That got her attention. She sat up a little more, intrigued without trying to hide it.
He grinned slyly. “I have an advanced degree in chemistry.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Chemistry,” he repeated. Shrugging, he added, “As a child, I had a keen interest in explosives.”
She gasped, then giggled, and her reaction made him chuckle. “It’s not as frightening as it sounds. It’s probably more accurate to say I enjoyed the composition of gunpowder.”
Amazement slicing through her voice, she repeated, “Enjoyed gunpowder…”
“Yes, and…other interesting substances that one could mix to create a loud bang.”
She was speechless for a moment. Then she shook herself and ran her fingers through her hair. “I’m—I don’t understand. What does a fascination with gunpowder have to do with forgery?”
“Ah, yes. Forgery.” He leaned over, resting his head on his hand again, this time with his chest closing over her hips, barely touching. “It didn’t start out that way, of course. I make it all sound rather grand, but in actuality, I studied basic chemistry in the beginning, probably because it was the only thing that held my interest as a child. Later, at Cambridge, I began an extensive study into the chemistry of substances like paint, paper, ink, and so forth, because I had the very good fortune of working for and with a German scholar called Rolf Nuerenberg, who had spent his entire career transcribing ancient Persian documents.”
Very carefully, he reached out and placed his palm on the side of her hip, on top of the sheet, and to his good fortune, she didn’t even notice.
“I had no idea you were such an interesting, gifted man, your grace,” she returned, her tone carrying a whiff of humor.
“And very smart, Charlotte,” he added as he stared into her darkened eyes.
She sighed and relaxed into her pillows again. “I knew that about you the first night we met.”
His brows rose. “Really.”
She smiled at him. “I refuse to elaborate.”
“A shame, that,” he said, teasing.
“Yes,” was her vague reply.
He couldn’t help but grin as he lifted his palm from her hip and reached out for her hand, covering it with his own at first, then lightly caressing her fingers.
“When I returned home from my studies, I was very bored,” he revealed, his voice low. “My family expected me to carry on with my duties as the heir to my estate, move my way into court, support causes, be socially active and marry a titled lady. In other words, no more gunpowder, no more chemistry, no more fascinating work on ancient documents. To me, nothing could have been more mundane.”
He heard her exhale a long, slow breath in understanding, and it occurred to him at that moment how very much their lives paralleled each other’s—duty first, and abandoned dreams.
Rubbing her knuckles, he said, “When I was nearly twenty-five, I was arrested for attempting to produce counterfeit currency.”
He felt her entire body tense beside him, though she didn’t attempt to pull away. He continued before she could comment.
“Of course I knew it was wrong, and I didn’t need the money. I never wanted to do it for the money. I wanted the challenge, the excitement. I simply wanted to see if I could do it, if what I produced could be accepted as real.”
“This is unbelievable,” she whispered.
He nodded. “Indeed it is, but it’s the truth.”
“I married a criminal…”
“I was never convicted of a crime, Charlotte,” he replied gravely.
“And yet you committed one.”
“No,” he insisted. “I never cheated anyone and I never actually sold counterfeit money. I was more or less in the planning stage, working on the process, when I was caught.” He gave her a moment or two to digest that, then said, “Three things kept me out of prison. The first, I’m embarrassed to admit, is my title. I also swore before a judge that I would never do it again and at the same time offered my willingness to help others with my expertise whenever I could. My plea was accepted and the rumors of my arrest were silenced. The only thing I was ever truly guilty of was stupidity. In the last ten years I’ve done nothing but try to right every one of my wrongs, and to this day, I believe I’ve succeeded.”
For a long time, it seemed, she simply stared at him in the darkness, totally unaware of how close he was to her, of how he gently caressed her hand, her fingers and knuckles.
“So you can duplicate money, musical scores…what else?” she asked at last, her tone cool and calculating.
“Actually, the Handel sonata will be my first for music.”
“That’s not the point,” she said, dismayed.
He sobered a little. “I know. The truth is, I have a special…gift, shall we say, for noticing and creating detail. I can analyze handwriting, forge documents, and over time I’ve learned my craft. I can tell by careful examination if something is an original or a copy.”
She waited for a moment, watching him as if she might discern lies from his features in the darkness.
“I don’t suppose you need a hobby now, do you?” she asserted at last.
He couldn’t decide if she were serious or trying to lighten the mood. Finally, he replied, “What I need is your trust, Charlotte, in what I say and what I do.”
She drew in a shaky breath. “And if I don’t?”
He hadn’t expected her to challenge him. But without hesitation, he replied, “Then we can never, truly, be married.”
She stilled, her hand going limp in his, and with that, he made his move.
Leaning over, he placed his face only an inch from hers, their dark eyes locked, and he whispered, “Trust me, Charlotte. I’d rather be married…”
She had no time to react. In one smooth action, he captured her mouth with his in a searing kiss, giving her a taste of the passion she stirred within him.
Charlotte had never felt so charged with complex emotions in all of her life. And when he closed over her to finally place his lips on hers, she didn’t know how to respond. But the touch of his lips to hers started a marvelous, heated tingle that rolled in waves through her body.
