The Runaway Duchess

by Jillian Eaton

  “What did you think of my mother?” Even though she was still dressed, Charlotte had drawn the top quilt up to cover her knees. She sat with her arms folded and her chin propped up, like a child ready to listen to a parent’s bedtime story.

  “I did not see any of you in her,” he answered honestly. “She seemed very hard.”

  “She is. She always has been. My father was the one who used to laugh.” Charlotte smiled wistfully. “Sometimes he could make her laugh too. He was the only one. I am stubborn, like her,” she said after a pause. “And I often think I am right when I am wrong, like she does.”

  “It was wrong of her to say those things to you.” Something caught in Gavin’s throat and he coughed to clear it. “I am sure she did not mean them,” he continued, but Charlotte was already shaking her head.

  “She did.” This time her smile was sad. “I should not have gone to see her, but some part of me hoped… Well, it does not matter now. What is done is done.” She plucked at a loose thread on the quilt. “I must thank you for accompanying me. I know not all of the horrible things she said were reserved for me alone.”

  Gavin shrugged. “I have heard worse.”

  “Could you tell me about your family?”

  “My family?” he repeated, taken aback.

  “Yes.” Charlotte pulled hard enough at the quilt thread to snap it. Looking at it as though it were the most fascinating thing in the world she wound it around and around her finger in an endless loop. “I know we agreed not to be personal,” she said softly, “but I want to understand where you come from. It is only fair, after all.”

  “And how did you reach that conclusion?”

  She shrugged. “Well, since you met my mother it seems only right that you tell me about yours.”

  Gavin had already decided to tell her whatever she wanted to know the moment he turned away from the door, but that did not mean he would give away such information freely. He was a bargainer at heart, and saw no reason not to use those skills inherent to him towards his own benefit. “I was granting you a favor when I went with you to see your mother.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “That wasn’t a favor, that was your duty as my husband. You may neglect your other husbandly duties, but you cannot get away with ignoring them all.”

  “And what other husbandly duties have I been… neglecting?”

  Charlotte’s blush was immediate and all encompassing, even in the darkness. “We have talked about this before at some length. I do not know why you are acting like this—”

  He stood up easily from the chair and shifted his weight forward, moving with the sinuous grace of a panther as he braced his hands on the bed and leaned towards her. “Like what?” he invited.

  “You are mocking me.”

  “No, never that.”

  “Then you trying to d-distract me.” Charlotte gasped when he pushed her hair away from her neck and began to trace a wandering path across her exposed flesh with his mouth.

  “Yes,” he murmured, a wicked grin curving his lips before he took her earlobe between his teeth and tugged. He hovered above her, one knee on the bed, the other pressed hard against it. His hands were flat on the mattress, his stomach pulled in tight.

  Charlotte’s eyes were wide beneath his, her brow furrowed, her lips slightly parted. “Gavin, I do not think—”

  “Precisely,” he whispered. “Do not think.”

  He sank into her by degrees. She was hesitant at first. Stiff. He softened her as an artist would soften clay, bringing his hands up to cup her shoulders before working his way down her arms, rubbing her tight muscles until, with a little sigh of surrender, she relaxed into him.

  Their first time together had been fast, impatient, desperate. This was slow, soft, sweet. He tasted her mouth, her tongue, the heavenly nectar of her skin. She turned her head to the side, exposing the line of buttons that ran the length of her gown. Still kissing her neck he undid them one by one, freeing her from the dress and the undergarments beneath it with a patience he did not know he possessed until she wore only moonlight.

  “You are beautiful.” His voice was ragged. His body pulsing with need. Though it killed him, he remained still while she divested him of his clothes in turn, interrupting only when her fingers went to the laces of his trousers. “Lay on your back,” he instructed. She did as he asked, propping herself up on her elbows and, whether by accident or design, thrusting her perfect breasts upwards.

  Gavin kicked free of his pants and stretched out beside her, idly pulling pins from her hair as they kissed, their tongues lazily entwining as though they had all the time in the world. When her curls tumbled across the pillows like fire he moved down her body in strokes, lingering when she gasped and arched.

  When he reached the heart of her she was wet and waiting and sobbed his name as he suckled. Her fingers clutched his hair, her nails digging into his scalp, and when he brought her to the brink of release before working his way back up her trembling body her eyes were wide and wondrous and wanting.

  When they came together, it was perfect.

  He slipped into her and she welcomed him, her arms winding up around his shoulders. They met each other thrust for thrust, establishing a rhythm punctuated by gasps and groans and breathy laughs born of mindless pleasure. The tempo changed. It grew faster, needier. She bucked underneath of him, her breaths frantic, her head thrashing.

  As one being, they tumbled into oblivion.

  “Tell me about your mother. What was she like?”

  Dawn found Charlotte curled in Gavin’s arms. She was facing him, one knee burrowed between his thighs, one hand pressed tight against his chest. She felt his heart beat beneath her palm and the even rise and ease of his ribcage as he breathed. He stroked her hair, combing his fingers mindlessly through the tangled curls. The bed was in disarray, the covers twisted this way and that. The top quilt was gone completely and a sheet rode low on their hips, leaving their top halves bare.

