by Trisha Telep
“I beg your pardon?” His drawl shimmered and danced over the skin of her shoulders as if he’d stroked her nape, yet all the while his hands remained decorously placed.
She glared up at him. “You did that on purpose. Made it impossible for me to refuse without causing a scene. So I said ‘despicable’.”
His eyes warmed to cerulean and one corner of his mouth kicked up a fraction. Attraction sparked, crackling in the air like unspent lightning bolts. Incendiary. Explosive. She found it hard to draw a breath.
“I suppose I should be honoured,” she said. “Although we lack a formal introduction.”
“We need no introduction, Charlotte,” he said with dispassion. “You knew me the moment you saw me.”
He remembered. Her heart leaped with joy. Expending every ounce of will power she possessed, she kept her expression coolly remote. “I wasn’t sure if my memory was playing tricks, Your Grace. You’ve changed.”
An eyebrow rose. “We both have. You even have a different name.”
“As do you. My condolences on the loss of your father.”
He shrugged carelessly. “My congratulations on your marriage and my commiserations on your husband’s demise.”
Revulsion churned in her stomach. She hated the pretence. But having killed off a non-existent husband for the freedom widowhood gave her, there was little she could do but accept his condolences. “Thank you,” she said, as calmly as her trembling body would allow.
“You are all graciousness,” he said.
“And anger,” she replied, arching a brow. “I never waltz.”
He laughed, the sound deep and dark. It tugged at something low in her stomach. Lower. A place not to be imagined in relation to this man.
“You used to waltz with me,” he said. “Remember?”
She smiled at him sweetly. “Your Grace is incorrigible.”
“And you, Madame Beauchere, are beautiful.”
These words delivered in honeyed tones caressed her ear. A shiver ran down her spine at the promise of remembered pleasure. An offer of delights she had once mourned.
That part of her life was over. She must not let him distract her from her purpose. Father’s life depended on her ability to net a husband with money. Panic tightened her throat. The Duke could easily spike her guns should he choose. He knew too much about her past. Hell. He was her past.
Would he expose her? He’d been fond of her once. Might she convince him to say nothing? Dash it, she’d been prepared for the chance they would meet in the small world of the ton, but she’d prayed it would be later. After she married.
Forcing herself to relax, she let the music and the imperceptible pressure of his guiding hands carry her where they would. In truth, she hadn’t waltzed since she was a young impressionable girl, when the world seemed a much kinder place.
“For a woman who doesn’t waltz, you are very accomplished,” he murmured close to her ear, sparking waves of delicious heat.
With a coolly raised brow, she let him know she was not unaware of his intent to fluster. “You misunderstand, Your Grace. I do not waltz as a preference, not because I cannot.” She easily accomplished the complex turn beneath his arm. When he recaptured her hands, he gazed deep into her eyes. A licking hot blue flame of naked desire, more potent than anything she’d seen in young Graves’ expression, made her gasp.
This man, this duke, had no qualms about letting his intentions be known. Her heart picked up speed. Her pulse fluttered and raced. Her indrawn breaths barely filled her lungs until she felt dizzy.
Damn her for a fool. His gaze plucked another chord. A song of longing. A tune close to her heart.
A heart required too high a price. Her father’s life.
For a second, she entertained the idea of asking Gerard for help. He was rich. He’d easily parted with a few hundred guineas to be rid of her once before. Her and Father.
He would surely not aid a man he’d deliberately set on the path to destruction. Given their past, allowing even a hint of her desperation to come to his ears would be a dreadful mistake.
Whirling in his arms, she pretended not to notice his blatant ardour, while her skin tingled and her blood burned its way through her veins. She lifted her chin and regarded him dispassionately. “Are you enjoying the season, Your Grace? I haven’t seen you at any other ball or rout these past few weeks.”
Amusement quirked his finely drawn lips. “Keeping track of me, Charlotte? I gather you only recently arrived in town yourself.”
