She ducked her pretty blue eyes, staring in fascination at her plate, her chin practically buried in the linen of her matronly fichu.
She was a fair maid with fair eyes just like any other fair maid he spied on Bond Street or standing in the shadow of her mama at the rail station. England was rife with them. All very drab creatures. He’d never spoken to any of them, and he’d never felt the lack.
Apparently he would not have a verbal exchange with this one either.
She ignored him, treating him as though he had not spoken.
“Have you met our parents yet? The Earl and Countess of Norfolk,” Kingston asked with forced levity to the table at large, but mostly to the duchess.
“We have not had that pleasure,” Warrington’s wife answered genially.
“I should love to meet the earl and countess,” Mrs. Pembroke eagerly chimed in, her gaze flitting back and forth between Kingston and Warrington.
“Hear, hear! We should very much enjoy that,” her husband seconded, saluting the table’s occupants with his umpteenth glass of whisky. “One can never have too many friends of influence and with proper pedigree, I always say!”
“I’ve an idea! Perhaps we should invite them to the wedding.” Mrs. Pembroke looked to the duke searchingly, beseechingly, as though it were his decision and not the pair who was in fact getting married and were seated at this very table.
Kingston turned his attention to the happy couple, curious at their reactions.
The Pembroke lad was using his bread to sop up all the juices on his plate, not even appearing aware of the conversation.
Charlotte Langley reached a trembling hand for her glass again, drinking deeply, her eyes briefly looking up at her future mother-in-law before darting back down to the contents of her cup as though that was more interesting than the discussion of her upcoming nuptials. That shaking hand was telling, indicating that she was not perhaps as unaffected as Kingston would have thought. Curious, indeed. He wondered what was truly transpiring behind those cool blue eyes of hers.
“Er, I thought the guest list was already decided weeks ago,” the Duchess of Warrington interjected, speaking when her sister clearly did not seem capable.
Mrs. Pembroke waved a hand. “We can always make changes. Where shall I direct the invitation?”
The young duchess looked across the table to her sister and young Mr. Pembroke. “What would you prefer, Charlotte? William?” she asked, her voice tinged with hope and a dose of encouragement, as though she willed them each to put an end to the matter of the earl and countess being invited.
The lad blinked at being addressed, wiping the back of his hand and catching the buttery dribble that ran down his chin. “Beggin’ your pardon?”
“Oh, William cares not at all about the wedding,” his mother insisted with another wave. “Well, aside from the menu, of course. He might be thin as a rail but he had a hand in organizing the menu. Do you care for custard tartlets? You can thank him if you do, for he’s requested copious amounts.”
Kingston watched as the lad cleaned his plate as if he were a soldier heading into war and this might be the last meal of his life.
“Charlotte did not want a large affair, as I recall,” young Nora contributed, having no difficulty using her voice.
“Charlotte?” Mrs. Pembroke echoed, her expression one of distaste as she looked at her soon-to-be daughter-in-law as though she had forgotten her existence. “I was not aware you had an opinion on such matters, my dear.” The “my dear” felt like an insult and not the gentle kindness the words would indicate. Indeed, the statement was rife with accusation and challenge. The older woman glared at the young woman, daring her to contradict her.
Everyone, in fact, looked to Miss Charlotte Langley, awaiting her response.
Kingston was no different.
He stared, too, vastly interested, for some reason willing the chit to find her backbone and address the old dragon with some mettle and remind her that it was her wedding and she would say who was and was not to be invited.
Come on, lass. Find your tongue.
The young woman cleared her throat and spoke meekly. “I am certain whatever you decide is acceptable, Mrs. Pembroke.”
Shaking his head, Kingston looked away, disappointed, though he wasn’t certain why. He did not know the chit. She was Warrington’s responsibility.
Kingston would be gone tomorrow and not think again of the lass. She’d wed and lose herself in marriage to a gluttonous bore and an overbearing mother-in-law.
Mild-mannered and weak-willed chits were aplenty. What was one more? He should not feel one way or another at her existence.
He should not feel this compulsion to shake her until she came to her senses and asserted herself as any self-respecting person ought to do.
If she wanted to be a doormat that was her concern.
“That’s settled then,” Mrs. Pembroke said with flourish. “You shall invite your parents, Your Grace.”
Nora Langley muttered into her soup bowl.
Even the duchess looked displeased, although she managed to say, “Splendid.”
Warrington inhaled and exhaled out of his nostrils.
Kingston knew there was nothing splendid about it and that was precisely what Warrington was thinking, too. Additionally, his father and stepmother were vain, shallow hedonists. They would enjoy nothing less than a country wedding.
Warrington would be in misery every moment of their visit.
One thing was for certain. Kingston would be long departed from this place before the wedding or the arrival of his father or stepmother.
After all, there was only so much wretchedness a person could endure.
Chapter 4
Something was not right.
All throughout dinner the sensation, the aching discomfort, only grew.
Following dinner, Charlotte excused herself and managed to make it to her bedchamber, where she hastily shed her clothes as though they burned her skin and climbed into bed.
It was bad. Terrible. The queasiness was unlike any other time.
