Potent Pleasures (30 page)

“No!” she said loudly.

“Aha! Now the screaming is going to start, right? Let me give you a hand!” Alex picked up a jar that stood on her dressing table and flung it violently against the wall. It smashed, glass tinkling to the ground. Charlotte watched, mesmerized, as white cream slid down the wooden boards. Her heart was thumping in pure terror. Maybe he would kill her, she thought. She had read about such things in the papers. And the law would say he was justified. Because he had been tricked into marrying a woman who wasn’t pure.

A drop of strength infused Charlotte’s body. If she was going to be killed by an irate husband—some part of her mind couldn’t even believe this was happening to her—she was not going to let him think he had the right to do it.

“I am not a whore,” she said in a small but even voice. She didn’t want to look at Alex but she made herself. She raised her head and met his eyes, flinching at the loathing she saw there. “I only slept with
you
, once before.”

Alex’s eyes narrowed. What kind of story was this? Did she think he went about deflowering virgins in his sleep and wouldn’t realize that her story was just hog-wash? “I
never
slept with you before,” he retorted, utter contempt gracing every word. “And as God is my witness, I will
never
sleep with you again.” He suddenly reached out and wrenched Charlotte’s nightdress from her clutching hand, ripping it the rest of the way to the floor.

“You should be able to market your wares pretty well in London,” he said calmly, surveying her body with steely eyes. Charlotte hardly heard him, thinking only that he seemed to be regaining self-control. “Yes, I think that you will be able to do pretty well for yourself among the younger set. I can see it now, the beautiful countess—” Suddenly Alex broke off. “Damnation!” He just remembered that if Charlotte did have adulterous affairs, it would be put down to his impotency. He felt as if a twining black snake had curled around his throat and was choking him to death.

Then Alex had an inspired idea. He wanted a nursemaid; now he had one. No reason Charlotte should live in London. Forget the trip to Italy—they had nothing to celebrate. No, he would take his new nursemaid to the country, in fact, farther than the country. He had an estate in Scotland. They would go there, and the woman he married could earn her keep. Then he’d go back to London and leave her in Scotland. Maybe he would visit once a year.

He looked at her. Charlotte was staring at the ground, silent tears slipping down her face. For a moment he had a flash of pity, but he ruthlessly thrust it away. Just so had Maria cried and begged forgiveness for her past. Just so had she promised never to dally with another man again, protested that his skill in bed was so great that she would be happy to stay with him all her days. And only two weeks later he had walked in on her and his head footman, energetically performing in the matrimonial bed. Alex’s fists curled. This time he would handle it better. His wife would live in Scotland, and he in London. She could raise his daughter, and he would never have to see her again. And damn anyone who wondered why his wife lived in Scotland. He would set up a mistress and squelch all the rumors about his potency—in fact, maybe he would sleep only with noblemen’s wives. Since he was an arrant cuckold, why not do the same to others?

His eyes fired with purpose. Alex took Charlotte’s arm roughly and pushed her over toward their luggage, piled in the corner.

“Begin packing,” he said coldly. He rang the bell for Charlotte’s maid. “We’re leaving. Tell Marie to wake up Pippa and Miss Helms.”

Charlotte looked at him numbly. “I didn’t sleep with other men!” she protested. “I only slept with you, once, years ago!”

Alex hardly listened. He strode out of the room without looking back. Two minutes later there was a gentle knock and Marie entered, her eyes wide with shock. In an instant she took in the picture of her sweet mistress, still clutching the remnants of her beautiful gown, sobbing uncontrollably. At least he didn’t seem to have injured her, Marie thought practically. Well, well. Her mistress must not have had the virginity he wanted—or maybe she just didn’t have a maidenhead. Men were blockheads about such things.

She averted her eyes and began swiftly packing their bags, guessing that Charlotte needed some time to collect herself. A few minutes later, Charlotte was still motionless in the center of the floor. The door flew open and Alex stood there, flanked by his man, Keating. Marie shot a quick look at Charlotte. She didn’t seem to have noticed the men standing in the doorway. Marie darted over and stood protectively in front of her mistress. Keating’s eyes just as swiftly slanted off to the corner. He’s a good man, Marie thought with approval.

“Get my clothing out,” Alex rasped at Keating. He jerked his head at his wife. “She can go in the third carriage.”

