Regency: Innocents & Intrigues. Helen Dickson

lit room.

      Charles had a sudden and disturbing vision of her betrothed, of the degenerate roué, Henry Winston, of his moist fingers twining themselves in that soft, sweetly scented hair, sliding over her bare shoulders, his mouth devouring those soft lips. He turned from her abruptly, his head slightly bowed as he gazed into the hearth.

      ‘Go back to bed. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow and it is imperative that you get your rest. You have my word that you are quite safe,’ he assured her.

      ‘But what about you?’ she asked hesitantly. ‘It will be a long day for you also. You cannot be comfortable sleeping in that chair.’

      He turned and looked at her, smiling crookedly, a roguish gleam in his eyes. ‘Where else would you have me sleep? With you, perhaps?’

      Charles searched her eyes for barely an instant before the dark orbs went chasing off in another direction. Smiling, he leaned forwards to speak over her ear. ‘The idea of sharing your bed with me doesn’t frighten you, does it, Maria?’

      ‘No, of course not,’ she denied in a frantic rush, stepping back in an effort to put some distance between them. Her retreat was necessary to cool her burning cheeks and to ease to some small degree the unruly pace of her heart. ‘But that is out of the question.’

      ‘It needn’t be.’

      ‘Forgive me for ever thinking you were a gentleman,’ she derided. ‘So far you’ve done much to prove yourself as big a roué as any I have met—in addition to your impertinence in ogling me and suggesting I appease your—your dragon.’

      Charles curbed a grin. ‘Worry not, Maria, you are quite safe. But if you should have a change of heart and take pity on me, I can promise you such delight as you’ve never before imagined.’

      Maria was shocked to the core that he should be speaking to her like this. ‘Will you please stop?’ she flared irately, lifting her eyes to his face in time to see his eyes dip into her breasts. ‘You seem to forget that I am promised to another. You behave as if you really are my husband.’

      Charles chuckled softly. ‘Who knows what will come from our association? I may just decide to forget that I am a gentleman, to forget about Henry Winston, and behave as your husband just to show you what delights can be had between a married couple.’

      ‘Except that we’re not. You engaged two rooms, as I recall.’

      ‘I did—one for Pierre.’ Tilting his head to one side, half frowning, half smiling, he peered at her. ‘His room is big enough to accommodate me if you would like me to leave you to sleep alone. Is that what you want?’

      She bit her lip. The moment to tell him to go and leave her in peace was at hand, yet for the life of her she could not do so, for the fear of that drunken oaf coming to her room remained.

      ‘No. I would like you to stay.’ Without a word Maria went to the bed and removed one of the blankets and placed it on the chair.

      ‘You might as well be warm while you sleep. Thank you, Charles,’ she said stiffly. ‘You are being very good to me—when you aren’t trying to seduce me.’ Why she wasn’t outraged by his audacity was a mystery beyond her comprehension just then.

      He looked at her, the firelight flickering in his light blue eyes. ‘Why wouldn’t I be? Our fathers were friends, were they not? There is no reason why we should be any different.’

      ‘No, of course not.’

      Standing in such close proximity, Maria thought Charles looked very appealing—and very handsome. A warm trickle of an unfamiliar sensation ran through her body, a stirring she had never felt before. Her heart quickened within her breast, and her blood seemed to melt, turning her insides into a river of heat. She shivered. Charles noticed.

      ‘Are you cold?’ he asked, a crease of worry between his brows.

      He reached to clasp her hand, his fingers very strong and sure. There was a faint white scar on the back of his hand, and Maria wondered how he had come by it. At the same time she realised she knew absolutely nothing about him. How could she? And maybe it wasn’t safe to know.

      She withdrew her hand and turned her thoughts away from this new, dangerous direction. She felt a sudden stillness envelop them. Vividly aware of his closeness, the spicy scent of him, she was overwhelmingly conscious of him—and confused. She was slightly irritated by the way in which he skilfully cut through her superior attitude, the artificial posturing she often assumed to save herself from him. She knew she asked for it, but the magnetic attraction still remained beneath all the irritation.

      ‘I’m not cold,’ she said, her voice sharp.

      ‘Then go to bed.’

      She did as she was bade and crawled back into the warm softness, allowing sleep to overtake her and her troubled thoughts.

      Charles sat staring into the shifting, glowing lights in the dying embers of the fire, his mind wandering back to his young charge between the covers. A picture of a tumbling mass of blue-black hair swirled through his thoughts, of dark fringed green eyes that glowed with their own light, the colour of their depths forever changing like richly hued jewels. A nose was added to the lovely vision, slim and pert and a feature of perfection. A pair of lips floated into mind, gently curving and expressive; in his recollection he remembered the moment when they had left the inn to begin their journey and her lips had turned upwards and parted with laughter.

      Let it be for ever so, he mused, but he knew it would not.

      Thinking of the long and arduous journey ahead of them, he hoped they would reach their destination without mishap. Maria was depending on him, he reminded himself. She trusted him to get her to England safely. He owed it to her not to fail.

      Chapter Three

      The following morning when Maria awoke, the sight of Charles standing half-naked at the wash stand, his shirt thrown over a chair and his trousers unfastened at the waist and falling slightly low over his hips, was almost too much for her virgin eyes to bear. The vision of his tall, lithe, wide-shouldered form with sculpted muscles as he hummed a military march, bathed in the golden glow of early morning sunlight, would be for ever branded on her brain.

      Shoving back the covers, she knelt on the bed and stared at him. Never having seen the naked male form before, she stared in virginal innocence, thinking he was one of those rare men who looked like a Roman statue. Up close, in broad daylight, his maleness, the power, the strength of his body, seemed even more pronounced. Armed with shaving dish and razor, a towel round his neck and lather on his face, he continued to shave.

      Curious, never having seen a man shave before, as she watched him she felt an unfamiliar sensation—a melting sensation that somehow made breathing difficult and made her heart race. He did seem to have a way with him, and she could not fault any woman for falling under his spell, for she found to her amazement that her heart was not so detached as she might have imagined it to be. As handsome as he was, she could imagine that he had grown quite adept at swaying young women from the paths their parents had urged them to follow.

      Catching her eyes in the mirror, Charles paused and grinned, his eyes glowing in the warm light of day. ‘So, you are awake at last. Good morning, Maria.’

      ‘Good morning,’ she murmured, trying to shake off the effects of his winning smile. Unexpectedly she found herself the victim of an absurd attack of shyness.

      Charles saw that her face was a mirror of lovely confusion, and, taking pity on her innocence, he fastened his trousers and quietly said, ‘Have you never seen a man shave before?’

      ‘No—of course I haven’t—not even my father, and Henry—’ She stopped what she had been about to say, that she had been very young when her betrothed had gone away and it had never entered her head to find out how and when he shaved.

      Charles paused to look at her, the razor in mid-air. ‘Ah, your betrothed. I wondered how long it would be before you