“Why don’t you just admit what’s in your heart?” he asked coldly. “We both know the man downstairs is the one you want, not me. It must be so distressful for you to find yourself caught in a marriage by your own hand. It must make you so frustrated that you can’t blame anyone else but yourself for throwing yourself away on me.”
He took a step closer to her, nailing her with his dark eyes, but she didn’t mind. Because all she could do was stare at his lips. The lips that had woken emotions inside her she hadn’t known she was able to feel.
That one kiss they had shared…
It had been pure heaven to her, so sensational it still made her lips tingle when she thought about it. Like now.
“Are you listening to me at all?”
His frustrated outburst broke through her thoughts, and she looked at him with narrowing eyes.
“No.”
Her honesty took him by surprise.
“No?”
“Can’t say I am.”
“My God, Charmaine,” he blurted out. “How are we ever going to make this marriage work if you don’t listen to me?”
“You don’t listen to me either.”
He glared at her angrily. “Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t,” she snorted, and he took another step closer to her, and her head went back so she could look into his eyes.
Or at his very kissable full lips.
“What is going on inside that beautiful head of yours? You tell me you are trying very hard to not offend me, and yet you do, all the time. You refuse to tell me the truth about what made you force this marriage. You refuse to oblige me with your true emotions regarding Lord Dane. When we are among others you are a completely different person than you are when it’s just you and me. I-I just don’t know what to do with you.”
His honest admission went straight to her heart, and she wished she could be as honest with him. But not yet. Not before Penelope was safe. Then she could tell him, if not the whole truth, at least enough parts of it to satisfy his need of knowledge and insight.
“Can you wait for me?” she whispered softly, and he looked at her suspiciously.
“Wait for you? Whatever do you mean? Why should I wait for you?”
She put a hand against his chest, feeling his heart beat faster under her palm. “Do you want me?”
He took a step backwards, as if he wanted to escape from her. “W-what?”
“Do you want me?”
“Want you?” He shook his head, taking exception to her question. “Why would I want something I’ve already got? You already are my wife.”
“But do you want me?”
Her intense behavior seemed to make him a bit distraught, and he took another step back, bumping into the bed. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re getting at. You are my wife, and…”
“Do you want to kiss me?” she interrupted, and had the satisfaction of watching him blush.
“Eh…I…uh…”
“It’s a simple question. Do you or don’t you want to kiss me?”
He drew his fingers through his hair. “O-of course I-I want to kiss you.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to kiss me?”
He chuckled nervously. “Because you are a beautiful woman and every man wants to kiss you.”
“But you are not every man.”
“No, I’m your husband.”
She nodded. “So, do you?”
He frowned. “Do I what?”
“Want to kiss me?”
His blush intensified. “Yes.”
“You do?”
He nodded nervously. “I do. Sorry.”
“For what?”
“For wanting to kiss you.”
She couldn’t stop a smile. “I don’t mind. As a matter of fact I like the thought of you wanting to kiss me. It makes it a bit easier, you know.”
His dark eyes narrowed. “What is easier?”
“Asking you to kiss me.”
He visibly froze, and she grasped the moment she was given and put her arms around his waist, pressing her body against his.
“Sinclair Darling, would you please kiss me?”
She didn’t have to ask him twice. With a growl he grasped the back of her head with his hands and did what she had wanted for quite some time.
All the feelings he had awakened inside her that day at Pendragon, when he kissed her for the first time, came back with a rush, and she lost her ability to breathe. She latched onto his shoulders, kissing him back with all the flaring emotions he created in her, and she felt him tremble in her arms.
Again and again he played with her lips and her tongue, and not until she felt close to fainting did he lift his head and end the kiss.
She moaned, disappointed, and a little light started to shine inside his dark eyes. A light fired by the knowledge that she wanted him.
“I want you,” he whispered into her mouth as he again demanded her lips against his. Her hands slid up around his neck again, this time to hold his head. Without words she forced him to deepen the kiss until they both moaned with the need of each other.
A knock on the door broke through their dazed minds, and they hardly had time to let go of each other before the door burst open and Penelope came in.
“There’s a man at the door, asking for you,” she told Sin, quite unaware of the emotional situation she’d interrupted. “He says you promised to join their table in the gambling room.”
“Damn,” Sin said between his teeth. “I had forgotten all about that. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He looked at Charmaine with unreadable eyes, and she smiled nervously.
“I have to go. I promised an old friend to join them, and I can’t back down on that now. If it’s all right with you?”
“Of course,” she said curtly, trying to hide the turmoil he had created inside her behind her old ice-queen façade, and he sneered with disgust.
“Of course it’s all right with you. You must thank your lucky star your sister unbeknownst saved you from having to endure me touching you.”
“Sin…”
He shook his head. “No. Don’t. No more lies.”
She took a step closer to him again. “I didn’t lie to you.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
His voice dripped with sarcasm, and before she had a chance to come up with a reply he turned and left the room. In the doorway he stopped, looking directly at her with his dark eyes. “Don’t wait up for me.”
