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"You left it like this." He picked up a shawl from the floor, holding it by one bit of fringe, and as he lifted it into the air, it pulled with it a tangle of stockings and the stray bootlace.
"I'm not the tidiest of ladies," she said defensively.
With a chastening arch of one dark eyebrow, he turned away and went about checking behind the closet door.
For Charlotte's part, she crossed to the window. "But someone has been in here. This window's not only shut, it's latched. How strange. I suppose it must have been the maid."
"The maid?" He emerged from her closet, plucking stray yellow feathers from his shoulder and wearing an irritated expression. "Believe me, no maid has been in this room."
"It couldn't have been my mother. She would have raised an alarm the whole house could hear. But if not a servant or Mama, then who?"
"Perhaps someone knows you're up to something," he said. "And that someone wants you to stop."
"One of the mystery lovers, you mean?"
"Listen to me, Charlotte. You don't know what kind of secret you could be poking at, or what the mystery tuppers might do to protect it. It's time to let this go."
Let it go?
She couldn't let it go. Giving up on the search would mean giving up on the rest of her life.
"Well, while we're giving one another advice, my lord . . . I think you ought to give more consideration to love. You might be good at it."
"I can't imagine what makes you say that."
She shrugged. "You seem to be good at everything else. But then, perhaps you became good at everything else because you worry you're not good at love. Do you lack for confidence?"
In answer, he straightened to his full, impressive stature and glowered at her.
"Not that I think you should. I just can't help but notice that although you've proposed to two ladies, they were both women who'd be compelled to accept you. The first by family arrangement, and me by the threat of scandal."
He stalked to her chest of drawers. "Save your inquiries for the vicar's daughter. My history has nothing to do with any of this."
"Perhaps it doesn't. But you're a most intriguing mystery on your own. I can't puzzle you out." She moved to the bedpost and leaned one shoulder against it. "You don't seem the sort of man to fear commitment. You committed to me on the thinnest of reasons. Why wouldn't you set your sights on a lady you liked and woo her?"
Ignoring her question, he slid open a drawer. "This is empty. What were you keeping in here?"
"Nothing. I hadn't used it yet."
He cast a meaningful look at the heaps of unmentionables on the floor. "You do understand the purpose of a drawer?"
"Not everyone keeps their handkerchiefs organized by day of the week." She crossed her arms. "I've told you, I'm all wrong to be your wife. Consider this yet more evidence that we're mismatched. I'm too young for you, too indecorous, a poor housekeeper. You don't even like me. I'm merely some impertinent girl who cornered you in the library. You needn't settle for that."
"Settle," he echoed, replacing the drawer in the chest. "You think I'll be settling by wedding you."
"Everyone will think it."
"You," he said, "are the most unsettling creature I have ever met in my life. I have not felt settled since the moment we met."
Charlotte smiled to herself. "I shall take that as a point of pride."
"You really shouldn't." He advanced on her, closing the distance between them. "Has it not occurred to you that I might have a very real, very pressing reason for wanting to wed you?"
The darkness in his gaze left no ambiguity as to what reason he meant.
"But you could get that from any woman," she said.
"I only want it from you."
She swallowed, suddenly nervous. "You really should be going. Dinner will be called soon."
"I'm the guest of honor in this house." He pushed aside a fallen lock of her hair, and the slight friction teased her neck. "They'll wait."
"If my mother knew you were in here . . ."
"She'd be thrilled."
Too true, too true. "I could cry out."
"And ensure we're caught alone together, in even more compromising circumstances than the last time? Go right ahead."
She sighed. He truly did have her cornered.
There was only one way she could think of to shake him up, change the rules of his game.
No one touches my hair, he'd said.
Until now.
She stretched one hand forward, sliding her fingers through his dark, thick hair. Lightly, playfully--teasing it to wild peaks. Until the clipped locks stood on end, in amusing contrast to his piercing gaze and serious expression.
He seemed to have no idea how to respond.
