“Shall we look at the keep once more?” Sir Charles asked when she suggested they find the others. “I can tell it interests you.”
That he knew she was curious was a good sign, even if he was not the sort to talk over that interest himself.My father would never even show me so much consideration as that.They returned to the portcullis archway to go back up to the keep for a final look.
Eleanor felt Sir Charles’s attention as she walked around the crumbling stone keep. He was looking at her pointedly, and not at all admiring the remains or the landscape. She was conscious of how he now came closer. She was rarely the focus of such an intent, approving look, but she was sensible to what his gaze meant.
“Did you see those carved medallions?” she asked, in a voice slightly higher than normal. She craned her neck to look at them. “They are around what must have been a window. Can you tell what they are?”
“Miss Tilney,” he said in a low voice, coming nearer. She took a small step back until she was leaning against the stone wall, with Sir Charles now directly in front of her. He glanced down at her breasts before giving a long look to her lips. “Miss Tilney,” he said again, “please do not tell me you have given no thought at all to kissing me.”
He bent his head and put both hands on her hips before pressing his lips to hers. It was a longer kiss than the ones he had stolen the night of the game. Sir Charles opened his mouth, and Eleanor supposed she ought to do the same, no matter how strange kissing him felt. He was a handsome man, and likely good at kissing a woman, but while his eyes closed and his hands moved up her waist, Eleanor kept her eyes open and wondered when he would stop.
That thinking will not help me escape from Northanger.
Sir Charles leant forward, pressing his hips against hers as he kissed her harder, his tongue making glides into her mouth that she tried to mimic in return. It paled in comparison to even the first time she had kissed Philip in such a way. With Philip, it had always been a natural act she could lose herself in the sensation of, intuitive and lovely. While Sir Charles sounded as though he was enjoying himself, to her it felt like every movement of her lips was deliberate, done because she should and not because she wanted to.
She tried to distract herself by admiring the scenery behind him, the clouds across his shoulder, until he was done kissing her, but Sir Charles felt more urgent and engaged. How much longer would he wish to kiss her, here in the open? Surely, she could tolerate it for a few more moments, and then he would recollect himself. When he brought his hands to her breasts, however, squeezing and humming in satisfaction to himself, Eleanor drew back.
“I think,” she said, fighting the urge to wipe her mouth on the back of her hand, “I think that is enough for the present.”
Sir Charles laughed with genuine amusement. “My dear Miss Tilney, we have only yet to begin.” He brought his hands back to her hips, clutching the fabric of her gown in his fingers, and moving them up and down. “Is not the point of this excursion to see how well we might suit one another?”
“You cannot be serious,” she whispered. “You cannot think I am going to give myself over to you against this crumbling wall, with our friends liable to stumble across us.”
“I can credit Dryden to have more sense than to come looking for us.”
Sir Charles pressed his hips against hers in a manner that she supposed was meant to be inviting. Eleanor frowned and pushed him away by the shoulders. He sighed and dropped her gown, but still stood in front of her. “If not so much asthat, I had hoped to find you a little more willing to indulge in something more gratifying than a kiss.”
“That is outright scandalous.”
“Only if the wrong people learnt of it,” he said, giving her a look as though he thought her foolish. “It is the scandal surrounding an affair that makes it an offence. We are trying to learn if we might marry, and your father has all but sanctioned our knowing one another better. If there is no scandal in an affair,” he said, pressing a kiss to her neck and whispering into her ear, “what is the harm?”
Eleanor shuddered, but not from the reason that Sir Charles assumed as he brought his hand back to her breast, trying to work his fingers underneath the bodice.
“Sir Charles!” she said, smacking his hand.
He huffed in displeasure, dropping his hand but still leaning against her. “Miss Tilney, I have to sacrifice my liberty, my labour, my time, for the support and protection of a wife. I expect something in return for it.”
“And when you have a wife, you will have the right to demand it.”
He shook his head. “I need to be certain that you and I shall suit in every way. I see by your blush that you understand. There are great difficulties in procuring a divorce, and none in parting with a mistress when I am weary of her, or when I prefer another.” Sir Charles took a breath and seemed to gather patience. He brought two hands on either side of her head against the wall. “I need only learn what manner of housekeeper you might be, and if you could be an ally in my campaign for office, and warm in your affections.”
He lowered his lips to her neck again and kissed his way up to her ear. “I am nearly satisfied on two of those points.”
Eleanor cringed, but refrained from stopping him. This is what she would have to endure. She would eventually have to submit to everything, completely disregard her self-respect, and give herself over to a husband she felt no passion for. But just as she was resigning herself to this, when Sir Charles’s hand moved to her breast again, she shirked and muttered, “Stop.”
Sir Charles swore and put his hands back on the wall above her. “I would never take a woman unwillingly, but so help me, you try my patience.”
“Miss Tilney?”
She recognised his voice and refused to look. Philip had walked around the keep and found them, and Eleanor winced at how the scene must appear. Her pressed beneath her suitor, him clearly looking to take the encounter farther than decency should allow him to admit to anyone. She must look like she was willing to let him lift her skirts at any moment, and she blushed from mortification and shame.
Sir Charles pushed back from the wall, but still stood facing her, not allowing her the space to move away. “Heyday,” he said, not concealing his impatience. “Brampton, care to give us a moment?”
Eleanor willed herself to look at Philip. His complexion was pale, and to her the disturbance of his mind was very great. His jaw was set, and she could see how furious he was by the way he shifted his weight and tensed his shoulders.
Ignoring Sir Charles, Philip looked at her and said, “The others are ready to depart, Miss Tilney. Would you care to come with me now?”
He must hate her, absolutely hate her, and yet he still was willing to aid her if she wished to remove herself from Sir Charles. She stared at Philip, and wished to shove Sir Charles away and throw herself into his arms, and beg him to forgive her. She felt Sir Charles’s eyes boring in to her, even still felt the unpleasant memory of his hands and lips on her body.
