CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
SUSSEX, ENGLAND: 1807
Emily Eleanor Smythe was bent on ruin.
She lay quietly in the darkness beneath the cozy mound of covers and listened to her cousin Letty snoring softly beside her, and counted: three thousand eighty-five, three-thousand eighty-six…
Normally Emily slept in her own little room, but Christmas was only a week away and the house was packed to the eaves with Baggots and Baggot spouses and children. She'd been moved into her cousin Letty's room for the duration so that a great-aunt could have her bed.
Uncle Rupert liked gathering his family around him for the holidays. He had promised the young people a sleigh ride, weather permitting; there would be excursions to gather holly; a trip or two to the village; carol singing and present-making; and, of course, Christmas Eve services at the church. Neither mistletoe nor a Yule log would be part of the merrymaking, however. Mistletoe and Yule logs were not sufficiently respectable for a Baggot.
After tonight, Emily wouldn't be sufficiently respectable, either. That was an unfortunate but necessary part of her Plan.
Three-thousand ninety-nine… four thousand.
She drew a shuddering breath. It was time. She had heard the last footsteps in the hall four thousand seconds ago; everyone must be asleep now.
Her heart pounded as she eased back the covers and slid her legs off the bed. It was a high bed, and Emily was short. She landed with a soft thump, but Letty's snores didn't falter.
Emily bent and retrieved a large bundle from beneath the bed. Even if Letty woke, she told herself, she would only think Emily was pulling out the chamber pot. That is, she might think that if she didn't see Emily sliding in her stockinged feet, one slow step at a time, toward the door, the shawl-wrapped bundle of clothing an incriminating bulk beneath her arm.
The floor was cold. The air was cold. It was close to midnight, and the fire that had been kindled earlier in their fireplace was little more than coals now, giving off little heat and less light. Emily's arms had popped out in goose bumps by the time she reached the bedroom door. She reached for the handle.
Out in the hall, something creaked.
Her hand went to her throat, where her pulse hammered so hard it seemed her heart was trying to escape her flesh.
It was just the house, she told herself when the noise didn't come again. Houses made noises all by themselves, especially on cold winter nights—proof enough to Emily that houses weren't entirely insentient. This house didn't like her. She was convinced of that. It was a solid, respectable house, just like the family who lived in it. All of the Baggots were forthright, conventional people who knew their places and understood their worth.
Emily wasn't a Baggot. Her mother had been, but her mother had ran away with dashing Edward Smythe twenty-two years ago. Somehow Emily had ended up all Smythe, with very little respectable Baggot blood in her veins.
It would be just like this house to creak loudly while she was making her escape. And Aunt Dorothea was a light sleeper. If she woke up and saw Emily sneaking out…
Emily's imagination grabbed hold of the idea and quickly built an image of the scene. Her oldest cousin, George, had a loud, boisterous manner at the best of times. When he was angry, he got even louder. Letty would be crying; she liked the drama of tears. Abigail would be shrill and self-righteous. And her uncle would yell and yell, his face growing red and blotchy. Then Marcus would start yelling at the others to shut up and leave her alone.
But the worst—the very worst—would happen after the yelling ended. Then her aunt would speak to her. As much as Emily dreaded the loud-voiced arguments her uncle and cousins enjoyed, she feared her aunt's shriveling tongue more.
Aunt Dorothea was very much a lady. She wouldn't raise her voice. She would be cool and civil and withering, and Emily would shrink into a tiny, miserable spot that grew smaller and smaller with every word. Sometimes Emily thought she might disappear entirely if she had to listen to one more quiet lecture on her inadequacies.
When her aunt found out what she'd done tonight… She shuddered. She mustn't think about that, or she'd lose what little store of courage she possessed.
She gripped the handle of the door, but it was suddenly hard to turn it. To take that next step. Though Emily was often in trouble, she had never done anything truly bad before. Misguided, foolish, impulsive— oh, yes. She freely owned those faults. But she never set out to do the wrong thing. It simply worked out that way.
This time, though, she knew what she was doing was wrong.
Yet staying here would be worse. Being ruined would not be pleasant, but in the long run it was bound to be better than being married to Sir Edgar or to Ralph Aldyce. Emily thought of her Plan and turned the handle.
Emily and Letty were sharing the bedroom nearest the stairs, and there was a small window on the landing. Moonlight snuck up the stairwell, giving Emily enough light to avoid tripping on the worn spot in the runner in the hall. She reached the stairs and started down, moving as carefully as a soldier maneuvering behind enemy lines.
At the foot of the stairs she breathed a little easier. She untied her shawl and took out the contents—her warmest woolen dress, which was loose enough to wear without a corset and was buttoned up the front, making it easy to dress herself in the darkened hall. She pulled it on over her nightgown, did up the buttons all the way to her neck, then sat on the bottom step to tug on her half boots.
Oh, drat. She'd forgotten a hat. Well, she had the shawl. Emily hadn't dared sneak her pelisse out of the wardrobe and hide it under the bed, but the ratty old shawl wouldn't be missed. She'd just have to wear it over her head like an old countrywoman. The warmth would be necessary. Her destination was a mile and a half away.
She pulled on her mittens and was seized with a sudden urgency, a need to be out of this house. Opening the front door didn't frighten her the way opening her bedroom door had. She had never been outside alone at night, but Emily's fears centered around what she knew, not on the unknown. The unknown was a world she was seldom allowed to explore, a fascinating realm aglitter with possibilities as well as perils.
She turned the key quickly and stepped outside.
Earlier that day it had snowed lightly, frosting the ground, grass, eaves, and everything with white. Emily watched her breath turn white, too, and laughed aloud—white air, white ground, and big white moon smiling down on her through tatters of clouds. Happiness hit as suddenly as a storm, and she skipped down the steps, then did a spinning dance, arms raised.
Free. She was out of that house, out here on her own, with the moon and her own crisp white breath for company, and she was free. For now, only for now, but even this small bite of freedom was enough to make her giddy.
She started walking along the drive, angling toward the woods that lay east of the house. The moon was full, giving ample light, but clouds hid half the sky. One ragged cloud streamer drifted across the face of the moon like the trailing end of a scarf or shawl,
reminding her to pull her shawl up over her head as she hurried on. She left the smoothness of the drive for the crunch of brittle, snow-topped grass. The woods loomed just ahead, looking dark and mysterious enough to serve as the setting for any number of fairy tales. But Emily knew them well, and she knew herself, too. The path she needed was wide and well trodden, and she had an excellent sense of direction. She wouldn't get lost.
Not on her way there, at least. No, the dangerous part of her journey waited at the end of her trek. At Debenham Hall. In the last bedroom on the ground floor of the west wing, if Betsy, the upstairs maid, was correct.
As she entered the woods, the top of her head brushed against the outflung branch of a fir, which promptly dumped snow on her head. Drats. She'd forgotten to keep a grip on the shawl, and it had slid to her shoulders. Emily brushed the snow off her hair, gathered the shawl up over her head once more, and shivered.
Betsy had to be right. She didn't want to be ruined by the wrong man.
James Edward Charles Drake, Baron Redding, second son of the Earl of Mere, was bosky. On-the-go, half flown, slightly castaway. Not yet three sheets to the wind, he judged, for his hand was steady enough when he reached for the decanter he'd brought back to his room.
In the circles in which James moved, gentlemen were expected to be able to hold their liquor, a social skill James found amusingly ill-named. It wasn't the capacity of a man's bladder that was applauded, but his acting ability. As long as a gentleman was able to act sober, he could be as drunk as he pleased. As drunk as a lord, in fact.
James toasted himself for possessing this necessary skill and downed another swallow of his host's brandy.
Debenham did keep a good cellar, he conceded. A good cellar and an obliging wife, two amenities that he had expected to make this house party agreeable. Lady Debenham was a lovely creature with lovely breasts—great, large breasts with great, large nipples that had stood out like bull's-eyes when she'd bared them to him an hour ago. While her husband stood nearby, watching and smiling.
And the other guests, too. Watching and smiling. And snickering, a couple of them.
Damn it, James was not a prude. No one could call him a prude. Just because he didn't care to boff the man's wife while he watched did not make him a prude.
Even half drunk, however, James was pretty sure what this situation did make him. A fool. He should never have accepted Debenham's invitation. James didn't object to the man being a rake; how could he, when he was one himself? He'd attended any number of house parties where the guests played musical beds, as well as out-and-out debaucheries involving members of the muslin company.
But this house party was something quite out of the ordinary.
"Bad ton." He nodded emphatically. This caused the room to spin, but only a trifle, confirming his opinion that he wasn't—quite—drunk. "Perfectly acceptable for a man with a frisky wife to turn a blind eye. Bad ton to turn both eyes on her while she frisks. Very bad ton to ask a guest to top her under such circumstances."
Having settled the matter to his satisfaction, he leaned back, crossing his feet at the ankles. The unsteady light from the fireplace sent shadows prancing over an untidy room. The fire provided most of the light, since the one candle that still burned in the candelabrum was well-nigh guttered. No servant had drawn the drapes or tidied the room; a tailored jacket, several cravats, a greatcoat, and sundry toilette articles were dispersed casually about the room.
James's person was as untidy as his bedchamber. He lounged on the bed, his unfastened cravat dangling around his neck, his shirt hanging loose. He'd pulled his boots off himself, no doubt smudging the glossy finish and incurring Dobbs's future wrath.
He sighed. He wished his groom-cum-valet was here, and that he himself wasn't. He should have suspected something was wrong when Debenham had said he couldn't house his guests' servants. But it was common knowledge that Debenham was pretty well blown off his legs. James had assumed the man couldn't afford to feed a lot of valets and grooms in addition to his guests. It hadn't occurred to him that Debenham wanted to restrict the number of witnesses to an orgy.
The fact was, James admitted gloomily as he swirled the liquor around and around in his glass, Debenham and his lovely wife had shocked him. Embarrassment had caused him to reject the man's notion of hospitality rather bluntly and retire to his room while the party went on without him.
At some point, James expected to see the humor in this situation. Here he was, one of the ton's best-known rakes, hiding in his room like an offended maiden. Yes, that would undoubtedly tickle his sense of humor… eventually.
"I should have known," he muttered, scowling at the brandy. His father had cut Debenham in public last month. That should have warned him. The Earl of Mere might be a womanizer, an indifferent landlord, and a worse father, but he was always good ton.
Still, the house party had served its purpose. The earl had been furious when he found out James planned to attend. No doubt he would have disinherited James on the spot if he hadn't already enjoyed that pleasure. Not that the earl cared what his second son did, except for cursing his disobedience. Now that James's older brother had amply secured the succession with his own heir and a spare, James's existence was entirely superfluous.
"Su-per-flu-ous," he said aloud, rolling the word off his tongue in careful syllables. If he could still string together a word like that, he wasn't drunk enough. Yet. But when he tipped the decanter in the general direction of his glass, nothing came out.
Blasted thing was empty.
Only thing to do, he decided, was to get some more. No point in ringing for it. If the servants hadn't actually been invited to join the party—and James didn't put even that past his host and hostess—they were abed by now. He would fetch it himself.
His decision made, James rolled off the bed and onto his feet. The floor showed a tendency to roll as if he were aboard a ship, however, so he gave it a moment to settle.
Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.
The floor had steadied, but now he was hearing things. He frowned.
Tap-tap-tap.
He really was hearing something. A tapping, at the window. He turned his head.
By God, there was a woman there. Or a witch? A witch, floating at his window with a great black cloak pulled over her head… No, no. No need for her to float. He was housed on the ground floor, owing to a dearth of inhabitable rooms in Debenham's neglected family seat. And as he moved closer he realized the black cloak was really an enormous shawl. Beneath that shawl her face was a pale oval, the features blurred by darkness. She looked young, though.
Not a witch, then. A Cyprian.
He smiled. Debenham must have recovered from his pique and sent James one of the women he'd imported for those of his guests who didn't have a wife handy to pass around. His brandy-fumed brain found an explanation for the ugly shawl: It was cold outside.
Poor thing. He'd better let her in and warm her up.
It was a casement window, fortunately, low to the ground and easy to unlatch. He swung it open and, mindful of the the courtesies, managed a bow without toppling over. "Do come in, my dear."
