“Do you know which Campbell we’re talking about?” Kade asked.
“Richard, the younger brother of Andrew.”
Royal laughed. “Andrew. That would be the lad who your other sister, er, schooled in good manners?”
“You mean punched. Believe me, I’ve heard that story, too,” Johnny replied.
“I take it that Richard Campbell is a special friend of the family, if he’s coming early?” Kade asked.
“I’d say so. He wants to marry Charlie, and he’s coming especially to ask Papa for her hand.”
CHAPTER4
Charlie sat on her bed, working up the courage to get dressed for dinner. After almost sending the Kendricks into a ditch, she’d acted like a complete ninny in front of them.
She was quite certain that Kade Kendrick had thought her one. While he’d been terribly polite, more than once she’d seen an expression of barely suppressed incredulity on his handsome features. At first, he hadn’t even remembered who she was. When he did finally remember, it was because of that humiliating episode with Andrew Campbell.
If the Andrew incident was his only memory of her, she found that very sad. She had so many memories of Kade from that long-ago trip, stored up over the years like precious treasures. He’d given her so much. He’d given her the gift of music.
Until she met Kade, she’d mightily resisted attempting to learn the feminine accomplishments, like painting or playing the pianoforte. As to the latter, her old governess had pronounced her tone-deaf, telling Mamma the situation was hopeless.
Then that fateful day had occurred—the first time Charlie heard Kade play his violin.
All the other children had been romping about the grounds of Inveraray Castle. Charlie had been dashing down the hall to join the boys in a game of cricket. But then she’d heard the notes of a violin drifting out through the half-closed door of the music room, and she’d stopped dead in her tracks. The gently mournful music seemed to her full of a great longing, and it touched something deep inside her. It had wended its way into her heart and opened a hidden door.
Forgetting all about the cricket, she’d snuck into the room and crouched down behind a chair to listen. Kade had been standing by the fireplace, his black locks tumbling over his forehead as he played. His body moved with the instrument in an intense, captivating display of youthful talent and emotion.
Charlie had met Kade the day before and had thought him a sweet boy with a kind face and lovely blue eyes. But he was also painfully thin and obviously unwell, and she’d felt sorry for him because he couldn’t participate in riding or other romps about the estate.
Once she’d heard him play, she never felt sorry for him again. He became the most interesting person Charlie had ever met in her young life, and she’d spent the rest of her visit dogging his steps. Though Kade had no doubt thought her an awful pest, he’d never treated her with anything but courtesy. Instead he’d talked to her about music, and had even showed her how to hold a violin and draw the bow across its strings.
The day she’d first picked up a violin had, thanks to him, changed her life forever.
But after today’s disastrous encounter with the Kendricks, she doubted Kade would want to spend even a minute in her company. Given the kind of man he’d become—polished and sophisticated—he likely expected something quite different from young ladies.
Hoydens, she suspected, were not it.
Besides, she had nothing in common with him but a love of music. She was a girl of the Highlands, while he spent his time in cities like Paris, London, and Rome. Charlie had spent years following his career, gleaning every bit of information she could from the papers, ladies’ magazines, and her mother’s correspondence with Lady Ainsley and various other Kendricks. Kade Kendrick was a meteor blazing across the night sky. Handsome, talented, and charming, he’d no doubt met legions of beautiful women who would leave a country bumpkin like Charlie in the dust.
It was no wonder he hadn’t remembered her.
Charlie sighed and stared down at her stocking feet, wiggling her toes.
“Well, old girl, you’d best get yourself dressed and down for dinner,” she said to herself. “Otherwise Mamma will skin you alive.”
As it was, she was already in trouble for not returning to the house in time to greet the Kendricks. Mamma had taken one look at Charlie and ordered her not to set a foot downstairs until she could present herself in proper form.
Unfortunately, presenting herself in proper form had always been a challenge.
She got up and crossed to her dressing table. Taking up her brush, she began working through her tangled hair. Susan, the maid she shared with her sister, would be along to help her dress, but Charlie preferred to do her own hair, braiding and wrapping it in a simple crown style. Poor Susan also thought she was hopeless and spent endless amounts of time trying to bring her up to snuff by sticking silly beads and feathers into the braid.
She’d just finished when a quiet knock sounded on the door.
“Come in, Susan,” she called out.
To Charlie’s surprise, a very fashionably coiffed head peeked around the door.
“Not Susan,” Ainsley Kendrick said. “I thought to have a quick chat with you before dinner, if it’s not too much of a bother.”
