One Night Is Never Enough (10 page)
She had never played
this
game—the one that truly mattered here—at all. She looked down at her piece, moved it, then looked back to him. She couldn’t help meeting his eyes. Directness had cost her at least one suitor in the past, and she had tried to rein in the tendency, but the man across from her seemed to thrive on her natural inclination.
“Strangely, yes, but I’m not sure I am equal to the overall challenge.”
Equal to any of the challenges in her life. For at any moment, she felt the hairline fissure would crack, split down the middle, splinter the remaining pieces like a cup of china dropped carelessly to the floor. Shattered.
“You seem more than equal to it. It makes me literally coil inside, wanting to spring.”
There was something about the words that snapped something within her.
“But why? I—I’m broken.” The words came out in a whisper.
Everything stopped within her. She had not just uttered that to a man completely unknown to her. A stranger and threat. Uttered something she could hardly admit to herself.
Her eyes were frozen on his. But his eyes didn’t widen, nor narrow, nor show any reaction at all. He simply tilted his head in that relaxed, deadly manner he seemed to own, his fingers caressing a piece. “I’ve found that life equips those who are determined. And everything about you fairly screams determination, Miss Chatsworth.”
She sat there, stiff.
“Determination, shackled irons longing to be picked, and survival. That is why you caught my attention. And that is why I took you from Trant.”
And as if he had said nothing of note, he moved his castle forward in a languid motion.
“Took me from Trant?” She had the strange but distinct impression that he had left
something
out of his listed reasons, and unbelievably, she hungered to know it, though the thought of what it could be terrified something in her as well. The same illogical feeling that had halted her movement toward him in the Hunsdens’ shop halted her here—that something irrevocable might occur should she follow through.
“You must know that he desires you.”
If it were someone in society, one of her acquaintances, she would freeze them with a glare for their daring. But there was some need deep within her to speak to someone. And the man in front of her, dangerously charming and friendly at the moment, called the words from her. “He has danced around a proposal of marriage. But so have others. Father has turned down more offers than I can count, holding out for a larger title.”
Her mouth opened and closed twice before the words spilled forth. “And it doesn’t matter, in the end. I have no say.”
Like a stopped-up waterfall suddenly undammed. She scrambled for sticks and logs to stem the flow.
Roman surveyed her. “It will only grow worse. Your father has stupidly held out these past two years, declining offers, and Trant will finally be able to take advantage of it.”
“How do you know?” It came out as more of a demand than she’d intended.
He waved a hand. “It is my business to know these things.”
“What exactly is your business,
Roman
?”
“My business is complicated and boring.” He tilted his head, a smile curling. “No, I withdraw that. My business is complicated and far too exciting for a delicate lady’s ears. You will likely faint before I utter the first words of an explanation.”
She felt much better trading barbs. Easier than to look within. To fear an empty pit. “It is a good thing that my ears are sturdy, then, and that I’ve never fainted before.”
“There is always a first.” His fingers went to his temple and chin, his head resting upon them. “At least you are on the bed. You would fall so prettily upon your back. Lips and legs parted, in complete surrender.”
The reminder of their proximity and position was unnecessary but still brought color to her cheeks.
“See. There. I detect the beginnings of a faint already.”
“More likely you detect the stirrings of my temper.”
“Really? I’ll bet you look quite lovely in a fit. I missed the vision earlier owing to your veil. Cheeks all ablaze in passion, I’m sure.”
“I thought you uninterested in beauty.”
He smiled slowly. “What I’m interested in is
you.
”
She didn’t move for a second, then she lowered her lids to keep her emotions from him.
Wanting
to know that reason he had left out. “Why?”
“Is it not enough that I simply am?”
“Everyone has a motive.” And for some reason, she desperately wanted,
needed
, to hear his, here in this strange, drugging night.
“And so I do.” He leaned forward, and one finger touched her chin. His elbow pushed the bed farther down, causing one of the pieces to fall and roll off as he leaned across. “I’m going to possess you, Charlotte.”
His free hand caressed the flesh of her throat, then threaded into the hair at her nape, pulling the strands there, tipping her head back. Not harshly, but not gently either. “I’m going to take you and claim you and make you beg.”
