Hefting up the full silver pitcher of lemonade she refreshed Dianna’s glass and then her own before setting it down on the wrought iron table between them. Together – she had not bothered to waste her time going inside to ask for help – they had dragged the heavy table from the middle of the courtyard to the far corner of the lawn where afternoon shade was abundant.
Stray filters of light trickled down through the branches, highlighting Dianna’s ivory skin and delicate, doll like countenance. “I still do not understand why you do not have that awful butler thrown out on his ear. It would serve him right after how he has treated you.” She took a sip from her glass, puckered her lips, and set it quickly aside. “And while I know you mean well, your lemonade tastes dreadful.”
“You did not complain about it before.”
“Only because I was dying of thirst.”
“It is rather bitter,” Charlotte was forced to agree after taking a sip herself. “I will have to remember to add more sugar next time.”
Dianna made a face that had nothing to do with the bitterness of her drink. “You should not have to remember anything, because you should not be making your own refreshments. What is the point of being wealthy if you do not have servants that serve you? Where is Dobson, that mangy cur? I should like to give him a piece of my mind!”
“Do sit down,” Charlotte said in exasperation when Dianna shot to her feet. “You are behaving… Well, you are behaving like me.”
“Like you used to behave, you mean.” Dianna settled gracefully back into her seat, crossed her legs primly at the ankle, and proceeded to ruin the ladylike effect by rolling her eyes, a habit she no doubt picked up from her best friend. “Nowadays you are timid as a mouse. What has happened to you? Are you” – her eyebrows lifted as her voice lowered – “in the family way?”
Charlotte’s laugh was as sour as the lemonade. “No, no there is no chance of that.”
“No chance? Then you mean…”
“We have been sleeping in separate rooms.”
“My parents have always kept separate bedrooms, and yet here I am.” Her lips curved. “Do you need me to explain the birds and the bees to you? I think someone is under the impression that a baby is delivered by a stork or found under a cabbage—”
“We do not have relations!” Charlotte cried. She flung one hand out and knocked her glass aside, spilling lemonade in a watery stream across the table. “There. Is that what you wanted to hear? We were together – once! – and never again. Gavin does not want children. Not,” she muttered sardonically under breath, “that we are in danger of creating any.”
Dianna, who had frozen like a deer in the crosshairs the moment Charlotte raised her voice, stood up without a word to fetch a handful of linen towels from the serving tray across the courtyard. Returning, she handed one to Charlotte to blot at the spots of lemonade on her dress and used the rest to the clean the table in ever widening circles. “You have never said anything before and, well, truly you both seem so happy when I see you together. Are you sure you haven’t had a spat? A lover’s quarrel, perhaps?” she said hesitantly, pausing mid-swipe.
“An act to curry the favor of the ton, nothing more.”
“I see.” Dianna attacked the table again, more vigorously this time. “And of course the reason you have not told me any of this before is because…”
“I was ashamed,” Charlotte whispered. It was, at long last, time for the truth to be spoken out loud, not only for the sake of Dianna’s ears but hers as well. “I keep hoping things will change, but they never do. We live like strangers when we are alone. Barely speaking. Never touching.”
Concern was etched across every inch of Dianna’s pretty face. She set the damp towels aside and clasped Charlotte’s hands before sinking into her chair. “Do you think there is someone else? You know how men can be, especially men freshly married. Perhaps he simply needs some time to adjust.”
“No, Gavin’s work is his mistress. The most horrible part is he told me this is how it would be from the beginning, and I refused to listen. ‘A business arrangement’, he said. That is what he wanted, and that is what I agreed to, but now…”
“Now you have changed your mind,” Dianna finished when Charlotte’s voice broke.
Miserable, she nodded. “Yes. Almost from the first moment after we were wed I began to fall in love with him. There were times when I thought he was doing the same, but he is such a hard man. I never know what he is thinking or feeling. He hides himself behind a wall that I can never seem to get past.”
“And you love him still? Even now?”
“Even now,” Charlotte said with a self-deprecating laugh. “I know how foolish it sounds. How stupid. I do not even know why I love him. He is short tempered, brooding, mysterious—”
“Handsome as the dickens,” Dianna interceded.
Charlotte picked up one of the lemonade soaked linens and dabbed at her eyes. She hated to cry, especially when other people could see. “Yes, he is quite easy to look at, isn’t he?”
“Exceedingly so.”
“But that is not why I love him.”
“Maybe not, but it certainly does not hurt.”
Oh, Di, what am I going to do?” Leaning back in her chair, Charlotte dropped her head and looked up at the sky. It glimmered through the canopy of leaves in flashes of blue far above her, so easy to see yet impossible to touch. Gavin was like that, she thought. Around all the time, yet somehow always out of reach.
“I do not know.” Dianna’s shoulders lifted and fell in an uneasy shrug. “Is there a chance he could ever feel the same way about you?”
Charlotte dropped her chin with a sigh. “Yes, and that is the most frustrating part. I know with all my heart he could love me if he simply let himself, but he refuses. We could be good together. I don’t know why, but we could. When I decided to marry someone else to escape the duke, I never imagined I would fall in love with him. It was supposed to be a marriage of convenience, nothing more.”