And with those last words he disappeared down the hallway in search of his friends, leaving Charmaine abandoned in the middle of the room, ready to scream out her frustration.
What had happened?
For a little while it had felt as if they had connected through the kiss, and maybe found a working foundation upon which to build their marriage.
But no.
It took only one unexpected interruption for him to rush away as quickly as he could, leaving her with a strong desire to throttle him.
What was wrong with him? Why did he so stubbornly bounce back to believing everything she said was a downright lie? It was as if the kiss hadn’t meant anything to him. At least not as it had to her.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Charmaine turned to look at her sister, who gazed at her earnestly, and at first she wanted to scream out “Yes!” at the top of her lungs. But she couldn’t put the blame on Penelope, who was completely innocent in all of this.
This was their problem, hers and Sin’s.
“I hope I didn’t destroy anything?”
Charmaine shook her head. “No, my dear, you didn’t. Why don’t we get ready for bed? I feel quite fatigued, and you heard Sin—he’s not coming back for a while.”
Penelope nodded sadly. “I’m so sorry, Charmaine.”
Against her will, Charmaine laughed before hugging her sister tight. “It’s all right. I’m quite used
to you not thinking, as you mostly have your sweet head among the clouds. Please don’t fret. Our problems will be solved soon, just not now.”
Penelope smiled ruefully. “All right. If you say so. Come here, and I’ll help you with your dress.”
As her sister unbuttoned all the small buttons down her back, Charmaine stared silently at her image in the dark window, against her will remembering the glorious sensations of this second kiss.
She belonged in his arms, she knew it without a doubt. The only problem was how she would ever be able to see the threat of Lord Nester through to its defeat and still be able to hold on to this fragile thread of engagement in her marriage.
She sighed deeply as Penelope dragged the gown over her head, frustrated over her own lack of ability to find an easy solution.
She knew she wanted Sin.
Not Lord Dane or any other of the beaus that had passed through her life. She wanted to belong to her husband, and to him alone. But did he want to belong to her? His reaction to her during their two kisses told her as much, but not once had he said or hinted anything which could clarify this for her.
She was falling head over heels in love with a husband who thought she was in love with someone else. As she kissed her sister goodnight and closed the door tightly behind her retiring back, she knew she had to do something. But what? What could she do to make him understand that her heart belonged to him and not Lord Dane?
Chapter Nine
The annual January Ball in Gretna Green was everything they had been told it was, and more. The Assembly Rooms were filled to the brim with fashionably clad ladies and gentlemen, and if she hadn’t known better, Charmaine would have thought she was in London at one of the grander balls.
Standing beside Penelope and their new friend Miss Lydia Woodley, sipping on lemonade more vile than that offered at Almack’s, she found comfort in returning to the life she had known best, socializing.
When in London, she had always felt bored and wanted something else, but after being without it for quite some time she felt revived, almost giddy, as she entered the ballroom on Sin’s arm. With a tight smile he excused himself, disappearing into the gambling room, but she didn’t let his surly behavior take away her pleasure at being back where she thrived.
“She’s like a jar of honey to a bear,” Penelope explained to Lydia as a swarm of gentlemen eagerly approached them, and Charmaine didn’t know whether she should be offended or amused.
“I beg your pardon?”
Penelope didn’t care about her sister’s outburst. Instead she affectionately patted Lydia’s hand. “It’s even better now that she’s married, because she’s off the prospective wife list, and instead you will stand next in line to be courted.”
Lydia’s eyes grew round with disbelief. “Or you. You are much prettier than I am. If Lord Elmsley has to choose between the two of us, he will most definitely choose you. I know I would.”
“Then we will make sure he chooses you,” Penelope said sententiously, and Charmaine rolled her eyes over her sister’s antics.
So she was attractive to men like a jar of honey to a bear? Well, that surely didn’t include her husband. Ever since their second kiss last week, Sin had returned to evading her as much as possible, and she felt quite abandoned.
What was it with that husband of hers?
All she wanted, besides freeing Penelope from their stepfather’s vile plans, was to be with Sin. She wanted things to work out so they could be friends, a perfect beginning to the rest of their life together.
“Lady Chilton.”
A smooth voice broke through her erratic thoughts, and she met the glistening eyes of the local scoundrel, Lord Elmsley. Lydia whimpered behind her, and Charmaine bit back a smile, too aware of the poor girl’s unwonted affection for this man.
“Lord Elmsley,” she said, offering him her brightest smile, perfectly happy to see him blush like a young man instead of an experienced libertine. “How nice to meet you again. Let me introduce to you my sister, Lady Penelope de Vere, and her friend, Miss Lydia Woodley.”
Lord Elmsley nodded coldly to Lydia, by whom he seemed quite unimpressed, before bending his head over Penelope’s small hand, kissing it in a lecherous fashion.
Then, gazing adoringly once more at Charmaine, he breathed, “Lady Chilton,” and sent her what must be supposed his most alluring smile. “Would you mind if I borrowed your sister for the upcoming dance? It would be an honor for me.”
