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Authors: Ashley March

BOOK: Seducing the Duchess
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A pause. “I thought you were afraid to see them again. Would you like me to accompany you?”
Charlotte made a face at the marble bust. It was probably meant to represent one of Philip’s ancestors, perhaps the first or second Duke of Rutherford. It had his likeness—all hard planes and sharp angles. “No, thank you. And there is no time like the present to face my fears.”
Another pause. “Very well. Be sure to take Gilpin with you.”
“Of course. Until later, Your Grace.”
Finally, she was able to quit the library. As she walked past the bust, Charlotte could not resist giving it an open slap to the side of the head.
 
“Charlotte.” Joanna rose from a lounge in her solarium.
“I had not expected to see you again so soon.”
“Are you planning a rendezvous with Philip?”
Joanna blanched. “What? Good God, no!”
Charlotte studied her, found nothing but genuine horror in her eyes, and nodded.
“Do you have a messenger I can send to London? I have a letter that must be delivered immediately, and I need someone I can trust. Someone Philip cannot intimidate.”
Joanna halted the footman who had announced Charlotte with a lift of a finger. “Matthews, a moment.” To Charlotte, she said, “You may entrust whatever you have to Matthews. He will see that your letter is delivered safely, without any interference from the duke.”
Charlotte hesitated before drawing the paper from her reticule. “How long will it take him to arrive in London?”
Joanna looked at her footman, who lifted three fingers. “Three hours, it seems.”
Charlotte looked down at the letter and released it to the gloved fingers of the footman. “Thank you,” she murmured, and sank into a nearby chair.
Matthews left the room, and Joanna returned to her position on the lounge.
Charlotte glanced over her shoulder, then at Joanna. “It’s strange, isn’t it, that you’ve returned to Norrey Hill, instead of staying at Lord Grey’s estate?”
“Norrey Hill is my home. The Grey mansion never was. And besides, my husband’s heir didn’t want me there.” Joanna leaned forward. “But I have a feeling you didn’t decide to visit just to find a messenger, or to discuss my current domicile.”
“No.” This was where things became a bit tricky. Charlotte still hadn’t quite figured out what she should or should not reveal. “I would trust there is no grudge between us, Joanna.”
Only a slight flicker in her eyes showed any hint of interest. It was true; if ever there had been a perfect woman for Philip, it was Joanna.
“Of course not. How can I hold you at fault for anything, when it was Ethan and Philip who took advantage of us both?”
Charlotte took a deep breath and then, without fully knowing she was going to do it, blurted, “Philip has agreed to a divorce.”
Joanna blinked. That was the only sign she gave of being surprised. Yes, she was perfect for him.
“And he wants to marry you instead,” Charlotte added.
She laughed. Finally, an emotion. “Is that why he was flirting so outrageously with me this morning?”
Charlotte gave a terse nod, a brief jerk of her head. The reminder of Philip fawning over Joanna’s hand made her temples throb with renewed anger.
“If Ethan is the last man on earth I would consider marrying, Philip is surely the second to last. Good heavens. Why would he even consider such a thing, after Ethan and I nearly eloped?”
“It seems he’s decided you would make the perfect duchess.” Perfect, perfect, perfect. Philip thought he was perfect, thought Joanna was near perfect. All of this, of course, pointed to the very annoying and obvious fact that he found Charlotte severely lacking.
She knew this. She’d always known he looked down on her. What made no sense, however, was why she should care at any point in time what his opinion of her was.
She was being irrational. Philip had promised her a divorce if she would help him win Joanna, and now she was
jealous
?
Impossible.
She just . . .
She simply . . .
Charlotte cast about in desperation for a reasonable explanation for her strange thoughts, entirely ignoring Joanna as she continued to babble on about why she could never possibly allow Philip to court her.
She only wanted to prove he was wrong about her. That was it. To make him see that Joanna, with all of her near-Puritan clothes and stiff behavior, was in no way better than Charlotte.
Just because Joanna was the daughter of an earl and a widowed marchioness, and Charlotte was the daughter of the local squire—well, it meant nothing.
Nothing at all.
Joanna likely had many flaws. Scads of them.
Charlotte scanned her from the top of her head to the hem of her skirts.
“Charlotte.”
True, it appeared she did conceal them rather well, but she was certain they were there.
“Charlotte.”
“Hmm?” She jerked her gaze back up to Joanna’s face and frowned. Not even a freckle in sight.
“You must convince him to pursue someone else. Anyone else. I am not interested in marrying again, and especially not him.”
“Don’t worry. You won’t have to marry him. You shall simply have to pretend over the next few months that you are growing to like him a little bit more. But most importantly, I need you to let me know if his intentions toward you seem genuine.”
“In what manner?”
“Does he try to kiss you? Seduce you? Write you poems?” Charlotte frowned again. “Why are you laughing?”
“Poems? Seduction? I can no more imagine Philip rhyming two words together than I expect him to climb up to my window and declare his undying love.”
“But it is possible. You saw how he flirted with you today.”
Joanna gave her a considering look, then nodded slowly. “I did indeed.”
“Then you must keep me informed if he continues doing so. And as I said before, you should pretend to like him. I do not trust he will keep his word to divorce me if he doesn’t think he can win you over.”
Joanna stared at her for a long time before finally sighing. “You must admit, this all seems rather ridiculous.”
“I know. But he is giving me a chance to be free. I know you understand—you ran off with Ethan just so you wouldn’t have to marry him.”
“Ethan is the one who—”
Charlotte waved her hand. “Yes, yes, but do not tell me you weren’t relieved.”
A tiny smile lifted the corner of Joanna’s lips. “Very well. I was. Immensely.”
Charlotte reached forward and placed her hand over Joanna’s. “Then help me. Please.”
“It could be quite amusing to see Philip make a fool of himself.”
“Highly entertaining. It shall be like watching a trained monkey perform. Only this time, we will be the trainers.”
Joanna grinned. “I’ve always wanted a pet monkey.”
 