“I am honoured someone of your exalted station noticed someone as lowly as myself.” She couldn’t help the tinge of bitterness in her voice, remembering his cruel words delivered so coldly by his father.
“Rare beauty never escapes my lofty attention.”
The wry note in his voice surprised a chuckle from her lips. At least he was honest.
He smiled, and all at once she saw a glimpse of the boy she remembered from her youth, when he’d been bookish and kind, not the cold, hard man he’d become.
But she’d been different then, too.
Plump and awkward. So innocent in her youthful adoration. Bitterness welled.
The musicians began their final flourish. She glanced around for Graves with her promised refreshment, but found herself on the other side of the dance floor and headed for the balcony doors.
“Where are you taking me?”
“The evening is warm. I thought you might like to take the air for a moment or two.” He snagged two glasses of champagne from a passing footman.
She could insist he return her to her friends. She could play the haughty widow and make a scene, but the French doors were open and other couples meandered outside in the cool air on the well-lit terrace. A moment’s fresh air posed no danger.
The challenge in his gaze gave her pause. Did he mean her harm? She had to know.
Young Lord Graves would wait. She rested her gloved fingertips on the fine wool of his sleeve. “You tempt me, Your Grace.”
“So I hope,” he said softly.
Something inside her fluttered and stirred. Excitement. Passion. He tantalized her senses. Wickedly. More than any man she’d ever met.
But then he always had.
They passed through the balcony doors and into the soft glow of torches. He guided her down a flight of stone steps, along a pathway to a grotto lit by a single lantern on a stone frieze of nymphs by water. A fountain sparkled and glittered beside a stone bench. They were alone.
“Your Grace,” she protested.
“Call me Gerard,” he demanded. “It will be like old times.”
Remember, her heart whispered.
“A time of youthful folly,” she scoffed lightly, aware of his size, his hard male form in the softly shadowed small space. She glanced around. “How did you find this place?” She laughed. “Of course, you have been here before.”
He didn’t deny her accusation, but handed her a glass of champagne. His fingers, long and strong and warm, closed around hers as she grasped the stem. An intimate gesture of possession she tried to ignore.
“To us,” he said softly and guided the rim to her lips. He held it there for a heartbeat, then let her go.
Absurdly, she missed his touch. She forced a sultry smile. “To you, Your Grace,” and tossed the liquid off, the froth of bubbles cool and tart on her tongue. “Now, if you will excuse me, I promised Lord Graves the next dance.” She made to brush by him.
His arm caught her around the waist, swung her about to face him. “I will ride with you in the morning.”
She gasped. “How did—”
He laughed softly. “I hoped you hadn’t changed that much.” His hands captured one of hers and he lifted it to his mouth. Even through her gloves the heat in his lips scalded her flesh and curled her toes. “Tomorrow, Charlotte.”
The promise held a threat. If she didn’t find a way to stop him, he was going to ruin everything. Heart pounding, she turned and fled.
Gerard trotted his mount ba
ck along Hyde Park’s Rotten Row. She wasn’t coming. The disappointment he felt surprised him, but not her absence. Cowardly wench.
He’d thought he’d forgotten her, but the scent of her fragrance – not the perfume she wore, but her own personal essence – had been as familiar in his nostrils as his own shaving soap, and far more intense.
He patted his gelding’s high-arching neck. “We ’ll find a way to bring her to heel, old fellow.” The sound of wild galloping brought him up. A grin broke out on his face as he recognized the rider. Late then, but here. And alone. Now that was a surprise.
Perhaps not such a coward, after all.
He rode to meet her. They drew up side by side.
“The dawn is all the brighter for your presence,” he said, bowing over her outstretched hand encased in York tan.
She flicked her whip. “Flirt. Don’t hand me false coins, Gerard.”
The sound of his name in her sweet low tones aroused his lust.
