Her arms gave out, and she collapsed. Stuart loomed over her, covering her with his body. He caught her hands and stretched them to the sides, pinning her in place as he moved, riding her with long, sure thrusts. Charlotte could hardly breathe as he plunged into her, his weight pushing her into the mattress. There was nothing but Stuart in her world, and she wrapped her legs around his hips, holding nothing back.
“Charlotte,” he gasped. His eyes were so dilated they were nearly black, and a fine sheen of sweat dampened his brow. “My God, I never knew ... never dreamed ...”
“I love you,” she said, dropping her hips to heighten the friction between them. “Only you.” It was all she needed; her body contracted, and she threw back her head with a mute shriek. Stuart’s hand slipped beneath her arched back and he, too, froze, caught in the same ecstasy. A moment later he lowered himself, still holding her close.
Stuart lifted the long tangled curls gently from her neck, and pressed his lips in their place. “Is that what he said about you?” he whispered. “Those terrible things about having no heart and no shame?
She lay under him, utterly spent. “Everyone did. I was afraid it was true.”
“It’s not.”
After a moment she turned her head. “But everything you said was true. I did fall in love too easily, at least once. I never wanted to feel that way again.”
Stuart went still. Her eyes were shadowed and disillusioned. Even though she faced him, she seemed to be seeing something else. “He was a gentleman from town, visiting friends in the country. We met at a picnic, and a fortnight later he said he loved me. He said he wanted to marry me. When my father forbade him to visit, I climbed out my bedroom window at nights to see him. I was so naïve. My father never told me anything; he simply told me what to do, and I never wanted to listen. And when that man told me he was leaving, and asked me to come with him, I said yes.”
Her voice dropped. “We made it as far as an inn some ten miles away. I don’t know if my father tracked us, or if that man told him, hoping to force his consent, but Papa discovered us there, posing as man and wife.”
Stuart groaned inwardly. “He took your virginity.”
Charlotte didn’t flinch. “My father offered him five thousand pounds to leave. We were still in bed; I couldn’t get out to get dressed, not while my own father was standing there. When Papa offered him money, that man simply asked for more. Not for a farthing less than ten thousand, he said. Papa had a pistol, and he brought it out. You’ll go for five, or you’ll never go anywhere at all, he said. So he got out of bed and put on his clothes, took the bank draft my father handed him, and left. He never looked at me again.”
And Stuart understood then just why she had hated him so fiercely at the beginning. She had been acting on knowledge gained the hard way, and now that he knew the whole truth, Stuart couldn’t fault her for anything. What must have gone through her mind, when she saw history repeating itself with her niece?
“My father dragged me home in utter silence. I was devastated, both at the realization I had been completely wrong and because Papa refused to look at me. When we got home, he sent me up to my room, and told me to pack my things. I was very scared, but did it—I was too frightened not to. He sent for me an hour later, and ...” She closed her eyes. “He told me I was unnatural,” she continued in the same flat voice. “Ungrateful, ungovernable, and immoral. I was ruined—he had seen the evidence with his own eyes—and he couldn’t bear the sight of me. I was to go to Paris, to a distant cousin of my mother, and stay there until I was summoned home.”
“He never sent for you?” His heart ached for her.
“He died four years ago. I never received a word from him. My brother George wrote to me, and he always gave me news of Papa, but never a message from him. Besides, by then I was everything he had named me: intemperate, unrestrained, and wild. Whatever the gossips say about me is probably true.”
“No,” he said softly. “It isn’t.”
“I had hoped, coming back to England with a new name, I would be able to put it behind me. If I lived an upright, blameless life, I thought, people will forget, or not connect me with the scandal. I never told anyone, not even Lucia. My father almost surely told no one, and George would never have breathed a word. The only person who would be able to tell—”
“Hyde-Jones,” Stuart finished when she stopped. “Damn.”
