know you will, and if you decide you cannot go through with it, I’m sure your father would understand.’
‘You needn’t try to assuage my feelings, Charles. I’ve realised for a long time the limited possibility of my marrying Henry. So please spare me your concern. There really is no need. In days from now I may decide to take a different path from what my father intended.’
‘It is you that looks concerned, Maria. Will it disappoint you to walk away?’
‘In a way. You see, at Chateau Feroc there were times when I was afraid. It seemed that everyone I had been close to had died—my parents, my brother who died in infancy, my maternal grandparents, who drowned when their ship went down in a storm in the English Channel—and there was no one at the chateau I felt really close to. In the early days I pinned all my hopes on Henry.
‘When I came to France, knowing that he was waiting for me, my heart and soul longed for the years to pass so he would come and take me home. But as I grew older my feelings changed. He wrote seldom—the content forced—as though he wrote out of duty. I became apprehensive and even afraid of him. Determining his character for myself is vital in making a prudent choice before we speak our vows. Whatever his faults, I am committed to seeing him—whatever may come from it.’
‘It could be the end—or the beginning of something.’ Maria looked at him steadily. ‘Yes, it could.’ She was wearing the woollen dress she had worn when she had left Chateau Feroc, which she had unfastened at the neck. Her face glowed in the light of the lamp, and her black hair falling loose about her shoulders gleamed with flickering blue lights. With a rush of emotion Charles thought that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. At the end of two days, he was captivated by her. She seemed to have taken up occupation in his mind. She was an intoxicating combination of beauty, an exhilarating intelligence and disarming common sense.
And if she severed all ties with Henry Winston, so much the better.
Chapter Four
Stretching his legs out before him, Charles leant his head against the high back of the chair to enjoy more leisurely what had become his favourite pastime since going to Chateau Feroc—watching Maria. She could not guess the depth of torture she put him through, for beneath his calm facade and silken words, he burned with a consuming desire for her. Last night he had sat sleepless in his chair while visions of her in all manner of disarray—laughing, angry as she had been in the coach earlier, sleeping or awake, but always paramount in his imagination—floated teasingly in and out through the shadowed fringes of his mind, enslaving his thoughts like some impish sprite with dark luminous eyes, leading him into fantasies no virginal maid could even imagine. He was ever conscious of her and painfully aware that she was a woman, and he wanted her.
The silence lengthened and drew out and filled slowly with sounds of the inn, and the monotonous fluttering of a large moth that had found its way in and was battering its wings against the glass of the oil lamp.
Maria dragged her eyes away from the window and looked at Charles’s relaxed, unguarded face in the flickering light. His mouth was firm and unexpectedly sensitive. She looked at his hand holding the glass—slender and long-fingered, a hand possessed of an unexpected strength and an equally unexpected gentleness. Just being with him was beginning to cause her moments of painful confusion, yet just as often pleasure that lightened her heart and made it soar—and made her forget Henry.
‘Why don’t you like Henry?’ she asked quietly.
Charles looked at her and shrugged. ‘There are many reasons,’ he repeated quietly, wondering how she would react were he to tell her the true nature of her betrothed—that he was utterly vicious and corrupt, rotten to the core, and without principle and honour, and the only reason he wanted Maria to return to England was because, if anything were to happen to her, he would lose sight of her fortune.
‘Why? What has he done to you?’
‘Nothing to me personally,’ he replied at length.
‘Then has he done something to someone else?’ she asked, wondering why he looked so disconcerted. ‘Is that why you dislike him?’
‘If he has, then that is his affair.’
‘And you’re not going to tell me.’ She sighed deeply, sensing his reluctance and decided not to press him. She would find out the true nature of her betrothed in due course. ‘Don’t worry, Charles. Whatever he is or whatever he has done, I shall find out for myself soon enough.’
‘I’m very much afraid you will,’ he said softly.
Not for the first time, Maria felt at a loss to understand him. Suddenly his presence was vaguely threatening. Whenever he stopped playing her escort he became a passionate companion, a predator set on unsettling her equilibrium, or a dark mysterious stranger. She didn’t know whether he was a spy, although she was certain he was involved in some shady business, and that visiting his French relatives was only a cover-up. But that was his affair and she wouldn’t pry. Pushing her hair off her forehead, she glanced out of the window.
‘It is late. I think I would like to go to bed.’ She got to her feet, smoothing her skirts. ‘You—have a room that is comfortable?’ she asked awkwardly.
‘It is—adequate.’ Standing up and noting her sudden discomfiture, he was encouraged by it. ‘At least I have a bed to sleep in tonight,’ he murmured with a slanted, meaningful smile. He crossed to the door where he turned to find she had followed him. He raised a brow.
‘I—I thought I’d lock the door.’
‘Very wise.’
‘I—don’t want a repetition of last night,’ she said desperately. ‘I didn’t see any undesirable characters when we arrived, but I’m not taking any chances.’ A roguish gleam suddenly entered Charles’s eyes and with a touch of alarm Maria recognised her amorous companion of the night before.
‘If you are afraid, I would be willing to—’
‘No,’ Maria was quick to reply in alarm, knowing he was about to suggest that he stayed. ‘That would not be wise.’
Uttering a regretful sigh, he said, ‘Then no doubt I shall find warmer companionship in other parts of the inn.’
Maria’s eyes shot to his. The idea that he might seek out solace from one of the tavern wenches upset her and filled her with a fierce jealousy. An image of his long, muscular body stretched out alongside one of those women made her heart sink sickeningly. She was surprised to realise that she could not bear the thought of him making love to another woman, even though she was still officially betrothed to another man. Her cheeks flamed with the conflict that raged within her.
As if reading her thoughts, Maria watched Charles’s gaze turn warm and sensual and she was aware of how close they were standing. Suddenly his manner bore an odd touch of threatening boldness as his gaze dwelt on her face.
‘Worry not, Maria, the only woman I yearn to be close to is here now. You must find the subterfuge of travelling halfway across France as my wife strange—and dressed in such plain attire—used as you are to wearing elegant clothes and jewels.’
‘It is no great sacrifice,’ she replied softly, relieved that he had set her mind at rest. ‘As for jewels, my aunt was forever telling me that I was too young to wear them. When I reach Gravely I shall have
