A Lady of His Own bc-3

by Stephanie Laurens

  “Is it easy to get the local fishermen to take one out?”

  Inwardly bemused, Charles answered, encouraged by a nodding Mrs. Cranfield. Then Imogen Cranfield, who’d been dancing with Mr. Farley, returned to her mother’s side, and all became clear.

  Imogen had been a plain, rather dumpy girl; she’d grown into a plainer, still somewhat dumpy woman, but she greeted him quite happily, then turned to Carmichael. In seconds it was apparent just what hopes the Cranfields had of Carmichael.

  Mrs. Cranfield turned to Penny. “Now, dear, you will remember to send me that recipe, won’t you?”

  Penny smiled and pressed her hand. “I’ll send a groom over with it tomorrow.” Sliding her hand onto Charles’s arm, she nodded in farewell.

  Mrs. Cranfield beamed and let them go.

  Another waltz had just commenced. Charles glanced over the heads, noting the dancers, then, taking her arm, he steered her to the French doors left open to the terrace. They stepped out into the cooler air. The terrace was presently deserted; they strolled a little, away from the open doors.

  “That’s four,” she said, halting by the balustrade. “None of them seem at all likely, do they?”

  Stopping beside her, Charles glanced back at the ballroom. “None, however, is out of contention. Gimby was slight. All four are physically capable of having murdered him and, most annoyingly, all four have been in the area for at least four days—over the time Gimby died.”

  “You were hoping only one would have been?”

  “It would have made life simpler.”

  The music drifted out through the windows into the cool stillness of the night. When Charles reached for her she reacted too slowly to prevent him gathering her into his arms. He held her close, far closer than permissible in a ballroom, yet they’d been closer, even recently.

  Their hips brushed, her gown shushed against his trousers as he revolved to every second beat, a slower, far more intimate dance than that being performed inside. As they turned, she glanced briefly about, but there was no one else on the terrace to see. Refocusing on his face, on the strong line of his jaw, the seductive curve of his lips, she stated the obvious. “Charles, this is not a good idea.”

  “Why not?” His voice was a dark caress. “You like it.”

  That was precisely why not. She didn’t dare take a deep breath or her breasts would press against his chest. She looked into his eyes, aware of the compulsion rising in her veins, that had always afflicted her when in his arms. Her senses might leap, alert and tense, but only in expectation; the more time she spent with him, the more often she was in his arms, the more she enjoyed, the more she was tempted, the less resistance she could muster. That had been the case long ago; she hadn’t thought that it still would be, yet it was.

  What she saw in his eyes nearly made her heart stop, sent a lick of something like fear down her spine.

  “Charles, listen to me. We are not, definitely not, revisiting the past.”

  He didn’t smile, didn’t flash his pirate’s grin and return some teasing answer. Instead, he read her eyes, yet she sensed he assessed himself as well before replying, his voice deep and low, “It’s not the past I want to visit.”

  In the ballroom the music ended with a flourish; somewhat to her surprise, he halted and released her, his palm sliding caressingly over her silk-clad hip, a last, illicit, heat-laden caress. Taking her hand, he set it on his sleeve. “Come. We’ve one more stranger to meet.”

  Back inside, he led her to a group of younger gentlemen who’d been partnering the few young ladies present. Most of marriagable age were in London, but for various reasons a few remained.

  The Trescowthicks’ youngest son Mark, an effete, foppish young man not long down from Oxford, was holding court surrounded by his local contemporaries and one other—a tall, thin, dark-complexioned man Penny had never seen before.

  All the local youth accorded Charles a near-godlike status; they instantly came to attention. With his usual bonhomie, he nodded to each, acknowledging them by name, leaving most with their tongues tied.

  Mark Trescowthick, stuttering, hurried to introduce his friend. “Phillipe, the Chevalier Gerond.”

  The Chevalier bowed. Penny bobbed a curtsy. The Chevalier was, she judged, a few years older than Mark, somewhere in his midtwenties. He was as tall as Charles, but blade-thin, appearing rather elongated.