Marie swallowed. There was a serious breach between them, that was certain. The third carriage was the servants’ carriage. It followed the master’s carriage and the carriage carrying Pippa and her nanny. What would the servants do, having the mistress sitting among them? A look passed between her and Keating and she closed her mouth. Keating was clearly staring at her in a warning fashion, and the last thing she wanted was to be dismissed and leave her mistress alone with this—this madman! She shielded Charlotte until both men exited, lowering her eyes submissively as his lordship left. The cork-brained fool, she thought after the door closed behind them, Keating hoisting a pile of clothing and trailing a few cravats. Well, thank goodness her Cecil had been chosen to accompany Charlotte to Italy. Cecil would sort out the footmen. They would all have to ride pinion, that’s all.

But Marie’s fears were for naught. When she finally emerged, around an hour later, Alex’s coach was long gone, taking with him four footmen and his secretary. Keating had found the time to organize all the servants. The footmen, Cecil told her, were to ride outside, six hanging on to the back and the normal two in front. Keating would sit with the driver. Which would leave Charlotte and Marie alone in the servants’ coach. Marie nodded. She felt heartsick, unable to look at Cecil with much affection. What monsters men were. And what a monster her mistress had married! Marie knew, with a deep heartfelt certainty, that Charlotte was a virgin. Why, she’d been terrified when Marie prepared her for bed earlier that evening. Marie shook off her thoughts, giving Cecil a brooding look, and started back to the inn.

A strong arm caught her around the waist.

“Here you!” a beloved voice said into her ear. “It’s not my fault that the master is a raving madman. We’re all
for
her. You’ll see.”

Marie nodded. She headed into the inn. She had left Charlotte sitting in a tub of hot water. When she got upstairs the water had cooled, but Charlotte was still sitting there, for all the world like an infant child, Marie thought. She finally managed to poke her mistress into some clothes. Charlotte had stopped crying, but her white emotionless face shook Marie more than her crying had. Women who looked like that … it wasn’t good. She’d seen that look before, when her own mama miscarried a baby.

Just then a loud screaming echoed in the hallway.
“Mon Dieu!”
Marie said, startled into French. It was Pippa, protesting her forced awakening at the top of her lungs.

At that Charlotte walked away from Marie, who was still buttoning up her traveling gown in the back. She opened the door and said calmly, “Oh, Miss Helms.” Pippa’s nanny Katy looked back up the stairs, her hair bundled wildly on her head. “I’ll take Pippa.” The countess reached out her arms. Katy hesitated, and then walked back up the stairs. Pippa caught sight of Charlotte, and gave an urgent sob.

“My not-nanny,” she wailed.

“Here, darling,” Charlotte crooned, cuddling her in her arms. “Let’s go downstairs and get in the coach, shall we? Mama will sing you a song, and you can go back to sleep again.”

“Papa!” Pippa whimpered. “Want Papa.”

“He can’t be here right now,” Charlotte said soothingly. “But Mama is here, and I’ll sing you a song about a frog, shall I?”

On the stairs, the other two young women, Marie and Katy, looked at each other in surprise. Charlotte had never called herself “Mama” before. Yet Pippa seemed to accept it without a tremor. She cuddled into Charlotte’s arms, catching her breath but not sobbing anymore.

Charlotte looked up at Marie. “I’m sorry, Marie. We seem to have changed our plans. Would you mind bringing my brush to the coach, please? You can do my hair there. I think we had better follow his lordship now.”

Marie went back into the bedroom to pick up the last few things strewn around the room, bundling Charlotte’s ruined nightdress into a bag. She didn’t want to leave it in case the servant who cleaned the room decided to sell the story to the gossip columns. Lord knows, all this upset would be fodder enough for the papers.

But, in fact, no word of the changed plans of the Earl of Sheffield and Downes reached London. Under Alex’s instructions, Keating handed out a good deal of gold and a strongly worded threat to each and every inn employee. He doubled the yearly salary of the eight footmen who accompanied them to the inn. He paid the captain of the ship that was to take them to Italy triple fare to keep silent about the disappearance of his passengers, and capped the money off with a threat as well.

So while Charlotte’s mother and father thought she was aboard a ship for Italy, in fact she and Pippa were rattling slowly north. The two coaches Alex left behind were each pulled by two horses instead of four, so the little cavalcade didn’t travel very far in any given day. But that was a blessing, Charlotte thought. Because Alex’s coach was far, far ahead of them, and they didn’t have to worry about him.

In fact, as each day passed and her husband presumably drew farther ahead, Charlotte deliberately slowed down their journey. They took three-hour lunch breaks while she and Pippa rolled happily in the grass. They stopped at any town that took her fancy and she sketched the church steeple, or gave a chortling Pippa a bath. In short, she and Pippa got to know each other, and she grew calmer, gathering strength for the moment when she would have to encounter her husband again. She felt more composed as each day passed. She had a fairly good sense of what lay ahead. Alex had decided to dump her in Scotland. The prospect didn’t bother her too much. Let him think what he wanted. She was no whore; she had slept only with her own husband.

