He thrummed his thumb over the top of her slit, and it was as if he had punched her with pleasure.
Charlie gasped.
“Oh lud! Chanderley, not again!” she protested breathlessly. “I will surely die if you do this again! And you might die, too, judging from the look of your manly member.”
Chuckling, he slid his fingers out of her and came over her on his hands and knees, looking for all purposes like sleek, big jungle cat. “My dear Charlie.” He took her mouth in a short, heated kiss. “I can assure you that I will surely die if we don’t do this.”
“Oh,” she said. “Then it is supposed to look like this? How extraordinary!”
The sound he made was part laughter, part groan. “God, you’re adorable!” He kissed her again. She felt him positioning himself and then that part of his, hot and pulsing, slid against her. The kiss went on and on, his arms holding her close, while he pressed inside her.
Charlie freed her mouth, gasping. “Chanderley, I hate to tell you this, but this is not exactly pleasurable. I distinctly recall you saying something about drowning me in pleasure. Well, you already did, I suppose—”
“Patience,” he said, and rocked against her. And again. And then he shifted his hips a little and—
“Oh!”
“Good girl.” He bussed her cheek. “Does it hurt?”
“Oh goodness, no! Oh Chanderley!” She felt the urgent need to lift her legs and wrap them around him. “Oh, George this is—”
He came up on his hands, looming above her, as he started to move in and out of her.
“—rather marvellous,” Charlie gasped. And it was. The pleasure was different this time. There were so many more levels of it! Not just the lightning bolt that shot through her body whenever his flesh rubbed over that particular spot, but there was also the amazing feeling of him inside her. The heat of his body above her. The feeling of his sweat-slicked skin under her fingers as they gripped his upper arms and then dug into his shoulders. There were his groans and gasps. The way his whole body jerked when she found out she could tighten her inner muscles around him. The way he moaned her name against the side of her throat, his breath searingly hot against her skin; how he seemed to completely lose control over himself then, his movements becoming frantic as he pounded into her.
The knowledge that she could make him lose his restraint like this was sweet. He did what she had told him: to do whatever he wanted, and he obviously trusted she would be strong enough to come with him on this wild journey.
But perhaps the biggest part of the pleasure was the feeling in her heart as they held each other close while they reached the pinnacle, the overwhelming love she felt for this man who sobbed his pleasure in her arms.
Afterwards, he wrapped them in a blanket and cuddled her close, and, arms and legs intertwined, they fell asleep.
~*~
Charlie woke with a start.
A glance out of the window showed her that while there was still time left for her, their glorious afternoon together had most definitely come to an end.
Behind her she could hear Chanderley’s even breaths, and his arm still lay heavily around her, keeping her close even in sleep.
For a moment, tears threatened—but determinedly, she battled them down. She had no time for that.
Slowly, carefully, she slid out from under his arm and left the bed. She collected her clothes that lay strewn across the whole room, bearing testimony to the passion that had held them in its grip.
Again her sight blurred.
She shook her head, then turned to look at Chanderley one last time.
Adieu! adieu! my only life,
My honour calls me from thee…
Only it wasn’t her honour which called her from him, but his honour which made staying for her impossible.
She dressed in the anteroom, and quietly, quietly, slipped out of the flat, her carpet bag in hand. She collected her travelling chest from the porter’s lodge, and then turned towards the city to catch the mail coach at the Bull and Mouth in Aldergate Street.
~*~
Miss Carlotta Stanton to Emma-Louise Brockwin, by Two-penny Post
My dear Emma-Lee,
by the time you read this letter, I will already be on my way to Scotland. I have learnt that my aunt wishes me to be out of the house at the end of this Season & has already secured a place for me as a governess. I’d rather return to St. Cuthbert’s, dear old St. Cuthbert’s!, and become a teacher there. My life in London is shattered all to pieces. No doubt, the story about the episode in the Park will soon make the rounds, & I’ll be the talk of the ton. No, I cannot remain here. London has been such an unhappy place for me; I feel as if my heart is shattered all to pieces, too.
