"For that, Lord Sun, you will have to imagine yourself down on my level. Down on the level of a lowly woman. A woman who has no choice in her husband, who is forced to marry because of ludicrous circumstances and who is expected to love a puffed-up, overgrown, oafish boy like you."
Wynter didn't respond to the insult. Maybe he was just astonished at her wondrous flow of words.
The speech had rather amazed her, too, stored up in her brain as it must have been. "But! Love will never live between us. The passion you feel for me is not in your heart, but in a different organ entirely. And when that organ is satisfied, I no longer have any useful function in your life, except as the mother of your children and perhaps as your hostess. You will not look forward to seeing me at the end of a day. I am supposed to pine for you during your business trips, but not burden you with excessive emotion. And certainly we must not embarrass proper English society by adoring each other in any manner, or even, God forbid, conversing with each other for any reason other than to pass the vegetables and complain about finances. Yes, my lord, surely I, like every woman, must look forward to the privilege of marrying a creature such as you."
He was blinking at her. "You're mad."
"Crazy or angry?"
"I don't know."
"Neither do I." She couldn't stand here looking at him any longer. He'd admitted he knew what he was doing when he compromised her, that he knew the harm he would cause when he spoke so disingenously. The spectators stood listening to her impassioned speech with their mouths hanging open, and worst of all, pain was unfurling inside her, roiling in her blood.
Why? She should be inured to disappointment. She never should have had hope.
No. No hope. Of all the illusions a governess couldn't afford, hope was the shiniest and most tempting, and the one dream she could never, ever afford.
Apparently Charlotte's heart had forgotten that truth.
"History repeats itself." She pushed his hands off her shoulders and walked with an excess of dignity up a few steps.
Wynter caught her skirt. "What history? Whose history?"
She staggered to a halt. "Mine. I have to marry or I'll be a pariah. But yours, too. You're marrying a woman who won't have the right to demand anything from you, because you saved her. Never mind that you ruined her in the first place; you saved her when you could have let her sink, so all will admire you. You can pat yourself on the back for being so generous"—she looked down at his hand wrapped in her skirt—"oh, wait, you're already doing that! Ah, well, munificent, lucky you never have to waste another thought on your wife and her happiness. The privilege of being your wife and warming herself in your rays should be enough."
People were getting bold, stepping closer to hear every word. Charlotte saw her aunt leaning against the wall as if overcome by her niece's outspokenness, her uncle looking between his wife and Charlotte in button-bursting astonishment, Adorna with her hand over her mouth, Howard red-faced and wiping his brow.
In a distant part of her mind, Charlotte was aware she was making the kind of scene that would go into the annals of inglorious English gossip. She didn't care a bit. There was some facet in her, in fact, some part normally shackled and confined, that seemed to be reveling in it. "I find myself thinking I have wasted the last nine years. I would be better off if I'd married Lord Howard in the first place!"
She saw at once she'd struck a chord.
Wynter bounded up the stairs to her side. His fair hair and his earring glittered almost white with his wrath. "You do not think that."
"I do think it." Charlotte tasted the gratification of a dramatic exhibition well done before an appreciative audience, and she now allowed herself to get carried away. At least, that was what she told herself later, because there was no other explanation for her reckless pronouncement. In a voice that projected over the crowd, she proclaimed, "I tell you this, Lord Ruskin, and I mean it—I will stand up with you before the vicar and speak my wedding vows, but I will never share your bed."
The white heat of Wynter's ire gradually faded. He didn't react to her challenge. Not by a word, not by an expression, not by a twitch.
His inaction drove Charlotte to greater histrionics. "Do you understand me? I do choose to wed you, but I will never become your wife in the full sense of the word."
Still he stood motionless.
Except for a faint twitch of his upper lip.
Once long ago her parents had taken her to London to see an exhibition of wild animals. The great maned lion had not moved while she watched it, yet it reverberated with intent. The intent to hunt and stalk the prey which dared to tweak his tail.
The same intent now sprang to life in Wynter. She had become a fete champêtre for the great beast.
Too late she realized what she had done. Too late she wished she could recall the words.
Miss Priss had just lost her temper. Taking one step up the stairs, then another, she kept him in sight.
The crowd in the corridor murmured, their faces upturned as they watched Charlotte retreat before the stone-still Wynter.
When she thought herself out of his immediate grasp, she took a chance and turned her back. She didn't waste time on dignity; she fled with unashamed terror down the corridor and away from their audience.
She couldn't hear him following. A glance from the top of the stairs proved he still stood and watched her. She hurried toward the nursery, changed her mind, swerved toward her bedchamber. She didn't hear anything behind her, but she knew that somehow, sometime, he would catch up with her and—
He caught her arm and swung her around, trapping her against the wall. His hands slapped the wall on either side of her head. "You have until our wedding night to resign yourself to being mine."
He infuriated her with his invidious confidence and overwhelming size. He frightened her for the same reasons. She challenges him with her stance, her upraised chin, her incensed gaze. "What will you do, rape me?"
