Seduced At Sunset Read Free Page A

this
out of your mind, my dear. When I told you I had moved on with my life, I meant
it. You say your mother is free at last, but the fact is...” He paused. “I am
not.”
    He may as well have thrown a glass of cold water in her
face. Charlotte stepped back. “I don’t understand.”
    He couldn’t be married. She was his daughter. He would
have told her. Wouldn’t he?
    “I have been courting someone,” he said.
    Charlotte swallowed uneasily. “Is there an agreement
between you?” she asked as a sickening mixture of dread and disbelief flooded
into her stomach. “Do you intend to marry her?”
    “That is the direction it has been heading for quite some
time,” he replied. “She is a lovely woman—also a widow—and
completely devoted to me. I have been a disappointed bachelor all my life, but
she adores me, Charlotte. I hope you can be happy for me.”
    Charlotte looked into her father’s eyes and felt a
painful, aching love in her heart. Of course she wanted him to be happy, but
she had wanted a happily ever after for herself as well. She had believed she
could accomplish that by watching her true parents come together at last, fall
in love all over again, and walk down the aisle while the family threw white
flower petals at their feet.
    But clearly that was not to be.
    Somehow Charlotte found the strength to smile and take
hold of his hand. “Of course I am happy for you,” she said. “And I hope to meet
this woman one day soon. She must be very special.”
    “I believe so,” he said. “But let us take it one day at a
time, shall we? I will introduce you when the time is right.” He moved to fetch
his spectacles from the desk. “Now I must see a patient, my dear.”
    “Of course. I will take my leave.” Charlotte gathered up
her reticule from the chair.
    A few minutes later, she was standing outside on the
breezy street, fighting a severe feeling of disappointment, and waving to her
coachman who had parked a few doors down. How many years had she dreamed of
seeing her parents finally reunited? The tragedy of their love affair always
seemed so unfinished. She had genuinely believed a happy ending was possible
for them.
    Perhaps trying to play the matchmaker was her way of
dealing with her own lost love. Perhaps, by bringing her parents back together,
she would have been able to prove that the cracks and breaks in one’s heart
could be repaired one day. But it was not to be, and she was terribly unsettled
by that awareness. She had been so sure that William and Adelaide would end up
together. Was she truly a foolish dreamer? Was she living in a fantasy world?
    The coach pulled up in front of her. She was about to step
inside and return to Pembroke House when a giant lump formed in her throat.
Good Lord. She couldn’t possibly face her mother until she collected herself.
    She turned to her driver. “I’m afraid I am not ready to go
back yet. I would like to take a walk.” She pointed down the street. “I’ll just
go to that corner and turn up that street there. I’ll be back here in a quarter
of an hour.”
    “Would you like George to accompany you?” the coachman
asked.
    The footman stepped forward. “It would be my pleasure, my
lady.”
    She gave him an appreciative smile. “Thank you, but I
would prefer to be alone with my thoughts. I shan’t be long.”
    With that, she started down the street and turned at the
corner.
    It was a quiet residential neighborhood into which she
ventured, and she strode at a brisk pace along the cement walk, looking around
at the townhouses and wondering who lived in them—anything to take her
mind off her botched attempt at matchmaking, and the fact that her parents were
never going to be together.
    Then suddenly, rapid footsteps pounded along the pavement
behind her. She stopped to look back, wondering if there was some sort of
emergency. Before she had a chance to make sense of the man who was barreling
toward her, he grabbed hold of her