Chapter Fifteen #2
“It only took a week to realise she was with child.” His voice was flat again.
“She tried so hard to find more work, but the babe made her so ill, she could hardly stand most days. I took on extra jobs. I was out from dawn till dusk, sometimes through the night too.” Charlotte closed her eyes for the thin young boy that he must have been.
Terrified, fighting to keep himself and his sister afloat.
She could remember Freddie at that age. The twins were only now twelve.
Her heart ached for the unfairness of it all.
“It was not enough, though. Another boarder got sick. He was old—not even on our floor. But it swept through the place quickly. I was ill first. I tried to stay out longer so I would not pass it to her. I slept on the back stoop for a week, hoping she would be safe in the little room we let.”
He was breathing heavily, and the words sounded like they were being sawed from his chest. Charlotte felt moisture on her cheeks, but she did not dare wipe the tears away lest he see her and stop. She had to hear his story as much as he needed to tell it.
“One of the nights, the landlady kicked me awake on the stoop. She asked me to do something with the body so she could fill the bed. I did not even know Delia had fallen ill. She died alone in that tiny room while I was just outside, below the window. The babe died with her, of course. Probably for the best. The father would never have acknowledged the child.”
Silence settled over them again. Charlotte did not ask who the father was.
She had seen enough of the world’s cruelties to know exactly how the rich and powerful treated those they felt were inferior.
In fact, she knew Benjamin and his sister’s story was not unique in the slightest. She had written about the conditions children and women lived in after they had been chewed up and spit out by their employers and “benefactors.” The editorials had not been run and had been sent back by Mr. Keiler, who requested something of more general interest. That he had even paid her for those weeks had been a surprise.
But she had saved each one. They were the work she was most proud of.
Still, hearing the story firsthand, her heart broke anew.
Despite the dire straits her family found themselves in now, at least they had started with the privilege of birth that had largely protected them from a similar fate.
Though there was always time to fall further, she supposed.
It could come to the point that she was no better off than his sister.
“Charlotte?” When Benjamin spoke her name, she felt his voice in her bones.
“Yes?” She turned toward him and could only get the word out on a whisper. His nose was only inches from hers, and the look in his eyes was so vulnerable and unguarded, it was as if she was seeing him for the first time. He reached a hand up and gently brushed tears from the curve of her cheek.
“I did not mean to upset you.” The words were muted and apologetic. She shook her head, lifting her left hand up to clasp his warm hand to her cheek.
“Thank you for telling me. I am so sorry you lost your sister like that. I cannot even imagine…”
She stopped as he traced his thumb across her lower lip.
Charlotte made a decision at that moment.
There was no knowing what was in her future—it was likely not a bright prospect.
But here, in this moment, she had him. This beautiful man, who had fought for his family.
This man who dealt in secrets yet had shared his with her.
She wanted him. Whatever her future held, she could cling to this.
He must have read her thoughts in her gaze, for the atmosphere of the little glass pavilion changed. It was suddenly so charged she expected her hair to stand on end or static sparks to shoot from her hand if she reached out to touch him.
Without thinking, she bridged the gap between them and touched her lips to his.
Gentle at first, only a hint of pressure.
Then closer, a proper kiss. He matched her immediately, reaching his fingers to her nape and unspooling the loose chignon, letting her hair fall free.
He scratched his fingers along her scalp, sending shocks of pleasure to the base of her spine.
Charlotte pulled at his cravat and slid her hand under the collar of his shirt. The heat of his bare skin was glorious, and she felt like she could not get close enough to him.
Having the same thought, Benjamin rolled over and propped himself above her, careful not to touch her shoulder. He did not break his lips from hers as he trailed a hand down the sensitive length of her rib cage and back up to cup her breast over her bodice.
She let out a gasp at the sensation and tugged his shirt from his waistband, pulling it up as he struggled to shrug out of his coat and waistcoat. After he had rid himself of the offending garments, he settled back down over her, breathing hard as he recaptured her lips.
Slowly, Benjamin drew up the hem of her gown and chemise, trailing a warm hand up the back of her thigh until he met her hip.
She had never come to embrace the fashion of wearing drawers under her dresses.
At that moment, when Benjamin’s hand met naked flesh and he let out a strangled moan, she was supremely happy with her decision.
As Benjamin drew his fingers through the slick folds of her most intimate place, she sucked in a sharp breath. She had not imagined it could feel like this. Her entire body was on fire.
He moved from her lips and trailed kisses down her neck until he reached her bodice. With one strategic pull, he exposed one breast and then another, taking one nipple into his mouth just as he sank a long, thick finger into her core.
She let out a small gasp of joy and surprise and gripped his hair, holding him to her. It felt as if a taut chord travelled from her breast down to her core, and the feeling of him strumming at both ends was maddening. Charlotte needed more.
She had a general idea of where this was meant to go, information pieced together through the years, along with her work speaking to the straight-talking women outside her sheltered society upbringing.
Fumbling for the fall of his breeches, her hand brushed over his length, eliciting a deep moan as Benjamin bucked his hips into her hand.
She buzzed with the gratifying realisation that he was just as affected as she was.
Emboldened, she freed the buttons of his fall.
She recaptured his lips in hers, wrapping her hand around him and smiling as he gasped into her mouth.
