The Duchess Diaries: The Bridal Pleasures Series (29 page)

“You did the right thing,” she said, looking away from the door. He hadn’t seen the maid. Charlotte was afraid to upset him. Who knew how he might react? He made her so nervous that her mouth went dry. Perhaps if she was nice to him, he would go away. “I am proud that you listened to the voice of your conscience.”

“Yeah, whatever that is. But I gotta go. All I want is a dress for my girl. Something pretty and frilly and light to wear out.”

“I don’t know what would fit her,” Charlotte said, lowering the fan she had poised to attack. “Come with me to the wardrobe and pick, but please don’t touch my wedding dress.”

So they went into the other room together to the French gilt armoire, and Charlotte managed to talk him into choosing a turquoise silk with beribboned sleeves
and an embroidered hem. “I haven’t worn it. There’s room if she needs it. Just help her adjust the laces, and, of course, a good corset helps. Does she have anything to support her?”

He frowned. “She goes to the Female Penitentiary Society from time to time and they give ’er some grub once in a while. But other than that, I pay for what she needs.”

“No. I mean does she have a good corset? A garment designed to shape her unmentionable parts into— Oh, never mind. Is that all you want?”

“I’ll take that ruby necklace on your dressing table as recompense for my time.”

“It isn’t—” She nodded. It was worth a fortune. And yet Jane would have to understand.

“So even young ladies like yourself want a man to whisper rude words while they’re making the two-backed beast?” Nick asked Charlotte, grinning at her.

“I highly disapprove of this conversation.”

“You’re the one who wrote about it.”

“And look at all the trouble I have drawn upon myself and those I care about. Besides, writing about a private matters is not the same as discussing it. Don’t you understand the difference?”

“Yeah.” He chuckled. “Ain’t the same as doin’ it, either. But you know all about that.”

“I don’t, actually.”

He winked, looking her over. “I’ll keep it secret.”

“I would appreciate it.” She drew in a slow breath. “Do you have a name?”

“It’s Nick. She’ll look nice in this,” he said, holding the dress Charlotte had chosen to his chest. “Not as nice as you, though.”

Charlotte nodded. She would have pulled out every dress she owned and offered to make alterations if it kept him from hurting her. “She’ll look like a lady.”

“Nah. It would take more than that, but maybe she’ll feel like a lady.”

Charlotte lifted her gaze. The chambermaid hadn’t moved from the door. It was clear she realized Nick had broken in and didn’t belong. She looked petrified. Charlotte prayed she would stay calm and not do or say anything to set the thief off.

It was all she could manage to encourage this alarming character to leave without making it obvious that he was deplorable company. Only then could she release her breath and take time to examine her diary and check for missing pages. “How are you leaving?” she asked, trying to keep her anxiety from her voice.

“Out the window, closest to the tree,” he said.

“Well, good luck,” she said, swallowing hard.

“Yeah. Same to you. That duke had better do right by you.”

“Yes. He’d better.”

“Send Nick after ’im if he don’t.”

How Charlotte managed to nod graciously at this disconcerting offer she did not know. She hadn’t the smallest doubt that Gideon would have challenged him on the spot.

“Where is Charlotte?” Jane asked Weed, who had arrived before she had released the bell cord. “We were supposed to review the guest list together so she could help me to remember the correct titles.”

Chloe breezed into the room, stunning in ice blue satin. “I just saw a footman go up to her room. Or he could have been on his way to Emma’s. She was supposed to be looking over the list with Charlotte, too.”

Gideon turned from the window where he stood with Grayson watching Sir Christopher in the garden instructing Lord Rowan how to lunge.

“I don’t mind going up to fetch her,” he said, hoping to take advantage of the fact that no one was paying more than token attention to anyone else. “No one objects?”

“I do,” said Jane slyly. “And I’ve got my eye on you. This is the one time that we must exercise restraint and follow the rules.”

Weed frowned. “There is no footman in her room. I have just finished a last-minute inspection of the livery of each servant for the wedding. The footmen have each been instructed to repowder their periwigs and brush off their coats.”

Chloe’s forehead creased. “This footman was wearing street clothes, now that you mention it. He carried something in his hand. He seemed to be in a great hurry. I assumed someone had instructed him to go upstairs.”

