Christine Bell - A Valentine from Harlequin: Six Degrees of Romance

Now that the live music had started, the party had really come to life, making it possible for Charlotte and Paolo to slip into the crowd unnoticed. Without asking, he drew her into his arms and onto the dance floor.

“The Duncans might not like this,” she muttered, glancing around nervously. “I’m here to work, after all.”

“They will like,” he assured her, “not only because Gerald Duncan is anxious to enlist my support in his latest venture and will do nothing to displease me, but because you’ve exceeded all their expectations and made this the perfect evening for their daughter.”

Sensing she wasn’t entirely convinced, he again tipped up her chin. “Listen to me, cara. I’m no Weatherby. I don’t lie in order to win a woman’s heart.”

She heard candor and integrity in his voice. It gave her the courage to ask, “Is that what you’re trying to do, Paolo? Win my heart?”

His hand slipped to the small of her back and urged her closer. “Most certainly.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to give it quite yet.”

“I’m a patient man, Charlotte, and prepared to spend however long it takes to persuade you that my intentions are honorable.”

“How can you be so sure, when we’ve only just met?”

“We met months ago and the spark ignited left a lasting impression.” His voice dropped a captivating half octave. “That moment of recognition did not die, cara. It rekindled itself tonight.”

“Still,” she said, struggling to step warily through the minefield of his persuasion, “we’re starting out afresh now.”

He shrugged. “Of course. How else does a great romance start, but at the beginning?”

She sighed. “You make it all sound so reasonable, I half believe you. If it weren’t for the way John—”

Unmindful of the fact that they were surrounded by others, he silenced her with another kiss, this one so darkly intoxicating that she quivered. “Hush,” he said against her lips. “I’m nothing like him. Do you really think that, having let you slip through my fingers six months ago, I’m about to risk my carefully engineered second chance by telling you lies now?”

“Engineered?” Unnerved, she stared at him. “Are you saying you knew I’d be here and arranged this meeting? Is that what you meant when you said you had everything choreographed down to the last detail?”

He shrugged again, a continental lifting of one broad shoulder she wished she didn’t find so attractive. “Not exactly, but word travels quickly in my circle of acquaintances. I knew weeks ago that Gerald intended to hire you to organize this party, that my name would be on the guest list, and that the man who’d monopolized your time in Barbados had moved on to greener fields.”

“Pastures,” she said distractedly. “It’s ‘moved on to greener pastures.’”

“Such a strange tongue, this English. I must teach you Italian, the true language of love.”

“Now just hold your horses, Paolo—!”

He interrupted with a laugh she could only compare to the slow trickle of warm molasses running from a hot spoon. “As I said, a strange language. But if horses are what it will take to win you, I’ll give you horses.”

Clinging rather desperately to her dwindling sense of survival, she protested. “Stop talking like that! You could be married with eight children, for all I know. And I could have a husband—”

“But you don’t,” he said calmly. “You wouldn’t be here in my arms and allowing me to kiss you if you had. And anyone here can vouch that I have neither a wife nor children. However, if you prefer to hear it from my parents and sisters—”

“I don’t know even your parents and sisters!”

“You will, cara. Very soon. I shall take you to our family villa overlooking the Adriatic Sea to meet them.”

“I don’t think so! In your own way, you’re just as devious as John, pretending we met here by accident when, in fact, you’ve been stalking me from a distance for months.”

“Keeping track, perhaps, but never stalking.”

“Call it what you like, it adds up to the same thing.”

“It was necessary for both our sakes,” he said reasonably. “You needed time to establish yourself as an independent entrepreneur, and I needed assurance that you’d recovered from your brief infatuation with Weatherby before I declared myself.”

“You’re very sure you’ll have things your way, aren’t you, Paolo Angelli? What are you going to do if I don’t fall in with your plans—throw me over your shoulder and carry me off to your cave?”

“I’m no Neanderthal, Charlotte. If I’ve presumed too much, I apologize and will, of course, withdraw from the picture.”

