A Valentine from Harlequin: Six Degrees of Romance

Chapter One

Charlotte winced as an inebriated party-goer stepped on her foot, but she kept moving determinedly toward the doors that led to the balcony. The Duncans would be delighted with their party; it was clearly the event of the season, and their daughter had been successfully launched into society.

Unfortunately, the noise, the heat, and the crowd combined with Charlotte’s pounding headache to make her want to escape for a breath of fresh air. Reaching the balcony doors, she opened them to find two people engaged in a passionate kiss.

“I’m sorry.” The words escaped her mouth before she realized it would have been better to make an exit without being noticed. The couple jumped apart.

Charlotte felt the blood drain from her face as she stared at her fiancé. “John! I thought you were dead!”

Two azure blue eyes flashed in a face so handsome it could take a woman’s breath away. “John is dead. I’m James.”

Charlotte breathed again. Of course this wasn’t John. John was dead, and by his own hand. This was his twin brother, who had gone off to fight with Wellington while John had stayed home. This was the brother who had stayed in Europe after her fiancé’s death, who had written that terrible, accusing letter that had arrived when she was still full of sorrow and remorse.

This was the brother who knew so little of her relationship with John, yet who derided her, and blamed her for something she had not foreseen. She would have prevented John’s death if she could have; she did not need to feel more guilt from someone who had not seen his brother in over five years.

And who was now the Duke of Broverhampton, heir to a vast estate and fortune, as well as the title.

As Charlotte fought to regain her composure, James’s gaze meandered over her simple silk gown, lingering for the briefest of moments on the embroidery around the neckline—or her breasts—before returning to her blushing cheeks.

Angered by his impertinent scrutiny, she quickly closed the doors behind her, shutting out the music heralding the start of a quadrille. She wanted no one to hear them, or come out to see what was going on. And she wanted to know what the long-absent James was doing on the Duncans’ balcony with her cousin, Dulcabella—besides the obvious.

Dulcie Duncan giggled and swayed, clearly the worse for the powerful punch full of rum, which was how their family had made their fortune, one large enough to overcome the stigma of having earned it in trade. The Duncan Distillery had even been granted a Royal Warrant to supply rum to the British Navy.

“I just came out for a breath of air and he grabbed me and kissed me,” Dulcie explained with a sodden grin. “I quite liked it.”

“Indeed?” Charlotte inquired as she regarded James, not troubling to hide her annoyance. “I daresay you did, for I have heard that the duke is quite accomplished in that, if nothing else.” She took hold of her cousin’s arm, intending to lead her inside. “Come along, Dulcie. I think you should bid good-night to your guests.”

“Running away, are we?” James calmly inquired in his deep, husky voice -- the thing that distinguished him most from John. Otherwise, both men had the same dark hair, chiseled cheekbones, and brilliant blue eyes.

Charlotte slowly wheeled around to face him. “I think if there is a person here who could be accused of running away, it would not be me, Your Grace.”

She watched as her words brought, for the briefest of moments, a look of what might have been remorse to those bright blue eyes. Yet if the Duke of Broverhampton felt anything deep in his cold heart in response to her accusation—one she had been waiting years to make—it was quickly gone, replaced by the cool tranquility he had always possessed, even in his youth. John had been all fire and light and music; James had been dark and silent and cold as snow in January.

Her cousin feebly yanked her arm out of Charlotte’s grasp, the action making her totter like a pile of teacups. “I want to schtay right here!” Dulcie protested as she grabbed on to James’s black waistcoat.

“I think you should retire, cousin,” Charlotte said with a tone of firm command.

Dulcie pouted and stamped her slippered foot. “I don’t want to.”

“Dulcie, I really think you ought—”

“Well I don’t!” Stamp!

Out of the corner of her eye, Charlotte saw James’s lips jerk up into a smug grin, as if he was enjoying this show of defiance from the usually docile Dulcie.

