by Maya Rodale
“You wouldn’t dare,” she whispered. Strangely, he wanted to. What a sight it would be for Charlotte to be still, to be at his mercy for once.
“No one would blame me,” he said. But that was a lie. If he were discovered with a bound female, he would have to leave town. Indefinitely.
“I want to see,” she whispered again. Her curiosity would be the end of them both.
“Chess. They are playing chess,” he said, his voice oddly husky.
She smiled at him, like the devil with a trick up her sleeve. Then she slid down slowly, her back against the wall, her breasts brushing against him. Quite nearly on her knees—with her mouth just inches from certain excited parts of his anatomy—she turned her head, parted the curtains and peered out.
“Chess? I think you meant chest. Yes, he has his hand on her chest,” she murmured. James thought of his hands on the round swells of Charlotte’s breasts, then his mouth, and the thought was tempting. Too tempting. Especially with her mouth just inches from …
“I can’t quite …” Charlotte tilted her head, trying to get a better view from her impossible position. She brushed against him. He groaned softly.
“It’s an advanced move in … backgammon,” James told her. Why he felt impelled to protect the innocence of Charlotte Brandon he knew not. Especially given that he’d just been considering his hands and his mouth lavishing attention on her breasts.
“If that is backgammon then I have been playing all wrong,” she replied, and God help him, he wanted to laugh. She slid up to stand, her body torturously caressing the length of his as she did. The thing was, he didn’t think this was a deliberate scheme or a purposefully seductive maneuver.
In spite of all her dangerous and devious machinations, she was an innocent.
“Don’t look anymore. You’ll be ruined,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“One might say I already am. For the second time,” she said.
“And whose fault is that?” he questioned.
Hers. But he would be blamed for it.
“Quite beside the point, I’m sure. Now step aside sir, I couldn’t quite see and I’d like to be shocked.” She tried to inch past him. He held the curtains firmly shut. Mainly, though, to keep his hands occupied with something other than her—whether a caress or strangling, he wasn’t quite sure yet.
“You want to be shocked, Charlotte?” he asked, with a lift of his brow, like a dare.
“I’ll settle for amused,” she said coolly.
“Will you now? He replied just as coolly, even though, by God, he suddenly wanted to take her, kiss her hard and show her shocked. Ravished. Amused.
“Shouldn’t a gentleman honor a lady’s wishes?” Charlotte mused. “Is that not the gentlemanly thing to do?”
“It depends upon the matter in which she wishes to be obliged. I cannot in good conscience let you look at the extremely indelicate situation in which Lady Layton and Lord Beaverbrook are engaged.”
“Extremely indelicate?” Charlotte echoed with a stifled burst of laughter. “You sound like a dowager.”
“I’ll have you know, Miss Charlotte, that I am a renowned rake. No woman would mistake me for a dowager,” he said, warningly.
“Why does that sound like a threat?”
“It isn’t,” he said firmly. But he was this close to proving to her thoroughly and assuredly that he was not a dowager. He was a rake and he would take his pleasure where it suited him.
Starting with her. He would kiss that impish, teasing smile right off her mouth until she was gasping his name and her lips were red and swollen from his kiss.
“Isn’t it?” she asked. He thought he might have heard her mutter “pity, that” under her breath, but he was distracted by Beaverbrook loudly and vehemently invoking the Lord’s name and that of his son. And Lady Layton loudly and repeatedly affirmed that yes, yes, yes, that was just right, right there.
“Goodness …” Charlotte murmured and a blush infused her cheeks. “We need to get out of here. I will be missed.”
“They’re just about done,” he said. The torture was almost over. He felt something then … something that made him perfectly understand Charlotte’s whispered “pity, that.” This was a horrendous situation.
But it was fun. Certainly more fun than inane conversations in the ballroom and waltzes with insipid young girls or blatant illicit proposals from widows and married women. Given the choice, he would choose to be here, in this miniscule alcove, with the tempting and vexing Charlotte Brandon.
