Mittman, Stephanie (28 page)

From
the moment Maria had brought them their tea and told them that Charlotte had
lost her case, it had taken every ounce of willpower to stay nailed to his seat.
And then there was his mother to help convince him, tightening her grip on his
arm and assuring him that when it came to the law, at least, Cabot would be her
refuge.

Now
he was going to make sure that Cabot hadn't let the woman down.

They
weren't in their offices, or in the parlor or the dining room. Maria said she
was preparing a tray to bring upstairs, as everyone was taking their meals in
their rooms. Would he like that as well?

"I'm
not hungry," he grumbled at her, trying not to imagine Cabot and Charlotte
taking tea together in the bedroom. "I had enough tea with my mother to
float a boat to China." He sounded sulky, even to himself, and he took the
stairs two at a time, racing past the second floor without even looking at
their doors.

Whose
room were they in? he wondered, baffled by how his brother could pass up the
chance to share a room and a bed with Charlotte. Didn't he want her to be the
last thing he saw before he shut his eyes? Didn't he want to watch her sleep in
the first strains of daylight, her hair every which way, those long eyelashes
of hers resting on those soft pink cheeks? Just because he couldn't fill her
womb with children, didn't he still want to unlace her boots? Unfasten the
buttons that ran in a row down her spine?

His
mother was right—someone was adding more steps to the third-floor stairwell
every day. Today the flight went on forever and he could barely drag his feet
to his door.

Liberty,
that fickle flirt who batted his eyes at both men and women, began his greeting
before Ash had even opened his door. "The swell's here! The swell's
here!" he shouted, following it with so much banging about the room that
Ash had to wonder if he was stashing some lady bird in the closet.

J
eez,
it
had been a long time since either of them had been free birds with room to fly.

The
room was dark, despite all the windows. The sky had turned grayer and grayer
with the day as if in sympathy for the people beneath it. He lit the lamp
beside his bed and stretched out, his hands behind his back, his eyes closed,
and prayed that he would wake up from the nightmare of his life.

It
was cold, cold and wet, and reluctantly he opened one eye to find that the
window had been left ajar. With his foot he swung the edge of the bedcover up
and over his legs and watched the curtains blow in the wind until the chill
forced him up.

Two
hands on the sash, he'd nearly closed the window before he saw her, huddled in
a ball in the rain like so much wet laundry. "Charlotte?" he
whispered into the wind.

She
nodded. At least he thought she did, as he squinted into the darkness trying to
make out her shivering form. He didn't bother waiting to be sure. He was out
the window almost before he'd gotten it fully open again, and had her collected
up in his arms. "Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte," he kept repeating,
gathering her soggy woolen skirt up with her and carrying her back through the
window.

Her
blouse was soaked through. Her wet skirt probably weighed twenty pounds. He put
her down onto the bed and she just sat there, shaking from the cold, not saying
a word, those goddamn hazel eyes growing bigger as she stared up at him
silently.

He
opened the top button on her blouse, the two under it, and one more still, so
that his hands were working between her breasts. "I could get Maria or
Rosa," he offered when she neither resisted nor offered help of her own.

She
shook her head, water droplets flying, and he pressed her against him, trying
to dry her hair with his shirttails. Without letting go of her, he leaned
toward the foot of his bed, grabbed the towel off the footboard, and wrapped
her hair in it. Limply she sat in front of him, shivering wildly but making no
move to warm herself.

"Christ!"
he said, taking one of her hands and placing it on top of her head to secure
the towel. "Hold this. I'm going to get you out of these wet things."

"He
told me to stop crying," she said shakily, shuddering breaths interrupting
her as she spoke.

He
unfastened the remaining buttons of her blouse and peeled it from her body, her
wet skin fighting to keep it plastered to her. The hook of her skirt fought him
as well, and he had to dry his fingers twice before he could convince it to let
go. When it did, he pushed her gently onto her back and wiggled the skirt from
beneath her hips.

"No.
He called it blubbering," she told him, sniffing and rubbing her nose with
the back of her hand. "He called me a blubbering female, as if I had no
relation to him. Like I was some stranger in the jury box who'd been swept away
by some misplaced sentimentality."

"Put
your head on the pillow," he ordered, swinging her feet up and trying not
to notice that her underthings were soaked through and that he could see what
little nature had endowed her with, and how perfectly it suited her.

She
took a big shuddering sob and squirmed around on the bed. After she was
settled, he folded the edges of his coverlet over her.

"Get
the rest of your wet stuff off," he said. He meant to turn away then, not
to watch her movements under the blankets as she gyrated her hips before bending
and straightening her legs several times. Finally her twisted little cotton
drawers appeared against his footboard in a soggy heap. "All of it,"
he directed as he flicked the drawers out straight and then laid them over the
back of his chair to dry.

"I
can't stay here," she said, the covers pulled up to her armpits as she
held out another wet piece of cotton with a trembling naked arm.

"No
one knows where you are," he said, half a statement, half a prayer.

"No.
It's not that. I have to go find Davis before it's too late." She began
wrapping the covers more tightly around her and inching toward the edge of his
bed.

"Too
late for what?" he asked, pushing her back with very little effort. She
was frozen, her bare skin still damp as he reached for his dressing gown at the
foot of the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders.

"His
father. Oh! What have I done to that boy!" Dissolving in tears, she fell
back against the pillows and turned her head away from him.

"His
father isn't going to lay a finger on him tonight," he said, uncovering
just her feet and rubbing them hard. "You're an icicle! We need something
warm here." He sat on the edge of the bed and unlaced his shoes, pulled
off his socks, and slipped the warm soft wool stockings onto her tiny feet.

