“Please, Charmaine,” Penelope inplored, getting down on her knees beside her husband. “Both you and I have suffered in our different ways because of him. We deserve to be happy, you and I. We shouldn’t be this afraid of opening up to others, and especially not so afraid of falling in love. You know how I struggled with my feelings for Rake, and I almost lost him because of being too insecure, thanks to Father never showing me I was worthy of his love or anyone else’s love.”
“What my longwinded wife is trying to tell you”—Rake grinned as he gave an amused glance at his wife—“is to let go. Leave your stepfather to me and get on with your life. You have a husband who just woke up from being unconscious for a month. Go and be with him. I will take care of your stepfather, and then you will never have to worry about him again. I promise.”
Charmaine put a hand against her mouth as she felt her lips starting to tremble. Rake’s warmth and gentle probing was becoming too much for her, and the pain in her throat and chest was spreading through her whole body, until she felt quite dizzy from the chaos of her emotions.
“I don’t know how to let go,” she managed to whisper, and Rake put his hand against her cheek with the most love-filled smile she had ever seen. But before he had a chance to answer, a voice was heard from behind them.
“You don’t need to know how to. That’s what family is for.”
The threesome looked, startled, toward the door, where the duke and duchess stood with Lord and Lady Newbury. All four looked worn and heartbroken, and Lady Newbury was crying openly.
“Have you been eavesdropping?” Rake snarled, taken by surprise.
“If you don’t want anyone to overhear your conversations, you should make sure you have closed the door completely before you start them.” The duke left the doorway and walked briskly across the room, his hard eyes not once leaving Charmaine’s face, and she shivered in response to the verbal lashing she knew she would get.
She knew how much Hannibal loved his family. He would never forgive her for endangering his grandson as she had. Rake had been right. She had known about her stepfather’s plans for hours, and when Sin didn’t listen to her she should have continued to the next person in line until she found someone willing to listen.
It was her fault. Her stepfather had been right. She was the only one to blame. It didn’t matter what Rake said. Sin’s parents and grandparents would never be as tolerant and forgiving regarding her role in what had happened as he had.
How could they be?
When the duke reached the sofa, he forced Rake and Penny, with a growl, to move aside before he sat down beside Charmaine. Before she had a chance to react, he grabbed her by the waist, hauled her up onto his knee, and forced her to lean her head against his shoulder.
His large hands, so much like Sin’s, caressed her hair softly, and he bent his head down to rest his chin on the top of her blonde head. Her heart screamed with pain at being held just as she’d always pictured a devoted father would hold his beloved child. How she’d always wanted to be held.
With love.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered hoarsely. “Can you ever forgive me for not being there for you too? Anna and I knew how he mistreated Penny, and we did all we could to help her and strengthen her, but not once did we consider he could be mistreating you also.”
Charmaine closed her eyes as the power of his words spread throughout her. Hannibal Darling, the mighty Duke of Berkeley, was crying openly for not being there for her, even though she had done nothing but wrong all her life.
“I never did anything, so why should you have?”
She felt his chest rumble as he laughed sadly, listening to her broken whisper. “You always did seem so sated and satisfied with your life, being The Incomparable Queen and the belle of the ton, and all. We all knew how Penny constantly was overlooked in favor of you, and we…”
His voice trailed off as he took a few deep breaths to calm himself before continuing. “I never thought twice about how it was for you. Penny tried to tell us, you know, always saying that you never wanted all the luxury he showered upon you, but we didn’t believe her because you never looked anything but content about it. If we had known, we could have done more. We could have saved you.”
He hugged her closer to his broad chest, and she could feel the even pounding of his heart against her cheek. Emotions she didn’t know how to handle ranged throughout her heart and soul, and her breath came in gasps. The duke’s kindness was too much.
Why didn’t they realize she wasn’t worth it?
Her heart ached so badly it must be ready to fly into pieces, crushed under the heaviness of the love bestowed upon her.
“Can you forgive me?” the duke whispered into her hair, his voice as broken as hers, and a strange sound came through her lips, a sound from the deepest shadows of her heart.
“Can you forgive us?” the duchess said as she squeezed herself down between her husband and Rake and put her arms around Charmaine and her husband, hugging both of them hard. “I promise you, Charmaine, you are safe here with us. No one wants to hurt you here. We are your family now, and all we want is for you to be happy. So please, please let us know the girl we have glimpsed now and then ever since you married Sinclair. Because that girl we adore. The fake queen we like too, but more out of awe than love.”
“I don’t think Lord Nester wanted to hurt her, though,” Rake drawled from his side of the sofa. “That old goat probably would have stained his pants at the mere thought of being as close to Charmaine as you two are right now.”
“Richard Darling!” The duchess let go of Charmaine and turned to stare at her youngest son. “That was extremely inappropriate of you to say, especially now. How rude can you be?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Rake grinned, and Charmaine felt her throat slowly become less constricted and the heartache ease as he winked at her, showing her it was just a joke to lighten the situation for her. “I can try my very best to find out, if you want me to?”
“Richard, don’t you dare!” his mother gasped, outraged, and then continued to lecture him about the manners of a well-behaved man.
