Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
E mma would have put good money on it—Samuel was going to kiss her. Who would have expected a knife instead? Not her. Perhaps she should have. But what should she do now? With her heart slamming against her ribs, with her disappointed lips, with his hands still warm and lovely on her cheek, with the blade like a hot coal in her palm.
“It folds up,” he said, “so you can keep it with you safely. In a pocket or in your reticule.” He showed her how to work the mechanism and unfold it. “You do it.”
The hilt was made of something that felt like satin, something that shone in the growing dark like the stars. Or the moon. Perhaps it felt so smooth because his constant handling had made it that way. She flipped it open. “I’ve seen these before.”
“They are quite common. But this one is specially made. Mother-of-pearl hilt. Blade sharper. It’s too big for you, better fitting in my hand. But it will do for now. It is not good for throwing. No folding knife is. But it is better than nothing. Do not leave home without it. And the next time a man tries what that other devil did, you gut him. Do you understand?”
She nodded. She understood well the desire to gut, to protect herself and others.
But there were other things quite incomprehensible stealing her speech, her attention.
“I need more than a nod.” His hands crawling up her forearms, swallowing her elbows, and holding tight. “Tell me what you’ll do.”
Somehow, despite her tight throat and dry mouth, she managed to say, “Gut him.”
“Slash his damn face. If you go for the torso and hit a rib, you will not hurt him enough to get away. But if he suspects he might be scarred forever, his shame an eternal slash across his face for everyone to see…”
“I understand.”
“Good.” His hands on her elbows loosened. He was about to step away.
No. Every inch of her skin screamed it. How could she let a man like this slip into the night? How could she release the way he made her feel with the simple gift of a used folding knife? She must be violent minded if her heart tripped over itself with such bloody instructions.
But… he cared about her, wanted to protect her, gave a bit of himself away to do it.
A first.
And she could not let it pass without recognition. Parkington’s kiss had been thrust upon her. And her first kiss with Samuel had been his to take, though she’d gladly given it. This, though, this kiss was for her. Hers to give and take, hers to create. It belonged to no one but him, and no one but her could give it.
A twist of her hands was all it took to grasp his biceps, pull up on toe, and kiss him. Not quite sure what to do after their lips met. A moment of confusion.
But then he took over, knowing somehow that she wanted this but needed him to guide her. Was he like this with everyone? Knowing what they needed, giving it.
He pulled her closer, so close, too close, her breasts pressed against his hard chest. He cupped her face with both hands, now, a chaste embrace that flamed higher as he speared his fingers into her hair, his lips moving over hers, slanting, seeking. Teaching. How did he know her so well? Even if everyone in the entire world got her wrong, he never would.
She melted into him, gave herself up to him. Her hands wrapped around his neck like they were meant to be there, and each sip he took from her lips was soft and hot, too short and lasting forever. A symphony of contradictions in the way she fit against him, lean hip to ample hip and heart to frantic heart.
Perfect yet painful.
Sweet yet sinful.
Fated.
Yet impossible.
He gentled the kiss, sipping from her bottom lip and leaning back against the tree trunk, pulling her with him so she rested against him. Were his legs as wobbly as hers, as ready to seek a supine position? He set his forehead against hers and held her tight, arms hugging around her when he knew they should not.
“I should not have,” he said. “I should not have done it. To paw at you when you tell me… that. It is not gentlemanly.”
She cupped his cheek. “You did not do it, Your Grace. I did. Just this once. A thank you for your gift.”
“I’ve never been one to reject a gift.” His hold on her tightened, his voice rough as tree bark. “You will not let one mistake define you. Do you understand?”
He meant Parkington. That mistake was defining her. She could not stop it from defining her. Yet when he demanded she rail against it, it felt like she might win. No, it felt like unquestionable victory.
It felt like she wanted to kiss him again. She grinned.
“If you do,” he said, “I’ll kiss you again. Or I’ll gift you something else, so you kiss me.”
“The horror.”
“Hell, Emma, I want to kiss you now.”
“Me, too.”
“We can’t.”
“I know.”
Inch by excruciating inch, he drew away from her until he touched only her elbows once more. Then he spun her, placing her back against the tree and retreating toward the ends of its branches, arms folded at his back. To keep from reaching for her?
Outside of the tree’s perimeter, he paced. “You have an undeserved crack in your reputation, and I will not add to it. Not here, where you’re safe from it. I’ll do better.”
Was he allowed to make mistakes?
She left the tree trunk, drawn to him against her better judgment. When she stood within reach, she stopped, and he stopped his pacing, looking anywhere but at her.
“Perhaps,” she said, “I deserve that reputation. Kissing you when you and Lady Huxley—”
“No. No. This all falls on me. And I will fix it. No more meetings. Not tomorrow, not ever. Unless others are around.”
“Aunt Millicent?”
“I need a new chaperone.” He cleared his throat. “Send me a letter. Weekly. And I will read about your progress and respond if necessary.”
“Very well.”
“You must go home. Let me escort you.”
“You just said—”
“It’s dark. Humor me. I will control myself.” She let him fall into step beside her as they made their way toward the Macintosh residence across the square. “Thank you for telling me. Erm… Lady Emma?”
“Yes?” Difficult to talk to him when she could only think about other ways of using lips.
“Do not fret over what happened in the garden just now. Please do not. It was no sin. Only a blessing. If I… if things were different, it would not be a secret kiss in a garden only. Do you understand?”
She didn’t, but she nodded. What did he mean? What things must be different to have more than a garden kiss with him? Her age? Her work matchmaking? Did these things make her unsuitable to be his—
No use thinking of it. The dark gathered around her. The dark gathered inside her.
