by Emily Larkin
But he’d still needed to use his punching bag.
The earl walked across to his desk. “Excellent, you copied it. What did you think?”
Charlotte blinked. Did he truly want her opinion?
It seemed he did. He was looking at her, waiting for her reply.
“Very good, sir.”
Cosgrove shook his head. “Does my argument make sense? Are there places where I can make it stronger?”
Oh. Charlotte blinked again. It wasn’t praise he wanted, it was criticism.
“Uh . . . well, there was one place. Let me show you . . .” She crossed to his desk and sorted through the pages. “Here, sir. I think it would be stronger if you combined these two paragraphs. Cut out these sentences and put this one first, followed by these.”
Cosgrove read the paragraphs under his breath. Charlotte smelled his sweat, his maleness. The muscles in her stomach tightened. This was how he smelled when he had sex with her.
She wanted to step closer, wanted to push the plackets of his shirt apart and press her face to his chest, inhale his scent, taste the salt on his skin.
Charlotte curled her fingers into her palms and held herself motionless, willed her pego not to stiffen.
“You’re right, lad. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
Cosgrove glanced at her, the corners of his eyes creasing in a smile. “You’ve made more work for yourself. Copy out this page again, please, with those changes.”
“Yes, sir.” Charlotte took the page and went back to her desk, sat, picked up the quill—and hesitated. “Sir . . .”
“Yes?” Cosgrove rubbed his hair with the towel.
“Your father saw nothing wrong with owning a plantation and having slaves. How is it that your views are so different from his?”
Cosgrove lowered the towel. His hair was damp with sweat, spiky.
“If . . . if it’s not too forward a question?”
Cosgrove shook his head. He leaned against his desk. His eyes narrowed, not in anger, but as if he was turning over old memories, sorting through them. “It was that essay,” he said after a moment. “The one I asked you to read. By Clarkson. It was originally written in Latin, when he was up at Cambridge. I found a copy in the school library and translated it for the practice.” He shrugged. “I was at an impressionable age; it had a strong effect on me.”
Not strong: profound.
Cosgrove resumed drying his hair. “In a way, you could say it was my father’s fault. I translated that essay because I wanted to win the Latin prize.”
Charlotte frowned, not following the logic.
Cosgrove caught the frown. “I was trying to make him notice me.”
“Oh.” She turned the quill over in her fingers. What did that statement tell her about Cosgrove’s relationship with his father? Had the old earl not spent time with his son? Not praised him? Not given him affection? “Did you win the prize, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Was your father pleased?”
Cosgrove shrugged again. “Not that he said.”
A footman appeared at the door. “Your bath is ready, sir.”
“Thank you.” Cosgrove pushed away from the desk. “I’ll see you tomorrow, lad. Have a good evening.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Marcus brought a covered basket to the Earnoch Hotel. He placed it on the table in the room Miss Brown had hired. Anticipation was taut inside him. He took off his hat, stripped off his gloves. Would tonight’s sex be as good as last night’s? Or not? He shrugged out of his greatcoat, preparing himself for disappointment. Of course it wouldn’t be as good. Nothing could be.
He shook snowflakes from the coat, draped it over the back of a chair, and looked at her.
Miss Brown’s gaze had the same impact it had had last night, driving the air from his lungs. He couldn’t look away.
Charlotte, he told himself. Her name’s Charlotte.
The room seemed to hold its breath.
Charlotte took a step towards him.
He met her halfway, captured her face in his hands, kissed her. Her mouth was soft and sweet and eager.
Minutes slipped away while they kissed, while they undressed. Their lovemaking was unhurried—touching, tasting, drawing pleasure from each other’s bodies. Marcus’s climax was as intense as it had been yesterday evening.
He rolled so that Charlotte lay on top of him, her head pillowed on his shoulder. He smoothed a hand down her back and over the curve of one buttock, delighting in the softness of her skin, the beautiful womanliness of her shape. Each time they made love she was a little less shy, a little more confident. In a few days, he’d suggest they try making love like this: her on top of him.