Emily was glad the window was set low to the ground, since her ravisher was too busy bowing to offer any assistance. She climbed over the sill without any great loss of dignity.
Soon she would lose more than her dignity. She glanced nervously at the bed that sat squarely in the center of the room, the covers all a-tumble. In spite of being country-bred, Emily had only a dim idea of what would happen to her tonight, save that it would involve an embarrassing degree of intimacy. And that bed.
She looked at the man standing in front of her. In the dim light, she couldn't see him clearly—but she saw enough to know she had found the right room. This was definitely the man she had encountered in the woods yesterday, the rake whose kiss had changed her life.
He had the look of a fallen angel, with his dark, untidy hair and his dark eyes set deeply beneath straight black brows. Compelling eyes, she had thought yesterday. Tonight they looked hazy, but that might be the poor light. His mouth was beautiful, as perfectly carved as any Greek statue's.
As for the rest of him… oh, my. With his shirt undone and his cravat loose, she saw a good deal more male flesh than she was used to seeing, and the shape of him was… firm. Delightfully firm. Something fluttered deep in her belly.
She clasped her mittened hands together. "You must be wondering why I'm here."
"Much too cold to stay out there." He moved closer—alarmingly close—and touched her cheek. "Your face is chilled."
Not as chilled as her hands and feet were. Strangely, though, when he stroked her cheek, she began to feel warmer. "This is very irregular, I know, but I do feel we should introduce ourselves. I'm Emily Smythe."
"Emily." His eyes were dreamy now, and his fingers trailed down her throat, stopping where they met the high neck of her gown. "What a lot of buttons you have, Emily. I am James Drake, Baron Redding— a courtesy title only, borrowed from my father and signifying nothing."
She nodded. "Yes, I know. I mean, I know your name. I asked someone after—after what happened." After he had flirted with her and kissed her, and her sneaksby cousin, who had followed her into the woods, saw it, and carried the tale home ahead of her.
He pushed the shawl off her head, and off her shoulders, too. The sudden intimacy of having her clothing removed here, in a bedroom, by this man, made her hands clutch at the material in a sudden flare of panic.
His eyebrows went up. "I don't think you're going to need this." He tugged.
Of course not. She made herself let go, and the shawl fell to the floor. She shivered. "Don't you think you should close the window?"
"Of course. I'm not quite myself. Or perhaps too much myself. What do you think, my dear—do we find in vino veritas, or in vino dementia?"
"I think it is rude to toss Latin around unless one knows that the person one is speaking with is acquainted with it." She would have liked very much to learn Latin, but Uncle Rupert thought such knowledge unseemly in a female.
He chuckled. "Very true." He lifted one of her hands as if he were going to kiss it, then stopped, surprised. "Mittens?"
"It is cold outside. And rather chilly in here, too, with the window open."
"I keep forgetting." He shook his head, then grimaced. "We're not on a ship, are we?"
"Ah—no."
"Didn't think so. Remind me not to move my head so quickly." At last he turned to the window, his brow furrowed as if he were thinking. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to be thinking about closing the window, because he just stood there. "I could have sworn Debenham wasn't happy with me, after what happened."
"Lord Debenham?" She knew who that was, of course, having seen him in the village several times. The last time, he had looked at her in a perfectly horrid way. But she'd never spoken to the man. No one in the neighborhood did, due to what her aunt called his excesses, though Emily had never been able to discover precisely what excesses he practiced. "What do you mean?"
"You weren't there?" He turned around—and wobbled slightly. "No, you weren't. I would have noticed." He gave her a singularly sweet smile. "You look just like her."
"Her? Who?"
"The wood nymph."
But she was the one he had called a wood nymph when he was flirting with her, just before he stole a kiss. Emily frowned. Did he call every young woman a wood nymph? And why was he leaning so far out the window? "My lord, are you feeling well?"
"Call me James," he said cheerfully, and brought himself back into the room, closing the window at the same time. "I don't like being 'my lord'-ed in bed."
Emily's face heated. She shouldn't be bothered by his assumption that she was here to visit his bed, since he was quite right.
"Don't frown so, pretty nymph. I'm slightly on the go, but not in-ca-pac-i-tat-ed." He rolled the word out one syllable at a time.
"Oh, you're castaway!" That was a relief. She'd begun to fear that her chosen ravisher was a few bricks shy of a load.
It had been many years since Emily had listened in on the impromptu parties her father and his fellow officers had sometimes held. Emily hadn't actually seen those convivial gatherings, of course, but the quarters an officer without private means could afford for his family had invariably been small enough to make eavesdropping easy. She remembered how silly they had gotten after tipping the bottle too freely.
She also remembered finding her cousin Ralph once, after he'd been into her uncle's port. He'd been casting up his accounts in the bushes. "You aren't going to be ill, are you?"
"Not a bit." He slipped an arm around her waist and drew her close. "I'm well able to take care of you, pretty one."
He hadn't held her yesterday, when he'd kissed her. No one had held Emily this closely for years. James's long, firm body felt distractingly… different. He smelled different, too. Like brandy and sandal wood and something else, something warm and strange and desperately interesting. She wanted to put her face in the crook of his neck and sniff him.
How embarrassing. "You, uh, obviously know why I'm here."
"I may be half sprung, but I'm not stupid." He smiled slowly. "And I may be a fool at times, but not foolish enough as to refuse such a lovely gift. A lovely going-away present." He nuzzled her cheek. "I'm sailing for America in two days, pretty nymph. Bought my fare after I had a run of luck at cards. You can give me some last memories of England to take with me."
"America?" For a second she forgot what he was doing and why she was there, as other longings rushed in. "How exciting!"
"Very exciting." His voice was low and thick, and he put his hand on her breast—right over it, squeezing lightly. "Especially when you look so much like her."
She swallowed. "Her. You said that before."
"Not too drunk to perform," he murmured ruefully, "but too far gone for tact." And then he went and sniffed her neck, just as she'd thought of doing to him… no, he was nibbling on it, tickling her skin with the tip of his tongue. How odd! How—wonderful. "I spoke of a pretty wood nymph I once stole a kiss from. Or perhaps she was a dream. But no dream could be as delightful as the way you taste… here."
She felt the scrape of teeth—lightly, oh, so lightly—but it startled her so much she jumped, and his hand slipped away from her breast Did people do that? She'd seen her uncle's dogs once when the bitch came in season, and the male dog had put his teeth on the bitch's neck.
Surely the rest of it wouldn't be like what she'd seen the dogs do. Would it?
He kissed the place he'd nipped. Sensations slid through her, rich and layered—the tiny sting where he'd nipped, the soothing press of his mouth… no, not so soothing, for it made her want to move. To tip her head so he would go on doing that… and that.
He was sucking at her skin now. Dogs certainly didn't do that.
Her hands had found their way to his shoulders. His shirt was thin, the linen a barely noticed barrier between her fingers and his skin. He felt so interesting. Her fingers had begun a tentative exploration of bone and muscle and skin, one hand slipping up to explore the nape of his neck, when he muttered something about his pretty nymph.
What was it with him and nymphs?
Nurse had been right. Men obviously were capable of lusting after persons who were total strangers to them. James had no idea whose neck he was nuzzling so delightfully.
Why this would bother her when indiscriminate male lust was necessary to her Plan, she didn't know. But it did. Emily's lips tightened. "Let's get on with it, shall we?"
He lifted his head, smiling, which made his eyes crinkle up at the comers in a way she found quite charming. And annoying. He was amused, drat him. "Far be it from me to keep a lady waiting. Aside from Lady Debenham, that is, who can wait indefinitely as far as I'm concerned. Although it may be her husband I've disappointed, in which case I don't think we should count that, do you?"
"You're not making any sense."
"No? Then let us, as you say, get on with it." And he bent and scooped her up into his arms.
Emily squeaked and threw her arms around his neck. He took three quick steps—and dropped her. Right onto his bed. Then he came down on top of her.
Her eyes went wide and her body stiff. Remember the Plan, she told herself as he kissed her, full and hard on the mouth, which made her eyes close and her heart drum a mixture of panic and pleasure. She told herself to cooperate, to put her own arms around him, but he slid his hand up her bare calf to her knee.
And he didn't stop there.
Oh, my.
Lust and brandy made an intoxicating brew, especially when stirred with a dash of amusement and a whiff of temper.
So she wanted to get on with it, did she? James was more than ready.
He landed on top of her more heavily than he'd intended, due to the brandy. Fortunately, the liquor component of the brew hadn't affected the lust component at all. He couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten this hot, this hard, this fast. He bent to catch her mouth with his.
She tasted even better than she had yesterday in the woods… no, no, that had been a different woman. A young, gently born innocent with more curiosity than was good for her. He'd seen that curiosity shining in her big eyes as clearly as he'd seen her innocence, and it had had a surprisingly erotic effect on him. So he had stolen a kiss, giving her a taste of the answers she unknowingly sought.
And giving himself a memory that clung with unreasonable persistence.
Not that he'd kissed her then the way he was kissing her now—no, the way he was kissing the strumpet in his bed. It was important to keep the two women straight. One was an innocent, off bounds. The other was a pretty bit of muslin, her breasts delightfully unbound by anything as annoying as a corset. A pretty strumpet, ready and willing to please him in whichever ways he chose to be pleased.
There was no reason to prefer the innocent over the strumpet. And he didn't. Of course not. But maybe it wasn't too great a sin if thoughts of her tangled up in his mind with the feel of this woman's soft skin as he ran his hand up her leg, pushing her skirts up as he went, enjoying her mouth the way he would have liked to enjoy the wood nymph's mouth.
For a woman eager to get on with things, she was oddly passive. She wasn't moving, wasn't gasping or grasping at him. She wasn't even kissing him back. But that thought was dim next to the bright heat of lust, dim and slippery. It slid down the hasty slope of heat and sensation and vanished.
He stroked the curls at the top of her legs. She made a funny sound. A squeaky sound. His mind hazed by brandy and lust, James paid little attention to that.
But he did notice her legs. They were clamped tightly together.
Even brandy-bemused, he knew her legs weren't supposed to be closed to him at this point. He lifted his head, cupping her mound reassuringly with one hand. Her eyes were tightly closed. Her hair… for the first time he noticed her hair. It was in a braid.
Had he ever bedded a strumpet with braided hair? It seemed wrong, somehow. "Ah—sweetheart? Is there a problem?"
"Oh, no. But are you—" She swallowed. "Are you sure this is what you're supposed to do?"
Was he sure… Oh, God.
Thoughts crowded in then, darting around too quickly to grasp—but he tried. He tried. James held himself completely still, afraid that any movement would send him sliding off in some unpredictable direction. "Emily," he said as steadily as he could, his hand still resting on her intimately. "Emily, where do you live?"
Even in the poor light, he could see the rush of color to her face—and that her eyes stayed closed. "I told you. At Rosehill Manor."
She had told him… yesterday, in the woods. He had asked a pretty maid where wood nymphs stayed when they weren't wandering about, enticing strangers with their beauty. She had given him back a merry chuckle and said she couldn't speak for nymphs in general, but she herself lived at the western end of the woods. At Rosehill Manor.
"Oh, God." He hurled himself away so violently he nearly rolled off the bed. "What—" His chest heaved and he tried, he tried very hard, not to shout. "What in the name of heaven are you doing here?"
"Getting ruined," she said in a small voice. "Is that all there is to it? Somehow I thought there would be more."
James began to curse.
Emily lay flat on her back on the big bed, confused, aching, and embarrassed. She was damp in a place she didn't even have a name for. He had touched her there, and it had felt good. Beyond good. Amazing,
really. Not to mention scary. She had never dreamed feelings like that existed.
He didn't seem embarrassed or confused. No, he was angry. Emily regretted that without understanding it. She must have done something wrong, which wasn't surprising when she didn't know anything about being bedded save that a bed was involved.
His anger didn't upset her, though, the way her relatives' anger did. Perhaps because he wasn't yelling. Cursing didn't bother her, not when he did it in a low voice that reminded her of the way Ned, the groom, spoke to the horses sometimes. Quietly, so they wouldn't be alarmed. He even used some of the same words Ned did.
