He answered questions mechanically—such conversations required little deliberation—while his mind strayed toward thoughts of the missing Lady Dunlevee.
“And will you join us for a carriage ride?” Kat asked. She peered up at him, using her pale blue eyes and long lashes to flirt with youthful charm. Again, he was reminded of how they’d changed, turning into beautiful young ladies. They ought to be married and settled, but he was not that man. For any of them.
“Ah, no. I am sorry, but I rode my horse over.”
“But Lord Rennold has his landau. We can all squeeze in,” she said.
“Oh, you simply must,” Prim said.
Must he? He was trapped by etiquette with no mannered way to say no. And so they went. Kat somehow managed to find a place next to him and she plied him with questions of his travels.
It was a disturbing thought to know DuChamp held his salons on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. It also explained why Char was away from home. He had wanted to talk to Char and Char alone.
“You speak four languages? I could barely manage Greek. My governess said I was hopeless and that I better pray for a good match,” Kat said.
“If one applies oneself, anything is possible. Perhaps there were other distractions,” Joshua said.
“Oh no,” she said. “If it involves a book, I— Oh, look there is Lady Osbaldstone’s carriage.”
Joshua took a deep breath to silence his thoughts.
“Are you home to stay, Mr. Forrester?” Worthey asked. He was a young pup and had no business flirting with the ineligible Taylors. His father was an earl and would countenance no such marriage. Unless—just how large were their dowries?
And with that thought, all of his suppositions regarding Lady Dunlevee’s circumstances dissolved into a heap of nothing. If the family possessed money, they would provide for their daughter.
“For a few months, perhaps. One of my professors at Cambridge is putting together an expedition to Greenland, in which I have an interest.”
“Oh, but you must stay.” Evidently Kat had lost interest in Lady Osbaldstone; she clutched his forearm. “At least through the end of the Season. We could have so much fun. Why, Rennold is having a week-long house party at the end of the month. Send him an invitation, Renny. For me.”
It was decided, without input from Joshua, that an invitation would be sent. Yes, a written invitation was best. They were much more easily declined.
“There,” Kat said. “It is as simple as that. You will be my charades partner.”
He was feeling claustrophobic and bedeviled by the time they returned to Lady Beckham’s townhome. Why hadn’t he just stayed home and alphabetized his bookshelf?
Behind the others, Joshua led Kat into the sitting room.
She was there. Char greeted everyone warmly, and when she reached Joshua, he held her hand a bit overlong and said, with some seriousness, “May I speak to you? Alone?”
“Certainly.”
She wore a light blue day dress, not matching her eye color exactly but vividly enhancing the shade. Her gaze was darker and more intense than that of her flirtatious sister, Kat. How did one say this woman was beautiful and that woman not? Char wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d seen, but damn if she didn’t possess those traits which most appealed to him. To put a point to it, she was a sensual creature who came alive when she smiled and made him feel a little warm when she squinted to examine him.
Once they were in another room, he whirled to face her. “Why are you no longer living at Dunlevee House? The new viscount is not married. Surely it is your right to claim the home until there is a new viscountess?”
“Well…I—I guess it really is none of your business.” Her gaze did something different, one brow lifting in affront.
“That may be the case, but I am not the type of man to watch as a woman bears the weight of unfairness or financial ruin. Especially when her rights are impeded.”
“Is this about Arthur’s death? For I can see no other reason you should inquire about matters that are not your concern.”
“As a gentlemen, I must intrude if there is no one to guide you or provide for you.”
“Guide me? I’m no young debutante, Mr. Forrester. I’m a widow who has earned the freedom to manage her own life.”
“Ruin, you mean.”
“What bee is buzzing in your ear, sir? We barely know each other and you feel the need to give advice when none is needed.”
“And as Lord Chesterfields says, ‘Advice is seldom welcome, and those who need it the most, like it the least’.”
“Chesterfield? Lord Chesterfield,” she said with incredulity.
“Why not? He is very often right, even decades later. And I find his writing most stimulating.”
“All right then, take my advice—”
The door rattled, and they turned to stare at the unwelcome interruption.
“Oh, there you are,” Kat said. “Auntie had tea service prepared. She asks if you will join us.”
Char smiled. “We’ll be right along, Kat. Thank you.” She looked down, her fingers entwined, waiting for her sister to depart. When the door shut, she faced him again. “Mr. Forrester. Joshua. I am certain you mean well, but I can assure you, what happens in my life happens because I wish it. Know that I appreciate your concern, but I have family to help bear any burdens I have—real or imagined.”
At some point in their discussion, they’d drawn together and were standing very near each other, face-to-face.
Could she not see he was only trying to help?
Or was he seeing only the naked woman who adorned DuChamp’s couch? The woman who required his help.
“Does your family know how you spend your afternoons?”
“Sir. You intrude.”
He gripped her elbow. It wasn’t like him to mishandle a woman. “Did Arthur leave you in bad circumstances?”
Char extended her hand, intending to slap him, as he deserved. But she caught herself. What was meant to be a stinging reproof ended up a light tap on his face. The kind that could make one laugh at its absurdity.
