Chapter Ten #3
He bent his head, smiling, and kissed her again.
His tongue slowly circled hers, sweetly tormenting, until she arched her throat in surrender.
Sensual enticement burned in the air they breathed.
“I like to think about you,” he whispered.
“About those little groans you gave as I played with your quim. How wet you were.”
“Adrian.” Her lower body buckled. The inner walls of her body softened. A stinging surge of blood tingled throughout her veins. “You promised me.”
“What I promised,” he said thickly, “is that I would not tell. I never said I would not desire you nor try to coax you back into my bed.”
She shook her head. Yet he surely knew her body desired him. She could not hide the signs. A soft gasp escaped her lips as his erection jutted into her soft belly. Her pulse beat a wild betrayal at the base of her pale throat.
“Emma.” He breathed a groan into her delicate mouth. “Why not? I am a well-born man who lost his way.”
Why not? His hips shifted in restless sensuality at the plea. She trembled delicately, further arousing his hard, aching body. He needed to touch her, to feel her flesh. He clenched his hands, swearing he would master his lust for her, and prove his worth.
But in his mind he was undressing and possessing her in every sexual act under the sun.
Blood thundered between his temples, in his groin.
He ground his teeth, cursing the male instincts that reminded him of the sweet treasures under her skirt, her subtle perfume.
Like vanilla and female heat. Comfort and sex with the same woman.
How could he convince her he was not past redemption when his past, his behavior toward her, proved otherwise?
He stared down at her. Her mouth looked damp, swollen, so delicious he would die to taste her again. Somehow he grasped the remnants of his sanity, remembered where they were.
“For the sake of fairness,” she whispered, her blue eyes steadily holding his, “I choose to believe that it is your head injury making you behave with impropriety.”
He snorted in amusement. Now he felt like twice a devil. Did she not understand what a desperate rogue he was and that for the first time since he could remember, he cared what someone thought?
“Emma, listen to me,” he said in a stark under-tone. “There is nothing wrong with my head. I’m perfectly fine.”
“What are you saying?” she asked him impatiently.
“I only wanted your attention,” he said with a sheepish grin. “I admit I took advantage.”
“And you expect me to believe that you got hit on the head to attract it?”
“Not exactly. The chair wasn’t part of my plan.
” He sighed ruefully. “I did hope, however, to stay in bed as long as you were willing to take care of me. I could have walked out of this house anytime I chose. But I chose to play on your goodness and now I’m confessing and asking for your understanding.
I deceived you, but only because I took pleasure in your care. ”
“I see,” she murmured. And he thought that she did. “Well, the physician said you were to be kept under observation for several days.”
“I don’t need bed rest,” he protested, his eyes glinting down at her. “I need…you. Your personal attention.”
“Ah.” Her tempting mouth flattened. “I believe that there are any number of women in London who would be more than glad to answer your needs.”
“I’m not referring to my carnal needs,” he said swiftly. “I haven’t been in good society for over a decade, and I’ve forgotten how to behave. What I need is”—he grasped for inspiration, for the key to her sympathy—“instruction in deportment. I need someone to smooth my rough edges.”
“You’ll not get an argument from me there.”
“I can’t have a reunion with the old bugger of a duke unless I’m proper,” he elaborated. “He’s particular about appearances.”
“You should be more particular about your language,” Emma exclaimed.
He grinned unexpectedly. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I didn’t even realize what I’d called him. The word just slipped out. How can I present myself to him in such an unpolished state?”
She drummed her fingers on the desk, her gaze frankly skeptical.
“I’d be shocked by all this if I hadn’t grown up with five brothers of my own.
And—” She shook her head in sudden realization.
“Do you mean to tell me you’ve been in England for almost a year and you have not even visited your father? ”
“Give or take a few months.”
She studied him in dismay. “Your dying father? An elderly person who is willing to overlook your past grievances and offer an olive branch of—Why are you looking up at the ceiling, my lord?” she asked annoyedly. “It is most unsettling.”
“I was just wondering when the heavenly chorus would break into a hymn.” He shrugged at the scolding frown that she gave him.
“And, by the way, I’m the one who should be offering forgiveness, not him.
He made my life miserable, Emma. He drove me away with his unfounded suspicions.
I’ve lived almost half my life believing I was not his son.
” He glanced down at her in cynical amusement.
