Dare said nothing for a moment. Charlotte gathered her nerve and looked up at him, dreading to see the expected disgust in his eyes, but needing the comfort of his understanding. Hope rose again within her as she saw the laughter and love in his face as he stroked the line of her cheek, cupping her chin to kiss her very gently. Surely, she thought with a blissful sigh, he couldn’t be disgusted when he was looking at her with such a tender expression?
“Charlotte, that moment—it’s called an orgasm—is earthy. Lovemaking, real lovemaking, is not done with any elegance or refinement, or even sophistication. It’s two people coming together in the most fundamental way, it’s sweat and heat and uninhibited pleasure, and if you do it properly, when it’s over you should need a bath.”
Her eyes widened. “Not refined? Vyvyan La Blue makes no such note of this. A bath…yes, I suppose that what with all the moistness that ensues, that could be desired on the lady’s part, but I had no idea it applied for gentleman as well.”
He was grinning at her now, pulling her hand down the length of his chest to his groin. “How do I feel?”
She curled her fingers around the long length of him, suddenly feeling a bit shy. “Your chest is bedewed with perspiration.”
“And?”
She remembered the feel of his back beneath her fingers. “So was your back.”
“And?”
“And you’re sticky. Here,” she said, squeezing him slightly.
He traced a finger under her breast, then eased backward. “And how do you feel?”
She glanced down at the juncture of her thighs. “I suspect the same, although Mama always said ladies don’t perspire, they glow.”
Suddenly he was leaning over her, pushing her down into the soft blankets of the bed, his mouth close to her ear. She tipped her head to the side as he started nibbling on her neck.
“I gave you pleasure?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her hands stroking his chest, finding the two little nipple nubs she had intended on examining earlier. “A great deal of pleasure.”
“As you did me,” he said softly, his breath on her lips now. She gazed into his dark blue eyes and allowed his words to eliminate her worry. “You’re not defective, sweetheart, you’re just full of passion.” He kissed her deeply, pressing his body against hers, his tongue mating with hers just as intimately as his body had a short while before. “And I wouldn’t want you to change one little bit.”
Thirteen
“I think you’re perfectly beastly, Alasdair.”
“I am aware of your opinion, Charlotte.”
“I cannot believe that you are the same man who introduced me to the pleasures of the organism last night. You are much changed by the light of day!”
“Orgasm, Charlotte. Are you planning on eating that last piece of bread?”
“You are breaking my heart.”
“Regret it though I may, the sad state of your heart will not change my decision.”
“But everyone is talking about us!” Charlotte passed a small silver rack containing toasted bread to her husband. How could the man eat when her life was falling to shreds around her? “Our names are on everyone’s lips! I shall not be able to set foot outside this house without being shamed and humiliated! I cannot possibly survive in a Society where I am the subject of ridicule and cruel speculations, and I think it’s terribly insensitive for you to expect me to stay in town when you have three perfectly good properties we might retire to until this latest unpleasantness has been forgotten.”
Dare calmly dabbed fruit preserves onto the cold piece of bread. “Shame and humiliation can only be felt when the someone’s opinion matters to you, wife. You are the only one who can give people that power over you.”
“But, Dare, why couldn’t we go to one of your estates for a month or two?”
“Until I hear from my solicitors that my cousin is not the rightful heir of my uncle, ownership of the estates is in question. The only property I own outright is a small estate on a rocky little island off the coast of Scotland, and I don’t think you would care for that overly much.”
“Going to the country would make everything so much easier,” Charlotte continued as if he hadn’t spoken.
“Moving the engine to Scotland for a month, then bringing it back here for the industrial exhibition two months hence can hardly be said to make everything easier,” he protested gently, helping himself to another serving of ham.
“You could work on your engine in peace in the country—”
“Something I can do right here.”
“—and I can go about my duties as your wife—”
“Something you can do right here.”
“—and we won’t have to put up with sly innuendoes and nasty whispers from those we meet socially,” Charlotte finished triumphantly.
“I have every faith that if you tried hard enough, you could turn the other cheek to any whispers or innuendoes you might find distressing.”
“Aaaaaagh!” Charlotte slammed her fork down onto the breakfast table and glared at her husband. “You are deliberately being obese just to annoy me!”
“Obese?” Dare looked at his plate, blinked twice, then smiled at his wife. “Obtuse, perhaps, but I hope not obese. Charlotte?”
Charlotte pouted at a quite atrocious painting of a man and his hunter that hung on the wall of the small dining room. “What?” she asked, snapping the word off with an edge sharp enough to slice bread.
“Have I told you this morning how beautiful you are?”
She allowed herself to be mollified just enough to glance at him with haughty disdain. “No, you haven’t. I shall add that to your list of imperfections.”
His smile deepened. “Have I told you how the sight of you lying next to me this morning gladdened my heart?”
