“You wish to know why your sister has run away from you?” she asked, her voice quiet. “Consider how you treat me and my opinions.”
He had never, to his knowledge, dismissed Constance’s opinions. Sometimes she was wrong, and he helped her see that, but despite the age difference between them, he respected her opinions. He allowed her to speak and gave her the space to air her feelings. Or so he thought.
“You have been a Duke for a long time,” Charlotte continued. “You separate your title from the man, but how different are they really?”
The last thread of his self-control snapped. “Because a Duke wouldn’t do this,” he snarled, taking one of the gloved hands resting on her lap and tugging her toward him, meeting her mouth with his. She tasted sweet, and though for a moment she stiffened, she relaxed into him as he knew she would.
Lord, he shouldn’t be doing this. She was opium, driving his senses wild with every movement of her mouth, every brush of her fingertips against his face. He wanted more.
Desire thrummed through his veins, and he pulled her into him, teasing his tongue against hers, hardening at the soft noise of pleasure the gesture drew from her. His need was a gathering storm, and he ran his hand from her waist up to her breast and palmed it. Even through all the layers, he could feel the pebbled hardness of her nipple.
“Aaron,” she gasped, breaking away though her hand gripped his shoulder. “We shouldn’t.”
He turned his attention to the long, elegant length of her neck, and she shuddered as he pressed his lips there. “There is no one to see us.”
“That makes no difference.”
“So, tell me to stop,” he said, nuzzling the hollow of her throat with his nose, glorying in the way her breath hitched. “In those words, if you please. Tell me to stop.”
“Aaron—”
“I didn’t ask for my name.”
“We shouldn’t,” she tried again, but her voice faltered, and she dipped her head back down, this time meeting his lips. He let her lead, read her panting breaths like a writer penning the final draft of a novel, and when she released a tiny sigh, it ignited him.
If they had been anywhere else, and if she had been another lady—perhaps an older lady with a husband—he might have been tempted to shuck her skirts up her legs to access that sweet part of her at the apex of her thighs. The part that his aching desire demanded he find.
But she was not an experienced lady, and although she matched his caresses with the same blazing passion, he could not ravish her in the carriage. And so, hardly able to believe what he was doing, he broke away from her. Her wide eyes, dark with desire, and swollen lips looked down at him with equal confusion.
“If we don’t stop now,” he said, unable to stop himself from circling her hardened nipples with the tip of one finger, “I fear we shall do something even I should regret.”
His pants mingled with hers as she sat perched on his lap for a moment longer. Although he had not tangled with her hair, and it remained for the most part intact, she remained, nevertheless, a woman who looked thoroughly kissed.
She blinked and reality returned to her eyes as they widened. She shuffled back to the other seat. “You shouldn’t have kissed me,” she said.
“Possibly not,” he admitted. Every part of him still throbbed for her, but he wrenched his focus on his words and the way she looked at him as though he was someone new she had never encountered before. “I do hope, however, you now believe I am a man as well as a Duke.”
She smoothed down her skirts. “Your implication is, of course, that Dukes would never do something so shocking.”
“If a Duke does so, he does so as a man.”
She shook her head and touched her lips, running her fingers along every place he’d kissed. The sight almost undid him. “You cannot keep kissing me every time we argue,” she said, a little more of her composure restored. “It’s very wrong of you.”
“And yet you enjoyed it.”
The color on her cheeks deepened. “That is neither here nor there.”
“I would argue differently, but for fear of prompting another argument”—one in which he could not be certain he would remain in control—“I shall leave the topic entirely.” He peered from the window. “And, conveniently, we are about to arrive at the inn.”
ChapterTen
Charlotte had expected the Duke of Hexham’s estate to be vast. She had not, however, expected the sheer length of the avenue. When he’d said they were nearing the estate, she had expected Hexham Place to be visible or shortly visible. However, she had to wait a further ten minutes before at last it was in sight.
Charlotte still daydreamed about the kiss, even though it had been days ago, but all that was forgotten as she gazed out at the countless windows inset into the stone, the large, wide steps leading to the front door, and the numerous chimneys.
“Our ancestral home,” he said, almost wryly, as though he was aware of its grandness, its excess, and was almost ashamed of it. “Hexham Place.”
“It’s hardly aPlace,” she said, hating the fact her voice was breathless with awe. “Aaron—it’s a mansion.”
