Chapter 7

Frederick’s Coffeehouse always echoed with busy sounds, and as Quinton stepped over the threshold and into the dimly lit interior, he welcomed the boisterous noise. His brain ached from the number of cottage plans he’d viewed over the last hour. Some excellent options that would work for Bluevale’s tenants, but difficult to make a decision. He wanted to talk to the tenants first, to understand their needs better. He’d have to send the plans to his estate manager for greater insight, and it could take a week or more to hear back. Didn’t like that. Wanted the cottages renovated now.

Should have been done a few years ago, but Barnaby had convinced him they would keep so he could invest the necessary funds. He’d hesitated but eventually taken Barnaby’s advice. The scheme had proved lucrative, and now he had more to invest in his tenants. But last winter had been rough, cold and windy. How much damage had been done to them in those several snowfalls. Surely not much if Mr. Rilston remained unworried over them.

Quinton would follow his estate manager’s lead and let his worry wash away in the bustle of the coffeehouse. Clearford, Kingston, and Benjamin Bailey waited at their usual table in the back corner, and he joined them, sitting beside Bailey. Usually, he’d tease the wild-looking, bearded man about the name, or his too-long hair, or his flat American accent, but he felt too sour for teasing. Across from them sat the duke and his brother-in-law, Tristan Kingston.

“Clearford, I have a question.” Quinton flicked a glance at the bar and nodded at the familiar barkeep, a sign he wanted his usual Turkish coffee.

“Spit it out, friend,” Clearford said. “But if you want an answer, you must pay.”

“With?”

“Details. About your courtship. Lottie said the first three events have gone quite well. You’ve already narrowed the field down.”

Had Lottie said anything else? About Quinton’s behavior at the ball? He barely remembered a damn thing from that night. Not what he’d done or what he’d said after his conversation with her in the garden. He’d found her. Hadn’t he? With a man? In a hallway. He remembered only shadows and candlelight. And anger. Need, frustration, longing. The night had been a cauldron brewing them all together until he’d overflowed, exploded. But how exactly had that explosion manifested? Had he punched Phillipspots? The man had abandoned his suit. Because of Quinton?

Shame crawled up Quinton’s spine. He was a rake and a scoundrel, yes, but not an abusive drunk. Had he hurt Lottie? He scratched an L into the old, weathered tabletop.

“Why no kissing, Clearford?” he asked, flattening his palm on the table.

Kingston burst into laughter. “A flawed rule. I suggested he change it. I found kissing to be quite necessary. Should be introduced into the courtship process as quickly as possible.”

Clearford rolled his eyes. “Less of that kind of talk from you, newspaperman. I’ve no desire to know when you’ve kissed my sister.”

Kingston slapped Clearford’s back, then wrapped his arm around the duke’s shoulders. “The better question at this point is when have I not?”

Clearford pushed Kingston away.

“I think it’s an excellent question,” Bailey said. He leaned forward to brace both forearms on the table, his long hair swinging around his face. “Seems rather an important bit of the whole process. Are you daft, Clearford? Is your Guide a case of the blind leading the blind?”

“Absolutely it is.” Kingston ducked as Clearford’s fist swung his way.

Quinton leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest. “Will you two horses’ arses let the man answer my question?”

Bailey and Kingston leaned back, quivering lips barely containing laughter.

Clearford straightened his jacket and his cravat, then focused on Quinton. “The lady should trust you before you kiss her. It’s not that you should never kiss her, but that you should wait for the right time. An ill-timed kiss could be the end of a perfectly respectable and successful courtship. You must be assured she’ll return the feelings and the desire for such an intimate embrace.”

All sounded perfectly reasonable. Perhaps that’s why kissing Lottie six years ago had proven so catastrophic. Wrong time. Wrong person. Wrong feelings.

“I understand,” Quinton murmured, welcoming the mug of coffee a server set before him. He inhaled the rich aroma. “Tell me then, when do you kiss the girl?”

Clearford opened his mouth.

Kingston snapped it closed with two fingers. “Let me answer this one.” He leaned over the table, closer to Quinton. “According to our most esteemed author of the Gentleman’s Guide to Courtship, the correct time to kiss a woman is”—he paused, looking at each face leaning forward with bated breath around the beaten table—“never. Look at the man.” He shook Clearford’s shoulders. “That mouth has clearly never—”

“One more word, Kingston, and my blade will make my sister a widow.” The knife Clearford always kept about his person glinted into existence, point first in the tabletop.

Kingston held both hands up and scooted backward, his chair screeching across the wood floor. “Sensitive about the subject, are we?”

Clearford’s hand wrapped tightly around the knife hilt, squeezing until the blood drained away, leaving his knuckles bone white.

“Put that bloody thing away, Clearford,” Quinton said. “You’re scaring no one.”

