Page 29 of A Properly Conducted Sham (Most Imprudent Matches #5)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

BENNET HALL, SURREY - JULY 28, 1816

LEE

Her breathing evened into slow and steady rhythms around the same time her frigid feet made their way between my calves. I trailed off in the midst of an increasingly absurd story after the entirely fictitious cat used various household objects to barricade the princess in the tower.

The snoring began shortly thereafter—little sounds, quiet enough to be amusing rather than annoying. I dropped a kiss to her temple. My hand traced along the curves of her side, up her shoulder and down to her hip and back.

Fury unlike any I’d ever known still swirled through my veins at the thought of her late husband and the arse at the masquerade. Every man she’d ever met or thought about meeting made it onto my list.

But I also felt tenderness like I had never experienced. That was overpowering the rage at the moment. Now that I had her wrapped in my arms where she was safe and warm—mostly, the feet seemed to still be a problem—nothing could hurt her. I wouldn’t allow it.

Hovering just out of reach was the memory of Mia, another woman I’d vowed to protect. Mia had far fewer people trying to cause her harm. And still, I’d failed her.

Reflexively, my arms tightened. Charlotte’s snores broke off for a moment, but she didn’t wake. Under my hand, the babe gave a little kick, nothing hard enough to interrupt its mother’s rest.

“Hush, little one. Let your mama sleep.” The words were more breath than whisper, and neither babe nor mother stirred.

I couldn’t decide if wedding Charlotte was the best or worst decision of my life. If I hadn’t agreed, if I’d refused… She would have found someone else, and all I would have was the memory of a single dance. That thought was so painful I could hardly imagine it.

Except the future would come, the one where I had a year to accustom myself to Charlotte’s musical laugh, lavender scent, and silky curls. And then I had to say goodbye to her. That would be unbearable, and it was inevitable at this point.

But there was one more possibility, almost certainly an inevitability itself. The version of this story where I showed her that love, physical love, didn’t have to be painful. In that version, I spent the next several months worshiping her. And wouldn’t that be worse still? To have had her, truly had her, in almost every way that counted, and then set her free. Or was it worse to know with absolute certainty that this woman, my Charlotte, was moving through life thinking love and pain were one and the same?

It hardly mattered because I was a beggar, and I would feast on whatever scraps she deigned to give me. I would subsist on them until there was nothing left. And then I would live on the memories. Now I just had to make sure they were good ones. The best.

By the next evening, we had entered into something of a standoff. One I hadn’t the slightest idea of how to break. Well, I had a great number of ideas on how I might go about that. But those were fantasies in which I was the world’s greatest lover, and Charlotte was waiting on my advances with bated breath.

In reality, we hovered around each other—or I was at any rate—hoping for the slightest indication that she wished me to ravish her.

Nothing of the sort had arrived at the breakfast table.

She’d made no hint that she wished for my attentions at tea.

Supper, too, was bereft of significant glances.

Now she peered up at me, her brow arched, as she stood beside my telescope. Her soft lips requested assistance in adjusting it. That was the moment I realized that there were, perhaps, indications I had missed.

A lingering glance across the breakfast dishes.

A brushed hand when passing the tea.

Knees sliding between one another under the table.

Now she begged for my help with a task she’d mastered a month ago. And she did so without backing away in the slightest. She forced me into her orbit, trapping me there forever.

“Lee?”

“Yes?”

“I should like to retire now.”

Blast and damnation! I had missed the signs and now it was too late. “Is it your back again?”

I grabbed the lantern and blew out the nearby candles.

“No, my back is perfectly well.”

“Tired?”

She tucked herself against my side as we made the short climb back to the house. “Not in the slightest.”

“I don’t— Oh …”

“Caught up now?”

“I—yes. I believe so.”

We reached the house, and Brigsby was there to see us in. I asked him to close up the observatory while Charlotte started up the steps without me.

Task disposed of, I raced after her like an overeager puppy, catching her around the waist and spinning her to face me a few steps before the landing. I liked kissing her here, where she was an inch or two taller than me. Loved it, in point of fact.

The change in angle left her kisses bolder. Her hands were greedier, her whimpers a little more demanding.

She pulled away, chuckling quietly when my lips chased hers. “Do we understand each other?”

“Yes?” I panted out before recognizing the questioning lilt. “Yes. Yes. We understand each other.”

“Good.” Her lips crashed onto mine, her hands spearing in my hair. I took a step, then another, crowding her down the hall in a repeat of the other night. Only this time, there was purpose behind the action. Determination. This kiss wouldn’t end outside her door.

And it didn’t.

Who was responsible for the actual turning of the knob would forever remain a mystery, but we stumbled into the room in an ungainly tangle of limbs. Well, mine were ungainly. Hers were elegant and poised as always—probably—I was too busy with the dress hooks to truly notice.

They were easier for the previous night’s practice. The petticoats, too, were simple work to remove.

Charlotte’s hands were nearly as greedy as mine. Shoving off my waistcoat, tugging at my cravat—with only a light strangulation—yanking my shirt from my breeches.

Ice raced through my veins at that.

“Wait.” The word escaped without permission, and I ripped my lips from hers.

“Leeee,” she whined. It was quite possibly the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.

“I… there are scars.”

She blinked, owlish, in response before comprehension slid over her face. The distance I had gained evaporated with her single step. Wordlessly, she returned to her task with more reverence and less ardor than I would have liked. Gently, she dragged her palms along my flank, the shirt moving with them.

She could not manage the entire task without my assistance. When the linen caught on my arms, I lifted them with a trepidation I hadn’t felt since the night of the masquerade. Summoning my courage, I caught it behind my neck and tugged it up and over.

