“Since I am the one with an open gown, I would dare to disagree, Wainwright,” Charlotte countered in a whisper to match his.
“Joshua,” he said in a scolding tone. “And what the devil are you doing wearing a corset?” he wondered, his tone not changing a whit. “The doctor said no corsets. I have a mind to take you to my room and …” He stopped and let out a breath of air, allowing some anger to go with it. “Make you love me,” he whispered in exasperation.
Charlotte was quiet for several moments. “You wouldn’t have to try very hard,” she murmured. “Perhaps not at all, but I would be very willing to let you think I needed persuading.” She was resting her head in his shoulder again, her fingers playing in the folds of his cravat.
“Can you at least say you feel affection for me?” he wondered, a hand moving to cup her face.
“I have been able to say that since the first time we danced,”
Charlotte replied with a wry smile, the words coming easily. “These days, I would have to say … that I love you.” She made the comment quietly, aware she might be admitting she loved a man who might never feel that way about her. But something in the way he was holding her …
Joshua stared at her, wanting ever so much to undress her that very moment and pleasure her until she sobbed for him to stop. How long has she loved me? he wondered.
“Can you say you feel affection for me?” she countered, her hand coming up to cup the masked side of his face.
“I, too, have been able to say that since the first time we danced,” Joshua answered with a nod, knowing he spoke the truth. He sighed rather long and loudly. “I am very sorry for what I said a few moments ago.” He sighed again, the last of his anger leaving his body. “I was in the Foresters Arms in Kirdford and overhead an old woman saying you would … you would take a lover. Before the first heir was born.”
Charlotte gasped in shock. “I will do no such thing!” she whispered with conviction as her head shook from side to side. “Why ever would she make such a claim?”
Joshua regarded her a moment and shrugged. “I am ‘His Grace with half a face’, and apparently I have an ugly puss,” he explained with a cocked eyebrow.
Her face taking on a quizzical expression, Charlotte examined the part of Joshua’s face she could see. “Actually, you are rather handsome, and the mask gives you an air of intrigue. Of mystery, I suppose,” she responded. “If I were a damsel in distress, I should want my rescuer to be you. But I am not. I am simply the daughter of a poor earl. And I find myself hopelessly in love with you,” she whispered.
“I love you, Charlotte,” Joshua murmured, his lips capturing hers in a kiss that was possessive and yet restrained. Our marriage will be a love match, he thought with a great deal of relief. But as his lips continued to hold onto hers, his tongue to plunder her mouth, he felt his loins stir and knew if he didn’t release her at that moment, he would be having his way with her right there in the library. He ended the kiss as quickly as he had begun it. “Charlotte,” he whispered, his breathing labored. “If we do not stop this right now, I shall be taking your maidenhood a day earlier than is my right.” His words sounded harsh, but Charlotte thought it was more due to his attempt to remain in control of himself than a scolding of her.
“Then, please, do not stop,” she countered before wrapping her arms around his shoulders and kissing him softly. Joshua started to protest, but Charlotte shook her head. “What does it matter whether you bed me tonight or tomorrow afternoon?” she reasoned in a whisper. “You will be in my bedchamber tonight anyway. Make me your wife then if you do not wish to do it right here.”
It wasn’t so much that he didn’t want to make love to her right then and there in the library—he did—as well as in every other room in Wisborough Oaks once his addled brain thought about it for a moment more. But the thought they might be seen or heard by a servant was enough of a deterrent.
He moved to stand up, glad when Charlotte moved her own body to stand up in front of the settee, her arms still around his neck. “Are you sure?” he whispered hoarsely, his cock coming to life against the fall of his breeches.
Charlotte smiled seductively. “I’ll be in my room, Your Grace,” she whispered, her lips nearly touching his ear lobe.
“No,” he replied with a shake of his head. “Come to mine.”
Closing her eyes for a brief moment, Charlotte nodded. Then with a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth, she removed her arms from around his neck, did a serviceable curtsy, and was out of the study in a swirl of skirts.
Joshua counted to twenty before he moved to follow her.
