Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
S eduction was immoral, yes, and coercion not at all sporting. But Samuel could make up for it. He’d have years to make up for it, a lifetime. And if the secret book club never became public fodder, he would not have to worry about it. Neither would Emma. In fact, if they married off the girls (all six remaining unwed) as soon as could be, they only had to be wary of scandal for a decade at the most. And what a simple task that would be if he married a matchmaker.
Emma seemed particularly susceptible to seduction. His lessons could easily serve as coercion.
No. He’d never. Who wanted to marry a woman who’d been coerced? No pride in that. No love.
But…
Hell. He had an arduously long journey to consider the question, didn’t he, with the coach lurching slowly through muddy troughs quickly drying into deep ruts beneath the sun’s blinding warmth. All the time in the world to decide whether to seduce the woman sitting across from him. More than he already had, of course.
“Samuel,” that very woman said, a fraction of vinegar in his name.
The corner of his lips tugged up. “I love your voice.”
“And I love your hands with ten fingers. Could you please desist? You’re making me terribly nervous.”
“You love me?” His grin widened.
Her mouth thinned, and her eyes narrowed so the blue of them became quite difficult to see.
He glanced down at his hand, found a blade there. “Ah. I spin them when I’m nervous.” The knife with the pearl handle was cradled between two fingers. He’d not even noticed plucking it from his jacket pocket.
“Well, you’ve made me nervous with the knife in this jolting coach. If you don’t stab yourself, you might lose hold of it and stab me .”
He held up the knife, rotated it slowly between his knuckles. “Knives are simple things. The most rudimentary of tools. Can be made from anything. Can inflict more damage than one would expect considering its humble appearance.”
“Humble? That knife? With the fancy handle—”
“Hilt.”
“And the sparkling blade? Dukes view the world through distorted glass.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps I am a knife, too. Dressed up in mother-of-pearl to appear more than what I am.”
“And what is that?”
“A tool. One that slices right to the point, a rudimentary thing with a single purpose.”
The rustle of her skirts brought her closer to him, and then her lovely, lithe hands were near his, slipping the knife from his hold. “I can see how you are like a knife. You do like to focus on a problem. A single purpose. Yes. But… no.” She folded the knife, unfolded it, twisting it in the gray light filtering through the window. “This knife can do more than cut with the intention to harm. I can use it to prepare a pen and write a letter, and those bring so much joy. I can snip a bit of thread as I embroider, creating something beautiful. If you were tethered to something and did not wish to be, I could release you.” She handed the blade back to him, open and glinting. “If I could cut the ties that bind you to the blade, I would. You seem to be so stuck to it that there is nothing else.”
But there was something else. There was her. Meeting her, allowing himself to love her—it felt like a door had been opened. “Have you ever seen a coachman’s knife?”
“I cannot say that I have.”
“Magnificent things. While this tool has one blade folded up within it, a coachman’s knife has several, each with its own purpose.”
“Fascinating. And useful.”
“Yes. Perhaps I’m a bit like that. A multitude of uses folded up within me.”
She laughed. “You know, there are things other than knives to compare yourself to.” The side of her mouth slipped up. “You just like sharp, pointy things.”
He laughed. “I suppose I do.” He liked soft, curvy women, too. He liked Emma. He loved her. She unfolded all that was hidden inside him. She saw what was there when no one else did. He folded the knife and slipped it back into the thin leather sheath sewn into the inside of the jacket.
And Emma heaved a breath of relief. “You said you play with the knife when you are nervous. What are you nervous about?”
You .
His moral fiber.
“My future.” Hell. Not meant to say that out loud.
“Do you mean if someone finds out? About us? About this trip?”
He tapped his fingers on the seat beside his leg, itching to grasp the hilt once more. “More who I’ll marry if you decline my offer.” Offer? More like he was begging at this point.
“Ah.” Her lips thinned
“My sisters gave me only a few options. You’re a matchmaker. Tell me, what kind of lady would you suggest?” An evil question. If she felt anything for him. Other than a healthy dose of lust, a dollop of friendship.
“Perhaps you should learn to harness your emotions and start your courtship of Lady Huxley anew.”
“Harness my emotions?”
She blinked, winced, tugged her ear. “Perhaps, if you do, keep your voice lower within the confines of the coach.”
He unclenched his fingers from where they’d wrapped around the edges of the seat. “Apologies. Throwing has always helped me concentrate my feelings in one place, fling them away. It doesn’t work the same way now.” Now, no bullseye for release. Now, his cock stiff as a board because he’d had no release of another sort. He couldn’t very well channel a constant erection into a blade and throw that across the room, erm, coach.
