Drake’s growl turned to a roar. “Philip! Now!”
The boy shook his head again and tried to push past Teresa towards the terrace. What on earth was happening with his servant?
“Don’t be angry, Drake,” said one of the women. “He wants to stay with us. Leave him here.”
Ignoring the woman, he stormed towards the boy and grabbed his arm in a vice grip.
With a shake, Drake hissed, “Come with me now, or I swear I will leave you behind.”
He tugged at the arm to drag the simpleton out of the parlor. Philip tripped over his own feet and fell against Drake’s chest, a single chestnut curl escaping the hat.
Drake halted, his fingers tightening around Philip’s arm. He stared down at the top of the hat, examining the curl. It spiraled past a shapely ear, golden brown twining to a slender shoulder.
That curl did not belong to a tiger named Philip. That curl and that ear and the trembling arm in his hand belonged to only one person he knew.
Robbed of breath, he glanced back to the room to see if anyone else noticed. Thankfully, the women had already turned their attention elsewhere. Exhaling through gritted teeth, he reached over to Philip and tucked the curl under the cap.
The walk back through the house towards the carriage was a silent one, his grip secure but gentle. Should he be angry? Should he feel ashamed? Curious, certainly. How should he handle the next few minutes? Should he take Philip over his lap and spank out the truth? Hmm. There was an appeal to that. The confusion and startling discovery kept him speechless with indecision.
When he stepped into the courtyard, his coachman and footman snapped to attention then paused with matching cringes at the sight of the liveried person dragged in the duke’s wake.
The footman opened the carriage door, his face flushed. Drake pushed the tiger unceremoniously into the carriage, climbed in after the flailing limbs, took his seat in the front with his back to the horses, and promptly pulled the hat off of his wife’s head, a tumble of curls flying free of their confinement.
The tears etching her cheeks stopped him from scolding or questioning. She wiped her eyes against the sleeve of the tiger’s coat, but she needn’t have bothered for more tears followed, and before the carriage reached the end of the drive, the silent tears turned to sobs.
He wanted to be angry. He wanted to be furious. He wanted to rail at her, to impress upon her the seriousness of her actions. Instead, he found himself touched that she would follow him, going as far as to dress up as a servant to accomplish her goal. No one had ever cared that much about him, regardless of her reasons for doing so. She had done this for him, pitting herself against dangers and scandals for him. His heart swelled.
Her confrontation the week before combined with her behavior tonight led him to a single conclusion: she cared for him. All his assumptions that her frigidity was from her desire for the title and not him burst into flames.
His assumptions had been rational. What else was he to have made of her prior actions? He’d only ever been used by those he loved, only ever desired for his title.
If given the ability, he could strangle himself for being so daft. A month of marriage, and what had he done? Ignored her. No, that wasn’t entirely accurate. She had ignored him, but she’d done so because he’d not made her feel welcome to her new home or to marriage with him. He’d used the only tricks of seduction he knew, and of course that would put her off. How could he have been such a dolt? Maggie’s advice made sense now. Everything made sense now. Good God, his wife cared about him, and he’d been a prized arse.
Hell and damnation!
This might have all been prevented if he’d given her the letter. Not being much of a poet, he’d not finished the letter, but he’d crafted one for Charlotte, an apology letter after her confrontation with confessions of his adoration for his wife. Having still suspected she only wanted the title, he’d not been motivated to finish it. Now he wished he had. Would she have read it? Would she have believed him?
Desiring to mend things, he grabbed Charlotte’s wrist and pulled her onto his lap, wrapping protective arms around her quivering body.
“Deuce take it, Charlotte, I didn’t think you cared. Don’t cry. I’ll right all the wrongs. I promise I will.”
Closing his mouth over hers, he replaced her sobs with his hungry tongue.
He felt the hot sting before he heard the sound of flesh slapping flesh. The palm of her hand met his cheek with a sharp crack, his face burning in the shape of her handprint.
By the time he digested what happened, Charlotte had returned to her seat, hugging the tiger’s coat to her body. The glare she gave him chilled him to the bone.
