“Alasdair!” Charlotte jumped out of the carriage after him, showing a healthy bit of leg in the process. She stormed over to him, favoring him with a glare that could strip the hair off a cat. He fought the urge to smile at the outraged look in her fathomless eyes, all the while acknowledging that her fury just made him want to kiss her.
“You can’t just leave! You’re supposed to beg me to marry you!” She looked so disgruntled, he had to fist his hands to keep from pulling her toward him and kissing the scowl right off her face. “You’re not doing this correctly! You’re supposed to plead with me and sue for my favor, groveling and humbling yourself so I can tell you what you need to do to make me change my mind, and you haven’t done any of that, and as I’m not getting any younger waiting for you, you’d best get to it!”
He did smile then. He couldn’t help himself. It was one of the worst days of his life, the day he was to shackle himself to a woman he suspected he loved, but who would probably make every day of his life a living hell with her demands for attention and things he couldn’t provide. Yet he couldn’t keep from smiling at her. She was just so…damned…Charlotte!
Evidently she didn’t quite see his smile as he intended. Her blue eyes flashed such heat at him as to ignite a lesser man, but Dare just gloried in her magnificence. Despite it all, all the sacrifices he was making, all the setbacks and heartbreak she was sure to bring him, she was his and his alone. No one else would be the recipient of the sparks flying from those beautiful eyes.
“Oooh! How dare you smirk at me!” She stomped her foot and poked him in the shoulder. “Aren’t you even going to ask me why I won’t marry you?”
He decided to humor her. After all, he had a lifetime to rile her up and enjoy the fireworks. It was better to calm her now so the wedding could proceed and he could return to work on his engine. He allowed his smile to fade, adopting a serious mien as befitted one who was about to grovel and sue for favor. He even added a courtly little bow for good effect. “I am all ears, Lady Charlotte.”
The look in Charlotte’s eyes metamorphosed from the white-hot heat of anger to the flushed glow of something much more intriguing as she ran her gaze over his shoulders and chest.
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” she murmured in a conciliatory tone.
He raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”
A maidenly blush pinked her cheeks. Dare bit back the urge to throw back his head and laugh aloud with the joy of her. She never failed to surprise him—one moment she was saying the most outlandish things he’d ever heard, the next she was blushing like a virgin.
“You. You’re more than just ears.”
He fought long and hard, but at last he was able to speak without having to grab her and kiss her first. Now was not the time for kissing. Now was the time to get her into the church and wed her before she drove him daft with her innocent, highly seductive charm. Later, perhaps, he would allow himself to kiss her. Just one kiss, and a short one at that, given before he made it absolutely clear that despite the fact that she had trapped him into marriage, he had no intention of bedding her until he was good and ready. He put on his martyred face and bent his head to her. “Charlotte, I am distraught and filled with sorrow at this grievous news. What task might I undertake to encourage you to change your mind?”
She sighed with obvious relief, dimpling at him in a fashion that made his heart do odd little gymnastics in his chest. God’s kidneys, but she made his vow not to give in to her wiles difficult! “I’m so glad you’re being more reasonable, Alasdair. It’s about this wedding you’ve planned.”
“So I gather. I take it you have an objection to the church?”
“No. Yes. No, I don’t mind it, although I do think it extremely unkind of you not to even investigate the possibility of Westminster Abbey being open to individuals who are not of royal blood. Truly, Alasdair, it’s not the church I find fault with; it’s the people.”
Dare stared at her for the count of five. His amusement at her evaporated as the ache throbbing at the front of his head blossomed. Wearily he pinched the bridge of his nose again. “The people? What people?”
Charlotte nodded, clearly pleased with him. “Exactly! What people! There are none, no one except your sister and Caro. And Lord Beverly. And your sister’s betrothed, and my cousin’s servants. But other than those scant dozen, there is no one else. It is simply impossible for you to insist we marry with no one to watch us. Thus I have decided that I shan’t wed you until the proper number of people are present to witness our most sacred oaths to each other.”
