Page 19 of Charming Sir Charles
“He has enough on his plate, with six daughters to marry off. The affairs of his youngest sister come well down on his list of things to worry about. So do you mean marriage?”
“Of course.” He sighed, and enough resentment lingered to add an edge to his words. “I hoped she’d come around to my way of thinking in her own time, but I hadn’t counted on her asinine plans to marry us off.”
“I think if you leave it to Aunt Sally, she’ll never come around to the idea that you want to marry her.”
“I begin to wonder if you’re right.” He was starting to realize that a man could bash himself to pieces against the barriers Sally raised against the world and still make no crack in her defenses. “What do you suggest? Pouncing?”
Somewhat to his relief, Meg’s giggle brought her back to looking like an eighteen-year-old girl. “It might be something to consider. You’re always so careful with her. I’ve noticed, even if Aunt Sally hasn’t.”
“It’s odd – she’s so bright and vital, yet at heart, there’s something fragile about her.”
“Youarethe right man for her.” Meg’s smile glowed with approval. “I always thought so, and you just proved it.”
“While she thinks I’m right for you,” Charles snapped, still stung at how badly Sally had misjudged him.
Meg sighed. “Aunt Sally is clever about people – mostly. But she’s completely blind when she looks at herself. She believes she’s past the age where romance and marriage are possible.”
“I know. She told me. It’s so deuced frustrating.” With an impatient gesture, he ran his hand through his hair. “She’s only thirty-one.”
“She’s convinced she’s too old to attract a husband – at least one who doesn’t want a sensible woman to run his house and comfort his last years.” Meg’s eyes sharpened. “Did you know my late uncle, Lord Norwood?”
“No.”
“Lucky you.” Her mouth turned down in contempt. “He was an awful man. Dull, stolid, sure he knew best on every matter under the sun. A bore and a bully. I don’t know how my aunt lived with him for nearly ten years without coshing him with a fire iron. And he never did much to hide his disappointment about not siring an heir.”
“I suppose he blamed Sally.” Meg painted a vivid picture of Sally’s first husband.
Charles shouldn’t be surprised at what he heard. He’d picked up immediately that Sally bore scars from the past. His anger gradually dissipated.
“He never said so in my hearing, although we all knew he did. It speaks volumes for her strength of character that she managed to keep as much spirit as she has.”
Poor Sally. Charles had no difficulty understanding how marriage to such a man had damaged her generous soul. Lord Norwood’s conceit and crassness would eat away at her sense of herself as worthy of affection. Domestic tyranny was a cruel punishment for such a lively creature.
And there was no escape if a woman believed the marriage vow sacrosanct, as he suspected Sally did. She’d never seek reassurance in another man’s arms. Instead she’d endure with as much grace and courage as she could, while loneliness grew and grew, until it threatened to devour her.
Compassion so strong it was like a physical pain gripped him as he imagined her ten years with Norwood. She couldn’t even find consolation in the love of her children. After observing Sally’s dealings with Meg and Amy and Morwenna, he knew that the woman he wanted to marry had a huge capacity for love.
It was one of the things he found most powerfully attractive about her.
His anger returned, this time directed at Lord Norwood. “He didn’t mistreat her, did he?”
The idea of anyone hurting Sally made his stomach heave. He clenched his hands against the arms of the chair. He wanted to fight dragons for her, but it turned out the dragon blighting her life was dead and eternally out of his reach. Bugger it.
Meg shook her head. “There was no talk in the family that he did. But violence isn’t the only cruelty. He used to leave her alone in the country month after month and come up to Town to chase Cyprians. The fatter the better. And if I know that, I’m sure Aunt Sally does.”
He frowned at Meg. “You shouldn’t understand such things.”
She shrugged. “Society acts like young girls have neither ears nor the brains to work out what those ears are hearing. Of course I know about the ladies of Covent Garden and their sisters.”
What was the point of disapproval? He shook his head in disbelief at this coil he found himself in. No wonder his courtship hadn’t prospered. “If Sally’s so willfully blind to her attractions, how the devil is a man to break through to her?”
Meg studied him thoughtfully. “Perhaps pouncing is the way forward.”
“I doubt it. Tonight she wouldn’t even look at me – and she flirted with every dam…dashed fellow in that room. Every fellow but me.”
“Actually that might be a good sign.”
He regarded Meg in disbelief. “How the deuce could that be a good sign?”
