Chapter 31
ADuchess, Two Men, and a Maze: The Ton Has Its Latest Scandal!
Mayfair has scarcely recovered its breath after the spectacle at Lady Attenborough’s fête, where the newly married Duchess of H— was discovered in the hedge maze with Lord A—her former suitor and, with some whisper, her first great folly.
After a lover’s spat and a brief bout between the two gentlemen, the question now tormenting every drawing room: Whom did the Duchess truly wish to defend?
Rolling his eyes, Vincent tossed into the wastebasket that evening’s version of The Star.
Thank the devil Emma had taken to bed early as soon as they’d returned; the last thing he needed was her reading three separate accounts of herself being ruined in three separate ways. After it was his negligence that led to it in the first place.
He slid the lower drawer of his library desk open with his knee and drew out the slim folio Weston had left on Weaver, namely every unsavory door the man had darkened in the past few days. He wasn’t trying to run, which was wise of him.
This afternoon was a close call. I need to tell her the truth about the Phantom and my game of revenge. If… if we are to stay married, she deserves to know.
“But then, I’m so close to the end. Custor is finally almost in my reach,” he groaned beneath his breath.
A brisk knock came, and Mrs. Roan slipped in with the brandy tray.
“Will the duchess be coming down for supper?” he asked without looking up from the folio.
“Doesn’t seem so, Your Grace.” She set the tray down and smoothed her apron. “She went to sleep feeling a little wan, and Lilian says she took nothing in the afternoon either. Except half a cup of tea.”
Vincent’s pen stilled, and ink gathered fat at the nib.
The whole rotten day came back to him on her account; the maze first, then Windham’s bloodied mouth, then nearly nothing but a red haze in the carriage, and lastly Emma standing rigid while he came at her with seal scissors at the ribbon snarled in her fiery hair.
He’d given her his silence for the rest of the carriage ride after and told himself it was the gentlemanly thing to do, which it was, except that it was also cowardice.
“Send Cook up with a tray,” he said while raking a hand through his hair. “Hot cocoa, cold cuts, and one of those ices if the cellar’s cold enough. The… strawberry.”
“At this hour, Your Grace?” Her brows lifted a touch.
“And we aren’t to be disturbed after,” he ordered, reaching for his coat.
She dipped a curtsy and went. He snuffed two of the lamps and took the third up the stairs, sidestepping the third step from the top, which creaked, if memory served.
Her bedroom door gave without sound.
The fire had burned to embers, and Emma lay a slight shape beneath the eiderdown, the silk tangled at the swell of her hips, half-turned to the window while her plait trailed loose over her shoulder.
That short copper curl he’d shorn from her with the seal scissors had already escaped to lie against her temple in a tight little coil.
She was pale as the pillow beneath her.
A tap drew him back, and a maid passed the tray through the gap. Vincent shut the door with his hip, set it on the bed-table, and lifted each cover in turn. The ice had held, pink as the inside of a shell and weeping at its rim where it met the warm air.
Drawing the candle closer, he scraped the chair to the bedside and sat.
“Emma.” He brushed the curl from her cheek with one knuckle. Her lashes fluttered drowsily as if she’d been dragged up from the bottom of a well.
“Is something—what hour—”
“Late. You’re not feeling well, and you’ve eaten nothing all day.” He plumped the pillows behind her before offering the hot cocoa. “Here, drink.”
Pushing up with a wince, she accepted the hot cup he pressed into her hands.
The nightgown slipped at her shoulder, baring the soft curve of a creamy breast, and she caught it absently, tugging the eiderdown over her while her eyes drifted to the tray and the little glass coupe sitting in its bed of crushed ice.
“Have you eaten already?” she yawned.
“I was waiting for you and lost the time,” he smiled while she drank at last, in slow sips, her gaze fixed somewhere past the rim.
He had seen this look before, years ago. Benjamin, in the bad stretches, off his food for days at a time, taking broth only if Vincent sat at the bedside and stayed. The memory was an old bruise, and he pressed past it.