He paused, giving her time to consider before she framed a reply. The music slowed to a stop. Couples started drifting back to their tables. Finally she and Paolo were the only two left on the dance floor and still she hadn’t answered. She stared at the front of his dress shirt and tried to be sensible. To behave like a mature, intelligent woman.

“Well, Charlotte? Have I misread the signs? Shall I thank you for the dance, escort you off the floor, and disappear from your life for good?”

She met his gaze. His eyes, blue as his Adriatic Sea, smoldered with fire. As for his mouth…oh, a woman could weave a lifetime of dreams around that mouth! “Everything’s happening too quickly, Paolo,” she whimpered. “You’re asking for too much.”

“I’m asking you to take a leap of faith,” he said. “To join me on a journey that stands a very small chance of coming to nothing but is far more likely to lead to a future together. I won’t tell you I love you or that I want to marry you. Not yet. Not until I’m ready to say the words and you’re ready to hear them. But in the meantime I will court you, if you’ll let me, Charlotte. Is that so very much to ask?”

He pulled her closer, close enough that she could feel the hard, male angles of him pressed against her. Close enough that she could feel the beat of his heart beneath her hand. She knew a stirring in her blood, a sense of hovering on the brink of wonderful discovery.

“When you trust me enough, I will make love to you,” he went on, his voice a seductive whisper in her ear. The promise alone was enough to cause a spasm of delight to uncurl within her and leave her moist with anticipation. “I will hold you in my arms throughout the night and cherish every moment we share. I will respect and honor you. And if, after all that, you decide I’m not the man you want to spend the rest of your life with, I will let you go. The question is, has that moment arrived already?”

The answer came to her not in a rush or a flood, but with a slow, tingling warmth that seeped along her veins with quiet deliberation and the promise that the best was yet to come. “No,” she said. “I want to take that journey with you, Paolo. I believe in our tomorrow.” 

Charlotte winced as an inebriated party-goer stepped on her foot, but she kept moving determinedly toward the doors that led to the balcony. The Duncans would be delighted with their party; it was clearly the event of the season, and their daughter had been successfully launched into society.

Unfortunately, the noise, the heat, and the crowd combined with Charlotte’s pounding headache to make her want to escape for a breath of fresh air. Reaching the balcony doors, she opened them to find two people engaged in a passionate kiss.

“I’m sorry.” The words escaped her mouth before she realized it would have been better to make an exit without being noticed. The couple jumped apart.

Charlotte felt the blood drain from her face as she stared at her fiancé. “John! I thought you were dead!”

Two azure blue eyes flashed in a face so handsome it could take a woman’s breath away. “John is dead. I’m James.”

Charlotte breathed again. Of course this wasn’t John. John was dead, and by his own hand. This was his twin brother, who had gone off to fight with Wellington while John had stayed home. This was the brother who had stayed in Europe after her fiancé’s death, who had written that terrible, accusing letter that had arrived when she was still full of sorrow and remorse.

This was the brother who knew so little of her relationship with John, yet who derided her, and blamed her for something she had not foreseen. She would have prevented John’s death if she could have; she did not need to feel more guilt from someone who had not seen his brother in over five years.

And who was now the Duke of Broverhampton, heir to a vast estate and fortune, as well as the title.

As Charlotte fought to regain her composure, James’s gaze meandered over her simple silk gown, lingering for the briefest of moments on the embroidery around the neckline—or her breasts—before returning to her blushing cheeks.

Angered by his impertinent scrutiny, she quickly closed the doors behind her, shutting out the music heralding the start of a quadrille. She wanted no one to hear them, or come out to see what was going on. And she wanted to know what the long-absent James was doing on the Duncans’ balcony with her cousin, Dulcabella—besides the obvious.

Dulcie Duncan giggled and swayed, clearly the worse for the powerful punch full of rum, which was how their family had made their fortune, one large enough to overcome the stigma of having earned it in trade. The Duncan Distillery had even been granted a Royal Warrant to supply rum to the British Navy.