Reckless (24 page)

“You're not making sense, Charlotte,” he said patiently. “The sex between us isn't like ordinary people's. You won't find this with someone else—it's special. I'm offering you the chance to be a viscountess, to have your own establishment, perhaps even children…”

“You're willing to make a great sacrifice on your part in order to scratch a curious itch. Find someone else.” She put her hands on his bare chest, resisting the urge to stroke him, and shoved him away.

By now he was angry, affronted, and he fell back. “To hell with you then—do you know how many women would give everything to be in your place?”

“Go find one of them and shag yourself silly. You can't have me.” And she yanked open the door and strode out into the hallway, feeling majestic, righteous and furious.

It was probably just as well that she got lost. Her defiant mood could only last so long. By the time she'd taken her third wrong turn, her lower lip was trembling, and when she came to the end of a hallway with no staircase in sight, she simply sank onto the worn carpet, the cover draped around her, and began to cry silently.

The linen was useless for blotting her tears. She
lay there in a miserable welter of sorrow, sobbing quietly into her arms, when Lina found her.

She put her arms around her, murmuring soft, comforting things, helping her to her feet, repositioning the cover around her naked body. “Where are your clothes, dearest?”

“I…in…the…nursery,” she said between hiccups.

“Don't go there. He's in a rage.”

“He doesn't know the meaning of the word
rage,
” Lina said darkly. “Did he hurt you?”

Charlotte shook her head. “No.”

Lina knew the halls as well as Adrian had. Within minutes she'd brought Charlotte back to her rooms, Meggie bustling around her, making clucking noises as she helped her bathe. “He certainly marked you, that one,” she said. “I hope you did the same to him.”

Charlotte closed her eyes, refusing to think about it. Refusing to think about the bite mark on his shoulder, the scratches on his back.

“Don't worry, sweeting,” Lina said. “He'll marry you, make no doubt about that. If he thinks he can get away with this without offering for you…”

“He did offer for me. I told him no.”

Lina's astonishment mirrored Adrian's, and Charlotte's ire began to rise again. “Why does everyone assume I should be grateful for the tidbits of attention he's tossing me?” she demanded. “I don't want
a cold-blooded marriage of short-term lust and long-term politeness.”

“It doesn't have to be that way,” Lina protested.

“Yes, it does. That's what he's offering me. He was quite astounded that I would refuse such a magnanimous offer. He probably thought I would be struck dumb with gratitude. Well, I'm not grateful. I'd rather spend my life a fallen woman. I'd rather marry a rag-picker and live in the stews of London than marry that…that arrogant pig bladder.”

Lina was sitting on the bed beside her, a troubled expression on her face. “Charlotte, you have to marry him. I think you might be increasing.”

Charlotte looked at her blankly, the words making no sense. And then the meaning was clear. “No,” she said flatly. She thought about it a moment. “Absolutely no.” The strange sense of lassitude and energy, the feeling of fullness and growth. “I can't be.”

“Meggie says you haven't had your monthly courses. Just a few drops of blood, and that's often a sign of pregnancy. You've been tired all the time, sick in the morning, the smell of bacon makes you ill when you used to eat it by the pound. We won't know for sure, but you have all the signs. You have to marry him.”

“No,” she said stubbornly. “That just makes me even more convinced. I'm not going to bring a child into the world and give him a…a…
jackass
like Adrian for a father.”

“You want to bring a bastard into the world?”

“We can raise her together. That is, unless you're sending me away for gross immorality.”

Lina's laugh sounded suspiciously close to tears. “No, darling, I'm not. And if you don't want Adrian then you don't have to have him. We'll figure something out. Go away to the continent, or out to the country during your confinement. No one need ever know.”

“I'm not giving the child up,” she said.

“We'll tell everyone the baby was an orphan we've taken into our home. Don't worry, darling, it will be—”

Her bedroom door slammed open, and Adrian was standing there, fully dressed, vibrating in rage. “You didn't think it worthwhile informing me that you're pregnant?” he roared.

Charlotte stiffened, her own rage flooding back. “Where did you get that idea?”

“From Monty. He wants to know why you won't marry me as well.”

“Because I don't love you.”

It was the wrong thing to say, but she was goaded. He looked at her in complete astonishment, and then laughed. “Why in the world would you think love has anything to do with what's between us? It's healthy lust that we ought to enjoy as long as it lasts, and then—”

“That's enough,” Lina broke in hastily. “I believe
you've put your foot in your mouth enough for one day. Why don't you go back down and chew on it for a while. Charlotte needs her rest. If she is increasing, and we're not even sure of that, then we need to take extra-special care of her.”

