Chapter Eighteen
He was stalling. He had done two laps around the gaming floor on his own, making a casual inquiry about one gentleman’s new stallion, another about a particularly slanderous wager placed in his betting books, and had generally spent the last fifteen minutes subtly scanning for any mention of Charlotte’s appearance on the gaming floor.
It was for her reputation, he repeated to himself.
He could not abide the lady being dragged into malicious gossip regarding himself.
She had managed to keep her family’s name above reproach, even as her fool of a brother did everything he could to tarnish it.
Benjamin would not be the straw that broke the gossip mill’s back.
It was a flimsy excuse, though. The truth of it was, after days of yearning for this exact moment, Charlotte had returned to his rooms and was awaiting him.
He found himself filled with trepidation.
He had never been one to be thrown out of sorts by a woman.
Even as a boy, he had not been intimidated by the fairer sex, as some might.
But now he was terrified. Or was that elation?
Damn it, he could not even think straight since she had come in the door. But enough was enough. He rounded a Grecian marble and slipped through a door behind one of the tapestries. Even if someone had been watching, he had left the floor on the opposite side of the room from Lady Charlotte.
When he finally stood outside his bedchamber, he paused, trying to catch his breath. Should he knock? No, these were his rooms.
He pushed open the door and shut it behind him.
Charlotte looked up from her seat by the fire. She was perfectly calm, relaxed even, leaning back in the plush chair and running her finger over the lip of a glass.
“I hope you don’t mind. I helped myself.” She took a sip of brandy, and the moisture left on her lip shone in the firelight.
“Not at all.” His voice sounded hoarse. “Sorry to have kept you waiting.”
“Not at all.” She smiled and took another sip from her glass.
He pushed off the door and poured himself a glass from the decanter, throwing half of it back before refilling it.
“How are you feeling?”
“Again, really? Small talk?”
He turned and was pinned by her raised brows. Benjamin shrugged and made his way to the seat across from her. She had a folio of papers across her lap, reading through them at her leisure, as if she were his man of business and this was a normal evening appointment.
“I don’t consider it small. I did watch you almost die. Twice. Seems a fair question.”
She waved the comment away, and he considered how strange it was that she had been asleep during some of the most harrowing days of his life. She had no idea of the investment he felt in her and her well-being.
“Your pub is being embezzled.” She said the words casually, as if commenting on a bonnet while passing a shop window.
Benjamin started and then frowned, leaning forward to see the papers she had on her lap.
“Where did you get that?” He saw that she indeed had a balance sheet from the Trident’s Hull.
“From your bedside table. Do you often go to sleep reading stories of cunning barmen stealing funds from under their swashbuckling thief lord?” She said it with a teasing smile and pointed at a row of figures as she passed the packet over to him.
Sure enough, the entries for ale were listed as one number, when, just a few pages later, the supply cost showed a significantly lower sum.
“It looks like they are charging for more expensive ale than they ordered and pocketing the difference.” He looked up, jaw slack as she sipped her spirits calmly, the hint of a smile playing across her lips.
“How did you catch that?” How had he missed it? He was usually so meticulous in his bookkeeping. That is why he did not leave it to a steward or Bell, his man of business.
She shrugged. “I have gotten very good at keeping accounts. Though I have to admit, yours are much more extensive than mine.”
“I cannot believe I missed this,” he said, somehow sure she would not use the admission against him.
“As I said, your accounts are extensive, if this is any indication. That is far too much for one person to keep track of. Though I admire the diligence.” She was so forthright.
He knew how much the compliment meant coming from her.
It did strange things to his chest as he regarded her a moment longer.
He watched as she worried her lower lip between her teeth, clearly winding up to say something. “Benjamin,” she said his name on a whispering exhale, and he almost vaulted himself from his seat to reach her.
But he restrained himself. It was clear she was working herself up to say something important—likely to call off this sham.