“You disgust me, you, you perverse blackguard,” she spat at him.
“Because I kissed you?” he asked, not following her logic. His cheek felt branded.
“Is this what you do every night? Is this where you go? Is it the aging women you fancy, or is it the men? I expected to find you in the arms of a mistress. I never expected, well, I never would have dreamt….” She turned to the carriage window. “You’re a hedonist and a libertine.”
“Please, don’t say those things. What you witnessed isn’t what you think. I mean, it was, but I had no part in it.”
Charlotte snapped back at him, “I can only assume you tried to ravish me because I was dressed as a boy. Does that excite you, Drake?”
“Holy dammit, Charlotte. No! You’re seeing this all wrong. I’m one of those boys, not the seducer. I’m not a rogue or a molly. I do not like men. I like women, and I like you. I kissed you because no one has ever done anything like this for me. No one has ever cared a fig about me.”
He pulled at his hair in frustration. “That was the home of my seducer, a former lover, not present, former. I haven’t been with that woman in over ten years. Are you hearing me? Ten years. I came as a favor, nothing more, and I see now what a mistake it was. Hell and damnation. I’m not perverse, and I’m not unfaithful. The only thing I want in this world is you, but I thought you didn’t want me. Are you listening to me, Charlotte?”
He realized as she sobbed into her coat that he was shouting. He leaned back and stared, waiting for a response.
As desperate as he was for her to understand that all he wanted was to love and be loved in return by her, he knew nothing he said would penetrate. Nothing he said sounded believable to her, so convinced she was of his guilt. Slumping forward in defeat, he cradled his head in his hands.
Not a word was spoken until they entered the drive of Lyonn Manor. The carriage rolled down the slope of a hill, slowing as it approached the home.
Charlotte spoke so softly, Drake almost didn’t hear her words. “I want my sister and my aunt,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from crying, her cheeks wet.
All he wanted to do was take her into his arms and hold her, tell her she was the only woman in the world he wanted, tell her she didn’t need her family because he was her family now. He would do anything she asked of him if she would give him a chance to be a husband instead of a stranger. He wanted to console her, tell her he would fix everything if she could believe him long enough to trust his confessions.
Instead, he replied, “I’ll leave a bank note on the parlor desk, enough to fund their trip north.”
Without a word, Charlotte leapt out of the carriage when the footman opened the door.
Chapter 16
Both Charlotte’s sister Lizbeth and her Aunt Hazel accepted the invitation, setting Charlotte at ease. The two-week delay for travel would feel like a century, but she held great confidence they would know what to do. Knowing they would brave such a journey for her, especially after having returned home from London barely a month ago, did wonders for her esteem.
Granted, Charlotte’s letters had sounded quite desperate, but she’d been distraught. Excluding specifics, she had informed them of C
atherine’s domination and the misery of living with Drake. If they couldn’t help her sort this mess, the least they could do was smuggle her back home.
Was it too much to ask for a happy marriage and successful life? Instead, she’d suffered the tyranny of her mother-in-law and alienation by a husband who was undoubtedly a wickedly sinful man. Did she dare tell her sister and aunt the truth? Lizbeth had been right about him being a disreputable rake, but she would have never guessed how disreputable.
Charlotte wasn’t even certain of the truth. How sinful of a life did the man live? All his denials meant nothing in light of what she’d seen with her own eyes and what she’d experienced, nearly being ravished by those beasts.
In the days following “the incident,” as she called it, she tried to come to terms with her life. Despite the strides made over the past few weeks, Charlotte reminded herself she had no real voice in the marriage or in the management of the household. She would only serve the Mowbrah family if she dutifully bore a brood of sons, one son right after the other.
At least in that, she could raise her voice of descent. Sons could only be born if Drake bedded her, and she would ensure that never happened, not unless he magically became another man. Thinking back to the man she’d known in London was depressing, a man who dazzled her with his smiles and embraces, who lavished her with attention and promised her the world, a man who’d seemed, at the time, a far cry from a hedonist. A flirtatious dandy, yes, but not a hedonist.
