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As usual, her chamber looked to have been ransacked. His mind told him the reason for the shambles was untidiness rather than life-and-death struggle--but his heart wasn't so easily convinced. His pulse accelerated as he searched the room.
"Charlotte?"
The carpet was littered with piles of discarded clothing. A pelisse and bonnet draped over a bedpost gave the look of a scarecrow. A hodgepodge of hairbrushes, ribbons, and tins of dusting powder covered the dressing table.
As he made his way to check the window, he tripped over a boot and went sprawling. Luckily, a heap of petticoats and chemises broke his fall. He struggled to regain his feet, a task which required disentangling himself from yards of sweetly scented linen. "Godforsaken son of a--"
"Piers?"
Charlotte stood in the doorway that led to her suite's small dressing room. She looked first at the broken door. Next, at the flouncy lace petticoat in his grasp.
And then, finally, her gaze met his.
"Piers, what on earth are you doing?"
Excellent question.
Going mad, perhaps. Losing the cool detachment and sharp instincts he'd amassed over the years, certainly.
He couldn't even enjoy the relief of seeing her in nothing but a thin, half-unbuttoned chemise, her unbound hair tumbling below her shoulders in thick waves.
"What am I doing?" He tossed aside the petticoat. "What the devil are you doing? You didn't answer the door."
"I didn't hear a knock." She nodded toward the attached dressing room. "The maids prepared me a bath."
"A bath."
"Yes. A bath. Water, soap, tub."
Well, that . . . was a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Damn it.
He pushed both hands through his hair, dislodging an errant stocking in the process. The garment slithered to the floor, and his last shred of dignity went with it.
Charlotte sealed her lips over a laugh.
"This isn't amusing," he said curtly.
"No," she said, with affected seriousness. "It isn't. To begin with, I don't know how I'm going to latch my door now."
He picked up her dressing table chair with one hand, carried it over to the door, and propped it under the broken latch. "Like so."
"Why were you rifling through my underthings?"
"I wasn't rifling through your underthings. I was being attacked by them."
She shrugged. "You know tidiness isn't one of my virtues."
"There's untidiness, and then there's . . ." He gestured at the room. ". . . a linen death trap."
"That's a bit melodramatic, don't you think?"
"No."
She pressed the heel of her hand to her mouth and smiled behind it.
For God's sake. This was all so amusing to her.
Piers tried to remind himself that she didn't understand. That he didn't want her to understand. If he was serious about his responsibilities, she--and anyone in his keeping--would never comprehend the vigilance that went into ensuring their safety.
If protection wasn't a thankless task, that meant he wasn't doing it right.
Nevertheless, he couldn't help lecturing her. "I like things in their places. That way, I'm ready to react. In a moment. In the dark. On any occasion. Especially an occasion when you declare that you need to speak with me."
"I didn't mean to alarm you. I hoped we could chat tomorrow. I had no idea you'd come straightaway."
"Of course I would come straightaway." He caught her gaze and held it. "If you tell me you need me, I would never delay."
"But you've been ignoring me for days. Ever since we . . ." She didn't complete the sentence. She didn't need to. "You've scarcely acknowledged my presence."
"Believe me. I've been aware of your presence."
Constantly, exquisitely, achingly aware.
He couldn't escape it. She'd begun recalibrating his senses the moment she came through that library door. His peripheral vision was now trained for flashes of golden hair; his ears, trained for her melodic laugh. He found himself following the drifting scent of her soap and dusting powder, like a dog panting after the butcher's wife.
He had years of experience and training. She'd unraveled them in a week, and he was left at loose ends. This distraction, this madness of desire and yearning--it was everything a man in his position needed to avoid.
On second thought, perhaps his senses hadn't been muddled. After all, they had been meticulously attuned to detect the slightest hint of peril.
This woman--this beautiful, unbiddable, all-too-perceptive woman--was his personal embodiment of danger. She could ruin him. Destroy everything he'd worked to become.
