A Gallant Gamble (12 page)

She had to tell to someone about her feelings for Geoffrey. She could keep his name a secret and just ask questions in general that would confirm or deny her hopes and fears, and as Anne was unavailable, Olivia was the only other woman she knew well enough to speak to.

Decision made, Charlotte swept up her wrap, slipped it over her shoulders and walked to the door. She had to speak to Olivia and as the noises she had heard meant that the woman wasn’t yet asleep there was no point in waiting until morning; she might as well go and ask now. She left her own room and walked the few paces along the corridor before she tapped on Olivia’s door gently, turned the handle and stepped quietly inside.

Charlotte shouldn’t have been surprised that the layout of the room was somewhat different to her own, but she hadn’t had the opportunity to see before now. Olivia had always come to her room. This was one of the superior rooms after all, but she hadn’t expected there to be a small sitting room just inside the main door. She had been about to call out Olivia’s name when a strange groaning noise and then a male voice caught her attention.

Her first instinct was to reach out for one of the fireside implements that could be seen in the remaining glow from the dying fire, and leap to the older lady’s aide, but a small niggle inside her head made her realize that the male voice was somewhat familiar.

Without thinking what she was doing, she crept nearer to the door of what had to be Olivia’s bedroom. The wooden panelling was open only an inch but it was enough for Charlotte to place her eye against the crack to take a better look at what she might be up against.

What did meet her eye was so unbelievable that she forgot to breathe, let alone gasp out her shock.

With her greying hair tumbling about her shoulders, her head thrown back and her mouth hanging open in what might have been mistaken for a painful grimace if she hadn’t been moaning in what was clearly a most pleasurable tone, Alexander’s mother lay on the bed, completely naked. Almost as shocking was an equally naked Coalport kneeling over the Duchess, hips thrusting slowly, almost languorously while he spoke quietly to the woman who clung onto his straining shoulders and thrust her own hips back up at him.

“At last, my darling. It has been an agonising wait for you. Thirty years I have wanted you. I stayed as close as I could even though I knew that nothing could happen. Seeing you everyday tore at my heart, but I never gave up hope and now you are mine. I couldn’t believe it when you said that you wanted me. I still can’t, but I know that I love you, Olivia. I will love you, as I have always loved you, until the day I die.” Coalport spoke in such gentle, tender tones that Charlotte had no doubt of the man’s sincerity. What was more surprising was Olivia’s reply.

“Oh, Frederick! I knew. I knew your feelings and hated myself for what I put you through, but I could do no other. I loved my husband dearly and I couldn’t betray him. It was unkind of me to keep you here. I should have let you go and find love with another, but I was too selfish. I can only hope that you can forgive me. My husband has been gone over three years. I know that he would want me to find happiness again and now I am free to love you in return, but it will not be an easy path for us. Society will be against us. We will have to be strong.” The pair kissed passionately before Coalport spoke again.

“I don’t give a damn what society thinks of us. We will strive to overcome the obstacles, but know this, Olivia. After tonight you are mine, only mine. I may be only a servant, but I am also a man and I’ll let no other have you. I will follow you to the ends of the earth if that is what it takes to keep you. If we have to leave the country, we will do it. I’ve waited over thirty years and I can be without you no longer.” He leaned down and kissed Olivia’s breasts.

The woman let out a half strangled cry of pleasure before Coalport appeared to stop thrusting. He drove in deeply, closed his eyes and let out a deep groan, the like of which Charlotte had never heard before. He slumped over the Duchess and rested his forehead in the crook of the woman’s neck. His shoulders and back heaved as if he had completed some exceedingly strenuous exertion.

Charlotte heard their continued heavy breathing as she tore her eye from the amorous couple, made her way silently back across the anteroom and out into the corridor where she nearly screamed in fright as someone grabbed her and held a firm hand over her mouth as he whispered in her ear.

