by Cecilia Gray
In silence, Charlotte amended the toast to fete herself. This was her birthday, after all, and if anyone deserved credit for her sisters’ marriages, it was she. Well, and Damon Cade, Viscount Savage. But mostly she, who had been the party involved most directly in a long and multipronged campaign to see her sisters married.
She felt Damon’s gaze land on her, heating her cheek like warm summer rays, even from across the mighty ballroom filled to the brim with guests dressed in peacock finery and coat collars that defied gravity. There must have been some unspoken agreement among the invited that, while the Belles wore simple pastel dresses, the guests were to dress as if being presented at court. With a change allowed for an afternoon nap, of course. Celebrations of this magnitude required rest.
Damon wasn’t quite in the ballroom, though she could see him plainly. He stood at the base of the grand staircase and leaned one elbow on the balustrade while using his other hand to lift a champagne flute to his lips. When she caught his green eyes, he inclined his head briefly in acknowledgment, and drank. Something sweet palpitated beneath her breastbone. A quiet flutter, as if a wee hummingbird had taken up residence within the walls of her heart. The dizzying sensation had been her constant companion since making the private and personal acquaintance of the viscount.
With an economy of movement she was certain he had learned from hours in the boxing saloon with her brother-in-law—the famed pugilist Mr. Christian Hughes—Damon slunk across the ballroom, never once breaking eye contact with her. Her breath hitched, and she dared not take another sip of her champagne lest she choke. Oh, but he was too beautiful, and to look at him for a prolonged period inevitably resulted in symptoms a physician might equate with hysterics. His lips were modeled after those of the classic Greek statues, as were his high cheekbones. A lock of black hair hung between his eyes with a perpetual curl at its end, and the rest was often hastily styled to appear disheveled.
She forced her gaze away and to her father, who in a rare moment was actually looking at her instead of a crowd of admirers. She smiled, and he smiled back, but she noticed the tension at the corners of his mouth and a small pulse at his left temple. All signs that pointed to his distress. Given the successes in his life, the only cause could be that she was not yet married.
But how could she be, really? She’d had the exceedingly poor taste to fall in love with someone who did not, could not, love her back.
She knew when Damon’s approach brought him next to her without even looking at him. There was the rustle of heads to watch him pass—an obvious tell—but also his clean, masculine scent wafting toward her. Charlotte was sure that even a month in the stables mucking out his beloved horses’ manure would still find Damon smelling like soap and leather. He was less than a foot away when he stopped next to a small table with a vase of delphiniums and larkspur from a nearby meadow.
His gaze had also shifted to her father, but the deep timbre of his voice was for her alone. “I’ve found you a husband.”
Marrying her off had become Damon’s sole focus since Sera had remarried last month and Charlotte had become the one remaining single Belle. She could not attend a London gathering of polite company without his insisting she dance with the gentlemen he sent her way, or exchange a kind word with his riding companion in Hyde Park who—oh great heavens and coincidence!—happened to be unmarried. This, however—this declaration that he’d found her a husband, selected the man without her consent or review, was too much.
“I was not aware I had misplaced a husband,” she said.
“No need to be tart.”
“And no need to be dismissive of my feelings and opinions. I have already informed you that I have no interest in marriage.”
“Even with me, Lottie?”
Her swift, sharp intake of breath strangled in her throat, so that even if she’d wanted to, she could not lecture him on his use of that dratted nickname. She coughed and set down her flute on the table. By now, the toasts had moved on to the many joys of Alice’s daughter, which was quite a feat given that she was just two months old, so no one had noticed Charlotte’s episode, nor did they take note when she turned to Damon, eyes flashing and fists to her hips.
“What a terrible trick to play on me. And on my birthday!”
He only half smiled. “It’s not a trick. I have found you a husband. He’s a viscount, but will inherit the title of Earl of Devon, which includes a very nicely sized estate a few days’ ride from here. He is neither dull-witted nor cruel. Many have remarked he is no burden to gaze upon. Some, it is rumored, mark it as their favorite pastime.” He stepped closer and she felt his breath at her ear. “And despite gossip sheets to the contrary, while he is no innocent, he is hardly, by definition, a rake.”
Good God, he was serious.
Every word he had said about himself was true. He was titled, intelligent, and possessed a generous nature toward his friends. Gazing upon his face, especially when he was not looking, was indeed one of her favorite pastimes. While they might quibble over the definition of rake, it was also decidedly true that he did not court trouble of the female variety, though sometimes it went looking for him.
No, he couldn’t be serious. She would not even acknowledge such a jest. She averted her gaze from him and returned it to her father.
He chuckled. “I would sooner win an argument with Dinah than with you. While she might possess the more frightening intelligence, at least with her, one can see the wheels turning in an inevitable direction. You’re always an enigma, Lottie. Come, tell me, what are you thinking? Of whether to splash that champagne in my face? Or of what to wear on our wedding day?”
“Not our wedding night?” she asked, looking up at him over her shoulder and arching a brow.
“Ideally, you would be wearing very little then.”