She sighed. “I didn’t let myself consider that I might meet him again—how could I let my fears stand in the way of finding Susan? And it had been so long, I thought he could hardly care or even recognize me now. But now, even if I find her, she’ll be ruined, too, by association.” She covered her face with her hands. “Oh, what have I done? Why must everything go wrong?”
“It isn’t your fault.” He pulled her close again, into the curve of his arm where she fit just perfectly. “Everyone has something in their past to hide.” He kissed her temple, feeling that protective urge again. What a life she must have led, thinking herself irredeemably wicked and unloved. He thought of all the men who had used her and cast her aside, and then he imagined them all drawn and quartered, their heads impaled on pikes along London Bridge.
And he was the first person she had told. After thirteen years, she had trusted him, of all people.
“You must have noticed Terrance hates me,” he said before he could think better of it. She didn’t move, but her breathing changed. “You must wonder why.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” she murmured. He waited, gathering his thoughts. “But I do wonder,” she admitted.
“I don’t know for certain,” he began slowly, “but I have an idea. When I was a child, we lived at Barrowfield, my grandfather’s estate. My mother still lives there ten months of the year. She only comes to London for the Season. Grandfather dotes on her; always has, as far as I can recall.
“I lived there, too, until I was old enough for school. That summer, Terrance came to Barrowfield, which was highly unusual for him. I barely knew him as my father, for my grandfather filled that role most of the time. But Terrance came, and he took me for a ride. I had just gotten a gelding from Grandfather, and was quite proud of my riding abilities. I must have been eager to show Terrance. I remember he didn’t say much until we reached a narrow pass that wound around a ravine. There was a steep drop, and he made me dismount and walk to the edge.
“I had been there many times, of course, being as daring and reckless as most boys. But Terrance made me stand there, and he told me he thought I should call him Terrance now, instead of Father. I didn’t want to—it seemed unnatural, after all—and asked why. He looked me up and down, for I had grown quite a bit since his last visit, and said he couldn’t have a son so tall. I thought it must be a lark, but from that day on, whenever I called him Father, he corrected me.”
Charlotte had listened in unmoving silence, but now she raised her head. “Did you never discover why? What did your mother and grandfather say?”
He shrugged. “I never knew. My mother put me off every time I asked her, until I realized she didn’t want to answer. Grandfather simply threw up his hands and mumbled something about ‘unyielding Terrance,’ but that was all. It was quite accepted by everyone else that I call him Terrance, and so I became accustomed to it.
“Then one day, just before I left for school, I overheard the maids talking. They were giggling over something Grandfather had done for Mother—he had fresh flowers cut for her room every day, and he would often give her gifts, sometimes quite extravagant ones. One maid declared that Belmaine—my grandfather—must love her more than Terrance did, and the rest all laughed. Another suggested he always had, and that was why Terrance resented me so.”
She frowned. “Surely they didn’t mean ...”
“I suspect they did. What would make a man dislike his own son so much he wouldn’t even let the boy call him Father? What if it weren’t his son at all, but his father’s?”
Charlotte sucked in her breath. “Then ... you’re his brother?”
He shrugged again, not quite meeting her eyes. “I’ve no proof. But it explains why Mother only lives with Terrance during the Season, for appearances’ sake, and why Grandfather adores her so. Whether he seduced her after she married Terrance or before, I cannot say; my birth was barely nine months after they married. For the life of me I cannot decide which Terrance would regard as the bigger sin, but my own belief is after, when she was already married and Belmaine couldn’t have her himself.”
So many things whirled around in her brain; it was a plausible, if terrible, explanation. “Oh, Stuart ...”
Stuart pulled her back down into his arms, still stroking her shoulder. “Don’t pity me, Charlotte. In all likelihood I was raised by parents who loved me.”
“But to wonder ... to know everyone suspected you were a—”
He put his finger on her lips even as Charlotte stopped short. “Either way, I’m Belmaine’s heir, and he would never let Terrance interfere with that.” His hand fell away and he gave her a gentle kiss. “The past doesn’t change who you are. It might shape your character, but it doesn’t dictate your future, unless you let it.”
