by Candace Camp
“I’m sure that the Dowager Countess will be elated to hear that your mother finds the earldom of Dure acceptable.”
“Oh, dear. Have I offended you?”
“No. However, I don’t think this marriage swap is quite as easy a matter as trading one horse for another.”
“But it is!” Charity assured him earnestly. “I mean, what you want is an heir, is it not? And I am quite as capable of producing one as Serena. I am fully grown and perfectly healthy.” She held her hands a little out to the sides, inviting him to look at her.
“Yes,” he agreed, his dark eyes lighting for an instant. “You are perfectly healthy.”
“There! I am as likely as anyone to bear healthy heirs. And my bloodlines are exactly the same as Serena’s. So I’m just as respectable.”
“Not if you often frequent bachelors’ quarters this way,” he pointed out.
“I am not in the habit of it,” Charity rejoined indignantly, her blue eyes flashing. “I came here only in desperation, I told you that. I had to save my sister.”
“And you are willing to, uh…be the sacrificial lamb?”
Her brief moment of indignation passed, and Charity had to giggle at his description. “Well, I was the only one. Elspeth would not have done it. She’s scared witless of you. You wouldn’t want her, anyway. She whines all the time, and is a perfect bore. Belinda and Horatia are both too young. So that leaves me. Besides, I would not call it a sacrifice, exactly. You are, after all, an earl, and a wealthy man, and—” she tilted her head judiciously and studied him “—a rather attractive one, at that, if you like the dark, brooding sort.”
“And do you like that sort?”
The low tone of his voice set up an odd, unsettling stirring in Charity’s abdomen. “I do not dislike it,” she replied demurely, casting her eyes down, as a modest maiden should, but with such an air of mischief that Simon found it hard not to chuckle.
“You do not fear me?”
“No. Actually, I’m not afraid of much of anything. Mama has frequently said that I am sadly lacking in sensitivity.”
Simon did laugh aloud this time. “You are a minx, I fear, and a man would doubtless do well to stay away from you.”
Charity shrugged. “That is what my father has told me.” She pursed her lips in a way that was unconsciously alluring, and Simon felt his loins tighten again in response.
“This is absurd,” he said roughly. “You haven’t any idea what you are doing.”
“No, I nearly always know exactly what I’m about. That is why I do it.” She gazed at him with her clear, candid blue eyes. “And I have to tell you that I usually end up getting what I set out to.”
Dure turned and walked away, shaking his head, though there was indecision in the lines of his body.
“I understand that you have doubts, since you do not know me,” Charity went on cheerfully. “But the truth is, I would be a far better wife for you than Serena. You see, you spend a good deal of your time in London, but Serena would be miserable here all the time. Worse than that, for you, she would probably try to reform your ways.”
“That would have been awkward,” Simon murmured, fighting a smile as he looked out the window.
“On the other hand, I enjoy the city,” Charity continued. “I would love to go to parties and dinners and the opera and all those things. Truthfully,” she admitted, “I’m nearly eaten up with envy watching Elspeth and Serena get to do such things, when they don’t even really enjoy them.”
She paused and frowned. “Of course, I would have to bring out Belinda and Horatia and try to find Elspeth a husband, as well. It would be my duty. But—” she brightened “—it will be much easier with me doing it. I will be better able to make them fashionable, and I will rid us of them much sooner.”
Simon made a strangled noise, and she peered across the room at him. “What’s wrong? Is something the matter?”
“No.” He turned back, his lips pressed together. He stood regarding her for a moment, then shook his head. “My dear girl, you tempt me, but I’m afraid it would not suit.”
Charity’s face fell ludicrously, and she looked so woebegone that for a moment Simon thought she was about to cry.
“Oh, no!” she wailed. “Now I’ve gone and ruined it! Mama will be furious with me for interfering. Truly, I wouldn’t have come here if I hadn’t thought you would be as willing to marry me as Serena.” She looked at him plaintively. “Why do you not want me for a bride, my lord? Is it because I’m too bold? I am direct, I know. Mama is forever telling me that I must put a rein on my tongue. And sometimes I am a little lively, even impulsive, but I’m sure that I will grow more sedate as I get older. Don’t you think so? And I would never do anything to bring dishonor or embarrassment on your name.”
A smile curled Simon’s lips. “I am not inclined to see you less lively or direct, my dear Miss Emerson. You are…quite diverting.”
“Oh.” She looked perplexed. “Then is it my features? You prefer Serena’s coloring? Or her slenderness? I am too rounded.” She sat down with a thump on the nearest chair, her face glum.
Heat flooded Simon’s loins. “You are ‘rounded’ perfectly. I cannot imagine any man who would find you less than lovely. Surely you must know that.”
“I’ve been told so once or twice,” Charity admitted. “That is one reason why I thought you would not be averse to the switch. I thought you would hold me as attractive as Serena.”
“You are.” He thought of this sunny, beautiful girl in his bed, instead of the composed Serena, and the heat in his abdomen grew alarmingly. “It is no fault in you,” he said shortly, and turned away, fighting the urge to go to her and reassure her of her desirability. “It is simply unsuitable. You are far too young.”
