“Oh.” She considered him carefully. He was looking at her lips. Good Lord. Surely he didn’t expect her to thank him by kissing him—after all, hadn’t he said he wasn’t interested in her in any physical sense?
Charlotte couldn’t help it. She licked her lips, then bit her lower one.
Yes, his eyes definitely darkened. Why, the cad! To make her feel as if he no longer found her desirable, all the while sneaking glances and touches she would have made other men beg for.
Charlotte thrust her shoulders back and lifted her chin—a confident, alluring pose meant to draw a man’s attention to her chest’s abundant endowments and to the slender length of her neck.
This time she studied him even more closely, saw how his hands pressed against the outside of his thighs, as though he resisted the urge to clench them into fists, saw how his features tightened briefly before he forced his expression to relax.
Charlotte nearly laughed.
He was trying so hard to fight his attraction for her. How it must kill him inside to realize that no matter how much he despised her for acting the whore, his baser male instincts would always react to the appeal of her body.
The knowledge was delicious. Purely, simply, utterly delicious.
She had been correct in her original assumptions. Philip was just like every other man; even though he chose to deny it, it was obvious he was led around by the muscle between his legs, not by a higher sense of morality or any measure of ducal honor.
Perhaps spending the entire day with him wouldn’t be as tedious as she’d believed it would be after all.
“I don’t want any of your nude sketches,” Philip repeated gruffly, eyeing Charlotte warily as she suddenly reversed direction and began to walk toward him.
“If nude sketches are not what you wish, how can I fulfill your desires then, Your Grace?” she asked, pausing no more than a foot away from him.
Bloody hell.
If her eyes hadn’t sparked with defiance, or if her tone had been a little less sarcastic, he would have thought she was purposely attempting to seduce him again.
He held her gaze evenly. “I would like your forgiveness. For what happened in the past, for lying to you, for abandoning you for my mistress ...” Before she could comment, he quickly added, “I am weary of your continued ill humor. I have come to the conclusion that a little peace would go a long way between us.”
Her smile mocked him. “Ah. Another manipulation, Your Grace? I fear you will never understand you can’t control me. You certainly cannot bribe me into thinking you are anything less than a selfish, egocentric bastard.”
Philip disguised his flinch by meeting her false, sweet smile with a forced grin of his own. She would not see his wounds. He leaned toward her, until they were nearly nose to nose. “Then pretend,” he bit out.
Her eyes flew to the harp, then back to him. “Very well. I forgive you for being a terrible lover and ruining my wedding night. But I shall not forgive you for lying to me, or for flaunting your mistress, or—”
“I beg your pardon?” It had taken Philip a moment before he could assure himself that yes, she really had said what he’d thought she said. His shoulders stiffened and he straightened slowly until he towered over her. “A terrible lover? You didn’t seem to think so three years ago. I distinctly recall how you cried out—”
“For God’s sake, Philip, I was a virgin. You hurt me.”
He paused, then shook his head. “No, after that. The second time.”
Charlotte snorted. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot the first lasted for only two minutes.”
Philip could feel his face turn red. He knew she was just trying to provoke him, and he knew he should take this as a good sign—after all, at least she was speaking to him instead of ignoring him as she could have done after he’d abducted her. But even with this knowledge, he still rose to the bait, pride demanding that he defend himself. “I tried to make it as short as possible for you, so you wouldn’t—”
“Yes, Your Grace.” A sly smirk crossed her lips, her eyelashes lowering as she glanced downward at his breeches. “I must agree with you there. It did seem rather short.”
It was in that instant that Philip realized he’d gone about this the wrong way. She didn’t need to be wooed or courted nearly as much as she warranted a good, healthy slap to the backside.
“You little hellion,” he growled, advancing toward her.
Charlotte’s eyes widened and her lips parted. She darted away when he was a mere hairbreadth from her.
She laughed as he stalked her around the room—circling the harp, a settee, the grand piano. And all the while she taunted him as she held up her hand, her index finger and thumb a mere two inches apart.
“I regret to say I had expected more of you, dear husband.” She extended her thumb and finger as far apart as they would go. “Yes, quite a
lot
more.”
“I
will
catch you.”
Charlotte frowned as she skirted a group of chairs. “Oh, dear. You’re trying to intimidate me again. I have to admit, that fierce scowl is far more threatening than your cock was the last time I saw it—”
“Charlotte!” He lunged.
She hopped to the side with a surprised squeal, and Philip clutched at the hem of her petticoats as he fell to the floor. He immediately rolled, yanking on her skirts in an effort to knock her off balance.
“I said I forgave you, Philip! We called a truce, remember?”
Her belated attempt at peacemaking would have been far more convincing if she hadn’t ended each sentence with a kick of her foot.
Philip cursed and tried to protect his head.
“No ... truce ...” he gasped, dodging the thrash of her skirts and another well-aimed kick.
She gathered her gown in her hands and jerked free of his hold. Philip came to his knees. They stared at one another, both breathing heavily.
“What now?” she panted. “Are you ready to be civilized once more?”
“Perhaps. Would you like to apologize?”
Charlotte tilted her head to the side. “For what? Telling the truth?”
He studied her for a long moment. She appeared utterly delectable, her cherry red lips pursed in a teasing pout, strands of her hair escaping from the safety of her pins, her gown sliding off one shoulder.