“He’s also not as old as you think, and he isn’t dying. ”
“He’s recovered?” she asked in surprise. “Are you sure?”
“If there was ever anything wrong with him to begin with. I think it was a ploy to bring me home.”
“Do you expect me to believe that your father feigned a deathly illness to bring you back home?”
“Yes.” And he assumed she would take his side. He had done nothing wrong to his way of thinking.
“You are his son, Adrian,” she said, meeting his gaze. “It is your duty and your birthright to honor him.”
“Honor him?” he said in disbelief. “That old—”
“It is what you were born to,” she said gently. “He cannot disinherit you. It’s time to put your personal feelings aside.”
“Is that right?” He stepped into her small frame, a tactic, he knew quite well, that was usually distracting. “Scarfield told me for years I was born of a whore and that I wasn’t his. Do you expect me to put aside years of abuse?”
“Let him make amends, that’s all, and then you can decide. At least you can hear him out.”
“Why should I?” he challenged her.
“Have you ever considered what would happen to England if all our blooded aristocrats simply decided to abdicate?”
“I despise him,” he admitted, still waiting for her to agree his enmity was justified.
She vented a sigh. “No matter how bitter your feelings, you have to face him. For your sake even more than his.”
“Don’t tell me what I feel or what I must face,” he said, raising his brow. “Just help me.”
“I’m not sure how.”
“Neither am I. But there you have it, Emma,” he said, pressing his forehead to hers. “This all proves I need—”
She laughed. “What?”
“A wife. Perhaps what I need is—a wife.”
God help him. Where that notion had sprung from he could not say, but all of a sudden it made sense.
“A wife,” she said, shaking her head. “I couldn’t agree more. Yes, you do. A duke definitely needs a wife.”
They both heard the quiet knock upon the door at the same instant. Adrian swiftly moved aside while Emma returned to her chair, calling out, “Yes. Who is it?”
“It’s Charlotte. May I see you a moment?”
Emma bit her lip, glancing up guiltily at Adrian. He gestured to the side door behind the desk that gave into a private corridor. She nodded in obvious relief as he made a discreet escape.
She did her best to behave in her usual manner as she unlocked the door to admit her cousin. At first Charlotte seemed too agitated to notice anything amiss.
She prayed her cousin would not hear Adrian’s footsteps fading away in the anteroom corridor.
“What is it, Charlotte?” she asked in concern.
“Why did you lock—oh, never mind.” Charlotte glanced around the library. “It’s her. Lady Clipstone is here and demanding to see you. At this hour, without invitation or forewarning. Hamm did his best to send her away, but I thought it imperative you should know.”
Her. Her enemy. Battle flames burst to life in Emma’s heart.
Ever a Boscastle at the ready to defend her field, she straightened her back. No wonder Charlotte looked flustered. There was only one woman in London with the effrontery, with the instinct, to arrive in the wake of Emma’s personal dilemma and use it to devious advantage.
“Where is she?” she asked tersely.
“The formal drawing room. I served her tea.”
“From the best china?”
“Naturally.”
Emma gave her an approving pat and charged forth to face her rival.
She held high hopes for the future of young Charlotte, whose perception and reticence had thus far protected her from their scandalous ancestry.
It remained for Emma to demonstrate by example how a proper gentlewoman should defend herself without sinking to low behavior.
Hypocrite, a small voice taunted her as she strode briskly down the hall. What sort of example did you set the other night? For that matter, what unspeakable transgression were you tempted to commit only a few minutes before Charlotte interrupted?
The possibilities, however intriguing, did not bear contemplation.
Not that she was in a frame of mind to ponder the ramifications of a secret romance.
Her temper flared the moment she set her eyes upon the trim, fashionably cloaked brunette awaiting her in the drawing room.
She paused for a moment to admire the adorable straw hat with a jaunty ostrich feather that gave Lady Clipstone a certain piquant air.
Alice Clipstone. Oh, how her very existence taunted Emma.
It went without saying that neither woman allowed her hostility to show.
Indeed, they might have been two long-lost relatives reunited at a family affair.
They exclaimed over how well the other looked.
They inquired after the health of their loved ones—as if they had not been figuratively at each other’s throats for months.
“May I offer you more tea?” Emma inquired when the initial period of pretense drew to its inevitable end.