Gideon stared across the room. “Then who is he?”

“Didn’t you have a present sent to her?” Chloe asked.

“Yes. But Weed had it put away. I’m giving it to Charlotte on our wedding night.”

“Thank you for bringing back the diary,” Charlotte whispered, her nerves frayed.

“Thank you for writing it—and for the dress.” He doffed his cap.

And at last he hurried to the window, the turquoise dress billowing like a parasol as he leaped onto the tree branch that grew under the window.

“My stars!” Charlotte exclaimed, swinging around to face the maid. “Did he have to escape in full view of the drawing room windows?”

“I’ll warn them,” the maid offered, and eagerly took off before Charlotte could explain that warning anyone in this house might do more harm than good.

“Tell them to let him go! Oh, bother. I might as well go down and tell them myself.”

The maid had already run to the top of the stairs and grabbed the valet, who was on his way up to lay out a change of clothes in Master Rowan’s room. “Hurry!” she said. “There was a strange man in Miss Boscastle’s room and he’s taken one of her dresses with him out the window!”

“My God!”

The valet ran downstairs and narrowly escaped colliding with the butler, who was carrying a tea tray to the drawing room. “Hurry! Get help! A thief broke into Miss Boscastle’s room. He’s stolen the dress she was wearing and escaped out the window!”

The butler’s mouth dropped. “The dirty bugger! I’ll put Weed on it this minute.”

And the butler bustled into the drawing room, where everyone was waiting for tea, and shouted at Weed, “Sir! Sir! A thief has broken into Miss Boscastle’s bedroom and jumped out the window wearing her wedding dress!”

“What?” Gideon said, moving to the door. “Which window? Where is he going?”

Jane grabbed his arm. “Go out into the garden to catch him.”

“What about Charlotte? I ought to check on her.”

“I’ll do it,” Jane said. “Grayson, put down that biscuit and go with Gideon.”

But by the time Gideon and Grayson ran out into the garden with Weed and three other footmen, the thief had dropped from the tree to the wall and taken off pell-mell for the secret route to the stews. From the garden gate all one could make out of him was a billowing skirt in a lovely shade of turquoise blue.

“I’m going to hunt him down,” Gideon said, unbuttoning his coat. “I want to strangle him.”

Grayson shook his head. “You’ll have to wait until after the wedding, unless you wish to upset every woman in this house. You might not even have a wedding if you get into a brawl with a gang of thugs. We can hunt them down another time.”

“But he’s wearing her bridal gown. How’s the wedding going to take place without it?”

“He is not wearing her wedding dress,” Grayson said. “That’s a promenade dress, which he is holding under his arm, by the way.”

“You’re right,” Gideon said, impressed by Grayson’s knowledge of female costume. “Look, I don’t care about protocol. I need to see Charlotte with my own eyes. If only for a few moments, and I swear I’ll be good.”

A firm but gentle voice entered the conversation. “You cannot see her now,” Emma said. “However, I have just intercepted her in the hall. She is preparing for
a bath to calm her nerves. She is shaken but otherwise perfectly fine and in good spirits.”

He frowned. “Then I should have followed my instincts and chased after him. What did he want with her to begin with?”

“He returned the diary,” Emma said with a sigh of relief. “Now it is onward to the wedding, and may it please heaven that nothing else threatens that event.”

Gideon stared at the garden wall. “The diary was brought back by the man who escaped with a dress? There has to be more to this story. I wonder—it probably has nothing to do with this—but what do you know of a Lady Clipstone?”

Emma’s brow lifted. “She has sworn to ruin the academy. Why do you mention her?”

“Do you think she is capable of theft?”

“I doubt—”

“Or of hiring a thief?”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “She has held a grudge against me for years, but it never occurred to me that she would act upon it.” She shook her head as realization dawned. “
She
had the diary stolen. What a spiteful witch. Oh—I could shout at her.”

“Shout at her? Grayson said. “That’s an ominous form of revenge if I’ve ever heard one. That woman has brought us inexcusable woe. I don’t think a mere shout is suitable punishment.”

