Captive (13 page)

“He wants to get back at me for killing his brother. He only means to lead you on. He will do something dishonorable before he is through, believe me.”

“I asked him, Lion, and he said he only wanted to keep me company.”

“You don’t want to believe I’m right,” Lion said gently. “I don’t want to hurt you, Olivia, but it’s time for honesty between us. Look at yourself. Look at him. Tell me you believe the Duke of Braddock could choose you over all the other women in London.”

Her chin began to quiver. “I know … I know it seems a bit odd—”

“Odd? It’s downright peculiar.”

Olivia was trying desperately to believe in the duke’s promises. But what Lion said made too much sense. Of course the duke would lie to her about his true intentions if he meant to harm Lion. But she didn’t want to believe it!

She tried to brush past her brother and escape up the stairs before she burst into tears, but he stepped in front of her. “I’m sorry, Olivia.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. They felt more oppressive than comforting. She knew he loved her. She knew he only wanted the best for her. But he had not lived the isolated life she had. He had not had his dreams dashed by a riding accident at an age when other girls were enjoying their first season in London. He had not wished and hoped and yearned for the impossible.

How could she turn away from Braddock? How could she give up even a frail hope of becoming a wife and mother?

“I’m willing to take the risk, Lion. I’m willing to give Braddock a chance.”

“I’m not,” he said implacably. “I want you to stay away from him.”

Olivia had seldom defied her brother. It felt strange to do so now. She could not have said whether seeing Charlotte’s face appear beyond her brother’s shoulder gave her the courage to speak her mind, or whether she would have spoken anyway. She was as amazed at her temerity as Lion was when she replied, “The duke has invited Charlotte and me to the theater next week. I have accepted for both of us.”

“Bravo, Livy,” Charlotte said, clapping her hands. “Just imagine, you and me attending the theater. It will be such an adventure!”

“It will be no such thing, because you aren’t going,” Denbigh said, his glance shifting from one
to the other like a baited bear caught between two nipping terriers.

“You may, of course, keep Charlotte home. But then I will be alone with the duke,” Olivia pointed out.

“Damn and blast, Olivia—”

“Excuse me, Lion. I’m tired after my outing. I would like to go to my room.”

She gathered up her hat and gloves and fled up the stairs. When Charlotte pursued her, she turned and said, “I would rather be alone, Charlotte, if you don’t mind.”

Charlotte stopped where she was. “All right, Livy. Are you sure the duke said nothing to upset you?”

Olivia smiled. “Oh, no, Charlotte. Quite the contrary.” But she needed privacy to relive the whole exciting afternoon, from the moment she had first seen the handsome duke, to her last shy glance at him before he left her at her door. “I’ll talk with you later, I promise.”

Charlotte watched Olivia’s awkward ascent up the stairs with a furrowed brow. “Something happened,” she murmured.

“What did you say?” Denbigh asked.

She turned and skipped back down the stairs to stand before him. “I said something happened between her and Braddock.”

Denbigh scowled and headed back to the drawing room. Charlotte followed in his wake.

“It’s a good something, I’m sure,” she said. “Did you see the way she practically floated up the stairs?”

“Olivia had the same difficult time she always has with stairs,” he retorted. “I noticed no difference.”

“That’s because you weren’t looking close enough.” She was barely inside when he closed the doors behind her, closeting them together. Charlotte settled herself in a chair sideways, ignored the disapproving frown he gave her, and said, “You are going to let me go with her to the theater, aren’t you? Please?”

He cocked a brow. “Please? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you use that word before. At least not to me.”

She gave him an impish grin. “Is it working?”

He turned to face her, one hand tucked behind his back. “You may go. But I will accompany you.”

She bounded out of the chair and stood toe to toe with him. “Oh, no! You can’t come. Everything will be spoiled if you do.”

“If you mean Braddock will not have a free hand with my sister, then you are correct. Neither will you be free to indulge in whatever mischief you had in mind.”

“I was only going to leave them alone for a little while,” she confessed.

