In his heart, though, Eric knew that he couldn’t ignore Charlene’s summons. He had given her his word that he would be there for her if she needed him.
Not only that, but Charlene had helped him once, in spite of the fact that she had gotten into trouble because of it. If there was anything that Eric could do to help her in return, he was bound by his word to do it.
“Excuse me, gentleman,” he said to Percy and Dalton. He slipped out of the ballroom and found his way to the library, taking his time so as not to appear too hell-bent on a mission.
Miss Charlene Ellington, he thought as he walked down the hall. What were the odds that she, of all people, would contact him like this? What was waiting for him at the library?
It wasn’t proper for the two of them to meet there, away from everyone. There had to be some sort of reason that she had suggested it. Some secret reason that she needed to meet him there, alone. He wondered what it was.
She couldn’t possibly be hoping that Eric could overlook her unmarried state and continue to meet her alone, could she? She couldn’t possibly be hoping that he would spoil her purity.
Eric remembered the shy but practical girl that he had met, who had once treated him for an adder bite as though she were a physician many years her senior.
No, he sincerely doubted that she was looking for some sort of sexual liaison with him. As much as there was a part of him that wished otherwise.
There had to be something else to do with her wanting to see him, some other secret, but Eric was at a loss for what it might be. He knew that she was here as a chaperone to a young woman or two.
Perhaps it was that, and she was trying to curry favor for them? Somehow, that seemed doubtful, though.
Eric finally decided that he wouldn’t know until he saw her, as he stood outside the library deliberating for a final moment. He looked left and right, up and down the hallway, but there was no one there to see him enter. He slipped inside.
For a moment, all thoughts that he’d had about what she might want went out of his head. All he could do was stare at the woman in front of him. Charlene.
Of course, he had seen her more than a few times over the years, but those times were always at a distance, across a crowded ballroom.
Or once, as she was riding out of Bath astride a horse, like the young hellion that she had once been. A proper woman would have been riding side-saddle, but Eric doubted Charlene cared much for propriety.
When that gossip had broken across the court, it had been all that he could do to keep from laughing at the shocked and scandalized whispers.
Charlene was beautiful, that was the thing. More beautiful that Eric could ever have believed. Those eyes of hers were still the same, glittering darkly in the dim lighting of the otherwise abandoned library.
Her pert nose turned up at the end, and her light brown hair had been drawn up into the latest fashion. Still, a curl or two escaped to frame her pale face, her porcelain skin.
She was dressed in a somewhat-outdated blue dress that hugged the curve of her waist and left her ample breasts nearly spilling over the top in a sensual but not scandalous way.
As Eric entered the room, she smiled sweetly at him, and it was all that he could do not to pull her into his arms and kiss her again, impulsively, as he once had when he was ten years younger.
It would be even more improper to go down that road now, he knew. But it took nearly all of his willpower to hold back.
“Charlene,” he said quietly.
She quirked a brow at the young duke. “Lord Cumberland,” she said. “Or shall I call you ‘duke’ now?” She got slowly, belatedly to her feet. “Am I meant to curtsy to you? I must confess that I don’t have any friends of your rank, and I’m not sure how the rules are when one does. Of course, I know all the rules, just not as they apply to…friends. Are we friends?”
She was babbling, and there was something about it that put Eric at ease. Perhaps it was the realization that she was at least as nervous as he was.
“No curtseys, and no titles,” he told her, taking a step closer. “After all, we’re in private now.”
Was he mistaken, or did a shiver run up her spine when he said that? Of course, Eric too was acutely aware of the fact that the two of them were alone there in the library.
He wondered if she’d ever been alone, in private, with another man. He knew that she likely had been. After all, she had been there alone with him, all those years ago, when he was injured and her father had gone to find the duke. Probably that happened a lot with her father’s patients.
Somehow, this felt different, though. Somehow, this felt charged.
“I’m sorry to do this,” Charlene said, staring down at her hands. “I just had to talk to you.”
“What’s going on?” Eric asked her, feeling irrationally worried on her behalf.
Charlene bit her lip, and Eric could tell that she didn’t quite know how to tell him whatever it was. He wanted to remind her of all those letters.
They weren’t strangers to one another. But of course, Charlene hadn’t sent many letters back to him. Only the one. Maybe he wasn’t a stranger to her, but she was a stranger to him. He didn’t know the first thing about what she needed.
Chapter 5
Miss Charlene Ellington
Even though Charlene had hoped that Eric would answer her summons, she realized when he strolled into the room that she hadn’t actually expected for him to show up.