She ran her hand up and down his length once, then twice, revelling in the power she wielded.
“Charlotte,” he let out in a strangled gasp. “Charlotte, you have to stop. I will not last much longer if you continue like that.”
She grinned, kissing him again and pulling him over her. “Then stop me.”
He let out another strangled noise that sounded something like a laugh. “You will be the death of me.”
“Turnabout is fair play.” She reached down between them, but he stopped her, gripping her wrist and pushing her hands above her head, twining his fingers with both of hers and settling between her legs, the rough hair on his legs deliciously scratching the soft, oversensitive flesh of her spread thighs.
He hesitated, looking down at her with searching eyes.
She panted, her bare chest brushing against his and sending waves of sensation through her. “Please, Benjamin.”
She watched as her words washed over him with devastating effect. His head dipped, and he let out a tortured groan. She felt the blunt tip of him line up with her entrance and felt the pinching pressure as he sank deep within her.
She caught her breath at the miraculous intrusion.
He remained perfectly still at first, letting her adjust to him.
It was not what she had expected. The pain was minuscule—fleeting.
Overwhelmed by something more, growing from deep within her and spreading through her chest. They were together, part of one another.
She was not alone. He was there with her.
The thought alone welled up inside her, carrying her forward.
Then, as if her body could not wait any longer, she shifted her hips, urging him on.
Slowly but surely, he began thrusting. Shallowly at first, then deeper and deeper, until they were both panting.
The rain had picked up even more, and the clatter of droplets against the glass mixed with the sound of their lovemaking.
Nothing existed in Charlotte’s entire world beyond this little pavilion.
∞∞∞
Benjamin hooked Charlotte’s leg over his arm and thrust deeper.
The fire in his body had reached a fever pitch, and it was all he could do to keep his movements steady.
Beneath him, Charlotte writhed. Her hair was splayed around her like a golden fire, and Benjamin was not sure if he had not died and gone to heaven.
He had wanted this to go differently. In his fantasy, he would take his time, draw the pleasure out of her slowly.
Watch as she came apart for him again and again before he joined her.
They would be in his townhouse—privacy and comfort assured for however long they wished to remain abed—weeks preferably. He would savour her and worship her.
But what had taken them now was nothing like that.
Something within him had cracked open in the quiet idyll of this garden pavilion.
Charlotte had unwittingly broken through the hard, calcified layers of armour he had not realised had grown so brittle.
And out had rushed truths and pains that he had not revisited in decades.
It had been saturating, weighing him down and hollowing him out. And Charlotte had stayed.
More than that.
Charlotte had seen him. Touched him. Kissed him.
What had followed, he had no power to stop.
Perhaps they had both always been propelled by this current—dragged forward until they collided.
But rather than crash and dissipate, they joined and grew and had now reached an irresistible force and intensity that they could only fly forward together.
The current that took them up was strong and steady and completely overwhelming.
Benjamin was lost. He could feel the water cresting over his head, threatening to drown him.
Using the slip of mental capacity he had left, he reached between them and stroked Charlotte with the pad of his thumb.
Within seconds, she was clenching him so hard he could not see straight.
With a sudden laughing gasp, she exploded around him, and he bent to catch her cries in his mouth as she rode out her climax, crashing around him in a glorious, obliterating wave.
His own thrusts were becoming increasingly erratic, and he pressed his forehead against hers, eyes shut tight as he plunged into her silken heat once, twice more, and then pulled out, spilling his seed on her soft thighs.
They lay there in silence for a while. The only sounds in the pavilion were their pants and the rain.
Benjamin could not get a foothold. He was lost. Out to sea. But somehow, the crack in his soul did not feel so gaping. The hollowness was no longer gnawing at him. In fact, he felt light. Buoyed by Charlotte’s tickling breath at his neck and the warmth of her languid body beside him.
Finally, worried the chill of the tile beneath them might start an ache in Charlotte’s shoulder, Benjamin roused himself.
He tucked himself back into his breeches and withdrew a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his coat to wipe the mess from Charlotte’s legs. Charlotte still had a hand thrown over her eyes, and he could not help but smile at the sweet tilt of her lips.
He folded his handkerchief again and stopped cold.
There was blood.
But surely not.
He knew about her affair with the Italian painting instructor. It was information easily bought if one knew who to pay. And he had made a career of knowing whom to pay. He stared at the smear of blood on his handkerchief, dumbfounded.
That was her secret. The one he knew he could wield.
The one that made her his. And he had. That was why she had considered his proposition in the first place.
That was why she had not distanced herself completely the second she came to.
He had used her brother’s debt to bend her, but this secret had been the one to make her break.
It was the only thing he had over her. And it had been a lie.
She was a virgin—or had been.
Unaware of his realisation, Charlotte went about putting her bodice to rights and then lay her head back against the tile floor of the pavilion.
Too shocked to say anything and scrambling to make sense of what had just occurred, Benjamin followed her lead, hoping she would not see all the ways he was spinning and disoriented and unsure. Vulnerable.
He pulled back on his shirt and lay down beside her, pulling her up against him and pressing a kiss to her hairline.
She had been a virgin.
She had been a virgin and had chosen him.
His secrets meant nothing.