Lady Charlotte's First Love

by Anna Bradley

  She wants to make herself small. To disappear.

  Somehow he knew at once this was true, and yet it was so at odds with everything he believed about her, it seemed impossible. “Why do you—”

  No. It didn’t matter why. Let her go to Hadley House if she wanted to hide. What had she called it? An estate without an end. It was the perfect place to disappear, then. “Why do you insist upon staying in London? What do you want?”

  She turned her gaze from the window to face him. “Why do you want to know, Captain? Do you suppose you can give it to me? Ah, well. Perhaps you can. Perhaps all I need is a hero to save me from myself.”

  He gave a short laugh. “You’re wasting your time with Devon, then. He sure as hell isn’t interested in saving you, except for himself. He’s no hero.”

  She turned away from him, back to the window. “I’ve never had much use for heroes.”

  Just as well, because they don’t exist.

  They rode in silence through the streets until the carriage drew to a stop in front of Charlotte’s townhouse in Grosvenor Square. “The carriage will take you on to Bedford Square. Good evening, Captain.”

  She’d stepped down and turned away before Julian noticed the carriage—black, crested, and luxuriously appointed—waiting on the other side of the street.

  Devon. The man couldn’t seem to stay away from her.

  Julian slid across the seat and through the open door. “One moment, if you would, Lady Hadley.” He took her arm. “I insist upon escorting you inside.”

  Despite the late hour, the heavy front door flew open before they reached the top stair. “My lady, Lord Devon is here, and he insists upon seeing you at once…oh.” The butler fell silent when he caught sight of Julian. “I beg your pardon, my lady.”

  Charlotte drew off her gloves and handed them to the servant. “Disconcerting, isn’t it, Nelson, to have two gentleman callers at once, and it not even calling hours? No, there’s no need to take Captain West’s coat. He won’t be staying.”

  “Very good, my lady.”

  She turned to Julian. “As you can see, I’m quite safe now. I do thank you for your extreme attentiveness, Captain. Good evening.”

  Julian deliberately leaned a hip against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh, no, Lady Hadley. I can’t possibly take my leave before Lord Devon does. It wouldn’t be proper. Your family wouldn’t like it. Would they, Nelson?”

  Nelson’s stammering reply was cut off when the drawing room door opened and Lord Devon, who’d no doubt heard the argument, emerged. “Forgive the intrusion, my lady.” He went to Charlotte and took her hands in his. “But I couldn’t rest until I knew you were well.”

  “You’re very kind, my lord. I’m sorry to have spoiled your evening—”

  “But as you see, she’s perfectly well,” Julian interrupted in freezing tones. “No need to linger then, is there, Devon?”

  Devon didn’t take any notice of him. “You didn’t spoil my evening, I assure you. I’m off to join our friends even now.” Devon hesitated, then lowered his voice. “You’ll be all right? I know you prefer not to spend time alone here.”

  Julian straightened up from his relaxed pose against the wall. Bellwood, Hadley House, and now Grosvenor Square? Lady Hadley, it seemed, didn’t want to be…anywhere.

  “You’re very good, my lord, but it’s all right.” She smiled up at Devon—not the strange half smile she’d given Julian, but one that reached her eyes.

  Devon brushed his lips across her glove. “Then I can be easy. Good evening, my lady.” He turned to Julian with a correct bow, but his eyes were like a blue lake frozen under layers of ice. “Good evening, Captain West.” He accepted his coat and hat from Nelson, strolled through the door and was gone.

  Any trace of the warm smile Charlotte had bestowed on Devon vanished when she turned to Julian. “Are you satisfied?”

  He was far from satisfied, but unfortunately he hadn’t the slightest excuse to be displeased with Devon’s behavior. The man had been a perfect gentleman. “For now.”

  “Then I’ll bid you good night.” Charlotte swept up the stairs without another word, leaving Nelson to show him out.

  Julian half hoped to find Devon’s carriage lingering in the street so he had just cause to land a fist in his lordship’s excessively handsome face, but the black crested carriage was gone.

