He handed his reins to one of the waiting grooms, swiftly unbuttoned his coat, and tossed it along with his hat to another of the servants. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d climbed a tree, but then he’d never had such a good reason for doing so. He swung his leg over the saddle and pulled himself up into the deep crook of the tree.
Behind him, he heard Lady Sanborn gasp again, though likely more with outrage than indignation.
“Please, Duke, do not put yourself at risk like this,” she called. “Send a servant up after her if you must, but pray do not exert yourself like this. While Lady Charlotte is fool enough to believe herself a wild squirrel, there is no need for you to do so as well.”
“Yes, sir, you must take care,” Carter said, his voice adding another note of horrified concern.
March did not reply. Instead he looked across to Lady Charlotte, who still stood on her branch about ten paces beyond him, and another twelve feet or so above the ground.
“Be easy, Lady Charlotte,” he said, wishing to reassure her. “Don’t fear. I am coming to your aid.”
But Lady Charlotte appeared neither uneasy nor fearful. She looked bemused.
“You don’t have to do this, sir,” she said wryly. “Truly. Not for me. I vow it’s vastly heroic of you to make the attempt, but your riding boots will be too slippery on the bark.”
“No, they won’t.” To demonstrate, he climbed up from one branch to the next, closer to her. She was right, of course: because his servants kept the soles of his boots as brightly polished as the shafts, he might as well have been navigating the smooth bark with sheets of glass beneath feet. But he’d never confess it to Lady Charlotte, not after she’d called him heroic.
She frowned, watching his well-polished feet sliding over the branch. “Take care, sir. Mind you keep one hand for yourself and one for the ship.”
He climbed closer. “Are you a sailor, then, Lady Charlotte?”
“One need not be a sailor to see the wisdom in nautical maxims,” she said. “I expect clambering through the rigging and mastheads is much the same as elms and oaks. Truly, sir, I can climb down perfectly well myself.”
“She can, Your Grace,” piped up her younger sister Lady Diana, standing below them. “First Charlotte must save Fig, and then she’ll come down on her own. She’s done it hundreds of times.”
March sighed with exasperation. He was accustomed to seeing a task to be done and doing it, and having his betrothed refuse his assistance like this was perplexing. Who would have guessed that life in the country would produce such independence in a young lady?
With fresh determination, he climbed up another branch. “Tell me,” he said, “is Fig another sister?”
“My sister?” Lady Charlotte tipped back her head and laughed again, displaying a small freckle directly on the underside of her jaw that was unexpectedly enchanting.
If only she’d call him heroic once more.
“Fig is Diana’s cat, sir,” she explained, “and a wicked, ill-behaved little cat at that. She’s watching us right now, you know, right up there, deciding when she’ll let me catch her.”
Dutifully March glanced upward, and for the first time he noticed the small piebald cat nestled in the leaves overhead. The cat looked content, her tail curled around her feet, and disinclined toward being caught.
“Can you reach up and seize the beast, Lady Charlotte?” he asked. “Then I’ll guide you both down the tree.”
She opened her mouth, likely to protest again, then thought better of it: a good sign, decided March, an excellent sign for their future together. It was one of the advantages of her being so young and impressionable. The sooner she learned to recognize him as her master and leader, as any proper husband should be, the better.
“Very well, sir,” she said, bracing herself against the thick branch again. “I’ll try to catch her. Here, Fig, here, come to me.”
She reached upward, stretching her hands toward the cat. The cat did not move, nor did Lady Charlotte’s stylishly close-fitting gown. With a tearing sound, the underarm seams of both sleeves gave way under the stress and split. The pink silk gapped open, giving March an intimate glimpse of Charlotte’s scarlet linen stays, the narrow boned channels holding her tightly. She grabbed at her sides, feeling the rent silk.
“Oh, goodness,” she said, blushing. “Who’d have guessed that would happen?”
She laughed, and March laughed with her. He couldn’t help it, nor did he wish to. With her, it seemed the most natural thing in the world, and one of the most pleasurable as well.
