He’d give the necklace back to her. He’d drape it around her neck himself so he could brush the soft skin at her nape with his fingertips, and then maybe she’d smile at him the way she’d smiled at Devon tonight.
His eyes fell to half-mast, then drifted closed.
The glittering amethyst stones of her choker are cool and slick against his tongue. He kisses her neck, opens his lips over the stones, and takes them into his mouth. She trembles against him, turns, says something, but he can’t quite hear her. His hands fill with slippery purple silk as he pulls her closer, feels her breath as she whispers in his ear… Do you suppose you can give me what I want, Julian? He wants to answer her, tries to answer, but the stones multiply, grow enormous in his mouth and lodge in his throat. Her face tunnels as the stones choke him into unconsciousness, but before the darkness can take him she tears the necklace roughly from his mouth and the amethysts cut him, slice into his cheeks and tongue and he tastes blood and then he’s Colin, blood pouring from his mouth…
He shuddered into consciousness, gasping for breath.
Jesus. Where am I? Where…
Cam’s study. The fire was dead in the grate, and the room had gone cold.
Chapter Ten
“Whatever it was you and those wicked widows of yours got up to last night, you can just keep it to yourself. I don’t want to hear a thing about it.”
Charlotte turned from her dressing-table mirror to raise an eyebrow at Sarah. “My, you’re in a temper this morning, but I assure you, your snit is wasted on me. Even you couldn’t find anything to disapprove in my behavior last night.” Unless she happened to look in the jewel casket, that is, for there was nothing but an empty velvet tray where the amethyst choker had been.
Fortunately Sarah turned her attention to the gown Charlotte had worn the previous night instead. She snatched it up and cast a suspicious eye over it, searching for evidence of wrongdoing. When she found none, she gave it a violent shake, as if she could force secrets from its silk folds. “It’s not my place to contradict you, my lady, but you were up to something, sure as I’m standing here.”
Charlotte snorted. “Your place, indeed. You couldn’t find your place if you had a dozen lanterns and a pack of hunting dogs at your disposal.”
“Hunting dogs, my eye. That’s got naught to do with whatever wickedness you got up to last night. For a lady as was such a paragon of virtue, you’re awfully eager to change the subject. But like I said, I’ll not hear a word about it.”
“A word about what, you silly thing? I went to the theater last night, nothing more.” Nothing Sarah needed to know about, at least.
The maid jabbed her hands onto her hips. “Nothing more, eh? If that’s true, then why are those three fiendish females of yours waiting in the drawing room for you, and each of them looking like a cat that just swallowed a mouse?”
“My friends are here?” Charlotte jumped up from the dressing table. “For pity’s sake, Sarah, why didn’t you say so at once?”
“They’re here all right, and all three of them look ready to burst, especially that little French one. Must be something scandalous indeed to get those three up from their beds before nightfall. Don’t bother trying to confess to me, however, for I won’t hear it.”
“Oh hush, will you? There’s nothing to confess. Now stop your ceaseless prattle and help me dress.”
Sarah turned on her heel and disappeared into the dressing closet, but Charlotte could still hear her grumbling. “You may as well tell me, then. No point in hiding it from me, my lady. Whatever it is, I’m sure you’ve done worse.”
“Much worse,” Charlotte muttered under her breath.
At last Sarah emerged with a lavender gray day dress draped over her arm. “Well? Go on then, since you insist upon telling me, and don’t think to skimp on the details.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “For goodness’ sake. All right then, if you must know. Once the clock struck midnight we had carriage races in Hyde Park, then a stroll through the rookeries in the dark, and finally a reunion of the Hellfire club.”
There. Perhaps that would keep Sarah quiet.
Sarah covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, my lady. You didn’t!”
Charlotte let out an irritated sigh. It would take an act of Parliament to keep Sarah quiet. “I did, and worse too. I promise to recount it all in salacious detail later if you’ll make me presentable within the next few minutes. My friends are waiting.”
Andall three of them needed a good shake. God only knew how she’d undo the damage Julian had caused last night. He’d been at his handsome, appealing best at the theater. Charlotte had seen right through him, but her friends had been one charming smile away from falling under his spell. Even Annabel’s stalwart cynicism had wilted under Julian’s onslaught.
He’d been far less charming at the gaming hell when he’d refused her vowels and snatched her jewels instead. Dash it, she never should have warned Annabel away from the piquet table last night. It would be far easier to convince them of his treachery if one of them had witnessed it.
Sarah quickly fastened Charlotte’s gown and arranged her hair into a simple twist at the nape of her neck. “There. That’ll do well enough for those three jades.”
As soon as she was free of Sarah, Charlotte hastened to the drawing room. As her maid had pointed out, it wasn’t every day her friends rose before sunset.
It wasn’t any day, come to think on it.
The widows wanted details, and they wouldn’t rest until they got them. Charlotte intended to oblige them too, with a thorough dose of the ugly truth.
