Charlotte held her tongue.
Really? She might have noticed her own body, at some point in her twenty years of existing?
She supposed there could be, somewhere, a young woman who had never taken stock of her own anatomy below the navel. But whoever that poor soul might be, Charlotte would not have known how to be friends with her.
"It's rather like this." Her mother drew a roundish object from the basket.
Charlotte peered at it. "Is that a peach?"
"Yes. The lady's intimate parts are represented by this peach."
"Why a peach? Why not an orchid blossom, or a rose, or some other flower?"
Mama grew strangely defensive. "The peach has a cleft. It's the right color. It's . . . downy."
"But it's not terribly accurate, is it? I mean, I suppose it's not as poetic, but even a halved cabbage would at least have the proper--"
"Charlotte, please. Allow me to continue."
Allowing her mother to continue was what Charlotte least wanted. In the world. She would, without a doubt, choose a whipping in the village stocks over finishing this conversation.
She might choose death.
She braced herself as Mama reached back into the basket.
"Now, as for the gentleman. It's important that when the time comes you should not be alarmed. In a state of repose, a man's . . ."
"Ahem," Charlotte supplied.
". . . is an unremarkable sight," her mother continued. "However, when aroused, he will look something like this."
From beneath the square of linen, her mother withdrew a vegetable. A slender, curved vegetable covered in taut, gleaming, deep purple skin.
Charlotte gawped in horror.
No. It could not be.
It was.
"An aubergine?"
"A cucumber would have served better, but the kitchen was out of them."
"I see," she said numbly.
"Good." Mama laid her illustrations on the coverlet. "You may now ask your questions."
Questions? She was supposed to supply questions? Only one question came to mind:
What on earth did I do to deserve this, and is it too late to repent?
Charlotte buried her face in her hands. She felt as though she were trapped in a nightmare. Or a very bad play. The Peach and the Eggplant, a tragic comedy in one endless act.
Fortunately, she had amassed enough friends, novels, and good sense to round out her understanding of sexual intercourse years ago. Because if she'd been forced to go on nothing but this . . .
She came to a bargain with herself. If Mama was going to subject her to this, Mama was going to pay for it. And there was only one way to exact revenge for this farce of a lesson.
To take it seriously.
She lifted her head and composed her expression into one of solemn, wide-eyed innocence. Reaching forward, she laid a single finger on the aubergine. "Is this the actual size?"
"Not every gentleman's is quite that size. Some are smaller. Some may, in fact, be larger."
"But most are not quite so purple, I hope." She picked up the two items and pushed them against one another, frowning with confusion. "How does the aubergine fit inside the peach?"
Her mother's face contorted. "The peach produces a sort of nectar to ease the way."
"A nectar? How fascinating."
"If the gentleman is skilled with his aubergine, it will not be so very painful."
"What about the lady's skill? Shouldn't the bride to know how to please the aubergine?"
Her mother was quiet for a moment. "He might . . . That is, some gentlemen might wish to be . . . er . . . stroked."
"Stroked. How does one stroke an aubergine? Is it like stroking a kitten?" Charlotte laid the eggplant fruit across her palm and brushed it gently with a fingertip. "Or like strokes of a hairbrush?" She increased the vigor of her motions.
Mama gave a sort of strangled squawk.
"Here," Charlotte said, thrusting the vegetable into her mother's grip. "Why don't you demonstrate?"
At the sight of Mama's panicked, near-purple face, Charlotte lost her battle with laughter. She collapsed into giggles. Then she dove for cover, to avoid being beaten about the head with an eggplant.
"Charlotte!" Mama hurled the peach at her as she reached the door. "Whatever will I do with you?"
"Never, ever speak of aubergines or peaches again."
Chapter Six
After checking his reflection in the mirror, Piers rinsed his blade in the basin and wiped the remaining shaving soap from his jaw.