  When Charlotte glanced up at Gavin’s face to see if he had heard her quietly spoken question she saw he was looking past her to the window where light streaked in through the glass, although the vacancy in his eyes told her he was seeing a much different scene.

  “She was always kind,” he said after a long pause.

  Charlotte exhaled the breath she had not even known she was holding in one gusty sigh. Upon waking and seeing Gavin had not left her during the night, she quickly determined what had transpired between them was no fanciful dream. Hope had blossomed in her chest, followed quickly by fear. If he turned from her again, she did not know how she could bear it… but here he was, still holding her, still talking to her. She burrowed more firmly into his arms, resting her head on his taut bicep and closing her eyes.

  “Go on,” she coaxed quietly, “you can tell me.”

  She heard him sigh and shift, but it was only to wrap his arm around the slender curve of her spine and tuck her against him. “My father was a drunk who made a living with his fists. My older brother followed in his footsteps and was killed before his seventeenth birthday. He went up against someone he shouldn’t have in the ring, and he paid the price for it.”

  Charlotte’s eyes flew open. It wasn’t the death that startled her, but rather the matter-of-fact way Gavin divulged it. “You had a brother?”

  “Two. They both took after my father. I wasn’t close to either of them.”

  “You were more like your mother,” she guessed.

  The fingers in her hair paused for the briefest of moments before he resumed untangling the long curls. “I suppose you could say that, except I fought as well.”

  Now she was truly shocked. “You did?”

  “Yes, except I was better at it and I didn’t drown myself in drink after. I saved my money, and I got the hell out of Old London as soon as I was able.”

  What strength it must have taken for a young man to resist the temptations around him and not only survive, but go on to make an enormous success of himself. To
succeed where his father and brothers had failed. To rise up where his peers had fallen. It would have taken courage and drive and, Charlotte supposed, a certain type of hardness that still existed within him to this day.

  Sitting up on one elbow, she brushed a tendril of Gavin’s dark hair behind his ear. He watched her, his eyes wide and wary, but he didn’t pull away. It was rather like befriending a wild wolf, she thought with a small smile. If you moved too quickly, the wolf would either snap or bolt. But with consistency and kindness he could be gentled, although never quite tamed completely.

  She stretched forward and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to his cheek. His scruff of beard was rough against her lips, the woodsy scent of him divine. The arm he had wrapped around her tightened as she began to press kisses down the line of his jaw, but she stopped before she reached his neck and fell backwards onto her pillow with a breathless laugh. “Thank you,” she said, slanting him a sideways glance.

  He sat back. “For what?”

  “For sharing part of yourself with me. I know it is not easy for you to do.”

  “No.” His eyebrows pulled together. “It isn’t.”

  “Does this… Does this change anything between us?” She held her breath the moment the question was past her lips, and even though outwardly she was composed, inside she could not help but chant please, please, please.

  Gavin took his time answering. He rubbed his chin. Ran a hand through his hair. Looked out the window. When Charlotte thought she would simply die of anticipation, he chuckled under his breath and flicked a finger down her nose. “Breathe,” he said.

  She exhaled through her nostrils and struck him harmlessly on the shoulder. “You are doing it on purpose!”

  His expression was one of pure innocence. “Doing what?”

  “Dragging it out.” Annoyed, she started to roll off the side of the bed. He gave a hard tug with the arm that was still wrapped around her waist and she tumbled against him, her red curls spilling every which way.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” he said huskily.

  Scowling, she planted her hands on his chest and pushed herself up. “Then tell me. Are things – have things – changed or haven’t they? Because if they haven’t…”

  “If they haven’t?” he prompted.

  She bit her lip. “I don’t know.” Playfulness fading, Charlotte untangled herself and sat on the edge of the bed, her toes curling around the mattress and her arms wrapping tight around her legs. This time Gavin did not try to pull her back, but after a moment of silence she felt his weight shift and tears sprang unwanted to her eyes when she felt him brush her hair to the side and press the softest of kisses to the nape of her neck.

  “They have,” he murmured. “They have changed. I have changed. I was careless with you. Detached. Cold. Sometimes even cruel. I thought if I could push you away you wouldn’t matter. I thought if I buried myself in work I could forget you, but I couldn’t. I can’t,” he said achingly. “You are not who you were supposed to be. I thought I wanted a wife I could show off like one of my carriages and then set to the side. I never expected… I never thought I was capable of feeling what I feel for you.”

  It wasn’t eloquent, and it wasn’t quite a declaration of love, but Charlotte was charmed nevertheless. Turning her head to the side, she asked, “Are you trying to say you want to have a real marriage?”

  “Bloody hell, I suppose I am.”

  She twisted all the way around to face him, her expression grave. “You cannot change your mind tomorrow.”

  “I won’t,” he promised.

  “We are still going to get mad at each other and fight.”

  His eyes gleamed. “I hope so. I don’t like it when you’re quiet.”