The disdain melted in the warm glow of happiness resulting from his words. “No, you haven’t. I consider that very churlish of you, too.”
“Ah. Perhaps, then, I mentioned the extreme pleasure I found in undertaking the Egyptian Salutation to a Lady in the Full Glory of Morning with you last night?”
A small, very pleased smile curled Charlotte’s lips as she remembered the joy of their first connubial calisthenic. It had been everything Vyvyan La Blue had promised and so much more. “I shall never again hear of Cleopatra’s Needle without thinking of you,” she murmured.
Dare had been quite correct, she mused as she colored delicately and peeked at him through the screen of her lashes. If all went as it should, bathing was most definitely necessary afterward.
His eyes lit with a glint that was becoming familiar to Charlotte. She might have answered that look had not Batsfoam chosen that moment to bring in a fresh pot of tea.
“Will you be needing the carriage this morning, sir? I ask not for my own sake—I would gladly undertake the twenty-minute walk to the stables despite the fact that the lower part of my unfortunate limb appears to be resting on hot coals and several sharp pieces of glass, thus causing a sensation remarkably like agony to fill the limb itself, snake upward to my right hip, curl around that portion of the body commonly referred to as the trunk, venture across my spleen, throbbing deeply into my lungs, and finally culminating in a sharp pain behind my left eye—indeed, as I said, I would be happy to undertake the walk to the stables in addition to the many other tasks you have so graciously allowed me to fill my day with, but in truth I ask so as to ascertain whether the boy Wills will be needed to accompany the carriage. His livery suffered a most grievous accident when he fell into a coal scuttle. But should you, most beneficent sir, be requiring the use of the aforementioned carriage, I will add cleaning the lad to my extensive list of tasks to be accomplished today, tasks that you may be assured I will undertake to fulfill in such a manner as to leave you unaware of the mundane and tiresome day-to-day necessities I and others of your st
aff are happy to assume in order that your household runs with the clockwork precision you demand.”
Dare pulled out his pocket watch and consulted it. “Two minutes. I believe, Batsfoam, that is a record for you. Based on past performance, I wouldn’t have thought you could work a mention of your spleen into a narrative that lasted anything less than six minutes. I commend you on your brevity.”
Batsfoam bowed deeply to his employer. “I live, as you know, sir, for your pleasure.”
“Then it should make you ecstatic to know that I will not need the carriage today. I will be spending the entire day working on the engine. I’m sadly behind schedule, owing to the mishap with the pistons, so I won’t be going anywhere for a while. Charlotte? What are your plans for the day? I’m sure Batsfoam would be nigh on delirious with joy if you were to provide him with more of those tasks he is always nattering on about.”
Charlotte looked up from where she was glaring at her innocent plate. “Surely you don’t intend to spend the entire day working? I was hoping we might make one or two appearances in public together so as to stifle some of the rumors circulating about us. I thought perhaps a ride in the park—or a drive, if you can procure a suitably smart phaeton—followed by some shopping, and an appearance at the opera tonight would go far in proving to everyone that we are just as good as we were before that horrid man put forth his ridiculous claims.”
Dare shook his head, the dark blue of his eyes brittle and hard. “I don’t give a fig what the ton thinks of me, and I’ll be damned if I feel it necessary to prove myself to them. I have to work on the engine, Charlotte. It is vital that I have at least a month to conduct trials with it before Whitney and the other Yankees come for the naval industrial exhibition, and in order to conduct those trials, I must first have the engine working. If I devote myself to it night and day for the next week, I will have it done in time.”
“Perhaps you would like my assistance,” Charlotte suggested hopefully. “I would be happy to cancel our plans for the day if you’d like me to help you with your machine. Nothing would please me more than to know I was of service to you.”
Dare looked a bit panicked by her offer of assistance. “That is very thoughtful of you, but I will have Joseph to help me today and Batsfoam later to draw in the modifications I’ve made, so although I appreciate your desire to help me, it will not be needed.”
He didn’t need her. He hadn’t wanted to marry her because he didn’t need her. Charlotte swallowed that painful knowledge and merely nodded.
“There’s no reason for you to change your plans,” he added. “You can still take your ride and go shopping and go to the opera. You’ll just have to do it without me.”
“I don’t want to do it without you.” She frowned, heedless of the wrinkles that would no doubt result from such an extreme action. There were times when one just had to throw caution to the wind, and clearly this was such a time. “The point was for us to appear together, carefree and happy, not for me to appear without you by my side.”
“I’m sorry, you will have to survive without my presence. Batsfoam is waiting, and as you heard him mention in excruciating detail, his abbreviated limb is giving him grief today—do you wish to use the carriage or not?”
She bit back her anger at his cavalier manner in dismissing the importance of the ton’s opinion. He was an earl, after all—no matter what that vile man claimed—and everyone knew earls were above such things as worry over what people thought of him. Still, she was his wife, and it was her job to see to it that his reputation, as well as hers, was of the highest quality. She would have to take on the task of ensuring it was not tarnished any more than it had been. “What about the Pretender?”
