An English Lord's Love Affair

Chapter 5.2. Indecent Demand

   "Why couldn't you have fainted at the feet when you opened the closet door?" Benedic asked her. "It would have spared us both a load of grief."

   Charlotte motioned him to silence with a wave of her hand. "Be quiet a moment."

   "What?" he said in astonishment.

   "I cannot hear a word James is saying with you muttering away. I think he might be asking to marry me."

   Benedic stopped in his tracks, astonished at her sense of self-importance. Obviously she did not take his threat to her very seriously, which he suspected might have something to do with that kiss in the rain. He stared at her appealing figure, feeling an unwelcome flush of heat at her flirtatious voice.

   Charlotte leaned out farther, laughing as she whispered, "A reward? Hmm. What did you have in mind? And, no, of course I haven't forgotten you. What are you doing here?"

   "Isn't it obvious?" Benedic muttered in disgust. "A clumsy seduction is under way. Let us all throw dirt at a maiden's window to win her heart. What? No dirt available? Then try duck eggs. Or billiard balls."

   Charlotte glanced at him from the corner of her eye. "Would you please be quiet?"

   "Me?" Benedic said, his hand lifting to his chest. "Why don't you ask Romeo to do the same? He's the one making all the racket."

   "What are you saying, Charlotte?" James called up in confusion. "I can't understand you at all. Why don't you come down in the garden so we can talk properly? I made up a poem in your honor."

   "A poem," Benedic said, throwing up his hands. His head was spinning. His shoulder was bleeding. And he had to stand by and listen to the local moron spout poetry?

   "I like poetry," Charlotte said under her breath.

   "I don't," Benedic snapped.

   "Then leave," she whispered as she braced her elbows on the sill. "Perhaps you had better come back in the morning, James."

   "The morning?" James echoed in disappointment. "Don't tell me I have to wait that long to see you again? I do not believe I can bear this, Charlotte."

   "Well, that makes two of us," Benedic said darkly.

   Charlotte tapped her fingernails on the windowsill. "Three." Then, "Oh, James, bring your poem after breakfast. I shall be in a better mood."

   Benedic scowled in the dark void behind her, his arms folded disapprovingly over his chest. Wasn't this a lovely situation? He could hardly help noticing the wistful catch in Charlotte's voice. Nor, for that matter, could even a "dead" man such as himself overlook the suggestive draping of her body as she half dangled out the window to exchange whispers with her admirer.

   Which brought him back to wondering about that corset on the bed again. He wasn't the least bit surprised that her brothers had sent her into social exile. Although a castle turret in the Italian Alps would probably not have provided enough isolation to keep this young lady out of mischief. She was too high-spirited and infused with a Brumidge passion for her own good.

   The mere fact that she had already attracted the interest of James, Lord Sinclair, Chistlebury's most eligible bachelor now that Benedic himself was dead, proved his point. Anyway, wasn't James supposed to be engaged to the Simmonds heiress, a rather insipid twit who had trouble putting together a coherent thought? What the devil was the boy doing, luring the lovely exile Charlotte down into the dark?

  "I came all the way here to see you, Charlotte." James's voice was beguiling in the mist. "Can't you at least sneak outside for a few moments to talk to me?"

   "Don't you dare agree to such an indecent demand," Benedic said over her shoulder.

   "Why shouldn't I?" She sounded indignant at his interference. "I'm agreeing to yours."

   The young lord in the garden below took a few steps back in alarm. "Is there another man in your room with you, Charlotte?"

   "Tell him there is," Benedic said. "Tell him your lover is an extremely jealous foreigner who fights duels for a living."

   "Would you leave me alone?" she whispered angrily.

   James stared up at her in suspicion. "What did you say? Did I just hear a man's voice?"

   Charlotte could just see all her hopes for a beautiful romance dissolving before her eyes. In the past she had been drawn to the wrong type of suitor; this seemed to be a trait that her sister-in-law, Joan, had gently pointed out might need to be tempered with a streak of common sense. Charlotte secretly suspected that she had fallen into a depressive state since the deaths of her father and younger brother, Bernard. Sometimes she barely felt like living herself. She did not understand why she could not be satisfied as easily as her friends.

   She did not mean to hurt her family or to ruin her name. But there were times when she didn't care. Bernard had been killed early last year, and her father had died of a heart seizure barely five months later, when the news of his son's death had reached his country house where he and Charlotte  had been entertaining. She had been the only other family member present. It had been a brutal shock, learning of Bernard's  murder and witnessing her father's death in the same day.

   Charlotte has not completely recovered. She did not think she would ever recover. She could not say that she and her father had been close. He'd been distant, hard man who'd withdrawn from his children after his wife's death eight years ago when Charlotte was twelve.

   Charlotte's world had gradually turned gray, and getting into trouble had a strange way of making her feel alive. In a peculiar way she was a ghost, like the man holding her captive.

   Both she and Benedic Farningham might be alive in the physical sense, but a vital part of their essence had been damaged, if not destroyed. Charlotte could not explain why she felt even the slightest sympathy for a man who could ruin her entire life when any other young lady in her place would react with panic. But then perhaps she was accustomed to being shocked by her brothers. Charlotte's  family had always flaunted convention.

   Which was why tonight she had been so proud of herself for attracting the interest of the lighthearted James at the country dance. He wasn't her sort at all. He came from a solid family, didn't drink or gamble, and, as far as she could tell, there did not appear to be a dangerous bone in his body, aside from his lack of judgement in coming here tonight. But passion, controlled, was not always a bad thing, was it?

   Her brothers had sworn to see her settled down with an acceptable husband before the end of the year. There might be a chance for a serious match between her and James, if he turned out to be all that he appeared.

   And if the sarcastic devil practically perched on her shoulder like a gargoyle did not ruin everything.

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