Charlotte’s pulse skittered uncontrollably. For she realized the truth in Caroline’s words. A proclamation of love meant nothing without a fire burning behind it. No one knew that better than she. “Forgive me,” she finally whispered. “I knew nothing of his true feelings or that he was waiting for me. Had I known…”
“I thought so!” Caroline let out an impish laugh, grabbed hold of Charlotte’s hands, and shook them excitedly. “Come with me! Let us put the poor sop out of his misery, shall we?”
Charlotte squeezed Caroline’s hands, still trying to cope with what she was saying. Alexander loved her. Her. She let out a laugh in disbelief. “I’d love to put us both out of our misery, actually.”
Caroline grinned and leaned toward her, her blue-green eyes sparkling. “Welcome to the family. I can’t wait to have another sister.”
Charlotte let out a shaky breath and willed herself not to cry from the joy bursting through her. Family. At long last. She had a family. And not just any family. Alexander’s family.
“Is he dead?”
“If he were dead, Mary, he wouldn’t be snoring.”
“Yes, I know, but what if—”
Alexander groaned and pried open his eyes, feeling as though he were going to die. How downright fitting that Mary truly thought he was dead. He only hoped she hadn’t already sent out invitations for the funeral. Or ordered his casket.
“Alex!” Mary exclaimed. A pair of small, sloppy lips smacked his cheek, leaving a cool spot against his burning skin. “Oh, thank goodness! You’re alive!”
“I’d rather not be,” he muttered, shifting toward her and Anne, who were both sitting on the walnut coffee table across from him. “How long have you both been sitting there staring at me?”
“Well…” Anne jumped up to her feet and rubbed her hands into the sides of her morning skirts. “Seeing as you are alive and all, I ought to go. Have fun!” She waggled her brows at him, then dashed out of the room.
He blinked. Have fun? Hell, when she was old enough, he’d give her a jug of gin and then see the sort of fun she had.
Mary slowly cocked her head, so as to better see him in his horizontal position. She wrinkled her freckled nose. “Who was that man that brought you here last night, Alex?”
Alexander groaned. Still not feeling comfortable against the cushions of the sofa, he shifted his sore body again. “Please don’t expect me to remember anything, Mary. Because I don’t.”
“Try to remember. It’s important.”
He blew out a breath, wishing he could blow out the pounding headache and nausea gripping him. One would think a man would learn not to overindulge after all these years. “Why? It was probably Caldwell. I was at his house all night.” Drinking the very thought of Charlotte away.
Mary shook her head, still keeping it cocked to one side. “No. It wasn’t Caldwell. The man who brought you home had dark hair and dark eyes. Very, very handsome. Not to say Caldwell isn’t. I just don’t care for blonds. Do you suppose you can put out a marriage offer on this dark-haired gentleman so that he’ll wait until I’m eighteen?”
Alexander jerked up into a sitting position. The room momentarily spun, his stomach whirling. God save him, who had he brought to the house last night?
All he needed was Mary to fall in love with a thirtysomething-year-old man. He was still recovering from the whole ordeal with Caroline and Caldwell. “How do you even know the man was handsome? Weren’t you supposed to be in bed last night?”
She leveled her head once again and shrugged, her lips tugging into a frown. “I couldn’t sleep. When I heard voices downstairs, I knew you were home and wanted to say good night. Only I never got past the top of the stairs. You see, this incredibly beautiful man was standing in the hall foyer. Looking up at me. For a moment, I thought Charon himself had come and almost fainted at the sight of him. And what is more…” She lowered her voice as if imparting a great secret. “He saw me wrapped in my linens.”
His eyes widened at the admission. “Whoever the bloody hell he is, I assure you that if he so much as mentions you or your linens, I’ll change the color of his skin. Permanently. Furthermore, I highly doubt you were feeling faint because of him.”
Alexander noted with annoyance that her face looked even more drawn than it had the previous week. “It’s because you aren’t eating. Caroline told me all about what you’re doing, and enough is enough. You need to eat. Do you hear me? You will eat.”
Glaring, she crossed her arms over the ruffled front of her pea green morning gown. “If you gave me back all of my dresses, I wouldn’t need to starve myself. Now would I?”
Oh, for the love of mother and child! He’d had enough. Enough of fighting the inevitable. Enough of trying to change those around him. Enough of making everyone into something they simply were not! For it was pointless. Absolutely pointless. And only he and he alone suffered.
