Charity

by Deneane Clark

  She’d sat quietly through the dinner he ordered and ate little. When he addressed her, she smiled and responded but her words were few and softly uttered. His concern mounting, he led her to the rooms he’d taken for the night.

  “I’ll be right nearby,” he said, and pointed at the door connecting their chambers. “If you’d like, I’ll leave the door open.”

  “That would be fine, my lord,” she replied, and then sat down on the edge of the bed to stare off into space. After a long, worried look, he left her there and went into his own room to get ready for bed.

  Two hours passed and he heard nothing from her room. No rustling of bedclothes, none of the sounds that would normally accompany a person preparing to retire for the night. He’d completed his own preparations and climbed into bed, stretched out on his back with his hands propped behind his head, his mind too occupied with Charity’s odd withdrawal to sleep.

  It couldn’t be that she feared the wedding night. He’d gotten them two rooms and been very clear about it. His logic was the same as it was the entire trip north: he did not intend to consummate his marriage until he could do so at home, in his own bed. There were both emotional and practical reasons for this decision. From a practical standpoint, he wanted no question as to the legitimacy of the child. Unfairly coloring her son’s child as a bastard was not beyond Eloise, he was sad to say, and he would take every step to avoid such accusations. The emotional reasons for waiting were much simpler. He wanted her virgin’s blood on his sheets, in his home, not spilled on the bedclothes of some inn on the road between London and Asheburton Keep.

  Given Charity’s odd descent into silence, he now wondered if he should have taken a single room and spent the night trying to draw her out or comfort and reassure her. She was a strong-minded and strong-willed young lady, but the events of the past few days would have shaken a woman twice her age with ten times her experience. Instead of taking care of her, he’d left her alone on her wedding night in a strange country, abandoned her to understand and deal in solitude with a future that held only questions.

  Cursing, Lachlan sat up and swung his legs out of bed to sit on its edge, staring through the darkness toward the open door between their chambers. With a sigh he stood, pulled on a pair of trousers, crossed through and then stood beside Charity’s bed, staring down at the small English girl he’d married.

  She was curled atop the coverlet, still clad in the dress she’d worn all day—her wedding dress, as it turned out. Lachlan felt another small twinge of guilt. She should have been courted and coddled and danced attendance upon in the weeks leading up to their marriage. Instead, they’d spent most of their short acquaintance sparring with one another. She should have had a lavish London wedding in a church before everyone she loved, with glowing descriptions of the glittering reception that followed printed in all the newspapers the next morning. Instead, she’d been married in a blacksmith’s shop with only his servants to witness, her dress crushed and wrinkled from several days’ travel.

  The moonlight streamed in through the room’s lone window to caress her face, peaceful in sleep, with a gentle glow. Her features were delicate and fine, and though Lachlan knew all too well her stubborn resilience, he couldn’t help but think that she looked like a fragile doll tossed in the center of the large bed, broken and discarded.

  Something wrenched inside him, and he reached down to smooth her tousled curls, washed nearly blonde by silver moonbeams. At his touch she stirred and he straightened, watching as her eyelids began to flutter open. With a little sigh, she stretched and then looked around the room in momentary confusion. Her eyes settled on him, and she pushed herself to a sitting position.

  “We’re married,” she said in a voice thick with sleep.

  Lachlan nodded, a small ironic smile briefly touching his lips.

  Her gaze dropped from his face and traveled down the bare expanse of his chest. Somewhere deep inside herself, she knew she should register shock at being alone in a room with a half-dressed man, even if that man was now her husband, but she couldn’t take her eyes from him. “You’re beautiful,” she breathed. Unable to stop herself, she reached out to touch the hard, flat plane of his stomach.

  Lachlan caught her hand with his own before she touched him, before her innocent caress was his undoing. “Charity,” he said hoarsely, “I don’t know what I’ll do if you touch me there.”

  Her eyes, wide and utterly without guile, lifted again to his and she shook her head. “But I thought you came to do what wives do with husbands.”

  Oh. God. How he wanted to.

  “Is that what was bothering you earlier?” He sat down beside her, more as a means of hiding his growing arousal than in an effort to be closer.

  Her face clouded, and she withdrew her hand from his. “No, my lord,” she answered quietly. “It’s that you had to marry me. You did it to protect me, because you’re friends with the men who married my sisters . . . I’m so sorry I put you in that position.” She raised eyes brimming with unshed tears to his. “Amity and I were going to get married together and live near one another in Pelthamshire. It was what we always planned.”

  “Oh, little kitten.” He scooted across the bed, pulled her into his lap and softly kissed the top of her head, reveling in the fact that, no matter how he held her, she always fit perfectly against him, every single time. “Listen to me and know that I’ve never been more serious in my entire life than I am right now: You did not put me in this position. I am here with you entirely by choice and completely because of my own actions. Do you believe that?”

  “But if I hadn’t—”

  He cut her off. “If you hadn’t, this is still exactly where we would have ended up. I’m sure of it.”

  Charity closed her eyes, wanting with all her heart to believe, but she held her tongue, afraid to say the words she felt fluttering around inside her chest.

