Potent Pleasures (42 page)

He took a deep breath. Bring her back, Patrick had said. Bring her back and help her push. He put his hands on her swollen tummy, and the faint flicker of life he felt sent fire through his veins. Their child was there as well, fighting for life.

Alex bent over again, putting his hands on Charlotte’s cheeks. His voice was low and insistent this time. “Charlotte, you must wake up. You must come back. The baby will die if you don’t come back, Charlotte. Our baby will die.” He paused and looked down at her. Had her eyelids flickered? Alex put his mouth so close to her face that his breath warmed her skin. He kissed her, breathing warmth into her, pouring his strength into her. “Charlotte,” he said again. “You must wake up or our baby will die. Don’t let our baby die, Charlotte!”

Charlotte heard him, but only as if his voice were a long way off, in a dream. It was Alex, she knew that. And he wasn’t shouting at her; he was pleading, almost begging. And then she understood what he was saying and with the last bit of her energy she opened her eyes. Almost instantly a contraction gripped her and she moaned, eyes closing, willing herself to fall back into the sweet, blessed darkness without pain. Long eyelashes drifted down over her white cheeks.

But Alex’s voice wouldn’t let her. “Don’t, Charlotte, don’t! Our baby will die.” His voice was rasping with agony, but it was fiercely commanding as well. Charlotte opened her eyes again.

“Oh, God, Charlotte,” Alex said. He cradled her face in his hands. “I love you, do you know that?”

And Charlotte, looking at him with pain-drenched eyes, saw agony and tenderness and unbearable guilt in his eyes, and nodded, once. She smiled a little and turned her face against his hand, sliding back into the warm nest he had pulled her from.

Alex roughly pulled her into a half-sitting position. Charlotte groaned, but she was looking at him again.

“Our baby,” he was saying, “our baby, Charlotte!”

Slowly it came back to her. Her baby … where was her baby? Right on cue, another bone-shaking contraction crept up her abdomen. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Alex was gently caressing her shoulders. The pain passed and she opened her eyes.

He was looking at her, his eyes wild and desperate. Charlotte blinked. “Charlotte, on the next contraction, we’re going to push the baby out, do you understand?” Alex’s voice was so commanding that she answered.

“I tried.” Her voice was a wisp of sound.

“This time we’re going to push together. You were alone before; now I’m going to push with you. Feel how strong I am, Charlotte?” She nodded. He was gripping her hand as if he would never let go.

The door opened and Dr. Seedland slipped through, alone. His eyes went instantly to the bed.

“All right, Doctor,” Alex said without turning his head. “On the next contraction Charlotte and I are going to push the baby
out
. Because we want our baby to live, Charlotte. And if it doesn’t come out, the baby will die.” He kept his eyes fastened on hers, as if he could hypnotize her into strength.

Charlotte took a deep breath. She was fully back now, back in her pain-racked, exhausted body. Somehow logic had come back as well. She had to get the baby out. Yet logic, in fact, had deserted her, because as she explained later, Alex said
he
was going to push the baby out, and she agreed. She was too tired; it would be good if he could take over now.

So when the contraction started, instead of trying to control the pain Charlotte just relaxed into it and when Alex’s hands tightened and his voice beat at her head, saying, “Push, push!” she thought about the baby dying, and that Alex was pushing, and she wrenched her whole soul down to her stomach. And pushed.

“I see the head,” Dr. Seedland said unemotionally. He looked at Alex with a gleam of approval. “We need one more like that, my lord.”

Alex turned back to Charlotte. She was lying back, hair plastered to her scalp with sweat. She looked as if she’d been in a good fight and had come out on the losing side. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He bent down and kissed her mouth. Charlotte didn’t stir. He bit her lip sharply. Her eyes flew open.

There he was again, bothering her. She frowned at him.

“We need to do it one more time, Charlotte. Come on, the contraction is coming. We can get the baby out this time, Charlotte!” And then, in answer to her unspoken plea, “Just one more time, Charlotte.” And he hoped it was true.

