After the Kiss (2 page)

Personally, Charlotte preferred dark-haired men. However, she was not English, but American. She pursed her lips thoughtfully. So was Eliza. Or rather, half American. Raised by an American mother and a disinherited English father, Eliza had grown up disdainful enough of English customs not to care what color the Beau’s eyes and hair were. Surely even Eliza could not fail to notice the Beau was handsome and be attracted to him. Charlotte was convinced that only a man as unfettered by the manners and morals of Society as Eliza was herself—like the Beau—would be willing to marry her.

Captain Wharton had other manly attributes that were certain to please someone as unconventional as Miss Elizabeth Sheringham. The Beau was a noted whipster, a member of the Four-in-Hand Club, handy with his fives in Gentleman Jackson’s saloon, unbeatable with a foil, a dead shot, and charming enough to be forgiven his wild behavior and still accepted in the homes of all the most particular hostesses of the
ton
.

As an added advantage, Lord Marcus was also in line to inherit a dukedom from the current holder of the title, a widowed elder brother who had twin daughters and showed no inclination to remarry. With
Eliza’s pockets to let, she could use a husband of substance to support her.

Best of all, the Beau’s reputation was so iniquitous, Miss Sheringham’s father was a saint by comparison.

“Will you at least help me throw Miss Sheringham and the Beau together for these two weeks?” Charlotte asked.

“To what purpose? This is a plan fraught with disaster,” Olivia warned.

“What is fraught with disaster?”

The two women turned to watch their husbands enter the drawing room. Both men were impeccably dressed in the form-fitting fashions that showed off the male figure in all its glory, Reeve dressed in buff and brown, Lion in bottle green and buckskin. Reeve was a shade taller, with blond hair and blue eyes, while Lion was broader-shouldered and had black hair and gray eyes. They once had been formidable adversaries but now, related by marriage, had found a common ground to bind them as friends.

Charlotte rose, surprised at how much effort it took to free her finger from the baby’s grip. She took a step backward toward the fire, knowing from the look on Lion’s face, and from the tone of his voice when he had spoken, that she had better come up with some diverting explanation for Olivia’s comment.

Reeve crossed directly to Olivia and bent to brush a hand across the area hidden behind the cloth, either the baby’s cheek or his wife’s breast, Charlotte was not sure which—until Livy’s blush gave it away.

Charlotte continued watching as Livy’s eyes met Reeve’s and saw the smile of welcome on her sister-in-law’s face as her husband’s mouth lowered to hers.
Before their lips could meet, a beloved face appeared before Charlotte and demanded her attention.

“What disaster?” Lion asked. His palms settled on the mantel, capturing her within his embrace before the fire.

She tried looking innocent, but a year of marriage had taught him too much about her. He had rescued her from any number of scrapes and seemed resigned to a lifetime of such endeavor.

“What calamity are you planning now, my dear?”

Charlotte wriggled as his warm breath tickled her ear. “Only a little matchmaking, my lord.”

Lion lifted her chin with his forefinger, forcing her gaze up to his. “Who is it this time?” he asked with the hint of a smile teasing the corners of his lips and sparkling in his eyes.

“At least we are out of the running,” Reeve said to Lion from his perch on the arm of the wingback chair in which Olivia sat nursing William,

Lion slipped an arm around Charlotte’s waist, turning her so they faced the other couple, and gazed down at his wife. “Well, Charlotte? What lucky devil have you chosen to be the fortunate recipient of your matchmaking?”

“The Beau.”

The two men exchanged astonished looks.

“And what lady have you chosen to bless with such male perfection?” Lion asked.

“Miss Elizabeth Sheringham.”

Lion exhaled in an explosion of laughter.

“It is nothing to laugh about,” Charlotte said indignantly. “Miss Sheringham needs a husband, and Captain Wharton would do better with a wife.”

“There you have it, Lion. As simple as shooting ducks in pond,” Reeve said, slapping his knee at the jest of two such implausible figures becoming man and wife. The sharp sound disturbed the heir, who made his complaint known with a yowl. Further discourse was impossible, and within moments Olivia and Reeve had abandoned the room, leaving Charlotte and Lion to finish the discussion by themselves.