  Charles nodded urbanely. “Chevalier—are you visiting our country, or…?”

  “I have lived here most of my life—my family arrived among the earliest emigrés, fleeing the Terror.” His tone defensive, the Chevalier’s gaze traveled Charles’s face, taking in his un-English features.

  Charles smiled faintly. “My mother, too, was an emigrée.”

  “Ah.” The Chevalier nodded, and looked back to the other members of the group, but they were all waiting on Charles’s direction.

  “What brings you to our neck of the woods, Chevalier? I would have thought London more…rewarding.”

  The Chevalier flushed faintly, but met Charles’s eyes. “I have decisions to make—whether this peace will hold, and if so, whether I should return to France. There is nothing left of my family’s estate, but”—he shrugged—“the land is still there.” He looked over the room. “It is, if not quiet here, then peaceful. Mark was kind enough to invite me to stay for a few weeks—it seemed the perfect spot to consider and let my thoughts come clear.”

  “I say!” Mark put in. “Charles was in France for years with the Guards. Perhaps he knows of your house and village?”

  “I doubt it,” the Chevalier said. “It is near to St. Cloud—far, far from the battlefields.”

  Charles confirmed he knew nothing of that area. He put a few questions to the local young men, asking after the shooting and fishing, enough to account for his approaching them, also enough to learn that the Chevalier had been at Branscombe Hall for the past five days. Having gained answers to their immediate questions, he steered her away.

  The party was starting to break up, the first guests departing. They fell in with the general exodus. Chatting with others, they strolled side by side into the front hall; Penny noted that Nicholas was one of the first to make his bow to Lady Trescowthick and go quickly down the front steps and out into the night.

  The Chevalier was in the ballroom behind them; she wondered if he and Nicholas had met…would meet, perhaps tonight. They could check in the stables when they reached Wallingham; Nicholas should be home well ahead of them.

  After thanking Lady Trescowthick for an enjoyable evening—and despite their absorption it had been that—Charles handed her into the carriage and followed, shutting the door on the rest of the world.

  She sat back in the shadows, waited only until the carriage was rolling to murmur, “What odds finding a French emigré, one who might shortly be returning to France, who just happens to have arrived in the neighborhood at much the same time as Nicholas, who we suspect is passing secrets to the French and might have some complicity in Gimby’s murder?”

  “Indeed, but it never helps to leap to conclusions. Nicholas made every effort to socialize tonight, despite his preoccupation with something that’s causing him considerable concern, yet he didn’t single out any of our five visitors—I don’t think he spoke to the Chevalier at all.”

  “If they already know each other, they wouldn’t go out of their way to make that known, would they?”

  “Possibly not.” Charles wanted, very definitely, to get her mind off his investigation; he would much rather she focus on him, on them. Reaching out, he cupped her nape, and drew her to him.

  Smoothly drew her lips to his, saw her eyes flare briefly before her lids fell. He held her to the kiss until she softened against him, then let the pleasure well and spill through them both.

  She resisted for an instant, then surrendered and sank against him, and he almost groaned. Why with her was it so very different? She was the only woman who had ever had the power to make him ache lik
e this, with a weakness, a longing, a need so potent it made him feel helpless.

  Helpless to resist.

  He parted her lips and sank into her mouth, into the hot lushness. Released her nape, reached farther, turned her, and lifted her onto his lap.

  She pressed her hands to his shoulders, fought to keep her spine rigid. When he lifted his head, her eyes flew wide. “What about the coachman?”

  “He’s on the box—he can’t see.” Closing his hands about her waist, he nipped her lower lip. “If you don’t shriek, he won’t hear.”

  “Shriek? Why—”

  He slid his hands up.

  “Charles—”

  He covered her lips. Let his thumbs cruise the fine silk of her bodice, locating and slowly circling her pebbled nipples. He let his palms cup the soft weight of her breasts, felt them swell and firm. Gloried in the tremor that shook her, that tangled her breath until she breathed through him.