Ever your loving friend,
C.S.
Chapter 18
in which the seventh heaven of bachelorhood
is invaded by yet another person
of the female persuasion
For the second time in as many weeks the Seventh Heaven of Bachelorhood was being invaded by a female. However, this one did not come in disguise, but with all the regalia of womanhood and a alarmingly booming voice on top of that. She terrorised the unhappy day porter and poked him with her umbrella, until he finally caved in and accompanied her to her nephew’s flat.
Apparently deeming his discreet knock insufficient, she pushed him out of the way and proceeded to bang on the door in a manner that scandalised the porter. To make matters worse, she then opened her mouth and hollered, “George Augustus Griffin, open up this door RIGHT NOW!”—loud enough to make a sea captain envious.
Certainly loud enough to wake up several of the gentlemen in this block, Mr Dalton thought unhappily. Indeed, not a moment after this distressing thought had crossed his mind, Viscount Chanderley’s neighbour—wild-eyed, tousle-haired and still in his nightshirt, with a banyan hastily thrown on—opened his door. “What? What? Is there a fire?” he enquired blearily, before he caught sight of the lady. His mouth dropped open. “I’ll be damned!”
The lady threw him a withering glance that probably pulverised the poor gentleman’s innards. “Young man, if you think it decent to appear in public halfway naked, I have to inform you that you are sadly mistaken. Not even London standards can have lowered this far. As to the tongue you keep in your head—it is obvious that your tutor spared the rod, which is unfortunate, but no concern of mine. So kindly leave us alone and shut your door.”
The young gentleman spluttered. “I…”
“Now!” she snapped, and pointed her umbrella at him, which prompted his hasty retreat. Sniffing disdainfully, she turned to the porter. “What has happened to today’s youth, I ask you? Undisciplined louts, the lot of them—GEORGE! Open up this INSTANT!”
Mr Dalton wondered whether the Heavens would be merciful and open a hole in the ground to swallow him up. Alternatively, the Lord might send a bolt of lightning to strike down the female standing next to him. Though this, he amended hastily, was a most un-Christian thought. Besides, he reckoned that neither the Lord nor the devil would want to be saddled with such a female. No, Mr Dalton resigned himself that should the good Lord send a bolt of lightning, it would most likely hit him.
“GEORGE!”
Which was perfectly fine by him. Really, perfectly fine.
Finally the door opened a slit and my lord’s gentleman’s gentleman carefully poked his nose out. “Ye-hes?” he asked just as carefully.
But the next moment, the woman had pushed the door open and poor Mr Bing aside. “I am not used to conversing with people through wood, my good man. Now, will you kindly inform me whether my nephew is at home.”
Mr Bing exchanged a glance with Mr Dalton. “N-no?” And after a slight hesitation, “My lady.”
She narrowed her basilisk’s eyes at him. “Does that mean, no, he is not physically at home, or no, he doesn’t want to see his aunt?”
“Eh…”
“CHANDERLEY!” she hollered into the flat and
was answered by a faint “What the devil?” from one of the rooms beyond the anteroom.
“Well, that answers my question,” she said in satisfied tones before she turned to Mr Bing. “And you, my dear man, may leave us alone.” With that she pushed him out of the door and shut it firmly behind him, leaving her all alone in the flat with poor Lord Chanderley.
Stupefied, Mr Dalton and Mr Bing looked at each other. Mr Bing gestured towards the door. “Do you think—”
“No,” Mr Dalton cut in hastily. “There’s a nice pot of tea in the porter’s lodge. Would you care for a cup?”
~*~
Inside the flat, meanwhile, Mrs Burnell had located her nephew in his study, where he sat slumped across his desk, a bottle of something or other next to him. “Are you intoxicated, George?” she asked sharply. “You know I cannot abide inebriated men.”