She was a woman accustomed to abandoning the strict rules of society for her own pleasure, someone who embraced her wild inclinations no matter the risk to her reputation or the censure of her peers.
Philip envied her ability to brush off the weight of everyone else’s expectations, to know the freedom of indulging her own wishes and desires.
To be uncivilized.
“No,” he answered, rising to his feet, “I am not near ready.” He surged forward again.
Skirts fisted in her hands, Charlotte neatly eluded him as she ran out of the music room and down the corridor. Philip loped after her, his pace hindered by a pain in his right leg. He must have twisted it when he’d lunged for her.
She skipped backward, her cheeks flushed and her smile wide as she beckoned him on with a wave of her hand. “Come now, Philip. You are hardly trying at all. I’m sure Fallon could run faster than you, and he’s nearly three times your age.”
Philip fought a grin at the sound of Fallon’s muffled gasp of outrage behind her, near the front entrance.
“I am only giving you a fair chance, my darling,” he said. “For when I catch you—”
She turned around, her dark hair streaming down her back. “You shall never catch me,” she called over her shoulder.
Fallon tried to block her as she reached the front door, but she feinted around him, her movements too quick for the old butler’s stiff joints.
Philip was right behind her. His gaze focused on her retreating form as she jogged to the left, past the manicured lawn and down the far slope, toward the banks of the small stream which ran through the edge of his property.
She disappeared from view. Philip increased his pace, wincing with each jolt to his right leg. As he topped the stream’s bank, he saw Charlotte cautiously picking her way across a fallen log.
She must have heard him approach, because she glanced up with an impish grin, her arms held out to her sides for balance. “I thought you’d gotten lost.”
The ground was slick beneath his feet as he hurried down. “I didn’t want to win too easily, that’s—”
A grunt of surprise escaped him as his feet went out from under him, and he landed on his back. He tried to sit up, but his right leg throbbed in renewed protest. Groaning, he fell backward once again.
“Philip?”
He blinked up at the sky. Was it possible that was concern he heard echoed in her voice? For
him
?
He opened his mouth to assure her he was fine, but immediately thought better of it. Instead, he closed his eyes and let his head loll to the side.
“Philip?”
He heard a soft thud as she jumped to the muddied ground beside him. Her skirts swayed against his leg while she prodded him with her toe.
“Do not think for a moment I believe your unconscious act. Have you forgotten I have four brothers? I’ve been taken in by much better ploys than this.”
He sighed. At least he’d tried. “Have pity, woman. I’m in pain.”
He turned toward her as she knelt beside him, her brow furrowed. “Did you hit your head? Here, watch my finger.”
Perhaps he had. In truth, he couldn’t remember where he ached any longer. Her head was bent toward him, her beautiful blue eyes—those eyes which seemed to change shades moment by moment—focused on his as she peered at him in concentration.
Her fingers snapped, jerking him out of his trance. “My finger, Philip. Follow my finger.”
The movement of her mouth drew his attention to her lips. Those perfect, sin red, luscious lips.
“That’s not my—”
His mouth fused to hers, his hand pressed behind the nape of her neck, holding her still for his plunder.
The taste of her was sweet, exotic, and heady, evoking memories of their wedding night long ago. Memories he’d forced himself to forget.
“No,” Charlotte mumbled against his lips, but she didn’t try to push away, and Philip remembered how he’d driven her to the brink of ecstasy again and again, how the sound of her cries of pleasure—and she had cried out, whether or not she chose to admit it—had made his revenge all the sweeter.
Philip angled his head, his tongue sweeping over the seam of her lips, and now, just as she had then, she welcomed the invasion—tentatively at first, then with greater passion.
He’d given himself one night of victory to slake his lust with her tender, untried body. Afterward, he’d convinced himself he no longer wanted her.
Philip used his other arm to draw her nearer, growled as the fullness of her breasts crushed against his chest.
He had let her go, believing his own pleasure resulted in the knowledge that he was the first and only man ever to bed her, that the thrill of possession when he claimed her would soon fade.
And so he had returned to his mistress, never considering how great a lie it had been.
Until now.
For she was no longer innocent, and yet his blood still turned to fire in his veins when their lips met. He knew she’d lain with other men, and yet his desire for her could not have burned brighter.
At that moment, he realized it hadn’t mattered that she’d been a virgin, or that he’d used her for his revenge. He hadn’t made love to her three times that night for any other reason than because it was her.
It had always been Charlotte, and her alone.
Her touch, her smile, her scent.
Her beauty, her grace, her—
“Isn’t there a rule about fornicating in broad daylight? Surely you could have chosen some other location—a tree, or a boulder, perhaps, instead of on the edge of my property.”
Charlotte’s mouth wrenched from his, and Philip opened his eyes to find her staring down at him, her expression frozen in shock.
“I can still see you, you know. You’re not invisible simply because you stopped kissing.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened and she jerked out of his grasp, leaving Philip with a clear view of the other person, who stood on the opposite bank of the stream, her hands propped on her hips.
He stifled a curse. “Good morning, Lady Grey.”
Charlotte surveyed the tall woman at the top of the embankment. She was the very picture of straitlaced gentility, every button in place, not a wrinkle to be seen. Even the wind dared not disturb a wisp of her hair.
Smoothing her own muddied skirts, Charlotte pasted a pleasant smile on her face, as if she hadn’t mere moments before been cavorting on the ground with her estranged husband.
No doubt she appeared as wild and wanton as everyone believed her to be.