Lady Charlotte's First Love

by Anna Bradley

  “What have you done to Charlotte, Jules?”

  Julian looked up from the sideboard to find Cam in the study doorway, his face grim.

  “Done? Why, nothing you haven’t asked me to do, cuz.” He splashed a generous finger of whiskey into his glass and held it aloft in a mock salute. “To Lady Hadley’s health. Care for a drink?”

  “It’s not yet noon. A bit early for whiskey, don’t you think?”

  “No.” Julian tipped the glass to his lips and downed the contents in one swallow. “I don’t. I need as much whiskey as I can get to survive Lady Chase’s picnic this afternoon.”

  Cam raised an eyebrow and closed the study door behind him. “Is there any other reason you feel a need for whiskey with your breakfast? Guilty conscience, perhaps?”

  “Ah. I see the problem.” Drops of whiskey spilled onto Julian’s wrist as he tilted his glass in the direction of the hallway. “Lady Hadley has arrived, and she’s rushed upstairs to bend Ellie’s ears with tales of my wickedness.”

  Except they weren’t tales. Charlotte had no need for lies. The truth was wicked enough. Cam hadn’t asked him to hound Charlotte’s every step, or lie to her friends, or snatch her jewels in a gaming hell wager, and he’d damn well never asked Julian to hold her, to touch her and taste her…

  Her skin still makes my fingertips ache with want, and her sighs are still the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.

  Julian sloshed another generous measure of liquor into his glass. More whiskey. Yes, that was a good idea.

  Cam crossed the room, replaced the stopper in the whiskey decanter, and shoved it to the back of the sideboard. “No. She didn’t mention you.”

  Julian snorted. “Not until you left the room.”

  “Amelia is with them now. Neither of them will say a word about you in front of her.” Cam’s eyes narrowed on Julian’s face. “I can’t tell whether you look relieved or disappointed to find you’re not foremost in Charlotte’s thoughts this morning.”

  “Indifferent.”

  Furious. He thought if he kept the taste of whiskey in his mouth, he could forget her taste, the way his tongue had traced her neck, seeking that tart sweetness, but no matter how much whiskey he poured down his throat, he couldn’t drown her.

  “That’s a great deal of whiskey for a man’s who’s indifferent.”

  Julian shoved away from the sideboard and threw himself into his chair with a scowl. When had Cam become so bloody observant? “You accused me just now of—how did you put it? Doing something to her. Why should you think I did anything if Charlotte didn’t say a word about me?”

  “She didn’t need to.” Cam sank into his own chair opposite Julian’s. “I could see something was wrong just by looking at her.” He paused, his fingers in a steeple under his chin. “She looks drained, but she’s strangely agitated at the same time. Ellie and I are concerned, so I repeat—what did you do to her?”

  Not five seconds ago he’d wanted confirmation of her misery, but now that he had it, Julian’s heart kicked against his ribs in protest. Damn it. He hadn’t meant to touch her last night, but first Devon’s name had dropped from her lips one too many times, and then…

  And then she’d made me feel.

  What had she meant when she said there was nothing left of her to ruin? Nothing left to save? It made sense to assume she was referring to her tarnished reputation, but something about her face when she’d said it…

  It was more than that. Worse than that.

  “Jules?”

  Julian dragged his attention back to Cam. “What did I do to her? Jesus, Cam. You wanted her out of London. How exactly did you think it was going to happen? Did you suppose she’d simply skip off to Bellwood if I asked politely?”

  “No, but we trusted you to make it happen without hurting her. We want to help her, Jules, not punish her.” Cam ran a rough hand through his hair. “We thought you and Charlotte might… Well, it hardly matters now. This was a mistake.”

  Julian stared at his cousin. “You thought Charlotte and I might what, Cam?”

  “It doesn’t matter now—”

  Julian slammed his glass down on the table. “You thought Charlotte and I would fall in love again and live happily ever after? Bloody hell, Cam. You’re a bit old for fairy tales, aren’t you? I told you. I’m betrothed. Or at least I was. By now Jane will have read the scandal sheets and decided to jilt me.”

