Noble Destiny (28 page)

“You are babbling, wife,” he said, groaning with delight as she sucked his tongue into her mouth. Flames of desire mingled with love, his need for her bound tightly to the joy that came with the knowledge that she was his, now, tonight, forever.

With one hand he lifted her as he slid forward into the chair, murmuring instructions in her ear as she reached between them to guide him into her silken depths, waves of pleasure rippling throughout his body as she sank slowly down upon him. A fierce sense of possession gripped him as he showed her how to move on him. She was his wife, his Charlotte, his brilliant, passionate goddess whose love healed him despite his desire to be left to die.

He had thought her the devil incarnate? Dare tore his lips from the soft curve of her throat and watched as she arched her back, her eyes wide with amazement as ecstasy claimed her, her song of rapture filling him, binding him to her until he couldn't tell where she ended and he began. Her love swept over him in a wave of heat so strong, it burned her name from his tongue as he gave way before it, pouring his life into her.

Soft, meaningless words were pressed into his flesh with gentle kisses and sweet breath. She wasn't a devil; she was an angel.

And he would never let her go.

Charlotte rested comfortably on her husband, her legs still locked around him, his breath slowing now, but still sounding a bit raspy in her ear. She shifted slightly, smiling into his neck at the feeling of his heart beating strongly against her. Who would have thought that such an intimate thing as his heartbeat in her womanly depths could bring such pleasure, such a sense of contentment that, she truthfully admitted, had less to do with the actual act than the fact that he shouted his love for her at his moment of climax.

She sighed, pleased that her seduction had worked, happy to see something other than self-absorption filling his eye.

His arm tightened around her as she moved again. “I'd like to, love, but you're going to have to give me a little time. I'm not the man I used to be.”

She giggled as she realized what he was talking about, then stopped, appalled that she had lost control of herself enough to be giggling. She never giggled; she made it a matter of pride that she was not a giggler. “Lord, I'm silly today,” she mused, wiggling again on him. Deep within her, he twitched. She hummed with pleasure. He groaned as she circled her hips on him, another giggle building as the noise of their joining was clearly evident.

“I seem to be a bit more than moist now.” She dimpled. Dare gave her a shocked look for a moment, then slowly, very slowly, his lips curved into a smile that deepened into a wicked grin.

“You, madam wife, are incorrigible.”

“I know. But you love that about me,” she answered with perfect composure, or as perfect a composure as one could maintain while sitting impaled on one's husband's erected instrument. “Does this mean you've recovered? Are you going to stop moping around and get back to work on your engine?”

The dark glint of passion that had been building in his eye dimmed noticeably. With a bleak set to his lips, he gently pushed her off his instrument, helping her to her feet before setting himself to rights.

Charlotte took that as a sign that all was not yet well. She sighed as she tugged her gown back into place.

“Life, my sweet wife, is never as easy as it seems.”

She frowned as he turned his back to her, staring out the window at the busy street beyond. “Is that a quotation, or are you simply making an observation?”

He shrugged, but did not answer.

Charlotte saw red for a moment. A long moment, very long, long enough to relive the wonder of their joining, the fulfillment she found in his love, the joy that blossomed when she considered their future, but then the fury inside her turned to icy determination. “I have just spent the most marvelous half hour in your arms. We shared something rare and wonderful and important. I am willing to do whatever it takes to make you understand that my feelings for you have not changed since the accident, but now you are closing me out again so you can continue your destructive walk down the path of self-pity and misery.” She picked up the pistol he had set on the small table. “So be it. If you're so desirous of obsidian, I'll give it to you.”

Dare turned to find himself looking down the long barrel of his dueling pistol.

“I believe the word you are looking for is
oblivion
.”

“I know what obsidian means,” Charlotte snapped, using both hands to cock the hammer on the pistol. “And I assure you, if opaque, black nothingness is what you desire, you shall have it. Unless you agree, this minute, to stop pouting, I shall shoot you.”

“I am not pouting. Dear God, woman, look at me, just look at me! I've lost my eye, the use of my arm, and my entire hope of saving us from the poorhouse. Is it pouting to grieve for the costly mistake I made? Is it pouting to know that I can never be what I was? Is it pouting to know that I've ruined not only my life, but yours as well? I'm not pouting, I'm mourning the loss of my manhood. How can I give you what you want, what you deserve, while I am in this pathetic state?”

