Chapter 18 #3
“No one knows what your father whispered as he lay dying. No one knows if what he said was true. You inherited his estate.”
“But my grandmother’s coachman—”
“What? Has dark hair and a broad chest?”
The comment pricked his temper. “Don’t make me out to be some delusional fool fit for Bedlam. You never spent a night in that blasted cupboard.”
She held up her hands. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m merely pointing out that there is more than one way of viewing this.”
When she crossed to the door, his heart stopped. “You’ve heard enough? You’re not staying to drink your wine?”
Don’t go.
She checked the key and rattled the handle. “I’m making sure the door is locked. We’ll have this out now, and I’ve a fair notion where it will end.”
His blood warmed despite the knot in his gut.
“I feel like I’m back on the landing at The Sentinel.”
“We’ve come a long way since then.” She prowled towards him, as she had that night in the darkness—the night she turned his life upside down. “I hope you were taking notes in that little book of yours. That you recall exactly what I said before you graciously let me in.”
He’d been too busy looking at her, distracted by the perfume that still confounded him. “You asked if I wanted to see what you had.” She’d meant evidence. He’d imagined something different. “Are you offering the same?”
He could lose himself inside her.
Quieten the past for a while.
She gestured to the wooden chair. “Sit down, Hugh. You might want to take off your coat.” She carried the confidence of a woman who welcomed a challenge, yet twice she pursed her lips.
He obliged her, slightly aroused and a little afraid.
“Have you ever had to risk everything to tell the truth?” Her gaze moved from his shoulder and down his arm to the dark hair at the cuff of his shirt.
“You know the answer. I risk my reputation every time I send a story to print.” He wasn’t sure where this was going.
“But never your heart?”
“Only once, in the parlour of the Old Thatch Inn.”
She smiled. “Something else we have in common.”
She unfastened her skirt and stepped out of it, standing before him in her petticoats, and every thought but having her left his mind.
He worked the fall of his trousers, her intention clear. “Is this a test to see if my heart gives out?”
“No. To get your attention while I remind you of the important thing you’ve forgotten.” She gathered her petticoats up to her smooth white thighs. “You must forgive me if I’m clumsy. I believe I understand how this works. I have the courage to be bold, but not enough to be graceful.”
“There’s grace in everything you do.”
“I could use a little direction.”
He took himself in hand. Arousal pulsed through him as he tried to remember what she’d said on the landing. “Sit astride me.”
She gripped his shoulders and climbed onto his lap, her petticoats gathered high around her thighs.
“Slowly,” he said.
She lowered herself onto him, taking him inch by inch until he filled her completely. Neither of them moved for a moment, letting the fullness settle.
God help him. The heat of her, the tight clasp of her body around his, the way she trembled against him, was enough to strip the sense from a man.
“You’ll need to move, Emma.” He gripped her hips, guiding her into the first slow rock, teeth gritted against the urge to take over.
She found the rhythm, uncertain at first, then bolder with every roll of her hips. “Wait. I need to”—her eyes closed as he pushed into her—“tell you that important thing.”
“Is it about needing my protection? You have it. Always.”
“No. It’s about you being unsure of your parentage.”
He froze.
She stilled with him inside her. Her hands moved from his shoulders to cup his cheeks. “I told you once, if I loved a man, his reputation wouldn’t matter. It still doesn’t. I don’t care who your father is. I’m in love with you.”
Her mouth covered his before the words sank in, the long press of her lips sealing the gift she’d just given him.
He cradled her throat, his heart ready to burst through his chest. “I’m deeply in love with you, Emma. It’s why I never want you to suffer.”
“Not being with you would hurt more than a cruel comment someone might make.” She rose a little and took him fully again. “I want this. I want you. Always.”
He held her hips and drove up to meet her, any thought of restraint gone. He thrust one hand into her hair, scattering pins, as she rode him on the crude wooden chair.
He kissed her, chasing the taste of her with every glide of his lips, then pressed his forehead to hers. “Let’s finish this properly. In bed.”
They made themselves presentable and climbed the stairs of the quiet inn, hands and mouths tangled, stopping twice before they reached the chamber door.
There, he loved her until neither had breath left to speak. It wasn’t until Emma fell asleep in his arms, and he turned her words over again, that he recalled exactly what she had said on the landing.
If I loved a man, I would marry him regardless of his reputation.
She had omitted one word tonight: marry.
He’d told himself he didn’t want children.
So why did that bother him?