Charming Sir Charles (Dashing Widows Book 5) Read online

  That surprised Charles. From what he’d seen, the girl found pictures as dull as opera. “Actually if she’s developed any fondness for art, it’s due to you, Lady Norwood. You have such interesting and perceptive opinions.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Love of art runs in the family.”

  “Sally…” Lady Kenwick began, but Sally spoke over her.

  “Is that Miss Veivers over there with Lord Parry? I heard rumors of an offer in the wind.”

  Without much interest, Charles glanced at the box opposite. “Surely not. He must be forty years older than she is.”

  Sally shrugged. “It’s customary for the groom to be older than his bride.”

  “Not that much older.”

  “Her mother has pushed her at him, poor lamb,” Lady Kenwick said. “He’s a marquess, after all.”

  “A marquess without two pennies to rub together,” Kenwick said flatly.

  “She’s rich,” Lady Kenwick said.

  “What an unholy alliance.” Charles felt genuinely sorry for the plain little girl in the over-decorated gown, sitting between a dissipated roué and a woman with a thrusting chin and a bosom like the prow of a ship.

  Sally had been married young to a much older man. Had she, too, accompanied an unwelcome suitor, wearing just such a frozen, frightened look on her youthful features? She never said anything about her marriage, but Charles couldn’t help thinking that her set against another husband was rooted in her feelings about Lord Norwood.

  Meg returned to the box, interrupting his reflections, and immediately began to chatter about a plan to picnic in Richmond tomorrow.

  * * *

  “Why on earth did you kick me like that?” Fenella whispered, as they made their way through the throng after the opera. Ahead of Sally and Fenella, Anthony and Sir Charles were discussing the performance. Out of earshot, fortunately, especially in this bedlam.

  Still, Sally slowed her steps. “You said Meg was interested in horses.”

  “She is.” Fenella’s expression indicated she thought Sally had lost her mind. It was unpleasantly reminiscent of Helena’s manner at Amy’s wedding.

  Sally frowned and turned to check where Meg was. The girl lingered behind with Carey and Brand, but caught her aunt’s eye and nodded to indicate that she did her best to make headway. “But Sir Charles is interested in art.”

  “Yes.”

  Sally made a frustrated sound. “I don’t want him thinking she’s a countrified hoyden who spends her life in the stables.”

  “He’s a clever man. I suspect he already knows.” Fen paused. “Well, not the countrified hoyden part. You’ve done a marvelous job teaching her how to go about in society. But the stables part is definitely true.”

  “Fen, use your head. He won’t propose if he thinks her idea of bliss is mucking out a filthy stall.”

  Fen still didn’t seem to understand. Which was odd. She was a smart woman. “But that is her idea of bliss.”

  Sally bit back another growl. When Fenella’s daughter grew up and started looking for a husband, she’d understand. “I know that.”

  “And she only likes art if it’s a painting of a horse.”

  “She can learn.”

  “I don’t think she wants to.” Someone pushed past them, and Fen used the moment to pull Sally into a corner. “Has Meg set her cap at Sir Charles?”

  “I think it would be a good match—and he likes her.”

  “Of course he does. She’s very likable. But he’s too old for her.”

  “He’s less than ten years her senior. I was twenty years younger than Norwood when we married.”

  Fenella’s expression remained unimpressed. “Well, we know how that turned out.”

  “You’ve heard gossip?” Sally asked shakily. Feeling faint, she placed one hand on the wall beside her. She never confided in anyone about her unhappy marriage.

  Norwood hadn’t been violent, but he’d been overbearing, uncouth, and perpetually unfaithful. Even as a girl, she couldn’t bear the idea of anyone feeling sorry for her. So through the whole humiliating experience, she’d done her best to pretend everything was fine.

  “You’ve gone as white as a sheet.” Fenella, always sensitive to others’ feelings, reached out to take her gloved hand and squeeze it. “No, I haven’t heard anything.”

  “Then why did you say that?” Sally tugged free.

