Chapter 21
Unable to sleep, Emma lay tossing and turning until the sheets twisted about her legs and one pillow nearly slipped to the floor. Somewhere down the corridor, the grandfather clock had chimed the midnight hour a long time ago.
Squeezing her eyes, she tried again to push Vincent’s words from her head, but in its place the offer kept returning like rising water, filling every gap her good sense tried to plug.
‘There is a whole gamut of sexual things that can bring you pleasure…’
A distressed sound slipped from her, and she rolled onto her side, pressing her cheek into a cool patch of pillow that did nothing for the heat in her face.
‘If you will allow it, I should like to teach you them.’
She knew the honest answer she wished to give him, had known it from the moment the carriage had even reached the drive, but giving voice to it—even inside her own head—made her feel like the worst sort of lightskirt, especially after what he’d said to her at supper about hoping to stay unattached.
I cannot want it. I cannot want him to…
But she did.
She wanted to know what came after the carriage, what his mouth could do when he was no longer holding himself in check, what shape the next pleasures might take.
And, mortifyingly, she wanted to be the sort of woman who could lie back coolly and accept his ‘lessons’ without her foolish heart getting tangled up in the middle of it.
That woman, whoever she was, was certainly not Emma Haverleigh.
But she wasn’t Emma Haverleigh anymore either, was she?
Tossing the coverlet back, Emma sat up and slipped her feet into her slippers. She needed water. A glass of water, a clear head, and perhaps by morning, she could give him her answer like a sensible woman and not a girl half-mad from a nothing-kiss.
Reaching for the chintz wrapper draped over the chair, she tied the sash at her waist and, as gently as she could, eased open the door.
The corridor was dim, with only the moonlight from the far windows turning the polished floor pale.
Emma closed the door carefully, winced when the latch clicked anyway, and stood still a moment to make certain no one heard.
Lilian had pointed out a pantry on the lower floor earlier during the tour, and she felt sure she would find a pitcher there. Creeping along the runner, she made her way to the head of the stairs.
A faint sound caught her halfway down—a soft, sluicing rush—and she paused on the steps, brows knitting. When it came again, longer this time and followed by a splash, she forgot all about the pantry and continued down the stairs.
Following the sound, she crept through the lower hall, past a darkened parlor and into a short passage she had not been through before. At the end of it, a pair of glass doors were left ajar, letting in a wash of cold night air, and Emma stopped short.
A pond.
From the doorway, she could see the silvered face of the water across the lawn, framed by black hedges and shivering with the moon.
And slicing through it—her breath snagged—was Vincent.
He cut through the water with long, brutal strokes, the muscles of his back and shoulders rolling beneath wet skin that split the moonlight with every reach.
He came to the far end, pivoted under with a sharp kick, and doubled back with the same relentless pace, swimming like a man trying to outrun his thoughts.
Oh…
Emma flattened a hand to the doorframe and tried to gather herself.
When he came to the near edge of the pond, he rested, slicking his hair back from his face with both hands while his corded chest rose and fell with the heaves of his breath.
Water sluiced down the cut planes of his shoulders, catching the pale glow from the skies, and he set his elbows on the stone edge and tipped his head back, eyelids briefly shut.
He looked like a demigod at the end of his tether.
Why is he down here at this hour? The thought arrived plainly, and the answer arrived with it: the same reason I am.
Her fingers tightened on the painted timber.
She could go back; she could fetch her water and pretend she’d never seen this at all.
But had she not spent her whole life being sensible?
Tucking her head down and sewing for ladies who looked through her, smiling primly at gentlemen and never daring to be chosen?
And now her own husband, who had not pressed her, who had laid the offer at her feet and left her to choose, was three dozen yards away in the dead of night, plainly as restless as she.
Steeling herself, Emma pushed the glass doors wider and stepped out into the night. The air was cool, and the grass dampened her slippers almost at once. Gathering her wrapper in one hand, she crossed the lawn before sense could drag her back indoors.
He did not see her at first, his serene and sharply handsome face still tipped back against the stone, and she came to the edge and stopped a few paces away from him.
“Vincent?”
His head whipped around. “Emma?” he said, voice roughened by his exertions. “What are you doing out of bed?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she replied, drawing the wrapper a touch tighter at her throat. “I came down for water and heard—” her eyes flicked to the pond and away again, “—well…”
The corner of his mouth tipped, “And so you came to investigate?”
