Charlotte

by Virginia Taylor

  “Are you being obedient when you ignore him?”

  Charlotte folded her arms. “That’s his choice. Don’t interfere, Sarah. You know nothing of the matter.”

  Sarah clamped her lips. “It seems not. Just remember, Nick is very handsome and very charming. If you don’t want him, someone else will snap him up without a blink. And then what will you do?”

  Charlotte couldn’t remember closing off her mind to Sarah previously. She stared out of the window, seeing no sign yet of her visitors. How strange that she and Sarah contended over a man who’d been “snapped up” when he married Charlotte, and who had made certain she’d agreed, on marriage, not to interfere with his pleasures.

  She would avoid him until her heart stopped pounding at the mention of his name, until her body didn’t throb in an unseemly place when she thought of him, until she could sleep at night without imagining his clever, knowing hands on her body. Only then she could take back control of her life.

  She heard carriage wheels in the driveway as a shadow loomed in the doorway. “Ah, we’re at home today, are we?” Nick asked with a casual smile. “I expect that carriage outside is my signal to leave.” He flicked a glance through the window.

  Sarah laughed. “Though, you are coming with us tonight, aren’t you?”

  “Remind me what is happening tonight.”

  “An informal arrangement at Hawthorn House with Nell and Tony.” Charlotte couldn’t meet Nick’s eyes. If she did, he would see she couldn’t yet maintain her indifference to him, and he would take the same advantage of her he had previously. “Your father is escorting us.”

  “As will I. I am invariably available to attend informal arrangements held by my friends.” He buttoned his jacket and smoothed a lapel.

  Charlotte nodded, and the female voices in the hall signaled Nick’s departure.

  “The only functions we attend are held by his friends,” Sarah said, glancing at Charlotte. “The least you could do is take him, too.”

  “Every invitation I open is left on his tray. He can make his own decision.”

  * * * *

  Now that Charlotte’s familial relationship with Tony had been revealed to Nick, he saw the Hawthorns as family. Two days ago, he had discussed with Tony the timing to reveal the information to Charlotte. They’d agreed that first she should have her chance to present Sarah as her protégé, an extraordinary event, given the ladies’ respective ages. Later, she could decide whether to be a Hawthorn distant cousin or simply ignore the connection. Whichever way she decided, Tony intended to reinstate her lost income as her natural right and her dowry.

  With a tickling of déjà vu, Nick escorted his immediate family along paths lined with formal clipped hedges angling toward a central lantern-hung tree, only too aware of the last time he had been in Tony’s lush garden. That night he’d been called into Tony’s study to be told he would marry Charlotte. He’d agreed, though the girl didn’t interest him then. She did now.

  Although she was as much a mystery, he knew now that her lovely face hadn’t been expressionless. More likely, regretful. She had a great ability to mask her thoughts, and even now, married to her for almost three months, he had no more idea of her feelings today than then. All he had learned in that time was that she was far from foolish. She’d known, even on that night that being ostensibly protective of the drunken sot in the garden would do her more good than shrieking and bemoaning her loss of reputation.

  “Serve your ladies a glass of punch, Nick,” Nell said, breaking into his thoughts. “We’re being very modern tonight.”

  “I wonder where Daphne is.” Sarah glanced toward James, who had with him a sleek, dark-haired young lady.

  “You can lead a horse to water without letting him drink only so often before he slakes his thirst elsewhere,” Nick said, and he had James introduce his friend, Miss Armitage, to Sarah and Charlotte.

  Ivor and Amelia arrived and, shortly after, Luke and Emily and Hubert, and later Tony with a couple of older men, cronies of Alfred. Despite their great wealth, the Hawthorns had an easy way about them that allowed their guests to relax. Nick, ignored by his wife, let the apparently very available Miss Armitage take her choice of two admirers.

  Charlotte, dressed in a low shouldered, sleeveless, blue gown trimmed with green ribbon was snapped up by Luke, led to a seat, and plied with pastries and oysters. Luke stared at Nick, who told James to take himself off, all the while keeping his wife and Luke in view, wishing he could lip-read. Luke’s body language was casually unconcerned. Charlotte’s was a replica, both of which Nick saw as dangerous. Eventually, Charlotte dropped her head as if convinced and thinking. About what, Nick couldn’t tell.

