Yes, that threshold between enemies and friends had appeared between them, and she’d found herself stepping into unknown territory. He wasn’t exactly an enemy anymore. But then, he wasn’t precisely a friend either. She strongly suspected that neither of them knew what they were doing.
The flirtatious conversation had been a pleasant surprise. Entertaining, until—like their conversation at dinner the other night—it’d felt very real. And she’d almost kissed him.
Almost. Thank God common sense had stopped her. Well, common sense and years of self-control wrapped in layers of hurt. Her distrust was not so easily eradicated, although the evening had muddied the emotion.
Maybe she didn’t hate the man anymore. Or at least, not all the time. And she might occasionally want him to touch her in a non-sworn-enemy sort of way, knowing full well he could incite an impulse to hit him over the head with the nearest blunt object.
Which was the last thing she needed to deal with while handling the appearance of Mr. Montague.
Montague had called this morning and asked to take her for a drive. She’d pled a headache and a need to write her father, then sidestepped his leading questions about her plans for this evening. Something about him set off alarms in her head. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to get out of committing to a picnic tomorrow. At least a picnic meant Agatha would accompany them.
Objectively speaking, Montague was a gorgeous specimen of male beauty. More so than Amesbury, whom she’d classify as distracting and masculine rather than beautiful.
Charm seemed to be Montague’s native tongue. His eagerness to move forward with the engagement would be flattering if she wanted a marriage in the traditional sense. However, compliments and charm were a decided drawback in light of her desire to have a disinterested spouse. Come to think of it, so was flirting on balconies, but this evening she hadn’t been thinking of that. Amesbury might have a point, that emotions could override plans. Damn the man.
Most problematic of all was that Montague was somehow unaware that she’d already declined the match. Father was being less than forthcoming with someone in this situation, and she suspected that she was the one in the dark here. It incited a fury she’d struggled to keep tucked away since meeting Montague. It wasn’t Montague’s fault Father was practicing subterfuge, after all. But without her knowing why Father had kept that pertinent information to himself, she couldn’t outright tell Montague no. At least, not yet.
She’d written to Stanwick Manor today—one note to Rogers the steward and one to her father. Rogers would end up handling both letters, but it was the principle of the thing. Demanding answers held less dramatic appeal when it would be nearly two weeks before she received a letter back.
Knowing at least part of Father’s reply would involve giving Montague a chance to pay his addresses in person, she’d resolved to go on a few outings with the man. Who knew if he was merely making the best of the situation and might actually be amenable to her plan? That wasn’t exactly a line of questioning she could spring on him a mere day after making his acquaintance.
Bottom line, she’d told Amesbury she was on the hunt for a husband, and it was the truth. Father had told her to choose either Montague or another man equally acceptable.
And then she’d nearly kissed Amesbury of all people. Hating him had been far easier than this emotional muddle.
Exhaustion swept through her. She draped her shawl over a chair, snuffed the lamp, and made her way by moonlight to close the curtains.
Across the narrow lane, Lord Carlyle’s home remained illuminated. When someone crossed in front of a second-story window, she paused. There, directly opposite her, stood one of the men on her mind. Without a cravat, coat, or waistcoat, the open neck of Amesbury’s shirt drew her eye to the wide expanse of his chest. Stifling a gasp, Lottie pulled back from the window. She shouldn’t peek. But if the darkness hid her, would one more look hurt?
Just as they had this evening, the tiny hairs on her arms stood at attention, pointing toward him, like a compass guiding to true north. Muddied feelings aside, the look of him still made an impact. Dark and broad, rough around the edges, with those ridiculous curls in need of a trim softening his appearance. He wasn’t the epitome of male beauty like Montague. But what he was appealed to her more than Montague’s perfection.
A chill from the glass met the heat of her body, which seemed to creep up by degrees the longer she watched him. Her nipples pebbled against the fine linen of her night rail as a tendril of warmth spiraled around her belly in a lazy swirl.