Her lips parted, and heat spread through her. The part of her that housed her immense pride screamed through the heat, overwhelmed.
His lips were breaths from hers. Breaths she couldn’t count or take.
“The question is, will you passively accept such, or will you possess me right back?” he whispered, nearly against her lips. “Take me, claim me? Make me beg? Push from my mind any thought that isn’t you?”
He was too near her for her to see his lips, but his eyes darkened, melting, and the curves of his cheeks, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, indicated their whispered lift. “What will you choose to do, Charlotte? Hmmm? The answer to that, the desire to know that answer—that is my motive.” The lightest touch of skin, of the very tips of their lips, brushed. His hand withdrew, then his body. He picked up the fallen piece, putting it back in its place as if nothing had happened.
Charlotte stared at him, at the top of his head as he moved the piece, then at his face, cleared of some of the emotions that had been there a few seconds before but still full of challenge. At the dichotomy displayed. That he thought she
might
be able to do it coupled with the doubt that anyone could.
She looked down at the board, thinking of more than her next chess move. Knowing that there was a motive that he had not yet admitted. Wanting to know everything and yet terrified of the emotions he made her feel so strongly. Of the way he pushed any thought from her mind that wasn’t
him.
That wasn’t
her.
“You look exhausted,” she said instead.
“I’ve been up far too long. Winning and debauching maidens takes a lot out of a man.”
Her lips lifted of their own accord. “I can see that.” She moved her piece, and they settled into a rhythm of play that while not entirely comfortable with the ribbons of tension threading through, was soothing all the same.
He laid his head back on the pillows, eyes closed while she contemplated her next move. It would make all the difference in the game, this choice.
She finally edged her last pawn forward. Something that she couldn’t put her finger on fluttered on the edges of her mind. Some pitfall she couldn’t see. She waited for his warm chuckle to tell her he would now lay claim to everything.
Nothing.
She peered at him. At the long golden lashes resting against his cheeks. The even lift of his chest. An angel resting upon cloudy pillows.
He was
asleep.
Disconcertment ran through her. He had said he had been up for days, and the slight circles beneath his eyes proclaimed such.
But . . . but where was the wild seduction? The claiming? The making her beg?
She shifted on the covers, uncomfortable with the nature of the thoughts—the feel of them echoed in her belly as if they were natural and normal. The edge of the intoxicating danger that he made her feel when he gripped her chin in his dangerous hands.
Instead, he was lying on the pillows, at ease. A strange thought that he didn’t seem the type of man to let down his guard floated through her. That she could do anything to him in this moment.
Though if she shifted forward, would he catch her arm in his grip? Punish her for her thoughts—harmful or seductive?
She could flee. Though to where she would flee, and why, she didn’t know. There were only a few hours until her father would arrive to retrieve her. Far safer to spend them here, where she had already released some of her fear.
And she had. Released
certain
reasons to fear, that is. For he could have done anything to her without much recourse from her father.
Yet he had replaced initial fears with the keener concerns over her own body’s responses. Dark paths calling to her to turn the corners. To see what lurked around the hedges.
She did something she wouldn’t have believed possible the moment she had heard her father’s outrageous mistake—or the moment the man across from her promised he
would
possess her—she curled up at the foot of the bed and, a few minutes later, felt her own lids fall.
She woke abruptly. Her head was nestled on a pillow, covers pulled over her chest. She distinctly remembered falling asleep outside of the coverings though, and she pushed herself up against the headboard in a flash.
But she was alone.
Faint light had gathered at the edges of the windows, dull gray morning shadows allowing her to see that the clock said it was a quarter to six. Her father would arrive at any moment.
She slipped her legs to the floor, the covers pulling at her dress as if unwilling to relinquish their hold. She drew upright and smoothed down the crinkles. She had worn a dress more suited to mourning than to lascivious activities, and it hadn’t taken well to being creased under the covers for so long. She would remember such things for liaisons in the future, she thought humorlessly.
She stepped to the door between the bedroom and living quarters, wondering where her erstwhile host had taken himself off to. It didn’t take long to discover.
He stood at the window, the drape pulled back by one hand. There was a stillness to him standing there, gazing out the window to something beyond.
There was a minute tightening in his posture—enough to indicate that he knew she was standing there, watching—but he didn’t move.