But she would never, ever allow him in her bed again. Even the ecstasy, which she allowed herself to remember only in her dreams, wasn’t worth the acute sense of shame and horror that had followed both of her sexual encounters with Alex. She didn’t foresee a problem in that respect: Alex had clearly said he would never sleep with her again. So Charlotte planned for a solitary future in Scotland. Perhaps her parents could visit her next summer. There wasn’t much she regretted about leaving London, although she already missed Sophie acutely. And her mother. More than anything, she would like to sob on her mother’s shoulder. But it wouldn’t change anything, Charlotte counseled herself, as she rose from another tear-filled night.

By the time the two coaches crossed the border into Scotland, the young, innocent girl who had bumped into Alex on the stairs at Lady Prestlefield’s ball was long gone. In her place was an utterly collected, assured countess who was approachable only when she played with her little girl.

“She’s a proper lady, hain’t she?” asked a red-haired urchin of his mother.

“Aw, she’s a Sassenach, and don’t you forget it!” she replied roughly. “Look at all her uppittyness! That sort never let down their hair. They’re not like us.”

Staring at the beautiful, somehow icy, English countess, the little boy nodded. She wasn’t much like his chubby, beloved mum, that’s for sure. He clutched her around the waist in a sudden hug.

“Oh, Rickie, do give over!” She pushed off his arms. Just then a little girl hurled herself at the countess, crying loudly. And the exquisitely dressed Englishwoman bent down and swung the babe into her arms, smiling at her tenderly. Maybe they weren’t
so
different, Megan thought. Megan hauled her own son up for a hug and they stared together as the beautiful countess walked off, her head bent close to her little daughter’s ear.

Chapter 15

A
lex arrived at Dunston Castle, his estate in Scotland, some ten days before Charlotte and her small entourage. He had spent the trip either sitting alone in his coach or riding on Bucephalus, which he greatly preferred. In either situation he cursed the fact that in his rage he had consigned Charlotte to the servants’ coach. Why hadn’t he left her in his coach, where he could have railed at her to his heart’s content? Then, slowly, a feeling of mingled distaste and shame about his own behavior crept into his heart, and he was glad that his wife was out of sight. But out of mind she was not.

Surges of rage still attacked him when he thought about Charlotte’s deception, but he began to regain an ability to analyze. One day he realized that he was allowing his still vibrant anger about Maria’s betrayals to cloud the situation with Charlotte. And after that perception it was only two days until he sat bolt upright in the morning, Charlotte’s voice echoing in his head.

“I didn’t sleep with other men! I only slept with you, once, years ago!”

And then there was Charlotte talking about sex: “I didn’t know … it was wonderful, so wonderful … it wasn’t at all like the other time. No pain …”

So Charlotte wasn’t quite the arrant betrayer that Maria had been. No, she had slept with only one man, years ago—and she thought it had been him. It cast an ugly light on why she agreed to marry him, but that didn’t matter, Alex thought, consigning dreams of love to the fire. He was no idiot. It was clear what had happened. Charlotte had slept with Patrick, and due to the unlucky fact of Patrick being out of England when the two of them met, she believed she had lost her virginity to him. Alex swallowed hard. He and Patrick had shared women in the past … but never a wife. It was a hard thing to contemplate. Still, if one had to marry under these circumstances, wasn’t it better that the other man had been one’s twin?

He thought about this for the last few days before Charlotte arrived, calming his intense irritability by casting fishing lines into foggy Scottish streams and pulling out trout that no one wanted to eat. So he threw them back. He spent hours staring at the gray-green water as it rippled slightly in the wake of his line.

Probably the most surprising part of the last three weeks, he finally realized, was how much he missed Pippa. For months he had been the primary person in her life—and then, in a fit of petulant rage, he drove off and left her in a carriage with a nanny and a stepmother she barely knew. And he
missed
her now, missed her with a deep visceral ache in his belly. He found himself wondering in the middle of the night how she had gone to sleep without him twirling the curl on her forehead and telling her to have sweet dreams. If nothing else, the Pippa ache told him that his scheme to bury Charlotte in Scotland wasn’t a good one. Unless he buried himself as well.

No, Alex thought grimly, he’d accept his wife. He would bring her back to London. They could rub along pretty well together, now that he had given up his rosy illusions about falling in love with the woman he married. They would have to go to bed together, because he needed an heir. (That he was using the necessity of an heir as a justification, given the likelihood that Patrick would have a child, was just barely hidden from Alex’s consciousness.)