She hadn’t expected him to tear himself away from the party, and she certainly hadn’t expected him to sneak away to meet her there in the library. What must he be thinking? What must he be thinking about her?
She hadn’t responded to any more than that first of all his letters, but he had to know the same things about her that everyone else did.
That she had never found herself a partner, that she had settled for being a chaperone to other young women, that at twenty-five she was barely hanging on to the place in society that her family had carefully bought for her.
He had to think that she was pitiable. But it wasn’t pity that she saw in his eyes when he walked in.
Charlene wondered if he knew about her father’s predicament. If he did, he was keeping his thoughts carefully hidden.
Finally, she decided to put it out there in the open. “My father has been arrested,” she said, with no preamble. “They say that he has poisoned an eminent nobleman and caused his untimely death.”
Eric raised an eyebrow at her. “Is this why you’ve called me here?” he asked. “You think that I am behind such a thing? I’m sure that I haven’t had any part in this, nor do I know who might have. This is the first that I’ve heard of this unfortunate situation.”
“Of course I didn’t think that you were involved!” Charlene said quickly, scandalized that he might suspect her of suggesting anything like that. “I merely need your help. Well, not ‘merely’. I’m aware of what a huge favour I am asking. I thought simply that perhaps you could help me talk to some people who might be considering my father’s case.”
Talking to her father’s jurors would do nothing more than buy them time, but Charlene had to hope that it would be time enough to prove the doctor’s innocence.
There had to be some way to do that. The realm surely wouldn’t sit by and let an innocent man be sentenced to death. Where was the justice in that?
What she’d really like would be to ask Eric if he could help at all with proving Father’s innocence. But he was already showing signs of reticence at being summoned here like this.
Charlene would scale back her pleas and hope that his good nature came through and that once she’d had a chance to talk to the jurors, he would offer to help her prove her father’s innocence.
If she could only be patient, then she was sure that he would help her.
He was a good man. Or at least, he had been ten years ago, when she had first met him.
Charlene felt a chill go through her. She hadn’t seen Er
ic since he was barely a man. What if the world had changed him? Or what if her memories weren’t true to life?
What if he didn’t care at all about Dr. Ellington’s case? Or worse, what if he spread word of this indiscretion around?
She felt her cheeks flame at the very thought. Aunt Helene would murder her, and she’d have no choice but to say goodbye to her position as a chaperone for young women like Matilda.
Not only that, but it could hurt her father’s case. Show their family in an unfavorable light. Charlene should have thought this through better.
For a long moment, Eric continued to stare at her. She could practically see him thinking things through. What would he get from helping her?
Charlene couldn’t help but feel disappointed. But then again, what had she expected, that he would drop everything to help her out? Of course she could never hope for that.
Finally, though, he sighed and ducked his head. “I did promise you that if you ever needed help, you would but ask,” he said quietly. He gave a brittle laugh, and Charlene realized right then how little he actually wanted to have to do with her.
At least, that was what she thought. In actual fact, Eric just couldn’t help but feel hurt at the fact that this was the reason that she had finally deigned to talk to him.
After ten years, he supposed that he had hoped for something more. That she wouldn’t only speak to him because she needed something from him.
He had always hoped that she would respond to one of his letters, that she would finally agree that the two of them could be friends.
Charlene didn’t know that though. Instead, she just couldn’t help but feel like an idiot for asking. What’s more, she had told her aunt that she would find some way to make things right for Father.
Aunt Helene was counting on her. Their family’s fate hung in the balance – all on this chance. She should have known better than to think that there was any way that Eric, a lord, a duke, would help out her poor family.
Charlene swallowed hard. “If you cannot help us, then it is fine,” she forced herself to say. There was nothing more that she could do, and she felt bad for even asking.
“You and your father did save my life,” Eric said begrudgingly. “And I am a man of my word.”
Charlene shook her head. “I’ll not have you held to your word if doing so puts you in an uncomfortable position,” she told him, even though she could think of no other way, without his help, to save her father’s life.
She would have to figure it out, though. She couldn’t drag down Eric’s reputation by forcing him to help out her family. He had been young when he made that promise; he couldn’t have foreseen what the consequences of helping her would be.
Besides, what right did she have to ask him to throw his lot with theirs? He had written her so many letters over the past decade, and she had answered only one.
Yet here she was now, when she needed his help, acting as though she had any right to ask it of him.
“It’s not that it puts me in an uncomfortable position,” Eric said, catching her wrist as she started to turn away from him. Energy crackled between the two of them, and Charlene found herself thinking back to that one, sweet kiss that they had shared, so long ago now.