And she would do it all with a smile.
Charlotte didn't know what to make of the man standing in her bedchamber. He looked like Piers, and he spoke like Piers. But a darkness hovered about him. It was as though Piers's shadow had come to life, unstitched itself from the person of Lord Granville, and traveled down the corridor to pay her a call.
"May I ask you something?"
He spread his hands in invitation.
"Are you reconsidering the engagement?"
He paused, a bit too long for her comfort. "No."
"Then why have you ignored me so thoroughly?"
"You don't want a truthful answer to that question."
"Yes, I do. I really do."
She needed to know what was going on in his mind. Even if it hurt her pride.
He began to cross the room in slow, deliberate strides. "Because, Charlotte, it simply wouldn't do. Every time we share the same room, I think of nothing but touching you. Holding you. Tasting you."
He continued moving toward her.
Charlotte began to back away.
She wasn't intimidated. She was excited beyond measure, craved the hardness of his body pressed close to hers. Still, some instinct made her take steps in retreat.
When she saw the wild gleam in his eye, her body thrummed in response and she understood why. He wanted the chase. She wanted to be pursued.
"So I have to ignore you, you see," he continued in that low, devastating tone of aristocratic command. "If I were to look at you, I would want to strip you naked. If we conversed, I would need to hear you sigh and moan. That's not proper drawing room behavior."
He had her backed up against a wall now. Which was a fortunate thing, because her legs had gone weak.
"In fact, if I let myself come anywhere near you"--he caught her wrists and lifted them, pinning her arms to the wall--"I'd have your skirts tossed up to your ears and my cock buried inside you before the rest of them looked up from their tea."
Excitement pulsed through her veins. He had her at his mercy, but she didn't feel the slightest whisper of fear.
"And that," he said, staring hard at her mouth, "would be very bad manners."
"Well . . ." Charlotte wet her lips, daring to look up at him. "I've never been too concerned with etiquette."
His response was like lightning. In a flash, he'd pressed her against the wall with the full length of his body. Desire sparked along her nerve endings as he kissed her, making her tingle from crown to toes.
He overwhelmed her. All of her. His tongue explored her mouth. His chest rubbed against hers, drawing her nipples to tight, aching peaks. His arousal made firm demands against her belly.
He released her arms. His hands slid downward, to her hips. He grasped the frail linen of her shift in impatient handfuls, hiking it to her waist. Then he attacked the buttons of his trouser falls, loosing them one by one.
Charlotte reached between their bodies. She hadn't been brave enough to touch him there the other day, and she meant to make up for it now. She reached inside his trouser falls, freeing his hardening erection from the confining fabric.
Emboldened by his unsteady breath and the cloak of darkness, she took her time exploring. Stroking up and down the hot, steely thickness filling her hand, skimming her thumb over the broad, silky crown. A bead of moisture welled beneath her
touch, and she spread it in widening circles.
With a muttered curse, he grasped her bared backside and lifted her straight off her feet.
Startled, she gave a little shriek of pleasure. Her spine met the damask silk-covered wall. She wrapped her legs over his hips. She wasn't certain if that was what he had in mind, but it seemed the thing to do.
He seemed to like it.
His erection swelled even larger in her grip, and he began to thrust against her. Slowly. Teasing.
Yes. Oh, yes.
She was reeling, stunned by the speed of her body's response. In a matter of mere moments, she'd grown desperate for him. She tangled her free hand in his hair, drawing his mouth to hers for a deep, openmouthed kiss.
He rocked his hips in a rhythm, rubbing the head of his cock up and down the seam of her sex. Parting her with firm, insistent strokes. The smooth pressure teased her most sensitive places, driving her hard and fast up a steep mountain of bliss.
When he encountered the hot, wet evidence of her arousal, he groaned against her mouth.
She ached to be filled.
He broke their kiss, panting. "Now?"
The word skipped down her spine. "Now."
"Guide me in."