“Dulcabella, you should go before the ladies begin to gossip about the time you have been out here and with whom. Unless you want your season ruined before it is well under way, I suggest you go back into the ballroom, and preferably to bed. You have had too much punch.”

Charlotte’s words finally seemed to penetrate Dulcie’s drink-befuddled brain. She swallowed hard, then lurched back into the ballroom.

Charlotte was about to follow her when James barred her way. He reached back and closed the balcony doors. “Let me pass,” she ordered.

He shook his head and stepped closer. “I have waited a long time to have a moment’s word with you.”

She inched away from him, until her back was against the wall and the ivy covering it. The foliage wasn’t the only reason the flesh there tickled, as James came closer until his body was mere inches from hers.

Summoning her courage, Charlotte squared her shoulders. She would not let James’s predatory attitude frighten her. “If the wait was troublesome, perhaps you should have returned to England sooner. There was nothing to prevent you, especially when you inherited your title and the family fortune.”

“A fortune you did not get your greedy hands on, after all.”

Charlotte gasped. “I was not marrying your brother for his wealth!”

James’s face betrayed his skepticism. “No?”

“Certainly not!”

He sidled closer, trapping her between the wall and his broad-shouldered body like a doe run to ground between a cliff and a pack of dogs. “Then why did you agree to marry him?” he asked in a husky whisper.

“Because…because I loved him!” She put her palms on James’s chest and shoved, but it was like trying to budge a boulder.

He caught her hands in his powerful grasp. “Love?” he scoffed. “What do you know of love but this?” he demanded as he hauled her close and captured her mouth with his.

Chapter Two

She had thought James cold? She had thought him lacking in passion? As James’s lips moved over Charlotte’s with firm and fiery purpose, she realized how wrong she had been

How very, very wrong…

Which did not give him leave to kiss her, or her to enjoy it.

Before she could shove him away, the balcony doors burst open. “Charlotte!” Uncle Malcolm cried as he stepped outside. “What are you doing?”

While she stared, equally horrified, at her uncle and the well-dressed people crowding behind him, James moved away. He faced her uncle and quite calmly adjusted the cuffs of his waistcoat. “We were kissing.”

Uncle Malcolm’s jowls quivered with an indignation that matched Charlotte’s, now that the initial shock of discovery had passed. “Then, sir, you have not behaved like a gentleman!”

“Indeed, he has not,” Charlotte seconded, preparing to march past James, her uncle, and through the avidly curious onlookers. She could hear the scandalized whispers that would follow in her wake. Her reputation was already sullied by her fiancé’s death, for surely the love of a good woman should have saved him from such despair. Therefore, the reasoning went, there must be some flaw in her. And now, to be found kissing her late fiancé’s brother—!

James’s hand held her back and looked into her eyes, his gaze searching. “I have never claimed to be a gentleman.”

“How could you, since you are not? Now let me go!”

He did not loosen his grasp as he once again faced her uncle, whose cheeks were getting progressively more flushed. “Gentleman or not, I am quite prepared to do the honorable thing, Mr. Duncan, and marry your niece.”

Charlotte stared at James. She couldn’t marry him! She hated him! And she had done nothing wrong here to cause her to be imprisoned in a marriage. “I would rather die!”

“Like John?”

His words pierced her heart like the thrust of a rapier. “How…how dare you!” she whispered as tears of anger and dismay leaped into her eyes.

“I dare because you as good as held the gun that killed him when you broke his heart.”

“I?” she gasped, incredulous. “I broke his heart?”

“Your Grace, Charlotte,” Uncle Malcolm said, obviously attempting to control his temper, “this is hardly the time or place for such accusations. I suggest you retire, Charlotte. As for you, Your Grace, you will please leave my house. You may call upon me at my offices tomorrow morning, where we shall discuss what is to be done. Now, Your Grace, I give you good night.”

