“Miss Sanborn was a hero, Mrs. Randall, with some truly outstanding qualities. Evidently, she takes after you.”
Charlotte could only stare at him. He was laying it on a bit thickly, she thought. But Alicia smiled.
“Why, thank you, Mr. Malloy.” The older woman’s tone had softened measurably, and Charlotte could tell he had succeeded in distracting her aunt from the compromising position in which she had discovered them.
Setting her roses and clipping shears down on the table beside her, Alicia asked, “What can we do for you today?”
“I came to offer my assistance in selling Miss Sanborn’s homestead.”
That was the last thing Charlotte had expected him to say. She hadn’t even given a thought to that transaction or if it even should occur. And she couldn’t help the wave of disappointment she felt, having assumed he had come over simply to see her.
“That is most appreciated,” Alicia responded. “Is it not, Charlotte?”
She barely nodded. “Of course, I will enlist the services of Malloy and Associates when the time comes,” she said. “But for now—”
“For now,” Alicia interrupted, “you two will have to get along without me. I’m afraid I must get ready for my meeting. I’m responsible for the decorations,” she added, pointing to the roses. Reed bowed and Alicia glided out with a backward wave of her hand.
“Women suffragists and free love with Victoria Woodhull?” Reed asked, his face deadpan.
Charlotte stifled a laugh, envisioning her aunt rallying for the right to vote, not to mention the right to dally with a man outside of wedlock.
“Hardly,” she made a face. “Christian Science with Mary Baker Eddy.” But the mention of suffragists reminded her of Helen’s mention of her sister. Before she could ask Reed about his mysterious trip out west, a voice in her ear caused her to jump.
“Tea in the garden, Miss Charlotte.” Gerald had entered the room on silent butler feet.
“Thank you, Gerald,” Charlotte replied, trying to appear as if she were used to being waited on. She turned to him, but the extremely efficient Gerald was already disappearing through the doorway and she was speaking to empty space.
The amused look on Reed’s face proved she was failing at pretending to be a practiced lady of leisure.
“Can you stay?” she asked him, her heart pounding.
For an answer, he gestured her to lead the way to the garden.
Outside on the brick patio, amidst the small lawn and the flower beds, Lacey had set the table for tea and was already pouring. Wordlessly, Charlotte sat down, unsure where to start. They waited for Lacey to go inside. They were finally alone.
“It’s hard to believe you’re really here in Boston,” Reed said as soon as she was gone.
“I could say the same thing of you. It never occurred to me that you might be away when I arrived.” She waited, hoping he would enlighten her.
“What did John tell you of my trip?” he asked, not looking her directly in the eye but fiddling with his tea cup.
“Nothing, only . . . nothing,” she finished, realizing John had told her only that Reed would have to be the one to explain. However, he didn’t enlighten her.
“It’s not important now,” he added, putting further distance between them. If he had returned to Spring City to invite her to come eastward once more, then why didn’t he simply tell her?
She bent her head to hide her confusion and breathed in the rich aroma of the roses that her aunt cultivated. They reminded her of the roses Reed had planted for her.
“Did you really come here to help me sell my home?”
He gave her a wry smile and shook his head, dislodging a lock of hair that she very much wanted to touch. But touching him was what got her in trouble in the first place.
“You’ve read the telegram I sent?” she asked. “You know what my aunt is threatening and why?”
Charlotte wondered if he knew instinctively, as she had, that Helen was the source of the rumors.
He only nodded. “I warned you that this could happen. It looks, however, as if you’re winning your aunt over.”
Charlotte only shrugged. “She is a decent woman who loves her grandchildren.” She looked into his handsome face that she’d missed so desperately and hoped he would put things right. “Reed, you do know that Helen has spoken to my aunt?”
“I am aware that they know each other.”
“She told Alicia that I had acted questionably.”
He nodded. “I believe she said more than that. She told her that we’d stayed in your house alone.”
Charlotte bit her lip a moment. “No, actually, I did that.”
His mouth fell open and he shook his head, apparently flummoxed. Before he could speak, she sought to explain herself.
“It was only a matter of time before Helen said it, so I said it for her.”
Reed sighed, and Charlotte thought he might be disappointed in her.
“Helen didn’t know anything for certain,” he said. “She didn’t know what occurred before she arrived or even if I slept in a room at Fuller’s the night of the dance. You may have given her a dangerous weapon, Charlotte.”
“I didn’t exactly give it to her,” she said. But the lady in question was undoubtedly going to use it. “Reed, Helen has as good as told me that if I don’t leave Boston, she’ll try to destroy my reputation any way she can.”
He looked unconcerned. “She has tried with your aunt. I fail to see what else she can do.”
Charlotte sighed. So, he was going to sweep Helen’s participation under the rug. For old time’s sake or for the present’s sake? His next words were on a completely different tack entirely.
“I wish I had been here when you arrived, but it seems that you have amused yourself and been kept entertained.”
She shook off her thoughts of Helen for the moment and, instead, remembered her shopping trip and taking the children on their daily expeditions. She nodded, not realizing that her eyes were sparkling with the pleasure of her exciting new life. “Indeed, I have been having a wonderful time.”
