Every movement seemed to draw another soft gasp from her lips.
Charlotte breathlessly released despite herself. A tremor tore through her body. She allowed the pleasure to erupt from her. She shivered as the throbbing took hold.
“Oh…oh Victor,” she whispered.
He groaned in response. Victor’s expression softened for the briefest moment at the sound. The tension between them changed then, becoming quieter and somehow more delicate.
He stepped back and lowered her skirts. “You are trouble,” he murmured.
“You are far worse.”
“Yes,” he agreed shamelessly. “But you keep letting me get away with it.”
And heaven help me, he is right.
Then, a sudden sound outside the door grabbed her attention, and she jumped off the table in alarm.
CHAPTER 18
Charlotte could scarcely breathe as Victor opened the door to the library. Her lips still tingled from his kisses, and her entire body felt feverishly warm beneath her gown. She kept her gaze lowered as they stepped into the corridor, praying that no one would notice the flush upon her cheeks or the disarray of her thoughts.
Unfortunately, fate seemed to take great delight in humiliating her.
“Well,” came a sharp voice. “This is certainly inappropriate.”
Charlotte froze at once. Standing before them was Mrs. Holly, her narrow eyes wide with scandalized delight, while beside her stood the Dowager Duchess Elizabeth, looking pleasantly confused.
Mrs. Holly clutched her fan dramatically against her chest as though she might expire from impropriety at any moment.“Your Grace,” she gasped toward Victor, “surely this is not what I think it is.”
Victor did not even blink. “Then perhaps for once your imagination has failed you, Mrs. Holly.”
The older woman gasped audibly. “A gentleman and lady alone in a library at a ball,” she declared. “Good heavens, the impropriety of it.”
Charlotte wished fervently for the floor to open beneath her slippers and swallow her whole. She could still feel Victor’s hands upon her body, and now they stood before the greatest gossip in London.
Elizabeth peered between them innocently. “Oh, they are always disappearing together, this is not unusual.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened in horror.
“I found them sneaking around the rooms of Mulford Manor looking quite flustered.”
Mrs. Holly looked one second away from fainting dead onto the carpet. Victor, meanwhile, looked dangerously amused.
“Your Grace,” Charlotte whispered weakly to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth smiled warmly at her. “Do not look so embarrassed, dear. Young love is very passionate.”
Mrs. Holly let out another horrified noise.
Charlotte thought perhaps the woman might actually perish from outrage before the evening concluded.
Victor sighed as though terribly inconvenienced. “Mrs. Holly, I assure you there is no need to start composing dramatic stories for tomorrow’s breakfast tables.”
His voice remained calm, but Charlotte recognized the dangerous edge beneath it now.
“Miss Brown’s reputation shall not suffer.”
Mrs. Holly lifted her chin. “And how precisely do you intend to prevent that, Your Grace?” she demanded. “The entire ballroom has already seen you vanish together.”
