He closed his eyes for a moment, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “No. I want you to love me. There’s a difference.”

She curled her fingers into the hair on his chest. “What if I said I already did? Would you believe me?”

The blue fire glowed deeply in his eyes. She knew at that moment that he loved her, had loved her ever since they had first met, and that his love for her gave her an infinite power over him. “Yes. If you told me you loved me, I would believe you.”

She could make him give her whatever she wanted. She could bring him to his knees. She could wring any confession out of him, demand any payment, and he would meet it, she could ask for any boon and be granted it. He loved her. If she lied to him, if she told him she loved him in return, he would bed her. He would believe that she loved him. Charlotte knew with a woman’s knowledge of a man who had bared his soul before her that she could lift him up to heights of rapture he had never imagined or destroy him as easily as she could grind an ant under her heel.

Power flared brightly in her for a moment as he sat watching her, love filling his eyes, waiting to see if she would take the first step toward ecstasy or agony. She dropped her gaze and allowed the sensation of power to dissolve as she pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of his delicious mouth. “Good night.”

She left him sitting on the steps as she headed for her own room, confused and annoyed by the myriad emotions tangled up in a coil that resembled Dare’s beautiful blue eyes. She wanted him more than anything she’d ever wanted, and yet his faith in her, his trust that she would cherish the gift of his love, awoke strange new emotions within her. She could not return such a gift with deceit. He deserved more than that. He deserved her love in return, nothing less.

Charlotte snuggled into bed aware that for the first time in many years, she had put someone else’s feelings above her own.

Oddly enough, it was not an unpleasant sensation.

Ten

“When did you first realize you were in love with Captain Woodwell?”

Patricia hid any surprise she felt at the question and instead flashed her sister-in-law a warm smile. She knew things were not as they should be between Dare and Charlotte, but she could see the love in her brother’s eyes when he looked at his wife, and she had every confidence that Charlotte would learn to love him as well. “I believe I fell in love with David the minute I set eyes on him. He was so kind and funny, and when he spoke to me, he made me feel as if we were the only two people in the world.”

“Kind…funny…only people in the world,” Charlotte mumbled as she stood with her back to Patricia.