And then I stood there, allowing—enduring—her perusal. My gaze settled on something over her head, but I wasn’t actually seeing it. Every second without a word was agonizing. My chest tightened and my heart plucked an irregular beat, squeezed too tight by too much and not enough air in my lungs.

She stepped away and turned toward her bedside table. I found myself floating above the scene. My body motionless there with a mottled, gnarled, twisted chest. And Charlotte’s delicate form, prim and perfect and too polite to scream.

It was ten, perhaps twenty seconds between when she stepped away and when she returned. And I died in them. My chest cracked open and my heart poured out, still tripping along half-heartedly.

I fought to remember, to consider. Linen stitches in the shirt, still clenched in one hand. There weren’t enough things to touch, to center, and my feet weren’t working. Dimly, I was aware of her return, but I was too lost to recognize it. And then… peppermint.

I gasped, my lungs finding purchase again as the crisp scent of peppermint wafting up from somewhere. Delicate hands found my empty one and pressed something into it—a mint. Charlotte. Charlotte had brought me a peppermint. The stinging burn of it on my tongue cut through the panic in a way nothing else could. The razor-edged aura of mint freed the breath trapped in my chest while I had been desperately gulping more with no space. And my heart, still pounding, echoing in my chest, returning to an even tempo.

“Better?”

I nodded, certain any words would come out shrill and thready.

“Is this why you’ve been so… reluctant?”

Another nod, accompanied by a swallow of mint. I could sense the moment it hit my stomach, stilling the raging ocean in my belly.

“Lee… you’re beautiful.”

“What?” The word escaped me in a choked half gasp, half cough.

“You are. I’ve always thought so.” Lies .

“You do not have to?—”

“I am not lying. Truly. You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.”

“Charlotte—”

And because she was my Charlotte, she rolled her eyes. Nothing in the world could have made me laugh in that moment—except for that. My chuckle earned me another eye roll before she shocked me into silent stupor.

She stepped even closer, rose up onto her toes, and pressed a kiss to the worst of the scars, right above my heart. It had taken years to stop paining me, that particular scar. I still occasionally had a strange, constricting sensation alone in bed—so alone. Always alone.

And Charlotte was kissing it.

As a rule, I touched my chest as little as possible. The skin under her touch was thicker, an odd juxtaposition of numb and too sensitive. The impression of her lips on my raised flesh was unlike any I had ever experienced. I couldn’t feel it the same way I felt her hand on my unmarred shoulder—instant, exact, hot, and soft except for the very tips of her fingers, calloused from her harp practice. But my skin knew something was there and her touch tingled, singed, in a way that was entirely new. And what I lacked in sensation, I was able to fill in with the visual.

And, oh , what a visual. She had dropped back down to her toes and was making her way along the angry marks, kissing each one. The sharper, more distinct line where the rod had landed and the freeform, abstract ripples where the fabric had caught.

I stood there stupidly staring at her with my hands hovering about her shoulders, desperate to touch her but too afraid to shatter this illusion. And it was surely an illusion. She would not—could not—look upon the evidence of my disgrace and see beauty there, something worthy of her touch.

Except, I never could have imagined the dual thrill of the hand dragging down my unmarred left side and its twin on the left matching it. The moment was surreal. And wonderful. And I was not nearly clever enough to contrive it. Which meant this was happening.

And that meant I could touch her . My hands settled, one on her waist, the other on the back of her messy curls. Itchy fingers longed to sink into the silky strands.

Pins—must remove pins. The other hand joined in the pursuit, but she paid no heed, working her way along the wound that curved around my rib cage.

When she found the edge of the scar, a groan ripped from me. Everything was different there, more . Too much. Not enough.

My hand tightened involuntarily in her—mostly free—curls, pulling her up to catch her lips in mine. Whatever restraint I once had was gone, forgotten. I was entirely incapable of it.

Stays—looser today—fell to the floor between us with one firm yank on the laces. I stepped over them, directing her back toward the bed between desperate, heady kisses.

There were things I was supposed to remember. I knew they existed. But what they were… It was anyone’s guess.

When her knees hit the bed, Charlotte broke away and fell back to land in a disheveled heap on the bed. Perfection.

I knelt before her, too wrung out for guise or artifice. Because I was going to convince her to stay here, stay with me, tonight. Right now.

A slipper came free easily and I tossed it away with a thunk . The stocking, silk and lovely, followed over my shoulder, floating down like stardust in my periphery. Then their twins.

“Lee?” Nothing but the slight apprehension in her voice could have compelled me back to reason.

Still, the fetching knee was right there in desperate need of a kiss before I dragged that leg over my shoulder. I leaned back, meeting her gaze with a raised brow.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, a mix of trepidation, curiosity, and lust in her voice.

That was it, the thing I was supposed to remember. Every single man she had ever met had been a selfish arse. I couldn’t decide whether I hated the men who came before or loved them for allowing me to be the first one to do this for her—to show her pleasure.

But then Charlotte’s lip caught between her teeth warily and I settled firmly on hate. I pushed it down, it wouldn’t help in this. Instead, I summoned the memory of her lips on my chest, vanishing everything except the adoration I felt for her.

“Do you trust me?” My voice was ragged, ripped apart and put together into a graveled, shredded mockery of my usual tone.

“What?”

I pressed another kiss to the side of her knee, still r ight there . “Charlotte… Let me love you.”

Her eyes widened, considering. That was the moment I realized what I was asking—and my heart cracked in two.

The “please” poured out of me, thoughtless and desperate. This wasn’t about her pleasure—not yet. She was opening herself for me, risking pain, rejection, every awful thing that had ever happened to her.

I was asking her to show me her scars.

When she nodded, a tentative, shy movement, I loved her all the more for it.