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Chapter 5
“We’ve received word that the other two guests and their companion are not arriving until tomorrow,” Charles said, leaning against the balcony and breathing in the country air. “And I imagine your father will be shortly behind them. He has some business to wrap up in London, but when I left him there, he assured me he would come along soon.”
Mabel nodded in response but felt utterly drained. It was welcome news, but she could not summon the energy to feel glad.
Charles seemed to notice. “Are you well, Mae?”
“Yes.” She let out a long, slow breath and relaxed another fraction. “It has merely been a long day. Pippa nearly getting struck by the carriage…then all of the preparations for this surprise visit…” She shot him a look, and he had the decency to look sheepish. “I’m contemplating skipping dinner and just falling into bed.”
“Then do that,” Charles offered. He folded his arms, leaning against the railing, and looked as far over to the right as he could. It was a habit of his, and she knew what he was doing. He was looking toward Amelia’s house—Falbrooke Court. Not that he could see it from here.
She shifted, leaning against the railing beside her cousin. Lifting her feet one at a time, relief flowed into her heels from removing some of the pressure. Access to the terrace came from her father’s room, which was right where Charles knew she would be. Papa had the balcony added on when she was a small girl. He’d said he needed a vantage point for when he was home. She had made a joke about him adding a ship’s wheel to one side so he could remain at the helm when at home and had been elated when he took her advice and brought home an old wheel on his next leave. When Mabel found herself in need of guidance, or simply missing her Papa, she gravitated to the steering wheel on the balcony and wondered if he was at the helm as well.
“Maybe I will,” she said tentatively. Charles shot her a look of surprise. He never expected her to take his advice, and she knew it. “But that wouldn’t make me a very good hostess now, would it?”
“The choice is yours. But with the ladies not present yet, I say you’ve earned the night off. Gram can play hostess. Technically that’s her role anyway, right?”
Mabel smiled. “You know, you’re right.”
Charles nodded once, succinctly. “Then it’s settled. I will sacrifice myself by finding Mrs. Henderson and telling her that you would like a tray sent to your room, and you can go put your feet up.”
Mabel laughed at the jest and knew as well as Charles that he would simply find the nearest footman and ask him to relay the message. She watched him a moment longer, searching for evidence of his alteration. Something had altered within him—she’d noticed it since first seeing him on the road earlier in the day. But what?
“You seem different,” Mabel hedged.
“I feel different,” Charles answered, looking toward Amelia’s home once again before dragging his gaze away and sitting against the railing beside her.
She wanted to be delicate, to tiptoe around the question which had plagued her all day. There was something about his bearing which had very much altered since she’d seen him last, and there was only one thing she imagined could be the cause of such an alteration. But how did one come right out and say, ‘are you finally over your imagined love of fifteen years yet?’
Well, maybe just like that.
“Have you overcome your affection for her, then?” Mabel whispered.
“You may not believe me,” Charles said with a hint of pride, “but I am past that childish passion I held on to for so long. I fancied myself in love with her for what…fifteen years? It feels good to be over her now. Liberating. Free.”
Mabel placed a hand on his arm. “I am really glad for you, Charles. I can see it; you seem happier now. Lighter.”
“Yes, well, enough sentimentality now.” He shooed Mabel back into the house, his cheeks glowing pink.
Mabel grinned, happy for Charles. “Yes, yes, I am going.”
* * *
Mac sat at the large dining table and pushed the food around his plate with his fork. He reached for his goblet and tipped it to his lips before realizing, again, that it was empty. Returning it to the table with a thud that was harder than he intended, he glanced up to the footman who scurried around the table to refill his drink. Where was the butler? Wasn’t that his job?
He mentally shook himself to release his anger. He wasn’t truly mad, not really. Irritation was more the vein his feelings were taking at the moment. At least Miss Sophy and her sister would not be arriving until the following day. That gave him a bit of a reprieve. Or, more apt, time to plan his strategy.
Miss Sophy. The name alone brought fresh humiliation to the surface, boiling his blood and searing his skin. Seeing the actual woman again was not going to be good for him. Charles better be up for acting as his sparring partner, because Mac was surely going to need to vent his feelings somehow if he was forced to remain under the same roof as that woman.
Why was he subjecting himself to this again? Oh, right. Her.
Mac felt a combination of excitement and unease when he thought about Mabel. She was the one reason he had hesitated to return to the Sheffields’ home in Graton—and now the one reason he was willing to remain. He was certain he was the last person she wanted to see, but when he had run straight into her—or had she run right into him?—he’d felt like he’d been struck in the side of the head by a fist. He had stood on the tips of his toes waiting for her to recognize him. Metaphorically, of course, for he did not need to add to his already massive height.
But that was just it—she didn’t either. She was tall, lean and graceful, much as he’d remembered. And when she fell into him, he immediately noted how perfectly she had fit into his arms. Mabel Sheffield was not too tall. No, she was perfect. Standing beside her, Mac didn’t feel like the monster that most women, and some men, made him feel. He felt almost normal.
A guttural laugh escaped his lips at the thought, and he dropped his fork.
“What’s so funny, Mac?” Charles asked from the head of the table. The man had spent the better part of dinner yelling updates at his grandmother, who was comically misunderstanding and forcing him to repeat himself. Mac was impressed; the man had patience. A little thin at times, perhaps, but Charles was gentle and kind with his grandmother, nonetheless. That was to be expected, however, when the woman was the closest thing to a mother Charles had had in his life. With his own parents dying tragically young, and then Mabel’s mother, his aunt, giving her life through Pippa’s birth, Charles and Mabel were both left with their grandmother as their sole female relative.