Chapter 31
His Grace Shares His Bed
“The last time a woman was about to share my bed,” Joshua began in a hushed voice, “With the intent of performing intercourse,” he added, feeling the need to differentiate their time together in Charlotte’s bed. “She took one look at me without my mask on and vomited on my boots.” His voice was suddenly husky and his breaths were coming just a bit too fast. He tried to block out the unbidden memory of the courtesan Garrett had arranged for him. The woman, a classic beauty in her mid-thirties, was a model of discretion when it came to her clients of the haute ton. She arrived late one night in a private coach at his townhouse in London, shedding her mantle onto the floor of the vestibule without giving his butler the time to take it from her. Then she boldly walked up to Joshua, kissed him whilst a nearby footman did everything he could to not take notice, and introduced herself with a graceful curtsy. When he bowed and moved to kiss the back of her hand, she used her free hand to reach out and boldly pull the mask away from his face. Her calm confidence faltered, she stepped back, or stumbled perhaps, he was not sure, she cast up her accounts at his feet, and then she announced she wouldn’t be able to service him that evening.
At least she had the decency to apologize as she grabbed her mantle from Webster and made her way out the door, he considered.
Charlotte cocked an eyebrow into an elegant arch. “I can assure you, Wainwright, I shall not do that,” she replied, reaching up to remove the leather cover from his face. She paused before she did so, though, and added, “Unless, of course, I am carrying your child and suddenly experience a bout of morning sickness.”
About to remind her to call him ‘Joshua,’ his sudden intake of breath told volumes. Charlotte set the mask on a table and parted her lips, angling her head as if she was prepared for him to kiss her.
“You would … do such a thing?” he stammered, his mouth hovering over hers as if he were still deciding if he would allow her to kiss him. Or was it I who was to kiss her? he suddenly wondered.
Reaching up a hand to gently cup the damaged side of his face, Charlotte eyed him with a wan smile. “If you mean would I carry your child, then, yes, of course,” she whispered, her eyes wandering to take in his tousled hair and the slant of his jaw. “How else am I to give you an heir? And a spare … or two or three?” she wondered, her eyebrow arching again as she returned her attention to his eyes. “As to the other …”
Joshua wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her body hard against his, his lips taking purchase on hers with an intensity that surprised even him. He backed off a bit, softening the kiss, sliding his lips over hers until she could return the kiss, ever so gently. He opened his mouth a bit more, slipped his tongue past her lips and tasted her teeth with the tip of it. When she opened her mouth even more, he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue into her mouth and then against her tongue and then finally pulling away just a bit so he could take a breath, all the while aware of the soft touch of her fingertips on his scars, down the side of his neck and around his shoulders as she continued to kiss him. To hold him. To stroke his arms and his neck. To make him feel as if he were the only man in the world.
When Joshua pulled away completely, Charlotte regarded him with heavy lidded eyes. “… I shall endeavor to avoid your boots at all costs,” she murmured, a hint of amusement at the corners of he
r mouth. Her fingers moved to undo the buttons of his waistcoat.
Nodding, Joshua regarded her, his brain so addled he couldn’t quite remember why she mentioned his boots. Intoxicated with the scent of jasmine from her hair and the sight of her bee-stung lips, he pulled her to him again, careful to avoid placing his arm across her back where the scar from her stitched flesh would still be tender. His lips found her jaw, moved down the column of her neck, across a collarbone, and into the hollow of her throat as she leaned back and allowed him the tender but urgent kisses. Her fingers threaded through his hair, their nails barely touching his scalp. His body shuddered, and a growl escaped as he moved his lips back to hers. He was suddenly aware of her hand over his, guiding it to one of her breasts and pressing it against her suggestively. Taking on a life of its own, his hand cupped the mound over the fabric of her bodice and then moved up to her shoulders where he slipped it under a sleeve, forcing the gown down her arm and the neckline to release the top of her breast to his hungry mouth. Joshua was sure she would pull away when she came to her senses and realized what they were about to do was somehow wrong. Instead, she slipped her arms out of the sleeves of her dress and then moved her hands to the folds of his cravat. No woman had ever provided him with such a blatant invitation!
