Ned had not bothered to close the door all the way, so he crept up to the open crack and peered out. There were no clicks of locks or squeaks of doorknobs to alert anyone to his presence, and he was able to satisfy his curiosity as to who was up and about.
“Shhhh!”
Definitely a female doing the shushing.
“Did you have to pack so much?”
He frowned. That sounded a bit like Charlotte. He’d spent so much time with her in the past few days that he probably knew her voice better than Lydia’s.
What the devil was Charlotte doing up and about in the middle of the night?
Ned suddenly felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. Did she have a lover? Surely Charlotte wouldn’t be so foolish.
“I can’t go with only one morning dress!” came a second female voice. “Would you have me appear a pauper?”
Hmmm. He supposed he did know Lydia’s voice better than he thought, because that sounded remarkably like her.
His ears pricked. Forget Charlotte—what was Lydia up to? Where the hell did she think she was going the night before their wedding?
He moved his face closer to the crack, glad that the moon was out that night. There had been so much light flowing through the windows that he’d decided not to light a candle when he’d sat down with his drink. With no light streaming from the library, there was no indication that the room was inhabited. Unless Charlotte and Lydia made a point of peering into the library, they would not see him when they passed.
Keeping his eyes trained on the staircase, he watched as they descended, each carrying a large valise. The only light came from the candle Charlotte held in her free hand. Lydia was quite obviously dressed in traveling clothes, and Charlotte was wearing a serviceable day dress in some sort of drab color that he couldn’t quite discern in the semidarkness.
Neither was wearing anything one might expect on a female in the middle of the night.
“Are you certain Rupert will be waiting for you at the end of the drive?” Charlotte whispered.
Ned didn’t hear Lydia’s reply, didn’t even know if she did reply or if she only nodded. The roaring in his ears blocked out all sound, eliminated all thought except for the one that was painfully pertinent.
Lydia was jilting him. Sneaking out in the middle of the night mere hours before he was planning to meet her in the village church.
She was eloping.
With that idiot fop Marchbanks.
He’d been sitting here resigning himself to a marriage he didn’t even want, and his blushing bride had been planning to toss him over all along.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to put his fist through a wall. He wanted to—
Charlotte. Charlotte was helping her.
His rage trebled. How could she do this to him? Damn it all, they were friends. Friends. He’d known her a scant few days, but in that time he’d come to know her, truly know her. Or so he’d thought. He supposed Charlotte wasn’t as loyal and true as he’d imagined her to be.
Charlotte. His body tensed even more, every muscle straining with fury. He’d thought she was better than this.
She had to know what she was doing to him as she ushered Lydia out of the house. Or had she even given a thought to what he would go through the next morning, standing at the altar in front of hundreds of onlookers, waiting for a bride who would never arrive?
The two young women were moving slowly, hampered by the large cases. Lydia was dragging hers now, obviously not as strong as Charlotte, who at least managed to clear the floor by two inches. Ned waited as they approached, his jaw clenching tighter by the second, and then, just as they reached the hinged end of his doorway—
He stepped out.
“Going somewhere?” he asked, amazed at the disdainful drawl of his voice. He’d been quite certain the words would come out as a roar.
Lydia jumped back a foot, and Charlotte let out a little scream, which changed tenor when she dropped her valise on her foot.
He leaned one shoulder against the door-frame as he crossed his arms, aware that he needed to keep a very tight leash on his emotions. One little spark and he was going to explode. “It’s a bit late to be up and about, don’t you think?” he asked, keeping his voice purposefully mild.
The two Thorntons just stared at him, shaking.
“Past two, I would guess,” he murmured. “One would think you’d be in your night rails by now.”
“This isn’t what it looks like,” Charlotte blurted out.
He looked to Lydia to see if she’d found her tongue, but she seemed terrified beyond speech.
Good.
He turned back to Charlotte, since she was obviously a more worthy opponent. “That’s interesting,” he said, “because I’m not certain what it looks like. Perhaps you could edify me?”
Charlotte gulped and wrung her hands together. “Well,” she said, obviously stalling for time. “Well…”
“If I were a less intelligent man,” he mused, “I might think it looked as if my beloved bride was eloping the night before our marriage, but then I thought to myself, ‘Surely that cannot be.’ The Thornton girls would never be so foolish as to attempt such a stunt.”
He’d done it. He’d silenced them. Charlotte was blinking furiously, and he could almost see her mind behind her eyes, working frantically for something to say, but coming up with nothing. Lydia just looked as if she’d stared into the sun a bit too long.
“So,” he continued, enjoying this in a rather sick and pathetic way, “since you are obviously not eloping, and you”—he turned to Charlotte and speared her with a hostile glance—“are obviously not helping her, perhaps you could tell me what you are doing.”
Lydia looked to Charlotte, her eyes imploring. Charlotte swallowed several times before she said, “Well, actually, I…”
He watched her.
She raised her eyes to his.
His gaze never wavered.
“I…I…”
And still their eyes were locked.
“She’s eloping,” Charlotte whispered, her gaze finally sliding to the floor.
