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Astonishment robbed her of speech, then she found her tongue to say, “It is the opposite, I’m afraid. The reason he kissed me was to actually frighten me away from visiting Jenna at his country home for two weeks.”
“Now that is very interesting,” Lucinda said with a definite sparkle in her gray eyes.
Charity slowly lowered herself to the sofa, curling her feet beneath her. “Why is it interesting?”
“It means he wants you and might find your presence a great temptation,” Prue said softly. “Unfortunately, he does not like the idea of wanting you.”
An unexpected longing slid hotly through Charity’s veins at the memory of his mouth atop hers. “I suppose I do not fit his ideal of the kind of lady he would want to kiss,” she murmured, not appreciating the pang of dismay and hurt that went through her heart.
“Will you go?” Hester asked, looking worried. “If you do, it is bound to create tension between the two of you.”
Charity sniffed. “If I go, I am doing so for Jenna. The poor dear seemed very forlorn at the thought of rusticating in Dorset for a few weeks without a companion. I am perfectly capable of ignoring the earl. It is not as if I actually like the man.”
“Just his kiss,” Frederica said with a laugh.
It was wonderful. But she did not say so, letting her fair skin blush, revealing that she might like the earl far more than she liked to admit.
“A man of his station does not marry for love,” Lucinda said softly. “Nor do they marry ladies they find too unconventional, and you, my dearest, are an original. Be careful not to interact too closely with the earl.”
Charity swallowed. “I will,” she promised Lucinda.
Pushing from the sofa, she joined them on the carpet for a game, not liking that her thoughts were troubled by the earl.
* * *
Charity tenderly rubbeda fingertip at the center of her forehead, soothing away the gathering headache. She had departed 48 Berkeley Square after a rigorous bout of fencing with their fencing master and ventured home to direct the maids in packing a valise, portmanteau, and a hatbox for her departure in two days. After dinner, she had informed her brother of her plans. Predictably, he was not having it. The entire scene was tiresome, and Charity was exhausted.
“Your shouting is beyond the pale,” she said softly to her brother. “I am developing a frightful megrim.”
“I forbid you from leaving town! You have no chaperone, and it is certainly too sudden to ask Aunt Lavinia to cut her stay short in Brighton to accompany you.”
“As a woman in my dotage, I am allowed some adventures. Like traveling to the countryside and staying at a friend’s country home for a couple of weeks without an extra chaperone,” she said with a sarcastic bite. “Lord Ralston’s mother and aunt will be present, and we cannot ask for better chaperones. I depart tomorrow, and I will be gone for two weeks or less.”
“I swear, Charity, you are only doing this to thwart me.”
She sent him a speaking look before walking over to him and pressing a brief kiss to his cheek. “Good night, Thomas. When I return, I will make plans to live on my own.”
He spluttered, shock settling on his face. “My God, you mean it.”
“I do. I am five and twenty, yet you still insist on managing my life as if I am a chit fresh from the schoolroom. I realize you want me married off and out of your household.”
He grimaced and, for a moment, could not meet her stare. “People will most certainly talk if you leave!”
An awful ache pierced her. “That is what you are worried about? That people will gossip?”
He gave her a fulminating stare. “Damn it, Charity, why are you so headstrong?”
“To want to live for my own desires and not your own is headstrong? Imagine you had someone telling you where you should go, who you should be friends with and who you should marry, Thomas. Just for a moment, please imagine that was your life.”
He paused and, to her shock, actually seemed to think. “I love you and I really want you to be happy.”
“Good. Then stop henpecking.”
With a smile and that parting shot, she sailed from the drawing room and went up the stairs to her bedchamber, where she removed her clothes with the assistance of her maid. Climbing into bed, she released a blissful sigh and curled into soft pillows. Unable to sleep, she tossed about restlessly for several minutes.
It was time to start plotting more decidedly for her future. It was unlikely she would marry anytime soon, for she would not find a favorable match in Lord Newsome, and many other gentlemen considered her an ancient spinster. Nor did she want to enter a union solely to be the mistress of her own home. Earlier, her brother’s words had been mocking, but Charity truly wanted love in any attachment she should form.
“Like what Theo and Prue have found,” she whispered into the pillow, fighting back the surge of envy. Even Perdie was happily married to her Scot.
