Chapter Thirteen
Emily lay still, curled up in a ball, listening to Deo’s steady breathing.
She rather thought he was asleep at last, but she couldn’t be sure.
She was a mass of quivering tension and longing.
He is right, but how I wish he hadn’t stopped!
My body wants more. I am wicked to think like that—he is trying to protect me.
One thing she was fairly sure of after their marathon kissing session was that Deo did not have a preference for men over women.
His restraint ought to be admirable, but a nagging doubt chewed at her.
Was he not as affected as she was? Was he not as eager to go to the next step?
But why wouldn’t he be? As far as she understood it, men were always eager for that.
It was women who had to stop them, not the other way around. Unless . . .
The idea was so fantastic she almost gasped aloud. Covering her mouth with her hand, she bit her bottom lip. Is he a virgin? Like me? Does he not know what to do? Is that why he is avoiding . . .
But why would a man as old as Deo still be a virgin . . . unless there was something wrong with him, physically? Was he incapable? Was that why he offered her a marriage in name only in the first place? Why he’d said he wouldn’t be bothering her . . .
Or was it all to do with his childhood? The terrible way his parents treated him?
That tale had wrung her heart. She could just imagine him as an earnest little boy desperately wanting his parents’ attention and affection and receiving only rebuffs.
Eventually that would make him retreat into himself, build a wall round his heart. Oh, Deo!
She wiped tears from her eyes. She knew what it was like to long for affection and not receive it, or only in small conditional doses, as a reward for good behavior.
If she did what her mother wanted, she might receive a hug or even a kiss, an occasional word of praise.
But it never lasted. Her mother’s temperament was so volatile that it wouldn’t be long before Emily did something to displease her.
And her father . . . well, he really wasn’t there very much.
He would pat her vaguely, maybe give her an absent kiss on the cheek.
He was no effective shield from her mother’s wrath.
He knew better than to provoke his wife and would never take Emily’s part against her.
Emily secretly believed he had never got over the disappointment of her not being a son.
He needed an heir and didn’t have one. If I had been born a boy . . .
Will Papa approve of Deo? Is he the kind of husband Papa wants for me?
Or does he care? She suspected he wouldn’t care as long as Mama was happy.
Will Mama approve? He is an earl after all.
That is almost as good as a marquess and definitely better than a viscount.
She shuddered, thinking of Bidenden and his poisonous words that had made her doubt Deo.
No, Deo does not prefer men. I am sure of that.
But she was sure of nothing else. Least of all how he felt about her.
She sighed. So many questions and no answers. She had sworn she would talk to him, but then they’d started kissing and talking had stopped entirely. And oh, those kisses . . .
She moved her body restlessly. She was damp, sticky, and swollen between her legs. She had felt such a fiery heat there when he kissed her. Now it was a dull, itchy ache. She felt as if she needed to get up and go for a long walk to get rid of the feeling of tension in her body.
But really, she just wanted him to wake up and kiss her again.
She wanted his arms around her. She felt so safe wrapped up in his big embrace, clasped against his great chest. She glanced over her shoulder at him, but he was rolled away from her, his back toward her, just a big shape under the covers.
There wasn’t even enough light for her to see his fiery red hair.
That hair had shocked her at first, but she was used to it now, and she loved it, along with his freckles and his somewhat hawkish features that she thought were quite majestic.
She stifled a sigh of longing, her heart aching. She wished she were brave enough to roll over and wake him up and make him kiss her again.
*
Bryson leaned on the spade, breathing hard, sweat congealed under his jacket, despite the cool night air.
He’d been digging solidly for half an hour.
It was harder going than he had anticipated, and he suspected he was more out of condition than he knew.
He’d brought a lamp with him to supplement the moon’s silvery light, but it mostly just emphasized the shadowy shapes of the trees and the tower that brooded in the dark around him as he worked.
