Part 6 (2/2)

A roar of anguish rose up in his throat and he only managed to contain it by stuffing the corner of his pillow into his mouth. Frustration tore at him, forcing him to confront his feelings. He'd never backed away from difficulties before. He'd always struggled on, fought his corner and often come out the winner. Why was he conceding defeat before the battle had even started just because she was a highborn woman? She wasn't engaged to anyone, and to his knowledge wasn't enamoured of any of the young beau who had called with their cards. It was only his station and lack of prospects that held her from his reach. His mind worked frantically as he searched for possibilities. He had to do something, couldn't let another man s.n.a.t.c.h her from him without raising so much as an objection, wouldn't let her go without a fight. It was impossible to imagine.

He thought of the Prince's offer, an offer that he hadn't wanted, but was now hard pressed to refuse. A thousand guineas! His pulse began to race. If he won the prize he would have something to recommend him, something that would increase his standing in life, maybe not enough to socialize in the circles that she was used to but enough to keep her from being ostracized entirely. After all, he himself had been accepted well enough these past few days. No one had cut him or been directly rude, though some were willing to try and play him for a fool with their clever speech and fancy words, but those he considered beneath him anyway.

He turned in his bed again and stared up at the canopy above him as he thought once again of the prize money. He knew that he had to go for it. It would be his only chance and he had to take it. Giles would be unhappy but Charlotte was nearly at her majority and as soon as her birthday pa.s.sed there would be nothing her guardian could do about it. Though she always protested that she was never going to wed, he knew that she liked him as a friend. She was a girl in a million and might just say yes if he asked her to marry him.

He smiled at the thought of her walking down the aisle towards him, but then frowned again. Of course, she might laugh her head off at his proposal and dig him in his side with her impossibly sharp elbow while telling him to stop mucking about, but he'd convince her otherwise. He would prove to her that he was in earnest.

He had to. There was no longer another choice for him.

For after feeling the way that she had fit so perfectly into his arms as they had waltzed about the ballroom, he didn't think that he could survive a life without her.

Charlotte sat up in her bed and stared at the closed drapes, wondering what had woken her. She had been dreaming such a wonderful dream that she was annoyed that she had been disturbed, but the house was silent and she shook her head at her over active imagination. She lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes as she tried to fall back into his arms as they waltzed around the ballroom, but nothing happened. All she felt was a strange tightening of her chest and a tingling that made her body itch and throb in the most unreasonable of places.

She felt the heat rise into her cheeks as she blushed at the very thought of what it might mean, and hoped to goodness that Geoffrey would never discover her thoughts on anything so outrageous. He'd only just begun talking to her since the incident with the foal the previous summer. If he ever suspected her wild and wicked urges now, he would be thoroughly scandalized and might never speak to her again.

She blinked back the tears that suddenly sprang into her eyes at the thought. It had been bad enough over the last few months, but now it seemed as though she had regained his regard. It would be far worse if she lost it a second time.

She listened as a sudden m.u.f.fled thump sounded through the wall. The d.u.c.h.ess was clearly having trouble sleeping too. Charlotte looked at the panelling as guilt crept over her. She should have looked in on her friend before throwing herself into her bed.

Olivia had left the ball shortly after Charlotte had danced with the Prince, protesting that she had accomplished what she had set out to do for the evening and blaming a wretched headache on her early departure. She had insisted on Giles and Charlotte staying to the end with Charlotte under Geoffrey's care and with Lady Alder acting as her chaperone, but they hadn't stayed long after their second waltz. The rest of the evening had suddenly paled into insignificance after being held in Geoffrey's embrace.

She could still feel the imprint of his hand on her waist, the heat of his fingers wrapping hers with tender warmth and the decadent press of his muscled thigh against her own through the fine silks of her skirts. His breath had teased the curls piled on top of her head and she had felt the hard wall of his chest when her legs began to give way, so suddenly beneath her. His hands had tightened on her body, searing her flesh and making her heart slam against her ribs as he had caught her to him so that she didn't stumble and fall.

She flung her arm across her heated forehead and huffed out a frustrated breath as she refused to think what she was thinking. She couldn't process what her own body was telling her. Nothing like it had ever happened to her before. Geoffrey would laugh his head off at her if he knew how hot and sweaty she felt now that she was thinking these kind of thoughts about him. The perspiration was positively dripping from her brow.

It was so stuffy and dark inside the bed and she wondered she hadn't asked Louise to leave the drapes open. She threw them back impatiently and climbed from her bed. Her nightgown blew against her body and she stretched her neck into the cool breeze coming in from her open window. She walked towards the fresh air and leaned against the window frame as she glanced down at the formal gardens. A profusion of spring colour caught her eye before her gaze wandered up the angles of the building.

