“I know,” Michael said before he could be scolded, waving his hand. “I know.”
“You’re a bloody idiot, Sandford,” Charles told him as if it were helpful. “I’ve thought so for years, but this trumps everything else. How many times have I told you to leave this madness? You had to know it was pointless once she refused you; she never goes back on her word. Yet you stayed. Never understood why, it had to be torture if you had feelings for her. But this? From a lapdog to a romantic advisor, what the hell have you done to your manhood?”
He had endured ribbing and teasing from Charles over the years, and usually brushed it off with a laugh, but this…
He was wondering the same thing himself. How had he let himself waste so much time in his life on the smallest hope?
Not that time spent in Charlotte’s company had been a waste, for her friendship had been the most important in his life. From the moment he’d met her, swinging as she had been on the low-hanging branches of a willow over a flooded pond, he’d been drawn to her side like no connection he’d ever known. There was no friend like Charlotte Wright anywhere in the world. He’d loved her within three years and had never stopped.
And that was a waste.
“I don’t know,” Michael admitted for the first time in his life. “But enough is enough. I’m finished.”
Charles became almost startled in a single blink. “You agree?”
“About my being an idiot? Absolutely.” He nodded for emphasis. “Very much so.”
There was no response as Charles processed that. “You have never agreed with me. You usually change topics or tell me to shove off. What’s changed?”
Michael snorted a soft laugh, anything actually resembling humor nowhere in sight. “Opening my eyes. It’s over.” He pushed to his feet and met the derisive look of his companion. “I’ve nailed my own coffin shut, and I have to find a way out.”
Charles winced with some sympathy. “To be fair, I tried to tell you that…”
“I wouldn’t have believed you before,” Michael admitted, smiling ruefully. “I know better now. She’ll never see me that way, I’ve simply been denying it naïvely. But I’m not going to be one of her Spinster friends in this. They can speculate and laugh about suitors all they like, but I will not hear a word of it.”
“Does my sister know?” Charles asked, his brow lowering slowly.
Michael shook his head. “Of course not, don’t get so protective.” He gave him a scolding look, then went on. “I don’t intend to abandon her entirely from this moment. I will gradually ease away and find a natural reason for doing so. Trust me, she’ll hardly notice.”
For a moment, he thought Charles would express further concern, disdain, or some other brotherly emotion that belied his affection for and bond with his sister.
But Charles only nodded and uttered a low laugh before clapping Michael on the shoulder. “Well, it’s about time you walked away from her and lived your own life. Good man. Billiards?”
Michael shook his head, feeling no satisfaction in the praise. “Thank you, no. I’ve got business to attend to. I was on my way there when Charlotte commandeered me.”
Charles chuckled ruefully as he gestured for them both to leave the room. “No doubt it will be a pleasant change to have that end for you, eh?”
Somehow Michael’s silence was acknowledgement enough, though he didn’t agree. Pleasant it would not be, but a necessary change it was. It would be vital to his survival.
And his sanity.
Chapter Three
One can always count on one’s true friends to be honest, supportive, and loyal, even when one’s idea is an unconventional one.
-The Spinster Chronicles, 1 May 1818
“Thank you for coming here today. I know you’re all wondering why I’ve asked you here.”
“Not really, no.”
Charlotte glared at Elinor Sterling, who was smiling back at her with the sort of impudence that was maddening in its inconvenience. “That was not a question that required an answer, Elinor.”
Elinor raised a pale brow. “It wasn’t a question at all, and I didn’t answer. Only commented.”
“She’s going to throttle you,” Georgie informed her as she calmly sipped her tea.
“Eagerly,” Charlotte added with a menacing hiss.
Elinor only shrugged. “Well, it was a beautiful life while I had it. Kindly tell Hugh what happened to me, and that I adored him to my last breath.”
Grace, Lady Ingram, rolled her eyes dramatically as she sat on the sofa in a flurry of elegant skirts. “Oh, please, Elinor. You’ve been married nearly six months; it is high time the glow of the thing faded.”
“And yet…” Elinor smiled to herself as she brought her tea to her lips.
Charlotte shook her head and looked around the room. “I don’t understand at all how she can be so desperately in love with a villain while the rest of you simply tolerate your grand husbands.”
“Tolerate?” Izzy Morton echoed with a laugh.
“Villain?” Elinor replied with her usual sharpness.
“Yes, Tony is rather grand,” Georgie allowed with a bemused smile. “I shall endeavor to amend my ways to be more glowing about him, as Grace would say.”
The tension in the room broke as laughter sounded from them all, even Charlotte.
Tony was the first of the truly admirable Spinster husbands, and he’d seemed to set the precedent for the rest of them. They had all met and matched the quality with each subsequent husband, growing their influence and enviable states markedly.
Apart from Hugh Sterling.
Charlotte glanced at Elinor, who was sitting with her eyes lowered to her lap.
For the first time in the six months of her marriage, Charlotte felt something crack in her heart as she saw the effect her opinions had on Elinor. It was easy enough to combat her roaring indignation about the thing, given her own temperament bordered on the fiery. She had yet to see Elinor anything but angry over her opinions. It hadn’t exactly
