Would he allow her to do so one day, or would he deem it a waste of time and money, as her father?
“So, we finally meet.” As a smile graced his lips, a small dimple appeared on the left side.
“It appears so.” Charlotte turned away from him. He was so much more handsome when he smiled. A girl couldn’t think straight looking at him. “You were not supposed to meet me until tomorrow.”
“Yes, I know,” he said coming to stand beside her. “But my curiosity got the better of me.”
“They say curiosity killed the cat,” Charlotte mumbled.
Victor chuckled. “In this case curiosity only brought relief.”
Charlotte tipped her head so that she could study him from the corner of her eye, skeptical of his words.
“Your appearance has been much of a mystery, and after overhearing my parents, as you did, I feared my imagination had me marrying a witch with a huge wart on the end of her nose.”
Charlotte laughed lightly. At least she wasn’t that ugly, she hoped.
“I do apologize for their words. I can only offer that they are rude and smug for no reason other than they feel entitled to belittle others because they are in possession of a title.”
“It is not necessary to apologize for what many believe is the truth,” she explained.
Mr. Hawthorn pulled back and opened his mouth to speak but said nothing. He likely wished to insist that they were wrong but could not bring himself to lie to her.
“How old are you?” There was hesitation in his voice.
She looked young, that she knew, but had her father failed to mention her age in all of this? “Fifteen, soon to turn sixteen.”
He stilled and she could almost feel the tension radiate from him. Was it too much to hope that he would stomp off and refuse the marriage, or insist that it take place when she was older?
After a moment he heaved a sigh and settled on the hillside and invited her to sit. “As we have been given this opportunity, we might as well become acquainted.”
“We should not be out here together.” She had never been alone with a man before, let alone anyone who looked like him.
Mr. Hawthorn smiled up at her. “As we are marrying tomorrow, I see no harm.”
Charlotte sank to her knees beside him. “You are still going to marry me?” She couldn’t believe he wasn’t trying to find a way to back out of the agreement. His family mustreallybe in a most dire financial state.
“Yes.”
He almost didn’t seem bothered, or was he simply resigned? “You could have any heiress,” she reminded him. She could not be the one he wanted. It made no sense.
He shrugged. “Those ladies are interested in my future title and know little about me. You, on the other hand, have no real wish to marry me at all.”
“How… how do you know that?” Mortification swept through her being as Charlotte’s face heated. Ladies hounded his steps in London, and he must think she is the most ungrateful chit ever born.
He winced. “I do apologize, but I was outside the open window when you met with your father this afternoon.”
What was worse than being mortified? Was there anything worse? If so, that is how she felt as Charlotte recalled how that conversation had gone.
“Our parents have put us in a position neither wish to be in.”
She nodded.
“That gives us a common thread, so to speak. Somehow, we will muddle through the best that we can.”
He should be raging at the unfairness of the situation, but he seemed to be taking it all in stride as if this wasn’t a significant, life-changing event.
“I am not saying I am thrilled with the outcome from my father’s gambling,” he continued.
