Chapter 8
Supper that night was the finest Charlotte had had in her life, but she would have traded it for bubble and squeak in a heartbeat if it meant she could have an evening alone with Apollo. Sitting between two strangers who kept shooting her speculative glances without attempting to engage in conversation, she frowned over her hundreds of pieces of cutlery in quiet despair. She didn’t know which was used for what, and when she eventually chose incorrectly, the gentleman beside her had to disguise his laugh behind one spotless white glove.
Charlotte’s heart sank. She supposed it was all part and parcel of the countess position, but she was walking into this blind. She wished she could ask Apollo what she was meant to do, or perhaps even Cedrica. She had taught her how to flirt; surely Cedrica could teach her the ways of the fork.
No one near her was willing to. They carefully ignored her until she began to realize that not only did they regard her an outsider but an embarrassment. She knew their story would raise no few eyebrows and that hadn’t concerned her, but it could make things unpleasant if she was expected to spend any significant amount of time with these people. Hoping she could sit with better company at the next meal, she focused instead on all the curious pieces of silver she had been given, wondering about their true purpose. A couple of them looked more like barber’s tools, while others would be suited to carpentry or slow torture.
Slow torture, just like this meal.
To her profound relief, it did eventually end, and the party convened for dancing in the adjoining hall. Apollo met her with a smile on his face, having obviously had a more pleasant time wherever he was seated. She took his arm as they entered the ballroom together. The music had already begun to play, and though she was more used to bawdy theater songs and drunken choruses, she did not mind the elegant strain of the violins.
“Would you like to dance?” Apollo asked her.
Having been a performer for so much of her life, she was a passable dancer, and if Apollo had half as much grace as he had displayed fencing, he’d be a joy to dance with. “Yes, please.”
He grinned and took her to the floor. He led her through the steps of the new dance, and she followed him easily. They danced well together and Charlotte enjoyed herself immensely. She had not yet seen him so carefree, and she liked it. His smile was genuine and disarming, and she wanted very much to make him do it again.
“Thank you for the kitten,” she said.
He twirled her across the floor. “I’m glad you like him. I was not certain if you liked animals.”
“I do,” she assured him as he caught her coming out of a turn. “I love animals. He’s very sweet.”
“I thought a cat might bring some cheer into the house. Perhaps we could have other pets as well.”
Charlotte grinned. They had spoken vaguely about the future during the journey up, but Charlotte had not yet asked if they could redecorate the house. She suspected it would need little more than a good dusting and a few open windows, but she did not want to step on anyone’s toes.
Apollo was such a natural dancer that he was not in any danger of stepping on anyone’s toes, and it was all Charlotte could do to keep up with him. She surrendered to the music, worrying less about making every step and letting herself get swept away in the rhythm. He felt the change in her posture and took advantage of it, twirling her madly this way and that until she collapsed into his arms in a giggling mess.
His eyes seemed to sparkle as he looked at her, his smile widening by the moment. It was a funny thing, his smile. It transformed his face, all traces of seriousness clearing like clouds on a sunny day. She wondered at her attraction to him. Perhaps it was folly, desiring a man who could not love her in the way she wanted him to, but it was not something she could shake. With Apollo as her companion, perhaps her future would not be so frightening after all.
When the song ended, she took a seat against the wall, more tired than she cared to admit. Apollo left her there with a kiss on her hand and a glass of lemonade and went to talk to a friend. Within moments, Miles found her and sat beside her.
She cringed. She had hoped he wouldn’t come.
“Evening, Charlotte,” he greeted, reeking of drink.
“Miss Halfpenny,” she corrected.
“Halfpenny… where’s that come from, then?”
She felt her eyebrows draw together in irritation. “It’s a stage name, after my mother’s. She was Moira Halfpenny.”
“Irish! That explains this, then.” He rubbed a lock of her hair between his fingers. “I thought that was your going rate.”
She yanked her hair out of his hand. “Too rich for your blood, mate.”
He clenched his jaw, clearly miffed. She hadn’t meant to refer to the fact that he’d squandered his fortune, it was just something people said, but he’d taken it as such. “Charming as ever. Tell me, how’d you catch a cold fish like Somerton? I haven’t seen him with a woman in all these years. He prefers his books and his charities.” He said the last with so much distaste he might have said Somerton preferred books and eviscerating orphans. “I’ll wager you’re his first one.” He chuckled.
She might well have been, but she’d bite off her own tongue before she admitted such a thing. “I’ve kept him busy enough these past ten years. You can’t improve on perfection.” She winked at him though she wanted to give him a slap.
His cheeks reddened as if he was filling up with steam. “You think very highly of yourself. Perhaps no one else will have him. He can’t even get a dance. Observe.”
