February 1814
It was the worst winter in as long as anyone could recall. Certainly Charlotte Kendrick could remember nothing worse than the bitterly cold weeks that had tormented the entire countryside from Northumberland all the way to Sussex. Even the Thames had frozen solid just before she left London. And now, as she stood at her window, the first fluttering of snow had begun to sweep across the frosty glass.
Charlotte shivered as she turned back to the warm and welcoming glow of the main parlor of her family’s country estate. The weather could not bother her here. Besides, when she departed London along the slick roads a few days before, she had claimed she wanted solitude, time to think, peaceful quiet…and she would certainly have her wish. This isolation was a godsend really. A real chance to ponder her future without the distractions of the city.
Distractions like her friends, who all had their own opinions of what she should do. Of her brother, who talked incessantly. And even of Lawrence Darnell, the man who had put her in this tailspin over her future when he asked her to become his wife a few short days ago.
She had to give him an answer. She had promised it by Saint Valentine’s Day. But that was only a week away, and she was no closer to knowing what to do than she had been when he proposed. Only more confused than ever.
“Here I will decide,” she murmured to herself. “I must decide.”
“I beg your pardon, my lady.”
Her cheeks hot with embarrassment, Charlotte turned to face the servant who had surely overheard her speaking to herself. Thank heavens that there was only a limited staff on hand while she made this visit home. Only the butler who now stood before her and a few key servants, so the talk of her muttering to herself would be kept to a minimum.
“What is it, Horace?” she asked with a blank smile.
“My lady, you have a guest.”
She wrinkled her brow in utter confusion. Her family home, Rosewood Terrace, was at least five miles away from its nearest neighbor. Even if anyone dared to venture out in this terrible weather, no one knew she was in residence, for she had not made her arrival public knowledge.
“A guest?” she repeated, stepping toward the servant. “Is it someone of my acquaintance?”
He nodded gravely. “Indeed, my lady. It is Earl of Atleigh.”
Charlotte staggered back, grasping the back of the nearest chair as the room spun around her unexpectedly.
“C-Colin is here?” she whispered when she could finally catch her breath enough to speak. “Now?”
“Yes, my lady,” Horace said. “His mount was a bit worse for wear from the harsh weather, but if you would like to me to tell him that you are not in residence—”
“Gracious, no!” Charlotte said, moving forward again. “If Colin has come all this way through a storm, there must be a very good reason. Please send him in directly and have hot tea and biscuits brought in as soon as Mrs. Horace can prepare them.”
“Of course, my lady.”
As soon as the butler bowed from the room to collect Colin, Charlotte spun away from the door and clenched a fist to her chest. Her heart was pounding wildly against her fingers and her blood roared in her ears. How she cursed the powerful physical response she had always felt when near the man. The one she had never been quite able to control, to her great detriment.
“Lord Atleigh, my lady.”
She turned as her butler stepped aside and Colin Winchester, Earl of Atleigh, moved into her parlor. Charlotte sucked in a breath as she watched him slick long fingers through curling brown locks. Loose snowflakes fluttered to the floor at his feet, and he gave her that crooked, mischievous grin that had made her heart thud painfully for over seventeen years. His dark blue eyes twinkled with wit and playful sensuality as he gave her an audacious wink.
He was an impossibly handsome man, and she had never been able to tame her reactions to him. No matter how hard she tried.
“Colin,” she managed to squeak out as she crossed the large room toward him with trembling hands outstretched. “Great God, what are you doing here? Is my brother ill?”
His brow wrinkled as he took her hands in his. He had obviously been wearing gloves during his ride, for his fingers were warm and rough against her inappropriately bare palms. She stifled an involuntary sigh at the touch and fought to keep her expression placid.
“No, of course not. I came here to meet with Damien, in fact.” Colin tilted his head. “I didn’t expect you to be here, Charlotte, not that I am not pleased to see you.”
He leaned back and his gaze flitted up and down her frame with a sweeping possessiveness that weakened her knees. But she knew better than to take it personally. Colin perused every woman he met in such a way.
