“Lucien won’t be with me,” Alex explained patiently. “He’ll be waiting in a boat off the shore of France. It would be too dangerous for him to enter the country. But Charlotte, there’s more than a chance that we can rescue Lucien and Daphne’s little sister. How can I deny that request? It’s a simple thing, after all. Italians are free to travel throughout France. I simply enter the country as a prosperous merchant, travel a short way over the border, pick up this girl in the milliner’s shop, and there we are. You mustn’t worry too much, love. Paris is full of Englishmen at the moment: Remember, we signed a treaty with Napoleon last month.”
“No, Alex, no,” Charlotte said chokingly, winding her arms around his neck. “It’s too dangerous. You can’t leave me and Pippa. You can’t! I’ll die without you.”
“Listen, darling.” Alex drew back and looked down into Charlotte’s clear eyes. “I was born a gentleman. That was extremely lucky; I should have greatly disliked to have been born a chimney sweep, for example. But that same honor to which I was born means that I cannot refuse Lucien’s request simply because of fear. Even given that I hate the thought of leaving you and Pippa. Nor can I turn down Lord Breksby’s gently worded command to pick up a package, whatever it is, in Paris. They need someone they can trust. They can trust me, because I was bred to a position that made me trustworthy.”
Charlotte wanted to shake him. What a silly, stupid reason to risk one’s life. Yet she could see from Alex’s beloved face that he believed every silly word. Frustrated tears rose to her eyes.
“Lucien’s youngest sister is only thirteen years old,” Alex said. “I can’t leave her there, Charlotte.”
Charlotte buried her head in his chest, her shoulders shaking with sobs. “Why can’t someone else go?” she finally wailed, the ageless cry of wives and mothers watching beloved ones go fight in foreign wars.
“Because I look so very un-English,” Alex said wryly. “And thanks to Maria I also speak idiomatic Italian. Darling, I will be perfectly safe, I promise you. I will be back in England before you even finish your portrait of that rawboned kitchen maid.”
“Then why so soon?” Charlotte pulled away, walking to the window and staring out at the dark gardens. She felt utterly disconsolate.
Alex came up behind her and pulled the thick curtains shut. “There’s no time to be lost.” Charlotte knew what he meant. The thirteen-year-old … He wrapped his arms around her from the back, and Charlotte leaned against him. Her hands absently twisted a length of the rich velvet curtain.
“I don’t see why Lord Breksby needs you to go to Paris. Surely Paris is the most dangerous place of all!”
“Actually not, darling,” Alex said, his deep voice unruffled. “Italians go in and out of Paris all the time, and it isn’t as if I am being asked to bring back a person from Paris. I am going to pick up a small package. It should take a matter of hours, and my carriage can be searched on the way out without any risk. The French government is allowing business transactions to continue, you know.”
“Well, I still don’t see why Lucien can’t simply hire someone,” she retorted. “You just said yourself that rescuing people is dangerous.”
“If you were trapped in France, darling, I would ask my closest friend. If Patrick were not in England, I would ask Lucien. I would never hire someone I didn’t know. Lucien lost both his brothers to the guillotine, so he has to ask me. But even so, he didn’t ask me face-to-face. He left me a way out by asking me on paper. But it wouldn’t be right, Charlotte. I couldn’t live with myself afterward. What if we heard in a month or two that the girl had been imprisoned? Until now Lucien didn’t even know she had survived at all.”
There was a little silence. Then Charlotte resignedly turned about and reached out her hand to ring for Maria. It was time for bed. Alex had to leave at five in the morning, and that was a mere three hours away.
She looked up at her husband. He was looking at her with an imploring hunger that made her heart turn over. Well, she had broken every other rule that governed a lady’s marital relations. Odd that while she blithely broke the most sacred rules regulating the conduct of a lady, Alex was risking his life to keep to the rules of being a gentleman, Charlotte thought wryly. But her flux seemed to be unusually light anyway, so there would be nothing embarrassing about it.
And she wanted to, she realized. She wanted to as much as he did.
