More, his body was insisting, and he probably ruined the arm of his jacket against the stone of the bench as he reached beneath Charlotte’s legs to lift her into his lap, but Dexter didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything but more.
His hungry lips had blazed a trail down to her neckline and his hand had made a good deal of headway beneath Charlotte’s petticoats and back up her leg when her alarmed gasp broke through the lust-fog.
“That girl’s mother. Dexter. That girl is coming back with her mother!”
She drummed on his shoulder in a panic, and he released her and hurriedly smoothed her skirt back into place, then reached into his trouser pocket to snag the ring.
“Marry me?”
He didn’t wait for an answer or bend to one knee, just shoved the ring toward her and grabbed her free hand to pull her off the bench and back toward the terrace.
“Certainly.”
She caught up enough to loop her arm through his, and had the ring worked onto the appropriate finger by the time they passed the distressed girl and her mother who had clearly been working herself up to a fine outrage over the scandalous carryings-on in the garden.
“Lovely evening,” Dexter said, tipping a nonexistent hat to the pair and picking up his pace, though Charlotte was forced to an unsightly scamper to keep up with him. She was quite out of breath when they reached the relative safety of the terrace.
The scampering was responsible for her flushed face and slight air of disarray, and the brightness of her eyes, of course. Not what had preceded the scampering. No, surely not. She couldn’t possibly feel as flustered as he did, or as full of unsated arousal careening blindly about with nowhere to go.
“See? Our relationship is full of intrigue and danger already, Charlotte,” he said, hoping he sounded more droll than hopelessly besotted.
Her look was definitely droll, if still a bit charmingly mussed. Her lips, he noticed despite himself, looked extremely freshly kissed and no mistaking it. He decided not to tell her.
“Nonsense. It’s a highly respectable marriage of social convenience between a dull, long-in-the-tooth widow and an aging bachelor who’s finally realized he needs a woman’s touch to properly manage his ancestral estate. Nothing could be more ordinary. Baron Hardison.”
But then she smiled, with those delightfully wicked lips. Like magic, two utterly charming dimples materialized on her cheeks.
How long, he was already beginning to wonder, might he be able to drag their mission out?
Five
UPPER NEW YORK DOMINION
CHARLOTTE’S MOTHER WOULD have preferred a wedding with all the considerable pomp and ceremony of her first. After all, she pointed out, the first marriage had hardly lasted very long at all, and even Charlotte’s mourning had lasted longer than her engagement and marriage combined.
“A bit too long for good taste, these days, dear,” she’d pointed out gently. “Although I know one can’t hurry grief.”
One can suborn grief entirely in the rush of learning to fly, and going through months of combat and strategy training, Charlotte refrained from saying. To her mother, she was a proper grieving widow. Just as her father was a proper gentleman who had never worked a day in his life.
Tell that to the French, who still spoke of him in furious hushed tones as La Main de la Mort Silencieuse . . . the Hand of Silent Death. Would she live long enough to earn her own melodramatic epithet, Charlotte wondered? It seemed a less romantic prospect lately, dying for her country. She rather thought she might prefer to live to fight another day. Her course was long settled, though. Looking to the distant future was pointless.
“The dove gray is pretty with your coloring, Charlotte. Unless you’d prefer blue? I know I won’t talk you into pink. You’re still young enough to get away with it, you know. It’s quite fashionable this year.”
“Peacock blue,” Charlotte said, much to her mother’s obvious surprise. “That’s popular just now, isn’t it?”
“Very.”
“And it would flatter me, I think.”
“Of course it would. Would you like me to arrange a visit from Madame Elaine?”
“I already have,” she replied, running her fingers idly over the pearly, tailored lines of the silk dress laid out on the bed beside her.
She had come out of mourning so recently that her newly made clothes could easily serve as a trousseau. Of course she had ordered them with that in mind, although her mother didn’t know that. There really wasn’t much else to do before the wedding except plan the day and pack for the honeymoon. A widow’s second wedding was far easier to orchestrate than a maiden socialite’s first.
But she wouldn’t deprive her mother of the pleasure of seeing her in a new gown, made especially for the occasion. Besides, Charlotte had to admit that the peacock-blue airship helmet had done amazing things for her eyes. She’d almost hated to send it back on that basis alone.
Not that it mattered whether her dress flattered her eyes on her wedding day. It wasn’t to be a real marriage, and would last only as long as necessary to accomplish the vital mission it had been organized to facilitate. And there would be no further emergency occasions to pretend at passion while kissing her ersatz husband in moonlit gardens.
Charlotte told herself this in a very stern voice, as she had several times a day for the past week. Perhaps she was being less stern with herself than she thought, for her mother smiled at her in a knowing way as she passed by with another gown.
“I would have liked to see a longer engagement, but I think perhaps you and the Baron are smart not to wait. People do like to talk.”
“Pardon?”
“The Vanderbilt back gardens were notorious already, dear. No need to add to their notoriety. Even in the excitement of an engagement.”
“Oh!”
She stared at her hands, not sure whether to laugh or cry from embarrassment. She should have nothing to be embarrassed about. Not only was she a widow—and she certainly wouldn’t be the first widow to take a lover—she had in fact been doing only what was necessary to secure the public awareness of the affection between herself and her apparent fiancé. Their kiss had been a sort of state secret. Only rather less secret than public.
“In his lap, Charlotte? Really? And to hear Lady Elliot tell it, his hand was halfway up your skirt and he was close to ripping your dress off with his teeth.”
“Mother!”
“I’m sure she exaggerated,” her mother said, her calm voice soothing Charlotte’s ruffled feathers as usual. “But I think soonest is probably best. So people won’t talk.”
About where the Makesmith Baron’s hand had been. Or his teeth. She didn’t explain to her mother that only one of those descriptions was at all exaggerated. He hadn’t been using his teeth at all just then. Not on her dress, anyway.
“People should find more interesting ways to occupy their time than inventing scandals.” Charlotte smoothed the dress out again and stood up, wandering over to her vanity and sitting down to fuss with her hair in the mirror. She allowed herself just a hint of smugness. “That little girl honestly thought she had a chance with Dexter, and her mother was foolish enough to encourage her. I imagine they were both having themselves a tantrum about being thwarted. Heaven only knows what the child thought she saw. And you know how these stories grow so quickly. They take on a life of their own.”
Her mother’s face appeared in the mirror over her shoulder, eyes narrowed. “Charlotte. You really did let him molest you in the garden, didn’t you? I would never have expected that kind of coarseness from you. I do like Baron Hardison, but I’m not at all sure he’s an appropriate match if he’s going to encourage this sort of behavior.”