She settled in a comfortable chair positioned in the corner of the sitting room while the others gathered around Lady Beckham. She had retrieved her sewing basket, a white lawn cap in one hand and her needle in the other. Auntie was known for her fine white work and whenever she had a moment, out came a needle and thread.
Was she wrong to keep Arthur’s secret? She had not shared it with them, so it was difficult to believe Joshua Forrester had found out, and so recently upon his return.
The Forresters had been idols to her and her sisters. Older, worldly, wealthy and handsome, even as lanky boys they promised to grow into striking specimens. And for all those reasons, the Taylors had never been anything but neighborly acquaintances. Well, that and her father’s lack of a title. Squires held a position of prominence, but that paled in the shadow of a dukedom. What impressionable girl wouldn’t be dazzled by such fine young men?
What woman, widowed and alone, wouldn’t welcome such a man and encourage him to kiss her? She pressed the posies to her nose again.
Her time had come and gone. She was to find husbands for her sisters and conclude her arrangements with—
“Char? Mr. Forrester is outside, pacing along the sidewalk. Whatever could be troubling him? I think he’s talking to himself.” Kat knelt on a chair and held the curtain back. Prim and Jenny joined her at the window.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. You don’t need to stare.” Char stood, feeling a little embarrassed at their rustic behavior.
Lady Beckham had joined them. “But he is such a dashing young man.”
“Auntie! You mustn’t encourage them,” Char said.
“I think he is going to crush his hat.”
Char pushed to her tiptoes and tried to see around them. “Oh, bother.”
A tight lump built in her throat. She did not want to see him. He wasn’t willing to talk about insignificant things like the weather or ton balls, instead delving into private matters. Matters she’d come to accept.
“I think he looks like Oliver,” Kat said
“You haven’t seen him three years. How do you know?” Prim asked.
“Who? Oliver or Joshua?”
Char left the room, handed the posies to a passing maid and tucked the note into her hidden skirt pocket—not that she was trying to hide the note. She didn’t want her sisters reading it. All right, she was hiding it. A woman with sisters could barely keep anything private.
A footman opened the door for her. She felt a little foolish standing on the top stair, without her bonnet or gloves. Or a protective shawl. A gust of bracing window blew upward and she shook a little.
When he turned, he took a few long strides before he saw her.
“Mr. Forrester, may I ask if there is a problem?”
He strolled toward their front door, braced one foot against the bottom step and draped an arm over the stone volute. He tapped his hat against his leg.
“No.” He’d turned his solemn gaze upon her. The sky was overcast and the wind a bit brisk, causing his dark hair to rustle with each gust. Her skirt rolled and fluttered, and without her bonnet, wisps of her own hair whipped about her face. She tucked the strands behind her ear.
“Would you care to come inside?” She glanced around, wondering which neighbors watched and what conclusions they drew.
“No.”
“What is it you want, Mr. Forrester?”
“You might as well call me Joshua.”
“Should I be so familiar, standing on a street then? You have been away from London much too long. Or are you purposefully trying to break every rule of etiquette?”
“I would like to know why you are bedeviling me.”
She pressed her lips together. “I will not have this conversation in public. I insist you come inside or you depart at once.”
“Walk with me,” he said. “Please.”
Mustn’t and shouldn’t rattled in her brain, but manners won over, or envy, if she were honest.
Covetousness. I want him, she thought. Maybe it was some remnant from her childhood, some silly, girlish dream made more acute because he was the embodiment of a desirable man. And she had been alone for so long. Yes, in that way, she thought.
“I’ll fetch a pelisse.”
When she returned, Joshua accepted her arm and led her along the walkway, then across the street to the square, where several large oak trees towered. There were four wooden benches at the corners and a tall granite statue of a water nymph in the middle. The fountain ran during the summer but appeared forlorn and alone in the dreary light of day. Old autumn leaves littered the pool at its base; winter slept.
“I feel terrible about what happened yesterday,” she said.
“You had every right to be affronted by my behavior. You are not to blame.”
“Why have you come?”
“Well, to deliver the note firstly. Also, I have a small fortune I would like to place at your disposal. And to do that, I realized I would need to marry you lest I cause another scandal were it known you took money from me.”
Char stopped and folded her arms beneath her pelisse. “Whyever would I accept money from a man I barely know?”
“I would have thought the marriage proposal would have been of more interest.”