“Will you act as my maid, my lord?” she asked, dropping her hand from the bell cord.
Alex took her delicate face in his large hands, kissing her sweet mouth. “I don’t deserve you,” he said. “I don’t deserve you, Charlotte.”
Charlotte’s arms slipped slowly from his shoulders, down his back and rested on his buttocks. Alex’s body went absolutely rigid. His wife was slowly learning to be bold, but she was only just learning how much her touch inflamed him. Charlotte splayed her fingers and pulled her husband’s large, powerful body against hers.
“Just in case you don’t come back,” she whispered achingly, “I am going to memorize your body tonight.”
His hands shaking with a potent combination of lust and tenderness, Alex turned Charlotte around and started unbuttoning her gown. Pearls, yanked from their moorings, skittered across the floor with the sound of scampering mouse feet. As Alex unbuttoned, he kissed, and as he kissed, he moved lower and lower until he was on his knees. He turned his wife around again and simply pulled her gown forward and down until it draped low on her creamy stomach. Then Alex wrapped his arms around Charlotte, resting his face against her soft skin.
“I thought you were pregnant,” he said. “When I get back, I am going to make love to you every night and every afternoon until your waist grows so large that I can’t get my arms all the way around you.”
Charlotte chuckled. “That won’t ever happen,” she said. “My mama told me that people didn’t realize she was pregnant at all until practically the last month. We’re so much taller than the average woman.”
She stared down at her husband’s curls. Did he want an heir, or their child? “Do you … would you like to have a child, even if it were another girl?” she finally asked, tentatively.
Alex rocked back on his heels, his hands stroking Charlotte’s slim sides. “I would love to have a little girl who looked just like you,” he said, so sincerely that Charlotte knew he meant it. He looked up and caught her eye. “I want to be there for the birth, you know.” Charlotte’s eyes widened.
“You couldn’t possibly” she gasped.
“You watch,” Alex said, grinning. “I saw a baby born in Italy, when I was traveling around the countryside. A woman simply gave birth right in the taverna. It was wonderful. Even dragoon guards couldn’t keep me out of the room if you were having a baby!”
Charlotte didn’t know what to say to that. She swallowed. If her mama ever found out, she would faint on the spot.
Alex ran his hands over Charlotte’s flat stomach. Then he felt a surge of strong, masculine annoyance. By God, he was starting to get maudlin! He had to watch it, or he would start thinking he was in love with Charlotte. And he had made up his mind that he wouldn’t allow any woman to have that much power over him, ever again. Not even his own Charlotte. No woman, he reminded himself. Expertly he began giving Charlotte little licking, nipping bites, working toward her breasts.
Charlotte giggled. With a mock growl, her husband lunged at one of her breasts, taking the nipple in his mouth and rolling his teeth over it. Charlotte’s giggle died in her throat, replaced by a ragged moan. Alex scooped up his wife and laid her on the bed.
The next morning at five o’clock, Charlotte and a very cross Pippa waved good-bye to Alex from the steps of Sheffield House. Pippa hadn’t wanted to wake up, but Charlotte was determined that she say good-bye properly. Not like the last time, when Pippa simply woke up to find that her papa was gone. And if—Charlotte let herself think this only in the far recesses of her mind—if Alex did not come back, at least Charlotte could describe h
ow he kissed and kissed Pippa’s face, later, when Pippa was old enough to understand.
The next day Charlotte told everyone the story that Alex had prepared—that he had to go to Italy suddenly, to attend to some business. Only Sophie and Charlotte’s parents knew the truth.
“I told you,” was Sophie’s response. “Every man plays the fool at some time or other. Why didn’t Lucien simply hire one of the Bow Street Runners? I thought they were so good at dangerous business.”
For a second Charlotte’s heart leaped. But no, it was too late. By now Lucien and Alex would be at Southampton, boarding a ship bound for Italy. Lucien was traveling as Alex’s personal servant. These days there was nothing surprising about having a French manservant.
“No,” she said. “I doubt Bow Street Runners speak Italian. Alex made it all sound so simple.”