She tilted her hips and positioned his hard, eager length where it fit with her body. Where she needed it to be. Then she withdrew her hand from between them and clutched his shoulders.
He pushed into her in strong, incremental thrusts. "God," he moaned. "You're so tight."
She wasn't certain if he meant that as a good or a bad thing, but it was undeniably the truth. Despite her feverish arousal, her body was still painfully new to the act. Their joining was torturously, maddeningly slow, and then--when she began to vibrate with need, as though the tension would break her apart--blindingly fast.
He hadn't even seated his full length inside her when her crisis began to build. She couldn't wait any longer. She pushed her own hips forward, frantic for more of him, all of him. Deeper, harder, faster.
There.
When at last his pelvis met hers, the first brush of sweet friction flung her over the edge. She shook and cried out, clinging to his neck as he thrust unrelentingly, pushing her through crest after crest of pleasure.
He kissed her as she floated down from the peak. She locked her ankles together at the small of his back. They moved together in an easy rhythm.
She tugged his mussed cravat free of his neck, letting it fall to the floor before sliding her palms beneath the open collar of his shirt. She ran her hands over the taut, straining muscles of his shoulders and explored the sprinkling of dark hair on his chest. She kissed his neck, ran her tongue over his Adam's apple, nuzzled the light growth of whiskers on his jaw. Loving the taste of him, and all the masculine textures of muscle and scruff and sweat.
He froze, anchoring her to the wall, as deep inside her as he could possibly go. His chest was heaving.
Charlotte lifted her head, cupping his face in her hands so she could search out his gaze. "What is it?"
"I can't--"
She shifted her hips a fraction, and he groaned as he slid deeper still.
"I don't . . . I don't think I can . . ."
She wasn't sure how he meant to complete that sentence, but her answer would have been the same, regardless.
"Then don't," she told him.
His jaw tensed beneath her palm.
Then, with a firm flex of his arms, he shifted her weight. He bent his head, bracing his sweating brow against her shoulder and tugging her hips away from the wall. His thrusts doubled in speed and intensity, and his breath came in short, ragged gasps.
There was no finesse now, nothing remotely like tenderness. He wasn't patient or gentle any longer, just wanting. Taking. Using her body as roughly and crudely as he needed, relentless in pursuit of his own pleasure.
And she loved it.
She'd been desperate to see this side of him, raw and unrefined. The tendons of his neck and shoulders were rigid and taut. His thighs slapped against her bottom. He pulled at the sleeve of her chemise, ripping the neckline wide, and his teeth scraped against her bared shoulder.
His rhythm stuttered, then accelerated once again. He thrust faster, harder.
She would be sore tomorrow, perhaps even bruised. She couldn't have been more thrilled by the idea.
With a wrenching growl, he pulled free of her body. His seed spilled on her belly, gluing her body to his as they kissed and breathed and kissed again.
"That," he said, some moments later, "was tupping."
She hugged his neck and laughed a little, rocking him from side to side. He had promised her a demonstration, and he was a man of his word.
She slid down until her toes met the floor, then reached for his hand. "Come along, then. If we hurry, the bath will still be warm."
Chapter Seventeen
The tub was a tight fit, for two. They were forced to sit very close.
Piers had no complaint.
Charlotte nestled behind him, her slick breasts pressed against his back as she worked scented lather through his hair.
It felt glorious.
"It's just occurred to me that I completely forgot your note. You wanted to speak with me."
"Yes. I need to ask you a favor." Her fingertips massaged his scalp and temples, lulling him into a languid state of bliss. "It's rather a big favor, I'm afraid."
Anything. Everything. Just never stop touching me.
"Would you mind a long engagement?"
Anything but that.
"Yes, I'm afraid I would mind."
In part, because he'd had one long engagement, and it wasn't an experience he cared to repeat. Then there was the matter of starting on an heir. But mostly, he wanted to be with Charlotte. Have her all to himself, in his own home, as soon as possible and for a good many weeks thereafter. It wasn't a matter of tender emotion, just a straightforward calculation of benefits. Would he prefer a winter's worth of long, lonely nights spent at his desk? Or months of good, hard tups against the wall followed by sensual baths?
