The Devil Is a Marquess (Rescued from Ruin Book 4) (17 page)

Charlotte sighed, recognizing in his tight-lipped expression the very stubbornness of which he complained. “I will speak to her,” she conceded. “But I must tell you, she is unlikely to listen. Once Viola sets her heart on something—or someone—neither death nor Lady Wallingham can dissuade her.”

The door to the kitchen opened and Esther cleared her throat pointedly. “Ye have another guest.”

“Thank you, Esther. Perhaps you could show the guest to the drawing room.”

“I ain’t yer butler.”

“Yes, I realize that.”

“She followed me. Ye want ’er in the drawing room, take ’er yerself.”

Charlotte blinked. “She?”

The maid grunted and stomped away. In her place appeared Viola Darling, petite and glowing in a sky-blue gown and spencer, a red-rose-adorned bonnet covering her raven hair.

“Charlotte!” Viola cried, gliding forward with her hands outstretched to clasp Charlotte’s.

Charlotte smiled helplessly and embraced the tiny young woman. Viola was like a bright chandelier in a dark room—shining and glittering and bringing with her unrelenting cheer. “What a lovely surprise.”

She gave Charlotte a beaming grin, her vivid blue eyes dancing. “After all you described in your letters, I knew I must see the wondrous changes you have wrought to your new home. It is splendid, Charlotte. Simply splendid.”

“I was just about to show Lord Tannenbrook the new water house—”

Long, black, curling lashes framed dramatically rounded eyes as Viola pretended astonishment. “Lord Tannenbrook?” She peeked around Charlotte’s shoulder at the large lord standing ten feet away. “Oh! I did not notice you there, my lord.”

“Of course you didn’t,” he rumbled. “Nor did you follow me. Nor are you the veriest thorn in my side.” Visibly angered, Tannenbrook paused as he walked past them to glare down into Viola’s lovely face. “Perhaps the next thing you should
not
do is grant me five minutes of blasted peace.”

She blinked, the motion slow and exaggerated. Perhaps it was the eyelashes. “I granted you an hour. Quite generous, in my estimation.”

His jaw tightened, but his only response was to address Charlotte. “Lady Rutherford, your renovations are grand. My thanks for the tour. I fear I must now take my leave. Good day.” He nodded politely, and ignoring Viola, exited the garden through the east gate, toward the stables where his horse awaited.

While Viola watched his broad back disappear inside the brick structure, Charlotte watched her friend’s face. For a moment, longing and vulnerability lay bare, her perfect, bowed lips trembling, her perfect, creamy throat rippling on a hard swallow.

Charlotte placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I am sorry he does not see your worth as I do, Viola. I did try. Perhaps if you gave him a bit of breathing room …”

Viola’s eyes squeezed shut for half a second before her expression cleared. Then she smiled, bright and false. “Nonsense. He will come ’round. He is simply resistant to leaving his everlasting rut. I do not give up so easily.” She winked at Charlotte and waved her hands dismissively. “Enough of that. You must tell me
everything,
dearest Charlotte.”

“Er—well, we could start with the entrance hall, I suppose. It was an utter disaster when I arrived—”

“Not the house, silly. Rutherford.”

“Ch-Chatham?” She felt the red rise as tingling heat in her cheeks. “He is well.”

Viola bounced on her toes, a dance of impatience, and swatted Charlotte’s arm lightly. “You married one of the most scandalous, delicious men in England, and that is all you have to say? ‘He is well’?”

“Very well?”

Perfect lips pursed and impossibly blue eyes narrowed. “You are avoiding the topic. Most intriguing.”

“Not avoiding. Precisely.”

Viola cheerfully looped her arm through Charlotte’s and tugged her in the direction of the kitchen. “Come, then. Show me your grand renovations, and let us speak of delicious men who are quite tolerably well.”

As they entered the crimson drawing room together, Viola gasped and released Charlotte’s elbow to twirl and spin about the room in a graceful fairy dance. “It is marvelous, Charlotte. The color!”

Delighted by the response, a vast improvement over Tannenbrook’s neutral grunt, Charlotte grinned and ran a loving hand over the restored crimson silk wall embellished with a seashell pattern. “Lovely, is it not? It is my favorite room. Except, perhaps, the entrance hall. The staircase, you know. And the dining room. Such intricate moldings.” She continued stroking the silk with sensitive fingertips. “And the master bedchamber, of course,” she murmured. “Perhaps that is my favorite, come to think of it.”

Viola’s tinkling laugh intruded on Charlotte’s thoughts. “You simply
must
tell me about Rutherford, dearest. I shall expire of curiosity if you do not.”