She crossed the street toward her door, and he stayed inside the garden behind the gate. She paused with her hand on the doorknob, uncertain, unable to look away from him though it felt like needles looking.
“When I am feeling at my most self-flagellating,” he called out, “I tell myself this. I would be worse off if I was not aware of my mistakes. Because I’d still be making the same ones.”
She laughed, and the sound warmed her, seemed to call the stars out from the settling darkness. “You are correct, of course. Thank you.”
She would not blame herself for the kiss, would not chastise herself for taking what she could from a man who would offer nothing more.
Before she disappeared inside the townhouse, Lady Emma smiled, and Samuel could see it even in the gloomy dark. The smile on her lips wrapped round his heart.
And it yanked him into the future. Wedding, children, mornings and evenings—Emma laughing, Emma smiling, Emma kissing him. Emma’s body naked and perfect beneath his own. Emma keeping him levelheaded and him soothing her fears. Emma carrying their child. Emma’s hair gone white with age. Emma in every single way a woman could be with a man, a husband. And all of them with him . His future, their future, stretched out before him all at once, a flash of something just right that pulled him out of his body for a breath.
A rumble growled across the sky. The clouds had reappeared, blocking the stars, the moon. A storm was coming.
“Hell.”
The doorway across the street empty.
The kiss in the quickly fading past.
Future melting away like a dream at dawn upon waking.
The truth remained. His life was an imminent explosion, and he would not subject Emma to another scandal now she was safe in London.
In other circumstances, he could make her his. She was an earl’s daughter. She should be available for a duke’s interest. Too old, some would say. Too odd, others might add, considering her work with matchmaking. None of that mattered. It would be him ruining her if anyone found out his family’s secret.
He trudged across the garden once more and blinked in the entry hall light when he let himself into Clearford House. He shut the door and leaned back against it. Bang, bang, bang — each slam of his skull across the wood failed to knock sense into him, failed, too, to knock the memory of their most recent kiss away.
“Samuel?” June was half out of a sitting room, her brow pinched together. “Is something amiss?”
“Not at all, Juney.”
“You’re lying. You look sad.” She stepped more fully into the hallway. “And that makes me sad.”
“Don’t say that. I won’t have it.” He patted her on the head. “Are you reading?”
“Mm. A lovely book by a lady who Annie recommended. Do you want me to read it to you?”
“No, thank you. I am exhausted and wish to retire.”
“Very well.” He turned for the stairs.
“Is Lady Emma well?”
He froze, hand on the newel post. “Lady Emma?”
“Weren’t you talking in the garden with her just now?”
“Yes. She’s well. There has been a… change of plans. She will not be able to meet with me tomorrow.”
“Shame. She enjoyed your knife-throwing lessons.”
“Yes, shame. Good night, Juney.”
“Good night.”
Samuel found his bedchamber with heavy legs and collapsed onto the mattress, throwing his hands out wide with a groan. And then a curse as his knuckles slammed into the table beside his bed, knocking something off. Bloody hell, that hurt. He shook his hand and picked up the fallen object.
The parcel Lady Emma had returned from Lady Macintosh last week. What was it? A book, clearly, but… what book? With Lady Macintosh and his sisters, there’d be no knowing. He should place it in his mother’s sitting room immediately.
Or… he could… open it.
No. He didn’t want to know.
Yes, he did. He ripped the paper open, revealing a green leather tome with gold lettering on the spine. His Lady’s Pleasure.
He’d been right. One of those . He’d return it now.
But instead of trudging downstairs, he stayed where he was. If one was jumping into the ocean, they went all the way in, didn’t they? Samuel did, at least, creaking the cover open, finding faded, spidery, familiar writing on the inside.
His father’s writing. He couldn’t read it at first, his vision blurring. So long, years since he’d had new words from his father. An unexpected treasure trove. Consume it all in one gulp? Or take each word out one at a time to inspect it, memorize it.
In the end, each word ran into the next like raindrops sluicing into a racing river.
Dearest Rose, loveliest Rose, beloved Rose,
I hope you are pleasantly surprised by this gift, and that it is a good enough atonement for our argument. Not having you to tease and kiss these last several days has given me plenty of time to think. I was shocked when I discovered your collection, but you are correct. It hurts no one so long as it remains a secret, and it amuses many, helps some, even. So, I gladly keep your secret and make myself complicit as well. There is nothing worth taking risks for so much as love. If a scandal ever bites at us, we will face it together. Only courage and joy, not fear, begets more happiness. And that is all I could ever want for you, for our children, for us.
Now, I hope you do not mind, dearest, loveliest, beloved, but I’ve already skimmed this interesting tome, and I think you might find page fifty-seven of particular interest. We can discuss it later if you find my gift, my apology, agreeable.
Your adoring husband in scandal,
John
His father had known. Samuel had wondered… but now he knew. There had been an argument over it, a reconciliation, a gift.
Only courage and joy, not fear, begets more happiness. And that is all I could ever want for you, for our children, for us.
He couldn’t seem to look away from those words. They tolled a question between his ears he couldn’t silence.
What did he want for his sisters?
Safety. A scandal-free life. Happiness. Good reputation.
Did he need to be happy for them to be so?
You look sad, June had said, and that makes me sad .
Was he making a mistake? Again?
He set the book carefully on the table. Couldn’t give it back yet. The writing meant for his mother seemed meant for him, too, somehow.
Only courage and joy, not fear, begets more happiness.
He collapsed against the pillows and fell to sleep thinking of Emma.