Irritated, Charlotte searched the floor for Apollo and found him speaking to two of the girls she had seen in the drawing room. He seemed to be offering to dance with them, but an older man, presumably one of their fathers, refused. Apollo bowed politely and moved on.
Charlotte burned with shame. Had she damaged his reputation to the extent that men would not allow him to show courtesy to their daughters? She supposed marrying one’s mistress would be shocking to these people. More than that, they weren’t married yet and they had travelled alone together to reach this party. God only knew what people would say if they knew she was with child.
Finding Cedrica alone, Apollo offered to dance with her and she accepted, though it was clear she was not a natural dancer. Her heart warmed to see him patiently teaching her the steps. He was a good man, the best of men. Far better than Charlotte deserved.
Damage done, Miles left without a word. Charlotte sat alone, considering her ridiculous situation. No one else attempted to speak to her or asked her to dance. She was more than an outsider here, she was a social disease, and she was already causing Apollo harm. She should leave before she destroyed him completely.
Charlotte left the house and walked until she could breathe again. The night was freezing, but she trudged into the darkness with a shawl gathered around her shoulders, ready to walk to the ends of the earth, if need be. Unfortunately, the only end in sight seemed to be the edge of a manicured garden overlooking a neighboring pasture.
The moon appeared to shoot her judgmental glances from through holes in the veil of clouds, while sheep milled about between drystone walls. It was quiet in the country, and the silence unsettled her there as it did in Somerton House.
This was never meant to be her world. She had been born into the light, the noise, and the smoke of the City, and to the City she must return. It had been a lovely dream, but it wasn’t hers.
“Charlotte?” Apollo’s voice was a temperate breeze in the chill of the night. He had been so kind to her. She wanted to be his countess, wanted to be the kind of wife she believed he deserved, but knew in her heart she couldn’t. She hated to prevent him from finding such a paragon, but she couldn’t cheat her child of the chance at a good life, either. She could not protect them both. When she turned to face Apollo, there were tears of frustration in her eyes.
He gathered her in his arms and held her close without a word, and a pathetic-sounding sob broke free from her throat at the surprise. Aside from dancing, he’d barely touched her. She surrendered to it, cautiously wrapping her arms around his long, lean waist. His shirt was stiff with starch beneath her cheek and the delicious smell of him drove all thought from her mind. His cologne was light and vaguely herbal, like elderflowers and lemon in brandy. Masculine, but not overtly so. It mixed with his own chemistry and became something more, the smell of desire itself. It would be so easy to love him, but she knew she would be doing him a disservice.
He loosed his hold on her only enough to seek her gaze with heavy-lidded eyes blue-green as medicine glass. “What troubles you?”
She glanced over his shoulder to be sure they were alone. “I don’t belong here.”
“You belong with me.” His assurance was heady as laudanum and twice as tempting. She longed to drink his words and forget.
“You deserve better,” she said, looking away. “I can’t be everything you need.” She pulled out of his arms reluctantly and sunk onto a bench overlooking a fallow field.
He sat beside her without a sound. “You already are.”
Her laugh was defensive and more than a little morose. “The things I’ve done, Apollo…”
He took her hand, offering her his strength. “I don’t care, Charlotte.”
“You ought to,” she fired back, but did not withdraw her hand from his grasp. “It wasn’t just Marksby. Perhaps you’ve heard the rumors. If you haven’t, you will. Byron, Coleridge, Kean, dozens of others. Opium, laudanum, absinthe, women.” Her voice cracked.
His eyebrows shot up at her confession. “Women?”
She cringed inwardly. Her past had succeeded in shocking him where her behavior had failed. “Many,” she confessed. “So many. What must you think of me?”
He wrenched his gaze away, appearing to consider something. Having second thoughts, like as not. She couldn’t blame him.
Her hands shook as she tried to explain herself. He had been lovely to her and the last thing she wanted was to hurt him. “If I may be candid, I’ve come to care for you a great deal, and that is the reason I cannot let you marry someone like me. You ought to find yourself a real lady with whom to acquire a child or two.”
“And you?” His face looked stricken as he turned to her, his high cheeks streaked with red. “You will miss your lovers?” he asked without a hint of judgment or scorn.
Her chest shook with unshed tears in time with the shaking of her hands. “I do not want you to think for a moment my reluctance stems from any defect on your part. It is rather the contrary. We will never be equals, and I cannot allow myself to believe you could ever truly return the feelings I have for you.”
He opened his mouth to speak, clearly miffed.
“Forgive me, I did not mean to cause you embarrassment,” she said. “What I am failing to articulate is this: you need a lady deserving of your kindness, someone from your world. I do not belong here.”
“I daresay I know a thing or two about not belonging.” He let out a long breath. “Charlotte, I adore you. I don’t want someone from this world, I want you. You have brought a light into my life I thought was extinguished forever. Don’t leave me.”