“Charlotte!” Lydia exclaimed, her voice piercing the silent night. She turned to her sister with an expression of irritation and disbelief. “How could you?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Lydia,” Charlotte shot back, “he obviously already knew.”
“Maybe he—”
“How stupid do you think I am?” Ned asked her. “Good God, you’d marry a man who wasn’t bright enough to figure this”—he jerked his hand through the air—“out?”
“I told you this wouldn’t work,” Charlotte said to her sister, her voice urgent and pained. “I told you it wasn’t right. I told you you’d never get away with it.”
Lydia turned to Ned. “Are you going to beat me?”
He stared at her in shock. Well, bloody hell. Now she’d managed to silence him.
“Are you?” she repeated.
“Of course not,” he spat out. “Although you can be assured that if I were ever to strike a woman, you’d be the first I’d consider.”
Charlotte grabbed Lydia’s arm and attempted to pull her back toward the stairs. “We’ll return,” she said hurriedly, her eyes meeting his for what seemed like an eternally long second. “She’s sorry. I’m sorry. We’re both sorry.”
“And you think that’s good enough?” he demanded.
She swallowed convulsively, and her skin looked quite pale, even amid the flickering candlelight. “We’ll prepare for the wedding,” she said, yanking up both valises. “I’ll make sure that she is in the church on time. You can trust me.”
And that did it. You can trust me. How dare she even think those words?
“Not so fast,” he bit off, halting their admittedly slow progress.
Charlotte whirled around, her eyes flashing with desperation. “What do you want?” she cried out. “I told you I would have her ready. I told you I would make sure she was at the church on time. I’ll
see to it that no one knows what transpired this eve, and that you will know no embarrassment due to Lydia’s foibles.”
“Very generous of you,” he said. “But in light of recent events, marriage to Lydia no longer seems quite so appetizing.”
Lydia’s mouth fell open at the insult, and he had to look away, so disgusted was he by her reaction. What the hell did she expect?
And so his gaze fell on Charlotte, who all of a sudden looked startlingly lovely in the candlelight, her hair catching the reddish hue of the flames. “What do you want?” she whispered, her lips trembling on the words.
She looked as she had on the landing, her lips parted, her eyes turning silver in the candle-glow. He’d wanted to dance with her then.
And now—Now that everything had changed, now that Lydia was halfway out the door, he could finally admit that he’d wanted more.
His mind filled with thoughts, carnal and seductive, and something more he couldn’t quite name.
He looked straight at Charlotte, directly into those magical gray eyes, and he said, “I want you.”
For a moment, nobody spoke.
No one even breathed.
And then finally Charlotte managed, “You’re mad.”
But the viscount simply grabbed Lydia’s two valises and lifted them into the air as if they were filled with feathers.
“Where are you going with those?” Lydia shrieked (quietly, if such a thing was possible, which apparently it was, because no one came running down the stairs inquiring after the commotion).
He strode to the front door and tossed them out. “Go,” he said harshly. “Get the hell out of here.”
Lydia’s eyes bugged out. “You’re letting me leave?”
His answer was an impatient snort as he strode back, roughly grasped her arm, and started hauling her toward the door. “Do you really think I’d want to marry you after this?” he hissed, his voice rising slightly in volume. “Now, get out.”
“But I have another quarter mile before I reach Rupert,” Lydia protested, her head turning rapidly between her sister and Ned. “Charlotte was supposed to help me carry my bags.”
Charlotte watched in horror as Ned turned to Lydia with quite the most malevolent expression imaginable. “You’re a big girl,” he said. “You’ll figure something out.”
“But I can’t—”
“For the love of God, woman,” he exploded, “get Marchbanks to come back for them! If he wants you badly enough, he’ll carry your damned bags.”
And then, while Charlotte stared at the scene with gaping mouth, he pushed Lydia through the door and slammed it shut.
“Lydia,” she just managed to squeak before he turned on her.
“You” he said.
It was just one word, but all she could think was, Thank God it wasn’t more.
But—
“Wait!” she cried out. “I have to say good-bye to my sister.”
“You’ll do what I say you can—”
She brushed past him and ran to the door. “I have to say good-bye,” she said again, her voice cracking on the words. “I have no idea when I’m going to see her again.”
“I pray it’s not anytime soon,” he muttered.
“Please,” Charlotte pleaded. “I have to—”
He’d caught her around the waist, but then his arms went slack. “Oh, for the—fine,” he muttered. “Go. You have thirty seconds.”
Charlotte didn’t dare argue. He was the wronged party in this awful scene, and much as she hated his anger, she rather thought he had a right to it.
But what the devil had he been thinking when he’d said he wanted her?
Enough. She couldn’t think about that now. Not when her sister was running off into the night.
Not when the mere memory of his face made her tremble. Eyes so blue, so intense as he’d said it.
I want you.
“Lydia!” she called out, her voice desperate. She pushed the door open and ran outside as if the fires of hell were on her heels.
And the truth was—she wasn’t so sure they weren’t.
“Lydia!” she called again. “Lydia!”
Lydia was sitting under a tree, sobbing.
