There was nothing to be had by continuing the conversation. Nothing to be gained. In truth, she probably never should have come. She was expecting something of Bettina that she could not give: love, acceptance, happiness. She might as well ask the sky to turn purple or the grass to bleed blue. “There is no money to be had, Mother.”
“There is your dowry, which would be more than enough to lure the likes of him,” Bettina argued.
“There is no dowry, and even if there were Gavin would not need it. You do not know what you are speaking about, and your ignorance is showing.”
“I suppose he has told you he has money?”
“An embarrassing amount, really,” Gavin said.
“He is lying,” Bettina said, but there was a faint hesitation in her voice and – far worse than that, to Charlotte’s mind – a sudden spark of interest in her eyes. “How much wealth could an untitled man of your unfortunate background have accumulated?”
“Enough to pay off whatever debts you owe to the duke and allow you to live in comfort for the rest of your life.” Charlotte stepped forward and took her mother’s hand. Bettina’s fingers were cold and lifeless. “I knew you would be angry, but I had hoped for once you would be able to see past your constant disappointment in me and realize that I am happy with my decision. But you will never be able to do that, will you?”
“You are no longer a daughter of mine.”
Charlotte thought she could not be more hurt than she already was, but her mother’s words cut through her like a knife, thrusting through flesh and bone to pierce her heart in one horrible thrust. “Mother, please…” Her voice broke. She felt a gentle pressure on her shoulders. Gavin circled his arms around her and drew her against him, holding her protectively against his chest.
“That is enough,” he murmured into her ear. “There is nothing else you can do. Let’s go home now.”
“Yes,” she said, blinking furiously against the tears that threatened to fall. She wanted to say more, to reach out towards her mother one last time, but one glance at Bettina’s cold, unforgiving face told her everything she needed to know. Clinging to Gavin’s arm, she followed him out the door.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Charlotte burst into tears the moment they stepped inside the waiting phaeton. Gavin watched her helplessly, not knowing what words to offer that would ease her suffering. He may have lost his mother at an early age, but she had never spoken to him with anything other than love and kindness until her dying day. He did not understand how a parent could be so cruel to their child, especially when that child was Charlotte.
His wife may have been stubborn and hard headed, but she was also gentle, sweet, and giving. A person, Gavin thought, should not be judged by how they treated their betters, but by how they treated those beneath them, and he had never seen Charlotte be anything but kind to her maid and any other servant she came across.
How was it that someone so selfless could be born of someone so selfish? If he was honest with himself Gavin would admit he had already made up his mind where Bettina was concerned before he ever met the woman. Upon leaving, his negative opinion of her was confirmed a hundred times over.
Dark settled around them as the carriage plodded forward at a methodic pace, slowed by the evening swell of traffic. Still Charlotte cried, her tears shimmering on her face like diamonds under the street lamps. Feeling as though he should do something, even though he was not sure what that something was, Gavin wrap his arm awkwardly around her hunched shoulders. She went still, so still he feared she may have stopped breathing, before she launched herself against him with enough force to knock the air out of his lungs.
She curled into his body, grabbed the lapel of his coat, and blew her nose. “I am s-s-sorry,” she choked out, “but I forgot my handkerchief and my n-nose will not stop r-running. Dianna was right,” she said, and for some reason that made her cry all the harder.
Gavin rubbed her back in gentle circles, murmuring nonsense words meant to calm and soothe. Eventually he felt more so than heard her sobs subsiding, and she used this coat again, this time to dry her face.
“Feel better?” he inquired gruffly.
“Yes,” she sighed.
He waited for her to stiffen and draw back, to return to her side of the carriage, but when she stayed nestled in the crook of his arm it only felt natural to keep her there.
By the time they reached Shire House the hour was quite late, and Charlotte was sound asleep. As Gavin stared down at her upturned face, he smoothed a curl from her cheek and softly kissed her temple. The moment his lips touched her ivory skin he felt something shift deep inside of him, like a chord being struck. Brow furrowed in thought, he carefully lifted her up and carried her all the way up to her bedroom.
