Read Online More Than Charming by Jomarie Degioia - Free Book Online

responded to his kisses and caresses was still fresh in his mind. She’d been all but naked in her wet chemise, her pebbled nipples visible through the lawn. And when he’d brushed his fingers over the smooth skin at the back of her thighs . . . The stark desire she’d aroused in him was unlike anything he’d ever felt for any woman. Although he’d denied it to her brother, James was honest enough to admit to himself that he might indeed have thrown caution to the wind and taken her there in her guest chamber, making her his in every way. “God bless Leed.”
    Suddenly, a grin spread across his face. Of course! It was all so clear to him now. Why not marry her? Catherine was sweet and beautiful and intelligent. They’d known each other for so very long, and got along quite famously. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any other woman.
    Yes. He would marry her.
    But would she have him?
    “She damned well better have me.”
    He walked into the small sitting room adjoining his bedchamber. Taking a sheet of paper from the writing desk, he set about penning a note to his intended.
     
    *     *     *
     
    Catherine stared up at the ceiling, her tears dry on her cheeks. Her shame was now complete. First, she behaved wantonly with Lord Roberts and then her brother had all but called her a trollop. She glanced at the clock on the bed stand and was startled to see it was nearly the dinner hour. Rousing herself, she changed out of her crumpled tea gown and rang for Annie.
    Twenty minutes later, Catherine stood in front of the cheval mirror, clad in a gown of silver-blue. Annie had left her curls upswept and unadorned. Catherine pulled on her gloves and studied her face in the mirror. Her nose was a bit red, her eyes shiny with the tears that threatened to spill over her lashes. However was she going to face her brother? And Lord Roberts! Blinking rapidly to keep back her tears, she turned to join the other guests in the great hall to await the dinner hour.
    Something caught her eye as she approached the door. Someone had apparently slipped a note underneath it while she was dressing. She picked it up gingerly, soon recognizing Lord Roberts’s masculine hand. She’d intercepted his response several days earlier, tracing her fingertips over the ink until she’d finally replaced it in the salver. But to see her name written in his hand? Oh!
    She opened the note and read it, her mouth agape. He requested a secret meeting with her after dinner, she read, when the gentlemen and ladies would be separated. He asked her to meet him in the courtyard garden. How could she? She smiled, a thrill going down her spine. How could she not?
    Slipping the piece of paper into her reticule, she looped the ties of the little purse over her wrist and went down to the great hall.
     
    *     *     *
     
    The ladies adjourned to the parlor after dinner as the gentlemen took themselves into the library for brandy and cigars. Catherine frantically sought to think of an excuse to leave their company. She was eager to get to Lord Roberts, his note fairly burning her through the fabric of her reticule. Much to her chagrin, her attempt to extricate herself from the parlor was waylaid by her sister.
    “Catherine,” Elizabeth began, “hasn’t our visit been ever so pleasant thus far?”
    “Yes,” Catherine said absently, looking toward the door with longing.
    Elizabeth chattered on for ten minutes, driving Catherine quite mad. Thankfully, Constance joined them just then. A thought immediately came to Catherine’s mind, one which caused her lips to curve into a sly smile.
    “Oh, Constance,” Catherine began. “Elizabeth was just telling me that she so wishes to visit you at Chesterfield.”
    “But, Catherine, I wasn’t . . . Ooh, Chesterfield! Why, yes. That would be ever the thing.”
    With Elizabeth’s attention successfully diverted, Catherine quickly slipped from the room. She hurried to the back of the house where a row