Do You Want to Start a Scandal EPB Read online

  Even his gaze could arouse her, all on its own.

  “Go to bed, Charlotte,” he said.

  She poised herself to remind him that commanding her to do one thing was the surest way to make her do the opposite, and really—he ought to know her better by now.

  But then it struck her.

  He wasn’t a fool. He did know her better by now.

  He must understand that commanding her to go was tantamount to daring her to stay, and he intended to provoke precisely that rebellious response.

  He wanted her here. With him.

  She wanted the same.

  She lifted his hand and cupped it over her breast. His thumb brushed her nipple through the fabric of her shift, sending ripples of pleasure through her.

  Bending her head, she kissed his throat. The underside of his jaw was deliciously rough with whiskers. She shifted in his lap and nestled closer still.

  The swelling ridge of his arousal pressed against her thigh.

  She teased it, dragging her knee a few inches up . . . then down.

  The motion was like dropping a spark on dry tinder. In an instant, his hands were on her, all over her, possessive and claiming. Gripping and twisting the linen of her night rail, cupping her backside and bringing her hips flush with his.

  He kissed her deeply, moaning into her mouth as he guided her hips up and down, rocking her against the hard, thick ridge of his erection. The rhythmic pressure sent bliss swirling through her.

  “It’s good?”

  She nodded, breathless. “Yes.”

  “When we’re wed,” he said huskily, sliding his hand under her shift, “it will be even better. I’ll be inside you. Here.”

  His fingertips slid up the quivering slope of her thigh, until they found the center of her. His touch teased up and down her sex until she thought she would go mad. She could not have brought herself to ask for what she needed, but her body knew. And so did he.

  She ached to be filled.

  At last, he slid one fingertip inside her. She whimpered with relief, wrapping her arms about his neck and clinging tight.

  “Like this,” he whispered against her ear, moving his hand in a firm rhythm. “Deep. And hard. Over and over.”

  “Please . . .” She gasped. “Don’t stop.”

  “Never. I’ll never stop until you come.” His thumb circled the swollen bud at the crest of her sex. “You do understand what that means? You’ve touched yourself here?”

  Charlotte nodded, breathless. “Innocent, not ignorant.”

  “Good.”

  His approval emboldened her. She began to move with him, seeking more of the exquisite pleasure he gave. She did understand the paroxysm of pleasure a woman’s body was created to feel, and she had learned how to bring it about herself. But it had never, ever been like this.

  Her body was aflame, alive with need. It seemed unfair, his ability to drive her to distraction while remaining so cool, controlled . . .

  Relentless.

  She bit her lip.

  “That’s it. I need to feel you come for me.”

  All the rebellion had been sapped from her, washed away in the encroaching tide of desire. She rode his hand, shameless, climbing to a peak so devastating she was certain to cry out.

  He captured her mouth in a kiss, and she sobbed into it, grateful, clutching his neck tight while the climax dissolved her to jelly from the navel down.

  When the waves of pleasure subsided, he gathered her in his arms, drawing soothing circles on her back as her breath calmed and her pulse slowed.

  As she returned to herself, a small sense of mortification whispered at her from the shadows of her upbringing. His fingers had been inside her, slick with the moisture her body had created. She held fistfuls of his shirt in her hands, and perspiration had broken out on her brow.

  It was all very unladylike. But she wasn’t supposed to be a lady in times like these, just a woman.

  She wanted to see Piers like that. Stripped down to a man—raw, elemental, animal. Panting and damp with sweat. She wanted to see him lose himself. She wanted to break through his defenses like a blazing meteorite and leave nothing but a smoking ruin.

  She wanted him. More than she’d ever wanted anything.

  Her heart swelled with a sudden, bewildering tide of affection.

  “Piers?”

  He must have heard the confusion in her voice.

  “Hush.” He stroked her back in that same, calm rhythm, ignoring his unsatisfied arousal. Denying his own needs while tending hers. “It’s natural to feel a rush of sentiment afterward. Women often do. It will pass.”

  Would it pass?