Once alone, Charlotte pressed her advantage, that is to say, pressed her lovely figure against Lion’s body from chest to thighs, wrapped her arms around his neck, and said, her mouth against his, “Please, Lion. Let me try. You will be here to help if things go awry.”

“
If
things go awry? It is a certainty. That termagant’s tongue has the bite of an adder. If she threatens the Beau, he will show no mercy.”

“I guarantee she will match him, spite for spite. The Beau will be charmed,” Charlotte insisted.

“I will not be privy to such maneuvering, Charlotte. Besides, Captain Wharton’s elder brother, the duke, is a friend of mine. I would not be able to look Blackthorne in the eye knowing what you have planned for his brother during the next two weeks.”

Charlotte knew from the rumbly sound of Lion’s voice, and the heavy-lidded look of his eyes, that victory was close at hand. It needed only a little urging to win the day.

“Eliza and the Beau are perfect for each other, my lord.”

“No, Charlotte,” Lion said. “And that is my final word on the subject.”

Charlotte settled her mouth against her husband’s
and rubbed gently until his lips were damp, and she could taste him. Her body curled inside with desire. He pulled her close to feel his arousal, and she momentarily lost her train of thought. She forced herself to concentrate.

“Please, Lion. Let me try.”

“Please will not work here, Charlotte.”

“Pretty please. I helped Reeve and Olivia get together, and that did not turn out so badly.”

Lion growled low in his throat. He bound her tightly against him, his mouth ravaging hers, taking what he needed and offering her a promise of more.

“Please, Lion.”

It was her own plea she whispered this time, but as he picked her up and headed toward the door, the words on his lips were the answer she had sought.

“Very well, Charlie. You may try matchmaking one more time.”

“
I
will never marry. Ever. you, of all people, must know why.”

“We must forget the past, Marcus, and plan for the future.” Alastair, sixth Duke of Blackthorne, sat with shoulders ramrod straight, his back a precise three inches from the wooden slats of the chair behind his desk in the library. Seeing him, one would have thought Alastair was the soldier rather than Marcus.

Alastair entwined his fingers in a single, white-knuckled knot and placed them in the center of the polished walnut surface. “You must marry and breed an heir, Marcus. Otherwise, Blackthorne Abbey will pass eventually to that imbecilic fop Albert and be dissipated by his excesses.”

Captain Lord Marcus Wharton, on leave of duty from the Prince of Wales’s own 10th Royal Hussars, contemplated the plea of his elder brother as he took a sip of brandy. He slouched down in the cushioned chair across the room in a way he knew irritated his brother, and crossed his booted feet at the ankles. “If Cousin Bertie inherits, it means both of us are dead. Why should we care what happens to these moldy old stones when we are gone?”

“Consider, if you please, Regina and Rebecca.”

“You can, and I am certain will, leave your daughters with substantial trust funds to provide for their needs,” Marcus said.

An awkward silence ensued this brief discussion of Lady Regina and Lady Rebecca. From almost the day of their birth eight years before, the twin girls were rumored to be the daughters, not of the Duke of Blackthorne, but of his younger brother, Lord Marcus. The gossip was fueled by numerous drunken declarations made by Penthia, Duchess of Blackthorne, herself and had not ended even when Her Grace died in a fall down the stairs these three years past.

The two brothers had never discussed the subject. Marcus, because he knew the truth, and Alastair, Marcus suspected, because he was afraid of discovering it.

It had not helped matters that Alastair maintained a proper English reserve toward his daughters and left them entirely to the care of a series of nannies and governesses. Marcus, on the other hand, spent long hours in their company when he was home. He played with them, took them for rides on the Blackthorne estate in Kent, and generally enjoyed their existence.

Because of Penthia’s accusations, the relationship between the two brothers had become painfully stilted over the years, until Marcus despaired of ever restoring their former closeness.

Lately Marcus had resorted to more and more outrageous behavior in the hope of rousing his brother from his self-imposed exile at Blackthorne Abbey. But his blackened reputation had served only to increase the reproving slant of his brothers brows.
Alastair, once as much in love with life as Marcus, had thoroughly retreated from Society, and showed no inclination to rejoin it.