James, the Duke of Broverhampton, smiled and inclined his head, then strode through the crowd which parted for him as they might a pauper who had intruded into their midst.

Sitting in his barouche outside the offices of the Duncan Distillery, makers of Fine Rum and purveyors to the Royal Navy by the appointment of His Majesty, King George III, James wondered—and not for the first time—what the devil he was doing here. He should order his driver to take him home. Or to his club. Or even the closest tavern. Anything but beard old Malcolm Duncan in his den and explain that he did not wish to marry Charlotte. The offer had been made in the heat of the moment.

And what heat. What unexpected, overwhelming heat. Charlotte clearly possessed the ability to drive a man to passionate ecstasy, if that was how she kissed when she supposedly did not want to be kissed.

Or maybe she had. Could it be that despite her apparent animosity, she was setting her sights on the man who now had the wealth she craved? He mustn’t forget that she was a greedy, grasping creature who had broken his brother’s heart and destroyed his spirit when John had realized she was only marrying him for his title and money. That knowledge, and his shame at being duped, had driven John to take his life.

If he married her as he had impulsively suggested because of some last, lingering vestige of chivalry called forth by the vulgar fascination on the faces of the guests last night, he might be playing right into her soft, yet avaricious, hands.

Therefore, he must go to Mr. Duncan and rescind his offer. Such a thing would not enhance his reputation, but he could not concern himself with that.

What he should concern himself with was making sure Charlotte knew he knew the kind of woman she was, despite his momentary lapse into forgetfulness, and that he intended to make sure the rest of the world knew it, too. That was why he had followed her out onto the balcony, or thought he had.

He had mistaken Dulcie for Charlotte. The cousins looked enough alike that, attired in similar gowns and with their blond hair done in similarly Grecian styles, it was easy to mistake one for the other, especially across a crowded ballroom.

So he had followed “Charlotte” and could not resist the urge to announce his presence with a kiss, only to realize the moment his mouth touched Dulcie’s that either he was kissing the wrong woman—for it was no secret that Charlotte didn’t drink because her father had died after falling from his horse while inebriated—or else he had his lips on a rum bottle.

Whatever had happened last night, he finally decided, he could not and would not marry Charlotte.

He alighted from the barouche and strode into the distillery, heading directly for Duncan’s office. He marched past the startled bevy of clerks perched on stools as they toiled at their high desks and entered the office without so much as a rap on the door.

To find that Charlotte was already there. Or maybe it was Dulcie facing her father with her whole body rigid, her hands on her hips, and her bonnet’s white feather dancing.

The young woman whirled around to face him, and he discovered it was indeed Charlotte. “What do you want?” she demanded, glaring at him.

As always when faced with a nerve-racking situation—which was always the situation when he was near the vivacious Charlotte—he summoned up a mask of calm indifference, and answered truthfully. “I’ve come to tell your esteemed uncle that I have changed my mind and cannot marry you.”

Her green eyes flickered and a sardonic smile curved her full lips. “Good, because I am here to tell him the same thing.”

How her emerald green eyes sparkled like jewels when she was angry! How lovely she looked in that charming ensemble, including the ridiculous plume bobbing about like a writer’s quill penning a screed of its own volition. “Excellent. Then we are agreed.”

“Yes!”

“So I see no need to remain here any longer.”

“Nor do I,” Charlotte declared, pushing her way past him and slamming the office door with a bang like a cannon shot that probably sent the clerks scrambling for cover.

Taking a deep breath, James bowed at the openmouthed Mr. Duncan. “Good day to you, sir, and I regret any inconvenience.”

Before he could turn away, Duncan heaved himself to his feet with surprising speed. “Not so fast, Your Grace. I would speak with you.”

James suppressed a sigh as he waited for the man to proceed. No doubt Duncan intended to berate him, and soundly, too.

“You will either marry my niece, or I shall take you to court for breach of promise.”