Charlotte’s breath caught at the sensations coursing through her body, the pleasure coming to her in waves that made it difficult to undo the knot in his cravat and unwind the folded linen from around his neck. It seemed imperative she get his shirt open, though, so she might run the palms of her hands over the bare skin and hard planes of his chest and stomach.
Even as he was concentrating on the kisses he was sprinkling along Charlotte’s jawline and neck, Joshua was aware of her undoing his buttons and his cravat and spreading her palms under his shirt in order to lift it over his head. Women had never helped him to undress before he bedded them. And ever since the fire, which had left him with such horrific scars, he had never thought to bed a woman again. Yet, here was Charlotte, not the least bit horrified by what she had already seen—by what she had already felt with her fingertips—not only willing to share his bed, but to be his wife. She would see his ghastly visage every morning when she awoke and every night when they retired to a bedchamber. And she was about to see the mass of scars along his left side and shoulder. He pulled his lips away from her throat and struggled to catch his breath. “How can you … how can you not be frightened by the sight of me?” he whispered hoarsely, panting as if he had been running.
Charlotte’s eyes, glazed over with passion, slowly cleared. She took a deep breath as she regarded him, wondering what had made him think to bring up his scars now. She shook her head from side to side. “They were only frightening to me when I thought you were going to die from them,” she answered finally.
Joshua brows furrowed as he considered her words. “When was that?” he got out, his breath still heavy, his arousal so complete he wanted nothing more than to bury himself inside her and allow himself the release he hadn’t experienced in nearly a year.
Cupping a hand alongside his scarred face, Charlotte swallowed before saying, “The day after the fire.” She realized her gown was pulled down to her waist, and, suddenly feeling a bit modest, she clutched at the bodice with her other hand to pull it up.
His head shaking from side to side, Joshua regarded her. “Where … where was I?” he asked, his face showing every bit of the confusion he was feeling.
“In Kirdford. At Dr. Regan’s clinic. He knew from his days as an army doctor how to treat your burns. He was going to take you to Petworth, but …” She shrugged one uncovered shoulder, the movement causing Joshua to gaze at her collarbones and the hollow of her throat.
Joshua continued to shake his head. “And how did I get to London? I remember …” He had thought he never wanted to remember the trip to London, where he seemed to be trapped in a sling, and the sensation of swaying had made him nauseous. “I was in a wagon, swinging,” he finally got out.
Charlotte nodded. “I hired a man from Petworth, Mr. Putnam, who had a long hay wagon. It was fairly new and had good wheels and … Dr. Regan’s morphine was nearly gone, you see …”
“You?” Joshua whispered, his fingers combing through his hair at the top of his head as he considered her words. “You were there,” he stated, remembering only occasional voices and fragments of conversation. And then, “You cried.”
“I tried not to,” she countered quickly. “But, I … I was so very frightened.” Burying her face into the space between his arm and shoulder, Charlotte remembered the whole sordid trip and the days after in hospital, where the doctor she had hired to see to his care seemed to show no mercy for his patient—nor for her, when he demanded she do the debridement that caused so much more pain for Joshua. “I was so very afraid you would die. I loved you. I couldn’t imagine a life without you,” she murmured, fighting back tears. I have cried quite enough over this, she thought suddenly as she fought to maintain control. You’re alive. We’re to be married in the morning.
Joshua heard her words and realized to what she had just admitted. “You loved me … even before the fire?” he asked quietly, staring at her in surprise.
Nodding her head against his chest, Charlotte finally said, “Yes. I told you I have since the first time we danced.”
“And, so you truly are not just marrying me because it is your duty to do so?” he wondered, his brows furrowing again.
Damn it! All this time wasted when I could have been loving her, proving to her and to myself and to the ton I was recovered, that I was ready to take on the duties of the dukedom. “Why didn’t you tell me, Charlotte? Why didn’t you … while I was in hospital, or when I was at the townhouse?” he stammered. All this time she loved me!
“Because I thought … I didn’t know you felt affection for me,” she countered, suddenly feeling foolish for not having admitted her feelings for him when it might have given him something more to live for. “If I would have told you …”
“I wouldn’t have believed you,” Joshua murmured then, shaking his head as he realized he wouldn’t have been ready for her love. Ready to take on the naysayers or perhaps not even ready to take on his own doubts. “I would have thought you merely pitied me,” he whispered.