In the window across the lane, Amesbury craned his head toward the small portion of sky between their roof lines. Clouds and soot impeded any of the celestial views she found so familiar back home, and she had to wonder what he looked for.
With unhurried movements, he gathered his shirt, pulling it from his waistband. An inch of his stomach showed above the top of his dark breeches. His navel was a shadowy dip, hemmed in by grooves of musculature forming a V, pointing down to things she’d only ever seen in books.
With that thought, she almost snapped the heavy drapes closed. Almost. All it would take was a forceful flick of her wrist to bring this voyeurism to an end. And yet she didn’t move.
The rhythm of her heart pounded in a song she’d never heard before as she clung to the shadows, watching.
His shirt was gone now. There was just…so much of him. Were all men built like that? Surely not. Montague was lean, not bulky. And at dinner the other night, Mr. Lurch had seemed downright squishy. She’d bet ten pounds that Lurch padded the shoulders of his coat. Whereas nothing on Amesbury needed padding or filling out. He was all angles and planes, with a deep color to his skin that suggested he worked outside bare-chested—wasn’t that an intriguing mental image.
With his arms braced against the window frame, every inch of him seemed to ripple and bunch into new shapes. The shifting lines of his body were rather delicious, to be honest. He leaned on one arm, using his free hand to unbutton the fall of his silk breeches.
“I refuse to peek. I refuse to peek.” Turning from the window, she forced herself to march like a dutiful soldier to bed. She flipped back the counterpane and slipped under the covers, blocking out the temptation to see just how naked he’d get before leaving the window.
No, but really—how naked would he get before stepping out of view? Would her imagination be capable of envisioning how he’d look when his breeches slid down his heavily muscled legs? This would be a long, hard night. So to speak.
Lottie threw an arm over her face to muffle her groan.
* * *
Ethan blew out the light, then indulged in one last look across the lane. “Sweet dreams, Lady Charlotte.” The minx might have been invisible if he hadn’t noticed her bedroom’s lamplight and the shadows moving about the room. Filmy curtains preserved her privacy, although his windows had no such layer of protection—a fact he’d used to his advantage.
He usually considered his brain an orderly space where logic ruled. He’d made it that way after living through the aftermath of rash decisions several years ago. Tonight, the habits he’d built to think through every action, to weigh and measure the risk, had disappeared on that balcony, and it would seem they remained absent. Exhibitionism wasn’t something he’d ever indulged in, but knowing she watched, remembering the heat of their encounter earlier this evening—he’d wanted just a few more minutes of her attention.
But now he ached with need. She occupied a bed a few dozen feet and a narrow lane away, and his body knew it. The previously comfortable mattress seemed made of rocks when he rolled over yet again.
Lady Charlotte planned to marry. An empty society union by the sounds of it, which would be a bloody shame. Tonight he’d glimpsed beneath her layers of composure and known for certain that she was no longer the society debutante from years before. It wasn’t only her personality that had changed. Everything about her was…more. Time hadn’t just been kind to her. It had caressed and
sculpted her from a lovely young lady into a lass with strong opinions and a wicked sense of humor that fascinated the hell out of him.
She’d been beautiful tonight, so polished and coiffed. But that first meeting at the inn, when her hair had been a mass of dark tangles reaching her waist, haunted him. With the trauma of her accident passed, his mind veered off the Good Samaritan path. He’d give anything to sink his hands into those waves of silky hair, wrap the strands around his fingers, and tether her to him. Those curls would flow like ink spilling over his pillow as he lowered his body to hers.
They’d stood so close tonight, their bodies aligned in a way that stayed with him. She would fit. Her curves would meld with him like an erotic puzzle piece, linking and tangling until neither could tell where they began or ended.
Lord, he wanted to trace the incredible blushes that danced over her skin. The pink flush followed the same path each time, beginning at her cheeks, then blooming across her collarbones and stretching down to the low neckline of her gown. Where the delicate color traveled from there was the stuff of fantasy.