She stirred when he laid her gently across the mattress, and woke when he began to untie the laces on her boots.
“Gavin?” Her voice was drowsy. Disoriented. Leaning against the wooden headboard she sat up and blinked owlishly at him. “What are you doing? What time is it?”
“After ten and I am undressing you.” Concentrating on his task he remained crouched at the side of the bed and, once one boot was loosened, pulled it gently off and set it down on the floor beside him before going to work on the other.
“But… Where is Tabitha?”
“I sent her away.”
“You sent her away?”
The second boot joined the first and he began to unroll her stockings, taking care not to rip the delicate fabric. “Do you know these don’t match?”
Charlotte sat up straighter and drew her legs to her chest. She frowned at him over the top of her knees, her countenance vaguely suspicious in the flickering light afforded them by the two candles sitting on her dresser and the silvery glow of the moon beaming in from an open window. “Are you being nice to me because I cried? Because I do not want your pity.”
“And you do not have it.” Pushing to his feet, Gavin walked around the massive four-poster bed and closed the window halfway, mindful of the strong winds that had been whistling through the city in the early hours of the morning. “I wanted to see you settled in your bed. Now that you are, I will take my leave.”
Her felt her eyes upon him as he traced his steps back to the door and just as he lifted his foot to step over the threshold she called for him to wait. “Yes?” he asked, turning in a slow half circle.
The light from the full moon trickled through Charlotte’s auburn hair, bathing her face in a silvery glow that only served to make her all the more enchanting. She looked like a wood nymph or a fairy princess, her eyes heavy lidded with sleep and her mouth curved faintly in bemusement. “Could you stay with me?” she asked hesitantly. “Just… Just for a little while.”
Gavin nodded, although he did not trust himself to sit beside her on the bed. Selecting a chair he turned it to face her and settled into it, kicking off his own boots before propping his feet on the end of the mattress. How odd it felt, he reflected, to be in his wife’s bedchambers. Odd, and yet strangely comforting. As he shrugged out of his coat and untied his cravat he could not help but think this was how it could always be between them. And for the very first time there was no pang of fear to accompany such an intimate thought.
“What did you think of my mother?” Even though she was still dressed, Charlotte had drawn the top quilt up to cover her knees. She sat with her arms folded and her chin propped up, like a child ready to listen to a parent’s bedtime story.
“I did not see any of you in her,” he answered honestly. “She seemed very hard.”
“She is. She always has been. My father was the one who used to laugh.” Charlotte smiled wistfully. “Sometimes he could make her laugh too. He was the only one. I am stubborn, like her,” she said after a pause. “And I often think I am right when I am wrong, like she does.”
“It was wrong of her to say those things to you.” Something caught in Gavin’s throat and he coughed to clear it. “I am sure she did no
t mean them,” he continued, but Charlotte was already shaking her head.
“She did.” This time her smile was sad. “I should not have gone to see her, but some part of me hoped… Well, it does not matter now. What is done is done.” She plucked at a loose thread on the quilt. “I must thank you for accompanying me. I know not all of the horrible things she said were reserved for me alone.”
Gavin shrugged. “I have heard worse.”
“Could you tell me about your family?”
“My family?” he repeated, taken aback.
“Yes.” Charlotte pulled hard enough at the quilt thread to snap it. Looking at it as though it were the most fascinating thing in the world she wound it around and around her finger in an endless loop. “I know we agreed not to be personal,” she said softly, “but I want to understand where you come from. It is only fair, after all.”
“And how did you reach that conclusion?”
She shrugged. “Well, since you met my mother it seems only right that you tell me about yours.”