Charlotte jerked her hand away from the silk and tucked it behind her back. “What do you wish to know?”

“Why your cheeks currently match these walls, for a start.”

“I went into the sun without a bonnet.”

“Charlotte.” Dainty hands settled on the back of a primrose sofa. “Tell me about him.”

He is more delicious than you can imagine. A better friend than anyone would have expected. He is sensual and beautiful and occasionally so kind he leaves you speechless. I lie beside him at night and savor his voice and that devastating quirk of his lips. I want him until I cannot bear the ache.

She could not say any of this, because she should not feel any of it. “Chatham is … not as lean or pale as before. You might be surprised by his appearance. He has taken to farming in a most astonishing—”

“Farming?” Again, the tinkling laugh. Then, Viola danced across the room to grasp Charlotte’s hands. “Dearest, I wish to know, has he kissed you?”

“Oh.”

“Well?”

“Er—yes.”

“And was it wonderful?”

Charlotte swallowed. “Yes.”

Viola’s blue eyes gleamed, and she shook Charlotte’s hands demandingly. “Come, now. Describe it.”

“His tongue was a bit of a surprise.”

Her eyes rounded like pansies. “Tongue? As in …”

“Viola, I am not comfortable with this.”

“Very well. Was it pleasurable?”

Remembering the first time he had kissed her, standing on the path between the garden and the stables, recalling every shocking moment, Charlotte could only sigh.

“Oooh, that is all the answer I require, dearest.” She squeezed her hands. “You are wearing the loveliest expression.”

Charlotte pressed her lips together and glanced down at where milky-white fingers clasped her freckled ones. “I should not … he is …”

“You may speak freely. I have told you everything about my Tannenbrook hunt. Well, almost everything. The secrets we have between us shall remain so, upon my honor.”

“He is nigh irresistible,” she whispered. “Literally. I cannot resist him.” Once she began, the confession poured out like wine from an uncorked bottle. “I thought myself immune. I did not like him at first. In London, he was a scandal. Cynical and wicked. Here, on the estate, he changed in ways that are more than his shoulders or his arms, although those are quite … never mind. The point is we are friends, Viola. Real, true friends. I despair if I go too long without seeing him and talking with him and laughing with him, or merely listening to him breathe.” Suddenly, tears sprang up in her eyes. She shook her head and tried to blink them away. “I—I think perhaps I … love him.”

Viola’s response was to squeak and throw her arms around Charlotte.

It felt a bit like hugging a doll to return the embrace, but Charlotte sniffed and patted Viola’s shoulders. “I should not have let myself develop such feelings for him.”

Shoving back to arm’s length, Viola frowned. “Whyever not? You deserve love and happiness.”

“I am leaving. Next year.”

“Stuff and nonsense. You cannot leave now. You are Lady Rutherford, madly in love with Lord Rutherford.”

“I have dreamed of living in America since I was thirteen. You know this.”

Viola shrugged. “Dreams change.”

“But this is what I’ve worked for. Everything I’ve done, all the humiliations I have endured, meeting my father’s demands and saving every coin I could wheedle from Mr. Pegg and his ilk—all of it was aimed at America. If I am to give that up, then what is left of me? Where do I belong?”

“Here! At Chatwick Hall. With your husband.”

“I never wanted to be a wife.”

“But now you are one.” Viola shook her head. “Charlotte, you must decide what you want and pursue it. Perhaps before that was America. Now, it is Rutherford.”

“I do not
fit
here in England. I never did. We—we do not suit, this place and I.”

“How can you say that? Your mother was English. You have lived here most of your life. You even sound English. Goodness, Charlotte, England’s rain runs in your very veins.”

Charlotte shook her head. It was not true. If England was not the problem, then that only left Charlotte as the ill-fitting piece of the puzzle. And that would make every cruel jab from the young bucks and simpering debutantes true—she was too tall, too blunt, too awkward and gangly and unattractive and wrong. Just wrong.
Longshanks Lancaster.
The half-American chit who simply did not fit … anywhere.

Viola read something of her thoughts on her face and rushed to reassure her. “If America is honestly what you want, then you should strive for it. But, dearest Charlotte, you must believe that you
do
fit here in England.”

“I fail to see how.”

Her lips pursed. “You have friends from every corner. First, and most importantly, there is me.” She rolled her eyes adorably. “Obviously. And Tannenbrook, of course. And your cousins. And my cousin Penelope. And Sarah Lacey. And the Duchess of Blackmore. And—”

Charlotte held up a hand. “Very well, I have friends. What does that signify?”

