She shook her head again. “I have been dreaming about kisses. Not the ones forced on a person, but kisses a woman participates in. I have had the pecks you have given me, and they were pleasant. But I never wanted anything else. The kisses I have glimpsed from time to time seemed horrible for a woman. They looked as if they were being devoured. And then I shared a suite for a few days with Sarah and Nate.” She laughed, but her eyes were sad. “It seems Sarah likes being devoured.”
“Most women do,” Aldridge observed, “as long as the person kissing them knows what he is doing and is someone they care for.”
She beamed at him, as if he had said something clever. “Exactly! That is what I decided. I already like your touch, you are an expert, and you said you would help me. Will you, Anthony?”
Aldridge took a deep breath to calm his racing heart. “Cherry, can you be very specific about what you want from me?” He should have left it there, but hope had him adding, “Are you saying that you have changed your mind about marriage? Have you come to tell me you will be my wife?”
Hope died when she looked dumbfounded. Panicked, even. “Not marriage. Just…you know.”
Disappointment made him abrupt. “Specific, Cherry.”
She flapped her hands, a frustrated gesture he found impossibly endearing from the always composed, always logical Saint Charlotte. “I don’t know polite words. Do you want the phrases used by the women Sarah rescues? I want you to…” she trailed off again.
His resentment insisted that what she was asking of him—the use of his body without benefit of clergy—demanded the crude language of the brothel. His pity had him providing a term more acceptable to a lady. “Bed you? Is that what you are asking?”
Some of his emotions leaked into his tone, despite his best efforts to make his voice neutral, for she cringed, and said, “If you… If you could. If you find me attractive at all. I know I am quite old.”
And now he had to reassure her, the woman of his every dream. Though she had just lacerated him to the soul by refusing his honourable offer and instead demanding a disreputable one. I am being punished for the excesses of my youth.
“Cherry, I find you attractive. I have for nigh on eight years, since you were so young that my desire for you shamed me, and I will want you when we are both old and wrinkled, should we be so fortunate. In eight years, that hasn’t changed.”
Wide eyed, she tipped her head to the side and examined him. She looked for all the world like a nervous sparrow, eying up a morsel of bread and trying to decide whether the treat was worth the risk of approaching. “Will you, then?”
He had to try to talk some sense into her. “How can I dishonour you so? You are a lady! Marry me, Cherry, and I will show you all the delights you can imagine.” He hoped his smile was not as strained it felt. “Some you have never thought of, too.”
Charlotte’s blush deepened to a fiery rose. “You cannot dishonour me, Anthony. I am not a virgin.” She lifted her glass to take another nervous gulp and lowered it in confusion when she found it empty. Should he refill it? No. Things were bad enough without making her drunk.
“Whatever has been done to you in the past,” he said with care, “you are deserving of every honour.”
