When they finally reached the bed chamber that had been her escape from the world outside for so many years, she took a deep breath and wondered how her world would change before the dawn’s light poured through the window the following morning.
She was terrified at the thought of spending the night in his arms, but the pain of opening her heart and body to this man was the price of the closeness she craved and perhaps some day…something more.
* * *
Col removed his boots,taking care to keep from clattering them against the floor. His jacket, trousers, and waistcoat he draped over a settee in the corner. His shirt, which also served as his small clothes, he kept on. Since his cock seemed not to be as high-minded as his brain, perhaps that bit of barrier would help him to keep his word as a gentleman.
When he turned, he found Charlotte standing in the middle of the room, with doubt and tinge of fear written on her face.
Without a word, he strode close and helped her unbutton and unpin the deep rose satin dress he’d been mentally relieving her of the entire evening.
After he helped her remove her stays, she reached down to the hem of her thin muslin shift to pull it over her head. He covered her hand and whispered, “Not now.”
At the quizzical look on her face, he lifted her onto the wide bed and began blowing out the masses of candles glowing around the corners of the room.
She sat up and watched him warily. “How are you going to make love to me now?” There was childish quiver in her voice.
“With all I have and all I am.” He smiled to himself in the now darkened room. “I think it’s time I made love to your sense of touch.”
* * *
Charlotte realizedhis words might have terrified her earlier in the evening, but now she knew he’d never hurt her. She lazed back onto the plump pillows and waited to see what games he’d play next with her senses.
When he finally joined her beneath the counterpane and cradled her in his arms, she curled into his warmth and fell immediately into a deep sleep, despite her anxious curiosity about what he meant by making love to her sense of touch.
When her deep breathing finally conveyed she’d surrendered to exhaustion, Col joined her. He’d been awake for well over twenty-four hours and had to trust in her butler Sam’s ability to protect all of them.
11
Col’s flare of anger left a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth. The crushed look on Charlotte’s pale, pinched face gutted him. He hated to have lashed out at her, but the contents of the damned pages she still insisted on withholding could put his precious child in danger.
The trust they’d built the night before had vanished in the morning sun when he’d asked if he could take his journal pages with him. Charlotte had reacted in a way that frankly puzzled him. What the hell use were the pages to her now anyway? Was she going to sell them? Even the thought that she might was like having a cold fist tighten around his heart. The odd excuse of wanting to keep part of him with her had made no sense. By the gods—she must have memorized the damned things by now.
When he’d hinted there was something contained in the pages that could destroy someone dear to him, she’d given him a blank look. Hadn’t she seen the damage his idiot baring of his soul could do when he’d inked the truth of Dee’s existence? She’d denied anything of that nature was contained in the pages. But dare he trust her when the stakes couldn’t be higher?
Dee had been literally living on borrowed time ever since her birth. The lie he and the midwife had concocted was flimsy at best, and he feared the day Maria’s husband, the old earl, might discover the child still lived whom he’d assumed had died at birth. Col determined he’d find the woman that very day to make sure his secret was still safe. She’d been living in rooms off Ampton Place in Clerkenwell when she’d assisted at Maria’s lying-in.
* * *
Charlotte refusedto weep in front of the impossible Bow Street investigator who’d invaded her life, made her believe perhaps she could find love, and then had stomped on the bit of hope she’d let grow in her heart.
If she’d known how painful loving a man would be, she’d never have embarked on such a stupid course of so-called “seduction.”
And now, now Col, er, Mr. Colwyn, wanted to rip away the only thing she had left of him. She knew she was being unreasonable, but she couldn’t bear the thought of no longer being able to pull his journal pages from the chest at the foot of her bed each night to comfort herself until she fell asleep. She knew the contents of the pages nearly by heart, but she couldn’t figure out his concerns about danger to someone dear to him - was he still in love with one of the women in the pages?
And the worst part? She didn’t even know his first name. However, because she had no idea how love worked, she didn’t take his hand and ask him. She fretted that if she had, he might have told her, might have taken her in his arms and told her everything. But instead, she stayed silent, and so he turned and walked out of her life, his booted footsteps echoing down Loudoun Road.
* * *
Colalighted from the ancient hack he’d hailed back on Great Queen Street and took a look around the green on Finnsbury Square near the center of Clerkenwell. If memory served him, the midwife’s rooms were a few streets north of there. The old well from which the town took its name stood abandoned and ignored in the midst of the bustling square.
He doubted anyone still used the water, considering the area’s refuse, like that of London, usually ended up along the sides of the streets, with everything soaking into the ground every time the village was inundated with heavy rains. And, as in London, no doubt heavy rains were a frequent occurrence.
He was almost afraid of what the woman would tell him. Perhaps she’d already sold the information about Maria’s illegitimate daughter to the highest bidder, or maybe Maria’s husband had forced the truth out of her. He prayed that was not the case.
Striding purposefully across the cobblestones and green, Col dodged the Sunday morning crowd of Clerkenwell’s upright citizens, all of them dressed in their finery, spilling out of the church at the north end of the square. The vicar stood at the entrance, giving each of them a bit of encouragement for the week when they passed through the stone portal out into the weak morning sun.
Col had never been inside a church, which was fine with him, but a bit of guilt pricked at his conscience. He owed Dee a proper upbringing. Maybe he should find a church for his bright, inquisitive daughter. She could make up her own mind later in life about what she truly believed.
