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

When Charity didn’t immediately rush off to answer the door, Monika tapped heavily on the glass.

“Are you going to let us in or what?” she demanded rudely in a voice loud enough to be heard through the glass.

“Coming,” Charity called.

“Damn it, Charity,” Angus growled, but it was to an empty room.

While he listened to the sounds of Charity allowing her friends into the house, he stood motionless in front of the fireplace and waited for the invasion and inevitable plague of questions.

It didn’t take long before all six of the women had converged before him like angry hens protecting their chick, and Angus found himself squaring his shoulders as though preparing to do battle.

“Ladies,” he murmured with a gentlemanly bow. What he really wanted to do was demand they mind their own business, not discuss what they saw, and leave both him and Charity alone.

“My, you are here early,” Monika murmured silkily as she sauntered casually into the room and slouched negligently on the chaise without being invited to take a seat.

There was a knowing glint in her eye Angus was really starting to dislike, but he forced himself to remain polite. He nodded at her before pointedly turning his attention to the rest of the women who all seemed to converge upon the room at once.

A deathly silence ensued.

“Did you have something in your eye, dear?” Agatha asked obliquely when Charity had sidled into the room.

“My eyes are fine, thank you,” Charity replied carefully, her cheeks flushed with colour.

“Well?” Alice demanded. She looked enquiringly from

Angus to Charity and then back to Angus, clearly demanding an explanation for what they had all just witnessed.

Charity struggled to meet any of her friend’s gazes such was her acute embarrassment.

“Well, what?” she asked when she couldn’t stand the silence a moment longer.

“Now either he has been here all night or is a very early riser, and you don’t care about what time you receive guests,” Gertrude huffed. “Or what they see when they get here.”

Gertrude plonked her ample frame into a seat beside the fireplace and placed her heavy reticule primly on her lap. She then winced, readjusted it and turned her attention to the group.

“I say, are you guarding the family jewels?” Agatha demanded as she eyed Gertrude’s tight grip on the seemingly innocuous purse.

“No, it has a brick in it,” Gertrude announced primly. She eyed Angus with an evil intent that made him lift his brows. “It doesn’t hurt to be prepared you know.”

“Good God,” Angus whispered beneath his breath.

He didn’t realise anybody had heard him because they were all looking at Charity, until he was suddenly the sole focus of everyone’s attention.

“You may as well give in and tell us who you really are. I don’t accept for a moment that you are her cousin. Not given the predatory way you look at her,” Monika declared smoothly. “Nor are you just from the War Office as you claim.”

“I am from the War Office,” Angus argued.

“Really?” Monika countered flatly.

There was a plea in Charity’s eyes that made Angus damned uncomfortable, but he had no intention of telling the ladies about the Star Elite. However, he did promise himself that he would tell Charity, upon her swearing on the bible she would tell nobody else who the Star Elite were, and what they really did. For now, he retreated behind a professional persona that was unbreakable, and lifted a querulous brow at Monika.

“I can assure you, madam, that I do work for the War office, and am here on an official investigation for them,” Angus declared pompously.

“Doing what?” Alice demanded. She threw a suspicious look at Charity. “Do we have to fetch the Vicar?”

“No, you do not,” Charity snapped. She struggled not to sneak a look at Angus, but her determined attempts to appear as casual as possible had her clasping her hands before her in a pose that was decidedly chastened.

Charity knew she had done wrong. It was obvious to everyone.