Oh, dear. This man needed unsettling in the worst way.
Was he so unfamiliar with affection? Perhaps just very out of practice. He'd been restraining himself for so long. That propriety was an overstarched cravat, stifling all the emotion that must be lurking deep inside. Was it any wonder he didn't see the reason to wait for a love match? In all his years of being perfect . . . he'd forgotten the untidy, unruly bliss that human closeness could be.
If he'd ever known true closeness at all.
Bosh, she told her heart. Stop twisting and aching. He's a wealthy, powerful marquess, not a lost whelp in the rain.
She added her other hand to the first, toying more freely now. Biting back a mischievous smile, she teased her fingers through his hair, creating tufts that stood out at crazed angles--like the fur of an angry bear. Then she pushed all his hair to the center, giving him the look of a Mohican.
"Are you enjoying yourself?" he asked dryly.
"More than you could know."
His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat. But he didn't tell her to stop.
She took a bit of pity on him, flattening his teased hair with her palms, then raking her fingernails over his scalp from front to back.
He closed his eyes and exhaled roughly.
"That's it," she whispered, toying with the soft, close-shorn hair at the nape of his neck. "It's only a bit of tenderness. There's no shame in surrender."
She knew she was playing a dangerous game. With each caress, she edged closer to the border between teasing a response from him and putting her emotions and virtue at risk. It couldn't hurt to allow him a few minor liberties, could it? Show him a bit of affection. Just enough to awaken him to what could be, if only he'd open his heart to the possibility of love.
At some point, she'd stopped playing with his hair. Which would not have been a problem, if she'd remembered to withdraw her hands--but she hadn't. Her fingers remained tangled in his thick, dark, tousled locks. His hands had settled on her waist.
She was just holding him now. And he was holding her.
His gaze trained on her lips.
She knew he would kiss her.
She knew she would let him.
It all seemed entirely inevitable, wholly predictable--and yet nothing had ever thrilled her more.
Breathe, she told herself. Breathe now, and deeply. In a moment, it will be too late.
Piers held on tight. By necessity, not choice. She'd dismantled him. All his disguises and defenses were crumbling to dust at his feet.
What was it about her? Her fingers couldn't be so different from other women's. She was pretty, but not the most beautiful creature he'd ever beheld. As she kept reminding him, she was young and unpolished and impertinent, and nothing a man like him ought to want.
And yet he did.
She teased him. She touched his hair. She believed he deserved this and more.
He couldn't let her guess her effect on him. He couldn't let anyone see. He needed to claim her, possess her, and stash her somewhere where she couldn't wreak so much havoc on his self-control.
But seducing her wasn't even what he wanted most right now. He wanted to lay his head in her lap and let her stroke his hair all night long.
"What are you do
ing to me?" he murmured.
He allowed every part of their bodies to meet--the bony prominences of hips, the softness of bellies, the resistance of breast against muscle. The pounding of hearts and the mingling of breath.
He pressed the full length of his body to hers--every lean, hard, red-blooded, masculine inch of him. Wanting her to feel him, to know the size and shape and strength of his body. To be awed by what she did to him, and what he meant to do to her. He wanted to hear her gasp, make her tremble.
God help him, he wanted her a little bit afraid.
Because he was shaken to his core.
He pressed his brow to hers, and he tightened his grip on her waist.
Pull back, he told himself. You can't allow this to happen.
Then their lips met, filling that last bit of space between them. As though no matter how far their lives stood apart, if they could agree on this one thing only--it was the answer, the reason of it all.
Her mouth softened for him like a gift, unwrapped. He kissed her deeply, with increasing urgency, and she matched him stroke for stroke. Her grip tightened around his neck, causing parts of his body to tighten in response.
He slid a hand upward, palming the globe of her breast. She gasped against his mouth and broke the kiss, still holding him close. Her breathing grew ragged as he lifted and kneaded her softness. The point of her hardened nipple pressed against his palm.