“Don’t yell, it’s me.” Geoffrey took his hand away from her mouth. She spun around in his arms and whacked him hard on his chest with her clenched fist.

“Ouch! That’s for scaring the life out of me. I thought I was about to be kidnapped!” she whispered loudly as she cradled her aching hand.

Geoffrey raised an eyebrow as he rubbed his chest before he reached out and took hold of her fingers.

“Ouch!” she hissed again as he examined her hand.

“Shh! You’ll raise the whole household...Looks as though you are going to need to bathe this in cold water. Sorry that you hurt yourself on me. I couldn’t sleep and was going to find a book in the library. You practically backed into me on your way out of Olivia’s room. Were you checking that her headache is not worse?”

Charlotte shook her hand and stared at it in the dim light.

“Her headache is definitely not worse. In fact, after seeing what I have just seen, I am almost certain that she never had one in the first place. I’d even go so far as to lay a bet on it.”

Geoffrey looked at her curiously as he pulled her away from the bedroom door and guided her towards the stairs.

“Tell me about it on the way to the kitchens.” He hesitated in confusion for a moment as a thought occurred to him. “I assume that you know where the kitchens are.”

Charlotte shook her head.

“No idea, I’m afraid. I haven’t had the time or energy to look, though Mrs. Bottomley always appears from the doorway by the stairs, so it’s safe to assume that the servants work somewhere behind it. Come on, you made my hand hurt so you can search with me.”

It was some minutes before they found their way to the very back of the house through a narrow corridor and two more doors. The kitchen was quiet and empty but the stove felt warm. Geoffrey added some fuel to the fire, found a pan and a jug of milk in the pantry and began to heat some water for tea before heading out the back door and filling a bowl with fresh cold water from the pump.

She winced as she dipped her fingers in the water but hid the pain behind her questions.

“So why can’t you sleep? We should be exhausted. It’s not as though we’ve had chance to catch up on any recently. I don’t think I’ve been to bed before two in the morning since we arrived here.”

Geoffrey sighed, knowing that there was no way that he could admit his feelings to her yet. He had to have a full purse before he had a chance of winning her. He told her something that she would believe.

“The possibility of riding for the Prince is playing on my mind. I can’t see away of refusing him without appearing indescribably rude, and I am afraid to tell him that it is only your and Olivia’s exaggerations have put me in this preposterous predicament. I doubt he’d believe me over a Duchess anyway. I hope that you two realize that I’ve never ridden in a steeplechase before. Everyone tells me that the course is a nightmare. I’ll be lucky to come out of it alive by the sounds of it.” He stared down into his tea and hoped that his reasons for not sleeping sounded convincing.

Charlotte snorted in a most unladylike fashion.

“What rot! I’ve seen you ride enough times. You’ll win it by a mile if the only competition you have are the primped up knee pinchers that I have had the misfortune to come in contact with. I swear that Lord Ainsworth bruised my knee this evening, and did you see the grease marks the little toady left on my gown?” She huffed in annoyance.

Geoffrey laughed.

“But you did have your revenge. Quite spectacularly, I might add. He left immediately after dinner. Someone must have told his wife of his antics beneath the table because she unceremoniously dragged him from the ball before the dancing even started. The look on her face was not pleasant. I doubt that the rest of his evening will be much fun. You gave him some disgustingly good put-downs, Charlotte. I swear that I have no idea who brought you up. I never heard a woman come back with such innocence and venom at the same moment. I swear that I was impressed even though I probably shouldn’t be. The side a man dresses indeed!

Charlotte stared down into her tea.

“I’m not going to pretend to be sorry. I know that I forget myself at times, but he was so unspeakably forward, it was the only thing I felt I could do to protect myself, and he’s not the only one to have done it over the last week. Some of these supposed gentlemen seem to think it their right to paw at ones legs under the table, even if in full view of their wives. What with your rock hard chest bruising my fingers as well tonight, I swear I will be black and blue before I return home to Caithwell.”

