Charming Sir Charles (Dashing Widows Book 5) Read online

“Aunt Sally, Brandon wants to show off his new bays. Can I go driving with him this afternoon?”

  To Sally’s surprise, Sir Charles didn’t seem altogether pleased that Meg interrupted their increasingly awkward discussion. Unless as was more likely, his pique had nothing to do with Sally, and everything to do with Meg seeking another man’s company.

  Blast him. If Sir Charles wanted a say over where Meg spent her time, he could damn well propose. He’d been dangling after the girl since he’d come to Town. Perhaps a little competition might bring him up to scratch.

  He took a step back, and Sally sucked in a relieved breath. The intensity between them threatened to spoil the pleasant companionship she had come to rely upon.

  When Sally was too distracted to answer immediately, Meg sent her a pleading look. “Please, Aunt. He’s just bought them from Tattersalls, and he says they’re magnificent steppers.”

  “Of course you may,” Sally said, struggling to shake off her reaction to Sir Charles’s manner. And her own odd reaction to him.

  She passed her half-full glass to a footman. That bizarre conversation about marriage had quite spoiled her taste for champagne.

  “Thank you, Aunt.” Meg curtsied to Sir Charles. “It was a lovely wedding, wasn’t it, Sir Charles?”

  “Delightful.” As he bowed, his expression softened with the mixture of amusement and fondness that encouraged Sally to hope a wedding lay ahead. And reminded her that this prickle she felt in his presence meant nothing in the larger scheme.

  What mattered was that he liked Meg and would make her a wonderful husband. Still, she had to struggle to shift her mind from their disconcerting exchange to the progress of his courtship.

  Love was definitely in the air today. Even a complete novice to the emotion like her felt it. Would Amy and Pascal’s nuptials inspire him to propose to Meg?

  Sally couldn’t believe he was toying with her niece. That would be both cruel and unprincipled, and she was convinced Sir Charles was neither.

  Clearly eager to finalize arrangements for the outing, Meg returned to Brandon Deerham and his best friend and foster brother, Carey Townsend.

  “They’re just friends. There’s nothing serious in it,” Sally found herself saying, despite her earlier impulse to let him stew, not to mention the opportunity Meg’s interruption offered to seek less demanding company.

  “Of course there isn’t.” Sir Charles seemed surprised she’d felt the need to make the remark. “They’re both so young. Sir Brandon must only be twenty or so.”

  Had Sally mistaken his resentment of Brand? Sir Charles mustn’t be the jealous type. Something else that forecast future happiness for his wife.

  Her niece was bright and high-spirited, and a possessive husband might crush that vitality. Sally had bitter experience of a man who set out to turn a vivacious girl into a meek helpmeet.

  “Too young for a gentleman to make a commitment, but not for a woman. I was married at seventeen.”

  “It’s still too young.”

  Was that why he delayed his proposal? If so, he was taking a risk. He wasn’t the only man in London to notice that her niece was pretty and good company. “Meg is eighteen, and much more levelheaded than I was at that age. I think an older man would steady her.”

  An older man like you, she wanted to say.

  Devil take him, it was time he stated his intentions. This was really too bad of him. If he wasn’t interested in marrying Meg this season, he should jolly well step aside and let some other eligible suitor step up.

  “You’re looking very fierce,” he said, leaning closer with a welcome trace of his bantering manner. But she still couldn’t relax in his company.

  They’d been talking alone too long for strict decorum, but at a gathering like this, nobody would mind. Still, Sally suddenly felt as if he cut her off from the crowd, the way a sheepdog edged out a particular ewe from the herd.

  Before today, she hadn’t realized quite how tall he was. But right now, she felt like a mighty oak overshadowed her. She raised puzzled eyes to his face, taking in the chiseled features. The square-cut jaw and long, straight nose. The watchful eyes under thick dark brows.

  Her heart took another unsteady dive. He looked like he was on the verge of saying something important.

  What on earth was happening? Was he about to ask her permission to pay his addresses to Meg?

  “Sally…”

  “Sally,” she heard a voice say like an echo. “Amy is going upstairs to get ready to leave. Do you want to come and help her?”

