“I knew who you were the moment you stepped through the doors.” Gavin reached for her towering crown of hair. He touched a feather. “Although your natural beauty doesn’t need such unnecessary accruements.”
Heights may not have made Charlotte dizzy, but Gavin certainly did. “It is a costume, Mr. Graystone. Meant to disguise my appearance.”
“You did not do a very good job.”
“No one else has recognized me,” she noted.
“Perhaps because no one else has kissed you in a dark study.” His deep voice sent the most delicious shiver racing down her spine.
“Perhaps,” she said, tensing when she felt his fingertips make a slow, sensuous ascent up her arm and over her bare shoulder before tracing along the edge of her clavicle, freely exposed above the plunging neckline of her gown. The pressure of his hand was faint, but it might as well have been a hot brand on her flesh for all the heat that Charlotte
He pulled at her like a magnetic force, and she unconsciously licked her lips as she shifted her weight towards him. She gazed breathlessly up at his countenance. In the shadows his eyes were black as slate, his jaw hard as iron. He looked completely unapproachable…and dangerously enticing.
A devilish idea occurred to her. A type of experiment, really. Without giving herself time to think of the consequences, she brought her hand between them and used the tip of her finger to trace a path down the middle of his chest.
His shirt was only buttoned halfway, giving her plenty to explore. She discovered her skin was bronzed, and smooth, and covered with faded scars in varying shapes and sizes. Knife wounds, she thought. Or maybe even a bullet or two. Whatever had caused the marks, they were just more proof that Gavin Graystone had not lived the life of a pampered lord.
As her finger traced a lazily inquisitive path to his navel, his abdomen tightened until each muscle was sharply defined beneath all that tawny gold skin.
“Stop,” he said hoarsely. “For the love of God, stop.”
Charlotte paused. Pulse racing, she began to pull away, but Gavin captured her wrist and forced her palm flat against his chest, his fingers lacing together with hers. She could feel his heart galloping under her hand, like a thoroughbred set loose with nothing but empty track in front of it.
“What kind of woman,” he growled, his voice whisper soft and all the more daunting because of it, “can touch one man like that while being promised to another?”
“A woman not in love.” Seeking to escape the intensity of his stare, she stared instead at their joined hands. It was obvious he wasn’t in the habit of wearing gloves. His flesh was sun-kissed and covered in scratches and scrapes, whereas hers was lily white and smooth. He had the rough hand of a scoundrel. She had the elegant hand of a lady. They couldn’t have been more different…and yet they fit together perfectly.
Slowly lifting her gaze, she peered at him through her lashes. “A woman who wants more than she has been given.”
“You are to marry a duke,” Gavin said with a scornful laugh. “Is that not what every young woman of the ton dreams of achieving? What more could you possibly want than that?”
What more could she want?
Compassion
Kindness.
Empathy.
Everything she could never have if she married Paine.
“I want to live my life as I see fit.” She lifted her chin as her eyes flashed with defiance. “To be more than a pretty trophy set up on a shelf to collect dust and wither away. I did not ask for this.” Using her free arm, she gestured down to the gardens where the masquerade continued on below them in all its sinful gaiety. “I’ve never cared for ballrooms or gowns or proper social etiquette. And I’ve never wanted to marry a duke.”
The callused pad of Gavin’s thumb played across her knuckles, the touch so light and rhythmic Charlotte doubted he even knew he was doing it. “Then you would marry a man not of the ton to be free of your husband-to-be?”
Charlotte felt a tremor somewhere deep inside of her body. She knew what Gavin was asking, and she knew what her answer was going to be even before she spoke the words out loud.
“Yes,” she whispered, sealing her fate. “I would.”
Gavin’s eyes glowed. “Then marry me.”
Chapter Nine
Gavin watched Charlotte’s face carefully, searching for the surprise and the shock such an offer should have produced. When he saw nothing save calm acceptance, he knew then why she had come to the masquerade. Why she had allowed herself to be taken out on the terrace. Why she had been so forward.
He was her escape, and she had executed her plan perfectly.
Could one kiss have meant so much? Or had he simply been in the right place at the right time? His jaw clenched. Did it matter? She needed a different husband. He needed a wife born of the nobility. It would be a business arrangement, nothing less and certainly nothing more. He could give her the freedom to do whatever she wished, while he…well, he would simply go on living his life as he had been, except now for every ball he attended he would have a lady on his arm. A lady born with as much blue blood running through her veins as any other peer. He was already looking forward to seeing their expression when they realized he’d plucked such an exquisite rose from their exclusive garden.
“I would have several conditions.”
Gavin’s gaze swerved down to the heart shaped face tipped up towards his own. He glanced lower, and frowned when he saw their hands were still joined. His doing, or hers? And who was doing it still?
“What conditions?” he asked warily.
A small line appeared between Charlotte’s winged brows. “First, that I be allowed to do as I please. I should like to travel to the country whenever I wish, and I have always been very fond of riding, but my mother—”
“Done,” he interrupted. “Next?”
Charlotte blinked. “I…er, you see…” She paused, her expression hesitant, and Gavin tensed.
