by Maya Rodale
For once—just once—it would be nice to do something for which his father could be proud of him. Oh, he had his talents: taming horses, fox hunting, starting fires, winning all manner of races or feats of physical strength, bringing women to the brink of such pleasure as they had never known …
But these were not things for which his father would be proud of him.
No, James must deliver a thoughtful, informed, poignant speech of this damned folly at four o’clock today or consider himself disowned.
In the Garden
Charlotte had not factored in the weather. In particular, she had not considered the physics of wind, and a wide-brim, unsecured bonnet. Such were the failings of a Proper Lady’s education.
A particularly robust gust launched Lucy’s bonnet, cresting on the wind, right up into a tree, where it became entangled in the branches just out of reach.
“My bonnet!” Lucy shrieked.
Charlotte swore softly under her breath, as one did in such situations. It was so vexing when plans went awry. But one had to adapt. She swiftly examined the options:
Abandon the monstrosity.
Charlotte might climb the tree to rescue it. Climbing trees was all the rage these days, thanks to daring escapades of The London Weekly’s advice columnist, Dear Annabelle. Charlotte could do it—she had learned from James ages ago—but it was unlikely her delicate white dress would survive unscathed.
They could go fetch a gallant gentleman for assistance or …
“Lucy, why don’t you go to the folly and see if perhaps there is a rake we might use to retrieve the bonnet,” Charlotte suggested.
She could not help but smirk at her own wit. Lucy would think the rake would refer to a garden implement, when actually Charlotte meant James. Tussled hair, deep blue eyes, rakish James.
“Ugh, I wouldn’t want to go in there,” Lucy said, glancing warily at the folly and then longingly at her bonnet.
“Why not?” Charlotte asked.
“It’s probably dusty and dirty and full of old bones.” Lucy punctuated this with a delicate shudder.
“It’s a folly, not a mausoleum. Furthermore, it’s new. Which is why we are here today. To celebrate a clean, new building,” Charlotte said.
After standing aside and seriously considering the problem, Harriet’s expression brightened. “I know!” she exclaimed.
Charlotte tilted her head, curious, and then her eyes widened with horror as Harriet’s plan became apparent.
Harriet tossed her reticule—with the key to the folly—up at the stuck hat in an attempt to free it, however she only managed to prove Newton wrong. What went up did not necessarily come down.
Charlotte groaned, her voice trailing off as she watched Lucy Featherbrains attempt to solve the problems of a hat and a reticule stuck in a tree.
She started to hop in a delicate attempt to reach her stupid bonnet. When that was hopeless, she lifted her skirts and jumped, crouching down low before popping up high. Such efforts were to no avail.
Lucy resorted to lifting her skirts past her knees—Lord help them all if any gentleman should happen upon them—sprinting and leaping into the air.
The bonnet was nearly within her grasp!
And then poor Lucy landed not on the soft grass but on a knobby tree root, which caused her to set down at an awkward and painful angle. And then she collapsed. On the ground.
“Oh! My ankle!”
“Oh no!” Harriet said, rushing to her side. “Here, let me help you.”
“I’ll go get a blasted rake,” Charlotte mumbled as she stomped off to the folly. She would get James to help fetch the troublesome hat and to help carry the troublesome Lucy back to the party.
The scheme was ruined.
Toward the rear of the building was a heavy wooden door. She pushed it open and stepped inside the cool, circular room. Light and wind filtered in from open windows placed high on the walls, almost near the ceiling.
Another evil gust of wind blew the door shut. It swung easily on its new, well-oiled hinges. The lock clicked ominously.
To make matters worse, she heard the sound of an iron latch on the outer door jarred loose as it slid into its holder, probably owing to the force with which the door slammed closed.
Charlotte couldn’t help but wonder if doors locked in a way other than ominously. Perhaps securely. Which meant that she was securely and ominously ensconced in the folly.
With a rake.
James leaned against the folly wall, perched on a stack of old wooden crates. His arms were folded across his broad chest. He did not smile.
“Lady Charlotte Brandon. Causing trouble once again,” he remarked in the cool voice of a practiced rogue.
“Mr. James Beauchamp. Be still my beating heart,” she retorted. But really, if only her heart would slow down. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been alone with James before or even in trouble with James. Granted, they had been children at the time.
James was very much a man now. All large, muscled and overbearing. He glanced down at her as if she were still a naughty child. Nothing irked Charlotte more than being underestimated. People did so at their own peril. As James would soon discover.
And yet she stood straighter, arched her back slightly and adopted a haughty expression.
“Dare I even ask why we are locked in this folly together?” James questioned.
“You presume this was planned,” she replied, tipping her chin higher.
“Are you familiar with your reputation?” he questioned and she gave him a sickly sweet smile in response.
“Oh yes: Sparkling conversationalist, pretty and exquisite manners even with the most boorish company,” she replied.
James leaned forward, his blue eyes focused upon hers.
“Or: Too clever for her own good. Devious. Destructive. Dangerous.” His voice positively caressed the words—Devious. Destructive. Dangerous. He couldn’t possibly be talking about her. No, he had to be describing himself.
