Page 60 of Always the Chaperone
The serving girl approached their table with a pitcher filled to the brim with a local ale and left it on the table. Chester watched her go appreciatively, and when Lord George kicked him under the table, he raised his hands in mock surrender.
“Look,” Chester said in a tone of finality, refilling his tankard, “if you had half a brain, you would have known how Charlotte would react. How any woman would have taken it! God’s teeth man, you have a sister, you know what women are like.”
“Two sisters,” John corrected, but with no malice in his voice. He stretched and settled again on the stool, the only one of the five not in proper seats.
William glanced at him, but his brother said nothing more. Two sisters, yes, if God was good.
Lord George was nodding. “I am married, my boys, and so I can tell you for certain, Mercia. Women do not like to be laughed at. Especially not in public.”
“You learned that the hard way!” Orrinshire guffawed, and he was joined in his merriment by everyone at the table, except William.
He bit his lip. Now he looked back on it, laughter was probably not the cleverest reaction—it had all seemed like a play put on for his own amusement. That anyone would look at Charlotte, brilliant and beautiful, and see an accessory to courtship! He poured himself another drink from the rapidly emptying pitcher.
“The real question is,” John said after his laughter had died away, “is how long has she been keeping you on this leash?”
William frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well, when was it you first proposed?”
Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, William hesitated before responding and finally said, “I am not…exactly sure.”
Lord George’s jaw dropped, and his drink slopped onto the floor.
“Damn it, man, if you are not sure, how can you expect Charlotte to know?” Chester shook his head with a sad smile.
William tried to ignore the table beside them, evidently attempting to listen to their conversation. “Do not misunderstand me,” he said hastily, “it is…well, I have mentioned marriage so often, it is hard to say exactly when the first time was, you see?”
This explanation did not remove his friends’ concerns; if anything, it increased them.
“Mentioning marriage,” said Lord George heavily, “is not the same as offering it. Blast it all, Mercia, you’re not a fledgling of eighteen!”
“It was the heat of the moment!” William protested, gulping another mouthful of ale as though that would help him defend himself. “And in that heat of the moment, ’tis a challenge to get your words straight!”
Both Orrinshire and Chester grinned, the latter raising a suggestive eyebrow.
William glared at them sternly. “It is not like that. Christ, sometimes I feel like Iama fledgling of eighteen when I am with her. I get…God’s teeth, I cannot believe I am saying this but…flustered? ’Tis the only word I can think of. My heart races, I feel hot, and my brain seems to seep out of my ears…”
His voice trailed off, and his gaze dropped to his tankard. He felt weak, out of his depth. Like he could be felled by a feather in the breeze. No man could endure it. No man should.
When he finally got the courage to lift his head, he saw his friends were looking at him seriously, without mockery.
Lord George was nodded. “That is exactly how you feel when you meet her, Mercia. ’Tis how I felt when I met and married my wife. But that’s the difference, you idiot. I knew that, I told her, I proposed, and I got married.”
“You were a fool not to do it properly,” Orrinshire said quietly.
William hated that they were right. How had he managed to get into this position? Getting into her bedchamber was far easier than getting into her heart.
To give his hands something to do, he took a long draught from the tankard. It did not help. Now his head hurt, but it was nothing to the hurt residing in his chest.
How could he have laughed? He was so stupid! She had needed him, and he had been given the chance to show her how he cared for her. But he had not been able to help himself. He wished to God he had been able to. Would he be with her, seated in her home, discussing their wedding, where they were to live, how many children they would have?
His stomach tightened. Instead, he was here, in the York Club, sitting with his brother and friends, realizing what a fool he was.
“I have talked of marriage half a dozen times since we first met,” he said quietly, more to his tankard than to anyone in particular, “and each time she has declined.”
“Do you know why?”
Orrinshire’s question resounded in his mind before William answered.