“I was not finished. You also have advised half the shopkeepers on Bond Street. Mrs. Bowman told me during the season that your suggestion of a referral agreement between her and the milliner three doors away was an absolute boon.”

“Mmm,” she nodded, frowning. “An eighteen percent increase in sales during the first month. Both shops have benefitted, actually.”

Viola waved her hands palms up as though presenting a gift. “You see?”

“No. I’m afraid I don’t.”

“You belong. Not because you were born to it, but because you have
made
your place here.” Viola spun and flung her arms out wide. “Like this house. You took something disastrous and claimed it as your own—reshaped and restored until it suits you perfectly. It is yours now. And, if what you say about Rutherford is true, it seems you may have done the same with him.”

Charlotte glanced around the crimson room, seeing the fireplace she had cleaned, the furniture she had purchased, the shell-adorned silk she had been determined to restore. Viola was right. The house was hers. It
felt
like hers.

But about Chatham, she was wrong. A house accepted whoever inhabited its walls. Even the rolling greens and filthy streets and rain-soaked meadows of England had no say in the feet that wandered upon its lands.

A man had a heart and a mind and a body, none of which had made any declarations of affection. Any of which might reject her. He’d shown kindness—even affinity—upon occasion. Of late, however, his unmet physical needs had diminished their rapport, and he’d largely avoided her company. Additionally, while he’d taken his pleasure with her last night, he’d emphasized his desire to prevent a child. Why bother if he wished her to stay? And then he’d left before she’d awakened. The disappointment had been crushing.

Where did that leave her?
Loving a man who does not return your affection, that’s where. Giving up a longstanding, sensible dream to chase what is, at best, an uncertainty.

“At least I can be sure America will accept me when I reach out to embrace her.” Charlotte hadn’t meant to whisper the thought aloud.

“Oh, Charlotte.”

Tears welled again, but Charlotte had had enough for one day. She waved her hands at Viola. “Let us speak of other matters. Please.”

Blue eyes shimmering with sympathetic tears, Viola nodded, sniffed, smiled and said in her sprightliest tone, “Have you heard Lady Wallingham intends to host a masquerade? You must attend, dearest Charlotte, you simply must.”

*~*~*

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“In Northumberland, dear, one need never wonder if the weather will remain tediously unimaginative. By the time you have asked the question, a storm arrives for a visit, stirring one’s interest most keenly.”
—The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to Miss Viola Darling regarding plans for a friendly outing on a fine summer day.

“Tannenbrook was here.” Chatham did not know why he bothered to repeat Booth’s words except that he needed a moment to contain the ever-blackening temper that appeared to have taken root.

“Aye, m’lord. Departed an hour or so past.” Booth set his pitchfork aside and rubbed Franklin’s nose where the horse nudged him over the stall gate.

“And how long was his visit, would you say?”

Booth eyed him warily. “Two hours at most. ’Er ladyship were showin’ the repairs to—”

Without waiting to hear the rest, Chatham turned on his heel and stalked out of the stables toward the house, crossing the stable yard and rounding the east wing at a rapid clip.

He was a rational man. He was. But right now, the inside of his chest burned as though he’d swallowed fire. Blood pumped in his ears, louder than the whoosh of the wind and the thud of his boots.

She’d had two bloody hours alone in his house with her
friend
Tannenbrook.

No reason to suspect anything untoward,
he advised himself rationally as he entered the east courtyard.
The bloody giant is not known for his trysts nor for his charm. Likely Charlotte bored him senseless with her rhapsodies about the importance of chimney flues and the use of vinegar as a cleaning solvent. He would hardly have been stirred to passion and taken her against a wall.

Reassurances proved useless. Because Charlotte could stir Chatham to passion talking about the need to muck out the stables. Or the lack of proper piping in the scullery. Or bloody anything.

The smooth notes of her voice were like the finest moonshine sliding through his veins. The golden spark in her eyes inspired fantasies of seeing them blaze. The glint of pure flame shimmered amidst the copper and crimson of her hair, dazzling his vision. Everything about her made him want.

And right now, he was having inordinate difficulty believing that other men could not see it. Would not feel the same grinding agony of desire.

As he entered the darkened corridor leading from the dining room to the entrance hall, he passed Esther. “Where is she?” he barked. He scarcely recognized his own voice. He did not know how to regain his control. The need to see her, to hear her answers about Tannenbrook, to kiss and stroke and bloody well lay claim to her again was entirely unreasonable. And unstoppable.

Esther’s dour brows rose. “Drawing room.”

He hurried past the maid, dimly noting her mutinous grousing, “I ain’t ’er lady’s maid any more’n I’m a butler, ye know.”