Charity came back up on her feet, once more hopeful. “But no—I am eighteen, only three years younger than Serena. I would have come out this year, except that the expense for three of us would have been far too great.”
Simon turned and looked at her. He did not think she was aware of the other factor that must have weighed with her parents—how much she would have outshone her older sisters.
“Still, it is twelve years between us,” Simon reminded her. “I am too old and…jaded, I think, for one such as you.”
A dimple sprang into Charity’s cheek as she smiled teasingly at him. “Nevertheless, I do not think you are entirely decrepit yet. I may be young, but I know what I want to do. Anyone who knows me can tell you—I am not indecisive or fickle. There are many who marry with much more difference between them than that.”
“Perhaps twelve years is not such a problem, but your youth is,” he replied brusquely, ignoring the small voice inside him that kept pointing out how entertaining this girl would be to live with, how desirable she would be in his bed. “I am not looking for some romantic young miss, I require a sensible, mature wife, one who can accept a loveless marriage and will not expect me to be constantly dancing attendance upon her or flattering her or cajoling her into a pleasant mood with words of undying love or expensive gifts.”
“But I do not expect that!” Charity protested. “I am fully aware what sort of marriage you contemplate, and I assure you that I am quite prepared for it. I would be much better than Serena, for despite her calm exterior, she is very much a romantic at heart. A homebody. She would want a husband’s love and attention, and would wither without it. But I, on the other hand, am quite capable of taking care of myself. I will be happy following my own pursuits. I will have my own friends—I make friends easily, you see—and I shall do things with them. Go to balls and dances and the opera and—oh, all the exciting things there are to do here in London. I promise I will not be begging you to accompany me everywhere. And I will not expect romance from you.”
“Don’t be a fool,” he said, scowling darkly. “You will fall in love someday, and then what will you do? You will be stuck in a loveless marriage.”
“Oh, no!” Charity looked shocked, and on
ce more indignant. “I would never betray my husband!”
“I did not say you would. But you would not be able to stop your unhappiness, and I do not wish an unhappy wife, either.”
“But I will not be unhappy, I assure you,” Charity responded blithely. “I am the most unromantic of women. I have never lost my heart to anyone. I have never swooned and sighed over any young man, as so many other girls I know do. I do not think I am suited for love.”
“At eighteen, you have hardly had the opportunity.”
“Oh, but I have,” she assured him naively, and Simon was aware of a sudden, strange spurt of anger inside him. “I’ve been to assemblies back home, and my dance card is always full. I am much admired,” she said loftily, lifting her nose in the air, but then she spoiled the pose by giggling. “I have even had two proposals of marriage—though I must confess one of them doesn’t count, because I think he was only trying to lure me out into the garden.”
“Someone dared to try to accost you?” Simon scowled fiercely.
“No, of course not. I was not such a fool as to go into the garden with him. I told you, I am well able to take care of myself. And my heart has never been in danger. Believe me, I have no wish to be in love. I have seen what happens when a couple marries for love. I have seen what my parents did, and then, after a few years, they fell out of love. Honestly, now I think they hardly even like each other. Mama blames Papa, saying she could have married higher than the younger son of the younger son of an earl, and sometimes Papa gets exasperated and says he wished that she would have. It is very sad, and not at all something I wish to happen to me. I decided long ago that I would not marry in the heat of love—and more recently I think I’ve discovered that it is not in me to feel that heat. It’s no doubt very ungenteel and unfeminine of me, but—” Charity shrugged “—there it is. I am perfectly suited to a marriage such as you propose, and I would be quite happy in it. For I would like to have children, and I would be very happy spending time with them. And that, after all, is why you want to marry, is it not? For children?”
“Yes.” A flame sparked in his eyes. “I want children.”
“Then you see? We are not at all unsuitable. We want the same things.”
“You are so innocent. You haven’t the faintest idea what marriage is about.” Simon’s voice was rough. He strode over to her, his expression dark and forbidding. “Marriage is not some pretty little watercolor scene of parties and fashionable clothes and children all dressed up in neat little clothes.” He grasped her arms, startling her, and said, “This is what marriage to me would involve.”
He pulled her up hard against him, and his mouth came down to cover hers.
CHAPTER TWO
CHARITY FROZE IN SURPRISE. At first she was aware, in some amazement, only of how very hard and muscled Dure’s body was against hers, and then of how incredibly soft his lips were in contrast. His mouth moved on hers, hot and seeking, his lips pressing hers apart. His tongue flicked along the seam of her lips, and she gasped a little. He seized the opportunity to slip his tongue into her mouth, shocking her even more.
Charity had been kissed once or twice, but those had been chaste and naive things, nothing like this, so curiously hard and soft, so heated and demanding. She pressed against Simon in return, her own lips responding, and her arms stole up to clasp his neck, holding on to him as wild sensations rocked her body. She had never felt anything so wonderful, so exciting, as the way his hot tongue explored her mouth and his lips rocked against hers. His arms were like iron around her, enfolding her in his heat, and even that was exciting. Her body trembled in his arms.