He pulled the covers over them, keeping her nestled against him. For a moment both were silent, quietly savoring the nearness of the other, the complete confidence they had shared. The old wounds didn’t hurt as much, as if the raw edges of her pain had joined the raw edges of his pain, and each had soothed the other.
“Stuart?” said Charlotte hesitantly. “Tell me about Oakwood Park.” His hand paused at her shoulder for a long minute.
“It’s in Somerset.” His fingers glided down her arm again. “A quiet little farm, really, barely a hundred and twenty acres. I purchased it from a Scot who’d never even taken the time to visit; he wanted rid of it, since it was several hundred miles from the rest of his properties. It came into his family as part of a marriage settlement, but no one had lived there in decades.”
He told her about the land, acre after acre of rich soil that had been allowed to go wild but should be arable by next spring, ready for the fields of wheat and barley he hoped to plant. He told her about the house, which needed renovations but was still sound, all except the east wing, whose roof had collapsed some time ago. “We’ve already taken most of it down,” he added. His voice stayed quiet and even, but Charlotte could hear the pride and enthusiasm in it. “When it’s all gone, there should be a fine site for an orangery. My mother has one at Barrowfield. And I did want to plant an orchard; aside from the namesake oaks, it’s virtually all farmland.” He fell silent, and she knew he was thinking of all the work, all the time he had put into Oakwood Park. He loved it. And at that moment Charlotte said a small prayer that he would be able to keep it, somehow, even if she didn’t like what it might take. He deserved no less. How could she deny him a second chance, a fresh start, when she was trying to make one herself?
He gathered her closer, his breath warm against her neck in a soundless sigh. “You have to leave, don’t you?” she whispered.
He smoothed her curls beneath his cheek. “Not yet.”
“Thank you,” she said after a moment. “For telling me.”
Stuart’s smile was bittersweet. “It was my pleasure.” Strangely enough, it had been, even though it had only convinced him to sell Oakwood Park. Telling her about the time and effort he’d put into the estate, about the plans and hopes he’d had for it, had only underscored the difference between a parcel of land and the woman in his arms. He loved both, but couldn’t have both, and so Stuart chose the one that loved him back: Charlotte.
He didn’t feel any sense of loss, although he expected that would come when he signed away the deed. Telling Charlotte had been like a last tour of the property, a farewell visit. He couldn’t bring himself to do what it would take to keep it. Tomorrow he would begin making discreet inquiries, and hopefully he could get a price that would enable him to pay off Barclay in full. Then ... perhaps Ware needed another steward, or a caretaker for one of his properties. He had been raised to oversee Barrowfield one day, after all, and his experiences at Oakwood Park had only helped. He could manage an estate, and it would provide a home and an income—enough to support a wife.
He remembered something then. “Charlotte,” he said softly. “I received word from Pitney tonight.” She started, then flipped over, her face pale and anxious in the candlelight. “It is good news,” he rushed to assure her, then told her what the investigator had learned. “Susan will be home soon,” he finished.
Silently, she kissed him, gently and sweetly. He thought to tell her then about his decision on Oakwood Park. But the words were too hard to form, and he decided to wait until he had spoken to Ware and made arrangements to sell the property. For something this important to him, he needed more than a feeling, more than blind confidence that things would work out in the end. He needed a plan, something definite he could promise her.
He held her until her breathing was soft and even and he was sure she slept. Even then he didn’t want to leave, but there would be no end of trouble if Terrance found him here. When Charlotte rolled onto her stomach and off his arm, Stuart reluctantly slid out of bed.
He sorted through the discarded clothes, dressing himself and laying Charlotte’s things across the chaise. He looked around again, and scooped the broken china figure into his pocket; he would try to replace it before his mother noticed. Then he tucked the blankets securely around Charlotte, brushing one last kiss on her temple. The faint tracks of tears down her cheeks made his heart ache. He doubted she cried often. Then Stuart carefully slipped out the door and left.