Charlotte shivered in the frigid night air. Around her a few snowflakes swirled, and she couldn’t help but dart her tongue out to catch one. Normally such playfulness would make her smile, but tonight she just…couldn’t.
She’d wanted to go after Ewan when he left the room after the lighting of the yule log. His deep emotion had been obvious to all. But it was Aunt Mary who had left after him. Her place, not Charlotte’s.
She sighed and suddenly felt her wrap being draped around her shoulders. She turned and gasped in surprise when she found Matthew standing behind her.
“Your mother wished to bring it out to you, but I asked to do so instead,” he said as he came up to the edge of the wall and looked out over the estate with her. “I think you and I need to talk.”
She leaned against the terrace edge. “What is there to talk about?”
He arched a brow at her. “Him.”
“Him,” she repeated with a laugh. “I would feign innocence, but that will only draw this out, won’t it?”
“Yes,” he said. “And it’s cold and we’re old friends. We might as well just be honest with each other.”
She smiled at the handsome man before her. A man with loss in his stare. A loss she didn’t understand, even though her own husband was dead. That was different than what Matthew had endured all those years ago.
“No one could be less than honest with you, Matthew,” she said. “So the subject ishim. What is the question?”
“How far have things gone between you while you were alone in this house?” he asked softly.
Heat flooded Charlotte’s cheeks, and she glanced behind her at the parlor where her mother and brother sat talking. They couldn’t hear them, of course. But that didn’t make the subject any less personal or embarrassing.
“As a lady I think I shouldn’t—”
“Friends, remember?” Matthew interrupted. “And I doubt you have anyone else you can talk to about this. So why don’t we forget the missishness and you just be honest. How far?”
“I had myself convinced that if I…” She trailed off, her cheeks fully on fire now. “That if I seduced him, I could make him see how right we could be.”
He shifted, discomfort crossing his face. “And did that work?”
“A little,” she sighed. “But he is filled with fear about all the what-ifs of the future. Like somehow if he could speak there wouldn’t ever be trouble or uncertainty or loss or grief or pain.”
“That certainly isn’t true,” Matthew said, his voice suddenly rough.
“No, you know that better than anyone.” She reached out and squeezed his arm gently.
She released him and they both faced the garden again, lost in thought and memory and pain together. Then she cleared her throat and looked at him from the corner of her eye. “May I ask you something?”
He nodded without looking at her. “Certainly. It’s only fair considering how I just dug into your life in such a forward way.”
She ducked her head. “He told me…he told me that your father was sometimes…embarrassedabout his mutism.”
Matthew spun on her, his mouth open in shock and his eyes wide. “He told you what?”
She shrugged. “It is what he believes. I wanted to know if it was true.”
Matthew shook his head. “Of course it’s not true. How could he think that? My father—ourfather, for in truth he was more Ewan’s father than his own—he loved Ewan. I never heard even a whisper that he was embarrassed by Ewan’s inability to speak. Angry that others treated him differently, yes. Frustrated that he couldn’t make things easier for Ewan, of course. But embarrassed?Never. Never once.”
She sighed. “That is what I thought. I even told him the same. But in the end, that is our problem.”
“That he thinks my father didn’t wholly support him?” Matthew snapped as he moved toward the house. “Well, I can disabuse him of that notion right now.”
“No.” Charlotte caught his arm and kept him where he stood. “Not that. My problem is that Ewan believes such a thing could be true. That even if someone professes their love and acceptance, there is a small part of them waiting to be humiliated. Waiting to turn against him.”
Matthew deflated as her words sank in. “Have you told him you love him?”
She flinched. Of course she’d known that her feelings were obvious to some. But to hear Matthew state them so casually made her cheeks burn even hotter than they had when he asked about her physical relationship with Ewan.