  When she rubbed her cheek against his chest, Lachlan groaned and tried to ignore the way his body responded to her innocent movement. “We got here together, love. Believe me when I tell you I have never been more aware of a woman in all my life, from the very moment we met.”

  He paused, and when he spoke again, she could hear a smile in his voice. “I remember the day I first saw you so clearly. Do you remember it? In Hunt’s foyer?”

  She nodded.

  “We both tried to fight it, and we each had our reasons. But time and again, we have ended up right where we are now: in one another’s arms. There must be a reason for that.”

  She finally spoke, her voice so low that he had to tilt an ear to catch it. “I like it when you kiss me, my lord.”

  Lachlan’s heart slammed into his ribs. Although he knew he was starting something he did not want to finish here, in this inn, on this night, he slid down in the bed, taking her with him. Ignoring the warning bells going off in his mind, he turned her in his arms and took her lips in a kiss.

  Instant fire erupted between them, and their embrace was anything but gentle. Charity, fueled by longings he’d awakened in the past, didn’t hold back any longer. She kissed him with all the fervor and eagerness she’d kept in check before. This time, she cupped his face in her hands, pressed herself close, and touched her tongue to the crease between his lips. This time, she tasted and coaxed until he moaned and opened. And, when she tentatively teased the edges of his teeth with the pointed tip of her tongue, he did the same, slanting his mouth across hers until she whimpered and willingly surrendered ownership of the kiss.

  Lachlan forced himself to lift his lips from hers but pulled her fiercely against him. “Do you have any idea how rare this is, kitten?” His voice was gruff, tight, and he fought to control the urge to take her and make her his in every imaginable way.

  “No,” she answered honestly.

  It hit him, then. She really did not know, had no idea of the power she held within her delicate hands.

  “No, I suppose you don’t,” he said ruefully, staring over her head in
to the darkness, wondering how much she knew about the acts performed in the marital bed. He sat up, gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, and pushed her off his lap.

  She laughed a little. “Watch it there!” Rolling off the bed, she shook out her skirts, which had become all twisted around her legs, then climbed back on.

  Lachlan grinned. “Would you like me to stay here with you for the rest of the night, or go back into the other room?”

  “I was actually wondering why you did get another room, my lord. This bed is awfully large, and I know you can afford it but the expense is entirely unnecessary and I don’t mind sharing and . . .” She eyed the comical expression on his face. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  It was becoming increasingly evident that she had no idea of the more intimate pleasures in store for them. “Did your sisters ever talk to you about marriage and children?”

  She furrowed her brow. “Well, I assumed we would have some children. But since Amity and I didn’t really give them a chance to talk to us about marriage before we each ran off to get married, it hadn’t really come up.”

  Lachlan looked uncomfortable. “So you have no idea how we would”—he cleared his throat— “obtain those children?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Why are you asking me this?”

  He watched her carefully. “Because husbands and wives typically go about the business of creating a baby together, in bed. And it involves a lot of kissing and touching and cuddling.” His body tightened at even the thought. Ruthlessly, he continued. “What you need to know is that I do not want it to happen here. So, no more kisses tonight. If you don’t think you can stop kissing me, I’ll go into the other room.”

  Charity sat down and contemplated that. “So . . . we’ve already started making a baby?”

  “Well, yes,” he answered. “In some ways, we have. And I promise to tell you everything that is going to happen before it does so that you are not frightened or surprised.”

  “All right.” She shook her head in mystification and then bit her lip. “Will it be hard to sleep in here and not kiss me?” The look on her face was a beguiling combination of earnest sincerity and confusion, and it was in that instant, in the darkest hours of his unconsummated wedding night, that Lachlan realized a truth, one he’d thought only hours before might be an impossibility for him: he was in love with Charity.

  “It will be difficult in some ways, kitten,” he answered honestly, “but I’ve never been one to back away from a challenge.” He held open his arms. “Come here.”

  She smiled, crawled across the bed, turned her back to her husband, and nestled warmly into his arms. Within moments, she was asleep.

  It took Lachlan a little longer. He wrestled with the recognition of his feelings, wondered if she felt the same, if she even had the ability to fall in love with him after their brief, eventful acquaintance. Unable to find a solution to that particular problem, he turned his thoughts to a more pressing problem: his mother. There was no putting it off beyond tomorrow; when they woke they’d make the short trip to Asheburton Keep, where his mother was certain to do her level best to undermine and ruin the delicate, tentative bond he’d began to form with Charity. It would be a fight from which he would be mostly removed, except where he needed to step in to protect his wife. He was determined to allow Charity latitude to find her own way to deal with Eloise Kimball. He’d support her in every way, but the battle would be between two indomitable women. He had no idea who would prevail.

  Twenty-three

  Absolutely not.”

  Charity stood by the steps of the coach and considered her options. Only days before she would have responded with stubborn insistence, but in the aftermath of their discussion the evening before, and in the spirit of the warmth that had arisen between them, she found herself oddly loath to take her usual confrontational path.

  For that reason, she lifted her eyes and stared at Lachlan in mute appeal. “But it’s so small. And helpless.”