He shook his head. “At least we will be able to use the occasion to some advantage. Any number of gentlemen attending might be considered as a suitable husband, Charlotte.”

“But I’ve already got you,” Charlotte replied with a teasing grin. “I saw the notice of our engagement printed in the
Times
just this morning.”

“It was?” Denbigh exclaimed. “Who sent it to them?”

“You must have done it,” Charlotte said. “Didn’t you?”

Denbigh closed his eyes to try and remember whether he might have done such a thing. Then it came back to him. He had dictated the notice to someone at White’s while foxed and bet he could induce the
Times
to do a special printing and have it included in the next day’s issue. “Good God.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Didn’t you want to announce our engagement?”

“Why would I want to do that when I live in expectation of finding some other man to be your husband before the season is done?”

“I will find my own husband, thank you,” she retorted.

“I will do the choosing,” Denbigh said. “You will do as you’re told.”

“I want to marry for love, or not at all,” Charlotte announced dramatically.

“What does a chit like you know about love?” Denbigh scoffed. “And what does love have to do with marriage? I believe we’ve had this conversation before.”

“I know your opinion on the matter. It simply doesn’t happen to coincide with mine. I’ve done some thinking, and it seems to me that it might not be such a bad thing for me to stay engaged to you.”

“What?” His mouth gaped like a fish yanked out of water.

“As long as I’m going to be stuck with you as my guardian for who knows how long, I might as well be enjoying the social freedoms granted to an affianced lady. I’ll be able to go all sorts of places and do all sorts of things without you tagging along.”

“You will leave this house unaccompanied over my dead body.”

“But, my lord,” she said with a sparkle of laughter in her eyes, “affianced couples rarely spend much time together. It simply isn’t done.”

“In the first place, we aren’t really engaged.”

“But the
Times—
”

“Charlotte!” he roared. “I am running out of patience with you. After an appropriate time, a notice will appear in the
Times
announcing that you have had a change of heart and cried off.”

“You can’t force me to break our engagement,” she said stubbornly.

His silvery gray eyes narrowed. “Very well. If we are an engaged couple, there are certain liberties that I am allowed with your person.”

As he stalked toward her, she backed away from him. She bumped into a chair, went around it, and then kept it between them.

“Liberties? What kind of liberties?” she said, her breath coming in shallow pants.

“I may be seen holding your hand in public.”

“Oh,” she said, palpable relief appearing on her face. Charlotte supposed this sort of compromise was what Livy had been talking about when she had urged her to meet Denbigh halfway. She extended her hand over the top of the chair. “Be my guest.”

He took her hand, and a frisson of excitement skittered up her arm.

“Uh oh,” she murmured.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

He led her around the obstruction, so they were standing toe to toe. She felt a little jittery with him holding her hand, but she was adjusting. In no time at all she figured she would hardly notice his touch.

“And I may kiss your hand when I bid you adieu,” he said.

A little kiss on the hand. What could it hurt?
She smiled brightly and said, “That’s fine with me.”

She had not expected him to turn her hand over, exposing her wrist and palm. She wriggled against the unfamiliar sensations when he traced the lines in her palm with his fingertips. She nearly jumped out of her skin when he lowered his head and tasted her wrist with his tongue.

The touch of his damp lips against her flesh sent a curl of desire streaking straight up her arm and all the way back down to her belly. She ripped her hand free of his, accidentally smacking him hard on the nose.

“Ow!” He rubbed his nose gingerly, while she stared up at him in confusion, quite unable to catch her breath.

He dropped his hand, and a self-satisfied look appeared on his face. “Are you ready to back out now?”

“Was that supposed to scare me off? It didn’t work,” she taunted.

A muscle in his jaw jerked, and his lips settled in a determined line. “An affianced gentleman is also expected to steal a kiss behind the palms at balls and routs and musicales.”

Charlotte’s heart began to ricochet around inside her like a bird that finds itself in a cage for the first time and cannot believe there is no escape. “Kisses?” she squeaked. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. “Oh, yes, my darling affianced bride,” he said in a dark, silky voice. “Most definitely kisses, and perhaps a bit of fondling, as well, if the woman is willing. Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind and break this engagement?”