She let him kiss her even as her intellect fought against it. He felt so warm, tasted faintly of brandy, and made no move to force her into anything other than a sweet caress of his mouth against hers.
She closed her eyes as his kiss grew slightly more passionate, all clear thought of his confession gradually evaporating as she began to succumb to his blissful insistence. He remained fully clothed, the sheet and blanket between them, allowing her to relax and revel in the feel of him at her side, hovering over her, stroking her fingers with his own.
A heady power enveloped her and she raised her free hand to his neck, resting it softly against him, feeling his fast pulse under his hot skin.
“Charlotte,” he whispered against her lips, “do you trust me?”
She felt an unusual stirring in her heart, not from his words, but from the hope in his voice, the eagerness to hear her affirm what he so desperately wanted.
He drew his lips across her cheek, placing soft pecks at her jawline, and reason vanished.
Ignoring the remaining tug of doubt, she replied, “I do…”
He groaned, and with it took her mouth again with a sudden, urgent need. She responded in kind, allowing him access as she hadn’t before, giving in to the feel of him, the yearning he exposed within her that she couldn’t now deny.
His tongue brushed her top lip, then plunged deeply into her mouth, searching, stroking, finding as his breathing grew uneven and quick.
Without warning, he grasped her fingers, which he’d been stroking, and with them lifted her hand above her head, resting it on the pillow before letting it loose. He then reached for the palm at his neck and did the same, raising it above her before he clasped both of her wrists with his strong left palm and held them secure.
Uncertain of his intentions, she squirmed a lit
tle beneath the sheet, but he only steadied her, taking her to further heights of unreality with each stroke of his lips, each shaky breath, each plundering kiss.
Her head reeled with wonder anew; her body ached for a completion she refused to consider. And in that second in time, his desire unrelenting, she released her failing inhibitions with the trust she had promised.
He released her mouth and ran his tongue along her jawline until he reached her ear, sucking the lobe. She whimpered, lifting the top of her head to allow him better access. He gladly accepted, moving lower as he kissed his way down her neck to the top of her chest, where her nightgown lay buttoned. With quick expertise, he raised his right hand and unfastened the top three or four, then pushed the cotton aside to expose the tops of her breasts.
Charlotte couldn’t deny him if she tried. Her mind screamed for him to stop; her body ached for more, and when he nuzzled his head between the soft flesh, she arched her back with increasing need, silently begging for more.
He responded in kind, brushing his lips back and forth across her nipple then rolling his tongue across it, his hot breath igniting her skin as he finally closed his mouth over the hard, aroused tip and began to gently suck.
She gasped from the instant rush of pleasure, whimpered again, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized he’d moved the sheet aside and pushed her nightgown up as she felt his palm caressing her bare leg from ankle to knee. She drew her feet together instinctively when he reached the inside of her thigh, but it only seemed to make him more determined. He lightly stroked the soft skin with his thumb and fingers, forcing delicate, little moans from the back of her throat as he nuzzled her breasts, ran his lips across her nipples, then kissed them gingerly before drawing one into his mouth once more.
In a final endeavor to recover her sanity, she tried to ease her hands out from his grasp, but he held them fast against the pillow, securing her in his embrace. And then, as sudden as it was shocking, she felt his heated palm inch up between her legs until he found the hidden treasure of a raging desire.
She jerked against him, twisting her hips in an attempt to free herself.
“Trust me, Charlotte,” he pleaded, his lips once more brushing hers, his voice low and raw, his body tense.
She shook her head minutely in quick denial, squeezing her eyes tightly shut, feeling her heart race, his fingers lightly teasing the soft hair between her thighs.
“Trust me…”
With that last urgent whisper of need, he captured her mouth again in a deep, searing kiss—and she relented.
She stilled as he began to stroke her, gently at first, holding her wrists down, his tongue searching for hers. She felt nothing but the heat from his hard body, the warmth of his breath on her cheeks that mingled with her own, a tightness coiling up within her that silently begged for more.
He moaned as she did, caught up in the fever, quickening his pace as his fingers pressed harder against her, stroking, caressing, bringing her closer to the edge of a blissful torment. Her wetness coated him, her body rocked into his, and with a gasp, she felt him slide a finger inside of her.
Lost in a new and wondrous delirium, Charlotte clutched his hand on the pillow as she kissed him back with abandon, arching her hips in time to each masterful stroke. He moved his finger in and out of her, his thumb teasing the nub of her pleasure, un-yielding in his effort as she balanced at the brink of glorious insanity.
And then it struck her hard. She cried out, through wave after wave of intense pleasure, feeling his finger inside her with each pulse of fulfillment that swept through her body. He covered her mouth with his to muffle her long moan of exquisite abandonment, made all the more gratifying as she heard his own groan of satisfaction curl up from deep in his throat.
He continued caressing her softly, slowing his pace as the seconds passed, until at last he removed his finger and then his hand from between her legs, allowing her body to calm, her breathing to quiet and return to normal. Finally, he drew his mouth away and lowered his forehead to rest lightly on hers, releasing the pressure on her wrists little by little.
