Chapter 27 #2
“But it’s already too late. Far too late.” Rising up on her toes, Emeline wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed her body, aching with need, to his. “I want you to take me. Do all the things you’ve dreamed of, because I’ve dreamed of them, too.”
With that, Hart scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the massive four-poster bed with its spread of claret velvet. Reaching out with one dark hand, he tossed back the covers and set her down.
“Damn it,” he muttered hopelessly, dragging off his own clothing. “I want you too much.”
Emeline stared up at him, saw the glint of tears, and felt her own eyes burn. She wanted to reassure him but knew better than that with Hart. “Take me, then,” she repeated. “I’m yours.” And she opened her legs, in spite of the petticoat and drawers that hid her intimate secrets from his gaze.
“Witch.” He knew exactly how to quickly undress her, and it came to Emeline that he had more practice at this than she cared to imagine.
“You must mean wife,” she gasped. “Soon, I will be your wife.”
Hart shook his head, but then he stripped away the rest of her clothes and his burning gaze raked over her.
In the next moment, he was kneeling over her, covering her slim, pale form with his powerful male body.
His flesh was so warm, and when she felt him, hard and hot, nudge between her thighs she wanted to welcome him in right then.
Instead, he took her in his arms and kissed her deeply, letting his sex pulsate against her thigh as he invaded her sweet mouth with his tongue.
Emeline was drunk with joy and pleasure.
She soaked up every sensation, every emotion that thrummed between their two bodies.
After running her fingers lightly down the sides of his back, she explored the rock-hard curve of his buttocks, felt his muscles flexing against her soft hands as he moved over her.
“Vixen,” he uttered, burning a trail of kisses down to her breasts.
“Yours,” Emeline urged. “Completely…yours.”
His mouth closed over her aching nipple, and she made an unintelligible sound.
His tongue stroked the sensitive peak before suckling in a way that made her feel she might climax then and there.
Her legs opened again, seeking, and Hart trailed one hand slowly down the curve of her belly, waiting a moment or two before he touched her there at last. Emeline was pulsing, throbbing.
She pushed back against his hand and whimpered slightly.
“I want…” she begged.
Still, he took his time, lingering at her breasts, kneading, suckling, drawing a series of soft cries from her, while his fingers explored the slick, delicate folds that wanted more, so much more.
At last, Hart began to kiss the feminine curve of her hip, her sensitive inner thighs, and she nearly begged him aloud to find the swollen bud that was at that moment the center of her being.
And yet, simultaneously, Emeline feared that very thing, for surely it would be too much.
Like a bolt of lightning, it might kill her.
As if he could read her mind, Hart caught her wrists and pinned them at her sides.
His tongue, hot and deft, found her apex and Emeline whimpered.
He knew just what to do. How, how? She writhed against him as the sensations became so blissfully intense her legs trembled, and then it seemed she was plunging off a cliff.
Still he persisted, as more fire trailed in the wake of her climax.
Damp with perspiration, Emeline lifted her head and smiled helplessly. “I… I…”
Hart gave a short laugh before rising up to kiss her again. “Harlot.”
“Yes, thank you.” She smiled. “Now, you.” Her hands found him, hard, warm, and shockingly large. “Hmm. I perceive that you want me.”
He had never looked more irresistible than at that moment. “God help us both.”
“Tell me…you surrender.” Her small hand was wrapped around him, gently stroking.
“Of course. By Lucifer, I surrender.” He pushed her glossy hair back onto the pillow and kissed his way along her neck, scorching her tender flesh. “For today, at least.”
Emeline knew it was true. There could be no easy victory for Hart’s battered soul, but she trusted now that they would fight together.
“I want you, Hart,” she murmured again, guiding him to her entrance. “Here.”
Their eyes met as he began to push slowly inside her. “If I hurt you—”
Her eyes closed for a moment as he filled her. “No.” She arched up to bring him deeper still. “Yes! Oh, please.”
And then Emeline was clinging to his broad shoulders, finding his mouth with hers, and one of his hands reached down to cup her bottom as she matched his pace.
Dimly she realized it was a different sort of rapture: the connection, the mating, the utter yielding of one’s own will.