“I’m a little scared,” Bailey said into his coffee cup.

“And I remain unsatisfied,” Quinton persisted. “When is the best time to kiss a lady? When can you know you’re sure of her?”

Clearford lifted the knife with a swift thunk as it left the wood, and it disappeared again. “After you’ve proposed, and she’s said yes.”

“No!” three male voices cried together.

“Absurd.” Kingston rapped his knuckles on the table.

“Why in hell would you wait so long?” Bailey wanted to know.

Clearford shook his head, raised an arm for more coffee. “The lot of you simply do not understand the fine—”

“If I’d waited so long to kiss Andromeda,” Kingston said, “we might still be courting.” He shivered. “I prefer the married state.”

Quinton tapped his foot aggressively beneath the table. “How’s a fellow to know if a woman will suit his… needs or not if he doesn’t kiss her? And shouldn’t he wait to propose until he’s certain she’ll warm his bed in the best of ways? We can’t… sample the delights of the marital bed beforehand, after all. Kisses must do.”

Kingston pulled at his cravat as if it was too tight. “Precisely. Kisses only to test the waters.”

“So,” Quinton continued, “how are we to know unless we kiss?”

Clearford’s cheek sank as if he gnawed on it, and his gaze drifted to the ceiling. “Andromeda did suggest I change that bit. Truthfully, I thought to ignore most of the suggestions she made for the Guide—”

“Now who’s asking for a knife in the gullet,” Kingston grumbled. “My Andromeda is brilliant and should be treated accordingly.”

“Including her notes about kissing.” Clearford spoke as if he’d never been interrupted. “But… perhaps she has a point.”

Kingston grinned. “I remember her point about kissing.”

“What was it?” Bailey asked.

Kingston’s grin took on a wolfish tilt. “Always kiss her.”

Bailey hit his fist on the table. “That sounds more like it! Clearford, you clearly need to listen to your sister.”

“Said sister is married. She can kiss”—he shivered—“whenever she wishes. The others should abide by stricter rules. No kissing. Until the proposal.” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Noble.” Everyone turned toward Quinton. “You’ve clearly got kissing on the mind. Which of your remaining ladies are you considering kissing?”

“Neither.”

“What?” three male voices cried in unison.

Quinton settled back in his chair, his cup warm between both hands. “I’ve not really considered it at all. I’ll have to kiss one of them one day. Doesn’t really matter which it is.”

“Are you reading the book at all?” Samuel demanded.

“Yes.”

“And rule number one is?”

“Choose the right woman,” Quinton dutifully replied. “But the right woman is whichever woman I successfully woo. Both ladies are impeccable. My mother approves of their birth, their behavior, their looks.”

“And do you approve?” Kingston asked.

Quinton sipped his coffee, rubbed his thumb along the uneven side of the earthenware mug. “Yes.”

“Which do you approve of more?” Bailey studied Quinton, an eyebrow raised.

“Either will do. The brunette one or the blonde one.”

Silence as heavy as a boulder dropped around them. During it, Quinton studied his friends, each wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

“Did I say something wrong?” he queried.

“The brunette one?” Kingston said slowly.

“Or the blonde one?” Clearford spoke in equally stilting syllables.

Bailey leaned closer to Quinton. “What are their names?”

He couldn’t remember.

“He can’t remember!” Samuel burst to his feet.

“Sit down and don’t reach for your blasted knife.” Quinton waved for his friend to sit. “You can’t cut my throat for being bad with names.”

“You’re not bad with names.” Kingston snorted. “You’re bad with women.”

“Popular gossip says otherwise.” Quinton smirked. “And I can assure you, in this particular instance, gossip is right, and you are wrong.”

Clearford fell back to his seat. “You’re not even trying to court them. Really court them. If you were, you’d know them better by now.”

Quinton pushed his coffee away. It began to feel like a muddy brick in his belly. He didn’t need to know them, did he? They would exist to carry his heir and host his gatherings and… replace Lottie in his imagination. Something neither of the ladies could currently do. Perhaps the fellows were right. “I’ll become better acquainted with them later this week. My mother is hosting a dinner party.”

“Yes,” Kingston said, “Annie and I have been invited. I’ll wager I can learn their names before you can.”

“I’ll learn their names,” Quinton growled. And he’d figure out which he’d like to kiss. Perhaps he’d even kiss one or both of them. Because Samuel’s rule about kissing required revision. Lady Andromeda and Kingston were right. How could a fellow propose if he wasn’t sure of desire? And how could he erase one kiss without first exploring another?

Lottie snapped her book shut when the butler pushed open the sitting-room door. “Yes, Mr. Jacobs?” She folded the book beneath her hands, ensuring the title on the spine and its cover were well hidden.

“Lady Charlotte, Lord Erstwhile is here to see you.”

