by Fiona Miers
Charlotte caught a flash of movement within the bower and moved towards it. There was only one way to find out more about Archie and that was to take the step which might lead to the ruin of her reputation.
****
Archie held his breath when he saw Charlotte through the heavy screen of trees. She had come, alone. He had no intention of telling her the truth about his family and his horrible secret, but he would tell her a little of what she wanted to know. if she thought him to be a pious saint, he thought he might as well play on that trait.
Charlotte moved covertly over to him, took one last look to make sure no one was watching her, then stepped into the alcove he occupied.
Her eyes found Archie’s and he was breathless. He dragged his eyes away.
Archie couldn’t remember a time when another person had looked into his eyes like that. She was trying to find his soul just by looking, it seemed. The air had completely left his lungs. Struggling valiantly not to cough, he inhaled slowly.
“Well, what would you like to know?” He asked, his voice coming out much coarser than he would have liked. But that’s what happens when you have no breath to draw from.
Charlotte bit her lip, her fear obvious.
Archie clenched his teeth against the bolt of lust which struck him at her innocent gesture. Her eyes were huge pools of liquid blue, shimmering with uncertainty and something else which he couldn’t quite identify. His groin was throbbing and he felt his prick start to swell. With difficulty, he forced his mind back to the topic at hand.
“Charlotte, we can’t stay out here long. Ask your question,” he said, perhaps a little too forcefully.
She waited for a minute, then the words burst forth, too loud. “Is it true?”
“Shhh...” Archie reached out for her hand and he pulled her closer to him, away from the balcony.
Her skin was so warm through her evening gloves and she was so close Archie felt his lungs closing up on him again. He took a step back from her, away from the heat.
“Is what true?”
Archie knew what she was asking, of course and knew that he was being unfeeling. He wasn’t feeling very gentlemanly at the moment. He wanted to make her ask the question again, to see if she really was as embarrassed as he. She looked beautiful when she blushed and it was such a rare event, he wanted to see if he could make it happen.
She did blush, hotly. All the way from her provocative cleavage all the way up to the roots of her dark hair.
“Is it true that you are a virgin?”
Archie clenched his jaw at the shock of Charlotte’s straightforwardness. He considered lying to her, but that would have been pointless. Since Rupert had let the truth slip so easily, he couldn’t very well lie his way out of it. Plus, he knew that John would tell her the truth if she nagged him enough. And if anyone could get the truth by pure persistence, it was Charlotte.
“Yes,” he said simply, adding a slight shrug and consciously relaxing his stance. He was very good at expressing nonchalance in every situation. Here, with her, however, he found the posture uncomfortable and perhaps a little stupid.
“How is that possible?” Charlotte spluttered.
“What do you mean, how is that possible? You’re unmarried and still a virgin, why shouldn’t I be too?” He asked her more hotly than he should have. He knew it was unusual, but good God, she was looking at him as though he was the worst sort of lecher.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you,” Charlotte reached out her gloved hand and laid it on his arm.
She must have heard his swift intake of breath, because she wisely took her hand back again.
“It’s just unusual. But why? Really?” Charlotte asked again, looking him straight in the eye.
Archie’s quick mind imagined what she was thinking and he didn’t want to draw out the pain. Could he take something away from this?
“What do I get if I tell you the truth, Charlotte?” Archie instantly wished the words back as soon as he had said them. Why on earth was he voicing his thoughts for the first time in his life?
He’d spent years lusting after his best friend’s younger sister, knowing that he would never have her. But now, she was literally within reach. Should he kiss her? Would she let him? What would be the ramifications? He couldn’t marry her knowing what scandal awaited his family, even if she would have him. She’d refused wealthier, older, more titled men than him before. The thought stiffened his resolve.
He reached out his hand and tugged her gently deeper into the darkened alcove, tingles of awareness dancing up his arm.
“What do you want?”
Her voice sounded husky to his ears and his body throbbed.
“A kiss,” he answered softly. He was closer now and Charlotte jumped back a little, her eyes huge as she stared at him.
He didn’t want to scare her but there was never going to be a better opportunity to kiss her, than right now. Just one touch of those lips before he spent the rest of his life married to someone else.
“Considering your innocence, I wouldn’t have thought you would want one,” she tried to laugh, but it came out sounding strained.
Archie pulled her closer again. He didn’t want her so far away anymore.
He gently pushed her up against the hedge and placed his mouth next to her ear, the hot contact of their bodies making his knees weak. “I won’t kiss you unless you tell me I can.”
Archie knew he should stop this insanity before it went too far, but he was so sick of his life. Almost ten years of fighting his every impulse. He had kept away from women that could be bought for pleasure, so he didn’t contract a disease and every marriageable lady so he didn’t drag them into his scandalous family. He burned for Charlotte, he always had. He deserved one minute out of time, but he wouldn’t force her.
“Tell me why and you can kiss me,” she said, so softly he would never have heard her if he hadn’t been so close.
Archie moaned deep in his throat and raised his hands to encircle Charlotte’s tiny waist. Without conscious thought, he leaned forward and told her what his heart had ached to do for years.
