Freddie heard the catch in her throat before she turned her head away, and he grasped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tugged her face to his. The couch sloped inward, and they were thrown quite close together.
“Buck up now, Charlotte. None of that blubbering.”
Her lips were trembling, and she gave him a shaky smile. Freddie’s gaze darted to the tip of her tongue as she ran it quickly over her lips, and he had to restrain himself from brushing his fingers against her mouth. A mouth that was too big for her face, a mouth that he could imagine doing wicked things to him with that little pink tongue.
He pulled his hand away, resisting temptation.
“You are the bossiest man I have ever met,” Charlotte complained, laying her head on the couch cushions behind her. “First you tell me how to speak, then how to dress, and now I’m not even allowed to cry.”
Freddie couldn’t stop a small smile at her pitiful tone, but his thoughts did not tend toward sympathy. Underneath the lustrous yellow pearls she wore, Charlotte’s neck was slender and vulnerable. Was she trying to tempt him by arching it so? Was she tempting him earlier with the flick of her tongue?
Lazily she rolled her head toward him. “I am so in-in—drunk. Everything is spinning.” The words were so slurred, Freddie could barely make them out. She closed her eyes. “I wish I were home.”
Her voice was so full of anguish that Freddie gathered her in his arms without thinking. He pulled her close, and then her tears began in earnest.
The smell of honeysuckle overwhelmed him. It was in her hair, her clothes; it seemed to emanate from her skin like a part of her. He closed his eyes and pulled her closer, willing her tears to stop. She wasn’t sobbing uncontrollably, just the tears of someone who was exhausted physically and mentally. Someone homesick. He remembered the feeling. When he’d first arrived at Eton, he’d cried and pined for his mother and father and home. The older boys had toughened him up quickly enough, but he never forgot the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach or the pang of yearning.
Freddie pulled her snugly against his shoulder and stroked her hair. Fire and small white flower blossoms swirled around his fingers. Like molten lava, her hair glinted in the candlelight.
Soothed and quiet, she snuggled into the crook of his shoulder. His hand strayed from her hair to the nape of her neck, smooth and delicate, bending gracefully like a willow and with that hidden strength as well. How much strength this woman must have to be sitting in Lord Brigham’s library with him even now. How much must she have overcome?
And how great would be her reward? A thousand pounds. She wanted his money, not him. She wanted no Englishman.
But quite suddenly he realized that he wanted her.
Freddie stiffened involuntarily, coming back to his senses like a man bowled over by a wave from the ocean. She was getting too close. He was beginning to find it more and more difficult to keep her at a distance.
Were her actions calculated? Did she have some ulterior motive? And dash it if he couldn’t get the idea of her warm supple body arching beneath his in the firelight out of his mind. He wanted her.
“You’re ruining my hair,” she murmured, her breath tickling his neck.
“I’ll stop,” he said, moving to separate their bodies, but she did not relinquish her hold.
“No,” she said. “I like it. I feel . . . safe for the first time in . . . oh, never mind.” She peered up at him, thick lashes wet with tears. “I need a hero, Freddie.”
He tensed at the sound of his name on her honeyed tongue.
“I need someone to save me. Just once. I’m so tired, so tired of saving everyone else.” She shook her head, peered into his eyes. “Why you?” she asked.
He frowned. “Why me, what?”
“Why does it have to feel so good in your arms? Why do you make me shiver every time you touch me?”
He shivered himself at her words. “Do I?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She nodded and licked her lips again. He took a fortifying breath, then raised his hand again to the nape of her neck, fingers sliding slowly upward to cradle the base of her skull and test the weight of her hair. The intimacy of seeing her with her hair down was beginning to affect him. Only husbands and lovers had this privilege.
Charlotte leaned into his touch. “What else do I do to you?” he said, voice husky as his fingers trailed down her neck to trace the delicate arch of her jaw.
“You make me warm,” she said softly. “You make me feel like there’s a fire pooling in my belly and sliding down—all the way to my toes.”
He rubbed the pad of his thumb across her lower lip, feeling it give gently, feeling the inviting warmth of her lips and mouth.
“Do you like the fire, Charlotte?” he said. “Do you want to burn hotter?” She nodded, and he whispered against her lips, “Show me.”
Charlotte met his gaze, then reached up, cupped a hand around his neck, and pulled his mouth to hers. Lips met lips, tenderly at first. Testing, then exploring.
At first Freddie thought that he must be the one who was drunk. Everything about the experience of kissing her intoxicated. He was engulfed by her scent. He was sinking in her skin, relishing the taste of her abundant lips and the feel of her ample breasts pressed against him.
