Three Schemes and a Scandal (3 page)

“Miss Fletcher’s bonnet is stuck in a tree,” Charlotte offered as an explanation.

“Horrors,” he said, with a deadpan expression.

She couldn’t help it, a grin tugged at her lips. “You would think so by the way she carries on. Apparently there is no fate worse than freckles.”

“We had better rescue her bonnet then,” James said, standing up and towering above her. From his evergreen wool jacket to the tips of his shiny Hessians, he was every inch the gentleman. Yet his cheeks were sun-browned and his boots, upon closer inspection, were actually worn. She imagined him hiking across his land, surveying all he possessed, perhaps rescuing a damsel in distress, or helping a neighbor repair a fence.

James was no city dandy, certainly. If anyone could procure Swan Lucy’s bonnet from its captivity in the tree branches, it was he.

To hell with the bonnet. Charlotte, inexplicably, did not want to leave the folly.

I
f there were worse fates than being locked in a small, dim chamber with Charlotte, James could not think of them. It was generally impossible to think straight around Charlotte. She’d always been a veritable hurricane of outrageously terrible ideas. She had more courage than a girl ought to and an impish smile that made it impossible to admonish her.

He discovered today that she possessed far more dangerous, womanly charms than her smile. She was by all rights the same daring girl, but with the figure of a siren, a gleam of mischief in her pretty blue eyes, milky white skin and the delicate features of a demure English maiden that was lies, all lies.

When had this transformation occurred?

He hadn’t been in London long, hadn’t spent much of that time at ton parties and definitely had not associated with marriageable misses when he had. Still, James knew the rumors: Charlotte would be considered a catch—for her generous dowry and pretty looks—if only it were less work to keep up with her.

Most men did not have the fortitude for a woman like her, James included.

Especially today.

Especially when he was due to give a speech about an architectural farce before London Society and his ever-disapproving father. Just once, he had thought while shaving this morning, just once he’d like to make the old man proud.

Now he’d evermore be referred to as the son who idiotically got himself locked in a folly at an afternoon garden party.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“You’re the one with the timepiece,” she pointed out. He scowled. And checked.

“A quarter after three,” he said. “I am due to make a speech at four o’clock.”

“Ah, yes. When the entire garden party assembles before this very folly so that we might enjoy a lengthy lecture upon the features of this marvelous impenetrable fortress and the architectural design talents of Lord Hastings, all illuminated by his devoted son. I trust you have practiced.”

“Perhaps it’s better if I am locked in here until nightfall,” James muttered.

“We will be discovered eventually,” Charlotte said consolingly. But then her eyes widened in alarm and some awful truth dawned. “And then we will have to marry!”

In unison, both Charlotte and James lunged for the door, vainly grasping the brass knob and turning it every which way. They rattled the heavy door on its freshly oiled hinges, finding it expertly measured, cut and hung so that it fit snugly in the frame and would not budge.

“The footman said there was a problem with the folly. I had no idea it was the blasted lock,” James muttered, rattling the knob once more.

“Well the lock certainly isn’t broken. In fact, it seems to be in excellent working order. Alas.”

“Thank you Charlotte, that is so helpful.”

“You are so welcome, James. Fear not, I shall find a way out for us,” Charlotte said.

She raised her fist high and opened her mouth wide to holler for help when James realized he had to act suddenly to stop her from making a grave mistake. With one hand he grabbed her wrist, just as she was about to pound on the door. He clamped his other hand, palm down, over her mouth before she shrieked for help, bringing the attention of God only knew who upon them.

He spun her around swiftly so her back was against the door. He held her trapped, captive, between his body and the door, with her wrist locked in his grip and pinned above her head. Her mouth pressed against his palm and the slightest
mmm
escaped her soft lips. She wriggled against his restraint, her hips writhing against him. She arched her back, jutting her breasts forward.

He forgot about the folly.

