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
For 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 sil
ky 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.
Postscript
August 1803
Alex rode through the warm twilight with Lucien Boch and Will Holland, all three men silently enjoying being outdoors at the very moment when the sun began to wink under the edge of the heavy woods surrounding Lord Holland’s country estate. Their horses pranced, sensing that they were finally heading home after a long day.
“This is a lovely spot you have, Will.”
Will smiled and then checked his horse as they approached the gatehouse. “Excuse me a minute, won’t you? My gatekeeper’s wife has been ill and I’d like to inquire about her.” Will jumped off his horse and disappeared into the thatched cottage.
Lucien pulled his horse up and turned to face Alex. “You have never let me thank you properly,” he said, his voice lilting slightly with a French intonation.
“There’s nothing to thank me for,” Alex replied.
“Yes, there is,” Lucien insisted. “I know, of course, of the scandal that your wife had to suffer in our absence. Had I not asked you, you never would have left her, especially at such a delicate time. If only you had told me she was pregnant!”
“We didn’t know,” Alex said lightly. “Besides—it has resolved itself. Charlotte put up with a little gossip, but it’s all settled down now; no one would dare to suggest that Sarah was not my child.” She was his to every curve of her face and twitch of her baby eyebrows.
“Yes, but I am very regretful that—”
“Lucien. It was nothing.”
Will emerged from the gatehouse and swung back up on his mount, ending their conversation. Alex nudged his horse to a gallop, eager to return to the house. He had been gone for hours, looking over the grounds and being shown Will’s new mills. He missed the children … and Charlotte.
Lucien caught up with Alex again. “I understand it is your birthday,” he said slyly. “I believe there is a surprise in store for you.”
Alex shot him a sideways glance. “The devil you say.”
“So I believe.” Lucien gave him a secret smile.
But there was nothing surprising about the fact that Pippa dashed toward him across the velvet lawn before Will’s manse. Well, perhaps it was an exaggeration to say that Pippa dashed—she trotted toward him, shouting “Papa! Papa!” in a piping voice. Alex jumped off his horse and swung his daughter up on his shoulder where she whispered blackberry-flavored secrets in his ear about the kittens in the barn and the berries that grew in the kitchen gardens.
And there was nothing surprising about the fact that his wife’s eyes met his with such a stir of love and desire that Alex found himself barely under control, and right there in the drawing room had to stroll over and examine Chloe Holland’s china cabinet—as if he were a halfling again! His wife’s gurgle of laughter was nothing new either, even if it did make him long to toss her over his shoulder and head for the bedchamber.
Dinner passed without incident. Chloe presided over the meal with an engaging lack of formality—she had taken to her role as baroness with effortless ease. The party talked of the possibility of a Napoleonic invasion and of the unsavory death of Bishop Burnham (in the arms of a woman with a dubious reputation). No one mentioned Alex’s birthday at all. Alex almost felt piqued. But then … perhaps Charlotte was planning a special treat for him in their bedchamber. His wife, tied in a large bow. He rather liked the sound of that. The ladies rose and retired to the drawing room; Alex, Will, and Lucien settled in the library with tumblers of scotch.
The door to the library swung open to reveal Will’s butler. He was French and professed to speak little English.
“My lord,” said the butler. Alex looked up inquiringly. The butler held a white card in his gloved hand. He bowed magnificently and handed it to Alex.
Alex glanced over at Lucien and saw his secret smile break out again.
“My birthday?”
“Quite so,” his friend replied.
Alex broke the seal and read the note rapidly. Then he crooked an eyebrow at Lucien.
“I am instructed to proceed upstairs and dress appropriately.”
“Then by all means, Alex, do not let us keep you.” Will jumped up, a conspiratorial grin covering his face.
“Does everyone know what my wife is planning?” Looking at his two friends, their eyes lit with mischievous laughter, Alex knew the answer to his question. He ran quickly up the marble stairs, his mind racing to elaborate pictures of what “appropriate” dress might be. What would Charlotte be wearing, for example?
But the bedroom held no one but Keating—no dressed, or deliciously undressed, wife.
Keating had laid out formal dress on the bed. Alex’s protest died on his lips. Obviously this was a surprise that Charlotte had elaborately planned. It would be churlish of him to refuse to comply. Still, he knit his brow when Keating swirled his old green domino around his shoulders.
“Am I going to a masquerade? In this part of the country?”
“I couldn’t say, my lord. I am merely following the countess’s orders.” Keating didn’t mention that Charlotte had asked him to take Alex’s green domino out of the attic some two months ago, and that the birthday excursion had been in the planning stages somewhat longer than that.
Finally Keating ushered his perplexed master out of the bedroom. Will’s butler was waiting in the hall, a devilish French smile on his face, Alex thought rather crossly. The butler majestically led the way to a carriage outside.
Finally, Alex thought, quickening his pace. He climbed inside, brushing off the footman’s extended arm.
But the carriage was empty, and before he could register the fact, the door was flung shut behind him and the horses picked up.
“For Christ’s sake,” Alex said blankly, to himself.
They didn’t go far, driving perhaps twenty minutes. Alex helped himself to a basket placed on the ba
ckseat, clearly for his pleasure. But even a glass of excellent champagne didn’t soothe his feelings. Where was his wife? What was the delight of drinking champagne alone? His eyes grew dark as he imagined her sitting opposite him in the carriage. Then he smiled wolfishly. He’d have his revenge for this lonely birthday party! She’d have to be in the carriage on the way home, after all….
So by the time the carriage jolted to a close, Alex’s mood was restored. In fact, he was feeling quite cheerful, having finished near to the whole bottle of champagne.
He tossed open the carriage door and jumped out, only to find himself face-to-face with Keating. A quick glance showed him that they had stopped in the manicured driveway to a country house.
“Keating!”
“My lord,” his valet said quietly. He had apparently just climbed down from the driver’s seat; his cheeks and nose were bright red with cold.
“Good God, man, what are you doing here? And where are we?” Alex demanded.
Keating hesitated. In his hands he held a black piece of cloth.
“My lord, I must ask you to turn around,” he replied.
Alex glanced at the cloth and then at his embarrassed valet’s face. Charlotte was going a long way with this masquerade. He shrugged and turned around, allowing his valet to fit the black cloth snugly over his eyes.