Ned always refused to tell her what those words meant. Emily's curiosity, never far from the surface, rescued her from the pain of embarrassment as she straightened her skirts. "What does 'shagging' mean?"
"Never mind." He was certainly a man of sudden movements. This time he threw himself all the way off the bed and onto his feet. "Get up."
Obediently she sat up. "Am I ruined now?"
"Not if I can help it, by God." He grabbed her hand and dragged her harum-scarum off the bed and onto her feet, then grabbed her shawl and threw it at her.
She caught it, frowning unhappily. "I guess this means you'd like me to go."
"Preferably before your father arrives." He sat on the chair and picked up one of his boots.
She was beginning to get a bit angry herself. "My father is dead, and I don't see why you are being so uncivil."
"Your brother, then, or your uncle." He was struggling with the boot, which didn't seem to want to admit his foot properly. "Whichever male relative is slated for the role of outraged guardian."
"I don't have a brother, and my uncle wouldn't come to this house even if he knew I was here, which he doesn't. He doesn't approve of Lord Debenham and his wife. Or of you," she added pointedly.
"Good for him." He grunted and the boot slid into place. "We're still leaving before whoever is supposed to catch you here shows up."
"Catch me? I know you're foxed, but I'm not. I'm not crazy, either!"
"You're female. Amounts to the same thing." The other boot went on with one fierce tug and he stood, stamping his feet to settle them properly, then reached for his waistcoat.
Faintly, from another part of the house, came the shrill sound of a woman's laughter. "Are Lord Debenham's other guests still awake, then? I saw lights at the front of the house before I found your window, and I was worried you might not be in your room and I would have to wait." She tilted her head. "Why were you here if everyone else is still at the party?"
"You ask too many questions. Put your mittens on." He grimaced. "Good God, mittens. That should have tipped me off, even if I was too drunk to notice what you are wearing."
She bristled. "What's wrong with how I am dressed?"
Unexpectedly, he grinned. "It isn't exactly the sort of thing a Cyprian wears when she calls on a gentleman. But I was too busy noticing what you weren't wearing to pay attention to the style of your gown."
"What do you mean?"
"No corset."
Her skin heated. "You are certainly blunt."
"You object to my mentioning what you are or aren't wearing under your gown, but not to what I was doing beneath it?" He shook his head.
Her cheeks got even hotter. "You wanted me to remind you not to move your head quickly that way."
"I'm sobering up fast." His jacket was so tightly fitted that it was almost as much of an effort to don as his boots had been. "Nearly stepping into some conniving female's marriage trap can have that effect on a man."
"Marriage—oh, is that why you're upset?" Relief made her smile at him reassuringly. "I am not trying to trap you into marrying me! Good heavens, that's the whole point. Uncle Rupert thought you should marry me when he heard about you kissing me—"
"And just how did he hear about it?"
"My cousin Francis," she explained patiently. "He's eleven, and he's a dreadful little snitch. You would think that he would have better things to do than sneak after me into the woods, just hoping to see something he could tattle about, wouldn't you? Anyway, he saw you kiss me and told Aunt Dorothea, and of course she told Uncle Rupert, who thought you should marry me, but Aunt Dorothea told him not to be a fool. She has noble connections, you see, so she hears a great deal of ton gossip, and she said you were neither honorable enough nor green enough to be caught that way, and that very likely you wouldn't offer for me if we had been caught in flagrante delicto, which I think is Latin for being ruined."
"My compliments to your aunt on her astuteness. I am certainly not going to offer for you."
"There, now." She was pleased to have her surmises confirmed. "I didn't think you would."
"But neither do I care to be part of the sort of scene your uncle or whomever has it in mind to stage when he finds you here, so you might as well go ahead and wrap up in that hideous shawl. You're going out the window with or without it."
"You don't believe me!" She was as surprised as she was insulted. "You still think I am trying to trap you into marriage. I suppose I should make allowances, since you don't really know me, but I never lie."
"Never?" His eyebrow cocked up in a skeptical way.
"I'm no good at it, you see. That's one of the reasons Aunt Dorothea despairs of making me into a proper young lady."
"I can see why she might be concerned," he said dryly, handing her mittens to her. "A disinclination to lie is something of a social disability, but I would say it was the least of your aunt's worries."
"It isn't that she wants me to lie, exactly." She pulled the mittens on. "But there are a great many subjects one is not supposed to mention in polite conversation, and I can never get it right. It all seems to involve a great deal of pretending, which is rather like lying, isn't it? And it is very difficult to never ask any questions, even when one really wants to know the answer. Aunt Dorothea says that if I possessed a proper elegance of mind such questions wouldn't occur to me, but I sometimes think that a truly elegant mind is much like an empty one. Look at the Trowbridge twins. They are considered terribly well behaved, and in a week's time they seldom have a complete thought to share between them."
A smile touched his lips. It made him look more like the charming young man she had met yesterday, and less like the hardened rakehell he was supposed to be. "It sounds as if your aunt has her hands full with you."
She sighed. "That's what everyone says."
"So if your goal isn't marriage, why are you here? And don't tell me it's because I kissed you yesterday."
"But that is why I'm here."
His smile hardened. "I may be good, sweetheart, but I'm not that good. Not enough to tempt a young lady to cast virtue aside with, ah, such wholehearted abandon on the basis of a single chaste kiss."
"I wouldn't call it chaste. It wasn't like the way you were kissing me just now, but I don't think it was chaste, either."
He shook his head and turned to grab the huge greatcoat adorned with four capes from where it had been tossed across a chair. "You're still leaving."
"All right, but I need to know if I am completely ruined now."
"You're not ruined as long as no one knows what happened tonight." He thrust the window open once more. "And I'm damned well going to see to it that no one does."
"They will when I tell them." She spoke absently, her mind on other things as she wrapped the shawl around herself and followed him to the window.
It did sound as if there were more to the type of intimacy that resulted in ruination for a single woman, or children for a married one, than what they had already done. She couldn't help wondering what that might be. Considering everything they had done… of course, he hadn't stripped. She was almost sure he had to remove at least some of his clothing for It to happen. Whatever It was.
"And why would you be totty-headed enough to do that?"
It took her a moment to recall what she'd said. "Oh. Well, there is really no point in all this if I don't tell them."
His lips tightened. "It will be your word against mine." He stepped over the sill.
"I suppose that means you don't have a problem with lying."
"Not at all. I have been well trained to take my place in polite society." He stepped over the sill and turned, holding out one hand. "Come on, quickly, now."
He certainly was eager to speed her on her way, wasn't he? It was probably for the best, but Emily suspected that, even if they hadn't done everything, they had done enough to keep her from ever marrying. Which was her goal, of course, but being half ruined was apt to prove frustrating. She doubted she would ever find out what else was involved.
"You don't have to go with me."
"Don't be a ninny."
"You sound less like a rake and more like Cousin George all the time." It was very disappointing. Reluctantly, she took his hand, and he assisted her over the sill as gracefully as if she had been climbing down from a carriage.
His words were less courteous. "I suppose you consider your crack-brained behavior tonight perfectly reasonable."
"Under the circumstance, yes. I—Oh, dear." She looked up. "The clouds have moved in. It's dark as pitch out here."
"Damn and blast. I don't suppose you were intelligent enough to supply yourself with a lantern."
"There was plenty of light when I came here. The moon is full." Of course, she could find her way back in the dark if she had to. Emily never got lost, and, indeed, she had trouble understanding how other people could.
But perhaps she would keep that information to herself for now.
"The moon isn't doing us much good now. Did it not occur to you that you would have to return, too? And that the weather just might change?"
"I hadn't planned on being evicted before morning. I think it most unchivalrous of you, sir."
"On the contrary. It's probably the only chivalrous thing I've ever done. Which is no doubt why I'm making such a muck of it—lack of practice." He sighed. "Back inside with you. We can't go anywhere until I find a lantern."
James was not a happy man. He didn't like feeling a fool. He hadn't even noticed that it was as black as the back side of hell out here—and that was the least of his folly tonight. Sexual frustration clawed at him, making his skin tight, his cock hard, and his blood churn with lust, guilt, and less identifiable emotions.
Nobility was vastly overrated, in his opinion. "Get back inside," he snapped.
Unexpectedly she giggled. "I just noticed. You put your waistcoat on inside out."
Her giggle was light and girlish. It tugged at something inside him that he didn't want touched. It also increased the prickling of guilt without doing a thing to ease his arousal. "How old are you?" he asked suddenly.
"Nineteen. You know, I quite thought that was one of those questions one wasn't supposed to ask."
Nineteen. It could have been worse. "I think our acquaintance has been unconventional enough that we needn't worry about the dictates of polite conversation."
She nodded seriously. "Good. I am a poor hand at that, anyway. How old are you?"
"Twenty-six."
"Really? I thought you must be at least thirty."
That paid him off nicely for his temper, especially since she was totally unaware of having delivered a set-down. "No doubt the marks of dissipation on my face misled you."
"No, I don't think so. I haven't noticed any marks of dissipation—that is, assuming you mean the wrinkles and red squiggly lines around the nose and eyes that Lord Debenham has. I just expected you to be older. I didn't know one could become a hardened rake so young."
"I started young. That, too, is something for which I have been well trained." He held out his hand. "And now, perhaps, do you think we could go back inside?"
She sighed and climbed back through the window without allowing him to assist her.
He followed quickly, unbuttoning his greatcoat. "Close the window, would you? I'll be back as soon as I can. God knows where I'll find a lantern."
"I'll help," she offered, folding her deplorable shawl and laying it neatly on the chair. "I know the house fairly well."
His eyebrows lifted. "I thought the local gentry didn't recognize Debenham."
"Oh, they don't. Not the current one. The old lord was respectable, however, and his housekeeper used to give us plum cakes—my cousins and me, that is. We weren't supposed to pester her, but she was a very motherly woman and seemed to enjoy our visits. So I do know where the kitchen is, and that is probably where you'll find a lantern."
"Nonetheless, you are not going with me." He tossed his greatcoat on the floor, since her shawl now occupied the only chair.
She frowned. "You'll find it more quickly if I am with you."
"I don't want you seen wandering around the house with me. In fact, I want your word that you'll stay here while I go looking for a lantern."
Even in the poor light, there was no mistaking the stubborn set of that pointy little chin. "You have no authority over me."
"If you don't promise to stay in this room while I'm gone, I will lock you in."
She sniffed and turned to tug off her mittens and slap them, one at a time, on the dresser next to the candelabrum. "I dislike high-handed persons who order others around and won't listen to perfectly reasonable suggestions."
He didn't think she would recognize reason if it reared up and bit her on that delightful bottom. "Oh? You liked me well enough earlier, when you were trying to seduce me."
"Nonsense. I wouldn't know a thing about seducing anyone. I was counting on you to handle things." She used the smoldering candle stub to relight the others, and the room brightened.
How had he thought her anyone but who she was? Even drunk, even with the dim light, he should have recognized her. She had a piquant face, heart-shaped, with a straight-and-narrow nose and a too-wide mouth that looked made for smiling. Or kissing. And God, but he wanted to kiss her again. And again.
He needed to get out of here. "I was enjoying handling things, too. Until I realized who you were."
A pair of very fine blue eyes fringed by lashes several shades darker than her taffy-colored hair regarded him reproachfully. "And then you stopped."
"Shockingly inconsiderate of me."
"Well, yes, it was. Though I expect I'm still mostly ruined, aren't I? I do hope it will be enough."
"Enough for what? Other than trapping me into marriage, that is, which is not such a good idea as you might think."
"You keep harping on that idea. I came here to avoid marriage, not to trap anyone into it. In fact, I promise not to marry you."
"How remarkable. Aside from an adventurous widow or two, I cannot call to mind any ladies of my acquaintance who are opposed to marriage."
"I don't object to marriage. Just to marrying Sir Edgar or Ralph Aldyce."
He was beginning to believe her. In spite of logic and past experience, he was beginning to believe that she really hadn't come here in a crack-brained attempt to force an offer from him. "Can't say I recognize the names. Local lads, I suppose?"
"Yes. At least, they are both neighbors, but I don't think anyone would call Sir Edgar a lad." Her nose wrinkled. "He's over forty."