The realization made his heart stop in his throat.
Yes, this was fun.
And it could be much more fun if he were much less of a gentleman.
Besides, it was time to plot their escape, now that Lady Layton and Beaverbrook had finished. Oh wait—oh no.
“I could just take you again!” Beaverbrook cried out.
“Yes, take me! Now! Again and again and again!” Lady Layton gasped.
Charlotte met his gaze and simply said, “We could try the window,” and he wasn’t sure if that was the best thing or the worst thing she could have said given that he was seriously considering ravishing her.
Charlotte thought he’d been acting peevish. He must have been so annoyed to be stuck thusly with her. Plus, she knew that Harriet would be wondering about her; ditto for Sophie and Brandon. And she could not explain that she was stuck in an alcove with a known rake. It was worse than being stuck in the folly.
Here, it was physically impossible for them not to touch. She’d felt the length of him, all strong, as she slid down to peek through the curtains. Had she known … she would have stood still and tall, a perfect specimen of an ideal lady’s posture. And then she couldn’t help but feel him all over, all over again as she stood up.
Lady Layton and Lord Beaverbrook seemed to be having a marvelous time. And she, and James … if he was such a rake why didn’t he kiss her already?!
Thus she suggested the window. An escape not just from this alcove, but from her tortured feelings. Why did she force things all the time? Why didn’t he want her? What was wrong with the man?
She and James cracked open the French doors and peered out. And down. Not only was it a sheer drop from the second story, but, were they to land safely, it would be among a gathering of guests seeking air.
“Is that Swan Lucy and Mitchell Twitchell in an … embrace?” she asked, somewhat intrigued and somewhat shocked. Lucy was easily identified by her atrocious coiffure, which incorporated ropes of pearls and tiny little toy boats. The theme, one presumed, was shipwreck.
“It would seem so,” James murmured. His face was close to hers. The proximity was disorientating. The wondrousness of it—from the heat pooling in her belly to the slow, heated blush stealing across her skin—was so strange, so new.
“Everyone is …” She started to say everyone is having passionate encounters. Except me. And I’m the one stuck in an alcove with an avowed rake!
“Everyone is what?” James asked in a whisper.
“Nothing,” Charlotte said hastily. “Do you think we can escape this way?”
“Not without breaking our necks in the process,” he remarked, drawing back inside their alcove.
“What will we do?” Charlotte asked, and she wasn’t entirely asking about their escape route. No, she wanted to know what they would do until they were freed.
“We will have to wait them out,” he said with a shrug. Then he leaned against the opposite wall—not that it was very far. He closed his eyes, exhaled, and his lips moved ever so slightly. It was the sign of someone counting backward from ten in an attempt to rein in their wilder emotions.
People made that expression often around Charlotte. She knew it well.
“So, James, how have you been all these years?”
“All these years?”
“Until our improper extended visit in the folly, you had not spoken to me for years,” she pointed out. This may start a fight. Or a conversation, at least.
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“It would have vastly interfered with my rakish pursuits, like wenching, drinking myself stupid and engaging in idiotic wagers. Besides, you hadn’t spoken to me, either,” he replied. She had not expected that.
“A lady does not initiate relationships with gentlemen,” she said, sounding as prim as she could.
“Since when do you give a damn about ladylike behavior?” he asked, lifting his brow. And then, in a murmuring voice, he said the most devastating thing: “Don’t develop a sense of propriety on me now, Char.”
“I won’t,” she said in a whisper, which may have been the most wanton, forward thing she’d ever said. He reached out and brushed a lock of her hair away from her face. Delicate. Attentive.
His eyes had darkened and he was looking at her mouth, intently. Dear God, her knees were actually going weak.
Beaverbrook also chose that moment to invoke the name of the Lord as well. Loudly. The Good Lord did not respond then, but Lady Layton did with an appalling amount of sighs and moans and cries of “oh, please.”
