Another arrow. All she needed was another arrow, another go at the target, and—and oh, Lord, why was she so weak? Why had all her strength left her suddenly and sharply, as if the strings guiding her movements had been loosened?
She was going to weep. She never wept. Especially in front of someone like Robert Duke, who saw every weakness in you before you’d found them yourself. But Robert wasn’t pointing, or laughing—he was coming closer, much closer, as the bow slipped from her trembling hand.
The grass was wet as she sank downwards. Cold dew seeped into the dress, dampening her legs and thighs, but Robert’s arms were warm as he ran to catch her. He held her to his chest, the soft linen of his shirt full of warm, nostalgic scents that Charlotte greedily breathed in as she wept.
She couldn’t do this. She had far too much dignity to cling to a man and weep, even if said man carried the faint perfume of forests and cigars. But the more Charlotte tried to convince herself to stand up, the more she wanted to curl against Robert and cry.
‘It just gets… gets tiring.’ She got out the words with difficulty as tears threatened to overwhelm her. ‘I can ignore it for most of the day. Most of my life. But sometimes it can’t be avoided—people think me weak, or tell me so, because I’m not a man. And I know that science tells us it’s true, that literature tells us it’s true, but—but oh, it burns! Especially when I was stronger than everyone today, stronger than you, and everyone was so determined to act as if it never happened!’
‘But it did happen. You beat me soundly. Your arrow was dead-centre.’
‘And your arrow didn’t split mine exactly down the middle!’
‘I know. I know it didn't.’ Robert’s breath was warm as he murmured the words into her hair. ‘And no matter how many important people and important books say women are weaker, it’s never been my experience. I don’t think any man of sense believes it—not if he’s lived in the real world for more than a day.’
‘Most writers and men of science don’t live in the real world for more than an hour.’
‘Well, there you go. That’s why they write stupid things.’ Robert paused. Charlotte closed her eyes, half-sure that he had pressed his lips to her hair. ‘Things that aren’t true.’
She had never been so close to him. Never so close to anyone. How utterly, utterly strange that Robert, her smiling, sarcastic enemy, could be so comforting. Stranger still that she would so willingly accept being comforted by him—that it would feel so very, very good.
Good, like the kiss. Like the sparring, teasing comments they exchanged with one another during the competition, before it all went wrong.
Had he always had this tenderness in him? Was he this gentle with others when they broke down—with women he knew?
No. He couldn’t be. Even if it was none of her business exactly who he comforted.
‘You’re… you’re being kind.’ She looked up at him, wishing her voice could tremble a little less. ‘Why are you being kind to me?’
‘Well… someone could be watching. Or listening.’
‘In the gardens, in the dark?’
‘We’re both out here, aren’t we?’ Robert shrugged. The intensity in his eyes dampened the lightness in his voice. ‘Others could be too.’
‘Yes.’ He didn’t believe it any more than she did. But—but it was suddenly important now, so very important, to behave as if it were true. ‘When you put it like that, it’s—it’s a very reasonable thought.’
‘We should be careful.’
‘Yes.’ His touch was so warm. Warm enough to light a strange, beguiling fire in every part of her. ‘We should… we should be convincing.’
Had she said those words, or had she thought them? Both. The thought demanded action. Not just the words, something more—something that sent a quick, startling shiver down her spine as she leaned closer to him, realising with a spectacular shock that he was doing the same.
When she kissed him, it was as if a dam broke. A sudden, violent tidal-wave of want that threatened to submerge them both as she wrapped her arms around his neck, gasping as he took the weight of her, holding her close as he took desperate, greedy possession of her mouth. A kiss that built upon the one exchanged a relatively short time ago—but how had she lived without this in the interim? How had she lived without his body pressed against hers, every rigid, unyielding inch of him sending wicked sparks of sensation through her core?
Keeping upright was impossible. The grass made a soft, sweet-smelling bed as she sank downward, pulling Robert by his shirt. More kisses, deeper ones, rawer—but Robert pulled away, staring at her.
