"What are you doing?"

Charlie choked back her growl, wanting nothing more than to throw the sweeper to the ground and stomp out her frustration.

Was Williams going to needle her about this as well?

"Damned, infernal, deuced son of a -"

A rough chuckle sounded behind her. "I beg your pardon?"

Charlie released a sigh, leaning her head back onto her shoulders.

This had gone on long enough, she thought. Since dawn, Williams had been coddling her needlessly as if she were the veriest delicate hothouse bloom.

It had started with him berating her for being a slug-a-bed this morn - though in her defense, it had been the blasted earl's doing. How was a girl to sleep after something so...confusing?

 Irksome.

Magnificent.

Dratted unbelievable.

She sighed aloud before she could choke it back.

Exhilarating.

But it had been forgotten within Williams' confounding behavior. Earlier, Charlie had taken to shoveling fallen debris into an awaiting barrel, and the man had shown up out of thin air to take away her tool, scolding that her skin would blister and her muscles sore with the undue exercise.

And then the bloody stable master had turned to another boy half her age and scrawny to boot. For Heaven's sake, he had his trousers tied with a piece of rope to keep them over his extremities. The boy had been given the task, and Charlie was left to find another duty.

The same thing had happened when Charlie had taken to clearing rubble from the ruined part of the stables. Williams had fluttered over with worries of dust and pollen. As if there weren't worse things to worry about in England than her sneezing from a plume of smoke or coughing with a bit of scattered dirt.

Say, oh, a man like Lord Simpton? Her uncle?

What was the purpose of having a disguise as a lad if she were only to be treated with the delicacy of a woman?

Perhaps Williams thought she would steal a blackened board for any other explanation was preposterous.

It was quite irritating which forced her to lift her head and mumble in irritation.

"Heavens, Williams," Charlie huffed, "but what the devil have I done wrong this time?" Charlie placed her tool on the stable wall, forgetting the precarious construction that was left of the stables. The wood crumbled sending plumes of dust into her nose and making her sneeze. The tool clattered on the ground beside her and she growled aloud this time.

Planting her hands on her hips, Charlie twisted towards her adversary - refusing to feel guilty that instead of taking her ire out on the man who truly deserved it, Williams would be the receiving member of her foul mood. "I am sweeping. Pray tell me how this could possibly be dangerous to my person..."

Charlie drifted off finding not the stable master behind her but the earl.

She sputtered off, feeling her cheeks flame. It was as if no time had passed between last evening and this morning. Charlie was transported back to her lump of a borrowed bed where her body had meshed with Greyson's.

The earl a shadowed mass stretching over her. The silky feel of his hair as she had roamed her fingers upwards, wrapping around his skull to gather the strands in her fists. The feel of Greyson's grip as it wrapped around her wrists and he pressed her into the mattress.

How soft his lips were. How forceful the sweep of his tongue, leaving no corner of her mouth undiscovered.

It had been hard and fast and primal. His fingers rough, taking of their own accord.

It was so different from the earl standing before her now. 

Irritatingly different.

As if nothing had happened.

His face was composed, a calm mask, as he raised that imperious brow at her.

Lud, but how she detested that blasted gesture!

Charlie cleared her throat seeking to compose herself as easily as the earl had. It seemed the courage of her dream - one Charlie realized had been only far too real - had disappeared, leaving her bereft. And so damned uncomfortable her skin itched.

Her hand fell to the ends of her hair, the short strands curling at her collarbones. She had felt so unlike herself last evening. So self assured. Forgotten her role and been disguised as nothing more than herself.

In the light of day it had been ripped from her and it left her feeling...

Naught but an unwanted visitor.

A male one, at that, and it chafed. Being seen as an urchin with her shorn locks and ill-fitting clothes with nothing to claim of her own but an unlikely attraction to a man who ran hot one moment and icy cold the next.

Charlie straightened her shoulders refusing to let her confusion and embarrassment with the whole bloody situation to make her feel any less than what she was. Because beneath the ill-fitting clothes and the unwashed skin - something she was determined to right at her earliest convenience - Charlie was still Lady Charlotte. A woman who had almost been compromised a few evenings ago. A lady who had found her uncle a greedy, bloodsucking leech. 

And now? Charlie had gotten away from the reaches of her uncle only to find herself thoroughly entangled with the earl. 

