Lady Charlotte's First Love

by Anna Bradley

  She would argue with him now, or perhaps she’d simply shove him into the buzzing bush and leave him to the bees. Julian waited, but Lady Chase remained oddly silent. He glanced over to find her with her hand over her mouth, her face suddenly as white as the linen tablecloths. “Lady Chase? Are you ill?”

  She pointed one shaking finger in the direction of the picnickers. “Oh my goodness. Where are my granddaughters? We’re too far away to stop it…”

  Julian turned back toward the terrace and saw at once what Lady Chase meant, though he doubted Charlotte herself would recognize her danger until it was too late.

  Any number of things could have prevented it. If even one gentleman had claimed a blanket, or if any of the Somerset girls had been about, it would never have come to this. But the gentlemen were still at the tables filling their plates, and the Somerset girls were at the back of the terrace by the open French doors, trapped with Lady Wolverton, who was holding forth at length on some topic or other.

  Charlotte hesitated at the edge of the terrace and gazed out at the crowd of young ladies scattered across the lawn. As she stood there alone, a plate clutched in her hand, the groups of young ladies drew into tight clusters on their blankets. Tight, and then tighter still…

  And one by one, they turned their backs on her.

  Miss Fowler, the Wolverton sisters—he could see them, smug and secure in their own places. Miss Fowler’s hand covered her mouth, but even from this distance Julian could see she was laughing.

  Laughing.

  Miss Fowler, who’d never faced a greater challenge than choosing hat ribbons, she dared to laugh, to turn her back, to cut Charlotte. They all did, all these spoiled chits who’d never known a day of struggle in their lives.

  What had Devon said about Charlotte? That there was no other woman like her. That she was irreplaceable. Now, as he watched her endure a public humiliation from a score of young women who hadn’t half her courage, he understood this—this was what Devon meant.

  Julian’s heart shuddered in his chest as Charlotte’s face grew paler and paler against the mauve silk of her dress until it simply…folded. There was no other word for it, for the way it fell in on itself and then tore at the creases, like a letter that’s been worried over until at last it rips away at the seams. He wanted to look away, tried to look away, because to witness such despair was an obscene invasion of privacy.

  But he didn’t look away. He didn’t think. He didn’t reason. He didn’t remember she’d told him to stay away from her, or recall any of the resolutions he’d made, or remind himself he’d half hoped this would happen. He didn’t do any of those things.

  He flew across the lawn, his long legs eating up the space between them, desperate to reach her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Charlotte stepped off the edge of Lady Chase’s terrace into a nightmare. Her gaze darted back and forth across the lawn, but with every glance she sank deeper into the hellish dream. Rows of muslin-clad backs met her gaze, all of them stiff with outrage.

  Somehow, she’d always known she’d end up here, and she wondered now, dimly, why she hadn’t seen it would happen today. Perhaps because even in her darkest dreams, the dreams that woke her in the dead of night clammy with panic, she hadn’t imagined it would happen this way. So publicly. So decisively.

  But it had happened—no, it was happening even as she stood here, her heart shriveling in her chest.

  She had nowhere left to go.

  An anticipatory hush fell over the young ladies on the lawn as they waited to see what she’d do. Charlotte struggled to stay calm enough to think. She could turn and walk up the terrace steps and try to find Iris Somerset, but already her wrist felt ready to snap under the weight of the plate in her hand, and her knees shook under her skirts. What if her legs refused to hold her and she fell to her knees, her plate shattering on the stone terrace at her feet? It would make a terrible crash, and everyone would see, and they’d know…

  She could keep moving forward onto the lawn, but what then? She’d reach the end soon enough, and short of fleeing into the gardens she’d be no better off than she was now. No. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing her run. No matter how much she bled inside, she’d never let them see it.

  The lawn swam before her eyes, but Charlotte raised her chin and pulled her spine taut and straight.

  You’ve survived worse than this.

