“Ah, and there is Miss Darby.”
Charlotte looked over where the duke was pointing. Miss Darby, wearing a turban of the height of fashion, was waiting, unbridled excitement splashed across her features.
Charlotte smiled. There was truly no guile in Miss Darby, no need to guess her affections, and if John could be relied upon to speak when necessary, she had the feeling her chaperoning duties would soon be over.
It took Miss Darby no time to be helped into the curricle beside John, and they set off into the bustle of Bath at a gentle pace.
John must have said something, for Miss Darby threw back her head and laughed.
Charlotte swallowed. “I must say, Your Grace, I…”
“William.” He gave her a wry smile. “I think a duke and the daughter of a duke can have a more relaxed approach to names. After all, I call you Charlotte.”
“You should call me Lady Charlotte,” she corrected, her hands clasped in her lap and face resolutely facing forward, watching the other curricle.
“Not always.”
“You do know the rules of propriety dictate I should address you with nothing but Your Grace when I am with you, and the Duke of Mercia when I am not?”
“And? Do you think I have lived by the rules all my life? You know my history, Charlotte. I have had this millstone of a title a few years. Why not call me what my mother chose for me? Besides, I like the name William. Don’t you?”
It was overwhelmingly hot in the curricle, but Charlotte had no way of rearranging herself, so she was not pushed close against him. Besides, it was rather intoxicating, the thought of calling this man by his first name. As though he was not a duke. As though he had no power over her.
She swallowed. This went against everything she had been taught. Obligation forced her to speak. “Fine. William, I must apologize you are not with Miss Darby, or another young, pretty thing. I am sure that was who this curricle was intended for.”
William shrugged. “To be frank, I would rather be with you.”
She snorted and covered her mouth with her hand.
Her companion laughed as they turned the corner to Milsom Street. “You do not believe me. Why not?”
“I am past my prime,” she responded without any hint of self-compassion. “It is clear my time as the giggling girl in the first curricle is over, though to tell the truth, I did not experience it much. No, at my time of life, it is right and proper to be the chaperone, and I am happy to be.”
It was probably the least bitter speech she had ever made about her chaperoning life, and Charlotte was pleased to have managed it.
But William was evidently unconvinced. “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Happy to be a chaperone,” he said baldly, beholding her with those fierce eyes.
Charlotte’s fingers fidgeted. How was it possible that this gentleman could pull the truth from her? “Not particularly, no.”
He snorted, and she could not help but look up. “Then why in God’s name do it? You are more than capable of catching the attention of a gentleman, after all. You are doing it right now.”
Was it possible to be any hotter?
She cleared her throat. “I do not want to discuss this with anyone.”
“No, you do not,” he said, far more serious. “But if not with me, then who else? I am neither brother nor intimate, and I will not judge you nor laugh at you.”
She hesitated. It was tempting to pour her heart out, but how could she trust him? She barely knew him. What if her words found their way into the gossip pages of the local rag?
She forced her fingers to stop moving. If not now, then when? If not him, then who?
“It feels…” She coughed but continued as William smiled. “It feels as though I am being left behind.”
He shrugged. “I do not see how.”
“Well, of course, you don’t, you are a gentleman!” she snapped, temper rising. “Gentlemen marry at any age, and there is no comment on it whatsoever. But for ladies… most of my peers have children of their own nearing fourteen, and in a few years, they themselves will be eligible for a match.”
“And that bothers you?”
She hesitated again. It was madness to be revealing her deepest thoughts to this gentleman, and in an open curricle, too! But there was something about him. Something made her trust him.
“More so with each passing year. You see other people fall in love. They meet someone they have never known before, and all of a sudden, the rest of the world doesn’t matter anymore, only each other,” she said wistfully. “They find their perfect partner, the one person who they can spend their life with. And then there’s me.”
William watched her, but Charlotte found she did not feel embarrassed. Then he nodded sagely. “Truth be told, I am informed my title needs another heir—poor John isn’t sufficient—and I had resigned myself to it and carried out those required steps to meet with the ladies of society. But since I have found you, that search has been…intolerable.”
Heat rushed to Charlotte’s cheeks as she blustered, “Come now, Your Grace—William. You cannot be serious.”
Surely, he could not, for who would even consider her as a potential mother at her age? She tried not to look at him as they sped down a slope, hoping the breeze would cool her face.
“Why not?”
Before she knew it, a hand was placed on her thigh. It seared her skin as though his touch was a brand, as though he was marking her for his own. She gasped at the intensity of the sensation.
“What you have forgotten, Charlotte,” William said in a low voice, dripping with desire, “is though you are acting as a chaperone for Miss Darby, no one is acting as a chaperone for you.”
Impossible to think clearly, she tried to ignore the weight of his fingers curled around her thigh in that delightful way.
“I do not need a chaperone—oh!”
