By Margaret Moore
Chapter One
Charlotte winced as an inebriated party-goer stepped on her foot, but she kept moving determinedly toward the doors that led to the balcony. The Duncans would be delighted with their party; it was clearly
Unfortunately, the noise, the heat, and the crowd combined with Charlotte’s pounding headache to make her want to escape for a breath of fresh air. Reaching the balcony doors, she opened them to find two people engaged in a passionate kiss.
“I’m sorry.” The words escaped her mouth before she realized it would have been better to make an exit without being noticed. The couple jumped apart.
Charlotte felt the blood drain from her face as she stared at her fiance. “John! I thought you were dead!”
Two azure blue eyes flashed in a face so handsome it could take a woman’s breath away. “John
Charlotte breathed again. Of course this wasn’t John. John was dead, and by his own hand. This was his twin brother, who had gone off to fight with Wellington while John had stayed home. This was the brother who had stayed in Europe after her fiance’s death, who had written that terrible, accusing letter that had arrived when she was still full of sorrow and remorse.
This was the brother who knew so little of her relationship with John, yet who derided her, and blamed her for something she had not foreseen. She would have prevented John’s death if she could have; she did not need to feel more guilt from someone who had not seen his brother in over five years.
And who was now the Duke of Broverhampton, heir to a vast estate and fortune, as well as the title.
As Charlotte fought to regain her composure, James’s gaze meandered over her simple silk gown, lingering for the briefest of moments on the embroidery around the neckline—or her breasts—before returning to her blushing cheeks.
Angered by his impertinent scrutiny, she quickly closed the doors behind her, shutting out the music heralding the start of a quadrille. She wanted no one to hear them, or come out to see what was going on. And she wanted to know what the long-absent James was doing on the Duncans’ balcony with her cousin, Dulcabella —besides the obvious.
Dulcie Duncan giggled and swayed, clearly the worse for the powerful punch full of rum, which was how their family had made their fortune, one large enough to overcome the stigma of having earned it in trade. The Duncan Distillery had even been granted a Royal Warrant to supply rum to the British Navy.
“I just came out for a breath of air and he grabbed me and kissed me,” Dulcie explained with a sodden grin. “I quite liked it.”
“Indeed?” Charlotte inquired as she regarded James, not troubling to hide her annoyance. “I daresay you did, for I have heard that the duke is quite accomplished in that, if nothing else.” She took hold of her cousin’s arm, intending to lead her inside. “Come along, Dulcie. I think you should bid good-night to your guests.”
“Running away, are we?” James calmly inquired in his deep, husky voice -- the thing that distinguished him most from John. Otherwise, both men had the same dark hair, chiseled cheekbones, and brilliant blue eyes.
Charlotte slowly wheeled around to face him. “I think if there is a person here who could be accused of running away, it would not be me, Your Grace.”
She watched as her words brought, for the briefest of moments, a look of what might have been remorse to those bright blue eyes. Yet if the Duke of Broverhampton felt anything deep in his cold heart in response to her accusation—one she had been waiting years to make—it was quickly gone, replaced by the cool tranquility he had always possessed, even in his youth. John had been all fire and light and music; James had been dark and silent and cold as snow in January.
Her cousin feebly yanked her arm out of Charlotte’s grasp, the action making her totter like a pile of teacups. “I want to schtay right here!” Dulcie protested as she grabbed on to James’s black waistcoat.
“I think you should retire, cousin,” Charlotte said with a tone of firm command.
Dulcie pouted and stamped her slippered foot. “I don’t want to.”
“Dulcie, I really think you ought—”
“Well I don’t!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Charlotte saw James’s lips jerk up into a smug grin, as if he was enjoying this show of defiance from the usually docile Dulcie.
“Dulcabella, you should go before the ladies begin to gossip about the time you have been out here and with whom. Unless you want your season ruined before it is well under way, I suggest you go back into the ballroom, and preferably to bed. You have had too much punch.”
Charlotte’s words finally seemed to penetrate Dulcie’s drink-befuddled brain. She swallowed hard, then lurched back into the ballroom.
Charlotte was about to follow her when James barred her way. He reached back and closed the balcony doors. “Let me pass,” she ordered.
He shook his head and stepped closer. “I have waited a long time to have a moment’s word with you.”
She inched away from him, until her back was against the wall and the ivy covering it. The foliage wasn’t the only reason the flesh there tickled, as James came closer until his body was mere inches from hers.
Summoning her courage, Charlotte squared her shoulders. She would not let James’s predatory attitude frighten her. “If the wait was troublesome, perhaps you should have returned to England sooner. There was nothing to prevent you, especially when you inherited your title and the family fortune.”
“A fortune you did not get your greedy hands on, after all.”
Charlotte gasped. “I was not marrying your brother for his wealth!”
James’s face betrayed his skepticism. “No?”
“Certainly not!”
He sidled closer, trapping her between the wall and his broad-shouldered body like a doe run to ground between a cliff and a pack of dogs. “Then why did you agree to marry him?” he asked in a husky whisper.
“Because…because I loved him!” She put her palms on James’s chest and shoved, but it was like trying to budge a boulder.
He caught her hands in his powerful grasp. “Love?” he scoffed. “What do you know of love but this?” he demanded as he hauled her close and captured her mouth with his.
Chapter Two
She had thought James cold? She had thought him lacking in passion? As James’s lips moved over Charlotte’s with firm and fiery purpose, she realized how wrong she had been
How very,
Which did not give him leave to kiss her, or her to enjoy it.
Before she could shove him away, the balcony doors burst open. “Charlotte!” Uncle Malcolm cried as he stepped outside. “What are you doing?”
While she stared, equally horrified, at her uncle and the well-dressed people crowding behind him, James moved away. He faced her uncle and quite calmly adjusted the cuffs of his waistcoat. “We were kissing.”
Uncle Malcolm’s jowls quivered with an indignation that matched Charlotte’s, now that the initial shock of discovery had passed. “Then, sir, you have not behaved like a gentleman!”
“Indeed, he has not,” Charlotte seconded, preparing to march past James, her uncle, and through the avidly
