He blinked at her, owlishly. “Now?Here? We are within view of Mother and Lady Beaufort.”
She had a suspicion that if she had posed the same question to the Duke of Strathmore, his glorious mouth would have been upon hers in the next breath. But Charles was not an impulsive man. Nor was he a particularly passionate one, unless it came to his plants.
All the more reason for you to be kissing Strathmore instead, taunted Wicked Violet.
“Is there not a place we can be where their range of sight is obstructed?” she asked Charles, trying her best to keep the frustration from her voice.
“I…um, perhaps. That is to say, we shall find it.”
His stammered response did not inspire her with hope.
He looked about, then led her to a far corner of the conservatory safely obscured by a barrier of vined plants and small shrubs. He stopped them in a place that sent a shaft of sunlight straight into her eyes. She blinked, momentarily blinded, and shifted so the sun hit a plant beyond her instead.
There. Take that, Wicked Violet.
Her brief triumph aside, the silence that fell between them was awkward. Stilted. There was none of the pent-up anticipation and desire that filled her whenever she had been alone with the duke. Instead, she waited, wondering if Charles would take advantage of the opportunity for a kiss, or if he would instead start waxing on about his plants.
“Are we out of sight?” she asked softly, gazing into his eyes and attempting to lose her concerns and fears.
Charles loved her, she reminded herself. She would put her inconvenient attraction to Strathmore aside. She would not think of his full lips nor the way they felt, owning hers. She would not think of his tongue in her mouth nor the rigid press of his maleness against her. Nor would she contemplate his masculine beauty.
No. She would think only of Charles, of his—
Oh dear.
His mouth was upon hers now, in lieu of his response. But it was hard. Too hard. It was an aggressive mashing of his mouth on hers, closed-lipped and dry. There was precious little finesse in this kiss. Violet stood still, partially from shock and partially from disappointment. His hand came between them, finding her breast, delivering a gentle squeeze.
Mere days before, another man’s hand—Strathmore’s—had been upon her breast. But when the duke had touched her, even though it had been unintentional, her flesh had come to life. When Charles touched her there, she felt a curious…nothing.
Not one single thing.
She stepped back so suddenly, her skirts connected with a series of shelves at her back. She realized her mistake, but not before it was too late to correct herself. Pots crashed to the tiled floor, smashing. All around them, black earth spilled forth. Bulbs split. Buds broke. Leaves wilted and lay limp and sad in the aftermath of her attempt at gaining a simple kiss from her betrothed.
The shattered remnants of his terracotta pots and his projects littered the floor, and Violet could not help but think it a foreshadowing of what was to come between them. The mess and carnage certainly seemed an ominous portent of their future.
You are not meant to be, warned Wicked Violet.
“I am so very sorry,” she apologized to Charles, at last finding her voice and ignoring the part of her that longed to be reckless.
“The fault is all mine,” he said in stilted tones that suggested he meant anything but, bending low to attempt to rescue what he could from the shards and dirt.
“Have I ruined anything?” She looked down at the soil and broken bulbs and leaves scattered about, a fresh wave of reproach hitting her.
“It was my newest orchids, I am afraid. The bulbs I recently imported at a rather dear expense.” His head was bent as he scraped the soil and plant fragments into his hand.
Of course she would have decimated his latest acquisitions. Violet frowned before sinking down to aid him in his attempt at recovering bulbs and roots and shoots. Soil was everywhere, so too the shards of his pots, one of which scored the sensitive flesh of her finger. It left a jagged cut, blood rising to the surface and trickling down her palm to her wrist.
“Oh good heavens.” She held her finger to her lips, sucking on the painful pad as if she could excise all discomfort. “I have cut myself.”
“Damnation,” Charles rumbled, cradling two glossy orchid leaves in his hands with as much ginger care as he would devote to the body of a loved one. “It is quite ruined, I fear.”
It was not lost upon her that he was more concerned with the state of his fractured plants than the state of her cut, which was bleeding rather profusely by this time. Irritated with him, she grasped her finger in a tight grip, stemming the flow of blood.
“Have you a bandage, my lord?” she asked tightly.
He glanced at her for the first time since she had upended his pots. His expression was open, startled. “Have you injured yourself, my dear?”
He had not even noticed she had cut herself.