She had only managed to say a few words before she was overcome as William lightly stroked her inner leg. Her whole body was on fire, the flames starting wherever his fingers touched. Even through the material of her gown, every caress seared.
Charlotte breathed, “You cannot do that.”
William’s other hand was still guiding the horses, and he was able to manage them while touching her in such a wonderful, terrible way.
He chuckled. “You can stop me anytime you wish, Charlotte. You have hands. Stop me if you don’t like it.”
But she was glorying in this feeling, shivering under his touch, and she wanted it to continue—and yet she had to stop him, this was too wild, too rebellious!
With a great effort of will, her hand met his with the intention of moving it, but he was stronger than she was—or perhaps she did not wish him to stop.
Charlotte moaned aloud as he continued to explore her leg with gentle strokes, unable to restrain herself, unable to slow the beating of her heart.
“William,” she whispered, unsure what she was going to say next.
“William, we have to turn back!”
Charlotte jolted at the sound and saw John leaning back in his curricle.
“Why?” William called, his hand still placed heavily on her thigh.
“It looks like rain, and these curricles are no match for strong wind,” John called back. “We cannot have Miss Darby and Lady Charlotte drenched through. We will have to return them home.”
Charlotte was still catching her breath as William turned to her and whispered, “I think I would quite like you wet, Charlotte. What do you say?” Without waiting for her response, he shouted back to his brother, “Fine by me, John, lead the way.”
As the curricles turned right at the next opportunity, William removed his hand to steer the horses.
“I-I do not know,” she said shakily, “how you have the audacity to…to touch me like that.”
“I wanted to touch you like that,” William shot back. “I have wanted to touch you since I saw you seated on that piano stool. If anything, I
think I should be applauded for waiting so long.”
She spluttered, unsure what to say.
“More importantly,” he said with a wicked smile, “don’t you want to be touched?”
She stared open-mouthed, and his grin broadened. How could he possibly know what pleasure his fingers gave her, how alive her body had felt in those moments, more alive than any other time in her life.
“Now then, before I return you to the safety of your home,” William said, all intensity gone, “I have an invitation to make to you. I am attending Braedon’s ball tomorrow, and I would like you to accompany me.”
Charlotte sagged in the curricle, relieved to return to normality. Rain started to drizzle down, causing shrieks from young ladies on the pavement, their hands reaching for their bonnets. “Of course. Who will I be chaperoning?”
A frown creased his forehead. “No one. I am inviting you as my guest.”
It was the last response she had expected. Invited as his guest? She could not remember the last time that had happened.
She imagined entering a room filled with candles and noisy guests who fell silent at the sight of her on the arm of such a handsome man. Even in her mind, someone pointed at her and laughed. There was chatter from a corner and a snort, which was shushed.
Charlotte stiffened as the curricle pulled up outside her home. It was pouring with rain now; John had been correct in his guess at the changing weather.
She would not make a laughingstock of herself and could not attend a ball with someone who made her feel things she could not explain.
“No, thank you,” she said abruptly.
Opening the door to the curricle, she did not wait for William to descend and help her down. The front door was already being opened by Matthews, and she almost made it inside without another word from the handsome duke.
“Charlotte.”
Just her name was enough to make her stop and turn around. How did he have such power over her?
He was still seated in the curricle, and there was a look of disappointment across on his face.
“You do know your refusal makes me even more determined to win you, don’t you?” He grinned as his gaze flickered over her body. Laughing, he pulled away, shouting behind him, “Until the ball!”
Chapter Six
William bowed and hoped to God the boring young woman before him had not noticed his stifled yawn.
“…which was what I said to her, yet she clearly had not listened, for when I saw her today…”
Was this ball never-ending? He had been forced to accept the invitation, as he always had since taking this godforsaken title.
How much easier things were when he had been Major Lennox. If he had not wished to attend a ball, he had not. If he did not wish to speak to a person or listen to them drone on about something which did not capture his interest, he could mutter an apology and leave.
But now he was a duke, always on the edge of offending someone by not laughing at the right time, or nodding after a certain phrase, or praising a particular person. It was intolerable, this continuous need to keep society happy.
“…for the mistake was entirely his own, and he did understand this when I pointed it out…”
Another yawn was forced down as William’s eyes glazed. He was trapped in conversation with a young woman who may have been Miss Jones or Miss Jane, he could not remember which, and her mother.
If he had known how utterly dull this ball was going to be, he would not have come. Or at least he would have spent more than five seconds attempting to construct an excuse. Perhaps he should have done so the moment Lady Charlotte rejected him.
The memory of stroking her thigh in the curricle as she quivered under his touch sparked in his mind. A wicked grin crept over his face.
It was the slightest of touches. His manhood throbbed painfully at the thought of being the first man to make Charlotte cry out with ecstasy, those dark lashes fluttering.
“…do not you think?”
Miss Jones stared. Uncomfortably jolted back to the present, William opened his mouth with little thought of what he would say.