So as the pain wrenched its way up her legs and into her chest Charlotte clutched her husband’s hands and pushed, one last time.

There was a shout from the end of the bed. “I’ve got him!” Dr. Seedland said hoarsely. And a second later there was a fierce, thin wail.

In the room across the hall, Sophie and Patrick had given up. They were curled up in the huge armchair like a pair of hibernating animals, taking pure animal comfort from each other’s nearness. For a while they listened carefully, but when Alex shouted, “No, no!” Sophie slumped back against Patrick. She was too tired even to cry anymore. Patrick was stricken with grief for his twin. In the back of his mind, he knew that Alex would never get over this, never. Alex had loved Charlotte; he had failed her; she had died. Mentally, Patrick sat in the chair gathering his strength to fight for his twin’s life.

But then a baby’s tiny wail pierced the silence. Patrick literally leaped from the chair and Sophie was launched into the air and flew down to the ground:
whack!
She fell on her left shoulder.

Sophie screamed with pain, and Patrick instantly scooped her up into his arms. They poised there, absolutely silent, until another spiraling wail hit the air. An uneasy thought occurred to Patrick. Had the doctor “rescued” the baby? Or did Alex succeed in waking up Charlotte? He had told his twin to wake her up, but he had almost no hope that it was possible. Patrick set Sophie on her feet and opened the door into the hallway.

The door to the bedroom was open. Patrick’s heart quailed; the bed was absolutely soaked in blood. But then … there was Alex, striding toward them, a huge grin splitting his face. And in his arms was a tiny, tiny little scrap of humanity.

“See?” Alex held back the flap of the white blanket so they could see a red face and small mouth, opening and shutting.

“He’s hungry,” Sophie said, fascinated. “Or, she’s hungry?”

“She,” Alex said. He looked about. Charlotte’s carefully chosen wet nurse had gone off to the kitchens long ago, and was at that moment drowning her sorrows in a tankard of ale. Mall, who had stood by Charlotte’s bed for hours, was weeping, head down on the kitchen table.

Alex looked down at his daughter’s small mouth and walked back to the bed. Charlotte was propped up against the headboard, still ashen white, but without the faraway, lost look she had before. She seemed to be asleep. The doctor had pulled a sheet up around her after the delivery. Alex pulled it down to Charlotte’s waist and carefully settled his little daughter against her breast.

Charlotte opened her eyes, startled, as a tiny flailing fist hit her.

“Ohhhh,” she breathed. The baby opened its black eyes and stared at her. Then she turned her head restlessly and opened her little mouth again. Instinctively Charlotte brought her up to her breast and the baby closed her small lips around her nipple.

Charlotte’s eyes met Alex’s and her free hand clasped his. Alex cupped his large hand around his daughter’s tiny head.

“She’s beautiful,” Alex said. “Look! She’s sucking.”

Suddenly the midwife, the wet nurse, and Mall erupted back into the room.

“I’ll take the little babe,” the wet nurse said importantly. She had been living at the manor for two days, waiting for the baby to come.

“No!” Charlotte said, as the wet nurse reached down to take the baby. “Alex!”

Alex felt a swell of pride. Charlotte had looked to him to save her baby; she obviously didn’t still think of him as a kidnapper. He grinned at the wet nurse.

“The countess has decided to nurse the child herself,” he explained cheerfully.

“My lady!” The wet nurse was aghast. Ladies
never, never
nursed their children. She bent down next to the bed. “My lady, your breasts … they will never be the same.”

Charlotte looked at her uncomprehendingly. She felt as if she were half-asleep, and sounds only reached her through a thick cotton blanket. She looked away from the woman and down at the baby’s tiny bald head. It was so fragile. Charlotte caressed the baby’s head tentatively, running her fingers delicately over her rosy shell-like ears. When the woman kept saying something to her, she looked up at Alex in silent appeal. Alex took the wet nurse by the arm and led her out of the room, passing her over to the housekeeper with a muttered remark about compensation. Slowly the room emptied.

