Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
When Lady Catherine had appeared in the box at the opera, Charlotte had known that there had been something between her and Benjamin.
It was obvious. Whether she had been his mistress, just as Charlotte was now, she was still not sure.
The encounter had stirred a similar burning in her chest. The natural jealousy of a woman who had captured the attention of a man who had so captured her own.
But that was nothing compared to this now.
She had not loved him then. Christ. She loved him. This mercurial man, who had already given her so much. Who shouldered his responsibilities and eased the lives of others, no matter how blackened his reputation may be.
It was good that this arrangement with Benjamin was only a month long.
She could not imagine the pain and humiliation that would come when he tired of her and moved on to a woman more like this maid—or Lady Catherine.
And she was sure it was just a matter of time.
A man like Benjamin Scarsdale could not possibly be satisfied with a woman like her for long.
She knew her self-pity was misplaced. The weariness of the journey and the slow gnaw of change had her feeling heartsick.
She knew she was passably pretty, if in a rather strange way, and had attracted enough admirers in her first season.
But that was another life—another woman.
That young belle had not seen the truth of life yet.
She had not been hardened by loss and made cynical and plain.
No, it was best they leave all this behind before he understood all that and saw her for what she was—the veil of novelty stripped away. Before he could break her heart.
∞∞∞
There was no air in this room. It was all lavender steam and Charlotte. Benjamin stood braced against the door, trying to catch a breath.
The water had darkened her fairy-light hair, and the fire caught the deep golden hues spilling down her narrow back.
She watched the maid leave, and Charlotte’s gaze lingered on him, turning his knees soft and his heart tripping forward, towards her.
He had to loosen his cravat just to get a full breath of air.
She rested her sharp chin on her shoulder.
“Good evening, Benjamin.” Her voice was quiet, as if she were far away. He should be closer to her.
“Good evening, Charlotte.” He toed off his boots, making every effort to appear calm and patient—not as if he were burning to climb into the small slipper tub right beside her, legs tangling together in the silky water. “How was your afternoon?”
She had a smile for him then, one that gripped his chest and had him nearly delirious with joy. “It was wonderful.”
She reached her hands out to catch one of his between hers, pulling him down and holding it to her lips.
He could feel his heart pumping in his throat as her warm breath fanned over his scarred knuckles, the softness of her lips tracing the ridges of the bones and somehow finding places between that were still soft and sensitive—that had not been hardened by the cruelty of the streets.
It was a wonder to him that there was any softness left at all—that she could find it.
“I should be cross with you.” Her faint brow arched, and the familiar governess quirk of her lip exposed the dimple he was coming to recognise as a reward—it only appeared when she made that precise expression.
“Cross?” He was swimming through a daze—fixated on kissing that dimple.
“We agreed, no gifts.”
At that, he frowned, momentarily snapping out of his trance.
If she only knew the amount of restraint he exerted in not buying every single diamond and silk he came across—every filly and coach and townhouse and slipper.
He wanted to give her everything. But he had respected her damned rule.
He had not commissioned more gowns. He had not opened a line of credit for her in every fashionable establishment he could think of.
What more could she possibly want? Or not want, as it were.
“I—”
“Shhh.” She still held his hand and pressed it to her cheek—where he so desperately wanted to place his lips. There was something Shakespearean about the moment, but he was too far in her thrall to recall. “I said, no gifts. And you have just given me the most precious gift I could have asked for.”
Her eyes were wide and dark in the firelight, and Benjamin was so close, he could lean in and drown in them. “It was nothing.” The words were strangled by her proximity—her gratitude. Didn’t she know she need not be grateful? He would give her anything. He could not help it.
“It was not nothing, Benjamin. I have not been able to see Marcus and Henry since last year. And even then, it was only a moment. And now…” She seemed far away again, and Benjamin leaned even closer, compelled to keep her with him.
“Well, with my circumstances as they are, I will likely not see them for another long while…maybe even years.”
Her voice caught, and he watched her throat work as she valiantly fought the wave of emotion that had taken her, not allowing the undertow to draw her back out to sea again. Didn’t she know he would dive in after her and pull her right back?
“So today was an unbelievable gift. To see them—they are not even boys anymore. And now, when I meet them again, when they are men.” Her eyes were misty, like the whips of heavy fog that rose from the fields in the cool summer twilight. “Perhaps they will not be strangers to me.”