Gavin had already decided to tell her whatever she wanted to know the moment he turned away from the door, but that did not mean he would give away such information freely. He was a bargainer at heart, and saw no reason not to use those skills inherent to him towards his own benefit. “I was granting you a favor when I went with you to see your mother.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That was not a favor. That was your duty as my husband. You may neglect your other husbandly duties, but you cannot get away with ignoring them all.”
“And what other husbandly duties have I been… neglecting?”
Charlotte’s blush was immediate and all encompassing, even in the darkness. “We have talked about this before at some length. I do not know why you are acting like this—”
He stood up easily from the chair and shifted his weight forward, moving with the sinuous grace of a panther as he braced his hands on the bed and leaned towards her. “Like what?” he invited.
“You are mocking me.”
“No, never that.”
“Then you trying to d-distract me.” Charlotte gasped when he pushed her hair away from her neck and began to trace a wandering path across her exposed flesh with his mouth.
“Yes,” he murmured, a wicked grin curving his lips before he took her earlobe between his teeth and tugged. He hovered above her, one knee on the bed, the other pressed hard against it. His hands were flat on the mattress, his stomach pulled in tight.
Charlotte’s eyes were wide beneath his, her brow furrowed, her lips slightly parted. “Gavin, I do not think—”
“Precisely,” he whispered. “Do not think.”
He sank into her by degrees. She was hesitant at first. Stiff. He softened her as an artist would soften clay, bringing his hands up to cup her shoulders before working his way down her arms, rubbing her tight muscles until, with a little sigh of surrender, she relaxed into him.
Their first time together had been fast, impatient, desperate. This was slow, soft, sweet. He tasted her mouth, her tongue, the heavenly nectar of her skin. She turned her head to the side, exposing the line of buttons that ran the length of her gown. Still kissing her neck he undid them one by one, freeing her from the dress and the undergarments beneath it with a patience he did not know he possessed until she wore only moonlight.
“You are beautiful.” His voice was ragged. His body pulsing with need. Though it killed him, he remained still while she divested him of his clothes in turn, interrupting only when her fingers went to the laces of his trousers. “Lay on your back,” he instructed. She did as he asked, propping herself up on her elbows and, whether by accident or design, thrusting her perfect breasts upwards.
Gavin kicked free of his pants and stretched out beside her, idly pulling pins from her hair as they kissed, their tongues lazily entwining as though they had all the time in the world. When her curls tumbled across the pillows like fire he moved down her body in strokes, lingering when she gasped and arched.
When he reached the heart of her she was wet and waiting and sobbed his name as he suckled. Her fingers clutched his hair, her nails digging into his scalp, and when he brought her to the brink of release before working his way back up her trembling body her eyes were wide and wondrous and wanting.
When they came together, it was perfect.
He slipped into her and she welcomed him, her arms winding up around his shoulders. They met each other thrust for thrust, establishing a rhythm punctuated by gasps and groans and breathy laughs born of mindless pleasure. The tempo changed. It grew faster, needier. She bucked underneath of him, her breaths frantic, her head thrashing.
As one being, they tumbled into oblivion.
“Tell me about your mother. What was she like?”
Dawn found Charlotte curled in Gavin’s arms. She was facing him, one knee burrowed between his thighs, one hand pressed tight against his chest. She felt his heart beat beneath her palm and the even rise and ease of his ribcage as he breathed. He stroked her hair, combing his fingers mindlessly through the tangled curls. The bed was in disarray, the covers twisted this way and that. The top quilt was gone completely and a sheet rode low on their hips, leaving their top halves bare.
When Charlotte glanced up at Gavin’s face to see if he had heard her quietly spoken question she saw he was looking past her to the window where light streaked in through the glass, although the vacancy in his eyes told her he was seeing a much different scene.
“She was always kind,” he said after a long pause.
Charlotte exhaled the breath she had not even known she was holding in one gusty sigh. Upon waking and seeing Gavin had not left her during the night, she quickly determined what had transpired between them was no fanciful dream. Hope had blossomed in her chest, followed quickly by fear. If he turned from her again, she did not know how she could bear it… but here he was, still holding her, still talking to her. She burrowed more firmly into his arms, resting her head on his taut bicep and closing her eyes.
