Chapter 19
The overwhelming pleasure at seeing his ring on Emma’s finger, he settled into the squabs of the carriage. “The breakfast went off well.”
Looking up, Emma blinked, “I think so, and by the way Earl Blackhill was eyeing Charlotte, we might be invited to another soon.”
They were enroute to his cabin back at St. John’s Wood, where their first real meeting had been held, and while it had not gone as planned, he was aiming to correct that.
This is a temporary marriage of convenience, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun.
He shucked his jacket, stuck a finger in the knot of his cravat, and loosened it. Dropping that slip of silk on the seat near him, he reached over and pulled the window shutter down.
Her forehead creased prettily. “V-Vincent?”
“I want to kiss you without an audience this time,” he explained plainly.
She spun the ring idly on her finger. “The kiss at the altar wasn’t enough?”
Chuckling deeply at her meek reply, he coaxed her onto his lap. “That was no kiss. Not the one I had in mind anyway.”
“Oh…” Her fingers stilled on the ring, even as her hips tortured his arousal.
He paused at once. “Oh?”
“I only meant…” Her eyes flickered down to the ornate, inscribed gold circlet. “You are my husband now, I suppose it is your prerogative.”
Something about her tone sapped his salacious desires and made him speechless. It wasn’t coyness nor invitation, but a bewildering sort of acceptance that scraped him in a way he didn’t like.
“I am,” he answered carefully, “but that is not what I asked.”
Her brows drew together. “It is not?”
“No.” Vincent leaned forward and took her hand, stroking his thumb over the ring now resting there. “Emma, your husband, whether it is I—or in the future, another—does not have a right to your body or your heart. Do you understand me?”
She flushed. “I… I do.”
“And, I don’t want to kiss you because it’s my prerogative. I want to kiss you only if you want me to.”
Her throat worked. “I… yes.”
“Words, Emma.”
She lowered her sable lashes until they lay like little shadows on her pink cheeks, and whispered, “Yes, I want to kiss you, too.”
Framing her face with both hands, this kiss was like no kiss he had ever given a woman before; he courted her lips with soft presses and teasing suckles enough that she began to chase his lips.
Finally, he sealed his mouth over her and as her lips yielded, he thrust his tongue home, relishing the lingering note of champagne and cake on her tongue. In seconds, the kiss grew ravenous, an unholy craving, and when her tongue slid against his, he threw caution to the wind.
Tilting her head a touch, he kissed down the smooth slope of her throat, liberally inhaling the fragrant, soft lily scent that drove him mad.
Kissing his way back up her delicate jaw, he fixed his lips around her earlobe and suckled, drawing on that sensitive flesh until she writhed her hips against him.
His arousal strained, stiff and chafing at the barriers between them. Groaning, he thrust into the cradle of her thighs, his hands moving to cup her breasts through her dress. He found the hard peaks, rubbed them through the thin layer of silk.
She was panting now, her eyes closed, her nails digging into his biceps. With a growl of pure want, he lowered his head and kissed over her clavicle.
Reaching behind her, he plucked the first three buttons down and tugged her bodice lower before he paused. “If anything I do makes you uncomfortable, tell me.”
She nodded, but Vincent murmured, “I need you to tell me with words, sweetheart.”
Emma swallowed, her eyes wide and obsidian. “I promise I’ll tell you if I feel uneasy.”
“Good girl,” he purred as he tugged down one shoulder of her gown, and his next breath hissed through his teeth. A rosy nipple, flushed with color and ripe as a berry, was bared to his gaze.
When he finally sank his mouth on her, the whimper of delight she let out as he went back and forth—sometimes sucking, sometimes blowing, always building her pleasure until she was wild with want—cost him a piece of his soul he wouldn’t regain in this lifetime.
She arched against him, a luscious sound drawing from her with every play of his wet tongue.
“Christ, look at you.” Embers of lust blazed in his eyes, her simple taste intoxicating. “You’re devastating in pleasure…”
He could have lifted her skirts there and then, could have brought her undone in his lap before they reached the next mile marker—and devil take him, he wanted to.
