An Affair Before Christmas

If Fletch were kissing her now, he would kiss right up the pale part of her leg, and then higher, by her knee. She shivered a little bit, thinking about it and wrapped her arms around her chest. Which made her breasts start tingling. And then he’d kiss higher, one had to think, and then…

Of course he would kiss her breasts. She touched where he would kiss her. And then…

And by the end of another hour, the night was turning itself inside out, into a velvet shell in which her body was lying as she thought of Fletch doing this, and Fletch doing that. And finally she kept thinking about one night, when her hair hadn’t been so terrible, and Fletch had been kissing her—there.

At the time she hadn’t thought of it as kissing, but in a coarser more embarrassed sort of way. But now she remembered it as kissing, and she couldn’t help remembering, again and again, what it felt like, and how she’d almost moaned once.

And then she couldn’t help making little noises; after all, she was all alone and snug under the covers, in the great blackness of the inn and it felt as if she wasn’t herself, not Poppy. She was some other woman, one of those women Fletch used to watch in Paris.

She had lived in Paris, after all. She knew exactly how a woman looked who wasn’t a lady. The kind of purr in her voice, and the invitation in her eyes.

Poppy just never realized that she wasn’t a lady either.

It made a great deal of sense to her that at the most bewilderingly lovely moment of the night, she found herself thinking in French.

Chapter 44

Country seat of the Duke of Beaumont December 21

Charlotte was very disconcerted to find that she had arrived before her hostess. But she knew how it happened: the duchess had undoubtedly taken her time on the road, whereas Charlotte and May had found the least expensive way for her to get to the party, which involved taking the stagecoach and then hiring someone to drive her and her maid from the coaching inn to Beaumont Manor.

The butler didn’t say anything, of course. He merely bowed, and mentioned that perhaps she wouldn’t mind a quiet evening, as the other guests had not yet arrived. Charlotte put her chin up and swept past him, trying to pretend that it was the duchess’s fault for not arriving, not hers for being early.

The seat of the Duke of Beaumont was surrounded by miles and miles of formal park, from what Charlotte had seen on the way in, and the house itself was just as grand. It was so large it resembled a cathedral from the outside, at least to Charlotte’s mind. And inside the ceilings were so high one could hardly see them in the gloom and there were innumerable doors and corridors leading off here and there.

The butler was just as bad; he wore livery that was absolutely covered with red braid, and his hair rose in a stiff powdered peak above his forehead. He looked,Charlotte thought, rather like a bishop, but wearing his hair instead of a miter.

“I suppose the duchess has not assigned me a room?” Charlotte said meekly, half running to keep up with him. “I am sorry to put the house hold out.”

The butler, Mr. Blount, unbent a little and said, “Her Grace sent all her instructions ahead of time. She is most organized.”

They were walking along on the second-floor corridor when suddenly there was the most awful bellowing. Charlotte squeaked and dropped her knotting bag. It sounded like an animal was in pain, except that it was definitely a man.

The butler stopped as well. “I am most sorry for the disturbance, miss,” he said majestically. “One of the guests is less than well.”

“The Duke of Villiers?”Charlotte said, feeling her face break into a smile. “Is he here already?”

“Indeed,” the butler said, disapproval showing in every twitch of his hair.

Another shout broke out and this time she realized it was from just down the hall. It was like a call to arms: she couldn’t ignore it. Before the butler could stop her, Charlotte opened the door and walked in.

A horrible sight met her eyes. Villiers was bare to the waist, and being held down by two footmen while Finchley poured something that literally smoked onto a terrible wound in his side. Finchley turned and saw her; his hand wobbled and dark liquid fell on Villiers’s chest.

The duke was staring straight up at the ceiling but he snarled, “For God’s sake, get it over with Finchley! I can’t take much more of this.”

“Miss Tatlock,” Finchley stuttered.

“What are you doing,” she demanded, snatching the bottle out of the manservant’s hand. “Just what do you think you’re doing to him?”

Finchley’s mouth fell open but it was Villiers who answered her. “I’d love to say that he is slaying me, but he’s under doctor’s orders.”

“Well, what kind of doctor would suggest this!” She waved the black bottle. For some reason, she was boiling angry. She turned on the butler without a bit of the timidity she felt before. “Just who is this doctor?”

It took Villiers’s laughter, weak but present, to make her stop interrogating the butler. And Finchley.

“Damn it, you have to make me stop laughing,” he said, gasping a bit. “It hurts!”

“He’s that much better, Miss Tatlock,” Finchley said earnestly. “Truly. Dr. Treglown is a miracle, he is. He opened the wound and it was all infected there, like you wouldn’t believe. We’ve been treating it for days.”

“I might survive,” Villiers remarked. “I hope you’re ready to fall in love, Miss Tatlock.”

The butler drew in an insulted breath and rose to his full height. “In love! Is that it? I wondered at the temerity of this young person, the way she burst into a man’s bedchamber, the way—”

Villiers lifted his hand and shot him one icy look and the butler stumbled to a halt. “She’s not in love with me, Blount. Nor yet will she be. But you had better prepare yourself if you’re running some sort of puritan house hold here. You do realize that your mistress is the Duchess of Beaumont, don’t you?”

The butler drew himself up again, a strange mixture of pride and dismay struggling in his face. “Her Grace is our every thought,” he announced.

“Excellent. This is one of Her Grace’s most highly thought-of guests, Miss Tatlock.”

“I am aware,” the butler said, bowing with a snap. “If I may, I shall take Miss Tatlock to her chambers. I was just escorting her there so that she could clean off her travel dirt.”

I’ve made an enemy, Charlotte thought. She saw Villiers’s eyes on her shabby traveling costume and suddenly she realized for the first time that she was, indeed, inside a duke’s bedchamber—and he was unclothed.

“That mantua-maker,” Villiers said suddenly. “I brought her along. Miss Tatlock must see her immediately. The plan,” he said to Charlotte. “The plan!”

Oh lord. The butler was looking at her with positively virulent disapproval at this evidence that a young miss was allowing a duke to pay for her clothing. There could be no greater evidence of her status as the proverbial Whore of Babylon. “Mr. Dautry?” Charlotte ventured. “Surely his transformation is more important, Your Grace?”

“Damn, I’m tired,” Villiers murmured, closing his eyes again. “I forced Dautry to see the tailor and he protested like a sheep taken for shearing. You, Miss Tatlock, will be my masterpiece. And I’ve made certain there will be plenty of young men here for you to choose from.”