Their hearts beat in unison, faster, faster.
When at last he plunged deep and paused, shuddering in his own moment of release, Emeline saw the unguarded face of the man she loved.
And in that moment, it came to her that this was the man whose bed she had stumbled into long ago, whose touch and kisses had first awakened her as a woman…and caused her to flee to Lyme Regis, trying to deny her needs.
“It was you, wasn’t it,” she breathed.
And of course, Hart understood. “Yes.”
“How long have you known?”
Their eyes met with a glimmer of shared memory. “Always.”
As they held each other, she drank in the thud of his heart against her warm, damp breasts and reveled in the scent of their passion. Was it possible that anyone else had ever felt quite this way?
“Emeline…” Lifting his head, he gazed into her eyes. “I love you.”
“I know.” She beamed up at him and lifted a hand to brush back a lock of his silver-flecked hair. Their bodies were still fused. “And I love you. We were meant to be.”
Three days later, Hart sat next to Emeline at the big, scarred desk in the library as the two of them inspected the rare coin book Panizzi had loaned her.
It was open before them, next to the two small gold coins.
One had been recently found by Ackerman and sent by post to London.
The second coin was the newest one, discovered in the grave along with the paper-thin gold crosses.
The pieces of the sword Ackerman and Hart had uncovered last spring were also there, set out on a pristine linen cloth for further examination.
Outside, it was raining. The excavation site was covered by a series of tarpaulins, produced by Ackerman just as dark clouds blew in from the sea and the first raindrops began to fall.
It would have been difficult for Hart to say so aloud, but sitting there with Emeline brought a feeling of peace he had never experienced.
A fire blazed in the hearth, and they were immersed in a project together, contented in their silence.
With every passing day, he was beset by fewer impulses to ride away to some distant land like India. Or Mongolia.
“Oh, my!” Emeline gasped, gesturing with her magnifying glass. “Look at this!”
He gladly moved his chair over until it touched hers. “Show me.”
The page, in the middle of a chapter titled Merovingian: 7th Century, was covered with tiny, intricate drawings of odd little coins.
Emeline pointed to a coin crudely inscribed on one side with a draped bust wearing a diadem, in the Roman style.
On the other side, a cross was encircled by other markings. It nearly matched one of their coins.
“So much for any lingering theories about the Vikings,” she said.
“We know that East Anglia didn’t have a coin-based system until at least 900 A.D.,” Hart mused with a frown. “From this, are we to assume that the graves date back three or four centuries earlier?”
“Yes! According to the book, this coin was minted around 625 A.D.,” Emeline proclaimed, glowing. “And I further postulate that the people who lived here and dug these graves had traveled abroad and acquired these coins in Merovingian Gaul—what is now France.”
“Yes.” Hart stared at the book, the coins, and felt Emeline take his hand. “I think that’s it. You’re brilliant.”
Her radiant smile widened. “Well, I had the book. It could have easily been the other way around.”
“So we are to assume, from the coins and the crosses, that the early Christian pilgrims passed this way from Ireland,” he mused.
“Yes!”
“It doesn’t mean that they had both feet in the Christian boat, so to speak. I’ve seen plenty of objects in that grave that lean pagan, but it does offer a glimpse into the changes that were happening.”
“And how much more civilized the Dark Ages were than we could have known. Oh, Hart, isn’t it fascinating? Let us go and tell Tobias and Louise. They are playing chess in the Hall!”
However, no sooner had they risen than Hart glimpsed a small, closed carriage pulled by a pair of grays coming up the lane toward the manor house. “Who can that be? Perhaps someone from your family. Do you recognize the equipage?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t know who it can be.”
Already there was a commotion in the entry hall. Hearing Peachey’s voice, Hart knew a sense of foreboding. “I believe I will go upstairs for a bit.”
Emeline caught his hand before he could make good his escape. The look she gave him was more eloquent than any words.
“Lord Jasper,” Peachey called gently from the doorway. “You have a guest. Shall I show her in?” Behind her, he glimpsed a tall, thin older woman peeping over the housekeeper’s head.
Hell, no, he wanted to bark. But when Emeline squeezed his hand, he frowned and nodded. “Yes. Of course.”