around to hear it.
He ran a hand over his face, exhaling heavily, and sank into the closest chair with the weight of the last few minutes pressing him further into it.
He wouldn’t stand by and watch while Charlotte actually conceded herself to someone else, no matter how worthy the man might be. He wanted her happiness, it was true, but at what cost to himself would that happiness come? Years of lingering at the edges of her circle, practically the one who tended her flock and shooed the strays away from her, and for what? He hadn’t found amusement in it but for her own wit, and all he could say he had done was furthered her own interests of absolutely nothing useful.
He’d never encouraged her behavior, but it wasn’t as though he had done anything about it. She had never behaved badly, though she was a novelty when compared with other young ladies in Society. He’d spent years ignoring his own life for the sake of remaining in hers.
It was time to end that. End this. If she would begin searching for love in earnest, then so would he. He would not hover at the edges of her courtship as a spectator.
He could not.
“Sandford, why is my sister whistling and skipping down the corridor?”
Of course she was.
Michael groaned, not bothering to remove his hand from its position, pressing as it was against his brow. “You would think after all these years, you would stop asking any questions at all about your sister’s behavior.”
“Skipping, Sandford. And whistling.” A rustle of clothing was heard, and the tread of footsteps approached. “Either she has just bested you in something, or she has an idea. Kindly relieve my curiosity.”
Michael’s hand dropped, and he stared up into the speculative face of Charlotte’s brother, so like her in coloring but with but with the hard angles in features of their father. While Charlotte’s glower was powerful and impressive, her brother had the firm countenance that demanded submission without a word. Where Charles had inherited the height of his maternal relatives, Charlotte had to fight for every inch of her stature.
Repeated exposure to both Wright children over the years had given Michael some insight into each of them, and while he wouldn’t have said Charles was among his more intimate friends, he shared a near-familial bond that didn’t exactly set him outside of that circle.
“Charlotte has decided she is going to marry,” Michael said flatly. “Husband to be determined.”
Charles blinked at the announcement, folding his arms after a moment. “I’d say it’s about time, though I’m more inclined to say I’ll believe it when I see it. What the devil does she have in mind?”
Michael shrugged and began drumming his fingers on the armrest. “I believe she is going on a hunt for love.”
Charles snorted. “Where in the world did she get that idiotic notion?”
A wince flashed across Michael’s features. “I may have given it to her.”
The long moment of silence might as well have been a gong against his head in punishment.
“I know,” Michael said before he could be scolded, waving his hand. “I know.”
“You’re a bloody idiot, Sandford,” Charles told him as if it were helpful. “I’ve thought so for years, but this trumps everything else. How many times have I told you to leave this madness? You had to know it was pointless once she refused you; she never goes back on her word. Yet you stayed. Never understood why, it had to be torture if you had feelings for her. But this? From a lapdog to a romantic advisor, what the hell have you done to your manhood?”
He had endured ribbing and teasing from Charles over the years, and usually brushed it off with a laugh, but this…
He was wondering the same thing himself. How had he let himself waste so much time in his life on the smallest hope?
Not that time spent in Charlotte’s company had been a waste, for her friendship had been the most important in his life. From the moment he’d met her, swinging as she had been on the low-hanging branches of a willow over a flooded pond, he’d been drawn to her side like no connection he’d ever known. There was no friend like Charlotte Wright anywhere in the world. He’d loved her within three years and had never stopped.
And that was a waste.
“I don’t know,” Michael admitted for the first time in his life. “But enough is enough. I’m finished.”
Charles became almost startled in a