The Duke's Indiscretion (5 page)

She fairly glided toward him, with deliberate slowness, her hands clasped behind her back as she focused on the clean, expensive carpeting at her feet, denying him the amusement, the satisfaction, in her
eyes. “I'm sure you're aware, sir, how everyone speculates about your latest…trifle, shall we say. And to rid yourself of such unseemly gossip, I could bring some respectability back to your name. I'm the sister of an earl, an earl in some debt, as you're very much aware, and I think we could…help each other with our…mutual needs.”

Lifting her lashes, she gazed up at him again, standing very close to him now, noticing how he gaped at her, his beautifully sculpted face flushed, with embarrassment she hoped, how his perfectly chiseled muscles bunched tautly beneath his expertly pressed linen shirt. He appeared nothing short of astounded at her boldness.

She waited, staring into his eyes until he answered, said something.

Abruptly he composed himself, straightening as he fisted his hands at his sides, his features hardening, his jaw tightening as he looked at her now in obvious anger at her audacity.

“I believe,” he said coolly, “that you have spoken far beyond what's proper for a lady of your station. We will forget this incident, and neither of us will mention your outrageous behavior to anyone.” He dropped his gaze to his desk and righted his paperwork. “I have much to do, Lady Charlotte. I'm asking you kindly to take your leave.”

She instead moved closer to him, only inches away from his commanding presence, the hem of her skirt brushing his shins. “But we still have a great deal to discuss, your grace.”

He stood more than half a foot taller than her, and yet she knew her outrageous behavior, as he'd so
aptly called it, had disconcerted him. And she could very well sense that he'd nearly reached the point where he would call his butler to escort her out.

“Let me make this clear,” he said succinctly, cutting into her thoughts with a tone of restrained but tightly wound outrage. “Beneath your prim facade and ordinary features, you are obviously a brazen little minx, the most undesirable type of female for any purpose I can imagine. I would no more ask you to clean my dusty house than marry you or take you as a mistress—”

“Oh, but I think you will,” she replied as she stared at his chest, lowering her voice nearly to the depth and huskiness she portrayed to him the night she met him as Lottie. “In fact, I'm quite sure of it.”

He was beyond appalled. “Do you have any idea who you're speaking to, madam?” he asked through clenched teeth.

She raised her gaze to meet his once more, offering him her best seductive smile. “I think the question should be, do you have any idea who
you're
speaking with…Colin?”

A sharp, static charge filled the air, sucking them into a maelstrom of heated emotions that intertwined and radiated between them. For a second, Charlotte thought he might strike her; he looked just that mad.

And then he lowered his gaze to her breasts, which she'd so carefully lifted and revealed by corset, filling her with the same heat he made her feel that eventful night in her dressing room.

Boldly, she raised one hand and placed it on his warm, exposed neck. He flinched slightly from the
contact, but otherwise didn't move.

“Dear Colin,” she breathed, leaning into him so that her mouth very nearly touched his chin, “would you be more responsive to my needs if I sang for you first?”

His gaze shot up sharply. And then the revelation struck him as a lightning bolt.

He staggered back, his mouth dropped open, eyes wide, features going slack with absolute astonishment as he fairly fell into his chair.

“Jesus…” he whispered.

She smiled and leaned to her side, her palm resting atop his paperwork on the desk, her hip perched on the edge. Raising a brow, she murmured, “I see I've shocked you.”

He said nothing to that, just continued to gape at her, his eyes opened wide in a growing, shock-filled panic.

She played with the pen in his inkwell, twisting it absentmindedly between her fingers. “I'm here today because I'm hoping you still…um…need me,” she added, her voice displaying only the slightest tremor of the excitement she felt.

He looked her up and down again, almost in wonder this time, taking in her hair, her bosom, the slimness of her waist, and then her face, which he peered at starkly, grazing every inch of it, stopping at last to penetrate her eyes.

