Chapter Six

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Greyson waited impatiently for his friend's carriage to be brought around. Greyson found he was an even worse companion now then earlier this evening.

His temper was frayed. The anger lingered in his clenched fists, the black furrow of his brow.  It had been a damnably long evening. Hell,  he still couldn't quite believe it. The lady had found him so dastardedly, trusted him so little as a gentleman that she leapt off a balcony to be rid of him.

The bloody balcony!

It rankled.

Greyson ran a hand through his brown locks, uncaring that its ends were haphazardly falling about his face.  He unraveled his cravat, taking the first deep breath since the blasted woman had gone missing. Charlotte would have had to shimmy down the latticework with a network of vines and weeds, her slippers vying for purchase on each small rung. She could have broken her fool neck.

His fury, his absolute fear for her, revealed the truth of this night. She had unmanned him.

Quite utterly.

The level of protectiveness, the sheer obsession of his thoughts, frightened him. He felt a responsibility towards her he couldn't rid himself of. Ha! Responsibility. Greyson felt many things for Charlotte, but responsibility was at the bottom of his lengthy list.

How had his evening become so deuced...complicated?

He had found himself picking up the pieces of an evening gone awry - nay, an evening that could only be described as a comedy of errors.

After the ladies had been thoroughly ensconced in darkness with their orders, Greyson had barely time enough to drag Lord Simpton to the far outermost reaches of the balcony, before an overlong shadow of a man stretched ominously over him.

He had looked up to see Crowley, his detestable host. If Crowley showed any distaste for his company after their altercation, however, Greyson wouldn't know it. The way Crowley stood blocking the light, Greyson only noticed his absolute stillness, his whole being merely a human-shaped void.

"Claymore," his adversary clipped. Crowley walked closer, the harsh features of his face blurring into view. "Didn't expect to see you out here..."

It came out as a question, his voice rising on the final syllable. As if, perhaps, he had expected a sight rather different. Crowley's eyes shifted behind Greyson, his brows pulling into a frown.

Confused, Greyson resisted the urge to glance behind him. He needed to get Crowley back into the ballroom. Now.

"I see you had the same idea as I. Rather crowded ballroom, you have here." Greyson murmured, his tone rather hard even to his own ears. Whether from the their previous conversation or anxious for the ladies, he couldn't say.

The man laughed sharply. "Yes, yes. I found myself needing...some air." His footsteps took him farther out onto the balcony.

Shite.

Greyson held his breath when Crowley stopped, his boots inches from Lord Simpton's upturned palm.

Crowley looked around, his head swiveling, almost as if...

Greyson frowned. "Are you looking for something?" Greyson didn't know why, but his instincts were clamoring. Sensing danger.

Another laugh. This one, strained. "Who else would be out here?" He asked, his eyes coming to Greyson. "Been out here long, Claymore?"

"Long enough."

Whatever Crowley was looking for, Greyson would never know. After a brief silence, Crowley nodded to Greyson.

"I'll let you enjoy the air in peace, then. Don't want to leave my guests alone for long." He winked, a polite smile upon his face.

Greyson had watched the man leave, sure in the knowledge that something wasn't right. Something in the way Crowley's shoulders were tight and high about his ears. His hands clenching sporadically.

When Crowley's back disappeared from view, Greyson blew a relieved breath. Whatever the issue with Crowley's behavior was, Greyson realized that he didn't give a bloody damn. Marching to the corner, he reached out with a hand. But she had been gone.

Crowley's butler, Sims, broke into his reverie.

"Your carriage, my lord." He motioned to Thorne's carriage, and Greyson sent a silent prayer of thanks up to the Heavens.

Cool air washed over his flushed cheeks, a particular chill dancing down the bones of his spine.

Greyson welcomed his friend's roomy carriage, the rich red velvet cushions pillowing him. Thorne's carriage was decorated lavishly with two long bench seats. Heavy drapes masked the interior of the carriage, and a space for a warmed brick resided below his feet, ready for the dampness of winter. Since Greyson had traveled a full day from his country manse in Warwickshire, he had decided to take a room in Thorne's bachelor residence. Greyson's horses had needed the rest, and the fewer people who saw his family crest marking his carriage the better. If he didn't need more mares for his stud farm, Greyson wouldn't have bothered socializing with the gentlemen of the ton at all.

But he did, and his father's voice hovered in his mind even now, though the man had died years back. A businessman, his father.