Chapter Three

James stared, slack-jawed, at Charlotte’s uncle. “Breach of promise?” he repeated in an incredulous whisper.

Malcolm Duncan smiled with malicious pleasure. “Exactly. Several people heard you offer to marry her last night.”

“She didn’t accept!”

Duncan waved his plump hand dismissively as he returned to his seat. “Women are fickle creatures, apt to change their minds.”

“But you can’t be serious! She hates me.”

“Does she?”

James’s eyes widened even more, and even though his mind told him it must not, the small, hidden place in his heart where his hope had been buried cracked open. Charlotte had been living with her uncle since her father’s demise years ago; it could be he knew her well enough….

It didn’t matter. “Of course,” he replied, burying the long-denied hope back where it belonged. “You heard her say she’d rather die than marry me.”

“Well, be that as it may,” Duncan said, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers, “the fact is, you’ve compromised my niece’s honor. Your family has already done her harm, and it’s about time one of you made it right.”

“My family did her harm?”

“Aye,” Duncan said, grave and firm as the bricks of his distillery. “She loved your brother and she was heartbroken when he died. And she’s blamed herself for far too long for what your brother did. Her reputation has suffered for it, too.”

“She did not love my brother, and she is to blame for what John did,” James protested, every line of John’s last letter bemoaning his anguish and shame burned into his brain. If Charlotte mourned anything, it was the loss of his brother’s money.

Duncan eyed him shrewdly, as if James were a merchant trying to sell him something of dubious quality. “Whatever you think of the past, it is last night I am most concerned with today. You compromised Charlotte’s honor, and you will do the honorable thing, one way or another, or you’ll be hearing from my solicitor.”

“I can afford the best solicitor in London to fight the suit.”

“Aye, I have no doubt, but fighting me will cost you a pretty penny, especially as these things can drag on for so long. In the meantime, no woman of character will trust you, should you wish to marry and create an heir. Of course, if you plan to remain a bachelor all your days, that may not trouble you.”

James did not plan to remain a bachelor. He wanted children, and not simply to provide an heir. He liked children. Many nights as he had lain awake listening to his comrades in arms snoring and snorting and tossing and turning, he had envisioned leading the life of a country gentleman, surrounded by a loving family, married to…his brother’s fiancée. He flushed and pushed away that shameful memory. “Do you intend to threaten Charlotte into agreeing, too? Will you sue her, as well?”

“Charlotte will do what is best for her.”

James scowled. “Of that I have no doubt,” he said as he strode to the door. When he went out, he slammed it even harder than Charlotte had.

“But, Papa, I don’t understand,” Dulcie pouted a fortnight later as she sat on the arm of her father’s chair in his mahogany-paneled study, which smelled faintly of cheroots and pomade. “Why did you invite him to dinner again? Charlotte refuses to see him, and he sits here scowling like a bear whenever he comes. Why, they loathe each other!”

“Of course they do,” her father replied with a chortle as he chucked his beloved, but not overly intelligent, daughter on her round little chin. “I don’t intend that they should marry. I have other plans for the duke.”

He eyed Dulcie so significantly, even she caught on. “Me?” she squeaked. “You want him to marry me?”

“Yes.” He patted her arm. “The more annoyed he gets with Charlotte, the lovelier and more pleasant you will seem.”

Dulcie pouted again. “I thought I was pretty and pleasant.”

“Oh, you are, my dear, you are, and the duke can hardly fail to notice that fact every time he comes here.”

Dulcie’s pale forehead wrinkled with a frown. “Yet you said you’d sue him if he doesn’t marry Charlotte.”

“Only to ensure that he would stay in London and visit us. The moment he tells me he would rather marry you instead, all talk of breach of promise will be quite forgotten.”

Dulcie toyed with her rings and didn’t meet her father’s gaze. “That seems a bit hard on Charlotte, Papa, using her to lure the duke here to fall in love with me.”