An unexpected visit. How unusual. The man usually scheduled his day down to the last second. He never did anything that hadn’t been planned days, weeks in advance.

“Are you at home?” Mr. Jacobs asked.

She patted her hair, twisted her lips between her teeth. “Yes. Yes, I think I am.”

“Very good.” Mr. Jacobs bowed his way out.

Lottie found the mirror across the room. Every hair in place but… her cheeks were too red. The scene she’d been reading when Mr. Jacobs had interrupted had made her bosom rise and fall, and her heart beat with a rapid, frantic rhythm. A man and a woman surely about to be caught in one another’s arms. They’d been kissing and touching, and the woman had set her hands to his fall and found something quite large there. The woman had thought it mysterious. What is that? She’d thought with all the innocence of a too-young debutante at her first ball.

After running a secret book club for married ladies, Lottie knew exactly what it was—a man’s cock the size of his forearm. They couldn’t really be that size. They couldn’t. But the woman with her hand to the man’s fall didn’t know that. The author apparently didn’t know that, either. Or cared little about realism. And whatever powers that held Lottie’s arousal in their grasp also seemed unaware of the fact, also unbothered by reality.

As she’d read, she’d done what she often did—imagined the man with a particular viscount’s face and imagined the woman with the visage of the Lottie in the mirror, wearing the same blue dress Lottie wore at the moment. Her imagination sometimes proved limited, and she made do with what inspiration surrounded her.

Despite the redness of her cheeks in the looking glass, she appeared perfectly coiffed and calm. Excellent.

“Lady Charlotte,” Lord Erstwhile said from the doorway. “You’re a vision today.”

She gave a little jump of surprise, her hand fluttering to her breast. He’d come so quickly. She’d not expected… but of course the journey from the door to here… so very short.

“Thank you, Lord Erstwhile.” She dropped a curtsy. “This is a rather unexpected call.”

“Yes, well, I was walking by.” A slight tilt of one corner of his mouth. “I’ve missed you.”

She blinked. He’d missed her? She’d been so busy with Lady Noble’s gatherings that she’d rather forgot about him entirely. Would she have missed him had she not been so preoccupied? She winced, knowing the truth of it. She would not have.

“It has been over a week since we’ve seen one another,” she said. A good enough answer that revealed nothing. “Shall we go for a walk in the park?”

“No. I’ve come to ask you a particular question.”

Her heart thumped fast again. Only one thing that could mean. He made his way across the room, sure, long strides eating the distance between the doorway and the chair. The chair where her abandoned book lay. Dread shot through her like lightning, and she hurried across the room, each rapid footstep a prayer—no, no, no, no. Please, no. She swept in front of him just before he sat down and sat down herself, right on top of the book.

He lurched away, startled.

“Sit there.” She waved at the couch. “It’s much more comfortable. This chair is rather wobbly. And the stuffing is bad. I could not live with myself as a hostess if you were forced to suffer.” She bit her lip. Would it work?

He sank slowly to the couch, and she released a breath of relief. The hard edges of the book bit into her backside. Better that than he discovered The Mysterious Shaft of Pleasure. She smiled at him, her most innocent affair—blank eyes and all teeth.

But his gaze flicked to the chair at the precise spot where her rear covered it. “I think you’re sitting on a book, Lady Charlotte.”

Oh no. “I’m sure I’m not—”

“Yes, you are. I saw it before you sat.”

Caught. No hiding it now. Evasion was her next best step. She laughed and pulled it out, folding it into her lap and hiding it in her skirts as best she could. “I see you’re right. How silly of me.” Another fake laugh.

Still staring quizzically at the book, he did not appear to notice. “Is it about mining?”

She frowned. “Mining? Whatever could you mean?”

“I thought I saw the word shaft on the cover.”

Blast. What now? She blinked at the book cover, her mouth hanging open, hoping, apparently, to catch a response. Panic made action difficult. A tiny Lottie inside her brain ran in circles, screaming. She must respond, so she swallowed and grabbed the first explanation that popped into her head.

“Oh… yes… you’re correct. I was not reading it, so I did not know its title. My brother must have left it there. He’s considering investing in a mining endeavor.” She sat up straighter, preened. What a quick mind she had. What a quick cover that explanation proved to be. Inner Lottie had even stopped wailing.

“Fascinating. I’ve been searching for a proper investment. I’ll ask him about it.”

“No!”

He jerked, arms flinging wide for a startled second.

“Apologies,” she said in a more moderate tone. “The endeavor is a secret for the moment. When he’s ready to make it known, I’ll certainly let you know.”

“Excellent.” He grinned at her now, an expression of delight unfettered by inconvenient preoccupations with mysterious mineshafts and secret mining investments.

