In The Devil's Stables (Spirited #1)

Chapter 18

Charlie could barely breathe after Claymore's confession.

By God, it was out of concern for you!

Could it be? She wondered.

Had he, indeed, come to care for her?

The very idea seemed out of the realm of possibles.

For one, she had been disguised as a lowly gentleman for most of their acquaintance. As of two moments ago, they hadn't even been properly introduced. And not only that, but Charlie felt a bit guilty as well for betraying him. How would Claymore feel to know that the lad he had taken into his employ - the one he had spent last evening with, alone and unchaperoned - was none other than the lady of last evening.

Lady Charlotte.

It made the whole tart debacle quite ludicrous. After all, a ruined waistcoat was nothing compared to the tatters her thoroughly debauched reputation was now. And still, she couldn't seem to give up her disguise.

Guilt, be damned. Reputation, be damned.

Being a respectable lady, well, she thought, that could quite go to the devil itself.

She had never felt more free in her life - a mix of anticipation, dread, uncertainty, joy. Breathlessness.

Charlie thought to last evening. The earl had thought her asleep, that she had been unaware when the door creaked open hours later. The bitter tinge of alcohol wafted to her nose buried under linen and down. It was everything Charlie could do to lie still and silent when all she wanted was to draw the covers down and watch.

Especially as the rustling began. It made her fidget, knowing the leanly muscled lord - reclusive and uncivilized, thought he may be - stood a stone throw's away from her slipping his cravat from his neck. His chest would have been revealed, a tanned throat. She could almost feel the tickling of his whiskers as she ran her hands through the hair she knew would be there.

The slip of each button had her imaginings how the cloth would loosen about him, revealing delectable inch after inch.

At one time, she could have sworn his eyes were fastened on her, an intense throbbing that had her eyes squeezing shut and her bottom lip sucked firmly between her teeth.

It was followed by sweet relief. For she had tossed and turned for hours upon the lumpiest piece of furniture this turn of the century. All for him to return. Claymore had left so suddenly, a draft of a navy tailcoat flapping behind him as the room's door blocked him from her. Severing whatever connection that had developed between them in the ballroom, in the stairway. Perhaps Claymore had abandoned her, Charlie thought. Decided she was more trouble than she was worth and had gotten onto his horse and ridden off, never to be seen again.

It had sent her into a panic. Was it because she was beginning to trust him so implicity, Charlie thought. To fall asleep in his lap on the ride to this shelter. To allow him to lead her to his estates in the country in hopes he wouldn't be able to identify her - reveal her - as the fraud she was?

Was she waiting for the other shoe to drop - for him to become as unreliable as every other man? The questions bombarding her had been unbearable.

As Claymore's words sank in, Charlie knew she wouldn't give him the full truth of the matter. The journey had begun out of necessity, but Charlie wanted to understand the prickling of her skin and the pinching of her throat when she thought of him, when his body was close to hers - a hairsbreadth away but never meeting.

Who are you in truth? he had asked.

"Well, Charlie?" Claymore said now.

Charlie broke from her fevered thoughts to find herself under his scrutinizing gray gaze. She fought the urge to look away. "What...what do you mean? I am not running away from anything."