The loss in her voice was enough to cleave Benjamin in two.
He knew what it was like to lose a family—one by one, like strips of flesh being peeled away.
A part of yourself gone with each one. And now, she was in the middle of it.
A slow splintering of her family—of herself—despite all the selfless battle she had waged to prevent it.
Looking into her sharp, open face, which sparkled with dewy steam and firelight, Benjamin made his decision. He would not let this happen to her. He would restore her to the life she had been robbed of, and maybe, that could mean he could keep her too. Just a little while longer.
“Charlotte.” He brought his other hand up, framing her face between his palms, the linen of his shirtsleeves dampening as she gripped his forearms, clinging to him as much as he was to her.
An errant tear escaped and slipped down her cheek, and he brushed it away.
He could see the chinks in her armour cracking, and he wanted to tell her he could hold her together if she needed to fall apart.
Instead, he kissed the side of her lip, precisely where the dimple would appear given the right provocation.
There were so many things he wanted to say.
Words that were bubbling up inside of him, mounting a pressure that he likely should not ignore.
But he did not dare release them. Instead, he pressed another kiss to the tip of her long nose.
Then another to the other side of her lips.
These words would have to do for now. The words of his touch—of his kiss.
“Thank you, Benjamin.” Her voice was quiet, filled with a reverence that stunned him.
And then she kissed him. Her warm lips were a soothing pressure on his. Her hands pulled him closer, until his forearms were pressed to her chest and the linen at his elbows submerged in the warm, lavender water that had so temptingly obscured her bare body.
The kiss turned deeper, the hot wet of her mouth drawing him in further until his shirt and waistcoat were drenched, her fingers scoring his scalp and sending shock waves down his spine.
Somehow, he managed to shuck his buckskin breeches before doing precisely what he had longed to do the moment he arrived in their room and saw Charlotte in the bath.
Even as Charlotte was trying to peel his wet shirt off, he climbed into the small tub beside her, sending Charlotte into a peal of surprised laughter as water sloshed over the edges of the tub and onto the hearth rug beneath.
“The landlady will not be pleased if we make a mess.” Charlotte was still laughing, and despite the forceful desire that consumed him, the sound of her laughter loosened something in his chest.
“Let her rage,” Benjamin growled through a feral grin as he took her in—the flush of her breasts and the glow of delight in her eyes.
He almost said something then—the words almost bubbled out of him.
But something stopped him. Some dam honed from a lifetime of survival.
So instead, he just pulled her closer, her legs wrapping around his waist as he lifted her onto his lap, a hiss of blind pleasure escaping through clenched teeth as her silken heat caressed him, one shift of her hips taking him deep within her.
They moaned in unison, and Benjamin watched through heavy-lidded eyes as Charlotte’s head tipped back, the flush on her neck and chest growing a deeper, more enticing red.
Benjamin placed his lips there, pressing open-mouthed kisses down the column of her neck and to the tender peaks of her breasts, nipping and sucking until she was rocking against him, more bath water splashing out of the basin and onto the floor.
Charlotte let out another cry of pleasure as he laved his tongue over a love bite already beginning to bruise.
She rode him expertly, drawing pleasure from both of their bodies, the steam of the bath mixing with their heavy breaths.
Neither of them would last long like this; Benjamin already knew.
Her hips on him rolled and bucked, making his eyes roll back in his head as she pushed further and further, reaching for the pinnacle they were careening towards.
And then she gasped, a delicious, shuddering shout rolling from her. Her clenching pleasure blinded Benjamin just as he managed to pull her off of him, pressing her to his chest as his own release took him.
Their hearts beat as one, as their breath slowed, chests rising and falling together until the bathwater cooled around them—or what was left of the bathwater.
Benjamin forced his muscles to work again, though they had suddenly become languid, uncooperative things, and pushed them out of the water, using a length of towelling to dry both of them off before laying Charlotte down on the bed.
After dousing the candles, he crawled in beside her, pulling the worn but clean quilt around them and drawing her warm, sleepy body in beside him, fitting her back to his chest and twining their legs together.
As he lay there, the warmth of her seeping into his skin all the way down to his soul, the words were there again. He wanted to say them. Needed to whisper them into her hair—even if her slow, heavy breathing proved she was already asleep, pulling him down with her.
But they would not come. He could not let them.