He laughed. ‘They would not have. The perfume gave the intent of your letter away immediately and if that had not, your words would have done.’
She smiled as she came to sit next to him. ‘But no one intercepted it…’
‘No, no one opened it. Yet what would Colonel Hillier think of me being here, Charlotte? Charlie.’
‘I have no idea what Mark will think.’ Her chin lifted as she answered, in a way that denied any judgement. It reminded him of days when he had been challenged over his morals and behaviour by his father. He had always answered with an equally harsh dismissal; he had never cared for anyone else’s opinion.
But now he was older and wiser and her words made him less certain of his decision to come. He did not want any trouble with a Colonel, retired or not. ‘Is this sensible, then?’
Her chin lifted even higher. ‘If he complains, then I shall tell him that I am allowed to do what I wish, just as he does.’
The look on her face touched him, literally, as if her fingers had pushed into his chest. Her expression said do not deny me and do not judge me. How could he condemn her? He’d not led a wholesome life. And Hillier could not own her, as Harry had thought the other day; she was not a slave.
He smiled. ‘And send military men perfumed letters of seduction and tempt them into your parlour for luncheon. Am I to be snared in a web of deceit, then, Charlie?’ He joked to shatter the hard look of defence and defiance that had cast across her expression.
The words succeeded and the stiffness in her posture disappeared again as a laugh broke from her throat. ‘Yes, exactly that. I hope to snare you and I shall have you all wrapped up in my sewing threads.’
She stood then. ‘You do not have a drink.’ She poured him a glass of lemonade. ‘Since you introduced me to it, I have had a kitchen maid make lemonade every day.’
His smile widened when she handed him the glass. Once he held it, he lifted the glass in a toast. ‘To leading our lives as we wish.’
She raised her glass in the same gesture. ‘To freedom.’ Then drank when he did.
The sourness tingled on his tongue, then the sweetness flooded his throat.
He laughed a lot as they ate, because she did, and her laugh had an infectious quality.
After they’d eaten they walked Ash along the seashore as he’d always done alone. It had become normal now for her to be there. Even Ash seemed to think it right that she was there. The dog walked at her side not Harry’s.
He was tired still, and the world felt surreal with that strange sensation that was a symptom of being only half awake; it gave his hours with Charlie a dream-like quality. He was lucky, probably, that they met no one from the barracks, otherwise the men might have guessed the origin of his scented letter, yet she’d seemed convinced by her desire to do as she wished, as though it really did not matter if Hillier knew.
He accompanied her home after their walk, but he did not go back inside when she invited him. ‘No, I need to rest, I am on duty again tonight.’
‘But will you call on me again tomorrow?’
‘If you wish.’
‘Of course I wish.’
He smiled and bowed his head. ‘Then I will call here. At what hour?’
‘For luncheon again…’ she proposed.
‘Very well, for luncheon.’
For the first time, she did not curtsey to him when they parted; instead she simply turned and opened the door.
When she went inside, he walked away and something clasped in his chest with a hard sudden grasp. He leant and patted Ash’s head. ‘Women are the strangest creatures.’ Yet he’d thought he had mastered that knowledge years ago. Charlie was proving him wrong.
He had a sudden desire to break into a run, though. There was a lightness inside him, a strange emotion that expressed a sense of escapism—and the feeling had not come on the back of a physical encounter; they had not gone near a bed. This feeling was due solely to Charlie’s conversation, her laughter and her smiles.
The next day he arrived at midday. With a smile on his face as he and Ash waited on the doorstep for the door to be opened. His heart had a full feeling, as though he’d just eaten a very rich meal. He had completed his duty and now he had two days to do as he wished.
Charlotte, Charlie, opened the door.
‘Hello. Come in.’ She took hold of his coat sleeve and pulled him over the threshold once more. Then her other hand lifted his hat off his head, before he could do it himself. She put it aside on the hall table. ‘We have the whole house to ourselves, I told all the servants to go out.’
‘You will have me strung up,’ he said as he stripped off his gloves.
She only smiled. Then took his gloves from his hand and dropped them on top of his hat. ‘I have luncheon ready in my parlour.’
‘And lemonade?’
‘And lemonade,’ she confirmed with a nod, holding his hand and then pulling him towards her parlour.
‘This is your lair I am being lured into again. Am I to be the luncheon today?’
‘No, you will be dessert.’
Uncertainty lifted his eyebrows, although his smile still broke, yet that twisted a little. He was still unsure whether or not it was wise to call on her here.
They ate their luncheon in her little parlour and drank the lemonade, just as they had done yesterday, talking and laughing together. Then she stood suddenly and took his empty plate from his lap. ‘Shall we go up to bed?’
He glanced at Ash, with a desire to laugh at himself whipping at his chest as his eyebrows lifted again. He was in a strange play. The set for it was perfect; in a feminine parlour. And the scene; the demise of a lustful, sinful soldier. He was still tired from the hours he’d worked through the night, though. For two days he’d had only a couple of hours’ sleep and it made his thoughts disjointed.
He looked up at her as she stood before him, trying to search for some common sense in this. ‘And what will be said by the servants?’
‘They are all out.’
‘I know, but if anyone returns?’
‘I have locked the door between the downstairs and the upstairs and only I have the key,’ her pitch was proud and self-satisfied and her chin tilted upwards, just as it had done yesterday when he’d questioned her judgement.
Damn. The laugh escaped his throat. He could not help himself. The woman was so confusing and enchanting. The Charlotte he had met here, Charlie, was an entirely different person to the trembling woman who’d joined him in a bed in the inn for the first time.
He reached out and held of her hand, without standing or making his decision to accept. Her fingers closed about his as her large eyes looked earnestly at him, asking him why he had not moved yet.
He might be tired but he had learned to ensure his decisions were not slanted by fatigue. ‘Are you certain this is a good idea?’ Perhaps they both needed to come to their senses and stop this now. But his desire to do that was weak, his mind urged him to continue it as much as she did. He wanted to go upstairs with her.
‘Yes. I am. It is the best idea,’ her answer was spoken in her voice that said she intended to live her life as she wished. Her stance reminded him of his youthful self again and his constant refusal to conform to his father’s and older brother’s moralistic view of life. Ah. Damn the world and its judgement.
He stood up.
Damn an army that would make its soldiers march into a battle with a pitiful ration