“The butler stole my flowers. I suspect he’s examining them for a torrid note. How are you?”
In want of torrid notes. “A trifle anxious, to be honest. I’d like another kiss.” She’d like a lifetime of kisses where Sherbourne was concerned, but she’d have to make do with two.
“Putting the cart before the horse, are we?”
“Putting the kiss before the discussion. That waistcoat is tastefully glorious.”
He rose and held out a hand. “Now I’m anxious. My valet told me you’d approve of my ensemble. I worry that he was right on several other counts.”
Whatever that meant. Charlotte put her hand in Mr. Sherbourne’s and was drawn to her feet. “I want a truly, impressively, memorably torrid kiss.”
“Inspecting what’s on offer?”
“You are a who, not a what, and nobody has made any offers today. Please kiss me.”
He frowned at her, as if she were a painting that hadn’t quite turned out as the artist had intended.
“We should lock the door, my dear.”
I will never be your dear, more’s the pity. “You came bearing flowers. For that unprecedented act of bravery, we’ll have a few minutes of privacy.”
“Nobody sends you flowers?”
“Mr. Sherbourne, do the words ‘Please kiss me’ exceed your comprehension?”
He smiled, and Charlotte stared at his cravat. A gold pin nestled among a wealth of blonde lace, with the smallest ruby winking from the depths. For a moment, she wavered—not about the kiss, which she was determined to have—but about refusing his proposal.
He had significant means and as his wife, Charlotte might be able to aid many women…or she might be able to aid none at all. A wife was her husband’s property, and if Lucas Sherbourne disapproved of Charlotte’s priorities, his word on the matter would be final.
Then some friendless young woman, helpless and despondent, might die as a result of his whim.
“So solemn.” He drew his finger down the center of Charlotte’s brow. “So serious. One can’t travel the distance from solemn to torrid in a single leap.” He touched his lips to hers and drew back a quarter inch. “Now you.”
She heeded his suggestion for this would be the last, most torrid kiss of her life. She kissed him, her lips landing on the corner of his mouth, though that hadn’t been her target. He waited, and she corrected her aim.
He tasted of peppermints. Charlotte moved closer, the better to trace the curves and swirls of his waistcoat.
“When you do that…” he muttered, looping his arms around her shoulders. He kept a small distance between their bodies, which Charlotte took as evidence that he liked her hands on his torso.
His heartbeat was a steady tattoo. When Charlotte teased her tongue along his lips, that rhythm might have accelerated.
Her heart was certainly beating faster.
Matters after that grew blurred. At some point, Mr. Sherbourne wrapped her in a snug embrace, which gave her permission to do the same with him. He was wonderfully solid in her arms, kissing her even as she pressed closer, and then he lifted her off her feet.
He sat on the sofa with Charlotte in his lap, and a kiss that had been passionate turned consuming. Charlotte tasted him deeply, and if he hadn’t been wearing so many blasted clothes, she might have lapped at him as a cat laps up cream.
He did things, with his tongue, with his body, that shocked and delighted, and with his hands…
His hands were a revelation. Where he touched her, Charlotte became sensitive—her face, her neck, her wrists. His caresses were confident and unhurried, which was the most breathtaking, maddening aspect of the whole encounter.
“I hate that I don’t know how to…to…”
He brushed her hair back. “To arouse me?”
Arouse was another word Charlotte hadn’t spoken aloud. “Tease you, as you’re teasing me. It’s not fair.”
She was cradled in his lap, the sofa’s armrest supporting her back. The position was undignified, intimate, and far more comfortable than she’d imagined.
“Simply walking across a room, you arouse me, Charlotte Windham.” He sounded no happier about that admission than Charlotte was to be refusing his proposal.
For she would, any minute now. Before she made that sacrifice, she snuggled closer. Mr. Sherbourne obliged her with a snuggle of his own—she had aroused him—and for a moment, Charlotte grieved what could not be.
Passion, affection, closeness that went beyond what Charlotte knew of sexual mechanics to a sort of friendship she’d never envisioned. But then, what woman could imagine Lucas Sherbourne?
Charlotte would be imagining him for the rest of her life. “I’ve decided not to marry you.”
Mr. Sherbourne went still.
“You do me great honor,” she went on, for that was how this was done, “but we would not suit.”
He set her aside, not roughly, but firmly. “Of all women, I never took you for a hypocrite.”
He was entitled to a fit of pique; he was not entitled to insult her. “I am not a hypocrite. I meant what I said. I cannot marry you, and we would not suit.” She was lying, and she was telling the truth.
He ran his hands through his hair, bringing order where Charlotte had sown chaos. “We would suit like a lit taper suits tinder. You simply can’t bear to marry a man who lacks a title.”
“What?”
“I’m a commoner and always will be. You can’t reconcile yourself to marrying down.”
Charlotte had braced herself for politely wounded male pride—every unsuccessful suitor had had his pride—not for righteous indignation.
“My decision has nothing to do with a lack of title on your part. I am a commoner, as are all of my siblings and cousins save one, and he was born out of wedlock.”
“Your siblings are titled nonetheless, while I am a mere mister, not even an honorable.”
And Charlotte was not her siblings. “You are very honorable. If I were to marry anybody, it would be you. I’ll see you out before either one of us says something regrettable.” Charlotte regretted turning him down.
She did not regret kissing him.
He rose. “No need to see me out. I lack a title, but I do possess the ability to find the front door.”
Charlotte got to her feet as well, lest he be seen stalking from the parlor in high dudgeon.
“Mr. Sherbourne, I will accompany you to the door. You will bow over my hand, I will curtsy, and what has passed between us in this room will remain private. Women turn down proposals every day. We’re fickle creatures and our whims are of no moment.”
He pulled on his gloves. “You are neither fickle nor whimsical, and you don’t turn down proposals every day.”
“I turn them down, nonetheless.” With appalling regularity, but he doubtless didn’t offer proposals, ever, and thus a frisson of guilt threaded through Charlotte’s regret. “I am sorry Mr. Sherbourne. Any woman would be lucky to have your esteem.”
His perusal was brooding, but at least he wasn’t dashing off in a temper. “If you mean that, then why reject my suit? If some other man has a claim on your affections, I’ll concede the field, of course. Otherwise, I’m prepared to be generous with the settlements. I’ll be a decent and faithful husband, and you’ll have a sister biding not a thirty-minute stroll from our home.”
He was genuinely perplexed, and Charlotte’s heart was genuinely, and very inconveniently, breaking. Fidelity didn’t characterize every marriage, or even most society marriages, but Lucas Sherbourne would keep his vows.
“I wish you joy, Mr. Sherbourne. Shall I see you to the door?”
“For a woman wishing me joy, you look like you’re about to cry.”
Why must he turn up perceptive now? “Tears are soon dried.”
“Charlotte?” He was calm now, or worse than calm, he was focused. She’d become a puzzle for him to solve, and his scrutiny was more than Charlotte could bear.
She cupped his cheek against her palm, and went up on her toes to give him a farewell kiss. He held her hand with his own and kissed her back with a tenderness that tried Charlotte’s resolve to the utmost.
One more embrace, just one more…