A Properly Conducted Sham (Most Imprudent Matches #5)

Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One

BENNET HALL, SURREY - JULY 24, 1816

LEE

She wore the marks of my attentions beautifully—flushed cheeks, reddened lips, darkened eyes, and decorated jaw. My beautiful, talented wife stared up at me, waiting for me to lead her. To the bedroom. To ravish her.

In my dreams I had done so, twice a night in fact, for nearly the whole of our marriage. But more than half of those nights the dreams twisted to nightmares. And I had absolutely no way of knowing which way tonight would go. This was real—none of my nighttime visions had felt like this .

I hadn’t been with a woman truly since Mia, and not one of our interactions had this drugging, frenzied, ardent quality. It had been years, and I wanted Charlotte with an aching, longing desperation.

With more confidence than I felt, I led her to my chambers. If she had an opinion about the location, she did not share it but permitted me to tug her along.

The click of the door settling into frame and the turn of the lock echoed in my fingers, punctuating our breathing. Nerves twisted deep in my chest.

And then Charlotte held her arms out in supplication. Who was I to refuse her, to deny her offer to worship her? Wrapping her in my arms, burying my face into her tangled curls, was the only answer. Her hair was so damn soft, even mussed from my hands with half the pins probably splayed all over the floor of the nursery. She smelled so good, floral and something indefinably Charlotte .

Delicate lips brushed my cheek, right over my scar, and I wanted to weep. Instead, my lips found hers again, gentler this time. Rather than devouring, I savored her, the finest wine. My fingers caught on the knot of her spine, just below her hairline, and I dragged them down each vertebrae, drawing a shiver from her.

Nightmares drifted further from my thoughts with each brush of her lips and tongue, each delicate sigh banishing them. I could do this. All that was required of me was to worship my talented, passionate, beautiful wife. That was no difficulty at all—it was a privilege.

The magnetic pull of her lips valiantly tried to pin me there, but more silky skin needed to be explored. A constellation of freckles called this side of her shoulder home, the Diamond Cross of Carina, or perhaps Crux. No matter, they were equally worthy of adoration.

Then there was Cygnus, or part of him—perhaps missing the tail. It was difficult to tell, trapped in the curve of her bosom as it was. I wanted to find out if he was represented in his entirety. My hand found its way there of its own accord, tugging the neckline of her gown just slightly farther down. Oh yes, there he was. Tracing him with my tongue earned me a delightful moan.

My wife’s clever fingers found the buttons of my waistcoat. Unfortunately, removing it meant lifting my hands from heated curves and that was less ideal. I shucked it, flinging it to the ground before caressing the contour where her hip and bottom met, every bit as luscious as her breasts, as expected.

Dimly, I became aware of a tugging sensation on the shoulders of my shirt. Then a breathy, “Off, off.” Understanding crashed over me. The scars?—

Lust evaporated faster than it had arrived. Every one of my nightmares was real. I had frozen, mouth ghosting over delicate lines.

“Lee?”

I broke away, stepping back. “I cannot.” The words came without permission from a strangled, pitchy voice that certainly didn’t belong to me. But there was no one else.

She blinked at me, comprehension slowly dawning in her eyes. Her brows drew together and her eyes slackened.

“I see.” Her tone was small, tight.

“Charlotte...”

“I should go.”

“Wait, stay...”

She swallowed and the sound was harsh between us. “I—no, no thank you.”

“Char—”

“Good night.” She turned and found the door in quick steps, then fumbled with the lock for a moment before escaping.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, far too late, into the impossibly empty room.

CHARLOTTE

Every time I thought I had learned, every damn time. Lee wasn’t different. He wasn’t any better than the rest of them. They were all precisely as awful as I thought.

My feet carried me, directionless, down the hall. I passed the open nursery and a pang of hateful longing knotted in my chest. My fingers itched for paints. Not tiny, detailed brushes, but big ones, designed to cover large swaths of wall. White, white was a perfectly acceptable color for a nursery.

In spite of my desperation to cover my mess tonight, I hadn’t the paint or the brushes, just a few pots of the colors I’d used scattered on a drop cloth on the floor. Not enough.

I scurried down the stairs. I needed to be farther away.

The house was quiet with servants distracted elsewhere, and I slipped through the front door and down the walk. I wanted to leave, to run, to flee. The stables were just down this walk, perhaps a quarter of a mile. I could be in the saddle in mere minutes. If I waited for a carriage, I could be on the road to London in half an hour.