The clock struck the first of its six peals.
She cleared her suddenly dry throat. “I suppose this is farewell then, Roman.” Her voice sounded unusually scratchy.
He said nothing for two peals, then let the drape fall and turned to her. As he bridged the distance between them, the slow smile that heated something within her spread across his face. “Is it?”
He was far too close. Looking down at her face in that manner. Making strange feelings curl within.
“I—yes.”
Another peal.
His capable hand wrapped around the back of her neck, pulling her the short distance to him. Her mouth opened in exclamation, her quickened breath needing escape. “Then I suppose there is only one thing to do,” he said.
And his lips were upon hers.
Not the light press of a gentleman’s lips. Not the perfunctory kisses she had seen from established pairs. Not what she heard about in the back rooms with marriage-hungry misses saying they had exchanged quick butterfly touches with their loves.
This was something far more consuming. Scorching. Claiming.
A thump beat within and around her.
And then they were skimming, barely touching hers. There was something even more serious in the brush. A promise.
But a promise of what? For there was only one more peal for the night to be complete, and assuredly footsteps would be drawing closer, stopping on the other side of the door. Her father coming to escort her home. Roman’s hand slipped from her nape, his fingers drawing along the edge of her chin, rubbing over her lower lip. His other hand took hers and pressed something into her palm.
“Knight to D6.”
His voice sifted over her skin, silk over gravel, and she processed the words as the door opened, the last peal sounding.
“Checkmate, Charlotte.”
C
harlotte watched the polish build layer by layer on the houses, the façades lengthening and widening as they drew closer to Mayfair. Her knuckles traced her lips, the white king clutched in her fist. Roman Merrick was . . . complicated. She thought that was the best way to sum up the man at the moment.
And dangerous, very dangerous, to the path she needed to travel.
“Charlotte.”
She waited a moment, unwilling to break her vigil, then turned to observe her father.
His shirt was slightly unkempt. Undoubtedly, he was fetching her after spending the night with his mistress. Consoling himself in the woman’s arms, as usual. His marriage bed cold and fallow, as it had been for as long as Charlotte could remember.
“You are well?” he asked gruffly.
Charlotte often saw her father’s mistress on the edges, in the market, at the theater, in the crowd at Vauxhall, waiting for the family to leave, eager, almost desperate, to service her longtime lover in the dark walks as soon as he broke free.
Her knuckles fell from her lips, fingers curling more tightly over the chess piece. “He didn’t beat me, if that is what you are asking,” she said in a voice as dismissive as she had ever dared with her father.
His hands fisted. “That wasn’t what I was asking.”
“Ah. Then in any other instances of wellness, I assure you that I am as fine as I can be, given the circumstances. He didn’t touch me.”
She resisted the urge to brush her lips again. He hadn’t touched her in the way her father was thinking, at least.
Her father’s worn features relaxed a measure. “Good.” Though she wasn’t sure if he believed her words or if he just
wanted
to believe them. “I tried to bargain him out of it. To offer . . . other things. But he refused. I will remember better in the future.”
She again wondered what else her father could have offered. The danger of her words of assurance hit her a second too late. She could see his thinking twisting to assume there had been nothing wrong with what he had done.
Something about the night, about the strange and twining conversations she had had with Roman Merrick, wedged within her, in part confusing her and in part giving her added strength.
“R—Mr. Merrick seemed to think of the situation as a lark.” She kept her voice as even as she could, for nothing about Roman Merrick’s eyes had indicated anything of the sort. “But, if you do such a thing again, I will not save you.” She said it calmly, making him meet her eyes. “I will let you burn.”
“You—” His voice was clipped.
“No.” She smiled without humor. Her father’s actions had led to her spending one night with the man, a night on the edge of scandal and ruin. Her own actions had promised her to him for another. “You have nothing to say to me on this matter, Father, unless it is to tender an apology. I will marry well. For the family. For Emily and Mother. But you will have to save yourself next time, Father.”
The carriage pulled to a stop, and she exited without turning to see the expression on his face.
She opened the front door. Her father had wisely dismissed their four servants the night before—giving them a rare night off. All had been eager to take it. For every servant her father dismissed added additional burdens to the others.