“I shouldn’t have gone into the hedge maze,” she said into the steam.
“It wasn’t your fault, sweetheart.”
“It was silly of me to go off alone,” she pushed, meeting his eyes.
“And then Lord Windham found me, and I—I let him speak. I thought refusing to hear him would be cruel, and then I thought if I stayed calm, I could end it quickly and make us happy again, and no one would notice.” Hunching, she took another sip.
“Instead, everyone noticed, and I made everything worse.”
“For God’s sake, Emma, stop trying to spare me.
” With a sigh, he took her cup and placed it to the side.
“It was my fault, all of this. I should have let you speak. I was just too afraid that if I… if I…” Hmphing, he took up the bowl and the little spoon.
“Let’s eat the ices before they melt and we have a mutiny from belowstairs. ”
A small, broken laugh punched from her throat.
“Open,” he coaxed.
She watched the spoon, her jade eyes still red-rimmed from sleep, and parted her lips.
“Oh—” The cold of it drew her eyes shut, and her lips closed around the spoon. The tiny gasp she made in her throat had his blood stirring.
“What is this?” She opened her eyes again, and the flush climbing her throat made the freckles on her collarbone stand out like flecks of stars.
“Gunter’s. I’d been meaning to take you.” He dipped the spoon again, chuckling at the bewildered delight on her face. “As my father would say, a duchess must have her ice.”
“It’s sinful,” she breathed.
Devil take it. Sinful. From that mouth, in that nightgown, by candlelight. He was going to need considerably more restraint and brandy than he currently possessed.
He fed her a second spoonful, then a third, and on the fourth, his thumb caught a bead of the melt at the corner of her mouth, and her breath hitched beneath his hand.
Her fingers closed over his wrist, “Back at the… the gaming hell. You said you didn’t want me to share my…” she was whispering now, cherry-cheeked. “I spent half the hours sleeping, thinking, what did he mean by it…”
His thumb stilled at the seam of her lip.
“The last time I trusted something this much, it was our vows, and back then, I think… no, I know I was a fool.” Her fingernails burrowed into his skin, and her chin was trembling, and her eyes were so bright they looked like wet glass. “If you didn’t mean it, just tell me now, and—”
He kissed her.
The coverlet parted to the fine muslin of her nightgown that couldn’t hide her divine body; the inviting shape of those magnificent breasts, perfectly round and full, made to fill a man’s palms, and the swell of her hips.
Her lips curved slowly against his, “You, Vincent Alexander Arundel, are boorish. A true troglodyte. But… stay with me tonight.”
Vincent cupped her cheek and spanned his thumb over her cheekbone, “We do still have one final lesson.”
Her lips were a magnet, drawing him in, and he brushed his mouth against hers, once, twice, before pulling back to take in her beautiful composition. Her face was flushed, lips a breath apart, looking for all the world like a woman aching to be touched.
Holding her fast, he drank of her like she was a spring and he was dying of thirst. God, she was sweet and soft.
Lowering her back against the pillows, he followed her down with his mouth still on hers, one hand braced at the headboard while the other gathered the muslin of her nightgown up past her thighs in fistfuls.
He broke the kiss long enough to pull the gown over her head in one fluid motion, tossing it somewhere behind him.
Christ.
She lay beneath him bare and trembling, her fiery hair fanned wild across the silk coverlet, skin flushed the color of warm peaches from her throat to her navel, and the rosy peaks of her breasts drawn tight as rosebuds in the candleflame.
The dip of her waist curved into full, voluptuous hips that the silk coverlet clung to low across her belly.
She glowed as something poured from honey and fire.
“Don’t stare,” she whispered, her arm coming up.
He caught her wrist and pressed it back into the pillow. “Hush. You are a goddess beneath all those clothes.”
Engulfing one rosy peak in his mouth, Emma cried out, her fingers fisting in his hair as he laved the swollen bud with his tongue. Her breasts were a sin unto themselves, lush and cream-soft and spilling over his palm.
Every inch of her was exquisite, and he intended to worship every last one.