Adrian's eyes narrowed. “You told me you've been entertaining gentlemen nonstop since you arrived back in London. What makes you think the child is mine?”

Meggie had just set the tea tray down in her lap, and Charlotte didn't hesitate. She picked up the pot and flung it at him, scalding tea spewing out over the bedroom.

It hit him on the unmarked side of his face, slamming against his cheekbone and breaking. The tea drenched him, but he didn't flinch, even as blood began to trickle down his cheek from the spot where a shard of china had sliced through the skin.

“Be damned to you then,” he said, and slammed the door as he went.

For some reason Lina had a half smile on her face, one she quickly wiped away when Charlotte glared at her. “Let me get this straight, dearest. You won't marry him because he doesn't love you, is that it?”

“You heard him. Love has nothing to do with what's between us,” she said angrily.

“But we know differently, don't we? You're in love with him. I'm not sure why, but I accept your choice.”

“It's not my choice. He doesn't want me for the right reasons, and I won't take him for the wrong ones.” She could feel the tears welling up again, and she dashed them away. “And why am I crying all the time? I never used to be so pathetic.”

“Another sign of pregnancy, Miss Charlotte,” Meggie said in her practical voice. “Anytime me mum got knocked up she'd start bawling all over the place. I used to think it was just because she didn't want another bastard clinging to her, but she told me no, it came with the baby. You're pregnant.”

Enough was enough. Charlotte stopped fighting it. She burst into tears, flinging herself face down on the bed. And it wasn't until later that she realized that Lina had quietly slipped out.

A
drian made it as far as the stables. He spun on his heel and turned back. He was making a habit of this, he thought wryly. She really did have the ability to make him insane.

He was damned if a child of his was going to be born a bastard. She didn't like it—she could damn well make the best of it. The best of a title, a fortune, better sex than she'd ever find in her life. There were worse fates for an overtall spinster with red hair and freckles. He didn't care what she wanted or didn't want.

Except that he loved her rich, coppery hair. He loved her creamy skin and the flecks of gold that danced across it in the most deliciously unexpected places. He hadn't gotten around to discovering all those places, and he was never a man to leave a job only partly done.

And what if she wasn't pregnant? he thought,
strolling back into the house as if his very future weren't at stake. Then he'd do his best to ensure she soon would be. He wanted her to be pregnant, he realized with a sense of shock. Wanted her to be carrying his baby. The thought of her, round and waddling, heavy with child, filled him with an odd sense of what might almost be called delight. Not that he would go that far. But his father would probably appreciate an heir if she had a boy, and his mother worried about him incessantly. If he were married she might calm down a little.

Of course his mother wanted him to fall in love. He could lie to her, though she tended to see through his prevarications even more quickly than his father did. But he imagined he could do a pretty good approximation of a man besotted. The kind of man who'd wake his godfather up in the middle of the night, demanding a special license. The kind of man who'd then jump on a horse and ride all night after her, ignoring the fact that he'd just been bashed in the head and leg and couldn't walk without limping. The kind of man who'd drag a woman off and shag her senseless in the middle of the day in an abandoned nursery.

The kind of man who wouldn't admit how much he needed her.

Simon Pagett was coming out the front door just as Adrian was about to enter. He had a troubled ex
pression on his face, and when he spied Adrian he didn't look particularly pleased.

“You really are a vicar?” Adrian demanded abruptly.

“No, I wear the collar because it limits my fashion choices,” he replied icily. “What do you want, Rohan?”

Adrian reached in his pocket and pulled out the crumpled license, handing it to him. Pagett frowned, looking it over. “How did you manage this?” he said finally.

“He's my godfather.”

“It's dated today.”

“I know when it's dated, man,” Rohan said irritably. “I went and woke the old man up right after you left me. He wasn't best pleased with me—I'm not expecting much of a wedding present.”

Pagett surveyed him for a long moment. “I didn't realize you knew she was pregnant.”

“Bloody hell, did everyone know she was pregnant but me?” he exploded.

“If you didn't know she was pregnant why did you get the special license?”

Adrian said nothing.

“If I'm going to marry you I'll need an answer.”

“You know, you're a pain in the arse,” Rohan shot back. “You'd think you'd spent your life being a saint.”

“You're never too old to change your ways,” he said. “Why?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“And Miss Spenser agreed?”