  At Helena’s interruption, exasperation flashed in Sir Charles’s dark eyes. For a fraught moment, Sally continued to stare into his face. Somewhere deep inside her, she wondered if she knew him at all. Today he wasn’t the amusing, informative companion who had so enriched these last weeks.

  She gave herself a mental shake. Of course she knew him. He was her good friend and the perfect match for Meg. Weddings often had a strange effect on people—and unless she’d completely lost her mind, she was sure Sir Charles was contemplating a wedding of his own.

  “Of course,” she murmured, stepping past him toward Helena. She took her first full breath in what felt like hours. The chat had become rather oppressive, as if world-shaking revelations hovered close. “Will you excuse me, Sir Charles?”

  He bowed. “I’ll see you tomorrow night at the opera.”

  She smiled, surprised at the effort it took. “Meg and I look forward to it.”

  Which was a lie. Meg found the opera a complete bore, although she enjoyed meeting her friends in the interval.

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “You two looked very chummy,” Helena murmured, as they made their way up to the rooms Silas had set aside for his sister’s use today.

  Sally tried for a lighthearted tone, but her voice emerged unnaturally high. “I thought he was about to declare himself.”

  Helena stumbled to a stop on the stairs and stared at Sally with bright black eyes. “Sally, really?”

  Sally gave her friend a puzzled glance. “He’s been hanging after Meg for weeks. A proposal is well overdue.”

  The light ebbed from Helena’s eyes, and she spoke in a flat voice. “Meg.”

  Sally frowned. Everyone was acting peculiar today. First Sir Charles calling her Sally when they were mere acquaintances, then that strange, fractious conversation about things he really had no right to comment upon. Now Helena acted as if she doubted Sally’s sanity.

  “Of course Meg,” she said curtly. “The man must have come to Town in search of a wife. He’s reached the age where he needs to set up his nursery. And Meg is perfect for him. He clearly agrees. In the last eight weeks, she’s hardly attended an event without him paying his attentions.”

  “To Meg.”

  Sally made a sound of annoyance. “Plague take you, I can’t see why you object. I thought you liked him.”

  Helena’s laugh contained its usual sardonic edge. “Oh, I do. And I know you do, too.”

  “Of course I do. Otherwise I wouldn’t want him to marry my niece. What in heaven’s name is wrong with you?”

  Helena’s expression was disgusted. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  And on that enigmatic note, she sailed into Amy’s boudoir and left Sally scowling after her in complete bewilderment.

  * * *

  Chapter Three

  * * *

  Sir Charles Kinglake was a fellow who appreciated the finer things in life. So usually a performance of “The Marriage of Figaro,” featuring a famous Italian soprano, would have him alert to every note.

  Instead he was too busy gnashing his teeth over the marriage of Charles Kinglake to give Signora Strozzi the attention she deserved.

  He sat between Sally Cowan and her niece in his box at the Italian Opera House. Just behind him sat his other guests, the charming Lady Kenwick and her rough diamond, but brilliant husband. Sublime music flowed around him, but it might as well be tomcats yowling.

/>   Charles felt rather like a frustrated tomcat himself. For the past two months, he’d existed in a lather of balked desire for a woman who persisted in thinking of him as a friend not a lover.

  Right now, Sally’s gloved hand draped over the edge of the box, mere inches from his. His hand curled against the chair arm as he fought the urge to reach out and touch her. She sat close enough for him to catch the enticing drift of her subtle perfume, flowers and lovely woman.

  Yet for all the attention she paid to him as a potential husband, she might as well be in far Cathay. He bit back a growl. What the devil was wrong with Sally Cowan?

  Sadly the answer to that question, on most levels, was not a thing.

  She was absolutely delightful. Clever. Funny. Vivid. Stylish. Good-hearted.

  He could fill a deuced three-volume novel with praise of her qualities.

  Her expressive face with its bright green eyes and pointed chin might fall short of classical standards of beauty. Her long, thin nose might be a little off-center. Her mouth might be a tad wide to fit her features, although it provided a pleasing hint of a passionate nature. A passionate nature he desperately hoped to discover before he reached his old age.

