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Chapter Eleven
Lying in his bed, the rain drumming insistently against his windows, he suffered the absence of Charity’s laugh and her delight in life which made the night seem empty. For the first time in years, Ethan felt the echo of his own loneliness. Another three days had passed since his cousins’ visit, and with each day in Charity’s presence, the liking Ethan had for her grew to shocking degree. That evening in the library when they had drunk together and read, Emma had been one of the most pleasurable reads he could ever recall.
Charity had a beautiful reading voice, and she captured the range of emotions of each character thoroughly. Ethan had found himself heavily invested in the unusual story of Emma Woodhouse. His thoughts were always tangled with kissing Charity’s lips, down to her throat and all over her body. In all his life, he had never had such impure thoughts about a gently bred lady. Pushing from the bed, he went to the window and shoved aside the drapes looking out into the night. Lighting forked against the sky, thunder rumbled, and the storm everyone had heralded earlier was fully upon them.
“The lady has gone mad,” Ethan murmured with some amusement as he spied his tormentor racing across the lawn in a pale blue dress that was already soaked from the drizzling rain. The water clung to her slim form scandalously revealing the details of her body which had him reacting automatically to her lure. Her hair was plastered to her head, her maid’s efforts totally ruined as it dripped in glistening rivulets down her face and shoulders.
Perhaps it was being cooped up inside for the last two days, given the dreary weather. Her earlier sighs that evening as they played cards in the drawing-room had sounded forlorn, and many times she had looked through the large windows wistfully. Once, she had even stood by the windows using the tip of her finger to trace the trail of water streaking down the glass.
When he had started imagining that it was her finger on his body, he had excused himself from their fun and returned to working on the estate ledgers.
“What is she doing?” he murmured, watching as she held her arms out wide and twirled.
Lightning cut across the sky in a powerful sweep jolting him, followed by the bark of thunder. They were in such close proximity he was not sure which occurred first. Glancing back down at the lawns, he searched for her until he found her, standing still by the edge of the lake, her face lifted to the sky. When the lighting slashed again, it brought her into sharp, beautiful relief.
Acting on impulse, which was markedly unlike himself, Ethan departed his room and made his way outside. He did not take an umbrella or a coat being a lover of the rain and moments like this. It intrigued him that Charity might hold a similar love. Many ladies he knew shrieked when the rain fell and despaired of dreary weather. What if Lady Charity’s sadness as she stared at the rain earlier was because she wanted to be outside in it, as her current actions suggested?
She was not by the lake anymore, and he turned in a circle, searching for her. The damn woman was sprinting across the lawns, her dress tugged to her shins and her hair streaming behind her. She did not see him there in the pocket of shadows cast by the large elm tree, and Ethan seized her lightly around the waist and spun her around.
“My lord,” she cried, wiping the wetness from her face.
He noted that she did not pull from his embrace but stepped even scandalously closer. His heart jerked, once then twice at her closeness and the subtle scent of perfume that came from her.
“It is after midnight.”
“I am truly surprised you knew how late it was.”
She laughed, the beauty of her eyes glimmering in the night. “What are you doing out here?”
“I saw you from my windows and could not resist. It is your turn, my lady.”
Charity touched the side of his face and smiled wistfully. “I love the rain.”
“That does not answer the question.”
She bit her lip. “I was chasing the lightning.”
This woman would always have the ability to surprise him. “Chasing it?”
“I have read about a few experiments where scientists used a particular rod to actually capture the lightning itself. Can you imagine honing such raw power even for a brief moment?”
He could imagine it. That was what it had felt like each time he kissed her. As if he had passed through the storm and touched the heart of a raging tempest. Something hitched deep inside his chest. It so surprised him, he rubbed the spot as if it were a physical ailment.
Another fork of lightning cut across the sky, and the expression it painted in stark silhouette was one of grief. He tugged her closer, inexplicably wanted to shelter her from whatever it was that brought such a pained look to her face. “What is it?”
“I…it is nothing.”
Ethan almost let it go. “You can share with me, Charity,” he said gently. “We are friends.”
She searched his face. “Is that what we are, friends?”
“Yes.”
And morelingered unsaid.
She stood tense and quiet, then she said, “My parents were caught in a storm several years ago. Perhaps one like this.” Charity lifted her face to the heavens. “I was informed lightning struck the driver, and the carriage plunged into the river, and they were lost.”
Good God. “A very tragic ending. I am sorry for your loss,” he said gruffly.
