A Gallant Gamble (11 page)

Charlotte shot Geoffrey an annoyed glance.

“Damnation! I am sorry if that is true too, I was going to ask him if he would be interested in the diamond.” She wafted her fan in front of her face in consternation.

He bent his head and spoke close to her ear.

“I would have thought you could have set your sights a little higher now that you have been introduced to the Prince. Maybe he will empty the country’s coffers to own such a prize jewel. He could add it to the collection that he already wears on his fat fingers.”

Charlotte let out a giggle before she whispered back.

“I already asked him and he says that his purse is somewhat depleted at the moment, well depleted for buying jewels, that is. I tried to persuade him that his mistress would love it so much that she would do just about anything to lay her hands on it, but he says that she’ll do just about anything anyway, so it wasn’t so much of a temptation.”

Geoffrey’s eyebrows shot up as he stood up and roared with laughter. Several people turned to stare at him and it was some moments before he could speak.

“You never did! Dear God, Charlotte, you never fail to amaze me. You are the most forward girl I ever met.”

Charlotte dimpled up at him, taking his words as a compliment, and pressed on while she was ahead.

“Well, you are going to think me even more forward now. You do realize that the waltz has just been announced and as your name is on my card, I believe you are to be my partner.” She held out the crook of her arm invitingly.

Geoffrey shook his head.

“You know that was Olivia’s idea so that you could keep your waltzes for the Prince. You should go and find him. Maybe you can use some of that forwardness to think of another reason he should buy the stone.”

She rolled her eyes and grabbed hold of his hand.

“You really should try and keep up, you know. The Prince left ages ago, not long after the first dance and as your name is on my card, you are not getting out of it. It would be the height of rudeness especially as you have danced with half the ladies of the ton already this week. Come on. It’s only three steps and a bit of a twirl. You’ll get it in no time.”

Chapter Six

Passion and Pokers

He twisted and turned in the sheets for the umpteenth time before he gave up trying to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes she was back in his arms, her slender waist under one hand, fingers entwined in the other. His thigh had touched hers with every twirl and when he had nearly stumbled at the startling sensation that had ripped though him she had pressed herself even closer, keeping them in time with the music rather than the unsteady beat of his heart.

Sweat beaded on his brow as he sat on the edge of the bed and ran his fingers through his hair. The two dances that she had insisted he honour had completely undone him. The scent of her hair, the creamy skin of her shoulders, the slightness of her waist...and when she smiled so radiantly up at him his heart suddenly burst into flame as he realized that he loved her. God, he loved, loved, loved her.

And he wanted her.

His manhood throbbed painfully. It had been a constant ache for what felt like months; since the night Starlight had been born. After dancing with her tonight it had become almost impossible to bear. He wanted to be buried in her, taking her with such passion that neither of them would be able to move for days...He wanted her so badly that he wasn’t sure that he should be anywhere near her.

He huffed out a frustrated breath and walked to the dressing table where he poured himself a measure of brandy, relishing the burn as he flung it down his throat. Coalport had not drawn his drapes for the night and Geoffrey hadn’t bothered when he had arrived in his room two hours earlier. Now he walked to the window and threw it open. The cool evening air snatched his breath but he was glad that it cleared his head. He stared down into the formal garden for a long moment before his eyes slowly wandered back up the building, towards Charlotte’s bedroom window. There wasn’t even a chink of light showing between her closed drapes and he let out a deep sigh as he realized that she probably slept soundly, unworried by dreams of dances and heated glances, of his love and his breaking heart.

His knuckles whitened as he gripped the window frame. It was all so impossible. He could never have her, should never have let himself get in this deep. What had started out nearly two years previously as a mild infatuation with the pretty, vivacious girl, had morphed into something wild and heady, something he was in no condition to control. He needed to leave London now, go back north, and marry one of the girls from Oakley. He could take his pick as there were many who would consider him a catch. They would raise a dozen babies and he would be so busy keeping a roof over their heads that he would never have time to think of Charlotte ever again.

He let out a grim laugh as his rampaging passion suddenly wilted at the thought of bedding any other woman. Children were something he would never have with another woman. It clearly wasn’t going to be possible.