Charlotte clung to the knowledge he’d deceived her in his true identity. She clung to this knowledge as a life line when, four days after the incident, she found a daisy chain on her pillow and freshly cut daisies scattered across her bed. This was the first of a week’s worth of surprises.
The fourth day began with a heavy rain that stormed out Charlotte’s planned bazaar for the tenantry, forcing her to postpone the festival until the following weekend. The rain blew sideways against the windows, bringing with it howling winds and a gray veil. Outside looked how Charlotte felt inside.
She spent the morning trapped in the parlor feeling sorry for herself, with only Captain Henry’s feathery charm and squawking wit to keep her company.
She embroidered for most of the morning, played a game with Mary in the afternoon, and then when her mother-in-law visited the conservatory, Charlotte snuck into the Red Drawing Room to amuse herself with the pianoforte. Not since leaving London had she played, and her fingers itched to give the instrument a try.
The experience was exhilarating. Only at the ducal townhouse in London had she played a pianoforte. Her home instrument, as well as the instrument of choice in London drawing rooms, was a harpsichord, so it had come as a shock to find a pianoforte at the duke’s townhouse.
Standing in the drawing room on the fourth day, fingering the instrument, she felt a warm thrill tickle down her spine. A walnut body with iron strings, leather hammers, and dynamic promises. She depressed a key. The voice was soft, mellow. She depressed it again, putting more weight behind her intention. The sound changed. It shouted back at her. With a start, she stepped back and stared, wonderous at its ability to turn a whisper into speech.
Fascinated, she sat and experimented, attempting the softest of murmurs and the loudest of cries, loving especially the breathy tone when she caressed the keys. Though she knew no songs that changed volume, she longed to create a conversation with notes.
No one was the wiser for a solid hour until none other than the dowager duchess herself stepped inside to cease the noise. Charlotte knew she wasn’t particularly skilled, but she was more accomplished than to have her playing called noise. If the woman hated music so much, why was there a pianoforte in the drawing room?
She retired to her room, claiming a headache to avoid dinner and the sideways glances from Drake who’d been begging to have a private word with her every day since the incident.
That was when she saw it. She stepped into her bedchamber and saw the flower-covered bed. A chain of daisies tied together by their own stems serpentined on her pillow, three loops in size. She wanted to swoon and press the flowers to her bosom, wear the chain in her hair as a garland, wrap it around her neck as jewelry, dance with it, and admire it for the time and affection that must have gone into making it.
She resisted the flattery, for she knew who fashioned the chain. That bounder. That rogue. Did he think he could bribe her back into his good graces, strikethrough what she witnessed at that house of sin? It would take more than daisies to move her. When Beatrice arrived with a dinner tray, Charlotte requested the flowers be discarded.
On the fifth day, the rain still beating Northumberland into submission, Charlotte found a book of poems topped with a freshly cut rose sitting in the Gray Parlor. The book and rose were hardly difficult to miss since they perched atop her embroidery pattern.
Curious, she peeked at the book. Elegiac Sonnets by Charlotte Smith. Cheeky to find a book of poems by a woman named Charlotte. She’d never been much of a reader, at least not as voracious as her sister, so this book of poems went to show how little Drake knew her. All the same, she was curious to see what her namesake wrote, so she thumbed through it.
Hours later, a clash of thunder disturbed her reverie. Had she been reading undisturbed for so long?
The words spoke the sentiments of her heart, expressing the sorrow she suffered combined with the hope she kindled. It was quite shocking to see mournful elegies alongside love sonnets, but the combination was shocking to Charlotte. She couldn’t understand how Drake knew to choose poems that reflected her emotions so well.
How could he know what she felt, he who was self-absorbed and salacious? What did a spoiled duke know of sorrow or yearning? The book was an overwrought display of emotions that had no business being in anyone’s library, especially when it so accurately captured her feelings.
That evening, she gave both the rose and book to Beatrice.