Emma’s hand slipped to her rounded stomach. “A lady does not seek revenge. She rises above it, and, if she is a person of strong character, she forgives.”

“Forgives?” Grayson shook his head. “Why?”

“Her scheme might have brought us a bit of woe,”
Emma replied, her calm demeanor restored once again. “But it has brought our family together for another wedding. Consider that the primary objective of the academy is for our pupils to marry well. We might suffer the lamentable scandal now and then. But in the end we are still considered a cut above the rest. Despite Lady Clipstone’s nefarious efforts, she has ruined neither Charlotte’s reputation nor the academy’s.”

C
harlotte had dreamed of her wedding day for years. She had described it in her old diary to the last detail. And the next time she had a moment to herself she would record the actual events of the day in the new one Gideon had given her, along with the silver inkstand and a heavy sapphire-and-diamond ring that he said had reminded him of her blue eyes and the starlight in their depths. The first page of her diary would be marked with one of the red roses he had sent to her right before she met him at the chapel.

The dream had become real; the vows had been spoken by a husband and wife who were too overcome to do anything but smile at the mayhem that erupted from the pews filled with Boscastle family members. She felt herself torn from his side, embraced and congratulated by friends and family. She cast a look for Gideon in the crowd, and their eyes connected. Neither of them had to say a word.

That evening a small article in the broadsheets mentioned that a mysterious intruder had broken into the Marquess of Sedgecroft’s mansion. There were no witnesses to the crime, although a bystander who had been standing outside the mansion’s gates had seen a suspicious-looking young man earlier with a package in his hands. Speculation over its contents swirled about London.

Still, details of the wedding, the discreet selection of guests, the gifts received, soon eclipsed the lesser gossip. It was a seed that had been cast to the wind and had failed to sprout.

The house was quiet when Gideon carried Charlotte to his room and unbound her from the ties and tapes of her wedding dress. The provocative corset she wore beneath surprised him. “That is a wicked garment,” he murmured in approval. “It pushes your pretty breasts up quite indecently. I can even see your nipples.”

Charlotte flushed, staring past him. “I knew I shouldn’t have worn it.”

“Oh, but you should,” he said quickly, bending his head to lick the rosy tips that peeked out over the confining garment. “Except that it does give you the advantage, and I can’t allow that to continue.”

He spent hours kissing and caressing her, unlocking the secrets of her body as easily as he had her heart. She let him reduce her to breathless urgency in the shadows of his bed. She could not have broken free from him if the house had caught on fire. Damp heat gathered between her thighs. A craving pulsed from deep inside her.

He hadn’t touched her there, and she knew this ploy
was a deliberate act of seduction on his part…one that accomplished its goal before she could retaliate.

“Your time will come,” she said, staring up into his hard, unyielding face.

He smiled, the sensual knowledge in his eyes beckoning her to make good her threat. “But in the meanwhile, I wield the upper hand.”

She reached up and locked her arms around his neck. “Do you?”

She kissed him before he could reply. Her tongue grazed his in flirtation and invitation. She arched upward, offering herself, and he took, needed, and claimed.

His breath came faster. He kissed her shoulder, her breasts, sliding his hands around her back to draw her from the bed and to her feet, where they stood facing each other, bound by an oath, bound together for an eternity of moments and secrets of the heart.

“I want you on the floor.”

Her lips parted, swollen and enticing. He pulled her unresisting body down against his. “And I want you on your knees.”

He drew back slowly, her hair falling over her breasts, hiding her from his burning stare. “Now, Charlotte.”

He waited, enrapt as she obeyed, her lips lifting into a smile. He dropped behind her, his hands kneading the firm cheeks of her bottom, raising her to a tempting angle. He flexed his back.

His fingertips followed the line of her nape to the base of her spine. Her skin felt like watered silk. “I can see us in the looking glass,” he said. “Lift your head. Look at yourself.”

She raised her gaze, meeting his eyes in the mirror, the lamplight enhancing the decadent image captured
in the glass. Her hair hung in coils down her arms and around her face.

He pressed his jutting erection against her. A soft exhalation escaped her. She stared, mesmerized, at the man and woman in the mirror.

“What a wanton duchess you are,” he said. “Does anyone else know that you can be so wicked?”