  But he found the quirks in her appearance more appealing than mere prettiness could ever be.

  And nobody could criticize her figure. Long and graceful and lissome. He spent feverish nights dreaming of what she looked like naked. He’d wager her legs were a work of art to rival anything in his famed collection of old masters.

  Not, by God, that he knew.

  Apart from a dance, or taking her hand to help her into or out of a carriage, he hadn’t touched her. Damn and blast it.

  He’d known the minute he saw her across a crowded ballroom that she was the one for him. Nothing in his previous discreet liaisons had prepared him for this ferocious desire.

  But even in the grip of this compulsion to have the lovely widow whatever it cost, he remained a perceptive man. He’d swiftly realized that beneath Sally’s air of confidence and good cheer, she was vulnerable. A pursuit too ardent was likely to frighten her away rather than win her.

  So much against his masculine impulses, he reined in his immediate urge to claim and conquer. Instead of sweeping Sally off her feet and into his bed, and talking marriage once they’d assuaged their appetites, he’d launched a more conventional courtship.

  By now, his patience should be reaping rewards. Yet despite his constant attendance, the woman still refused to respond to his overtures.

  It was as if she didn’t even realize he was courting her. Worse, she treated him like a junior, when at most there must only be three or four years between them.

  Sally seemed to suffer from a curious blindness when she looked at him. Even that revealing discussion, at times veering toward the combative, at the Pascal wedding hadn’t alerted her to how much Charles Kinglake wanted her.

  When he’d been a whisker from ignoring their audience and snatching her up in his arms and kissing her until she saw only him.

  Several times he’d verged on declaring himself, but Sally remained so unaware of him as a man—of herself as his future bride—that he’d held back. A rash declaration was likely to shatter the friendship they’d established. She might even decide to send him away.

  Hell, he’d never been afraid of anything, but he was bloody terrified at the thought of not seeing her every day.

  Because while she’d blithely disregarded his every effort to deepen the connection, he’d just fallen more in love with her. Now the idea of living without her was beyond bearing.

  What an infernal mess.

  A burst of applause crashed through his brooding. For the sake of appearances, he clapped, too.

  “Thank you so much for inviting us, Sir Charles.” Sally turned to him, her eyes alight with pleasure. She looked particularly pretty tonight, in a stylish rose pink silk gown and with her dark blonde hair dressed with pearls. “Isn’t Strozzi marvelous?”

  “Yes, marvelous,” he said, although he hadn’t heard a note. He stared deep into Sally’s eyes, seeking some sign, even the smallest spark, that mirrored the inferno devouring him.

  A futile quest, damn it. It always was.

  “I still don’t understand why they don’t speak English so a body knows what they’re caterwauling about,” Anthony Townsend, Earl of Kenwick, said in his thick Yorkshire accent from the chair behind Charles.

  “You confessed last week you enjoyed the opera.” Kenwick’s delicate wife, Fenella, cast him a wry glance. “You’re laying the yokel act on a little too thick, my love. I can hear the thud of hobnail boots marching down the cobbles toward us.”

  Kenwick was an imposing cove—Charles worried about the long-term health of the spindly chair he sat in—so his sheepish expression looked incongruous on his large, blunt features. “Well, aye, a bloke has a certain reputation to uphold.”

  Everyone in London knew that the Kenwicks adored one another. Charles hoped—not with any great optimism, given his current progress—that he and Sally might one day be as happy.

  “As a Philistine?” his wife asked sweetly.

  “As a man’s man, my darling.”

  Fenella barely contained a snort of disdain, while Charles turned to Meg. If he looked at Sally right now, he didn’t trust himself not to grab her. These opera boxes were deuced constricted when a man had to keep his hands to himself. “Are you enjoying the opera, Miss Ridgeway?”

  “Yes, thank you, Sir Charles,” she said politely.

  Despite his turmoil, his lips twitched at her lukewarm enthusiasm. “But you’d rather be driving Brandon Deerham’s bays.”

  “Rather.” As always at the mention of horses, Meg brightened. “They’re the most dashing high steppers and respond like angels to the reins.”