“Perhaps I should capture the cat, Lady Charlotte,” he suggested, struggling to regain his focus on the rescue and forget the red stays and the laughter. Below them he heard a fresh torrent of dismay from Lady Sanborn, dismay he’d no intention of heeding as he climbed closer to Lady Charlotte. “I’ll be able to reach the animal soon enough.”
“Thank you, sir, but I have her.” With her arms now freed from the confining sleeves, she gracefully stretched up and caught the cat in her hands. Fig didn’t fight, turning happily limp as Lady Charlotte tucked her into one arm. Leaning back against the branch, she deftly pulled her white neckerchief from around her shoulders and wrapped it around the cat. Intent upon Fig, she showed no concern for the amount of pale skin she now bared to March’s view, shoulders and throat and breasts. The little cat closed her eyes and rubbed her whiskered face against Lady Charlotte’s arm.
March watched, wondering if it was possible for a duke to be envious of a cat.
“There,” Lady Charlotte said. She turned back to face him with the bundled cat nestled in the crook of her arm, directly below the ripped seam. “I do this for safety’s sake, sir. Most times Fig is perfectly content to let me carry her, but it is easier to climb down with her like this.”
“Then let me help you, Lady Charlotte.” He held his hand out to her.
She smiled over the top of the little cat’s head and bent to kiss it between the ears. “You are persistent, sir.”
“When I’ve reason to be, yes,” he admitted.
“How fine to know I’m worthy of your persistence, sir.” Her smile widened. “I feared that you would be old and wizened, like dukes are supposed to be.”
“Is that what Carter told you?” he asked, surprised. It hadn’t occurred to him that she might have had misgivings about him, just as he had had about her. “Didn’t he give you the miniature of me?”
“The one circled with brilliants?” she said. “He did. But pictures can lie, sir, as can solicitors. I’m glad neither did.”
“How fortunate for us both, Lady Charlotte.” Only a few more feet separated them, and he easily reached his hand out to take hers. He was surprised by how small and delicate her fingers felt, how different from his own. Her expression was guarded, as if she could not make up her mind whether to pull her hand free or not.
He smiled, meaning to put her at ease, but also because he was, to his own amazement, thoroughly happy to be here, holding her hand in a tree as the breeze whispered through the leaves around them. The others below were forgotten, hidden by the leaves and branches.
“Take care now, and come closer,” he coaxed, and after the merest hesitation she did, sliding along the wide branch toward him. “Take care, and trust me.”
Her eyes were very blue here in the shadows of the tree. Her pale skin had a faint sheen to it, perhaps from the warmth of the day, perhaps from the excitement of it. A few stray wisps of dark hair tossed across her forehead, and impatiently she shook her head to move them aside. Then she smiled shyly and came to him.
He reminded himself this was for the sake of her safety and for no other reason, and that the wanton blood and impulses of his rakish ancestors were not the same as his. He reminded himself of this even as he slid his arm around the back of her waist: the sleekness of her silk gown, the rigid bones of her stays—those brilliant scarlet stays—and the vulnerability of her body within.
“There, sir,” sh
e said, her voice low and meant for only his ears to hear. She lifted her chin, clearly determined to meet his gaze as evenly as she could. “This is what you wished all along, isn’t it?”
“No,” he said, and that was true. He’d come here wishing to invite her to stop at Greenwood, and he’d wished for a word or two with her over a light repast under the watchful eyes of her dragon-aunt and her mother. He hadn’t wished for more because, quite simply, he hadn’t imagined any more was likely to happen. How could he ever have conceived of standing on the branch of a tree, hatless and in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, with his arm at Lady Charlotte’s waist, safely from the sight of those below? “Not at all.”
“No, sir?” Disappointment filled her blue eyes. “Not at all?”
“I said I hadn’t wished for this, Lady Charlotte, because I hadn’t,” he said quickly. “But now that we find ourselves together here, I wouldn’t wish it any other way.”
What he also wished for was to kiss her, here among the leaves, and with that as his only thought he slipped his other arm around her waist to pull her closer.
