“Yes,” she said almost soundlessly. “But I’m sure you’re safe.”
Anger tightened his features, deepened the lines between his nose and mouth, but his response emerged with more frigid politeness. “I won’t have any child of mine born without knowing its father.”
She bit her lip so hard, she drew blood and told herself that it was better this way. One clean cut, and all temptation was excised from her life.
But it didn’t feel better. It felt like someone hacked off her leg with a blunt knife, leaving her crippled forever. “You’re an honorable man, Charles. I never thought you were anything else.”
His mouth was a long thin line, and that muscle danced in his cheek again, proof of strong emotion. “I don’t feel honorable right now.”
She looked away and blinked back another surge of acrid tears. “I know,” she whispered. “But you’ve done nothing wrong.”
Whereas she, through her selfishness, had made him hellishly unhappy. She prayed the wound wasn’t mortal. She wished she could doubt the depth of his misery, but it was impossible. When he said he loved her, he meant it.
She curled her fingers into her palms until the nails scored her skin. “I…I’d really like to be alone for a little while.”
“There are beds upstairs.” He still sounded like a stranger.
“No, I’d rather wait down here,” she muttered, as the memory of how he’d swept her up in his arms flashed through her mind. He’d been so hungry for her, he hadn’t taken the time to find a bedroom. For heaven’s sake, they’d both been so lost to passion, they hadn’t even undressed.
No, she couldn’t dwell on those heated, transforming moments. That way lay madness.
“I’ll go into the next room,” he said.
“No…” She reached out to stop him, before she remembered she’d lost the right to touch him.
The gaze he leveled upon her was distant. “I’d prefer that, if you don’t mind.”
She braced against his coldness. He sounded worse than a stranger. He sounded like he hated her.
“I’ll see if I can find us something to eat. I know there’s some brandy in the cellars.”
The thought of food made her gag. “No, thank you.”
“Would you like a fire?”
“No, no, it’s a warm night.” His attempts to ensure her wellbeing made her want to scream.
“If Meg isn’t back by dawn, I’ll set out for Upton.” He still spoke in that distant voice. “It’s ten miles away, but I should find help there.”
Sally made herself stand up straight. “I want to box the chit’s ears,” she said bitterly. Although she couldn’t blame her niece for this almighty mess. It was all her fault.
“No doubt.” Charles gave her a chilly bow. “Then I’ll wish you good night.”
“Thank you.”
She watched him go through to the hall, then return with her pelisse which he dropped over the back of a chair. “In case it gets cold later.”
“Thank you,” she said again, and crossed the room to look out the window at the moon. After a moment’s bristling silence, she heard him leave again.
She didn’t look around. She couldn’t bear for him to see her tears.
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
* * *
Charles stirred from his uneasy doze to hear the outside door opening behind him. He shifted and groaned. He was too tall to sleep in a chair—and a hard chair at that.
“Sir Charles?” Meg stood on the threshold, carrying one of the lanterns from his curricle. She looked windswept and tired, but unharmed, thank God.
“Miss Meg,” he said, standing up, buttoning his coat.
“Where’s Aunt Sally?”
“Asleep in the next room.” He checked his watch. It was nearly eleven o’clock. “Where the devil have you been?”
“I got… Oh, there you are, Aunt Sally.”
“Are you all right, Meg?” she asked, coming through from the room where she and Charles had made love.
After all that had happened between them, seeing Sally felt like a punch to the solar plexus. On a wave of bitter misery, the events of the night rushed toward him. The wonder of having her in his arms, the sweetness of her surrender, followed by those devastating words that pulverized his every hope.
His hungry eyes ate up the sight of her. She’d put on her pelisse and found enough pins to tidy her hair. She looked almost respectable. But her lovely face was pallid and drawn, and the thickness in her voice revealed that she’d been crying.
Hell, he hated that he’d made her cry. His hands clenched into useless fists at his sides as if he prepared to fight some unnamed foe. Although the tragic truth was that when it came to his battle to win this exquisite woman, the dragons had emerged victorious.