  Compassion softened Fen’s gaze to misty blue. “Sally, I’ve watched your face when people mention your husband. It speaks volumes to anyone with the eyes to see.”

  “Well, you’re mistaken,” Sally said sharply. As usual when she recalled her ten years of marriage, shame as heavy as lead crashed down on her.

  She’d failed to bear Norwood a child. She’d failed to make him happy. She’d failed to keep him away from other women’s beds.

  She’d just…failed.

  “I’m sure,” Fen said, but that damned compassion remained.

  Sally swallowed and returned to the principal subject of discussion. “Meg and Sir Charles will be wonderful together.”

  “In worldly terms, perhaps. But they have nothing in common.”

  Sally bristled and wished she could kick Fenella again. “He clearly doesn’t agree. Or else he wouldn’t have dangled after her these last weeks.”

  “Sally…” Then surprisingly Fenella fell silent.

  Sally went on before Fenella could raise any more fiddling objections. “He’s kind and steady, and his manners are lovely. And he’s handsome enough to set any girl’s heart fluttering. He turns heads wherever he goes.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “So Meg would be lucky to catch him.”

  “Do you think she’s in love with him?”

  Sally frowned. “She should be.”

  Fen sighed. “Life doesn’t work that way, Sally. Affection falls where it will. ‘Should’ is a word the heart doesn’t understand.”

  “Well, it should,” Sally said crossly.

  To her surprise, Fenella laughed. The silvery sound floated above the chatter and attracted Anthony’s attention.

  He turned back to see what was delaying his wife and her friend. He was so massively tall that he towered over the surging crowd and found them without difficulty. When he sent his wife a rueful smile brimming with unspoken love, Sally’s heart twisted with envy. It was painful to witness the Kenwicks’ happiness so soon after the reminder of her wretched marriage.

  “Sally, you’re hopeless,” Fenella said with such fondness in her voice, it was difficult for Sally to cling to her annoyance.

  Still, her tone was cool as she replied. “Pardon me for trying to set my niece up with a good man.”

  “You mean well, I know.”

  “How much more patronizing can you be, Fen? Don’t you like Sir Charles?”

  “Of course I do.” Fenella didn’t take offense at Sally’s quarrelsome response. “He’s charming.”

  “So?”

  “So nothing at all. Meg and he would be a complete disaster together.”

  “I don’t agree,” Sally said, stiff-lipped with anger. And a niggling worry she didn’t want to acknowledge.

  Dear heaven, what if Fen was right? She hadn’t taken the trouble to ask her niece how she felt about Sir Charles—she didn’t want to arouse expectations when he still might fall from the saddle before the last fence.

  Oh, no, now she started to sound like horse-mad Meg.

  Fenella, always more inclined toward peacemaking than conflict, said calmly, “You know your niece better than I do, of course.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  But she wasn’t totally convinced. She and Meg got along, and she loved the girl. But Meg was unusually independent and even at this age, tended to play her own game. She and her aunt didn’t indulge in intimate cozes, where Meg poured out her heart and sought her elder’s advice.

  In fact, although Sally would never admit it aloud, she sometimes wondered if her niece was more worldly wise t
han she was.

  Ridiculous.

  But as she moved back into the bustling crowd and checked behind her to make sure Meg was following, she pondered. Did Meg love Sir Charles? He was all that the world admired in a gentleman. And the girl had never expressed any dislike for him.

  But did she love him?

  Surely she did. If Sally had been an eighteen-year-old girl, and such a wonderful man expressed an interest in her, she’d have been in alt.

  But Fenella understood people. And Fenella had sounded so certain when she dismissed the idea of Sir Charles and Meg making a happy match. Sally’s responsibilities as an aunt had never weighed so heavy.

  From the first, she’d done her best to promote Sir Charles’s suit. But if there was no hope of it reaching its proper end, had she neglected the girl’s other matrimonial chances?

