Page 104 of Every Rake Has A Silver Lining

Charlotte squeezed his arm, and when he met her gaze, he found the courage to continue.

“She said out of love she was setting me free. Samuel was frantic; he couldn’t find Joy anywhere. We knocked on doors. Asked if she boarded a post-chaise, even though she had little money. No one had seen her, so we searched the woods. I found her floating face down in the river downstream from our favorite rendezvous place. Her body had tangled in some branches. When I turned her over, her lifeless eyes stared up at me in condemnation.”

Charlotte blanched, her face eerily similar to Joy’s on that horrific day. “No wonder Samuel blames you.”

Not what Simon wanted to hear, but Charlotte was nothing if not truthful.

“But Simon, you didn’t push Joy into the river.”

“No. But my impetuosity and utter lack of regard for her feelings led her to believelife wasn’t worth living without me.” The undertow of his negative emotions grew stronger, pulling him under, and invisible bands tightened around his chest, constricting his lungs in sympathy with Joy. “I don’t want a woman to love me. She’ll either be lost in grief when I die, or I’ll disappoint her if I can’t love her back. Joy loved me, and that love destroyed her.”

“And Miss Pace was only a harmless flirtation?” A tiny muscle in Charlotte’s jaw pulsed, but she kept her gaze on the road ahead.

“At first. At least what Joy saw. But after Joy died . . .”

“I see.” The very disappointment he’d mentioned colored her response.

Yet, the urge to explain himself, to restore any good opinion she may have developed for him, pressed him to continue. “I turned to Hester to seek comfort, solace in my grief. When Joy died, I thought the ground would open up and swallow me whole, trapping me in misery for the rest of my days. Hester offered an escape. And for those brief moments, I could forget. But it didn’t last, and the shame of using Hester compounded my guilt over Joy. I ended it with Hester and enlisted in the military with a request to send me as far away from England as possible.”

“To India, where you met Burwood.”

He nodded, searching Charlotte’s face for the telltale signs of disgust or loathing, but her expression remained serene, even compassionate.

Not what he expected.

“So, you had good reason to dislike me, even if you didn’t realize what it was,” he said.

She fussed with a fold of her pelisse, straightening it and brushing out a non-existent wrinkle. “That’s not why I dislike you. In fact, it makes me dislike you less.”

Lord, she was a puzzlement. “Why?”

A smile tipped her lips, not wide enough to show him the dimple that drove him mad, but one that spoke of secrets. “Which? Why do I dislike you, or why your tale makes me dislike you less?”

“Let’s start with the positive. Why less now?”

“Because I believed you never experienced hardship or sorrow, and I envied that. Now I know you have, and regardless of the pain you wanted to escape, you returned to England for Burwood. You put someone else ahead of your own needs.”

He’d never thought of it that way. “Drake needed me. A friend to help him navigate society.”

“And to test Honoria.” Her lips puckered in a little pout. “I still haven’t quite forgiven him for that. He should have known Honoria loved him no matter who he was.”

“I agree. And I told him that repeatedly. I believe it’s the one thing you and I have always agreed upon. Remember the house party? Who would have thought we would be on the same side of things?”

She laughed. The rich throaty timbre of her alto almost as alluring as the fact she laughed at all. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to hear her laugh more often.

To give herreasonto laugh.

To make her happy.

His mind stuttered at the thought. When did he start caring about Lady Charlotte’s happiness?

“As to why I dislike you,” she continued without prodding.

He really didn’t want to know.

Did he?

“I dislike you because you are so bloody happy all the time. That you find joy in everything around you. That people love you. It makes me bloody furious.”

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