“Farnsworth knows his way around the city,” Reed commented, looking somewhat stern. “I’m sure he’s been an adequate guide.”
She thought of Jason and how many times over the past few days that she’d wished her companion had been Reed. “He has been very kind.”
It sounded to her as if Reed snorted. It was such an odd sound and so unlike anything she’d heard from him that she stared up into his blue eyes. “Is something wrong?”
“No.” The word was clipped.
“Jason knows Thaddeus,” she added.
“Your brother? Is he here?”
“No. No one knows where he is.”
“I see.”
She lapsed into miserable silence. Where was the fluid conversation that she’d so delighted in over a brandy in her study? Why was she unexpectedly feeling so awkward and why was Reed looking as though his collar was a few sizes too tight? She tried another topic altogether.
“I met Charles Greene at the party last night.”
“The Post’s editor—yes, I know. I saw you talking to him.”
So he had been watching her, even when she thought he was deeply engrossed in conversation with Helen.
“I’m hoping to get an assignment. It would give me great confidence to know I can support myself here. Then if I decide to stay, I will begin inquiries regarding housing in the city, out from under my aunt’s roof. Jason says he knows of some fairly reasonably priced residences a few streets over, on the other side of the Common.”
She wasn’t mistaken this time as a stark look of scorn crossed Reed’s handsome face. It occurred to her that he didn’t care for Jason Farnsworth, III. Not one bit. Almost as little as she cared for Helen.
She resolved to be utterly frank. “I was surprised to see you with Helen last night after . . . after all you said to me in Spring.”
“Last night held a few surprises for both of us then,” he a
nswered cryptically, standing up again. She could see by the closed look on his face that she should let the matter drop, but she couldn’t.
“Reed, I must ask you—”
“Ask me what, Charlotte?”
She swallowed. “Did you stop in St. Louis after you left Spring City?”
He paused a moment, obviously surprised by the question. Then he nodded.
“I did.”
That was it? That was all he was going to say? She started to feel her temper rising.
“Is there anything about that visit you think I ought to know?”
“No.” His penetrating blue eyes never left her own glittering gaze.
“I see.”
She stood up slowly. This was going nowhere.
“What I mean, Charlotte, is that when we parted in Spring City, I told you that I planned to speak with Helen further. There is nothing new to tell you. As far as I’m concerned, my prior arrangement with Helen is over. She knows that, and people will come to realize it.”
“Not if you carry on as you did last night,” she bit out, immediately regretting how jealous she sounded. In any case, Reed didn’t look the least bit guilty. She crossed her arms.
“You were otherwise occupied and I was hungry. That was the end of it.”
Hungry, for what exactly? And how convenient, Charlotte thought. When Reed needed a dining companion, he had no problem being with Mrs. Belgrave. And when he wanted to end something, it simply was over. Damn the consequences or the untidy leftovers, for that matter, such as Helen throwing threats around the way a duck shook off water.
“Is there anything else about last night that you wish to discuss?” he asked her when she did nothing but stare quietly.
“No, nothing,” Charlotte finished.
He cocked his head to one side, and she thought, perhaps, he had something more to add, but all he said was, “I’d best be getting to work.”
She didn’t know how to react to this distant stranger, who was not at all the playful, loving man who’d taken such a firm hold of her affections. Perhaps this was how he had to be in the city.
It saddened her, making her truly homesick for the first time. Leaving the tea untouched, she passed by him to lead the way inside.
“Charlotte.”
Halting, she turned expectantly.
Without another word, he gripped her upper arms and brought her up against him. Before she could register what was happening, Reed’s lips were upon hers, firm and insistent.
Prepared or not, her reactions were immediate and unrestrained. She returned his kiss thoroughly, breathing in his familiar scent and remembering all about this man who held her closely against his chest.
He was no stranger after all. He could make all the nerve endings in her body sizzle, and he was kissing her with a possessiveness that thrilled her. That her aunt might still be at home and looking out one of the rear windows only fleetingly entered her thoughts.
“It seems a lifetime since I tasted you,” he said when at last he let her come up for air, the intensity in his voice touching Charlotte’s heart. Here was the Reed she loved, his eyes glittering like sunlight on a clear blue Colorado lake.
He pressed his mouth against hers once more and she felt his teeth nip her lower lip. Another instant and he was parting her warm lips to slip his tongue inside. A small moan escaped her.
She wanted to tell him then how much she loved him. She wanted to see him smile at her words, take them inside his heart, and then give them back to her with equal passion.
Later, Charlotte was never sure whether, if circumstances hadn’t intervened, she would have told him then or not—and whether she could have avoided so much hurt that came after.
“In the garden, you say,” came a familiar male voice through the door.
Charlotte pulled away from Reed as if stung. If Jason saw them together and mentioned it to her aunt—or to anyone, for that matter—Alicia would surely know what had occurred between them in Spring City. Their indiscretion would be obvious.
Reed, however, didn’t seem to want to let her go. She had to yank her hands out of his, just as Jason stepped onto the stone walk. Reed looked black daggers from her, with the red blush creeping up her face, to Jason who was sauntering into the garden as if he owned the place.