She blushed and turned away, worried her face might betray her feelings, which would be utterly unacceptable. This arrangement between them—he as an agent of the Crown and she as his asset and inside informant—only worked because she never betrayed her feelings, not to him or anyone else.
“I think you’re too desperate to fulfill your mission to see all of us married.”
“I am rarely desperate, my dear.” His expression turned somber, a rare event in their acquaintance. “Do you think I would make a bad husband?”
“No,” she answered honestly.
“Would I beat you?”
“No.”
“Try to control you?”
“No.”
“Attempt to control your fortune?”
She snorted.
“Belittle you?”
“No, no, of course not. You make your point. You would respect your wife and treat her well and protect and care for her.” She felt an ache at the words, knowing them to be true, that he would make another woman—one who would be more forgiving of his inability to love—very happy. She looked back over her shoulder, meeting his green eyes and finding a measure of surprise there. “You’re an honorable man. I know that.”
“Then why do you resist?” His voice dropped to a murmur, and he closed the distance between them, his chest to her back, so that he could study her face over her shoulder.
“Do you think I wouldn’t be faithful?” His gaze dropped to her lips, and she bit her tongue to keep from licking them.
“I wouldn’t know.” Her voice trembled only a little.
“I’ve had many women, Lottie, and know when pleasure can be found. Believe me, we shall have no barriers to pleasure. If you do not unnecessarily bar me from our bedroom, then I would see no reason to seek distraction elsewhere. I’m a man who enjoys convenience, God knows.”
Good Lord. Her cheeks flushed hot, and she felt the blush clear down her neck to her shoulders. Were they really having a conversation about their potential mating rituals upon their hypothetical wedding? Her sisters would have a fit. She was having a fit.
His voice brought her back to the matter at hand. “I promised you hones
ty in our dealings all those years ago, and you pledged yours in return. Be honest with me now.”
She closed her eyes. She couldn’t tell him she loved him. Honesty wasn’t the same as full disclosure, though, so she gave him the truth the best way she could while preserving her pride. “You do not love me.”
This time, his voice displayed genuine shock. “Love? Lottie… I…” He cupped the back of his neck. “I don’t know if I could love any woman. I don’t even know if…” He sighed. “That word. That damnable word. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Of course not,” she said, trying to make light of it despite the dull throb in her chest. She turned away so he could not see her expression. “Not you. Why would I waste time worrying over a flesh and blood mistress when a woman could never hold your heart? It belongs to the Crown.”
“I don’t know if the organ exists.” His tone made it clear he was trying to make light of the situation too. When she didn’t respond, it turned serious. “I don’t even know that I believe such a thing as love exists.”
She couldn’t hide her exasperation as she spun around to face him. “You see your best friends with my sisters and doubt that love exists? No, do not start. It doesn’t matter. You tell me you do not believe in love, and I believe you. You do not believe in love. But I do. So, we cannot marry.”
He could not argue with the truth, although he may have wanted to, as she witnessed in the pulse of his clenched jaw.
The toasts had finally come to an end, and the strains of orchestral strings broke through the conversational chatter as sets formed for the quadrille.
“Besides,” she said in a tone meant to return the topic to lighter fare, “are you so afraid that you cannot matchmake without my assistance that you’d rather marry me than do the work of finding a suitor on your own? Come now, Lord Savage. You mustn’t fall on the matrimonial sword on my account. Admit that the success you’ve reaped from my four sisters may be attributed more to my efforts than your own, and I will gladly marry the first man who asks me to dance.”
He smirked, amused. “Always so eager for praise.”
“It’s not unmerited, is it?”
“You have been incalculably critical to my success.”
“Ah, so we only need a man to ask me to dance and you’ll have me married off too.”
Then, as if she had conjured him from smoke and mirrors, a man appeared by her side. He bowed to Damon first. “Lord Savage. A pleasure.” Then to her. “Miss Charlotte, would you grant me the honor of your hand for the next dance?”
Damon took a bold step forward, towering over the man by half a head. “Her card is full.”
The man—she vaguely remembered now that they had been introduced earlier in the crush—glanced at the blank card dangling from her wrist. She fought the urge to hide it behind her back. She used to have dances. She was an heiress after all! But Damon, in his misguided attempts to help, had managed years ago to frighten away any fortune hunter who might consider himself a suitor. She hadn’t cared much at the time, but now she hated to appear undesirable.
She ignored Damon. “It appears I have yet to be claimed,” she said to the man. She offered him a curtsey.
Her mind was clearing as she searched it for information, any recollection of him. He was of medium stature with blond hair, friendly blue eyes, a smile with a snaggletooth, and ears that stuck out a little too far. She almost snapped her fingers as his name came to her. Reece Crawford, her brother-in-law Robert’s elder brother. They came from a family of seven children, resided in Leeds, and were generally good company, though she understood from Sera that their niece, Roberta, had narrowly avoided a scandal earlier that year.
Damon angled as if to block her from him. “I’m happy to—”
He was far too protective of her from what he termed “disreputable fortune hunters.” Perhaps he did not know that Reece was his friend’s brother and could hardly be blamed for having less money than she did, when the same could be said of nearly all of England. She cut Damon off. “Thank you, Mr. Crawford. I accept.”