The symptoms were different. More . . . pronounced.
She curled into a ball and dragged the pillow between her legs, hugging it tightly. Usually she endured the twinges of pain until they passed. The slight cramping that was improved by hot-water bottles and Nora’s tonic. She would keep to bed for twelve hours until it passed.
This was not like that.
This did not feel in any way endurable.
She was vaguely aware of her bedchamber door opening and closing and footsteps approaching her bed.
She inhaled and exhaled in slow, even drags of air, her fingers digging into the soft linen pillowcase.
Her sisters’ voices carried to her ears. Even in her current condition, there was no mistaking the agitation in Marian’s voice floating above her.
“What did you do, Nora? She does not look right at all.”
“It was simply a draught, Marian. A cordial of various herbs. Nothing I haven’t prepared before . . . just not in that precise arrangement. And I might have added a few new ingredients. You know I’m always trying to improve my tonics.” Nora waved a hand weakly in Charlotte’s general direction.
Her words penetrated the dull fog of her brain. Charlotte lifted her head from the bed and focused on her sisters. “She’s poisoned me!” she managed to spit out between her teeth, pushing the pillow harder, deeper between her thighs, as though that might quench the growing ache there.
“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic.” Nora tsked. “I gave you nothing dangerous and the doses were all well within reason.”
The throbbing in her abdomen gave a deep tug, almost seeming to belie her sister’s words. Charlotte curled up tighter and moaned.
“Nora!” Marian said in sharp reprimand, waving to Charlotte on the bed. “Look at her!”
“She’s not dying,” Nora insisted, but there was a wobble of uncertainty in her voice that Charlotte did not miss even i
n her agitated state. “It was merely a remedy to help relieve her women’s pains.”
“I am dying!” Charlotte insisted as she pressed the pillow ever deeper between her legs.
Marian frowned down at her. “Well, let’s make some tea for her. Papa always insisted on the importance of fluids to help flush the sickness through one’s body.”
Nora nodded and left the room. Marian sank down on the bed beside her and pressed a hand to her forehead. “Oh, dear. You are a bit warm.”
Charlotte whimpered and looked up at her sister. “Marian . . . this is wretched.”
“I know, dear. Just close your eyes. Sleep is healing. I’m sure you will wake refreshed in the morning.”
Charlotte managed a weak nod.
Marian was right, of course. She usually was.
Please, please, let her be correct.
She would sleep. Yes. And when she woke up in the morning she would feel refreshed.
She would feel as though this had all been a bad dream.
Charlotte woke alone to a silent bedchamber.
Logs smoldered in her fireplace, emitting a low glow, saving her from complete darkness.
Beside her bed, her long-cold tea sat. Her sisters had forced a cup down her throat and she had soon managed to fall asleep after that. The hour was late. An inky darkness swelled between the crack of her damask drapes. It was the kind of darkness that only existed in the quietest, loneliest hours of night. Her sisters had clearly gone to their own beds.
Now Charlotte was awake. Achingly and miserably awake. Sleep could no longer shield her. It could not suppress the wild fury that roared within her, singeing her blood.
When she had fallen asleep before, her body hurt.
At least she had thought her body hurt.
Now she knew true misery.
Her body was afire.
Usually her discomfort was centered in her abdomen, low in her belly, but this time it was different. Vastly different. Terrifyingly different.
All of her hurt. Every fiber and pore. Her body was a plucked and vibrating string, humming out her pain.
She couldn’t make sense of it.
The only thing different this time around was the tonic Nora had given her. It had tasted different, and Nora admitted it was different.
Maybe she truly was dying. She turned her face into her pillow and released a muffled sob as her stomach twisted.
Nora.
She was responsible for this. She could fix it. She had to fix it. Otherwise, Charlotte would die. She felt certain of that. Nora was the only one who could help. Dear God. She had to stop it.
She could not tolerate another moment of this.
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sucked in a deep breath. It didn’t help. If anything, it made the burn worse.
She knew she should make the effort to reach her dressing robe across the room where it draped over the settee, but she couldn’t be bothered. The struggle to reach the bedchamber door was great enough. Besides. It was late. The entire household was asleep. She would not be bumping into anyone in the corridor who might see her attired in her nightgown.
She managed to stagger from her room without collapsing. With one hand pressed against the wall of the corridor, she dragged herself down the hall toward her sister’s room. Each step was an act of labor. The hardest thing she had ever done. Walking had become a challenge.
Good heavens, she was in trouble.
All the more reason to reach Nora’s room.
She pressed on.
Her palm skimmed the wood paneling as she advanced, the cool texture under her skin doing nothing to ease her full-body burn. There was no way she could move any faster. Her legs felt leaden. The fever was too great . . . the throbbing in her stomach clawing now. She choked back an undignified sob.
“Are you unwell?”
The deep masculine voice shot through her like a bolt of lightning.
She jerked with a whimper, flinging her body against the wall, arms wide at her sides in a gesture of surrender.
She froze, pressing against the paneling as though she could somehow meld herself into the wood where she would be protected.
Her gaze found the owner of that voice. No. Not him.