It of course wasn’t the first time that she had thought about it in the intervening years. Especially when she’d first been introduced to court, she had spent so many nights wondering if she would ever find a husband to kiss her with tenderness like that.
As the other young ladies of society gossiped about what it would feel like to have that first kiss, she’d had to stay quiet, thinking back to that stolen moment with a lord – now a duke.
There had been dreams of…more, too. Not that she really knew what more would entail. But she had found herself imagining Eric kissing his way down her whole body.
Those dreams never went further than kissing, but even the kissing was enough to have her waking up warm and wanting.
Nothing had ever come of her introduction to court, though, and now she wondered if that one kiss, when she was just fourteen, was the only kiss that she would ever enjoy.
And that kiss, itself, had been over before she’d really gotten a chance to enjoy it.
On her darker days, Charlene wondered if that kiss was the reason that no one was ever interested in courting her. Perhaps somehow she was tarnished, marked as someone who had been kissed already.
She knew that no one had seen them, but she couldn’t help thinking that everyone knew.
That was ridiculous, though. Of course it was her own actions, more than anything that Eric had ever done, that made her ineligible to be someone’s wife. She wondered if Eric knew about all of that.
“Why didn’t you ever write back to me?” Eric asked quietly, still not letting go of Charlene’s wrist. His fingers were warm, lightly calloused. Strong.
Charlene had no desire to break away from him. In fact, she found herself hoping that he would pull her closer, up against his chest, that he would kiss her again. Instead, he just stared seriously down at her, his eyes unreadable.
Charlene ducked her head, shrugging uncomfortably under the weight of his gaze. “It wouldn’t have been proper,” she said quietly. He was a duke. Rich, popular, and so powerful that Charlene found herself feeling overwhelmed by him. There was such a gap between them; didn’t he realize that?
“Last I heard, Miss Charlene Ellington didn’t care much for propriety,” Eric said, and the woman flinched.
She risked a look up at him, suddenly curious. “Have you been keeping tabs on me?” she asked. Suddenly, she realized that he must have been.
He knew exactly where to address his letters to every time. They never failed to reach her, whether she was in Bath or London or otherwise. But why would he do that?
He was one of the most desirable bachelors in all of England, and Charlene was just a poor spinster ‘on the shelf’, the doctor’s daughter. The gap between them couldn’t have been wider.
This time, Eric was the one to step back and turn away. Was it possible that somehow Charlene interested him, she wondered? That he thought of her fondly? He had kissed her that once, after all.
But of course that wasn’t it. Eric finally shrugged. “You saved my life, once,” he reminded her. “I just…appreciated that. That’s all.”
That was all. Of course.
Charlene nodded at him. “Well, I suppose I should get back to the ball, before I’m missed,” she told him. “Matilda shouldn’t be left alone for too long.” She paused. “Don’t worry about what I said before. About Father. I have some other ideas for how to help him. I understand that you can’t get involved.”
It was a lie; she didn’t have any idea how to help him. She thought that Eric might call her out on it. After all, why would she have summoned him here if she had any other way to save her father? This was uncomfortable for the both of them. But Eric chose to overlook that.
He nodded at her. “Of course,” he said. Charlene could tell that there was something more that he wanted to say, but whatever it was, he held back. “It was good to see you, Charlene,” he added quietly as she reached the door.
Charlene paused, but she couldn’t bring herself to look back at him. What more was there to say? She had asked for his help, and he had reminded her that she was overstepping the boundaries of their acquaintance. Had it been good to see him?
Honestly, seeing him only made her long for one more kiss, to last her the rest of her life. Something to treasure, something to remember.
But she could hardly turn around, go back to him, and kiss him now. It just wouldn’t have been right. It wouldn’t have been welcomed.
She pulled open the door and headed back to the ballroom, unable to shake her feelings of disappointment and heartache.
Chapter 6
Lord Eric Cumberland, Duke of Havenport
Eric felt his hands clench into fists as Charlene walked out the door of the library. There was a part of him that w
anted nothing more than to run after her, to call her back, to discuss the details of her father’s case with her in more detail.
He knew that he ought to offer her his help, to make sure that she knew that he would of course still help her, and not only because he had given her his word.
He wanted to help her, because it was the right thing to do. Not only that, though, he wanted to help her because he cared about her.
Somehow, in spite of the fact that he hadn’t heard from her in all these years, he still cared about her. Seeing her up close again only made him want her more than he had even back when he was younger and foolish.
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