With her heart beating at the very base of her throat, Charlotte undid the button of his trousers and pushed them down over his hips. His member sprung up, already anticipating the chance. She bit her lip when she saw him, naked from the waist down. If he wasn’t the spitting image of a classical statue, if not more well-endowed. The sight was enough to make her tremble. Nonetheless, she wrapped her fingers around it and softly tugged.
“Is that…” She trailed off, perhaps shaken into silence for the first time in her life.
He reached down, wrapping his hand around hers. He applied more pressure and pulled, coaxing a grunt from his throat. He leaned his head back, gasping for air. Charlotte ran her hand up and down his length and he grunted, back arched against the wall. She swallowed hard and concentrated on the movement he had shown her.
“You can move faster,” he said.
Charlotte smiled. “Moments ago you accused me of being impatient?” She continued at the same pace until he was gritting his teeth. Nothing was more torturous than the ache for release. She hoped he was feeling it, teeth clenching hard because he wanted nothing more than to release but would hate for the moment to end so quickly. He arched his neck back and his adam’s apple bobbed with pleasure as he grunted.
As he’d asked, she quickened her movement, sliding her hand up and down over him until his mouth was pulled back like he was caught somewhere between pain and pleasure. Instinctively, his hips seemed to move against her hand as if he wanted more. She tightened her grip and he grunted, fingers pressing hard into her back.
Before much longer, he quickly reached for his handkerchief and pulled away, before wrapping the cloth around his length and releasing his passion.
He leaned back in, grasping her lips between his teeth. His kiss was hungry and thankful. Being able to reduce him to that was incredible enough. She had been dying to make him feel good, especially after what he had given to her. Even now, her body was still fizzing and popping like the a fire in embers.
“You are right,” he admitted between kisses. “I do have a confession to make,” he said.
His thumb was pressed against her bottom lip and she nodded breathlessly. He stared at her, his eyes filled with something that she had never seen in them before. Whatever it was, was powerful and made her entire chest burst with desperation.
“Wait,” she stopped him. She hadn’t been very forthright with him. It had started as a game, and she had wanted to win. Now, however, things were different. Winning felt like being honest, even if nothing came of it. She didn’t want him to slip by once again without confessing the truth.
He looked at her, pausing as if to try and understand her hesitation.
“Ilove you,” she said. “I have spent too long trying to convince myself otherwise, but—"
“Charlotte” he ran his hands gently in her hair, trying not to ruin it. Her heart felt like it had exploded in her chest. It was hot, painful, and it made her legs feel even weaker than they already were.
“Neither of us wants to marry,” he reminded her. She had stopped his confession, but she knew he felt it too. Most people didn’t experience a devastating heartbreak the very moment they fell in love and yet here she was. They weren’t meant to be, and yet it so clearly felt like they were.
“Not even now?” she asked.
“I do not…” he paused. “As much as you have told me, remaining single is important to you.”
“That is not an answer.”
No, it is not,” he admitted. “Do you really want to hear my answer? Could it ever persuade you otherwise?”
Charlotte pulled back, her breath hitching in her throat. She shook her head again. “Goodbye Lord Holdford,” she curtsied. “I am sure I am being missed.” She moved the plank, double checked that she was decent and left.
“I love you, Charlotte,” he reminded her as she walked away, and all she could offer in return was a broken smile.
She didn’t want to know it. If she was in love and he was in love, then the worst had already happened. Not only did he prove her a fool, but her longest standing convictions were senseless. It felt like a slap across the face to imagine all the time she squandered pretending that the world was not capable of such divinity. So much wasted time preparing for another outcome that might not make her as happy as he could.
So she ran, and she did not stop until she was further out in the field, completely alone, with nothing but the soft buzzing of crickets jumping through the tall grasses.
She fell, body into the green, and laid. Her heart thudded with regret. It was times like this where she wished that she could glance into the future. The worry that she might never share her life with him was overwhelming. It didn’t matter whether he had changed his mind. He was right. Both of them had spent so long agreeing that it wasn’t in the stars for either of them. A few moments of passion shouldn’t convince them that it was fate. Fate didn’t work like that.
ChapterEleven
Arabella sat at the vanity, brushing her long brown hair out with a brush, every stroke making her hair softer. It was thick, heavy, yet still so fine and shiny. She had always looked a bit like a little star that had fallen from the sky. She was so dainty, and she seemed to always catch the light nicely, but the truth was that she was a little lost, a little scared, and just a little too small to fill the role she was meant to.
Charlotte smiled at her younger sister and pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head. “You are beautiful, do you know that?”
Arabella smiled; her cheeks dusted pink. “I do not believe it is that simple. Beauty is…” she paused, looking her face over in the mirror. Her nose was soft and round like Charlotte’s, her mouth heart shaped. Her hazel eyes soaked up the light from every room in which she entered. “Beauty is a Grecian statue,” she said. “Beauty is the rain on the roof as you wake. Beauty is the sound of sparrows playing in the morning dew, the pinks and purples of the sky. I am nothing like that.”
Charlotte ran her fingers through her sister’s hair. “I do not liken myself to know much about beauty, but what I do know is that beauty is much like art. There is no work that is best.”
“Birth of Venus,” Arabella said, mindlessly brushing the ends of her hair. “That is the best one.”