Chapter 12
The door to his small foyer pulled open, and Vincent watched as a cloaked form stood in the doorway. He had no reason to go for any of the weapons hidden around the cottage, as he knew who it was. Emma’s petite form swept in, the heavy dark cloak billowing behind her, while a cowl covered her head.
He rose from the chair near the fire, as did the head of his giant Scottish Deerhound, Titan. The dog was as dark as the night itself and sank back into his corner, melding again into the darkness seamlessly.
“Emma,” he began as she hooked the cowl off, revealing the jade eyes that starred in his dreams. He strode over to her and lifted a hand to touch her cheek—as smooth and silky as he remembered. “You came. Thank you.”
She stepped away, tilting her head up. “The only reason I did is that you said you have the resources to help James.”
He came closer, “I do have that.”
Her lips thinned. “Is there any other reason we couldn’t have done this exchange by mail or in the daytime? Why a cottage in St John’s Wood?”
His brow lifted. “Did you think my living situation was something grander?”
“For someone who could easily hand over a fortune to me, yes,” she replied. “Moreover—” She fished into her inner pockets and pulled out the hairpin, the mother-of-pearl inlays glinting in the firelight. “—I cannot accept this.”
His eyes landed on the pin, but he did not move to take it. “It is not to your taste?”
“That’s not—that’s not the point.” She shook her head. “I can’t accept it. I saw this exact pin in a catalogue of Rundell’s. It is too expensive, and I have no way to explain it to my grandmother, nor do I have any desire to be pampered by a stranger,” she finished severely. “So please, take it.”
Vincent reached out, but instead of taking it from her, he gently closed her fingers over it, his tone dropping to the authoritarian note he used with stubborn lords at Westminster, one that brooked no argument.
“You mistake me. I do not make a habit of pampering strangers. But then, you are no stranger. And this—” his thumb pressed gently over her closed fingers, “—is not pampering.”
She puffed out a breath. “You must be the most stubborn man I have ever met.”
“You’ve met many men, then?” he threw over his shoulder as he went to liberate a glass from a cupboard and a bottle of scotch.
“That is beside the point,” she muttered, but to his pleasure, she pocketed the pin. “Now, please provide the resources you have for my brother, and I will be on my way.”
Titan took the opportune moment to move from the bed in the corner and pad silently to Emma and nose at her hand—from behind. She lurched forward, and Vincent, all of two feet away from her, caught her with one arm before she fell on her face.
Balancing the glass in one hand, he circled her waist tightly as she trembled against him. Every curve of her slight frame was fitted against his, and her fingers had curled into his shirt, and her wide, startled eyes were close enough that he could count the gold in the green.
He should have let her go.
Instead, he lowered his mouth to hers.
Not gently.
He kissed her the way he’d been craving to for weeks, deep and consuming, his tongue sweeping past her parted lips before she could even think to deny him. The taste of her flooded his senses, sweet and warm, and his blood ran so hot so fast that rational thought simply ceased to exist.
The glass hit the table. Both hands found her: one fisting the fabric at the small of her back, the other gripping her hip, hauling her flush against him until there was nothing between them but clothing he wanted gone.
She gasped into his mouth at the hard, rigid length of him pressed against her belly, and the sound shot through him like a lit fuse.
More.
He walked her backward until her hips hit the table’s edge and stepped between her thighs before she could protest. Her skirts bunched between them as he pressed forward, grinding himself against her core, and the moan that tore from her throat was so raw, so unguarded, that his hands shook.
Her fingers clawed up his chest and into his hair, pulling him closer, and the sting of it sent something savage ripping through him.
He broke from her mouth to drag his teeth down the column of her throat, biting down on the tender juncture of her neck and shoulder, then soothing the mark with his tongue.
She cried out, her legs tightening around him, pulling him harder against her.
God, the sounds she makes.
His hand slid from her hip up the curve of her waist and closed over her breast through the thin fabric of her dress.
Her back arched into his palm, pushing herself further into his grip, and he squeezed, rolling the stiffened peak between his fingers until her head fell back and her breath dissolved into broken, shuddering whimpers.
