Captive (18 page)

“One bad experience was enough,” Denbigh said through clenched jaws.

“Lady Alice never loved you in the first place if she betrayed you the way you say she did. No woman could betray a man she truly loved.”

“I believed she loved me,” Denbigh countered. “At least, it felt like love. Which only shows how deceitful a lover can be.”

Charlotte’s brow furrowed as deeply as an old woman’s, and she began to pace. “Wait. Wait. If you’re right … if Alice did love you … there has to be another explanation for what happened.”

“You’re reaching for straws.”

“No, I don’t believe you could feel that much in love with her if there was not something coming back to you in return. Which means there is a mystery here to be solved.”

“There is no mystery!” Denbigh snarled. “She gave herself to him.” And then, as though the words were torn from him with hot pincers, “She was carrying his child!”

Charlotte gasped. “Oh, Lion. Oh, no.”

“So you see, I am not entirely an idiot for believing that Braddock may give the appearance of being interested in my sister, and have entirely different—malevolent—feelings for her instead.”

“I’m not convinced Braddock is the rogue you are painting him to be. But if Lord James was so
dishonorable as to compromise Lady Alice, don’t you think Braddock would understand why you had to challenge James to a duel? Wouldn’t it be worthwhile explaining the truth to him? That would make a match between Braddock and Livy—”

“Enough!” Denbigh said. “There’s no reasoning with you.”

Charlotte glared at him. “I know I’m right.”

“It doesn’t matter if you are or not. The matter is settled. Braddock will not see my sister again.”

“We’ll see about that,” Charlotte muttered.

“What did you say?”

Charlotte sailed toward the door. “Nothing. We bird-witted females seldom have a useful thought in our heads.”

Denbigh made a silent vow to keep a close eye on Charlotte for the next couple of days. He wouldn’t put it past the chit to seek out Braddock herself!

If Charlotte could have found Braddock, she would have confronted him with the truth of what had happened between Lord James and Denbigh. But a note Charlotte penned to his London address early the next morning was returned unopened with a second note saying the duke had left London. All Charlotte’s efforts to locate Braddock over the next few days were futile. It was as though he had disappeared off the face of the earth.

Livy was disconsolate.

Lion felt vindicated.

Charlotte bided her time, waiting for Braddock to show his face in company. Unless he had gone back to India, and gossip did not suggest it, the man would have to turn up sooner or later. When he did, Charlotte would be waiting for him.

Meanwhile, the idea that there was more to Lady Alice’s story than she, or even Denbigh knew, niggled at her. She could not imagine how a woman who loved one man could end up in bed with another. Unless … unless Lord James had blackmailed Alice somehow. Or had got her drunk at a house party and taken advantage of her. Or made a bet with one of his cronies that he could have her and forced himself on her.

There were infinite possibilities, if one only had the imagination to think of them. Charlotte had a wonderfully vivid imagination … but absolutely no way of proving anything, since both of the parties involved were dead.

She was desperate to know the truth. Her whole life depended on it. And all because she was falling in love with a man who barely tolerated her. A man who was determined to change her into someone he could admire, as though Charlotte Edgerton, lately from America, was not an admirable person. She did not understand how it could have happened. It scared her to think she had no choice in the matter. The love was there. She could not seem to extinguish it.

The problem was, her heart had settled on someone incapable of loving her in return. The blasted man was convinced he could not trust himself to know real love when he saw it. After all, Denbigh believed he had been badly mistaken with
Lady Alice. That betrayal made him chary of trusting another woman. Clearly, something had to be done to change his mind, or her love was doomed.

The simplest solution was to prove Lady Alice had loved Denbigh all along, and that some other provocation had resulted in her coupling with Lord James. Then, and only then, Denbigh might be willing to take the chance of loving someone else … of loving her. Then, and only then, could they have a chance of living happily ever after.

Of course, Denbigh had a few shortcomings that needed to be corrected in order to make him the perfect husband. Not that Charlotte needed a perfect husband, but Denbigh was so far from perfect, he had long way to go. He tended to be dictatorial at times. And stubborn as a mule. And set in his ways. While she searched for an answer to Lady Alice’s inexplicable behavior, she began working diligently to enlighten Denbigh to his faults, so he could correct them.

She attacked his resistance to change by constantly changing herself, and his tendency to order her around by not kowtowing to his ultimatums. The stubborn part would give way, she believed, as the other two faults were mended.

She began with small changes, like a bow in her hair.

At first she thought he might not even notice,
but at supper he said, “You look thirteen, Charlotte. Bows are for lapdogs and children.”

“Bows are for anyone who wants to wear them,” she countered.

“Social custom decrees—”

“That is your first mistake,” she said. “Who makes up social custom? Why, it is all of us! So all we have to do is suit ourselves, you see, and the customs will change to suit us.”

He took a sip of port, set down his glass, folded his hands in front of him—to keep from reaching for her throat?—and said, “If you wish to defy custom and wear a bow in your hair, you are the one who will suffer the consequences.”

“Exactly!” she said, rewarding him with a smile for having been so clever as to figure that out. “And since I am perfectly happy with my bow, where is the harm?”

Once he began accepting small changes without protest, she tried something a bit more dramatic. She got the idea from her new maid, Sally, who said, as she was brushing Charlotte’s waist-length hair one night before bed, “You should think about cutting off all this long, heavy hair. It is all the rage now for a lady to have her hair trimmed into a small cap of curls around her face.”

