“No one should ever confess a secret to you,” she whispered. “Especially when one is in their cups. You never forget.”
Meg smiled softly. “I am like an elephant. Just ask Simon. Besides, when you told me that, you and I were in the unrequited love club. We each needed to say it out loud to some other soul, didn’t we? It isn’t as if I judge you—Iknowwhat it is like to love someone from afar.”
“Yes, but your love is now very much requited,” Charlotte said with a sigh. “And I did try to…to tell Ewan about how I felt before.”
Meg drew in a breath as her eyes widened in surprise. “You did? When? What did he say? Why did you never tell me?”
Charlotte felt tears burning her eyes at the memory. “Five years ago. I didn’t tell you because…because he rejected me.”
Meg’s expression softened. “I’m so sorry, Charlotte.”
She shrugged. “He was lovely about it, of course. You know he could be nothing but lovely and kind. But I shall never forget his face when I told him I had feelings for him. It was like someone sucked all the blood from his veins. He just kept shaking his head, shaking his head.”
She could see him so clearly now, blond hair around his face, holding up a hand to ward her off as he staggered away.
“You must know why he would object, though,” Meg said softly.
Charlotte bent her head. “I suppose some in our circle who know Ewan well would say that it is in his nature to…hide, because of his inability to talk and the fact that his father and brothers have been so bloody cruel about it.”
“Absolutely,” Meg said with great strength.
“But,” Charlotte continued, “the one person he never hid from is me. So I must conclude that perhaps he simply didn’t want me.”
“Balderdash!” Meg said, rising to her feet. “I don’t believe that for a moment—I’ve seen the way he watches you. The way he cannot stay away from you in any room you inhabit. Heavens, you two even have that secret little language.”
“It was never meant to be a secret,” Charlotte said, explaining what she’d explained a hundred times over the years. “It was meant to make things easier for him…we just made it too complicated for anyone else to understand, I suppose.”
Meg laughed. “And that made that languageyours. Yours and his, no one else’s!”
Charlotte bent her head again, staring at her hands clenched in her lap. “Yes,” she whispered. “And I won’t lie and say I don’t want him to be mine too. After he rejected me, I threw myself into the marriage mart and was wed to Nathan within a year. I didn’t hate my husband, but oh, how I regretted it. But now Nathan’s gone and I recognize that I’ve been given something most people don’t get.”
“A second chance,” Meg said, and there was such understanding to her voice. And of course there would be. She had nearly lost the love of her life, as well.
Charlotte nodded. “Yes. But this time I think I must go about it differently. Flowery confessions of love will not do.”
“Was it really flowery?” Meg asked as she wrinkled her nose.
“I was nineteen and utterly innocent beyond very romantic books,” Charlotte giggled despite the painful topic. “It may have been alittleflowery.”
“So you’ll do it differently this time, with five years of experience behind you. How will you change your fate then?”
Charlotte shifted as heat flooded her cheeks. She and Meg were close and neither of them were innocents anymore, but talking about such things was still awkward.
“Well, er, you are married. And you seem happy ineveryway.”
Meg blinked. “What do you—oh!” Now it was her turn to blush. “Oh, I see. You’re talking about—”
“Yes,” Charlotte interrupted. “I’m talking aboutthat. The physical. Nathan was not my love, but I cannot fault him. He did tend to my body’s needs. It may have been an afterthought, but he did it.”
“So you understand desire. You understand that youhaveneeds,” Meg said.
Charlotte nodded. “And I think Ewan must, as well. I wonder if it would be possible to use those needs against him.”
Now Meg drew back and an expression of concern crossed her face. “Against him?”
“All’s fair, isn’t it?” Charlotte said, and she heard the faint desperation in her own tone. This was the first time she’d expressed this plan out loud to anyone, and her voice and hands both shook. “If I could make him want me, then maybe he might allow himself to care for me, too.”
Meg walked away, and she was silent for so long that Charlotte’s heart nearly stopped. She counted on her friend to be honest, and if Meg told her she was being a ninny, it would be hard to carry on. She might not do it at all, and that meant finally accepting that she and Ewan could never be.