A shadow at the window at a right angle to her own had her pressing herself into the half-closed drapes. She pulled in a breath as Geoffrey's figure was outlined in a shaft of moonlight.

He stood completely naked at the window, his musculature shown in vivid relief as he stared down at the garden. She drew in a long breath and feasted on his muscled glory. He lifted his arms and leaned against the frame, his corded arms and washboard stomach highlighted by the moon's soft glow. Her eyes dropped lower and she held her breath as his masculinity stood rigid against his abdomen. She watched as it suddenly dropped but then pulsed, and grew impossibly larger. The heat that had curled wickedly in her stomach a few moments earlier, grew into searing flames of wild excitement. She took one last glance before she pulled the curtain shut and turned her back, pulling in rapid breaths as her heart jumped violently in her chest.

She'd thought him magnificent when she'd seen his chest while in the stables back at Ormond, now she knew that was only half the story. Either the effigies she had viewed in art or in books from their library were normal and Geoffrey was seriously malformed below the waist, or the books had lied about men in general.

She recalled the horrid little man who had sat below her at the dinner table that night and decided that Geoffrey was clearly a more spectacular form of a normal male. Her mouth went dry at the thought and the strange feeling that had covered her while she lay in bed now concentrated itself below her own waist. The throbbing ache that had felt pleasant before now increased enough for her to feel slightly lightheaded. She grabbed hold of her nightstand before her knees buckled and she fell to the floor.

It took her a few moments to feel normal enough to rise again. Her heart beat out an erratic rhythm as her brain clamoured with the man's name. Geoffrey! It resounded over and over again and she suddenly knew that she was in dire trouble. Had she been so blind as to not see this before?

She forced herself to her feet and made for the door. She wished she could talk to Anne. Giles' wife maintained that she had fallen in love with her husband on the very day that she first met him and Charlotte wasn't sure that the same thing, though until now unrecognised, hadn't happened to her too. Her mind went back to the day she had first seen Geoffrey. His silver grey eyes had examined her intently across the cobbles at Ormond and she had stared back at the man. She had thought that the wild thumping in her chest was due to nerves at meeting new people in new places. Now she wondered if that were true. Had she been harbouring these scandalous thoughts for so long? Her heart blossomed with something unknown, and began a frantic drumbeat beneath her breast as she thought of his rugged good looks and muscled frame.

No wonder the ladies had swarmed all over him at the b.a.l.l.s and parties. When she had seen him talking to the raven haired vulture seated beside him at the Latham's table that evening, her mind had whirled in utter fury. While Olivia searched for a suitable husband for her, the one Charlotte really wanted stood right before her own eyes. Strong, kind, upstanding and handsome, he was perfection personified and the thought of him wanting to be with anyone else quite revolted her.

But Geoffrey, though perhaps valuing her as a friend and helper at Ormond's stables, didn't think anything more than that of her. He had made it perfectly plain that she was nothing more than a girl he had to put up with for the sake of his friends and his job. He had never intimated that he thought any more of her than that, and why would he? She had been so young, far too young for a man in his early twenties to consider, but that was more than eighteen months ago. Surely he saw her as a woman full grown now...but maybe he didn't. Perhaps he still saw her as that young girl who had shown up at Ormond and bossed him around for several weeks. He'd maintained a respectable distance back then and he was still doing it now.

However much she had enjoyed dancing in his arms, and however much he had appeared to enjoy the experience himself, she knew that he would never let it go any further. The poker was still firmly entrenched up...she stopped thinking like that. It was that sort of low behaviour that had alienated him in the first place. She couldn't speak to Anne, but Olivia was a woman who had been in love with her husband for many years before he was so horribly s.n.a.t.c.hed from her. She wasn't so old that she would have forgotten what it was like to be young and impetuous.

She had to tell to someone about her feelings for Geoffrey. She could keep his name a secret and just ask questions in general that would confirm or deny her hopes and fears, and as Anne was unavailable, Olivia was the only other woman she knew well enough to speak to.

Decision made, Charlotte swept up her wrap, slipped it over her shoulders and walked to the door. She had to speak to Olivia and as the noises she had heard meant that the woman wasn't yet asleep there was no point in waiting until morning; she might as well go and ask now. She left her own room and walked the few paces along the corridor before she tapped on Olivia's door gently, turned the handle and stepped quietly inside.

Charlotte shouldn't have been surprised that the layout of the room was somewhat different to her own, but she hadn't had the opportunity to see before now. Olivia had always come to her room. This was one of the superior rooms after all, but she hadn't expected there to be a small sitting room just inside the main door. She had been about to call out Olivia's name when a strange groaning noise and then a male voice caught her attention.