But what of children with Charlotte? His body surged again at the very thought. In his mind he could see her belly swollen with his child. Something in the middle of his chest tightened and he couldn’t fill his lungs with enough air. He staggered back from the window and closed his eyes, whirling towards the bed as his heart broke with the thought of never seeing her again. That seemed almost more impossible. He couldn’t imagine his life without her in it, didn’t even want to consider that as a possibility, but if she married someone here in London it would become a reality. There was no way that he could see her if she was the wife of another man...
And if she bore his child too?
God! He couldn’t bear to think on the possiblility. It would tear his heart in two.

A roar of anguish rose up in his throat and he only managed to contain it by stuffing the corner of his pillow into his mouth. Frustration tore at him, forcing him to confront his feelings. He’d never backed away from difficulties before. He’d always struggled on, fought his corner and often come out the winner. Why was he conceding defeat before the battle had even started just because she was a highborn woman? She wasn’t engaged to anyone, and to his knowledge wasn’t enamoured of any of the young beau who had called with their cards. It was only his station and lack of prospects that held her from his reach. His mind worked frantically as he searched for possibilities. He had to do something, couldn’t let another man snatch her from him without raising so much as an objection, wouldn’t let her go without a fight. It was impossible to imagine.

He thought of the Prince’s offer, an offer that he hadn’t wanted, but was now hard pressed to refuse. A thousand guineas! His pulse began to race. If he won the prize he would have something to recommend him, something that would increase his standing in life, maybe not enough to socialize in the circles that she was used to but enough to keep her from being ostracized entirely. After all, he himself had been accepted well enough these past few days. No one had cut him or been directly rude, though some were willing to try and play him for a fool with their clever speech and fancy words, but those he considered beneath him anyway.

He turned in his bed again and stared up at the canopy above him as he thought once again of the prize money. He knew that he had to go for it. It would be his only chance and he had to take it. Giles would be unhappy but Charlotte was nearly at her majority and as soon as her birthday passed there would be nothing her guardian could do about it. Though she always protested that she was never going to wed, he knew that she liked him as a friend. She was a girl in a million and might just say yes if he asked her to marry him.

He smiled at the thought of her walking down the aisle towards him, but then frowned again. Of course, she might laugh her head off at his proposal and dig him in his side with her impossibly sharp elbow while telling him to stop mucking about, but he’d convince her otherwise. He would prove to her that he was in earnest.

He had to. There was no longer another choice for him.

For after feeling the way that she had fit so perfectly into his arms as they had waltzed about the ballroom, he didn’t think that he could survive a life without her.

Charlotte sat up in her bed and stared at the closed drapes, wondering what had woken her. She had been dreaming such a wonderful dream that she was annoyed that she had been disturbed, but the house was silent and she shook her head at her over active imagination. She lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes as she tried to fall back into his arms as they waltzed around the ballroom, but nothing happened. All she felt was a strange tightening of her chest and a tingling that made her body itch and throb in the most unreasonable of places.

She felt the heat rise into her cheeks as she blushed at the very thought of what it might mean, and hoped to goodness that Geoffrey would never discover her thoughts on anything so outrageous. He’d only just begun talking to her since the incident with the foal the previous summer. If he ever suspected her wild and wicked urges now, he would be thoroughly scandalized and might never speak to her again.

She blinked back the tears that suddenly sprang into her eyes at the thought. It had been bad enough over the last few months, but now it seemed as though she had regained his regard. It would be far worse if she lost it a second time.

She listened as a sudden muffled thump sounded through the wall. The Duchess was clearly having trouble sleeping too. Charlotte looked at the panelling as guilt crept over her. She should have looked in on her friend before throwing herself into her bed.

Olivia had left the ball shortly after Charlotte had danced with the Prince, protesting that she had accomplished what she had set out to do for the evening and blaming a wretched headache on her early departure. She had insisted on Giles and Charlotte staying to the end with Charlotte under Geoffrey’s care and with Lady Alder acting as her chaperone, but they hadn’t stayed long after their second waltz. The rest of the evening had suddenly paled into insignificance after being held in Geoffrey’s embrace.

She could still feel the imprint of his hand on her waist, the heat of his fingers wrapping hers with tender warmth and the decadent press of his muscled thigh against her own through the fine silks of her skirts. His breath had teased the curls piled on top of her head and she had felt the hard wall of his chest when her legs began to give way, so suddenly beneath her. His hands had tightened on her body, searing her flesh and making her heart slam against her ribs as he had caught her to him so that she didn’t stumble and fall.

