniac, finally putting words to his anxiety. He’s so afraid Sinclair will die that he can’t even come in here and look at him in this condition.”
“So that’s why he’s never been here?”
“It’s too hard for him. He can’t stand the thought of losing Sinclair, so instead he pretends everything is fine. The explosion was bound to happen sooner or later, and I’m glad it finally did. Now I can talk to him, share my feelings and listen to his.”
Charmaine’s gaze moved to her husband again, following every handsome line of his face with her eyes, and something cold grabbed her heart.
“Do you think he will…” She took a deep breath, too afraid to openly say what had tormented her since the shooting. “Do you think he will die?”
Lady Newbury sat down beside her, grasping her cold hands firmly. “No, I don’t. You know what the good doctor said, that Sinclair wasn’t that badly injured. The bullet barely grazed his temple, and even though he bled quite a lot at first, the coldness of the snow stopped the bleeding before it was too late.”
“But?”
Lady Newbury let go of Charmaine’s hand and lifted her handkerchief to wipe away the telling tears running down her cheeks. “But what if he doesn’t wake up? What if he will continue to lie here like this for the rest of his life? Or worse, what if he wakes up as a different man? I’ve heard tales of how head injuries can change a man—and you should know, Charmaine, that it’s never for the better.”
The picture Lady Newbury painted was indeed awful, and Charmaine could understand the
countess’s agony. How could you ever decide what was better for your own child? To die or to a live a life in dire sickness?
Subconsciously Charmaine put a hand protectively against her belly as she thought of the small life growing inside of her. She had been shaken when she finally understood why she had been so tired lately, but the following nausea had offered her the truth. She was expecting Sin’s baby.
Nobody knew about her condition, and she wasn’t about to tell anyone, either, not even Penelope, who was the reason for her awakening to the fact she was pregnant. Her sister had just found out herself she was expecting, and constantly informed Charmaine about how she was feeling and what she had learnt about such things.
She knew Penelope probably would be quite vexed when she learnt Charmaine hadn’t shared her secret, but she wanted Sin to be the first to know, and she would tell him as soon as he woke up.
If he woke up.
When he woke up, she corrected herself mentally, determined not to give in to the negative thoughts that kept disturbing her optimism.
“We can’t give up now.” She put an arm around Lady Newbury’s slender shoulders, offering her sympathy and extra strength. “We both know in our hearts that he will come back to us. He just needs his time to heal first.”
Lady Newbury leaned her cheek against Charmaine’s, patting the opposite cheek with her hand. “Thank you, my dear, for being here for Sinclair, but mostly for being here for me. I don’t know how I ever would have gone through these last weeks without you. Really, I don’t.”
Charmaine felt the old lump in her throat as her mother-in-law’s open affection washed over her. She wasn’t used to someone showing her emotions, not real ones.
Her parents had both loved her, but it had been a different kind of love. Her stepfather had been obsessed with her, whilst her mother had been protective of her. Penelope loved her dearly, but if she was honest with herself Charmaine knew it was more because Penelope thought she was supposed to love her sister than actually loving her for the person she was.
Even though Sin didn’t love her, she had now and then almost thought that maybe he did. But that still wasn’t a true love. It was her wishing too hard for something until she almost could persuade herself that it was there.
But Lady Newbury was different.
Caroline Darling did care for her, for being the person she was. She hadn’t had the strength to put up a façade while sitting at Sin’s sickbed, and therefore her mother-in-law had met someone no one else ever had, the true Charmaine. And to Charmaine’s surprise it seemed Lady Newbury liked that version of her very much.
The first week at Sin’s bed they hadn’t talked at all, only sat there, side by side, staring at his pale face, both secretly praying for his eyes to open and for the apparent agony to go away.
The second week, Sin had stopped looking as if he was in deep pain, and his new angelic look had them both so relieved they had almost smiled at each other. Almost.
The third week had started with them talking lightly about the weather and ending with Lady Newbury telling Charmaine every memory she had of Sin, from her pregnancy until the day he was shot. She couldn’t have found a more interested audience anywhere.
When the fourth week arrived, they were completely at ease with each other, and even though Charmaine still kept to herself her stepfather’s obsession with her and her fear that he was the one responsible for shooting Sin, there were no other barricades between them anymore.
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but here.”
Lady Newbury nodded, teary-eyed. “In some strange way I’m glad this happened. Not that Sinclair got shot, mind you, but that I shared this with you and, in between all the tears and all the ripped handkerchiefs, got to know you.”
Charmaine laughed softly. It was a hoarse and squeaky sound, but still it was a laugh. “I know exactly what you mean, and I must admit that I too am glad I got to share this with you. Thank you.”
“No, my child, thank you. If you hadn’t kept ignoring me while I treated you with all the contempt in the world, we would never have come this far. I was such a wreck…”
“Yes, you were.”
Lady Newbury snorted with laughter. “You don’t have to agree with me.”
“You are a mother with a son who almost died. Of course I can overlook your rash behavior and lingering, nasty looks.”