‘All I’ve done over these last months is—is plague you.’ His eyes burned with guilt; Charlotte wanted to turn away, but didn’t. She had to match his intensity. ‘Irritate you beyond measure.’
‘Yes.’ Lord, she was breathless. She had to keep control, even if all she wanted to do was continue. Keep kissing him as if it was her last act on earth. ‘Likewise.’
‘Yes.’ Robert paused. ‘So what are we—’
‘We’re irritating one another. Plaguing one another.’ The spark of genius came from somewhere deep within her. ‘That’s all this is.’
‘What do you—’
‘For example.’ Anything to keep his hands on her, his mouth on hers. ‘I would find it irritating in the extreme if you—if you kissed my neck.’
Robert stared. Charlotte stared back, hoping against hope that he would understand. That he would take her bait, understanding all the words she was too frightened to say. When he finally came to her again, a low growl of thrust in his throat as he held her, she couldn’t resist a high, dizzy gasp of delight.
His mouth on her neck was almost better than his lips on hers. He kissed her bare flesh hungrily, as if he’d been craving it; as if he’d wished to hold her exactly as he was now, so tightly she could barely breathe. Charlotte closed his eyes in rapt pleasure as she ran her hands over his linen-clad back, lingering on the muscles beneath, the feeling of his lips on her skin as divine as anything she’d ever dared to imagine.
Would he move lower? Would he want to touch the forbidden parts of her burning beneath her clothes—would he want to kiss her there? Delicious, thrilling possibilities glittered in her mind like stars, a universe of new and untold sensation.
Robert’s voice was husky against her neck as he spoke. ‘Would it vex you further if I moved lower?’
‘Yes. Absolutely yes.’ Charlotte bit her lip, not wishing to sound too fervent. ‘I mean—not that I would know if it irritates me. I’ve never been vexed in such a manner.’
‘I think it’ll vex you intolerably.’ Robert traced a slow, deliberate line of kisses down the curve of her shoulder, his lips grazing the very top of her bodice. Charlotte shivered, melting further into his arms. ‘Much more than a simpler kiss would.’
‘Then vex me. Please.’
Robert’s teasing smile as he nodded made the world shiver on its axis. He reached for her bodice, his palms warm as he cupped the curve of her breasts; Charlotte kissed him fervently to hide her blushes, sure that he could feel her hardening nipples through the thin fabric of her gown. When he began to pull down her bodice, gently but firmly gripping both gown and shift, her answering gasp mingled shame and excitement in equal measure.
She had never been so exposed in a public place before. The thought of someone coming across her like this, reduced to a naked display of sheer lustful pleasure, only made the thrill of it even stronger. Charlotte tried to reject this new, forbidden part of herself, before Robert bent his head to her breasts and removed all capacity for logical thought.
‘Ah!’ Her cry was louder than she had meant it to be; Charlotte bit her lip hard, whimpering as a blaze of pleasure coursed through her body. She knew it could be done, what Robert was doing—she had seen it in the illicit illustrations stolen from the Pembroke library during one edifying night. She had looked at the drawing of the man reverently kissing a woman’s bared breasts as the
woman sighed in ecstasy. But no artist, no matter how talented, could ever have depicted the animal pleasure that came when Robert used his mouth there.
‘You see? It’s very irritating.’
‘Don’t you dare stop.’
‘I have to. It makes your annoyance worse.’
‘But I—oh, you’re a beast. An unrepentant beast.’
Robert didn’t answer. Instead he bent his head back down to her breasts, his tongue hot and skilled against her nipple as he sucked. Charlotte threw her head back, her hair knotting in the grass as she writhed.
She had to touch him too. This had to be made equal, somehow—as it was she merely received pleasure. She wanted to give too. More specifically, she wanted to run her hand down to the bulge she had glimpsed in his breeches and ask him exactly what kind of pleasure to give. But to her extreme annoyance, Robert gently pressed her hands down into the grass as soon as she tried to do exactly that.
This was intolerable. ‘Why can’t I touch you?’