  Bedford Square was quiet when he arrived. He began to mount the stairs, but then turned abruptly and made his way down the hallway to Cam’s study. He couldn’t face his bedchamber tonight.

  He stripped off his coat and cravat, paused at the sideboard to pour a glass of whiskey, and then dropped into his chair before the fire. After a moment he reached into his waistcoat pocket, withdrew Colin’s watch, and flicked open the lid. The hands remained frozen in their places. Foolish, the way he checked it every day, as if he could somehow trip time back into motion if he only looked at the watch at the right moment.

  He dug into his pocket again, took out Charlotte’s necklace, and dangled it between his fingers. The fire lit up the amethysts so a flame seemed to burn deep inside them.

  Colin’s watch, and now Charlotte’s necklace.

  I adore it. It’s one of my favorite pieces.

  Yet for all that she’d tossed it onto the table in front of him, her chin in the air, and refused to let him humble her. Refused to lie.

  Julian closed his fist around the treasures, leaned his head back against the chair, and stared into the fire, let the flames hypnotize him with their sinuous dance. They burned lower, then lower still; their edges grew fuzzy…

  He’d give the necklace back to her. He’d drape it around her neck himself so he could brush the soft skin at her nape with his fingertips, and then maybe she’d smile at him the way she’d smiled at Devon tonight.

  His eyes fell to half-mast, then drifted closed.

  The glittering amethyst stones of her choker are cool and slick against his tongue. He kisses her neck, opens his lips over the stones, and takes them into his mouth. She trembles against him, turns, says something, but he can’t quite hear her. His hands fill with slippery purple silk as he pulls her closer, feels her breath as she whispers in his ear… Do you suppose you can give me what I want, Julian? He wants to answer her, tries to answer, but the stones multiply, grow enormous in his mouth and lodge in his throat. Her face tunnels as the stones choke him into unconsciousness, but before the darkness can take him she tears the necklace roughly from his mouth and the amethysts cut him, slice into his cheeks and tongue and he tastes blood and then he’s Colin, blood pouring from his mouth…

  He shuddered into consciousness, gasping for breath.

  Jesus. Where am I? Where…

  Cam’s study. The fire was dead in the grate, and the room had gone cold.

  Chapter Ten

  “Whatever it was you and those wicked widows of yours got up to last night, you can just keep it to yourself. I don’t want to hear a thing about it.”

  Charlotte turned from her dressing-table mirror to raise an eyebrow at Sarah. “My, you’re in a temper this morning, but I assure you, your snit is wasted on me. Even you couldn’t find anything to disapprove in my behavior last night.” Unless she happened to look in the jewel casket, that is, for there was nothing but an empty velvet tray where the amethyst choker had been.

  Fortunately Sarah turned her attention to the gown Charlotte had worn the previous night instead. She snatched it up and cast a suspicious eye over it, searching for evidence of wrongdoing. When she found none, she gave it a violent shake, as if she could force secrets from its silk folds. “It’s not my place to contradict you, my lady, but you were up to something, sure as I’m standing here.”

  Charlotte snorted. “Your place, indeed. You couldn’t find your place if you had a dozen lanterns and a pack of hunting dogs at your disposal.”


  “Hunting dogs, my eye. That’s got naught to do with whatever wickedness you got up to last night. For a lady as was such a paragon of virtue, you’re awfully eager to change the subject. But like I said, I’ll not hear a word about it.”

  “A word about what, you silly thing? I went to the theater last night, nothing more.” Nothing Sarah needed to know about, at least.

  The maid jabbed her hands onto her hips. “Nothing more, eh? If that’s true, then why are those three fiendish females of yours waiting in the drawing room for you, and each of them looking like a cat that just swallowed a mouse?”

  “My friends are here?” Charlotte jumped up from the dressing table. “For pity’s sake, Sarah, why didn’t you say so at once?”

