Free Midnight Temptations With a Forbidden Lord by Tiffany Clare Page A

wheels kicking up dirt. If she dropped the shawl, it would muddy and catch up in the wheel. Was the slip of material around her shoulders enough to stop the carriage and end their drive through the park?
    Genny tucked the shawl back over her shoulders and gave Charlotte’s arm a reassuring squeeze. Had her cousin read her thoughts?
    Conversation at a standstill, her cousin spoke: “I’m glad the weather let up for our afternoon ride, Mr. Warren.”
    “Yes, I couldn’t be more pleased. The grays haven’t been out nearly enough since I purchased them.”
    “It would be far kinder to let them run in the country. The cemented and cobbled roads must be hard on them,” Charlotte felt the need to point out.
    “Never fear, Lady Charlotte, they are well cared for.”
    “I wasn’t suggesting otherwise. It just saddens me that their heads are pulled up so high, and they are forced to walk on such hard ground. It must be a great strain on their bodies to walk so unnaturally just so one can be fashionable. All those fripperies you so dislike are fully on display in this instance.”
    There was a tic at the side of his jaw where he clenched it. She swore she heard the grinding of his teeth for a moment before he let up and gave her a forced smile. “We will have to agree to disagree, Lady Charlotte.”
    “Indeed,” she said with a tight smile on her face. She wanted to stamp her feet like a three-year-old. The man was infuriating, snobbish, and unpleasant. “About those ices, Mr. Warren? I find I am rather parched now that the day has warmed.”
    “My thoughts exactly,” he said, and turned his horses back on the path toward Berkley Street. “Gunter’s should be busy with the sudden increase in the temperature.”
    “Especially since it seems no one is strolling about the park today,” Genny said before Charlotte could interject with another caustic remark. “I’m sure the foot traffic and riders in the park will increase once the last puddles of rain dry up.”
    “I don’t doubt it for a moment, Miss Camden,” he said.
    Arriving at Gunter’s, they saw it was as they’d predicted—a full house. People spilled out onto the lawn in the park across from the shop since all the chairs and tables set up outdoors were filled.
    As Mr. Warren came around to help her and her cousin from the carriage, Genny grabbed her sleeve and drew her close to whisper, “Do keep a civil tongue.”
    Charlotte faced her cousin. “I have tried for civility, but the man is determined to disagree and argue with me at every turn. He dislikes me as much as I do him, Genny. I don’t understand why he’s agreed to marriage in the first place. Surely he can tell my father to find another husband for me as he would be terrible at it.”
    Her cousin let out a frustrated groan, and then put on her brightest smile. Mr. Warren put his hand up for Charlotte to take. There were far too many witnesses for her to ignore his gesture and jump down on her own, so she braced herself against having to touch Mr. Warren at all and gave him her gloved hand without really returning his hold. Even touching him made her skin crawl and her lip curl in distaste.
    “How kind of you, Mr. Warren.”
    His hand spanned her waist and hip, surprising a small squeal from her. Every bone in her body stiffened the moment he touched her. When she raised her head to stare at him, she didn’t fail to notice the many patrons sitting on the close-clipped lawn where the carriage was stopped, watching everything that transpired between them.
    The blighter. The intimate touch had been intentional. With a satisfied grin, he stepped around her to aid her cousin next, not offering the same display of ownership that he had with Charlotte.
    She fumed. She thought of a thousand things to say, but they could never pass her lips, no matter how desperate she was to call him a cad or a scoundrel and share her opinion with the world around her that Mr. Warren was not a man worthy of any