The wind was picking up. It had blown her bonnet off so many times that Charlotte had finally given it up for lost. The gale whipped her hair every which way now, untangling tendrils from her careful coiffure, flinging them across her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes.
She had to cup her hands around her face to see the roof of Sheffield House, the home where she was no longer welcome.
Charlotte had left Joanna well over an hour ago. She’d raced her mount against the wind, leaving Gilpin the groom trailing behind as she made her way toward the narrow edge of Rutherford property where Sheffield House was just visible over the wide swath of forest and thicket below.
There had been a time when it had seemed Charlotte had three homes: Sheffield House, Ruthven Manor, and Norrey Hill.
The properties were so close to one another that it took little more than half an hour to ride from Sheffield House across Rutherford lands to reach Norrey Hill. A little over an hour and a half on foot. Two hours walking backward. Fifty-six minutes if one skipped the entire way.
It was strange, now, how none of the houses seemed familiar. Even though Joanna was still as kind as she’d ever been, Charlotte had been acutely aware of her position as guest instead of confidante. She couldn’t see Ruthven Manor as anything more than a prison, with Philip as the warden.
And Sheffield House—
Well, she’d stood here for a good twenty minutes, and all she could think was that this must be how the street children felt when they passed the wealthy houses in Mayfair. As if a home and a loving family were foreign luxuries only the rich could possess.
She missed her parents and her brothers. Nicholas, Roland, and Arthur . . . but Ethan most of all. He had been the oldest, the one furthest from her in age, yet he’d been her closest friend. Her protector. Her enthusiastic scapegoat, always willing to take the blame when their adventures turned into mishaps.
Until he had been disowned. And then he had deserted her.
Charlotte had told Philip she wanted to visit her family. Yet, as she looked down at Sheffield House, she knew she wouldn’t be able to. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have waited twenty minutes in an attempt to gather her courage.
She couldn’t face her father’s scorn, her mother’s disappointment.
They would have heard the rumors, even this far from London. They would know everyone thought her to be the modern harlot of Babylon.
And while Philip was right—she
had
changed in the past three years—she knew her parents wouldn’t consider the change to be for the better.
“Your Grace? Perhaps we should return now.”
Gilpin’s voice swirled around her, the wind catching the consonants and tangling them into a muffled rumble of sound.
Charlotte gave a jerk of her head—just enough of a nod to acknowledge she heard him—and vaulted into the saddle.
The clouds wrestled in the sky, great big black monsters, their bodies rippling like waves over the landscape.
If they were fortunate, they might be able to beat the storm back to Ruthven Manor.
As they trotted away from where Sheffield and Rutherford lands collided, Charlotte glanced over her shoulder at the house she left behind.
She’d been wrong to hope things had changed, that it would appear any more welcoming than it had when she’d last seen it.
No matter how many times she looked back, she knew Sheffield House would never be her home again.
Chapter 7
“
N
o, Your Grace.You must leave your fingers loose.” Mr. Lesser plucked her fingers away from the harp strings and shook her hand. “Loose!”
Charlotte’s teeth clacked together from the force of the movement, but she dared not draw her hand away from his grasp. The last time she had attempted to do so, he’d threatened to walk out the door and never return.
She’d lost count of the number of times Mr. Lesser had reprimanded her for pulling at the harp instead of gently strumming the strings. It had to be well over twenty by now. And each time he took her hand in his, his voice became a little more strident, his cheeks a little more red.
And somehow, even though she’d never seen him run his fingers over his head, his light brown hair had managed to rearrange itself into frazzled, wild tufts sticking out from ear to ear.
“Do you feel”—Mr. Lesser gave her hand another fierce shake—“the looseness? Are your fingers”—he bent until they were face-to-face, his spectacles skewed at a dangerous angle on the tip of his nose—“relaxed?”
Charlotte bit her tongue and nodded. She wouldn’t tell him she couldn’t feel her hand or, for that matter, much of her arm anymore. If she opened her mouth, she feared she would burst out laughing at the image of the perfect madman he presented.
She did not want to offend Mr. Lesser’s sensitive, artistic spirit any further. She wanted to play the harp, and, God help the man, he had been hired to teach her.
With one final shake, Mr. Lesser moved her hand to hover over the harp strings. His breath rushed out in a harsh sigh, as if he were fortifying himself to face another nerve-wrenching battle.
Charlotte thought she heard him murmur a supplication to the heavens before he released her hand and said, “Again.”
She curved her fingers ever so slightly, making sure to only lightly rest them against the strings instead of pushing at them as she’d been inclined to do earlier.
“Dear Lord, please,” Mr. Lesser whispered above her shoulder.
Then, as she’d seen him do a dozen or more times already that morning, Charlotte moved her hand from one end of the harp to the other, allowing the strings to ripple in a vibrant melody beneath her fingertips.
“Yes,” Mr. Lesser breathed. “Did you feel the difference? Again.”
Charlotte’s heart thumped hard against her rib cage as she reached forward. She hadn’t felt the difference, not really. To her, her fingers were just as stiff as before. But if Mr. Lesser approved, who was she to think otherwise?

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