Chapter 23
The carriage rolled steadily while Victor sat rigid upon the velvet seat across from Charlotte. Every jolt of the wheels echoed unpleasantly through his body, tightening the muscles in his shoulders until they ached.
Sunlight flickered through the carriage windows, yet Victor scarcely noticed any of it. His attention remained fixed upon keeping his breathing steady and ignoring the old memories clawing at the edges of his mind.
Charlotte sat beside him, dressed in a pale sage gown trimmed with cream lace, her gloved hands folded neatly in her lap.
She kept glancing toward him with quiet concern, she was attempting, and failing, to hide.
Victor appreciated the effort even as it irritated him slightly. He did not wish for her pity.
“You are clenching your jaw again,” Charlotte said softly.
Victor exhaled slowly through his nose. “Am I?”
“Yes.” Her lips twitched faintly. “You appear as though you are preparing to fight the carriage itself.”
He snorted despite himself. “If the carriage attempts anything treacherous, I shall certainly win.”
Charlotte laughed quietly, and the sound eased something taut inside him.
“You are doing very well,” she said gently.
“Do not speak to me as though I am a frightened child.”
“I would never dare,” she replied with suspicious innocence. “You are far too terrifying for that.”
Victor shot her a narrow look that only made her smile widen.
Good God, when had I begun enjoying these conversations so much?
There had once been a time when silence suited him perfectly well. Now he found himself waiting for Charlotte’s voice merely to distract himself from his own thoughts.
Victor’s gloved hand tightened briefly against his knee when the carriage rounded a sharper turn. Instantly, Charlotte’s fingers brushed lightly against his wrist.
“It is all right,” she murmured.
Victor glanced toward her. Her expression was soft, not pitying but understanding, and somehow that made enduring this easier.
Years ago, he would have rather walked ten miles through rain than willingly sit inside a carriage again.
Yet here he was, enduring every miserable second because Charlotte had asked him to.
He found that profoundly unsettling.
Charlotte seemed to sense his spiralling thoughts because she immediately began speaking again as though to distract him.
“Elizabeth was terribly pleased this morning.”
Victor leaned back slightly against the squabs. “Indeed?”
“Mm. Hannah told her that we would be going out together alone in society, and she looked as delighted.”
Victor huffed quietly. “Grandmother has become entirely too invested in our marriage.”
Charlotte’s eyes sparkled mischievously. “She simply enjoys seeing you happy.”
“I was not aware I looked particularly happy.”
Charlotte tilted her head thoughtfully. “You glare less now.”
He barked out an unwilling laugh at that. “A glowing compliment, Duchess.”
“You are welcome, Your Grace.”
The carriage jolted again, and Victor’s smile faded briefly as tension crawled up his spine once more. Charlotte noticed immediately and gently redirected the conversation yet again.
“I believe Lady Elizabeth has more sense than all of us combined,” she declared.
Victor arched a brow. “That is a bold statement.”
Charlotte grinned faintly. “She met me once and instantly declared I was your fiancée.”
“Yes, and that caused absolute chaos.”
“Yet she was correct in the end.” Charlotte looked entirely too smug about this observation. “Perhaps she is secretly a genius.”
Victor shook his head slowly. “Or perhaps we are both fools.”
Charlotte’s cheeks pinkened slightly at that, and Victor realized with sudden clarity that he enjoyed flustering his wife almost as much as he enjoyed kissing her. Dangerous knowledge indeed.
“Do you regret it?” she asked softly after a moment.
Victor looked toward her properly then.
The question was quiet, almost hesitant, yet there was vulnerability beneath it that struck him unexpectedly hard.
For a brief second, he saw not the composed Duchess of Mulford but the woman who had spent years sacrificing herself for everyone else.
The woman who still seemed astonished that anyone might choose her willingly.
“No,” he answered honestly.
Charlotte blinked softly, clearly surprised by the immediacy of his answer. Victor reached over before fully thinking and brushed his thumb across her gloved knuckles.
“Do you?” he asked quietly.
Charlotte held his gaze for a long moment before shaking her head. “No,” she admitted.
Something warm settled low in his chest at her answer.
He hated that she looked sad for him. Worse, he hated how much he appreciated it.
“You are retreating into your thoughts again,” Charlotte said softly.
Victor loosened his jaw with effort and exhaled slowly. “You notice too much.”
“Someone must,” she replied gently. “Otherwise you shall simply sit there suffering in silence while pretending everything is perfectly fine.”
