Page 37 of A Virgin to Tame the Duke
“Have we now—” She licked her lips and struggled for the words. “Have we—”
“No,” he said, releasing her chin and stepping back from the wall, so she could alight. “We haven’t done… everything.” He struggled with his words for a moment before kissing her upturned face as though he couldn’t help himself. “You wretch, trying to make me explain this.”
“Well, how else should I know?”
“You would not. And Lord, I probably shouldn’t have been the one to show you.” He kneaded his forehead and laughed ruefully. “But fear not—there is still something to save for your future husband.”
Charlotte blinked. The ache inside her had been quelled just as she had somehow known it would be, and the fact there could be something more shocked her. “You mean I am still—”
“A maid? Yes.” He considered. “For the most part. In a way your future husband will not ever be able to dispute.”
Her future husband. Rather than excitement, the prospect filled her with something approaching dread. She swallowed and patted her hair. “Do I look presentable?”
“You look wonderful,” he said, taking her arm and moving her through the garden as though nothing had happened. For him, perhaps, nothing of import had; he had no doubt experienced many things of this nature. Another to add to the list would likely mean nothing.
She didn’t want to consider what it meant to her.
Consider how much I want you. Not an emotional confession, but a confession nevertheless, and one that made Charlotte tingle whenever she thought of it.
Her mother had been right. And though later when she was faced with the nameless future husband, she may regret it, walking arm in arm through the garden with Aaron now, the rosy heat from their encounter still pumping lazily through her body, she couldn’t find it within herself to regret anything.
ChapterFourteen
Aaron had made a grave error. Charlotte was a lady—a virginal lady, moreover—whose inexperience was as evidence as it had been captivating. She had bewitched him, and he had done things to her he had never before done to a maid.
At least he had not ravished her fully. He hadthatcomfort at least, but it did little to repair his frayed honor.
He should not have touched her. She should not have wanted him to.
She walked beside him now, cheeks slightly flushed, and her lips reddened from his kisses, and although she answered his occasional comment with perfect composure, there was a faraway look in her eyes. She was perfection and sin and purity all at once.
He didn’t know if he could ever bring himself to be near her again. He didn’t know how he would ever be able to stay away.
They entered the house by the south door, and Charlotte immediately walked back toward the drawing room, no doubt prepared to face her mother and his aunt as though nothing had happened.
“Wait,” he said, pulling her back toward him. She was a poison, addictive and corrosive, and he couldn’t help but kiss her again with the same frantic passion as before. His body was replete—in fact, she had brought him to completion embarrassingly fast—but she didn’t just captivate his body.
“Someone may see,” she whispered when he broke away. Of course, she was right. In fact, he shouldn’t have even kissed her in the first place.
“My apologies,” he said, straightening his lapels. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s all right.”
His aunt emerged from a room to their right, and he thanked every lucky star in existence that she had not walked out even a few seconds earlier. “Aaron,” she said in surprise. “Lady Charlotte. I had not expected to see you here.”
“We finished our tour of the gardens, and I thought we should return inside before the rain,” he said. As though summoned, a gust of rain splattered against the door behind them. “Fortunate timing, do you not agree?”
“Indeed,” Octavia said, giving him a long glance. “Aaron, I would speak with you for a moment.”
“I shall find my mother,” Charlotte said, freeing herself from his arm and giving his aunt a smile. “Thank you for a lovely tour.”
He said nothing as she left, and Octavia beckoned him into the room—a little-used second drawing room. “I must ask you something,” she said, and although her tone was in no way accusatory, there was an underlying hardness to it he rarely heard from her. “What precisely were you doing in the gardens with Lady Charlotte?”
His hands still smelled of her, and he resisted the urge to hide them behind his back. “You already know, Aunt. I was showing her the gardens.”
“You may have fooled her mother, but you do not fool me.” She raised her eyebrows. “Be plain with me, Aaron. Were you engaging in behavior I, or anyone else, would disapprove of?”
“The way I was behaving is none of your concern.”
