Page 39 of Charming Sir Charles
“You make it sound so tempting.” Her starving heart longed toward what he said like a man dying of thirst longed for a clear stream. But the sheer power of that longing was enough to show her that she couldn’t accept.
Sally wasn’t just saying no to Charles for his sake, but for her own. She’d been trapped in an unequal marriage. She knew the harrowing price such a marriage demanded.
He frowned. He was smart enough to guess that her reply wasn’t the prelude to acceptance. “Then say yes.”
“I spent nearly ten years with a man who did his best to make me feel inadequate.” When she withdrew her hand, she was surprised it didn’t tremble. “I swore I’d never do that again.”
Anger flashed in Charles’s eyes, made them blaze russet. “I’ll never do that to you.”
She shook her head. “No, I know you wouldn’t. At least not on purpose. But eventually you’ll regret marrying your older, barren wife. And in trying to hide your disappointment with your choice, you’d hurt me more than you would if you showed it openly.”
“That’s the stupidest bloody thing I’ve ever heard.” One large hand made a frustrated gesture. “I wouldn’t be hiding any damned disappointment, because I wouldn’t be feeling it.”
“So you say now.”
He sighed again. She knew he didn’t understand – but then she was older and wiser, which was the problem.
His voice turned low and persuasive. “Sally, I’m not a fickle man. I’ve never before met a woman I want to marry. Now I’ve found you, I won’t give you up lightly.”
She shook her head and backed away until she bumped the table behind her. She started and stumbled, and Charles moved quickly to catch her elbow. “My love, you’re tired and upset. Let’s leave this for now.”
His touch and the gentleness in his voice, worse, the way he called her his love, shuddered through her like a blow. “No,” she said in a choked voice. “You’ve proposed, and I’ve declined. There’s nothing to gain from pursuing this.”
His grip tightened. “I won’t accept that.”
She raised her head and studied his chiseled features. He looked so lost and baffled. “You must.”
His expression turned stern. “So if that’s true and you want nothing more to do with me, why did you give yourself to me?”
The stark question lay between them like a challenge. After what they’d shared, she owed him honesty.
She swallowed. Her throat felt like it was lined with broken glass. It hurt to speak, and her voice emerged low and unsteady. “I think because for a couple of hours, I wanted the dream to come true. It was disgraceful of me, but I’ve been so lonely, and you offered me the chance to discover a pleasure I’d never known.”
Even in the candlelight, she saw him go white. He let her go abruptly, as if she’d burned him.
“So this was nothing more to you than an experiment?” The anger in his voice lacerated her.
He was wrong, so wrong. But if she told him that she’d never felt so close to anyone in her life, and that the thought of never experiencing that closeness again made her want to die, he’d ask her to marry him again. And whatever her aching heart might want, her mind knew that way lay disaster.
Ten years of Norwood’s neglect and contempt had crushed her spirit nearly into the ground. She’d survived. She wouldn’t survive knowing she let Charles down. How could she bear to see him realize that marrying her was a mistake?
She hadn’t loved her husband. She loved Charles. Love made everything worse.
So she stiffened her spine and looked him in the eyes, as difficult as that was. And her voice emerged with only a small wobble. “A very nice experiment.”
“Nice…” He spat the word like a curse. “Sally, I love you. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
He loved her?
She fought against believing him, even as she had to beat back the vow that rose in response to his. “Love…” she whispered.
“Yes,love,Sally.”
She wished he didn’t sound so sure. Every time she thought she’d reached the limits of her endurance, there was something worse to come. She reminded herself again that she wasn’t the right wife for Charles Kinglake.
“Charles…” she said helplessly. Then on a burst of exasperation, “Where the devil is Meg? Surely she can’t mean to leave us here all night.”
When she didn’t respond to his declaration with a declaration of her own, Charles’s expression turned frozen. But God help her, she was familiar enough with strategies for concealing pain to know how he suffered. She reminded herself that he’d suffer worse and longer, if he saddled himself with the wrong wife.