“You can and you will, if you just stop pitying yourself and think about me for a change. Honestly, Dare, any other husband in the world would be falling all over himself to please me, and yet you make love to me with such beauty one moment, then turn away from me the next as if I had an unsightly spot right in the middle of my forehead. I won't have it, do you understand? I simply won't have it. If you would rather die than live happily with me, so be it. I shall shoot you.”

“You won't shoot me,” he said with a martyred sigh, taking a step toward her. “You said yourself you love me. You can't shoot me if you love me.”

“I shall. I'm quite serious in this, Dare. Look at my eyebrows. Do you see my frown? Frowning causes wrinkles; I don't undertake frowning lightly. That should be of some indication to you just how serious I am.”

“You won't shoot me,” he repeated, taking another step forward and holding out his hand for the pistol. “I'm not worth the trouble it would take to shoot me.”

“Pheasant feathers!” Charlotte snapped in frustration, her fingers inadvertently tightening around the trigger. The pistol bucked painfully in her hands, the sound of the explosion reverberating around the room in a manner that left her ears ringing. She coughed the taste of powder out of her mouth and stared with horror at her husband.

“You
did
shoot me,” he exclaimed, his voice full of amazement as he stared down at his leg. He touched his breeches, lifting his hand to show her the smear of red on his fingers. “By Christ, you shot me!”

“You wanted to be shot,” Charlotte answered even as she dropped the pistol and threw herself at his feet.

“Not in the leg,” Dare argued. “No one wants to be shot in the leg, it's unmanly. A shot through the temple, now, that's suitable. But not in the leg, Charlotte, never in the leg. Ow! That hurts!”

“If you would stop squirming I could get a better look…oh, Batsfoam, I'm afraid there's been a little accident—”

“You shot me! Intentionally!”

“A little accident,” Charlotte repeated with emphasis as she tore at the bloody hole in the outer side of Dare's breeches. There wasn't much blood, which, combined with the fact that Dare was still standing, gave her hope that she hadn't wounded him too grievously. “I didn't actually intend to fire the pistol.”

“She told me she was going to shoot me,” Dare said to Batsfoam. “She stood right there and warned me she was going to shoot me. Then she did. What sort of a wife shoots her crippled husband in cold blood?”

“One who is tired of his never-ending gloom and fitful depressions?” Batsfoam stared for a moment at Dare's kilted eye patch, then bent over to examine the exposed flesh.

“That's rich coming from you,” Dare said testily. “Ow! Charlotte!”

“Rip that little bit of material away…there. It doesn't look too bad, does it, Batsfoam?”

Batsfoam pulled out a less than pristine handkerchief and dabbed at the blood welling from a small wound on the outer edge of Dare's thigh. “It does not, ma'am. I would say your shot went a bit wide. It looks as if the ball barely scratched the skin.”

“She shot me!”

“Oh, stop being such a big baby.”

“She shot me with my own pistol!”

“
Barely
shot you. I
barely
shot you with your own pistol. It is such a small wound, it's almost not there, isn't it, Batsfoam?”

“Indeed, ma'am, I would dare to say—”

“There, you see? Batsfoam agrees with me. It's almost a nonshot. Now, if you will sit down, I'll clean your almost nonwound and you can toddle off to your workroom and see what is what with your machine.”

“Engine,” Dare said in a decidedly surly tone as Batsfoam helped him to the chair. Charlotte relaxed. If he was making such a fuss over a little thing like being shot in the leg, he must be on the road to recovery. He hadn't so much as mumbled one word of complaint the entire time he was recovering from his other, much more grievous injuries.

“I shall want water and clean bandages and that tincture that worked so well on Alasdair's face.” Charlotte considered her husband carefully. “And brandy, Batsfoam. He looks a bit shaken; I think his lordship would benefit from a stimulant.”

By the time she had his leg cleaned, anointed, and bandaged and Batsfoam had assisted him into a fresh pair of breeches, Dare was arguing virulently with her. She delighted in every frown and glare, often rewarding his temper—sadly missing these last four weeks—with adoring gazes and light kisses, not to mention loving pinches on an area of his anatomy not visible when sitting.

“I won't forget this, wife, not for a very long time,” he warned as he hobbled down the stairs toward the subregions of the house. “Possibly never.”

“Good. Perhaps then you'll think twice about ever desiring to take your own life.”