“Miss Spenser is refusing to marry me,” he said in a cranky voice. “I expect you to show her the error of her ways.”

“I'm afraid I can't do that. I want what's best for her, and I doubt you're it.”

“For God's sake!”
Adrian shouted, goaded to distraction. “What the hell do you want from me?”

“When you figure it out, let me know. In the meantime I have things to do.” He was about to walk past Rohan, when Lina appeared at the door, her black hair coming undone, a look of wrath on her perfect face.

“I'm going to kill you,” she said.

Pagett paused, looking back. “No, you're not. Leave him alone, Lady Whitmore. He needs to figure this out on his own.”

“Don't you dare tell me what to do!” Her fury at Pagett seemed oddly misplaced. “This is between me and Lord Rohan.”

“No, it's between Charlotte and Lord Rohan. It's none of your business,” Pagett returned. “This is your fault, for taking Miss Spenser to the Revels in the first place, for someone like Lord Rohan to prey upon.”

“Excuse me!” Adrian protested, but the two were facing off against each other, and he was forgotten.

“I brought her here to show her just how worthless men are. She was curious, and I thought she'd be better off knowing that she wasn't missing anything,” Lina said furiously.

“How very altruistic of you, Lady Whitmore. Had I known you were capable of such charitable gestures I could have come up with a number of ways you could better use your misguided energy.”

“I can think of any number of ways…”

Adrian slipped into the house, going in search of Charlotte once more. Their angry voices carried after him, and he stopped, glancing back at them.

“Why did you kiss me?” Lina was saying, glaring at him.

The unruffled vicar was looking ruffled indeed. “I believe you were the one who kissed me. Inappropriately, I might point out.”

“I started it, you finished it.”

“I thought you needed a lesson,” he said stiffly.

“A lesson in what? Kissing? I assure you I've kissed a great many men.”

“I know your reputation, Lady Whitmore. I'm certain you've lost count of how many men you've…kissed.”

“And what business is it of yours?” she demanded, incensed.

“Absolutely none.”

Idiots,
Adrian thought, taking the marble stairs two at a time. When he slammed open Charlotte's door she was alone in the bed.

He came and stood over the bed. “You're marrying me. I'm not giving you a choice in the matter. I won't have my child born a bastard.”

“I won't have my child be the son of a swiving, mean-spirited, libidinous troll who—”

“Troll?” he echoed, momentarily distracted. “Surely not a troll, my precious.”

“Troll,” she said firmly. “I won't have you.”

“You have no choice. He's my child, and he's not being born on the wrong side of the blanket. I've spoken to Pagett. Six o'clock at the parish church. I'm not taking no for an answer. If you're not there I'll drag you there by your hair.”

She reached for the closest thing she could find, a heavy book, and she threw it at him, but he ducked. He was already in rough enough shape—another few days and there wouldn't be enough left of him to mangle.

He'd calm her down once he got her naked. If he had to haul her out of bed and carry her to the church in his arms she was going to marry him. This was making him crazy, and the only way he knew to calm things down was to get her back in bed with him. Legally. Permanently.

In the meantime he needed to keep as far away from her as possible, or they'd either end up back in bed together or she'd kill him. And he wasn't sure which he preferred.

 

Charlotte looked at the door, vibrating with fury. How dare he think he could just come in and order her about? He thought she was just going to show up at the church? Ridiculous.

She slid out of bed. Meggie had gone to fetch her discarded clothes, and she dressed quickly. It wasn't that she didn't trust Lina to keep Rohan at bay, but Lina had her own troubles with Simon Pagett. If Charlotte simply disappeared for a little while it would be better all around.

How she was going to accomplish that was the challenge. She wouldn't be able to leave the house without one of Monty's countless servants seeing her, and they would have no choice but to report to Rohan. But perhaps once she made it out of the house she could change direction. The village was only a two-mile walk across the fields, and there was a coaching inn directly in the middle of it. She could safely assume that at least one of the available coach routes would lead to London, and once there it would be a fairly simple matter to come up with an alternative. At least, she hoped so.

The hall was empty when she slipped out of her room. She did her best to appear cheerfully casual as she walked down the stairs, ready to break into a run if Rohan should put in an appearance. But for once luck was with her. Even the faithful Dodson was no where around, and Monty's bevy of handsome footmen were in short supply as well. She didn't bother trying the heavy front door; instead she slipped through the library, coming out on the wide terrace that led down to the formal gardens.