“The proper number…” Dare shook his head, opened his mouth to say more, then thought better of it. Enough was enough. He had been as patient as a saint, but he had to take the upper hand with her, or he’d never again regain control of his life. The horrific vision of what life would be like with Charlotte in command fixed firmly in mind, he took his bride by her elbow and started toward the church, ducking under a rope dancer’s rope set up between two pillars on the church portico. When Charlotte balked, he stopped and faced her. “Either you enter this church with me here and now and we wed, or you can leave and find yourself another fox.”
“Fox?” A puzzled frown wrinkled her adorable brow.
He fought the need to smooth the puzzlement away. If he wanted even a remote chance of happiness in the future with her, he had to stand firm now. Only by getting this marriage ceremony over with could he return to the important task of finishing his engine. Without the money that engine was sure to bring, their futures weren’t just bleak, they were nonexistent. “Fox. Victim. Husband. Whatever you want to call it, but understand this, Charlotte, I will not pander to your whims and temper. Make up your mind.”
“What?” Charlotte stared at him openmouthed for a moment.
Dare leaned closer so only she could hear his words. “You wished to wed me. Now you will do so, or you will walk away from here a free woman. It’s your decision.”
“But, Alasdair—”
“My…name…is…Dare,” he replied in the same low tone, his jaw set.
Her eyes clouded with tears as she obviously recognized the stalwartness behind his words. Despite his best intentions, he felt something melt in his chest at the sight of her lovely eyes filling, but a man couldn’t give in to every pair of weepy eyes he saw, even if it felt like each tear was ripping open a gaping hole in his heart.
“Charlotte,” he said, preparing to soften his words with a little judicious begging. It would be a blow to his pride, but that was already so tattered a little more damage wouldn’t trouble him.
“Please, Alasdair,” she whispered, her eyes shimmering with pain behind a shield of tears. “Please don’t shame me in front of everyone. I couldn’t bear it if you did. I just couldn’t bear it.”
“Shame you?” He put his hands on her arms and tugged her closer, his frown deepening. “How is marrying me going to shame you?”
She waved one hand toward the church, two tears spilling over lashes suddenly made dark and spiky with sorrow. “There’s no one there. No one! How can I tell anyone that we were wed in an empty church, that no one cared enough about us to see us wed but your sister and my friend?” She hiccupped. “How can I face anyone once they know the truth about our wedding, that you didn’t care enough about it or me to have a proper wedding?”
He stared at her at a loss for words, unable to understand what she found wrong with the small, intimate wedding necessary due to economies and his own personal preference, but recognizing that whatever troubled her, it was of great importance. He had seen enough crocodile tears to recognize genuine distress when he saw it, and Charlotte’s eyes were all but shrieking their pain to him. He took a deep breath, battling with the desire to maintain control of the situation, while unwilling to have her think he was a coldhearted monster who cared little for her desires and wishes.
“Cha
rlotte, even if I wanted to give you what you ask, it’s impossible. We are to wed today, almost an hour ago to be precise.” He ran a hand through his hair as he tried to think of how he could delay the wedding, deal with Patricia’s upcoming nuptials, and still have time to finish the engine and test it before Whitney arrived. “To invite everyone you know would take days, weeks in the planning. I agreed to wed you now because it falls in well with my plans, but to delay—”
“It doesn’t have to be people I know,” she said quietly, one hand on his sleeve, a soft, hopeful look in her eyes that he had never seen. It called to him, drew him, made him want to promise her anything if only she would look at him again like that. “I don’t want to delay the wedding any more than you do. I told you I had to be wed before your sister; it’s only fitting.”
He rubbed his forehead, willing the headache away as he tried to see a solution. “Then what do you want me to do, fill the church with strangers to witness our marriage?”
She was nodding even before he finished the sentence.
