An Imprudent Lady

“My lady,” he said, but it sounded like an admonishment. “I beg your pardon. Entirely my fault.”

Her chest tightened at the distance in his voice; it was as if he were gone all over again. She wondered, for the countless time, why he had left, what she had done and why he had never seen fit to write.

“Where—?” she began, reaching out with words that ended up failing her.

She simply didn’t know where to begin. What does one say to a former lover after nearly twenty years? Age and time separated them now. This was not the boy that she had fallen in love with; this was a man she didn’t know. They simply didn’t prepare young ladies for this sort of thing in finishing school.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he murmured and then pointedly stepped around her, fastidiously avoiding further contact.

Charlotte watched in dismay as his coattails twitched around the corner and he disappeared. She battled the urge to dash after him.

To what purpose? To stop him and beg him to … what? Take her back after all of these years?

Despite her soul’s clamor that she knew him still—had always known him—she didn’t really. It had been too long. For all she was aware, Daniel Walsh could have a wife, half a dozen children and a blissful life.

Just the thought of it twisted her stomach. She leaned against the wall, feeling flushed and ill. Lud, what if he did?

“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you, Charlotte.” Her mother sailed toward her with all of the hauteur of His Royal Highness’s best warship. “We’re leaving. Now.”

She seized Charlotte’s wrist and set off toward the entryway. Charlotte trailed behind like a moored lifeboat in her wake.

They found Angelica already huddled in her cloak and looking pleased that they were leaving early. Three suitors circled, pouting and carping about their leave-taking and generally making a nuisance. Irritated, Angelica waved away the men and their promises to call in the morning.

“Mother,” Charlotte said, heart still pounding from the encounter with Daniel. “You cannot imagine who I just—”

“Not now,” her mother snapped and looked about as if she expected to be attacked by miscreants. Angelica’s eyes widened as she watched their mother’s unusual behavior. “Wait until we’re in the coach, if you please.”

“But you’ll never believe who I just saw, Mother,” Charlotte said and turned back to stare at the spot of the collision. “I can’t leave without—”

“You can and you will, Lady Charlotte Fortney,” her mother said in the low tone that she had perfected to manage her progeny. “Don’t you dare embarrass me and ruin your sister’s chances for a good match.”

“But—”

“You will get into that coach right now, Charlotte, and return home with your sister and me. No further questions.”

Charlotte continued to stare down the hall, silently willing Daniel to return. To prove the encounter wasn’t the wild imagination of a broken woman.

She recalled his beloved features, sharpened and toughened now by time. The familiar eyes with the unfamiliar distance and coldness. Her heart might ache for him as much as ever, but Daniel Walsh was a man she no longer knew. He had a life and a history apart from her, and she was unlikely to find a place in it again.

So, like the dutiful daughter she had always tried to be, she followed her mother into the night.

CHAPTER THREE

Even after all of these years, Charlotte Fortney could cause his heart to seize.

She looked even better than he remembered. She wasn’t the same—how could she be, with the passage of so much time? Her brown hair looked just as rich and thick as when she had been a young girl, and she’d traded the softness of youth for the full, elegant curves of a mature woman.

Daniel gripped the top edge of the bureau harder, hoping to keep from lashing out. To keep from sinking his fist into the plaster wall like he wanted. Like he’d done innumerable times before when the pain and the need and the want of her had become too much to bear.

God, he’d barely stifled the impulse to embrace her. His palms still ached with the prurient urge, so he clenched them, hoping to squash the feeling. He was amazed that she could still elicit such a reaction.

He eyed the bright, hand-painted wallpaper longingly and imagined pulverizing one of the cabbage roses beneath his fist. Reason reminded him that it would be unwise to damage his host’s home, and he suspected that Vinedale would be disappointed after the trouble he’d taken to secure the invitation.

Daniel had known when he returned to London that he was likely to run into her. When he’d begun to receive invitations to tonnish events, he knew the odds would only increase. But the reality was not as he had anticipated.

When he had looked down to assess the woman who’d run into him, he’d ended up immobilized, clenching her arms instinctively to keep her from falling but staring as if he’d seen a ghost.

The only person he’d ever met with eyes the color of Chinese jade was Charlotte Fortney; the only woman he’d ever given his heart. And, subsequently, had it broken.

When his stunned mind began to work again and he realized that the woman before him really was Charlotte, he’d gone as cold as a corpse because none of the preparation had done him a whit of good. He’d just stood there gawping like a schoolboy.

Watching the raw emotions cross her face, he wondered if she knew the hardships he’d faced? The life he’d been consigned to?

When the emotions had turned to horror and her complexion had leeched of all color, he might as well have taken a punch to the gut. Clearly she was horrified to see her once-spurned lover. Had she encouraged her family to dispose of him to one of the most unpleasant corners of the world?

So, he’d snapped at her, unable to contain the turmoil of decades. And when he thought he couldn’t stand the thick silence that knit between them, she had spoken with her mother’s cool hauteur and called him Mr. Walsh.

Mr. Walsh! What an affront that was after years of her ragged, lusty whispers echoing in his memory. Haunting him.

Oh, Danny! Yes!

And he knew that he had to escape her presence before he seized her by the shoulders and shook her until her hair fell down and he could see if it was even longer than he remembered.

Now he stood in some strange room packed with the gaudy, gilt-covered furniture of the prior century trying to regain his composure, and he wondered how in the hell he could face her again with civility, when every animalistic impulse raged to reclaim her.

Slowly he released his grip on the bureau, and he stared at the dark, red-brown wood gleaming in the lamplight. Mahogany. Even if it had been bastardized with baroque whimsy, the bureau was a stout piece of furniture. Sturdy.

So, he balled up his fist and smashed it into the flat, glossy top. Over and over, until his knuckles split and blood spilled upon the surface.

CHAPTER FOUR

It had begun innocently enough all those years ago—a youthful crush on a handsome country neighbor. Nothing untoward might have come of it, had Charlotte not tripped upon an overeager puppy and broken her arm. Daniel had been shadowing his father before beginning his medical studies, and by the time she had healed enough to remove the splint, Daniel had begun to flirt back and call alone to inquire about her progress.

“What do you think you’re doing, my lady? You’ve just had your bindings off!”

Charlotte gasped and dropped her trowel. Since she was the only one besides the gardeners to use the orangery, she hadn’t expected anyone to search her out in the hothouse. As it was Daniel, her heart raced and not solely from surprise.

He grasped her bare, dirty hand in his own and carefully inspected her forearm. Long fingers stroked the tender underside, and her blood hummed in response. “You should have a greater care or you’ll reinjure the limb,” he said.

Charlotte inhaled slowly and his scent tickled her senses. He smelled of sunshine and clover, and the only thing that Charlotte could focus on was how much she wanted to be embraced by him. To sink into him.

Then, bold thing that she was, she leaned forward and kissed him.

And he didn’t respond.

How embarrassing! What was she to do now?

In the end, she just stood there, her puckered lips smashed against his warm, surprise-softened ones. Just when she’d begun to pray a giant rift would open in the ground and swallow her, Daniel moved.