Within minutes, he was throwing open the paneled doors to the drawing room, scanning and quickly finding her seated across from another woman on the two yellow sofas she had purchased last week. They both stood as he entered.

His pounding heart slowed as he devoured her hair and freckles and apple-green gown. She did not look like a woman who had been recently ravished. In fact, she appeared unusually subdued to his eye.

“Oh, my. Lord Rutherford? You are looking … well.” The breathless comment came from Charlotte’s companion, a petite, pale beauty with hair so black it shone nearly blue in the light. “One might say
supremely
well. The country air obviously agrees with you.”

He met the lady’s wide, admiring gaze long enough to give a polite nod. Vaguely, he recalled her name. Viola Darling. The diamond-of-the-first-water over whom many young lords had lost their collective senses during the season.

He did not see the attraction, frankly. She was entirely devoid of freckles. Her features were unnaturally symmetrical, much like a porcelain figure. And she was too short, her legs approximately as long as his arms. Certainly insufficient. Her hair was shiny and prettily curled, he supposed, but it was black. He preferred hair that burned a man’s senses like a liquid flame.

“Rutherford, you recall Miss Darling, do you not? Most gentlemen do.” Charlotte’s pointed comment was a bit more tart than usual, and her eyes had narrowed on him.

“Of course,” he murmured, approaching the pair of mismatched women and giving the petite one her due courtesy. “Miss Darling. A pleasure.”

“The pleasure is mine, Lord Rutherford, I assure you.” Miss Darling graced him with a brilliant smile, which she then turned toward Charlotte.

Charlotte was not looking at her friend, however. She was eyeing Chatham with an ominous emerald glint. He frowned, baffled at her reaction. If anything, he should be one vexed with her after she spent two bloody hours with a certain oversized earl.

Miss Darling cleared her throat delicately. “Lady Wallingham has arranged lively musical entertainments for this evening, so I fear I must take my leave. I have promised to play the harp. It shall prove most cacophonous, I expect, but enjoyable nonetheless.”

The young Miss Darling’s prattling was wearing on his nerves. He wanted to be alone with Charlotte. To hear her throaty voice moaning his name. To feel her soft, pink lips curve against his.

Currently, green-and-gold eyes held his steadily, one brow arched as though put out with him.

“Well!” said Miss Darling. “I shall bid you both good day, then. Charlotte, let us visit again soon, dearest.”

“Mmm. Good day, Viola,” Charlotte answered with a distracted wave of her fingers. But she did not look away from Chatham.

He heard the doors close behind him as the young woman left. “A busy day for visitors, wife,” he said, tilting his head.

Her chin lifted. “Miss Darling is staying at Grimsgate Castle during Lady Wallingham’s house party.”

“Tannenbrook as well, yes?” He rounded the small rosewood table between them, watching her posture stiffen. Was that guilt in her eyes or something else? “I am surprised Miss Darling would journey here unchaperoned with him.”

Charlotte blinked. “She did not. He left as soon as she arrived.”

“Ah,” he nodded. Though he was careful to maintain his calm, the smoky blackness of his earlier agitation gripped and tore at his insides. He stepped closer, his strides slow and deliberate. “So he was here alone. With you.”

Her brow wrinkling, she shrugged. “I suppose.”

“And what did you do with him, alone, for two hours?” As he moved within inches of her, he could see her breath quickening, smell the sweetness of her skin.

“Do? Well, I served him a bit of tea then showed him the repairs we’ve done about the house. It is of interest to him because he performed similar renovations upon his own estate in Derbyshire. He has been most helpful in offering advice.”

“Advice.”

“Yes.”

“Today?”

“Well, no. We have been corresponding.” A look of growing alarm stole over her freckled brow. “Why are you angry?”

“I am not.”

“Yes, you are. Your eyes are positively glowing with it. They turn the brightest shade of turquoise—”

He advanced on her, and she retreated, her breathing now panting.

“I don’t understand.” She held her hand up, and he kept coming. Moved closer until that slender palm met his chest. “Chatham,
I
should be the one vexed over your flirtation.”

“With whom?” He honestly had no thought for anyone else. His entire being—eyes, skin, heart, bones—was consumed with Charlotte. He needed to touch her. His hand cupped the side of her neck, his thumb stroking her jawline and settling over her pulse. It was faster than her breathing, pounding and frantic.

“Miss Darling,” she clarified. “You—you were looking at her.”

“I am looking at you.”

“Well, yes. Now that she is gone.”

“Always. Even when I close my eyes, you are burned into me. I see nothing else.” He wished he were in control of what he said. But all his years of insouciant aplomb, of calculated observation and cutting wit, were as nothing. He’d been stripped of everything he’d once been, left raw and exposed and wanting. Wanting her as he’d never wanted anything. Whisky. His father’s respect. His mother’s love. Nothing compared. He resented the wanting. Resented her.