Yet as he bent his face over hers he felt, rather than heard, a low, rumbling growl between them. Ignoring it, he leaned in to Lady Charlotte, and the growl instantly rose to a banshee’s screech. In the same instant, a score of tiny needles pierced the fine linen of his sleeve and dug deep into his arm.
“What the devil?” March exclaimed, attempting to free his arm.
“Let Fig go, sir, please.” Lady Charlotte tried to work the cat free from March’s arm. “Hush, hush, little one, he doesn’t mean any of it.”
“She most certainly does, and now she’s—aughh!” Like the talons of an eagle, Fig’s claws curved more deeply into his arm, and blood—his blood, blast the animal—blossomed through the white linen. He jerked his arm back, finally freeing his arm (and more blood) from the cat’s grasp, only to realize that the rest of himself was tipping backward, too. One hand for the ship, Lady Charlotte had told him, and one hand for himself, but why hadn’t she said a word about the hand that had been possessed by a bedlamite cat?
In compensation he lurched forward, barely recovering his balance as his boots scuffled on the bark. Lady Charlotte gasped, grabbing his shoulder to pull him back as she juggled the writhing cat in her other arm.
“Don’t fall, sir!” she cried as they wobbled unsteadily together, the branch bobbing beneath them. “You can’t fall!”
“Trust me, Lady Charlotte,” he managed to gasp. “I’ll keep you safe.”
With a little yelp she flung her free arm around him and held tight, and he circled his arms protectively around her. It was an excellent moment, one of the very best he could recall in his life.
Followed, promptly, by one of the very worst.
With Lady Charlotte in his arms, March’s tenuous balance vanished entirely. His feet shot out from beneath him and he toppled backward, falling, falling, falling. Someone screamed, but not Lady Charlotte. She trusted him to keep her safe.
And as they landed with a thump on the ground, he knew that he had. Because he was on the bottom, he’d absorbed most of the impact. He knew she was unhurt because she’d immediately scrambled up onto her hands and knees over him. Her blue eyes were wide with remorse and her hair was falling loose around her face, the most charming face he’d ever seen, even if it was spinning around in queasy circles.
“Oh, sir, are you hurt?” she said with a catch in her voice. “Merciful heaven, if I’ve injured you like this, before we’ve properly met—oh, it would not be fair at all!”
He smiled, or meant to. He wasn’t sure if the order actually reached his lips. So much was spinning before him now: the tree, and the sky, and Carter’s face, and Lady Sanborn’s beside it, but mostly Lady Charlotte’s. There was much he wanted to tell her, beginning with the white roses waiting for her admiration in the garden at Greenwood. Yes, that would be a good beginning, and a considerable improvement over plummeting from a tree like some damned rotten acorn.
“White rotheth,” he said, shocked by his own slurred incoherence. He frowned as he concentrated, which hurt his head more, but for Lady Charlotte’s sake, he would not give up. “Fo’ you. White rotheth, an’—”
“There now, sir, do not tax yourself,” Carter said, his earnest face replacing Lady Charlotte’s. “Dr. Stapleton has been summoned, and a carriage from Greenwood to convey you home. Be easy, sir, and all will be well.”
But he didn’t care about Dr. Stapleton, or the carriage, either, and if Carter really wanted him to be easy, then he should let him see Lady Charlotte again.
“Lady Cha’lotte—”
“Lady Sanborn and the other ladies are continuing their journey to London, sir, as was for the best,” Carter said, coddling him like some wretched nursemaid. “You will see the ladies in town next week, sir, and—”
“No’ yet,” March protested weakly. How could she leave him without saying farewell? He tried to push himself upright, meaning to go after her, but his arm gave way. Pain sliced through his shoulder as sharp as a sword, and then, mercifully, he felt nothing more.
Sanborn Ho use
St. James’s Square
London
Charlotte woke the next morning when the maidservant pulled open the curtains on her bed and let the bright morning sun fall full on her face. With a groan she turned away from the windows and buried her face back into the pillows. It was not so much the sun that affected her as the burden of her own conscience, and after yesterday’s events, that burden was heavy indeed. The memory of the poor Duke of Marchbourne lying pale and still in the wispy grass because of her should have been sufficiently leaden on its own, but the icy silence of disappointment from both her aunt and her mother during the long drive to London had served to add even more.