A faint smirk tugged at his mouth despite himself. “You make me sound dramatic.”
Charlotte folded her hands in her lap primly. “You are dramatic.”
Victor barked out a quiet laugh at that. “Careful, Duchess.”
“Or what?” she teased lightly. “You shall glare at me more intensely?”
He leaned back against the squabs and studied her thoughtfully for a moment.
“If you truly wish to distract me,” he drawled slowly, “you should give me something better to look at.”
Charlotte blinked once. “What precisely does that mean?”
Victor’s gaze lowered deliberately toward her legs beneath the folds of her gown before returning to her face again.
Understanding dawned across her features almost instantly. “Victor,” she whispered in scandalized disbelief.
He only arched a brow lazily. “Pleasure yourself for me.”
Charlotte nearly choked on air itself. “That is utterly scandalous.”
“Mm,” he agreed easily. “Likely.”
Her cheeks turned beautifully pink as she stared at him. “And you claim that will distract you from your carriage misery?”
“Entirely.”
Charlotte narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “You are impossible.”
Victor watched the way she bit lightly against her lower lip while considering him.
Good God, even this small nervous habit affects me far more than it should.
“No one can see us?” she asked hesitantly.
Victor’s pulse jumped unexpectedly at the question. “No one.”
Charlotte looked briefly horrified with herself for even considering it. Then, very slowly, she shifted slightly on the velvet seat. Victor’s body immediately tightened in anticipation.
“Only because I pity you,” she muttered.
Victor nearly smiled at the obvious excuse. Charlotte carefully lifted her skirts just enough to reveal the soft line of her stocking-clad calf and the curve of her thigh above it. His breath caught instantly.
Her gloved hand moved uncertainly at first, stroking lightly over the exposed skin.
Sweet Christ.
Victor felt heat slam through him so quickly it bordered on painful. Charlotte glanced up through lowered lashes, clearly shy and emboldened all at once. The look nearly undid him entirely.
“Like this?” she asked softly.
Victor’s throat tightened. “Yes,” he said roughly.
She continued slowly, her fingers gliding up her thigh and to her center. Her confidence grew while the carriage rocked gently around them.
Victor could not tear his gaze away. Her skin looked impossibly soft beneath the pale silk stocking, and the innocent uncertainty upon her face somehow made the entire thing infinitely more intimate.
“You are staring very hard,” Charlotte whispered.
“You are torturing me,” he replied honestly.
“You asked to be tortured,” Charlotte whispered.
A tiny smile tugged at her lips then, coy and pleased.
Victor felt something sharp twist low in his stomach at the sight of it. He had known desire countless times before. Lust was familiar. Physical hunger was easy.
But this?
This consuming ache that settled beneath his ribs whenever Charlotte looked at him like that felt dangerously unfamiliar.
She shifted again, her fingers sliding over her. She began to moan as she threw her head back.
Victor snapped.
Before fully thinking, he leaned forward and caught her ankle gently, dragging her toward him across the seat.
Charlotte gasped softly as he dropped to his knees on the carriage floor between her parted legs.
“Victor,” she breathed, half shocked and half breathless anticipation.
“You should not have looked at me like that,” he muttered darkly.
Charlotte’s lips parted faintly. “Like what?”
Victor pushed her skirts slightly higher, his large hands settling warmly against her thighs through her stockings.
“Like you enjoy driving me mad.” His thumbs stroked slowly upward, and Charlotte shivered visibly beneath his touch.
The sound she made nearly destroyed what remained of his restraint.
Victor closed his eyes briefly as heat flooded through him.
Her thighs were soft beneath his hands, her body warm and responsive in a way that made him feel almost feverish.
He had touched countless women before Charlotte, yet none of them had ever affected him like this.
None had ever made him feel as though he were balancing upon the edge of complete ruin.
Charlotte’s fingers slipped into his dark hair hesitantly. “Does this distract you from the carriage?” she whispered.
Victor gave a rough laugh against her knee. “I scarcely remember my own name presently.”
She laughed softly at that, though it dissolved into a shaky breath when his lips pressed against her folds. His slow exploration upward along her rose bud filled him with heat.
Victor looked up at her then, and the sight nearly stole the air from his lungs completely. Her cheeks were flushed, her brown eyes dark and luminous, her lips parted softly as though every touch overwhelmed her.
God, she is beautiful.