Charlie was determined to come out on top. She must.

Raising her chin, Charlie let her hand fall away from her shortened hair. She wouldn't allow this man to discombobulate her.

She stepped into him, watching as his eyes turned wary. He licked his lips, his gaze falling to her own before they clashed back with hers. She loved how his eyes darkened - something she had not seen last evening, but now, had her wanting nothing more than to see them flush further.

"What happened last evening?"

The earl wasn't expecting her question. She watched his adam's apple bob, and Charlie found she wanted to lean in. Bite into the flesh of his neck and shoulder. Watching the earl come undone, she realized, could become her new obsession.

A surge of feminine power shot through her, and she inhaled it in, greedy for it.

Greyson's eyes shifted, taking in the movements about him. A lad was a few stables down shifting boards into piles, his attention focused on his task. Voices drifted from where the horses were being driven through their paces, others brushed and their hooves picked.

His eyes settled upon hers. "Now is neither the time nor the place for such a conversation."

Charlie narrowed her eyes, taking a step closer. She watched in fascination as the earl stumbled back a step, as if he were frightened of her. So she took another.

Before she knew it, Charlie had the earl's back pressed into the wall of the stables. Whether he desired Charlie, the lad, or Charlotte, the woman, he desired her as a person. It was in the heavy lidding of his eyes. The way he tracked her approach.

She had him cornered for now, but at any moment, she knew the predator that lurked within him could come snapping out.

Charlie wondered how poorly it spoke of her that she wanted that.

Wanted it badly.

Her hand landed on his chest, and his big body shuddered, his eyes mere slits as they focused on where they touched. "I think now would be the perfect opportunity to discuss it, my lord." His eyes narrowed at the way she said it, displeasure inherent in her tone. "I must insist on it, in fact."

"No offense meant, but you are not ready to hear any such thing. I would advise you to rethink your current course."

Charlie bristled. She may be innocent, but she had vowed the night she left her uncle's keeping never to let another man leave her in the dark, to take advantage of her person. She had no intention of beginning now.

"You came to my room," Charlie reminded him, pressing into him until their bodies met. He sucked in a sharp breath and Charlie watched as his face flushed, a dark maroon over his tanned features. A tick began beating in his jaw. "It's only fair that I know why. To what purpose."

Something in her speech tautened the earl's features. Suddenly, their position were reversed. The earl's forearm wrapped about her waist and she was pressed into the stable wall. His free hand settled atop her chest, covering her rapidly beating heart. 

"I will tell you what is fair, dear lad," Greyson's voice was deep as his forehead dropped next to hers, his hands coming to rest on either side of her head. Boxing her in.  He leaned down, slowing trailing his nose up the side of her neck. He inhaled and Charlie shivered, forgetting everything but the heat of this man. The safety he provided alongside the clash of possessiveness that thrummed in his intimate caress. "Fair is sharing with me as I share with you. Fair is showing yourself, revealing every inch of your person."

"Fair," he continued, one hand blatantly palming her arse and causing her to gasp into his mouth which had fallen in line with hers, "is that you be as bloody confounded in all this as I."

And then Greyson released her, and she slumped back, her chest heaving. They watched each other - wary, circling each other as if counting any weaknesses they could see, any chink in their respective armors.

It seemed the earl had as much of a disguise as she did. The earl hid behind his composed aristocratic mien, but beneath, he was sinew and bone. Raw in a way that most lords she knew sought to hide, but one that thrilled her when he unleashed it.

He wasn't frightened of that, she knew. No. He merely laid in wait, subdued it until he could give it free reign.

But what did he mean? Charlie wondered, straightening and staring at the earl.

Fair is that you be as bloody confounded in all this as I.

It hardly was fair, Charlie thought, that her uncle had forced her to change her appearance. To hide about like a frightened child.

It was hardly fair that she had found herself here after being maneuvered so cleverly by the earl in the inn's stable yard. 

It was hardly fair that the earl used her passions against her so bloody easily and with nary an explanation but that it was somehow her fault. He, that was secreting herself away.

Before she could point any of this out, however, a throat cleared and she found herself jolting again.

Williams stood beside them.

"Is everything okay, milord?"

Charlie turned to find Williams glancing between them, his inquisitive gaze going from Greyson to Charlie and back. 