They remained unmoving for several lingering moments, not a word spoken. Charlotte felt the tension in his body, noted his own erratic breathing, and realized by instinct that he tried to control himself. For a fleeting second she became fearful that he might quickly remove his clothes and enter her to relieve his own desire. Instead, he lowered his lips to her lashes, kissing them lightly as he raised the hand that only moments ago had caressed her intimately and covered her breasts again with her nightgown.
“At long last I know what you feel like when you climax,” he whispered with a brush of his lips to her ear. “I’ll never make that mistake again.” Then in one smooth movement, he stood and walked to their adjoining door. “Sleep well, my darling wife…”
Charlotte never opened her eyes. Confounded by what had just happened between them, emotions she couldn’t understand flooded her, and as she heard the door click shut, she turned on her side and allowed the tears to flow.
Chapter 15
Charlotte had never been so conflicted with emotion in all of her life. To say last night’s strange turn of events at the surprise visit from her husband confused her would be an understatement of huge proportion. He’d not only shared some of the most intimate details of his past, details he knew would shock her, he’d then done things to her body that even now, hours later, made her hot all over even as it made her shiver with the most intense desire to do it again. And the most amazing part about the entire episode was that even after recalling each blissful second of what they had done, she felt no shame in it at all.
She’d only seen Colin for breakfast this early Sunday morning, then had gone to church with him as the Duchess of Newark, dressed in a conservative gown of lilac silk with cream-colored flounces, her hair wrapped up on her head and under a matching hat covered with lilac lace. She felt rather pretty for a change, though he’d said very little to her aside from casual dialogue. At Mass he acted just as pleasant and charming as usual, ignoring the stares of wishful infatuation from all the young girls, for her sake she supposed, but more or less treating her as if nothing between them had changed, or even happened for that matter. Frankly, she had no idea how to take his indifference, which was why she now found herself walking to the Duchess of Durham’s townhouse only two streets away to partake of afternoon tea with the Frenchwoman.
Olivia Carlisle had invited her twice before, and both times she’d had to make excuses because she’d been occupied at the theater. But this was Sunday, and with her husband home working on the Handel, she decided she wanted a good discussion with another female.
Charlotte rang the bell, then presented her card to the butler, who invited her in at once with a flat smile and a formal announcement that her grace was indeed at home and waiting for her in the parlor.
She took note of the scent of berries in the air, the warm decorations in French Provincial furnishings accented in white and gold as she followed the tall, aging man around a white circular staircase covered with teal carpeting that blended with the Persian accent rugs scattered across the main floor. At the back of the airy entryway, he paused in front of French double doors and rapped twice with his knuckles on the glass, then entered after an acknowledgment from within.
“Madam, may I present the Duchess of Newark,” he said, very stately, moving to his side to allow her to enter.
“Charlotte, I’m so glad you could come today!” Olivia expressed in lightly accented English, rising with effort from a large blue velveteen sofa at the center of the room.
Charlotte smiled, feeling a bit overwhelmed in the presence of such a beautiful woman. “Please don’t stand on my account,” she insisted, removing her bonnet and smoothing her hair. “I’m just happy to be here.”
Into her confinement, Olivia’s pregnancy had begun to show, and yet she still looked remarkably stunning in a modest day gown of silver and sapphire that fairly eq
ualed the color of her eyes and accented her dark hair now curled and piled on top of her head. The parlor, spacious and scented as well, matched the decor of the foyer in colors of white, deep blue, and gold, providing a lovely backdrop for the Frenchwoman to entertain guests.
Charlotte walked toward the sofa as Olivia moved out from behind the tea table, reaching for her hands and planting a kiss on both cheeks. Then she looked at her butler, who waited patiently for instruction by the door.
“We’ll have tea, James—oh, and what’s left of the chocolate cake Elsie made yesterday,” she said in an airy voice, her French accent only barely perceptible.
The elderly man nodded. “Madam.” And with that he quit the parlor, closing the French doors behind him.
“So, tell me,” Olivia began, still holding her hands as she pulled her toward the sofa, “how does it feel to be married to that handsome devil?”
Charlotte laughed as she lowered her body onto the cushion. Olivia released her hands and sat beside her, both women smoothing their skirts as if readying themselves for deep discussion.
“Well?” Olivia pressed, her eyes wide and flashing with keen interest.
She couldn’t help but grin; the Frenchwoman’s excitement was truly contagious. “He is a devil,” she replied, anxious to delve into the personal issues that plagued her, though uncertain how to go about doing so.
As if reading her thoughts, Olivia cocked her head to the side a little, her lids narrowing. “So what are you not telling me?”
She pulled back a little. “Nothing,” she insisted a bit too quickly. “Nothing really. Colin is…”
“A devil,” Olivia repeated, her smile gradually fading as she sensed a serious turn in the conversation. “But he really is a good man. Sam trusts him implicitly.”
Charlotte relaxed into the sofa, ignoring the slight pinching of her stays. “I know. Of course he’s a good man. Honestly, he’s a good provider and a lady couldn’t ask for a better husband.”
The Duke’s Indiscretion Page 18
