Charlotte was a lump in the bed, but he steadfastly turned his tired mind away from the alluring image of sinking into the soft linens warmed by her, and instead wrapped his dressing gown around himself and gently eased down on top of the bedcovers. He was painfully aware of her body lying so close to his, not touching but close enough so he could breathe in the scent of warm, sleepy woman. He prayed she wouldn’t wake up, for he knew his wife—she took the straightest path between two points no matter what distractions lay along the way. If she should discover him in her bed, she would no doubt demand he do his marital duty by her, and he was conscious enough to recognize that the overwhelming attraction he felt for her, coupled with his traitorous body, would sound a death knell for his good intentions.

“Less temptation this way,” he told himself, stifling the groan of pleasure as the soft mattress welcomed his exhausted body. “I’ll be gone in a couple of hours. She won’t even know I’m…”

He drifted off before he could finish vocalizing the thought.

“…here,” Charlotte whispered softly from the other side of the bed. Moving carefully, she covered her husband with a light blanket, then curled up beside him, one hand protectively on his chest.

Eleven

Caroline watched her friend rip pages from her memorandum book and throw them to the small fire that had been lit in an attempt to throw off the gloom cast by the cold, damp June day so familiar to inhabitants of the south of England. “You look as if you hope to exorcise a demon by doing that,” she commented mildly.

“The demon can exercise himself, I have much more important things to concern myself about. Caro, I am at my wit’s end. I know that will come as a surprise to you—Lord knows I thought I’d never face the day when I couldn’t think of some way around an obstacle—but this has me defeated, and I don’t like the feeling one little bit.”

Caroline made soft noises of encouragement.

Charlotte threw the last page into the fire and turned to stare out the window at the rivulets of rain running down the glass. “I have never been defeated before. I have never once set myself to a goal and failed to achieve it. I have never, in all my years, been unable to have what I’ve desired. This situation is untenseable, and I simply shall not tolerate it anymore!”

“What situation is untenable?” Caroline asked quietly, more than a little concerned by the look of confusion in her friend’s eye. If there was one thing Caroline had always envied Charlotte, it was her sense of purpose, her knowledge of exactly what she wanted out of life and how she was to get it. The Charlotte before her plainly was not of that ilk; the Charlotte before her was made out of a common clay, the kind riddled with doubts and uncertainty and frustration just like any other mortal.