He should have expected this, of course. Women had needs the same as men, and Charlotte certainly did not act like a fluttery virgin. No doubt she had a lover on the side, who for some reason or another could not provide as a husband, and she wanted to ask his permission to carry on with their secret liaison. Gavin could appreciate her ability to be forthcoming, and steeled himself to be as agreeable to this condition as he had been the last.
“Before my father passed, he accrued many debts. In an attempt to…to pay off the debts, my mother entered into a contractual agreement with Paine.”
She did not have a lover, Gavin realized. At least not one she was going to reveal to him. The surge of relief that filled him was as unwanted as it was unexpected, and he harshly reminded himself it did not matter who she spent her time with once they were married so long as she was discreet about it.
He did not want emotions in their marriage of theirs. No feelings. Nothing to distract him from what mattered most: his work.
As for this bloody archaic contract…
“The duke agreed to pay off the creditors in exchange for your hand in marriage,” he surmised flatly. When his bride-to-be nodded, he bit back a violent curse. Charlotte’s mother had all but sold her only daughter off to the highest bidder–a man twice her age – and yet they called him the uncivilized one.
“Yes.” Her mouth twisted. “Precisely so.”
“And I take it this is not something you agreed to?”
“No!” She shook her head so emphatically a white feather came loose and spiraled to the ground. “No, I despise Paine. I never would have willingly entered into such an arrangement.”
“But your mother did.”
“She did,” Charlotte acknowledged. “It seems when my father passed he did not leave the coffers quite as full as I’d been led to believe. My mother…she has good intentions, albeit questionable means to attain them. I wouldn’t want to see her lose her house.”
“I’ll buy her a different one,” Gavin said with a negligent shrug. “And settle a mont
hly allowance on her behalf. She’ll want for nothing.”
Charlotte blinked. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“I don’t mean to offend, but…how rich are you?” she blurted.
The corners of his mouth twitched. “Rich enough.”
“I see.” Her breasts threatened to spill out of her low cut décolletage when she crossed her arms, drawing Gavin’s eye.
Heat hit him like a punch to the gut as he imagined sliding his hands under the bodice of her gown and lifting one succulent, rose-tipped breast to his mouth. He’d suck on her nipple, circling the hard nub with his tongue as his hands cupped her arse, squeezing the plump flesh until she arched against him.
Her fingers would slide under his jacket and sink into his shoulders, nails biting in muscle as he slipped an arm beneath her skirts and followed the curve of her leg all the way up to the damp curls nestled between her sweet thighs.
He’d part her dew slicked folds while she writhed against him, her curls tumbling down her spine in a waterfall of fiery silk. His tongue would part her lips as his finger slid inside of her, slowly at the first, gently, allowing her to grow accustomed to the foreign sensation.
A single finger, then two, thrusting into all that sticky warmth. He’d shield her with his body as he drove her to release, so that anyone happening by would see a couple conversing closely rather than a rogue pleasuring his lady. And when she cried out his name and collapsed in his arms, he’d hold her tenderly as she gradually drifted back to earth.
Gavin would do all that…if theirs was an engagement of emotion.
But it wasn’t, and if he had his way, it never would be.
Emotion inevitably led to loss, and loss to pain.
The sort of pain he never wanted to feel again.
“What are you thinking about?” Charlotte asked curiously.
“Nothing,” he scowled, fighting the urge to adjust his trousers which were suddenly, uncomfortably, too snug.
Her head tipped to the side. “It didn’t seem like nothing.”
She was too observant for her own good, Gavin thought irritably. Observant and beautiful and as pureblooded as they came. In short, the exact opposite of what he’d always told himself he wanted for a wife.
He had planned on a woman that was quiet and shy and biddable. Someone who would manage his household, hem his shirts, and not complain when he had nary a second of attention to spare.
Then why, in all that was holy, had he offered his hand to Charlotte Vanderley?
Because she is nobility, the rational side of his brain replied.
Because you want her, the irrational side answered.
He should walk away now. Withdraw his offer, make his excuses, and never look back.
“We can leave for Gretna Green in the morning,” he said instead.
The lighting on the balcony was dim, but not so dark Gavin missed the slight trembling of Charlotte’s hand as she brought her fingertips to her lips. “So soon?” she asked. “Do you think that is wise?”
It had never crossed Gavin’s mind that she would have doubts about marrying him. He found he didn’t like it. No, he didn’t like it at all. “Make up your mind here and now,” he said, his tone ominously low. “I will not have ye welchin’ on a deal once it ‘as been struck. Ye hear me?”
Charlotte’s hand fell away from her mouth and settled on the railing. “You have done a remarkable job refining your speech, but you revert to your cockney accent when you are angry,” she observed. “Do you know that?”
The woman didn’t miss a bloody trick. He hadn’t had a slip up in weeks–no, months. For three years he had taken daily lessons in secret to coax the guttersnipe from his voice. It took a lot to bring it to the surface, and he was infuriated that Charlotte had been able to do so with such ease. He would have to watch himself when he was around her. Guard himself more carefully. His accent slipped when he was emotional. Emotion was a vulnerability. Vulnerability was a weakness. He was weak once, and his mother had died because of it.