“Jesus. Lottie…”

Abruptly, through a wave of profound satisfaction, she raised herself and stood again, walking around his desk to take a seat in the chair across from him, the husky, sensual Lottie disappearing to be replaced
with her true self, the Lady Charlotte Hughes.

He continued to stare, if only to satisfy his eagerness to understand exactly how he could be so duped. She allowed him this time to gather his thoughts, to come to terms with his recent actions toward both of her personas, as she fluffed her skirts around her ankles, sitting erect once more, grasping her reticule with both hands on her lap.

At last he shook himself and cleared his throat, leaning forward again with his hands tightly clutched on top of the desk, though he couldn't hide the fact that they were shaking.

“I'm—I'm sorry. Lottie—”

“I'm more properly called Lady Charlotte, your grace,” she interrupted pleasantly, “but you may call me Charlotte.”

He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it abruptly, frowning slightly by her change in manner.

“Charlotte…I'm—I'm just—”

“Fairly speechless apparently,” she said for him with a twitch of her lips. “I assumed you would be, but then I wanted you to see it for yourself rather than have me simply tell you who I am.”

He wiped a palm harshly down his face, then interlocked his fingers once more. “Why?”

She shrugged, her eyes sparkling. “It was fun.”

That simple answer caused his irritation to resurface. His slack features hardened again, his gaze narrowed.

Her smile vanished as well as she returned to the point of her visit. “Your grace, I've obviously come here for a purpose today, and it wasn't to embarrass
you, or to beg for my pianoforte, which never should have been sold to you in the first place.” She drew a long breath, watching him. “I was altogether serious about a mutual agreement between us, a marriage, legal and binding, but with…benefits, shall we say, for both of us.”

“Both of us,” he repeated, his expression flat.

She completely understood the jumble of information that had to be going through his mind at the moment, and so she just continued, undaunted.

“Indeed.” She leaned forward, her eyes darkening with purpose. “I'll not play games with you, sir. I need a husband, a wealthy husband, who can afford my desire to travel abroad and build my singing career. I have no desire for marriage at all, as you very well know, just as I know you have no desire for marriage, either. And yet a simple marriage between us would satisfy exactly what we both need.”

He sucked in his cheeks, perhaps to keep from laughing. “Did you say a—a
simple
marriage?”

She ignored his rhetorical question, smiling negligibly as she remained steadfast. “Just consider for a moment, your grace, that I am a titled lady with an impeccable reputation, proper in every regard, tutored by the best. I can embroider, entertain, organize a household, and play the piano for any occasion. I'll satisfy every need you have, including those of the bedroom, as you'll certainly want an heir. I will have no reservations in giving you what you deserve as the married Duke of Newark.”

Amusement lit his eyes, and he relaxed against the back of his chair, studying her with his head tipped
to one side.

“You seem to have thought of everything,” he drawled.

Coyly, she replied, “I'm also very practical.”

“Yes, that's quite apparent.”

“There is one stipulation, however,” she added almost too casually.

“There usually is,” he interjected, placing his elbow on the armrest of his chair, his chin in his palm.

She felt warm inside suddenly, as if he were intentionally teasing to fluster her. And it was working, too, though she refused to allow him to know it.

Rigidly, with great care, she expounded, “I would like you to finance a tour for me. I want to sing, your grace, all over Europe. I can do it, and will be adored for my gift, but as the Earl of Brixham's sister, I don't now have the funds or the opportunity.” She huffed. “Not to mention the fact that he'd never allow me to do what is in his mind an utterly disgraceful thing.”

He thought about that for a moment, then asked lightly, “And if I…finance your tour, you'll give me what in return?”

She creased her brows. “I already told you. I'll provide you with a good home, a proper wife, and an heir if you so desire.”

“Oh, Lady Charlotte,” he whispered in a husky tremor, “if I actually go through the immense trouble of engaging myself in a
simple
marriage, I would certainly so desire.”

His quick response, at once both tactless and intimate, took her aback. Her eyelashes fluttered and her
mouth opened a little.