  “They’re here all right, and all three of them look ready to burst, especially that little French one. Must be something scandalous indeed to get those three up from their beds before nightfall. Don’t bother trying to confess to me, however, for I won’t hear it.”

  “Oh hush, will you? There’s nothing to confess. Now stop your ceaseless prattle and help me dress.”

  Sarah turned on her heel and disappeared into the dressing closet, but Charlotte could still hear her grumbling. “You may as well tell me, then. No point in hiding it from me, my lady. Whatever it is, I’m sure you’ve done worse.”

  “Much worse,” Charlotte muttered under her breath.

  At last Sarah emerged with a lavender gray day dress draped over her arm. “Well? Go on then, since you insist upon telling me, and don’t think to skimp on the details.”

  Charlotte rolled her eyes. “For goodness’ sake. All right then, if you must know. Once the clock struck midnight we had carriage races in Hyde Park, then a stroll through the rookeries in the dark, and finally a reunion of the Hellfire club.”

  There. Perhaps that would keep Sarah quiet.

  Sarah covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, my lady. You didn’t!”

  Charlotte let out an irritated sigh. It would take an act of Parliament to keep Sarah quiet. “I did, and worse too. I promise to recount it all in salacious detail later if you’ll make me presentable within the next few minutes. My friends are waiting.”

  And all three of them needed a good shake. God only knew how she’d undo the damage Julian had caused last night. He’d been at his handsome, appealing best at the theater. Charlotte had seen right through him, but her friends had been one charming smile away from falling under his spell. Even Annabel’s stalwart cynicism had wilted under Julian’s onslaught.

  He’d been far less charming at the gaming hell when he’d refused her vowels and snatched her jewels instead. Dash it, she never should have warned Annabel away from the piquet table last night. It would be far easier to convince them of his treachery if one of them had witnessed it.

  Sarah quickly fastened Charlotte’s gown and arranged her hair into a simple twist at the nape of her neck. “There. That’ll do well enough for those three jades.”

  As soon as she was free of Sarah, Charlotte hastened to the drawing room. As her maid had pointed out, it wasn’t every day her friends rose before sunset.

  It wasn’t any day, come to think on it.

  The widows wanted details, and they wouldn’t rest until they got them. Charlotte intended to oblige them too, with a thorough dose of the ugly truth.

  She paused outside the drawing room and drew in a deep, slow breath. If she wanted to make her friends see sense, she must remain calm. Cool-headed. There could be no shouting and no hysterics, and above all she must refrain from referring to Julian as a false, deceitful, manipulative, ruthless scoundrel.

  Surely she could manage to do that for one afternoon.

  “My dears,” she said as she threw open the doors and breezed into the drawing room. “I didn’t realize you were aware there was such a thing as daylight hours.”

  Lissie blinked at the window. “I vaguely recall something about it from my childhood. It feels less wondrous now than it did then, somehow.”

  Annabel lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “So do most things.”

  “Such cynicism!” Aurelie frowned at Annabel. “It can’t be good for your complexion, ma petite.”

  “Frowning isn’t good for it either, and anyway, who’s cynical? I said most things, not all things. Gossip, for instance.”

  “Did you see the scandal sheets this morning, Charlotte?” Lissie settled herself on a yellow tufted divan with the air of one who intends to stay there for quite some time. “Captain West’s presence in your box last night didn’t go unnoticed, and now all of London is pining for a romance between the wicked widow and the war hero. I did warn you that story was irresistible, didn’t I?”

  “Another day, another scandal sheet. I could write them myself by now.” Charlotte pulled the bell to summon a servant. “I suppose we’d better have tea.”

  “Oui.” Aurelie sat down on the settee next to Lissie. “Tea, or something stronger.”

  “Like smelling salts?” Annabel asked. “We may find ourselves overcome by Charlotte’s tales of the delicious Captain West.”

  Charlotte glared at her. “You were certainly overcome by him last night. Honestly, Annabel, how can you be taken in by him? Underneath that charming smile he’s a false, deceitful, manipulative, ruthless scoundrel.”

  Well. That hadn’t taken long.