"Ancient indeed." James tried, he really did, but he couldn't keep from laughing. This was one of life's better jokes. "Let me see if I understand. You came here to be ruined so you wouldn't have to marry one of your suitors?"
"I can see you think that's amusing, but it isn't funny to me."
"You have no idea." He shook his head, grinning.
"You see, I came here to avoid a marriage my relatives sought for me, too."
Her eyes widened. "You? But—but you're a man! No one can make you get married! Besides, you're going to America."
"When I accepted Debenham's invitation, I hadn't yet won the stake I needed for the fare. And I wanted to make something clear to my father." He shrugged. "Stupid of me. The earl isn't sufficiently aware of me to understand the point I was trying to make."
"But why would your father force you to marry? And what point were you making? And—"
"Never mind about me." She was a curious little thing, wasn't she? "Emily, you have to go home and tell no one where you've been. When the time comes, refuse your suitors if you don't fancy them."
She shook her head. "No, my aunt and uncle are determined that I marry one of them. Of course, they have been wanting that for some time, especially since I wasted my chances during my Season, but they weren't absolutely set on it until they heard about you kissing me."
"Do you know, I was expecting that this would somehow be all my fault."
"Don't be tiresome. I'm not blaming you—though I must say, it seems odd for you to go around kissing strange females. I daresay that is the sort of thing rakes do, however," she added, "and I don't mean to take you to task for your habits."
His lip twitched. "Thank you."
"The real fault is mine. I am well aware of it. I should have stopped you, or fainted, or at least slapped you. I shouldn't have spoken to you in the first place,]' she added with less conviction, more ü the manned of one conscientiously repeating a maxim "Especially since it was obvious you were part of Lord Debenham's party."
"No doubt your aunt told you so."
"Yes, among other things." She shuddered. "It was horrible. I have a horror of being yelled at, and told how ungrateful I am, and that I am driving my loved ones to an early grave, and—and a number of unpleasant things."
Gently he said, "I am sorry my kiss caused you so much trouble. Yet I don't think that your adventure tonight will help you avoid, er, being yelled at."
"No, it will be quite horrid when they rind out. But it will prevent me from marrying Sir Edgar. Or Ralph."
"Emily, I do understand how unpleasant it can be when your family is hounding you. But they can't make you marry where you don't wish to."
"Yes, they can. And it's no use telling me to have resolution. Marcus always tells me that. He's my favorite cousin, and he means well, but it doesn't do any good to tell me to have resolution, because I don't. Sooner or later, I would have given in and done what they wanted. I always do. So I had to make it impossible for me to give in."
"That makes about as much sense as lopping off your foot to avoid twisting an ankle."
Her shoulders drooped. "I thought you might understand, since you're in a similar situation yourself."
That unfamiliar tugging was back. He didn't like it. It made him want to touch her cheek, to offer comfort—oh, now, there was a ludicrous thought. The only kind of comfort he knew how to give a woman was the sort that came from a long, sweaty bout between the sheets.
He turned and grabbed the empty brandy decanter. It had occurred to him that his earlier mission would serve to explain his wandering around the house, if he was seen. "Our situations are not the same. When word got out about my attendance at this party, a few more hostesses crossed me off their lists. But you would be completely ostracized. Do you have any idea what that would be like?"
She nodded gloomily. "I'll be sent to live with my great-aunt in Yorkshire. I've been threatened with it often enough, so I know that's what will happen. Great-Aunt Regina is the only one on my father's side of the family who acknowledges me. She's a Methodist, and she doesn't approve of visiting the sins of the fathers on the children. She also disapproves of dancing and wearing colors. And men. She won't have a footman or a butler because she thinks men are limbs of Satan. It will be awful there—but better than marrying Ralph or Sir Edgar."
Ralph and Sir Edgar must be remarkably inept suitors, if they couldn't make themselves appear to better advantage than Great-Aunt Regina. James looked at her small, sad face and decided he'd better leave now, before he did something else foolish. "Are you going to promise to stay here while I'm gone, or do I have to lock you in?"
"I don't see a key in the door."
Damn and blast. She was right. "Emily, you really do have to stay here. If anyone should see you—"
"It wouldn't matter. I have promised not to wring a proposal from you."
"Strange as it seems, I'm worried for your sake, not my own."
She smiled. "That is nice of you, but it isn't necessary."
Nice? He hadn't been called "nice" since before he left the nursery. James ran a hand over his hair. "Look, aside from the danger of you being seen— which I realize you don't consider a problem—I don't want to risk you seeing Debenham and his guests, either. They, ah… you shouldn't see the sort of things they're up to, that's all."
She nodded wisely. "Debauchery."
"Not that you have the faintest idea what is meant by the term, but yes. And not ordinary debauchery, either, though that would be bad enough. Debenham…" How to discourage her without saying too much? "Why do you think I was alone in my room when you came?"
"I did ask you that. You told me not to ask so many questions."
"Did I?" He grinned crookedly. "Well, I was here because the party became too bawdy for me. And, as you keep pointing out, I am a rake."
"Goodness." Her eyes were wide. "I wonder what—"
"Never mind 'what.' Will you take my word for it that it would be wrong, even dangerous, for you to leave this room?"
"I suppose so. Though I am very curious about what behavior is too licentious for a rake." She looked at him hopefully.
He laughed. "No, I am not going to tell you. Do I have your promise to stay here while I find a lantern?"
She nodded reluctantly.
He turned, but her hand on his arm stopped him. It was a small hand, the palm wide, the fingers short and blunt. A practical-looking hand, at odds with her disposition.
He wanted to nibble on those short, practical fingers.
"You'd better let me give you directions if you want to avoid the other guests. The kitchen is on the west side of the house."
What he had better do was get out of there before lust drowned out what shreds of conscience he still possessed. "The others are in the Long Drawing Room, or were. I'll go through the main hall at the front of the house and blunder around until I find the kitchen."
"But the Great Hall is right in front of the Long Drawing Room. If you don't want to be seen…" She bit her lower lip thoughtfully. He wanted to do that for her. "You know where this wing joins the main house? Turn left at the first door past the half flight of stairs. That's the portrait gallery. The door at the far end opens into the library. There are two—no, three doors leading from it. You want the west one. There's a bust of Julius Caesar next to it. His nose is chipped. That door leads to the little dining room, and if you go straight through it to the door on the opposite wall, you'll be in the hall that leads to the kitchen."
His eyebrows went up. "You do know the house well."
"The old lord used to let me use the library sometimes. He gave me a tour once, too, before he became an invalid."
Once? Debenham's father had died three or four years ago. That was a long time to retain such a detailed mental map of a rambling old house. Either her directions were as imaginative as her plan for avoiding marriage, or she wasn't the widgeon she seemed. "Bookish, are you?"
"Oh, no. My cousin George's wife, Mildred, is something of a bluestocking, which Uncle Rupert doesn't like, but my aunt considers her unexceptional otherwise. Mildred is very high-minded," Emily assured him. "During the Season she holds literary salons. She invited me to one and I thought it a crashing bore, so obviously I am not bookish."
He smiled. "Yet you liked visiting the library here."
"It has a number of books about other places, you see. India and China and the Sandwich Islands and— oh, all sorts of fascinating places." She smiled shyly. "America, too. I am extremely curious about other places and peoples, and books are the next best thing to seeing them in person, aren't they?"
That's when James forgot. He was thinking about her big, wistful eyes, and that she would never see the distant lands that fascinated her. He was thinking about her, and forgot to be on guard against himself.
So he kissed her.
Emily didn't close her eyes. James was going to kiss her again. And this time she wanted to see everything.
He was smiling when their lips met. His mouth was warm, but the skin on his cheek was cold from their brief venture outside. She discovered this intriguing contrast when her hand flew to his face as he nibbled at her lips. Her fingers slid from cheek to jaw, exploring smooth, cool flesh so unlike her own, for a hint of roughness underlaid it.
His eyes were nearly closed, the lids heavy, as if he were so focused on the pleasure of her mouth that he had no attention left to give to sight. Emily didn't mind. She liked being free to look at him. He was beautiful.
When his tongue teased at the corner of her mouth, she sighed in pleasure—and when her lips parted, his tongue slipped inside, shocking her into stillness. Fascinating her. He tasted of brandy and darker flavors, a blend so rich and intriguing she had to explore it. She touched her tongue to his.
He groaned and pulled her up against him, and it felt wonderful—her breasts pressed against the hard wall of his chest, her body molded to his.
Time hung suspended as their breaths and mouths mated. How odd, she thought dimly. She felt closer to him now, with her clothes still in place, than she had when he had touched her everywhere a gentleman shouldn't touch a lady.
It grew harder to keep her eyes open. There was so much to feel, so many sensory clues to investigate. She began to pulse in the place he had touched earlier, and a restless ache built and bubbled inside her. She had to move. So she rubbed herself against him.
He made a strangled noise, gripped her arm with his free hand, and moved away from her. His eyes were hot and dark and blank.
Her gaze slid to his throat, where his pulse throbbed. "Does this mean you've changed your mind about me leaving?"
"No!" He dropped her arm as if she'd burned him, then turned quickly and left, slamming the door behind him.
Emily didn't move. Feelings squirmed around inside her, disturbing her body, her breath, and her mind. These feelings were both like and unlike what she'd experienced before. They were stronger, yes… but that wasn't the only difference. And it was important that she understand what had changed. She wasn't sure why, but she knew it was important.
Restlessly she tidied James's things while she tried to make sense of desire. She did know that was what she was feeling, but naming it didn't help. Never had Emily been as curious about anything as she was about these feelings. For once, though, her curiosity worried her. She was afraid that if she kept kissing James, she would grow to crave the taste and feel of him.
She was afraid she already had.
Oh… that was it. That was what was different. This time, she had kissed him back, knowing it was James she was kissing. Wanting him, not just those delicious feelings.
She wanted James. It made all the difference.
She wanted to learn everything about him—the textures of his skin, and whether he liked gooseberry tarts as much as she did. The name of his horse. His birth date. Who his friends were, and if he liked fishing and dancing. What questions rose to trouble him in the middle of the night, when the world was dark and lonely.
Oh, my.
She stopped moving, his jacket in her hands. Maybe he was right. Maybe she should hurry home, before she learned more than she could afford to know about him. But never again would she have a chance to explore the way he made her feel. She couldn't imagine letting someone else touch her that way.
Should she try to persuade him to let her stay the night—to finish what he had started? Or was that horribly wicked, more sinful even than her original plan? She hadn't the excuse of necessity now, only—what was that?
The noise came again, a faint thump out in the hall. There hadn't been enough time for James to reach the kitchen and return, but maybe he had found a lantern somewhere closer. She started for the door.
And heard a woman's voice, muttering a most unladylike curse.
Emily's eyes widened in horror as the handle of the door slowly turned.
* * *
James found a lantern and the brandy without encountering any of the servants—some of whom, from the sound of things, had been invited to participate in the revels. He grimaced as he padded quietly through the darkened dining room. On the other side of the wall one woman squealed, another giggled, and two men sang the chorus to an obscene ditty, accompanied by the rhythmic slapping of flesh against flesh.
His lip curled in distaste. At least Emily was tucked up safely in his room. As safe as she could be in this house, that is. Which wasn't safe at all. Especially when her only protector wanted badly to finish what he'd started.
He could have her. And not just because of her crack-brained plan to ruin herself, either. She had liked what he had done to her. Even when he'd been treating her like a lightskirt, she had enjoyed his touch. Her body might be untried, but it was naturally, beautifully responsive. Pretty Emily Smythe was as hot and sweet as a man could wish… and defenseless against one unscrupulous enough to use her innate sensuality to get what he wanted.
She was also infatuated with him.
James knew women too well to have missed seeing that. He could have kissed her right out of that ugly dress, right into his bed and onto her back. He could have gone on to answer every question she had about how men and women fit together, and plenty she had never thought to ask.
Oh, yes, he could have her. Partly because she wanted to be ruined. Partly because he knew how to overwhelm her senses with a passion she was too inexperienced to handle. And partly because she wanted him.
She wanted him.
And that made all the difference.
The knowledge acted as a sweet kick that went straight to his groin—and what remained of his conscience. He had seen trust shining in her eyes as clearly as he'd seen the infatuation, and knew he would damn himself completely if he violated either one.
