The Virgin and the Rogue

by Jordan, Sophie

  He moved, pumping his bigger body between her thighs, driving hard, harder. Her whimpers turned into cries buried in the cup of his hand.

  The salty taste of his skin against her mouth, the press of his fingers into her cheeks added to the intensity of the moment, twisting the ache tighter and tighter within her.

  His head fell into the crook of her neck and his teeth bit down on her shoulder as he choked out her name. “Charlie . . .”

  He rode her, and she took it all, desperate for more, for everything, an end to the anguish. An end to the twisting throb.

  She arched under him, the mounds of her breasts pushed into his firm chest, the chafing pressure against her nipples incredibly erotic.

  Her vision blurred and darkened at the edges as her body let go. Snapped in an explosive release.

  The muscles of her sex squeezed in a searing flash of pleasure and pain.

  Sensations rippled through her. Too powerful, too intense, too everything.

  A stinging curse fell from his lips as he drove into her several more times before stilling over her, freezing as he poured the proof of his desire into her.

  He collapsed over her, his hand slipping free from her mouth.

  She lay still for a moment, his bigger body still cradled between her thighs, his member still lodged inside her.

  Her muscles felt like jam. She was nothing more than a puddle.

  As her pleasure ebbed, a great lethargy stole over her.

  He rolled off her and she turned, curling into his side with a contented sigh. His arm draped over her waist.

  Had she not been sleepy earlier? Amazing considering how very tired she was now.

  Her eyes drifted shut. So tired . . . so tired she could just sleep an eternity with Samuel’s arm wrapped around her.

  Chapter 24

  Charlotte fell asleep almost instantly and Kingston was left gazing at her beside him. Propped up on one elbow, he watched her chest rise and fall in slow even breaths. He could watch her like this all night.

  She was in his bed.

  He should probably wake her so that she could remove herself to her own bed. She couldn’t possibly want to be discovered here like this. Even if she wasn’t betrothed to another man, it would be scandalous.

  The reminder of her betrothal stung—had him scowling and killing off the glorious aftermath of his own release.

  The Samuel Kingston of a year ago would not have cared if the woman sharing his bed was attached or not.

  He would gladly have been used by any lady—attached or unattached. He would have thrown himself at the altar of desire and not cared one bloody damn about where his bed partner spent the rest of her days.

  Now he cared. Damnation, he cared. He cared too much.

  In the lamplight, her features were soft and relaxed. She looked so young. Innocent. Far too innocent for the likes of him. He might not be indiscriminate when it came to his bed partners any longer, but he was still jaded, still unworthy of her.

  With that final thought, he crept from his bed. No. Not his bed. This was Warrington’s house. This bed was not his. Nothing here was his. He didn’t belong in this place.

  He dressed quietly, the whisper of fabric the only sound in the chamber. He watched her where she slept, so still and peaceful in slumber. Fully dressed, he paused at the foot of the bed. Staring down at her, he almost willed her to wake so he could admire her lovely eyes one last time—see them seeing him.

  He wasn’t that selfish. He knew what that would lead to—just another tumble in the sheets. Shaking his head, he gathered his things and slipped silently from the room, closing the door behind him.

  He took the servants’ back staircase and was almost to the door when a voice stopped him.

  “Leaving without saying goodbye?”

  Kingston turned with a tight smile for his stepbrother. “I did not think it would matter greatly to you. You’ve wanted me gone since I arrived. I suppose I should thank you for not tossing me out the first day I showed my face here.”

  Warrington shrugged. “My wife would not have allowed that.” He paused, but his gaze held tight on him. “Are you certain you want to leave?”

  A smile played on Kingston’s lips. “Don’t tell me you will miss me?”

  “I won’t . . . but someone else might.”

  Kingston’s smile slipped. “No.” He shook his head. “I won’t be missed.”

  “Is that what you think?” This last question was dropped heavily. There was no mistaking his implication. Warrington knew exactly how he had spent his evening . . . and with whom.

  Deciding not to play at denials, he said, “She will be better off without me.”

  Warrington nodded slowly. “You might be right, but I’m not certain she would agree with that.”

  “She’s for someone else.”

  He snorted. “Pembroke? She won’t go through with that. She told as much to Marian. Said she was going to end it.”

  Exhilaration swept through him before he quelled it. As gratified as that made him, it didn’t change the fact that she deserved someone better. Someone who could give her the life she wanted.

  He hefted his satchel higher on his shoulder and held out a hand for the duke to shake. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

  Warrington hesitated before taking his hand. “I’m sure we will see each other again soon.”

  Kingston did not bother disagreeing. It was not worth arguing.

  Turning, he left Haverston Hall, certain he would not be coming back.

  Charlotte woke alone in the haze of early dawn.

  She stretched out a hand on the bed to find nothing. Only empty space. No Samuel.

  She lifted her head to look over the bed, assuring herself that she was not mistaken. He was gone. Truly gone. Samuel had left. She was alone.

  She vaulted from bed, having no desire to be caught in his bedchamber by the staff. She could well imagine the horror of one of the maids discovering her.