He shook his fishing line irritably. Where the hell was Charlotte? For the last two nights his mind had filled with the alarming stories he’d recently heard about raiders lurking on the Scottish border, waiting to jump on unsuspecting English travelers. God, why had he been such a hotheaded, arrogant brute? What if Charlotte and Pippa were robbed, taken for ransom—or worse? Even as Charlotte’s carriage stopped, a mere two hours from Alex’s estate, and the occupants ambled into a flowery meadow for a leisurely lunch, Alex tortured himself by imagining a far crueler fate.

So when the two travel-stained carriages finally trundled through the huge stone walls marking the entrance to the courtyard, Alex glimpsed them from his library window, and just barely controlled himself from bounding down the stairs and pulling his wife and child into his arms. Instead he stayed next to the window, rigidly braced against the sill. There came his wife, nimbly stepping down from the third, rather shabby servants’ carriage. Then the second carriage opened and Pippa half-tumbled out, running over to Charlotte and holding up her arms. Alex couldn’t know that this had been the arrangement for the last two hours only, that normally Charlotte rode in Pippa’s coach. Pippa had tormented her nanny for the last hour, demanding her mama. He saw Charlotte laughingly swing Pippa up into her arms, and Pippa wind her little arms around Charlotte’s neck and nuzzle her. This was what he had wanted, wasn’t it?

Time to go downstairs. Alex walked down the twisting stone steps from his library, mentally bracing himself. He had forgotten, in the intervening weeks, just how much Charlotte’s beauty moved him. Even the sight of her trim bottom as she bent over to pick up Pippa sent a stab of lust to his groin. Well, all the better, he reasoned, pacing calmly toward the entrance. She
was
his wife, after all. Maybe he could keep her too busy to roam to other men.

He walked into the courtyard. Servants were pouring out of the door, lining up for their formal introduction to the new countess. Charlotte was standing, Pippa in her arms, looking slightly amused. Her expression didn’t change when she saw him. She merely inclined her head a fraction of an inch and said, “My lord.”

Alex looked at her thoughtfully. He inclined his head in response.

“Charlotte.” There was silence in the courtyard. Pippa, who had been watching the horses over Charlotte’s shoulder, twisted her little self around. Alex smiled at her and held out his arms. But rather than say “Papa” in her lovely Italian accent, or struggle to get down and run to him, as she had to Charlotte, Pippa took one horrified look, twisted her free arm around Charlotte’s neck, and burst into loud sobs.

“Sweetie,” Charlotte said, “I told you Papa would come back. You see, Papa is here, and he missed you, and he loves you very much. He didn’t leave forever. Do you remember what I told you?”

There was no answer. Pippa just buried her face more tightly into Charlotte’s neck. Alex felt a burning red creep up his neck. His own daughter was rejecting him in front of some thirty servants, all of whom were craning their necks to see what was happening. Alex walked over to the two of them, his body rigidly disguising his impulse to pull Charlotte into his arms and kiss her until she lost that distant look.

“Pumpkin,” he said, his deep voice calm and persuasive. “I missed you very much. In fact, I thought every night about how much I wished that I had never left you. But here I am, and I would very much like a hug from my own pumpkin.”

Pippa raised her tearstained face. “Papa?” she asked. Alex stooped down, ignoring the fact that Charlotte drew back slightly as he came close. He rubbed noses with Pippa. She giggled and held out her arms. “Papa,” she said. “Papa!”

The Italian accent was gone forever, Alex thought. But the warmth of his daughter’s small chunky body clinging to his was all that mattered. “I love you, pumpkin,” he whispered into Pippa’s neck. He forgot all the bystanders.

Charlotte stared at her husband. It was the old Alex, the premarriage Alex, the loving father she had seen before their wedding night. A sense of relief filled Charlotte’s heart. Besides her own heartbreak, she had worried fiercely about Pippa. How could Pippa cope with the death of her real mother, if her newfound papa decided to just ride off and leave her in Scotland? But perhaps his plan wasn’t quite so vengeful as she had imagined. Alex and Pippa snuggled together, seemingly oblivious of their audience.

Suddenly Alex swung up his head. His eyes ranged over the assembled servants. “This is your new mistress, the Countess of Sheffield and Downes.” He gave all the servants an arrogant stare; he didn’t want them to slight the new countess, having seen her descend from the servants’ coach. And wait until they heard stories from the footmen who arrived with her. Inside he groaned, but his face remained haughty and confident. Then he smiled suddenly. “And this is my daughter, Lady Philippa.”