That dreadful man from dinner. Nathaniel’s stepbrother.
His expression at dinner had alternated between boredom and contempt. She’d felt his judgment keenly. He hadn’t been impressed with her. With any of them. Clearly they did not meet his sophisticated tastes. She was relieved when, at the end of dinner, he had announced he would be leaving the next morning.
Now his expression was one of mild concern. She’d prefer he look bored again. Right now he looked far too interested in her. She did not want his interest. She wanted him gone.
Especially considering her physical state.
For some reason the throbbing between her legs tightened and twisted as he approached, closing in on her.
She shook her head. No. Go away.
The closer he drew, the greater the agony. She bit her lip until she felt the wash of blood against her teeth—and still that pain was nothing compared to her body’s torment.
Her condition seemed to be worsening the closer he drew to her. She had to get away.
She held out a hand in an attempt to ward him off—and that was its own form of anguish because she had the awful and completely foreign impulse to grab him, pull him in, bring him closer.
It was horrifying, but so was the completely out-of-control way she felt.
Her body was in rebellion—its own master. Rejecting her thoughts . . . her will, her commands . . . willing her to do terrible things, impulses she had never even known existed.
Like touch a man. Burrow her nose in his neck and breathe him in.
Taste him.
He stopped in front of her, his gaze fixing on the hand she held out to stop him and then flitting back to her face.
She knew. Deeply. On a primordial level. He could not touch her. She would not survive that.
“You don’t look . . . well, Miss Langley.”
Oh, she was not well. She was in hell. It was an unladylike thought, but she could feel no shame or regret for it because it was the truth.
She pressed herself harder into the wall, twisting in on herself to resist the urge to arch her spine and thrust out her chest.
She wanted to feel him even there. Against her breasts.
How could this be?
This had to be hell. All the fiery descriptors she heard from the pulpit every Sunday could only be this.
He took another step closer, and she slapped her hand on the air. “Not another step closer,” she warned weakly.
His eyes widened—whether at the command or the hoarse quality of her voice, she did not know. Whatever the case, he ignored her. “Come. Let me assist you. You do not look well. Would you like me to fetch your sister?”
He dared to take hold of her elbow to guide her from where she plastered herself to the wall. It was the gentlemanly thing to do. He could not know the torment he inflicted on her with that circumspect touch.
She hissed at the weight of that hand on her arm, at the stinging heat of him singeing her through the barriers of their clothing. It was only the most prudent of touches, but it felt more. Much more. Intimate and penetrating. A breach to her person.
He lifted his hand from her arm at her reaction. “Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head wildly and turned back for her room—where she could die alone and in peace, without a too-handsome, sophisticated gentleman watching her like she was some manner of bug beneath a magnifying glass.
“Miss Langley?” he called after her.
“Leave . . . me . . . alone,” she ground out between tightly clenched teeth. She feared unclenching them would loose the scream she kept tucked inside.
She staggered away, clawing at the wall and doors for support as she passed. It was too hard, and her room loomed so far away. She couldn’t do it.
She couldn’t reach it.
“Miss Langley,” he tried again.
His hand brushed her arm and she moaned as though he’d taken a hot poker to her. No. Not a hot poker. A poker would hurt.
This was pleasure. So profound and intense that it made her lose her mind.
He pulled back his hand and held it aloft, fingers spread wide as though showing her he was unarmed.
She bumped into a door latch. A quick glance down confirmed it was the library. There was a large sofa in there. Perfect. She could go die on that sofa just as easily as her own bed.
She struggled with the latch. Yes, struggled. No longer would she take such simple things for granted. Assuming she lived, of course.
“Miss Langley?”
Ugh. He was still here? “Go ’way,” she tossed over her shoulder.
“Have you been imbibing?”
Imbibing? Indeed she had. Only not spirits. She had been imbibing one of her sister’s fool remedies.
Never again. She was finished taking anything Nora gave her. Again, assuming she survived, she would never again take one of her sister’s tonics. Clearly Papa had been too trusting in her proficiency.
Success! She finally managed to turn the latch and passed into the room, but for some reason she tripped over her own feet. Or perhaps her legs simply gave out. She didn’t know, but she landed hard on the Aubusson rug with a moan. She rolled onto her side and curled into a ball.
It appeared to be her preferred position.
Her gaze fastened on the man towering over her. He wore an expression of alarm—and then he was bending over her, scooping her up in his arms with nary a grunt. This evidence of his power triggered a deep tug between her legs.
“I have you,” he murmured, and the husk of his breath near her ear shot sensation straight to her groin. She moaned, squeezing her thighs together, attempting to assuage the throbbing ache.
No!
She shook her head even as she couldn’t resist curling into the delicious hardness of his body. Twisting at the waist, she pushed her breasts into the firm wall of his chest, instinctively seeking the comforting solidness, enjoying the pressure against breasts that felt achy and heavy. Strange, that. Her bosom was small and never much cause for notice. Now, though, the twin mounds were as sensitive as the rest of her and felt as heavy as melons. Weighty, swollen melons.
The Virgin and the Rogue Page 3