He couldn’t rid himself of the sensation that hidden eyes watched him, nor the creeping sensation that something was going to leap out at him at any moment.
Perhaps this idea, conceived in the safety of daylight, wasn’t so good a one as it had seemed.
After all, he had no way of knowing if there was anything in this mound.
And even if there was, his chances of finding anything on his first go were probably slim.
He had chosen to enlarge the hole already dug six months earlier by the viscount when he and the duke had concluded that the mound probably housed at least one burial.
The viscount, according to his account, had hit stone with his spade and dug out sufficient dirt to reveal what appeared to be a series of stones piled up like a barrow.
Some of what the viscount had dug out had been filled in again with dirt, and Bryson had spent the last half an hour removing it.
He had a sizable pile of dirt accumulated beside the hole, and his spade had hit rock.
But he needed more light to see by. Raising the lamp, he peered into the hole.
If he could remove one of the stones, might he reveal what was underneath?
Picking up the mattock, he used it to try to pry one of the stones up.
They were irregularly shaped and each about the size of a small storage box for papers.
If he could pry one loose, he might be able to lift it up.
He picked at it for a while, and eventually he thought he had the stone loose enough to lift.
Ideally it would be better to lever it out with a rope, but he didn’t have the equipment for that.
Brute strength would be needed. He wasn’t sure if he had sufficient of that.
The giant earl would be able to do it, he reflected.
Not wishing to be beaten by the man, Bryson spread his weight, got the mattock wedged under one side of the rock, and heaved it sideways.
After two tries, it toppled away to the side and a rush of cold dank air blew upward, bringing with it stale dank air.
Wiping his brow, he picked up the lamp and held it to the space revealed, but could see nothing that made any sense. Just dark shapes and the smell of damp earth. The hole he had made wasn’t big enough to fit through, and the prospect of digging out more rocks held little appeal.
He straightened, weighing the potential rewards with the effort involved.
Perhaps he would leave the digging to the experts.
If they found anything, he could always steal it and send it to his agent to sell to his father.
On the whole, that seemed like a better plan.
Why didn’t I think of that in the first place?
He pushed the stone roughly back into place over the hole. He knew enough not to leave it open for creatures to get in and wreak havoc.
He staggered down the mound with the lamp and headed back toward the house. Entering quietly via the servants’ entrance, he used the servants’ stairs to make his way to his room, disgruntled that all that work had given him nothing.
Fortunately, he and Kenrick had arranged to go shooting first thing and would be well away from the house by the time his attempt at grave robbing was discovered.
Since it was well known he had zero interest in antiquities or grubbing about in the dirt, hopefully he would be the last person they would suspect of digging up the mound in the middle of the night.
*
Deo was discovering that his wife was not habitually an early riser, which was fortunate as it allowed him to slip out of bed and take Kes out without disturbing her.
Or having to deal with the potentially embarrassing state of aching need she seemed to be able to reduce him to by just being herself.
He spent several minutes just watching her sleep, terrified that she would wake and catch him at it, and by the same token, unable to tear himself away.
She looked so peaceful and sweet, clutching the pillow, her hair, which she had left loose last night, a tousled mess around her head.
He finally dragged himself away from the temptation that was his wife, washed, dressed, and took Kes out, his thoughts still a jumbled mess over last night’s kisses.
How to avoid a repeat? At least until I can determine our legal status .
. . He groaned and picked up a stick to throw for Kes.
The truth was he didn’t want to avoid a repeat.
Who wouldn’t want to experience that kind of delight again? And more . . .
He wanted to bed his wife . . . desperately. And, more to the point, properly. And he hadn’t much of a clue how to go about it.
Well, he had time to think about it. It would be a few days before he heard back from his solicitor, and found out if he had to organize another marriage license . . .
In the meantime, he needed to prevent Bidenden sniffing around Emily. The cheek of the man to persist in showing his interest when she was a married woman. What, does he think I will give her up? Not bloody likely!