Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Miss Charlotte Fairchild would not marry just any man. In fact, she didn't much mind if she never married at all, but she was genuinely happy for her best friend in all the world, Lady Chelsea Hurtle.

"Can you believe he finally proposed?" Chelsea said with a squeal. She clasped her hands in front of her heart and grinned. "I shall be Lady Leming by the end of the summer!"

"It has only been six months since you began courting," Charlotte said with a giggle.

"And that is quite long enough, thank you very much," Chelsea replied, her chest puffed out. "You know that I was tiring of the hunt for a husband. It took me far longer than I'd anticipated when I first debuted."

Catkins from the willow tree draped all around them, shielding them from the view of Lord Hurtle's London townhouse and shading them from the sun. It had been their favorite spot in the garden ever since they were little girls, their own little secret haven, and even now, as young ladies, the pair hid in there to discuss their loves and their lives, their hopes and their dreams.

"Was it terribly romantic?" Charlotte asked. "The proposal, I mean. Lord Leming strikes me as the romantic type."

"Oh, it was," Chelsea beamed. "We were in the park. We'd had a lovely picnic—all the best quality foods prepared by his cook—and then we took a walk by the lake. He got down on one knee and pulled a diamond ring from a little blue pouch, the rippling water cooling the air beside us. Oh, Charlotte. He said the kindest things."

"As well he should," Charlotte said. "He is smitten with you and no mistake."

"Yes. I am lucky to have found such a man." Chelsea crossed her legs on the soft earth, fiddling with the broken bits of tree that scattered the ground.

"There is nothing lucky about it." Charlotte ran her fingers through her long chestnut brown hair as she spoke. "He proposed to you because you will make him an excellent wife—beautiful and bright and a wonderful conversationist."

Chelsea leaned closer, excitement written across her features. "And it wasn't only romantic," she said. The words came out in a hushed whisper, even though no one was around to hear her.

"What do you mean?" Charlotte asked. She knew exactly what her friend meant, but she wanted to hear the words. If she did not get to experience it for herself, then she at least wanted to listen to stories about it.

"At one point in our walk," Chelsea whispered, "we ended up in the woods."

Charlotte gasped, "All alone?"

"Quite alone," Chelsea confirmed. "I stopped to admire the trees, when Lord Leming kissed me."

"Oh my," muttered Charlotte. Her hand fluttered around her throat, briefly touching her bare collarbones. She had dreamed of being kissed by men in the woods. Kissed and caressed.

"But it was unlike any kiss he has previously given me," Chelsea said with a giggle. "It was hungry, like he couldn't resist me."

Charlotte giggled too, picturing the scene. "What happened? Did you kiss him back?"

"Of course I did," Chelsea said. "Can you believe he pushed me up against the tree? It was rough and urgent, but I liked it." Another giggle. "As he kissed me, he pushed his entire body against mine, and I could feel it through his trousers. He was truly delighted, if you catch my meaning?"

"It?" Charlotte asked. Again, she understood perfectly well, but she wanted to hear the words. Wanted to relive a moment she had not yet lived.

"His manhood," Chelsea said, giggling yet again. "It was so big and determined, Charlotte. Honestly, it was the first time I've truly felt it. It prodded into my leg like it was searching for something."

"It was searching for something," Charlotte said.

She forced a giggle to join her friend, but the truth was, her body responded to the tale in kind. At three-and-twenty, Charlotte Fairchild remained untouched. Virginal. Innocent to everyone who saw her, except those who truly knew her mind. She had no desire to find a man, except to experience that one thing which would turn her into a real woman.

That one secret thing, the connection, that physical yearning, was the only thing missing from her life. Oh, of course, she teased herself often enough. She had learned the ways of satisfying that urge in the darkness of her own bedchamber or while bathing—or both. She had thrown her head back and moaned in abandon as her thoughts spiraled. But it was not the same.

She longed for a man to thrust himself inside her, widening her, stretching her, filling her, just as she knew all the married women experienced. It was only a shame that one had to marry to experience it.

"I admit," Chelsea said, bringing Charlotte back to the moment, "I almost allowed him to find it." She fell back in giggles once more.

"Why didn't you?" Charlotte asked, leaning forward, eager to hear every word. "You are to be married soon."

Chelsea raised her eyebrows. "But we are not yet married. I do have some honor, Charlotte."

I would not have a single drop of honor in your position.

Charlotte smiled, despite the thoughts running through her mind. "You are a good soul, Chelsea Hurtle—soon to be Leming. You deserve all the happiness in the world."

"And you shall be next, if I have anything to do with it," Chelsea said, a glint of something mischievous in her bright blue eyes.

Charlotte smiled at her friend, though she chose not to answer. Gone were her hot daydreams, replaced instead by thoughts of her life.