‘Because not touching me seems dreadfully annoying for you.’ Robert looked at her with a smile. ‘Aren’t I meant to annoy you?’
‘You’re annoying me beyond measure.’
‘Good.’ Robert bent his head, kissing her skin as his tone grew reverent. ‘As long as I’m pleasing you as well.’
Please her. That was the only thing Robert wanted to do. The only thing he had ever wanted to do, now that he was thinking clearly—now that he could see his need to irritate her as the debilitating attraction it truly was. All he had ever really wanted to do was give her pleasure, an endless abundance of it, and making love to her on the moonlit grass of Pembroke Manor was the best start he could imagine.
She was so beautiful as she lay beneath him. So ripely sensual, her bared breasts rising and falling as she tried to catch her breath. Robert bent his head to her chest again, pulling a flushed, rose-pink nipple into his mouth and sucking as she gasped.
Yes. That gasp. He wanted that, and moans, and more. He gently circled her other nipple with his thumb, the softness of her skin sending thrills of lust through his rigid cock, and breathed in the scent of her as she cried out aloud. More of this, yes, and again, and again—but he could give her more. He could make her feel much, much more.
Charlotte looked at him with a touch of trepidation in her eyes as he gently parted her legs, stroking his palms along her thighs with a delicious rush of possession. His hands lingering at her inner thighs, tracing slow circles over her hot, silken skin, he moved his head from her breasts to whisper in her ear. ‘I know something that’ll annoy you immensely.’
‘How can anything be more irritating than what you’re already doing?’
‘I promise that it is. But you have to trust me.’ Robert paused, realising the import of what he was about to say. ‘Do you trust me?’
‘Do—do I trust you to annoy me more profoundly than anyone else in the world?’ Charlotte nodded, first tentatively, than with more courage. ‘Yes. I think you’re the only man who can do that.’
The words hummed with a significance that Robert couldn’t help but clutch at, letting it wrap around his heart. Looking away from her gaze, sure that he would say something too serious for the moment at hand, he concentrated on showing her how he felt without speaking.
Slowly, slowly, he bent down to her parted thighs. Kissing where he had stroked before, lost in the soft white froth of her petticoats, he made his way with utmost caution to the golden mass of curls that hid her centre, her inner lips flushed pink with desire as he kissed along her cleft.
‘Ohhh.’ Charlotte’s gasp mingled shock and pleasure. ‘Can you really—’
‘Yes.’
‘And is it—’
‘Irritating? Yes.’ Robert smiled to himself, gently kissing her again. ‘But you’ll just have to bear it.’
How had he lived a single day without doing this? That seemed the only truly unbearable thing. How had he spent all those weeks and months looking at her, speaking to her, arguing with her, without making it up to her exactly like this? He kissed her softly at the meeting of her thighs, tasting her, gradually working up the courage to grip her hips, pull her towards him and feast.
Charlotte’s hands tangled tightly in his hair. Robert redoubled his efforts, shutting out everything but Charlotte’s sighs. Her high, broken moans urging him onward for a long, blissful stretch of time before her legs began to quiver, her thighs tightening around his ears as she reached her peak.
‘Yes.’ He murmured the word to himself, lost in the pleasure he could feel in her. A pleasure mirrored in his aching cock, his own lust—his own sudden, shining certainty that there was no other woman in the world that could make him feel this way. ‘Yes, my love. Come for me.’
The sky was just beginning to lighten. Dew glistened on every blade of grass as smudges of grey began to bleed into the black, the stars fading away to minuscule points of light. Charlotte watched it all with new, startling wonder, the beauty of the earliest morning hours finally revealed to her.
She knew she should feel ecstatic. A part of her did; her core was still trembling with fierce pleasure. But her mind, often her worst enemy, was beginning to play tricks.
‘We should probably move away from the lawns.’ She swallowed, surprised at how hoarse her voice sounded. ‘Before sunrise, at any rate.’
‘Let’s move to the lake. We can go into the dovecote—the doves have moved to the oak tree.’
‘You know an awful lot about Pembroke Manor.’