Dare set his cup down. “The what?”
“The Pretender.” She waved her fork around in a vague manner. “That man who claims to be your cousin? What are you doing about him?”
“You were with me when I wrote to my solicitors. Until I hear from them that he is my uncle’s son, I will do nothing.”
“You can’t leave something so important up to solicitors,” she argued. “You have to do something!”
Dare dabbed at his lips with the linen and pushed his plate back, preparing to rise. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
“You must make him admit he’s lying, of course! I would have thought that was evident even to a man who spends all his time in a dank basement with a smelly machine!”
Dare strolled the length of the table, then bent to press a kiss to her forehead. “The solicitors will investigate his claim, Charlotte. Until we know the truth, we will leave it in their capable hands.”
“But—”
“We will leave it in their hands,” he repeated, tipping her chin up and pinning her back with a look that did not invite debate.
“I will not stand by and allow that man to take away what’s rightfully yours,” she said, a mutinous warning evident in her eye. He could think again if he honestly believed he could glare her into subservience.
“The solicitors will see to it he doesn’t,” Dare said softly, then heedless of Batsfoam, brushed his lips against hers in a gentle kiss. “Stay out of trouble today. Batsfoam, I leave it to you to find out from my lady whether she wishes to use the carriage. I will be downstairs if I’m needed—which I trust I won’t be.”
“As you will, my lor…sir. I shall inform the staff of your intentions. They will be delighted to their very toenails, as I am, to hear we are to be graced with your constant, unceasing presence for the next week.”
Dare gave Charlotte one last look that she met with flared nostrils and thinned lips. Then he took his leave and headed off to the bowels of the house.
“Has there ever been such an annoying, nettlesome, aggregating man?” Charlotte fumed, sitting back with an unladylike snort. Clearly Dare’s insistence on refusing to deal with the situation left her with two choices—she could do nothing, tending Dare’s house and waiting for his solicitors to prove the Pretender was just that, or she could take matters into her own very capable hands. Surely the removal of the Pretender should reinstate Dare and her back into the good graces of the ton. “And I have never been one to shirk my duty, Batsfoam.”
“I do not doubt that for a moment, ma’am.”
“I love my husband,” she said, standing and fixing the butler with a militant glare.
His shoulders straightened under the influence of that glare. “As every good wife should, I’m sure.”
“I will not allow anyone to abuse his good nature.”
Batsfoam’s head lifted in response to the equally militant tone in her voice.
“There are people out there who would think nothing of doing so,” he snapped out in his best sergeant’s voice.
“Solicitors are well and fine in their place, but their place is not at Alasdair’s side!”
“That is your place, not any other’s,” he agreed, giving Charlotte a brisk salute.
“Therefore, it falls to me to act on this matter.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Batsfoam stood stiffly at attention, the creak from his wooden leg the only sound as Charlotte stared at the empty fireplace, a finger tapping on her chin. Finally, she nodded and turned toward the door.
“I will attend to this man who claims to be Alasdair’s cousin myself. Once I do, Dare will see just how very useful and helpful I can be to him. Batsfoam?”
“I am here, ma’am, as I will ever be, no matter how much my unfortunate limb pains me, waiting to learn how I might best serve you and the master.”
“I wish the carriage to be brought around at once. I have some calls to make!”
“I will be as quick as the wind the entire way to the stables, ma’am,” Batsfoam said with another snappy salute, turning with a military fineness despite the ominous creak of his wooden leg. “I will be as the swiftest bird upon the wing. I will race as fa
st as a hare under the hounds. I will fly with the speed of a shooting star. My legs, the unfortunate one included, will be a veritable blur as I—”
Charlotte rolled her eyes heavenward, then interrupted before her ears were talked off. “Batsfoam?”
He tipped his head in obsequious inquiry.
“Leave now. I shall be ready for the carriage in one half hour.”
He bowed until his nose touched his knee. Charlotte allowed herself a small grimace, one small enough to be effective without running the risk of wrinkles, and left the room mentally considering and casting aside any number of ideas regarding Geoffrey the Pretender. In cases such as these, Charlotte had always found that two heads were wiser than one.
“Caro will help me.” She smiled to herself as she climbed the stairs to change her gown into something suitable for paying a call. “She’s sure to. She has a great fondness for me, and can refuse me nothing. I can count on her to see me through this trying time.”
***
“No.”
“Caro—”
“NO!”
“But you haven’t even heard—”
“And I don’t have to! Charlotte, you have cozened me into one outrageous plan after another, but I must put my foot down now. I cannot help you.”
“It is a matter of life and death.”
“It is not, it’s a matter of your pride. You said Lord…Mr…oh, what should I call your husband?”
“He is Lord Carlisle, but you may call him Alasdair if you desire.”
Noble Destiny Page 22