  Cam flinched. “Has she said anything in her letters?”

  “No, but it’s only a matter of time. This business with Charlotte needs to end.”

  “I see that, but it needs to be done gently. Christ, if you knew what she’s been through—”

  “No!” Julian shot to his feet. “I told you, I don’t want to know. It will make a mess of things.”

  It was too late, though, like slamming closed Pandora’s Box after the demons had already escaped. He’d already begun dreaming of her, and last night when he touched her, kissed her, the memories came flooding back—the way her scent was more intense in the warm hollows of her body, the silk of her skin under his fingertips. She hadn’t been the only one trembling with desire.

  When he looked at her—at her red lips and dark eyes—that most primal part of him, that animal part of him, it…wanted. Her mouth open under his, her dark hair spilling over his hands. His body craved hers the way an addict’s craved opium. Ignorant to logic or reason, it hungered for the very thing that would destroy it, and once the body became diseased, the mind would follow. If he let his desire for Charlotte poison his body again, all his plans—to wed Jane, to make amends to Colin—would disappear in a cloud of opium smoke.

  Cam was staring at him. “I realize you and Charlotte have a complicated past, but my God, Julian, you’re so cold. I hardly recognize you.”

  Julian looked away. No. Cam wouldn’t recognize him, because he wasn’t Julian, the man whose entire world had turned on one of Charlotte’s smiles. He was Captain West now. Captain West, the man he’d become after Charlotte discarded him to marry Hadley. The man who’d held on to his limbs but left everything else behind on a muddy field in Belgium. The man who’d traded his humanity for his own private Pandora’s Box, except the demons inside him were deeper, more sinister.

  The man who’d left Colin to die alone on a battlefield.

  London’s conquering hero.

  Cam rose to his feet. “You’re still our best chance to get Charlotte to leave London, but I regret asking for your help, and I’ll be relieved when this is done. I don’t trust you anymore, Julian.”

  Julian sucked in a stunned breath. He and Cam had squabbled as children, and blacked each other’s eyes as boys. They’d wrestled and argued, hurled insults and resorted to fisticuffs more times than Julian could count, but never once, in all that time, had his cousin ever said he didn’t trust him.

  His anguish must have shown on his face, because no sooner did the words leave Cam’s mouth than he rushed to take them back. “I beg your pardon, Julian. I didn’t mean—”

  But he did mean it. He’d said it, he meant it, and it was too late now to pretend otherwise. “It’s time to leave for Lady Chase’s picnic. I’ll wait for Lady Hadley in the carriage.”

  “Julian, wait—”

  Julian closed the study door behind him.

  * * * *

  “But I don’t understand. Didn’t you already accept Lady Chase’s invitation?”

  Charlotte stared out Ellie’s bedchamber window at the lawn stretched out below her, a lovely uniform green, velvety and lush, perfectly groomed. Perfectly empty. Had it been only last week she’d watched Amelia playing at bowls from this very window?

  “I’m sorry, Charlotte. You’ll have to give her our regrets. It’s far too hot for me to be out in the sun all afternoon. Cam doesn’t like it, and to be honest, dear, I don’t feel up to it.”

 
Well. There wasn’t much she could say to that, was there? Charlotte braced her palms against the windowsill and touched her forehead to the glass. It was an unseasonably humid day, and it felt hot against her skin. “I don’t like to go alone.”

  Ellie joined her at the window. “But you’re not going alone. Julian will escort you.”

  Julian. Charlotte bit back a bitter laugh. The toast of London, and the only man in England who could save her from herself, or so the scandal sheets would have it. She’d managed to slip his grasp last night with Devon’s help, but there would be no escape today.

  Charlotte turned from the window to face her sister. “A picnic, of all things. Whatever possessed Lady Chase to have a picnic in London in the middle of July? Someone or other is sure to swoon in this heat.”