Greyson settled in, shrugging from his topcoat and throwing the offending garment over to the other seat. Greyson went for the buttons on his ruined waistcoat followed by the intricate knot holding his cravat. 

Rolling up his sleeves, Greyson sank low into the squabs, one ankle coming to rest on the opposite knee.

Greyson found his thoughts led him right back to Charlotte.

Charlotte.

He finally had a name.

It fit her. By God, how it fit her. Her long chestnut curls glinted like hot caramel in the ballroom, a darker, more robust shade in the quiet darkness of the balcony. The milky skin that looked soft as butter. Her small, upturned nose. Even those aquamarine eyes, strange as they were.

They were going to haunt him, he knew.

He had almost been too late.

When Greyson had seen Lord Simpton disappear with Charlotte, he had scattered groups of the ton who had happened upon him. His eyes never leaving the floating drapery shielding the balcony. Greyson had heard the sounds first. Scuffling. The tear of fabric. It had taken a moment for his eyes to adjust, but when they had, the sight that greeted him froze his blood. All Greyson could see was the man's back, lean shouldered, but tall. His hands had clenched Charlotte's skirts, his seeking hands on her person. 

Greyson had acted on instinct. Two punches was all it took - one to the gut, another to the face - and the man was down.

Then he had turned, frantic.

Greyson had seen her, shivering, the skirt of her blue silk gown ripped up the middle. Her chest heaved with her deep breaths, drawing attention to her white and cream-colored corset, the delicate fabric of her top having yielded to the hands that had tugged. Charlotte's hair fell in messy waves about her shoulders, snarled with bits of leaves and rock from the wall she had been pressed into.

Greyson wished Lord Simpton fought still so he could pummel the man's face all over again.

A smear of blood had marked Charlotte's right hand, but he knew that, by god, was Simpton's. He had gotten a personal view of the man's lacerations. Pride had burst through him. His little caterpillar had broken the man's nose.

Greyson had stalked towards her, desperate to see that no harm had befallen her.

Perhaps he should have taken her silly advice and announced himself. But Greyson hadn't been thinking. Nothing was more important. The panic made his hands tremble; his breath billowing, as his vivid nightmare revived. As his eyes had checked over every inch of Charlotte's skin, it was another woman's screams that trilled in his mind, another woman's blood seeping into his skin.

His whole evening had been a spinning carousel. From delight to anger. From fright to surprise to debilitating lust and right back to anger.  For a man used to spending time alone, with only his horses for company, and that of his mother or sister, it had taken its toll on him.

His waistcoat was ruined. His jaw was aching. 

But what undid him the most, even now, was the way Charlotte had made him...want.

The puffs of her breath on his chin as she had stood before him, a temptress blazing in righteous indignation. The sharp tongue of hers that delighted in utilizing their barbs. Always bating. 

His groaned at the lust that ignited in him. He dug his head further back into the cushions of the carriage, his throat working in a swallow. It was always her scent he noticed first. Lilac and woman. Her eyes, soft and succulent, tempting and brazen, and in the next, innocent and riveting, shooting pistols and muddled in confusion. A study in contrasts that Greyson wanted to do an intimate study of. He would wrap his arm around her waist, pull her softness into him.  Fist the tendrils of her hair around his hand so he could draw her head back and hold her steady for his kiss. 

Hell, he thought, glaring at the top of the carriage, what monster was he to feel such impulses? After she had been subjected to another's unwanted attentions.

But what of Greyson's own? Would she permit his touch? Or turn and run?

But it was too late for that. Greyson had heard the bitterness in her voice, the desperation. The way her voice had broken.

Much like him, Charlotte, it seemed, had experienced enough hurt, enough uncertainty, of her own.

She didn't need a gentleman like him who hadn't been able to protect her.

But who was this Charlotte, he wondered? He sighed, his ears pricking at the merry voices of women as they waited for their carriages. 

He was a fool. There was nothing left for him here.

"Ah, there you are." Thorne's amused voice called out, the carriage door opening abruptly. 

Greyson groaned, cursing himself for not bringing his own conveyance.

Why the devil had he informed Thorne about what had happened? The twinge in his jaw answered his question.

Because he had a blackened jaw the size of a bloody grapefruit.

"She's gone." Greyson's voice was so sullen, he almost pitied himself.

Thorne laughed. "Did you think she would still be there? Waiting for you?" Thorne entered the carriage, his heft shaking the cabin. Greyson's topcoat was tossed back to him as Thorne seated himself across from his friend.