  She took a step forward, determined to put an end to the scene, but just then a high-pitched squeal broke the silence. Charlotte jerked her head in the direction from which it came, puzzled. A second squeal joined the first, sharp and malicious, and then she knew with a sickening certainty what it was. A feminine titter, still subdued, but spreading like wildfire from one blanket to the next.

  Her knees began to buckle beneath her, but just when she was certain she must collapse, the plate she carried was lifted from her hand.

  “Lady Hadley.”

  Long, warm fingers closed around her wrist and a strong forearm appeared under her fingertips. “I beg your pardon, my lady, for not being more attentive.”

  Charlotte looked up, dazed, to find Julian looking down at her with such an expression of grief in his dark eyes it made her breath seize in her lungs, and her own eyes fill with tears.

  But if his eyes were soft with regret as they rested on her face, his mouth was pulled into such a hard, tight line his lips had gone white at the corners. She didn’t know whether his fury was for her or for the ladies who scorned her, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was he was here. She clutched at his arm until she was twisting the fabric of his coat between nerveless fingers. Her voice was faint. “I—that is, it’s quite all right, Captain.”

  Without thinking, she laid her other hand over his. He went still and his gaze dropped to their joined hands, his expression unreadable. She snatched her hand away. “I would be grateful indeed if you would escort me to my carriage.”

  He drew her hand more firmly through his arm. “Of course.”

  She followed on wobbly legs as he led her toward the open doors at the top of the terrace steps. She stumbled a bit, and he steadied her against his arm as she regained her balance, but then he moved forward with quick, sure steps, as if he had every expectation the other guests would shift out of the way at once to accommodate them. He was correct. The guests lingering on the terrace took one look at his grim, set face and scrambled out of their way.

  Iris Somerset and her sisters stood at the doorway, their faces pale with shock. Iris opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again as if she hadn’t any idea what to say. A tense silence fell over the five of them and stretched until Charlotte thought her nerves would snap.

  “Lady Sutton’s swooned,” Hyacinth Somerset offered suddenly. “She nearly landed face first in a large bowl of clotted cream. Her turban saved her. The weight of it threw her to the left.”

  Hyacinth flushed a little as they all turned to stare at her.

  “Yes!” Violet grasped the thread of conversation. “She did, indeed. A shame, isn’t it?”

  Another silence, then Iris asked, “What’s a shame? That she swooned? Lady Sutton always swoons.”

  Violet shook her head. “No, that she missed the bowl of clotted cream, of course.”

  There was another short silence, and then Julian let out a surprised laugh. “I can’t think of a better use for clotted cream, myself.”

  Violet colored, but she gave him a sheepish grin. “Our grandmother did tell us it was too warm for a picnic. Perhaps we should have listened to her and spared poor Lady Sutton.”

  Hyacinth and Violet went on for a few moments longer about Lady Sutton, careful to keep their conversation light and amusing, but Charlotte could see they were appalled by their friends’ behavior, especially Iris, who remained quiet until Charlotte and Julian were about to take their leave.

&
nbsp; Iris slipped a hand into Charlotte’s. “Such an unexpected blast of frigid air on a warm day. I beg your pardon, Charlotte. I never imagined my friends would—”

  “Of course you didn’t.” Charlotte squeezed her fingers. “How could you? It’s quite all right, Iris.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Iris looked as if she were torn between fury and tears. “Thank goodness for Captain West. It might have been much worse. How fortunate he was here to save you.”

  Charlotte’s heart gave a strange, hopeful surge at Iris’s words. Why had he done it? The question hardly had a chance to form in her mind before the answer was there, immediate and undeniable.

  For her. He’d done it for her.

  Not for Ellie, and not for Cam. Not because of a promise, or to get her to leave London, or for any other reason than one.

  He’d done it because he couldn’t bear to see her hurt. And dear God, it was so familiar somehow, the way he’d flown to her, as if the Julian she remembered, the Julian she’d loved, had emerged from the past and appeared at her side at the very moment she most needed him.