On the sixth day, the rain reducing its cruelty to a dull drizzle, Charlotte explored the house. She walked into every room and spoke to every servant who crossed her path. There was no doubt she’d married into wealth, obscene wealth. Each room was decorated into a theme, and most rooms didn’t appear to have a purpose other than to look pretty or impressive. Oh, she would love to host house parties and soirées, really make use of the house, breathe life into it.
Though her time at Lyonn Manor had been dotted with blemishes, she was learning the rhythm of the household and better able to ascertain what needed to be changed and what didn’t. The overabundance of footmen, for example, was more to do with the local youth needing jobs than it was to showcase the wealth. Charlotte felt guilty for wanting to dismiss them all, thinking them extraneous and bored—who would want to stand around all day opening doors? The steward had arranged the hires, and Lady Annick hadn’t objected.
After a lengthy but satisfying day, Charlotte entered her dressing room to change for dinner. Much to her shock, her dressing table was dramatically covered with vases of roses, all surrounding a slender box wrapped with ribbons.
Her eyes narrowed. She shouldn’t open the box and should send the roses to the servant quarters. But it couldn’t hurt to peek. Just a flash of a glance to satisfy curiosity. No harm came from looking. She waited until the lady’s maid dressed her, the whole time smelling the roses and glancing back at the box.
After Bea curled and styled Charlotte’s hair, Charlotte braved to look. She unwrapped it one ribbon at a time, ignoring her maid who snatched up the ribbons to braid into her mistress’ hair. Hopefully, Drake wouldn’t notice they were the same ribbons and think she meant to send him a subtle signal of her forgiveness.
She would not forgive so easily. He had embarrassed her on the drive from London, dumped her on his mother, sought nightly attentions at decadent parties, and finally tried to ravish her in the carriage. No, she would not forgive so easily.
The la
st ribbon untied, she lifted the lid. Bea gasped for them both.
“That’s some glamorous, Your Grace. You could buy a country with that! Will you wear it tonight?” Beatrice asked.
An emerald necklace sparkled up at them, winking and teasing, making love to them both with its seductive beauty. Charlotte replaced the lid and stared at Bea wide-eyed in the mirror’s reflection.
She shook her head before removing the lid for another peek. What would it hurt if she tried it on? Trying it on didn’t mean she would wear it, much less accept it.
Bribe? Peace offering? Red herring? Her fingers traced the row of nine emeralds, the green tears dangling from leaf-shaped clusters of diamonds. The touch of the gems chilled her skin as she slipped it around her neck, holding it to her bare chest. She could keep this one gift without compromising her pride, couldn’t she? Yes, just this one gift she would keep.
On the seventh day, the gardens were sun-washed at last. Charlotte sent out new invitations for the rescheduled bazaar, her task accompanied by the warbling birds outside of the parlor, sounds that excited Captain Henry, as well as her. Unable to resist their call, she took a walk through the gardens. The ground was muddy, but nothing her new boots couldn’t handle.
Her first walk was through the kitchen gardens. She found inspiration for new menu items from the orchards, fruits, herbs, and vegetables. When she circled through the formal gardens, she met with the head gardener who was cleaning muck from the fountain after the multi-day rainstorm. She admired the horses riding a frothy wave atop the fountain, and then stopped to chat with the gardener about her plans for the conservatory. He was elderly, shambled when he walked, and asked her to repeat herself at least three times after every sentence, but he was notably kind.
After changing out of her mud-slushed walking dress, she checked that Catherine was with Mary in the conservatory, and then snuck off to the drawing room for an hour of solitude with the pianoforte.
A hand-penned piece lined the music rack, no title or composer listed. A quick sight read wouldn’t hurt, she told herself. Nothing about the style recalled familiarity, the left hand heavily chorded with the right hand fingering an arpeggio-laden melody. The chord progressions were ambitious with more minor chords than major, relying often on all five fingers and overlapping with the right hand in some phrases, the key signature changing frequently.
DukeAndEnchantress_PGolden-eBooks Page 15