“Nothing is that simple,” Sophie said flatly. “Particularly not when it comes to the French.”
Charlotte tightened her grip around Pippa, who was peacefully sleeping in her lap. She hadn’t let her out of her sight all day. Then she sighed and looked up at Sophie.
“When this little bundle wakes up, would you like to go shopping? I can’t possibly face my studio today. Besides, I need to buy some larger clothes.”
“Larger clothes?” Sophie asked. “Why on earth?” Then her eyes widened. “You’re having a baby!” She jumped up and gave Charlotte an impulsive hug. “When?”
“I’m not sure,” Charlotte said with a small smile. “You see, I thought my monthly had started and that I wasn’t with child, but then it stopped. And my mama told me this morning that a little blood was quite common. So I could be as far as four months along, I suppose.” She looked down at her waist a little dubiously. “I feel just the same.”
Sophie smiled at her gaily. “Well, why shouldn’t you? Did you tell Alex?”
“No, because I didn’t know. I didn’t understand what was happening, and so he thinks I am definitely not pregnant, and here I am, three or four months pregnant. When he gets back, I’ll probably look like a cow.”
“A very beloved cow,” Sophie said with an affectionate grin. “Alex will be ecstatic. One evening he and I were sitting next to each other—was it a musicale? I’m not sure where you were—and he told me that he wanted a large family, four or five children.”
“Really?” Charlotte asked, fascinated.
“Oh, yes,” Sophie said. “He’s besotted. Only besotted men want children.”
Charlotte blushed and just stopped herself from asking if Sophie really thought Alex was besotted. She had to keep a little bit of dignity. Pippa stretched and yawned; Sophie rang the bell.
“Do you want to take Pippa with us?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Sophie gave her friend an understanding smile. Pippa looked so much like Alex.
“You’d better change your dress first,” Sophie observed. “There’s a wet spot where Pippa was sleeping.”
Chapter 17
That night Charlotte circled the bed that she and Alex usually shared, staring at the slightly crumpled, fine linen sheets. The night seemed to stretch endlessly before her—night after night alone. Six weeks, Alex had said. Or two months at the most. Two months! Charlotte wanted to scream at the unfairness of it. By the time he got back she would look like a melon, and he wouldn’t want to make love to her. One tear slid coldly down her nose. But Charlotte stopped herself. She couldn’t spend the next two months weeping. She would have to organize such a busy life that she fell into bed exhausted every night, so tired that she couldn’t dwell on her memories.
Finally Charlotte crept under the cool sheets. She was wearing one of her long white nightdresses, the kind that Alex hated. Thinking about nightdresses made her remember Alex’s impatient hands running up her body, pulling her clothes out of the way with a muffled oath. Charlotte smiled a little. Bed with Alex had become the focus of her days. He could be frowning at the morning papers, totally absorbed in the report of activities in the House of Lords, and she would suddenly remember the dusky intensity that overtook his eyes as he watched her undress at night. Or Alex would come back from fencing, his hair ruffled, body glowing with exercise, and Charlotte would remember how his chest heaved, after … He used to roll over with a moan of simulated exhaustion and growl that he would never recover. Charlotte bit back more tears. Two months wasn’t very long. She would finish the portrait of Mall.
The portrait was causing her some trouble. She had chosen Mall because of the angularity of her face, but she was having a good deal of difficulty capturing Mall’s rough, lively person. One day her face looked like a cartoon of a Welsh country girl, all nose and chin. The next day, Charlotte would work hard on bringing back Mall’s contrary girlishness and shrewdness, and then the portrait would take on the air of a little girl trapped in a grown-up face. Thinking about the painting made Charlotte feel much calmer. After all, there’s more to life than Alex and this bed, Charlotte told herself with a twinge of amusement. Someday they would be old and gray, and they would be tired of making love.
Suddenly there was a squabbling noise at her door and Charlotte sat up.
“Who’s there?” she called.
“Oh, my lady, I am so sorry,” came an anguished voice from the door.
Charlotte lit the candle by her bed. The door opened and she dimly saw Pippa’s nanny, swathed in a large robe, clutching a kicking, squealing Pippa.