  As she hastily slipped her nightgown over her head, she moved toward the armoire, flinging open the doors, only to find it empty. No clothes. All of his things were gone . . . as she had feared.

  He was truly gone. Not just from the room, but from the house.

  And could she blame him?

  He thought she was still going to marry William. He didn’t know the truth. As far as he was concerned she was still betrothed to another, but he’d pursued her even knowing that. She thought she’d have time to tell him in the morning. She’d meant to tell him of her change in circumstances then.

  Although she did not know if it would have mattered. After all, he had left.

  He hadn’t stayed for her. And perhaps even more hurtful . . . he had not stayed for himself. She had not been enough to compel him to remain.

  She inhaled a steadying breath.

  Resolve filled her, flooding through her and finding every tiny little corner where doubt and hurt dwelled.

  All those little hollows hurt a fraction less now. She felt better. Stronger. Emboldened. Undefeated by life.

  Everything was fine. She would be fine. She had not broken it off with William with the expectation of anything lasting with Samuel. She knew better than that. She knew what manner of man he was. Last night had been wonderful. She did not regret it. She’d done it for herself. A newly freed Charlotte had done it for herself.

  She marched from Samuel’s room, returning to hers, where she dressed herself.

  Once appropriately attired for the day, she strode down the corridor to her sister’s bedchamber. Day had barely begun to break. She doubted either her sister or Nathaniel had left their bedchamber yet. They were not early to rise. Interestingly enough, her sister had been early to rise. Before she married Nathaniel.

  She never would have dared to disturb them before. Before she became this new person. A gloriously resolved person as she was now.

  She knocked briskly on the door.

  Indistinct voices carried through the w
ood.

  When she was not immediately awarded with a bid of entrance, she knocked again, this time louder. She was not in a patient mood.

  Marian opened the door wrapped tightly in her dressing gown, her hair tousled in charming disarray, her cheeks flushed an equally charming pink.

  Clearly Charlotte had interrupted something. Something she now understood firsthand after her night with William, and she could not help the swift stab of envy because her sister was fortunate enough to have that whenever she wanted.

  Charlotte wouldn’t have that ever again. At least she could not imagine she would. Samuel was gone. She could not imagine wanting anyone else.

  Pushing aside inappropriate thoughts of shagging, she focused on the task at hand and what had brought her to her sister’s bedchamber so early.

  “Charlotte? Is everything—”

  “I’ve broken my engagement to William,” she blurted, eager to have the words finally out.

  Marian blinked and glanced back inside the room. Charlotte tracked her gaze to where her husband reclined in the bed.

  The duke had not bothered to cover himself. He was defiantly sprawled upon the bed, his well-formed chest bare, the sheets tugged up to his waist in the barest nod to modesty.

  Marian turned wide eyes back on Charlotte. “Oh. You did then. How . . . um, when?”

  “Yesterday,” she announced. “I did not want to distract you from your guests, but now that they’re gone I don’t want to wait another moment. I imagine the Pembrokes will call on you today. They will be very unpleasant, I am sure. You shall have to endure that, and for that, I apologize.”

  “Don’t fret about that.” Marian sent another quick glance to her husband. “I have to ask, Char . . . did you do this because of Mr. Kingston?” Her sister lifted her chest on a breath, looking almost in fear of her answer.

  Charlotte lacked the heart to tell her the truth.

  It had everything to do with Kingston.

  He’d changed her. Changed her for the better. She might have fallen in love with him, and he might have left, but she would never regret ending her betrothal. Just as she would not regret their night together.

  “It has naught to do with him,” she lied, knowing her sister would otherwise hold him to blame. She might even go after him. She did not wish for her sister to be at odds with her brother-in-law for some imagined slight to Charlotte.

  “He is gone,” Nathaniel announced from the bed.

  Charlotte’s gaze whipped back to him. He knew that then, did he? She forced her expression into stoic resolve, revealing none of her inner turmoil, none of her aching heart.

  “He left in the middle of the night,” he elaborated. “I—er . . . happened upon him in the corridor.”

  “In the middle of the night?” she echoed, wondering if he knew how Samuel had spent the night. She looked to Marian, wondering if she knew, too.

  Marian looked intently at her husband. “Did you know he was leaving?” she demanded. “You didn’t say anything to make him leave, did you?”

  He looked mildly affronted. “No. I would not do that.”

  “Whatever the case, it does not matter,” Charlotte insisted with a wave of her hand. She knew Samuel well enough to know that no one made him do anything. He’d left because he’d wanted to leave. “I simply wanted you to know that I ended the betrothal, and I wanted to ask a favor of you . . .”

  Charlotte paused, realizing in that moment how very important it was to her that her sister agreed to her request.

  “Yes?” Marian prompted.

  “I’d like the house. You promised it to me upon marriage to William, and I’d still like it. I want it for myself.” She moistened her lips. “I want to live there.”

  Marian blinked, staring at her.