Simon made a harsh noise deep in his throat and released her abruptly, stepping back. Charity staggered back a little, and her hand went out to grasp the back of the chair. She wasn’t sure that she could stand upright without its support. She gazed at him for a moment in astonishment, her eyes wide with wonder, her face flushed, and her mouth soft and glistening.
Desire thrummed through Simon’s veins, and his chest rose and fell with his harsh panting. He had intended to kiss the girl just to prove his point, to frighten her off and show her how little she knew about the marital state she so blithely wanted to enter. But when his lips touched hers, fire had ignited him. He wanted to keep on kissing her, and to do much more than kiss her. Her mouth had been sweet, her breasts soft and yielding against his chest…. Even now, just looking at her, her lips soft and damp from his mouth, her eyes lambent, he wanted to pull her back into his arms and kiss her again. More than that, he wanted her in his bed. Yet he knew that he could not, must not—she was too innocent, too young, for him. And she was certain to be repelled by what he had just done; she would do exactly as he had intended, and flee the room. It was what he wanted; it was for the best. Yet he could not quiet the passion that boiled in him, telling him to chase after her if she did run from him.
“Is that—is that what a man’s kiss is like?” Charity asked wonderingly. Her tongue tentatively touched her lip, tasting him there.
A shudder ran through Simon at the gesture, so unconsciously seductive. “Yes.” He ground out the single word, his fists clenching in an effort to hold back from her.
“And is that what you do when you marry—to make children?”
“Yes, and more. Much more.”
Her eyes widened, and he was sure that she would cry out in horror and leave. But instead she said, “Then I—I think that I should like marriage very much.”
Dure stifled a groan as he struggled to hold on to his composure. He whipped around and strode away from her to the window. For a long moment, he gazed out, his back to her, his body rigid. Then he turned and, giving her a short bow, said, “All right, Miss Emerson, you have persuaded me. I shall call on your father this afternoon to ask for your hand in marriage.”
Charity leaned back against the seat of the hack, staring sightlessly across its gloomy interior. Her entire body felt as if it were glowing. He had kissed her! And such a kiss—Charity had never imagined that anything could feel the way his kiss had. She could still feel his body, hard and masculine, against hers, his arms wrapped tightly around her so that she seemed almost surrounded by him. It should have been frightening, she thought, to be held that way by such a large, strong man, a veritable stranger to her. Instead, it had been exhilarating.
She smiled a little to herself, and her gloved fingertips went unconsciously to her mouth. His lips had claimed hers, taken her as his own. To think that this was what happened between a husband and wife! She had never been entirely sure, being a genteel young lady brought up in the most sheltered way, but she had assumed that whatever the married state entailed, it was something rather boring. Few husbands and wives of her acquaintance looked as if they had ever shared anything exciting. Yet they must have done what Lord Dure had just done with her, if that was the way one set about making children. She found the idea hard to reconcile with what she had seen of marriage.
It occurred to her that perhaps what she had felt was not commonly experienced by married couples. Perhaps Lord Dure was special…different…. Perhaps the delicious feelings that had run through her when she was in his embrace were something that only he was capable of arousing. She thought about the things that were whispered of him, the way her mother had protested that he was given to lewd company, and she wondered if he had acquired the hot, wonderful way he kissed in that company. Was it perhaps an unseemly thing that loose women had taught him?
Then thank God for their training, she thought, and a delightful shiver ran through her. It was probably quite base of her to think so, Charity knew, but then, she had long ago become accustomed to not thinking or feeling the way she was supposed to. Her spirit had never been the delicate, shy, sweet one of a true lady, and her mother had often despaired of her. Charity had never understood why she was the way she was—different from her sisters and, indeed, from all the young ladies she knew—any more than she had understood why the things she said so often shocked
those around her.
But Lord Dure had not seemed to be shocked by what she said—surprised, true, but not horrified or disgusted. He had seemed more amused than anything. She had not missed his hidden smiles or his choked laughs, and they had given her hope that he would accept her plan. He was not stodgy, as were most of the men she knew. She had sensed that he was different the first time she saw him, peering down through the banisters with her younger sisters. Belinda, the silly chit, had said that he looked dangerous, but Charity had not thought so. There was a hardness to his features, true, and his coloring was dark, giving him a mysterious, almost foreign aspect. But there had been something about him, Charity was not sure what, that intrigued her. He had looked like someone grimly doing his duty, coming to call on Serena, and it had confirmed Charity’s opinion that he had no interest in Serena, only in marrying a suitable young woman. Charity had also thought that it would not be so bad to be married to him, that he didn’t look frightening to her, only bored and a little impatient, and she wondered what he looked like when he smiled. It was then that the first spark of her idea had come to life in her brain.
And now—she hugged the knowledge to herself—her scheme had come to fruition. He had accepted her idea; he had not sent her away in indignant outrage, or treated her like a foolish child. Instead, he had agreed. He had kissed her.