“Yes, I’m fine,” the girl said, coming fully inside and shutting the heavy door behind her.
“Then you have no excuse for not coming back to get us,” Sally said coldly. “Leaving us here was wicked and irresponsible, but to stay away long enough to threaten to bring a scandal down on our heads is unforgivable.”
The rebuke clearly startled Meg. “I only intended to be a little while.”
“Even that was reprehensible enough. So why were you so long?”
“I…I got lost.” Meg, who became less chirpy with every second, placed the lantern on a side table. The hand carrying it had shown an increasing tendency to shake.
Charles couldn’t find the heart to be angry with her. “Meg, I warned you that the estate was isolated and hard to find.”
She cast him an apologetic glance. “I know you did. I meant to call on Perdita, then come back. But the lanes around here are a maze. I couldn’t find Perdita’s house, and it’s only good luck that I found my way back here at all.”
“We should be thankful for small mercies, then,” Sally said. “I’ve been worried sick that you’d been attacked or injured.”
“I’m sorry, Aunt,” Meg said in a subdued voice. She cast a glance at Charles, but he shook his head, wishing to heaven that her tricks had resulted in a different outcome. “I’d hoped if you had a chance to be alone, you’d reach an understanding.”
He waited for Sally to flare up, but her voice remained calm. Unnaturally calm, he couldn’t help thinking. “The only understanding we’ve come to is that I have a rattle-pate niece, unfit for polite society.”
“I thought…”
Sally didn’t let her finish. “You’ll have plenty of time for thinking back under your father’s roof, my girl.”
Meg looked aghast. “You can’t send me home.”
“I can and I will.” When she folded her arms, Sally looked as implacable as a stone statue. “Just be grateful that for my sake as well as yours, I won’t tell your father the disgraceful truth.”
“It’s not fair to send me away.” Meg suddenly sounded so young, Charles almost felt sorry for her.
“Miss Meg, I know you meant well today, but perhaps this is for the best,” he said gently.
“You’ve proven yourself unworthy of my trust. You’ve acted in a way that imperiled yourself, not to mention endangered my reputation and Sir Charles’s good name. I just pray we all get out of this without becoming the talk of the Town.”
Sally still spoke in that even, unemotional voice that somehow was worse than if she lost her temper. She’d spoken in just such a tone when she’d dashed all his hopes for happiness. Meg seemed to shrink under every measured, critical word.
“There’s absolutely no need for anybody else to know about this,” he reminded Sally.
“I hope not.” Sally didn’t look at him. “Now tell me you haven’t damaged Sir Charles’s rig or horses.”
The implied insult to her driving skills made Meg fire up. “Of course I didn’t. I’d never injure a horse.”
“It’s a pity you don’t devote some of your care for horses to people, Meg.” Sally sounded deathly tired and sad and defeated.
He’d
sell his soul for the right to comfort her, but he was the last person she’d turn to. His gut cramped with stabbing regret. He loathed the desolation he heard in her voice. A desolation he knew that he, not Meg, had caused, however disappointed she was in her niece.
“Apologize to Sir Charles, then for pity’s sake, let us leave this place. With any luck, they’ll still have our rooms at the Angel.”
The picture of remorse, Meg turned to Charles. “I’m dreadfully sorry, Sir Charles. I hope you can forgive me.”
How could he bear a grudge? In her harebrained fashion, she’d tried to help him. It wasn’t her fault everything had come to ruin and despair. He nodded and summoned up a smile. “Of course I forgive you, Miss Meg.”
“You’re too good,” Meg said in a choked voice.
“At least you’re not hurt,” Charles said. “We were worried about you.”
“He is too good,” Sally said, casting him a narrow-eyed glance before she faced Meg again. “I hope you know how you’ve let me down, and you’ll learn from this debacle never to interfere again in matters you’re too young to understand.”
