Charlotte

by Virginia Taylor

  He stilled. His heart pounded against hers.

  “You hurt me. Take it out.” She squirmed under him, breathing in panicked gasps.

  “Relax for a moment.”

  “I am relaxed.”

  “Your fingers are gouging into my back. I won’t hurt you again, sweetheart.” Taking a deep breath, he withdrew slightly and slid back. “If that hurt, I’ll stop.”

  She breathed out, calming herself. “It didn’t hurt. I’m just scared.”

  “Don’t be. You had a momentary problem, a hymen, and I think we’ve dealt with that.”

  So she discovered as he recommenced his rhythmic sliding. Her body responded again, urging fiercer thrusts. He drove deeper and deeper, adding the tease of his fingers, an exquisite torment. With a sudden contraction, she shattered, and at about the same time he withdrew from her.

  She lay back, her mind emptied of all but him and her awe of the act he’d encouraged her to perform. He lifted himself away and removed his French letter. With a long questioning smile, he glanced at her over his shoulder.

  His bronze hair fell limply over one eye, and he brushed back a gold-flecked lock with one hand. “I think you liked that.”

  “I think I did.”

  He covered them both with the sheet from the foot of the bed and took her into his arms. Gathering her onto his chest, he stroked her back until she drifted into sleep.

  * * * *

  Charlotte opened her eyes to the bright morning light. Nick lay on his back with his palms behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Catlike, she stretched, watching him. He turned his head. “How do you feel this morning?”

  “Content.”

  A knowing gaze traversed her body.

  She blushed. “Sinful.”

  Brows raised, his eyes met hers.

  “Slightly sore.” She evaded his gaze.

  He ran his thumbnail over his bottom lip, considering. “Too sore?”

  Without knowing how she could, she prickled with excitement. “I usually go for a ride before the morning meal.”

  “Well, then,” he said. “We won’t make an exception of today.”

  For the first time, they both missed breakfast.

  * * * *

  Nick finally dressed around midday. He had contemplated the brandy bottle for some time, inspecting the amber fluid and sniffing the aroma. His mouth dried with need, but as he hadn’t had a brandy since the tavern about twenty-four hours ago and could still control his tremors, he thought he might confine himself to ale today.

  Charlotte appeared in the doorway of his bedroom. She had left his bed long since. “Nell said to see her today.”

  “The midwife said next week.” He grinned.

  “Who takes precedence? A midwife or a mother?”

  She looked utterly lovely today. Most women looked haggard after a night such as she’d had, but her beauty was as much a part of her as her serenity. Even now, he had no idea why she wasn’t furious that he’d let her think he was a daisy for so long.

  “In this situation I think you can choose,” he said.

  “Might you accompany me?”

  “I’m not needed at the cottages today, though I could drop in later to check progress. Yes, I will come with you,” he said, not only evading the lure of the brandy bottle but indulging himself with the company of his newest amusement a little longer. “If only to make sure you don’t stay too long.” With luck, she mightn’t pall on him for a month.

  “I would have asked Sarah, but it seems she has gone to a picnic.”

  Strangely, being second choice prickled. Last night he’d been first.

  They arrived in the hallway of the bluestone and redbrick built Hawthorn House in the middle of an event that looked like a cleaning spree. The hallway floor was marble-tiled in black and white, the walls painted red and mirrored, and the various entrances pillared. A maid from last night turned, hid a duster behind her back, and curtseyed to Nick and Sarah.

  “The master’s home,” she said in a significantly dire tone.

  Nick smiled. He could imagine how annoyed Tony would have been to miss all the excitement. This now made the visit worthwhile.

  “Announce Mr. and Mrs. Alden,” he said to the manservant who had to restrain himself from sweeping under Nick’s feet.

  The manservant came back with Tony hard on his heels. Far from being in the towering temper Nick expected, Tony was the proud papa to his fingertips. Nick almost couldn’t look at him, such was his momentary jealousy, his second galling experience in less than an hour.