Rake listened quietly to his ranting mother with an amused grin, which seemed to upset her even more, and now and then he would roll his eyes toward Charmaine, letting her know just how hilarious he thought the duchess was.
As always, he had amazed Charmaine with his remarkable insight about her, and she guessed it was because he too had been playing a part all these years. Everyone had always thought him the most infamous scoundrel and libertine of his time, which he never had denied, but he had turned out to be anything but.
The duke sighed deeply, loosening his firm grip of her. “And there all reason went out the door,” he mumbled as he looked up at his dramatically lecturing wife from under his bushy, white eyebrows. “I love that woman more than life itself, but sometimes I must confess I find her quite daft. Those boys of ours walk all over her, and she couldn’t enjoy it more.”
With surprising strength for such an old man, he lifted her off his lap, putting her down on the spot his wife had left. “So, now that we have apologized to you for our ignorance, and you of course have accepted the excuse…”
His voice trailed off as he looked at her encouragingly, and she nodded quickly. “Of course.”
“Good, good,” he hummed, casting a quick glance at his wife, who was still occupied with her drama, before turning to Lord and Lady Newbury, beckoning them to come over and join him and Charmaine.
“We need to do some elaborate planning here,” he informed them. “We have to come up with a scheme that will not only make Lord Nester and the threat he presents toward Sinclair go away forever, but will also allow Charmaine and Penelope to live the rest of their lives without having to constantly look over their shoulders, wondering what he might be up to.”
Lady Newbury looked utterly calm and serene, just as Charmaine used to look whenever she felt the worst, and she couldn’t help wonder
ing what the good lady was up to now. Caroline Darling was a loving wife and a doting mother—a saint amongst the matrons of the ton. But under the peachy, motherly exterior she had a spine of indestructible stone, and Charmaine thought perhaps that if there was anyone she should fear in this room it was her mother-in-law.
Her father was Basil Sinclair, the Earl of Saxton, who was infamous for his cold intelligence and ruthless management of his department at the War Ministry. He was the king of the spies, and Charmaine had heard someone likening him to an octopus, his tentacles being everywhere, stirring every pot he could find.
Caroline was the apple that hadn’t fallen too far from the tree. All things considered, she had connections to fear and envy.
“It would be best if he died,” Lady Newbury chipped in, proving Charmaine’s every thought about her right, and her husband frowned at her.
“So you think we should kill him? That’s your grand plan? And who do you think should act upon this plan?”
“I said it would be best if he died, not that I was actually going to kill him. But I must admit it would be extremely satisfying to do so.” Her small smile sent shivers down Charmaine’s back, and the only thing she could think of was how utterly grateful she was that this woman was on her side.
“Well, you are not going to kill anyone,” the duke bit out, and Lady Newbury groaned in disappointment.
“It seems I have to promise that I will not kill the man even though I think he deserves it. He is such an awful man, that Lord Nester. One daughter he ignores completely and has nothing against giving her away to a man he knows is a sadist, whilst obsessing about the other daughter and sending every suitor away to be able to keep her for himself.”
“Such a charmer.” Rake grinned as he joined in the fray against the duchess again. “Are you sure it’s him you want to kill off? Why not get rid of old George, here, and seduce Lord Nester into marriage? Could be a ride you’d never forget.”
“Now you make me shiver with disgust,” Lady Newbury said with a grimace. “Just thinking about being anywhere closer than within a mile of that man makes me nauseous.”
“Can you two just stop it?” the duchess hissed. “Even though I could stand here all day discussing various ways we could get rid of the bastard, we still have to come up with a plan that will work, and then move on it.”
“Indeed we do,” Lord Newbury agreed sternly. “We have to make sure the man never again can try to kill Sinclair, and we have to get him as far away from his daughters as possible. I’ve never encountered such selfishness before, and I’ll tell you, I would never have guessed it was old Lord Nester, if no one had told me about all the things he’s done. He seems such a good-natured and happy sort.”
“Appearances can lie, which I think our dear daughter-in-law has made very clear to us all.”
Charmaine felt her cheeks grow hot but didn’t say anything. She was too guilty of the accusation herself, after all, having fooled the entire ton into believing she was another person. But she had an excuse—her stepfather’s infatuation with her and her need to hide all emotions from him, as he tended to act out quite rashly if he thought himself threatened by another man.
Like Lord Dane.
“Killing is still out of the question?”
“Caroline, for goodness’ sake!”
Lady Newbury sighed. “I just had to check.”
“You are such a strange woman.”
“And yet you married me.” Lady Newbury started to sound a bit irritated with her nagging husband, and he grinned, looking just as mischievous as his younger son.
“I did, and during all these years I’ve never regretted it more than a day or two. Three at tops.”
“I’m not very partial to you right now.”
Lord Newbury lifted his wife’s hand to his lips, putting a lingering peck on her knuckles. “Yes, you are, but you have always had a tendency to feel you have to make everyone think you’re not. But sweetheart, no one believes a word you say when you try to convince them you loathe me. I’m just too adorable for them to believe you.”