  Charlotte continued, “I don’t expect you to fund me entirely. At least not forever. I can open my own dressmaking shop and conduct business from home. The Hansens operate the only shop in the area and they have more business than they can manage. The shire is large enough to support more than one seamstress.”

  “Of course, Char. The house is as much yours as it is mine. You needn’t my permission to move in.”

  “Nor must you press yourself into work . . . unless you want to,” her brother-in-law spoke from the bed.

  Relief blossomed in her chest at their kind and generous support. “Thank you. I shall begin moving my things back home posthaste.”

  “So soon? You need not rush.”

  She shrugged. “It will always be home to me. I am eager to return.”

  “It was rather nice having you here with us.”

  “It was . . . and I thank you for your hospitality, but I miss home.”

  “It’s only down the road, Marian,” Nathaniel gently assured her. “She is not moving across the country. I am certain you will see each other often.”

  Charlotte nodded in agreement. “Of course we will.” Smiling in promise, she backed away, keen to begin packing and start living her life. Her life as a free woman.

  Chapter 25

  Kingston reached the next village well before the doubts settled over him like a dark pall.

  He forced himself to keep going, however, pushing his mount through that first village and on to the next one, calling himself all kinds of fool. Weak. Delusional.

  He was simply enamored. Last night had only whetted his appetite for her.

  The act of congress had been familiar. Something missed. It was only that. That was the cause of this bewildering longing.

  Sex had always been about using someone for gratification. For pleasure. He admitted that to himself with no sense of pride. After seeing his mother . . . he’d had no taste for empty pleasure. It held no allure. It did not tempt him.

  Until Charlotte.

  She might have only been about pleasure seeking, but it was more than that for him.

  Certainly there had been physical pleasure, but there had also been more. For him, for the first time, strange as it seemed, it had been about need. Closeness.

  She did not feel what he felt. That much was evident.

  He might be good enough for a dalliance but nothing else. Not anything lasting and significant, otherwise she would not have come to his bed whilst bound to another man.

  He knew enough of this particular woman to know that.

  She may very well be marrying another man. Or she may not.

  He didn’t know, and it didn’t matter, and she had not seen fit to tell him either way.

  She didn’t view him as a matrimonial prospect, as someone she could build a life with, because he wasn’t. He wasn’t worthy of her.

  He’d left to preserve himself. To protect what dignity he had left . . . and what little heart he possessed.

  He’d be damned if he stuck around Brambledon to watch her walk down the aisle into the arms of another man. He wasn’t a sadist.

  Never once had she given him the impression that he was worthy.

  Except she had.

  The sudden realization assaulted him like a blow.

  When she’d found him in the kitchen she had been looking for him. She had tracked him down to see how he was faring. He was the one who had turned the encounter into something of a carnal nature.

  When she’d kissed him back and joined him in his room, in his bed, she’d surrendered herself to him in complete trust.

  That meant something.

  For a woman such as she, it meant everything.

  This thought had him lurching upright in the bed of a room of an inn whose name he could not recall, in a village whose name also eluded him.

  He stared blindly into the dark, seeing so very clearly now what had been obscured to him before.

  She would not have come to his bed void of emotion.

  He should have stayed. He should have waited until she woke and asked her what she felt for him.

  He should have asked her not to marry Pembroke.

  He should have told her he loved her.
/>
  Bloody hell.

  He rose from bed and hastily dressed. Leaving the inn, he fetched his mount from the nearby stables himself. He’d have to ride carefully in the dark, but with any luck he’d be back at Haverston Hall before tomorrow night. Well before her wedding.

  Well in time to persuade her to take a chance on loving him.

  Charlotte moved all her things into her house, returning them, as far as she was concerned, to their proper place.

  Her clothing. Her books. Her small collection of mostly paste jewelry.

  Her knitting and sewing, including the basket of fabric scraps that had belonged to her mother. The large basket contained buttons and swatches that had come from Mama’s frocks, from dresses Charlotte and her sisters wore as girls. There were even some pieces that had come from her brother’s old vests and shirts. She knew these were only things, but to her it was her family’s legacy. More valuable than jewelry or the most costly heirloom.

  Once the decision had been reached and all the details arranged, it had taken only half a day to move it all. A testament to the fact that she didn’t possess much. Not much save her dignity. She’d felt that particular trait in full abundance as she’d packed up all her worldly belongings. She was claiming her life. Claiming her future happiness.

  Future happiness.

  While she could not claim to be fully happy yet, she felt its impending arrival deep in the marrow of her bones.

  Happiness was coming.

  For now there was contentment. Peace in knowing she was in full control of her fate and would accept nothing less than what she deserved.

  The sting of Samuel’s rejection would fade. The ache of waking up to find him gone . . . The knowledge that she wouldn’t see him again, that he could never be all that she needed . . .

  That pain would fade.

  She guided the carriage down the lane to Haverston Hall with a snap of the reins. Nora sat beside her. She’d accompanied her, insisting on helping her settle in. Nora had worn a smile ever since she learned Charlotte had called off the wedding.

  “Thank you for bringing me home.”

  “No problem at all.”

  “Will you stay for dinner?”