“Blackthorne Abbey is your inheritance,” Marcus said at last. “You may guard it however you will, Alastair. But I will not have my life dictated by the necessities of duty. Or the capriciousness of a woman.”

Marcus had no intention of getting caught by parson’s mousetrap. As a single gentleman, second son, and soldier, he had no obligations to anyone but himself and the men under his command. He had observed firsthand what havoc loving a woman could wreak on a man. He had seen the sober relic that duty—and a disastrous marriage—had made of his brother and vowed not to repeat Alastair’s mistake.

Call him a care-for-nothing, a scoundrel, a rakehell if you would, but Marcus liked his life the way it was. If his reputation made him less of a catch on the marriage mart, then so much the better!

Marcus knew precisely why he had been invited to a late spring house party at the country manor of the Duke and Duchess of Braddock. And why his brother was so insistent that he attend. At least a half dozen young misses and their doting mamas were sure to be in attendance with one thought in mind: to provide him with a leg-shackle.

Marcus dismissed the threat that a bevy of eligible misses presented to his single state. He had enough Town bronze to know precisely how far he could take a flirtation before eyebrows rose. He occasionally took one far enough to cause a gasp or two, simply for his own amusement. But after Bonaparte’s escape from Elba in March, which made further battles on the
Continent a serious possibility, Marcus was not in the mood to play such games.

He had decided to avoid the matchmaking occasion entirely by pleading family obligations. Marcus had cut short a delightful bout of drinking, assignations with demi-reps, and gambling with his best friend, Major Julian Sheringham, in London and journeyed to Blackthorne Abbey, only to encounter his brother’s obstinate insistence that he must attend the party and find a wife.

“I will go, if you will go,” Marcus said finally, providing a condition he was sure his brother would not meet.

“Very well.”

Marcus sat up abruptly. “What did you say?”

“I have been looking forward to some shooting with Braddock,” Alastair said, the first hint of humor gleaming in his eyes. “I am glad you decided to join us.”

“Touché,” Marcus said, raising his brandy glass in a toast, conceding defeat to his brother. As he savored the mellow liquid, he smiled. With a duke on the platter, Marcus doubted whether the matchmaking mamas would even notice a side dish such as him. He laughed and said, “When do we leave?”

“As soon as your batman can repack your bags. The twins and I have been ready to leave anytime this past week.”

Marcus set the empty crystal glass on the ivory-inlaid chess table beside him, shaking his head at the way he had been so neatly maneuvered. “You planned to go all along?”

Alastair nodded. “Our hostess particularly asked if
Regina and Rebecca could be present, and it was not possible to send them alone. They have not been on their best behavior of late.”

The door to the library opened with barely a sound.

His instincts honed by years of battle in the Peninsular Wars, Marcus was immediately on his feet, his eyes searching for the potential source of danger.

The twins stood in the doorway.

They were attired identically in white muslin shifts with matching pink bows holding their black curls back from their faces. Or would have been if Regina’s hair was not losing its bow and the knees of her white stockings had not been smudged with dirt.

Rebecca did not have a single black curl out of place, but she was easily identifiable to Marcus by the worried look on her face. She stood frozen, her wide, long-lashed blue eyes focused warily on the formidable figure behind the desk.

Regina ignored the duke and raced toward Marcus. “Uncle Marcus! You’re here!”

“Reggie, be care—!”

She leapt, and Marcus caught her in midair and pulled her to him in a quick, ferocious hug. He shifted her into the crook of his left arm and extended his right hand to Rebecca.

“Becky?”

Rebecca gave the duke, who had risen but remained behind his massive desk, one last, cautious glance before she bolted toward Marcus. He swept her up and pulled the two of them close in his embrace, inhaling the scent of honeysuckle in their hair as it brushed his face, loving the feel of their childish
arms around his neck, and the burble of their excited chatter in his ears.

Marcus gave them each a smacking kiss on the cheek and said, “It’s good to see you both looking so well.”

“We missed you,” Becky said.

“I missed you, too,” Marcus replied, fighting the lump in his throat at the accusing look in her blue eyes—the eyes that so resembled his and not his brother’s, which were gray. He had promised her he would not be gone long, but it had been nearly a year since he had come home to Blackthorne Abbey.