And Charlotte had never been to his liking.
“You do look wonderful,” he said with another playful wink.
Charlotte blushed as she withdrew her hands from his and paced away. The added distance allowed her to remember herself and she turned back with a friendly smile.
“Thank you, my lord,” she said softly. “But you must have misunderstood whatever missive you received from my brother. Damien is in London. I am the only one in residence here at Rosemont Terrace. My brother has no intentions to join me, or at least none that he voiced to me before I left just a few days ago.”
Colin frowned. Even serious, he didn’t look dark or foreboding like so many of his class and rank tried to affect. No, Colin always looked a little like the young man she had met all those years ago when he came home for a holiday with her brother. Far too smart for his own good, a boy with too many pranks and not enough time to execute them all, a boy with a light in his eyes, despite a painful childhood.
When he had laughed back then, it had forced Charlotte to laugh, too.
“How foolish of me,” Colin muttered, seemingly more to himself than to Charlotte. “I must have misunderstood his directive, as you say.” He shuffled uncomfortably as he looked to her. “If you do not mind, I ask if I may take a respite here and allow my horse to recover from the cold?”
“Of course,” Charlotte said, even though inside her stomach was twisting wildly. She had only been totally alone with Colin once. Probably he didn’t recall that, but she did. In vivid and humiliating detail. “I could not turn you out into…”
She turned to wave toward the window and her sentence trailed off. In the few moments since she had looked outside, the few stray flakes of snow had transformed into a miserable blizzard. Although it was afternoon, it was dusky dark outside and she could no longer see more than a finger’s length past the window frame.
She turned back and their eyes met. Colin held up his hands.
“I would not dare invade upon your privacy, Charlotte. I will not stay.”
She moved forward, against her will. “Nonsense. I would not send an enemy out into this storm, let alone an old friend. You will stay here until this weather breaks. Until it is safe for you to retake the road.”
Colin was still for a moment and Charlotte saw the flicker of humor that was his constant quality fade away. For just a brief flash, he seemed almost…predatory. But then it was gone and the corner of his mouth lifted into his old grin.
“Thank you, Charlotte. I appreciate that.”
She smiled awkwardly and was infinitely grateful when the door behind him opened and Horace returned with a tray brimming with food and tea. Charlotte motioned to the sideboard and thanked the old butler before he left them alone again.
She turned away from Colin and began to pour the tea. Without even asking, she knew that he took three lumps of sugar, no cream.
Suddenly he was at her shoulder.
“Is old Horace studying to be a parlor maid now?” he said with a laugh as he looked at the brimming pile of biscuits.
Charlotte smiled. Mrs. Horace had always adored Colin. Probably because he adored her cooking so much.
“No. My return was not entirely expected. Rosemont Terrace has a short staff at present,” she explained. “But that is for the best. I came here to think. A quiet house is the best for that.”
She expected Colin to move, but instead he remained at her elbow. When she turned, she practically crashed into his very broad chest. The tantalizing, clean scent of his skin wrapped itself around her and she found herself looking up into his eyes as she held out his cup of tea.
For a moment, he didn’t take the offering, merely looked down at her with a strangely focused intent in his eyes. Again, Charlotte flashed to the one other time she had been so close to him. They had been in a similar position to this that long ago night, but Colin had had a very different expression on his face.
Today there was a heat in his eyes.
But no, she was imagining that.
“Here,” she said, her voice cracking as he finally took the cup from her suddenly shaking hands.
He took a sip and smiled. “You remembered.”
“Only you would drink your tea so sweet,” she said, trying to laugh off the awareness she felt as she turned back to pour her own cup. It was stupid. Foolish. And she was no longer a girl.
“I have always liked sweet things,” he said quietly. Then she felt the whisper of a touch against her neck. Her eyes widened and she spun back toward him, but he had already grabbed two biscuits and was moving away to sit by the fire.