Dianna’s smile was small, and just a little sad. “Fate has a way of reminding us that nothing is in our control, not even love. Has he talked to you about his life before? Maybe if you knew more about him…”
But Charlotte was already shaking her head. “No, nothing. He shuts me out, consistently and completely. He is consumed with his work and making money. It is the only thing he allows to be important to him.”
“Because until now that is all he has had. Do not forget, we were born with wealth and privilege. Your husband, by all appearances, was born with nothing. Everything that we take for granted he has fought for, doing heaven knows what to get.”
“I did not ask to be born a lady,” Charlotte said defensively. “And what does that have to do with anything?”
“Don’t you see?” Dianna’s eyes were wide, her color high. “It has to do with everything. If you truly want Gavin, and I can see that you do, you must make him desire you. Be a carriage.”
“Be a carriage?” Charlotte sputtered. “What in the world does that mean?”
“It means you must make yourself irresistible to him.” One golden eyebrow shot up. “The problem, as I see it, is that you have been far too attainable. Has it not crossed your mind that if he did not want to marry you he would not have done so? I’ve no doubt Gavin is all of those things you have said he is. Boorish, brooding—”
“I never said he was boorish.”
Dianna fluttered a hand in the air. “Boorish, ill tempered, same thing. What I am trying to say is that he is not a man who would allow himself to be talked into something he did not want to do. He married you because he wanted to, not because he had to.”
Charlotte was unconvinced. “He needed a lady wife,” she pointed out. “One who would get him accepted into Society and run his household.”
“Ah, yes, run his household. Funny you should mention that. How is it going so far?”
“There have been a few minor hiccups—”
“A few?” D
ianna’s tone was ripe with skepticism. “You have absolutely no control, which is something your husband would notice, if it was something he cared about. He did not marry you so you could run his house, sweetling. Why, one has only to talk to you for two minutes to know you can hardly manage to dress yourself, let alone direct twenty servants.”
Charlotte had no idea what point Dianna was trying to make this time, but she wasn’t exactly making her feel any better. “I can dress myself,” she grumbled.
“Please. Your stockings do not even match.”
They didn’t? Glancing beneath the table Charlotte lifted the hem of her dress and saw that Dianna was right. Huffing out a breath, she dropped her skirts and fixed her so-called friend with a frosty glare. “There a hundred other things in this world to worry about other than matching stockings, such as the division between the classes and equal wages for women and young girls being forced into prostitution and—”
“And thank you for proving my point. If a common man wanted a snobbish lady wife who would manage his affairs and show him off to high society, you are the last woman on earth he would have picked. I say that, of course, with love.” She stood up and grinned at Charlotte’s dumbfounded expression. “I can see my work here is done.”
“Wait,” Charlotte said. “What do I do now?”
Dianna pursed her lips. “Why, do exactly as I’ve told you.”
“Which is?”
“Your husband is a man who fights fiercely for the things he does not have. Right now he has you. Make it so he does not, and he will move mountains to get you back.”
Could it be so simple? Had Gavin wanted her from the beginning? And if he did, why not tell her? Unless he did not want to admit it to himself, stubborn, hard headed man that he was. Admit that he wanted her, not because of what she could offer, but because of who she was. Admit that he loved her as she loved him. Admit that, as crazy it seemed, from the first moment they met there was a spark of connection neither of them could ignore.
“Dianna, you are a genius.”
Her friend shrugged. “So I have been told.”
“But… how could you know all of this?”
“I believe in love,” Dianna said simply. Toying with a curl, she tucked it behind her ear and smiled. “And I believe in happily-ever-after. You cannot have one without the other, and I believe you and Gavin are capable of both.”
Charlotte shook her head slowly from side to side as she absorbed it all. “But what about—” She cut herself off short, horrified at what she had been about to ask. There were some things even best friends did not discuss, and Dianna’s fiancée was one of them.
Something flashed in Dianna’s clear blue eyes. Something cold. Something fierce. It was gone before it had time to take root, and in the blink of an eye she was her gentle, amiable self. “I believe in love,” she repeated firmly. “Sometimes love comes quickly, sometimes love comes slowly, and sometimes it does not come at all. But you have to believe in it, or else what is the point?”
“What is the point indeed,” Charlotte murmured. Jumping impulsively to her feet, she skirted around the table and embraced Dianna in a quick, tight hug that left them both breathless. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For helping me see what was right in front of me this entire time.”
“Oh, that.” Dianna waved her hand. “Think nothing of it. I have to run now. Mother is expecting me for dinner. A friend of my father’s is coming to call and we all must be there to greet him. Lord Hatchett or Ratchett or something or other. He is horribly boring, if memory serves, and is fond of discussing hunting and fishing in great detail.”
“He could walk you through the step by step process of butchering a deer and you would still have a better evening than me,” Charlotte grumbled as she abruptly recalled what awaited her in one hour’s time. “Gavin and I are calling on my mother,” she explained at Dianna’s blank stare.
“You haven’t seen her yet? Charlotte!”