Also, he did not deny that she was pretty. Which mattered more than she liked. Once again, she willed her racing heart to slow to a less missish pace.
“My goodness. I cannot tell which appeals to me more,” Charlotte said lightly when, in fact, her heart was pounding. “Devious? Or dangerous?”
“Trouble. Definitely trouble,” James muttered.
“If you must know, I came here seeking a rake,” she said haughtily. She did not want him to think she had planned this encounter. Truth be told, she hadn’t planned to be alone with him. She was remembering why: James did not buy her act.
“You found one,” he replied dryly. This pun had amused her before, but it irked her now. Or was it James? He, once so wild and carefree, was now some sardonic, know-it-all rake who lamentably was making her nerves tingle and pulse race.
“Miss Fletcher’s bonnet is stuck in a tree,” Charlotte offered as an explanation.
“Horrors,” he said, with a deadpan expression.
She couldn’t help it, a grin tugged at her lips. “You would think so by the way she carries on. Apparently there is no fate worse than freckles.”
“We had better rescue her bonnet then,” James said, standing up and towering above her. From his evergreen wool jacket to the tips of his shiny Hessians, he was every inch the gentleman. Yet his cheeks were sun-browned and his boots, upon closer inspection, were actually worn. She imagined him hiking across his land, surveying all he possessed, perhaps rescuing a damsel in distress, or helping a neighbor repair a fence.
James was no city dandy, certainly. If anyone could procure Swan Lucy’s bonnet from its captivity in the tree branches, it was he.
To hell with the bonnet. Charlotte, inexplicably, did not want to leave the folly.
If there were worse fates than being locked in a small, dim chamber with Charlotte, James could not think of them. It was generally impossible to think straight around Charlotte. She’d always been a veritable hurricane of outrageously terrible ideas. She had more c
ourage than a girl ought to and an impish smile that made it impossible to admonish her.
He discovered today that she possessed far more dangerous, womanly charms than her smile. She was by all rights the same daring girl, but with the figure of a siren, a gleam of mischief in her pretty blue eyes, milky white skin and the delicate features of a demure English maiden that was lies, all lies.
When had this transformation occurred?
He hadn’t been in London long, hadn’t spent much of that time at ton parties and definitely had not associated with marriageable misses when he had. Still, James knew the rumors: Charlotte would be considered a catch—for her generous dowry and pretty looks—if only it were less work to keep up with her.
Most men did not have the fortitude for a woman like her, James included.
Especially today.
Especially when he was due to give a speech about an architectural farce before London Society and his ever-disapproving father. Just once, he had thought while shaving this morning, just once he’d like to make the old man proud.
Now he’d evermore be referred to as the son who idiotically got himself locked in a folly at an afternoon garden party.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“You’re the one with the timepiece,” she pointed out. He scowled. And checked.
“A quarter after three,” he said. “I am due to make a speech at four o’clock.”
“Ah, yes. When the entire garden party assembles before this very folly so that we might enjoy a lengthy lecture upon the features of this marvelous impenetrable fortress and the architectural design talents of Lord Hastings, all illuminated by his devoted son. I trust you have practiced.”
“Perhaps it’s better if I am locked in here until nightfall,” James muttered.
“We will be discovered eventually,” Charlotte said consolingly. But then her eyes widened in alarm and some awful truth dawned. “And then we will have to marry!”
In unison, both Charlotte and James lunged for the door, vainly grasping the brass knob and turning it every which way. They rattled the heavy door on its freshly oiled hinges, finding it expertly measured, cut and hung so that it fit snugly in the frame and would not budge.
“The footman said there was a problem with the folly. I had no idea it was the blasted lock,” James muttered, rattling the knob once more.
“Well the lock certainly isn’t broken. In fact, it seems to be in excellent working order. Alas.”
“Thank you Charlotte, that is so helpful.”
“You are so welcome, James. Fear not, I shall find a way out for us,” Charlotte said.
She raised her fist high and opened her mouth wide to holler for help when James realized he had to act suddenly to stop her from making a grave mistake. With one hand he grabbed her wrist, just as she was about to pound on the door. He clamped his other hand, palm down, over her mouth before she shrieked for help, bringing the attention of God only knew who upon them.
He spun her around swiftly so her back was against the door. He held her trapped, captive, between his body and the door, with her wrist locked in his grip and pinned above her head. Her mouth pressed against his palm and the slightest mmm escaped her soft lips. She wriggled against his restraint, her hips writhing against him. She arched her back, jutting her breasts forward.
He forgot about the folly.
He thought only of her luscious curves and how he wanted to thoroughly explore them. Given how he held her, she had little room to protest. His arousal was now straining for more, and it occurred to James that he could tug up her skirts, part her legs slightly more and bury himself within her. He’d show her danger. Trouble.
There was no fear in Charlotte’s eyes.
Damn. He would not find this erotic. Not here, not now, not Charlotte.
“Do not make a sound,” he rasped, his voice betraying how hard he was and how much he wanted her.
