Page 5 of How to Tempt a Duke

He smirked to himself as his valet departed. It truly had been far too long since Charles had seen Lottie.

Chapter Two

It had indeed been a considerable amount of time since Charles had seen Lottie. He nearly did not recognize the sultry woman standing before him in the sumptuously decorated drawing room. It was too finely appointed for a vicar’s daughter—as was her tightly fitted gown of deep red silk far too tawdry. Especially when compared to the modest high-necked gown he’d last seen her in.

Gone was the wide-eyed innocence of her smoky blue eyes, and in its place was a smoldering vixen with a length of midnight curls tumbling over one nearly naked shoulder. A courtesan.

Charles stared a moment longer than was polite while the five years stretched out in the silence between them. Her fingers twisted against one another at her waist—a childhood show of nerves even her new guise could not mask.

“I’m sorry about your father.”

“I’m sorry about you,” he replied.

Lottie winced and looked away. “I didn’t have a choice, Charles. There is no choice when your father dies and leaves you destitute.”

Charles shifted his weight. The crisp new Hessians he wore pinched at his feet, and the slight discomfort was nearly unbearable when coupled with such agitation. “You could have wed.”

Lottie’s chest swelled and those damn fingers of hers started twisting again. “I could not.”

“What is this prattle?” Charles paced over the thick carpet. “Lottie, you’re lovely. You’ve always had the attention of men. How could you not find a husband?”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t find one.”

“If you could find a husband why would you not—” Comprehension washed over him like cold rain.

Lottie scoffed at his apparent consternation. “Now you understand.”

Oh, he understood.

Lottie had been compromised.

The little girl who had tagged along behind him until he had finally allowed her to join him at play. The girl he had regarded with the same undying affection one would a younger, more vulnerable sister. And some rake had ruined her.

“Who is the scoundrel?” he growled.

“No one I’ll ever confess to you.” She strode across the room, away from him. But not before he saw the hopeless misery in her eyes.

She still loved the man.

Charles followed her. “Why didn’t you ask me for help?”

She drew a bottle of amber liquid from a shelf and pulled free the stopper. “Even if I could have found a way to contact you I have never been one for charity.” She splashed a finger of liquor into a cut-crystal glass and pushed it into his hand.

He accepted the drink and took a long sip. Scotch. Very fine Scotch. “It wouldn’t have been charity,” he protested.

She regarded him with quiet bemusement. “Oh? And what, pray tell, would it have been?”

“Securing a future for you.”

A sad smile plucked at the corners of her mouth. “I’m not your responsibility, Charles.”

He settled his palm on her shoulder, the same way he’d done when she was a girl and had needed comfort: when her kitten had scaled a tree too high for her to climb, the time she’d skinned her knee and torn a new gown, the day her mother had died. He’d always been there for her.

Except, apparently, when she’d needed him most.

“You know I’ve always regarded you as a sister. I’ve always cared for you as if you were.”

“But I’m not your sister.” She waved him off. “You’re going to make me cry with all that.”