  Tony took Charlotte by the shoulders and kissed her on each cheek, while Nick stood dumbfounded.

  “Kiss me and you’re mincemeat,” he said, folding his arms.

  “Thank you for the warning.” Tony laughed. “I owe you both. Lord, what a time for me to be away from home.” He glanced at Charlotte as if he was about to say something. Instead, he stepped back and ushered Nick and Charlotte up the long curved staircase to Nell’s bedroom where she sat in a chair by the tall window. The light made her pale hair gleam silver.

  “Not abed?” Nick asked, and she shot a glowering look at Tony.

  “My lord and master has ordered that I rest today.”

  Tony spread his hands. “One day. Fortunately, my love is tired and can’t fight back other than in words. One thing we haven’t fought about is the name of our son. Charles Nicholas. And we want you both to be Godparents.”

  Nick stood, immeasurably touched. “We are honored.” He put his arm around Charlotte’s waist.

  “We are lucky,” she responded. “Charles is an exceptional baby. He didn’t cry when he was born, nor while we were here. He seemed to be lord of all he surveyed.”

  “A true Hawthorn,” Nell said drily. “Nick, I hope you know what an amazing wife you have. I will be forever grateful to you, Charlotte, and I consider you to be one of the family.”

  Tony looked at Nell. “That means you get Nick, too, you know.”

  She smiled, the door opened, and Charles Nicholas entered in the arms of his nursemaid.

  Nick edged Charlotte to the door. “We shouldn’t leave the horses standing any longer.”

  She stared at the baby longingly, but after saying all that was polite to his hosts, he ushered her out of the room. He drove his sporty gig to the cottages first—all was well—and craving a drink, he took Charlotte back home.

  Sarah came out of the library. “Where on earth have you been? Nell had her baby yesterday. I heard the news at the picnic.”

  “We’ve just come from Hawthorn House.” Charlotte put her hand on Sarah’s arm. “We were there yesterday for the birth.”

  Sarah shuddered. “Ghastly. I don’t want to know.”

  “It wasn’t ghastly, was it?” Charlotte glanced at Nick.

  “The outcome was successful.” He walked up the stairs toward the brandy bottle. However, again he merely sniffed the aroma before he left for Dixon’s gym, strangely resigned.

  Chapter 14

  Nick brought Charlotte to another shattering release. He couldn’t believe his luck. By chance, he’d married a woman who appreciated the pleasures of the flesh and performed with starry-eyed enthusiasm. Rarely had he coupled with a woman who made no fuss over having her hair messed or her clothing tossed aside, who didn’t insist on being feted in payment for sex, who didn’t insist on anything.

  Charlotte looked as exquisite naked as she did dressed, and she was the best card-cheat he’d ever met. He’d rediscovered that last night during a rare evening at home.

  She smiled at him sleepily, her eyes already closing.

  He tugged on one of her dark, springing curls. “I’m rather enamored of the idea of sleeping with my wife.”

  “It’s done in the best of families,” she said, snuggling into his chest. “Especially when couples want babies.” She rested her lips against his chest.

  He grasped her shoulder and made certai
n she looked into his eyes. “No babies,” he said, jolted out of his complacency. “Not mine. Never mine. I can only make monsters.”

  She blinked at him. “Why on earth would you say that?”

  “Previous experience,” he said tightly.

  “How many previous babies have you had?”

  “Just the one. That was enough.” He moved out of her hold and sat up.

  She frowned. “You don’t know you can only make monsters.”

  “I do.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I won’t risk another child of mine being born dead or even worse, crippled.”

  “But why was that your fault? Couldn’t the problem have been pure bad luck?”

  He stood. “No.”

  “I want to know how you know that.” She lifted her shining hair and wound the dark mass over one shoulder.

  “My father was an only child, and my grandfather was an only child. My mother came from a prolific family, and she had five babies after me,” he said, emphasizing each word, “but not one lived. The fault is clearly in my family, and I’ve proved it once. Once is enough. When you’re a little older and know how to behave with discretion, perhaps you could find another to sire a child on you. I’ll accept it as mine.”