As her back collided with a crimson silk wall, she yelped then panted and licked her lips nervously. “Chatham, surely you know you needn’t woo me with pretty words.”

He braced one hand beside her head, leaning closer, feeling the heat of her body reach out to his. “How long have you corresponded with the bloody giant, Charlotte?”

“W-we … since the winter. You were there when he defended my honor.”

“My mother’s last rout, yes?” He remembered seeing her that night. She had stared at him across the room, her gaze at first speculative then curious then annoyed. She’d been one of the few guests not cup-shot on his mother’s rum punch. Now that he knew her better, he wished he could say the same. Perhaps it would have been he, rather than Tannenbrook, who tossed the ugly cur who had insulted her onto the refreshment table.

Nuzzling her temple, he trailed the backs of two fingers delicately from her cheek, down the curve of her slender jaw, and then stroked the shell of her ear. The velvety flesh of her lobe he rubbed ever-so-lightly between his thumb and finger. Her answering shiver and a hint of gooseflesh pleased his cock so much, it swelled impossibly in appreciation.

She gasped and nodded her response to his question. “He has been kind to me. We are friends. You knew that already.”

His hand traced her skin slowly, like a raindrop on a windowpane, until his fingers arrived at the silk-ribbon edge of her gown, just above the slight swells of her breasts. Then his lips followed the same trail, nibbling and stroking with occasional flicks of his tongue. She tasted of salt and sunlight and flowers and woman.

She gasped. Then moaned. Where her hand rested against his chest, it fisted into the linen of his shirt, pulling him closer.

“He will never pleasure you as I do, Charlotte. Do you understand?” He strummed her pleading, diamond-hard nipple through the layers of her gown and corset, running his knuckles rhythmically back and forth across the sensitive nub.

Her answer was to sob his name.

“Yes, love. Benedict Chatham. Your husband. The only man who is permitted to touch you. Is that clear?” Continuing to stroke her nipple with one hand, Chatham employed the other in loosening the buttons of his fall, then dragging and bunching the soft, filmy layers of her green skirts in his fist. He bared her legs—long, luscious legs.

Feminine fingers fumbled to strip away his fall until his cock sprang free. Greedy, green-and-gold eyes closed as those fingers took him in their grip. Stroking. Inciting.

She loved to touch him, he’d discovered during the night. She’d worked at getting the pressure precisely as he liked. Right now, her newly acquired skill was driving him mad.

He buried his face in her neck, sweet and soft and freckled. His hand burrowed beneath the layers of her dress and shift until he found her softer thigh and softest, sweetest center. The lips of her sex were swollen and slick. He wanted a taste. He wanted his tongue dancing upon the sensitive little nub until she screamed her pleasure, screamed his name. But her hands squeezed and pulled at him, sending spiraling pleasure rising along his spine and down his thighs. Buckling his knees and dragging him too close to the edge.

“Chatham,” she sobbed in his ear. “I—I need you.”

He sank two fingers deep into her tight, wet core, savoring her whimper of ecstasy, watching her strawberry lips part, ready for his mouth. He gave her that. Gave her his tongue. Between her other lips, she received his fingers, pumping and stroking, hooking and pressing. Finding just … the right … spot.

She seized upon him, her scream humming against his mouth, her sheath clenching in sharp, endless spasms, her fingers leaving his cock to dig into his shoulders as she rose onto her toes and ground her hips between the wall and his hand.

Even as her body shivered with tiny pulses in the aftermath of her climax, he began stirring the embers once again, using the tip of his thumb to gently pressure the unveiled nub at the heart of her. Swirling and spreading her juices, he relentlessly circled until her spine began undulating like waves coming onto shore.

He tore his mouth away from the sweet honey of hers. “Open your eyes.” His hoarse command was ignored, so he repeated it. “Open your eyes, Charlotte.”

Green and gold, lambent and glowing, locked upon him. The hand he had used to bring her nipple into full bloom reached for her knee. Lifted it to his hip. Tossed apple-green silk aside so that he could have what he wanted more than his next breath.

Stretching her thigh high around his waist, he removed his fingers from their warm, wet haven and replaced them with the head of his cock.

“Keep your eyes open,” he commanded, compelled by something far beyond himself. “Let me see everything.”

Shifting closer, he bent his knees, and with one mighty shove, sank halfway inside her. A keening wail from her lips and sharp fingernails in his neck signaled her welcome, as did the near-painful clench of her swollen sheath around him.