4. Confessions Over Candlelight
Chapter four
Confessions Over Candlelight
Emma paused at the front door, heart stuttering as she heard movement inside. Though she’d spent all day at the hospital thinking through the arrangement with clinical detachment, the reality of Hughes’s presence in her home felt different now.
She smoothed her skirts, chiding herself for this uncharacteristic nervousness. “You’re a physician,” she muttered. “Act like one.”
But when she opened the door, the sight of him froze her in place. Everett was descending on the stairs, his shirt sleeves rolled up and the shirt open to reveal his sculpted pectoralis major.
“Good evening,” she said, her eyes darting around him.
“For you, perhaps,” he nearly snarled, though his eyes betrayed him by lingering on her lips. Feeling self-conscious, she bit her bottom lip slightly. It was his turn to look away.
“You seem displeased.” She climbed the steps, bringing them eye to eye. She tried to ignore the masculine scent teasing her senses.
“Do I indeed? Please take a guess as to why I might be vexed?”
A corner of her lips lifted despite her effort to suppress a smile. “What did you expect, Mr Hughes? That I would slumber peacefully with an unknown fugitive under my roof?” His eyes narrowed. “I have patients who rely on steady hands. I couldn’t afford a sleepless night.”
“I would rather you bind me to the bed than poison my mind with your mysterious draughts!”
The moment the words left his mouth, he seemed to realise their impropriety. A becoming flush coloured his cheeks.
With her voice steady, she said, “Careful, Mr Hughes. A lady might take that as an invitation.”
He gaped at her, his grip tightening on the banister. Emma smiled inwardly, glad to have stunned him. Most men expected her to be proper, based on her starched collar and precise manner. That is until she opened her mouth. Heat seemed to creep up his neck as he struggled to form a response.
Emma widened her eyes and tilted her head innocently.
“I… That is… Miss Brown, surely you don’t mean to suggest…”
How odd that a man of his supposed profession would be so easily embarrassed. “Come now, I merely meant a lady might supervise you during your recovery.” Her lips curved slightly. “Though your thoughts seem to have wandered elsewhere entirely.”
He shifted uncomfortably. Emma was aware of their proximity on the stairs. She rather enjoyed his discomfort but took pity on him.
“Descend with your injured limb first.” She put her professional mask firmly back in place. “Mrs Norris has left mutton warming below stairs. One glass of spirits, no more.”
She watched as he distractedly made his way to the sideboard, visible from the stairs, and quickly drained a glass of brandy. He then looked up, meeting her gaze, and smiled sheepishly. “Could you not count this glass toward my limit, seeing as how you necessitated it?”
She dipped her head in acquiescence. “Consider it medicine for your wounded sensibilities, Mr Hughes.”
Everett observed his saviour over the rim of his brandy glass, noting how the candlelight caught the delicate structure of her face and made her long blond lashes shimmer.
Her skin glistened like porcelain as it stretched taut over her beautiful nose, high cheekbones.
She puckered her small but full lips as she raised her wineglass to her mouth.
He held his breath, captivated by the sight. She was stunning.
As they sat at the table, he noticed a curious tension lingering between them. Everett poured a second glass of brandy with deliberate slowness, aware of her scrutiny. She served them both mutton, her movements precise and efficient.
“You seem quite familiar with spirits for a nurse,” he ventured, having noted two kinds of brandy in her cabinet.
“And you seem quite proper for a man of your…profession.” She held his gaze as she placed the serving spoon down. “Though I suppose that’s part of your appeal to well-paying clients.”
He nearly choked on his brandy. A proper lady shouldn’t know of such matters, let alone discuss them over dinner. He was beginning to realise that a female physician’s sensibilities were entirely uncharted territory.
“Tell me. How did you develop your muscles? I imagine that, too, is for the benefit of your patrons.”
This time, he was better prepared to discuss such matters with her. “I’ve been doing gymnastics for years. It suits me, quiets my mind.”
“Quiets your mind... Yes, I conquer. I personally find walking very meditative. I hope you’ll oblige me by answering this question. Do you opine your superior physique makes you a superior lover?”
He finally choked, barely blocking a spray of brandy with his shirtsleeve.