  “As you would the child you thought I carried.” She glanced at him, her head slightly tilted in query.

  “Yes.”

  “You would like me to commit adultery.”

  “Not immediately.” His insides lurched with a momentary panic. He was well on the way to being in love with her, but he couldn’t let himself grow emotionally involved—not with a woman who would end up despising him. “If you have issues with my decisions, I’ll go back to my former way of life.”

  She dropped her hair and gave a sudden laugh. “Not easy in your case when you so clearly love women.”

  “You wretch,” he said, angling toward her. He’d thought they were having words, and they were, but not heated words. Words more of an exploratory kind.

  She knelt behind him and circled her arms around his neck. He leaned back and lost himself in a deep kiss.

  In the aftermath, she said, “Do I know everything I ought to know as your wife? I found out about the rowing and Clara from the others.”

  Meshing his fingers with hers, he gave a wry smile. “There was another woman when I married you. Others know of her, too.” He waited, his chest tense.

  She lifted his hand to her cheek.

  He evaded her gaze. “And before Beth, there were others. Have I made myself clear? I don’t want you to have any misconceptions about me or the sanctity of my relationship with Clara.”

  “Beth,” she said, mulling the name. “She must have been very upset when you married.”

  His relationship with his mistress had ended, and a longer explanation would benefit no one. Unwilling to show himself in a bad light to his wife, he shrugged.

  During the next week, he discovered why married men looked so self-satisfied. Mistresses kept a man waiting to hold his interest. Wives used other tactics, already having a husband’s interest. His own wife, cool, elegant Charlotte, might have done her best to shock him in the carriage on the way home from a soiree but, instead, she seduced him so thoroughly that he didn’t notice they’d arrived home. She just had time to wriggle out from under him and rearrange her skirts as Harvey opened the carriage door.

  The coachman shot Nick a glance of dislike, but his gaze softened on Charlotte. Without a doubt, the old grouch knew what had taken place moments before, but he handed Charlotte out as if she were the queen about to visit dignitaries, and he let the door bang on Nick’s knee.

  Nick laughed to himself on the way into the house. The coachman had developed a protective instinct for Charlotte, who, without stirring a single hair on her immaculately coiffed head, had turned a large household of lackadaisical servants into devoted slaves. Her quiet presence made a house into a home and a difference of opinion into an irrelevance. He put on his own smug face as she went into her bedroom to undress.

  Hesitating in the connecting room, he noticed his mail had multiplied in the past three days and needed inspection. He skimmed through; his attention caught by an unmarked envelope, which curiosity tempted him to open. Hearing a board creak, he looked up and saw Charlotte coming toward him wearing nothing but a knowing smile.

  With no preliminaries and pausing only to toss the envelope toward his tray, he took her against his bedroom door. Unprepared for the immediacy of the moment and appalled by his lack of control, he managed to withdraw before his final thrust, spilling his seed onto her belly.

  He cleaned her up with his shirttails, realizing that his hands were shaking. “No more little surprises, my love. I don’t want to make any accidental babies.”

  She cupped his face with her hand. “I’m sorry. This is new to me. I suppose I was testing my attraction.”

  Although he didn’t want to, he laughed. “You don’t need to test a young, healthy male. He tests himself at least ten times a day. Which in my case is much safer.”

  She gave him a considering look and sashayed into his room. He followed and undressed while she watched from his bed. Just a glance from her could harden him, which he could see pleased her. He’d thought he wouldn’t be interested in a woman so young, but somehow his self-contained wife was helping him see life from a different perspective. For some time, he hadn’t wanted or thought about drinking.

  “Sarah ate two slices of bread today. I’ve never seen her happier.”

  “She has a social life par to none.” He slid into bed beside her. “She’s never at home. I expect you’ll have her married off this season.”

  “Do you think she has a chance with James?”