At the sound of her voice, Griff jerked up, regarding her through bleary eyes. For a moment he wondered whether she could possibly be a figment of his imagination. An illusion come to torment him.
If any illusions should be sent to torment he would have thought it would be the sight of the naked—
He caught himself short, stopping the thought by pressing the heels of his hands against his eye sockets.
A certain amount of pain, he had found, stopped thoughts of this nature. Visions of that supple, lithe body, that—
Gad! He probably should hack his own hand off. Now that, perhaps, was the right amount of pain to make him fully forget.
Though somehow he doubted it.
“Chanderley! I am talking to you!”
He let his hands drop. “Aunt Burnell. Yes.” He managed to focus on her, even gave her something that just might resemble a smile. “Dashing good of you to stop by.”
“Nonsense!” she cut him short, giving him one of her crocodile looks. Of the sort that easily cut a man to pieces. “Don’t talk such balderdash. What I want to know is what you have done to her!”
“I beg your pardon?” Griff wondered whether he had missed parts of the conversation.
In the state he was in it was most likely.
Damn.
Not that he was currently drunk or hung over. He felt hung over, but since there had been times when he had drunk much larger quantities of all manners of potent spirits without experiencing the slightest inconvenience on the morning—or whatever—after, he could not be actually hangover.
“Chanderley! Will you kindly attend to me?”
Oh dear.
“Yes, Aunt Burnell.”
The look she gave him this time could have melted stone. “What, I asked, have you done to her?”
“Yes,” he said, trying to win time.
It was, clearly, the wrong thing to say and do. “Heavens, boy, don’t look at me like a ninny!” his aunt exploded. “It makes me positively sick to my stomach! I repeat: What have you done to Miss Stanton?”
Griff felt himself pale. It did not help that his aunt decided this was the right moment to poke him in the chest with her umbrella.
“And don’t give me any flummery about not having done anything. You certainly must have done something—why else would the poor child have left London?”
If his aunt had planted him a facer, the shock could not have been greater. All he could do was echo stupidly, “Left London?” And then, shaking his head, “No.”
A martial glint in her eye, his aunt used her umbrella once more to good effect. “Don’t parrot words in such an idiotish fashion, Chanderley. You know I have no patience for any such foolishness. Now tell me what you have done to make Miss Stanton flee London. She is most certainly no longer living under her relatives’ roof—more abhorrent people I have seldom met, I tell you! I called on her aunt before I came here and she hardly could unbent to give me proper directions. Afraid of the scandal, she says, but you’d be hard to find any person less interested in fetching their ward back home.” She sniffed disdainfully.
“Aunt Burnell,” Griffin forced out between gritted teeth. “What has happened to Miss Stanton?” His voice came out calm enough and gave no indication that the hard thuds of his heart were about to burst his rib cage.
His aunt raised her brows. “Why, Chanderley, it would appear that Miss Stanton has returned to her school in Scotland.” She sniffed again, but this time the disdain was clearly directed towards him. “What I want to know is how you managed to botch this? Weren’t you about to make her an offer? So? What happened?”
Scotland!
Dropping his head forward, he tunnelled his fingers into his hair.
So she had gone.
Back to Scotland.
The despair that sliced through his heart nearly made him gasp.
He would never see her again.
Would never—
“Chanderley!” This time the crocodile of his aunt brought down her umbrella on his knuckles as if he were an errant schoolboy. And she used enough force to make him yelp with the sudden pain. But, to all appearances immune to his sounds of distress, his aunt waved her umbrella under his nose. “Gad, boy! Stop behaving in such an idiotish fashion! I should have expected you to go after her instead of moping around like a beaten dog. I—”
“You don’t know anything, aunt!” he broke in, much too loudly. He also found himself standing, glaring at her. When had he stood up?
He didn’t know.
Agitated, he brushed his hand through his hair. “You cannot possibly know how it is,” he said. His chest was heaving, and he felt as if his head might explode any moment.