There was a resounding cheer and a flurry of clapped hands. Alex held out his free arm to Charlotte. She took it lightly and he led her to the front of the line and began making painstaking introductions to the primary servants of the estate.

For her part, Charlotte was delighted with herself. She felt
nothing
. After all the agony of the last three weeks, she looked at Alex, her husband, and she felt nothing: neither attraction nor acute rage. She felt a twinge of pity because he looked singularly drawn and tired. But seeing him didn’t sway her resolution one tiny bit, she was happy to find. Even as she smiled and chatted with the servants, she inwardly gloated about the fact that his alarming effect on her, the inner weakness that made her shake every time he so much as touched her finger, was gone. She was holding his arm and she felt—nothing.

Finally Charlotte had met all the upstairs servants. She liked the butler enormously, judged that one of the upper housemaids would probably have to be replaced, made a mental note to have the housekeeper’s records checked. Then she smiled generally at the mass of unnamed servants and dropped Alex’s arm. Side by side they walked up the four stone steps and into the front hall.

“My goodness,” she exclaimed as they entered the echoing stone entrance.

“I inherited it through my great-grandmother,” Alex said cheerfully. Now that he had Pippa in his arms and Charlotte didn’t seem to be looking at him as if he were a monster, he felt as if the world was manageable once again. As soon as he had the chance, he would simply explain to Charlotte that although she had slept with his brother, he—Alex—had magnanimously decided to forgive her for the lapse. He smiled to himself. This was the right way to behave. His mother would have approved. His father—no. His father would definitely have cast Charlotte off, or left her entombed in this Scottish castle in the back of nowhere. But he wasn’t like his father. He would have a marriage based on magnanimity, even if not on love. In fact, Alex was practically glowing with virtue.

Unfortunately, his wife didn’t seem to have noticed. She was wandering about, touching the tapestries that lined the wide room. In fact, she seemed to be frowning over how dusty they were.

“Well,” Charlotte said, meeting his eyes with no apparent self-consciousness. “I shall be in my chamber until supper, my lord. Mrs. McLean will show me the way, I am sure.” Charlotte smiled at the plump housekeeper, waiting by the stairs. “What time do you serve supper in Scotland?”

Alex looked back at her, one eyebrow unconsciously raised. His new wife was very cool. “At eight o’clock,” he said.

“My lord,” Charlotte repeated, and curtsied.

Alex started. Of course, his parents used to salute each other that way, but Charlotte had never curtsied to him before, except in the midst of a dance. Slowly, he bowed.

Then suddenly Charlotte approached him, and his heart raced. But she merely leaned in and brushed Pippa’s cheek with her lips.

“Mama!” Pippa said, and for a moment she managed to hook her chubby little arm around her mama’s neck, bringing them so close together that Alex could smell Charlotte’s orange-blossom scent.

“No, sweetie,” Charlotte said lovingly to Pippa. “You stay with your papa awhile. There’s my good pippin.” Then she turned to Alex, and all the warmth fell from her face like magic, leaving not hostility, but a calm detachment. “Whenever you wish, return Pippa to her nanny. She is quite fond of Katy now.”

An icy chill crept up Alex’s spine. No, Charlotte didn’t look at him as if she were angry. She looked at him the way he had seen a hundred society dames look at their husbands: not enraged, not even speculative, simply flatly uninterested. But very, very polite, he thought, as Charlotte curtsied again and began climbing the stairs with Mrs. McLean. Without thinking he tightened his grasp on Pippa until she gave a squawk of protest.

“All right, pumpkin. Let’s go see the kittens in the stable, shall we?”

Charlotte walked up the stairs slowly, hardly hearing the details Mrs. McLean was pouring into her ear—the difficulty of finding good servants, what happened to six pieces of the best china Tuesday last, the need for new linen. She wasn’t as impervious to Alex as she had hoped. When Pippa pulled her close she had caught Alex’s spicy male smell, and against her will her knees weakened.

Charlotte oversaw the transfer of her clothes out of the bedchamber adjoining the master bedroom and into one far down the corridor next to the nursery (the servants accepted without comment her wish for better light), directed the arrangement of her paints in one of the four corner tower rooms that was currently unused, and personally inspected Pippa’s new nursery. After scanning the room, Charlotte ordered another layer of carpets laid on top of those already present. Pippa still spent a good deal of time crawling on the floor, and she didn’t want her to catch a creeping influenza from the damp, cold stone that made up the castle floors.