"No." He bent his head so close his breath brushed her face, and he almost crooned. "Lady Miss Charlotte, I do not need to rape you. You forget, I have kissed you, and beneath your sturdy corset and rigid propriety lives a woman with rich red blood pulsating through her veins. Your lush mouth softened beneath mine, and opened on my command. You were eager as ever I was, and I wonder how many other men you have kissed to gain such experience."
He made her so angry. Angry for throwing her folly in her face, angry that he spoke so about a moment she would have treasured, if not for its dismal results. "Except for Howard, I have never kissed another man."
"Ahhh." He held her cheek in one hand. "A babe in the ways of men."
Had he trapped her into a confession she shouldn't have made? Surely not. He was crude, obvious, not subtle at all—or so she had always thought. Wrenching her head away, she sidled under his arm. The movement only brought her up against a small round table, a stand for a delicate porcelain vase of vibrant azure hues.
He moved with deceptive leisure, snaring her between wall and table before she could flee down the corridor. "Be careful, Lady Miss Charlotte. You wouldn't want to topple my mother's prized bit of trumpery." His fingers stroked her throat. "That would bring our guests running, for they badly want to observe our mating rites. You do not want that, do you?"
He smelled of leather and horses, and that put her in mind of the gentle kiss on the hill. This moment could not have been more distinctly different. She turned her head away. "No, I don't want that, but I seldom get what I want." She heard the bitterness and self-pity, and thought, just once, that she deserved to indulge herself.
He, of course, paid those fruitless emotions no heed, but leaned to look into her face. "My delight will be to give you what you want—on our wedding night." He smiled at her, a golden barbarian, a predatory lion. "By the time we have stood in the church and said our vows, you will be throbbing with need for me. I will have tasted each sweet corner of your body, kissed you with fervor and with passion, caressed you until you
r nipples tighten and the dampness blossoms between your legs."
Damn him! How could a woman maintain her equanimity in the face of such vulgarity? Worse, to hear such matters openly spoken of caused her nipples to tighten, and dampness did blossom between her legs. She exerted every ounce of willpower to hold his gaze, and she whispered fiercely, "This is the kind of improper conversation I have warned you against pursuing."
"Actually, Lady Miss Charlotte, I don't believe you ever broached such a matter." His brow wrinkled as he pretended to consider, and his fingers pressed against the place where her heart throbbed in her throat. "No. No. You warned me against too-specific compliments, against speaking my mind, against criticizing the English way of life, but never did you tell me I should not make love to my woman with words."
What to say? Which point to argue? And would her meager voice be up to a diatribe of the length and insistence she longed for? All she managed was, "I'm telling you now."
"You will tell me a great many things before our wedding night, Lady Miss Charlotte, and I will not listen. You will say no, then you will say maybe, then you will cry out for me, but your words will be as a woman's breath upon a glowing fire."
Her knees shook. He was so intent, so serious. Only the servants belowstairs indulged in such tawdry sensuality. But when he spoke, it didn't seem tawdry. It seemed…seemed…too thrilling.
"Do you know what the Bedouins call a dimple such as yours?" His fingers wandered up to press the indentation on her chin. "They call it an angel's kiss, and they say one so blessed will have a long and happy life. I will see to it."
"You will not—"
He kissed her, crushing her soft mouth beneath his. This wasn't the soft, eager, mutual kiss of this afternoon—but then everything had changed since that afternoon. Now she knew he was serious about wedding her. Now she had agreed to the ceremony.
Now he wasn't cruel, but he was definite, not allowing her to deny him. He wrapped her in his arms, threaded his hand into her hair and cupped her head. He closed his eyes as he kissed her, concentrating like a gourmet sampling vintage champagne. He surrounded her with his scent. Familiar arms, familiar scent, familiar Wynter, but different from every time that had come before.
He caught her lower lip in his teeth and, when she gasped, took her mouth with his tongue. He filled her with his flavor, probed her, enticed her, when all she wanted to do was get away. Desperate enough to try anything, she placed her fingers on his arms and dug them deep.
"Don't hurt me," he murmured against her lips.
As if she could. He was bigger and stronger.
More than that—as if she would. She didn't have the stomach for violence. She couldn't sustain a rage. She didn't want this battle, yet day after day Wynter brought turmoil into her peaceful existence. Damn him! Bunching her fists, she punched them into his sides.
He arched her form into his. Like a blacksmith's red-hot iron, his heat struck her. His hand in her hair, his mouth on hers, his arm around her waist, the length of him dominating, and her own body relaxing, tensing, reveling…betraying.
Embarrassed and enthralled, she whimpered.
His kiss lightened, became less imperious and more seductive. Slowly, he loosened his hold, easing her back against the wall, sliding his hand around to cup her chin, and, finally, lifting his mouth.
To her mortification, her lips clung to his.
She didn't dare open her eyes. She couldn't bear to look at him.
"I will not shame you, my darling. I will treat you with the utmost tenderness and care, and demand for you all the honor due my wife. But I will not be denied."
Blindly, she turned to flee. She struck the table. The vase wobbled, then smashed to the floor.
She stood, horrified, and stared at the shards scattered across the hardwood. This was what she had come to. Unrestrained panic, inelegant motion, and the ultimate social faux pas.
