Chapter Six

M eg was uncharacteristically quiet as Charles escorted her into the shadowy gallery. They progressed past gilded frames and portraits mysterious in the candlelight to the first Caravaggio. Meg dutifully turned to face the huge canvas, although he’d wager a thousand guineas that the girl wasn’t remotely interested in the painting.

“Here it is.” He raised the candelabra to reveal the Madonna sorrowing at the foot of the Cross. Mary was lit with bright gold light, while the rest of the desolate landscape lay shrouded in darkness.

Meg studied the sublime painting with a disgruntled expression. “There are no horses.”

The response, while predictable, made him laugh. He’d felt so low when he’d left the drawing room, he was surprised that he could. He placed the candelabra on a side table. “You, Miss Meg, are a Philistine.”

Transferring her gaze to him, she shrugged. “Of course I am.”

He leaned one shoulder against the wall and surveyed her, wondering what she was up to. Because she was undoubtedly up to something.

“So why this sudden interest in West’s art collection?” It was a deuced pity that Sally hadn’t seen fit to come with him. The silence and isolation were just right for passionate declarations.

Charles stiffened in sudden horror. Good God, was this girl having similar thoughts?

“Dash it all, Miss Meg, you’re not expecting something to happen, are you?”

It wasn’t the most coherent of questions, but there was nothing wrong with Meg’s brain. She understood immediately, and gave a reassuringly contemptuous snort. “Like a proposal? Don’t be silly.”

He laughed again, too relieved to be offended, and folded his arms. “So why are we here?”

“Because I want to talk to you, and it’s almost impossible to get any privacy. Propriety is a devil of a pest.”

Charles heartily agreed. If only he’d got Sally alone tonight, he’d have winkled out the cause of her troubles. But as a single man unrelated to her, he had to behave circumspectly. Even here, among friends. “So what is it you want to say?”

Meg’s stare intensified. “Aunt Sally thinks you want to marry me.”

“What on earth?” Shock made him stand up straight and uncross his arms.

The girl studied him curiously. “Do you want to marry me?”

Biting back the urge to curse like a sailor at this unexpected turn, he shook his head. He felt so nonplused, his answer emerged with more frankness than tact.

“Not a bit of it.” He frowned. “Do you want to marry me?”

“No. You’re too old for me.”

Despite everything, a huff of amusement escaped him. “Well, that puts me in my place.”

“I beg your pardon.” Meg’s blush was visible, even in the candlelight. “That was rude.”

“But true.” Then the full significance of what Meg had told him deflated all humor. “ Sally thinks I want to marry you?”

Damn, damn, damn.

Hurt, frustration, and confusion crashed into one another and left him reeling. Don’t say he and Sally had been at cross purposes from the beginning. Was this why she didn’t respond to his overtures, because she’d consigned him to her charming, but completely incompatible niece?

The idea beggared belief. Surely she knew him better than this. But when he looked at Meg’s face, he saw no hint of teasing. Furious disappointment rammed his gut and left him winded.

Meg nodded. “She thinks that’s why you’ve been so attentive.”

“Dash it, I’ve been so attentive because –” He stopped, unsure how much he wanted to reveal to this self-assured chit.

“Because you’re in love with Aunt Sally.”

“Meg…”

She sent him a sharp look. “Are you going to deny it?”

“Not at all.” Feeling as if he’d entered a world where nothing made sense, he crossed to slump into one of the gilt armchairs set opposite the Caravaggio.

“Good.” Meg followed him and took the chair beside his.

He hardly knew how to respond. As he examined the unpalatable truth, his stomach churned with angry disbelief. “So that’s why she’s been so nice to me.”

“Don’t be a blockhead, Sir Charles. She likes you.”

“As a husband for her niece.” His voice emerged as a growl. He raised his head and studied Meg. “She doesn’t see me as her suitor at all, does she?”

Meg’s expression made her look much wiser than her eighteen years warranted. “Don’t be angry with her.”

“I’m not.” Which was a blatant lie. At the moment, he burned to corner Sally and insist that she came to her senses.

“Yes, you are, and I don’t blame you. But it’s not her fault. I want you to see that.”

“How the devil can I see that?”

Meg sighed. “Because I’m going to break a few confidences and tell you things you couldn’t know.”

He frowned, as curiosity set a brake on his rising temper. “Are you sure?”

“Do you really love her?”

“With every beat of my heart.”

“And you want to marry her?”

Despite the moment’s seriousness, his lips twisted into a wry smile. “Do you have the right to ask me that?”

Meg shrugged. “She has nobody else to look after her.”

“What about your father?”

“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.”

“You are the 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?”

To his surprise, she reached over and clasped his hand in brief encouragement. “Something has frightened her – I can see that. Can’t you?”

He straightened and pulled away. “You’re not saying she’s scared of me?”

“If she’s attracted to you, she would be terrified, I suspect.”

He sent her a narrow-eyed look. “You’re trying to bolster my confidence.”

“I’m trying to tell you not to give up on her – but perhaps change your tactics.”

“Pounce?”

Meg nodded firmly. “Pounce.”

Charles’s response was lost as Helena approached, carrying a candle. “You two have been away a long time.”

“We started talking, Lady West.” Still struggling to come to terms with what he’d learned tonight, Charles stood at his hostess’s arrival. “It’s my fault. I should have returned Miss Meg to the drawing room half an hour ago.”

“No matter. We’re not looking to make a scandal.”

He struggled to pin a smile to his face, but it was difficult when his mind was in complete tumult. Marry Meg? What an utterly ludicrous idea. Sally had bats in her belfry. “We’ll go and make our peace with her chaperone.”

Helena shook her head. “Sally went to bed just after you left. That’s why I’m tonight’s guardian of propriety.”

Meg stood and smoothed the skirts of her yellow silk gown. “I’m sorry we made you come and fetch us, Lady West.”

Helena shrugged. “I don’t mind. But it’s getting late.”

“Has everyone retired?” Charles asked.

“Silas and my husband are in the library emptying the brandy decanter and reliving boyhood exploits. Caro has gone upstairs to check on the children. I think Brand and Carey are still playing billiards.”

“With your permission, I may linger with the Caravaggio.”

“Certainly. Meg?”

“I might go and see how the billiards are progressing,” she said and curtsied to Charles. “Good night, Sir Charles.”

“Good night, Miss Meg,” he said, and hoped she heard his fervent gratitude. By God, he’d been fighting his battle for Sally blindfolded. Now at least he knew what he was up against.

Charles watched the girl leave with Helena, then raised his eyes to the painting before him. But for once, art, however magnificent, couldn’t compel his attention. Instead his mind turned over every aspect of that infuriating, astonishing, enlightening discussion with Meg.

He understood so much that had confused him. Sally’s curious mixture of confidence and insecurity. The air of innocence, incongruous in a widow in her thirties. Her unwillingness to speak about her marriage.

Poor, poor Sally, trapped in such an uncongenial union. If heaven granted him the privilege, Charles would do all he could to ensure that her second marriage was more to her taste.

If there was a second marriage.

Meg seemed to think he could persuade Sally to marry him. So did Stone. And tonight at dinner, Helena had offered encouragement.

He hoped to hell all of them were right. Hungering after Sally in London had been bad enough. Living with her under one roof, however vast, threatened to drive him out of his head with frustration.

Perhaps he should take Meg’s advice. It might be time to… pounce.