  “And I don’t like it when you ignore me as though I do not exist.”

  The smile that had crept into the corners of his mouth faded away. “I know,” he said solemnly. “I am sorry for the hurt I have caused you.”

  She cupped his jaw. “I am sorry for the hurt I have caused you.”

  “We have not been kind to each other.”

  “But we can start today.”

  “We can start today,” he agreed.

  Suddenly aware of both her nakedness and his, Charlotte leaned provocatively forward and brushed the tips of her breasts against his chest.

  “We could start right now,” she whispered.

  Gavin’s grin was positively wicked. “We could.”

  Laughing, they fell back onto the bed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  The next two weeks were not without their trials and tribulations.

  Shire House rang with the sound of Gavin and Charlotte’s shouts as they argued over one thing after another, from the repainting of Gavin’s study (“Don’t you dare touch a bloody thing in here,” he had blustered before storming out) to more serious matters, including Charlotte’s brief, albeit quickly abandoned, idea of moving her mother in with them (“Bloody well try it and see what happens,” Gavin had threatened).

  Yet every night, no matter how much they clashed during the day, they fell into each other’s arms and woke side by side each morning.

  In those quiet moments as the sun rose outside their bedroom window and it seemed as though no one else in all of London was awake except for them, they gazed into each others eyes and knew complete contentment.

  Bit by reluctant bit Gavin divulged more information about his past, and Charlotte came to appreciate him all the more. She loved him fiercely, both the boy he had been and the man he was now. She understood him as she had never been able to before, and in understanding did not press him for what he was still incapable of giving her.

  What would it take, she wondered one morning as she plunged her hands into the cool earth and buried a seed deep into the dark soil, for him to tell her that he loved her? To commit himself to her not only with his actions, but also with his words. To erase the apprehension completely from his eyes. To give her all of himself and hold nothing back.

  A miracle.

  It would take nothing short of a miracle.

  Could she be content with what she had? It was already so much more than she ever dreamed. People went their entire lives without knowing true love and she held it in the palm of her hand. But love belonged in the heart, and as Charlotte rocked back on her haunches to survey the neat row of bulbs she had planted along the side of the estate she could not help but yearn for what was still beyond her grasp.

  “Be content with what you have,” she told herself sensibly as she dusted her hands off on the smock she had borrowed from Tabitha and stood up, shielding her eyes against the bright afternoon sun.

  With Tabitha running errands, Dianna visiting relatives in Scotland, and Gavin conducting some sort of business meeting or another, she was alone for the entirety of the day. Never one to sit idly on her heels, Charlotte had been gardening since dawn and as she took a step back to view the results of her hard labor she felt a wondrous sense of pride at what she had managed to accomplish thus far.

  No longer plain and dormant, the sizable yard behind Shire House was now blooming with life. The overgrown bushes had been trimmed back (with the help of the true gardener, a sweet, elderly man by the name of Mr. Boggs who came by three days a week), the flower beds had been weeded, tilled, and replanted, and the courtyard stone was finally in place. Come next spring when the bulbs bloomed into a colorful array of tulips it would be positively heavenly, and as Charlotte returned inside to cool herself off she absently plucked a white blossom from one of the newly clipped barberry shrubs that sat on either side of the French doors.

  Twirling it between her fingers, she went first to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water and then to the linen closet for a rag to wipe along her perspiring brow. She came across two maids, both of whom lowered their eyes the moment they spied her, muttered a quick greeting, and fled.

  Swallowing back a sigh, she wandered into the library and perched on the edge of a velvet tri
mmed chair to stare broodingly at the dormant fireplace. While her relationship with Gavin had improved ten fold seemingly overnight, the household staff was more distant than ever. In her husband’s presence they were cordial, but when he was gone… Her mouth twisted into a rueful smile. When he was gone, she might as well have been invisible.

  It was a problem that would have to be addressed at some point or another. She knew nothing would be gained by pretending as though everything was fine, and yet that is exactly what she continued to do, day after day. She supposed a small part of her had hoped she would eventually be accepted, but it was a well known fact by everyone (with the exception of Gavin, who was, bless the man, completely oblivious) that Dobson despised her and led the rest of his staff to feel the same.

  She had tried to make peace with the surly butler time and time again but had been met with resistance at every turn. The man was impossible, and short of letting him go she did not see a ready solution to her problem. That, however, would mean admitting failure to Gavin; something she was still not quite ready to do.

  “Mrs. Graystone?”

  Charlotte turned automatically at the sound of her name, and blinked in confusion when she saw a maid standing in the doorway. Short and petite, the maid wore her dark hair tucked neatly up beneath a white cap and appeared visibly agitated.

  “Yes, what is it Beatrice?”

  The maid’s eyes widened. “Ye know who I am?”

  Charlotte stood up. “You are a scullery maid. You’ve been here seven months. Your older sister, Annie, works in the kitchen.”

  “How do ye know all that?” Beatrice asked in amazement.

  “I am the lady of this household. It is my business to know.” Her tone was short and clipped, but not unkind. “Do you need something?”