Her first instinct was to reach out for one of the fireside implements that could be seen in the remaining glow from the dying fire, and leap to the older lady's aide, but a small niggle inside her head made her realize that the male voice was somewhat familiar.

Without thinking what she was doing, she crept nearer to the door of what had to be Olivia's bedroom. The wooden panelling was open only an inch but it was enough for Charlotte to place her eye against the crack to take a better look at what she might be up against.

What did meet her eye was so unbelievable that she forgot to breathe, let alone gasp out her shock.

With her greying hair tumbling about her shoulders, her head thrown back and her mouth hanging open in what might have been mistaken for a painful grimace if she hadn't been moaning in what was clearly a most pleasurable tone, Alexander's mother lay on the bed, completely naked. Almost as shocking was an equally naked Coalport kneeling over the d.u.c.h.ess, hips thrusting slowly, almost languorously while he spoke quietly to the woman who clung onto his straining shoulders and thrust her own hips back up at him.

”At last, my darling. It has been an agonising wait for you. Thirty years I have wanted you. I stayed as close as I could even though I knew that nothing could happen. Seeing you everyday tore at my heart, but I never gave up hope and now you are mine. I couldn't believe it when you said that you wanted me. I still can't, but I know that I love you, Olivia. I will love you, as I have always loved you, until the day I die.” Coalport spoke in such gentle, tender tones that Charlotte had no doubt of the man's sincerity. What was more surprising was Olivia's reply.

”Oh, Frederick! I knew. I knew your feelings and hated myself for what I put you through, but I could do no other. I loved my husband dearly and I couldn't betray him. It was unkind of me to keep you here. I should have let you go and find love with another, but I was too selfish. I can only hope that you can forgive me. My husband has been gone over three years. I know that he would want me to find happiness again and now I am free to love you in return, but it will not be an easy path for us. Society will be against us. We will have to be strong.” The pair kissed pa.s.sionately before Coalport spoke again.

”I don't give a d.a.m.n what society thinks of us. We will strive to overcome the obstacles, but know this, Olivia. After tonight you are mine, only mine. I may be only a servant, but I am also a man and I'll let no other have you. I will follow you to the ends of the earth if that is what it takes to keep you. If we have to leave the country, we will do it. I've waited over thirty years and I can be without you no longer.” He leaned down and kissed Olivia's b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

The woman let out a half strangled cry of pleasure before Coalport appeared to stop thrusting. He drove in deeply, closed his eyes and let out a deep groan, the like of which Charlotte had never heard before. He slumped over the d.u.c.h.ess and rested his forehead in the crook of the woman's neck. His shoulders and back heaved as if he had completed some exceedingly strenuous exertion.

Charlotte heard their continued heavy breathing as she tore her eye from the amorous couple, made her way silently back across the anteroom and out into the corridor where she nearly screamed in fright as someone grabbed her and held a firm hand over her mouth as he whispered in her ear.

”Don't yell, it's me.” Geoffrey took his hand away from her mouth. She spun around in his arms and whacked him hard on his chest with her clenched fist.

”Ouch! That's for scaring the life out of me. I thought I was about to be kidnapped!” she whispered loudly as she cradled her aching hand.

Geoffrey raised an eyebrow as he rubbed his chest before he reached out and took hold of her fingers.

”Ouch!” she hissed again as he examined her hand.

”Shh! You'll raise the whole household...Looks as though you are going to need to bathe this in cold water. Sorry that you hurt yourself on me. I couldn't sleep and was going to find a book in the library. You practically backed into me on your way out of Olivia's room. Were you checking that her headache is not worse?”

Charlotte shook her hand and stared at it in the dim light.

”Her headache is definitely not worse. In fact, after seeing what I have just seen, I am almost certain that she never had one in the first place. I'd even go so far as to lay a bet on it.”

Geoffrey looked at her curiously as he pulled her away from the bedroom door and guided her towards the stairs.

”Tell me about it on the way to the kitchens.” He hesitated in confusion for a moment as a thought occurred to him. ”I a.s.sume that you know where the kitchens are.”

Charlotte shook her head.

”No idea, I'm afraid. I haven't had the time or energy to look, though Mrs. Bottomley always appears from the doorway by the stairs, so it's safe to a.s.sume that the servants work somewhere behind it. Come on, you made my hand hurt so you can search with me.”

It was some minutes before they found their way to the very back of the house through a narrow corridor and two more doors. The kitchen was quiet and empty but the stove felt warm. Geoffrey added some fuel to the fire, found a pan and a jug of milk in the pantry and began to heat some water for tea before heading out the back door and filling a bowl with fresh cold water from the pump.

She winced as she dipped her fingers in the water but hid the pain behind her questions.

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