  Or would it deepen, like a hole widening in the earth? One misstep, and she would tumble and fall in love with him forever?

  She wasn’t feeling terribly bold or clever any longer. She felt small and fragile and very confused.

  “I don’t suppose this is why you came downstairs.” He brushed the hair from her brow.

  “No.”

  “Was there something you needed?”

  She nodded, willing her muddled thoughts to clear. “A book. The Peerage. I need to check again for C’s.”

  “Charlotte.” He tipped her face to his. “You don’t need to do anything of the sort.”

  The meaning in his gaze was clear. He’d just spread on this desktop, in black and white, the proof that he intended to provide handsomely for her, and for her family, as well. He’d given her both searing pleasure and tender protection. He’d whispered those intriguing words: I hope.

  And maybe—just maybe—he’d made her start hoping, too.

  Charlotte could all but hear her mother’s voice: Foolish girl, what more could you want?

  Love.

  Love was what she wanted. What she’d always wanted. More than fine houses or the title of marchioness. Even more than breathless orgasms, lovely as those were.

  Could she come to feel love for Piers? Could he ever feel the same toward her? He kept his heart so closed off, so walled away. If he’d courted her purposely, that might have given her a foundation to build dreams upon, but there could be no assurances in a forced match.

  She could hope all she wished, but before surrendering her life to a man, Charlotte needed to know.

  “I . . .” She pushed herself off his lap, arranging her shift and dressing gown as she stumbled to the side table and gathered the book. “I just want to be sure. That I haven’t missed anything. Good night.”

  She clutched the book to her chest and hurried from the room.

  She needed this book. She needed to find the mystery lovers.

  She needed certainty, now more than ever before.

  Chapter Twelve

  Charlotte was going cross-eyed.

  Debrett’s Peerage was a book of nearly nine hundred pages, all of them printed in minuscule type. Despite the free time afforded by another rainy day, she still had more than two hundred of them to search.

  The ladies had assembled in the drawing room, just as they had for the past two days of foul weather. Mama was nibbling squares of shortbread and leafing through a ladies’ periodical. Delia sketched, Frances worked at a bit of embroidery, and Lady Parkhurst played solitaire at the card table.

  Charlotte sat alone by the rain-streaked window.

  “I’m so glad you are finally taking an interest in that book,” Mama remarked.

  “Is this a recent development?” Frances asked. “I would have wagered you had your own copy memorized. If not annotated.”

  Charlotte ignored the baiting comment. Frances would not distract her from the task at hand.

  It would have been much easier if she knew the C corresponded to a surname or title. But it was just as likely to correspond to a Christian name, which necessitated scanning each page and, when she located a C, flipping back to the peer with whom she was associated and checking the location to see if the lady might reside anywhere nearby.

  And of course, if the woman in the libr
ary was not somehow related to a peer, baronet, or knight, the entire exercise would have been a waste of time.

  Weaver, Lady Catherine . . . Lincolnshire.

  Westwood, Hon. Cora . . . Devon.

  And then . . .

  Then!

  White, Hon. Cornelia . . . Nottinghamshire.

  The name White was familiar to her. She thought she remembered seeing it on Lady Parkhurst’s guests—but then it was such a common name, she might be imagining it.

  “Lady Parkhurst, was there a Mrs. White at the ball last week?”

  “Nellie White?” Lady Parkhurst looked up from her cards. “Oh, yes.”

  Nellie. Short for Cornelia. She must be the one.

  Charlotte tried to rein in her excitement. It might come to nothing, after all.

  But all the signs were there. Mrs. Cornelia White had been at Parkhurst Manor. She had the right initial. Did she have dark hair?

  “I’m trying to picture her in my mind. Was she the one with the . . .” Charlotte gestured toward her head.

  “Dreadful yellow turban?” Lady Parkhurst sighed. “Yes. I have tried to talk the dear thing out of it, but she won’t be moved.”

  Drat.

  Though Charlotte was encouraged by the indication that the lady preferred bright colors.

  “I don’t suppose we could pay her a call,” she said to Delia.

  Delia made a face. “Why we would do that?”

