AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No. No!” Louisa said, her eyes scrunched tightly closed. “It’s finally happened. I feel it. In my belly. In my heart. This man—this Zachary …”
“Darling, the way he looks at you … it’s the way I’ve wanted men you’re interested in to regard you since this silly courting began,” Charlotte said.
“Oh, but the way Jeffrey looks at you!” Louisa countered. “That, in and of itself, is magic.” She turned her head around and assessed her sister. “And what on earth were you and Harry doing in the garden?”
Margorie chuckled. “When you found me in the garden, I was alone, was I not?”
“I suppose. When I discovered you …” Louisa furrowed her brow. “Which only leads me to suspect that Harry had hidden behind that lilac bush beside you.”
“How scandalous! How dare you suggest such a thing,” Margorie returned.
Still, the glint in her eyes told the other women all they needed to know. Charlotte guffawed, overwhelmed with emotion.
Back at Louisa and Margorie’s estate, they slipped up the staircase like ghosts and changed into their nightgowns. They sat atop Louisa’s bed for a long while, exchanging stories, diving into various tales about what each of their men had said throughout dinner.
“Harry suggested that we see one another again next week …” Margorie said. She twirled her finger through her dark curls. “Privately, I asked him if he knew of my past. My divorce that is …”
“And what did he say?” Louisa seemed captivated.
“He just laughed. He said that in this town, everyone knows everything about everyone else,” Margorie said. “He suggested that everyone has a great deal of baggage, regardless of their situation or circumstance. Thus … I suppose he doesn’t care?”
“Perhaps he even likes it,” Louisa marvelled. “The fact that you’ve had this sordid past. I don’t suppose women are the only ones on this earth who appreciate a good deal of gossip.”
“Perhaps you’re correct,” Charlotte mused, considering the darkness behind Jeffrey’s eyes, the way he seemed to crave even the slightest touch from her.
The girls collapsed not long after the stroke of midnight, each of them thrust into their separate dreamworlds. Charlotte was grateful to be allowed this reprieve from the simmering shadows that lurked just behind her consciousness.
