Captive (23 page)

“Charlie.”

He made the detested nickname sound like a lover’s caress. She was so mesmerized by his intense, silvery gaze, that it was not until his hands tightened on either side of her waist that she realized he had caught his prey.

She swallowed hard. “Lion, this is wrong.”

His lips curled. “I have been telling myself that ever since you walked through that door. I have
been saying to myself, ‘Lion, you are the chit’s guardian. It’s your duty to protect her from importuning gentlemen.’ And do you know what I have been answering myself?” he asked.

She shook her head slowly.

“ ‘Have you ever seen anything as beautiful as her eyes? Or as charming as her freckles? Or as willful as her chin? Have you ever wanted anything in your life more than you want to kiss her lips right now, this instant?’

“Do you know what I answered myself, Charlie?”

“No.”

“Exactly right,” he said with a gentle, teasing smile. “I said, ‘No, Lion, you have never wanted anything, or anyone, more than you want her right now.’ ”

“Lion, we can’t—you can’t—we mustn’t—”

He cut her off by capturing her mouth with his, by devouring her with his lips and teeth and tongue. She was consumed by his passion, and it fed hers. She had never felt such hunger, such a craving for something … something …

To be closer to him. To be inside him. To have him inside her.

She did not stop him when his hands curved around her breasts, nor when one found its way inside her bodice to touch her flesh, nor even when he unbuttoned the back of her dress and shoved it
off one shoulder, so his mouth could close on her nipple through her thin muslin chemise.

She cried out as he suckled and held his head close, afraid he would stop. Afraid it would be over before the craving would be satisfied.

She could not get enough. She could not feel enough.

His mouth returned to hers, and he murmured, “Put your tongue in my mouth, Charlie. Taste me.”

A gently bred lady should have been—would have been—shocked or appalled or revolted by such a request. Husbands had mistresses for such depravities. Copulation was for procreation. Wives did not enjoy themselves in bed.

Charlotte never had a mother to tell her to lie still and do her duty. She had died too soon. Her father had said what happened between a man and a woman in the bedroom was a joy and a wonder. No more. No less.

Charlotte did what Lion asked willingly, excitedly, eager to please him and herself. She felt shivery, quivery all over, as she searched the inside of his mouth with her tongue, finding rich textures and sensuous tastes, and discovering secrets only a lover would know.

He liked it when she nibbled on his upper lip. Or sucked his lower lip into her mouth. Or traced the inside of his upper lip with her tongue. He was
impatient. He wanted more. He wanted everything at once.

There was no telling where things would have ended, if the dormouse had not run over her foot.

Charlotte shrieked and jerked herself from Lion’s embrace, hopping up and down as though she were on fire.

“What’s the matter?” Lion said, trying to grasp her shoulders, trying to hold her still while she struggled to be free.

“A mouse!” she cried, grabbing his neck to get her feet off the floor. “A mouse ran over my foot!”

He picked her up and set her on one of the crates off the floor and looked around for the offending rodent.

Sure enough, a dormouse scurried from behind the crate Charlotte was sitting on, through a hole in the floor, and was gone.

“You
are
afraid of dormice!” he said, turning to her with a laugh. She watched the laugh get caught in his throat when he looked at her.

She was suddenly aware of her dress hanging off of one shoulder. Of the cold, damp spot on the front of her chemise. Of her swollen lips. And her tangled hair.

He had not fared much better in their loving encounter. His neck cloth had come undone, and his hair stood on end.

“Oh, God,” he said. “I almost … Charlotte, I …”

He came to her and took her hand and said, “Please marry me, Charlotte.”

For a moment she felt euphoric. That feeling lasted only as long as it took her to identify the look in his eyes as guilt. Not love. There was no love.

She pulled her hand free of his and used it to pull her dress back up over her shoulder. “No, Lion. I won’t.”

“You must,” he said fiercely. “I have … I have taken unconscionable advantage of you.”

“You did not hear me complaining,” she said. “I enjoyed myself as much as you did.”

“Enjoyed? Charlotte!” he roared. “A lady does not
enjoy
a tryst with a man who is not her husband.”

“I did.”

“Charlotte—”

She put her fingertips against his lips to cut him off. “Please, Lion. Let’s not argue about it. I want a husband who will love me. Because of what happened with Lady Alice your heart is not whole. When it is … if it ever is … I would like to have it.”

Making certain there were no dormouses in the vicinity, she hopped down from the crate and turned her back to him. “Will you please button my dress for me?”

For a moment she thought he would refuse. She looked at him over her shoulder and said, “Would you like me to go downstairs to the maids’ quarters and ask one of them to button me up?”

He flushed. And took a step closer so he could reach the buttons. She was amused that he seemed much less adept at buttoning her dress up, than he had been at unbuttoning it.

While she had his attention, she made the plea she had come to make in the first place. “Lion,” she said, “We’re still going to the masquerade tonight, aren’t we?”

“You still want to go?” he asked.

She turned to face him, so he had to button the top button with his hands over her shoulders. She looked up at him with her most earnest expression and said, “The reason I wanted to go to the masquerade—that Livy needed something to cheer her up—is still true. In fact, after what happened this morning with Braddock, she is more Friday-faced than ever.”

“If she is so melancholy,” Lion said dryly, “maybe she would rather be by herself.”

“Oh, that is the very worst thing for a sad person to do. Livy needs company. She needs to dance and talk and enjoy herself. Will you take us?”

“Very well, Charlotte,” he said. “If it would please you.”

“Oh, Lion, it would.” She stood on her toes
and gave him a quick kiss on the lips and then turned and ran for the door. She didn’t trust herself, otherwise, not to stay and ask him to unbutton her dress again. He was so very good at it.