She wanted to sink through the floor right into the wine cellar and pour an entire bottle down her throat. Should she remind him why he’d come here? Or should she let the question he’d come to ask fade away? Quinton’s soft, drunken words from the shadowed end of the hallway begged with her to let him forget his purpose.

“Would you like some refreshment?” she asked.

“No, thank you.”

She stood and rang the bell anyway, taking the opportunity to settle her book on the bookshelf across the room, behind all the other books.

As she approached her chair, he reached for her, half rising from the couch, arm extended in a graceful slant. “Sit next to me, Lady Charlotte?”

She hesitated, then took his hand, and let him guide her to sit next to him. He did not release her hand once she sat but placed his other atop hers.

“We have become close friends in the last several months.”

“Yes, we have.” She did think of him as a friend. He’d proved a kind and charming man, handsome and thoughtful. She should be eager to marry him.

“More than friends.” He scooted closer so that their knees touched. Perhaps he would kiss her now, a prelude to the intimate question he would soon ask. He squeezed her hand. “Lady Charlotte, would you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”

No kiss then, just the question. And that poked at her rage, roiled disappointment through her when she should be bursting with victory. She pulled her hand out of his embrace. “My lord, why have you not tried to kiss me yet?” Oh. She’d not known that question had been sitting so lightly on her tongue until it had dropped into the air.

He startled backward. Cheeks blushing, one hand ruffling with the hair at the nape of his neck. “A kiss…” He said it as if he were trying to distance himself from the word, say it without saying it. “In truth, your brother suggests against it. Not until one is sure of the lady’s affections. I had not planned a kiss until after you had accepted my hand. That is the only way to be sure, after all.”

Damn Erstwhile. Damn Samuel! Lottie wanted to know before she committed herself to a man if she liked his touch, his caress, his kiss. The familiar anger boiled beneath her skin. She was not supposed to want to know about kisses and caresses. She understood the rules that bound her well enough. She should not seek out any evidence of desire, of pleasure. Never mind that she wanted to, needed to.

She plastered her palm flat against the outside of her thigh to keep from fisting it in her skirts, to save the soft, pristine folds from angry wrinkles.

“Will you kiss me now?” she asked.

Erstwhile’s eyes darted left. Then they darted right. Then he looked straight at her. “Does that mean you accept my proposal?”

“It does not. Will you kiss me now?”

He stood. “No, I will not.”

She stood, too, feeling as if the light skirts of her gown were weighing her down, had suddenly become sodden with murky brown lake water. “Then I cannot accept your proposal, my lord.”

His jaw ticked and paced two steps away from her, two steps back toward her. “This makes no sense.”

“Perhaps not from your perspective, but from mine it is the only thing that makes sense. Thank you for your kindness and your courtship. Thank you for your interest, but I’m afraid I cannot marry you.”

Anger flashed in his eyes, then he turned with a snap in his step, and made his way to the door. He took one last look at her with a short, electric pause, then nodded and left.

She sank back down to the sofa, bracing her elbows against her knees and hiding her face in her hands. “What else does that blasted book say?” she whispered into her palms.

Where was her sorrow? Where was her broken heart? She’d not been after love to begin with. No wonder they were missing, leaving her with nothing but cold anger. One suitor left, and if everything failed with him, she’d have to start all over. Could she start all over? At six and twenty?

She wanted only a future, a marriage with a man she didn’t abhor, a marriage bed in which to explore pleasure, children. She wanted to be unstuck. But every man around her wanted her stuck just the way she was—unkissed, untouched, lovely, and virginal and—

She wanted to scream. Instead, she jumped to her feet and stormed down the hall, found Samuel’s study and flung open the door. Empty. She knew it would be. He visited Frederick’s coffee house at this time every week. She stood behind his desk and threw open every drawer, searching… searching… ah! There. A notebook like the one that Quinton had been reading before the first courtship event. She yanked it out, flipped it open. Finally, satisfaction and victory sailed through her. She’d found his notes. It seemed as if her brother had been drafting another copy of his Guide. Seemed to be in high demand these days. The fools. Samuel probably had several such copies.

She sat at his desk, set a stack of paper at her elbow, and began to copy everything onto the blank, creamy squares in curt, black slashes.

She’d received a proposal this afternoon, yet she would not stand on Quinton’s doorway and brag about her victory. No. She’d do something much worse. She would court the poor fool of a man. Because only he dared to kiss her before marriage. Because he had admitted that somewhere deep inside, he wanted her, and because after receiving a marriage proposal, she knew she could not marry anyone with that damn man in her heart.

He’d tangled himself up inside her more thoroughly than she’d anticipated. She might never be able to extricate her heart from his thorns. But if the boy of her youth existed still, somewhere behind that Noble Smirk… perhaps she could find him. Perhaps she could court him out of hiding. Since the rogue would not vacate her heart, she might as well try her hand at romancing him.