She flung her arm across her heated forehead and huffed out a frustrated breath as she refused to think what she was thinking. She couldn’t process what her own body was telling her. Nothing like it had ever happened to her before. Geoffrey would laugh his head off at her if he knew how hot and sweaty she felt now that she was thinking these kind of thoughts about him. The perspiration was positively dripping from her brow.

It was so stuffy and dark inside the bed and she wondered she hadn’t asked Louise to leave the drapes open. She threw them back impatiently and climbed from her bed. Her nightgown blew against her body and she stretched her neck into the cool breeze coming in from her open window. She walked towards the fresh air and leaned against the window frame as she glanced down at the formal gardens. A profusion of spring colour caught her eye before her gaze wandered up the angles of the building.

A shadow at the window at a right angle to her own had her pressing herself into the half-closed drapes. She pulled in a breath as Geoffrey’s figure was outlined in a shaft of moonlight.

He stood completely naked at the window, his musculature shown in vivid relief as he stared down at the garden. She drew in a long breath and feasted on his muscled glory. He lifted his arms and leaned against the frame, his corded arms and washboard stomach highlighted by the moon’s soft glow. Her eyes dropped lower and she held her breath as his masculinity stood rigid against his abdomen. She watched as it suddenly dropped but then pulsed, and grew impossibly larger. The heat that had curled wickedly in her stomach a few moments earlier, grew into searing flames of wild excitement. She took one last glance before she pulled the curtain shut and turned her back, pulling in rapid breaths as her heart jumped violently in her chest.

She’d thought him magnificent when she’d seen his chest while in the stables back at Ormond, now she knew that was only half the story. Either the effigies she had viewed in art or in books from their library were normal and Geoffrey was seriously malformed below the waist, or the books had lied about men in general.

She recalled the horrid little man who had sat below her at the dinner table that night and decided that Geoffrey was clearly a more spectacular form of a normal male. Her mouth went dry at the thought and the strange feeling that had covered her while she lay in bed now concentrated itself below her own waist. The throbbing ache that had felt pleasant before now increased enough for her to feel slightly lightheaded. She grabbed hold of her nightstand before her knees buckled and she fell to the floor.

It took her a few moments to feel normal enough to rise again. Her heart beat out an erratic rhythm as her brain clamoured with the man’s name.
Geoffrey!
It resounded over and over again and she suddenly knew that she was in dire trouble.
Had she been so blind as to not see this before?

She forced herself to her feet and made for the door. She wished she could talk to Anne. Giles’ wife maintained that she had fallen in love with her husband on the very day that she first met him and Charlotte wasn’t sure that the same thing, though until now unrecognised, hadn’t happened to her too. Her mind went back to the day she had first seen Geoffrey. His silver grey eyes had examined her intently across the cobbles at Ormond and she had stared back at the man. She had thought that the wild thumping in her chest was due to nerves at meeting new people in new places. Now she wondered if that were true. Had she been harbouring these scandalous thoughts for so long? Her heart blossomed with something unknown, and began a frantic drumbeat beneath her breast as she thought of his rugged good looks and muscled frame.

No wonder the ladies had swarmed all over him at the balls and parties. When she had seen him talking to the raven haired vulture seated beside him at the Latham’s table that evening, her mind had whirled in utter fury. While Olivia searched for a suitable husband for her, the one Charlotte really wanted stood right before her own eyes. Strong, kind, upstanding and handsome, he was perfection personified and the thought of him wanting to be with anyone else quite revolted her.

But Geoffrey, though perhaps valuing her as a friend and helper at Ormond’s stables, didn’t think anything more than that of her. He had made it perfectly plain that she was nothing more than a girl he had to put up with for the sake of his friends and his job. He had never intimated that he thought any more of her than that, and why would he? She had been so young, far too young for a man in his early twenties to consider, but that was more than eighteen months ago. Surely he saw her as a woman full grown now...but maybe he didn’t. Perhaps he still saw her as that young girl who had shown up at Ormond and bossed him around for several weeks. He’d maintained a respectable distance back then and he was still doing it now.

However much she had enjoyed dancing in his arms, and however much he had appeared to enjoy the experience himself, she knew that he would never let it go any further. The poker was still firmly entrenched up...she stopped thinking like that. It was that sort of low behaviour that had alienated him in the first place. She couldn’t speak to Anne, but Olivia was a woman who had been in love with her husband for many years before he was so horribly snatched from her. She wasn’t so old that she would have forgotten what it was like to be young and impetuous.