“Adorable?” The duchess snorted. “Since I am one of your oldest friends, I must say I feel I don’t have to hesitate when it comes to telling you the truth, and in this matter the truth is that you are not.”
“Not what?”
“Adorable.”
“I am too. Have always been and will always be.”
The duchess and Lady Newbury shared a look which told exactly how pathetic they found him, and then they turned their backs to him, promptly ignoring him. Not that he let that stop him from continuing to tease his wife.
“Last time I met Lady Easton, she told me all about how she still found me most attractive, and she informed me how lonely she felt when her husband was away hunting. Poor little thing. I feel so sorry for her, maybe I should pay her a visit now, and…”
“Don’t you dare, you toad,” his lovely wife hissed at him, her hands on her hips. “If you take one step toward Juliet Easton, I will make sure that you will suffer for it a long time. A long, long time.”
Lord Newbury grinned wickedly toward his angry wife, obviously quite pleased with the way she responded to his teasing. “Still jealous, I see.”
“I am not. I just don’t like that woman.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Juliet.”
Lady Newbury harrumphed angrily. “There’s more wrong with her than right. She’s a gossipy, vain snippet who thinks she’s so much more than everyone else. Just look at the way she and her poor husband receive their guests every year at that annual ball they hold at the beginning of every season. Sitting on a platform in those throne-like chairs as if they’re royalty, forcing everyone to walk past them and greet them. Not even Prinny acts that self-centered.”
“Still jealous,” Lord Newbury told his stepmother lightly, ignoring his wife’s outraged gasp. “But who can blame her? It’s me we’re talking about, after all. I’m just too adorable.”
“Wasn’t it Juliet Easton who wanted to marry you when you tried to get rid of the betrothal to Caroline all these years ago?”
“Indeed it was. Such good taste.”
“Rogue!” Lady Newbury hit her husband on the arm before again turning her back to him. She smiled in apology at Charmaine and Penelope.
“I’m so sorry, my girls, that you had to see that, but my husband has a tendency to love himself a bit too much now and then, and he always has to drag out the same memory of the same woman, just to rub my nose in it. I might have been a little jealous back then…”
“A little?”
Lady Newbury shot her husband a look that told him he could bury himself under the floor for all she cared, and returned to her interested audience. “That snippet, Lady Easton, decided she wanted George as her husband even though she knew he and I had been engaged since childhood.”
“She didn’t do anything until you told her you wanted out of the engagement so you could marry that vicar you were thinking yourself so much in love with.”
“That has nothing to do with Juliet’s brazen behavior. She was trying to be found in your bed. You can be glad I was there to stop her!”
“And that, dear audience, was the sole reason Caroline was found in my bedroom and had to marry me even though we both wanted nothing but out of the betrothal.” Lord Newbury wiggled with his eyebrows at his wife, who threw her hands out in despair.
“I give up. Why try to reason with the unreasonable?”
The duke sighed, defeated. “They have been at it since the day they met. I don’t know how many times I’ve cursed that infernal day my old friend King George thought it a splendid idea for his two close friends to join their families and had our children engaged to marry.”
“You could have refused,” Penelope said, her dazed eyes telling exactly how utterly romantic she found the subject.
“No, I couldn’t. He was not only my close friend, but he was also my king. I had lost Georgiana a couple of years b
efore, and at the time it felt safe to know that at least my oldest son would have his future known and safe. And as Basil was a close friend…”
“It was indeed a turbulent time, but it all ended quite well.” Lord Newbury’s face lost all its mirth. “How could I know that the woman I was engaged to was the love of my life?”
“How romantic,” Penelope breathed, and they all laughed, knowing what a dreamy heart she possessed.
The door opened and Ivanoff came in, looking grimmer than ever. “Lord Nester is here for his older daughter.”
“What?” the Darlings all shouted at once, and Charmaine suddenly felt the room spinning rapidly.
Her stepfather was there?
For her?
Whatever possessed the man to so calmly walk into the enemy’s lair and claim his daughter? Did he think they wouldn’t mind having their relative’s would-be assassin under their roof?
But then, he didn’t know they knew.
“I’m going to kill him,” Lord Newbury growled and started toward the door, where Ivanoff stood looking a bit anxious.
“No, don’t!” Charmaine called out, and to her surprise her father-in-law listened to her, halting reluctantly in the doorway.
“Are you trying to save him?” Lord Newbury said icily, and she shivered under his cold stare.
“Of course not,” she breathed. “It’s just that I think it’s better to give in to him for now and let him meet me. Maybe I could fool him into telling me his plans, or at least have him openly confess that it was he who did the shooting.”
Lord Newbury hesitated, clearly torn between her sensible suggestion and his desire to beat the cod to death.
“Charmaine’s right.” The duke ended his son’s wavering. “We can’t throw away this opportunity to get under the man’s skin. If we handle this right, we might be able to find a way out of this, for all our sakes, but especially for Sinclair’s.”
Penelope grabbed Charmaine’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “Are you sure you’re up to it? Can you really face him, knowing he probably shot Sin?”
The Beauty of You Page 21