  After a long, thorough, painfully arousing exchange, he released her lips and drew in a huge breath. He knew exactly how far it was between Branscombe and Wallingham—not far enough.

  Eyes closed, Penny shuddered between his hands, feeling his fingers hard and steely holding her so easily, confident, so certain of her. She’d told herself it would be just a kiss, something she could simply take and enjoy. She’d forgotten that with him there was more, always more.

  His head was bowed beside hers; he brushed his lips to her temple. “God, how much I’ve missed you.”

  There was a longing in his tone she couldn’t mistake, that resonated through her.

  I’ve missed you, too. She held the words back. Yet she had missed him, so deeply she was amazed. She hadn’t realized…only now, now he was back, kissing her again, did she feel the yawning emptiness inside, recognize it, realize it had been with her for a very long time.

  Thirteen years, more or less.

  The carriage dipped as it passed through the gates of Wallingham. Charles sighed, lifted her and set her on the seat beside him once more.

  When the carriage halted and the footman opened the door, she was wrapped in her cloak. Charles descended and handed her out.

  She expected him to part from her, to go on to the stables and drive himself home. Instead, he led her up the steps. Catching her puzzled glance, he murmured, “I want to see if Nicholas is home.”

  According to Norris, he was, but had already retired to his chamber.

  Charles pressed her hand, stepped back and saluted her. “I’ll call on you later.”

  His eyes met hers, then he turned and strode off toward the back of the house and the garden door.

  She stood watching him, wondering what she was supposed to infer from that last look, then, inwardly shaking her head, she climbed the stairs and headed for her room.

  Her maid, Ellie, was waiting. She climbed out of her gown, into her nightgown, then sat on the stool before her dressing table and let down her hair, brushing it while Ellie fussed, shaking out the gown and hanging it, then brushing down her cloak, finally shutting away the pearl necklace and earrings she’d worn in her jewel box.

  “Good night, miss. Sleep tight.”

  In the mirror, she smiled at Ellie. “Thank you, Ellie. Good night.”

  She continued to brush, laying the long strands of shining pale hair over her shoulders, then she sighed, stood, and snuffed the candles in the sconces on either side of her mirror. Crossing to her bed, she extinguished the candle left burning beside it.

  The moonlight streamed in through her windows, a ghostly white light painting all in muted shades.

  She was tired, she decided, that was why her mind wouldn’t focus, wasn’t interested in thinking about the five strangers or whether Nicholas knew Phillipe Gerond. Slipping her robe from her shoulders, she tossed it across the foot of her high bed; drawing back the covers, she hitched up her nightgown and set one knee on the white sheet.

  A faint, muted click reached her.

  She looked toward the door—and saw it opening.

  Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Frozen, she stared as Charles slipped around the door, shut it silently, then locked it.

  He turned, saw her, nodded, then walked to the armchair before the fireplace. Dropping into it, he stretched out his long legs, crossing his booted ankles…with a start she noticed that he’d changed out of his evening clothes; he was now garbed in breeches and boots, a neckerchief loosely knotted about his throat, a soft hunting jacket hugging his shoulders.

  Sitting up again, he pulled the cushion out from behind him and tossed it on the floor, then he shrugged out of his coat and flung it over the chair’s back, then relaxed back once more.

  Remembering her position, her raised and bare knee, and that he could see extremely well in poor light, she abruptly lowered her leg, twitched her nightgown down, fleetingly considered redonning her robe, but decided that smacked too much of accommodation. She wasn’t feeling accommodating at all.

  She marched around the end of the bed, but halted a safe five paces from him. “What the devil are you doing here?”

  Her hissed whisper filled the room.

  He turned his head and looked at her. “I told you I’d see you later.”

  “I thought you meant tomorrow. What on earth do you think you’re about, settling down there like that?”

  “I was thinking of going to sleep.”

  “You can’t sleep here, in my room—you know that perfectly well!”

  He regarded her for a long moment. “You don’t seriously imagine I’ll allow you to sleep under the same roof as Nicholas, a potential murderer, unguarded?”

