Seducing the Duchess (17 page)

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Authors: Ashley March

BOOK: Seducing the Duchess
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“N-no, Papa,” she answered, and had to cover her mouth over a small hiccup.
It was amazing. She might as well have been eight years old again, readying herself for another whipping and lecture on why good little girls did not sing in church. Especially not while the sermon was being delivered, and
especially
not a song such as “Bessie’s Flying Skirts.”
It made her want to laugh again, but even more, it made her want to cry.
“Shall we go in to supper, then?” Philip asked, rescuing her at the very moment she would have launched herself into her father’s arms and hugged him.
It was very good of him, as she wasn’t sure what her reception would be should she act upon such an impulse.
They filed silently into the dining room, Charlotte pulled close to Philip’s side.
“Remember. I’m right here,” he whispered before they parted to sit at opposite ends of the table. She shouldn’t have taken comfort in his words, as he’d been the one to invite them, but she did.
As footmen brought forth the first course, she wondered what kind of world it had become, when she and Philip were no longer adversaries, but had somehow formed a fragile allegiance.
It did not escape her notice that he seated her parents at his end of the table, with Nicholas in the middle and Roland and Arthur on either side of her.
Although she was glad for the human buffers her brothers presented to keep her parents from blustering too loudly at her, Charlotte could not keep her eyes from lingering on the empty chair across from Nicholas.
The seat where Ethan should have been.
Spoons tapped a tense, steady rhythm against bowls, the only sound she could hear against the backdrop of her mother’s sighs and her father’s grumbling.
Her brothers—intelligent men that they were—wisely kept their heads down, staring with fascination into their soup.
Charlotte met Philip’s gaze down the length of the table. At the inquiring lift of his brow, she shrugged helplessly. He gave her a short nod and turned toward her father, murmuring an indecipherable question.
Her father banged his spoon upon the table. Charlotte jumped.
“Damnation! We’re here, aren’t we? What else do you expect?”
Philip’s answer carried evenly to her ears. “Perhaps a little civil conversation would be best. Do you not agree, Mrs. Sheffield?”
Interrupted in midsigh, her mother blinked at the charming smile sent her way. Charlotte could well understand her reaction. Even viewed in profile, the curve of Philip’s lips sent her own heart racing.
“Yes, Your Grace. That would be best,” her mother echoed.
“Excellent,” Philip said and, catching Charlotte’s eye, sent her a wink. Like the first time he’d winked at her, the movement caught her by surprise.
Over the next hour and seven more courses, they spoke of the ordinary and mundane topics of everyday life: of the good rains this summer and the flooding last year; of old Mr. Carlisle, who had finally died in May; and also of the youth deserting the village in favor of finding employment and excitement in London or nearby Birmingham.
It was a stilted, drawn-out affair, full of awkward pauses and hasty glances thrown down both ends of the table.
No mention was made of the past, nor of Ethan, nor of any rumors her family may or may not have heard about the way she’d behaved over the past three years, for which Charlotte was grateful.
At the end, everyone watched and waited as Arthur carefully and painstakingly savored the last of his pineapple cream, apparently oblivious to the impatient throat clearings sent his way. Charlotte was tempted to reach over and remove it herself, so anxious was she for the meal to be over.
Finally, as Arthur’s spoon slipped from his mouth for the last time, Philip turned to Charlotte’s father and said, “Mrs. Sheffield mentioned your gout has been acting up terribly, with the rain coming. What do you say? Shall we leave the port and the cigars for another evening, Squire?”
He swung his head toward Philip, then to his wife, then back again. “Gout? I do not—”
Philip narrowed his eyes.
“I ...” Her father allowed the remainder of his sentence to trail away. His face reddened, even to the tips of his ears. “Yes, Your Grace, my foot has been bothering me greatly tonight. Perhaps, as you suggested, another evening would be better.”
A polite smile spread across Philip’s face and he rose, signaling for the others to rise with him. “Then we shall bid you farewell.”
They moved to the drawing room and waited for Fallon to fetch Mrs. Sheffield’s shawl. Charlotte and Philip stood near the hearth while her family clustered together in front of the doors.
When Fallon appeared, Charlotte swallowed past the nervous lump in her throat and stepped forward.
“Mum. Papa. Please—” She had meant to plead for their forgiveness, but at her father’s cold blue stare, and as her mother averted her gaze to busy herself with her shawl, she faltered.
Instead, she moved to her brothers. “Roland—”
He gripped her in a bear hug. “Lottie,” he whispered in her ear. “Give them time.”
She nodded and pulled back, and Nicholas and Arthur were there, waiting to embrace her.
Nicholas tousled her hair as he released her.
“We missed you,” Arthur said when he took his turn to hug her.
As he dropped his arms to his sides, Charlotte looked over, hopeful, searching for her parents.
They were no longer in the doorway.
Nor, when she peeked out of the drawing room and into the corridor, could she see them walking toward the front entrance.
She turned back to her brothers and tried to smile, but failed miserably. “Papa moves unusually fast despite his gout,” she joked.
They laughed politely, not quite meeting her eyes, and then said their good-byes. Then they, too, left the drawing room.
She leaned on the door frame, unable to tear her gaze away from their departing backs. Yet she didn’t call for them to return, or to wait for her, so she could go with them to Sheffield House. It seemed she belonged nowhere.
Charlotte closed her eyes when Philip’s hand brushed the back of her neck, along the edge of the high collar.
“You were marvelous tonight,” he said, his voice low and soothing, tugging softly on her bruised heart, just as his fingers tugged at the stray wisps of hair falling from her coiffure.
For once, she didn’t try to shrug him off. Neither did she choose to be assertive or bold, but stood still and silent beneath his gentle touch. Absorbing his strength, the warmth radiating from his fingertips to her skin, the masculine scent of soap and leather which filtered through her nostrils and intoxicated her blood.
He sighed, and the rush of breath skimmed along her ear, almost like a caress. “I understand you are angry,” he said. “Gilpin had told me you never went to see them that day, and I thought—” His fingers stilled at her neck, and he withdrew his hand. “I wish to apologize, Charlotte. To tell you the truth, I thought it would go much better than that. I didn’t realize how hardheaded, how utterly stubborn—”
“Don’t,” she cried, her tone harsher than she intended. Turning, she lifted to her toes and swiftly kissed his cheek.
She swayed there a moment more, longer than she should have, inhaling the scent of his skin and tempting herself with his nearness. Finally, she forced her feet to step away. “You have no need to apologize. Tonight, Philip, you were a wonderful husband.”
Then, before he could ruin the moment—for she knew he would if she stayed—and before the tears burning at the backs of her eyes betrayed her, she whirled around and fled the room.
Chapter 10
S
ix months, two weeks, and three days ago.
That’s when Philip had begun to fear for his sanity, when he realized he wanted his wife.
At first, he had been stunned. After all, they barely spoke to one another; perhaps on a good day, as he was passing from the breakfast room and she was coming in, they might murmur formal greetings before they went their separate ways.
He certainly hadn’t given any credence to his attraction in the beginning. If he delayed his morning ride by a few minutes so he could be at the breakfast table, still eating, when she entered, it wasn’t because he looked forward to a few more silent minutes spent in her company. He was only hungrier than usual.
And when he began coming home earlier in the day, around the time when she usually received visitors in the drawing room, his only reasoning was that he wanted to see the types of people she brought into his house. He had heard rumors of dockworkers, actors, and foreign merchants, not to mention the run-of-the-mill viscount and earl.
At times he told himself he was lonely; after all, when a man neared thirty years of age, it was understandable if he began to think of family, and of permanence, and a child or two underfoot to ensure the continuation of the Rutherford legacy.
But no excuse he could make was reason enough to explain why he’d become suddenly enchanted by her.
 