  Ellie gave her a hopeful look. “London will be intolerably hot for the rest of the summer, I imagine. Won’t you come to Bellwood with us? You can send a note to Lady Chase excusing yourself from the picnic today so you can ready yourself to leave. I don’t like you to be alone in London—”

  “The carriage is ready, Lady Hadley.” Ellie’s lady’s maid bustled into the room looking harried, and saved Charlotte from having to refuse her sister yet again. “Captain West is waiting for you in the drive.”

  “Thank you. Come now, Ellie. I won’t have you worry about me.” Charlotte gritted her teeth and forced herself to smile. “I’m hardly alone in London, after all. I daresay Captain West won’t let me out of his sight.”

  Ellie looked anxious still, but rather than argue she gave Charlotte’s arm a reassuring squeeze and turned to follow her maid out of the bedchamber. Charlotte trailed after them, down the stairs and into the entrance hall. The front door was open and Julian stood on the drive, waiting for her.

  Ellie pressed her cool cheek against Charlotte’s. “Promise me—” she began, but then she hesitated, and instead of finishing the sentence she simply wrapped her arms around Charlotte in a tight hug.

  Charlotte’s heart gave a miserable thump. Ellie didn’t even bother to ask for promises anymore, for she knew Charlotte wouldn’t make her one.

  Couldn’t make her one.

  “Your carriage awaits, Lady Hadley, as does Lady Chase.”

  Charlotte had to fight not to bury her face in her hands as sudden exhaustion overwhelmed her. Lady Chase’s picnic was challenge enough, but an afternoon alone with Julian, with his hard eyes watching her every move… Dear God, she couldn’t do it. Not now, when her chest ached with an inexplicable emptiness. By tonight she’d have gathered the pieces of herself and stitched them together again, and she’d be ready to laugh and dance and flirt like the wickedest of widows, but not today—

  “You look as if you’re about to beg off.” Julian’s voice was cold. “Are you ill, my lady, or does London no longer agree with you?”

  Charlotte straightened her shoulders. No. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of crying off. It was a picnic, for pity’s sake. She only had to make it through the afternoon. She’d go, without her friends, without Devon, and with blasted Julian West as her escort, and she’d do it with dignity, even if it killed her.

  “I have no intention of begging off, Captain. I’m ready to go when you are.”

  Neither of them seemed to have a word to say to each other once they were alone in the carriage. Charlotte settled back against the squabs, closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on shoring up what little energy she had for the afternoon ahead, but when they were halfway to Lady Chase’s house, Julian broke the silence. “That was a neat trick you served me at Lady Tallant’s rout last night.”

  Charlotte opened her eyes to find his gaze narrowed on her face, his expression grim. “What’s the matter, Captain? Didn’t you enjoy your conversation with Lady Euston and Mrs. Barrington? No? Well, think of it as another heroic service to England, then.”

  He stiffened as soon as the word heroic left her lips, and Charlotte felt a moment of uneasy triumph before she chastised herself for goading him. Whatever challenge she threw down he’d snatch up, and she didn’t have the strength for a duel right now.

  His lips curled in a humorless smile. “Tell me, Lady Hadley. How did Devon manage to hide you from me for the rest of the evening?”

  She shrugged. “Even a condemned criminal occasionally slips the noose.”

  “Not without help, but then criminals are like rats—where there’s one, there’s a dozen. Still, you only needed the help of one criminal last night, and I presume you got it.”

  Despite her efforts to avoid another altercation with Julian, she could see he was already on the edge of furious. His body vibrated with anger. “You speak as if you truly believe you have a right to know about my affairs, Captain.”

  “I have every right. Your family has given me that right. Now answer me.”

  She held his gaze. If she answered him now it was as good as admitting she owed him an explanation, and once she’d given him one it wouldn’t end there. In spite of her exhaustion, her chin rose in the air. “No. I don’t think I will. I haven’t given you any such right. I’ve told you before, Captain. I’m a widow, not a debutante still under my family’s control. I’ll do what I wish.”

  “Even if what you wish will be the ruin of you? My God, your heart must be encased in ice to scorn those who try to help you.”