“All’s fair in love and war, my dear. Indeed, we are really doing her a favor.” He warmed to his subject. “The gossip will go against her if the duke doesn’t at least seem to be doing the honorable thing, but if he jilts her in your favor, she’ll appear to be the one hard done by. All the ladies will sympathize with her, even those who were so quick to blame her in that other unfortunate business.”

Dulcie continued to frown. “What if they blame me for stealing the duke away?”

“They won’t,” he assured her. “If there’s any blame in this, it will attach to him.” He gave his daughter an indulgent smile. “Besides, what does it matter what they say if you marry a duke in the end?”

Chapter Four

Charlotte looked unseeing out the tall, narrow windows of the town house in Mayfair. She felt like a prisoner in her home—or at least, her uncle’s home. She had never been completely comfortable living with her uncle and cousin, but after her father’s death, she had no other alternative. Now, with the unwelcome presence of the Duke of Broverhampton haunting her like a ghost, she felt more imprisoned than ever.

She heard a small sound and turned away from the window, to find Dulcie standing near her dressing table.

“Yes?” she asked, noting that her usually placid cousin looked worried and uncertain. Perhaps the strain of this forced marriage nonsense was wearing on her, too.

“The duke is coming to dinner again.”

“So I heard from the downstairs maid.”

Dulcie chewed her lip and gazed at her beseechingly. “Charlotte, do you really not want to marry him?”

“No.” Not now. Not under these circumstances, although there had been a time…. “I do not understand why he doesn’t just let Uncle Malcolm sue him for breach of promise. I am more than ready to give evidence that I would be pleased to release him from his promise, such as it was. He can afford a good solicitor and surely that has to be more appealing to him than continuing this sham.”

Obviously relieved, Dulcie’s words came out in a torrential rush. “Papa thinks if the duke keeps coming here and you don’t see him, but he sees me, he might…that is, he might change his mind about marrying you and ask to marry me instead. He’s threatened to sue the duke, not to ensure you marry him, but to keep him coming here.”

Charlotte stared at her, confused—and yet, knowing Uncle Malcolm and his crafty mind, this could very well be true. “If this is so, why are you telling me, Dulcie?”

Her cousin straightened her slender shoulders and her doelike brown eyes shone with more resolve than Charlotte had ever suspected she possessed. “Because I like you, Charlotte. You’ve been like a sister to me, and I don’t agree with Papa’s plan.”

Charlotte’s heart swelled. She had no idea Dulcie cared for her so much and she hurried to embrace her. “I appreciate your affection, and your honesty, Dulcie,” she murmured, while also cursing herself for ever thinking ill of her cousin. “If you can win the duke’s heart, you are welcome to it.” She silenced the nagging little voice in her heart that told her she was lying. “And you are kind to tell me that I am but bait.” She drew back and regarded Dulcie gravely. “Shall I end this charade, then?”

Just as grave, Dulcie nodded. “Yes, please. If I cannot attract his notice by better means, I do not deserve it.”

Listening at the top of the stairs, Charlotte hurried toward the drawing room the moment she heard the butler usher James toward it. Dulcie would be at least another hour dressing, her uncle several minutes. This was her best chance to have a private word with the duke.

Despite her determination, she hesitated on the threshold when she saw him. He had one arm draped across the ornately carved marble mantel and was staring at the flames in the hearth, a look of such despondency on his face, she could scarcely believe this was the arrogant James Ellery.

All this time, she thought he must be enraged over the situation, or disgusted, or frustrated. She had never imagined he would ever feel despair, about anything. She had always believed him different from John in that, as well.

He must have heard her, for he looked up, and was immediately once more the coolly indifferent nobleman. “So, you have finally decided to venture down from your tower, Rapunzel.”

She perched on the scarlet velvet seat of a gilded chair. “You must ignore my uncle’s threat of a lawsuit and stop coming here.”

