How many times had he tried to tell her he’d loved her, and she hadn’t seen? Or hadn’t wanted to see? How many opportunities had she wasted due to her ignorance?
Now it was too late. She’d given him the closure he needed in order to finalize his plans with Diana. He was finalizing it now. Might have already done. He could even now be on his way back to London with her father’s permission. Bound to her already.
Michael would never jilt Diana.
It was over. She had lost. She hadn’t even begun, and already she was done.
“Charlotte?”
Charlotte blinked and slowly looked at Emma, and only then realized a pair of tears were slowly making their way down her frozen cheeks. “I love him.”
Emma’s brows creased and she put a hand on Charlotte’s arm, looking her over. “What?”
“I love Michael,” Charlotte said clearly. Then she burst into tears and crumpled against her friend as her heart shattered.
Chapter Twenty
The ability to converse well is a gift and blessed are they who know when and how to employ it.
-The Spinster Chronicles, 25 August 1815
He couldn’t believe he was doing this. Could he really tempt fate further than he already had? Madness, this was, and there was no other word for it.
He couldn’t help himself, couldn’t resist, but it was mad.
Anyone would have said so.
Michael shook his head as his coach pulled up to the Wright house, just as it had so many times before but had neglected to for several weeks.
He couldn’t stay away now. Habit, tradition, and good manners guided him, insisted that he call.
Charlotte was unwell.
Or so he had been told.
A supper party at the Morton home had revealed that to him. Charlotte had not attended when all the other Spinsters had, and questions were raised. The simple answer had been that Charlotte was unwell but would soon recover herself. She had not been seen at any event since.
She hadn’t been seen in Mr. Riley’s phaeton, in Hyde Park, or in Bond Street. More than that, she had apparently also been too unwell to attend any of the Spinster gatherings for over a week.
That concerned him more than anything. Her friends did not seem overly concerned, but he couldn’t take their word for it. Something was wrong with Charlotte, and until he saw her with his own eyes, spoke with her himself, he would not be satisfied.
Of course, that meant calling upon her. He’d begged off on an outing with Diana to do so, which could mean anything.
He’d risk that.
She might throw him out of the house without letting him say a word in true kindness.
He’d accept that.
He smiled as he was let into the house, nodding and offering his hat and gloves to the servants. “Is Miss Wright well enough for a friendly visitor?”
“I think so, sir,” the butler said with an indulgent smile. “Mrs. Sterling is already with her in the Blue Room, and I daresay they have been laughing enough to be in quite high spirits now.”
Michael chuckled to himself. He should have known Georgie would have come to visit her friend and manage to raise her spirits in the interim. At least he could not receive the excuse that she was not accepting visitors, given that she presently had one.
At least he was well enough known in the house that he did not warrant formal introduction. He was fully free to walk around the place as and where he may without raising any brow or questions. There would be no opportunity for Charlotte to escape facing him on this occasion, no matter how she might wish to.
He made his way to the Blue Room, his pulse starting to pound with nerves. What if she was still so upset with him that she sent him away? What if she had no interest in anything he had to say? Just how unwell was she?
He heard the laughter before he reached the room, and the sounds of it made one thing perfectly clear.
Georgie was not the Mrs. Sterling that had called upon Charlotte.
Now his smile was entirely helpless, and a little uncertain, as he entered. “This is a fine surprise. I come to call upon the invalid and find she is already aptly cared for.”
The ladies within turned, faces still wreathed in smiles. “Michael, dear,” Miranda greeted, rising to face him.
Charlotte’s smile turned to a very small, very tired one, and he saw how pale and thin she looked, though still she was the most beautiful woman his eyes had ever seen.
Strange, that.
He hadn’t thought of her in that sense for some time. He’d known it, of course, but it wasn’t often he was struck with the impression. Even rarer that he thought it when she was completely unadorned and unwell. There must then be an odd truth to it.
Interesting.
He bowed to them both, then waved Miranda back down. “Please, sit, Miranda. I have no intention of monopolizing Charlotte’s time and sending you out.”
“Marvelous,” Miranda replied, making no move to retake her seat. “I do so hate being sent out, and even more so by someone not of the house. I resist in every respect. Fortunately for you, I have quite finished in my ministrations to the sick and weary in this place.” She turned and winked at Charlotte, who giggled at some private joke between them.
“Do not leave on my account,” he pleaded.
He glanced at the floor below the sofa where Charlotte lay, smiling to himself at the sight of Rufus laying there. The dog seemed perfectly at ease and relaxed, breathing the deep and rumbling sounds of sleep with no clear indication that he would ever leave.
Miranda smiled indulgently. “I never would, Michael. You’re a dear, but I do not think of you before acting in my own behalf. The truth of the matter