To his surprise, Alex realized that he knew Charlotte’s housekeeper. The woman in front of him, who was obviously the housekeeper given her ring of keys, was the young girl Charlotte had been painting in London. Although she didn’t seem so young now. At her direction he went back to the bed and bent down.

“Darling, I’m going to carry you into another room now.” Charlotte smiled exhaustedly, a flicker of a smile. Alex’s strong arms came under her and she gratefully laid her head against his shoulder. In her arms nestled their little baby, still suckling irregularly, although her eyes weren’t open anymore.

Alex laid his wife and child tenderly in the room Mall pointed out. When Charlotte’s maid appeared with a bowl of water, he waved her away and washed Charlotte’s body himself. She hardly seemed to notice as the warm sponge glided over her body. The baby was asleep now, its cheek tucked against Charlotte’s breast.

Finally Alex snuffed out most of the candles and climbed on the bed too. He couldn’t bear to be parted from them. In a gesture that broke his heart, Charlotte handed him their daughter, adjusting the babe’s little head against his arm. Then she snuggled against his side and fell instantly into a deep sleep. Alex lay awake a long time, staring blindly at the opposite wall.

An hour or so later Pippa trundled into the room, shrieking with delight to see her papa. Charlotte didn’t even stir. Alex showed Pippa the new baby, but she showed almost no interest. Instead she said, “Mama!” and crawled over Charlotte’s body so that she could nestle on her other side. She butted her head up against Charlotte’s shoulder, clutched a bit of Charlotte’s nightdress, and closed her eyes, absolutely blissful.

Alex nodded to Pippa’s nanny, who left. Then he leaned back against the headboard, sick with self-loathing. How could he have thought to separate this family? If Charlotte is generous enough to give me a place in the family again, he vowed with all the silent strength of his soul, I will guard it with my life and never, never be the one to pull it to pieces.

Alex lay unmoving in the huge bed until dawn began to creep through the curtains, rearranging the puzzle pieces of his life: the garden girl and how she led him to marry Maria, and Maria’s wild sexual gyrations, and how they had nothing to do with Charlotte. And perhaps most important, his own destructive rage at Maria, which he unfairly directed at Charlotte.

As his new little daughter sighed and stirred and opened her black eyes, peering about in a dazed, half-blind sort of way, Alex remembered the anguish in Maria’s eyes as she’d begged him to be kind to Pippa, and to love her. Whatever Maria had been, she was a good mother, Alex thought. Healing remembrance flooded his soul. He, after all, was alive. He didn’t have to say goodbye to Pippa, or to Charlotte, or to this little scrap of humanity in his arms. Alex shuddered inwardly. But he smiled too. The burning, corrosive rage was gone. When he thought of Maria now, he knew he would remember the dying mother, tears streaming down her face, telling him in a broken voice that she hadn’t allowed Pippa into the room for three weeks so that their daughter wouldn’t catch scarlet fever.

Alex’s new child opened her delicate red mouth and cried the desolate, high wail of a hungry newborn. Charlotte’s eyes snapped open and she sat up, bewildered. Then she held out her arms, smiling as Alex gently arranged their daughter’s round head against Charlotte’s breast. And when Alex’s eyes met the forgiving eyes of his wife over the head of a noisily sucking infant, there was no man in all of England who could claim to be happier than he.

Chapter 23

F
or the first few weeks, as Charlotte’s body mended, she pored over her baby, learning every little bump and curve, the enchanting dip of her eyebrows, the sturdiness of her body, the wildness of her hungry eyes, the bliss of the little grunts she made while eating. When she thought about Alex at all, it was with gratitude. He got up in the dark and went to the door in answer to Katy’s soft knock, bringing Sarah for a feeding. He played with Pippa in the afternoons. Alex and Charlotte curled together like spoons at night, at least the part of the night during which she wasn’t nursing Sarah. And after the first few weeks, Sarah roused only once a night for a feeding. Charlotte would wake up, wondering where Sarah was, and find a warm, masculine arm wrapped around her stomach, or a muscled leg carelessly thrown across her own. It made her heart glow.