Dare glanced over at her, limping more heavily than was necessary. To tell the truth, he hardly felt the slight injury, but the shock that his wife, his Charlotte, had shot him—actually held his pistol on him and shot him!—put him in a petulant mood. She wasn't even looking the slightest bit sorry for her horrible deed. Oh no! She bestowed sweet smiles and sweeter kisses on him, caressing him and sending him little adoring messages with her lovely blue eyes until he wanted nothing so much as to pick her up and carry her off to his bedchamber where he could make long, slow love to her for the next few hours. Or days. Years had a nice ring to it, too.

“You know, that limp is really rather romantic,” she whispered boldly in his ear as he held the door to the kitchen open for her. Her fingers trailed across the slack fingers of his bad arm as she entered the kitchen, an unmistakable look of passion in her eyes.

Dare sighed as he followed his wife down the last flight of stairs to the remains of his workroom. He wanted to wrap the chilly cloak of martyrdom around him again, blaming her lack of concern about wounding him, but he was a truthful man if nothing else, and so he admitted to himself that the fact that she had so brazenly shot him made him realize just how much she loved him.

And how much he stood to lose without her.

“Well? What do you think? Can you do it?” Charlotte stood aside and waved toward the remains of his engine.

Dare looked around the room, noting absently that someone had been in and cleaned up evidence of the explosion. The destroyed parts of the boiler were stacked tidily in one corner, the sturdy oak table that Charlotte had told him saved his life had been sanded and put back in its usual spot. He avoided looking at the engine itself, dreading the moment when he had to admit his dream was over, his hopes and plans for the future destroyed with one careless miscalculation. But eventually, there was nothing else to look at but Charlotte's hopeful face.

“Well?” she asked again.

He looked at the engine at last, slowly circling it, taking in the damage. There was surprisingly little to the body of the engine—his design had proven well in that respect, at least.

“Can you fix it? How long will it take? We'll all help, Batsfoam and all the staff and myself, so you needn't feel as if you are doing this by yourself. There's ten days before the scientific exhibition. With all our help, I'm quite confident you'll have the engine running spectacularly.”

He caught the note of pride in her voice even as he leaned closer to examine a set of delicate valves. They moved a bit stiffly, but it was nothing that a good oiling wouldn't fix. He had a spare boiler—built while he was still making modifications to the design—so if just the boiler needed to be replaced, if nothing else was actually damaged, it might be feasible to get the engine back in working order before the exhibition. He did a few mental calculations, stepping back and absentmindedly removing his cuff link and rolling up the shirtsleeve on his bad arm, grimacing as Charlotte stepped forward to help him with the sleeve on his working arm.

“You're going to do it, aren't you?” she asked, her voice as soft as the caress she pressed to his cheek. He stopped eyeing the engine long enough to glance down at her. Her eyes were shining beacons of hope, pride, and love.

“I haven't a widgeon's chance in hell of getting it done on time,” he warned her.

She dimpled at him. “You'll do it.”

“It will take me time to work out what was the flaw with the boiler and design a new one, not to mention converting the spare to reflect those changes.”

“A man of your intelligence? Pooh! I'll wager you already know what went wrong, and how to correct it.”

His lips quirked at her words. She was right, and they both knew it.

“I'll have to work day and night on this. I won't have time to squire you around anywhere.”

Charlotte's gaze dropped as she neatly undid the line of buttons on his waistcoat, helping him out of it so he was in his familiar work clothes of shirt and breeches. “That shan't be a problem, I assure you. In fact, I will give up all events so that I might stay home and be of assistance to you.”

A refusal of her services was on his lips, but one look at her glowing eyes filled with happiness kept him from speaking. He had heard the note of pride in her voice when she informed him that she and the servants would all help him; he could no more dash that adoring look in her eyes than he could have shot himself.

That act he left to his wife.

“Your help will be appreciated,” he said gravely, unable to keep from kissing the tip of her adorable nose before turning back to the engine. He'd just have to find her something harmless to do, something that would fulfill her need to help him and yet keep her from destroying anything—or worse, being destroyed herself should something again go drastically wrong.

“Nothing will go wrong this time,” she said, apparently reading his mind. “Now that you know where the flaw in the design was, you can eliminate it.”

“Mmm…” he agreed, reaching for a tool to tighten a bolt in the piston housing that had been loosened in the explosion. His mind was already filled with what needed to be done, and he was swiftly calculating how to correct for the overflow of water in the boiler when he heard the sounds of the door opening. He glanced up and smiled.