This time the tears came too quickly for Devon to wipe them away.
But he tried. “Don’t cry.” His hands were gentle against her cheeks as he caught her tears on his fingertips. “Hush.” He cradled the back of her head and eased her forward so her face was buried against his chest, and he smelled so good, of brandy and something clean, earthy, like a cedar wood after a new snow fall, before any footprints marred the pure white.
So good, but so wrong.
“I’m your friend, Charlotte, and I care for you.” He drew back and tipped her chin up so he could look into her face. “No matter what happens. You know that, don’t you?”
She gripped his upper arms, her fingers digging into the fine cloth of his coat. “I do know it. I can’t imagine how I could have gotten through these months without you, Devon. You’re my friend too, and you’re very dear to me.”
He was silent for a moment. “But it’s not enough, is it? For either of us.”
She held his gaze and slowly shook her head. “No. And you can’t imagine how much I wish it was.” Even now she wanted nothing more than to lay her head back against his broad chest and let him soothe the terrible ache in her heart.
He smiled, but even with only the starlight to illuminate his face she could see it cost him an effort. He gazed down at her for a moment, then took her face in his hands and leaned forward to press a sweet, chaste kiss to her forehead. “I wish it, too.”
She covered his hands with hers and squeezed. If only—
“Well, Lady Hadley.” A voice shattered the quiet around them. “You do know how to take advantage of a dark garden, don’t you?”
Charlotte leapt away from Devon’s embrace as if a whip had cracked between them. Devon let her go, but he stepped in front of her. “Good evening, Captain West.”
Julian noticed Devon’s protective instinct and his mouth twisted. “Good? For you, perhaps. Not so much for me, but then I’ve already had my moment with Lady Hadley in the garden. I took better advantage of it than you have, Devon.”
Charlotte’s mouth filled with bile at the hateful words. “That’s enough, Julian.”
His eyes were black, glittering with anger and pain. Charlotte’s heart plummeted into her stomach and froze there, hard and cold as a stone, trapped and throbbing feebly. When would she learn? A woman like her didn’t deserve a hero. She didn’t deserve to be saved. That awful scene in Lady Chase’s garden this afternoon—that wasn’t her punishment.
This was.
Devon growled low in his throat and took a menacing step toward Julian, but Charlotte had just enough presence of mind left to catch Devon’s arm to stop him. Julian’s gaze darted to the place where her hand touched Devon; then he raised his gaze to hers.
Charlotte shivered as a cold smile drifted across his lips, then vanished. “Enough? Oh, no—I don’t think so, my lady. We’ve just begun.”
Chapter Seventeen
We’ve just begun. A painful laugh tore from Julian’s throat and fell into the sudden silence of the garden, echoing in his head in a dull, mocking roar.
Christ, what a fool he was.
He’d thought of nothing but Charlotte all afternoon, of her face when she told him his kiss mattered to her, of the way she’d opened so sweetly to his touch, her sighs when she came for him. He’d wanted her more than he wanted his next breath—had been on the verge of taking her—but then she’d dropped that sweet kiss into his palm, and it brought him back to a night a lifetime ago, a night under a sky heavy with stars and promise.
When he made love to her again, it would be as it had been that night, not with her sprawled across a bench in a carriage with her skirts around her ears, and not while he was betrothed to someone else.
But he’d been wild to see her tonight, his fingers aching to touch her again, even if it was just her gloved hand against his lips, or his palm at her waist as they whirled together in a waltz. To see her would be enough, to see her face as it had been in the carriage today.
Not her mask, but herface.
We’ve just begun. Dear God, how naïve it sounded. He should know by now there was no such thing as a beginning that didn’t dissolve at once into an ending, like a fire that fizzles into acrid smoke when it’s doused with water. He’d walked into the ballroom tonight full of a boy’s illusions, but now his fantasies vanished into the night sky, leaving him empty and alone.
This was no beginning. It was an ending, and he would finish it.
Now. Tonight.
“Go back to the ballroom, West.” Devon spoke calmly, but he looked ready to pounce if Julian so much as twitched an eyebrow. “Before you say something you’ll regret.”
Regret?An incredulous laugh burst from Julian’s lips. It was far too late for that warning. Everything in him already ached with regret. He regretted he’d ever let Cam talk him into this. He regretted that night in the brothel when he’d loosened Charlotte’s gown, unfastened every button all the way down to that sweet spot at the arch of her back. He regretted touching her this afternoon, her folds hot and wet on his fingers, her cries in his ears. He regretted that nothing else seemed to matter as much as her scent, her taste, and he regretted that even now, with her face flushed with Devon’s kisses, she could still be so perfect to him.
He regretted that he dreamed of her.