With a pleading expression, Meg stepped toward her aunt. “I am so very, very sorry, Aunt Sally.” The tears she’d been bravely fighting started to pour down her cheeks. “If I’ve hurt you in any way, I’ll…I’ll go into a convent and never speak to anyone ever again.”
The extravagant claim at last pierced Sally’s severe manner. To Charles’s relief, her lips quirked in a frail imitation of her usual brilliant smile. She’d been holding herself so stiffly that he’d feared she must break. At least now she looked human and not like a marble deity.
“There’s no need to go overboard. A year on bread and water should be punishment enough.”
“A year on…” Meg’s face brightened with relief. “You’re having a joke.”
“I am.” She opened her arms to her niece. “Now come and give me a hug, you dreadful child.”
Meg stumbled forward to sob a litany of promises and apologies into her aunt’s shoulder. When she pulled away, she was sniffing and breathing unsteadily. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Sally’s smile was so disconsolate, Charles wanted to smash something. She dug in her pocket for a handkerchief which she passed to her niece. “We’ll say no more about it.”
Meg choked out, “What about the scandal?”
“We’ll deal with that if we must,” Charles said firmly. At the moment, gossip was the least of his worries. “At those big coaching inns, travelers come and go at all hours. If we three turn up past midnight, I doubt questions will be asked.”
Meg wiped her face and looked a little more cheerful. She shot her aunt a glance under her lashes. “So if there’s no scandal, can I stay with you in London?”
“I’m sorry, Meg.” Sally shook her head. Charles hated to see her return to looking like the figure of justice carved on a courthouse. “You’ve shown I can’t trust you. You’re safer with your father and mother.”
Meg’s face fell. “Aunt…”
Charles bit back the impulse to interfere. He had no right to ask Sally to relent. He had no rights where Sally was concerned at all, blast it all to hell.
“My mind is made up.” Sally turned away to find her bonnet. She tied it on, then opened the door, letting the moonlight flood in. “Shall we go?”
Feeling like he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders, Charles collected his hat. He’d experienced such extremes of emotion since he’d come into this house. Right now, he hoped to God he never saw the lovely little hunting box again. He had a bloody good mind to demolish it, so it lay in ruins along with his every hope of happiness.
With the grim awareness that once they left Sans Souci, Sally was lost to him forever, he lifted the lantern. As Sally headed outside, he offered his arm to Meg.
“Sir Charles, I wanted…” Meg muttered under her breath, as she hooked her hand around his bent elbow.
“So did I, Meg,” he said in a bleak voice. “But I made a complete mess of everything.”
She looked up at him hopefully. “But surely you can fix it?”
He watched Sally trudge across the gravel to the carriage. She usually rushed at life with a verve he found irresistible. But tonight he couldn’t mistake the slump of her shoulders and the way every step seemed an effort.
“No,” he said in a flat voice that concealed the rage and devastation in his heart. “No, some things are broken forever.”
* * *
Chapter Fourteen
* * *
Sally sighed and put aside her embroidery. She’d never been much good at needlework, and she’d only picked it up this afternoon because every other distraction had failed to…distract her. She lifted the cup of tea her butler had poured half an hour ago.
“Ugh.” It was ice cold. She blinked back tears. Over the last week, everything made her cry, even something as trivial as a cold cup of tea.
“For pity’s sake, you look as down in the dumps as Meg does.” Wearing a disapproving expression, Morwenna appeared in the drawing room’s doorway. “This house has turned into a dratted mausoleum lately.”
“I’m sorry. I’m a little blue-deviled,” Sally said, mustering a smile for her friend. “You, on the other hand, look marvelous. Is that a new dress?”
She struggled to sound the way she used to, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Even in her own ears, the attempt was an abject failure.
Still, it was cheering to see Morwenna in such fine fettle. Tonight her friend wore a rich azure taffeta gown that matched her lovely eyes, and her silky, ruler-straight black hair was dressed with pearls and roses and ribbons. Sally recalled the grieving wraith from last November who had reluctantly agreed to join in the London adventure.