‘I’m only just realising that I know nothing at all.’ Robert pulled her closer, his lips tracing along her neck as he spoke. ‘On second thoughts, the dovecote is too small. Let’s go to my bedroom.’
‘Your brothers are in every room in that corridor. If one of them wakes?’
‘Then we can go to your bedroom.’ Robert paused. ‘Or… or if one of my brothers wakes up and demands an explanation, I’ll simply tell him.’
‘I have no desire to furnish the Duke desire for gossip in the middle of the night. Besides—what would you tell them?’
‘I don’t know.’ Robert looked at her, his eyes full of a warmth that still took some getting used to. It lit a fire in her every time he looked at her that way. ‘The truth.’
The truth? What did the truth mean when it came to her and Robert Duke? This had begun as—as a desperate solution to a problem. A way of spiting a man who she had been sure, so very sure, disliked her.
And what could truly be said to have changed, despite this sudden, animalistic tide of lust that had swept them both away? What had they become to one another? She had learned that Robert was both principled and gentle, kind and good, albeit as mischievous as ever… and what had Robert learned about her?
That she was as spoiled as she appeared. That she considered money more important than true love, that—that she was exactly as mercenary and overly dramatic as he had always believed her to be. None of her conduct had shown her to be any different.
She wasn’t good enough for him. No—she was good. Just not good enough for Robert, although he appeared to have forgotten this. She had almost forgotten herself, lying here in arms, feeling comfortable. Feeling safe.
‘Well?’ Robert murmured in her ear, gently kissing her. ‘What should I tell them?’
‘... Nothing.’ Gently but firmly, Charlotte moved away. She pulled her gown around herself, restoring herself to decency as Robert looked on, confused. ‘Tell them nothing at all, because—because this is nothing at all.’
She almost winced at the hurt in Robert’s face. ‘Don’t pretend. I know how you look when you lie.’
‘I’m not lying. If you’ll let me explain myself you’ll understand.’
‘I very much doubt that.’
‘Of… of the many things I can be accused of, not knowing my own worth isn’t one of them.’ She paused, trying to find the words. No matter how accurately she chose, they still hurt to say. ‘I know that I have value. I know that I
have worth. And—and I also know that my worth is limited as a potential wife, thanks to the things you’ve said to me.’
Robert’s eyes widened. ‘What do you—’
‘You’ve spent the past months calling me spoiled, vain and privileged. You’ve taken every opportunity possible to remind me that I am, at heart, an unpleasant person. And what’s worse is—is that you’re completely correct.’
‘Charlotte.’ Robert moved closer, taking her hand. He squeezed it as he spoke, his voice low and urgent. ‘None of it meant anything.’
‘No. None of the things I said about you meant anything, because at heart they weren’t true. You’re—you’re a good, kind person.’ Charlotte paused, her eyes filling with tears. ‘And although I know I have worth, well—you’ve made it very clear that I could be kinder. That I could be better. And unlike many other people who say vicious, untrue things, your words were completely accurate.’
‘But I don’t think that about you. Not anymore. Not that I—damn it all, Charlotte, you have to know that I—’
‘I know how you feel about me. You’ve always told me. And—and even if new feelings are introduced, the old sentiments have by no means vanished. I think the old annoyances are there underneath, the old frustrations, and it would only be a short amount of time before they all came out.’
‘You’re talking nonsense. Complete nonsense.’ Robert reached for her hands; Charlotte pulled away, trying to hold firm. ‘We’ve always sparked off of one another like two flints, yes, but—’
‘But nothing. I must become a better person. And—and you need to develop the ability to see me as a better person, Mr. Duke.’ The formality of a surname sounded so silly now that she had said it, but Charlotte clung to it fiercely. ‘Or we’re fooling ourselves.’
‘Everything I’ve ever said until this began has been foolish. Foolish beyond measure.’
‘I’m inclined to agree.’ Charlotte tried to smile, but couldn’t. ‘And my actions before this began merit the same description. We—we must attempt to remedy both before seeing one another again.’
Blushing in Blue: The Brothers Duke: Book Two Page 5