She exhaled, glad for that relief. She was not dead after all.
She only wished she was dead as she felt his gaze pinned tightly on her.
He pushed up to his feet, drawing attention to the fact that he stood several inches taller than Charlotte, and she wasn’t a short female. She was the tallest of her sisters. They might have more meat on their bones and flattering curves (never could they claim to possess a small bosom), but she stood several inches over both of them. In fact, she stood several inches over most of the men in her acquaintance.
But not him.
This man was big. She herself had felt just how strong he was when she’d used his sinewy body to satisfy her needs. Even straddling him, riding him, swept away in her own desires, she’d been acutely aware of the size and breadth of him beneath her.
What had come over her? She could not fathom it.
The day had started out as any other. When she’d felt the warning twinges of her menses coming, she had taken Nora’s tonic—like she had done dozens of times.
Except the tonic was not the same one she had taken dozens of times.
She twisted her fingers together until they felt numb, bloodless. “I . . . um. I don’t know what came over me. Please don’t speak of it to anyone.”
His expression hardened then. “It’s not my custom to carry tales of my dalliances.”
Dalliance.
It seemed such a small word. Insignificant. Paltry. It certainly did not convey the magnitude of what just transpired—the betrayal she had just perpetrated against her betrothed.
She nodded jerkily, blinking against her stinging eyes. She would not cry. She would not cry.
The hardness eased somewhat from his features as he considered her. “Are you . . . well?”
No. Clearly, she was not well.
She inhaled a deep, fortifying breath. Only moments ago she had thought she was dying. Now she was alive. She would cling to that.
Not dead was good. Not dead was everything. Even if she had behaved abominably.
No. She had not done anything wrong. It was all Nora’s doing. She could not fault herself. She had been under duress. The tonic, the agony had compelled her to act so wantonly.
It was the tonic. It was not Charlotte.
And it would never happen again.
“Th-thank you for your discretion.” Turning then, she fled before she could say or do anything more damaging.
It was difficult to imagine what she might do to surpass her actions of this night, but she did not trust herself. She did not know if she was free of Nora’s elixir. She would take nothing for granted.
She hastened to her bedchamber and flung herself down on her bed, and there, in the privacy of her room, with her face buried in the counterpane, she wept.
Her body still hummed with the aftermath of her release.
She sniffed back her tears, dashing them off her cheeks with the back of her hand.
Unbidden, her hand crept down her body to press between her legs. The ache was still there, a dull, pulsing throb now. It didn’t feel like clamoring death anymore, but it was still there. Hopefully it would soon fade.
She supposed she should be grateful that Kingston had not taken advantage of her vulnerability and ravished her. In her condition, she would not have protested. No, it had been the opposite. She had ravished him. He had permitted her advances but made none of his own, simply let her use him for her own titillation.
Charlotte stared into the darkness, wondering what her blasted sister had put into that wretched tonic this time around.
Nora had admitted to experimenting with it. In her quest to make it better, a more effective form of pain alleviation, she had toyed with it. Blast the girl! She should have left well enough alone. She’d meddled with the usual cordial and created a tonic that had turned Charlotte into some feral creature.
She fell back in bed, half determined to go wrench that sister of hers from her bed by the hair. That would give her maybe some satisfaction.
Tomorrow would be soon enough to have words with her—and any necessary hair-pulling. Right now she didn’t want to brave the corridor again. Not after the last time. Even if her body seemed to be under her control again, she would keep to her chamber and her own bed until morning.
No one would get seduced that way.
Chapter 5
It was at least half an hour before Kingston found the energy to make his way back to his room. It took him that long to gather his thoughts and composure. That long to even find the will to make his legs function.
He had lingered in the library, staring at the cracked door through which Miss Charlotte Langley had fled.
Fled was no exaggeration. The lass had run from the library after stammering out an apology. An apology?
Kingston could make no sense of it.
What had just happened?
The girl had attacked him. That, too, was not an exaggeration. One moment he had been helping her to her feet and the next thing he knew she was straddling him and riding him like a Tattersalls racehorse. She took her pleasure without requiring anything from him—well, aside of his body. His fully clothed body. He could not recall a time in his life when a woman had ever so greedily used him so that she could achieve her own release.
Most surprising of all, perhaps? He had not minded one bit.
That was some shock. He’d been abstinent for over a year and was just fine with his status. He was not at all determined to end his streak of self-denial.
No female had tempted him to steer off his course. He could scarcely even remember the last woman to share his bed. He didn’t miss it. He didn’t miss women.
At least he’d thought that was the case.
Clearly a certain female had changed his position on the matter.
The female he’d encountered in the corridor hardly resembled his dinner companion from earlier. The Miss Charlotte Langley who sat across from him at the dinner table had not piqued his interest—at least not in a carnal fashion. She’d hardly spoken at all, and when she had opened her mouth to talk he’d almost fallen asleep in his soup from boredom. He’d thought her insipid. There was no hint of passion under her starchy veneer.
How wrong he had been.
Upon returning to his chamber, he undressed himself, pausing to admire the damage she’d done to his waistcoat. That was the last he’d see of those buttons.
She was a bewildering creature, without a doubt.
He stretched his length out in bed, tucking his arm behind his head. He doubted sleep would come any time soon. His thoughts were alive with her . . . as was his cock. He reached down to adjust himself. It did no good. He was still hard. For her. For a chit he’d dismissed as dull only hours ago.
Yes, she might bewilder him, but he knew one thing.
He was not leaving tomorrow.
Charlotte did not know how long she slept. She woke suddenly, lurching upright, her body feverishly hot. The bedchamber was still dark. She slid from her bed and padded barefoot to the window. Parting the drapes, she observed it was still dark outside, but there was a faint purpling to the air. Dawn was close.
Her belly twisted and she gasped, clutching the window frame for support.
Oh, no! Not again.
The fiery arousal was back. Or perhaps it had never fully gone away. Perhaps her encounter with Kingston had granted her only a reprieve from it. That shattering release hadn’t cured her of anything . . . it had merely appeased the beast for a time, and the beast had returned.