“Yes, it is. Lord Garson is taking me to the opera.”
“Lucky you.” Sally glanced out and noticed that twilight had crept in. She must have been sitting in here brooding alone for hours.
Another gray day had passed, with her barely aware of anything beyond her own wretchedness. Every day lately was gray, whatever the weather was like.
The worst of her unhappiness over losing Charles would fade with time. That was how life worked, wasn’t it? Nothing lasted forever. They could now get on with forgetting one another.
In the meantime, she just had to endure. She’d endured a disagreeable marriage. Surely her love for someone she’d known a mere matter of weeks would eventually change from present anguish to wistful memory.
Morwenna came into the room and sank into a brocade chair opposite the sofa where Sally sat. “You’re welcome to join us if you like.”
“I’m not dressed to go out.” She indicated the sprigged muslin she’d put on this morning.
“Garson won’t be here for another half hour. You have plenty of time to change.”
“No, thank you. I feel like a quiet night.” At the opera, she’d have to pretend she was still witty, sparkly, insouciant Sally Cowan. Worse, at the opera, she was likely to see Sir Charles Kinglake. She’d rather take her embroidery needle and poke out her eye than risk that.
Impatience lit Morwenna’s eyes to sapphire. “You’ve felt like a quiet night ever since you got back from Shelton Abbey a week ago.”
Sally shrugged. “Now I’m not chaperoning Meg to any parties, there’s no great necessity for me to dance the night away.”
“Do you really mean to send her home tomorrow?”
“She’s lucky I didn’t send her home the day we returned to London.”
Sally had relented enough to let Meg stay to say goodbye to her friends. Sally had even allowed her to attend the theatre, a musicale, and a ball—although not the one given by the new Duchess of Sedgemoor. She didn’t want people commenting on the girl’s sudden withdrawal from society, and perhaps seeking some scandalous reason to explain it.
Like a coward, instead of accompanying her niece, she’d made sure Fenella or Helena kept her on a short rein. But given Meg’s cont
inuing flood of apologies, she was almost sure the girl had learned her lesson and wouldn’t do anything outrageous.
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened at the house party?” Morwenna’s expression was concerned. “I’ve left you alone so far, because it was clear you were in a state when you arrived back. But you’ve been in a funk for a week now, and it might help you to talk about what’s upset you. I’ve asked Caro and Helena, but they claim ignorance.”
Sally rose on a surge of temper. “You have no business prying.”
“I do when you’re so unhappy, and Meg’s going back to Hampshire.” Morwenna remained calm under Sally’s glare. “And Sir Charles Kinglake, who has been a constant presence in our lives since he came to London, hasn’t been seen in public for a week, and now the word is that he’s closing up his house and going to Italy.”
“Italy,” Sally said on the ghost of a sound, forgetting all about her squabble with Morwenna.
“That’s what people are saying.”
“Oh,” Sally said shakily, turning away toward the window so Morwenna wouldn’t see her silly tears.
It was the height of capriciousness to regret that Charles was leaving England. She’d said no to his proposal. She’d sent him away. He’d been gentleman enough to heed her. And so far no whisper of scandal had emerged about their dalliance. Apart from the jagged wound in her heart, the matter was concluded.
But something about the thought of him so very far away made her want to cry her eyes out.
“Sally?” She felt Morwenna’s cool touch on her arm. “Did Sir Charles and Meg do something terrible in Leicestershire?”
“No.” Although they had. Meg had played a stupid, childish trick, and Charles had lured Sally into finding a pleasure she’d never known. Worse, he’d said he loved her.
Right now, that seemed the cruelest cut of all.
Morwenna’s tone remained gentle but uncompromising. “Then why are you sending Meg back to her father, and why have you turned into a hermit, and why is Sir Charles moving to the Continent?”
Charming Sir Charles (Dashing Widows Book 5) Page 11