He thought only of her luscious curves and how he wanted to thoroughly explore them. Given how he held her, she had little room to protest. His arousal was now straining for more, and it occurred to James that he could tug up her skirts, part her legs slightly more and bury himself within her. He’d show her danger. Trouble.

There was no fear in Charlotte’s eyes.

Damn. He would
not
find this erotic. Not here, not now, not
Charlotte.

“Do not make a sound,” he rasped, his voice betraying how hard he was and how much he wanted her.

She mewled in protest against his palm.

“We must escape and we must not draw attention to ourselves while doing so. We have about forty minutes to accomplish this. Do you understand?” James asked. She nodded solemnly.

He released her.

“Who designed this thing to lock like this?” she asked, sounding peevish.

“My father,” James answered.

She glanced around the folly, taking in what little of it there was. A stone tower, devoid of anything but a pile of wooden crates. “I suppose he is also the one who placed the windows so high up. You’d think there’s buried treasure in here or something,” she remarked.

He caught that gleam in her eye, and he just knew that she was concocting tales of long-dead pirates burying a fortune in stolen treasure
in the middle of London.
James decided that a dose of logic was required to combat the madness in her brain.

“It’s to control the temperature and air circulation. Hot air rises, and then escapes and . . .” James’s voice trailed off as he realized that perhaps he had internalized more of the architectural lectures he’d read than previously realized.

“Treasure would be so much better,” Charlotte said and he thought of the time when she had been absolutely convinced that an ancient Brandon family treasure had been buried underneath her mother’s heirloom rose garden.

The excavation had not been successful. The punishment had been severe.

You should know better
his father had lectured.
Idiot boy.
Then the belt came out.

“There’s no treasure, Charlotte. None at all,” James said impatiently. “Although I can think of something far better.”

“Feeling the sunlight on our cheeks, and cool breeze in our hair. In other words, not being locked in here at all?”

“Exactly. Give me one of your hairpins,” James said. Being Charlotte, she didn’t ask
why.
She simply reached up and tugged out a pin and handed it to him, saying:

“This is my lucky lock-picking pin.” She smiled. A wisp of her dark hair, now unrestrained, tumbled down, grazing her shoulder.

He forced himself to look away and set to work on the lock.

“I hope you have improved in your lock-picking skills since the summer we were spies,” Charlotte said.

“Pretended,” James corrected. “We were seven and ten years of age. I don’t think any government recruits children to do such dirty work.”

“1812 was a splendid year. We picked locks, wrote in code and skulked around Hamilton Manor,” she said.

“And we were soundly punished for troubling the staff and assuming your butler, Gerard, was a spy for the French,” James reminded her.

“I’m still not convinced he wasn’t,” she replied breezily.

“Damn it,” James swore. The pin broke. She handed him another two.

He was vaguely aware of her strolling about the folly—which required a grand total of twenty paces in a circle. Her hair, dark and luscious, tumbled about her shoulders. Her hairpins were broken in the lock.

“Do you happen to carry a pistol, perchance?” Charlotte asked.

“Funny, it didn’t cross my mind to bring one to an afternoon garden party,” he replied.

“Pity, that. We could simply shoot the lock off,” she said with a shrug.

“And cause a horrible racket that would draw the attention of two hundred guests touring the garden. They would probably not let us out until a special license and vicar were obtained and put to use.”

“Perish the thought. Let me try,” she said, sinking to her knees on the folly floor. She wrinkled her nose, bit her lip and furrowed her brow as she wriggled the pin this way and that until …

Click!

She tried the doorknob, which easily twisted. Her triumphant smile faded when it was clear the door would still not open.

“That damned latch,” they both muttered in unison.

If it weren’t for that damned latch they might be free. One would think his father
was
planning to stash an ancient treasure in this damned folly, given the level of security installed in a decorative garden structure.

“Do you have a knife? We could just saw through and…” Charlotte said, her voice faltering. The latch was iron. A knife would be useless.

“No, I don’t have a knife. Or a pistol, a sword or a bow and arrow—”

Charlotte’s eyes brightened considerably at the mention of her favorite weaponry. Lord, help them all.