She mewled in protest against his palm.
“We must escape and we must not draw attention to ourselves while doing so. We have about forty minutes to accomplish this. Do you understand?” James asked. She nodded solemnly.
He released her.
“Who designed this thing to lock like this?” she asked, sounding peevish.
“My father,” James answered.
She glanced around the folly, taking in what little of it there was. A stone tower, devoid of anything but a pile of wooden crates. “I suppose he is also the one who placed the windows so high up. You’d think there’s buried treasure in here or something,” she remarked.
He caught that gleam in her eye, and he just knew that she was concocting tales of long-dead pirates burying a fortune in stolen treasure in the middle of London. James decided that a dose of logic was required to combat the madness in her brain.
“It’s to control the temperature and air circulation. Hot air rises, and then escapes and . . .” James’s voice trailed off as he realized that perhaps he had internalized more of the architectural lectures he’d read than previously realized.
“Treasure would be so much better,” Charlotte said and he thought of the time when she had been absolutely convinced that an ancient Brandon family treasure had been buried underneath her mother’s heirloom rose garden.
The excavation had not been successful. The punishment had been severe.
You should know better his father had lectured. Idiot boy. Then the belt came out.
“There’s no treasure, Charlotte. None at all,” James said impatiently. “Although I can think of something far better.”
“Feeling the sunlight on our cheeks, and cool breeze in our hair. In other words, not being locked in here at all?”
“Exactly. Give me one of your hairpins,” James said. Being Charlotte, she didn’t ask why. She simply reached up and tugged out a pin and handed it to him, saying:
“This is my lucky lock-picking pin.” She smiled. A wisp of her dark hair, now unrestrained, tumbled down, grazing her shoulder.
He forced himself to look away and set to work on the lock.
“I hope you have improved in your lock-picking skills since the summer we were spies,” Charlotte said.
“Pretended,” James corrected. “We were seven and ten years of age. I don’t think any government recruits children to do such dirty work.”
“1812 was a splendid year. We picked locks, wrote in code and skulked around Hamilton Manor,” she said.
“And we were soundly punished for troubling the staff and assuming your butler, Gerard, was a spy for the French,” James reminded her.
“I’m still not convinced he wasn’t,” she replied breezily.
“Damn it,” James swore. The pin broke. She handed him another two.
He was vaguely aware of her strolling about the folly—which required a grand total of twenty paces in a circle. Her hair, dark and luscious, tumbled about her shoulders. Her hairpins were broken in the lock.
“Do you happen to carry a pistol, perchance?” Charlotte asked.
“Funny, it didn’t cross my mind to bring one to an afternoon garden party,” he replied.
“Pity, that. We could simply shoot the lock off,” she said with a shrug.
“And cause a horrible racket that would draw the attention of two hundred guests touring the garden. They would probably not let us out until a special license and vicar were obtained and put to use.”
“Perish the thought. Let me try,” she said, sinking to her knees on the folly floor. She wrinkled her nose, bit her lip and furrowed her brow as she wriggled the pin this way and that until …
Click!
She tried the doorknob, which easily twisted. Her triumphant smile faded when it was clear the door would still not open.
“That damned latch,” they both muttered in unison.
If it weren’t for that damned latch they might be free. One would think his father was planning to stash an ancient treasure in this damned folly, given the level of security installed in a deco
rative garden structure.
“Do you have a knife? We could just saw through and…” Charlotte said, her voice faltering. The latch was iron. A knife would be useless.
“No, I don’t have a knife. Or a pistol, a sword or a bow and arrow—”
Charlotte’s eyes brightened considerably at the mention of her favorite weaponry. Lord, help them all.
“I haven’t shot since—”
“The day you nearly shot my eye out?” he finished for her. Oh, the memories. He traced his finger along the slash of the scar that graced his left cheek.
“Since the day we dramatically reenacted William Tell,” she replied smartly. “If you hadn’t had an attack of nerves and moved your head, I would have gotten the apple. As it was, my arrow only just grazed your cheek.”
“Leaving me horribly disfigured,” he said, mainly to rile her up.
“Leaving you with a dashing scar that I know you use to impress the ladies,” Charlotte corrected. “I have heard on the best authority that you received that scar from a duel over a milkmaid’s virtue, during a pirate attack while crossing the Channel and during a brutal interrogation at the Bastille.”
“I couldn’t very well tell them I was shot by a twelve-year-old girl,” James replied.
“Nor could you tell them the truth, which is that you stepped into the path of a twelve-year-old girl’s arrow,” she retorted. Maddeningly. “Honestly, all I can say is you’re welcome.”
“I beg your pardon?” His jaw might have dropped open.
“I could have told everyone the truth. But instead I allowed all those nitwit ladies to persist in believing your ridiculous version of events. As I said, you’re welcome.”
Charlotte was … Charlotte. She was devious and dangerous, maddening, exasperating. The damned thing was, she looked so pretty while she turned your world upside down. But then one had to endure punishment and lectures and go to great lengths to repair all the damage her clever ideas had wrought.