"You play well," Edward observed. Charlotte had won the first round of the night.
"You're letting me win," she accused, aware that she was pouting childishly.
Edward was guilty as charged. Although he hated losing in all cases – games included – he adored her smile and her laugh when she came out victorious from a game. Her smile brightened up the room and her cheeks reddened as strands of hair framed her face and she looked positively beautiful without knowing it.
"Of course I'm not," Edward insisted, lying. For many times that night, he had, had the winning hand, and for many times that night, he pretending he had not. "I despise being beaten so brutally at cards."
Charlotte narrowed her eyes at him playfully. "You're mocking me."
He raised his hands upwards in defense, an amused smirk on his lips. "I would never."
She picked up a card from the deck (it was an ace of spades, from what Edward saw) and threw it at him in jest. It hit him on the chest. Charlotte smirked with satisfaction and crossed her slim arms victoriously.
He took the paper, and walked towards Charlotte, who was smiling suggestively. Charlotte could see he was amused with her. She anticipated his next move as a child would wish for sweets. Edward crashed his lips onto hers in a moment of fiery passion. His kiss was full of fire and experience. Charlotte savored the taste of his mouth, sneaking her arms around his neck. She grasped at the back of his shirt, trying to find purchase as his own hands were at her skirts, yanking them up as he walked her back against the table, where minutes before they'd been playing cards.
His tongue plundered her mouth, before it moved down to her neck and her back arched instinctively. He pulled up the hem of her dress, exposing her leg to the cold, night air. Charlotte wanted him to go further, but she could almost hear her father's voice in her head telling her to stop the inevitable encounter.
"I cannot," she said, pulling away from him.
Edward nodded, panting as heavily as Charlotte was. "I understand."
"It is not that I don't... want to," she awkwardly stated. "I do, I just..."
"I understand," Edward assured her, giving her a reassuring and kind smile. "I would not force you to go any further, mon coeur."
─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────
George stood by Warwick as he went over battle plans, but he couldn't focus.
"I take it you have your eye on a lady of the court?" Lord Warwick questioned, smirking slightly, having noticed that George was not really paying attention.
"Not exactly," George sighed, looking up. "It's your daughter I'm worried about."
"Charlotte?" Warwick tensed, remembering when he had questioned her.
"Yes," George said slowly, watching as his foster father paled. "They've told me Edward visits her chambers and she visits his. I'd say she needs an eye to be kept on her."
"Charlotte has assured me that nothing untoward is going on between them, George... And I trust my daughter to uphold her virtues, even when Edward forgets the meaning of the word chaste."
─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────
All Charlotte could feel was the heat.
Her body burned and yet it did not.
His fingers trailed up her thighs and brushed along her hips until they curled into her skin and held her flush against him.
She couldn't breathe. She had never felt more alive.
There was a dull ache between her legs that she could not explain, at yet she knew. She had never experienced a man's touch like this before, but she knew what she wanted... She wanted relief.
The ache between her legs was becoming unbearable as the man above her began to kiss at her neck, leaving his mark on her skin. Charlotte moaned beneath him as he pulled away to look at her. His green eyes were dark with want and his brown curls plastered to his brow like a crown.
Charlotte shot up from her bed with a gasp. It was her cheeks that burned now, her body freezing with a thick layer of sweat clinging to her skin.
She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering against the crisp air, her breath leaving her lips like smoke. No. No, she would not... She could not...
It was not Edward. No. It was not Edward. It was a man who was similar in coloring.
Perhaps it had been the lighting of the dream. Perhaps the hair had not been so dark, but a lighter brown. Perhaps his eyes were not green but a deep hazel, not unlike her own.
It was Edmund, she decided. It had to be Edmund.
It had to be.
─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────
Edward walked alongside Warwick, getting more and more nervous and tense as he gathered courage to ask what he must.
"I - well...I was wondering if it were..."
"Edward, what is this? I've never seen you lost for words like this since you were a lad," he said with a touch of gentle humor.
"Your daughter- I wanted to court your daughter!" he blurted out cursing his abruptness.
Warwick froze looking appalled with the younger man's revelation and the nervousness in his voice. Edward had been a ladies' man from the moment he turned fifteen, more than once he'd had to go to the local whorehouse and give him a trashing. And now, he wanted his daughter. He wanted Charlotte, the last remnant he had of Eleanor.
He did not move or say a word just regarding him with those cold eyes. "My daughter?" He said in a cold voice, a threat, a warning. "Which one did you have your eye on, Edward?"
Edward sensed the chilly disapproval in Warwick's voice. How angry is he? One would've thought it was obvious he wanted Charlotte. Isabel was pretty, yes, but she was too young to be of any interest to him, while Anne was way not only too young, but also too shy.
"Charlotte, my lord- he stammered. "I mean her no harm."
Warwick closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, taking several deep breaths to get himself under control and calm.
"You're a young man now, and you're bound to look at my girl. But that's all you'll ever do."
Edward's mouth fell open and he made a small noise of protest, but he carried on.
"Edward, you must know that I could never agree to what you ask," he was trying to be fair and kind but it rankled Edward that he would refuse him out of hand. He hadn't even given it the slightest consideration.
"Perhaps I ought to start searching for a match for the both of you. It's past time you wed for the benefit of the York cause," he mused, evidently troubled by the turn the conversation had taken. "And my daughter is past marriageable age, with her royal blood she might strengthen your own cause in the continent."
The thought of her being sent away — of never seeing Charlotte again — hurt him painfully, although he would have rather died than admit it.
"No please. Don't...don't send her away, not yet."
"What else am I meant to do?" He sounded firm, but sorrowful. "You mean to court my daughter, and you know this cannot be. Have you made approaches to her?"
Edward tried hard not to think of their kisses, their walks together, and the feel of her skin against his. Charlotte had dreamed of being able to hold hands in the court but that would never happen now.
He had been a fool to dream otherwise.
He had been an utter fool to give her hope.
He shook his head. "None, my lord. I only had hoped-" his voice trailed away at the stern scowl on Warwick's face.
"I promise I shall never talk of this again. I won't approach her, now that I know that you disapprove so strongly. I would do nothing against your will. Please, my lord —" Edward's voice broke, "please don't send her away."