Reflexively, Charlotte moved up to cover the place where she had felt his touch. But she had to have been wrong. Colin hadn’t touched her. Now that he had settled into her brother’s favorite chair and was wolfing down one of the chocolate biscuits that had always been his favorites, he didn’t even seem to recall she was there anymore.
“So,” he said with a sigh of pleasure as he swallowed the last bit of his cookie. “What is there to think about?”
Charlotte blinked as she stirred cream into her tea before she joined him. “Think?”
“You said you came here to think. Since I have abominably interrupted your respite, perhaps I can help.” He winked. “You and I always came up with the best plans together.”
Charlotte dipped her chin with an unbidden smile. As children they had often taken the same side in war games against her brother. Diabolical, the pair of them, they had won almost every time.
But that was very long ago.
“I-I don’t need a plan, I’m afraid.”
“Then what is it?” he pressed, starting on his second biscuit with gusto.
She shifted uncomfortably before she scolded herself. Why in the world was she hesitating in telling him the truth about why she had come here? He had no reason in the world to care about her plans. He would probably be like her brother and just wave her off with disinterest once he heard the truth.
“I, er, I have been offered a proposal of marriage.”
He stopped eating and slowly his dark blue gaze slid up to her face. His expression was strangely blank and unreadable, with no emotional reaction to her announcement whatsoever.
“From whom?” he asked, his tone as even and unaffected as his face.
She swallowed, still having the uncomfortable feeling that she was somehow betraying Colin. “I-er-Lawrence Darnell. He is the Viscount Darnell’s youngest brother.”
“I have met him.” Colin winced. “He may be the Viscount’s youngest brother, but he is not young. He must be twenty years your senior, Charlotte.”
She straightened up, defensive at his obvious shock. “His age does not bother me. He has been nothing but kind to me in the few months he has been courting me.”
“Nothing but kind?” Colin repeated and his voice was quiet. “What a waste.”
“What?” she asked, her brow furrowing.
He shook his head and ignored her question. “So you have come here to consider his offer.”
She nodded, confused by his murmured comment and put off by his refusal to explain it. “I told him I would give him an answer by Saint Valentine’s Day, a week from today.”
Colin set his teacup down on the table between them. “How utterly romantic of you, Lady Kendrick.”
Now it was Charlotte who winced. The formality of her married title coming from Colin’s lips was like a slap. But his expression wasn’t cold as he stared at her. No, it was still heated, and this time she was certain she wasn’t imagining things. He was staring at her like…like…
Well, rather as if she was one of those biscuits that he couldn’t get enough of.
And despite all her knowledge that it was foolish, the idea that Colin might feel anything more than friendly concern for her warmed her to her very toes and made her long for things she had long ago convinced herself were out of reach.
Things were going exactly as planned. He was here, he had managed to get an invitation from Charlotte to stay through the duration of the storm. And now she was staring at him with that same combination of sweet innocence and sultry sensuality that had been tying him in knots for years.
Colin settled back. The only problem was Charlotte’s impending engagement. Although he didn’t tell her so, the news wasn’t a surprise to him. He had known all about Darnell’s offer before he left London to come here. Her brother had revealed it. But the idea that she was intent on answering the other man’s proposal in just a week put even more pressure on Colin than ever.
He only had a few days. He would have to use every single damn moment to perfection.
He stared at Charlotte as she sipped her tea and shuffled uncomfortably in her chair. Great God, but she was a beauty. Her rich hair was the color of chocolate, thick and gorgeous as little tendrils of it curled around her apple cheeks and slender neck. And her eyes, that striking, ever-changing hazel brown that sometimes looked like spun gold and sometimes like nutty depths…they had always been where she carried her emotions.
Today they looked confused. And excited.
Yes, Charlotte was still aware of him. Still attracted to him. Still moved by him.
Even though he had once thrown all that away. Now he had one chance to get it back. A last chance, for if she married Darnell, she would never be his.
And Colin knew only one thing, he wanted Charlotte Rosemont Kendrick. He wanted her in his bed, he wanted her in his life, he wanted her in his heart forever.
And he would do anything to make sure it happened.