Page 47 of Charming Sir Charles
“Good night, Willis.” He paused. “And thank you.”
Was that a glint in his butler’s gimlet eye? “My pleasure, sir.”
What the devil did this unexpected visit mean? Charles’s gut churned with an unsettling mixture of expectation and trepidation.
Had Sally come to accept his offer of marriage? Or had she called to say a final goodbye?
No, by God, he wouldn’t let that be so. He shouldn’t have given up on her – although the woman who leftSans Soucihad been locked away behind an impenetrable wall of ice, thicker than ever after her lapse of control.
Well, ice could melt, and there was a key for every lock. Sally had met her match, even if she didn’t know it yet.
Once he was alone, Charles sucked in a deep breath as he ran his hands through his hair in an attempt to settle its wild disorder. In the last week, he’d barely picked up a comb, and he was wearing an old shirt, definitely not suitable for receiving company. But be damned if he’d waste time going upstairs to tidy himself up.
With a purpose that had deserted him during these vile days of yearning and despair, he marched out of his library, across the shadowy hall, and into the drawing room.
He paused in the open doorway and took in the tall, slender woman swathed in black veiling. It had only been a week since he’d seen her, but the immediate power of Sally’s presence struck him like a blow from a mallet.
His heart crashed against his ribs and every drop of moisture dried from his mouth, so it was an effort to speak. “How the devil you can see an inch in front of your face with all that falderal floating around you is beyond me.”
She lifted away the funereal bonnet, and he stepped forward to take it from her and place it on a chair. She was pale and resolute, and her eyes were huge in her thin face. He couldn’t read her expression as she stripped off her black kid gloves, but he didn’t sense any hostility. “I didn’t have to come far.”
She didn’t sound upset at his unloverlike greeting. He was beyond hedging his questions. “So why did you come?”
“I needed to talk to you.”
“Just talk?”
The look she sent him was guarded. “I wasn’t sure you’d see me. I’ve been horrid to you.”
So perhaps not just to talk. It was a good sign that she avoided his question.
He curled his hands into fists and fought the urge to seize her and demand she tell him that she was coming back to him. “I’ll always welcome you, Sally. Don’t you know that yet?”
“So you forgive me for being so cruel?” She linked trembling hands at her waist, and he realized she was nervous.
He shrugged. “It’s forgotten.”
Charles meant it. With her here, old resentment found no place in his heart.
He read the signs of recent strain in her face. A tightness around her mouth, and blue shadows under her eyes. Was it too much to hope that over these last days, she’d suffered just as he had?
“You’re so generous, Charles. When I don’t deserve your kindness.”
He stepped further into the room and shut the door behind him. Had this lovely, spirited, fragile creature come to entrust herself to him? He prayed it was so. But he remained careful. He’d come so perilously close to losing her once. He didn’t want her running away again.
Because if she did, this time it would be forever.
“Did you only come here to ask my forgiveness? You could have done that in a letter.”
“I…” She swallowed, and the hands she raised to undo the long line of buttons on her pelisse were shaking so badly, they fumbled. “I heard you were going to Italy.”
“I couldn’t see any point in staying in England,” he said somberly, then with sudden impatience, stepped closer and brushed her hands aside. “Let me do that. You’ll be there until Doomsday.”
“Yes, Charles,” she said, with a docility that he’d never heard from her before.
Quickly and efficiently, he released the buttons and helped her out of her coat. Then he stood back, awe-struck. “Good God, I’m glad Willis didn’t see that dress, or he’d have had a heart attack.”
Sally glanced down at the bright red silk gown and made an apologetic gesture. “It seemed a gown a scarlet woman would wear.”