He did something worse than laugh.
He placed his hands upon her shoulders, gently, and drew her close. It happened so quickly. Yes, he had been thinking about her since their dance, and in a loose, dreamy way about the naked display of her body upon DuChamp’s couch.
He bent toward Char, pressing his lips to hers.
Several things happened at once. His hand had curled around the back of her neck, she responded with sweet urgency and then some abrupt noise from outside the room startled them and broke them apart, panting and wide-eyed.
There was a fleeting expression, first of longing and then disgust.
He was no better, feeling a strong pull of desire in his groin. Taking her in his arms again would have solved several of his immediate needs.
She licked at her lips and stepped away. How had he missed the beauty she was—rosy-cheeked with somnolent, blue eyes that had set him on fire.
“I must apologize. I did not intend to… How may I make amends?”
Char Dunlevee drew back her hand and slapped him in earnest before she departed the room.
This time his cheek stung as if he’d been slapped by a bossy governess.
When she was gone, he let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, shit.”
So this was how men got caught in the marriage trap—a little dab of honey and a hungry bear.
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAR HELD THE POSIES and the missive from Mr. Forrester. A servant had delivered them to her as she was coming from the breakfast room to join her sisters and aunt in the front sitting room.
J Forrester was written with perfect penmanship as the sender. And her name, a lovely scroll, the C large and with curlicues at the tips of the letter.
Was Joshua pacing the floor of his home, wondering what he had done wrong? She had returned his kiss after all. What did he mean to say to her? An apology, surely. How utterly emba
rrassing and double-minded!
Kat tried to examine the note over Char’s shoulder. “Is it for me? Or Prim? Oh, I knew he was interested in one of us. Was that why he talked to you privately?”
“You’ll notice it is addressed to me.”
“To you?”
“No, it is nothing.”
It was everything. What was he thinking?
Kissing her? Making her feel wonderful and terrible?
“Read it!”
Oh bother, Kat wouldn’t let it go unless she knew the contents. “We had an argument yesterday. It is an apology.”
At least she hoped that it was. In a very short amount of time, they’d talked about very intimate matters.
After Arthur’s death, probably within a month, she’d no longer bothered to explain herself. She’d been in the room when he’d died and she’d stared with open-mouthed helplessness as his body crumpled and landed on the hardwood floor. Blood covered her hands and skirt as she’d tried to help him. It was such a private matter, and having Joshua pry set her teeth on edge.
“You’re pale. What’s the matter?” Kat asked.
With Kat’s concerned words, Prim and Jenny glanced at her. Lady Beckham raised her brows. “What is it? Has something happened?”
“No. No. I was just thinking about Arthur.” She pressed the posies to her nose and inhaled the subtle fragrance. She tried to remember Joshua instead of her deceased husband, or rather the Joshua she’d known as a girl.
“Hmpf. He might have died a peaceful death and allowed you to sleep at night,” her aunt said.
“I know it was awful for you,” Jenny said. Sweet Jenny.
“Let’s not speak of it,” Char said.
She settled in a comfortable chair positioned in the corner of the sitting room while the others gathered around Lady Beckham. She had retrieved her sewing basket, a white lawn cap in one hand and her needle in the other. Auntie was known for her fine white work and whenever she had a moment, out came a needle and thread.
Was she wrong to keep Arthur’s secret? She had not shared it with them, so it was difficult to believe Joshua Forrester had found out, and so recently upon his return.
The Forresters had been idols to her and her sisters. Older, worldly, wealthy and handsome, even as lanky boys they promised to grow into striking specimens. And for all those reasons, the Taylors had never been anything but neighborly acquaintances. Well, that and her father’s lack of a title. Squires held a position of prominence, but that paled in the shadow of a dukedom. What impressionable girl wouldn’t be dazzled by such fine young men?
What woman, widowed and alone, wouldn’t welcome such a man and encourage him to kiss her? She pressed the posies to her nose again.
Her time had come and gone. She was to find husbands for her sisters and conclude her arrangements with—
“Char? Mr. Forrester is outside, pacing along the sidewalk. Whatever could be troubling him? I think he’s talking to himself.” Kat knelt on a chair and held the curtain back. Prim and Jenny joined her at the window.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. You don’t need to stare.” Char stood, feeling a little embarrassed at their rustic behavior.
Lady Beckham had joined them. “But he is such a dashing young man.”
“Auntie! You mustn’t encourage them,” Char said.
“I think he is going to crush his hat.”
Char pushed to her tiptoes and tried to see around them. “Oh, bother.”
A tight lump built in her throat. She did not want to see him. He wasn’t willing to talk about insignificant things like the weather or ton balls, instead delving into private matters. Matters she’d come to accept.
“I think he looks like Oliver,” Kat said
“You haven’t seen him three years. How do you know?” Prim asked.
“Who? Oliver or Joshua?”
Char left the room, handed the posies to a passing maid and tucked the note into her hidden skirt pocket—not that she was trying to hide the note. She didn’t want her sisters reading it. All right, she was hiding it. A woman with sisters could barely keep anything private.