Giving her a sly grin, he stated, “But really, I can sponsor a tour for you without the legalities a marital union would require.”

That hurt her a little, though she tried to ignore the feeling of being brushed aside as a lady to be courted. “You don't approve of marriage, your grace?” she prodded, her tone conveying only the hint of disbelief.

“Oh, I approve of it wholeheartedly,” he replied at once, “for everybody but myself.”

That stumped her. She hadn't expected him to be so against what was required of him and his duty to reproduce. “But you'll need an heir.”

“Yes, so I've been told by everyone I know. Repeatedly.” His smile went flat. “Still,
I'd
rather be the one to choose the lady, and the time to marry her.”

It suddenly occurred to Charlotte that he might turn her and her generous offer down. Leaning forward, she reemerged as the Lottie he knew, the fantasy that had him wanting her so desperately. “Of course you would, Colin,” she agreed in a sultry murmur. “I'm merely
suggesting
that we work through our options together, that the time couldn't be better for either of us. And I know how much you adore my singing, my…persona on the stage.”

He lifted his brows a fraction, though his eyes narrowed with calculation as she altered her demeanor. “Indeed I do. But I'm not certain how that's relevant.”

“You're not? What was it you said to me? That being with Lottie English was something you'd desired
for years?”

His expression grew sober, his gaze piercing hers in a measure of defiance. “I think I recall saying as much.”

“Then I'm here to tell you, sir, I am a properly bred lady, the sister of an earl. I would never take a lover, regardless of his appeal—or how very,
very
much I desired him. But I will fully and happily consent to being bedded by my husband.”

She said that in a dark and husky whisper, her fingertips caressing the slope of her cleavage nearly imperceptibly, noting with satisfaction how his gaze lowered and lingered.

He adjusted his large, masculine body in his chair and began rocking, his palms flat on the armrests, his eyes assessing. “I suppose that is the proper thing for a lady to do,” he dryly remarked.

She'd trapped him, and he knew it. There wasn't any chance on earth that Lottie English would become his mistress without the Lady Charlotte Hughes first becoming his legally married wife. And she was a perfect choice for that. His decision, then, rested on how badly he needed her physically; how much he truly wanted her as a woman.

“Do you find me appealing, Charlotte?” he asked moments later. “Do you desire me that much? Or is your act as Lottie only that—an act?”

She felt color rising up her neck and into her cheeks, but she could hardly back down after tempting him as she had. With a light shrug of one shoulder, she countered, “Does it matter?”

He laughed, though the sound carried absolutely no humor. “Yes, I believe it does. Will I be bedding a
cold lady who is only performing her wifely duty, or will I have an intense love affair with the woman of my dreams?”

The woman of my dreams…

Charlotte squirmed in her seat, now feeling the steady heating of her blood to the roots of her hair, her heartbeat quickening. She had no idea how to answer his question in a manner that would satisfy. Instead, she asked, “I assume you want the love affair, your grace?”

He watched her for a second or two, giving nothing away, then fairly whispered, “Only if it's mutual, Lady Charlotte.”

She swallowed, then allowed herself to admit what she felt deep inside. “I think, sir, that you are the most handsome man I've ever personally known, or even seen from afar.”

His eyes lit with a trace of amusement, even pride, and he almost grinned.

“But then all the ladies think so,” she added matter-of-factly before he could comment. “You already know that, I'm sure.”

His features tightened; his shadow of a smile gradually hardened. She carried on before she lost her nerve. “I have every intention of being your lover, your grace, giving you what I can intimately, but I won't do it without marrying you first. It's your choice.”

He looked irritated again, and certainly he had to be, for she was more or less baiting him, forcing him to choose between his rational needs and those desires of a baser nature.

“And one more point, sir,” she said carefully, eye
ing him closely.

He fairly snorted, then drawled, “I can only imagine what that might be.”

She brushed over the sarcasm. “I'm a very understanding lady where men like you are concerned.”