He stroked his fingers down her back again. The connection that had been forged between them last night, the trust and the intimacy, was still there. I could grow used to this. Charlotte in his bed every night.
Sex with her was better than sex with Lavinia had been. She didn’t have Lavinia’s slender fragility. He didn’t have to hold himself in check, didn’t have to fear he might accidentally hurt her. And after yesterday, he wasn’t afraid he might shock her. He’d been more intimate with Charlotte than he’d dared be with any woman.
And yet, I know nothing about her.
Marcus’s hand stilled in its stroking. His contentment wavered slightly.
“I brought a picnic,” he said. “Are you hungry?”
* * *
They sat on the rug in front of the fireplace, cross-legged like Turks, wrapped in sheets. Outside it was cold and dark, snowing; inside was warmth, firelight and candlelight, quiet intimacy. Marcus unpacked the basket. Game pie, faintly warm, with a flaking golden crust. Sweet pastries sprinkled with sugar crystals. Plump grapes from his succession houses, their skins glossily black, ripe almost to bursting. A cool, fizzing bottle of champagne. Gilt-edged plates and silver cutlery and crystal glasses.
“And they feasted like kings,” Charlotte said.
Marcus grunted a laugh, and then blinked. Had she said that in Latin? “Where’s that from? Virgil?”
She nodded.
They talked of Greek philosophers and Roman poets while they ate. Charlotte was far better educated than he’d expected. The breadth of her knowledge astonished him.
Marcus sipped his champagne and watched as she ate a grape. Her hair hung down her back. She reached for her glass, the sheet slipping off one smooth shoulder.
I want this every night. The intimacy, the companionship.
“Charlotte . . .”
She glanced at him, her eyebrows lifted in question.
“Would you . . .” How to phrase his question without destroying the fragile trust between them? “Please, will you tell me a little about yourself?”
Charlotte didn’t move on the rug, but it seemed as if she drew back, as if there was suddenly more distance between them.
“Not your surname,” Marcus said hastily. “Or who your employer is, but . . .” I need to know more about you. “Please. I know nothing about you.”
Charlotte was silent for a long moment, her eyes on his face. “What would you like to know?”
Everything. “Where are you from? Which county?”
A long pause. “I grew up in Yorkshire.”
And? He bit his tongue to keep the word in his mouth.
The silence between them lengthened. Charlotte put the glass down on the hearth. “My father was a scholar. He was meant to be a soldier—my grandfather was in the army, and his father before him—but he had an accident when he was fourteen, fell off his horse, broke his leg badly. It took him years to recover.” She was talking to the fireplace, not him; her gaze was on the flames, on the glowing coals. “After that, it was decided the army wouldn’t be suitable for him.”
A military family. Marcus filed away the information.
“Father always said study suited him better than soldiering ever would have. He loved to wrestle with Greek translations. H
e said it stretched his mind.”
“Where did he study?”
“Cambridge. He took two Firsts.”
Marcus filed that information away, too. “And your mother?”
Charlotte’s gaze moved to him. She bit her lip, clearly considering how much to tell him. “She was a baronet’s daughter,” she said finally. “They had to wait until she was twenty-one to marry; her father wouldn’t give consent.”
Charlotte was a baronet’s granddaughter? Marcus managed to conceal his surprise. “Why?” he asked. “Because your father wasn’t well-born enough?”
She shook her head. “His breeding was well enough; he was the son of a general.”
Marcus blinked. “A general? Which one?”
Her expression told him that he’d asked too close a question.
“I beg your pardon,” Marcus said, trying to retrieve his position. “Er . . . why did her father disapprove of the match?”
“Because my grandfather wasn’t wealthy. Generals may be good at strategy and tactics, but they’re not always prudent with money.”
“Ah, money.”
“Yes.” Her mouth twisted. “Money.”
“But they married?”
“Yes.”