When the deed was done, Charlotte was a little shocked at how different she looked. “Oh, Sally. Maybe this was not such a good idea.” She felt a
spasm of remorse as she looked down at all the golden locks that lay fallen around her.

“You look a pretty sight, I promise you,” Sally said.

Charlotte reached up to touch her shorn head, amazed at how the curls framed her face and made her eyes look bigger. “Maybe you are right. The question is, will the earl feel the same?”

She decided not to wear a bow in her hair when she presented herself to the earl for the first time with her new haircut. That would be adding insult to injury. She put on a charmingly innocent sprigged muslin day dress, with capped sleeves and a high, square neck, and a feminine flounce at the hem, of which she knew he would approve.

“Are you busy?” she asked, as she stuck her head inside the study, where he was working.

“You forgot to knock, Charlotte,” he reminded her without looking up from the papers he was perusing at the desk.

Charlotte stepped inside, closed the door behind her, and knocked on it. “May I come in?”

“I’m busy, Charlotte.”

“I won’t take much of your time.” She kept waiting for him to look up, wanting to see his reaction to this change in her appearance. But he was determinedly focusing on the work before him.

She crossed to the desk. Eyed the spindly legs to gauge if they would hold her. And sat on the edge.

“That’s what chairs are for, Charlotte,” he said, an annoyed edge in his voice, still purposefully ignoring her.

She settled farther onto the desk.

He threw down his quill and looked up.

It was hard to tell, from the expression on his face, whether he liked what he was seeing. She tried a smile, to see if that would help him make up his mind.

“Charlotte!” he roared. “What have you done to your hair?”

He was on his feet and had snatched her off the desk by her shoulders before she knew what had happened. At first she thought he was going to shake her, like a terrier shakes a rat, but once he had hold of her, his grip merely tightened.

“It’s all the crack,” she said brightly.

“Social custom dictates—” He cut himself off.

At least he had learned that lesson, Charlotte mused.

“What possessed you to do such a thing?” he demanded.

She could not very well admit that she had done it merely to help him learn to accept change, rather than always fighting it. Changing herself to make a point was fine. But she wanted to be attractive to Denbigh, as well. Cutting off all her hair had obviously been a serious error. The expressions most apparent on his face were dismay and disapproval.

Charlotte felt like crying.

“You don’t like it,” she said, her chin quivering. “To be honest, I could have cried when I saw all those curls on the floor. In fact, I think I might cry now.”

His gaze softened, or maybe it was only that she was seeing him through a blur of tears.

“You are never predictable, Charlotte. I will grant you that.”

“It will grow back, Lion. I won’t always look like this,” she said woefully.

His lips curved in a tender smile. “You look charming just as you are.” His hands left her shoulders and sifted into the curls at her nape, causing a shiver to roll down her spine. He angled her head upward and lowered his mouth.

The kiss was unexpected.

That is, she had not come into the study looking for it. But he gave her plenty of warning before his lips touched hers. She could have backed away. She could have told him that kisses were only going to complicate the situation. Or reminded him that kisses between unmarried couples in broad daylight were strictly forbidden by social custom.

But if he was willing to ignore social custom, who was she to argue?

This kiss was different from the first, or even the second. She was not sure exactly why, unless it
had something to do with the change in her feelings for Denbigh.

Or a change in his feelings for her.

This kiss was hungry. His mouth claimed hers like a lover’s would, and his tongue probed the seam of her lips, demanding admittance.

She let him in.

He gathered her up in his arms and held her tight enough that she could feel the strength of his shoulders and his pounding heart.

Nothing had prepared her for the feelings inside her. Not only the physical reactions—the melting knees, the thready pulse, the difficulty breathing—but the emotional tumult of knowing she was being held by the man she loved, and that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

His tongue was wet and warm and welcome.

The feel of his large hand cupping the underside of her breast briefly distracted her from what he was doing to her with his mouth and teeth and tongue. When he brushed her nipple with his thumb, she was frightened by the intensity of the sensation. She would have pulled away, except he soothed her fears with murmured words that made no sense, but offered reassurance.

As his warm hand closed completely around her breast, she groaned and arched toward him. His other hand slid down to her buttocks and pulled her close. She did not know why it felt so good, only
that it did. His body was hot and hard, and rubbing herself against him, even through layers of cloth, produced pleasure she had never imagined. She did what came naturally, and produced the results that nature had intended.

The male hand that had been cupping her buttocks, encouraging her to move against him, suddenly held her still. “Wait,” Lion rasped. “Stop.”

She pushed against him, nudging the hard part of him with her body, trying to find the exact way to press herself against him that would produce the wonderful sensations.

Abruptly he separated them. “We have to stop,” he said in a harsh voice.

She looked at him and saw his eyes were heavy-lidded, his lips full, his body taut. He was aroused, and for some reason she did not understand, angry.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“This. This is wrong,” he said, letting go of her entirely, taking a step back, and shoving a frustrated hand through his hair. Apparently even that was not enough distance, because he turned and paced away from her.

“Damn and blast, Charlotte! Whenever I get near you, I seem to lose all sense of common decency. I have no business kissing you, because I have no intention of marrying you!”

Charlotte did not know what to say. She did not want to marry him, either, if he could not love her.
And as she was quickly coming to realize, love and desire were not at all the same thing.

“I only wanted to show you my hair,” she managed to say past an aching throat.

“It’s fine,” he snapped. “Now, if you don’t mind, I want to be alone to finish my work.”