  “Do you believe yourself to be among that number?” She dragged in a long, shaky breath, but her heart continued its furious thrashing inside her chest. “Ever the hero, aren’t you? Had you been anyone else I might have believed you truly wanted to help me.” She shook her head. “I can’t understand how Ellie and Cam don’t see it.”

  His eyes glittered, dark and dangerous in his pale face. “See what?”

  “What a liar you are now.” She spoke quietly, but her words seemed to echo around them. “Maybe I see it because I loved you once. Maybe that’s the difference.”

  “Not enough. You didn’t love me enough.” Each word sounded hoarse, raw, as if he’d scraped them one by one from his throat.

  The pain in his voice made hot tears press behind her eyes, but she blinked them back. “Oh, I did. I couldn’t have loved you more, but now I think on it you lied to me then, too. Perhaps you haven’t changed so much, after all. Perhaps you were always a liar.”

  His face went paler still, but he didn’t say a word.

  “I shouldn’t have trusted you then. If I hadn’t, maybe… But it’s too late for regrets. I don’t trust you now, and I won’t ever trust you again. No matter how much you insist you want to help me, I will always know it’s a lie. Hear me, Captain. I will not account to you or anyone else for my actions.”

  His voice was soft when it came at last. “I saw you slip into the dark garden with Devon last night, and you never came back the rest of the evening.”

  Charlotte only shrugged, but heat scalded her cheeks. “Well, what if I did? What of it?”

  His eyes had gone black with some powerful emotion, but his voice was still a whisper as he leaned closer to her. “I don’t know why I’m surprised at it. You have a history of similar behavior, don’t you, Lady Hadley?”

  Charlotte froze, her heart crashing in painful thumps against her ribs. When he said a history, surely he didn’t mean…their history? “I—what do you mean?” Her voice sounded small in the sudden tense quiet of the carriage.

  “I think you know.” His eyes glittered strangely, and his black gaze never left her face. “At one time I was fortunate enough to be the recipient of your attentions in a dark garden. Ah, well. Perhaps it will work out better for Devon than it did for me. He is an earl, after all.”

  The fight drained out of Charlotte then, quickly, like blood pouring from a wound, and her body went limp against the carriage seat. She reached out to grasp the door, the edge of her seat, her shaking hand groping for purchase, for anything solid to stop the di
zzying blur in front of her eyes, the roar inside her ears.

  Their night in the garden—she’d fallen in love with Julian that night, and despite what they’d become, despite the anger and resentment between them, she’d cupped that memory in her palms, held on to the magic of that night as precious, as a moment she could look back upon as one thing, amidst all her mistakes, she’d done right.

  Even after all that happened afterwards, she’d never regretted that night.

  Until now.

  In a few cruel words he’d made it ugly, tawdry, reduced it to nothing more than a careless grope in a dark garden between two people who should have known better. For him, perhaps that was all it had been, or perhaps despite what it had once meant to him, that was all it was now. The present had a way of tarnishing the past, changing it, just as the past had a way of destroying the future.

  “This ends here, Julian.” Her voice was a whisper. “Whatever promise you’ve made my family, break it. Leave my friends alone. Leave me alone.”

  A long, fraught silence fell. “If I refuse? What then, Lady Hadley?”

  “As of last night, you no longer have a choice.”

  He didn’t ask her what she meant. He might have—he might have said any number of things, done any number of things, but perhaps he could see it was futile. He fell back against the squabs, and though he didn’t speak a word he continued to watch her, his dark eyes filled with some emotion she hadn’t seen in them before. Was it regret?

  You no longer have a choice.

  Had her words been for him, or for herself? She didn’t know, but it made no difference. He didn’t have a choice, and neither did she. Not anymore. Weeks ago Devon had made her an offer. Last night she’d made her choice, and that choice put her out of Julian’s reach for good.

  Regret. What a useless emotion. No matter how much one might wish to, one couldn’t change the past.

  Charlotte closed her eyes again.

  One couldn’t even change the present.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lady Chase’s guests flitted around Julian in a confusing wash of colors and chatter while he remained frozen in their midst, the argument he’d had with Charlotte echoing over and over again in his head until his chest was so tight he could hardly draw a breath.