Page 42 of Charming Sir Charles
Meg looked aghast. “You can’t send me home.”
“I can and I will.” When she folded her arms, Sally looked as implacable as a stone statue. “Just be grateful that for my sake as well as yours, I won’t tell your father the disgraceful truth.”
“It’s not fair to send me away.” Meg suddenly sounded so young, Charles almost felt sorry for her.
“Miss Meg, I know you meant well today, but perhaps this is for the best,” he said gently.
“You’ve proven yourself unworthy of my trust. You’ve acted in a way that imperiled yourself, not to mention endangered my reputation and Sir Charles’s good name. I just pray we all get out of this without becoming the talk of the Town.”
Sally still spoke in that even, unemotional voice that somehow was worse than if she lost her temper. She’d spoken in just such a tone when she’d dashed all his hopes for happiness. Meg seemed to shrink under every measured, critical word.
“There’s absolutely no need for anybody else to know about this,” he reminded Sally.
“I hope not.” Sally didn’t look at him. “Now tell me you haven’t damaged Sir Charles’s rig or horses.”
The implied insult to her driving skills made Meg fire up. “Of course I didn’t. I’d never injure a horse.”
“It’s a pity you don’t devote some of your care for horses to people, Meg.” Sally sounded deathly tired and sad and defeated.
He’d sell his soul for the right to comfort her, but he was the last person she’d turn to. His gut cramped with stabbing regret. He loathed the desolation he heard in her voice. A desolation he knew that he, not Meg, had caused, however disappointed she was in her niece.
“Apologize to Sir Charles, then for pity’s sake, let us leave this place. With any luck, they’ll still have our rooms at the Angel.”
The picture of remorse, Meg turned to Charles. “I’m dreadfully sorry, Sir Charles. I hope you can forgive me.”
How could he bear a grudge? In her harebrained fashion, she’d tried to help him. It wasn’t her fault everything had come to ruin and despair. He nodded and summoned up a smile. “Of course I forgive you, Miss Meg.”
“You’re too good,” Meg said in a choked voice.
“At least you’re not hurt,” Charles said. “We were worried about you.”
“He is too good,” Sally said, casting him a narrow-eyed glance before she faced Meg again. “I hope you know how you’ve let me down, and you’ll learn from this debacle never to interfere again in matters you’re too young to understand.”
With a pleading expression, Meg stepped toward her aunt. “I am so very, very sorry, Aunt Sally.” The tears she’d been bravely fighting started to pour down her cheeks. “If I’ve hurt you in any way, I’ll…I’ll go into a convent and never speak to anyone ever again.”
The extravagant claim at last pierced Sally’s severe manner. To Charles’s relief, her lips quirked in a frail imitation of her usual brilliant smile. She’d been holding herself so stiffly that he’d feared she must break. At least now she looked human and not like a marble deity.
“There’s no need to go overboard. If we ban you from the stables for a year, that should be punishment enough.”
“Ban me from…” Meg’s face brightened with relief. “You’re having a joke.”
“I am.” She opened her arms to her niece. “Now come and give me a hug, you dreadful child.”
Meg stumbled forward to sob a litany of promises and apologies into her aunt’s shoulder. When she pulled away, she was sniffing and breathing unsteadily. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Sally’s smile was so disconsolate, Charles wanted to smash something. She dug in her pocket for a handkerchief which she passed to her niece. “We’ll say no more about it.”
Meg choked out, “What about the scandal?”
“We’ll deal with that if we must,” Charles said firmly. At the moment, gossip was the least of his worries. “At those big coaching inns, travelers come and go at all hours. If we three turn up past midnight, I doubt questions will be asked.”
Meg wiped her face and looked a little more cheerful. She shot her aunt a glance under her lashes. “So if there’s no scandal, can I stay with you in London?”
“I’m sorry, Meg.” Sally shook her head. Charles hated to see her return to looking like the figure of justice carved on a courthouse. “You’ve shown I can’t trust you. You’re safer with your father and mother.”
Meg’s face fell. “Aunt…”
Charles bit back the impulse to interfere. He had no right to ask Sally to relent. He had no rights where Sally was concerned at all, blast it all to hell.