  He knew she wanted to talk, but at this moment, he didn’t care about Sarah’s prospects. “I doubt it. His family is the wealthiest in the colony. Who did you say her father was?”

  “A country doctor.”

  “Not quite the sea captain yours was. A sea captain can become an admiral, but a country doctor is always a country doctor.”

  She turned down the lamp. “I thought she was aiming too high. The Hawthorns are a very old, landed family, not just rich. I don’t doubt my birth made me an ineligible wife for James, not that I had ever considered James. Though I don’t think Tony knew that.”

  He smiled. “I suspect you and Sarah received Nell’s invitation for the ball so that he could closely inspect you. You both were also honored by an invitation to the dinner beforehand. You must have had him really worried.”

  She snuggled down under the covers. “Nevertheless, it was a good opportunity.”

  “Of which you took full advantage,” he said smoothly.

  “I can’t take all the credit.” She gave a mischievous smile. “You were drunk.”

  He laughed, despite her unrepentant expression. “Then it serves me right.”

  “It’s a shame Sarah doesn’t like Luke.”

  He blinked at the tangent. “I don’t think he’s hanging out for a wife.”

  “Nor do I,” she said, surprising him, for he had assumed she didn’t know Luke was still in love with her.

  The fool had lost her because he had taken so much time to make up his mind to propose. Nick hadn’t saved one friend from an undesirable marriage and the other from a scandal. As the cards fell, he’d saved neither friend in the seeking of his family’s salvation, but had instead found himself a very suitable wife. She may have disrupted his life, but she had also made his family house into a comfortable and welcoming home—and her husband into a doting fool.

  Nevertheless, hers and Sarah’s invitation to the Hawthorn’s exclusive pre-ball dinner did seem a heavy-handed way to inspect a flirt of James’s, not typical of Tony, who could have used the ball alone for the same purpose. The pre-ball dinner was tantamount to approving Charlotte and Sarah’s acceptance into society.

  Tony was normally subtle rather than obligi
ng. Something about his attitude toward Charlotte before and after the birth of his baby simply didn’t fit.

  Nick rubbed the back of his neck. He and Tony really did need to talk.

  * * * *

  Charlotte, a sated but still uneasy wife, picked up the letter opener. Lately, she’d had not a qualm about raising her face for her husband’s kiss, hugging him, teasing him, laughing with him, and sliding into his bed at night. Her mother had been the same, obsessed by one man only. Adeline saw the man, whom Charlotte recalled as very tall and dark, only a few times in her distant memory.

  She was lucky, far luckier than her mother. In time, Nick would come to accept that few women died in childbirth and even less babies were born deformed. Then her life would be complete. She could wait. Most people didn’t change overnight.

  She glanced at the unmarked envelope on the top of her pile, assuming the note had been hand-delivered and needed quick attention.

  My darling Nicky,

  You know I am insane about you…

  Charlotte frowned. She had opened correspondence to Nick. She shouldn’t read on. She refolded the paper and replaced the letter in the blank envelope. Staring at the silver tray that held the rest of her correspondence, she stood, slapping the note repeatedly against her skirts, her mind churning. Finally, she pulled the bell-rope. Vera answered almost immediately.

  “Vera, I found this letter on my tray. Do you know how I came to have it?”

  Vera blinked. “Good morning, ma’am. I found it on the floor this morning. Did I put it on your tray? It was meant for Mr. Nick.”

  “You found it on the floor?”

  “It must have dropped there. I brought it up with some other letters two or three days ago, I think. Harvey give it to me—said it was for Mr. Nick. He doesn’t take much interest in his mail, does he?” Vera glanced at Nick’s overflowing tray.

  “Most of his letters are bills.” Charlotte shrugged. “Mine are mainly invitations, and so I deal with them daily. How did Harvey come by the note?”

  “I expect he wrote it.” Vera laughed. “He’s been in the black books lately, and so he’s likely passing on tips about the horses. Good at that, he is, and many’s the time he’s put Mr. Nick in the way of a sure bet.”