  Meg was only eighteen, and her parents weren’t desperate for her to wed yet, especially when Sally bore the season’s expenses. But still…

  If Sir Charles wasn’t Meg’s choice, did she prefer another suitor? She liked Brand and Carey, but Sir Charles was right when he’d said the boys were too young to marry. Sally’s instincts were that the trio were friends, rather than anything more romantic.

  But now it seemed her instincts about her niece were radically opposed to Fenella’s.

  She looked ahead to where Sir Charles and Anthony waited near the entrance. The light shone down on Sir Charles’s rich brown hair and illuminated his classic profile. With a strange little shiver, Sally thought again how attractive he was. Dressed formally for the opera, he was a man to take a girl’s breath away.

  Meg must want to marry him.

  As if he sensed her attention, he glanced up and smiled. She loved watching the way his features softened and those dimples appeared in his cheeks. How could Meg resist him?

  Despite her disquiet, she returned his smile and felt her certainty flow back. Good heavens, she was worrying about nothing. There was no reason to doubt herself.

  Fenella was wrong. Meg liked Sir Charles. Sir Charles liked her. Sally knew that, if for no other reason than that he took the trouble to be nice to her aunt. Within the next few weeks, he would propose, and Meg would end her season in triumph.

  Which meant Sally, free of her responsibilities to her niece, could go on to fulfilling a few plans of her own. Perhaps buying a permanent home in London. Taking a lover. Returning to her charity work.

  The fact that, right now, all of those things seemed vilely empty was neither here nor there.

  * * *

  Chapter Four

  * * *

  Since meeting Morwenna on the committee of a naval charity in Portsmouth, Sally had stayed several times at Shelton Abbey, Lord West’s beautiful estate in the Leicestershire countryside. In recent years, her friendship with Morwenna had expanded to encompass all the Nashes and their circle. She loved each of them, especially the original Dashing Widows, Silas’s wife Caroline, gentle Fenella, and sardonic, brilliant Helena, her hostess this week.

  When Helena invited Sally and Meg to stay as a brief respite from the whirl of the season, she’d been quick to accept. Even more delightful, Helena included Meg’s suitor, Sir Charles Kinglake in the party.

  Perhaps in a smaller, intimate gathering away from London’s distractions, he’d finally offer for her niece. He must have courtship in mind, or else why accept the invitation? While he got along well with Helena and West—she’d observed he got along well with most people—they weren’t particularly close.

  Sally had approached the house party, anticipating both her own enjoyment and a happy outcome for Meg and her beau.

  But so far, four days into the visit, Shelton Abbey’s charms had failed to work their usual magic on her spirits. Sally felt discontented and unsettled. And the worst of it was that she wasn’t sure why.

  Oh, the causes behind some of her grumbles were obvious. Sir Charles hadn’t yet proposed. Even if he did, he’d need to seek Meg in the stables, because the girl had devoted much more attention to Lord West’s thoroughbreds than to her future husband.

  Sally hadn’t been sleeping well, and when she did sleep, odd dreams tormented her. Shaking and breathless, she’d open her eyes to darkness, with vague memories of running down endless corridors in search of something she never found. Last night, Caro had commented on her uncharacteristic distraction.

  Now she sat on a red lacquer bench in the charming Chinese pavilion, trying to puzzle out the source of her fretfulness, a fretfulness that had started with Amy’s wedding nearly a fortnight ago.

  Mercifully she was alone. The rest of the party, including eight energetic children, had taken an excursion to a local beauty spot. But she’d cried off, saying she had letters to write. This urge for her own company wasn’t her usual style either.

  Generally she was an even-tempered creature, willing to make the best of circumstances. Through charity work, she’d even managed to find some purpose through the endless years of her marriage. She was someone who held her head high through any storm.

  Except now there was no storm, and she had no real troubles. Yet yesterday, when she’d broken a vase in her room, she’d burst into tears like a hysterical girl.

  “So you dodged the trip to the castle ruins with the children, too?”

  The deep voice startled her, made every nerve tighten. Sally straightened and surreptitiously wiped away the few tears she’d shed, watching the late afternoon light over the lovely rose garden before her.