But James knew himself better than Emily did, and trusted himself far less. If he didn't get her out of here quickly, he was very much afraid he would end up taking more than she could afford to lose.
Because he wanted her, too. Not just her sweet woman's body. Her.
James didn't notice the door to his room was ajar until he reached for the handle. When he did, he froze. He was sure he had pulled it closed when he left. Hell, he'd slammed it. And she had promised to stay put. He'd thought he could trust a widgeon who never lied—but then, he had only her word for it that she didn't lie. Which probably meant that he was the idiot.
Oh, God, if she was wandering around this house… He shoved the door open with his foot.
Someone was in his room, all right, but it was the wrong woman. Lady Amelia Debenham lay on his bed. He glanced around the room. No badly dressed nymph lurked in the corners. Either she had left, or—
Debenham's wife uncoiled from her supine position, giving him glimpses of long white limbs as she swung her legs off the bed and stood. That offered him a different view, this time of full, mostly bare breasts. She pouted. "You don't look happy to see me, James."
"You surprised me." Now, there was an understatement if ever he'd made one.
She shrugged. The gown's bodice slipped from scandalous to indecent. "I don't hold a grudge. Not everyone enjoys a public performance, so I came for a more private one."
"I do hold a grudge, however. I didn't like being surprised that way."
She swayed toward him. No, she was weaving. The lady was drunk. "Are you going to be mean to me? How ungennnul—ungeneral—how rude." She twined her arms around his neck. "Be nice to me, James. As nice as I plan on being to you."
"Sorry. I'm not interested." And it was true. For the first time since Emily climbed in his window, his body was definitely not interested.
She didn't move except to stretch high enough to lick his neck. Her breath reeked of spirits and less pleasant things. "Don't you like me? You liked me in London. You thought I was pretty, I know you did."
No, he didn't like her. He didn't much like himself, either. But he could use her. "Let me put these things down, sweetheart," he said. "I can see I'm going to need my hands free."
It was very dusty under the bed. No doubt that was why Emily's eyes were watering.
That Woman giggled and said something about too much brandy. James said something, too, but his voice was low and Emily didn't catch the words. Not over the rubbing, rustling sounds.
Her eyes watered some more.
More sounds. A long, slow kiss. Cloth rubbed against cloth. Emily wondered miserably if James was gong to bring That Woman here, to this bed, and do everything to her he'd done to Emily earlier. And more.
"Oh, honey," That Woman said. She sounded reproachful. "You're not trying."
"I'm doin' my best. Had a lot of brandy before you showed up, you know. Wasn't expectin' you. Not my fault."
Why were his words all slurred? He sounded like he had earlier, when he was foxed.
"Well, you're not trying hard enough." She giggled. "That's a joke, isn't it? Not hard enough."
"Are you laughing at me?" He sounded angry.
That Woman tried to reassure him. She tried several things. Emily couldn't tell exactly what she was doing, but she understood enough to make her want to crawl out of her hiding place and pull That Woman's hair—and James's hair, too. And then hit him.
But after a few endless, cloth-rustling minutes, That Woman told him pettishly to "sleep it off" and Emily heard the door close. She thought That Woman was gone, but she didn't know if James had left with her. It was very quiet…
"You may as well come out from under the bed."
His voice was crisp and normal again. She scowled and shoved back the bedclothes and stuck her head out. "You mean you knew I was here? All the time you and she were kissing and everything, you knew where I was?"
"Where else could you be? You promised not to leave the room. And you don't lie, do you?" His face was hard, like his voice, and his eyes glittered as if he were angry.
"I would have left when she showed up if there had been time. As it was, I barely managed to duck under here before she came barging in. She didn't even knock."
"She assumed she would be welcome."
Yes, she had, hadn't she? Emily drew on her memory and came out with a phrase she'd heard Ned use when the mare took a nip out of his shoulder.
His eyes widened. "What did you say?"
"You heard me."
The ghost of a grin touched his mouth. "Don't know what it means, do you?"
There was a certain lack of dignity to holding this conversation while she was on the floor. There wasn't much dignity in scrambling out from under the bed, either, so she just did it and got it over with. She stood and tried to brush some of the dust from her gown. Her nose itched. "I don't think the maids ever clean under there. It's terribly dusty. I was afraid I would sneeze and interrupt you two."
"Perhaps I should mention that to Lady Debenham when I take my leave, so she can speak to her housekeeper about it."
She gave him a reproachful look. Then sneezed.
That angry glitter was gone now, replaced by amusement. Drat him. "If that's the best you can do, you needn't have worried. Kittens sneeze louder than that."
She sniffed. "Do you have a handkerchief? I didn't bring one."
"There should be some in my satchel. Help yourself."
It seemed intimate to rummage through his belongings. But then, he didn't object to intimacy with a woman, did he? With any woman. She took out a neat square of linen, used it as it was meant to be used, then crumpled it in her fist. "Why did you pretend you were drunk?"
He shrugged. "I had to get rid of her. I do draw the line at some things, and tumbling the very experienced Lady Debenham while a virgin hid under the bed would be a little much, even for me."
"But why did pretending you were drunk get rid of her? She was drunk, too, so I don't think she had any moral objections to it."
"You ask too many questions. Put your shawl on. I'm getting you out of here before anyone else comes calling."
But Emily's curiosity had her in its grip now. There was something wrong with the way he was acting. Something that didn't fit. Acting… that was it! He was acting. But why? "She seemed to think that you couldn't—well, you know—because of the brandy."
He strode over to the chair and grabbed her shawl. "Brandy has an unfortunate effect on a man's virility sometimes. And now that I've ruined my reputation as a rake for your sake, do you think you could put this on and hustle your charming bottom back out the window?" He thrust the shawl at her.
Absently she accepted it. "But it didn't have that effect on you earlier." Emily might not be entirely clear on what happened when a man bedded a woman, but she knew more than she used to. A great deal more, now that she'd felt James's body on top of hers. "When she said something about 'not being hard enough,' did she mean—oh, dear. I don't know the word for—"
"And I am not going to enlighten you." He grabbed her arm and dragged her to the dresser. "Light the candle in the lantern, will you? I need to get my coat on."
She lifted the lantern's hood obediently, but her mind wasn't on what her hands did. The puzzle she was working on was too important. "That poor lady."
"You feel sorry for Lady Debenham because she didn't get what she came for?"
She turned around. He looked impossibly good, she thought wistfully, with his dark hair all rumpled and the capes of the coat widening his already broad shoulders. Even scowling at her that way, he was gorgeous. "Don't be dense. I feel sorry for her because she's so sad and lost. Is that what happens to a woman who becomes debauched?"
He spoke more gently. "Yes. That's just what happens."
"Oh." Slowly she tugged on her mittens. "I suppose that's why my aunt and uncle are determined to save me from ruin, then. At any cost."
"I'm sure it is." He buttoned his coat.
"And why you want me to leave." Maybe even why he'd kissed That Woman. He had known she was there, listening. He'd wanted to show her how bad he was, how lost she might become if she went ahead with her Plan. That meant he cared, didn't it?
"I want you to leave so that I can play with women who are more my type. Experienced women."
"Just because I don't lie doesn't mean I can't tell when someone is lying to me." She smiled. "You're not entirely honest, James, but you are kind."
"I'm an idiot," he muttered, and thrust open the window. Then he stood there and cursed.
When she moved up beside him, she saw why. It was snowing. Hard.
"Oh, this is beautiful!" Emily's eyes glowed as brightly as the lantern James held. "It's like walking in sparkles."
No, James thought. The way the lantern's light reflected off the falling snow was pretty. But she was beautiful. Crazy, but beautiful. "The snow may be lovely, but it's dangerous. We can't see more than a couple feet ahead of us." They walked in a shifting bubble of white lit by the single candle in the lantern, with darkness all around.
At first they had been able to follow the house, but the back lawn was taken up by an overgrown formal garden that had forced them away from the wall. They walked now between two snow-topped hedges. James was almost sure this path would lead them to the gazebo—but from the gazebo to the woods there would be no convenient yew borders to steer by.
Emily looked more guilty than alarmed. "Maybe we should turn back."
He took her arm. "Don't worry. I'm not going to drag you off into the woods unless I'm sure I won't get us lost. We'll turn back if we have to."
"I'm not worried. Not about that, anyway."
At least there was no wind. The air was almost uncannily still, and somewhat warmer than it had been earlier. But the snow was falling thickly. The lantern's light didn't reach far, busy as it was reflecting off the dancing flakes.
He glanced at her, and smiled in spite of himself. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were enjoying this."
She laughed and tilted her face up. Snowflakes caught on her eyelashes and glistened. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold. "Why not? I've never been outside at night before when it was snowing. Uncle Rupert doesn't trust the night air even in the summer."
"One more new experience for you tonight." If this snow didn't let up, they would have to turn back. And she might well have another "first" to add to the list.
"Yes, and it's quite as magical as the rest."
"Damn it, Emily." He took her arm and turned her to face him. He wanted to shake her. Or kiss her. Or both. "Being ruined is not a solution to your problems."
"Why not? You said you came here to avoid marriage, too. And don't tell me 'That's different.' "
"I also said that I was stupid to do it. Emily, the scene you overheard with Lady Debenham—"
"You didn't want her, and not because of the brandy. You wanted to give me a disgust of—of kissing. Or maybe of you."
He sighed. She understood too much. And too little. "The point is that I've played out a lot of scenes much like that one. Too many. You call me a rake, but you haven't faced what that means. If this house party had gone the way I thought it would, I would have bedded my host's wife, and I would have enjoyed it. And forgotten all about it, and her, in a few days."
She didn't like that. He could see that much, but he couldn't tell exactly what feelings she struggled with. Disgust, probably. And the pain of losing whatever infatuation she'd felt for him.
She started walking again. "Have I told you about Sir Edgar and Ralph?" she asked.
James kept pace with her easily enough physically. Mentally, he had no idea where she had hared off to. "What, are they rakes, too?"
"No. At least, I think Ralph might like to be one if he weren't so busy trying to make everyone think him a pattern-card of all the virtues. He just thinks slimy thoughts."
"The same kind of thoughts I have about you, you mean?"
"It's different when Ralph does it. He doesn't even like me."
"An odd sort of suitor."
"Oh, he pretends to like me, but I have known Ralph Aldyce ever since I came to live with my aunt and uncle, and he can't fool me. I have never liked him. Never. He stole my kitten when I was thirteen because I wouldn't let him kiss me." She brooded over that a moment. "I pushed him in the pond. Of course, I got in trouble when he tattled, since no one believed dear little Ralph would have tried to kiss me, but it was worth it."
"You don't think he might have changed since then?"
"No. He has clammy hands and a weak chin and he pinches the maids, and I'll bet he tries to kiss them, too, for all that he pretends to be so proper." Her mouth pursed in distaste. "And he wears a green waistcoat with yellow stripes. It makes me bilious."
He couldn't help smiling. "A truly ugly waistcoat, I take it."
"Oh, yes. Aunt Dorothea agrees with me about his waistcoat, but she says, 'Beggars can't be choosers,' and that if I won't take Sir Edgar, I have to take Ralph. And I can't. When he thinks no one will notice, he looks at me like a drunkard gazing at a bottle of wine. It is all lust," she finished darkly. "Lord Debenham looked at me that way the time I encountered him in the village."
Alarmed, he spoke quickly. "Stay away from Debenham, Emily. His actions are every bit as slimy as his thoughts."
"I know that! But Ralph wouldn't have to keep his sliminess to himself if I married him, would he? And I don't think I could stand that. I'm not real to him, not a person, just a—a way of having those kinds of thoughts."
He didn't think he could stand her wedding—and bedding—the disgusting Ralph, either. "And Sir Edgar? Does he look at you like he is having slimy thoughts, too?"
"I told you, he is over forty."
"Even men over forty have those kinds of thoughts."
"Do they?" Her nose wrinkled. "I hadn't realized. I expect he is too much of a gentleman to let a lady know what he is thinking, then. Sir Edgar is a worthy man—at least, my uncle thinks so, and he ought to know, being exceptionally worthy himself. But he has a loud voice, and he doesn't listen. He yells at his dogs."