“Because like you, I don’t want to share with anyone else. I want a woman who has never known another man. I want a woman who is pure of heart, mind and body and will only offer myself to her if I can gift her the same.”
Charlotte gasped and her body went rigid under his hands.
“And you’ve never found anyone who has measured up, obviously.”
The petulance in her voice was obvious and she was doing nothing to disguise it. Where had all Lady Charlotte’s infamous easy flirtatious charm gone?
Archie laughed softly against her ear, enjoying the way she trembled when his breath caressed her skin.
Charlotte’s knees buckled and Archie’s hands gripped her tighter as he used his body to hold her up. She felt so good pressed against him that Archie growled low in his throat and told her the last thing he should have admitted.
“Only one, you.”
Charlotte gasped and Archie took advantage. He turned his head and closed his lips over hers ruthlessly. It had been years since he’d kissed a woman and he had never kissed a lady, but she melted into his arms like the most practiced courtesan. Archie kissed her with every bit of longing and passion in his soul and felt the very tenuous hold on his control slip away. He ran his tongue along her lips and when she opened her mouth, he slipped inside eagerly. He slid his tongue along her own velvety one and she shuddered in his arms. He stepped even closer to her, if that was possible and ran his hands down to her deliciously rounded bottom. Charlotte had always been one step plumper than was fashionable. Archie had always seen it as Charlotte’s way of standing out and had at the time dismissed it as another of her vanities. Now, he gloried in it. What a beautiful bottom she had, plump and firm. A good handful on either side for his hands.
Archie’s heart was pumping so hard it was almost painful. He wanted her closer. He pulled her into the cradle o
f his hips, against the hardness of his arousal. That was when she pulled back.
“Archie, stop.” Charlotte gasped, pressing her hands against his chest. “Please.”
Her whispered ‘please’ cut through the fog of passion surrounding Archie, sharper than any other tool might have done. He dropped his hands away from her glorious bottom and took two steps back.
His breathing was ragged and his manhood was straining against his thigh. He used his considerable willpower to pull himself together and rearrange his hair and clothes. In less than a minute was able to wipe all trace of their encounter from his person.
As long as anyone didn’t look too closely at his evening breeches.
“My apologies,” he bowed to her, frustrated and aching.
Charlotte took a step forward, closing the large gap between them and reached out a hand to touch his face.
“Please don’t.”
“Please don’t, what Charlotte? Please stop kissing you? Please don’t move away. What do you want from me?”
He turned away from her when he couldn’t contain the flickering of emotion he could feel on his face. It appeared that this night really could get worse. He had seen heaven and now he was being dropped into hell. Why had he kissed her? Why did he have to torture himself with a taste of the one thing he could never have?
“Please don’t hide from me, I just want to talk to you,” Charlotte whispered.
Archie sighed heavily, letting his shoulders drop. Why did he suddenly wish for his dragon back? Why did he prefer the Charlotte he had always blatantly teased for her brashness and her fire? This meek Charlotte just would not do.
Archie spun around in disgust, at her and at himself. Mostly at himself.
“Talk? About what, Charlotte? Have you got more embarrassing questions for me? I think I’ve revealed enough about myself for tonight, don’t you think? Or do you want to see just how pious I truly am?” He raised an eyebrow tauntingly at her.
Charlotte’s spine straightened as though tugged up by a marionette's string.
“I completely agree, Lord Archibald. Shall we retire to the ballroom?” Putting on her best social smile, she started to walk towards the entrance of the bower.
Archie heard voices enquiring to her whereabouts from above on the balcony and reached out for her, tugging her back into the safety of the bower.
“We can’t leave together. If people see that we’ve been here alone, your reputation would be ruined.”
“It would not be ruined. We are allowed to go for a walk in the gardens.”
Archie gripped his courage and said what had to be said, a sentence he never thought he’d say. “I cannot marry you, Charlotte.”
“I don’t believe I asked you to do that,” she hissed at him, as she spun around, eyes flaring with heat.
Archie took a step back at the sight of her anger. He hadn’t meant to insult her. He had just meant to explain why it was important that they should not get caught alone together.
“It’s not that I wouldn’t want to, but...” he didn’t even finish his sentence before she jumped in.
“I know, don’t worry. You’ve always made it abundantly clear how unsuitable you think I am. How could I ever live up to the standards you have set for yourself and for your future wife?” She was seething with anger now. Archie could see it coming from her like steam from a boiling pot of water.
With a last scathing stare, she stalked right out into the light to join the women on the balcony.
“Here I am, Mamma. I’m so sorry for leaving without telling you where I was going. A frightful headache I had, but the night air seems to have cleared it right up.”
“Were you talking to someone, Charlotte?” Archie heard the Duchess of Arrow ask her daughter, suspicion etched into her tone.
“Absolutely no one,” came Charlotte’s confident reply before she shepherded her mother and the other dowagers of the ton inside.
Archie leaned his forehead into one of the high hedges. How had tonight gone from a typical ton engagement to his definition of hell? Not only did Charlotte now know he was unlike any other gentleman of the ton, but he had managed to kiss her senseless and himself too, for that matter and yes, insult her, all within the space of ten minutes. How could she honestly believe that he didn’t think she was good enough for him? She was so far out of his reach as to be laughable.