She flicked her hair from her shoulder, relishing in the freedom of wearing it around her face rather than tightly pinned up as her aunt preferred. She was a lithe young woman, lean and athletic in build, and she would always opt for comfort over style if she had the choice.

Even now at her age, she could join a game of cricket as well as any of the boys, and she enjoyed the shock on their faces when she did so. Yet with it, she was elegant and graceful. Charlotte bounded with energy, her oak green eyes telling the tale of a young woman full of life and vibrancy and color.

"Perhaps," she murmured in reply to Chelsea. "But you know I won't settle for just any man. And I'm rather past the age of looking now, regardless."

It was not that she didn't think she could attract a husband. She'd had enough proposals in the past to know that she could. It was more that she wasn't certain she wanted to. At three-and-twenty years of age, she knew that marriage should be the first thing on her mind but more and more she found that it wasn't.

The problem was that Charlotte was an educated young lady, and quite unlike the other ladies of the ton , she had been raised to think of things other than the marriage market and the incessant need for babies.

Though the second son of a viscount, her poor late father had never had any inherited titles, and every drop of wealth the family owned was down to his hard work as a tea merchant and that alone. When her dear mother died of consumption when she was barely seven years old, he became all the more determined. Thus, he had brought Charlotte up to be hardy, sure of herself, and full of confidence too.

They'd been terribly close after the tragedy that took her mother, and his own death when she was just eighteen had been hard to take. An accident at sea meant she didn't have the chance to say a proper goodbye, but he left her with a large inheritance that made her stand out from the crowd of other young ladies her own age. She still lived with her guardians, of course, but her self-sufficiency set her against everyone else.

There were lots of reasons why marriage didn't feature highly in her thoughts, but it was these notions that came to the forefront whenever she thought about it.

She wanted to always be treated as an equal, just as her father had treated her, and though she knew how unusual that was in their world, she wouldn't settle for anything less. While Chelsea might have been happy to be a pampered puppy of some fancy Lord, Charlotte wanted more for herself than that.

"Not everyone can be as lucky as I am, you know," Chelsea teased. "There is only one Lord Leming."

Charlotte snorted. "You can keep him. He's perfect for you, but he would drive me to distraction within minutes of our marriage."

Chelsea raised her eyebrows. "That's what I'm hoping for," she teased before breaking into giggles.

Charlotte giggled along with her friend, enjoying the secret salaciousness of their conversation. It was one of the reasons she loved Chelsea. They had been friends since they were babies, their mothers friends before them, but the older they'd become, the freer they'd become in the way they talked. There was nothing off limits.

And in truth, if anything was to make Charlotte want a husband, it was that need for the salacious. She dreamed of being touched by the hand of a man, of fingers snaking around her body or lips moistening her flesh. She didn't understand it, of course, but still she lusted after it.

Often, in the secret darkness of her bedchamber, she found her own hands wandering, exploring parts of her she knew to be sacred. Parts that excited her. And the fact that she knew she shouldn't? That made it all the more appealing.

"It is not for love you are marrying then," Charlotte teased. "But lust."

"Can a girl not feel both love and lust?" Chelsea countered. "If anything, I'd wager that it is a truer love which is passionate as well as tender."

"Is there such a thing as true love?" Charlotte wondered. "Or is it all merely financial convenience and physical attraction?"

"You are cold sometimes, Charlotte. Of course love exists. You just haven't been lucky enough to experience it yet. You will, one day, of that I can assure you. Though it would be helpful if you were to attend the occasional social event. When was the last time you went to a society ball?"

Charlotte groaned. Balls bored her, and luncheons irritated her. She never seemed to fit in anywhere, always left on the sidelines as the peculiar one, the different one.

Though she attracted the eyes of many a gentleman and the friendship of a fair few of the ladies, it always seemed to be out of curiosity rather than any genuine comradery. It was as if people wanted to meet the strange creature in the corner, the one who stood out against all the ‘normal' young ladies.

"I am not interested in marriage anymore, Chelsea. I thought I had told you that already."

"You had, but I don't believe you. Everyone is interested in marriage—or at the very least, in love. You do not want to grow into an old spinster, do you?"

Charlotte snorted with laughter. "I'm near old enough already, especially in the eyes of the ton . Three-and-twenty and still no prospects!"

Chelsea eyed her warily. "You've had plenty of prospects, Charlotte. You've just refused them. What on earth would your mother have said?"

Charlotte looked down at her fingers, the pads of her thumbs running across each of her sharp nails. "I don't suppose I'll ever know, will I?"

"Sorry," Chelsea muttered.