He squeezed his eyes shut and searched himself for composure. He had to stop. If he didn't release her now, he wouldn't release her until she lay bare beneath him, clasped in his arms.
Tearing away from her was like so many things he'd done in his life--cold, ruthless. Necessary.
"Dinner," he said. "I'm expected downstairs."
She nodded.
He touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. Her skin was flushed and smooth. Then he slipped from the room without looking back.
Eventually, she would glimpse him for what he truly was. That glossy veneer of honor that had her fooled would eventually wear away, revealing the darkness beneath.
But he wasn't ready. Not yet. He rather liked the sweet, pitying way she looked at him, even though he knew he didn't deserve it. Could never deserve it.
I've come to save you, she'd said.
She was a sweet, darling girl. But she was half a lifetime too late.
Chapter Seven
"And then," Charlotte said, indignant, "she beat me about the head with the aubergine!"
"Oh, dear." Delia laughed.
"It's not amusing."
"It is tremendously amusing," Delia countered, smiling. "And you know it."
Yes, Charlotte did. Circumstance might have thrown her and Delia together, but honesty and wicked humor had made them friends.
"I only wish I could have been there. I would have loved to see your--" Delia winced, slowing in the middle of the wooded path.
Charlotte winced a little, too. "Shall we rest for a moment?" She ventured a few steps off the path, into a small, sunny clearing. "I see a few blackberries left over here."
"Well, don't eat them." Delia rested against a tree.
Charlotte plucked the dark berries from the bush, gathering them in her palm. "Why not?"
"You know what they say. You can't eat blackberries after Michaelmas. They've been spoiled by the Devil."
"Spoiled how?"
"He spits on them."
"Spits on them?" Charlotte pulled a face. "What a loathsome bit of folklore. Dutch children have Saint Nicholas going from house to house, placing treats in their shoes. We English decide the Devil spends Michaelmas spitting on blackberries."
"It probably has a practical root. Some goodwife in the Dark Ages had a stomachache after eating blackberries, and they decided the Devil caused it."
Charlotte wasn't so certain. "More likely some bad husband drank too much ale and blamed his sickness the next day on blackberries."
"I suppose it doesn't matter who it was. They've ruined it for the rest of us."
"Only if we let them." Charlotte selected a berry from her cupped hand. "Do you dare me to eat one?"
Delia just shook her head.
"Really, I'll do it. Devil's spittle and everything." She tilted her head back and dangled the berry above her mouth. "Last chance to stop me."
"I would never attempt to stop you," said Delia. "Trying to stop you is the surest way to encourage you."
Quite true. Delia knew her all too well.
Charlotte popped the berry into her mouth and gave it a thoughtful chew. "It is rather mealy," she said, swallowing and throwing the rest to the ground. "Perhaps the goodwives were on to something after all."
"We should be going."
"Wait." Charlotte pressed a hand to her stomach and doubled over. "I . . . I suddenly feel so strange."
"Are you well?" Delia asked.
"It hurts. Like something's burning me from the inside. I taste sulfur." She clutched at her throat and made a gagging sound. "I . . . I think it's . . . Satan spit!"
Charlotte reeled in a circle and collapsed behind the bushes, limp and lifeless. She waited for Delia to laugh.
Instead of laughing, Delia whispered, "Charlotte, get up. Lord Granville is coming."
"No, he isn't," Charlotte said. Delia was just trying to repay her teasing.
"Yes," Delia hissed. "He is."
"Really, I'm not that easily fooled." Charlotte rose to her knees and peered through the bushes. "Oh, no."
Piers was approaching. Devouring the distance between them in long, purposeful strides.
She scrambled to her feet, brushing the grass from her skirts. "What could he want?"
"Whatever it is he wants," Delia murmured, "he looks quite determined to get it."
Yes. Yes, he did.
Heavens, he was so handsome. His handsomeness was not a new development, of course--but it had begun to affect her in new ways. She felt a strange sense of possessiveness welling in her breast. As if he--in all his strong, sensual desirability--belonged to her.