Geoffrey changed the water and she dipped her hand again.

“But that was your own fault. You were creeping out of someone else’s room when you practically backed into me. I could see that you were trying to remain quiet. I did what I had to so that you wouldn’t scream.”

Charlotte pressed her lips together. He was stating a simple truth. The house would have been in uproar if she had let out a yell. Olivia and Coalport might have been discovered and she knew that neither of them would have appreciated that.

“True enough, but you still scared the living daylights out of me.”

Geoffrey motioned for her to drink her beverage.

“My mother always says tea calms the nerves. Drink up and then tell me what had you creeping about in such a manner when you backed out of Olivia’s room? What made you think that she never had a headache in the first place?” For the first time since he had met her, he saw genuine embarrassment cloud her features. Her cheeks reddened delightfully as she swallowed her tea. She put the cup down and fanned her hand in front of her face.

“I don’t know if I can bear to retell it.” She fanned herself again while he waited. “How well have you come to know your valet over the last weeks? Is he a good man, do you think?”

Geoffrey shrugged.

“We know one another well enough now. I quite like him. He seems to be a decent enough chap, though perhaps a little prone to gossip. He knows his job, I can certainly vouch for him there, and what with all the balls and outings we have been on, that’s the only thing I care about. He appears to love this household though. I think he has been here off and on for many years and Alexander certainly wouldn’t retain him if he wasn’t a good sort. There probably aren’t many men out there who could do the job nearly as well.”

Charlotte nodded.

“I think that you are right. At least I hope that you are, as he is obviously exceedingly familiar with some in the household...Familiar enough be lying with Olivia in her bed, not ten minutes ago. I heard them declare their love for one another whilst in the throes of deepest passion.” She raised her eyebrows and waited for his response to her discovery.

There was a long silence. Geoffrey poured more tea as he pondered her news.

“So, Olivia has taken a lover. It’s not surprising. She has been a widow for over three years, Charlotte. I don’t think we can grudge her a little pleasure. I hope that you were not thinking badly of her. I have heard that many widowed women take a lover to ease their lonely lives.”

Charlotte immediately shook her head.

“No, of course I wouldn’t judge her, I wasn’t thinking that at all, but this seemed more than a mere dalliance to ease a passing fancy. They were both completely naked in the bed, not just skirt lifting and trouser dropping as I saw the maid and the footman doing one evening in the back corridor. I would imagine that taking all ones clothes off in front of another is a very intimate thing to do. The action bares more than one’s body...” She tried not to let her gaze slip downwards as she recalled seeing Geoffrey’s nude form earlier in the evening before waving her hand in front of her face as if dismissing the idea. “Anyway, that’s not what I was talking about. I heard Coalport vow that he had loved her for more than thirty years. He’s clearly thinking of something more permanent than part time valet or even a part time lover. He mentioned them travelling to the continent if needs be. And he kissed her most passionately right before she looked about to pass out and he made this awful groaning sound. I wasn’t sure if either of them were in the most abject pain for a moment.”

Geoffrey nearly choked on his tea.

“Good Lord! Charlotte! You are not meant to have seen such things. You are far too...” he stopped speaking as his eyes flicked down to where her nightgown and her robe fastened tightly at her neck and waist. Even though the voluminous garments covered her from head to foot, it was clear that she was no young girl any more. The full figure of a woman clearly lay beneath the gathered material.

His mind wandered back to the ball and he closed his eyes briefly. Her décolletage had been far more visible than it was now, but knowing what was beneath the layers of fabric that swathed her body at this moment, made for erotic dreams of unwrapping her slowly, pulling apart the delicate material to discover the treasures that lay beneath.

He cleared his throat and pulled the image of a naked Coalport to the forefront of his mind in an effort to master the full-blooded erection that had sprung up so suddenly and was almost painful in its intensity. He breathed a sigh of relief as the imagery worked almost instantly.