He rocked against her again, slow and deliberate, letting her feel every inch of what she did to him, and the friction nearly blinded him.
She was trembling beneath his hands, flushed and panting, her lips swollen and parted, and he wanted to lay her back on that table and take his mouth to places that would make her scream his name until her voice gave out.
No… not yet. Not before she knows who I am…
That thought cut through the haze like a blade, and he wrenched himself back. His chest was heaving, his body wound so tight it hurt, and it took every shred of discipline he possessed not to pull her back against him.
She sat on the edge of the table, chest rising in shallow gasps, her hair half undone and her eyes glazed. The flush on her skin disappeared beneath the neckline of her dress, and he clenched his jaw against the urge to chase it.
“What—what was that?” she breathed.
He couldn’t help it. He laughed, low and rough, still close enough that his breath ghosted over her damp lips.
Her narrowed eyes shot to him. “Are you laughing at me?!”
Gently, he set her back on her feet, resisting the urge to keep her pressed against him, as in those few seconds, he’d come to love how she felt on him, like a missing piece to a cracked vase.
“That was my hound, Titan.” Twisting over his shoulder, he said, “Titan, sit.”
The hound’s rump hit the floor, and his tongue lolled out; while sitting, his head was past Emma’s waist. “Go on,” he urged her. “Make friends.”
“I meant what you just—” she yelped staunchly while her fingertips sank into his shoulders.
“He’s a sweetheart,” Vincent peeled her arms away from him.
“And you’re mad!” she snapped back.
He pulled away, “There is an argument for that, but as for now, I need to talk to you about something important.”
Emma edged away from him and skirted the seated dog with the wariness of a mouse sneaking around a feline.
Chuckling, Vincent asked, “Would you like some brandy?”
“So you can tempt me away from my good senses again?” She slid an eye to him. “No, thank you.”
Vincent steered her away from Titan and to a chair by the roaring hearth. She sank into it gratefully, not trusting her legs to hold her upright much longer.
Her lips still felt swollen. The skin at her throat still tingled where his teeth had been, and a dull, liquid ache pulsed low in her belly, unfamiliar and persistent and entirely his fault.
She could still feel the phantom pressure of his hands, the rough grip at her hip, the way his fingers had closed over her breast as though he had every right to touch her there. As though she’d given him that right…
And God help me, I had.
She pressed her thighs together against the lingering sensation of him between them, and heat scorched her cheeks. She had wrapped her legs around him. She had pulled him closer. She had moaned into his mouth like a common—
Stop. Stop thinking about it.
A strange look crossed his face as he stood across from her. He looked to be a man wrestling with a rough decision, and she frowned. What on earth could he be struggling with? And why did he look so pained?
Minutes ago, his mouth had been on her throat and his hands had been doing things that would make a courtesan blush, and now he stood before her with the bearing of a man walking to the gallows.
“Emma,” he began coldly. “…There is something you must know about me. I’ve thought it over and over the past week, and ultimately, I would rather you hear it from my lips first. Though please understand, this is not anything I had known before I met you.”
A strange coil curled in her gut. “And what is that? Is it perchance to do with the condition I found you in that night during the Arundel ball?”
He swallowed a mouthful of brandy, then set the glass down. “The tale of how I came to be wounded… is a long one, but that is not what I needed to confess. I am…” He met her eyes and assessed her lightly curious gaze. “I am the Duke of Highminster.”
She blinked—and blinked again.
The light curiosity she’d had a breath ago slowly transformed to ripping betrayal, and the pleasure she’d just felt swiftly burned with pain.
Eyes wide, she breathed, “You… You are the duke who ruined my life? My family’s life?”
“I can explain—”
Crack.
The force of her slap spun his head to the side.
She could only imagine the pain he felt as her hand was stinging and would soon go numb with the force she had just used.
It had come out with every drop of frustration and anger she had harbored for too many years—and frankly, she was ready to deliver another.
Gently, he flexed his jaw and touched his cheek. “I suppose I deserved that.”
“And much more! You thought you could escape your dastardly actions by seducing me? By what? Paying me off?” she hissed. “I only wish I had carried the money here so I could throw it back in your face!”