If he requested it, Ridley would come in to help him dress for dinner. "Valet" was, after all, his nominal post, and perhaps Piers ought to have used him more in that capacity--if only for the sake of appearances. However, he'd begun the habit of shaving himself in his early years of service. He hadn't liked trusting anyone to hold a blade to his throat.
Even now that he was a seasoned agent, he still preferred to shave himself. It wasn't that he didn't trust Ridley with his life. He simply didn't trust him to get his shave satisfactorily close.
As he pulled on his shirt and began to button his cuffs, something caught his eye. He paused, staring into the looking glass.
There was something outside his window.
Or someone outside his window.
Probably just the branch of a tree, he told himself. Perhaps an evening songbird or an early-rising bat.
Just in case, he was careful not to reveal any outward sign of alarm. He merely kept his eye slanted toward the reflection as he steadily buttoned his cuff.
Then he heard a noise.
A scraping noise.
He inhaled steadily. In the time it took to draw that one breath, he'd assessed all the potential weapons in the room. The straight razor, where it lay on the washstand, still glistening with water. The fire iron would make a formidable club. In a pinch, his readied cravat could make a decent garrote. He'd learned that the hard way one sultry night in Rome.
But he didn't need to get creative tonight. Not with a loaded pistol waiting in the top drawer of the washstand. Unimaginative, perhaps--but effective.
The scraping noise became a scratching. Then a rattle. The intruder was easing the window open.
Piers kept his pulse calm, willing the blood in his veins to be cold as a stream in February. He slid open the drawer, moved aside a stack of folded handkerchiefs, and lifted the small brass pistol.
Then he waited. If he turned too soon, he would frighten his attacker away and expose himself to a second attempt.
Patience. Not yet.
A cool breeze wafted across the small hairs of his neck.
Now.
He spun on his heels, cocking the pistol as he turned, and leveled the weapon at his intruder.
She flung up a hand. "Don't be alarmed. It's only me."
"Charlotte?"
He lowered the pistol at once, pushing the hammer forward.
A slim, stockinged leg eased through the open window, and then the rest of her tumbled through, landing on his floor with a dull thump. A heap of grass-stained muslin, muddy half boots, and disheveled golden hair.
"What the devil are you doing?" He held out a hand to her, tugging her up from the floor. "Where did you come from?"
"Sorry to interrupt," she said, her gaze ranging from his gaping collar to the untucked hem of his shirt.
The sight of her, looking breathless and flushed and smiling, took his blood from ice-floe cold to the temperature of erupting lava.
He was relieved. He was angry. He was, against all odds, amused.
Anything but cool and detached.
"You need to be in your room."
"I'd love nothing more, but I can't just now." Her gaze dropped. "Ooh. Is that a Finch pistol?"
She reached for the pistol still dangling, unfired, in his right hand. He let her take it, and she turned it over in her hands before pointing it toward the open window, shutting one eye to take aim.
He had to admit, she
had a damn good firing stance.
"How did you recognize a Finch pistol?"
She lowered the weapon, turning it over in her hands to examine it. "Sir Lewis Finch's daughter is a close friend. I spent years in Spindle Cove."
Spindle Cove.
He thought back to Ridley's abbreviated report on the place.
Mondays are country walks, Tuesdays sea bathing. They spend Wednesdays in the garden, and Thursdays . . .
"Thursdays you shoot," he said.
"So you've heard of it." She smiled at him. "I've been in Sir Lewis's own gun room, and I've never seen an example this fine. It's rather light and slender, isn't it?"
"Special issue," he told her. "Only a few dozen exist."
"Remarkable." She handed the pistol back to him. "How did you happen to get one?"
"I believe I'll ask the questions right now." Piers replaced the pistol in his drawer, then turned to her. "Explain yourself. What on earth are you doing, climbing through my window?"
"Right. That. You see, this afternoon Mr. Fairchild . . . that's the vicar, if you recall."
"I recall."