  “Are you ready to leave, Lady Hadley?”

  She swallowed down the ache in her throat and nodded. Iris came forward to kiss her cheek, followed by Hyacinth and Violet. “We’ll call on you soon,” Iris promised. “Good day, Captain West.” All three girls curtsied to Julian, then turned their backs on the young ladies picnicking on their blankets, and wandered off instead toward the south lawn, where some of the other young people had gathered to play at bowls.

  As soon as they gained the carriage Charlotte collapsed against the plush velvet seat. She stared down at her hands twisted together in her lap because she couldn’t bring herself to look at Julian. What could she possibly say to him? She should thank him, of course, but simple gratitude felt rather like offering a plaster to someone with a gaping chest wound.

  He’d appeared out of nowhere to tear her free from a nightmare that haunted her over and over again, waking and sleeping, as if he were some avenging angel fallen from the sky itself.

  An avenging angel, or a hero.

  How could she thank him for such a rescue? A cool nod and a few words of thanks were inadequate. No, worse than inadequate. Dismissive.

  And yet wasn’t a cool dismissal the safest course of action?

  She couldn’t forget what he’d done for her today, either the act or the look in his eyes when he’d taken her hand and placed it on his arm, but Julian wasn’t her lover anymore. He wasn’t even her friend, and she couldn’t allow herself to be vulnerable to him. The past was the past, and while gratitude was one thing, trust was quite another. If she weakened toward him now she may well find herself back at Bellwood, or worse, Hadley House.

  He could get her to do anything, to feel anything he wanted her to feel.…

  He’d made a promise to Cam and Ellie, and she’d made a promise to Devon. Nothing had changed.

  Julian stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles, but he gazed at her with an intensity that belied his casual posture. “Are you all right, Charlotte?”

  Don’t say my name. Don’t be kind to me, because I can’t bear it.

  She forced a laugh through stiff lips. “Of course. Why shouldn’t I be?”

  He stared at her for a moment, his face hard and tight. “Don’t do that.”

  She pressed her back against the seat, but there was no escaping him in the close confines of the carriage, no escape from that gaze that seemed to see right through her fraudulent smile. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  His dark eyes bored into her. “Don’t pretend.”

  Charlotte made an effort not to flinch in the face of his hard stare. She forced a tinkling laugh through her lips and it rang through the carriage, loud and false. “Why should I pretend? If you think I care what they think of me—”

  “I know you do.”

  “—a passel of cork-brained chits like that—”

  “Stop it, Charlotte.”

  “…then you’re very much mistaken—”

  Without any warning his hand snaked out. His hard fingers wrapped around her wrist, and he pulled her from her bench onto his with such force she landed on top of him. Before she could think to scramble away, he wrapped his hands around her waist. “Do you think to lie to me? I saw your face when they all turned their backs on you. Damn it, I saw you.”

  Oh, God, she couldn’t be this close to him. Her heart gave a panicked thud at the sensation of his thighs under hers, his heat surrounding her. For one wild moment she started to reach up to brush away the silky hair that fell across his forehead, to cup his flushed cheek in her palm. Her gaze dropped involuntarily to his lips, and longing shot through her, so fierce it made her lower belly clench.

  “Go on. Lie to me, Charlotte.” His low voice rasped against her nerve endings, his ragged breath hot against her cheek. “Tell me you feel nothing. Tell me nothing matters to you.”

  Charlotte stared at him, half panicked, half mesmerized. It was beautiful and awful, the way he pierced through her every defense. The way he made her remember. But she couldn’t afford those memories, and for all her promises to never lie again, she couldn’t afford honesty. Not with him. She tried to pull her imperiousness around her again, tried to hide behind Lady Hadley’s brittle mask, but the most she could manage was one word. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what? Don’t tell the truth? It’s easier that way, isn’t it, my lady? At first, anyway, until you can no longer tell the difference between the truth and a lie.”