  Luke took her hand, brought her fingers to his mouth, and kissed the tips gently.

  She let him.

  Steaming, Nick saw her focus on Sarah, who was standing alone and watching the byplay as well. She beckoned Sarah, who joined the two.

  Nick, who appeared to have won Miss Armitage, had to gracefully concede her back to James, who would doubtless be well rewarded for his forbearance.

  In the carriage on the way home, Nick remembered saying to Tony that he had a great regard for Charlotte. At the time, he’d meant his words, but now, only a week later, he re-examined his meaning. He’d misled himself about her. She was neither inarticulate nor shallow, and she certainly had more on her mind than her next new gown. He could see her as admirable, but he could also see some small cracks in her shell, namely a high-minded intolerance of mistakes and an inability to budget. In which case she needed to be reminded that she herself wasn’t perfect. And so he snidely said to Sarah, “I believe you might have lost your beau to Charlotte.”

  “To Miss Armitage, more like, though it’s hard to tell who James favors. I was sure Daphne was a forerunner until tonight.”

  “Ah, the oldest Grace girl,” said Alfred. “She won’t land him. Sometimes I wonder if he’s not hanging about the Grace family because he’s waiting for the next one to grow up. Either that or he has a passion for Frances for which I don’t blame him. Interesting woman, that.”

  Sarah hooted. “More likely Lady Grace than Chrysanthe. She’s a brat.”

  “Not James. I meant Luke,” Nick said, glancing at his wife. “He seemed mighty intent on Charlotte tonight and not a week ago I had to peel him off you.”

  Sarah smiled tightly. “Some of your friends really aren’t suitable company for respectable women, Nick, and I class Luke as one of those.”

  “He’s never been known to take up less than respectable women. He’s very conventional, you know,” Nick said, hoping Charlotte could hear his warning, but she gazed out of the carriage window. “I doubt he would consider scandalizing society, no matter what he might say.”

  The carriage stopped and Nick alighted, helping out Alfred, Sarah, and last, Charlotte, whose cheek he touched with a casual finger. She flinched.

  He wondered what on earth Luke had said to her.

  * * * *

  “If you force Nick to compete for you, he might discover what he has to lose. Don’t worry about her,” Luke had said, indicating Miss Armitage. “Nick can’t be in a room more than five minutes before the most available woman accosts him. True. Long ago, Tony and I timed a few.”

  And Charlotte had glanced at Miss Armitage, smiling prettily, trying to angle so that Nick could note the fullness of her breasts.

  “The thing about Nick is that there has never been a woman he can’t have,” he’d continued. “I’m guessing your apparent ignore of him means that you’ve finally found out about his nocturnal interests.”

  “His mistress? Yes.”

  “Your best move is tit for tat. If I just pick up your hand, like this… Ha, he’s staring over here with suspicion in his eyes. If you ever want to wake him up, I’m willing to be your…ah, decoy.”

  Charlotte tried reading in her lamp-lit bed, but this conversation kept repeating in her head. Sh
e stared at the printed pages, wishing for the right to insist on her husband’s faithfulness. Teeth clenched, she put her book face down and swung out of bed. In her dressing robe and slippers, she pattered down the stairs, through the conservatory, and out into the garden where she found a seat by the still pond.

  Nothing but a ripple disturbed the peace. Not a leaf stirred in the hot night air. She willed her mind to empty and wondered if she was merely as perverse as Nick, wanting only that which she couldn’t have. Love. Her mother had been so obsessed by her own mistakes that she was determined her daughter would be accepted anywhere, and she constantly sidelined Sarah in the push for Charlotte’s achievement. If her mother had acted out of love for her, Charlotte wouldn’t have minded so much, but her mother had plotted her success purely as revenge on her father who was an important man in the colony, or so Adelina had said. Charlotte saw little to admire in a married man who seduced an innocent young woman and left her to bear his child alone.