“She ran out of the room before I realized she was awake,” Katy continued. “I’m so sorry she awakened you, my lady.”
Pippa let out a furious wail.
“Pippa,” Charlotte said. “What on earth are you doing awake in the middle of the night?” And then, “It’s all right, Katy. Let her go.”
Pippa trotted over to the bed, her little bare feet patting on the wood floor.
“Papa?” she asked, her voice quavering. “Where’s Papa?”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Charlotte said, her heart turning over. “Papa had to go away for a while, but he will come back.”
Pippa gave her a look of total disbelief and sat right down on the floor. She began to cry, not the angry sobs of an almost two-year-old, but the heartbroken sobs of a baby deserted again.
Damn! Charlotte thought furiously. How can he leave her? She hopped out of bed, shivering as her bare feet came down on the drafty floor. Katy was standing quietly in the door.
“She’s been asking all evening, my lady,” Katy said, in response to her unspoken question. “I’ve told her that her father will return, but she doesn’t believe me.”
Charlotte knelt down and pulled Pippa onto her knees.
“He is coming back, poppet,” she whispered into the child’s soft curls. “You remember when we went to Scotland together, and Papa was there waiting for us?” Charlotte stood up, still cuddling Pippa, and turned back to the bed.
“Katy, I will keep Pippa here tonight,” she said with sudden determination. Katy curtsied and closed the door silently.
Charlotte climbed back into the bed, tucking a sobbing Pippa up against her left side.
“Pippa,” she whispered. “Shall I tell you a story?” Pippa didn’t say anything. But Charlotte started a story about a mama hen and her three naughty little baby chicks. After a bit Pippa stopped crying and turned her face up toward Charlotte’s. Then, when Charlotte was chirping the peep peep of the three naughty chicks as they left their house to look for trouble, she felt Pippa’s body relax and her head grew heavy against Charlotte’s arm.
Charlotte lay for a moment in the warm darkness. Suddenly the bed didn’t seem so large and unfriendly anymore. Pippa was curled on one side of her, and in her womb Alex’s baby was growing larger every moment. Charlotte smiled. Soon she would have two little chicks.
The next morning Charlotte started all over on Mall’s portrait, to the kitchen maid’s mingled distress and pleasure. Mall loved sitting in the mistress’s airy studio; she vastly appreciated the time to rest her feet. But
she was eager to see a picture of herself too. Even staring into the cracked mirror upstairs hadn’t told her why the mistress wanted to paint her. Mall was hoping that she would be transformed into a great beauty, on canvas at least.
By two weeks later, Charlotte had made more progress on the portrait than ever before. She had also dragged Sophie to two balls, two musicales, and the opera.
“I abhor musicales,” Sophie complained, waving her fan gently. “We are not dressed to our best advantage. I don’t appreciate myself in chaste white muslin. Just look about you: Every woman looks like a little white ghost. We appear sheeplike, and that inspires men to become dull admirers of themselves and make their court to nothing but their cravats. Look at that fop who calls himself my cousin.” She waved at the Honorable François de Valcon, her mama’s nephew, with an enchanting smile. Then she turned back to Charlotte. “He is more concerned at the disordering of his cravat than I would be at having my skirt fly above my ankles.”
“That is because you admire your own ankles as much as Francois likes his skill at tying cravats,” Charlotte whispered back.
Sophie laughed. “Musicales are particularly boring because we just sit about and listen to singing. I like to dance. There’s always the chance I’ll be able to admire my ankles, or at the least, I can provide the occasion for someone else to admire ’em. Look at this room. There’s not a man here who isn’t a rakehell, paying his lazy addresses to us, but actually conducting business only with his mistresses.”
“You shouldn’t use that kind of slang, Sophie!” Charlotte protested. But as she glanced around the room, she had to agree with Sophie. Musicales were for the bored and the foppish; Mrs. Felvitson’s Russian singers were unintelligible and monotonous. The room was full of young matrons like herself, accepting the languid compliments of fairly uninterested fops.