Charlotte pounded against the plaster. “Warrick! Warrick, you great ape! Have you done yourself an injury?”
But all she heard was her own rapid breathing.
Charlotte knew a great many foul words and she uttered most of them as she reached for the dressing gown laid out for her, then reconsidered and reached into the back of her wardrobe for an infinitely more fetching one of pink silk lustring with enormous rosettes sewed round the hem. She muttered even more as she wrapped herself up, checked that her hair was semi-contained or at least not doing something unspeakable, and opened the door to peek out into the hallway.
This is a bad idea, her conscience intoned.
Which Charlotte had to admit was true. She was already in the midst of one scandal, and seemed ill-advised to court another by sneaking into a man’s bedchamber in the middle of the night.
On the other hand, what if Warrick was injured?
Her conscience laughed darkly.The man’s a war hero. Chances are he can survive a featherbed.
An excellent point, but Charlotte’s feet ignored it and sneaked her off down the corridor. Her hands did one worse and opened his door, which meant she had no choice but to thrust herself inside his bedchamber.
“Warrick!” Charlotte whispered into the darkness. “Warrick, you fathead, where are you?”
“Here,” he called from the floor beside the bed, as if it were only natural that he was splayed out on the Aubusson.
Charlotte tiptoed over and peered down at him. “Are you injured?”
“Of course not.” He sounded almost affronted.
“Then why are you on the floor?” He gave no response, so Charlotte nudged him with her toe. “Get up, Your Grace! You’re too big for me to lift.”
“Mmm.” Warrick seemed to like that idea. “P’haps you should come down here and try?”
Charlotte nudged him again, rather harder. A stickler might have called it a kick.
“Oh, to hell with you!” She turned to flounce back to her room, but one of Warrick’s enormous paws wrapped around her ankle. He gave the slightest tug and she tumbled down on top of him, making her squawk and Warrick sayoof, sounding deeply pleased.
Before Charlotte could protest, he dragged her up his tangle of sheets and draped her over his chest, one of his hands busy working its way into her hair and the other stopping perilously close to her bottom.
“You see?” His voice was a deep rumble of satisfaction, like a tiger that had learned to purr. “Right where you belong.”
Charlotte took a deep breath and then another, inhaling something invitingly masculine under the sharp smell of vodka. But she managed to keep her wits and roll off him, sitting up and peeling his hand away. “Youbelong in bed.”
Warrick gave a sleepy smile. “With you? Yes, please.”
“In bed without me. Good Lord, it’s as if you were born to torment me.”
“Torment you?” Even in the darkness, with only the faint, faded light of the moon filtering in through the window, she could see his eyes go bleak. “I’m afraid I was born to adore you.”
That was such an irritating statement that Charlotte pushed herself to her feet.
“We’ve entered the maudlin portion of the evening, I see. Come on, get up! I can’t in good conscience leave you on the floor.”
But Warrick was in no mood to cooperate.
“Tried not to,” he mumbled. “But it’s no use—blackberry lips, upside-down smile. Frogs, so many frogs! I thought,Oh hell, there it goes.”
Charlotte’s lips parted.
Fairy tales were full of doors better off locked, and boxes best unopened. Warrick was spouting drunken nonsense, nothing more, and yet—
“There what goes?” she whispered.
His face screwed up, as if he were in pain. “My heart, of course. How many times do you intend to break it?”