Instead of showing signs of uneasiness, his aunt merely narrowed her eyes at him. “Have you quarrelled? Is that it? If so, I suggest you go after her and throw yourself at her feet. A sound dose of grovelling on your part will surely soften her heart.”
Now his aunt of all people had turned into an expert on affairs of the heart? The mere thought was ludicrous! He would have laughed, had he not feared to burst into tears instead.
“No, it’s not that, aunt,” he forced out between gritted teeth.
“What, then?” Her clear blue eyes regarded him steadily.
With a weary sigh he slumped back into his chair. “It would not be a respectable match.” There. It was out. He had said it, even though it felt as if the words, those detestable, treacherous words, were burning a hole in his gut.
“Excuse me?” His aunt’s tone had acquired a distinct chill.
She had met Charlie, he remembered, and Charlie had found favour with the Crocodile. So he would need to explain.
He rubbed his brow.
“Miss Stanton would not have made me a respectable wife,” he said slowly, and felt like a heel. Charlie would have made him a wonderful wife. A wife to treasure forever. He forced himself to continue. “You know that. You must have heard the story of how she shot the highwayman who tried to hold up her and Lady Lymfort. A future viscountess does not walk around with weapons on her person.”
The Hon Mrs George Griffin could have done so.
If his brother had lived; if his sister had not been maimed through his fault; if he did not owe his parents reparations after the scandal and all the pain he had brought them.
If if if…
If he had been worthier of her, he could have made Charlie his. This was what kept him awake at night, what drove him to seek the oblivion of alcohol: it was all his fault, not hers.
His fault that they could not be together.
His fault that she had run away and that he would never see her again.
“Would you have preferred if she had an attack of the vapours instead?” his aunt asked scathingly, seemingly intent on stripping off layers upon layers of his skin. She looked… angry, he realised with some surprise. Murderous, even. “Respectable!” she now spat. “Surely it would have been more respectable had she let this man cut your mother’s throat and hers.”
The image she conjured made Griff flinch. Charlie’s lifeless body, her dress soaked in blood, the gaping wound…
Nausea rolled in his stomach. “Aunt—”
But she was not yet finished. “Oh, but I doubt he would have killed her that fast. She is a pretty girl, after all. Perhaps he would have taken her in the dirt of the road first, having a bit of fun before he would have slit her throat.” She stood, her body quivering with rage. “Would she have made you a respectable viscountess then, Chanderley?” She searched his face, her own eyes as hard and cold as ice. “What a hypocritical bastard you are.” With these words, she turned and made as if to leave.
Hypocritical bastard? At this, Griff’s own temper snapped. Goaded beyond endurance, he growled at her retreating back. “I don’t know what the devil has put you out of countenance like this, ma’am, but you must be well aware that after the blow I dealt them, my parents expect me at least to form a respectable matrimonial connexion.”
She stopped. “Blow? What blow?” she asked, her back still turned towards him.
He gritted his teeth. “I killed my own brother. Or have you forgotten?”
“Nonsense!” She whirled around to glare at him. “You did not kill William. He was quite capable of doing this himself.”
The ghost of a smile lifted a corner of his mouth. “That’s what Carlotta said.”
Cocking her head to one side, she regarded him thoughtfully. “I knew she was an intelligent girl. And she is right, you know. From what I have heard, you were not even in the carriage when the accident occurred.”
He sighed. “But it was mine.” His responsibility.
“That is true,” she conceded. “But William was a terrible whip. He should have known better than to attempt to drive a high phaeton—and take his kid sister. Irresponsible and idiotish.”
William had been a bad whip. As Boo had pointed out, he must have known that the high phaeton, coupled with Griff’s lively greys, would be beyond his abilities.
“He killed the horses, too, did he not?” his aunt cut into his reveries.
“Yes,” he said. Unthinkingly. Instinctively.
Horrified, he clapped his hand over his mouth. “No, I did not mean that,” he finally forced out, his voice hoarse.
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