  Lachlan found he was not proof against such an expression, against the hope shining in the not-quite-green depths of his wife’s gaze. He remembered what she had said about her plans to live in Pelthamshire near her twin after she married, and he felt his heart softening. He was taking her so far from her family. How could he possibly deny her the companionship of a pet? He regarded the animal and almost quirked a smile at the irony. A kitten. Charity had found a kitten and wanted to bring it home with them.

  As if it knew an improvement in its circumstances was imminent, the tiny creature lifted its head from his wife’s bosom and gave him a look of pleading identical to the one on his wife’s face. Except—Lachlan looked more closely—was that a shade of smug satisfaction in its golden eyes?

  “No,” he said, and turned to get into the coach.

  Charity didn’t follow. She cuddled the miniature black cat, kissed the top of its head and then stared once more at her husband, who firmly shook his head. The look on her face turned mutinous, so he decided he had better explain.

  “There is nowhere in the vehicle for the animal to relieve itself. It isn’t trained.”

  Her face brightened. If Lachlan was willing to discuss it, she was sure she could convince him. “You said it was a very short drive to Asheburton Keep.” She held the kitten under its front legs, her hands spanning its tiny rib cage, and thrust it out. “And he looks smart. See? I bet he’ll wait and let us know if he needs to go out.”

  “She,” her husband said wryly. The way she was holding the kitten, with its back paws dangling freely, gave him the perspective to easily determine that it was definitely not male.

  “She, then.” Charity nodded agreeably. “Even better.” She gifted him with a cajoling smile.

  “My mother,” he warned, “has two enormous wolfhounds that rarely leave her side.” He disappeared into the coach. “That animal will be an appetizer for one of them.”

  Charity followed, the kitten tucked into the crook of her arm. “I’ll take care of her. I promise.” She smiled happily.

  Lachlan glowered. “Not if you are their main course,” he warned darkly.

  Charity laughed. At the musical sound, it was all Lachlan could do to maintain the scowl he’d pasted to his face. “It will be fine,” she assured him. She plunked the kitten into her lap and tilted her head to look down at the creature. “What shall I name you?”

  The kitten, jet black with big golden eyes, stared back at her but said nothing.

  “What do you think, my lord?”

  “I think it would be a shame to waste the name, since she’s going to be mauled the second you take your eyes off her.”

  Charity narrowed her eyes at her husband and then smiled down at her new friend. As the coach began moving, the kitten yawned and raised a paw to give it a halfhearted lick. “She’s very brave,” Charity remarked. “Most cats dislike traveling.”

  “Mm. Yes. Stalwart.”

  As if in response to Lachlan’s sardonic assessment, the kitten leaped across the space between the seats and sat, regally erect, beside the marquess. He reached down to scratch her head and then hastily pulled back his hand when she hissed at him.

  Charity laughed. “Serves you right.”

  Her husband raised his eyebrows. “That animal has the haughty bearing of a Roman goddess.”

  “Then we shall call her Minerva.” Charity smiled with delight, and even the newly named kitten seemed inclined to agree with her choice. Lachlan just shook his head and stared out the window. The road was beginning to smooth, and familiar landmarks were cropping up with regularity.

  Soon enough, the coach rounded a bend. Lachlan rapped on the roof three times and waited for the vehicle to stop. When a footman opened the door and put down the steps, he disembarked and then reached back to offer a hand to his wife. “Come see your new home, my lady.”

  Charity stepped out into the crisp air of a bright mid-morning, her eyes glowing with surprise and delight. Even before she looked in the direct
ion her husband was pointing, she was entranced. The colors here seemed somehow brighter, more vibrant and alive. There were enormous stones, light gray against the rolling emerald hills. The vegetation was lush and full and . . . and . . . her mind spun, trying to find the right word. Sharp, she decided. Everything was clearly defined and sharp.

  Lachlan placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her around, pointing down the road that followed a gentle grade into a valley. Nestled into the valley was a small, picturesque village.

  “Oh, my lord,” Charity breathed. “I want Amity to see this. It’s absolutely lovely.” She peeked up at him, her eyes turning that odd shade that wasn’t quite blue but was definitely not green. “That is Ashton?”

  He nodded and smiled. “And that, my lady, is Asheburton Keep.”

  Charity’s eyes climbed the hill behind the village. About halfway up was a large stone fortress, its medium gray walls a stark contrast to the bright green hillside and the thatched cottages of the village below. It was square and rather imposing, with low towers at each corner, the parapets crowned with flags she assumed bore the family crest flying in the gentle breeze. She leaned back against Lachlan and felt his arms slip around her waist.

  “So the rumors were true,” she said, a smile in her words.

  “Rumors?”

  “You do live in a castle.”

  Lachlan laughed. “Hardly. It’s a bit too small to be considered a castle.” He gave her a squeeze. “But you can pretend you’re a princess if you like.”

  Minerva chose that moment to jump out of the coach and wind herself around their ankles. She mewed and looked up at Charity, who bent and picked her up. The kitten climbed up onto her shoulder, where she perched, stared up at Lachlan, and hissed.

  He hissed back.

  Laughing, he and Charity climbed back into the coach to complete their journey.

  “There is a coach coming up from the village, my lady.”