CHAPTER EIGHT

C harlotte didn’t think she’d ever felt so tired, or so cold, or so happy.

The morning had bled into afternoon in the blink of an eye yet she felt as though it had only been seconds since they’d arrived.

The fair was as exciting as the twins had promised. The earl had been incredibly patient as the ladies perused every single stall. He’d purchased hot cider, and roasted chestnuts, meat pies and delicate cinnamon cakes.

And when they’d admired the hair ribbons by one particular stand, he’d bought a blue one for Harriet, a green one for Joanna and then, to her shock and delight, a pink one for Charlotte. When she’d stared up at him, her throat tight, her heart full, he’d leaned down to whisper. “It matches the blush you get across your cheeks.”

And that, Charlotte thought, might have been the moment that she lost her heart to the earl.

She stood with him now, wrapped tightly in her cloak, that precious ribbon securely in her grasp, and watched as vendors lit the lanterns by their stalls, and a troupe of performers paraded by, singing and dancing to the delight of the watching crowd.

The twins had insisted on seeing a gypsy woman in a tent nearby who swore that she could see the future. Lord Fenwick had scoffed but handed over the coin all the same. And Charlotte had decided that she didn’t particularly want to know her future.

“You aren’t curious,” the earl asked her, “about what the future holds?”

She laughed and shook her head. They stood under a towering oak, removed from the crowd, the twilight covering them in a blanket of darkness. If they wanted to, they could hide from the whole world here, she thought.

“I can’t imagine it holds anything particularly good,” she said wryly. “I’m just waiting for Mama to give up on her foolish hopes for me so that I can skulk away to my sister in the country and be a doting, spinster aunt.”

She’d been hoping to make him laugh again but when he remained silent she turned to face him, seeing that he was watching her with that intense stare of his.

“You are made for so much more than that,” he said, his voice like gravel. “All that light, dimmed and hidden in the country? It seems a crying shame.”

“I don’t want any more than that,” she said back, her own voice hoarse and shaky. “My mother’s ambitions are not my own. I suppose they were once. When I was too young to know better. But I’ve seen the cruelty in these people now. The people who judge my sister mercilessly when her only crime was following her heart. Who treated me as though I had committed the worst type of sin just by being related to her.”

She sighed and shook her head. “I used to want the admiration of Society. I wanted to marry well, if only to make my parents proud. But, I look around at it all. And it’s empty. My sister has been shunned, forced to live a quiet, simple life in the country. And I have never seen anyone so content in all my life.”

She smiled thinking of Jane with her cherubic baby and her adoring husband. “She is loved. And she is free. Free from the confines of Society and all its trappings. I want liberty like that. And if I cannot find it with a man, if I cannot love every part of someone fiercely and have him love me back the same way, then I will disappear from the condemnatory eyes of the beau monde just as she did, and at least be free.”

“You don’t wish to be wed? To repair your family’s name?” His eyes bored into her own and Charlotte didn’t quite understand why that made her want to be so raw, so honest. But it did.

“I wish to be wed if I fall in love, my lord. And only for love. Nothing else.”

“Jasper,” he interrupted. “None of this ‘my lord’ business. I am privy to your secret crimes now,” he teased. “I know you are a wolf among the sheep. Surely that awards me some sort of familiarity.”

She laughed again. “Very well. Jasper.”

His eyes sparked with something dark and wicked at the sound of his name from her lips, and Charlotte felt her whole body react to it. But before she could do something stupid like throw herself at him, he spoke again.

“That is what I should look for, for my sisters,” he said contemplatively. “Not wealth or a title. A love that will grant them their freedom.” He shook his head slightly. “It seems a rarity.”

“I’m quite sure it is,” she answered sincerely. “But all the more precious for it.”

The silence stretched before Charlotte cleared her throat and looked down at her hands. “They are lucky to have you want that for them,” she confessed. “And lucky, too, that they do not have your duties to worry about. You must ensure that you marry someone worthy of being a countess. Someone who will live up to the Fenwick name.”

Their eyes clashed once more as her words dropped between them, stilling the air. They both knew what she wasn’t saying. That his choice could never be someone like her.

She didn’t know why she’d said it and she didn’t know why his response seemed so very important. But she found herself holding her breath all the same, her heart thundering, a lump in her throat.

“Perhaps,” he admitted quietly and Charlotte refused to acknowledge the swoop of disappointment in her stomach.

Jasper reached up and pushed an errant lock of her hair off her cheek, the movement so tender, so fleeting, yet it set her whole body alight.

“Or perhaps I should be brave like your sister and not give a damn about expectations.”

She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Could only stand there, locked in his spell, and desperately wish for things she knew she could not have.

But in this silent moment on the edge of the bustling world around them, it seemed like maybe she could.

His hand was still at her face, his thumb brushing ever-so-softly against her cheek. And Charlotte didn’t give herself a chance to question her sanity before she stood on her tip-toes and pressed her lips against his.

***

I t was the briefest , most innocent kiss Jasper had ever experienced. Yet when Charlotte Forrester’s mouth landed on his own, the entire world seemed to tilt on its axis.

She pulled back immediately, staring at him as though she was just as shocked by the action as he was. And even in the dark, he could see that pink blush that he was so fond of staining her cheeks.

And he tried, he really did try damned hard to move away from her. But she’d snapped something inside of him with that innocent brush of her lips and now, he would devour her.

Reaching out, he pulled her into his arms, almost groaning at the feel of her pressed against him even through the layers of clothing between them. He lowered his head, already anticipating how utterly perfect she would taste, when a screech of excitement rent the air and once again, they were disturbed by the arrival of his damnable sisters.

“Charlotte, where are you? I am going to marry a prince.”

Jasper loved his sister dearly, but right then he could have happily wrung her neck.

Charlotte pulled herself from his arms and it was all he could do not to drag her right back.

And then suddenly, Harriet was there beaming and talking a mile a minute about what the charlatan in the tent had told her.

They were soon joined by Joanna who was much less excited about her own reading and once they started squabbling about it, they decided it was time to return home.

Charlotte was swept away by his sisters, who had their heads lowered, clearly conspiring. At this stage, he didn’t think he could bring himself to care. Every thought, every sense was trained on Charlotte and he knew that he wouldn’t rest until they finished what she’d started under that tree.

The carriage ride home was excruciating in more ways than one. The headache that only his sisters seemed capable of inducing in him was back with a bang. And he could tell from their shifting demeanor and furtive glances that they were bloody well up to something.

But all of it was secondary to her. He was consumed by wanting her, as though that innocent kiss had burst the dam that had been holding his desire at bay. For three years he’d conducted himself with nothing but iron self-control. And in three seconds it felt as though she’d undone it all.

The carriage rolled to a stop in front of her townhouse and he watched her closely as she mumbled a goodnight, closer still when she shared a meaningful look with the twins before rushing from the carriage as though the hounds of hell were giving chase.

She didn’t look back as she darted inside. He should know. His eyes followed her until she was out of sight.