“Go!” he barked. “They’re all upstairs in a trunk hidden beneath Mother’s bed. Take them. Take them and wear them all at once if it’ll so please you. Arrange a few funerals while you’re at it, invite all the neighbors, and die.”
Her face brightened as her thin brows popped up. “Truly?”
“Yes. Truly. Only before you hurry back to dying, be sure to eat breakfast.”
She rolled her eyes, leaned toward him, and smacked his knee with her hand. “Silly. Don’t you know it’s already past one?”
She sprang to her feet, clapping, and then skipped out of the room. “Alex says I can wear my dresses again!” she sing-songed for the entire household to hear. “I told you he wouldn’t last!”
Alexander closed his eyes and groaned at the misery of it all. He simply didn’t have the makings of a man who could run a household. With propriety, that is.
A heavy female sigh echoed within the room as the slow clicking of heels left the far corner of the room and rounded on him. “You’d better be a bit more firm with our children.”
Alexander whipped toward the voice behind him in disbelief. “Charlotte?”
She stood behind him, her hands on her hips, dressed in her usual black finery. She quirked a dark brow at him. “Do you have anything to say to me?” She coughed suggestively. “Anything at all?”
He bloody wasn’t going to waste any more time, that was for sure. What did he care about making it special? It was special. And he now knew that. “I love you,” he blurted out. “I love you, Charlotte. Very much. So much, I don’t think I could possibly love you any more. But I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to prove it.” He paused. “Do you want me to go on?”
She laughed, rounded the sofa, and slowly sat down beside him. She took his hand and kissed it with those soft lips he had missed so dearly. “I apologize I didn’t come last night. I didn’t realize you were waiting until Caroline called on me this morning.”
“Caroline called on you? You mean…” He furrowed his brow. “But Caldwell said he spoke to you. He assured me you were coming.”
She lowered her chin. “He spoke to Mr. Hudson and slipped the man ten pounds. And well…as protective as Mr. Hudson has been as of late, I never received the message. Or the ten pounds.”
Mr. Hudson had clearly taken his earlier words too much to heart.
Charlotte grabbed his hand, set it onto her lap, and slowly and purposefully traced her finger up and down the inside of his palm.
He swallowed and watched her bare finger, hypnotized by the seductive movement that produced a slow heat against the width of his palm. Not to mention the rest of him.
“I’m making love to you, Alexander,” she whispered to him ever so softly. “Most ardently.”
The air around him seemed to grow hot. And if his head weren’t pounding and his stomach weren’t roiling, he would have thrown her onto the sofa and made love to her for the rest of the day. And then for the rest of his life.
Stifled giggles erupted from the doorway.
“Now that is quite enough, you two,” Victoria drawled
.
“Yes,” Elizabeth added. “If you must know, this is a respectable household.”
“And,” Mary mocked, lowering her voice to a deep tone that matched his, “there are individuals here under the age of nineteen.”
Alexander’s heart stopped as he glanced up to see all five of his sisters and his mother grouped together in the doorway. Every single one of them was grinning at him. As if he had not only done right by them, but by himself and Charlotte. Without a doubt, it was the most amazing moment he’d ever experienced in his life.
His mother’s arched brows playfully rose. “Does this mean we’re all allowed to be Hawksfords in our home again?”
He laughed. “Yes. But only in the house.”
“I can live with that.” Caroline clasped her hands together. “Ask her, Alex! Ask her, before anything else ruins it.”
Nothing could ruin it. Ever.
Alexander cleared his throat, pressed his other hand atop Charlotte’s, and squeezed it tightly.
Charlotte shyly smiled up at him, her cheeks flushing, making her even more beautiful.
Though the moment of his proposal was not as he had imagined, for he had wanted to do it in the country, it was more. He stood, and seeing that there was no room for him to kneel beside the sofa, he lifted his booted foot and shoved the small table back and away.
He kneeled and took Charlotte’s hand again in his, meeting her dark eyes. “Charlotte…” He hesitated. “Hell. I don’t even know your birth name. And I’m certainly not calling you by Chartwell’s name anymore.”
“It’s Charlotte Jane Sutton,” she offered, still shyly smiling.
“Charlotte Jane Sutton.” He grinned. “Will you honor me by becoming my wife and giving me sons so that I may never be outnumbered again?”
