A Spinster's Awakening (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 2)

“I didn’t realise you had company, Charity,” she murmured around a somewhat accusing look. “You should have told us.”

“I-” Charity began only to break off and look down in surprise at the cake plate Agatha Renton shoved at her.

“Go and cut that, dear, will you?” Agatha instructed absently. “Put a pot on as well, will you? I have a frightful thirst. We can all have a nice piece of cake while we say hello to your young men.”

Charity’s mouth fell open to protest, but Agatha Renton also side-stepped around her and forged a way into the sitting room.

“Good evening, dear,” Alice Brownlow chimed, patting Charity’s cheek carefully as she too sailed past an open-mouthed hostess.

“Good Lord,” Charity murmured. “I had not realised just how indomitable they are.”

Edwina Trogley threw her a somewhat commiserating look. “They insist on knowing who those men are,” she murmured as she stood on tiptoe and tried to look over Charity’s shoulder. “They are both men? Are they relations?”

Charity opened her mouth to reply but then remembered Angus’s warning and closed it again. Her lack of response prompted Edwina to peer into the room. Charity knew what her theatrical searching was all about. Edwina was looking for an introduction to the men as well.

“Please-” she began only for Edwina to ignore her and walk into the sitting room. Once inside, she stopped and brazenly eyed the men as though they were prime horseflesh. “You didn’t tell me they were such fine specimens, dear, or I would have come sooner,” she called back to Charity.

“They can hear you, you know,” Agatha Renton chided.

Angus shifted uncomfortably and struggled to contain the urge to tug on his collar at the overly appreciative look on one of the women’s faces as she circled around him, looking him up and down.

“Ladies,” Aaron murmured warily.

He looked how Angus felt, as though he wanted to throw himself out of the window whether it was closed or not. Angus knew the ladies were a handful, even the somewhat shy middle-aged lady who sidled into the room behind the two rambunctious matrons who were bold if not unruly.

“Mrs Edith Brownlow, and this here is Mrs Agatha Renton,” Edith announced. Without waiting to be offered, she grabbed at Angus’s hand and began vigorously shaking it. Seconds later, she released him and moved on to Aaron. “Then we have Miss Edwina Trogley. The lady out in the hallway with our Charity is Miss Gertrude Utterton, but don’t mind her, she doesn’t say much.”

“Well, Charity, you do like to keep your secrets, don’t you?” Agatha chided but without any hint of malice.

“This is Monika DeHaviland,” Charity introduced by way of an answer.

When she eventually entered the room, Charity was followed closely by an elegant middle-aged lady of indeterminable age. She tipped a perfectly coiffed head at the gentlemen and lifted a brow at Charity.

“Shame on you for not telling us such fine examples of masculinity were under your roof,” she informed Charity pertly.

“They only arrived today,” Charity replied.

While the ladies made their introductions, Charity swept the ladies’ cloaks off the back of the chaise and carried them out of the room. Once out in the hallway, however, she realised she had nowhere to put them. With a sigh, she carried them into the kitchen and promptly dropped them onto one of the chairs at her kitchen table.

While she set about putting a pot of water on to boil, she kept one ear tuned to the continuing flow of conversation in the sitting room.

“Miss Gertrude Utterton.”

Angus jumped when a rather robust lady appeared as if by magic beside him and thrust a hand under his nose. Cautiously, he took it and found himself shaking from head to foot as his arm was wrenched enthusiastically. Mercifully, Miss Utterton released him without too much damage, and promptly moved onto a somewhat bemused Aaron, who also found himself being shaken violently by the enthusiastic spinster.

“Good to meet you all,” Angus murmured.

“Do we have the pleasure of finding out your names as well?” The tall, rather practical Mrs DeHaviland asked as she leaned forward, her brows arched above piercing eyes that warned both men neither of them were going anywhere until she had all the pertinent facts.

“More importantly, do we have the pleasure of finding out what connection you have to our Charity? I must say, she has kept her connection to you quiet,” Agatha murmured with a suspicious glint in her eye. “I am sure I have never seen you in the village before.”

Monika nodded. “Nothing gets past us,” she declared with absolute certainty. “So, who are you?”

She waved the gentleman to the vacant seats. The ladies, whose number exceeded the number of seats in the room, disappeared for a moment or two only to reappear seconds later with additional kitchen chairs.

“Do you know, Charity, you really must arrange seating for everyone,” Edwina Trogley chided as she plonked her ample frame into a high-backed chair. Being seated did little to minimise her presence in the room as she placed her chunky fingers on her lap and turned an expectant stare on the gentlemen in the room.

Gentlemen who still stood in shock in the middle of the room.