She moved quietly, keeping to the edge of the walled gardens. By the time she reached the end, her heart was pounding in her chest. Turning the corner, she barreled into a huge figure, and she let out a frightened shriek that quickly turned into a cautious sigh of relief.

“Monsieur de Giverney,” she said. Adrian's cousin. What the hell was he doing here?

“Monsieur le Comte,” he corrected. “The French government may have outlawed my title but I still account it as worth something.”

“Indeed. I beg your pardon, my lord,” she said swiftly, mentally cursing him. She didn't have time to deal with the man's vanity, she needed to get away.

“I'm here to offer you my help, Mademoiselle Spenser.”

She was just about to come up with a quick excuse
and exit when his words penetrated. She glanced up at him.

He was a handsome man in a barrel-chested, florid style, with thick lips and eyebrows, a strong blade of a nose and flat black eyes. She'd never liked him, and she didn't like him now. Unless his idea of helping was to get her away from Adrian.

“Help me with what, my lord?” she asked in an even voice, resisting the impulse to look over her shoulder. For all she knew, Rohan had realized she was missing and at this rate it wouldn't take long to find her.

“You're trying to get away from my young cousin, are you not? A good lad, but importunate. I presume you've fought?”

She said nothing for a moment. She didn't like him and she didn't trust him, but at that point she didn't have much of a choice. If she was to get away before Adrian came searching for her she was going to have to take the help offered. “Yes,” she said. “He's trying to force me to marry him and I don't want to.”

His thick eyebrows rose. “Indeed? Then you shouldn't have to. I can help you get away,
mademoiselle.
Otherwise you might find yourself…how do you clever British say it…leg shackled before you know what happened.”

She looked at him for a long, cautious moment. Why would this man help her? He was Adrian's cousin—wouldn't he want to help him instead?

It wasn't as if she had any choice. “I would appreciate your help,
monsieur,
” she said politely.

He smiled at her, a warm, avuncular smile that wreathed his thick lips and didn't reach his eyes. But then, he was French, she reminded herself. Perhaps it took a lot more to make him smile. “Then I will take care of things.
En avant!
Come with me and I'll spirit you away where no one will ever find you.”

“And where is that, Monsieur le comte?” she asked in a calm voice.

He took her hand in his heavy hand, bringing it to his mouth, and she wished she dared to pull it away. “You will have to leave it up to me,
mademoiselle.
Trust me, I can be quite ingenious. He may scour the earth to find you, but he will instead find failure.”

“And how will you manage that? Sooner or later he's bound to figure out where I am. Where I've gone. Which is…?”

He smiled at her benevolently. She could see tufts of black hair in his ears, his nostrils, creeping over his high neck cloth. It wasn't his fault he was incredibly hairy, but it took all her social graces to keep from retreating in distaste.

He breathed on her, breath laden with odd cooking flavors that clung most unpleasantly. “Where will you be,
mademoiselle,
where no one can find you?” he echoed politely. “Why, I'm afraid you'll be dead.”

 

Adrian couldn't find her anywhere. No one could. At some point, in between the time he went storming into Charlotte's room and gave her an ultimatum and when her maid had brought her a late luncheon, Charlotte had disappeared, taking her clothes, leaving a scribbled note for Lina and vanishing into thin air.

For a moment he wondered if they were all lying to him—some mass conspiracy to help Charlotte escape from the hideous punishment of marriage to a lenient and engaging husband. But they were just as mystified as he was, and the muted warfare that had existed between them all faded into worry, and in his case, something akin to panic.

He felt as if he were walking on ice, with no sense of when he would find steady ground again. He didn't know what he wanted, what he needed, but he couldn't shake the sense that something was very, very wrong.

No one else seemed to share the measure of his panic. They wanted him gone, he knew it, and indeed, he was ready to—inaction making him crazy—when he was called once more into Montague's bedroom.

Montague's color was ashen, and he seemed to have shrunk inside his skin. His eyes were closed
when Adrian walked in, and for a moment he had the sick feeling that Monty had died. But his eyes fluttered open, and there was a ghost of his familiar, faintly malicious smile.

“You need to find her.” He spoke so softly Adrian wasn't sure he'd heard him clearly.

“How did you know she ran off…? Idiotic question. You knew I'd slept with her. You knew she was pregnant. Is there anything you don't know?”

“I don't know where she is,” Monty said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “No one saw her go. One of my gardeners spotted her several hours ago at the bottom of the walled gardens, talking with a tall man. I presume that was you?”