"Buggar off, Thorne."

"Aw, is your pride been bruised as much as your lovely face, then?"

Thorne ignored Greyson's warning growl as he leaned back. He tapped the top of the carriage, the wheels rolling along the cobblestones. One hand cupped the back of his head, a grin on his lips.

"I cannot believe the mighty earl of Claymore," he began, keeping his eyes so nonchalantly at the passing scenery that Greyson wanted to commit violence, "renowned horse trainer and eligible bachelor -"

"Thorne." He warned.

"-feared for his reclusive nature and reviled for it by those same matchmaking mothers -"

"For Christ's sakes, Thorne -"

" - in the greatest twist of fate..."Thorne crossed his ankles before him, teeth flashing, "...felled by a woman."

"I was not felled," Greyson mumbled irritably. He shifted to the open curtains of the carriage window, watching as others rambled by, their occupants losing their layers of finery, piece by piece. He wondered if Charlotte was currently inside any of them."Stumbled, mayhap. Not felled."

Thorne snorted. "I don't believe the particular word chosen makes a difference, my friend. The matter remains: you were the topping on that lady's pastry, and her fist was the icing on your proverbial cake."

Thorne laughed, his eyes crinkling in mirth.

No doubt at that horrid metaphor, Greyson scowled.

Thorne drew out his handkerchief from the pocket of his coat, wiping the corners of his eyes. "Beaten by a lady." Thorne ignored his friend's darkening visage as the carriage rocked, their path marked with various stops and rutted potholes. "The most deplorable part will be the rumors, you know."

"There will be no bloody rumors," Greyson informed, as if his word made it so.

"Then what will you say about your bruise? You cannnot exactly hide it."

"I haven't the faintest," Greyson said, shrugging, as his eyes closed.

"It's only shameful, you know, if you let it be."

"Is that so, oh great wise one?"

Thorne smirked. "How about I act upon the worst case scenario-"

"I'd really rather you didn't."

"'Did she use her parasol?' They will ask -the men of White's, you know-" Thorne began, Greyson's wishes forgotten in the contest of ribbing that was sure to commence. "'No, not a parasol,' you will say. 'What of her reticule, perhaps?' will be pondered next, and you will say..." 

Thorne pointed to Greyson, waiting for the Earl to join in his games. Greyson only narrowed his eyes, the gray becoming black in his heavy brow.

"Why, you will say 'Nay,' of course," he continued, unimpeded. "And then they'll ask, 'Well, how did she defeat our Earl, then?' and I will be lingering in the background, ready for the reveal,  'Why, with a cherry tart and her gloved knuckles, of course!'"

Greyson was going to strangle his arse of a friend in another minute, he vowed. And yet, he found himself saying, "Strawberry."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The tart. It was strawberry."

He cursed himself a fool.

What difference did that distinction make?

Thorne's astounded silence lasted a second, no more, before he opened his mouth again as if to speak. Greyson halted him with his hand. "No more, Thorne. I won't be responsible for my actions."

"I'm done, old friend. Promise." Thorne sat back, his eyes closing.

Greyson counted to ten before Thorne broke the silence, his eyes popping open. "Tell me something." Greyson made a sound deep in his throat. "Just one last question, and then you will forget I'm here. I'll be quiet as a clergyman in church."

Greyson snorted. Bloody unlikely. But he nodded, nonetheless, hoping he wouldn't come to regret it.

Thorne shifted, making a rather unnecessary production of looking over Greyson's evening attire. Thorne tilted his head, biting his tongue as he got halfway up to hover over Greyson, his arm coming out to steady himself. "Hmmm," Thorne murmured, sitting down. "How did you do it?"

Despite his wariness, Greyson plunged ahead anyway, asking the question.

"How did I do what?"

"I just can't imagine where in those trousers of yours you hid your newly earned petticoats."

Greyson scowled. "Bloody hell-"

Thorne's head fell back, his guffaws loud in the confines of the carriage. 

Greyson chucked his coat at Thorne, muffling his friend's laughter through the heavy black fabric. As Thorne attempted to gain control of his person, Greyson glanced out the window in the direction of where he had last seen Charlotte. He wondered what the little she-devil was up to now.

Knowing what he did of her friend, Greyson figured they were lording their victory against gentlemen everywhere. But Greyson couldn't shake the feeling that settled in his bones. As if they were pawns being settled into place.

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