“I have been trying, but every calling card has been returned unopened, save the last. Gavin postponed one of his meetings so we could go together. We are having dessert. It should all be very civilized.”
Dianna’s released a very unladylike snort. “Hide the cutting knives.”
“I intend to.” Charlotte was most definitely not looking forward to sitting across from Bettina and defending her decision to marry Gavin, but she knew it was something that needed to be done. Perhaps now that time had passed her mother would be more understanding. Yes, and on the carriage ride over Gavin will profess his undying love to me. Her lips quirked. One could always hope.
“Well, best of luck.”
“Thank you,” Charlotte sighed. “I am certainly going to need it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
“I am nervous,” Charlotte admitted as they pulled away from Shire House.
Gavin glanced up from his papers and glanced at his wife. She sat directly beside him in the small phaeton, her head bowed and her hands held tightly together on her lap. The light evening breeze played with her hair, twisting the curls this way and that. Her profile was basked in the light of the setting sun, giving her an ethereal appearance that caused his breath to catch. She was exquisitely beautiful, and he had to clear his throat twice before he was able to form coherent words.
“Nervous? Why?”
Her head lifted. A flicker of surprise passed over her countenance, as though she had not expected him to answer. “My mother can be a very intimidating woman. She will not be happy with me, or with you.”
Gavin set his papers aside and stretched an arm across the back of the phaeton, unconsciously shifting closer to Charlotte. He inhaled a whiff of her perfume, and stopped himself just in time from leaning in and nibbling along the length of her neck. This was the nearest they had been in weeks. It was torture. Pure, unadulterated torture.
He should have told her to go alone to see Lady Bettina, but when she came and asked him with her eyes shimmering like ambers and her little chin wobbling as if she were trying to hold back tears, how could he possibly have said no? He hated to see her upset. It tore at him, wrenching his heart until her pain was his pain.
The only way to avoid thinking about her constantly was to keep himself busy with work, but even then he thought of her. The way she looked when she smiled, which she never seemed to do anymore. The sound of her laugh, which he never heard. Her expression when they argued and she got so mad her nose wrinkled and it took everything he had not to laugh.
Christ, he missed their fights.
Now they were little more than ships passing silently in the night. He left the house before she woke. He returned when she was nearly ready for bed. When it came right down to it, he interacted more with Dobson than he did his own damn wife.
Gavin knew he should have been ecstatic. Finally, he had everything he ever wanted: more money than he could ever hope to spend, the glowing admiration of the ton, and a perfect marriage to a woman who did not interfere with his life or his business.
He had never been so bloody miserable.
Looking at Charlotte now with her downcast eyes and her hunched shoulders he could not help but wonder if she felt the same way he did. Was she lonely? In the deep, dark night when there was nothing else to occupy her mind did she yearn for him as he yearned for her? Did she count out how many steps it would take to go from her bedroom to his? He could ask her, but that would mean revealing what was in his heart. He would have to give himself up, not only to the possibility of love but the near certainty of pain. Doubt gnawed at him, a festering wound that refused to heal.
How could Charlotte possibly love him? He came from nothing. He was no one. Even with the wealth and the respect of his peers he still felt lacking. Something was missing. Something he could not quite put his finger on. A bigger house? He would build it. A faster horse? He would buy it. Except he had done those things, all of those things, and there was still an emptiness inside of him tha
t would not ease.
Frustrated beyond all bearing, Gavin swept a hand through his hair and growled under his breath, earning Charlotte’s wide-eyed stare.
“Are you nervous as well?” she asked. “Don’t worry. She will mostly yell at me. Although I am sure she will have some choice words for you as well.”
“I am not nervous,” he said gruffly.
Her eyebrows knitted together. “Oh. Well, what is the matter then?”
How was it, he wondered with a surge of irrational anger, that he could bluff his way through a high stakes poker game with some of the best players in the city and yet his wife knew how to read every damn emotion that passed over his face? “Nothing is the matter,” he said, more harshly than he had intended.
Charlotte’s lips compressed and she drew back. “Very well.”
A heavy silence fell between them, the same silence that had hung over their heads since the morning in the study. Gavin bristled against it, wanting to say something, but no words came to mind. They never did. He knew – somewhat – how to deal with Charlotte when she was a bright ball of fiery energy, but this quiet, subdued version of her bewildered him beyond all reason. Damn it, this was not what he wanted.
“You should not be afraid of your mother, you know.”
“I am not – I am not afraid of her.”
“Really?” One eyebrow lifted. “You look terrified.”
Charlotte twisted on the seat to face him. “I do not,” she snapped, revealing a brief glimmer of her old self. “I am merely thinking of what I am going to say. You would do well to do the same.”
He could have nodded and agreed. He should have nodded and agreed. But he didn’t. The little devil that was perched on his shoulder wouldn’t let him. “Why? I don’t have to say anything. In fact, I believe I will wait in the carriage. Maybe even take it for a drive through the park.” Gavin knew exactly what he was doing. Something he had sworn not to do, but bloody hell, he wanted his wife back in all her flashing eyed glory, not this meek creature whom he barely recognized.
The Runaway Duchess Page 20
