His face was very close.
“You were going to come to my room,” he repeated. “How interesting that would have been.”
Charlotte said nothing.
“Would you have roused me from my sleep?” he whispered. “Gently touched my brow?”
She looked down at her hands. They were shaking.
“Or maybe,” he said, moving in even closer, until she could feel his breath on her lips, “you would have woken me with a kiss.”
“Stop,” she said in a low voice. “This is beneath you.”
He jerked back at that. “You’re hardly in a position to cast aspersions on someone else’s character, Miss Thornton.”
“I did what I thought was right,” she said, holding herself ramrod straight in her chair.
“You thought this was right?” Ned asked, disgust evident in every syllable.
“Well, maybe not right,” she admitted. “But it was best.”
“Best?” he echoed, nearly spitting the word. “It’s best to humiliate a man in front of hundreds of people? It’s best to steal out in the middle of the night, rather than face—”
“What would you have had me do?” she demanded.
Ned was silent for a long while, and then, trying to regain control of his emotions, he walked to the window and leaned heavily on the ledge. “There is nothing in this world,” he said in a gravely serious voice, “that I prize more than loyalty.”
“Nor I,” she said.
His fingers gripped the wood so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “Oh, really?” he asked, not trusting himself even to turn around to look at her. “Then how do you explain this?”
“I don’t understand your meaning,” came her voice from behind him.
“You betrayed me.”
Silence. And then, “I beg your pardon?”
He whirled around so quickly that she flattened against the back of her chair. “You betrayed me. How could you do such a thing?”
“I was helping my sister!”
Her words reverberated through the room, and for a moment he couldn’t even move. She was helping her sister. Of course, he thought, almost dispassionately. Why would he have expected her to do otherwise? He had once ridden hell-for-leather all the way from Oxford to London, just to prevent his sister from making a hasty marriage. He, of all people, ought to understand loyalty to siblings.
“I am so sorry about what we were doing to you,” Charlotte continued, her voice soft and almost dignified in the near-darkness. “But Lydia is my sister. I wanted her to be happy.”
Why would he have thought that Charlotte would owe her first loyalties to him? Why would he have even dreamed that she might consider their friendship more important than her blood bond with her sister?
“I was going to tell you,” she continued, and he heard her rise to her feet. “I would never have allowed you to wait in vain at the church. But…but…”
“But what?” he asked, his voice raw and ragged. He turned around. He didn’t know why it was suddenly so important to see her face; it was almost like a magnet was drawing him in, and he had to see her eyes, to know what was in her heart, in her soul.
“You wouldn’t have been very well suited,” she said. “Not that that excuses Lydia’s behavior, or even mine, I suppose, but she wouldn’t have made a very good wife to you.”
He nodded, and then everything began to fall into place. Something began to bubble within him, something light and delicious, something almost giddy. “I know,” he said, leaning closer, just so he could breathe her in. “And that is why I’ll take you instead.”
Chapter 6
Charlotte was quite sure that she now knew what it felt like to strangle. “What,” she gasped, trying to speak over the squeezing sensation that seemed to have wrapped around her throat, “do you mean, er, precisely?”
His brows arched. “Wasn’t I clear?”
“My lord!”
“Tomorrow morning,” he stated in the sort of tone that brooked no dissent, “I will see you at the wedding. You look as if you will fit into Lydia’s gown.” He gave her a wicked, one-sided grin as he walked to the door. “Don’t be late.”
She stared helplessly at his back before blurting out, “I can’t marry you!”
He turned slowly around. “And why not? Don’t tell me you’ve some idiot poet waiting for you at the end of the lane as well.”
“Well, I—” She fought for words. She fought for reasons. She fought for anything that would give her the strength to make it through what had to be the most illogical and surreal night of her life. “To start with,” she blurted out, “your banns were read with Lydia’s name!”
He shook his head dismissively. “That’s not a problem.”
“It is to me! We haven’t a license.” Her eyes bugged out. “If we marry it couldn’t possibly be legal.”
He appeared unconcerned. “I’ll have a special license by morning.”
“Where do you think you’re going to get a special license in the next ten hours?”
He took a step in her direction, his eyes glittering with satisfaction. “Luckily for me, and for you as well, as I’m quite certain you’ll soon come to realize, the Archbishop of Canterbury is planning to attend.”
Charlotte felt her jaw drop. “He won’t grant you a special license. Not for such an irregular situation.”
“Funny,” he mused, “I thought special licenses were for irregular situations.”
“This is madness. There is no way he’ll allow us to be married. Not when you came so close to marrying my sister.”
Ned only shrugged. “He owes me a favor.”
She sagged against the edge of her father’s reading table. What kind of man was he that the Archbishop of Canterbury owed him a favor? She’d known that the Blydons were considered an important family in England, but this was beyond comprehension.