Sarah was a very even-tempered baby, easy to care for and undemanding. Charlotte soon began to feel like herself again. One morning when Sarah was around two months old, Charlotte was woken by the faint jiggle as her husband swung his legs out of bed.

Marie had been in the room early in the morning and had drawn the curtains. Morning sun puddled on the carpet and lit up the glinting silver in Alex’s hair. He was standing stark naked by the window, staring down at the gardens. Charlotte sleepily allowed her eyes to drift up his long, muscular legs and the line of his back, all the way to his towering shoulders. Alex’s hair had grown longer during the past two months; curls touched the back of his neck.

“Alex,” Charlotte said, before she thought.

Alex turned around at the soft sound of her voice as if he’d heard a gunshot. Charlotte was propped up on her elbow, her velvety black hair cascading over her shoulders. She was wearing a fine lawn nightdress with wide shoulders, suitable for nursing, and the neck had slipped down, leaving a creamy shoulder bare. Alex’s body responded immediately.

Charlotte was staring at him in fascination, not saying a word. A faint pink flush rose up her neck.

Alex walked over to the bed, consciously making himself stroll as if the center of his body wasn’t jutting into the middle distance.

“Charlotte?” he asked.

Charlotte didn’t say anything. She was trembling and she couldn’t seem to stop staring at him. Alex’s eyes were black, so black that she couldn’t see the pupils at all. He sat on the bed when she didn’t answer.

Slowly his hand reached out and stroked her neck, his fingers trailing down to the ivory mounds peeking out from the lace surrounding her nightdress. Slowly, slowly, almost holding his breath in hopes of not startling her, Alex bent over and put his lips gently on her rosy mouth.

Instinctively Charlotte opened her lips and Alex’s tongue swiftly invaded. Charlotte’s arms wrapped around Alex’s neck and he lowered himself onto her. Charlotte gasped. His weight was so delicious. She’d thought she would never feel it again, the way his hardness settled onto her soft curves, making her feel tingling and tight at the same time.

Alex’s hand swept down Charlotte’s body and pulled up her gown with one swift wrench. He wasn’t going to give her a chance to remember that she hated him. They had never discussed everything that happened before Sarah was born, but Alex knew that in the depth of Charlotte’s soul she must hate him. She was letting him stay with her while the baby was so small … but inside his wife must hate him for almost killing her and Sarah, for mistrusting her and leaving her.

But that realization hadn’t stopped him from loving Charlotte—and wanting her. Sarah was his daughter; he knew that with every fiber of his being. But even if she hadn’t been, even given Charlotte’s lack of virginity, he didn’t care. What he wanted was this warm, laughing, exquisite person to be next to him his whole life.

Alex’s hand found her and Charlotte moaned, her body bucking against his palm. Alex’s mind clouded. She was ready for him.

“Charlotte?” he whispered. “Are you sure it’s all right? It’s been only a few months since Sarah was born.”

Charlotte opened her eyes and looked into Alex’s eyes. Hers were unfocused, glowing, until they saw the concern in Alex’s eyes. His face was strained with the effort of holding himself back.

In response she opened her mouth and ran her tongue along the line of his lips, a delicious, teasing gesture that made a silent pronouncement. With a groan Alex took her mouth and in the same breath he thrust into her, a jagged moan leaping from his throat.

When he didn’t move again Charlotte nudged her hips up against his. Her heart was racing. Her entire being was focused on the incredible sensations radiating from her hips. The racing heat in her belly demanded that he respond, that he adopt the fierce cadence she remembered in her dreams. Why wasn’t he moving?

Alex stared down at his wife as Charlotte’s long eyelashes fluttered. Her eyes stared bewilderedly into his.

“I can’t do it,” he said brokenly. “Charlotte, please …”

Charlotte stared at her husband in absolute perplexity. What on earth was he asking for? She bucked her hips gently against his, closing her eyes a minute, coaxing him to leap into movement. But Alex remained still, so she opened her eyes again.

He was looking down at her silently, eyes strained and vulnerable.