“I wish I were allowed rakish pursuits. Or any pursuits,” Charlotte said with a sigh. If she were more experienced, this whole encounter might not be so strange and puzzling. This, coming from a girl who had engaged in more than her fair share of trouble, but never this kind of trouble.
“You may pursue ladylike behavior and marriage,” James said. Then he gritted his teeth and nodded his head firmly. As if this were a resolution he were undertaking, not she.
“Fetch the smelling salts. I am swooning with excitement at the myriad of vast and thrilling opportunities the world affords me,” Charlotte replied dryly.
“If you fainted now, I would catch you,” he said softly. Her heartbeat quickened. Was James flirting with her?
“You’re too kind,” she demurred.
“Kindness has nothing to do with it, Charlotte.” And then her knees really did go weak and, honest to God, she felt light-headed too.
The problem was that the world was not equipped for a woman like Charlotte. She was too clever, too energetic. Had she been born a man, she would have usurped the throne in at least four countries already.
Truth be told, he wouldn’t put it past her to do so yet.
And he wanted to be by her side when she did.
She wasn’t just his childhood comrade any longer. She was a beautiful woman with a sense of adventure, unlike all the other small-minded women he had known. Life would never be boring with Charlotte.
In the meantime, his thoughts strayed again to her breasts, swelling temptingly above her white gown that declared her an Innocent. He wanted to touch, to taste. He wanted to muss up her hair again, not because her hairpins were needed to pick a lock, but because he ran his fingers through them as he kissed her thoroughly.
Lady Layton and Beaverbrook, by the sounds of it, were thoroughly engaged in a second bout of lovemaking. He wanted to block out the noise. He wanted to be truly alone with Charlotte. And he wanted to get out of this damned alcove before his self-restraint cracked.
“Thank you for trying to mend the situation with my father and me,” he said. It was important that he said it.
“Oh, it was no trouble,” she replied.
“You invented an architectural motif and a book,” James said. Not one to do things by halves. If she were like that in bed …
“A young lady must keep herself entertained,” she replied and he thought of her keeping herself entertained … in bed …
“Many young ladies find embroidery and watercolors an amenable pastime,” he said after an embarrassing pause in which he did not think of embroidery and watercolors at all.
“We only allow gentlemen to think that,” she said, grinning wickedly. “How long do you think they will carry on?”
“Do you have someplace to be?”
“Oh, I should be out in the ballroom making myself available to suitors. Or at the very least, my presence should assure Sophie that I am not off getting into trouble.”
“Which is precisely what you are doing. Instead of getting yourself courted, you are getting yourself ruined. Here. With me.”
A horrid thought crossed his mind: In the eyes of the world, should they be caught, they were already ruined and destined to marry. Might as well have fun and thoroughly enjoy it. Starting with a deep first kiss and ending with their own sighs, moans and invocations of the Lord.
“Technically, I’m not ruined. We have merely conversed,” Charlotte pointed out. “Also, I could claim the chaperonage of Lady Sighs Ands Moans out there.”
“She’s hardly providing adequate chaperonage. Anyone would agree.”
“Ruination always seemed like it would be more fun than this. Stuck in a window alcove. Chattering away …” Did she mean that sly, coy glance? Did she bite her lip to deliberately tease him or just because? He knew her, but he didn’t know her romantically. Or nakedly.
“Charlotte, you are a devil,” he said slowly.
“I know,” she said and she gave him that naughty smile again.
“I’m trying to be honorable. And protect you from yourself,” he said through gritted teeth. Her response nearly undid him.
“What if I don’t want honorable intentions or to be protected?”
“Are you sure about that?” James asked in a low murmur.
He placed a hand on either side of her, bracing himself against the wall and boxing her in. Her breath became shallow and he was glad. She did not reply.
Charlotte, speechless. Impressive. He liked her like this.