He would never be weak again.
“Either we leave for Gretna Green tomorrow morning or we do not leave at all. Make up your mind here and now or be done with it. I will pay off your mother’s debts and settle her with a monthly allowance so she need never worry about money again. You may live where you like. I spend most of my time in London, but I have an estate in Hampshire and another in Scotland. You are free to travel between them at your leisure, with my fortune at your disposal.
“In return I ask only that you accompany me to social events on occasion, and play the part of dutiful, loving wife when the eyes of the ton are upon us.” He sounded desperate, Gavin thought with disgust. He needed to be harder. Tougher. He needed to show how little he cared. How detached he was.
“Is that all you will require of me as your wife?” Charlotte asked. “To stand at your side during balls and sit next to you at plays?”
“Not plays.” He gave a derisive shake of his head. “I cannot stand them.”
Her smile was wry and fleeting. “And wifely duties of a more…intimate nature? What are your requirements on those?”
Belatedly Gavin saw that her fingers were beating a rapid staccato against the balcony railing, betraying the nervousness she did not allow to show on her face. His future wife would make an excellent card player, he thought. As long as she hid her hands and her temper.
“Are you inquiring into matters of the bedroom?” he asked baldly.
A rosy blush stole up and over her cheeks, answering his question for him even before she shyly nodded. “Yes. I–I suppose I am.”
Harder. Tougher. More detached.
“As long as you are discreet, I do not care who you share your delectable little body with. This is not a love match. It is a business arrangement and as I have yet to sleep with any of my clients, you can be assured I will not come knocking on your bedroom door in the middle of the night.”
Something flickered in the depths of her eyes. Gavin’s breath caught in his throat. Was that a flash of…disappointment?
No.
Surely not.
How could she possibly desire a man like him? He was a convenience to her, nothing more. If the world was a perfect place she would choose a fancy nabob to marry, not a ruffian who had been raised in the gutters.
Except the world wasn’t perfect, far from it, and as a result she was marrying a commoner to avoid becoming a duchess. He would have laughed at the irony if he didn’t find it so incredibly bitter.
“But what about children?” Charlotte pressed, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he did not, in fact, wish to discuss anything of an intimate nature. None of his other contracts had ever included mention of children, and he didn’t see why this one should either.
“No,” he said flatly.
“No…?”
“No children.”
She frowned at that. “But don’t you want an heir?”
What he wanted was to shove her in the nearest carriage, drive to Gretna Green, and be done with it. She could escape to the country for a while, or remain in town–it really didn’t matter. He’d continue on as usual, except now whenever he attended a social function he’d have a pretty blue-blooded piece on his arm to show that he did belong. There was no room for feelings in such an arrangement, let alone children.
“I’ve never given an heir much thought,” he said dismissively. “The world is a cruel, hard, unforgiving place. I don’t know why I’d willingly subject a babe to it.”
“But it wouldn’t be that way for our child.”
Our child.
He didn’t like what those two words did to him.
He bloody well didn’t like it at all.
“NO,” he snarled, punctuating the decree by slamming his fist into his open palm. The resounding slap echoed loudly. Charlotte gasped. Below them everything fell to silence, and then a woman’s high-pitched giggle filled the air.
“Who is up the
re?” she demanded. “Come down here, good sir! I want to see your face!”
“Yes, I want to see him too!” another lady cried, her words slurred with drink.
“And I!” said a third.
Gavin looked at Charlotte, but she was looking deliberately away from him, her lips compressed into a thin line of disapproval and her face pale beneath the twin sweeps of rouge that decorated her cheekbones.
Whatever moment may have passed between them when he held her in his arms and she tempted the very devil by running her fingers across his flesh was long gone, leaving only coldness and a peculiar sense of loss in its wake.
This is what you wanted, he reminded himself. Harder. Tougher. More detached.
“I will send a carriage to your townhouse at dawn tomorrow,” he said stiffly. “The driver will be instructed to wait for ten minutes. No more, no less. If you do not show I will assume you have changed your mind, and this matter will not be discussed again.”
Her only answer was a short, clipped nod.
Gavin ran a hand through his hair, drawing the ends taut. He turned to go, but something pulled at him, demanding he stay. For a moment he actually considered apologizing, but the notion was such a foreign concept he disregarded it immediately.
No, he did not owe his wife-to-be an apology. It was better she understand how things would be between them. He would grant her as much independence as she desired, yes, but in things that truly mattered–such as children–his word would be the final say. Still, he could not stand to see the light dimmed in her eyes and knowing he was the cause of it.
“Charlotte, I realize this arrangement may not have been what you imagined when you were a young girl dreaming of marriage,” he began gruffly, “but it is practical and will suit both of our needs accordingly.”
There. Simple enough and to the point. He was rather proud of himself, until Charlotte turned her head and he saw her brilliant amber eyes were sparkling with tears.
“You are right,” she said in an odd, choked little voice. “This is not what I imagined. But I guess being married to a man who will never see me as a wife is better than being married to one who sees me as nothing more than a pretty vase to be put on a shelf, don’t you think?”
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