“Alex?” she asked hesitatingly. “What is it? Doesn’t it … don’t you want to?”

“Oh, God.” Alex groaned. “Can’t you feel me? Don’t I
want
to!” He pulled back and thrust into her again, just to show her how much he wanted to be where he was. Irresistibly he did it again. But just as a broken moan drifted from Charlotte’s lips, he stopped again.

“Alex?” To her horror, Charlotte saw that his eyes were bright with tears. “Alex!”

Abruptly Alex withdrew, pulling away and swinging his legs over the side of the bed—as if he were leaving, Charlotte thought with alarm. She reached out and touched his elbow.

“Alex?”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Alex dropped his head into his hands.

“Alex, what’s the matter?” Charlotte hastily pulled her nightdress past her hips again. Then she sat next to her husband.

He lifted his head to look at her, eyes bright with self-condemnation. “I almost took your life and Sarah’s, Charlotte. I can’t make love to you as if that didn’t happen. I shouldn’t
be
here with you; you should have tossed me out the door long ago. God knows, Charlotte, I deserve it.”

Charlotte bit back a smile. Lord, but she had married a man of extremes. When Alex first pulled away, she felt a pulse of alarm, thinking he was going to erupt in a fury. Although, now that she knew with utter certainty how much he loved her, even a jealous rage couldn’t really disturb her happiness.

“Do you love me?”

Alex leaned forward and touched her lips with his. “You know that I do,” he said hoarsely.

“Do you think I love you?”

A wry smile lit Alex’s eyes. “In my more optimistic moments.”

“Don’t you see, Alex?” Charlotte reached out and cupped his face in her two hands, her grasp both sensual and confiding. “Don’t you see how lucky we are? You loved me so much that you were able to save my life—you pulled me back from the edge of death. And I loved you enough that I followed your voice back, even though I had given up.”

Charlotte leaned forward and caressed Alex’s mouth with her lips, sweetly, with all the truth that lay in her eyes. Then she whispered: “Forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live.”

Silently Alex pulled his wife into his arms, burying his face in her sweet-smelling curls. The silky roughness against his cheek soothed the tightness in his throat, the burning in his eyes.

“I don’t deserve your love, Charlotte. I’m a jealous idiot. I couldn’t stand the idea of anyone else touching you—and the thought made me irrational. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I was cruel.” Tortured guilt strained Alex’s voice.

Charlotte rubbed her cheek against his shoulder comfortingly. “You
are
an idiot, Alex,” she said. “Why would I ever want any other man to touch me when we make love the way we do?”

But still Alex held back. “You don’t know how stupid I was, Charlotte. I kept praising myself because I was going to forgive you, but you have to forgive me. If … if I promise not to go insane again, will you ever trust me?”

“I trust you,” Charlotte said simply. “In all ways: in bed and out of bed.”

“I wouldn’t ever sleep with another woman,” Alex answered, speaking to the question of beds.

“Well,” Charlotte said with a lopsided, teasing smile, kissing the honey-dark skin of Alex’s shoulder, “can you imagine sleeping with
me?
” She trailed small, heated kisses along the ridge of Alex’s collarbone and up his neck to his beating pulse. Then she stopped, throwing back her head and looking straight into her husband’s coal-black eyes.

“I love you, Alexander Foakes. I love you so much that I will undoubtedly forgive you again and again and again, for anything you do.”

Alex’s eyes burned down into hers. “You couldn’t love me as much as I love you.”

The words hung in the air between them. Now Charlotte’s eyes were dewy. Alex lowered his head, passionately kissing her eyes, her cheeks, the whirl of her ears. As each tear slowly slid down her creamy skin he kissed it off. Finally they fell back onto the bed together.

Charlotte’s hands clutched Alex’s shoulders as he sunk into her warm depths.

“We’re together,” Alex said.

“Together.” In Charlotte’s voice was a promise.

“With my body,” Alex said hoarsely, looking straight into Charlotte’s eyes. “With my body I thee worship.” In his voice there was a promise—a promise, a vow, a benediction.