  “Oh, you mean to say he is un sauvage?” Aurelie gave a little wriggle of delight. “Even more delicious!”

  Charlotte threw her hands into the air in disgust. “Well, I can only hope the next gentleman who fleeces my pockets is of a less edible turn of countenance. Then perhaps I can depend upon my dearest friends to do more than stand by and gape at him.”

  Annabel glanced at Lissie and Aurelie, then back at Charlotte. “Do you mean to say he cheated at piquet? Because that would change things entirely. I can’t abide a cheat.”

  Charlotte bit her lip. Oh, how dearly she’d love to claim he was a cheat and a liar, for he was both, but he hadn’t, blast him, cheated at piquet last night. “Not as such, no, but he—”

  “He didn’t fleece you at all then, did he?” Lissie let out an irritated sigh. “Honestly, Charlotte, I can understand why you’re so wary of him, given your past association, but you refuse to even give the man a chance.”

  I gave him a chance once. He broke my heart, and I haven’t another one to spare.

  “Besides, what would you have had us do?” asked Annabel. “Tackle him to the floor right there beside the piquet table and beat him senseless with our reticules?”

  “That would have done nicely, thank you.”

  Lissie tapped a finger against her chin. “I suppose we could have done, but it would have attracted an awful lot of attention. Not quite the thing, to beat a gentleman about the head with one’s reticule during piquet, you know.”

  Charlotte let out an irritated snort. “What nonsense. Since when do you three care about attracting attention, for any reason?” She knew her friends were right, of course—there was little they could have done that wouldn’t have made the situation worse, but was it too much to ask they not refer to Julian as delicious?

  Even if it was true. Especially then.

  “But it had nothing to do with the attention,” Aurelie said. “We didn’t try and stop him, ma chou, because one could see from the moment you sat down to piquet nothing could stop him. It was inutile, you see.”

  “Quite useless,” Lissie agreed. “He was determined to have you to himself no matter what.”

  “Determined to snatch my jewels, you mean.” Charlotte scowled at them. “And you’re all determined to make it sound as if he was motivated by some tender feeling, which is exactly what he wants you to believe. I can assure you, it was nothing of the sort.”

  Lissie leaned forward in her seat, her expression eager. “What happened after he dashe
d into the night after you, determined to halt you in mid-flight?”

  “Lissie! Stop that. He didn’t dash anywhere. He dragged me, with his huge bear-like paw clamped around my wrist, deposited me without ceremony in my carriage, and then dumped me on my doorstep like so much baggage. There was nothing delicious about it.”

  Except there had been those moments, in the courtyard…

  He’d stood so close to her, close enough only a mere breath separated them, so close she could have pressed her face into his chest and inhaled his faint, clean scent of leather and starch. His voice, when he’d said the word lover…

  Charlotte shook her head to chase away the sound of that word in Julian’s hoarse, rough whisper. No. She wouldn’t tell her friends he’d hidden her from Devon, his body against hers, his hand over her mouth. It would only encourage them, and besides, Julian had said other words, too—words like Bellwood and Hampshire—and whole sentences, as well.

  It makes no difference where you go, as long as you leave London.

  She didn’t matter to him. She had once, a thousand years ago, and a woman didn’t forget how it felt when a man cherished her. It didn’t feel anything like being a fox at the mercy of a pack of slavering, snarling hounds. It didn’t feel anything like being hunted.

  It didn’t feel anything like this.

  He looked like the Julian she remembered, the Julian she’d fallen so madly in love with. When he whispered the word lover in her ear, he sounded like Julian. He even smelled like Julian, with that clean scent so wholly his own it made her want to climb inside his skin, to drown in him—

  But he wasn’t that man. Not anymore. He was Captain West, and no matter what her friends thought, this harder, colder Julian didn’t care about her. He wasn’t trying to help her, and if she became too lost in her memories of him to remember that, he could convince her to do anything he wished her to do. He could coax her to leave London, to go back to Bellwood or Hadley House, and God help her then.