He closed the front door behind them. “Charlotte.”
There was an appeal there, wrapped in the hard dignity that continued to break and crumble around him with each passing day. An appeal for which she had so desperately yearned a year past. One that promised more pain should she open herself to the plea. She hardened her thoughts instead. Survival.
She would be the proper daughter. The proper society miss. The proper hostess. All she had to do was wrap her mantle of cold dignity tight across her shoulders. And that included shutting out anything that caused pain.
If there was one thing the night and events surrounding it had taught her, it was that she needed to secure Emily’s fate herself before anyone else did it for her.
She clutched the chess piece in her grip as she headed for the stairs without turning. “Good day, Father.”
Charlotte held herself firmly upon the edge of the embroidered seat, chin set, as she accepted a saucer and cup from the hostess. She offered the illusion of a smile and crisp words of thanks, as the hostess preferred. Charlotte balanced the delicate china upon her knee, calmly surveying the dozen other women, young and old.
Looking for any sly glances or uncontrolled body positioning that would suggest that one of the women had something to reveal. News that would indicate last night was anything other than a strange dream of hers alone. That the knowledge of her night in Roman Merrick’s lair had escaped into the rumor mill.
It had taken every ounce of courage to come here, her first and most important stop. The place where ladies were broken every day.
Miranda, Lady Downing, took her offered cup more enthusiastically and immediately lifted it to her lips, as two of the other ladies had done. Before she could take a sip, she caught Charlotte’s eye over the rim, caught the slight signal Charlotte was sending, and set the cup down without a taste, making the china give a tinkle. Miranda didn’t quite cover her chagrin, and Charlotte sought to direct attention elsewhere.
“What a lovely new stitch, Lady Hodge.” She nodded toward the delicate webbing on the table. “I regret that I haven’t quite mastered the turn of a needle so well. Your work is to be admired and studied, as always.”
“Nonsense, Miss Chatsworth.” The woman smiled. It wasn’t a warm smile, but neither was it the cold one she had leveled on most of the others in the room. “I have seen your pieces, and they are the work of a budding lady of great import. If only all of the young ladies held such an eye or grace.”
The older woman cast a dissatisfied look upon a few of the young ladies, who sent discreet glares in Charlotte’s direction when the hostesses holding this “social” weren’t looking. But Charlotte was well used to the glares. And was simply grateful they weren’t accompanied by the smugness of knowledge awaiting revelation.
She didn’t let her shoulders droop in relief, nor any other expression of release cross her features. Indeed, she strangely felt
more
tight. The balloon distending further.
She shook the peculiar reaction aside. What mattered was that Miranda’s blunder had been forgotten. Downing would sneer that his wife didn’t have to please or impress
anyone.
But Miranda had confided a week ago, at the beginning of the season—Miranda’s first, since she hadn’t been a part of society before marrying Downing, and they had taken a year after their marriage to tour the continent—that she was determined to breach the inner sanctum of one of the strictest matrons in society in order to make things easier for some of her husband’s scandal-ridden family members, a notion Charlotte was quite familiar with. And here, impeccable manners spoke for themselves.
A plate of wonderfully fragrant scones was spread on the table—smelling of cinnamon and sugar and fresh-from-the-oven sin—and Miranda’s shoulders hunched forward ever so slightly, nose edging toward them. Charlotte tipped her head a fraction to the left, and Miranda straightened with a wistful look. She copied Charlotte’s posture, squaring her shoulders, ramming steel down her spine.
Charlotte withheld a grim smile, partly from amusement at her friend’s response but mostly from an edge of irrational anger at the game she was forcing her friend to play. She pressed the thoughts down, into the void, and tipped her head to the right and “Mmmm’ed” in feigned curiosity to another lady’s comment on a painting. A neutral gesture that withheld judgment but didn’t show support. The other woman would do well to stop speaking.
“It is a piece with great composition and detail. Why look at how the tree sits just so,” the woman said, words tripping over each other as she gathered momentum and took the gathering silence as support. “It must have been in your family for generations.”
“Lord Hodge picked it up last weekend.” Cold scorn underlined each word. “Wretched new painter with none of the classic strokes. As soon as a requisite amount of time has passed for Lord Hodge to forget about it, I shall have it removed posthaste.”