  For a sensible, equable lady past first youth, she was acting more like a dizzy adolescent than Meg ever did. Even as a girl, she couldn’t remember crying over a sunset like a sappy heroine in a Minerva Press novel.

  “Sir Charles, you caught me unawares.” As she cursed the husky edge to her voice, she tried to read his expression. But even in the wilds of Leicestershire, Sir Charles Kinglake’s perfect urbanity remained impenetrable.

  She felt the familiar surge of admiration at the sight of him. He was casually dressed in a bottle green coat and buff breeches. The faint breeze ruffled his thick brown hair where the long rays of light discovered rich russet highlights.

  He didn’t look like the elegant London gentleman who had escorted Meg and her chaperone to balls and the theatre. He looked in his element, as if the country suited him.

  She must still be suffering the aftereffects of his unexpected appearance. Her heart was racing so fast that her breath caught.

  “I’m sorry.” That very nice smile appeared, as did the charming dimples. “I’ve been here a few minutes, but you were so lost to your thoughts, you didn’t notice.”

  Damn and blast. Had he seen her crying?

  She plastered a bright expression on her face. “I was thinking how lovely it is here.”

  “It is indeed.” Those attractive laughter lines deepened around his eyes. “Although anything that doesn’t involve four legs, a tail and a whinny looks good to me at the moment.”

  She mustered a laugh at his disgusted tone, but her inexplicable edginess lingered.

  Not that she could blame him for tiring of the company. So far, the talk had been very…equine.

  Meg and Brand and Carey directed discussion toward horsey matters at any opportunity—and given Helena and West bred the best horses in England, opportunities had been numerous. Silas and Caro made some attempt to shift the focus, but with little success.

  If Fenella were here, Sally would owe her an apology. It had been a complete waste of time, trying to hide Meg’s monomania from Sir Charles.

  “Don’t you like horses?” she asked curiously.

  Norwood had considered himself a great expert on horses. Actually Norwood had considered himself a great expert on everything under God’s heaven. The thought of her late, unlamented husband reminded her how much she liked Sir Charles, who spoke to her as if she had a brain between her ears.

  Sir Charles ambled across to sit beside her and stretch his long, booted legs out across the tiles with
their red and white chinoiserie design. That inexplicable catch in her breath was back. If the evening had been cold, she might understand it. But it was perfect weather for late spring.

  He sighed. “Not for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

  “Has it been very dull for you?” Without thinking, she placed her hand on his. At the contact, a strange frisson tingled along her arm.

  All her earlier awkwardness rushed back, and she snatched her hand away to set it trembling in her lap. She really was acting like an idiot. Perhaps when she returned to London, she should consult her doctor.

  Sir Charles surveyed her thoughtfully. “There have been some compensations.”

  Ridiculously Sally found herself blushing. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d blushed. Before her marriage surely.

  She hurried into speech. “I promise you that Meg does talk about other things. I think she’s just so excited to see all these champions in one place.”

  To her relief, Sir Charles shifted that enigmatic brown gaze from her to the gardens. Sally immediately sucked in a deep breath to feed her starved lungs. For some reason, she’d felt quite lightheaded when he stared into her eyes.

  “There’s no doubt she’s happy.”

  “Ecstatic,” Sally said drily. No point pretending anything different, she admitted. At least Sir Charles didn’t sound particularly put out to run a distant second to West’s most recent Derby winner in the girl’s estimation. “Have you managed to ferret out West’s art collection? You said you were looking forward to seeing it.”

  “I visited the pictures in the long gallery the day after I arrived, although they deserve a second look. Have you seen them?”

  His good-humored interest should put her at ease. But her heart still skipped around like a grasshopper, and she felt unaccountably nervy in his presence.

  “Not recently. I must admit when I come to Shelton Abbey, I spend most of my time gossiping with Helena and her friends. We all live so far apart. It’s nice to have a chance to talk fashion and scandal and family news.” She made an apologetic gesture. “You’ll think I’m hopelessly frivolous.”