I suppose it is your prerogative.
The careful way she had said the words was still ringing in his ear.
Easing back, he feathered a kiss upon the soft swell of her creamy breast and righted her bodice. Emma’s eyes fluttered open, glazed and uncertain.
“V-Vincent?”
“A moment, sweetheart.” He smoothed her wild fox-red hair back from her cheek. “I want to propose something.”
She tidied up a little, her hands settling on her knees. “What is it?”
“This… marriage of ours will end one day. We have agreed on that,” he said, picking his words carefully. “When it does, you will go your way, and in all likelihood, you will marry again. Someone of your own choosing this time.”
Her brow knit faintly, but she said nothing.
“I would not see you walk into that bed knowing nothing of what a man can give you. Nor knowing nothing of what should be asked of you, or what you may ask of him.” He ordered his next words.
“There is a whole gamut of sexual things that can bring you pleasure, barring intimate coupling, and if you will allow it, I should like to teach you them. So you are not unprepared when the time comes.”
Emma’s lips parted, but no sound came.
Her eyes flicked between his, searching. She seemed to find nothing but the plain offer, and that confused her more.
“I…” she breathed, then sat back a little further on his lap. “I would like to think on it.”
It was his turn to pause. He had not expected that answer.
“Of course,” he said quietly.
“I am not refusing,” she added quickly, a becoming crease gentling between her brows. “Only… this is the most thinking I have done in a carriage in my life. I would like to give you a proper answer—just when I am certain of it too.”
A laugh punched itself out of him at her endearing innocence.
There she is.
“Take all the time you need, sweetheart.” He brushed a kiss to her brow.
“I can feel that you’re aroused too—” she stifled a yawn, “— can I help?”
Smiling, he whispered, “I’m perfectly at peace with holding you.”
As they headed off to St John’s Wood, the grey-coated buildings of London gave way to fields of green over the following hours.
Emma did her best to hold a conversation, but cradled in his arms and having felt the most languorous warmth of her life, she dozed off, only to wake weightless at the feel of Vincent lifting her.
Disoriented in the mid-afternoon sun, she clutched onto his forearm while he walked them up to a house—that was certainly not the lodge she remembered confronting him in that fateful night.
No, this house was no simple run-down cottage; this domicile rose with old Georgian dignity; its tall sash windows gleaming in perfect symmetry, its portico of columns lending an air of solemn grandeur.
“…Vincent? Where are we?” she whispered, eyelids still heavy.
“My home in St John’s Wood,” he answered matter-of-factly, then promptly realized his err. “Ah. You’re probably confused right about now. The house you met me in that night was not my real home… it was the gardener’s cottage.” He grimaced an apology.
“Oh…” she breathed. “Well, I’m awake now, so you can let me down.”
“Not until I carry you across the threshold,” he replied. “My father did this for my mother, and I feel like I’d be breaking a…” his eyes went distant a moment, “…thirty-three-year tradition if I don’t.”
She smiled secretly and gazed in awe at the magnificent chandelier—cut crystal and gilt bronze—that hung like a cascade of frozen stars.
Portraits of stern ancestors in ornate frames lined the hall.
Pale walls in fawn and cream rose with elaborate plaster garland while a gilded mirror caught the edge of the chandelier overhead.
Vincent gently set her down on the Aubusson runner.
“Welcome to your home for the next two weeks, duchess.”
Duchess…
The title rang like gongs in her head.
“Welcome, Your Graces,” a male said as she turned to find who she deduced to be Weston—Vincent’s butler, whom he’d already informed her of, the housekeeper, and a young man and woman behind them. The smartly-dressed man she assumed to be Vincent’s valet, and the girl, perhaps her lady’s maid?
“Weston.” Vincent nodded once.
“The new valet has arrived, and Mrs. Roan, our housekeeper, took the initiative of assigning a young and experienced housemaid to be your lady’s maid, Your Grace,” Weston announced gravely. “Her name is Lilian Guthrie.”