He would take the tupping and baths, please.
"I wouldn't ask if it was only for myself," she said. "I made a promise to Delia. We want to take a Grand Tour together next year. That's why I came for a visit. We were supposed to convince her parents to agree to the scheme."
He dashed the water from his face. "The two of you, traveling alone on the Continent? Her parents would never allow it. I wouldn't permit it, either."
"We'd hire a chaperone, of course."
"A doddering, useless one with cataracts, knowing you."
"Piers, you know I'm not stupid. I wouldn't take risks. Delia needs this. She's depending on me, and it would devastate us both if I let her down." She swabbed a sponge across his back. "She has a remarkable gift, and she deserves the chance to explore it. And as for me . . . I don't have a natural talent for art. Or music, or poetry, or mathematics, or anything, really. Certainly not housekeeping."
He smiled to himself.
"I thought mystery solving might be my chance to finally claim a true accomplishment. But that didn't work out, either. I need a chance to experience a bit more of the world before settling down. Expand my mind and see new horizons. I don't want to become a vapid, featherbrained woman like my mother."
He sighed. What she asked of him was impossible. Even if he'd wished to, he could not have agreed. Sir Vernon could be appointed to Australia by the end of the year. He wouldn't leave his daughter half a world behind.
"I can't deny there's another reason," she said. "It would dampen at least some of the gossip."
"You will be a marchioness. Why should you care what petty people say or think?"
"Perhaps I'm weak, I don't know. The past year of whispers has battered my pride. I'd like the gossips to know you didn't have to marry me." She was quiet for a moment. "I'd like to know that for myself, as well."
Good God. This was the woman who'd divined secrets Piers had never wil
lingly divulged to anyone. She could read his left eyebrow as clear as a broadsheet. How could she still be questioning this?
She slid her arms around his waist, resting her chin on his shoulder. "You could plan the journey so we'd be safe. I know you could. You can arrange to be in a Nottinghamshire coaching inn on the exact day and hour in which your brother will pass through, just to check on him."
There it was. Another case in point. She was too perceptive by half.
"I don't know what you mean," he said.
"Yes, you do. I wouldn't be surprised if you arranged your entire holiday here for that luncheon. Rafe suspected it, as well." She dropped a kiss on his shoulder. "I only have sisters. Why men can't come out and say such things, I will never understand. But I hope you know that your brother understands how very much you love him."
His throat tightened.
He caressed her wrist, letting the touch speak where he could not.
He wouldn't know how to admit it, but her words came as a profound relief. He had always loved his brother, even when they hadn't been friends. And even though Rafe was a champion prizefighter--and the man who'd stolen his intended bride--Piers was fiercely protective of him.
His little brother was the only family he had left.
He slipped from her embrace and, through an ungainly process of twisting and rearranging limbs, eventually managed to face her.
He pulled her close, settling her so that she straddled his lap and rested against his bent legs. God, she was lovely. So clean, her skin could squeak. Her breasts bobbed just at the level of the soapy, cooling water. The steam had curled her fair hair in fetching ringlets. A bit of lather clung to her cheek.
He wiped it away with his thumb. "So. You can believe that I care for my brother."
"Oh, yes. Unquestionably."
"And yet you continue to doubt the sincerity of my offer to marry you."
"Well, that's different. We were forced into a betrothal. We scarcely knew each other. Propriety was the only reason for it."
He lifted an eyebrow. "Not the only reason."
"You know what I mean. Clearly we've always had a physical attraction, and you're undeniably an excellent catch."
"Yes, I seem to recall ranking in the top quartile."
She gave him a wicked look. "And I seem to recall that our bedsport would be tolerable."
"Touche."
"But all of that is beside the matter. You're not required by blood or history to care for me."