“I’d simply give it back.” He flexed his jaw again. “It is rightfully yours.”
“Ten years ago!” she snapped.
“You saved my life,” he replied calmly. “What is money compared to that?” The moment the words left his mouth, he seemed to realize how off they sounded. “What I mean is—”
“If I had not saved your life, you would have never even deigned to right the wrongs you did,” she muttered, and damn if her words didn’t have the precision and force of a bullet. She glared, “Tell me I am wrong.”
He tried to hold her eyes, but the truth came out as if he were speaking over a mouthful of broken glass. “To my shame, you are not.”
“You are a heartless bastard.” Her words were scathing words, accompanied by a heaving bosom and flashing eyes.
She looks like a kitten hissing at a wolf. She has no idea that I’ve faced worse than this, that she is not my match.
“You are correct in your assessment of me—I was a bastard, and had you not saved my life, I would never have even known just who you were,” he pressed on. “But there are factors about the money from your father that you are not aware of.
“I am the last man who believes in fate or serendipity, but do you not see it as telling that you saved my life when I had ripped yours from you?” Vincent said. “Maybe it was a sign to face myself in the mirror.”
“Then face it on your own. Just—just stay away from me!” she said harshly. “Do not dare come near me again!”
As she spun to the door, Vincent called out, “I want to offer another proposal, Emma.”
Incensed, she pivoted on her heel, “What proposal could you possibly offer?”
He came forward slowly, “Let me take care of rehabilitating your brother,” he tried.
“The men I have come into contact with know how to tutor a person with his condition—help him to find his purpose and make him a functioning member of good society. He can become the man he was always meant to be. Let me do that much… please, Emma.”
She bristled. “Another bribe?”
“No,” he pressed, taking another step. “It is what I want to do. From the depths of my purportedly non-existent heart. No one will ever know it is from me, as the people I have in place will make it look as if it were a charitable effort from the church. I want to help.”
The word no was poised to unleash on her tongue, but she faltered and bit her lip. He did have access to resources she did not, and there were questions she would not be able to answer if she found the help she needed for James. If it came from the church, no one would question it.
Her jaw worked. “You will give him the help he needs?”
“For as long as he needs it,” Vincent replied, his expression grave. “My brother passed away from a lung sickness because at that time, my family had been run into the weeds by unscrupulous thieves who took our means.”
His words dampened the heat inside her breastbone, and while she felt for him, it still did not excuse his deception.
“You give me your word?” she demanded.
“Yes,” he nodded. “I want to right my wrongs, Emma, and I may have gone about it the wrong way by kissing you—”
“There is no may about it!”
“—but I want you.” The words came out before he could leash them, blunt and low and entirely without ceremony. His jaw worked, as if he too were as surprised by the admission as she. “There it is. I have no pretty way to dress it up, and I am not going to insult you by trying.”
“No, you cannot put this on me now!” she hissed.
His lips flattened. “Because of this Ashton character?”
She lifted her chin suddenly. “Marquess Windham to you, you bounder! He is everything you are not: open, honest, charming, and yes, titled. He is the sort of man I know my father would approve of and not one that would drag him from beyond his grave!”
His brow ticked up, “He would choose a Marquess over a Duke?”
“God, you are so arrogant,” she puffed. “Yes, he would choose a decent man over a despicable one.”
“I am far from despicable, albeit only with things that I hold in high regard,” he corrected smoothly. “And I won’t stop until I get you to understand how all this came about.”
Emma flicked the cowl over her head. “After you send me the details about this arrangement for James, that ends our interactions; no more gifts, no more flowers, no notes, nothing. I cannot be entangled with you in any way. Stay away from me, Vincent.”
“Is that what you truly want?” he pressed.
“Yes,” she forced out, while stifling the flutter under her breastbone. “It is what I truly want.”
Vincent poured himself another glass of brandy and leaned on the wall, crossing his legs. The large, shadowy giant padded up to his side to nose at his hand.
“Goodbye, Vincent.”
As she spun out the door, Emma swore she heard him mutter, “We’ll see about that.”