When Charlotte's mother died, it had been incredibly difficult. And with her father so often working away, Charlotte found herself at a loss. Though there were nursemaids and governesses aplenty, Charlotte had found herself spending more and more time in the bosom of Lady Hurtle, Chelsea's mother. At the tender age of seven, their family life looked to be perfect, and Lady Hurtle had been kind enough to mother Charlotte as well.

"I know what my mother would say," Chelsea said, brightening the mood suddenly. She imitated her mother's whiny voice. "You are taking too long, Charlotte. If you do not select someone soon, I shall select someone for you."

Charlotte laughed, loudly and freely. "You sound just like her—she has indeed said that exact sentence to me more than once, though Aunt Lydia would have a thing or two to say about it, that's for sure."

Aunt Lydia, one of Charlotte's guardians, was a decent enough woman but she tended to be a little overbearing, even with her husband, Charlotte's Uncle Elliot. Charlotte had long suspected that though her mother had liked Elliot well enough, she would not have abided Lydia's austere ways.

"Ah yes, dear Aunt Lydia. Doesn't she have something to say about your rejected prospects?"

"Oddly, no," Charlotte said, surprised by her own answer. "I don't know why. She has enough to say about everything else."

"Perhaps she still sees you as a little girl," Chelsea suggested. "She does prefer you in rather unflattering clothing, after all."

"And always with my hair scraped back and pinned down," Charlotte added with a laugh. "I'm certain she means well but it does make my head ache by the end of the day."

"What about you?" Chelsea asked. "Do you ever regret turning down quite so many proposals?"

Only in that I do not get to experience the throes of passion.

Charlotte raised her eyebrows, deciding to answer in the way society expected her to. "From men far more interested in my wealth than in me? No, of course not. If they weren't rakes, they were bores, and if they weren't bores, they were fops. I do sometimes wonder if there is a single good man left in England."

"Perhaps I took the last one," Chelsea said with a nonchalant shrug.

"I am perfectly happy to be myself—and be by myself," Charlotte went on, reassuring her friend. "I know it might be difficult to understand, but there it is. I would far rather that than find myself caught up in an unhappy marriage."

"But there's the issue," Chelsea said, leaning forward eagerly as if she'd caught the hook. "Why would you assume a marriage would be unhappy? You don't think mine will be unhappy, do you?"

Something darkened Chelsea's eyes, and Charlotte realized that now was not the time to be negative about love. It was a time for celebration, and her friend needed her encouragement, not her pessimism.

"Of course not," she cried, reaching out and squeezing Chelsea's hand. "Dear me, your marriage will undoubtedly be the happiest in the world, for it's you and Lord Leming, and you could be nothing else. Ignore my self-pity. I am turning more and more into an old crow as the days go by."

Chelsea rolled her eyes and pulled her hand away. "You are not an old crow," she said. She raised her eyes and looked at Charlotte from beneath her lashes and then added, "Yet."

The pair burst into happy laughter, falling over each other onto the wet, dewy earth. Charlotte knew she'd be picking bits of twig from her hair for the rest of the day, but she didn't care because when she was with Chelsea, she felt free again. Young again. So very different to when she was with her guardians.

Uncle Elliot was a kind and generous soul, and Aunt Lydia was… well, she was Aunt Lydia, but they both believed strongly in propriety and traditional roles, and neither quite understood Charlotte's attitude to life.

Soon, they lay on their backs, staring up at the glimmers of sun glittering through the gaps in the tree. Charlotte sighed.

"I really do think Lord Leming is perfect for you, and I suppose in some ways I am envious. Not because I want to marry, you understand, but because you two just seem… right. It's so natural and easy for you to be together. That's obvious to anyone with eyes."

And I wonder whether anyone would ever feel right with an oddball like me.

She turned her head to look at her friend. Chelsea continued to stare upward, but the soft smile on her face told Charlotte she was thinking of her love.

"It is rather perfect, isn't it?" she said. "And we'll be married in only a matter of months."

"So soon?" Charlotte was so shocked that she sat up again. Chelsea continued to sprawl, a hand draped over her stomach.

"I told you we'd be married by the end of the summer."

"Yes, but…" Charlotte hesitated. "But I thought that was simply a turn of phrase."

Chelsea shrugged. "Why wait, when you have found the one?"

"But however will you be ready in time?" Charlotte asked.

"I shall be returning to Hampshire in a week's time to start the preparations. You're right. There's so much to do. So much to organize." She sat up quickly, swinging her legs around so that she crossed them beneath her. "Will you come, Charlotte? Will you stay with me a while and help with the preparations? Please, say you will!"

Charlotte's smile grew, thrilled that her friend had asked her. A few weeks away from London and a little romp in the countryside was just what she needed, and she was overjoyed to be able to help her friend.

"Please?" Chelsea asked again.

"Of course," Charlotte said. "I would love to."