Spinster Ever After (The Spinster Chronicles #7) - Rebecca Connolly Page 0,60
forgive me for some of our tricks.”
“It’s true,” Michael added before he could stop himself. “She reminds Charlotte of it every time they meet.”
They shared a smile, then both looked down at their meals.
“What a charming pair of scamps you must have been!” Mr. Riley exclaimed, drawing Michael’s attention back up.
The man was looking at Charlotte with warmth and familiarity, and she was looking back at him with the same.
“I don’t know how charming our parents thought we were,” Charlotte laughed, “but they certainly learned we were inseparable. For a while, at least.”
“Yes,” Michael murmured, feeling himself grow colder the more Charlotte and Mr. Riley gazed at each other. “For a while.”
He swallowed and turned to Diana, smiling through his coldness. “The soup is marvelous, is it not?”
Supper lasted an interminable length of time, and it was even longer before Michael could escape to the card room. Not to play or to gamble, but to drink. He needed an excessive amount of drink, indeed.
Unfortunately, all Eden had to offer was port and various wines.
So Michael sat at a lone card table, no cards in sight, and drank.
“What in the name of bloody blazes are you doing?”
The question came from Hugh, but Lord Sterling and Tyrone Demaris likely thought the same as they stood on either side of him.
Michael squinted as he poured more wine into his glass. “I am trying to get wildly intoxicated using what Eden left at our disposal.”
“Why are you trying to get drunk?” Lord Sterling inquired in a surprisingly mild tone.
“Because I want to.”
Hugh hummed in a doubtful tone. “I really don’t think you do.”
Michael slammed the bottle of wine down, jostling his glass and spilling some of the liquid onto his sleeve. “Yes, I bloody well do! I have never been well and truly soused, it was always reckless and irresponsible, and right now reckless and irresponsible is exactly what I want to be!”
The three men looked at him, then at each other. “He can’t stay here and get soused,” Tyrone murmured. “It would take ages, and there are witnesses. We can take him to the club.”
“Surely you’re not going to indulge this,” Lord Sterling protested.
Hugh frowned. “Better we indulge him under our care than leave him be and let him fend for himself. I’ll make certain he doesn’t get too far gone.”
Michael shook his head, swallowing a bitter taste in his mouth. “You can shove me in a hack and send me on my way when I am too drunk to walk on my own, and not a moment before!”
“Right,” Hugh muttered, wiping his hands together. “Tyrone, we need a discreet way out. Francis, can you explain to my wife? It’s going to be a long night.”
Chapter Fourteen
A conversation with a friend may straighten everything out. Of course, it could also ravel things more so, make things more complicated, and bring in too much drama, but that is where selection of friends comes into play. Take great care that the friend you converse with will improve matters rather than magnify them.
-The Spinster Chronicles, 11 October 1815
“I don’t know what I did, but Michael is not answering any of my notes.”
“Why do you suppose it is something you did? Most men do not answer notes in a timely manner.”
Charlotte shook her head, sitting in the drawing room of Georgie’s home, watching her infant son crawl about the floor. “Not Michael. He always responds, and sometimes just appears, if he is in town. I know he asked not to know about my suitors and courtships, but…”
Georgie sat up straighter on the divan she was on, staring at Charlotte with round eyes. “Wait, he did what?”
“I told you,” Charlotte insisted, clasping her hands before her, her yellow muslin creasing as she sat forward. “Surely I told you.”
“I would remember hearing about something like that,” Georgie retorted. She tucked a strand of her fair hair behind her ear and fidgeted with her fichu. “Michael said that?”
Charlotte nodded, her cheeks coloring, choosing to look at the cherub-cheeked Thomas Sterling as he crawled towards his mother’s legs. “At the Bond dinner. We were sat beside each other, and he told me he did not wish to know about my potential courtships. He would prefer to know nothing about any of it. It was a most uncomfortable conversation.”
Georgie shook her head slowly. “I can easily believe that. Interesting.” Her brow furrowed and she lowered her eyes.
“What?” Charlotte demanded, having looked at her friend during her response. “What are you thinking?”