“I haven’t shot since—”

“The day you nearly shot my eye out?” he finished for her. Oh, the memories. He traced his finger along the slash of the scar that graced his left cheek.

“Since the day we dramatically reenacted William Tell,” she replied smartly. “If you hadn’t had an attack of nerves and moved your head, I would have gotten the apple. As it was, my arrow only just grazed your cheek.”

“Leaving me horribly disfigured,” he said, mainly to rile her up.

“Leaving you with a dashing scar that I know you use to impress the ladies,” Charlotte corrected. “I have heard on the best authority that you received that scar from a duel over a milkmaid’s virtue, during a pirate attack while crossing the Channel and during a brutal interrogation at the Bastille.”

“I couldn’t very well tell them I was shot by a twelve-year-old girl,” James replied.

“Nor could you tell them the truth, which is that you stepped into the path of a twelve-year-old girl’s arrow,” she retorted. Maddeningly. “Honestly, all I can say is you’re welcome.”

“I beg your pardon?” His jaw might have dropped open.

“I could have told everyone the truth. But instead I allowed all those nitwit ladies to persist in believing your ridiculous version of events. As I said, you’re welcome.”

Charlotte was … Charlotte. She was devious and dangerous, maddening, exasperating. The damned thing was, she looked so pretty while she turned your world upside down. But then one had to endure punishment and lectures and go to great lengths to repair all the damage her clever ideas had wrought.

And if they did not escape this folly soon, she would be his maddening, devious and dangerous wife.

He felt exhausted merely thinking about the possibility.

James dared a glance at her and his heart stopped in his throat. Her hair was a dark tussled mess, as if a man had run his fingers through it while savagely making love to her. There were two dirty stains on her white gown at knee height, the result of her kneeling on the ground to pick the lock. Not that anyone would believe
that
. No, they would think she’d been kneeling for something else entirely.

This was bad. This was worse than bad.

“We need to get out of here,” he said firmly. “Quickly, and unnoticed.”

“The windows,” Charlotte said resolutely. The windows were seven feet from the ground, but they were their only option.

Then, oddly, James was glad to be suffering this scheme with Charlotte. Any other girl would be having an attack of the vapors, where as she … Dear God, what was she undertaking now?

W
hile James woolgathered, Charlotte began arranging the crates into a suitable tower for climbing to reach the windows. He quickly stepped in to help, lifting them high with an ease that made her think of his muscles flexing taut and strong underneath his clothes.

This inspired all sorts of ridiculous imaginings: James, working in naught but his shirtsleeves on a hot summer day, perhaps cooling off by pouring a bucket of cold water over his head, plastering his wet, transparent shirt to the hard, defined planes of muscles of his chest.

The imagination was a wicked, wanton tease. The imagination also caused her to feel lightheaded, which made her think of fainting into his arms. Dear Annabelle’s latest column in
The London Weekly
had suggested the very thing as a way to attract a man’s attention.

“You know, Charlotte, it’s funny that you didn’t ask me why I was in the folly,” James remarked.

Actually, she wanted to correct him: It wasn’t funny at all. Most of the ton unwittingly participated in her schemes without question. Today she had to tangle with a smart one.

“Let’s say that I was rather preoccupied with getting out of here,” she replied.

“Nevertheless, I can’t help but wonder if this is one of your schemes,” James said, glancing sideways at her.

“I wasn’t planning for
us
to be stuck here,” she replied and wasn’t that the truth!

“Really? This is not some scheme to entrap me in a lifetime of matrimony?”

“You think highly of yourself. No, James, if you must know you broke my heart in 1817 and I haven’t quite forgiven you for it.”

Had she really just said that? Of course. She’d been waiting eight years to let him know of the hurt he caused her.

“What happened in 1817?” She watched as James did the math to calculate their ages, and searched the far recesses of his memory for an event of such devastating magnitude occurring when she was twelve and he fifteen. His brow furrowed. And then he remembered.