"Is he cruel to animals?" A man who abused animals shouldn't have any smaller, weaker creature put in his care. James's jaw clenched at the thought of Emily's delicate beauty being entrusted to a brute.
"N-no. Not exactly, though he is a firm believer in discipline. He is very fond of his dogs, actually. But he yells at them."
They had reached a crossing with another hedge-lined path. He thought the gazebo lay straight ahead, but he couldn't be sure… then he remembered how well she had directed him through a house she hadn't been inside in years. "Do you know how to reach the gazebo?"
"Oh, I—I'm not at all sure."
She was right; she was a deplorable liar. "You have a complete mental map of these gardens, don't you?"
"Well—not a complete map." She looked very guilty now. "I just tend to remember things like that."
"Which way is the gazebo?"
"Left?" She smiled hopefully.
"Emily."
She sighed. "All right. We go straight another fifteen feet, then the path curves at an arc of about thirty degrees. It straightens out at the gazebo."
He smiled slowly. "You've studied geometry."
She clapped her hand over her mouth. "I am not supposed to tell anyone about that. It is unbecoming in a female to flaunt that sort of knowledge."
"Did you share your cousins' lessons?"
"Oh, no, Uncle Rupert would never have allowed that, but I did so want to know. I have always been curious about maps, you see, and finding one's way around, from having traveled with my father and mother when I was little. Then, after I read about Sir James Cook's travels, I wanted to know how he knew where he was. I couldn't find any books about navigation, but the vicar was kind enough to lend me a book on geometry."
"And you understood it, without any sort of instructions?"
"It was a basic sort of text, I imagine. And geometry is so tidy, the way the theorems build on each other. I liked it." She sighed. "I'm afraid I got the vicar in trouble. Uncle Rupert's face was ever so red when he found out."
She wasn't an empty-headed widgeon. She just might be a mathematical prodigy. James shook his head, took her hand, and started down the path that he had no doubt would, after another fifteen feet, curve at an arc of thirty degrees to take them to the gazebo. "Tell me more about Sir Edgar and his dogs."
"You don't understand why that bothers me, do you?"
"Keep talking, and maybe I will."
She gave a little gurgle of amusement. "No one ever says that to me—'Keep talking.' You are very easy to talk to, you know. I wonder if we would have been friends if we had met in London, when I had my Season."
"I doubt they would have let you anywhere near me, my dear." The aunt and uncle had apparently done their duty by her, giving her a London Season. James wouldn't be abandoning her to any real mistreatment by returning her to them. The thought should have reassured him. Instead, he felt… disappointed? How foolish. Had he thought, for even a second, that he could be her white knight and charge in to save her from the dragon?
Hell, he was the dragon she needed to be rescued from.
The gazebo loomed up suddenly in front of them, a dim white bulk intruding itself on the tiny world trapped by their lantern. "I think we had better wait here and see if the snow lets up," he said, mounting the steps beside her.
The candle in the lantern had burned down, so he set it on the floor and knelt to replace it with one of the spares he had brought along in his pocket. Emily drifted restlessly around the small, half-walled structure. "Perhaps it is just as well we didn't meet until now. I probably would have given you a disgust of me if you had met me at a party. I was very stupid in company."
"I'm sure you are wrong. In fact, now that I cast my mind back, I believe I saw you at some respectable party I accidentally attended. You were la belle jeune fille, surrounded by so many admirers that a man had to fight three duels to get close enough to see your face, much less claim a dance."
She laughed. "You are confusing me with one of your flirts. I didn't take at all. I told you, I was stupid."
He lit the new candle from the old, seated it, and replaced the glass-paned hood. "Nonsense. Your mind may wander down unpredictable paths, but they are charming paths. And as pretty as you are, I can't believe you lacked admirers."
Her face lit up. "You think I am pretty? And charming?"
Also dangerous. To both of them. He straightened, leaving the lantern on the floor. "I'm sure you were considered an Original."
"No, I was considered a ninny. Aunt Dorothea had warned me so often about everything I mustn't say and not humiliating her that I got all stopped up. Like when you have the grippe and can't breathe right? Only this was conversational grippe. I couldn't talk right. Either I didn't say anything at all, or I sort of sneezed words all over the place. I did have one offer," she said with a hint of pride, stopping in front of him. "But he was a younger son with no prospects other than his lieutenant's pay, so Uncle Rupert wouldn't let me receive it."
He looked at her upturned face. Long strands of hair had worked their way free from her braid, and there was a dirt smudge on her nose. And what he felt for this dusty innocent was stronger than a tugging. Too strong to shut out, to ignore, to push away.
It hurt. Like the sharp sting of frostbitten flesh warmed by returning blood, it hurt.
"Did you want him?" he asked abruptly. "Your younger son with no prospects."
"I expect I should have. Why is it that a young man of twenty is still a boy, when an unmarried female of that age is practically on the shelf? Anyway, I couldn't feel a tendre for him. He was nice, but very silly. He wrote a poem to my left eyebrow." She giggled.
"It is a lovely eyebrow." He reached up to trace it, and discovered that her skin was icy. "And I am an idiot. Why didn't you tell me you were cold? That shawl isn't enough." He began unfastening his greatcoat.
"I'm not cold."
"You look enchanting with blue lips, but I'm a conventional man. I prefer them rosy."
"Put your coat back on. It would be miles too big for me, and you'll freeze without it."
"A little cold won't hurt me." He dropped it over her shoulders.
"My goodness, it's heavy. But very warm." She snuggled her cheek against the material and smiled. "It smells like you. All right, I will borrow it for now, but you have to take turns with me."
"If you like."
She looked at him suspiciously. "Do you promise?"
"You were going to tell me about Sir Edgar and his dogs."
"You haven't promised."
Stubborn as well as curious, wasn't she? His smile flickered. "Very well, I promise to take turns with the coat. Tell me about Sir Edgar." He would feel better if he knew that one of her suitors was worthy of her. "What are his waistcoats like?"
She grinned. "They aren't a bilious green, but they are snuff-stained. I did try to like him, but he doesn'ttalk to me. Or listen to me, either. Mostly he talks to my aunt or uncle, though every now and then he'll tell me I'm a pretty chit or a good girl—much the way he might toss one of his dogs a treat."
Hardly a courtship designed to appeal to a young lady. "He may be shy."
"Sir Edgar? Oh, no. My aunt and uncle encourage him to think I am shy, though. The less he talks to me the better, so he won't discover I am not what he thinks."
"And what is that?"
She sighed. "A quiet, well-behaved miss."
His lips twitched. "It does sound as if he hasn't been paying attention."
"Aunt Dorothea says he is fond of me." She said this dolefully, as if she were announcing the man's intention to beat her thrice a day after they wed.
He touched her cheek. It was still chilled. "Is that so terrible?"
"Yes. Oh, yes, it is. He is very like my uncle, you see, who is also fond of me. Sir Edgar would want what was best for me, but he wouldn't listen to what I want, and he would yell at me when I did something he didn't approve of, and grow disappointed in me. It is quite deadly to always be disappointing those who care for you, isn't it?"
He thought of his father. "Or those who are supposed to care about you. And don't."
She nodded. "Like my aunt—although I shouldn't say that, for perhaps she is fond of me and unable to show it. But I would do things Sir Edgar didn't approve of. If eight years in my uncle's household hasn't taught me a proper elegance of mind, how will marrying Sir Edgar change that?"
"Sometimes when an older man marries a much younger lady, he enjoys indulging her. Especially when there is a degree of, ah, fondness." Especially when the randy old fart was enjoying all that lovely young freshness in his bed. James had to consciously relax his hands to keep them from making fists.
"You are forgetting his dogs. He is fond of them, too, but that doesn't keep him from yelling at them. No, if I married Sir Edgar he would squeeze me out of myself, a little at a time, until I simply wasn't there anymore. Unless I did something really dreadful," she added, "like run off and starve in a ditch."
He couldn't help smiling at her notion of what her alternatives were. Yet an overbearing, self-righteous man could be deadly to a merry spirit like hers. But wouldn't it be just as deadly for her to be ostracized, condemned by family, friends, and neighbors, packed off to live with her dour great-aunt—if she wasn't put out on the streets to survive as best she could?
He wanted to make everything right for her. And couldn't. "I know you don't want to be told to have resolution—"
"Because it doesn't do any good."
"But it's the only thing you can do, sweetheart." He reached up to tuck one of the errant strands of hair behind her ear, and wanted to go on touching her— her cheek, her lips, her breasts. "If you refuse your suitors firmly enough, they will have to stop paying you court."
"Aunt Dorothea says she will have my decision tomorrow. She will make me promise to accept him— whichever 'him' I choose—before she lets him declare himself formally, so I won't have a chance to refuse anyone."
"Then you must refuse to give her your promise."
"But I have never been able to stand up to her. I try, but trying isn't enough." She touched his wrist. "I know I am a great coward, but she makes me feel so small. When she talks and talks at me, I feel as if I would do anything to make her stop. She tells me I am too much like my father and mother—as if that were a bad thing." Her voice shook.
He didn't decide to put his arms around her. It happened without him being a conscious part of the act at all. One moment they were talking, and the next he was drawing her to him. He rested his cheek on the top of her head and wished her aunt was a man, so he could throttle the coldhearted bastard. He wished someone would throttle him and put a stop to the heat that raced through his body, warming him better than his greatcoat had, demanding that he pull her closer and closer still, so he could rub his aching groin against her.
He kept his body still. Barely. "A coward wouldn't leave her home in the dead of night to be ruined by a stranger. Mind you, I'm not saying that was a bright thing to do—but it wasn't the act of a coward."
"You don't seem like a stranger," she said shyly.
It was the most natural thing in the world for his head to dip lower, for his lips to draw near hers. A breath away from the kiss, he stopped. His heart pounded. Was it heat or panic making it race? He had to draw back.
He didn't move. "The snow isn't falling as hard. We should leave now."
One mittened hand crept up to touch his cheek. "Do we have to?"
Emily's heart pounded. Deep inside she quivered with hope and fear, balanced on a keen and dreadful edge between one moment and the next. They knew, they both knew, what she offered with those few words… and this time her offer had little to do with her Plan.
And everything to do with him.
The light from the lantern's single candle came from below, making his face more shadow than seen, hiding his eyes while it played lovingly over his lips. She longed to go up on tiptoe and kiss those lips, persuade him to let her stay. Tonight, all night. With him. But it had taken all her courage just to touch his cheek.
His hand rose and captured hers—and pulled it away from his face. Something inside her tore at the rejection.
But he didn't release her hand. His thumb began to trace circles on the damp yarn that covered her palm. "It's a good thing we are here, not in my room," he said softly, "for I've little experience resisting temptation, and I have never been so tempted in my life. But I won't marry you, Emily. I can't."
She swallowed hurt and hope and pride in one hard lump. "Why? Not 'Why won't you marry me?'— there's no reason you should. But you make it sound as if you can't marry."
The twist of his mouth was sad and bitter. "Money. Both cure and cause of so many evils, isn't it?"
"I… I heard that your father had disinherited you."
"Your aunt does keep up on the on-dits, doesn't she?" He dropped her hand. "He did. In an effort to bring me to heel, he continues to withhold the income from another inheritance for which he was, unfortunately, named trustee. My future is uncertain, to say the least. And you deserve better." He moved away to pick up the lantern. "The snow has almost stopped. It's time we left."
She looked out at the night and saw only a few flakes drifting groundward, barely visible at the edges of the area limned by the lantern's light. Drat it all. "I loathe it when people make decisions about what is best for me."
"I know. But I am still taking you home intact, if not untouched."
She slid his heavy greatcoat off his shoulders. "It's your turn."
"Not yet. I'll let you know when I'm chilled."
She held it out. "Maybe I can't keep you from being horridly noble about some things, but you can't have everything your way. If you don't take this, I will leave it here on the floor."
He smiled and took the coat, slipping his arms in the sleeves. "You will allow me to indulge my nobility midway through the woods, I trust?"
She shrugged and started down the snowy, slippery steps. This was it. Her last chance. Her heart thudded hard in her chest. "Oh!" she cried. And fell off the step.