  “Well . . . we had a brief discussion of books. She mentioned a novel that sounded so interesting, but I’ve forgotten the title. I’d like to ask her.”

  “She lives all the way over toward Yorkshire,” Delia said. “Much too far away for a morning call, I’m afraid. Perhaps you could write to her.”

  Oh, yes. Charlotte could write to the woman she’d never actually met, inquire after a book that didn’t exist, and ask her to kindly enclose a lock of her hair with the reply. That would be well received.

  “No need to write.” Lady Parkhurst turned over a card. “You may ask her at the hunt.”

  “The hunt?”

  “Father hosts a foxhunt every autumn and invites all the gentlemen from the area,” Delia explained.

  “It will take place the morning after next, if the weather clears,” Frances said. “The ladies don’t ride to hounds, of course. We ride up to Robin Hood’s Hill and observe the spectacle.”

  Delia shuddered. “The bloody, violent spectacle. I despise hunting.”

  “Perhaps you could take your watercolors and paint the countryside,” Charlotte suggested.

  “I’ve painted the view from that hill a hundred times, in every light and every season. I’d much rather stay home.”

  In any other situation, Charlotte would have gladly stayed home with her. But this could be her only chance to see Mrs. White again.

  “What about you, Miss Highwood?” Lady Parkhurst asked. “Will you stay back, too?”

  Charlotte gave Delia an apologetic look. “I . . . I think I would like to go. I’ve never seen a hunt before, and I’d love to walk in the footsteps of Robin Hood. Only, I don’t have my own horse.”

  “We’ll loan you one,” Frances said. “Do you prefer a gelding, stallion, or mare?”

  Oh, dear. Charlotte could count the number of times she’d been horseback riding on one hand. It wasn’t an activity they’d had the money to finance in her youth. Gelding, stallion, mare? She wasn’t even certain she knew the difference.

  “Oh,” she said, “whichever horse you think would suit me.”

  Frances’s slow, smug smile was rather alarming.

  The next morning, Charlotte understood why.

  They’d barely set out from the stables when the dappled gray horse beneath her whinnied and danced sideways.

  Charlotte tightened her gloved hands on the pommel.

  Frances called to her. “Lady isn’t too much for you, I hope?”

  “Not at all,” Charlotte called back, trying to sound breezy and confident. “I enjoy a horse with spirit.”

  Unfortunately, the particular spirit possessing this mare seemed to be an ill-tempered, malevolent demon fed on soured milk. Charlotte wished she’d thought to bring apples or sugar lumps. Or holy water.

  Frances nudged her horse into a canter, and Lady followed suit.

  Charlotte felt her teeth rattle and her tailbone bounce. Under her breath, she muttered a curse.

  She managed to hang on across several fields and over a narrow bridge. Fortunately, as they neared the prominence, the horses were forced to slow to a walk.

  When they reached their picnicking spot atop the hill, Charlotte slid gratefully from the saddle and gave Lady’s neck a loving pat. “Good girl. I’ll save you a sandwich.”

  In return, the mare snapped at her, nearly removing two of her fingers.

  Perhaps she’d walk home instead.

  Charlotte left the sulking mare and turned her attention to the reason she’d come here.

  Stealing a close look at Mrs. White and her hair.

  “Oh, Nellie,” Lady Parkhurst called. “Would you be a dear and help with arranging the baskets?”

  Charlotte watched closely as a lady stepped forward to answer the call.

  The good news was, Mrs. White wasn’t wearing a dreadful yellow turban today. However, she was wearing a bonnet. An enormous bonnet that not only covered all of her hair, but shielded most of her face and was secured under her chin with a firmly knotted blue ribbon.

  Drat.

  In this business of solving mysteries, one encountered the most vexing and mundane obstacles. Thwarted by a bonnet, of all things.

  The distant blare of bugles sounded.

  “Oh, look! They’re off.”

  Charlotte turned to watch, shielding her eyes with her hand.