  Charlotte, reluctantly, had been educated with the daughters of the wealthiest settlers, perhaps not the role most suited to a penniless female who had no interest in being a rich man’s trophy but merely wanted to be loved, to be unique to one special person. Had her mother not died and had her income not been cut off, Charlotte might have had a choice other than to get herself a husband quickly. Since she had Sarah to support, too, she had chosen to trap a man who might benefit from her presence, one to whom no woman was special, though not in the way she’d presumed. Instead, he loved them all while she grew to realize that marrying a man she couldn’t hurt didn’t protect her from hurt.

  Footsteps crunched on the gravel path. She turned, hand to her throat as a shadow loomed and a figure cut in front of her. Nick, dressed in trousers and a loose unbuttoned shirt, stood before her, hands on his hips.

  “Not sleepy yet?” Blocking off the night, he reached down and scooped her into his arms. “I have the cure.”

  “No,” she said, leaning back, her heart still thumping and her fists in front of her, squashed against his chest.

  Ignoring her protest, he kissed her forehead, her ear, her throat, one cheek again, and then he sought her mouth. “You can’t know how much I want you.”

  “I don’t care,” she said, thrumming her curled hands against his shoulders. “I won’t be used for your amusement.”

  “And what about your own?” His mouth covered hers.

  Her body sprang to life stimulated by his lips and his hard frame against her. Heat and need filled her veins. By stepping into her, he moved her onto the mown lawn by the rose garden, and she found herself on her back with him on top. Again he kissed her face before angling his mouth across hers and pinning her arms above her head. He imprisoned her ankles with his feet. The grass prickled beneath her. She didn’t care.

  His tongue tipped her lips, teasing her with the parody while his hands slid to her breasts, cupping and caressing as if he had to relearn her shape. He untied the high neckline of her nightgown, pulled aside the fabric, and rubbed her hardened nipples against his bare chest while he unbuttoned his trousers.

  She could hear nothing but breathing and heart pounding, his or hers. Her nightgown settled around her waist, and she could feel his hard part between her legs. His mouth lipped at her breasts and nipples. Lost, she lifted her knees and arched into him. Tearing at his back with her fingers, she wriggled closer as he thrust inside her. She had never known him—or herself—so desperate to couple. She said not a word.

  He plunged deep into her. Her heels tightened over his back. He surged and drove harder, and she responded with uncontrolled passion, hearing the slap of flesh against flesh. As her excitement expanded, she heard him whisper, “Stop me, stop me,” but she clung tighter. He called on God, shoved high one last time, and stilled. As she tried to catch her breath, she experienced the most marvelous sensation she had ever known, the endless pulsating pleasure of him bursting inside her.

  His head dropped onto the juncture between her shoulder and her chin. He pressed his face into her flesh. “No,” he said in a shuddery voice.

  She smoothed at the skin of his back, amazed at the need she had to keep him inside her.

  Her fingers spread but he lifted, withdrew, and rolled onto his back, elbow over his eyes. She ran her gaze over his body. In the aftermath, his arousal looked swollen, but had lost the upright thickness. Previously, she’d only seen him naked in his hardened state. She appreciated the look of him, sated. Sitting up, she pulled her gown over her knees, resting her chin there, smiling.

  “Damnation! How could I do that?”

  “We did it.”

  In the moonlight, he looked pale and strained. He brushed his elbow over his wet face, and she realized he’d wiped away tears, not sweat. Her chest ached with the knowledge that giving her his seed had caused him such needless distress.

  She clasped her knees to her chest. From the start, she’d wanted to save him from himself, seeing how heavily he relied on drink. When he was hurt by the hard ball smacking into his head, and stunned, though possibly by the alcohol, she’d been given her chance to see him close and hold him in her arms. He was even more beautiful up close than in passing, so much more real while semi conscious, too real, for she’d thought she’d heard he lived his life as a sham.