A primal flush crept up her neck. “I—I didn’t know it was you at first.”
“Would you have come if you had?” he asked, that damnable brow arching.
Of course I would have.
Emma opened her mouth, then closed it. “I don’t know,” she lied.
Huffing a low laugh, he rested his forearms on the stone again and simply watched her.
The silver light caught the wet line of his jaw, the curve of his bared shoulder, the dark hair plastered down the strong column of his neck, and a single bead of water trailed down his collarbone in a slow, mesmerizing path.
Emma’s mouth went dry as she traced its descent.
“Why are you out here?” she asked at last.
“Couldn’t sleep either… Well,” he trailed off, “…I had something on my mind.”
“Oh?”
His grey eyes lifted to hers. “A lady gave me an answer I had not anticipated this afternoon. It has been turning in my head since.”
Heat climbed higher up Emma’s throat as she murmured, “I see.”
“Do you?”
“I…” Emma swallowed tightly. “I have been thinking on it too, actually. I—”
“Come here.”
She stepped closer to the edge, and he did not reach for her; he only watched her, his arms folded along the stone, the rest of him concealed beneath the dark mirror of the water. “Sit,” he said quietly. “If you mean to talk to me, I’d rather you weren’t towering over me for it.”
Lowering herself onto the warm flat stone at the pond’s edge, Emma let the wrapper pool around her hips and tucked her knees to one side, the water lapping softly an inch below her bare feet.
Vincent drifted along the edge until he was directly below her, his arms still resting on the stone and his face tilted up to her now—so close she could count the silver flecks in the grey of his eyes.
“As I was saying…” she lost her train of thought entirely.
“Sweetheart?” he asked, and she had not known a single word, spoken so low, could undo a person quite like that.
“I have thought on it,” she whispered as his eyes searched hers.
“And?”
She drew in a shaking breath. “Yes.”
He went still on the other side of the stone. “Yes?”
“I accept,” she forced the words past the tightness in her throat, her fingers twisting fiercely in the fabric of her wrapper. “What you proposed in the carriage. I—I want it, Vincent. I want you to teach me.”
For a stretch, he said nothing, and Emma wished viciously that he would stop looking so still. Then he murmured, “Look at me, Emma,” and she immediately lifted her eyes to his.
There was something beneath the grey that she hadn’t glimpsed before; not the rakish bravado, nor the lazy smirk—something hungrier and more sober that made her clench her thighs. “And you are certain?”
“Yes.”
“Words, pet.”
A trembling laugh slipped out of her. “Yes, I’m certain. Yes, I accept.”
“Good girl,” he purred, “then we begin tonight, and slowly.” Though there was nothing slow in the way his gaze dropped to her mouth.
His hand emerged from the water and closed on her ankle—only her ankle—and his wet thumb stroked over the small bone there with a slow, almost reverent caress that made her feel the heat of his palm lick through every nerve-ending she possessed.
“T-tonight?” The word had barely left her lips before his icy hand was sliding up the back of her calf, and Emma’s breath fell apart.
“Lean back on your hands,” he ordered in a low timbre, and she did as he bade.
Her hair tumbled down her back. The wrapper slipped open at her throat where the sash had loosened, and the cool air found the thin fabric of her nightgown beneath.
His hands moved to her knees and parted them. Emma’s heart slammed against her ribs. “Vincent, I-I am—”
“Trust me, pet,” he murmured. And she did.
Sliding his wet palms up the underside of her thighs, he pushed the soft fabric of her nightgown ahead of him, baring her by inches. The cool air touched skin she had never bared to a man in her life, and gooseflesh raced up her legs.
“Yes or no, Emma?” he asked one last time, his hand stilling on her pale thighs.
“Yes…” she breathed. “Yes.”
He swung one knee over his broad shoulder, and Emma’s hand flew to his wet hair as her eyes snapped open. “Wh-what are you—”
“Lie back on your elbows.”
With a mortifying lack of dignity, she obeyed nevertheless. He lowered his head.
The first touch of his mouth on her tore a cry from her throat before she could swallow it. His lips were cold from the water and the shock of it against her heated flesh sent her spine arching clean off the stone. “Oh—Vincent—”
His hand came up and pressed flat against her belly, pressing her back down. “Quiet.” His breath scorched against her. “The house is sleeping.”
“I—I don’t know if I can be—”