Charlotte took a deep breath. It was true she pitied him when he had been in so much pain, but not ever because of the scars. “I truly wanted a love match. I didn’t know if you could ever love me,” she answered, her head leaning back to look up at him. “I can be very willful, you see.”
Joshua gazed down at her for a very long time, his expression changing to one of amusement. “How could I not love you?” His lips captured hers in a searing kiss Charlotte felt down to her very core. She wrapped her arms around his neck so she could pull up on his shirt. With nothing holding it up, her gown dropped to her hips. She was aware of Joshua’s hands smoothing along the sides of her body, pushing the gown and corset down all at once. “There are times I look at you, and I find I cannot breathe,” he murmured, pulling her closer. His lips pressed against her forehead, then moved to her temple and down to her jawline before taking purchase on the sensitive skin beneath her ear. Even as he gently kissed her, he felt her body relax, almost melt against his. He moved an arm behind her waist intending to provide support when in fact it became an invitation for her to move closer. She did so, a moan escaping from her as he moved his lips to the hollow of her throat, his hand to just beneath her breast. She moved a hand to the nape of his neck, arcing her back so her bare breasts lightly grazed his suddenly bare chest. Something inside him flamed; his breath caught, and he swallowed. The hand he held at her breast cupped the mound, gently kneading it before he pressed his thumb against the hardening bud, circling it until he heard her breath catch, felt her body liquefy, watched her bee-stung lips open for his hungry mouth. His lips took hers as his hand spread out over her breast and then slid down the front of her body, lightin
g caressing her belly and hips as the gown fell the rest of the way to the floor. He slid both hands along her drawers and petticoats, pulling the bows that held them in place and pushing them down over her bottom until they, too, puddled on the floor beneath them. The hand at her waist angled her body a bit to the side so his other hand could make its way through the dark curly hair at the top of her thighs. He felt her body shiver. He wondered if she might still pull away from him. But beneath his lips, her mouth was trying to form words. He ended the kiss, curious as to what she wanted to say, and leaned his forehead into hers.
“Please,” she whispered before her lips were on his, suckling first his lower lip and then his entire mouth, her tongue tangling with his.
Please? Was she begging him to continue? Or to stop? His hand continued its journey to the space in the soft, wet folds of her womanhood, his middle finger finding the engorged nub therein. Touching it lightly, he thrilled when she seemed to push herself closer, her mouth coming away from his as she inhaled sharply. Rubbing several fingers around the tender spot, he watched as her head fell back and she began to moan. He hadn’t realized how close he had brought her to the brink until one of her knees was suddenly against his thigh, and he heard her whispered, “Yes!” escape her lips. Then all at once, her entire body stiffened, shivered several times, and then went limp against his frame while she made quiet mewling sounds.
Stilling his hand, he allowed her to rest against him for a moment before lifting her into his arms and taking her to an upholstered chaise near the fireplace. He lowered her onto it, taking care to avoid touching her scar and wondering if perhaps she had fainted. But he found her gazing at him from beneath half-closed eyes, her long lashes providing only a partial curtain as she reclined sideways against the back of the chair.
“Make me yours,” she pleaded, reaching out to capture his hand as he removed it from beneath her knees.
He regarded her with a cocked eyebrow, deciding there was no turning back. He nodded, making quick work of the remaining buttons on his breeches. As Charlotte watched him undress and remove his boots and stockings, he watched her, his own arousal suddenly uncomfortable. Once he had removed his clothing, he reached out a hand to her and pulled her up. She stood and, with her right hand, she caressed the entire length of his scars from the side of his face down to his hip. The gentle touch sent shivers of pleasure, pleasure he had never thought to experience again, rippling through his body. He nearly lost his barely held control and almost allowed himself the release he wanted, he needed, so desperately. But Charlotte would be his wife in less than twelve hours, and he was determined he wouldn’t simply take her maidenhood in the quick coupling his body demanded. He wanted to make it as pleasurable and, for this first time, as painless as possible for her. His hope was to have her every night, perhaps even during the light of day, but how he treated her on this occasion would determine if she would be a willing lover for the rest of their marriage.
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