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“Be in my room by ten.”
“Not tonight.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Be there by ten––or I’ll come looking for you.” He may have said looking, however, his eyes clearly meant hunting. I knew arguing would get me nowhere, he was relentless when he wanted something, so I nodded and left to chase after Charlotte.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I found her in the vegetable garden with a cigarette in her hand, her thumbnail worrying the nail of her pinky finger. I was mortified. Unsure of how to begin, I walked up quietly and stood there fidgeting with my apron as I searched for the right words to break the uncomfortable silence.
“I’m so sorry, Charlotte.”
She looked over her shoulder for only a moment before returning her absent gaze to the dusky horizon. “There’s no need to apologize to me.”
“Yes, there is. You’ve been a terrific friend to me and I…I haven’t been to you. Trusting people is difficult for me. I’ve been burned before. It’s no reflection on you, I just didn’t know what to say,” I explained.
She turned to me, a sympathetic expression gracing her cherubic features. “I know what that feels like, Vera, believe me.”
I leaned against the brick wall, next to her, and watched the early evening fog roll in. The words came out before I realized what was happening. “I was engaged six and a half years ago. But before we could be married––my father was caught up…there was a scandal.” Her brows were knit, her eyes patient. I took a deep breath before continuing. “Before the trial, Aleksander, my fiancée, decided that we should move to Belgium, that the stress of the trial would be too much to deal with. He wanted a fresh start. I couldn’t leave my father, of course…the last time I saw him he was boarding a train for Brussels and promised to send for me once the trial was over––I never heard from him again.”
“Bloody bastard!” She threw down the cigarette and stomped it out under her foot.
“My thoughts exactly,” I agreed, smiling at her dramatics. I felt lighter. Having unburdened myself a little bit of the load felt good. “Anyway, I’m over it. Nobody knows Charlotte, not even Sebastian, not anybody.”
“Your secrets are safe with me…are you in love with him?” I knew she was dying to talk about him. Her face gave away her every thought and emotion.
“It’s…we’re both lonely. It’s just sex.” Liar. You’re lying to her again.
“That doesn’t seem to be true,” she murmured. Crafty Charlotte––she was on to me. I turned to her with a resigned look.
“It has to be. I can’t afford to be wrong again.”
“You can do that? Stop yourself from falling in love?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted, my convictions as ambiguous as the gray mist that marked the horizon. “But I do know one thing––if I don’t fly too high, I’ll survive the crash landing.”
With sympathy permeating her expression, she reached for my hand, laced her fingers through mine, and gave me a gentle squeeze in sisterly support.
* * *
It was after eleven when I stepped into his bedroom. He was sitting in his oversized armchair near the fireplace, wearing a pair of ancient looking jeans and an optic white t-shirt that made the tan on his face look deeper. His injured leg lay straight on the ottoman. With his elbow resting on the arm of the chair, he leaned his handsome face on the triangle of his thumb and index finger. His eyes were sulky and irritated, promising retribution.
If you asked me he was even more irresistible when he was dressed casually, a little unkempt. He had so much natural sex appeal that he didn’t need all the gadgets and expensive clothes. Sebastian didn’t have a vain bone in his body. Even when he dressed, it seemed he played a part for business, for everybody but himself. And there was no question he was much more comfortable naked. If the servants didn’t live in the house, I was certain he would’ve roamed around as naked as the day he was born all the time. That he didn’t like being pursued by women had been an unexpected discovery. There was no hope for him there––unless he wanted to wear a paper bag over his head. But there’s no accounting for how people view themselves. When I looked in the mirror, I saw someone strong, resilient––not fragile, not in need of rescuing. I guess when he looked in the mirror he saw an inconvenience.
“Charlotte promised she’d keep quiet.”
His eyes narrowed at the declaration. He threw his head back against the chair cushion and stared at the ceiling as he spoke.
“Why are you dressed?”
“Because we need to speak, and I can’t do that wearing my nightgown.”
“I’m going to take every piece of your God-awful wardrobe and incinerate it first thing tomorrow.”