“And moved to Yorkshire?”
“Father wanted somewhere quiet to work on his translation of the Iliad, so they took the lease on a house on the edge of the moors.” She reached for her glass, as if that was the end of the conversation.
Marcus searched hurriedly for another question to keep her talking. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”
Charlotte shook her head.
“You must have been lonely.” Marcus thought back to his own childhood. Without Barnaby, he’d have been wretchedly miserable.
“Oh, no!” A smile lit her face. “Mother said that Father could stretch his mind all morning if he wished, but he had to stretch his lungs and his legs in the afternoon. We went all over the moors. And if the weather was bad, we stayed indoors and played at theatrics.” Charlotte paused, as if listening to what she’d said. Her brow creased slightly. “It must sound very dull to you, but I assure you it wasn’t. We had fun, we laughed a lot.”
“Your parents schooled you?”
“Father taught me Latin and Greek and mathematics, Mother taught me French and music.”
There was a flat, slightly bitter taste on Marcus’s tongue: envy. Charlotte’s childhood had been very different from his. Her parents had been her companions, her teachers, her friends. They’d had fun together. Laughed together.
Fun. Laughter.
His relationship with his parents had been too formal for fun and laughter, too distant. He’d been brought up by nursemaids and tutors, sent away to school as soon as he was judged old enough.
The taste of envy became stronger on his tongue. Marcus drank some champagne to wash it away.
When I have children, I’ll laugh with them, play with them. I’ll give them the kind of childhood Charlotte had. The words had the weight of a vow, an oath. Marcus drank another mouthful of champagne to seal the promise. His glass clinked slightly when he placed it on the hearth. “Did your father publish his translation of the Iliad?” The words were out of his mouth before he realized it was too probing a question. If she said yes, it would be easy to discover her father’s name, to learn her true identity.
Charlotte shook her head. “He died before it was completed.”
“I’m sorry.”
She looked away from him and shrugged lightly. “It was eight years ago.” But her tone didn’t quite match that light shrug. Her father’s death still hurt.
“Your mother . . . ?”
“She died when I was twelve.”
“Ah.” So Charlotte had been an orphan for some time. Alone in the world. “You had relatives? People to take you in?”
“My uncle’s family.” Charlotte’s voice flattened slightly.
Marcus picked up his glass and sipped from it. Questions rose on his tongue. Should he be blunt? Delicate? Circuitously roundabout?
He decided to be blunt. “You don’t like them. Your uncle’s family.”
She glanced at him. Her mouth was rueful. “Is it so obvious, sir?”
He let the sir slide; now wasn’t the time to interrupt the reminiscent mood. “What did they do?” They had to have done something, or Charlotte wouldn’t be in London earning her living.
“Oh . . .” She shrugged. “It was several things.”
“Such as?”
Charlotte looked down at the grapes on her plate. He saw a hint of a frown on her brow.
Marcus waited.
Charlotte removed the grapes from their stems. “They did one thing that I couldn’t forgive them for. Well, two things—” She pulled a face. “But one in particular. It . . . poisoned how I felt about them.”
“What was it?”
Charlotte arranged the grapes in a straight line, not looking at him. “My mother had a small annuity. She saved money from it every year and put it aside for my coming out.” A grape rolled on the plate. Charlotte captured it, returning it to its place. “My parents met during my mother’s first Season and they always said that if I had a Season, I should meet someone.” She shrugged, still not looking at him.
“But you never had a Season,” Marcus guessed.
She glanced up at him. “My aunt said I would. She made that promise to Father, when he was dying.”
“But she didn’t keep it?”
Charlotte shook her head. “No. First she said I should wait until my cousin came out, that it made sense to combine both, but then she said it wasn’t fair on my cousin to share her début, that I should wait, and then . . . then she said that the cost of having me in the household had used up all the money my parents had put aside.” Her eyebrows pinched together. “But I tutored the boys before they went to Rugby. I was the girls’ governess until they came out. If I hadn’t been there, my uncle would have had to pay for a tutor and a governess. How could it have cost my aunt all my coming-out money to keep me at the Hall?”