He closed his eyes for a moment against the trembling hope in hers, then opened them again. “This means that much to you?”
She nodded again, sniffling and dabbing at her nose with a delicate handkerchief.
“And if I do this for you, you won’t pester me for gowns or more pin money, or the hundreds of other things that I won’t be able to give you?”
Charlotte stared at him in surprise, the soft look replaced with a familiar glint that was pure deviltry. “Of course I’ll pester you for those things, I’ll be your wife. I realize you have not been married before, Alasdair, but truly, I see I must educate you in the duties of a husband. It will be my duty to ask you for things, and for you to refuse me, then to be swayed by my entreaties and encampments and so give me everything I want.”
“Enticements,” Dare corrected automatically, even as he struggled to keep his eyes from crossing at just what form those entreaties and enticements would take. He pulled his mind from the vision of Charlotte lying in his bed, her creamy satin skin covered with nothing more than her hair, sated and pleasured until she purred. It took two tries, but at last he could focus on the present, on the woman who didn’t care who attended her wedding as long as there were people enough to fill the church. The thought of her plans sobered him immediately. “Charlotte, we are going to have to have a long talk this evening about your expectations. I have tried to explain to you that I’m not a rich man, and you will have to practice the most stringent of economies—”
“Oh, pooh.” She waved away his warning and wiped her eyes, flashing a brief glimpse of dimple. “Papa used to say that to Mama all the time.”
“Charlotte—”
“Will you do this for me, Alasdair?” she asked, her eyes soft and blue as a July sky. “Will you do this little thing I ask?”
Dare prayed for patience, then nodded.
“Oh, thank you, thank you,” she squealed and threw herself in his arms just long enough to kiss him on the corner of his lips. He wanted to keep her there to improve her aim, but before his arms could tighten around her, she hurried back toward the carriage, avoiding as she did a row of tumblers and acrobats flipping themselves over scattered chairs and tables. “He’s going to do it,” she bellowed happily to Caroline just before shoving her friend back into the carriage.
“You’ll be more comfortable waiting inside,” Dare pointed out as he followed her, stepping over a collection of clubs and torches that would later be lit and juggled by the acrobats. He was a bit exasperated with himself for having given in to her unreasonable demand. If the ease with which she wrapped him around her slightest whim portended their future together…but no, he wouldn’t think of that. Down that pathway lay madness. Instead he reassured himself that her request was a minor thing, a fairly simple request, one easily fulfilled in such a way as to keep her happy, and achieve his end as well. “It won’t take me long to gather the…er…audience.”
“I shall wait for you to complete your task,” Charlotte said loftily, “and return when all is ready. Caro, instruct the coachman to drive us around the block until that time.”
“I would prefer you wait inside,” Dare said through softly grinding teeth. God’s spleen, would she argue with him on every point?
“And have everyone see me waiting? Never!”
“You’ll get tired of just riding around and around in a circle. Perhaps Lady Beverly would care to go inside where it is cool.”
Inexplicably, Charlotte dimpled at him. “We’re fine as we are. Caro and I were having the most interesting discussion of the Bible just before we arrived. I’m sure she has no objection to continuing it.”
Lady Beverly giggled. Dare shot Charlotte a look that by rights ought to have sent her screaming from him in horror, but she just deepened the smile into a cheeky grin and added in a little eyelash-fluttering action.
“God save me from all women,” he muttered as he turned back toward the church, reluctantly admitting to himself that her smile had kindled an unexpected warmth in his heart. Then he prepared to buy his bride an audience.
***
Charlotte stopped dead at the back of the church after taking one look at the audience her husband-to-be had purchased to witness her Most Important Moment, intending on throwing the tantrum to end all tantrums.
“There is a monkey in the church,” she ground out through her teeth, pointing to where a small monkey in a red hat and gold-fringed jacket was swinging from a sconce in the nave. “I might have been gone from England for five years, but I doubt if it has suddenly become the rage to have primates swinging from the walls at weddings.”
