Alex, on the other hand, looked at Charlotte walking next to him and thought he had never seen any woman look so beautiful. Her lips were deep red and her short curls were tossed by his hand. The very arch of her eyebrows made him want to growl like a tiger and throw her over his shoulder. The sight of her steeled his resolution. No matter what she said, she belonged with him, in his bed, and that was where she was going to be. She had everything he wanted: true sweetness, even down to the delicacy of her downcast lashes, along with a blazing passion he had never experienced in a well-bred woman.

His jaw tightened with resolve. He had simply moved too fast, that’s all. Charlotte was a young, beautiful woman, courted by half of London. How could he expect to simply inform her that they would get married in a week? She had probably never experienced anything like the swell of passion they shared today. He’d frightened her. He had to go slowly, woo her, not ravish her on a riverbank.

Alex politely escorted his petulant guest, Daphne, to his carriage, and just as politely hailed Will good-bye as the baron escorted Charlotte to his carriage. He ignored the wintery smile with which Charlotte bid him farewell. His girl had got herself into a tweak, that was clear, but he could take care of that tomorrow. In the carriage he bent himself to coaxing Miss Daphne out of her disdainful mood. He succeeded so well—showering her in an artful downpour of compliments—that her tinkling laughter filled the carriage again and again.

Daphne would have sworn that Alexander Foakes’s attention was solely focused on her. But in fact Alex was brooding over the delicious moment when Charlotte pressed against his body. His wife. It had a devilishly good ring to it.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

In the following week London society was treated to the delectable sight of the handsome but disastrously ineligible Earl of Sheffield and Downes laying determined siege to the reigning beauty Lady Charlotte Daicheston. No one could quite determine how she felt about it. She laughed and flirted with all her suitors; she exhibited no particular inclination to favor the earl. Sharp eyes watched as she gave two dances to the earl, and then two dances to another earl, Braddon Chatwin. And then she danced twice with Lord Holland and, scandalously, three times with a man old enough to be her father, Sylvester Bredbeck. But everyone discounted that as pure mischief; he was a friend of her mother’s.