"He came to call on Lady Parkhurst. Something about the parish holiday program. The music selection or such. It seemed as though it would take them hours to negotiate, so I knew it was my chance."
"Your chance to what?"
"To call on Miss Caroline Fairchild. She's on my list of suspects. You do remember my plan from the other morning?"
He lifted a hand to his temple. "I recall it, yes."
"Well, once I scanned for the C's, I was left with five suspects. I have to start eliminating them somehow. If Caroline Fairchild was engaging in a secret love affair, and she knew her father would be absent for hours, that would be the perfect time for her to plan an assignation. Would it not?"
Piers didn't know how to argue with that reasoning. Irritatingly enough.
"So I claimed that I'd fallen ill with a migraine and went to my room. I told the maids I was not to be disturbed. Then I locked the door and slipped out the window."
"Your window is nearly twenty feet above the ground. For that matter, so is mine."
"Yes, of course. But there's a convenient little ledge that runs beneath all the windows, and from the northwest corner of the manor it's a short leap to the plane tree."
He set his jaw and tried to dismiss the image of her making a "short leap" from a second-floor window to the branch of a tree. "Do go on."
"And then I cut across the meadows and walked into the village." She sat down on a bench at the foot of his bed and began to work loose the laces of her boots, the soles of which bore clear evidence of her walk across pastures and down muddy country lanes. "I went to the vicarage and asked for Miss Fairchild. And she was there. Alone."
"Not in the arms of a seducer."
"No. In fact, she seemed lonely and only too glad for the visit. A sweet girl, but I don't get the impression that she's ever tasted adventure. She certainly hasn't read any good novels."
She kicked off her boots, then drew her feet up under her skirts, sitting cross-legged on the bench.
Piers decided he might as well be seated, too. He dropped into an armchair.
"I think it's safe to cross Miss Fairchild off my list of suspects," she said.
"What do you plan to do when someone asks how you were simultaneously in your bedchamber incapacitated with migraine, and down in the village calling on Miss Fairchild?"
She waved her hand. "Oh, no one will question it. The days all run together during a country visit. It's impossible to recall whether one went picking apples on Monday or Tuesday, and was it Wednesday we had the morning rainstorm? It will be assumed to be a matter of innocent confusion if it's ever brought up. Which it likely won't be. You know how it is."
Piers did know how it was. Not only did he know, he made use of it. The habit of paying attention to detail when no one else around you did . . . it gave one a distinct advantage.
But if Charlotte Highwood was paying attention, that was one less advantage he had over her.
That worried him.
"Anyway, I planned to climb back up the tree and slip into my room. I'd left the window propped open. But when I came back, it had slid shut."
"So you came down the ledge to my window instead."
"Well, what else could I do? Enter by the front door? Confess that I'd lied about being ill and escaped out the window?"
What else, indeed.
Piers braced his elbows on his knees and rubbed his face with both hands.
She continued, "Later tonight, well after the house is asleep, I'll sneak down to the housekeeper's office, borrow her chatelaine, and let myself back into the room. Or"--she lifted a single finger--"we could stage a fire."
"You are not starting a fire."
"Not a real fire. Just a false alarm to get everyone out of bed and give me a chance to slip back in." She rose from the bench and rounded his bed, sitting down on the edge of it. "We'll decide later. I could use a nap while you go down for dinner. I don't suppose you could stash a sandwich in your pocket and bring it up for me? I'm famished."
She reclined onto her elbow. Atop his bed. Partially dressed. And according to her "plan," she proposed to stay there for the better part of the night.
No. This would not do.
He rose to his feet and began rolling his uncuffed sleeves to his elbows. "I will open the door to your room."
"I told you, it's locked from the inside."
"Leave that to me."
He opened the door a crack and peered into the corridor. After waiting and listening for a few moments to ensure no one was coming, he turned to give her the signal to follow.
"You have a bit of shaving soap." Her fingertips grazed a patch of skin tucked under his jaw. "There."
The softness of her touch lingered.