“It didn’t,” Marcus said. Anger simmered beneath his breastbone. “They sound like despicable, nipcheese people!”
“Nipcheese?” Charlotte’s frown vanished. She laughed. “No. My uncle isn’t nipcheese. He’s very wealthy.”
“Wealthy? Then why—”
“Because there was ill-feeling between him and Father.” She looked down at the grapes again and began to rearrange them. “My uncle bought a plantation in the West Indies many years ago and Father told him that owning slaves was immoral and that he ought to be ashamed of himself. They had a dreadful row. When Mother died, my uncle wouldn’t even come to her funeral.” The line of grapes had become a lopsided circle. “So it’s only natural that my uncle and aunt weren’t happy that they had to take me in.”
“Their argument with your father doesn’t excuse their breaking their promise to him!”
“I know.” Charlotte examined the crooked circle of grapes on her plate and moved one slightly with a fingertip. “But I also know that if I’d had a Season I probably wouldn’t have contracted a match. My looks are ordinary and my dowry extremely modest.” She shrugged, as if this was a fact she’d accepted long ago. “I wouldn’t be upset about not having a début, except . . .” Her lips pressed together. She met his eyes. “It was what my parents wanted. It was their dream. They saved for it. And my aunt and uncle took their money and just . . .” She made a gesture with her hand, as if throwing something away. “I can’t forgive them for that, which is ungrateful of me; they gave me a home when Father died.”
Marcus shook his head. “You owe them no gratitude.” He swallowed the last of his champagne in a gulp. It didn’t douse the anger smoldering in his chest.
Charlotte smiled slightly, and shrugged again. “That’s debatable. I think I probably do.”
“And the second thing?”
“Second thing?”
“You said there were two things you coul
dn’t forgive them for.”
“Oh.” She pulled a face. “They called me Charity, not Charlotte.”
“They what?” Marcus put his glass down on the hearth with a sharp clunk. “No wonder you left them!”
“Finally, yes.” She looked at her plate and moved another grape. The circle was almost perfect. “For years I was too afraid to. My uncle said that if I left, he’d wash his hands of me, I wouldn’t be welcome back.” Charlotte pushed away the plate. The grapes rolled, the circle was broken. “I knew I could find a position as a governess, but I was worried something would happen—I’d become ill or be turned off, and end up dying in a poorhouse. So I stayed at West—” She flicked a glance at him. “At my uncle’s.”
Her uncle’s seat started with West. Marcus tucked that information away, too. “What made you change your mind?”
“My twenty-fifth birthday. I couldn’t face living the rest of my life there. So . . . I left.”
Marcus studied her face, trying to imagine how she’d felt. “You have a lot of courage.”
Charlotte shook her head. “I’m not brave.”
You’re very brave. “You found a good position?”
“Yes.” A smile lit her face again, shone in her eyes. “Better than I ever hoped for. A thousand times better!”
Marcus laughed at this exaggeration. Some of his rage slipped away, but the rest of it still smoldered in his belly. “You have a good employer?”
She nodded. “My employer is very kind. Very generous.”
“A paragon,” he said, allowing himself to be amused.
Charlotte shook her head. “Definitely not a paragon. But kind and patient and good-hearted.”
Marcus sipped his champagne, mentally reviewing the residents of Grosvenor Square. Who among them could be described as kind, generous, patient, and good-hearted?
“I know I made the right decision leaving my aunt and uncle. Even if something should happen . . . if I should lose my position—”
“I promise you’ll never end up in the poorhouse.” Marcus lowered his glass. “Never.”
Charlotte smiled. “Thank you, sir, but no one can know—”
“I can,” Marcus said, his voice emphatic. “Charlotte, I’m extremely wealthy. Believe me when I say that you will never end up in the poorhouse.”
