It was time. It had to be.
He stared back at her, willing the words to come.
“It might be that you’re meant to be the huntress, Charlotte, rather than the hunted.”
Michael blinked at the words, wondering what idiot was saying them at a moment like this. And why they were said in his exact way of speaking and tone of voice.
Oh. His voice.
Idiot.
Charlotte stared at him as though she were thinking the very same thing, though Michael knew full well she was not. She already knew he was an idiot; there was no need to hash it out again. This was not directed at him at all. It was a realization too late and feeling ridiculous for that fact.
“Bloody hell, Michael,” Charlotte hissed, her gaze turning to the window as she shook her head. “Why didn’t you say this before?”
“I don’t tend to consider the reasons for your lack of marital state on the regular, you know,” he told her with as much indignation as he could muster. “You never said much bemoaning the subject, so why would it even occur to me?”
She didn’t seem to hear him, her brow furrowing as she considered his words. “A huntress. You think so?”
She was going to torture him again and again if he didn’t somehow put an end to this conversation. Telling her to look for love? Knowing she would never look where he wanted her to?
Michael watched her for a long moment, making the decision he told himself he never would, and soaking in the sight of her as though he would never see her again in his life.
“You said so yourself,” he answered, surprised his voice was as clear as it was. “You’re an heiress. Marriage would actually hinder your independence, factually speaking, so if it is something you want in spite of the logic there, you are going to have to do the work to find it.”
“A marriage of love is what I want,” she replied, still not looking at him, “not a marriage for the sake of it.”
The words lashed across his heart, and he inhaled sharply, but silently. “Then find it, Charlotte. If you want it, go and get it.”
As though he had spoken to a soldier before battle, Charlotte rose to her feet, her brow clear and her expression set. “Yes. I intend to.” She nodded and began to stride from the room, pausing as she passed him to look in his eyes and smile with all the warmth she had ever done. “What would I do without you, Michael?”
With a quick stretching of her smile, she continued out of the room, her fingers briefly grazing his hand as she did so.
His skin burned fiercely at the contact, and the feel of it was all the more poignant for the silence in the now empty room.
“We’re about to find out,” he murmured in reply, though there was no one around to hear it.
He ran a hand over his face, exhaling heavily, and sank into the closest chair with the weight of the last few minutes pressing him further into it.
He wouldn’t stand by and watch while Charlotte actually conceded herself to someone else, no matter how worthy the man might be. He wanted her happiness, it was true, but at what cost to himself would that happiness come? Years of lingering at the edges of her circle, practically the one who tended her flock and shooed the strays away from her, and for what? He hadn’t found amusement in it but for her own wit, and all he could say he had done was furthered her own interests of absolutely nothing useful.
He’d never encouraged her behavior, but it wasn’t as though he had done anything about it. She had never behaved badly, though she was a novelty when compared with other young ladies in Society. He’d spent years ignoring his own life for the sake of remaining in hers.
It was time to end that. End this. If she would begin searching for love in earnest, then so would he. He would not hover at the edges of her courtship as a spectator.
He could not.
“Sandford, why is my sister whistling and skipping down the corridor?”
Of course she was.
Michael groaned, not bothering to remove his hand from its position, pressing as it was against his brow. “You would think after all these years, you would stop asking any questions at all about your sister’s behavior.”
“Skipping, Sandford. And whistling.” A rustle of clothing was heard, and the tread of footsteps approached. “Either she has just bested you in something, or she has an idea. Kindly relieve my curiosity.”
Michael’s hand dropped, and he stared up into the speculative face of Charlotte’s brother, so like her in coloring but with but with the hard angles in features of their father. While Charlotte’s glower was powerful and impressive, her brother had the firm countenance that demanded submission without a word. Where Charles had inherited the height of his maternal relatives, Charlotte had to fight for every inch of her stature.
Repeated exposure to both Wright children over the years had given Michael some insight into each of them, and while he wouldn’t have said Charles was among his more intimate friends, he shared a near-familial bond that didn’t exactly set him outside of that circle.
“Charlotte has decided she is going to marry,” Michael said flatly. “Husband to be determined.”
Charles blinked at the announcement, folding his arms after a moment. “I’d say it’s about time, though I’m more inclined to say I’ll believe it when I see it. What the devil does she have in mind?”
Michael shrugged and began drumming his fingers on the armrest. “I believe she is going on a hunt for love.”
Charles snorted. “Where in the world did she get that idiotic notion?”
A wince flashed across Michael’s features. “I may have given it to her.”
The long moment of silence might as well