The fact that Philip had deliberately investigated the details of Charlotte’s social calendar was ludicrous enough. But now he was attempting to manipulate her into spending time alone with him.
He might have been concerned, if it wasn’t overshadowed by the appalling way his pulse raced when the footman opened the carriage door and Charlotte climbed inside.
“Good evening, my dear. To the Livingston soiree?”
She gasped, a scream that was cut short when her gaze jerked to his corner of the vehicle. “Your Grace.” Deprecation in two little syllables. It was very well done.
The door closed behind her, and Philip motioned to the other seat, disliking how his body reacted to the jasmine perfume she wore. He had breathed the same scent from her skin on their wedding night, warm and soft as her flesh beneath his palms.
Lust. It was an irritation, especially in conjunction with Charlotte.
“I thought we might take the carriage together to the Livingstons’, instead of one of us going in the coach.” That was the justification he had invented for himself, and he found it amusing that it sounded as weak spoken aloud as it had in his mind. He simply, strangely, wanted to be alone with her. He couldn’t explain the compulsion, had no reason for it and couldn’t remember whence it had come, but there it was all the same.
He waited, wondering if she would exit the carriage before it could go on, but she didn’t move. “As you wish,” she said and except for the slight curl of her lips, disguised her hatred well. She turned her head to the side and looked out the window, even though the night was too dark beyond the light of the coach lamp to see much of anything.
Although being ignored the entire fifteen minutes to the Livingston mansion hadn’t been his intention, Philip didn’t know what to say to her. The only vocabulary that seemed to exist between them now was words like “divorce,” “scandal,” “adultery,” and “Ethan.”
He sat stiffly as the carriage wheels rumbled through the street, unable to look away from her. She was beautiful. He’d rather she be ugly. It would have been easier to dismiss her; he probably wouldn’t feel the recent possessiveness he had at the thought of her lovers. Or perhaps he would; after all, she was still his wife.
Perhaps it was her rebellion which now drew him to her. To take lovers, then laugh in the face of polite society. It was an odd sort of courage, but courage nonetheless. A weaker woman might have cowed before him, slunk away into isolation after what he’d done, but not Charlotte. She was determined to force him to agree to a divorce petition. She knew what she wanted, and was strong enough to continue even when he pretended to disregard her scandals.
He couldn’t respect her for it, but at the same time he couldn’t deny he felt a certain amount of admiration at the way she defied him.
Lust and admiration. He didn’t like having to admit to either.
She turned her head. “What do you want?”
He wanted to hate her as much as she hated him, or, even better, to return to his previous habit of ignoring her. Anything would have been better than this sudden awareness of her, this near obsession to know her every thought, her every emotion.
Philip consciously loosened his shoulders. He shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Why are you staring at me?”
He arched a brow. “Where else should I look?”
She sighed in exasperation, and the sound was so similar to the one she used to make when vexed at Ethan that he almost smiled. But he subdued the inclination before it could emerge on his lips. He’d made himself think of her as a stranger, a woman he hadn’t known before Ethan and Joanna’s failed elopement. Had he begun to allow himself to see her differently now? Was that why he wanted her?

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