He loved Charlotte. He had to be honest with himself. She was the epitome of everything he wanted in a woman. Intelligent, outspoken, generous and full of passion. Not to mention beautiful enough to make every man in all of England lust after her. But she could not be his for the simple fact that he had to protect her.
How would he feel if she married him and he got her entangled in his family’s scandal, should it ever become common knowledge? Never, he would not do that to her. So, he had to make sure he never kissed her again. Because the feel of her against him was like nothing he had ever experienced. And it wasn’t the long forgotten, the feeling of a woman pressed against him- it was her. It had always been her. He felt her very presence down to the depths of his soul and he knew that if he ever had the good fortune to know her intimately, he would lose his soul forever.
Chapter Four
A few mornings after her birthday ball, Charlotte paid a call on Sarah at her new town house. Oliver had bought a town house for himself and his young wife and he had given his mother the family’s existing townhouse in which to live.
“Charlotte, it is so lovely to see you,” Sarah greeted her friend with a genuine smile in the morning sitting room.
“Tea?” she asked, already pouring Charlotte a cup. “Milk?”
Charlotte took a moment to be amazed at how far Sarah had evolved, from the shy, socially inept young woman of a year before. She was now a supremely confident hostess, wife and a perfect Duchess, a credit to her husband’s family.
“Yes, no sugar,” Charlotte answered, almost forgetting the question. She would be happy if she could keep her tea down this morning. She had come to ask Sarah some more questions about her married life and her stomach was alive with dancing butterflies.
“This house is beautiful, Sarah, but are you sure you would rather live here rather than in the Lincoln town house?” Charlotte took a sip of the fragrant tea, enjoying the heat as it flowed down into her tummy.
Sarah shuddered visibly.
“Yes, I’m very sure. I wanted a house that I could decorate and for which I could choose the furniture, without asking someone else’s permission.”
“You could have leased his mother a separate house.”
Charlotte thought that would have been the more obvious solution. No one expected Oliver to move to another house. His mother, being the dowager, should have stayed either at their main estate out of town, or leased a small house for herself.
Sarah laughed musically, eating a biscuit whilst she spoke.
“No, Oliver had too many bad family memories there. I wanted somewhere where we could start fresh.” Sarah smiled at the butler as he approached.
“Lady Wickersham and Miss Bartlett have called, Your Grace. Shall I tell them you are at home this morning?”
Sarah looked at Charlotte and her eyes seemed to narrow. Dropping her voice to a whisper, she spoke.
“Are you here to take me up on my offer to tell you more about what my mother told me?”
Hot blood flowed into Charlotte’s cheeks. Was she really that obvious? Before she could even answer, Sarah was sending the other ladies away.
“Please tell anyone else who calls this morning, Peters, that I am not at home.”
The butler inclined his head respectfully and bowed, tactfully shutting the door behind him.
“You didn’t have to do that, Sarah. I could have called on you at another time.” Charlotte apologised profusely. She felt incredibly guilty now.
Sarah waved her hand like the veritable Duchess she was.
“No, this is a perfect time. David is asleep and you are h
ere. There have to be some advantages to being a Duchess other than the prestige.”
David, she still couldn’t get used to the unusual name that Sarah and Oliver had chosen. Charlotte laughed out loud and found herself wishing she and Sarah had grown up together. What a wonderful friend she would have been. Charlotte had had very few true friends, she thought regretfully.
“So what would you like to know?” Sarah continued to sip from her teacup and eat another biscuit.
“I kissed someone the other night,” Charlotte blurted out. She hadn’t meant to start the conversation so abruptly, but she had been dying to tell someone about it ever since it had happened and Sarah was the most trustworthy person Charlotte knew. She had no intention, however, of telling her who it was.
“At your birthday ball?” Sarah’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Yes, after you left.” Charlotte bit into a biscuit before she could share anymore.
“I won’t ask who, just tell me how it was. Was it your first kiss?” Sarah asked, leaning forward in her chair with an excited smile on her face.
“No, it wasn’t my first kiss.” Charlotte blushed so hotly she reached up and laid her cool hands against her cheeks. She was never going to get through this conversation if she was this embarrassed at the start.
“But it was the first time that he put his tongue in my mouth and the first time that I...ahh..wanted to keep kissing.” Charlotte stammered over the admission, but got the words out all the same, her belly jumping.
“Did you?” Sarah asked, not showing any revulsion at the idea. Instead, she looked intrigued.
“No, well, he pulled my body into his and he had, ah... he was ... I got scared.” Now Charlotte truly had run out of words, so she stuffed another piece of cake into her mouth. At this rate, she was going to need to have the dressmaker let all of her new ball gowns out.
“So he was aroused from the kiss and you stopped him before he did anything else?” Sarah clarified, chewing her lip thoughtfully.
“Yes.”
Charlotte bowed her head slightly, in gratitude. She wasn’t sure she could have said it. Her mother and several married friends had explained the mechanics to her and it had sounded absolutely horrible.