A footman opened the door for her. She felt a little foolish standing on the top stair, without her bonnet or gloves. Or a protective shawl. A gust of bracing window blew upward and she shook a little.
When he turned, he took a few long strides before he saw her.
“Mr. Forrester, may I ask if there is a problem?”
He strolled toward their front door, braced one foot against the bottom step and draped an arm over the stone volute. He tapped his hat against his leg.
“No.” He’d turned his solemn gaze upon her. The sky was overcast and the wind a bit brisk, causing his dark hair to rustle with each gust. Her skirt rolled and fluttered, and without her bonnet, wisps of her own hair whipped about her face. She tucked the strands behind her ear.
“Would you care to come inside?” She glanced around, wondering which neighbors watched and what conclusions they drew.
“No.”
“What is it you want, Mr. Forrester?”
“You might as well call me Joshua.”
“Should I be so familiar, standing on a street then? You have been away from London much too long. Or are you purposefully trying to break every rule of etiquette?”
“I would like to know why you are bedeviling me.”
She pressed her lips together. “I will not have this conversation in public. I insist you come inside or you depart at once.”
“Walk with me,” he said. “Please.”
Mustn’t and shouldn’t rattled in her brain, but manners won over, or envy, if she were honest.
Covetousness. I want him, she thought. Maybe it was some remnant from her childhood, some silly, girlish dream made more acute because he was the embodiment of a desirable man. And she had been alone for so long. Yes, in that way, she thought.
“I’ll fetch a pelisse.”
When she returned, Joshua accepted her arm and led her along the walkway, then across the street to the square, where several large oak trees towered. There were four wooden benches at the corners and a tall granite statue of a water nymph in the middle. The fountain ran during the summer but appeared forlorn and alone in the dreary light of day. Old autumn leaves littered the pool at its base; winter slept.
“I feel terrible about what happened yesterday,” she said.
“You had every right to be affronted by my behavior. You are not to blame.”
“Why have you come?”
“Well, to deliver the note firstly. Also, I have a small fortune I would like to place at your disposal. And to do that, I realized I would need to marry you lest I cause another scandal were it known you took money from me.”
Char stopped and folded her arms beneath her pelisse. “Whyever would I accept money from a man I barely know?”
“I would have thought the marriage proposal would have been of more interest.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We cannot marry, nor do I need your money.”
He turned to face her and took a step closer. “I think we will have to marry. I know your secret and soon the ton will too.”
A hot rush of embarrassment washed over her body. She wanted to deny his words, but all that came out was a weak, “Uh. I—we can’t.” But she quickly got her bearings and said, “And what self-respecting woman would ever accept such a shoddy proposal, no matter her secrets? No courting? No romance? I don’t understand this, Joshua. You’ve been away for years and have no reason to notice me now, let alone think we would be compatible.” No man would want her when they found out what she was about to do.
A thunderclap boomed over the square followed by a few drops of rain.
“Perhaps we should return to the house.”
She hooked her arm with his and they strolled toward the door. “You can’t mean it,” she finally said.
“Will you shred me again if I say that I do?”
“Oh.”
The rain started in earnest as they hurried up the stairs. A servant must have been watching because the door opened at just the right moment. Char laughed as she shook a few drops from her pelisse. When she glanced at Joshua, he had removed his hat and stared at her as if she were a stranger.
“Perhaps you will stay for tea, Mr. Forrester? I would be a poor hostess indeed to send you home wet and cold.”
“I thank you, but I should be going. I have overstayed my welcome.” He popped his hat against his leg. Nervousness, she supposed. “Will you at least consider my request?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Mr. Joshua Forrester was meant to marry one of her sisters, according to her plan. She reached for his hat, which he surrendered. “You must stay. My sisters are quite infatuated with you, you know.”
“I don’t see why. They barely know me.”
“You prove my point regarding marriage, Mr. Forrester.”
Her aunt and her sisters came through the double doors of the sitting room just then and whisked him away to the comfort of a warm fire on a chilly afternoon along with some tea and biscuits.
After he left, she did consider his marriage request and came to the conclusion she was not the woman for him. How could she be? When she laid her head upon her pillow that night, she was still thinking of him, concluding he was not the man for her. How could he be?
But had Joshua Forrester kissed her first, she would have never married Arthur Dunlevee.
CHAPTER SIX
“THEN WE ARE IN AGREEMENT?” Char sat on the rough couch, ignoring the tight space. Char was certain Miss Jane Toddy had not expected such a change in her circumstances after Arthur died. There was no one to keep up the rents on the house he’d let for her. He’d made no arrangements for her, and the new heir had also refused to care for the disgraced woman and her little family. The new viscount refused to believe the children were Arthur’s. Her family had rejected her, which was a shame, and Char did have sympathy for her.
Arthur had kept her in a private, modest home before. Now? Well, the home was clean but very small. One of the children cried, a sad little wail, one she recognized as a cry for attention rather than a child who might be hungry or dirty.
Seven Nights of Sin: Seven Sensuous Stories by Bestselling Historical Romance Authors Page 31