And she… she … had the temerity to sit across from him, looking rumpled and innocent and tempting, a pin sticking out of her coiffure up top and tendrils falling down. Emma the Always Composed—undone and delicious. And suggesting he court another lady.
Entirely unaffected, too. He might as well be any man, for as much as she cared for him.
Not true. She cared. She was damn good at hiding it, but she did care. He could rile her, push her to the edges of fury at the mere suggestion he look at another woman. That’s where he wanted her—furious and frustrated.
And easy to seduce.
Perhaps he could muddy his moral fiber a little bit.
“Do you know what will help me relax?” he asked.
“Cards? I slipped my deck into my pocket knowing the trip was likely to be—”
“Reading.” He slipped his hand into the pocket of his greatcoat.
“Rea—”
He settled into the squabs and opened the book. The School of Venus .
“—ding?”
“Mm. Yes. Shall I read out loud to occupy your mind as well?” Over the top edge of the book, she appeared wary, hesitant. “We may have a long trip, but precious little time to continue your education.”
“I can read it on my own.”
“What fun is that?”
“I do have questions.”
“Compose them while I read to you.”
She rolled her lips between her teeth and gave the tiniest of nods.
He licked his lips, excitement flashing across his skin. “A fellow named Frank is speaking.”
“Mm.”
“And he says…”
“Yes?”
“ The Thing with which a man pisseth, is sometimes call’d a Prick, sometimes a Tarse, sometimes a Man’s Yard .”
“A yard?”
He rubbed his ear. “Remember, Em? Close confines and loud exclamations do not do well together.”
“Yes. Well. I hardly think it’s a yard .”
He chuckled. “Would you like to see?”
“Pardon!”
“How long do you think it might be?”
“Samuel!”
“Shall I show you?” He let his hand hang heavy over his fall, over his cock, which strained against it.
“I… I”—she swallowed, her gaze dropping to his hand. And everything else. “I think you should keep reading.”
“As you wish.” He cleared his throat. “Frank continues, you understand.”
She nodded, the red high and lovely, enticing, in her cheeks.
“ It hangs down from the bottom of the Belly like a Cow’s Teat, but— ”
“What a terribly strange comparison.”
“That’s what Frank’s lady companion says.”
She snapped the book out of his loose grip, and her eyes flashed quickly across the pages before she handed it back and crossed her arms over her chest. “I see you are not teasing me.”
“I’m not. But I do not think Frank is not terribly talented at teaching the features of the male anatomy. The comparisons continue, and they are not complimentary. I think a… hands-on lesson would prove much more useful. What do you say, Em?”
“Keep reading, Duke.”
That prim line that comprised her lips would be terribly fun to kiss back into lushness. “As you say. If I’m to win you over, I must recognize your needs and meet them. Ah, here’s a good bit to continue your education.”
She shifted from side to side, bit her bottom lip, her hands becoming fists in her skirts.
“Frank is at it again, you understand,” he said.
“Naturally.”
“Katy expresses disbelief that a man’s prick can fit inside her when it is so soft. But Frank refuses to let such falsehoods stand. He says, ‘Oh, thou art an ignorant Girl indeed, when a man has a Fucking job to do, his Prick is not then limber, but appears quite another thing, it is half as big and as long again as it was before, it is also a stiff as a stake. ’”
He considered her over the top of the book—her cheeks red as fresh berries, her hair a falling mess, her shoulders stiff and lips plump, and damn but he was supposed to be rousing her, not himself. He’d never had much control of his body around her. It stood up as it pleased because she pleased him so well. “Do you understand, Emma? Or should I show you?” He moved as if through a snowbank, slow and cautious, to sit beside her, and he traced his knuckles down the soft curve of her cheek. “Because since this morning, I’ve been just as Frank describes.”
“Wh-what does it feel like?” A hazy mix of caution and curiosity in her voice. “When you are like that?”
He placed his hand atop hers and threaded their fingers together. She let him lift her hand, move it, settle it over his body, palm flat. Bloody hell. Her palm nestled sweetly on the most aching part of him. His entire body pulsed. He hissed, and she flinched, curling her fingers into her palm, scraping them against his cock. He hissed again.
“It hurts?” She glanced up at him, sorrow in the downturn of her lips.
He kissed that sorrow away, tried to take it into himself so she was left with nothing but the good. “It is a most delightful pain.”
