“Do you really want to know?”
His expression sent small shivers through her body. The kiss they’d shared still made her breathless, thinking of it.
“Oh, my dear Mr. Forrester. I should have thought… This must be embarrassing for you as well.”
“I have seen naked women before, Char. I thought I was going to DuChamp’s studio to see you.”
His gaze bore into hers again and the room seemed unusually warm.
“What? Me?”
“When we danced together at the Carlisle’s ball…” He turned his neck and touched a spot behind his ear. Char thought the gesture very intimate. “I saw the mole you have there. It was the same mole the model had when I first went to DuChamp’s salon.”
“Oh. We all have one. Even Mama. But they’re not in the exact same place.”
“Enough that a man could be mistaken.”
“Such a gentleman should be commended for wanting to assist a lady.”
He nodded.
“I see. It makes more sense now. You were trying to save me from myself.” She laughed a little. “Well then, I relieve you of your marriage proposal. I haven’t told anyone, so you are not bound by some gentlemanly agreement you think you’ve made with me.” She took a deep breath. It was a relief and a sadness. “You are free, Joshua.”
“And if I do not want to be freed?”
“Aside from the obvious dysfunction you’ve already encountered, I do have my own difficult circumstances that make me an unsuitable wife for a man like you. I should have been honest with you. Before the kiss.”
Char had to stand. She was drowning in his gaze. He also stood but remained in place while she walked to the window and stared at the expanse of garden and walkways behind their house.
“I doubt there is anything you could tell me that would take away my desire to kiss you.”
“Oh no!” She braced her hands against the windowsill, nearly pressing her nose to the glass.
“What is it?” Joshua came beside her and saw what she saw.
“Look. Mama must be furious. She cut her own willow switch.” Mama marched across the grass, one hand gathering up her skirts, the other carrying the switch.
“I’m glad I am not Kat at this moment,” he said. Then he laughed.
“I’m glad I’m not her bottom.” Then they both laughed. “If only it would do some good. Mama has not spared the rod with her.”
“Maybe she needs a strong husband.”
“You are right. Do you know anyone?” She glanced his way.
He quirked his brow and shrugged. “If you are insinuating I volunteer, I will have to decline your generous offer. I’m actually worried your father might think it necessary that I wed Jenny.”
“Because of—”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“I would prefer it didn’t come to that,” Joshua said.
“Papa will understand. It’s not as if you were trying to seduce one of them.”
“Well, I was. Just not one of the three I caught.”
At their uncomfortable pause, they heard the sound of Kat crying as the thrashing proceeded. Mama’s arm wasn’t as strong as it used to be, but Char remembered from her past experiences that it hurt nonetheless. Mama had never spoiled her children; Papa, on the other hand, might have espoused leniency and tried to persuade with reason. Either way, Kat wouldn’t listen. Char didn’t know what it would take to tame that girl.
“I do feel cheated, somehow,” Joshua said.
“You do? Why?” she asked.
“I had imagined a few more of those kisses. A form of blackmail, I suppose. To keep me quiet in the coming years.”
“So you’re a gossip?”
“Don’t forget blackmailer. But not a gossip like my mother,” he said. “I have told a few tales in my day. Oh, and speaking of gossip, please assure your parents I will collect and destroy the painting.”
Char didn’t want the conversation to end. The pleasant little frisson between them, the possibility of a kiss…the possibility of so much more.
“We do owe you thanks. That is perhaps worth a kiss.”
“Only one? There were three sisters.”
“Four, counting me.”
One strong hand went to her waist and touched her lightly. He leaned, her eyes closed at the same time acute longing welled in her chest.
His lips touched hers. Oh, she could expire from the sheer wonder. The warm touch, the slight damp when his tongue touched her lips, and the ache when they opened their mouths together.
It was the sort of kiss that should never end.
It was the sort of kiss that inspired poetry, healed the sick and raised something other than the dead. When she felt his erection between them, she had to back away.
Mama didn’t need to see Char kissing a man in her sitting room, not after the day the Taylors had. Even if he was a Forrester.
CHAPTER EIGHT