The woman's boldness was unprecedented. Even more disconcerting was the clinical detachment in her tone, as if she were inquiring about a medical condition rather than something so intimate.
Was she devoid of emotions or so corrupt that nothing discomfited her?
Everett looked up from his reverie and found her studying him thoughtfully, her fingers toying with the wineglass. Something about her demeanour told him he wasn’t fooling her with his half-baked pretence. Were her inquiries designed merely to test him?
He cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon. I’m not accustomed to being addressed so frankly by a lady about such delicate matters.”
“Do you need a moment to gather your thoughts, Mr Hughes?”
The wench was challenging him. He chuckled at her sauciness. “Are you certain you wish to hear my reply?”
Her composure wavered for a moment before she resumed her stoicism. “I am ready. Do your worst.”
Everett guffawed at this, unable to contain his amusement.
He stood and circled around the room once, then leaned against the wall to gaze at her from a distance.
She waited patiently with her spine ramrod straight and her eyes looking in his direction.
Her hair glowed copper in the orange light. How small she looked.
He wondered for a moment if he could use her delicate form as his insatiable appetite demanded without breaking her. But first thing’s first. There was the issue of her query.
“The short answer is no,” he said.
“No?” Her surprise was evident in her wide eyes and puckered lips.
“The long answer is that it depends on the woman,” he said as he approached.
“For instance, if the lady required prolonged intercourse to achieve her aim, my stamina would certainly help.” He observed with satisfaction that Miss Brown’s mouth fell open in spite of herself.
He, then, leaned against the table only a few feet from her, just to be an arse.
“Sometimes, I want my woman to be completely at my mercy,” he said conversationally without looking at her.
“Fortunately, there are ladies who welcome such a position of helplessness. I might tie her to bed as you had so freely offered earlier. While I love teasing her, so she’d beg for my cock, I also love holding her up against the wall while I fuck her senseless.
There’s something very primal about testing one’s strength while she screams my name in ecstasy.
I should point out that the hard surface allows me to hammer into her more forcefully than the bed. ”
Everett crossed his legs, acutely aware of his stirring member.
He continued in a conversational tone. “It’s not often that I am satiated, but I was lucky enough once, to bed a lady who needed me to be inside her for hours before she could achieve orgasm.
I gladly obliged for seven hours, give or take a quarter of an hour.
Multiple orgasms for her, mind you, while I maintained my erection.
I certainly did not complain. The climax was…
” he let out a wistful sigh, “heavenly, one of the most intense sensations I have ever experienced.”
A memory came to him, and he chuckled, repositioning his hips away from her view.
His cock was whining for attention quite uncomfortably now.
Still avoiding looking at her so he couldn’t give himself away, he rolled up his sleeves.
Heat was creeping up from his groin to his neck.
He planted his hands on the table behind him and leaned back further.
“I tell you, Miss Brown. Nothing pleased me more about my gymnastics training than the time I had an unplanned rendezvous with a woman in a dark alleyway between two brick walls. Unfortunately, the walls were such that we could barely squat. The lady was quite eager to suck my cock, so I did a handstand. I’m—” Everett turned his head sharply toward Miss Brown as the wooden legs of her chair screeched.
In his commitment to his role, he’d quite forgotten to monitor the lady’s response.
Blood had drained from her face and her hand was pressing against her stomach.
“Are you quite all right, Miss?” he asked, suppressing panic. He’d gone too far and may have damaged his chances of accomplishing his mission. Would she demand he take his depraved arse elsewhere this very night?
When she didn’t respond, he cleared his throat awkwardly.
He then added in a dignified tone, “The long answer, therefore, is that if the lady wishes it, my strength, flexibility, and stamina would undoubtedly help bring her pleasure. However, if it is tenderness she needs…” he rubbed the back of his neck as she brought the wineglass to her cheek, “…then my physical training is not as essential.”
She knew nothing of passionate coupling, Emma realised.
Her attention had already been drifting from Mr Hughes’s rich baritone to the way his throat moved when he spoke.
When he leaned against the table, rolling up his sleeves, she caught herself studying the deep lines of his forearm musculature and the thick veins pulsing beneath his skin.