But even if I could ride in my condition, I had nowhere to go, no one to see. And that was the wretched truth of it. I was alone, utterly and completely. My father wouldn’t have me. James Place was occupied by Ralph’s heir now. Wesley was out of the question.

I changed direction and found the garden behind the hedgerows. Left to make friends with the bees.

The wrought iron bench was still there, untouched in recent weeks. Dusk was falling when I settled in.

Unlike my last trip to the garden, there were no bees, and wasn’t that a lark. Even they wanted nothing to do with me. It was an irrational thought, I knew it was—half of my thoughts were these days—but I was just so… alone. Alone and unwanted, once again.

Lee’s rejection stung, perhaps worse than Wesley’s. I was too distracted, too frantic, too desperate when Wesley sent me away, to feel the weight of it. But now I was trapped in this house for another ten and a half months.

Another ten months in which I would grow rounder and puffier and any acquaintances I had in town would forget me entirely. I didn’t have any that I would classify as friends. Wesley—I had thought—but that was gone now. The sad truth was that no one was missing me. I received no letters, nothing to indicate that anyone at all remembered my existence.

I would return to town without a reclusive husband and with a babe—too old to be that husband’s. And try as we might, no one would believe the child was actually Lee’s. Wesley had told too many—I would be ostracized.

And worst of all, I could not understand why Lee had rejected me. If I knew the reason, perhaps I could accept it. Lee may not love me, he may not even be fond of me, but he was attracted to me. That was clear before tonight from the frequency with which his gaze found my bosom. He’d kissed me like a man starved. He wanted me, carnally. It just seemed that he didn’t want to want me.

At least as far as prisons went this was a nice one. The flowers here were lovely, even late in the season. Daisies, zinnias, and Peruvian lilies intermingled in a way that should have left half of them entirely unable to flourish. The gardener must take exceptional care with these.

I should go back inside. My husband would worry. He was too kind to do anything else. I was a mess too—halfway to tupped. But I had little interest in the sight of Lee at present. And the thought of walking passed that nursery…

Unfortunately, the sky made my decision for me. What began as a single drop of rain shifted to a downpour in seconds. The nearest shelter was the observatory, and my gown was too new and too fine to ruin, even if the silk had been besmirched by my husband’s wandering hands.

I scurried into the building, slammed the door behind me, and braced against the sudden wail of the wind. Lee’s observatory lay before me as I had never seen it, dark, shuttered, empty. I lit the lamp he kept by the door before finding a few additional candles.

Now bathed in a soft, flickering glow, it was a more familiar sight. But unfamiliar at the same time. Lee was always so present in this room, in a way he wasn’t elsewhere.

Rain pounded the roof in concert with the gusts of wind. I was going to be here awhile. Thunder clapped in the distance—a long while.

My husband’s equipment was too delicate and too precious to examine without his permission. With the windows shuttered there seemed little point in the endeavor anyway. But the journals, ledgers, and books—I couldn’t damage those.

After opening the leather-covered folio he was always making notes in, I thumbed through a few pages. I couldn’t help the huff of laughter that escaped me. It was so clear when he saw something he found particularly interesting. His writing trailed off midword and he dribbled, his hand moving faster than the quill allowed. The more perfunctory observations were written in a steady hand with an appropriate amount of ink.

My name appeared more than once in recent entries: Charlotte found, Char—did. I couldn’t remember what I did that had him so excited, but he lost half of my name in his enthusiasm. His penmanship was such that I couldn’t begin to guess what he was writing about.

Beneath the ledger were a few of my attempts at a star chart, my paintings as well, Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune by theoretical description only. He had those tucked into a folder for safekeeping.

Propped against the wall, the desk acted as a makeshift bookshelf. On the Heavens , Sidereus Nuncius , and other texts on astronomy. And more astonishing, he had medical texts. I slipped one free only to find a page marked with a scrap of paper. A page dealing with human development—in somewhat graphic detail I realized, feeling my face heat. Beside it was a second text on midwifery, and this one had its own scrap of paper. But it had notes on it too. In the same excited, cramped hand he used for discoveries, he had comments about swelling and joint pain. Lee had noted itching on palms and feet, and heartburn.

Farther down he had more notes. Due November?

And suddenly the ache in my chest that accompanied my flight from the house was just the tiniest bit less painful.

The wind still howled outside the observatory. I would need to settle in for quite a while, perhaps all night. While the astronomy texts were certain to lull me to sleep, it seemed wrong that my husband be more informed of the changes taking place inside me than I was.

I flipped back to the beginning in the midwifery text.