At the door she turned and said, “Lady Alice did not betray you, Lion. Nor would I.”

Then she opened the door and hurried down the stairs, leaving him to enjoy the dormouse and his solitude.

Charlotte was faced with yet another argument when she tried to get Olivia to put on the shepherdess’s costume she had commissioned to be made for her.

“The skirt doesn’t even cover my limbs,” she protested in shocked tones. “It stops halfway down.”

“That’s the whole idea,” Charlotte said. “You will be wearing white stockings with pretty red ribbons crisscrossed around them.”

“My limbs—”

“I have seen your legs, Livy,” Charlotte said, “and aside from one being longer than the other, they look the same as mine. Besides, it will be so dark, no one will even notice.”

“How are you going to get this costume past Lion’s scrutiny?” Olivia said.

“Oh, he’ll be so busy yelling at me, he won’t even notice what you’re wearing,” Charlotte reassured her with a grin.

“What
are
you wearing?” Olivia asked.

“Wait and see.”

Actually, once Charlotte saw herself in the mirror, she thought this time she might have gone too far. She looked like she was wearing a sheet she had grabbed after rising naked from a bed with her lover. Maybe that was an exaggeration, but not by much. The togas worn by the Elgin Marbles had not looked nearly so revealing.

Of course, this actually was a sheet, a white silk one she had found in the cupboards where linens were kept. A ruby brooch she had begged from Olivia held the costume together at one shoulder. The other shoulder was bare.

She had stolen a bit of tasseled gold drapery cord from the library, crisscrossed it under her breasts, and tied it in a knot around her waist to secure the sheet in place. But if there was much of a breeze at Vauxhall, she was in trouble.

Denbigh would not be focused on Olivia’s stocking-covered legs, because he would be staring at her bare ones. She was practically naked under the toga and barefoot except for a pair of fragile white satin sandals that tied with pretty bows at the
backs of her ankles. She had seen them in a shop window one day, after she had been to visit the Elgin Marbles, and had bought them on a whim. She had never had occasion to wear them until now.

Maybe it was the kisses—among other things—she had shared with Lion in the attic that made her eyes look so exotic and mysterious.

Or maybe it was the lining of kohl she had induced Sally to apply.

“He will never let you leave the house,” Sally said as she stared, wide-eyed, at the image of her mistress in the mirror.

Charlotte was inclined to agree.

If there had been more time, she would have tried to come up with another costume. But it was already nine o’clock in the evening, and she did not want to take the chance of missing her assignation at Lover’s Walk.

“It is not so bad,” she hedged.

“As what? A Cyprian would think twice about venturing forth dressed like that,” Sally said.

“It will be dark,” Charlotte said.

“Lady Alice said that Vauxhall—except for the walkways where no proper young lady would allow herself to be caught dead—is lit by hundreds of lanterns.”

“Damn and blast! There’s no help for it now, Sally. I’ll have to brazen it out.”

“Brazen is the right word,” Sally muttered under her breath, “as a Covent Garden abbess.”

“Thank you, Sally,” Charlotte said, working to keep the edge from her voice. “I have taken your point.”

She readjusted the slippery fabric across her breasts and belly and left the room. She figured it was best if she and Olivia went downstairs together. That way, Denbigh would not be able to make up his mind which of them provided the worst offense to his eyes and his consequence, and he would thus be rendered speechless.

She hoped.

She knocked on Olivia’s bedroom door, and when it opened and she saw Olivia’s expression said, “Don’t say a word. Lion will say it for you.”

Olivia’s hazel eyes crinkled at the corners with laughter. “I understand now what you meant earlier this afternoon. I feel positively overdressed in comparison.”

“Stubble it,” Charlotte said. But she was glad to see Olivia smiling again.

When they arrived at the drawing room door, where Stiles had told them the earl was waiting, Charlotte got cold feet.

“You go in first, Livy.”

“I think your first idea was the best one. I think we had better go in together,” Olivia said.

Charlotte took a deep breath and stepped inside.

To her horror, the Duke and Duchess of Trent were sitting in the two chairs before the fire. She had already whirled in retreat when the duke called out, “Come here, Charlie, and let me see you. And can that really be Livy? You look charming, dear girl.”

Charlotte kept her head high and her eyes straight ahead. She could hardly believe she was walking around practically naked in front of Denbigh’s grandparents. The thought of Lion seeing her like this had not been so bad. To be honest, there was a devilish imp inside her that had
wanted
Denbigh to see her as daring and decadent.

She was barely aware that Olivia took her hand and led her, like a lost sheep, over to stand in front of the duke and duchess.

“What do you think of my two girls, Lizzie?” the duke asked his wife.

“Why, Livy,” the duchess said. “Arthur is right. You do look charming as a shepherdess. That crooked staff is the perfect touch. And Charlotte …”

Charlotte waited for the
coup de grace
. It was almost better to be cut down by the duchess, she thought, than have Denbigh do it.

“You are Diana, the Huntress, come to life!” the duchess exclaimed.

“What?” Charlotte turned her head to meet the duchess’s gaze and was startled to realize the old woman had the same silvery gray eyes as Lion. Hers were a little darker perhaps, than his, as though they had tarnished with age.

“Don’t you agree, Lion?” the duchess said.

Bolstered by the words of support from the duchess, Charlotte turned to look at him. She had never expected Denbigh to approve the costume. What she saw in his eyes was frightening to behold.

Not rebuke. Naked desire.

“She is Diana,” he said. “As she was meant to be.”

Charlotte felt her nipples peak. Her own desire, an answer to his, was impossible to hide.

“It’s time to go,” Denbigh said. “We cannot delay, or we will miss the fireworks.”

“Fireworks?” Charlotte said stupidly. Who needed to leave home for fireworks? There were plenty of them right here.