Lady Newbury shook her head. “Lord, just thinking about how I acted those first days makes me blush with mortification. I’m so sorry for letting my fears overcome me, but you were the only one there, and I was too full of weary feelings to be able to keep it all bottled up inside of me.”
“I’m still glad you did. It gave us something to talk about when you had calmed down.”
“That’s true. I spent days trying to explain myself to you, without making any sense.”
Charmaine laughed again. “You did appear a bit frantic, but in the end I caught the apology.”
“She apologized to you?”
Sebastian walked into the bedroom, interrupting the intimate moment, and Charmaine immediately hid behind her mask to hide her true feelings from the one man who seemed able to see right through her.
“What about my apologizing got you so riled up?” Lady Newbury said with a roll of her eyes toward Charmaine.
Sebastian grinned mischievously as he sat down in the last empty chair. “You apologized. In my world, that’s something so rare you can spend a lifetime waiting for it and never see it with your own eyes. You just hear tales from others who claim they know someone who knows someone who heard you utter the word ‘Sorry.’”
“I beg your pardon,” Lady Newbury huffed. “I do apologize now and then, but only when it’s deserved.”
“You’ve never apologized to me.”
“Which says more about you than about me.”
Sebastian’s grin deepened. “Touché. I have to give you that. I must admit there haven’t been many times when I honestly can say it wasn’t my fault, or partly my fault, things happened.”
“You are an imp, my son.”
“So you keep saying.” Sebastian leaned back in his chair, looking so much the blasé dandy that Charmaine had to bite her lip not to laugh at him. “But then everyone always keeps saying how much I remind them of you, so what does that make you, then?”
“You look like me, not act like me.”
“I beg to differ.” Sebastian’s green eyes danced with mirth. “Even Charmaine here will have to agree with me, after sharing the same home with you for a couple of months, when I claim that you are not the proper and conceited matriarch you think you are.”
“I think I am?” Lady Newbury gasped before Charmaine had a chance to come up with a witty reply to his disrespectful bickering. “You know as well as I do that I’m not so fond of people pretending to be something they are not, and yet you sit there claiming I am? Sebastian, that was low, even for you.”
“Even for me?” He mimicked her earlier gasp. “How utterly rude of you to imply I’m going too far when you have the nerve to sit there pretending to like Charmaine, when she stands for everything you dislike, being the queen of disguise as she is.”
“What are you talking about?” Lady Newbury sighed, not following her son’s train of thought.
“Our Impeccable Queen here, who pretends she is the coldest, most heartless chit who ever walked across a Polite Society ballroom.”
“Sebastian…”
He ignored his mother, instead leaning closer to Charmaine, nailing her with his green eyes that had lost all their previous mirth. A shiver ran down her spine as she met his probing gaze.
What was his game? What was it he was searching for? Desperately she strained every muscle she could to stay as serene as possible and keep her blue eyes cold and empty of emotion.
“Do you really think I’ll fall for that, my dear sister-in-law? Haven’t you realized I see through you?” Sebastian asked.
“Sebastian Darling
!”
“Yes, Mother?”
“Stop harassing poor Charmaine. She’s had the worst time of her life lately and doesn’t need you bothering her with your antics.”
“I don’t harass. I asked one very simple question. Why are you pretending to be worse than you are?”
He wiggled pointedly with his eyebrows without letting his eyes leave Charmaine’s face. Her back ached from the stress of trying to remain unmoved and seemingly untouched. His words reminded her entirely too much of the duchess’s question at the beginning of Charmaine’s marriage to Sin.
Why is a good girl like you pretending to be a bad girl?
Lady Newbury stood up and stepped in front of Charmaine, effectively blocking her from Sebastian’s probing eyes. “Stop it. She’s not up for this right now. She needs her strength and her thoughts where they belong, with Sin. Not with his lunatic younger brother who seems to have lost his common sense.”
“Ask her.”
“Ask her what?”
Charmaine wanted to sigh with frustration. Give up, she thought. Let it be. Just get out of here and leave me alone.
But Sebastian was like a bloodhound who had found a trace. He knew he was on the right track, and he was not going to let his victim go. “Ask her why she’s hiding her true self from everyone, including Sin.”
“Sebastian…”
“Ask her!” he interrupted, and to Charmaine’s utter horror Lady Newbury sighed, defeated, and sat down in the chair she had left moments ago.
“All right,” she breathed, with another roll of her eyes. “Charmaine, I’m sorry for bothering you with this, but my son—the idiotic one, that is—thinks you are hiding yourself behind a mask…”
“Disguise,” Sebastian corrected.
“Behind a disguise,” Lady Newbury repeated, with her umpteenth roll of eyes as Sebastian gave her an approving nod. “And he would like to know why you are.”
“Thank you.”
Sebastian leaned forward and gave Lady Newbury a peck on the cheek before sitting back, crossing his arms and legs, and continuing to stare at Charmaine.
The Beauty of You Page 17