The tent in his bedding would have been awkward to explain if he were sharing a room. Ethan lifted the blanket, glancing down in exasperation at his rigid erection. “Really, lad? Of all the women in the world, you want this one?” He rolled his eyes and dropped the covers. There was no denying it. His body wanted her. His mind craved her.
Tonight they’d been so close to a kiss, and now he had questions. Would her breathing change with increased arousal? What noises would she make when she climaxed? Were her breasts heavy and pendulous, or tight globes? Would they bounce as she found her satisfaction atop him or sway with the rhythm they found together? Lady Charlotte in the throes of passion would be a vision as her body milked him with each shudder of pleasure.
Under the sheet, his erection twitched, but he absently stroked his chest instead of sliding a hand under the blanket.
He’d asked tonight and she’d said no. Although he didn’t know her taste, he could have her scent. Back in Warwickshire, Ethan had purchased the same lemon oil the innkeeper had given Lady Charlotte. Since then, he’d smelled the oil with alarming regularity, as if trying to conjure her from the bottle like a djinn. Ethan uncorked the small bottle beside his bed. With the tangy citrus on his skin, he could almost imagine her here, instead of next door.
Finally, he reached under the blanket to spread the bead of fluid weeping from his cock over the thick head. Oil-slicked hands sliding over flesh stole his air. One stroke. Two. He hummed with pleasure as the fantasy took hold.
The fingers on his sack became her delicate hands in his imagination, small fingernails gently abrading skin that tightened with building need. His grip worked faster, squeezing until he kicked the covers away from his body because the room was altogether too hot.
More. His brain supplied the gasps and panting pleas of his imaginary lover, and he answered her aloud. A bellow roared up his throat, muffled with his arm over his face. Teeth sank into his meaty biceps, even as his back arched off the bed with the force of the orgasm.
He lay there a moment, chest heaving. The air was thick with their two mixed scents—an intensely satisfying combination.
The fantasy had been so real, but now the room felt emptier than it had before.
Chapter Nine
How was the picnic, milady?” Darling placed Lottie’s pearl necklace and earbobs in their velvet-lined case.
Lottie wrinkled her nose. “Mr. Montague seems thrilled with a match between us, but my intuition says encouraging him wouldn’t be wise.”
“He’s certainly a fancy piece to look at.”
“Oh, no doubt he’s attractive. I admit, when he touched me, I considered going along with Father’s plans. Then he started talking and ruined it.”
“Touched you?” Darling raised a brow. “What kind of picnic was this?”
Lottie chuckled. “Don’t get your hackles up. Nothing inappropriate happened. When he helped me out of the carriage, he kissed my wrist. Inside, here.” She brushed her skin absently. “Right above the edge of my glove. Agatha was there, so any liberties were minor. He is a gentleman, after all.” A gentleman hell-bent on wooing. She’d tried to steer the conversation toward practical matters, to determine if he was a viable candidate for her plan, but the man’s answers fell firmly in the category of flirtatious lothario. He was like a porcelain figurine—decorative and utterly useless.
“I thought a true gentleman wouldn’t take liberties at all. If there’s one thing I know, it’s men. Don’t expect him to treat you like a lady later if he treats you like a hussy now.”
“How lovely to know I have a friend looking out for my interests,” Lottie teased. “That is wise counsel, although not needed. I don’t plan to spend much more time with him if he won’t answer a few simple questions.”
“You’re decided, then?”
Lottie paused, then shrugged into her dressing gown and tied the ribbons. “The potential is there if he’d let me manage the estate. Lord knows he doesn’t seem to have a head for business.” Sliding her feet into cozy slippers, she contemplated the situation aloud. “After all, I don’t have to like the man—I only have to marry him. He seems to have no interests or abilities beyond a surface level of charm, but a handsome husband wouldn’t be a hardship.” That charm had worn thin by the time they’d finished the picnic. He’d spent the outing drinking the lion’s share of a bottle of champagne while bemoaning the lack of options available to a younger son.
