Duchess & the Damned (A Victorian Erotic Romance)(Re-Write!)

Chapter One, Part Three - A Night of Longing.

Shooting up from a nightmare with wide eyes and a gasp, Charles'  eyes darted around his room with a tight jaw. Air tunneling in and out of his nostrils, he clutched at the comforter spread over him. A cold sweat ran down his back, his brows pinching as he exhaled in frustration. With a grimace, Charles craned his neck towards his window to gaze at the moon, letting its soothing light calm his nerves. He sighed and looked away a moment later, knowing he wouldn't dare give the dream a chance to return by trying to get back to sleep.

He would much rather take another sleepless night.

Sleep had haunted him since the announcement. When Emilia rose with the sun of the following day, his fear would take another step towards reality. Charles knew better. He knew better than to think that the Prince would have any disinterest towards the young duchess. Any man, even a Prince would jump at the opportunity to be with Emilia. They may even perform tricks for a chance to be the first to lay with her. Charles' jaw clenched as the nightmare's images came to haunt him once more.

The thought of Emilia crying to be free of her husband's embrace. The night before, it had been the opposite, moaning the Prince's name and doing his lustful bidding. Charles still wasn't certain of which disgusted him more. Or perhaps he was. While he could loathe both possibilities, he would take the Prince's life should one of the two come true. His fist clutched as he tried to calm himself.

Perhaps it was wrong of him to have such assumptions. He knew nothing of the Prince's personality - not really. But he knew everything of Emilia's. Considering how eager she was to be married, it almost pained Charles to admit that the first dream would have been more accurate to assume.

Head hung low, his mildly damp strands swayed against his face when meeting the cool breeze of the evening. Reaching his destination of the garden, Charles closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, always having enjoyed the scent of roses – especially beneath the light of the moon. And even more with the accompanying scent of ...

Lavender?

Eyes bearing wide, Charles' head rose to view the sight of Emilia sitting on the ledge of the fountain in the middle of the garden. Inhale interrupted by his own sigh of awe, he allowed himself the spectacle. Leaning on her right hand, body curved and presenting that of a mature woman, her legs bent at the knees beside her, feet hanging off the wide stone edge of the fountain.

The white cotton of her sleeping gown seemed to glow against her skin in the heavenly light of the moon. Her blue eyes, lonesome, stared into the water's reflection of herself as her free hand stroked her hair, which sat against her left shoulder, and hung down to the stone.

She was stunning.

But she was also out well beyond her curfew.

And being the one responsible for her, one took precedence over the other.

"Emilia?" Charles called to her, making his way over. His scolding frown turned into one of worry when seeing her flinch and promptly wipe what he assumed to be tears from her eyes.

She was ... crying?

"Emilia?" Charles questioned again, his tone of voice significantly less threatening as he came to a slow stop beside her. She kept her head turned away from him, but he could see the embarrassed scowl on her face within the reflection of the water. His heart panged while his blood boiled. Saddened to see the joy of her smile stolen, and angered by the wonder of how the tears came to take its place. "Emilia," he repeated when she refused to acknowledge him.

Jerking her body around, she hopped off the edge of the fountain, eyes averted and frown prominent as she flattened the ruffles in her gown. She sniffled, head low and began storming away, her voice nasally and withered.