The new valet and the young maid stepped forward to greet them. The young man had dark hair and ruddy skin, keen eyes and a quiet manner, while her new maid had bright ginger hair framing brighter eyes and dimpled cheeks.
The formal addresses dizzied Emma more than the names she would need to remember. “Pleased to meet you both,” she smiled warmly at the two.
“Shall I see you to your rooms?” Mrs. Roan offered. “We have a light luncheon ready if you would like to partake as well.”
Emma suddenly found herself with a new worry: the bedroom arrangements. Would they have separate chambers as most ton couples did, or would he want to share a bed?
“Lead the way,” Vincent nodded as they headed to the grand staircase that floated to the second floor. As she headed up, Emma allowed her fingertips to trail the mahogany handrail polished to a mirror shine, curving up like a ribbon toward the upper rooms.
Mrs. Roan led them to the first of the rooms and, when she opened the door, said to Emma, “These shall be your private chambers, Your Grace.”
The furnishings of the room were timelessly elegant; the windows faced the east meadows, so she would wake to a tranquil landscape and a beaming sun.
A great canopied bed stood against the back wall.
Smooth royal red rugs draped the floors, leading up to two armchairs sitting snugly beneath the bay windows.
She instantly felt a stranger stepping into luxury—and even more strangely—at home here.
“This is… lovely,” she breathed.
Reminds me of my old home.
Emma caught a brief glimpse of her own startled reflection in a gilt-framed mirror as they strode along, all awe-struck eyes and disordered hair.
She made a hasty, hopeless attempt at fixing it before being led to a doorway at the other end of the room; it opened to a bathing chamber with a massive copper tub, large windows, washing basins, and a row of stools that sat under a shelf.
There were baskets on the other side, for clothes, she assumed, and low cupboards for shoes.
A second door was at the other end, and she realized too late that it led to Vincent’s adjacent private chambers.
He turned a little as she entered, then beckoned her nearer, and she joined him and gazed out at the rolling lands and—indeed—the gardener’s cottage she vaguely recognized near the back road.
“Did you think I’d be more receptive to your apologies if I saw you there instead of here?” she asked.
“Yes,” his upper cheekbones faintly colored at being so easily seen through. “And, truthfully, I was hoping Titan might sway you too.” When she slid an eye to him, he gave a hapless, one-shoulder shrug, “I’ve come to learn that women have a sweet-spot for animals.”
From the corner of her eye, Emma glimpsed Mrs. Roan’s brows lift high, and her lips twitch with the urge to smile.
To her, he said, “It’s perfect.”
Mrs. Roan beamed. “Supper will be ready soon. I shall send for a maid when the time comes.”
“Thank you.”
The other woman departed, but Emma lingered beside Vincent a time longer. A frisson of something near exhilaration swept her nerves at being so close to a gentleman, in his bedchambers, without it necessitating a chaperone.
He headed silently for a neighboring door, and Emma followed close by like a lost puppy. He opened it, and she peeked in to find a vast bathing room with a vaulted ceiling, red furnishings, and a dark oak basin on a raised platform.
Though sparsely furnished, the room felt satisfyingly simple.
“This is unexp—”
A shaggy, dark head rose from the far side of the basin, a blindside part of the room, and Titan padded over, bypassing Vincent altogether to bump his nose into her skirts.
Squeaking, she jumped back behind Vincent, and a low chuckle moved through his chest. “Don’t worry, Titan may be the only thing in this side of the house that doesn’t bite. Go ahead.”
She lowered a hand warily and let the hound nose at it. Titan wagged his tail eagerly. “Oh. You’re a sweet boy, aren’t you?” she giggled as his rump hit the floor and he leaned in for more pets. Laughing, she turned to Vincent, “I’ll see you at luncheon?”
“Perhaps supper,” he grimaced while raking a hand through his hair. “I think it’s best if we spend some time alone before we lay out what we expect from each other.”
What does that mean?