"That
feels wonderful!" She was still shivering, each of her words shaky when
she spoke. "Ewing Flannigan was mad, Ashford. I really better—" She
tried to sit up again, nearly losing the blanket in the process.

He
could feel his jaw drop, he just couldn't seem to do anything about it but
stand there like some besotted fool. He tried swallowing, but with his mouth
open couldn't manage so difficult a trick. If just the small swell of her
breast left him breathless, he could only imagine what seeing what else hid under
his blanket would do to him.

He
told himself this was ridiculous. Why, in the islands he'd seen more naked
women than clothed ones. Once, two of them—he stopped the thought before it
fully took shape. That was another lifetime.

"Ashford?"
She was slipping into his dressing gown, one naked shoulder at a time. Had her
teeth not been chattering, her lips not been blue, her whole body not been
shuddering wildly, he might not have been able to control himself. "Do you
think you could sneak down to my room and get me some clothing? I have to get
to the Flannigans."

"I
told you he's safe for tonight," Ash repeated. Safer, he thought, than
they were. "Moss is waiting at home for them. He'll be camped outside the
door all night."

Her
eyes glistened, then spilled over, tears streaking her face. "I should
have known," she said, and picked up the pillow behind her to hug against
her chest. The trembling continued, her breathing quavering with each breath.

"Should
I send for some tea?" he asked. "I could go down and send Rosa up to
you."

She
shook her head nervously.

"Then
let me warm you." There was a huskiness to his voice that unnerved him. He
could only imagine its effect on her.

Slowly,
deliberately, she set the pillow aside and moved from the center of the bed so
that there would be room for him. "I'm freezing," she told him when
he sat down on the bed. He carefully propped himself up against the headboard,
keeping the quilts between them, and rolled her against his side. "I've
been freezing forever."

She
was awkward against him and he had to guide her to where her body would fit
neatly against his.

"He's
never held you, has he?" he asked. He felt her shake her head against his
chest and pushed her away so that he could see her face. "Why have you
stood for it, Charlotte? Why haven't you demanded more of your marriage?"

She
averted her eyes, unwilling to meet his own. "He can't," she said
softly, trying to burrow back into his armpit like one of her furry creatures.

"Can't
do this?" he asked, rubbing her arm briskly to warm her up. "Can't do
this?" he asked again, planting a kiss on the top of her head.

"Won't,
then," she admitted, pushing herself closer against him until one of
Liberty's feathers couldn't have gotten between them.

"What
about this, Charlotte? Can he do this?" He tipped her head back and kissed
her hard on the mouth, no teasing of lips, no brushing cheeks or rubbing noses.
Just a hard, demanding kiss that deepened until his lips were asking her for
promises of now and forever, deepening still further until his tongue demanded
that she be his alone for always.

She
was stronger than he would have guessed as she eased down onto the mattress and
pulled him along with her. Her arms wrapped around his back, pressing him
closer against her, every piece of her so hungry for affection that he felt as
if he were somehow taking advantage of her need while slaking his own.

With
little effort he rolled her onto her back and hung above her, looking down at
her as he would if he were about to take her. "Can he do this?" he
demanded, searching for her breast with his kiss, running his lips against the
silk dressing gown until he felt the pebble beneath it, toying with it until
the pebble became a stone and the woman's hunger began to match his own.

She
pressed up against him, arching her back, the full length of her against the
full length of him.

He
snaked his hand between them, tracing her ribs, one after the other, always
lower and lower still until he reached the soft expanse of her belly. The
spread of his hand spanned her whole being there, and he tipped and twisted it
until down was up and up was down and his fingers came to rest at the soft
curls of her femininity.

"Are
you still cold?" he asked, his fingers poised to make her warmer yet. Her
answer came with hard breaths, her mound thrust up toward him.

"Don't
stop," she said, willing beneath his touch. "Oh, please don't
stop."

"Don't
stop!" Liberty shouted from the windowsill, where he had courteously
turned his back until now. "Oh! Oh! Oh! Don't stop! Shut up, you stupid
bird!"

Charlotte
was up before he could stop her, pulling the robe against her bare skin, her
eyes frantic as she searched in the darkness for her things.

"Ow!
Ow!" she yelped as quietly as she could, hopping around holding her toe
and affording him a view in the lamplight that was worth going to hell for—no
doubt the price he would pay for seducing his brother's wife.

"Are
you all right?" he asked, averting his eyes and holding out her
still-dripping undergarments.

"No,
I'm not all right," she said, clutching the wet things to her breast and
starting to shiver all over again. "I'm married to your brother, for
heaven's sake! What did I think I was doing? My God! I've given myself to my
husband's brother!"

"Okay,"
he said, one hand up to calm her down. "Whoa, there. You haven't given
yourself to anyone. We did not actually do anything... really. I mean, not
anything like you're feeling guilty about...." She knew what they hadn't
done. Did he have to spell it out? It wasn't as if he'd docked his boat in her
slip.

Shocked
didn't
quite describe the look on her face.
Incredulous,
maybe.
Flabbergasted.

"We
didn't kiss? You didn't—" She pointed in the general vicinity of his lips
and then her breast. "And you did
touch my
—my—" She clutched
his robe more tightly around her middle.

"No.
I didn't touch your—your—" They were beginning to sound like Davis. I
nearly touched your—your— but I stopped before—" He made a rolling gesture
with his hands to indicate that there was plenty more he hadn't done.

Her
eyebrows came down over troubled eyes. "Before what?"