“I am sure, Your Grace agrees,” said the mother. She was smiling indulgently at her daughter as though she was the most incredible thing she had ever seen.
William tried not to sigh. Was it possible to have an interesting conversation at all? Bath was absolutely packed full of people, but the only person who had spoken any sense to him since he had arrived was Charlotte.
“I do indeed agree,” he said hastily.
Miss Jones looked delighted, a delicate flush gracing her cheeks. Her mother looked between the two of them with a satisfied nod.
“Come, Jane,” she said. “We must not monopolize His Grace’s time. If we stay talking with him much longer, there will be gossip about the two of you!”
Mother and daughter dropped into low curtseys, Miss Jones tilting her shoulders to allow him a deeper look down her gown, and they were gone.
William blew out a breath. What a harridan! And yet, she had been no different, truth be told, than half a dozen of the other young ladies who had moved toward him as though stalking him in the wild.
His gaze fell on the dancers, watching them lazily. He had always heard such good reports of Braedon’s balls, but this one was the slowest he had ever attended.
He was no fool. Painful as it was to admit, if Charlotte—Lady Charlotte, he must call her that in company—had agreed to accompany him, he would have enjoyed the evening.
The moment she had refused him, he had been plagued with twin feelings of frustration and longing. How could she deny him after tantalizing her so? How could he find so little joy here because one woman was absent?
How strange that she could have such power over him so quickly.
The music ended, and the dancers bowed and curtseyed, moving away to their respective parties, leaving him a clear view of Charlotte seated on the other side of the room.
William’s breath caught in his throat. So, she had rejected him but attended anyway—the minx! Her blue gown looked worn, washed so frequently it had become gray, and she was wearing no jewels or feathers of any kind.
None of this prevented her from being the most beautiful woman in the room.
Something jolted in his stomach, and William unconsciously brought his hand up as though he had been physically punched. It wasn’t lust, but it was damn close.
She was speaking to a young woman and had not noticed him at all. Excitement flared as he began to stride across the ballroom floor.
“Your Grace, this is a fine meeting!” Miss Emma Tilbury greeted him with a wicked smile, one which had already felled a duke or two, but William had not taken his eyes from Charlotte. She looked up, saw him coming, and flushed. With embarrassment? With pleasure?
It did not matter. She had seen him and reacted.
Before he reached her, Charlotte rose elegantly. It was not until then that he realized his heart was pounding.
“Charlotte,” he said breathlessly, cursing himself silently for sounding like a fool.
“Your Grace, have you had the pleasure of being introduced to Lady Letitia Cavendish?”
She extended her hand gracefully to indicate the woman who had been seated beside her, who had jumped to her feet, pink with embarrassment.
William blinked. This had not been the conversation he had expected, and though blindsided by the introduction, he was not fool enough to miss the name. Lady Letitia Cavendish. A relation of the Duke of Devonshire, then.
He sighed. Decorum, propriety, elegance. All that was expected of him now, as a member of this elite club, which seemed to create rules for the simple pleasure of enforcing them.
“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Your Grace.” Lady Letitia curtsied awkwardly, evidently unsure where to look.
William’s face softened. The poor girl was crippled with shyness, that much was evident. This ball was probably more of a punishment than a pleasure.
He had thought, foolishly, she would not refuse him in public and certainly not before her friend.
“No, thank you, Your Grace,” she said quietly, her eyes unwavering. “I have no wish to dance this evening. Besides, I am accompanying Lady Letitia and have no wish to leave her side.”
The flush tinging her cheeks did nothing to soften the irritation in William. This was a new experience for him: a refusal.
When a major, women were interested in him because of his uniform but would not consider him a serious suitor. He may have bedded them, but he had not bothered to pursue them. After he was made Duke of Mercia, ladies became far more interested in his person.
But Lady Charlotte was different. She was not impressed. So, what would tip the scales for her, deeds?
“You forget, Lady Charlotte,” he said carefully. “I am a soldier. I am used to waiting out the enemy.”
“I am well stocked for a siege,” she countered. “Perhaps you had better rethink your tactics.”
“I know no other.” William grinned. “And I am more than willing to stick by your side the entire evening, to track you, waiting for the right moment to strike. Are you ready to spend the entirety of the night with me at your side?”
She smiled and looked at him intently. William found his breath stuck in his throat until she replied quietly, “Well then. To avoid a war, I had better surrender.”
His grin widened. Could she be thinking of their encounter in the curricle?
“Lady Letitia, may I introduce you to Mrs. Coulson?” Charlotte was saying to her charge, deftly handing her responsibility as chaperone over to a matronly woman who nodded sagely. “Mrs. Coulson, Lady Letitia Cavendish.”
The older woman moved to take Charlotte’s place beside the younger lady. He watched the transition with his heart thumping. Even in the midst of her own story, she ensured her duty was performed.
Always the Chaperone Page 5