“Because I’ve had the devil of a time not ravishing you in a window alcove. With other people in the room.”
As if on cue, Beaverbrook cut in.
“Oh, yes! I could make love to you . . . All! Night! Long!”
“It sounds like we have time for it,” James murmured in her ear, pausing to kiss the soft hollow where her neck curved to her shoulder. He breathed her in, the inexplicable scent of her, which hit him like a drug. There was no stopping now. “Unless you want to talk.”
Dear God, please do not make her want to talk. James hoped this request was not lost among the many calls to God occurring in the Capulet library this evening.
“No, no I don’t want to talk,” she whispered.
“Me neither,” he said and it was the last thing he said for a while.
When James gently pressed his lips on her neck, Charlotte shivered as her every nerve was awakened excitedly by this novel sensation. When his lips pressed against hers, her awareness of everything else in the world ceased. She didn’t hear Lady Layton or Beaverbrook, or the tick tock of the clock reminding her how long she’d been absent from the ballroom. She thought nothing of the ball, or the Eversham Motif or the hard wall against her back. But she did think of his hot, possessive kiss and the unmistakable evidence of his desire for her.
She wrapped her arms around him and arched her back, needing to feel more of him against all of her.
His mouth claimed hers for a kiss that was as tentative as it was demanding. He licked the seam of her lips. She shied away from nothing. This was trouble in its most exquisite form: something wicked that made her heart beat, something new, something Young Ladies Did Not Do, something that made her, oh yes, oh God, completely forget everything.
He tasted like champagne, like a dare, like the best sort of trouble. She nibbled on his lower lip the way he’d just done to her. His hands, oh God, his hands explored her and dared her to say no to curving around her waist, dared her to say no to caressing her breasts, dared her to forbid him not to tug down her bodice.
It should go without saying that she never said no to a dare.
Thus when he shoved her bodice out of the way, freeing her breasts, she sighed and surrendered.
And then she raised the stakes and tugged off the finely crafted Melbourne Knot his valet must have spent … who cares how long it took to do! She was kissing James, oh wait, no … James was … his mouth … her breasts …
She was sure Young Ladies Never Did This. But she did. And she liked it. Oh, dear God, she loved it.
James did things with his tongue, with his mouth, with his hands that made her mind cease to function, her breaths to become gasps and her only thought to be James. Love. More.
She might have said more.
“You want more?” he said, low.
And then James claimed her mouth once again for another one of those devastating kisses in which time ceased to register. And then James began to tug up her skirts. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close and savoring the mad feeling of his hard, muscled body pressed against hers.
She caressed the planes of his chest and wished to feel his bare skin beneath her palms.
His fingers skimmed along the insanely sensitive skin inside her legs … Very young, well, Young Ladies Absolutely Never Did This, which meant she was about to allow him such liberties because if young ladies never, then it was probably wicked good fun …
… Oh, God, it was. His fingers found her most intimate place and she thought she’d die from the newness, strangeness and pleasure of it. But he wasn’t a renowned rake for nothing, so she surrendered to his touch—light at first, in slow lazy circles as if they had all week in this alcove and not a chance in the world of being interrupted. The heat started, a spark here, then a smolder. The heat and the pressure began to spread until she too was gasping his name and that of the Lord …
… Until she nearly shattered, nearly cried out his name as the most outrageously pleasurable sensations exploded over her again and again. He caught her cries with his kiss.
She slowly came back to earth, to this alcove, and became aware that he held her close. He was hard … and she still wanted him. Wanted more.
Finally, it dawned upon them that The Loudly Amorous Couple were gone. Their cries had died down and the room was silent. James peeked out of the curtain, and she saw from the relaxation of his shoulders that the coast was clear.
“Wait here, I’ll make sure no one is about,” he said, stepping through the curtains and leaving her alone, breathless. She peeked through the curtains, gazing at the man who had just given her the greatest pleasure she had ever known.