An English Lord's Love Affair

Chapter 1.3.2. A Dangerous Curiosity

Charlotte stared across the dreary landscape, her heart thumping in her throat. "My house," she said in surprise.

"Imagine that," he drawled, and turned his head slightly to look down at her in a way that let her know he wasn't so preoccupied with his own affairs as to be unaware of how tightly she was clinging to him.

The brown and white half-timbered farmhouse, known by the pretentious name of Crowbridge Manor, withstood the steady rain as it had for two centuries. Charlotte imagined she could see her aunt peering through the lace curtains, wondering what had happened to her restless niece. She would probably be soundly scolded than traipsing up to her knees in mud. The poor footman would be dealt a boxed ear.

"You might have told me you were taking a detour," she said under her breath as she unwrapped her arms from the strong male body she had been blatantly using as an umbrella.

He did not turn his head again. She sensed the mockery of his smile as he said, "I see no reason to explain the obvious."

"Of course not," she muttured. An explanation would have involved polite conversation. What a crabby man. She was embarrassed that the possibility of abduction had ever entered her mind. He probably didn't have a castle anyway. At least not in Chistlebury. Perhaps he lived in a cave. He was more dragon than knight. She supposed it was too much to hope he would escort her all the way home, although on second thought , her appearing on the doorstep with Galahad in tow would probably send her aunt into a swoon.

"Well," she said, covering her irritation with a polite smile, "it was very decent of you to take time from your"—From his what? she wondered. From thundering about like an ancient seigneur in search of storm-caught maidens?—"from your duties to rescue me."

He dismounted in silence and helped her down from the horse, lifting her with no apparent effort. The brush against his broad-shouldered body brought another sensation of warmth to Charlotte's rain-chilled skin. He had a strong physique, and his touch was surprisingly gentle despite the impatience she sensed in him.

Clearly, although his mind was a hundred miles away, he was still male enough to acknowledge the differences in their sex. He dealt her an infuriatingly dismissive look. "In future, I would advise you not to wander onto my property."

"I hardly did so on purpose," Charlotte retorted. "You see, I've just arrived from London—"

"So I've heard."

She stepped away as he turned his lean figure back to the horse. "About me?" she asked in astonishment. Under ordinary circumstances Charlotte might have been a little flattered that a man she had never met had taken pains to investigate her.

He turned slowly, looking her up and down as if he had been resisting the urge to do all along. His face was lean, the masculine features overshadowed by a tension that Charlotte could almost feel. In fact, she caught her breath at the suppressed intensity, the male interest that he had not allowed to show before. Had she wondered whether he'd noticed her as a woman? Well, she would wonder no more. Never in her life had a man's gaze left her feeling more seduced and desirable than a man's gaze left her feeling more seduced and desirable than his brief heated glance. Only when his gray eyes met hers did the faintest flicker of humor appear.

"Yes," he said. "I've heard quite a few things about you, in fact."

"Why should I be of interest to you?" she asked in an undertone.

He hesitated. They were standing in the shadows of the white willow trees that bordered the manor house. Charlotte could hear the rain pattering on the silvery leaves, dripping, enclosing them in humid darkness. She sensed he was on the verge of telling her something, a secret, perhaps even the reason why he seemed so preoccupied and impolite. Those soulful gray eyes of his quite softened her heart. Was he said, stricken perhaps with a terminal illness?

She edged a little closer, hoping to inspire confidence. She had always been drawn to lost animals, to lost people. But there was something else drawing her to him now, a dangerous curiosity, magnetic heat. If he had been cool toward her before, he seemed to be a veritable hotbed of dark emotion now.

"Why?" She asked again.

She should have been surprised when he said drew her into his arms and kissed her. What surprised her more was that she did not melt into the rain, her body suddenly boneless, drugged with the heady sweetness of brandy on his breath. There was power and arrogance and almost desperation in the way his lips took possession of hers. A decade from now she would remember the thrill of the merest gasp before his tongue drove more deeply into the soft recesses of her mouth.

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