Her breath quickened traitorously as he chuckled and began to describe his past encounters in detail.
Heat bloomed across her chest and warmth spread through her veins, pooling between her thighs.
The savage way he spoke of coupling—multiple orgasms, his erection, and seven hours…
Oh God. His words evoked in her mind images of his powerful body pressed against her, stirring dizzying rush of heat that both thrilled and alarmed her.
Her legs began to tremble as she tightened her muscles.
The delightful sensation made her ache, that made her want to press her sex against his body and moan…
And when he said those words, “…sucked her cunt,” she shot up from her chair before the sensation could surge.
She must not lose all decorum, she told herself.
Salvaging what little dignity she had left, she lifted her chin and straightened her spine.
“Are you quite all right, Miss?” he asked,
"Merely warm," she managed, though her skin tingled and she was soaked between her legs. She pressed her hands flat against her stomach, mortified to have reacted in such a fashion to a stranger’s words.
Mere descriptions! Yet her pulse continued to race, and she found herself wondering how much pleasure his body would bring if his words could shatter her control.
Heaven help me. A handstand!
This was madness. She was a physician, not an innocent, and her medical knowledge of cunnilingus and intercourse could fill a book. But even as she reached for her professional composure, he smiled that devastating half-smile that seemed to bypass all her careful defences.
A research. A specimen. Seven days.
Everett watched Emma’s fingers trace the rim of her wineglass, mesmerised by their precise movements. The same fingers that had stitched his wounds now seemed oddly vulnerable in the candlelight.
“I… I must turn in—” she began.
“What drew you to nursing?” he asked hastily, surprising himself with his genuine want of her company. He told himself it was part of his investigation, but the warmth in his chest when she smiled suggested otherwise.
Emma seemed taken back by the question, but she sat back down as her eyes soon grew distant.
“My mother died shortly after I was born,” she began, her voice carrying an old sadness.
“My father had been ill with a mysterious affliction but had managed quite well when Mother was alive. After her passing, he deteriorated rapidly, and the illness bound him to a wheelchair and clouded his mind.”
Everett sat across from her and leaned forward, struck by the honest emotion in her voice. Beneath her professional tone lay the wounded heart of a daughter.
“I watched everything,” she continued, her earlier shock and embarrassment forgotten.
“The parade of doctors, each with their own theories and treatments. Some made him worse—the laudanum particularly. His mind grew foggy, his speech slurred. But then one physician recognised the true cause of these symptoms.” Her eyes brightened with remembered wonder.
“Within months of changing his medicines, Father could speak clearly again. His mind returned, though his body never fully recovered.”
“That must have been remarkable to witness,” Everett said softly.
“It was like magic,” she admitted, a hint of that childhood awe creeping into her voice. “But it also showed me how powerful medicine could be—for good or ill. I wanted to understand it all.”
Everett felt a deep kinship with the lonely child she must have been, watching her father’s transformation with such careful attention. It reminded him of himself after Mary-Anne died, how he’d thrown himself into studying anatomy, desperate to understand what had taken his sister.
“My father banned all mention of my mother and sister after they died,” he found himself saying. “As if speaking of them might summon more tragedy.” He hadn’t shared this with anyone in years, yet something about Emma’s quiet understanding made the words flow freely.
“That must have been terribly isolating,” she said, her blue eyes full of such genuine sympathy that his chest tightened.
“It was. Even now, I rarely speak of them.” He studied his brandy, avoiding her gaze.
“Tell me about them?” Emma asked.
The simple question, asked with such sincere interest, touched him. Here was someone who understood loss, who had watched helplessly as illness stole loved ones away. Someone who had transformed that pain into compassion.
Looking at her in that moment, this remarkable woman who combined medical precision with such deep compassion, Everett felt his commitment to his father’s mission begin to crumble. How could he maintain his deception when she offered such honest understanding?
“They both loved to dance,” he found himself saying, his voice rough with emotion. “Even in the rain. Especially in the rain…”
And as he began to share memories he’d locked away for decades, Everett realised with growing certainty that Miss Emma Brown could not just be a mission.