“My lord,” she said, twisting her fingers together as she tried to formulate a cogent and well-reasoned argument against his mad plan. Surely he appreciated a cogent and well-reasoned argument. He’d certainly seemed to when she’d spent time with him this past week. It was why she’d liked him so well, actually.
“Yes?” he asked, his lips turning up ever-so-slightly at the corners.
“My lord,” she said again, clearing her throat. “You seem the sort to listen to a cogent and well-reasoned argument.”
“Indeed.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the reading table right next to her. They were hip to hip—most distracting.
“My lord,” she said again.
“Under the circumstances,” he said, his eyes now sparkling with amusement, “don’t you think you ought to familiarize yourself with my given name?”
“Right,” she said. “Yes, of course. If we were to be married, I would of course—”
“We are to be married.”
Good heavens, he was positively a brick wall. “Perhaps,” she said placatingly. “But be that as it may…”
He touched her chin, nudging her until their eyes locked. “Call me Ned,” he said softly.
“I’m not certain—”
“I’m certain.”
“My lord—”
“Ned.”
“Ned,” she finally acquiesced.
His lips curved. “Good.”
He let go of her and leaned back, and Charlotte finally remembered how to breathe again. “Ned,” she said, although his name felt odd and thick on her tongue, “I think you ought to take a deep breath and consider what it is you’re saying. I’m not sure you’ve given this adequate thought.”
“Really?” he drawled.
“We barely exchanged a word before this week,” she said, her eyes imploring him to listen to her words. “You don’t know me.”
He shrugged. “I know you a damn sight better than I do your sister, and I was prepared to marry her.”
“But did you want to?” she whispered.
He stepped forward and caught her hand.
“Not half as much as I want you,” he murmured.
Her lips parted, but no words came forth, only a soft rush of air as she gasped. He was pulling her closer…closer…and then his arm snaked around her waist, and she could feel him against her, the entire thrilling length of him.
“Ned,” she somehow managed to whisper, but he placed his index finger against her lips with a, “Shhh,” followed by, “I have been wanting to do this for days.”
His lips found hers, and if he still felt any anger toward her, it was not there in his kiss. He was soft and sweetly gentle, his mouth brushing against hers with the barest of friction.
And yet she felt it all the way to her toes.
“Have you ever been kissed before?” he whispered.
She shook her head.
His smile was very satisfied and very, very male. “Good,” he said, before dropping his lips back down to hers.
Except this kiss was one of possession, of desire and need. His mouth claimed hers hungrily, even as his hands splayed against her back, pulling her tightly against him. Charlotte found herself sinking into it all, letting herself melt into his body, reaching until her hands found the powerful muscles of his upper back through the fine, thin linen of his shirt.
This, she realized, somewhere in the foggy hazes of her mind, was desire. This was desire, and Lydia was a damn fool.
Lydia!
Good God, what was she doing? Charlotte wrenched herself from his arms. “We can’t do this!” she gasped.
Ned’s eyes were glazed and his breathing was shallow, but still he managed to sound rather in control as he said, “Why not?”
“You’re engaged to marry my sister!”
He quirked a brow at that.
“Very well,” she replied, frowning. “I suppose you’re not engaged to her any longer.”
“It’s difficult to remain engaged to a married woman.”
“Right.” She swallowed. “Of course she’s not married yet….”
He stared at her with one arched brow. It was, Charlotte thought miserably, far more effective than words.
“Right,” she muttered. “Of course. She might as well be married now.”
“Charlotte.”
“And it’s really too much to expect—”
“Charlotte,” he said again, with a touch more volume.
“—you to retain any loyalties to her at such a time—”
“Charlotte!”
She shut her mouth.
His eyes were so intent on hers that she couldn’t have looked away if five handsome men were dancing naked out the window.
“There are three things you ought to know this evening,” he said. “First, I am alone with you, and it is the middle of the night. Second, I am going to marry you in the morning.”
“I’m not sure—”
“I’m sure.”
“I’m not,” she mumbled in a pathetic attempt to get the last word.
He leaned down with a wolfish smile. “And third, I have spent the last few days wracked with guilt because when I went to bed at night, I never, ever—not even once—thought about Lydia.”
“No?” she whispered.
He shook his head slowly. “Not Lydia.”
Her lips parted of their own accord, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him as he leaned in closer, his breath whispering across her skin.
“Only you,” he said.
Her heart was clearly a traitor, because it positively sang.
“All my dreams. Only you.”
“Really?” she breathed.
His hands cupped her derrière, and she found herself pressed rather intimately against him. “Oh yes,” he said, pulling her in even more tightly.
“And you see,” he continued, his mouth nipping gently at her lips, “it all falls together rather nicely, because”—his tongue traced the outline of her mouth—“there is no reason I can think of why I shouldn’t kiss the woman I plan to marry in less than ten hours, especially if I am fortunate enough to find myself alone with her”—he sighed contentedly against her lips—“in the middle of the night.”