"Has the lads' tasks been satisfactory so far?"

Charlie's brow furrowed at the question.

Satisfactory?

She looked to Williams who seemed wary of his lordship's response.

Charlie transferred her ire to the stable master. "I have just been sweeping the stalls, Williams. The part that wouldn't cause me undue harm, of course," Charlie added, dismissing the earl behind her as if he were no longer present. "Though I am sad to say, I did sneeze so perhaps you should call for a doctor."

Williams glared at her, but Greyson snorted behind her.

"You did think me Williams earlier, then?" Charlie forced her gaze to fall back onto the earl, nodding at the question. No doubt remembering her mumbled words, Greyson smiled. "It seems I missed a particularly interesting morning. Have you been ill treated then?"

The bloody man knew she had not been. Did he find this amusing?

Williams grumbled beneath his breath at his master's amusement.

"I believe I would rather have been mistreated. Your man has been mothering me."

Greyson choked on a laugh, his brow raising as he cast an incredulous look at his stable master. "I beg your pardon?" His eyes caught Charlie's, an amused glint in them. "Did you say he was mothering you?" 

Williams bristled, bringing Charlie's gaze to him. The man snorted. "Hardly that, milord. I was merely lookin' after 'im, as ye said."

Charlie caught her breath, staring at Williams as if he had spoken in a foreign language. She looked to Greyson who had shifted his eyes away, his laughter slowing leaching from him. He shifted a hand through his hair, refusing to meet her stare.

What the devil was going on?

"I am more than capable of handling my own affairs, my lord," Charlie said slowly. "As I have informed Williams."

The earl's eyes met hers at that. His eyes darkened on her person, and Charlie could have kicked herself quite roundly for her ill chosen words.

Affairs.

Hadn't she just been angry with him?

She cleared her throat. "I am surprised to have gone so long doing anything, rather."

"That be a misrepresentation, milord," Williams interjected, his meaty hands on his fists. "I simply didn't think the lad should be working about between nails and broken boards. Never you mind the task of pushing barrels twice h..his weight! I hardly think it speaks well of our stables to give the worst of it to the lad."

The eloquent speech had both Greyson and Charlie glancing at Williams who shuffled his feet beneath him. His face flamed, as he muttered, "I do know how to speak, milord."

Charlie giggled at the morose way he said it, drawing Williams' eyes to her.

"That be neither here nor there," he grudgingly continued, casting off their mutual ribbing. It hit Charlie then. The ease with which they had all conversed.

She hadn't believed the rumors. The reclusive lord who had a propensity to work alongside his staff quite willingly. Charlie knew it as truth now.

Frowning, she realized that the earl was truly goodnatured if he could tease his staff so readily. Never mind the mess his stables were currently in. Disregarding the lust that seemed to strike between him with his stable boy at any given moment.

Hell, she thought, even the easy camaraderie they seemed to share now.

He was the most unlikely lord in all of England.

Stark and confident and thriving. Something told her that the most dangerous opponent to her was currently standing across from her, living within the earl. Just waiting for the right opportunity.

The devil you know, whispered in her ear, and Charlie wondered what trouble she had gotten herself into this time.

"There is something you should see, milord."

Charlie snapped from her reverie and watched as the earl stiffened, something in Williams' tone putting him on edge.

"What is it?"

"Well, milord," Williams turned to Charlie who made no move to walk away. She was eavesdropping, plain and simple. If the earl didn't like it, tough, she thought.

Greyson walked to Williams, his gaze sober. Charlie forgotten. "No need to beat about the bush. What has happened?"

Williams took a deep breath, casting a glance over his shoulder towards the ruined half of the stables.

"It appears that the fire was no accident at all."

**Author's Note: An update! Yay! :)

I want to thank you all for reading! I have received some very sweet responses to my story, and it makes me so happy to know you are all reading and enjoying. 

Also, I finally figured out how to dedicate story parts, so I am doing my first one today! (In my defense, I've only been on Wattpad for a month and a half so I'm still learning how everything works :))  So, this one goes out to my very first follower and voter on Wattpad. It kept me writing when I was feeling very iffy about the direction I was going, so thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!

And if you look at the top, I added my first video link. This song is always in my head when I'm writing Charlie's POV. It really fits. Plus, it's catchy! :)

Oh, and don't forget...

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