The matrons exchanged coldly amused glances about the nature of “handling” husbands. But Lady Hodge sent a frigid glance to the woman who had made the comments. The woman blanched. Miranda looked at her sympathetically.
Charlotte felt the emotion too, but knew that to display such would only cause anger. Miranda could express sympathy. From Charlotte, people interpreted it as scorn.
They saw what they wanted to see. And she didn’t possess the emotional skill to pull people into a warm embrace. She hadn’t even known how to properly hug another person until Emily had come into her life. She was . . . broken. Uttered in the dark of night, but true nonetheless, no matter what Roman Merrick said. Destined for a pedestal and a glass case. To be taken and displayed, coldly admired, then returned.
Miranda opened her mouth to say something but quickly shut it again when Charlotte tipped her head left. Her friend looked as if she wanted to sigh, but gave an infinitesimal nod and held still.
Miranda wanted the constraints. But she could play within them as soon as she wanted. Could cast them aside completely, should she choose. She was a viscountess, and she’d be a marchioness someday, married to a man powerful in his own right. For her, this was a case of dressing up, learning what society dictated, and shedding her domino should she decide she wasn’t having fun anymore.
Miranda enjoyed that freedom because of her position. And that was directly due to whom she’d married.
Charlotte gripped the edge of the delicate china. Emily would be able to do the same, would be able to revel freely in her emotions, when Charlotte established them so deeply into the
ton
that a typhoon wouldn’t shake a leaf from their tree. It was the promise she had made to herself. There was more than one woman in present company who got by on her sister’s reputation or that of her family. It was the way of the world. Leeway was given to those attached to the favored and to those in power.
But such a path wouldn’t work for Emily or for Charlotte if Charlotte didn’t marry well and secure that legacy. Her present existence in the
ton
was based on
future
goodwill. People
expected
her to marry well and were trading on her future status.
“And you, Miss Chatsworth. Are you recovered from whatever ailed you last eve?”
Charlotte looked at her questioner. Bethany Case hated her with a depth of feeling that Charlotte didn’t think the woman even possessed for her own child, born a few months past.
“I am. Thank you, Mrs. Case. It is kind of you to ask after my well-being. Merely a headache of the variety we’ve all experienced.” She dipped her chin but didn’t fiddle. Didn’t allow the thought that her whereabouts last night would destroy everything.
In direct contrast to Emily’s fate given her success, should the tide turn, her sister would be drowned in the same. Emily’s fate was tied to hers. Should anyone find out about her father’s bet or about Roman Merrick . . .
No. Her stomach gave a vicious squeeze. She wouldn’t allow that to happen.
The conversation continued. Waits and feints, thrusts and parries. Some were brutally slashed, withering in their chairs, while others gained courage in given praise or known standing.
“The lovely purples of the season are sinfully delicious,” said the daughter of a duke, who could get away with a bit of fast language.
“Yes, though it’s unfortunate that
some
are so set in their ways that they will turn up their nose at the rest of us,” Bethany Case said. A number of the women smirked and nodded without looking anywhere in particular. It was the fifth such snide comment directed toward Charlotte.
The barbs were meant to sting. Charlotte let them wash over her, having long practice in doing so. Let them flow off to join the gathered ice at her feet. The matrons watched, weighing and waiting.
No matter her favored status, they wouldn’t “save” her; nor did she wish them to. How she handled conflict and jealousy was part of what would gain her their ranks. Besides, she didn’t allow Bethany Case’s utterances to hurt anymore. At one time she had wished to be Bethany’s friend, but she had come to the realization deep in the night that there were some women who were not meant to be her friends. That she would never overcome certain perceptions or insecurities. And that she had plenty of her own issues to deal with without shouldering someone else’s.
Only the thought that Emily could be hurt by Bethany’s younger sister, and the other women in the room, if there wasn’t a shield hovering in the shadows, made her wish to prostrate and sacrifice herself. But she could be patient and wait. And they would deal with her in the same way they tiptoed around Lady Hodge.
Charlotte smiled. “Lilac is a lovely color that will look well against your features, Mrs. Case. I have always thought your eyes a lovely shade. Soft purple will only enhance their color.”