Emily hadn't fallen on purpose since she was small. It was harder to do than she had expected, and she landed awkwardly. "Oof!"
"Emily?" James was at her side in a second. "Are you all right?"
She couldn't look him in the eye, so she stared at his shoulder. "I twisted my ankle."
"I'd better have a look." He pushed her dress up farther than was necessary and took her foot in his hands.
"Ow!"
"I haven't touched your ankle yet."
"It was the angle. You were holding it at a painful angle."
"Hmm." He rotated her foot, and she grimaced and bit her lip and tried to look brave in the face of pain. "I suppose it hurts too much for you to put any weight on it."
She nodded.
"There's no help for it, then. We'll have to steal a horse." When her mouth dropped open, he laughed. "A word of advice, sweetheart—never try to earn your living on the stage."
Emily lay on her back in the snow, growing damp and chilled—except for the fiery tide of humiliation sweeping over her. She had made herself painfully obvious. And he had laughed.
He stood and held out his hand.
No, she wasn't going to touch him. Or look at him. Or speak to him, ever again. She scrambled to her feet by herself, her face still fiery. And he put his hands on her shoulders, pulled her to him, and kissed her.
The world tilted. Her stomach went dizzy, as if she were falling again—but this time she just kept falling. There was no solid ground, only his shoulders to cling to, his body firm against hers. His mouth, warm and hungry, on hers. The smell of damp wool was suddenly delicious, intoxicating. The taste of him, brandy and heat, sent her spiraling into a dark, private place where there was nothing but her. And him.
His lips left hers to press kisses along her cheeks. His hands cupped her face, tilting her head so his mouth could follow the line of her neck from her ear to her collar, and back again.
"Emily," he said then, leaning his forehead against hers. "You have no idea what you do to me, do you? And very little idea what you are inviting me to do to you, I think. So you don't really understand what I'm asking, but still I have to ask. Are you sure? Be very sure, because once I get you back to my room, I won't give you another chance. I won't take your virginity—but I will take everything else."
What did he mean—everything but her virginity? She pulled her head back so she could look at him. His face was hard, unsmiling, his eyes hidden from her in the darkness.
She touched his cheek. "I won't lose myself, you know. I can see how it could happen—these feelings are so strong. But I think people only get lost when they look for these feelings in the wrong places."
He gave a hard, short laugh. "And you think I am the right man, and this is the right place? Oh, Emily. I should explain to you how very wrong you are, but I'm out of reasons. Out of reason entirely, I think."
But Emily understood. More than he would believe, she understood what she risked—and what she had found, with him. She didn't try to tell him, but tucked her hand in his. "I will have to show you, I think."
If he thought it strange that a virgin would offer to show a rake anything about lovemaking, he was courteous enough not to say so. He pressed one last kiss to her lips—a gentle kiss, this time. As if there were something he needed to tell her, too, that wouldn't fit neatly into words. Then he let go of her hand long enough to take his coat off and drape it over her shoulders once more. "Allow me this much."
She nodded. They turned together to go back to his room.
Emily didn't speak. The world itself was quiet, with the peculiar hush that snowfall brings to the country, so that even her thoughts seemed loud and singular, and her heart beat hard and fast. In the soft privacy of that silence they walked back to his room, her hand in his, his coat warm and large and awkward on her small frame.
It would be so easy to trip, Emily thought. She took care to keep the coat bunched up in her free hand, away from her feet, as they moved together toward the moment when she would find answers to some of her questions. Everything but your virginity, he had said. What did that mean? Doubtless it involved kisses, and oh, she loved his kisses.
Which was not surprising. She loved him.
Emily wasn't worried about losing herself. The most important thing she had to lose was already his. That was all right. There was so much waiting to be found, in his arms. So she walked on, careful of the dragging length of his coat. And just as careful of her thoughts.
It wouldn't do to think about tomorrow, and all the tomorrows to come. When he would be gone.
He wouldn't enter her. That much James was sure of. Emily would still be a virgin when she left him. He would do everything else—strip her, touch her, kiss her, waken her to pleasure she'd never dreamed existed. And then send her plunging into climax—oh, yes, he wanted that, all of it. Desperately. But he wouldn't breach her maidenhead.
James knew Emily would never pretend to a virginity she couldn't honestly claim, and he knew the men of his class. They wouldn't accept a bride who admitted she lacked that small, significant scrap of flesh. And despite what she thought, marriage was her only chance for a decent life. So he would make sure she would still be able to marry one of her suitors… and he would leave Sussex quickly, before he killed the bastard.
But that was all he was sure of.
Amazingly, his hands shook as he pushed the window open and helped her inside. They had left the candles burning, as well as the fire, so the room was cheery and warm after their walk through the snowy night.
She took the greatcoat off and draped it neatly on the back of the chair, then turned to face him. Her gaze was steady, her smile shy.
"How peculiar," he murmured as he crossed to her. He laid his hands on her shoulders, running them down her arms and taking her shawl with them. It fell to the floor, a dark puddle. "You look serene, and I am nervous enough to jump out of my skin." As if he were attempting something he had never done before.
"You don't look nervous. And I don't feel serene."
He reached behind her and slipped the first button loose, bending to nuzzle her neck. "What do you feel, then?"
"As if… as if I were running very fast, making my head light and my stomach dizzy. Dreamy, yet wide awake, so awake I can feel my fingertips and I… Oh, my. You are awfully good with buttons."
"I'm afraid so." He slipped the last button free and gently pushed her gown from her shoulders. It followed her shawl to the floor. "Emily?"
"Yes?"
"That's the oddest-looking chemise I've ever seen."
"I would think a man who is so good with a woman's buttons knows the difference between a nightgown and a chemise."
He touched the flowers embroidered in white thread on white flannel, and his heart turned over. His women had always come to him experienced, knowing, wearing silks and lace… or nothing at all. None had come to him dressed in flannel and innocence.
If he were a better man, he would stop now. If he had needed her less, he might have been able to. But he could, at least, be gentle with her innocence.
He ran his hands along her sides in a caress that was more than chaste, but far less than what his heated blood urged him to do. "Will you let down your hair for me? I want to see it loose on your shoulders and breasts. I want to fist it in my hands when I kiss you."
Her breath caught. "I hadn't known there was so much talking involved."
"In lovemaking, you mean?" He smiled and moved his hands a little higher. His thumbs rested just beneath the curve of her breasts now. "Does it bother you?"
Emily's brain had turned light. Sunshine pooled, thick and happy, in her middle, making her hands unsteady when she pulled her braid in front of her. "I like it," she said softly, meaning his voice, his words that acted as richly on her system as his touch.
"Let me," he said when she had the braid undone, and combed his fingers through the newly separated strands. His knuckles brushed her breast, sending a quick jolt through her.
He did it again. And again. The finger-combing soothed while his hands thrilled as his knuckles, then the backs of his hands, and then his fingertips grazed her breast. His eyes stayed on hers while he lightly stroked her breast.
She wanted badly for him to kiss her again. For once, though, her too-quick tongue found no words.
So she told him with her hands, slipping them behind his head.
The nape of his neck was warm. His hair was cool and slightly damp from their walk in the snow. The feel of him, silky hair and warm flesh, distracted her, and she traced her fingers over his face, studying the planes and hollows with her eyes and the pads of her fingertips.
His breath caught. "Sweet Emily," he said, "I am trying to go slowly, but I've less willpower than I had thought. Boots next."
"Boots?"
"It is the most awkward part of a seduction, love— the footwear. Sit," he said, and led her to the chair where his greatcoat was draped. He knelt at her feet and unfastened her half boots and pulled them off, leaving her in her nightgown and stockinged feet. He ran his hand up her foot to her ankle, to her calf, then rolled down garter and stocking together. "You have such pretty, dainty ankles."
He had seen a great deal more than her ankles. "You didn't remove my half boots before."
"I was drunk and foolish. I'm still foolish, but at least I am sober now. Or as sober as a man in the grip of passion can be." He lifted her foot and shocked her by pressing a kiss to the arch. Then he moved away to sit on the bed and tug at one of his boots.
There was something very domestic about watching him struggle with his boots. If they were married… No. No, she couldn't let herself think about that.
"What's wrong?" He stood in front of her in his shirtsleeves, his jacket and waistcoat having gone the way of his boots.
"Nothing. Do you always throw your clothes on the floor?"
His half smile was quizzical. "I wouldn't have done so if I had known it would make you so sad." He held out his hand. "Miss Smythe, may I have the honor of this dance?" Without waiting for an answer, he pulled her to her feet, put one hand at her waist, and held the other out in the approved way—then spun her into a mad semblance of a waltz, holding her much too close as he danced her around and around. He danced her into laughter, and right up to his bed. Where he stopped.
She stopped laughing. Her heart was pounding and he was smiling when he pulled on the tie that fastened her nightgown. When it, too, lay on the floor, he eased her onto the bed.
He gave her little chance for embarrassment, strewing her neck and shoulders with kisses and shivers. His hands—oh, his hands were everywhere, petting and stroking, making her body restless and achy. The feel of them on her breasts was a wonder to her.
"You…" Words and breath were hard to find. "You still have some clothes on."
"Best if I keep them on. We can't entirely trust me, love."
He kissed her again, and she almost forgot—but when she ran her hands over his back, cloth shifted beneath her touch. "But I want to see you." To touch him, skin to skin. "I will never have another chance, and I want to know."
He lifted his head. His lips, damp from hers, turned up in a smile, but his jaw was taut. "Curiosity again? You'll learn a man's body fully one day. In your marriage bed."
No, she wouldn't, for she would never marry. But she wasn't going to argue with him now. "I want to know your body."
He went very still. Then he shuddered. "I am certainly a fool," he said, but he sat up and pulled off his shirt.
He wanted to leave his breeches on, but this was her only chance to know what was beneath those breeches. She fumbled for the buttons and learned how different a man's body really was. He made a funny, low noise in his throat and pushed her hands away—but only so he could take over.
He didn't look anything like the statue of an unclothed Apollo she had seen once in London. "Oh," she said, her eyes huge. "Maybe it's just as well you aren't going to…" He was so big. Without thinking, she reached out to touch him.
He caught her hand. His smile was strained. "I have my limits, and that would definitely be beyond them. Keep your hands above my waist, sweetheart, or you'll make me forswear myself."
Skin to skin was better. It was incredibly better, for when he kissed her now, she felt him all along her body, warm and slightly sweaty. It was even more intimate than when he'd touched her there, for they were together now in what they did. "I feel so strange… as if I should move. I need to do something, but I don't know what."
"It's a hasty feeling, isn't it?" He nuzzled her neck, and down to her breast, where he captured the tip in his mouth. She forgot everything in the delicious new sensation. "I understand. God, I do understand. But there's no need for you to rush to the end."
"Is there an end?" She ran her hands over his back. She wanted to go on swimming forever in this rich, intolerant heat, the need that rose like steam, replacing thought and blood alike.
"There is… how should I put it?" He circled her nipple with his tongue. "There is a climactic moment, love, which is generally the end for a man, not necessarily for a woman. You'll know when you reach it." He turned his head to lavish the same attention on her other breast.
"I don't—Oh! James." Her hands tightened, clutching at him, for he was touching her where he had touched her once before. The sensation was overwhelming. "James!"
He suckled her breasts and kissed her and touched her. Her legs moved restlessly, and he pushed them wider, and there were sounds—soft gasps from her, a throaty groan from him, a funny, wet sound from where he touched her. She was reaching for something, her body moving now at his command while he murmured words of encouragement and praise. "Like that—yes, love, beautiful Emily, let go, let go. I'm here, you're safe. Let go."
She did. Her body jerked. Everything went white and blank in a flash of purest pleasure—and then she was back inside herself, limp, with little shocks running through her, throbbing where his hand had been.
He had moved, coming fully over her to touch her there lightly.
Something replaced his hand. Something blunt and hard and warm.
Her eyes had drifted closed, but they flew open at this strange new feeling. He was so big—he was stretching her, stretching—"Ow!" The hurt was sharp and stinging.
He thrust again, hard. And was fully inside.
His eyes went wide, too. He stared down at her, startled. As if this were as unexpected for him as it was for her. She shifted, uncomfortable, and he groaned. "Emily," he said, and his hips began to move. "Emily." He bent and kissed her.
