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Charlotte set her glass beside his. Her hand trembled slightly when she withdrew it, and she folded it into her lap. “I am telling you this because I want you here,” she said. “I looked forward to seeing you all day. I do not want to spend the night justifying the invitation, or worrying that I have led you to expect more than I can give.”

“Then you need not do so,” Alexander replied. “I want to be here. To spend this night with you.”

“I know who you are,” she reassured him. “You are nothing like my husband. I don’t need you to defend yourself, only understand why this is all I can give you.”

His brows lifted a little. Then the tension at the corners of his mouth eased. “I had no intention of proving I am not like him,” he said. “I would much rather devote my attention to your pleasure.”

Charlotte laughed softly. The sound came more easily than she expected, and her shoulders relaxed. “That is a promising answer.”

“I hoped you might think so,” Alexander said, a small smile touching his lips.

He held out his hand between them. The gesture was so simple that she felt a sudden tenderness toward him, stronger than she quite knew how to bear. She placed her hand in his before she could retreat into another jest. His fingers closed warmly around hers. For a while, neither spoke. Charlotte watched the firelight move across his sleeve and allowed herself to grow accustomed to the relief of having told him. He knew now. She need not guard every word for fear of revealing something she would later have to explain. When his thumb moved gently over her knuckles, she turned her hand within his and laced their fingers together.

Then she shifted closer. Alexander looked down at her, his gaze searching her face before settling upon her mouth. “Have you finished your wine?” he asked.

“Quite finished,” Charlotte assured him.

His eyes flicked toward the table. “You have scarcely touched it.”

“I have lost interest,” she said.

His smile came slowly, bringing back the warmth she had felt when he first arrived. “In the wine?” he asked.

Charlotte lifted her free hand to the knot of his cravat. “Alexander,” she murmured, drawing him nearer, “do try to keep up.” The cravat had to go. She had plans, and she would rather talk later. The man had too many clothes on for what she had planned.

The first pin slid free as though it had been waiting for him. The second followed, then the third, and each small click against the dressing table sent a quiet shiver down Charlotte’s spine. She stared at Alexander in the glass. He worked slowly, his lips slightly parted, as the candlelight gilded against the edge of his jaw. Each time a curl loosened and fell against her neck, he paused, as though he were listening for something.

“You are very good at this,” she said, her voice softer than she had planned.

“I have had practice,” he said huskily

She arched a brow. “Have you?”

“Only tonight.” He lifted his gaze to hers in the glass, and the corner of his mouth curved. “I fear I have been wondering how your hair loose around your shoulders would look for a very long time.”

Her breath caught. Another pin came away, and a heavy fall of red hair slid over her shoulder, warm against her bare skin. She let her lashes drop because meeting the open tenderness in his face felt like standing too close to a fire. “And now?” she asked.

“Now I understand that I was not nearly imaginative enough.”

His fingers moved into the loosened strands, drawing them gently down her back. She felt each pass of his hand in the roots of her hair and in the soles of her feet. She leaned back until her shoulders touched his chest. His heartbeat was strong and quick against her, and she found, to her surprise, that it steadied her own.

He bent and pressed his lips to the top of her head. “Charlotte,” he said, quietly, into her hair.

She turned on the stool to look up at him, her hair a warm curtain around them both, and for once she did not reach for something clever to say. His smile met hers in the glass before he laid the pin beside the others. A few more careful movements released the last of her hair. The loosened tendrils slipped over her shoulders. Alexander gathered a red strand between his fingers, his amusement fading into an expression that made her heart beat rather faster.

Charlotte watched him instead of looking at herself. She had led him into her bedchamber with considerably greater assurance than she felt now. Downstairs, she had known how to tease him, how to reach for his cravat and make her wishes plain. Here, seated before her dressing glass while he unpinned her hair, she felt unexpectedly exposed.

The room held all its familiar comforts. The pale counterpane turned back for the night, the little clock beside the bed, and her dressing gown draped over the chair where her maid had left it. Alexander’s coat now hung across that chair’s back, his discarded cravat resting beside it. Charlotte’s gaze lingered upon them. Such ordinary things, yet seeing them among her own belongings made it clear how intimate it was to have him here.

He released the strand of hair and bent to kiss her shoulder. Charlotte’s eyes closed. Her fingers, resting neatly in her lap, curled against her skirts. She had expected some impatience after the kiss that had sent her home so thoroughly unsettled. Instead, Alexander lingered. His lips brushed the place beneath her ear, then her cheek, and when she opened her eyes, she found him watching her reflection.

Pleasure sat in his expression, and a quiet attentiveness made her want to turn toward him. So she did. “Come here,” she said, reaching for his hand.

Alexander glanced at the small distance between them. “I am here.”

“Then stop looking so satisfied with yourself.”

“I should find that difficult at present,” he admitted.