As if she could. The moonlight in his eyes inspired a kind of madness in her, and her gaze dropped again to his lips as he implored her, “Don’t go.”
If his eyes were the ocean, his voice was the undertow, drawing her into the unknown. She drifted into him like a ship lost at sea, helpless against his pull, until she felt his face against hers. Her cheek connected with his lean jaw and she could smell the elderflower on his throat. His pulse echoed in her ear, or perhaps it was her own.
Because she might never get another chance, she touched her lips to his.
He let her.
It was strange and marvelous, kissing someone for the first time. The surprise at the new sensation gave way to a restless eagerness to taste and know through touch. The greater significance of the moment was lost to details like the way his nose touched her cheek and the feel of his breath on her lips.
He cradled her face in his hand as he returned her kiss, his mouth remarkably soft for something that looked so sculpted. Like the man himself, his kiss was achingly sensual; there was nothing Charlotte could do but submit. Emboldened by her involuntary moan, he deepened the kiss, tasting her so thoroughly she felt dizzy.
Coming up for air, he rested his forehead against hers. She took his face in her hands, caressing the blade of his cheeks and the plane of his jaw. His eyelashes tickled her face as he closed his eyes, relaxing into her hands.
In all her years, she had never been kissed like that. A heady mix of desire, devotion, and natural skill, it was more than a kiss, it was love itself. She had never been more aroused in her life. Certainly no man—
Charlotte froze, an impossible notion barreling through her mind.
He opened his eyes to meet her gaze, and she saw him clearly for the first time. The loneliness, the guilt, the fear… all these things she had felt, if to a lesser extent. Perhaps they were kindred spirits, after all.
He didn’t have to feel that way anymore.
Heart hammering with nervous joy, she kissed him again, but there was no hesitation this time. She kissed him out of relief, understanding, and love. She kissed him because she wanted to. She wanted him.
Charlotte slid her hand inside his coat and over his firm chest.
As her hand drifted lower, he lurched back, rattled. “I cannot—” He blinked as if waking from a dream, his lips bitten and more than tempting.
“Truly?” she asked. “Can you not be tempted to try…?”
“Charlotte, please.” He stood, clearly flustered. “This cannot happen. Forgive me.” He turned on his heel and marched back to the house.
“Apollo,” she called, but he did not turn.
Perhaps he needed time to collect himself. Lord knew she could use a moment herself.
The silence was interrupted by a rustling in the bushes. Charlotte stood, searching the shadows for sinister figures. Seeing nothing, she began to relax. A squirrel, like as not.
A very human-sounding sneeze followed.
“Who’s there?” she called.
Miles staggered out of the trees, waving a handkerchief like a white flag. He pulled an enamel box from his coat and offered it to her. “Pinch of snuff?”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “You again? Spying is more effective if you do not give yourself away, Mr. Rothschild.”
He ignored her remark. “Lovers’ tiff?”
“Lord Somerton was needed elsewhere,” she lied.
“You’re a terrible actress.” He laughed. “Pol’s never needed anywhere. Lord knows he’s been a thorn in my side all these years.”
Remembering Apollo’s warning, she took a step backward. Surely his cousin would not dare to assault her here. “You’re not close, are you?”
She could smell the drink wafting off of him as he sat down on the bench. “Nonsense. We share everything. Come here, and I’ll take over where he left off.” His laugh was like a bag of rusted nails.
“I should get back.” She moved to leave.
“You’ll never be one of them.” His voice stopped her in her tracks. “Pol will never marry you. He’s stubborn, but he’s not stupid. He’ll come to his senses.”
Charlotte’s heart sank. She had come to the same conclusion, but Apollo’s kiss had given her hope. Concerns like breeding and blood seemed trifling compared to such passion. If only he would kiss her again, she’d face any number of horrors for him, from cotillions to cut directs.
“Sit with me,” he bade her.
“I think not,” she refused. She drew enough attention without being seen alone in the dark with a man other than her intended.
See? I can think like they do.
“You’re a clever girl,” he praised her. “Cleverer than I would have thought. I don’t know how you ensnared my prudish cousin, but you ought to show me some kindness if you hope to keep anything once I inherit.”
She froze. “Is that terribly likely?”
“Only a matter of time,” he said pleasantly, but she could hear the threat in his voice. “Pol’s always been a sickly boy. I doubt he’ll be able to get a son on you. If he does, well…”
Charlotte’s hand drifted instinctively to her belly but she commanded it away, not wanting to betray her state. “If he does?”
“He won’t. Hasn’t got it in him,” he dismissed, losing his train of thought as drunks often did. “He won’t have time.”
Something about the way he said this made her hair stand on end. Without another word, she ran into the house.