“Oh, the honor would be hers, I guarantee you,” Charmaine replied, hoping she didn’t sound as bored with him as she felt. She was too used to good-looking, flirting men to be impressed by this local libertine. “But unfortunately my sister will have to decline. She has already promised my husband this dance.”
She ignored Penelope’s astonishment and prayed her sister would stay silent and not destroy the little moment of white lies. If she could get him to dance one dance with the starry-eyed Lydia, she would have done her good deed for today.
“I’m sad to hear this.” Lord Elmsley turned all his attention to her instead, just as she had hoped. “Then maybe you would do me the honor?”
She almost felt sorry for him as she declined as elegantly as she could. “I’m afraid I’ve already promised the upcoming dance to our host. But Lydia here is, amazingly enough, still available.”
Lord Elmsley’s smile faltered as he looked at the blushing maiden, clearly having no problem understanding why she wasn’t spoken for. But as a gentleman he couldn’t deny the offer Charmaine had manipulated, and with a forced smile he held out his hand toward Lydia, who let him lead her out onto the dance floor, stars in her eyes.
“We have to find Sin,” Charmaine said as the couple disappeared. “He will have to remove himself from the gambling tables to dance just this dance with you.”
“I can sit this one out.”
She looked at her sister, knowing that would have been the easiest way out. But a part of her wanted to see Sin, if only for a minute, and she used her sister most selfishly.
“No, you will not.”
Using her most pointed tone of voice she, the one she knew Penelope wouldn’t disagree with, she easily won the small discussion. Resolutely she dragged Penelope through the crowd, searching for her elusive husband, who now, unbeknownst to him, was her sister’s dance partner.
As Sin joined them from the gambling tables, he sighed when he got her curt explanation. “I guess I have no say in this?”
“None,” Charmaine said as coldly as she could muster. “Penny needs you to dance with her.”
“For Penny I’ll do anything,” Sin replied, just as icily, before leading her sister into the dance.
She stood there alone, watching the two of them talk while dancing, and a sharp jealousy crumbled her heart as she watched their light conversation and easy smiles.
What was she trying to accomplish? Woo a man who didn’t want her? She was the bloody Incomparable Queen, for goodness’ sake, and could have any man she wanted by just looking at him.
But not Sin. Not her own husband.
When the host came rushing to excuse himself from dancing with her because of some accident with the lemonade, she graciously sent him away and instead walked over to the refreshment table, trying hard to cover her feelings of abandonment. It wasn’t easy for her to not be wanted. All her life she had met men who wanted her, and she didn’t really know how to pursue a man she wanted.
It seemed nothing she said to him worked, mostly because he didn’t listen. Kissing him had seemed to work wonders until his head started to work its madness again, alienating him from her more every time.
She sighed profoundly, and in a wink three eager gentlemen joined her, as if they’d just waited for an excuse.
“Lady Chilton,” Gentleman Number One said jovially. “Why is such a beautiful woman standing here all alone?”
She hid her confusion behind a radiant smile, as she couldn’t remember the chap’s name. “My dance par
tner had to attend to more important things.”
The three gentlemen looked just the appropriate degree of appalled. “How very ungraceful to abandon someone as lovely as your ladyship,” Gentleman Number Two pronounced, sending her a smile meant to subdue her, while Gentleman Number Three took her hand and lifted it to his lips. He brushed a lingering kiss against her knuckles, and she almost sighed over his ludicrous attempt to look as lecherous as Lord Elmsley had nearly accomplished.
“Can I get you a glass of lemonade?” Gentleman Number Two interrupted the flirtations of Gentleman Number Three, clearly irritated by the latter’s indecent behavior.
She shook her head slightly. “No, thank you. I’m perfectly fine as I am.”
“Can I get you your coat?” Gentleman Number Three threw himself into the conversation, trying to outdo Gentleman Number Two’s chivalrousness.
She shook her head again, but this time Gentleman Number One joined the game before she had a chance to verbally decline.
“Maybe your ladyship would need a dance partner, now that you’ve been so rudely abandoned?
All three men looked at her like eager puppies that would do anything for a piece of candy, and she held back a smile. Why was she standing around moping because one man didn’t want her? Watching these three fall all over each other in an attempt to be the one closest to her, she realized how much she had missed this, too—being wanted.
Being incomparable.
As if they could sense her favorably inclined hesitation, the three gentlemen stepped closer, showering her with their admiration.
“Lady Chilton, you are as beautiful as the sunrise in May.”
“Lady Chilton, next to you, Venus and Aphrodite have no chance. Even Helen of Troy was nothing compared to you.”
“Lady Chilton, I would die a happy man if you only would grant me a little of your precious time.”
“Leave my wife alone, or I promise I’ll fulfill that last wish with great pleasure.”
As one, the three gentlemen jumped backwards, with Sin appearing from nowhere to stand by Charmaine’s side, glaring at them with murder in his dark eyes.
“Excuse me…” Gentleman Number One dared to say, but a deep, threatening growl from Sin had the men scattering in all directions.
The Beauty of You Page 10