“Go on,” she coaxed quietly. “You can tell me.”
She heard him sigh and shift, but it was only to wrap his arm around the slender curve of her spine and tuck her against him. “My father was a drunk who made a living with his fists. My older brother followed in his footsteps and was killed before his seventeenth birthday. He went up against someone he shouldn’t have in the ring, and he paid the price for it.”
Charlotte’s eyes flew open. It wasn’t the death that startled her, but rather the matter-of-fact way Gavin divulged it. “You had a brother?”
“Two. They both took after my father. I was not close to either of them.”
“You were more like your mother,” she guessed.
The fingers in her hair paused for the briefest of moments before he resumed untangling the long curls. “I suppose you could say that, except I fought as well.”
Now she was truly shocked. “You did?”
“Yes, except I was better at it and I didn’t drown myself in drink after. I saved my money, and I got the hell out of Old London as soon as I was able.”
What strength it must have taken for a young man to resist the temptations around him and not only survive, but go on to make an enormous success of himself. To succeed where his father and brothers had failed. To rise up where his peers had fallen. It would have taken courage and drive and, Charlotte supposed, a certain type of hardness that still existed within him to this day.
Sitting up on one elbow, she brushed a tendril of Gavin’s dark hair behind his ear. He watched her, his eyes wide and wary, but he didn’t pull away. It was rather like befriending a wild wolf, she thought with a small smile. If you moved too quickly, the wolf would either snap or bolt. But with consistency and kindness he could be gentled, although never quite tamed completely.
She stretched forward and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to his cheek. His scruff of beard was rough against her lips, the woodsy scent of him divine. The arm he had wrapped around her tightened a
s she began to press kisses down the line of his jaw, but she stopped before she reached his neck and fell backwards onto her pillow with a breathless laugh. “Thank you,” she said, slanting him a sideways glance.
He sat back. “For what?”
“For sharing part of yourself with me. I know it is not easy for you to do.”
“No.” His eyebrows pulled together. “It is not.”
“Does this… Does this change anything between us?” She held her breath the moment the question was past her lips, and even though outwardly she was composed, inside she could not help but chant please, please, please.
Gavin took his time answering. He rubbed his chin. Ran a hand through his hair. Looked out the window. When Charlotte thought she would simply die of anticipation, he chuckled under his breath and flicked a finger down her nose. “Breathe,” he said.
She exhaled through her nostrils and struck him harmlessly on the shoulder. “You are doing it on purpose!”
His expression was one of pure innocence. “Doing what?”
“Dragging it out.” Annoyed, she started to roll off the side of the bed. He gave a hard tug with the arm that was still wrapped around her waist and she tumbled against him, her red curls spilling every which way.
“You are not going anywhere,” he said huskily.
Scowling, she planted her hands on his chest and pushed herself up. “Then tell me. Are things – have things – changed or haven’t they? Because if they haven’t…”
“If they haven’t?” he prompted.
She bit her lip. “I do not know.” Playfulness fading, Charlotte untangled herself and sat on the edge of the bed, her toes curling around the mattress and her arms wrapping tight around her legs. This time Gavin did not try to pull her back, but after a moment of silence she felt his weight shift and tears sprang unwanted to her eyes when she felt him brush her hair to the side and press the softest of kisses to the nape of her neck.
“They have,” he murmured. “They have changed. I have changed. I was careless with you. Detached. Cold. Sometimes even cruel. I thought if I could push you away you wouldn’t matter. I thought if I buried myself in work I could forget you, but I couldn’t. I can’t,” he said achingly. “You are not who you were supposed to be. I thought I wanted a wife I could show off like one of my carriages and then set to the side. I never expected… I never thought I was capable of feeling what I feel for you.”
Runaway Duchess (London Ladies Book 1) Page 22