“Lydia!” Charlotte cried in horror as she rushed to her side. “What’s wrong?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Lydia said, looking up at her through watery eyes.
“Well, no,” Charlotte agreed, shooting a nervous glance toward the door. Ned had said thirty seconds, and she rather thought he meant it. “But this is how it is.”
But that didn’t seem good enough for Lydia. “He wasn’t supposed to find me,” she protested. “He was supposed to be upset.”
“He certainly was that,” Charlotte replied, wondering what was wrong with her sister. Didn’t she want to marry Rupert? Wasn’t she getting exactly what she wanted?
Why on earth was she complaining?
“No,” Lydia gasped, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. “But it was all supposed to happen after I left. I wasn’t supposed to have to think about it.”
Charlotte gritted her teeth. “Well, that’s too bad, Lydia.”
“And I didn’t think he’d be quite so glad to have me g-g-gone!” At that Lydia began to wail anew.
“Get up,” Charlotte ground out, yanking Lydia to her feet. This was really too much. She had a furious viscount inside waiting to tear her to pieces, and Lydia was complaining? “I have had enough of this!” she seethed. “If you didn’t want to marry the viscount, you shouldn’t have said yes.”
“I told you why I accepted! I did it for you and Caroline and Georgina. He promised dowries for you.”
She had a point, but as much as Charlotte appreciated the sacrifice Lydia had almost made, she wasn’t terribly inclined to offer any compliments just then. “Well, if you were going to elope,” she said, “you should have done so weeks ago.”
“But the bank said—”
“I don’t care one whit about Rupert’s abysmal finances,” Charlotte snapped. “You have been behaving like a child.”
“Don’t talk to me like that!” Lydia shot back, finally straightening her shoulders. “I am older than you!”
“Then act like it!”
“I will!” And with that, Lydia actually lifted both of her valises into the air and started to walk away. She made it about eight steps before muttering, “Oh, bloody hell,” and letting them thunk to the ground. “What the devil did I pack?” she asked, planting her hands on her hips as she stared at the offending baggage.
And suddenly Charlotte was smiling. “I don’t know,” she said helplessly, shaking her head.
Lydia looked over with a soft expression. “I probably do need more than one day dress.”
“Probably,” Charlotte agreed.
Lydia looked down at the bags and sighed.
“Rupert will get them for you,” Charlotte said softly.
Lydia turned around and caught her sister’s gaze. “Yes,” she said, “he will.” Then she smiled. “He’d better.”
Charlotte lifted her hand in farewell. “Be happy.”
To which Lydia replied, with a fearful glance toward Ned, who had come through the front door and was now striding rather purposefully in their direction, “Be careful.”
And then she ran into the night.
Charlotte watched her sister disappear down the lane and took a deep, fortifying breath as she attempted to gird herself for the battle that was sure to come. She could hear Ned approaching; his footfalls were low and heavy in the noiseless night. By the time she turned around, he was right beside her, so close that she couldn’t help but catch her breath.
“Inside,” he bit off, jerking his head toward the house.
“Can’t this wait until morning?” she asked. He’d given her considerably longer than thirty seconds to say good-bye to Lydia; maybe he was feeling generous.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said in an ominous tone of voice.
; “But—”
“Now!” he ground out, taking her by the elbow.
But even as he half-dragged her to the house, his touch was surprisingly gentle, and Charlotte found herself tripping along behind him, her gait forced into a half-run in order to keep up with his long strides. Before she knew it, she was in her father’s library, with the door shut tightly behind them.
“Sit,” he ordered, stabbing his finger toward a chair.
She gripped her hands together. “I’d rather stand, if you don’t mind.”
“Sit.”
She sat. It seemed a foolish battle to pick, when the larger war was clearly looming in the near future.
For a moment he did nothing but stare at her, and she actually wished he would just open his mouth and yell. Anything would be better than this silent, disdainful stare. The moonlight was just strong enough to illuminate the blue in his eyes, and she felt pierced to the quick by his gaze.
“My lord?” she finally said, dying to break the silence.
That seemed to spark him. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he demanded. But his voice was soft, and in a strange way worse than any shout would have been.
Charlotte made no immediate reply. She didn’t think he really wanted an answer, and she was proven correct not three seconds later when he continued with, “Were you still planning on donning your maid of honor costume? Going to sit in the front pew while I waited for Lydia to arrive at the church?”
She recoiled at the expression on his face. He looked furious, but also…stricken. And he was clearly trying so hard to hide it.
“I was going to tell you,” she whispered. “I swear, on the grave of—”
“Oh, do spare me the melodrama,” he snapped, pacing the room now with such restless energy that Charlotte half expected the walls to push back in deference.
“I was going to tell you,” she insisted. “Right after I saw Lydia safely off, I was going to find you and tell you.”
His eyes glittered. “You were going to come to my room?” he asked.
“Well…” she hedged. “You were actually here in the library.”
“But you didn’t know that.”
“No,” she admitted, “but—” She swallowed the remainder of her words. He’d closed the space between them in under a second, and both of his hands were now planted on the arms of her chair.