“Er—” Lord Beverly said, gently tugging at her hand, clearly at a loss as to how to get the bride moving down the aisle toward her groom. “Well—”
“And that woman there, the one with the beard, she’s positively wailing, and I don’t even know her. This is supposed to be a joyous occasion.”
“Eh—” Lord Beverly tugged again, shooting a helpless glance over to where Dare stood, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes on the recalcitrant Charlotte. “I believe Lord Carlisle is waiting for you…”
Charlotte refused to budge, turning her head to glare at the group of musicians in the far corner. “And the band! What on earth are they playing, live cats? Surely this is not suitable marrying music. Surely this is all wrong.”
“Ah—” Lord Beverly took a deep breath, desperate now to fulfill his one (monumental, as it turned out) duty of getting the bride to the altar. “Look, there’s the groom. Why don’t you just stroll down there and take it up with him, hmm?”
“No,” Charlotte said, flinching as the band hit a particularly sour note. “I won’t do it. This just isn’t at all what I had imagined. Dare will have to do better than this.”
“’Ere, what’s the ’oldup?” one of the rope dancers leaned back to ask. “We’ve got to do our show for the Tsar this afternoon. Ye’re goin’ to ’ave to ’itch yer carriage to a faster ’orse else we won’t ’ave time to toast yeh with that fine ale ’is lordship there said we’d be gettin’.”
Charlotte pounced on the one word that had any meaning for her. “The Tsar? You’re performing for the Tsar? The one from Russia?”
“Isn’t no other that I knows of,” the rope dancer sniffed.
The light of victory dawned in Charlotte’s eyes. She walked down the aisle quite happily after that, mentally forming exactly how she would tell Lady Jersey and other preeminent ladies of the ton how she had to hurry her wedding because the guests, her dear, close, personal friends, had an important audience with the Tsar himself.
She even forgave the monkey later for stealing her small bouquet of roses.
Six
Charlotte looked at her maid with a steely glint in her eye. Her maid looked back at her with a calm countenance. The new Lady Carlisle was not amused.
“You squeak,” she accused. “I’ve never before had a maid who squeaked, and I don’t intend to start now. I believe I shall find a new maid—one who doesn’t squeak.”
“I am devastated that I do not meet with your ladyship’s most discriminating and no doubt exacting taste. My life, as I have told your husband, is devoted solely and completely to his happiness, a situation which I am thrilled to the very limits of my soul may now also be applied to your own gracious self. In short, my lady, I live to serve you. If you are not happy with the unfortunate noises associated with the new wooden leg, I will immediately dispense with it. I need it not to serve my lady in any capacity she desires of me, be it butler, valet to his lordship, boot boy, or in the most humble role of lady’s maid to you. I am quite a prodigious hopper, as your ladyship will see—” Batsfoam hiked up his trouser leg in preparation for removing the offending wooden limb.
Charlotte stopped him the second she realized his intentions. She had no desire to see his leg, wooden or otherwise. “I’m sure you’re quite a capable hopper, Batsfoam, but ’tis the truth that although I find the novelty of a squeaking maid difficult to bear, bear it I would if there were not a graver, more serious complaint to be laid at your door.”
Batsfoam reluctantly lowered his trouser leg, his shoulders slumping into their habitual droop. He bowed his head in a close approximation of abject humility. “And that would be what, my lady?”
Charlotte wondered briefly if no one else thought it the least bit peculiar that her husband’s butler should offer to serve as her maid. “Perhaps it is because Alasdair is Scottish,” she mused aloud. “Perhaps it is commonplace in that heathen land to the north. You never know about a society that has men in short skirts. On the other hand”—honesty compelled her to add—“I very much enjoyed the time I saw Alasdair in his kilt. And out of it, too, but I suppose that really goes without saying, don’t you think?”
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