With a clatter that Charlotte was sure was intentional, the maid set a silver tray with tea on the small table beside the bed.
“I am Polly, my lady,” the maid said. “Lady Sanborn has bid me tend to you. She asks that you dress and come to her room as soon as possible.”
Swiftly Charlotte rolled over to face the maid. “Is there any word from His Grace this morning?”
“His Grace, my lady?” Polly asked, her hands clasped tightly at her waist. She was a slight girl, not much older than Charlotte, with sandy hair and freckles over her cheeks. “Forgive me, my lady, but many dukes do attend Lady Sanborn.”
“His Grace the Duke of Marchbourne,” Charlotte said proudly, though still awed that so imposing a title could have any relationship to her. “The duke I’m supposed to wed.”
Polly’s expression did not change. “Then no, my lady. There has been no word come to the house from His Grace. At least none that I have been told.”
“Then could you go and ask Aunt Sophronia for me, Polly?” Charlotte pleaded, pushing her hair back from her face. “Please?”
“I, my lady?” Polly drew back, clearly scandalized. “Forgive me, my lady, but it is not my place to ask such questions of Lady Sanborn.”
“I suppose not.” Charlotte sighed. “Though if His Grace had worsened over the night, then surely someone from his house would have sent us news of it. Surely we’d hear, wouldn’t we?”
Charlotte was certain Polly raised her head an infinitesimal fraction, the better to look down her narrow little nose at her. The few servants at Ransom Manor—Mama hadn’t kept a large household, nor had they needed one—had been more like friends, content to oblige and indulge her and her sisters. From Polly’s obvious disapproval, that would clearly not be the case here at her aunt’s grand house.
“Forgive me, my lady,” she said, “but Lady Sanborn gives us strict rules about gossiping over our betters. Shall I pour your tea, my lady?”
In anticipation, Polly’s hand already hovered over the curved handle of the pot.
Charlotte shook her head. “Thank you, no, I’ll pour for myself.”
The truth was that she much preferred chocolate to tea in the morni
ng, but she’d already begun so badly with Polly that she didn’t dare confess it.
But for Polly the question of tea was finished, and she’d moved to the next matter—or rather, she’d moved to the wardrobe, throwing open the tall double doors.
“Lady Sanborn said you were to dress for visiting the mantua-maker’s, my lady,” she said, surveying Charlotte’s meager assortment of clothing, forlornly underoccupying the massive wardrobe. What had been adequate and appropriate for Surrey was evidently neither in London, and the longer Polly stared at the gowns hanging from the pegs, the more clear that became—which was the reason her aunt had determined a trip to the mantua-maker for the first round of new clothes must be today’s agenda. “Will this riding habit do, my lady?”
“Yes, yes,” agreed Charlotte hurriedly. The habit had seen much hard riding along the beach in harder weather, and in Polly’s hands it now looked rumpled and worn, the once dark blue faded at the seams and cuffs and stained with salt from the sea air. “The hat must be still in one of the trunks.”
“I will find it, my lady.” With brisk authority, Polly dressed Charlotte, brushing and patting and pinning and tweaking and generally making the habit look more presentable. Next she dressed Charlotte’s hair, deftly brushing it back into an artful, sleek knot at the back of her head. Finally came the hat, a plain black beaver cocked hat, which Polly pinned into place at exactly the right angle to give the masculine hat a coquettish air. When at last she held the looking glass for Charlotte’s approval, Charlotte gasped.
“Faith, look at me!” she exclaimed. “I’ve never been so fine to go out on a pony.”
“But you are not going out on a pony, my lady,” Polly said firmly. “You are going in Her Ladyship’s carriage, where you will be noticed and remarked on by all the world. I’d not be doing my duty if I did not make you look as handsome as I could, my lady.”
“You’ve made me look much handsomer than I am.” She smiled, and in their shared reflection she saw that Polly was now smiling as well. “How can I thank you, Polly?”
When You Wish Upon a Duke Page 3