Charlotte burst into laughter, a single tear trickling down from the corner of her eye. She swiped it away with the tips of her fingers and grinned back. “Yes, Alexander. Most certainly, yes.”
Lesson Twenty-Eight
Depending on how you went about collecting your happily ever after, know that it may cost you a good thing or two thereafter.
—The School of Gallantry
Two days later
Alexander knew Madame de Maitenon would one day ask that he pay his dues for favors rendered—for the French were like that—but he simply hadn’t expected that the request would come so damn soon. Or with such ridiculous expectations. Especially when he was so mindlessly preoccupied with setting the last touches on Caroline’s wedding before he could start to plan his own.
“What is it?” Charlotte, who was visiting his family for afternoon tea, swept into the study. Her dark brows rose inquiringly. “You look harried.”
Alexander blew out a breath, leaned far back into his chair, and waved at the letter sitting on his desk. “Madame is calling in favors. And what is worse, she wants me to do the impossible.”
Charlotte rounded his desk, sat on his lap, and lovingly wrapped an arm around his neck. “Madame would never ask for the impossible.”
“Is that so? Then perhaps I ought to read this little missive to you.” He reached around her, firmly pressing her softness against his chest with one hand, and grabbed up the letter with the other.
He snapped the paper stiffly up before them and read aloud in his best forged French accent, “Lord Hawksford. Unfortunately, school will not be in session this upcoming week due to unexpected complications. Hence my little letter. As I once helped you, I know you will help me. I want you to arrange a rendezvous between my granddaughter and the Duke of Rutherford. Sometime by the end of this week. As you may know, I am still in a very delicate state of health and refuse to be subjected to the further theatrics that we all know love creates. I have faith that you will see to my request accordingly. Do not disappoint me or my granddaughter. Merci. Madame de Maitenon.”
Alexander tossed the letter toward his cluttered desk. “And here I thought winning your heart was an undertaking.”
Charlotte let out a small laugh, grabbed the sides of his face with both her hands, and soundly kissed him right on the lips. “Considering all that she’s done for us, we really should try and help.” She paused, a thoughtful look crossing her features. She tilted her dark head to one side, a small smile now playing on her lips. “No one really knows about our engagement just yet. Aside from Madame and your family, that is.”
“And a few others at Caldwell’s party,” he added.
She met his gaze for a long moment. “Actually, I have a rather brilliant idea on how we can bring them together.”
He slowly leaned toward her, wrapping his arms possessively around her waist. “Is it devious?”
She slid her hands from his face and let them playfully and seductively travel down the length of his chest. She lowered her chin. “’Tis very devious. For we would be forced to play the only game that ever truly prompts results. You’ll have to make me jealous, and I’ll have to make you jealous. And in turn, we will make Maybelle and her duke jealous. Of course, it would probably involve drinking, scheming, and unforgivably crude behavior that the ton would never approve of.”
Alexander grinned. “I can do that.”
Charlotte’s mouth curved into an equally big smile. “Yes, I know you can.”
“Do you want to know what else I can do?” Alexander waggled his brows and caught his tongue between his teeth, squeezing her tightly against himself.
Charlotte giggled and playfully smacked at his shoulder. “Save it for our wedding night, you relentless beast.”
He leaned slightly back, appearing somewhat concerned. “I am not waiting that long. I have needs. Hell, don’t you?”
Charlotte paused, shifting slightly in his lap, and glanced back at the open doors of the study behind them. Turning back toward him, she poked him in the chest and quickly whispered, “I’m supposed to be having tea with your mother and Caroline in twenty minutes. Which would only really give us ten.”
“A lot can happen in ten minutes, I assure you.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” She gave him a pointed stare. “The cellar. In exactly four minutes.”
He blinked. She already knew where the cellar was? Hell. He quickly rose, lifting her up and off his lap, then growled down at her, “Make it two minutes.”
“Two it is.” She blew him an enchanting, amorous kiss, then hurried around his desk and disappeared out of the door and into the hall.
Alexander straightened, carefully smoothed back the sides of his hair, and strode determinedly right after her. Now this was what a Hawksford would call a very happy ending.
And a very happy ending it was for him, indeed.
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2009 by Delilah Marvelle
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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ISBN: 1-4201-1108-6
Lord of Pleasure Page 24