“I… I think I understand.” She uncurled her fingers, scraped against him once more, wringing a groan from deep inside his soul. “I have a question.”
“Ask it.” Anything she asked, he’d answer. He’d show her.
“Last night… you seemed to experience what I did. A… a, oh how to explain it. A wash of intense pleasure, loss of control, then a wave of… peace.”
“It’s called an orgasm. And yes, I did. Last night.” But thankfully this morning, he’d controlled himself, held on to the very edge to keep from coming in his damn trousers like a green boy. He only had the one extra, after all.
A mistake, he saw now. Because the light touch of her hand through trousers and smalls offered an exquisite torment he might not survive.
“And this morning?” she asked, her breath hitching with each word. “You did not. You seemed…”
“Tortured? Yes. A bit.” He gathered her close, her back and arse curving into his side, and he whispered low and dark into her ear, “I would have preferred to replace my fingers and tongue with this.” He squeezed her hand around his cock. “But I have promised not to. But that will be the only way my body knows release.” From here until dark earth poured upon his lifeless body.
“It helps, though, to do what you did last night?” Her head turned oh, so slightly so her lips almost brushed against his cheek when she spoke.
“Yes.”
“And… and can I do to you what you did to me? This morning. With mouth and fingers?”
Another pulse of pleasure shot from his cock to the rest of his body. Hell. “Yes.”
“It… it only seems fair that I…” Her hands squeezed, gently at first, then with more confidence after he moaned, dropping his forehead to her temple. Her touch the most perfect delight. But her growing confidence an even better pleasure, one that strengthened his bones and pumped his heart larger than before. He released her hand and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, wrapped her tighter as she explored him. With his free hand, he caressed the edge of her jaw, tipped her chin up. There—her lips, slightly parted and perfect.
His lips, now.
He cupped the back of her head as he kissed her. As she stroked him with untaught and clumsy movements. Her skill or lack thereof hardly mattered. Her hand. Her fingers. Her mind willing them over his body. That what made him impossibly harder, that what spiraled control out of reach, had him panting and kissing her harder, splitting her lips to taste her tongue.
She broke away, and when he tried to pull her back, unwilling to let her go, she said with a gasp, “Is this right?”
“More than you can know.”
“Can I do better?”
He managed a chuckle. “Better could only be achieved with less , luv.”
“Less?” Her brow furrowed. Then arched up. “Ah. I think you mean…” Fingers flexed and extended, and the first button of his fall gave way. Then another. Hell. No, heaven because his cock sprang free, and her hand forgot hesitance, drew fingertips armed with lightning bolts down the length of his shaft, circling the head, exploring all the other bits.
“Emma,” he moaned.
“What now?”
He kissed her hard and said into the dark hollow of her mouth, “Take me in your hand.”
She did.
“Do not let go. But”—damn, difficult to speak, his body bucking to take control, his mind blanking out—“stroke.”
She did.
And he lost the kiss as he lost control, throwing his head back against the squabs, holding her neck from the back, searching for her breast with the other, loving her hiss and moan as he found it, flicked his thumb across it. When she arched, he bucked his hips, and when she followed the rhythm his hips set with that silken hand of hers…
He fell.
The lines of his powerful body, the thrust of his lean hips, the pulsing of his… his prick (though that seemed the entirely wrong word), the dark stubble on his jaw, and the firm curves of his lips as they broke and parted over her name—a sight of true beauty. His.
And feeling of pure power. Hers.
He crushed her to him, tumbling her backward onto the seat as he thrust his hips against her, buried his face into her neck. Falling. Falling. As he rocked into her over and over again, she hugged him more tightly. Him and her and this coach a little world, and if they never had anything else, they’d always have the sway and jolt of the conveyance, the buzzing of desire between them, the tugging of the hearts as string wrapped them up together neatly. A pair. Never parted.
No matter the risk?
She threw the question to the wind, held the truth closely as his thrusting hips and whispers of love in her ear drove the need she’d felt this morning higher, pushing her toward that edge she was coming to know so well, that edge she wished to know better.
Rocking against her, pinning her to the seat one last time, he shuddered, arching against her as he lifted his head to peer down at her. The storms in his eyes raged, but as his body softened and he collapsed atop her, rolling to the back of the seat and taking her with him so she lay atop him, the storms softened, light shining through the gray.
“Now you again,” he said wicked and low near her ear.
“No, now we are even.”
“I do not think that is how this game should be played.”
