Page 36 of To Tame the Wild Rake
“Think about it while I pour you a brandy,” he suggested. He suspected he might need one.
She took the drink he handed her and cradled it in both hands to warm it, as he had shown her late one evening at a house party, when neither of them could sleep and they met by accident in the library.
He smiled at the memory. “Whose house party was it that we drank brandy together?” he asked.
“Was it the Forsdykes? I think it might have been.”
That was after he had withdrawn his most recent offer for her hand, and before she began avoiding him. Back when he still hoped she would change her mind. When he still thought that living a sober and celibate life might influence her.
“You frightened me,” she said, as if the words burst from behind a dam.
He stared at her, gaping in shock until he realised and shut his mouth.
She shook her head. “Not your fault, Anthony. I misspoke. You did nothing. It was all me. I did not realise what was happening, and that is what frightened me.”
Perhaps she meant it as a clarification, but it didn’t help. “Can you explain?” he asked. If she couldn’t, he might go mad in truth trying to find the sense behind her words. She was among the cleverest people he’d ever known. There must be logic in there somewhere.
Her brows knit together as she frowned, studying the brandy in her glass. “I am not accustomed to my body responding to a man. Not like that.”
Aldridge put his brandy down, sure he had somehow had too much and now his dreams were talking.
Charlotte sat down and took a deep gulp from her own glass. “I feel frightened when I am alone with a man. I avoid it even with people I trust, and I shrink away from men even in company. Being touched by a man repulses me. It took me a long time to realise that the discomfort I feel with you is the opposite. Attraction. Not repulsion. I do not understand such feelings. I do not know what to do with them.”
Irritation and frustration coloured her tone. She gave a huff of displeasure and shook her head.
“And that annoys you?” It was the least confrontational response he could think of, his brain being otherwise occupied with subduing his libido. It was in rapturous revolt, demanding instant action to show Charlotte what those feelings were for.
“It annoyed me,” Charlotte confirmed. “And then I realised what I needed to do.”
“And that was?” Aldridge asked.She cannot possibly mean what I think she means.
She shook her head again. “I have been dreaming about kisses. Not the ones forced on a person, but kisses a woman participates in. I have had the pecks you have given me, and they were pleasant. But I never wanted anything else. The kisses I have glimpsed from time to time seemed horrible for a woman. They looked as if they were being devoured. And then I shared a suite for a few days with Sarah and Nate.” She laughed, but her eyes were sad. “It seems Sarah likes being devoured.”
“Most women do,” Aldridge observed, “as long as the person kissing them knows what he is doing and is someone they care for.”
She beamed at him, as if he had said something clever. “Exactly! That is what I decided. I already like your touch, you are an expert, and you said you would help me. Will you, Anthony?”
Aldridge took a deep breath to calm his racing heart. “Cherry, can you be very specific about what you want from me?” He should have left it there, but hope had him adding, “Are you saying that you have changed your mind about marriage? Have you come to tell me you will be my wife?”
Hope died when she looked dumbfounded. Panicked, even. “Not marriage. Just…you know.”
Disappointment made him abrupt. “Specific, Cherry.”
She flapped her hands, a frustrated gesture he found impossibly endearing from the always composed, always logical Saint Charlotte. “I don’t know polite words. Do you want the phrases used by the women Sarah rescues? I want you to…” she trailed off again.
His resentment insisted that what she was asking of him—the use of his body without benefit of clergy—demanded the crude language of the brothel. His pity had him providing a term more acceptable to a lady. “Bed you? Is that what you are asking?”
Some of his emotions leaked into his tone, despite his best efforts to make his voice neutral, for she cringed, and said, “If you… If you could. If you find me attractive at all. I know I am quite old.”
And now he had to reassure her, the woman of his every dream. Though she had just lacerated him to the soul by refusing his honourable offer and instead demanding a disreputable one.I am being punished for the excesses of my youth.
“Cherry, I find you attractive. I have for nigh on eight years, since you were so young that my desire for you shamed me, and I will want you when we are both old and wrinkled, should we be so fortunate. In eight years, that hasn’t changed.”
Wide eyed, she tipped her head to the side and examined him. She looked for all the world like a nervous sparrow, eying up a morsel of bread and trying to decide whether the treat was worth the risk of approaching. “Will you, then?”
He had to try to talk some sense into her. “How can I dishonour you so? You are a lady! Marry me, Cherry, and I will show you all the delights you can imagine.” He hoped his smile was not as strained it felt. “Some you have never thought of, too.”
Charlotte’s blush deepened to a fiery rose. “You cannot dishonour me, Anthony. I am not a virgin.” She lifted her glass to take another nervous gulp and lowered it in confusion when she found it empty. Should he refill it? No. Things were bad enough without making her drunk.