  The hounds appeared first. Scores of them, racing out from the wooded valley in a yapping, churning pack. Then came the men, riding swiftly behind. There were more than a dozen of them, all told—local squires and even some of the more prominent farmers had been invited to join.

  She could make a few out even at this distance, however. Sir Vernon’s portly figure and hunter-green coat were distinguishable at the head of the pack.

  And then, trailing a polite distance behind his host, came Piers.

  He wore a black coat, indistinguishable from those of several other gentlemen, but Charlotte knew him at once. She would have recognized his figure anywhere. He guided his mount over the hedges and stiles with ease. So smooth and powerful, moving as one with his bay gelding.

  Or was it a stallion?

  She tore her gaze from the spectacle.

  Mrs. White had wandered away from the ladies arranging the picnic baskets. Her enormous, confounding bonnet bobbed toward the other side of the hill.

  Charlotte hurried to catch up with her. “Oh, Mrs. White.”

  The woman slowed.

  “Mrs. White, do you remember me from the other evening? I’m Miss Highwood.”

  “Oh.” The widow looked her up and down. “Yes, of course.”

  Charlotte curtsied. “Isn’t it a fine morning for a hunt?”

  “I suppose it is.”

  Mrs. White looked a bit baffled at Charlotte’s friendly overtures.

  Perhaps she was shy.

  Or . . . perhaps she was riddled with guilt over her torrid, illicit affaire in Sir Vernon Parkhurst’s library.

  “I think I’ll remove my hat,” Charlotte said, unpinning her pert riding hat and making a show of basking in the sun. “Oh, the sunshine feels divine. Wouldn’t you like to remove your bonnet?”

  Mrs. White smiled. “I freckle most dreadfully.”

  “Just tip it back for a moment,” Charlotte urged. “Truly, the sun feels so delicious. You won’t freckle that quickly.”

  The widow seemed to consider it, tilting her head skyward.

  The sun promptly moved behind a cloud.

  “Perhaps later,” she said.

  Charlotte sighed. She began hoping for a str
ong gust of wind to catch that bonnet like a sail and pull it back. Even a stiff breeze would suffice, if it could tug loose a small wisp of hair. She wasn’t asking for much.

  “Do let’s take a turn about the hill.” Charlotte linked arms with the woman. “I’d be so grateful if you could point out the local landmarks.”

  The widow didn’t seem especially eager, but Charlotte hadn’t left her any polite way to refuse.

  “I wish we’d had more opportunity to talk the other night,” Charlotte forged on, once they’d left the earshot of the others. “I could tell at once we’d have so much in common.”

  “Truly?”

  Mrs. White sounded skeptical, and Charlotte couldn’t blame her. The woman was at least ten years her senior, and, it was becoming increasingly apparent, not terribly vivacious. It was difficult to imagine what they would have in common.

  It was also difficult to imagine Mrs. White wearing a scarlet garter, dousing herself in rich perfume, and shrieking her carnal pleasure atop a desk.

  But it had to have been her. Charlotte’s deductions left no other option.

  “Appearances,” Charlotte said, taking another approach, “can frequently be deceiving. Don’t you agree? The heart has so many secrets.”

  The widow pointed. “There’s Oxton, over there. And to the north, all that green is Sherwood Forest.”

  They’d completed their circle of the hill. Soon they’d be heading back to join the others.

  She looked askance at her companion. She’d yet to spy even a stray lock at her nape or temple. What sort of hair preparation did the woman use? Plaster of Paris?

  She had to do something. Something rash. She might not have another chance.

  She gave a dramatic gasp. “Mrs. White, do be still. There’s a spider.”

  “A spider?”

  “A large spider. On your bonnet. Don’t startle, or you’ll tip it down your neck.” Charlotte moved close and slowly reached for the ribbons tied beneath the woman’s chin. “I’ll just unlace this very cautiously and then I’ll shake it out on the grass.”

  “There’s no need.”

  “But there is! Believe me, Mrs. White, this is a very nasty spider. It’s . . . it’s hairy. And fanged.”

  Mrs. White put her hands over Charlotte’s, stopping her. “My dear girl, let us do away with pretense.”