She was lucky she’d fled the grotto so swiftly the previous evening or he might have convinced her to let him engage in more than mere banter. The attraction between them had sparked and flashed like a mighty storm striving for freedom.
“A race,” she said and was off, strands of her chestnut hair flying in the wind, along with the ribbons of her fetching bonnet.
He kneed his mount and gave chase. The bigger horse gained ground and he soon overtook her. He slowed to let her catch up.
Laughing, she joined him. “He’s a fine animal.” She ran a glance over the gelding. “Will you sell him?”
“Not for any amount of money.” But there was a price he’d let her pay.
She pouted a little and he laughed. “Walk with me while the horses cool,” he said and dismounted.
He saw the suspicion in her eyes, but grasped her around the waist and lifted her clear of her mount. He held her as a groom would, calmly, impersonal. He did not want her to startle like her skittish little mare.
He gathered the reins of both blown horses in one hand and walked by her side across the sward.
“I rarely find anyone willing to proceed at more than a trot,” she said, her eyes twinkling, her cheeks blooming pink from their mad dash.
She looked lovely. As tempting as hell on a cold winter’s day. He bit back a curse. “I remember the way you rode the fields around Pentridge. I always expected you to break your neck.”
The breeze toyed with the loose strands about her face and she held them back with one hand, her sideways glance full of amusement and perhaps even a little misty. “You were just as bad.”
He put a hand to his heart, but belied the movement with an ironic twist to his lips. “Where you led, I merely followed.”
She laughed as he intended she should, but amid the light tinkling sound he heard a note in a minor key. Sadness? Regret?
Hardly likely.
“How did you know I rode here in the morning?” she asked, gazing out over the Serpentine.
“Common knowledge,” he said. “But where is the trusty O’Mally?”
She shrugged. “He wonders at your reason for singling me out, when it is known you display little interest in gently bred females.”
“Does he now?”
She nodded. A decisive little jerk of her pretty chin.
They walked beneath the bows of an ancient spreading oak. He stopped to look down at her. “Didn’t you tell him we once were friends?”
God, it had been so much more than friendship in the end. Or at least he’d thought so, until she ran off to France with another lover.
She shivered. A small little shudder that barely shook her frame. Her violet eyes darkened, like dusk over heather-clad hills, though her lips remained sweetly curved. “Yes, we were friends when we were young.” She fell silent for a moment, her eyes distant. “Remember when we found the ruined castle in the woods? You were sixteen, about to go off to school?”
“We called it Camelot,” he said, his heart hammering at the recollection. “Romantic nonsense.”
“You rescued me from a dragon.”
She’d clung to him, terrified, when they heard the noises in the bushes.
“It was a cow.”
A smile teased her lips. “And we laughed until we couldn’t stand up.”
“I loosed your hair and kissed you because you looked like Guinevere,” he said, the pain of it stabbing his heart.
They’d made love many times after that day, but that was the first time. The sweetest time of his life. A myth. Just like their castle.
She raised her gaze and there was a hard light in the depths of her eyes. “I think Miles is right. You are a man who does nothing that does not benefit himself.”
A scathing condemnation from one such as her.
He stepped in front of her, the tree at her back, the horses at his heels. He tilted her chin with his free hand. He gazed into her shadowed eyes. She met his searching look without flinching.
“Then we are alike,” he said. Shielded by their horses, he dipped his head to claim her mouth. Slowly, gently, he edged her hard up against the knotted bark of the great tree. He plied her lips gently. She welcomed him in. Her avid response fired his blood. He plundered her sweet depths with his tongue, swallowing her soft cries of approval. He braced to steady her soft, pliant body as she melded against his length.
She’d made him laugh and she’d made him hunger. He would have her again.
He thrust his thigh between hers and she parted her legs. He felt her heat and her desire rise to meet his own. Breathless seconds passed in a feast of the senses.
Then her hands rose to push against his chest, hard enough to let him know she meant it.