“Perhaps it amuses me to allow people to think I have a vestige of honor, after all, by agreeing to marry you,” he said as he sat on the brocade sofa opposite her.

“He doesn’t really want to sue you.”

That caused the duke to raise an inquisitive brow. “Then he is a finer actor than I gave him credit for, for he certainly conducts himself as if he does.”

“He wants you to fall in love with Dulcie, and he thinks the threat of legal action, which compels you to appear to be engaged to me, and which therefore requires you to call here, is an excellent way to throw the two of you together.”

For a moment, James looked incredulous, then his lip curled in a sneer. “He does, does he?”

“Now that you know that, you can drop this pretense of an engagement between us. I’m sure once he understands you cannot be bullied, he will reconsider suing you.”

“My reason for continuing to call here has little to do with any man’s ability to bully me, and more to do with my enjoyment of your discomfort that this engagement causes you—some small recompense for the pain you caused my brother.”

Annoyed that he persisted in blaming her for his brother’s death, she jumped to her feet, her hands balling into fists at her side. “How many times must I tell you I did nothing to cause him pain? I was as shocked as anyone when he killed himself, and I have spent hours and hours thinking over all that I said and did in the days before, wondering if there was something I could have done to prevent it, but I saw no signs that he was so despondent. I thought he was happy we were to be married.”

“Then you, madam, are either the most coldhearted, calculating woman…or the most accomplished liar…I have ever met.” James rose and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out an old, creased piece of paper. “Read John’s own words, and find yourself condemned as a scheming fortune hunter who never loved him. Hear from John himself how that discovery humiliated and destroyed him until he could not bear to live.”

He thrust the paper at her. “You may keep this. I will never forget what he says in this letter if I live a hundred years. And to think that once I—”

He fell silent, then turned on his heel and marched from the room.

Chapter Five

A few minutes later, Charlotte dashed into the street. She could see the carriage with the ducal crest rounding the corner and took off after it like a Bow Street Runner pursuing a thief, John’s plaintive letter clutched in her hand.

Mercifully, the carriage had to wait to let another, even finer, vehicle pass before turning into the next street. Regardless of the startled coachman, or anyone else who could observe her, Charlotte ran up to the carriage and pounded on the door. “James, you must let me explain!”

The window of the carriage came down with a crash, and James’s angry face appeared. “If you have read the letter, there is nothing to explain.”

“Yes, there is,” she insisted, “and I shall scream if you don’t let me in!”

For a moment it looked as if James was going to refuse, but then he said, “Stand out of the way.” He opened the door and kicked out the folding steps for her to climb inside.

“You’ll catch your death running about London without a wrap,” he noted as she scrambled onto the seat opposite him in a decidedly unladylike fashion.

“I don’t care.”

After closing the door, James knocked on the roof of the carriage. “Drive on, Charles,” he ordered, and the carriage lurched into motion. “Well, Charlotte, this will certainly set the tongues to wagging, even more than our embrace. Is that your intention?”

“I had no idea John had found my diary. He should not have read it.”

James frowned. “Oh, so my brother’s curiosity excuses your behavior?”

“He read my private thoughts, which he had no right to do. Even so, I would have explained if he had asked me.”

“What possible explanation could there be but the obvious. John was very clear about what he found in your diary—your obvious passion for another man, your desire to be with him, your dismay that you could not. Surely you cannot fault him for believing you did not love him, the man you had pledged to marry? What else was he, or any wealthy, titled man of reason to think but that you were marrying him for those things, and not himself?”

“That’s not it.” Now that the time had come to tell the whole truth, Charlotte hardly knew where to begin. Or if she should even try. And yet she could not forget what he had implied only moments ago, something that had made her heart race even as she read John’s letter. If she did not tell James everything now, she might regret it for the rest of her lonely life.