The sensation unnerved her. She attempted desperately to quash it.
Her attempts didn't succeed.
He bowed to them. "Miss Delia. Miss Highwood."
Charlotte and Delia curtsied in response. It was all very proper in appearances, despite all the improper thoughts simmering inside her.
"Are you on your way to the village, Lord Granville?" Delia asked.
"No, I came in search of you."
His gaze fell on Charlotte, dark and intent. Hungry. What with the wooded setting, she felt like Red Riding Hood confronting the wolf.
There'd been too much talk of folklore for one day.
"I do hope you're well this morning, Miss Highwood."
"I . . ." Could he sense her inner turmoil? Was it that obvious? "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Aside from flailing about, clutching your throat just now? You were ill last evening."
"Oh, yes. That."
At his mention of last evening, the breeze seemed to die. The air about her grew sluggish and warm.
"Come to mention it, you left the ball early the other night, too," Delia said.
"It's a concerning pattern," he said. "Have you consulted a physician about these episodes, Miss Highwood?"
"They aren't episodes." Charlotte spoke through a smile that was composed of gritted teeth. "And I don't need a doctor."
"I will brook no argument," he said. "If your condition recurs, causing you to miss even one more outing or dinner, I will send for my personal physician. He's remarkably skilled with leeches and purgatives."
Delia stifled a laugh. "How very good of you to offer, Lord Granville."
Oh, yes. How very good of him indeed. Compelling her to appear at the dinner table under threat of leeches.
If Piers thought he could inhibit her investigations, Charlotte would prove him wrong. It wasn't as though she enjoyed feigning illness, lying to Delia and her hosts. She was doing this for his own good, as well as hers.
"Shouldn't the gentlemen be shooting or coursing or something?" she asked. "I thought this was a sporting holiday."
"We had a bit of fishing early this morning, but now Sir Vernon is with his steward. I have business in town. It was suggested the ladies might like to visit the shops."
Charlotte would bet sovereigns to pennies that her mother had been the source of that suggestion. Mama was likely tying her bonnet strings and gathering her reticule as they spoke. She would invent any excuse to put Piers and Charlotte in the same place.
"You and Frances should go, Delia. I'll stay behind. There'll be too many of us otherwise, and we wouldn't want to make His Lordship's coach cramped."
"Have no worry on that score," he said. "My carriage is more than large enough to accommodate our group."
Indeed it was.
They emerged from the path onto the drive. In front of Parkhurst Manor sat the grandest, most elegant barouche-landau Charlotte had ever seen. A glossy, obsidian-black carriage emblazoned with a golden crest on the door. It was drawn by a team of four ebony-maned warmbloods--horses so perfectly matched they might have been struck from a mold.
Frances and Delia climbed in first, handed up by Lord Granville himself. Charlotte squeezed next to them on the front-facing bench.
Then it was Mama's turn. "Charlotte, you must move. You know very well I cannot sit facing backward."
"Actually, Mama, I can't recall you ever saying that before."
"It interferes with my digestion. Go on, then. Move to the other side."
She was so terribly, painfully obvious.
Rather than cause even more of a scene, Charlotte moved to the rear-facing seat. Which meant, of course, that Piers sat next to her.
As expected, Frances glowered at her. At least Delia had the kindness to send her a sympathetic smile. It was nice to have one friend who didn't believe her to be an audacious hussy.
Then again, perhaps she was an audacious hussy.
With Piers next to her, she couldn't help but remember the night before. How his hair had felt sliding through her fingers. How he'd leaned into her touch and murmured such entrancing, indecent words.
The coach bounced off a rut, and Charlotte went momentarily airborne.
Piers caught her, drawing her to his side. Her insides cartwheeled in response.
What to make of this man? He was proper. He was passionate. He had the public demeanor of an iceberg, but he kissed her as if she were his oasis in a vast, arid desert.
What are you doing to me? he'd whispered.