Darling gathered the last items of Lottie’s toilette and put them away. At the door, she turned, with her hands full of laundry. “Perhaps it’s none of my business, but don’t you think you deserve better than that? No matter how handsome, if he can’t offer at least companionship, I’d mark him off your list.”
Lottie sat at the vanity table and picked up her hairbrush. Not because her hair needed attention, but because her hands had a case of the fidgets, and brushing her hair gave her something to do as she mulled over the day.
While Agatha appeared to nap under a nearby tree, doing her best impression of a cat in a sunbeam, Montague had brought up the Paper Doll Princess scandal. Of course he had. She couldn’t escape that stupid moniker. In an unforeseen twist to the conversation, he’d dismissed it, claiming Amesbury had far more to answer for. According to Montague, after several flutes of champagne, Amesbury had almost killed a man. A friend, at that.
Somewhere between gossip and outright fabrication, there could be a kernel of truth to his statement. The implications of that didn’t sit well.
Lord Amesbury might be a bad romantic risk, which she’d learned seven years ago—never mind how appealing he looked framed in a window—but the man wasn’t a threat to anyone’s life. She was sure of that. So where, then, was the truth amidst the fable?
* * *
The next morning dawned, illuminating wet cobblestones. For once, Lady Luck was smiling Ethan’s way, because the groom who’d brought him Ezra had been only a few feet in front of a groom leading a mount for Lady Charlotte. Their horses splashed through puddles as he and Lady Charlotte rode toward the park. Fog lingered along the grassy trails within the park’s gates, lending the quiet space a reverent quality that he preferred not to break.
They’d hardly exchanged a handful of words since meeting on the street and awkwardly setting off in the same direction. Remembering her desire for silence in the morning from their encounter at the inn, he didn’t press for conversation. Since she appeared fully functional, he assumed she’d enjoyed at least one cup of tea already. The habit she wore fit snug as a glove, showing her assets in such a way that rational thought and blood flow left his brain for a second every time he looked at her—and he couldn’t stop looking. The modiste responsible deserved a hug and his eternal gratitude. Every curve of her body showed to perfection.
A small satchel he’d slung crosswise over his body contained a pair of breakfast pastries he’d packed for himself. Witho
ut a word, he offered one to Lady Charlotte, leaning his body as far over in his saddle as his balance would allow to pass the warm bread.
Another five minutes passed before she broke the silence. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He cleared his throat, not entirely sure what to say.
Before he came up with a conversational gambit, she said, “I have two orders of business to discuss. Have you something to write with in that satchel?”
“I do.” They drew to a stop, and he dug out a scrap of paper and a pencil.
“Write this down. I sent a query yesterday, and the messenger returned with a reply. Wallace Macdonell, the brewmaster I told you about, is expecting to hear from you.”
Grinning, Ethan scribbled notes as she rattled off the man’s direction and pertinent details. By God, the lass had followed through with her offer to help. Not a moment too soon, because Connor’s missive this morning pressed for a return date and news about the search for a brewmaster. Every day delayed, every setback they’d experienced was money wasted. Frankly, he didn’t have the funds to throw pound notes into the wind like that. He clutched the precious piece of paper. “Thank you, lass. This means a great deal.”
“Don’t thank me yet. The next order of business is more personal. I heard a bit of disturbing news about you yesterday.”
That didn’t bode well. “Sounds ominous. Gossiping about me, were you?”
She raised a brow his way, as painfully beautiful as she’d been in his dreams last night. “I think it’s safe to say we share a mutual disdain for gossip. However, these allegations are dire enough that they deserve an answer.”
“Dire, eh? Yet you helped me with Mr. Macdonell’s information. I’m touched,” he said, hand over his heart.
Any Rogue Will Do Page 9