“The diary John found was not a recent one. I haven’t kept one for three years, well before I became engaged to your brother. I did love another man then, passionately. But nothing came of it. I thought he didn’t care for me, for he never paid me much attention. When he went away, I thought that was the end of it. I believed it was the end of it, and still believing it, conceived an affection for John. I did care for him, truly, and it breaks my heart anew to realize that he died because he didn’t believe that.”

“Maybe your passion for this unknown lover was not as dead as you claimed,” James replied. “The diary alone would not have been enough to cause John such despair. There must have been something else.”

“You have been away a long time, James. John was not the lad you left when he took his life. He was jealous of any man who glanced at me, and nothing I said seemed to alleviate his fears. He would rage at me, and for no reason. Any little thing would set him off. Even if he had never found the diary, he might have despaired of my love enough to end his life anyway.”

“Then you no longer love this man you wrote about?”

“I thought I did not,” she said, her gaze searching his face. “I thought he did not love me.”

Willing himself to feel nothing—not envy as he had felt for John when he had announced his engagement, or remorse for keeping his feelings buried for so long—James turned to stare out the window. “I’ll order Charles to return you to your uncle’s house. Our engagement is officially over, and I’ll leave you alone. You are free, Charlotte.”

“Oh, James,” she cried, moving to sit beside him and taking his face between her chilly palms as the letter fluttered to the floor. “It was you I wrote about in the diary. After you went away, I thought I could forget you and what I felt for you, that I could love John, that we could be happy. I was devastated when he died. You must believe me, James.” Her hands dropped limply to her lap. “But now I see that you are right, too. I did deceive him.” She raised her stricken eyes to look at him. “Yet I didn’t know it, because I was deceiving myself, too. I didn’t realize that I agreed to marry John because he was so much like you.”

Finally, she had confessed—but it was not at all what he had expected. Nor was she the only one guilty of keeping secrets that had led to such disastrous consequences.

Full of remorse for all that he had done and not done, James grabbed her hands and clasped them between his. “I do believe you, Charlotte, and I’m so sorry for how I’ve misjudged and mistreated you. I’ve loved you for years, but I was too shy to say so. You always seemed so bold, so confident, I thought you would laugh at me. And then when I realized how John felt about you, I was sure I didn’t stand a chance, so I went away. If I had stayed home and made my feelings known, how different things might have been! John would still be alive and we could have been married.”

“While we cannot bring John back, we are engaged now,” she reminded him.

By God, she was right. They were engaged. They could be married. There would be scandal and gossip and rumors, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was Charlotte as he pulled her close and kissed her. All the passion and desire and yearning he had been trying to hide and destroy for years burst free. She returned his kiss with the same heated passion, the same fierce desire, the same anxious yearning.

“Poor uncle!” she murmured a few moments later, arching her neck as James’s lips slid slowly lower. “He will be so disappointed.”

“Right now, I don’t give a damn about the man.”

“And if it hadn’t been for dear Dulcie…”

James drew back, a slight frown darkening his face. “I must say, Miss Duncan, I am not pleased that you can ignore my kisses.”

“I’m not ignoring them,” she said, putting her finger between his cravat and his shirt as she gave him a devilish smile. “I’m enjoying them very much. I’m just feeling rather sorry for Dulcie.”

He watched her proceed to pull off his cravat. “If it will make you feel better, there’s a fine young gentleman I know I can invite to the wedding and make sure your cousin meets. I think they would make a lovely couple.”

“That does make me feel better,” Charlotte whispered as she gathered a fistful of his shirt and pulled him to her. “Now let me see if you can ignore my kisses.”

He didn’t even try. Indeed, they would have made love then and there if the coach had not tottered to a halt.

“If you come into my house now with your gown in such a state, it will cause a great scandal, Charlotte,” he panted, his words grave, but his eyes dancing with joy as they moved apart.

Charlotte laughed merrily, and not a little breathlessly. “You are in a state of dishabille yourself, Your Grace,” she said as she threw open the carriage door and caution to the wind. “And I don’t care if all the world knows we are in love.”