  Foolish creature that she was. Nick’s main attraction after his looks was the way he made a woman feel necessary and special. He appeared to care, not by saying so but by listening. Luke said Nick loved women, and she believed that. She also believed that her initial feelings for him only made her one of many. Other women wanted to save him, too, and to be special and necessary. She could hardly believe she had contemplated living her own life and leaving him to take his pleasure elsewhere.

  Tonight his breath was fresh. He still had the minty taste but not the underlying alcohol. She hadn’t even seen him with a glass of punch at the Hawthorns’ garden supper. Therefore, her hope of changing him was not entirely unfounded. She shouldn’t punish herself for succumbing to him when she’d sworn she wouldn’t. “Are you quite determined not to have a baby?”

  He closed his eyes. “You know I am.”

  “And what had you planned to do when you followed me here?”

  “I had no plan. I saw you bathed in moonlight, and I wanted you.”

  “Despite the fact that you don’t want a baby?”

  “Sometimes lust overrides all.”

  She dropped her gaze. Sanity intruded. Despite knowing that he would use her as the most available option for as long as she let him, she also hadn’t fought her desire. Perhaps she had changed him slightly, but to hope for a happy outcome with a man whose overriding aim was not to father a child was pointless.

  “I see.” Defeat softened her voice.

  “You surprised me by looking so utterly desirable.”

  “And now I’m really going to surprise you.”

  She stood and shook her night-robe down. After collecting the bulk of the skirts in one hand, she ran toward the house. Nick sprang to his feet and chased after her. Speedier, he grabbed her gown. She kicked out at him and, while evading her foot, he let go. She reached the conservatory door, now certain that the passion that had transpired tonight was simply him asserting his ownership.

  She didn’t doubt that she would love him until she died, but she wasn’t about to be used by a man who could never really love her.

  * * * *

  Nick sat in the breakfast room with the paper. Charlotte had locked her door against him last night. He decided he should reason with her after she’d had time to reflect and he had worked out how they could resolve their problem. No matter how much she wanted a child, he would not give her one, but his future with her was a foregone conclusion. Last night he had confirmed that she was everything he wanted and needed in a wife, an inherently good person, frighteningly likeable, and a passionate lover.

  Sarah sighed and sat at the table. “It’s impossible
to pack for two weeks when one can’t forecast the weather. Usually January is hot, but we often have cool changes at this time of year. If I pack everything I own, I’ll fill the carriage.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To Stirling. You can’t have forgotten.”

  “I wouldn’t have forgotten if I’d known.”

  “Glory, Nick, you’ve known for more than two weeks I was invited by the Graces to stay in their country residence, just the way Charlotte used to do.”

  “Perhaps I didn’t concentrate when you told me.”

  “You might have guessed, even if I hadn’t said a word. Everyone who is anyone goes to the country during the warm weather, and I’m almost anyone.” She laughed.

  “So, you’ll be staying with the Graces,” he said, even now not concentrating. Having Sarah out of the house for a week or two would give him a chance to romance his wife, the plan he’d decided on last night.

  “The Graces live one paddock’s distance from the Hawthorns, and so they’ll all be there, too.” She reached for the teapot.

  “Everyone goes out of town, recuperating. As for the social whirl there, it’s simply more of the same, with the same people looking for connections for their sons and daughters before the next round of city amusements.”

  “Luke has a house there, too, I believe.”

  Nick lifted his eyebrows.

  She dropped her gaze. “Even the Downings have a property in Stirling. That’s how you all know each other. You and Hubert and Luke and the Hawthorns had the same schooling, too.”

  He shrugged. “As you said, we only live paddocks away from each other, but you’ll find the place is more urban than you expect. And Luke’s too set in his ways for you.”

  She pressed her finger to the center of her chin, and her cat’s eyes gleamed. “He’s eligible. I’m no more averse to having multiple dancing partners than any other woman.”

  He buttered his toast. “I rather enjoy the way you keep him trailing you by challenging him, but I’m not sure of your ultimate plan. If you are using him to make another step up to the mark, he’s experienced enough to make you sorry. If it’s him you want…” He shook his head. “At this stage, he has another lady on his mind.”