Charming Sir Charles (Dashing Widows 5)

“You’ve gone as white as a sheet.” Fenella, always sensitive to others’ feelings, reached out to take her gloved hand and squeeze it. “No, I haven’t heard anything.”

“Then why did you say that?” Sally tugged free.

Compassion softened Fen’s gaze to misty blue. “Sally, I’ve watched your face when people mention your husband. It speaks volumes to anyone with the eyes to see.”

“Well, you’re mistaken,” Sally said sharply. As usual when she recalled her ten years of marriage, shame as heavy as lead crashed down on her.

She’d failed to bear Norwood a child. She’d failed to make him happy. She’d failed to keep him away from other women’s beds.

She’d just…failed.

“I’m sure,” Fen said, but that damned compassion remained.

Sally swallowed and returned to the principal subject of discussion. “Meg and Sir Charles will be wonderful together.”

“In worldly terms, perhaps. But they have nothing in common.”

Sally bristled and wished she could kick Fenella again. “He clearly doesn’t agree. Or else he wouldn’t have dangled after her these last weeks.”

“Sally…” Then surprisingly Fenella fell silent.

Sally went on before Fenella could raise any more fiddling objections. “He’s kind and steady, and his manners are lovely. And he’s handsome enough to set any girl’s heart fluttering. He turns heads wherever he goes.”

“Yes, he does.”

“So Meg would be lucky to catch him.”

“Do you think she’s in love with him?”

Sally frowned. “She should be.”

Fen sighed. “Life doesn’t work that way, Sally. Affection falls where it will. ‘Should’ is a word the heart doesn’t understand.”

“Well, it should,” Sally said crossly.

To her surprise, Fenella laughed. The silvery sound floated above the chatter and attracted Anthony’s attention.

He turned back to see what was delaying his wife and her friend. He was so massively tall that he towered over the surging crowd and found them without difficulty. When he sent his wife a rueful smile brimming with unspoken love, Sally’s heart twisted with envy. It was painful to witness the Kenwicks’ happiness so soon after the reminder of her wretched marriage.

“Sally, you’re hopeless,” Fenella said with such fondness in her voice, it was difficult for Sally to cling to her annoyance.

Still, her tone was cool as she replied. “Pardon me for trying to set my niece up with a good man.”

“You mean well, I know.”

“How much more patronizing can you be, Fen? Don’t you like Sir Charles?”

“Of course I do.” Fenella didn’t take offense at Sally’s quarrelsome response. “He’s charming.”

“So?”

“So nothing at all. Meg and he would be a complete disaster together.”

“I don’t agree,” Sally said, stiff-lipped with anger. And a niggling worry she didn’t want to acknowledge.

Dear heaven, what if Fen was right? She hadn’t taken the trouble to ask her niece how she felt about Sir Charles—she didn’t want to arouse expectations when he still might fall from the saddle before the last fence.

Oh, no, now she started to sound like horse-mad Meg.