“I believe you gentlemen know each other,” she managed into the thundering silence.
Chapter Nineteen
“Why, yes.” Jason was the first to speak, after looking curiously from Charlotte’s red face to Reed’s annoyed expression. “Mr. Malloy has been handling my family’s affairs since . . . why forever.”
“I assure you,” Reed said, “it only seems to you to be forever. My father handled your family’s accounts long before I became a lawyer. But then you are too young to remember that.”
Jason colored at the insinuation that he was still wet behind the ears. Charlotte had seen in the short time she’d known Jason that he cultivated a worldly image. Unfortunately, next to Reed, Jason’s worldliness seemed just that, an image, while Reed exuded natural sophistication and unquestionable authority.
At the moment, Charlotte thought, Reed was exuding natural irritation and unquestionable annoyance that Jason had interrupted their kiss.
“Mr. Malloy handles my aunt’s family’s affairs as well,” Charlotte began, “I guess that means my family’s affairs. Not that I knew that until a few months ago, but that’s how we met.”
It was her turn to blush with embarrassment as she realized she was babbling to relieve the tension blooming more strongly in the garden than even her aunt’s flourishing roses. “He brought my cousin’s children to me in Colorado.”
“Yes,” Jason responded, “you mentioned that when we were out riding, I believe. It was above and beyond the call of duty, I’d say, to go all the way out there in person. I would think your firm large enough to have underlings who can handle such dusty matters.”
Charlotte saw Reed’s jaw work a moment before he took in a deep breath.
“I give your interest in the running of my firm all the respect it’s due; however, you know as little about it as you do your own family’s business. You have to work at something to get to know it intimately,” he continued, glancing over at Charlotte.
“For anything that comes too easily might not be worth having. As for my going to Colorado, it was unarguably in my best interest; and what’s in my interest is good for my business. Speaking of which, I must return to it.”
Jason stood in stunned silence, as did Charlotte, until Reed took her hand. He brushed it lightly against his lips in a parody of what had occurred just before Jason had come into the garden. “I bid you good day, Charlotte. I will see you again soon, I hope.”
What could she do but nod her agreement, realizing Reed had intentionally used her first name in front of Jason Farnsworth. She was more than a little alarmed at the thought of Jason figuring out that there was something between her and her family’s lawyer. For his part, Jason barely managed a curt nod as Reed pushed past him.
“How rude,” Jason muttered.
Charlotte felt responsible for the inexplicably nasty encounter. “I am sorry. He’s usually not that way.” Jason’s eyes opened a little wider. “I mean,” she explained, “in my dealings with Mr. Malloy, I’ve always found him to be both pleasant and amicable.”
“Really,” Jason looked her over a little too perceptively. She didn’t like it.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, then smiled to soften the tone of her words.
He seemed not the least put off. “I just thought to surprise you, to make sure you had fully recovered from last night.”
“Well, as you can see, I am fine.”
“I can see that you look positively perfect.” He had returned to his ridiculously flattering and endearing self.
“Good,” she returned. “Then you must go, for thanks to you, I’m having lunch with Mr. Greene and I have to get ready.”
Jason pr
etended to sulk. “But when will I see you again? How can you banish me from your sight?”
She threw up her hands. “Good lord. We’ve seen each other nearly each day since I arrived, and, in all honesty, I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. I enjoy your company, but right off the reel, I must tell you—”
“You? Give me the wrong impression?” He laughed. “Never! The impression you make is always right. That is, it’s always one of beauty and sweetness. And as long as you find my company agreeable, I am a happy man. I’ll leave you to your morning constitutional. All the best of luck to you with Charles Greene.”
He kissed her hand, much as Reed had done, though lingering longer on her knuckles, and then he was gone, without letting her explain that she, in fact, wanted to see him less.
She sat down on the stone bench. A few months ago, she was alone. Now, she had two men in her garden and one waiting for her at lunch. She smiled. When it rained, it certainly poured.
*****
“I was extremely pleased you agreed to meet with me, Miss Sanborn,” Charles Greene said, as they awaited their meal.
“I am the one who is extremely pleased, sir” Charlotte returned, “and honored.” Hoping to present herself as worldly to this well-known editor, she had dressed the part wearing her new chocolate brown outfit with its long, straight skirt and elegant jacket over a cream-colored blouse with small, lacy ruffles.
After Jason’s departure, she’d spent the rest of the morning arranging the newspaper clippings of her articles in an orderly fashion and pacing the parlor. Finally, at 11:30, she stepped into her aunt’s carriage.
Looking up at the gaily striped awnings of Boston’s most famous fish restaurant, she took a deep breath.
“Hm, fishy,” she said aloud, wrinkling up her nose, and then she relaxed. How frightening could it possibly be to discuss her writing career over haddock and coffee? She hurried inside.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect to have an assignment so soon after arriving here,” Charlotte told the bespectacled, gray-haired man after he’d looked through her portfolio, “but I am eager to start writing again. I’m not used to having so much time on my hands.”
An Improper Situation (Sanborn-Malloy Historical Romance Series, Book One) Page 21