In answer, he straightened to his full, impressive stature and glowered at her.
“Not that I think you should. I just can’t help but notice that although you’ve proposed to two ladies, they were both women who’d be compelled to accept you. The first by family arrangement, and me by the threat of scandal.”
He stalked to her chest of drawers. “Save your inquiries for the vicar’s daughter. My history has nothing to do with any of this.”
“Perhaps it doesn’t. But you’re a most intriguing mystery on your own. I can’t puzzle you out.” She moved to the bedpost and leaned one shoulder against it. “You don’t seem the sort of man to fear commitment. You committed to me on the thinnest of reasons. Why wouldn’t you set your sights on a lady you liked and woo her?”
Ignoring her question, he slid open a drawer. “This is empty. What were you keeping in here?”
“Nothing. I hadn’t used it yet.”
He cast a meaningful look at the heaps of unmentionables on the floor. “You do understand the purpose of a drawer?”
“Not everyone keeps their handkerchiefs organized by day of the week.” She crossed her arms. “I’ve told you, I’m all wrong to be your wife. Consider this yet more evidence that we’re mismatched. I’m too young for you, too indecorous, a poor housekeeper. You don’t even like me. I’m merely some impertinent girl who cornered you in the library. You needn’t settle for that.”
“Settle,” he echoed, replacing the drawer in the chest. “You think I’ll be settling by wedding you.”
“Everyone will think it.”
“You,” he said, “are the most unsettling creature I have ever met in my life. I have not felt settled since the moment we met.”
Charlotte smiled to herself. “I shall take that as a point of pride.”
“You really shouldn’t.” He advanced on her, closing the distance between them. “Has it not occurred to you that I might have a very real, very pressing reason for wanting to wed you?”
The darkness in his gaze left no ambiguity as to what reason he meant.
“But you could get that from any woman,” she said.
“I only want it from you.”
She swallowed, suddenly nervous. “You really should be going. Dinner will be called soon.”
“I’m the guest of honor in this house.” He pushed aside a fallen lock of her hair, and the slight friction teased her neck. “They’ll wait.”
“If my mother knew you were in here . . .”
“She’d be thrilled.”
Too true, too true. “I could cry out.”
“And ensure we’re caught alone together, in even more compromising circumstances than the last time? Go right ahead.”
She sighed. He truly did have her cornered.
There was only one way she could think of to shake him up, change the rules of his game.
No one touches my hair, he’d said.
Until now.
She stretched one hand forward, sliding her fingers through his dark, thick hair. Lightly, playfully—teasing it to wild peaks. Until the clipped locks stood on end, in amusing contrast to his piercing gaze and serious expression.
He seemed to have no idea how to respond.
Oh, dear. This man needed unsettling in the worst way.
Was he so unfamiliar with affection? Perhaps just very out of practice. He’d been restraining himself for so long. That propriety was an overstarched cravat, stifling all the emotion that must be lurking deep inside. Was it any wonder he didn’t see the reason to wait for a love match? In all his years of being perfect . . . he’d forgotten the untidy, unruly bliss that human closeness could be.
If he’d ever known true closeness at all.
Bosh, she told her heart. Stop twisting and aching. He’s a wealthy, powerful marquess, not a lost whelp in the rain.
She added her other hand to the first, toying more freely now. Biting back a mischievous smile, she teased her fingers through his hair, creating tufts that stood out at crazed angles—like the fur of an angry bear. Then she pushed all his hair to the center, giving him the look of a Mohican.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” he asked dryly.
“More than you could know.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. But he didn’t tell her to stop.
She took a bit of pity on him, flattening his teased hair with her palms, then raking her fingernails over his scalp from front to back.
He closed his eyes and exhaled roughly.
“That’s it,” she whispered, toying with the soft, close-shorn hair at the nape of his neck. “It’s only a bit of tenderness. There’s no shame in surrender.”
She knew she was playing a dangerous game. With each caress, she edged closer to the border between teasing a response from him and putting her emotions and virtue at risk. It couldn’t hurt to allow him a few minor liberties, could it? Show him a bit of affection. Just enough to awaken him to what could be, if only he’d open his heart to the possibility of love.
At some point, she’d stopped playing with his hair. Which would not have been a problem, if she’d remembered to withdraw her hands—but she hadn’t. Her fingers remained tangled in his thick, dark, tousled locks. His hands had settled on her waist.
She was just holding him now. And he was holding her.
His gaze trained on her lips.
She knew he would kiss her.
She knew she would let him.
It all seemed entirely inevitable, wholly predictable—and yet nothing had ever thrilled her more.
Breathe, she told herself. Breathe now, and deeply. In a moment, it will be too late.
Piers held on tight. By necessity, not choice. She’d dismantled him. All his disguises and defenses were crumbling to dust at his feet.
What was it about her? Her fingers couldn’t be so different from other women’s. She was pretty, but not the most beautiful creature he’d ever beheld. As she kept reminding him, she was young and unpolished and impertinent, and nothing a man like him ought to want.
And yet he did.
She teased him. She touched his hair. She believed he deserved this and more.
He couldn’t let her guess her effect on him. He couldn’t let anyone see. He needed to claim her, possess her, and stash her somewhere where she couldn’t wreak so much havoc on his self-control.