Charlotte wished she knew more about such things. If a kiss on her wrist could excite such feelings, what might happen if he touched her … wherever. She was treading in dangerous waters. But she could not run until she knew there was no chance she could win by staying to fight.

“Go ahead and kiss me,” she said. “I can stand it if you can.”

She had not meant to make it sound like a challenge. She had not meant to suggest that she was not going to enjoy it. Maybe then, he would not have kissed her the way he did. Maybe then he would not have put his heart and soul into the thing. Maybe then she would not have found herself drowning in feelings that were overwhelming.

His lips, that she so often saw pressed flat in an uncompromising line, were amazingly soft and supple against her own. They brushed against her lips in a feather-light touch while he murmured, “Kiss me back, Charlie.”

Maybe if he had said Charlotte, instead of Charlie, she would have been able to resist him. But there was something so intimate about the sound of
his voice saying her name that she willingly surrendered to his demand.

She wasn’t conscious of her arms going around his neck or his arms closing around her waist and pulling her body tight against his. She only knew she needed to be closer, she needed to be a part of him, she wanted him to be a part of her.

His hands tightened suddenly on the flesh at her waist, and the single devastating, entangling kiss became a series of kisses pressed against her closed eyelids and nose and cheeks.

“We have to stop, Charlotte,” he murmured, his breath hot against her skin.

“No.”

He chuckled, then gasped when her lips found his again.

She wanted to be Charlie again. She wanted the intimacy he had stolen from her when he backed away from the kiss.

His mouth closed once more on hers. And she dove again into waters deep and dangerous.

“Where is that grandson of mine?” a gruff voice bellowed from the hallway. “And where is my new granddaughter?”

Before they could separate, the drawing room door slammed open. Denbigh turned to stare with dazed eyes into the astounded, then delighted, eyes of his grandfather, who was joined an instant later by his grandmother. He pushed Charlotte away from
him and tried in vain to pretend that nothing had happened.

Something had happened.

Denbigh took a step back from the gamine baggage who had tricked him into compromising her yet again—this time in full view of his grandparents. He was still reeling from the effects of her kiss, and he felt disoriented by the sudden appearance of the only two people in the world who could, without effort, remind him he had not always been a confident Corinthian, a man of the world, a pink of the
ton
. That instead, once upon a time, he had been a clumsy, heartbroken boy in short pants.

“Caught them kissing, Lizzie,” his grandfather said to his grandmother with a naughty grin.

“Shame on you, Arthur, bursting in without knocking,” the duchess replied.

“God help us now,” Denbigh muttered.

“Who are they?” Charlotte asked.

“My grandparents, the Duke and Duchess of Trent.” He shoved a hand through his hair, leaving his valet’s careful efforts at a perfect Brutus standing askew.

“I should have realized he would see the announcement,” he said in an aside to Charlotte. “He has the
Times
delivered before noon every day. Although how he got here so quickly, I can’t imagine. He must not even have stopped to pack.”

“I’m glad they’re here,” Charlotte whispered.
“In my opinion you don’t spend nearly enough time with your grandparents.”

“There are reasons why I keep my distance,” Denbigh said in her ear.

“What reasons?”

“You’re about to find out,” he said.

His grandfather thumped his way farther into the room, leaning heavily on a gnarled hickory cane. His right foot was swathed in an immense bandage, and he yelled for a servant to bring him a footstool as he settled himself in one of the chairs that faced the fire. “Damned gout is making a grumpy old man out of me,” the duke admitted.

The duchess was so tall she had been called a Long Meg in her youth. She wore her pure white hair in a braid across the top of her head that looked like a silver crown, and she crossed the room to stand behind the duke with a grace so regal she might have been a queen. She brushed her hand lovingly through the few gray hairs that remained on the duke’s head and said, “The journey is over now, my dear. Put your foot up and relax.”