She cocked her head to the side and gazed at him, making a thoughtful noise. "I'm just realizing I've never seen you without a coat. You're built rather more solidly than one would suspect."
Her flattened palm skimmed from his shoulder to his elbow, idly tracing the contours of his arm muscles. Despite his better judgment, he flexed.
She noticed.
A surge of raw male pride set his blood pumping.
Who's all wrong for you now, darling?
"Let's be going," he said. "Follow me. And stay close."
Charlotte sent up a brief, silent prayer and followed him into the corridor, carrying her boots in one hand. He held her other hand firmly tucked under his arm. In relative terms, it was a short journey to the door of her bedchamber, but it felt like a mile.
He gave the latch an experimental rattle, having put his ear to the door.
"You said you left the key in the door?"
She nodded.
"It's not there anymore."
"That's odd."
Charlotte suddenly realized he'd known which door was hers without asking. She wondered if there was anything to make of that, but other concerns quickly took precedence.
Such as the sound of distant footsteps coming from the bottom of the servant stairs.
"Someone's coming," she whispered. "We should go back to your chamber."
He didn't react. "It's a moment's work."
Working in quick movements, he removed an onyx stickpin from his pocket, bit the pointed end to give it a crook, and inserted it in the keyhole with a firm push. He worked the bent stickpin like a lever, testing it at different angles to work the lock.
As she watched breathlessly, Charlotte wondered if gold and onyx had ever been employed in such a venial occupation. To say nothing of the Marquess of Granville's aristocratic hands.
The footsteps on the servant stairs had grown louder. At any moment, one of the housemaids would appear at the end of the corridor. Charlotte could hear her humming a tune.
"Hurry," she whispered.
He didn't acknowledge her plea.
His lack of urgency was maddening. They couldn't
be caught like this. There was no way to explain how Charlotte had gone from nursing a headache in her room to standing breathless and disheveled in the corridor, outside her own locked door. Worst of all, in the company of Lord Granville.
She would never be able to escape marrying him, in that event.
Oh, no.
A horrid thought struck her. Perhaps that was what he wanted. Perhaps he wasn't even trying. Perhaps this entire stickpin nonsense was a mere charade.
The footsteps reached the landing of the stairs. Charlotte caught a glimpse of black linsey-woolsey skirt rounding the far end of the corridor.
She wanted to bolt, hide. But where? This corridor suffered from an unforgivable lack of alcoves, potted plants, and marble statuary.
Her heart was in her throat.
"There," he murmured.
With a soft click, the lock opened.
In a single motion, he drew her into the room, shutting the door behind them--and leaving nothing but her startled gasp on the other side.
He flattened her against the closed door, pinning her with his body weight.
They remained still and silent until the maid's humming passed Charlotte's room and continued down the corridor.
"I told you I'd have it in time," he said.
"Yes. You did. All that and your hair isn't even mussed. What does your valet put in it?"
"Nothing. No one touches my hair."
"No one?" She tilted her head, regarding his thick, dark hair. "What a shame."
His heart still thumped against hers, but his expression--difficult as it was to read--didn't appear to be concern.
It looked like amusement.
Could it be that while skulking about corridors and picking locks with his stickpin, the proper, restrained Marquess of Granville was actually having fun?
How interesting. Perhaps there was something about the hint of danger that made him come alive in new ways.
Charlotte felt it, too. Not only the lingering excitement of their near escape, but the closeness they shared now.
His strong, sinewy forearms braced on either side of her body promised to protect her.
But the dark intensity in his eyes was perilous.
"You should go." She slid out from between his arms. "You'll want to finish dressing for dinner."
"Wait." His hand closed on her arm, holding her in place. "I'll check your rooms first. Someone's been in here while you were away."
"Really? How can you tell?"
"Aside from the key being dislodged?" He looked under the bed and inside the closet. "Obviously it's been ransacked."
She looked about the room. "No, it hasn't. It's exactly as I left it."