Reluctantly, he drew back and gazed down into her slumberous eyes. “I want you,” he said, his voice a low growl.
Her smile hardened. “For you, the price is high.”
“Name it.”
“Marriage.”
The word, spoken with determination and triumph, took him aback. He curled his lip in an amusement he did not feel. He shook his head and chuckled. “Charlotte. Oh, Charlotte. You are a wicked tease.”
Anger flared in her gaze. Her hand lashed out, but he caught her small-boned wrist with ease. “Let me go,” she said on a quick, ragged breath.
He lowered his head and kissed the back of her hand.
She tried to tug it free with a gasp of outrage. “Release me.”
He smiled down at her and she stilled. His gaze searched her face. Was this what they had become? Adversaries in games of the flesh? Apparently so. He prised open her closed fist with care and pressed a kiss to her palm, then nibbled at her bare wrist above the glove.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Please.”
“You used to like my kisses, remember?” he said softly against her milky skin.
She closed her eyes briefly as if he’d somehow caused her pain.
He knew her too well to believe it. “I see you have a new fly in your web. He pants like a cur after a bitch in heat.”
She wrenched her hand free, her colour high. “You know nothing.”
She glanced over his shoulder. Her expression changed, became distant and cool. He felt the loss of her anger as he had felt the loss of her body against him.
“Stand aside, sir,” she said in chilly accents. “Here comes a true friend.”
He glanced back. “Ah, the so trusty O’Mally. Is he your friend? Or another of your lovers?”
She glared at him. “My escort. Sadly, he was a few minutes late or you and I would not be having this conversation.”
He couldn’t prevent the surge of jealousy in her trust of the elderly dandy, but he merely bowed. “Allow me to help you mount.” He brought her horse around and interlocked his fingers. She stepped up, her small hands on his shoulders, a feather-light grip. He tossed her up into the saddle, helping her settle her knee around the pommel. His fingers curled around her slim ankle encased in leather as he slipped her foot into the stirrup.
When he glanced up, she was looking bemused.
He returned her gaze and with effort remembered his purpose. “I will see you this evening.”
She twitched her skirts into place and gathered the reins. “No.”
“You and I have unfinished business.” He glanced at the tree trunk where they had just recently been pressed together.
She flushed. “Our business was finished years ago.”
“I find myself unconvinced,” he said, raising a brow.
She flicked her horse with her reins and left at a canter.
Gerard watched her slight figure greet O’Mally.
“Tonight, Charlotte,” he promised softly to himself. “And we will both be satisfied.”
His body hardened at the thought. But another sensation invaded his chest. One he’d not felt for a very long time.
An ache.
Almost midnight and still no sign of Hawkworth. She should be glad. She was glad. Desperately relieved. He would have spoiled everything and the end was almost in sight. Lord Graves was a hair’s breadth from an offer.
“You waltzed with Hawkworth yesterday,” Graves whined.
She resisted the urge to bat him away like an annoying gnat on a summer’s eve. Shocked at the disloyal thought, she smiled at him and replied in soft tones. “His Grace did not take account of my wishes.”
The young man stiffened. “If he offered you some insult—”
“Not at all.” She lightly touched his arm with her fan. “It was more a misunderstanding. Tonight, I have danced three dances with you, more than with any other gentleman. To dance again would not be seemly.” Unless they were married. She let the unspoken words hang in the air.
He wooed her against his family’s objections and she would not provide them with the ammunition of scandalous behaviour. Meeting the Duke in the park could have been a disaster. She’d thought to talk to him as a friend, beg him to leave her in peace, until he’d shown his true colours. Lust, not friendship, drove their relationship.
And her taunt about marriage had stabbed at the heart of matters between them. A duke could not marry the daughter of a debt-ridden sot, any more than the ducal heir could have. The old duke had been brutally frank. His heir would be more than pleased to set her up as his mistress, but never as a wife. Nothing had altered in the intervening years.