Page 60 of Vanquished By A Viscount
Charlie let himself in, finding Barbara sitting up in bed with a tray containing breakfast sitting on the coverlet beside her. Her confused expression broke into a broad smile at the sight of him.
“Charlie, whatever are you doing here?” she greeted him with more happiness and enthusiasm than Charlie had seen from her in a week. “Why did you bother knocking?”
“I can hardly walk right into my married sister’s bedroom without announcing myself,” Charlie said, closing the door behind him and going to sit on the bed with Barbara.
“I suppose so,” Barbara said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She used that hand to reach for Charlie’s. “But do tell me, why are you here? Should you not be downstairs, having breakfast with my other guests?”
“Should you not be doing the same?” Charlie turned the question back on her. It was a coward’s move, but he needed to gather his wits about him a bit more before launching into the true reason he’d sought out his sister’s comfort.
“Robert insists that I rest and recover from my fright this morning,” Barbara said, her cheeks pinking suspiciously.
As Charlie most certainly did not want to know what would put such a coy grin on his sister’s face, he asked, “Were you very frightened?”
Barbara stared at him. “I was trapped inside a burning house,” she said. “I would most certainly have been killed if you, Grayson, and Robert had not rushed to save me.”
Charlie felt sheepish for asking the question. He did not want to think what would have happened if they had not reached the cottage in time either.
He took both of Barbara’s hands in his and did his best to smile at her. “I shall thank God every day that you are still here with us,” he said.
“As shall I,” Barbara said.
An awkward silence fell between them as Charlie continued to hold his sister’s small hands. He stared at them, wondering if he should be ashamed for caring so much for a sister, one who belonged to someone else now at that. It was not considered manly to cling to such sentimentality, but his poor heart already felt so bruised and battered that he could not help but cling to the one person who had always been there for him.
“He does not have to go to Australia, you know,” Barbara said in a soft voice.
Charlie snapped his eyes up from where he’d been staring at his and her hands. “Whatever do you mean?” he asked, his voice far too tight and thin.
Barbara laughed gently at him and squeezed his hands. “Grayson, you fool,” she said. “You love him and you are sad because I accidentally revealed he’s booked passage to Australia.”
“I am nothing of the sort,” Charlie lied snappishly.
Barbara smirked at him. “Do you know your problem, my dear brother?”
“That I have a teasing, meddling sister?” Charlie suggested.
“No,” Barbara said. “Your greatest problem is that you show your emotions as if they were a new bauble you might pin to your neckcloth.”
“I would not have imagined you would find that to be a problem,” Charlie said, arching one eyebrow.
“I do not,” Barbara said with a nod. “It is not a problem. However, the way that you constantly attempt to hide from that fact of your nature is.”
Charlie sagged a bit, feeling as though his little sister had just scolded him, and that he deserved it.
“Do not wilt like an overwatered flower at the fact,” she went on with her scolding. “I happen to find a man who knows himself and his emotions to be excessively attractive.”
Charlie stared at her again. “I take it Robert is one of these men who knows his own emotions?”
“He is,” Barbara said, drawing her hands away from his and picking at the coverlet over her legs. “I believe I can see now that both Robert’s effusive emotions and my own will clash from time to time.” She grinned and her cheeks went bright pink again as she added, “But our apologies will be endlessly enjoyable.”
Charlie rolled his eyes. “I do not wish to know.”
Barbara looked sheepish for only a moment before switching course and saying, “You know your emotions as well, you simply do not want to acknowledge them at present.”
“What I do not want to acknowledge is how I seem to have been played for a fool by everyone around me,” Charlie blurted before he could think better of it.
“Charlie,” Barbara huffed, crossing her arms. “No one is playing you for a fool but yourself.”
He did not like that assessment at all and made a face as if to tell her as much.