He kissed her again, his tongue sliding between her lips in a deliberate attempt to seduce her senseless. “Especially,” he murmured, his words caressing her skin, “when I’ve been dreaming of it for days.”
Ned touched her cheeks with his hands, holding her face with near reverence as he pulled back to gaze into her eyes. “I think,” he said softly, “that you must be mine.”
Her lips parted, and her tongue darted out to wet them, a movement that was so achingly seductive, and yet completely unpracticed. She was so pretty in the moonlight, beautiful in a way that Lydia could never hope to achieve. Charlotte’s eyes flashed with intelligence, with fire, with an animation that most women lacked. Her smile was infectious, and her laugh pure music.
She would make a fine wife. At his side, in his heart, in his bed. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it sooner.
Hell, he thought with a shaky laugh, he probably ought to send a case of the finest smuggled French brandy to Rupert Marchbanks. Heaven knew, he owed the bloody fool his eternal thanks. If he hadn’t eloped with Lydia, Ned would have married the wrong sister.
And spent his life pining after Charlotte.
But now she was here in his arms, and she would be his—no, she was his. She might not realize it quite yet, but she was.
Suddenly he couldn’t help it—he was smiling. Grinning really, rather like an idiot, he supposed.
“What is it?” she asked, rather cautiously if truth be told, almost as if she were afraid he’d gone quite mad.
“I find I’m rather pleased by the recent turn of events,” he told her, reaching down and entwining his fingers in hers. “You were quite right earlier this evening. Lydia would not have suited me at all. But you, on the other hand…” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. It was the sort of gesture he’d done a thousand times before, usually just to cater to a woman’s desire for romance.
But this time was different. This time it was his sense of romance that had been tickled. When he kissed her hand he wanted to linger there, not because he was bent on seduction (although he certainly was that), but because he adored the feel of her hand in his, her skin under his lips.
Slowly, he turned her hand over and placed another, more intimate kiss against her palm.
He wanted her—oh, how he wanted her. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced—lust from the inside out. It started at his heart and spread to his body, not the other way around.
And there was no way he was going to allow her to flee.
He grasped her other hand and then held both up. Their arms were bent, their wrists at a level with their shoulders. “I want you to make me a vow,” he said, his voice low and serious.
“Wh-what?” she whispered.
“I want you to promise me that you will marry me in the morning.”
“Ned, I’ve already said—”
“If you give me your vow,” he said, brushing aside her protest, “then I will allow you to return to your room to sleep.”
She let out a slightly panicked giggle. “You think I could sleep?”
He smiled. This was going better than he’d hoped. “I know you, Charlotte.”
“You do?” she asked doubtfully.
“Better than you think, and I know that your word is your bond. If you give me your word that you won’t do anything silly like run away, I will let you go to your room.”
“And if I don’t?”
His skin grew hot. “Then you will remain here with me in the library. All night.”
She swallowed. “I give you my word that I won’t run off,” she said solemnly. “But I cannot promise to marry you.”
Ned considered his options. He was fairly certain that he could convince her to marry him in the morning if it came to that. She already felt guilty enough over her role in Lydia’s elopement. That was certainly something he could twist to his
advantage.
“And you’d have to talk to my father in any case,” she added.
He allowed their fingers to untangle, then slowly slid his down her arms until they dropped to his sides. The battle was won. If she was suggesting that he talk to her father, she was all but his.
“I will see you in the morning,” he said, nodding his head in a gesture of respect.
“You’re letting me go?” she whispered.
“You gave me your word you would not run off. I need no other assurances.”
Her lips parted, and her eyes grew wide with some emotion he couldn’t quite identify.
But it was good. It was definitely good.
“I will meet you here,” he said, “at eight in the morning. Will you see to it that your father is in attendance?”
She nodded.
He stepped back and executed a smart bow. “Until tomorrow then, my lady.”
When she opened her mouth to correct his use of such an honorific, he held up a hand and said, “Tomorrow you will be a viscountess. You’ll soon grow accustomed to people referring to you as one.”
She gestured toward the door. “I should leave on my own.”
“Of course,” he said, irony tugging at his lips. “We wouldn’t want to be caught together in the middle of the night. There would be talk.”
She smiled in a rather fetchingly self-deprecating manner. As if there wasn’t going to be talk already. Their marriage was sure to be the height of gossip for months.
“Go,” he said softly. “Get some sleep.”
She shot him a look that said she couldn’t even hope to sleep, and then slipped out the door.
He stared at the open doorway for several seconds after she’d disappeared, then whispered, “Dream of me.”
Luckily for Charlotte, her father was a notoriously early riser, and so when she entered the small breakfast room at fifteen minutes before eight the following morning, he was there as usual, his plate laden with gammon steak and eggs.
“Good morning, Charlotte,” he boomed. “Excellent day for a wedding, isn’t it?”