  “Meg,” Sally said in reproof. “That’s hardly well mannered, when Sir Charles has arranged this treat for you.”

  Meg’s glance at her aunt indicated that her idea of a treat was a little off target. Charles thoroughly approved of Meg, who was cheerful and sensible and clearly loved her aunt. Loving Sally was a major point in her favor, in his admittedly biased opinion. She was a very pretty girl, and much more in the conventional style than her aunt. Rich mahogany hair, large blue eyes shining with life.

  Meg was awake to his intentions, even if her aunt wasn’t. During their outings, she offered unspoken cooperation in stepping back to allow him to talk to Sally. And he appreciated the girl’s willingness to attend concerts and art exhibitions that she had no interest in, so that Sally and he had at least a whisper of a chaperone.

  Not that he’d managed to lure Sally into anything improper. More was the blasted pity.

  “I’m sorry, Sir Charles,” Meg said dutifully, then turned to welcome a party of her friends, including Carey Townsend and Sir Brandon Deerham, who entered the box. This lively crowd was much more Meg’s style than Mozart. The footman who arrived with a tray of champagne had trouble making his way through the chattering young people.

  “Take your frolics outside into the corridor, Brand and Carey,” Kenwick told his stepson and nephew, his deep voice effortlessly cutting through the hubbub. “You lot are noisier than that blasted screeching female we’ve had to endure for the last hour.”

  After Meg and her friends had retreated behind a closed door, Charles accepted a glass of champagne. He turned back to Sally who had shifted her chair so she could talk to the Kenwicks.

  “Are you still engaged for the few days in the country next week?” Devil take it, he hoped so.

  “Yes, Meg and I will be there.”

  Thank God. Charles wasn’t the only man in the ton to notice that the widowed Lady Norwood was a gem. So far there was some consolation in knowing that while he’d had no success capturing her interest, neither had any of the rest of her swains.

  Charles lived in fear that some other blockhead might reach Sally in a way he’d never managed. He didn’t want to be out of Town for a week w
ith Lord and Lady West, while she remained behind at the mercy of London’s eligibles.

  “Meg is in alt at the prospect of spending a couple of days in the Wests’ stables,” Lady Kenwick said, sipping her champagne.

  Charles noticed Sally shoot her friend a repressive glance, although why she was annoyed, he couldn’t imagine. It wasn’t as if Meg’s penchant for all things equine was any secret.

  “She’ll have time to play the young lady, too,” Sally said. “This craze for horses is something most girls grow out of well before they become wives and mothers.”

  “I reckon the lass is more stalwart than that, Sally,” Kenwick said. “She’s not a bairn who wants a pony on a whim. She’s the only person I’ve ever met whose knowledge of bloodlines and track form vies with West’s. Is this your first visit to Shelton Abbey, Kinglake?”

  “Yes. I’m very much looking forward to seeing Lord West’s collection of Italian masters,” Charles said.

  A previous Baron West had returned from his grand tour with a ship hold packed with Utrillos and Bronzinos and Caravaggios. Perhaps Charles might persuade West to part with one or two. Like Meg, the current Lord West was more interested in saddle horses than Salvatore Rosas.

  “Meg has learned a great deal about art since she’s been in London, Sir Charles,” Sally said, with more of that blasted easy friendliness. “Largely thanks to you.”

  Lady Kenwick regarded Sally with disbelief. “Not as far as I can see. She mistook Silas’s Botticelli for a Gainsborough yesterday. Oh!”

  Lady Kenwick started in her seat and spilled champagne over her pretty blue gown.

  Charles regarded her in consternation. “Are you well, Lady Kenwick?”

  As she fumbled for her handkerchief and batted off Kenwick’s attempts to help, she shot Sally a killing glance. The fierce expression didn’t fit her gentle features. “Yes, quite well, thank you.”

  “Anyone can make a mistake when it comes to paintings,” Sally said staunchly, pulling her handkerchief from her reticule and passing it to her friend to soak up the few drops. “Why, just the other day, Meg was begging me to take her back to the Royal Academy.”