This was real.
She was in love. She had a lover.
A good one.
Her body ached all over. She was tenderest between her legs, but there were other hurts, as well. Her nipples throbbed from being suckled. Her inner thighs were chafed just the slightest bit raw from his whiskers.
Little echoes of pleasure pulsed between her legs.
She squeezed her thighs together.
“Charlotte,” she said aloud. “Whatever would your mother say?”
As she lay motionless, a wide grin spread from one cheek to the other. Unable to contain it, she rolled over onto her belly and buried her shriek of delight in the pillow, kicking her toes against the mattress.
Then she stopped abruptly as the door opened, going limp and playing asleep. Just in time, or so Charlotte hoped. She’d probably looked as though she were having a fit.
“Beggin’ pardon, Miss Highwood. Your breakfast tray.”
Charlotte muttered a sleepy-sounding thanks and peeked just long enough to see the maid leaving the room.
Then she threw back the bedclothes and reached for her dressing gown.
The smell of buttered toast and hot chocolate was as irresistible as a certain man’s kisses. She was famished.
Piers must have sent this up. Charlotte normally took breakfast downstairs with the Parkhurst ladies. But he would have known she’d be exhausted this morning, and hungry, as well.
Such caring. Such attention to detail.
As she slid one arm through her dressing gown, she noticed a sprig of green and violet laid across the corner of the tray.
A flower?
Perhaps the man had true romance in him after all.
Smiling to herself, she plucked the purple blossom from the tray and twirled it between her fingers. She peered at it. At first glance, she’d thought it to be one of the Michaelmas daisies cropping up everywhere this time of year. But it wasn’t a common aster. Some sort of iris, or orchid perhaps? A gardener, Charlotte was not.
She set it aside with a shrug.
Whatever it was, it was pretty and most thoughtful. But the surest way to her heart was through her stomach, and the heap of perfectly browned toast on a plate might as well have been gold.
She tied her dressing gown sash in a knot, preparing to sit down and feast. But her fingers fumbled with the knot. How strange. Her right hand didn’t want to work properly. A pins and needles feeling spread from her fingers to her wrist.
She shook it out, assuming she must have slept on her trapped arm.
But the shaking didn’t help. Instead of fading, the tingling sensation increased. By now it had spread up her wrist to her elbow.
Stranger still, she couldn’t feel her fingers at all.
Her heart began to pound in the queerest way. A flurry of rapid beats, then none at all. Then off it went galloping again.
How vexing. She had inherited Mama’s flutterings, after all.
She ought to lie down, she supposed.
But as she turned toward the bed, her vision grayed and blurred at the edges. As if life were suddenly an engraved newspaper vignette.
This was more than a “fluttering.” Something was wrong.
Piers would know what was wrong.
“Piers.”
The word stuck on her drying lips. She tried again. “Piers?”
Not loud enough. Drat.
Her knees wavered. She grabbed the chair with her left hand, clinging to it. Her right arm was nothing but three feet of dead weight dangling from her shoulder.
She had to get out of this room.
Charlotte knew she was going to collapse, and she couldn’t be alone when it happened.
Her heart thundered in her ears as she stumbled toward the door of her bedchamber. She watched her own left hand grappling with the broken door latch, as though it belonged to someone else.
Charlotte, concentrate.
At last, her fingers obeyed. They closed on the door latch and pulled the door inward a foot—two at most.
Just wide enough for Charlotte to collapse through it and faint into the corridor.
Thud.
At Sir Vernon’s invitation, Piers settled down to tea and light refreshments in the library.
“I appreciate your time, Sir Vernon. This morning was most instructive.”
They’d just completed a tour of the farmland under the guise of discussing irrigation methods. So far as Piers could see, nothing looked amiss. No signs that the man was economizing or selling off possessions, or making any outlandish purchases. Overall, Parkhurst Manor seemed to be an estate in remarkably good financial health—almost as thriving as his own.
In over a week, Sir Vernon hadn’t suggested cards or dice, or anything more high-stakes than “poorest catch buys pints of cider at the pub.” A gaming habit seemed unlikely.
So where was the money going?
To a long-ago mistress, or a bastard child. There were no plausible alternatives remaining.
But he needed access to the man’s private correspondence and accounts to confirm the truth. What with all the distractions, he hadn’t found another opportunity to search.
Be honest with yourself, Piers.
The truth was, he could have found opportunities to search. But he’d been making opportunities to spend time with Charlotte instead.
And then he’d made Charlotte his own.
“Don’t you think?”
Piers raised his eyebrow and his teacup in a diplomatic, noncommittal gesture that would hopefully be taken as . . . whatever response he ought to have made, had he been paying attention.
He thought of Charlotte looking as he’d left her, sleeping in her own bed just as the first rays of dawn touched the horizon. Snoring faintly, in an adorably unabashed way.
Was it any wonder he couldn’t concentrate this morning?
Every moment that crawled past was a moment he wanted to be with her. Holding her. Inside her, pushing her toward another sweetly voiced crisis of pleasure. Talking and laughing with her afterward.
“Ahem.” The butler appeared in the doorway. “Forgive the interruption, sir. Lady Parkhurst has a matter that requires your attention.”
“Does she?” Sir Vernon shrugged. “You don’t mind, do you, Granville? A matter of household management or menus, most likely, but we must keep the ladies happy.”
“Indeed.”
This was the opportunity Piers had been waiting for.
Once alone, he could search the man’s desk, finish the business he’d come here to complete. Then he could announce his engagement to Charlotte and leave.