  She forced a bitter laugh. “Do you think you know the difference?”

  He ran a light, teasing finger down her cheek, but his voice was hard. “You’re about to find out. Do it. Lie to me.”

  No more lies. She’d sworn it, and dear God, how easy it would be to trust him, to close her eyes, press her face into his chest, and drown in him. So easy, and so dangerous. “I feel nothing. Nothing matters. I don’t think it ever will again.”

  “Never is a long time, my lady.” He brushed his fingertips against her lower lip. “Can you feel this?”

  She jerked her head back but his hand followed her. He touched her chin and turned her face up to his. “Ah, I think you do feel it. Tell me, how does it feel? My touch used to matter to you. Does it still?”

  “No.” But even as she denied it, her breathlessness gave her away.

  His smiled mocked her. “I remember everything about you, Charlotte—the taste of your lips, the way your body feels when you writhe against me, but I don’t remember you being such a liar.”

  She jerked her chin from his grasp. “You don’t know anything about me anymore, Julian.”

  He laughed softly. “But I do. You might have left your black silk mask at the whorehouse, but you have another one—Lady Hadley, the grand marchioness who cares for nothing and no one, and you’ve been hiding behind it since you arrived in London.”

  Charlotte stared at him in horror.

  “Cam and Ellie have been asking the wrong question all this time, haven’t they, Charlotte? Instead of asking why you won’t leave London, they should have wondered why they couldn’t find even a trace of Charlotte Sutherland in the Marchioness of Hadley. They should have asked why they no longer recognize you.”

  How did he see it, when no one else could?

  She pushed hard at his chest, desperate to squirm away from him, but he pulled her tighter against his body. “Do you know what happens when you hide? When you pretend you don’t care for anything, and don’t feel anything? When you act as if you’re cold and selfish, as if nothing matters to you but your own pleasures? People believe it’s the truth, and it makes it easier for them to hurt you.”

  She jerked her head from side to side, but she couldn’t meet his eyes. “No, I never—”

  “Yes, damn you. You did. You made it
easy for me to hurt you.”

  She went still, her body going limp against him. She looked into his eyes, so dark and wild, so like she remembered them, and her words from earlier today came back to her.

  No matter how often you insist you want to help me, I will always know it’s a lie.

  But she hadn’t known, hadn’t realized… She’d also know when it was the truth.

  “I never wanted…” His hand shook as he hovered his fingertips over her face, tracing the line of her jaw without touching her skin. “I never wanted to hurt you, Charlotte.”

  Then his mouth was on hers, soft but insistent, his hot tongue teasing at her lips. Maybe he meant the kiss as a lesson, but to her it was a gift, one she’d received long ago, a gift she’d laid aside before she understood how precious it was.

  Charlotte drew in a deep, slow breath and opened her lips under his. He surged inside with a low moan, his tongue tracing the inside of her mouth and licking delicately at her lower lip until she thought she’d fall to pieces in his arms.

  He pulled away to hover his mouth over hers. “Does my kiss matter to you, Charlotte?” His voice was low in her ear, a whisper, and his warm breath tickled her cheek. He trailed his lips down to her jaw and over the soft skin of her neck, nipping at her.

  Oh God, it did matter, it had never stopped, and yet she couldn’t tell him so. She couldn’t make any sound at all aside from a strangled whimper, but she knew as soon as it emerged from her throat, rough and needy, that it told him more than words ever could. She laid her palms against his cheeks to bring his mouth back to hers.

  He groaned when her lips touched his. “Tell me. Tell me it matters.”

  She slid her hands into his hair, the waves so soft, so familiar against her fingertips. “It matters. It matters, Julian.”

  He raised his head to look into her eyes, and she only had time to trace a finger around his lips before his mouth was on hers again, sweet this time, coaxing hers apart so he could slip inside and drive her mad with each slick caress of his tongue against hers.