  CHAPTER 10

  THE QUESTION HADN’T, UNTIL THAT MOMENT, OCCURRED to her, but now he’d uttered it, the answer, she realized, was in fact No.

  However…she drew in a deep breath, focused on his face. “This is not possible. You can’t just sleep here, in my room.”

  “I grant you this chair isn’t the most comfortable bed”—he shifted his shoulders—“but I’ve slept in far worse. I’ll manage.” Putting his head back, he closed his eyes. “Where’s Nicholas’s room?”

  “In the other wing. You can’t stay here—if you insist on guarding me, I’ll lock my door, and you can sleep in the next room.”

  “The lock on your door’s too easy to pick—I looked. If I’m next door and Nicholas is good at this game, I’ll never hear him. Get into bed and go to sleep.”

  The sheer command in his voice had her turning back to the bed before she caught herself; exasperated, she swung around and, seeing his eyes were closed, marched up to the chair. “Charles. No. Wake up.” She put a hand to his shoulder. “This is simply—”

  He moved.

  She landed in his lap. Swallowed her shriek.

  “I did tell you to get into bed.”

  His arms came around her.

  Planting her hands on his shoulders, she tried to hold him off—tried to stop him from drawing her to him. “Don’t you dare kiss me!”

  From a distance of inches, his eyes met hers. A fraught second passed, then one black brow arched. “Or you’ll what?” His voice had dropped an octave. “Scream?”

  She blinked at him.

  He closed the distance, closed his lips over hers.

  He kissed her. Not as before but as he never had before.

  Ravenously. With a hunger, a need, that simply slayed her. That poured through her, vanquished any resistance she might have made, vaporized any wish to do anything other than gather to her that greedy, rapacious, devastatingly desperate need, and appease it.

  Her hands rose; she wrapped them about his head, clung rather than pushed him away. Held on until she found her feet in the welling, surging tide. Until she could meet him and kiss him back—give all he so flagrantly wanted, take all he so blatantly offered in exchange.

  Their mouths melded; their tongues dueled. Heat flared and raced under their skins.

  Sexual awareness awoke; she had nothing on beneath her lawn
nightgown. The realization only fired her more, anticipation flashing like lightning down her nerves—neither modesty nor caution rose to cool her ardor.

  Nothing, she was sure, could cool his; he was like a living flame, burning for her. She spread her palms over his chest, through the fine linen of his shirt drank in the pulsing heat of him.

  Like before, yet not. He’d been twenty then, not a boy yet a mere shadow of the man he now was. What he now was held more than fascination, was more than enthralling. To her, he was life, all she’d denied herself for so long, all she’d forced her lonely self to do without—and he was here, potent, powerful, and so clearly hers if she wished.

  He was temptation incarnate, at least to her.

  She wasn’t even aware of undoing the buttons down the front of his shirt, yet the instant it fell open, she wrenched the halves apart and spread voracious hands over his burning skin.

  Traced the taut muscles, fingertips curling, sinking in.

  She sighed with satisfaction, felt giddy delight surge as through their kiss she sensed his groan. Sensed his pleasure. She pandered to both—his and hers—and let the sensations pour through her.

  She was unaware he was opening her nightgown until his hand closed over her bare breast, skin to naked skin. Something leapt within her; for one instant, she thought it was fear, then she recognized it as excitement.

  He caressed, artfully stirred her senses, and excitement heightened to anticipation. Anticipation that grew with every sweep of his fingertips, every whorling caress, until her nerves were tight, and anticipation edged into desire, and desire became edged with need.

  She gasped, pulled back from the kiss, had to; she needed to breathe. He let her lean back against his arm and catch her breath.

  His lips traced her jaw, then dipped beneath to follow the long line of her throat. They skated into the hollow between her collarbones, pressed heat into her veins, then drifted lower.

  Over the full curve of her breast, to just lightly, oh so lightly brush the aching peak. Then with his tongue, he traced the same path; when he reached the end, she heard a shocked gasp and realized it was hers.