Mr. Reece Crawford grasped her fingers. His palm was warm and dry as he pulled her into the line with confidence.
Chapter Two
Charlotte’s account of Viscount Savage
March, five years ago
London, England
Playing Keep the Crown with her sisters was always a sweaty affair, so once Charlotte was convinced that Sera was no longer in despair over having been jilted by her fiancé—assuming she had ever been in despair to begin with—she climbed to the roof of their aunt’s home. Using her hands as a pillow, she lay on her back, face to the moon, and let the London chill sweep through her walking gown into her bones.
Unlike her sisters, she enjoyed the colder weather. She rarely wore gloves unless prompted by civility and avoided scarves at all costs. Perhaps it was because she was heavyset, warmed by her own body, but she never needed material encumbrances to feel comfortable. Her pale skin puckered as the breeze fanned over her bare arms. From this vantage point, she was privy to all the sounds of the neighborhood. Water gurgled in a neighbor’s fountain. Hedges whispered against one another. Clattering horses made their way through cobblestone streets.
She imagined the lives connected to these sounds, the people within the houses. Her sister Bridget was always credited with having the most active imagination among them, but Charlotte’s inner life was just as vibrant, if secret.
She’d learned long ago that being plain was the same as being invisible. It did not matter if you were helpful and competent when you had a tall, striking eldest sister who was the same. It did not matter if you were well read when your beautiful, romantic sister had already read all the books in the library. Your analytical mind would never be as intriguing as that of your pixie-like sister—although, granted, Charlotte made no claim to being one-tenth the intellectual that Dinah was. And no matter the vibrancy of your red hair or the tilt of your gray eyes, you would never be considered attractive when your youngest sister had been declared the diamond to eclipse all diamonds, and henceforth, all other women would be compared to stones less precious.
Charlotte was used to being unseen and unnoticed. It was quite possible that her sisters had not even realized she’d quit the game. They loved her. She knew that. But they also loved to win.
“Is this seat taken?”
The low, male voice startled her, and she hurriedly sat up. The sight of his face nearly sent her rolling off the roof. He was the most beautiful man, certainly of her acquaintance and possibly to ever have been born. He wore fitted breeches and a white linen shirt with its sleeves rolled up, its ties undone at the neck. Surely she would have been distracted by the skin, by the tensile strength of his arms, had it not been for those penetrating green eyes.
For a girl who had never felt seen, she now felt studied.
“May I?” he prompted, nodding at the empty bit of roof beside her.
She was at a momentary loss as to how to proceed. Had a man found her alone in a room, she would have sought the company of her lady’s maid. Had a gentleman sought conversation without introduction at a ball, she would have been within her rights to cut him dead. But there was no protocol she had been taught for this scenario.
She had always assumed her education to have been comprehensive. Her father, were he to be informed, would be dismayed it was not so, especially after the coin he had spent to ensure they had every advantage and then some not available to the society members who found trade beneath them… although they seemed happy to enjoy the spoils of her father’s labor.
“I’m afraid I cannot vouch for the availability of this space,” she said. “I have only just arrived myself, and this is not my roof.”
He grinned and seated himself anyway, only a foot away from her. “You are the middle one,” he said. “Miss Charlotte Belle.”
Her name sounded so simple coming from his lips, as if they needed no introduction, needed nothing beyond eac
h other in order to speak. “I thank you for letting me know. I had wondered about my own identity.” She sounded breathless to her own ears and struggled to remain seated. It seemed inappropriate to lie down with him here. Or at least, more inappropriate than the current situation.
“Rude of me,” he mused. “I should introduce myself.”
She knew who he was now, of course. There was only one man so notorious, one man whose exploits at meeting women were so read about and reported on, so scandalous, one man whose beauty was so outrageous. “Does Viscount Savage need an introduction?”
“Not according to my press.” He looked around them, at the landscape of rooftops and tiles that stretched for miles in all directions. “The pitch of this roof is greater than it appears from below. You probably shouldn’t be here.”
“You aren’t even invited.”’
“You should probably go inside,” he said. “For your own safety.”
“You should stop telling me what to do.” She had no idea what made her so bold, except that he was looking at her, seeing her. Beneath his gaze she seemed to exist. In existing, she was becoming more herself, the Charlotte that she often buried deep beneath society’s rules, and politeness, and love for her family.
“You’re a curious thing. Not what I expected given what they say.”
“You are exactly what they say.”
His lips twisted up. “Then you should know what to expect next.”
She did not expect it. There was knowing a man to be a rake and there was finding yourself on the receiving end of his kiss, especially when you were not the kind of girl whom men sought for that purpose.
He closed the distance by leaning in—surely this was not the first time he had kissed a woman he ought not, based on his disturbing command of the situation. His hands rested on her neck, tilting up her head. His lips slashed against hers, then insistently moved in the opposite direction until her swift intake of breath finally let him explore her with his tongue, which he did in languid lashes. No sooner had she become used to that than he nipped at her mouth and drew his lips down her neck.