“I recognise that following this contract.” Her nose screwed up at that, like she had more to say about his cowardly delivery of that accursed document, but she carried on, “I recognise that you are technically my employer.”
It struck Benjamin as a strange idea, but she was correct. That is exactly what he was. A mistress was just another employee. It was his turn to purse his lips; the thought left a sour taste in his mouth. How pathetic.
“But even though I am now under your employ, I expect to be treated with the respect of an equal in this arrangement.” Benjamin kept his face impassive.
It was a bold declaration, and her pride warmed and shamed him simultaneously.
“I know it is not the done thing, but I have never acted as a man’s mistress before and find I have no regard for the customs of such an arrangement.
I do not wish to be obligated by a contract, and I do not wish you to think I act out of an obligation either.
I find myself at a crossroads in my life where this arrangement suits me as much as it suits you.
Though I know the matter of money is unavoidable, I would ask that we both disregard it as much as is within our power during our time together.
That means no gifts. No trinkets. No buying of affection. ”
She sat there with all the dignity of a queen, and Benjamin could not tear his gaze from her.
Her words hummed within him. She wanted to be a part of this.
Beyond his blasted contract. It was too much to believe, and the deep-seated, cynical voice in his ear urged him to exercise caution. She must have an ulterior motive.
But he could not find it in himself to care. “Agreed. It would be my honour.” The words were sincere.
Charlotte’s lips quirked at first, then broke into a full, delighted smile.
Benjamin held his breath as she leaned over, bridging the distance between their chairs, suddenly set far too far apart for his liking.
Finally, her lips met his, tentatively at first, only a caress.
The immediate relief and exhilaration were dizzying, but the moment she deepened the kiss, Benjamin thought he might die.
She was warm and accommodating, matching every move of his lips with her own.
She smelled of rosewater and the rainy pavilion.
Benjamin felt like he was there and here at the same time.
She combed her fingers through his hair and moaned into his mouth as he pushed her back into the seat, wrapping his arms around her.
In the hours following their encounter in the pavilion, Benjamin had convinced himself that he had imagined the electricity shooting to the base of his spine at her touch, or the heady pull of her mouth and the yearning thrum of her body. It had never felt this way before.
He had chalked it up to the time elapsed between the encounter and his last mistress.
He had never been one to enter liaisons impulsively—life on the streets exposed the ravages of unanticipated infection—and he had dismissed his last mistress almost a month prior.
Benjamin had hoped it was this bout of abstinence that had intensified the experience with Charlotte.
He had been mistaken.
Here, now, pulling Charlotte as close as physically possible, he could not get enough.
She was like a drug, and a frenzied haze had clouded his mind so that all he could do—all he could think about—was the touch of her lips, the silken feel of her skin, the warm sweetness of her mouth…
he might spend then and there, like a randy stableboy, if he did not regain some control.
He broke from her lips and began tracing kisses down her neck to the exposed ridge of her collarbone, then to her shoulder, pushing the delicate sleeve of her gown down the curve of her arm. He could feel her warm breath fanning over his neck as she panted.
He drew his tongue along the skin just below her clavicle and smiled into her sternum as she gasped.
Her breasts were straining against the edge of her bodice, and with one decisive flick of his wrists, he freed them.
His breeches felt impossibly tight as his cock throbbed at the sight of her breasts flushed pink with desire.
With one hand, he cupped one of them, running a thumb over the already puckered nipple. He leaned down and laved the other with the flat of his tongue.
She let out a strangled groan.
Encouraged by her frenzied reaction, he reined in his control even more and moved his tongue in a slow circle around her breast and up to the tip, sucking it in between his teeth before passing another broad lick. He switched and began paying the same attention to the other side.
She was clawing into his flesh now, head thrown back for him to admire. She really was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. It defied logic how breathtaking she looked just then in the firelight, skin flushed and chest heaving.
But he was not even close to finished. “Easy now, Charlotte. I want to take my time,” he purred into the soft skin of her abdomen.