A game. Yes. Because all games must end. She rested her head on his chest and listened to his heart beating, slower and slower with each breath he took. She could listen to it forever.
She must have left her heart behind in his chest when she pushed away from him and sat upright. She felt empty now.
He sat up, too, fastening his fall and hiding himself, then peeling off his greatcoat and jacket and tossing them to the other side of the coach. “I think most of it caught between my greatcoat and jacket.” He glanced at her, his hands resting orderly on his thighs as if she’d not just ravished him, the muscles in them tense, as if they were prepared to ravish her. “Do you know… bloody hell,” he mumbled, “how does one ask this… Do you understand the danger in this game? If I had been inside you just now, I would have… filled you with my seed, and—”
She threw an arm out toward him. “I know. I know that much from my mother.” Told in the most basic, animalistic of ways, more warning than education.
He took her arm, her hand, flipped it and kissed her palm, placing a chuckle there as well. “Do not be embarrassed. I’ve had much time to consider such matters since discovering my sisters’ reading habits, my mother’s reading habits. I think knowing has protected them. And I think it may have led to happy marriages. And… I’m glad for it. I wish for the same understanding for you and your sisters.”
“Is that why you’re so eager to teach me?” she snapped. Why did she feel so tense?
“Perhaps. Would you like me to continue?”
She would have said yes moments ago, but the shaking, breaking feeling was receding, and in its place a buzzing blankness. Tears lay close to the surface. She locked herself up tight against them.
He wrapped her up and hugged her against him as he leaned into the side wall of the coach. He stroked her hair and hummed a song, and she wanted to sleep, to wake still against him and do so the next day and the next and the next.
She pressed at her heart, which seemed to be escaping from her chest, trying to. It couldn’t if she suppressed it, crammed it back down between her ribs.
“ Shh ,” he whispered. “It’s not that horrible. I’m here.”
Lifting her fingertips to her cheeks, she found them wet. “I think… I think I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“I did not want to fall in love.”
His arms wrapped more tightly around her, crushing her in the best sort of way. He inhaled, exhaled, shaky breaths of… what? Relief? “And now… do you… can you fall in love now?”
What had he said in the garden the night they’d met? I’m a man, and I’m not supposed to, but… I want to fall in love. She’d thought him brave and honest, been sorry for the hopelessness in his voice.
Now that hopelessness filled her while his own voice soared with hope. If he had fallen in love… could she follow in his footsteps?
“My mother,” she said, “embroidered a handkerchief for me as she lay dying. A pink, impractical thing. Hearts and flowers along the edges in an explosion of colors. Every color she could find floss for. She said it was for me to keep in my pocket on my wedding day. So, she could be with me. She wanted me to… love. And I wanted… What I wanted does not matter. It will not help my sisters. You understand they must come first. If anyone understands, it’s you. I must not marry.”
“Never?”
He stroked a hand down the side of her head. He should be pulling away now, putting distance between them, but he held her as if he always would, as if nothing she could say would send him running.
“I must stay with them. Glenna…” She’d never said a word to anyone, but they spilled out now. Trust did odd things to the tongue. Loosened it. “Glenna will never marry of her own accord, and I am afraid if I leave her my father will force marriage on her.” She hid her face in Samuel’s chest. “But Glenna… Glenna does not like men.” Betrayal, that’s what this was, telling a man her sister’s secret, but it didn’t feel like that. It felt like safety and freedom. “Glenna was in love once. With a house maid. Two years ago. I sent the maid away so my father would not find out, and… and… it broke her heart. I will not destroy her again by abandoning her.”
“I understand.” He kissed the top of her head, his thumb rubbing peace into her shoulder. “I understand.”
“You will not tell anyone.”
Another kiss. “Of course not.”
“And you will not… she can still be friends with your sister?”
“Of course she can.”
Some chains she’d wound round her heart years ago rusted, flaked away into total disintegration, leaving her heart to beat fully and freely. “I trust you.”
“You always can.”
She believed him, as she’d believed no other man in her life.
The beautiful buzzing he played into her body with touches and caresses and kisses, the one that broke like lightning through her and had dissipated in sorrow so recently… a miracle of sensation.
But this, this open-hearted revelation, this certainty of trust and the warm safety of something bigger than the rest of it, connecting him to her—even better. A miracle of emotion.
Love?
She’d always thought it would be blade sharp when it came slicing out of the dark, like a needle come to sew her life shut. It freed her instead, and in the safety of love, light poured in, and cozy in the warmth of his arms, she slept.