Her life was shattered into as many pieces as the vase, and all because of him.
His voice was smooth and deep as Lucifer's own. "Charlotte, my darling girl…"
As if a single endearment could mend the vase! Or her life.
She fled down the hallway to the sanctity of her bedchamber.
CHAPTER 23
My dear Pamela and Hannah,
I can think of no way to announce this with any amount of dignity or grace. Because of circumstances which occurred today, and which I assure you were most innocent, I am forced to marry. Lord Ruskin is my betrothed, and although in many ways he is a worthy man, he is also exasperating and I foresee no love in our future. The rush is obscene, the wedding is planned for the Monday morning after the last of the banns had been called, and might have been avoided if not for the Sereminian reception which looms one month after the nuptials!
As you can imagine, I miss you dreadfully, my dear friends. Not only for the reasons which you already know, but because I issued a most ridiculous challenge to Lord Ruskin and I fear he will feel he must answer it every chance he gets…
Never before had Charlotte thought twice when she crossed the long, shadowy gallery filled with portraits of stiffly posed, long-dead lords and ladies. Tonight, a mere twenty-four hours after the dreadful scene on the stairway, she was nervous.
She could admit the truth to herself, at least. Wynter made her nervous, relentlessly watching her from his portrait on the wall. She'd paid little heed to that picture of the youthful Wynter and his spaniel before. Now she couldn't stop glancing at it as she hurried from Adorna's apartments back to her own bedchamber.
Even though Wynter had left for London this morning, still he stalked her.
On her previous journeys along this very route, she had never wondered what hid behind the closed doors in the portrait wall. Tonight she was convinced something waited to spring out at her. And in fact one stood open…
She slowed as she approached. The darkness in that inner chamber was absolute, unilluminated by the feeble light of the candle in the wall sconce just outside, and even by straining her eyes she couldn't see within. Yet she wasn't a fanciful woman. She could think of a dozen reasons why the door would be open. Probably the maids had been cleaning. Or the children had been playing hide and seek. Or…
"Lady Miss Charlotte."
She shrieked.
She never shrieked.
But Wynter's voice coming from a darkened chair directly in front of her startled her so much— She clasped her hand to her chest. "What are you doing there? Here? Now?"
He rose, uncoiling his six-foot height as smoothly as any snake from the garden of Eden.
Charlotte rattled on. "I thought you were in London."
"I was." He snagged her wrist. "Did you think I would leave you for more than a day?"
She'd hoped he would. Indeed, she'd depended on his absence to recapture her equilibrium. Obviously, he hadn't been gone long enough—and, she suspected, it might not matter how long he was gone. She might never regain her equilibrium again.
Oh, dread thought! To have so lost herself!
He was drawing her toward him, a darkly golden male gleaming with intent.
She found herself bursting into speech. "My lord, it is not seemly that we be alone before our wedding."
"Or after it, so you say." He sounded amused, but in the feeble light she saw no smile on his lips. "Or have you forgotten that?"
"No."
"Have you changed your mind? Will you welcome me into your bed?"
She couldn't win; she knew it. He pulled her close against him as though he could overcome her objections with nothing more than his proximity. She craned her neck to see his face. His height was greater than hers, his strength far superior to her own.
The contrast between his power and hers was vast; even more weighty was the reality of the law. When Wynter was her husband he would have the right to do with her body as he wished. He could beat her, or lock her away. He wouldn't; she knew that. But he would take his conjugal rights, and if she dared complai
n or bemoan her fate, the men who made the laws would shrug and turn away. More important, hundreds of women less blessed in their mates would rise up against her and browbeat her into submission. She had no choice. He would have her.
Perhaps if she retracted her challenge, he might leave her alone until her unhappy wedding night.
But she couldn't. When she thought about allowing him the freedom of her body…she just couldn't. Useless or not, she had to fight him, for if she didn't she would lose some vital piece of herself.
Even knowing he wouldn't understand, she spoke her mind. "If love were real, we would give our bodies to each other. But love isn't real, is it? You told me it was not. So I refuse to give you anything. Anything."
His arms tightened on her, and she felt frustration vibrating through him. "How do you dare defy me? I could crush you between my two hands should I desire, yet still you tilt your chin and tell me no."
"If I thought you would crush me, my lord, I would obey you out of fear of your brutality. But for what you wish of me, I believe you want me pink and healthy."
He smiled, a smooth half curl of his lips. "In that you are right, my light of the morning, my angel of desire." They might have been waltzing, so quickly and smoothly did he whirl her into the open chamber. He shut the door with his foot. The air inside was cool and still, and darkness pressed around them like a living entity.
She wasn't afraid of the darkness. Only fools and weaklings feared the night, but she didn't know what was in here. She couldn't make a move without Wynter. She depended on him totally, and that, she knew, must be his strategy. The warrior she had challenged contrived and executed his pursuit of her as surely as he plotted his desert battles.
Apparently his vision was unimpaired, for he seated himself on…something…and pulled her between his legs.
More for the form than because she thought it would do any good, she lodged a protest. "I'm not comfortable with our isolation, my lord."
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