The hurt faded, and his movement began to feel good, but lingering discomfort combined with the sheer novelty distracted her. The wet sounds were louder. The faint, rhythmic creaking of the bed ropes blended with the sensations that began to build once more.
There was such need on his face, such desire. She stroked him and petted him as he had done her. The flex of muscle in his hips and buttocks fascinated her. She needed to move, to meet him… her hips found his rhythm, then lost it again when he speeded up.
Just when things were getting really interesting, he gave a loud groan, went rigid—and collapsed on top of her. His chest heaved, and his eyes were closed. Emily cherished the weight of him, holding him and smiling and smiling.
When he rolled to his side she made a small sound of protest, but he cuddled her close, stroking her hair,
and that was almost as nice as the other.
"James?"
"Hmm?" He continued to play with her hair.
"I think you did what you said you weren't going to do."
"I know. I'm sorry."
She tilted her head back so she could see his face. He didn't look sorry. He was smiling. It made tiny crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He had gorgeous eyelashes, thick and curly. "I'm glad you changed your mind."
"My mind had little to do with it. In truth, as stupid as it sounds, I forgot. I knew I should have kept my breeches on." He gave her hair a playful tug, but his eyes were troubled. "There's something about you, Emily, some magic… I don't understand what you do to me."
Emily's breath caught at what she saw on his face. She waited, her heart beating painfully hard, for him to go on. If he felt something for her—something more than lust—surely he would speak now.
But he didn't. He kissed her again, and the kiss was sweet, a blend of tenderness and sensual delight that hazed her brain as it woke her body. When he touched her, his hands were careful and knowing and perfect. But he didn't speak of feelings or the future.
And she couldn't. Though her heart cried out for her to tell him she loved him, she couldn't. She had promised not to trap him. So when they made love a second time, Emily was silent.
So was he.
The air was still and cold. The only sound came from the crunch of their boots on the snow. In the east, the sky had faded to a dingy gray. The moon was gone, so they'd needed the lantern to find their way through the woods. But they'd almost reached the end of the path now.
He was holding her hand. They had hardly spoken since leaving his room, but he had held her hand the whole time. Maybe he didn't want to let go, Emily thought. Maybe he didn't want the night to end any more than she did. Even if he didn't say so.
He squeezed her hand. "We're almost there. How had you planned to get back inside?"
"I left the front door unlocked." She looked at the bare, snowy expanse of lawn and field that led to the dark bulk of her uncle's house. And stopped dead. "I see lights."
"Some of the servants must be up." He didn't stop, drat him, but tugged her with him out into the openness.
"No, there are too many lights. The servants would be in the kitchen, not at the front of the house. James, you have to go back now before someone sees you."
The smile he gave her came cursedly near to being lighthearted. "Did you really think I would leave you to face them alone?"
"You have to!" She pulled hard at her hand, but he just kept moving them both forward.
"I'll stand by you, Emily." He hesitated. "If there should be a child—"
"A child?" Her stomach pitched in sudden panic. "Is that possible? I thought—when one of the female dogs goes into season, it takes several days, a week—"
"It's possible." There was a grim note in his voice.
Dear heavens. She'd based her assumptions about mating on her uncle's dogs, but people weren't dogs. She might be with child. James's child. Now, this very minute. The thought made her light-headed—but fear was only part of her giddiness.
"James," she said, her voice shaking. "Some of those lights are moving. They're coming this way."
He nodded. "They have lanterns, too. Or torches. I'm afraid someone noticed you were gone, love. They're looking for you."
"You have to get away!" She pulled frantically at his hand. "At least put out the lantern so they can't see you."
But he only put his arm around her shoulder and brushed her cheek with his lips. "Courage, sweetheart." And kept moving them both forward.
But she didn't have courage. It was too much like resolution, and she was pathetically lacking at that. Emily felt herself shrinking inside as they neared the other lights. She heard voices—her uncle's voice, loud and angry.
Then a gunshot. "Oh, God, Uncle Rupert has a gun!"
"He fired in the air," James said calmly, so far from heeding her words that he tightened his arm, hugging her close. "A signal, I suspect. There must be other searchers out."
"But he might shoot you!"
"That would be stupid of him, wouldn't it? Can't wring a proposal from a dead man."
"But—"
But it was too late. Marcus was the first one to reach them, his young legs having outstripped the others.' "Emily!" he cried. "I've been so scared! Letty woke Mother up and said you were gone, and Mother woke Father up, and of course Aunt Mildred heard them when Father started yelling, so I—"
"Wanton! Harlot!" Her uncle was winded from his run when he reached them, but not so winded his voice didn't thunder out like the wrath of Jehovah. "Sneaking out of the house to shame yourself and your family with this misbegotten bastard—"
"That's enough!" James's voice cut through the tirade like an icy knife. "You may abuse me all you wish, but you will not speak to Emily that way."
"I'll speak to my niece however I wish, and I'll make you wish you were never born!" Uncle Rupert lunged forward, grabbing for Emily's arm. "Come here!"
Her uncle's fingers dug into her arm cruelly, and he yanked at her. She thought she would be torn in two, because James didn't release her. Then Marcus flung himself at his father, prying his fingers off Emily's arm—and earning a cuff for his trouble.
James moved swiftly, putting himself between Emily and her uncle. "Leave her be," he said in a low, deadly voice.
For a moment there was silence.
It didn't last.
Cousin George and Ned from the stable reached them next, followed quickly by the husband of another cousin. Cousin Timothy. Frances, the snitch. Two second cousins from Bath. One of the footmen. Great-Uncle Max. Letty, who was crying, and Abigail, who was shrill.
Loud, outraged voices rose around them like an angry tide. There were questions and threats—the questions shouted at her, the threats at James. He stood beside her, his arm around her shoulders the only thing that kept her from drowning in the clamor. Perhaps he realized that one had to let Baggots yell themselves hoarse before they would listen, for he didn't say anything. Not that anyone gave either of them a chance. They were too busy arguing over what should be done with her, to her, to James.
Just as the sun came peeping over the horizon, her aunt arrived.
Aunt Dorothea was dressed with as much neatness and propriety as always in a dark puce gown and her ermine-lined pelisse. Every strand of hair was smoothed into place. Her hands were folded primly in front of her when she came to a stop in front of James and Emily. Her lips were folded even more tightly together. She didn't look at Emily at all, but spoke to James. "Your name, sir."
He didn't bow. "James Edward Charles Drake, Baron Redding, at your service, madam."
"Hah!" her uncle cried. "That dastard who was kissing you in the woods, missy? Is this how little you appreciate all we've done for you, taking you in, caring for you?" He shook his fist in James's face. "Name your seconds, sir!"
"The Earl of Mere's son," Aunt Dorothea said in her cool, measured voice. Still she didn't look at Emily, making Emily wonder if she had finally vanished. "Your reputation, and the manner in which you lured my niece to you, indicate that you have no honorable intentions. Mr. Baggot, I believe a horsewhip would be more suitable."
"He didn't lure me." Emily's voice was small and shaky. "It was all my own idea. I am very sorry, Aunt. I simply couldn't marry as you wished me to."
"You are wrong, madam." James's voice was every bit as cool as her aunt's. "I intend to offer for her."
"James!" Emily cried as the earth turned unsteady beneath her feet. But her voice was only one of many as the babel broke out again. She searched his face, trying to see something other than the whimsically late arrival of his sense of honor. "James, you don't want this, you know you don't."
Maybe he didn't hear her in all the shouting. He patted her hand and smiled. It was a beautiful smile, meant to reassure her. It failed. If he had wanted to marry her, he would have said something earlier. He offered now to save her from ruin. Or maybe from her relatives.
Eventually her uncle outshouted the rest. "And what do you offer her, sir? Not an honorable name, if half of what I hear is true."
"Nor a roof over her head," Aunt Dorothea said. "If you were hoping to fund your raking with her fortune, my lord, you should know she doesn't have one."
"Neither do I," James said steadily. "As you are obviously aware. But I do have an inheritance from my mother that will come to me in four years."
"Four years?" Uncle Rupert shouted. "Four years, you say? Do you think you can batten yourself on me that long? Or did you intend to drag the poor chit with you to your gaming hells and orgies?"
Emily noticed that she had gone from being a harlot and a wanton to a poor chit. It was typical of Uncle Rupert's rages. They blew hard and hot while they lasted, but they did blow themselves out.
Unlike her aunt's temper, which was cold and deadly. "If you still want her after debauching her, you may have her. But you take her now, as she is. No dowry, no trousseau, not even a hairpin more than what she has on her this moment."
This time James bowed. "Thank you, madam. I accept."
"No." Emily's voice squeaked so badly she wasn't sure anyone heard. "No," she said again, and forced herself to move away from James. "I am very sorry, Aunt, but I will not marry him. I promised not to."
"Emily—" James reached for her.
But her uncle was closer to her now. He grabbed her and and called her a shameless hussy. He told her to be a good girl and do as she was told. She could only shake her head no.
For a dreadful moment she thought he would cry.
If she had thought things were bad before, they got worse. Louder, more confused. And James was no longer by her side. Her oldest cousins were squared off against him, ready to beat him into agreement. Emily could only keep saying, over and over, that it would do no good. She wouldn't marry him. Her uncle yelled, but she didn't give in. Then her aunt started in on her.
Aunt Eleanor spoke in clear, withering sentences. She told Emily everything that was wrong with her— everything she had done wrong in the last eight years. Emily had done so much wrong. She was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, and she shrank with every word.
But still she said no.
At long last, Emily had found her resolution. She wouldn't trap James, wouldn't force him to surrender his dreams. He would go to America, if she could not.
There was a flurry of motion behind her, the sound of a blow struck. She spun around in time to see Cousin George fall to the ground. James pushed past another cousin to reach her. "Enough," he said, and his face was stern. "I'll not have her browbeaten. If you'll let me speak with her in private a moment—"
But they wouldn't. Her uncle boomed out that Emily would by damn accept the suit of the man she'd lain with. Her aunt said that if she didn't, her things would be thrown out of the house, along with her. Which started her aunt and uncle arguing, because her uncle would never countenance such a thing. Marcus screamed that he would go with her if she was turned out, so George started yelling at Marcus. Abigail shrieked that Emily had ruined them all, as if shame were catching, like the measles. And Letty cried.
James had to raise his voice to be heard over the others. "In that case, I withdraw my offer."
The world tilted again.
Someone gasped. Uncle Rupert turned purple, turned away, and dragged Emily off toward the house. James called out her name. She looked over her shoulder and saw him surrounded by Baggots. She caught only a glimpse of his face, heard only a few words of what he said—something about waiting, something about his back, or coming back, and his groom.
Then her uncle jerked her forward, and she saw and heard no more of the man who had been her lover, and would remain her love.
Emily spent the next five days locked in her own small bedroom on the third floor. The servants brought food and took care of the other necessities; Marcus, who was becoming an accomplished sneak, stole the key three times and visited. He smuggled her some books and her needlework. They helped her pass the time until she could be sent to her great-aunt.
The days were the worst.
Emily didn't mind the isolation as much as she had feared she might. There were some advantages to being unfit to mingle with the respectable Baggots, who went right on celebrating the season without her. She might miss the sleigh rides and carol singing, but no one was yelling at her. Her aunt wasn't speaking to her. But the days were still bad, because, in spite of the sternest lectures Emily could give herself, every morning she woke up hoping.
The hope lasted all day, wiggling inside her when she heard steps on the stairs or a carriage pull up outside. She couldn't see the yard from her window, only the roof of the second floor of the family wing, so the foolish hope squirmed and churned inside her for half an hour after hearing a carriage.
James had said something about his back… or about coming back.
Every night when the maid brought Emily her supper tray, that day's unwanted allotment of hope curled up in a cold lump that sank into her stomach, making her too ill with disappointment to eat.
Belief and hope, it seemed, were not the same thing, for Emily didn't really believe he would come for her. He had cared about her. He would remember her. That much she believed. But she was only one memory of many for him, and even if he had truly wanted to marry her, he couldn't afford to. He had made that clear.
But she couldn't seem to stop hoping.
Nights were better. Once she had put the day's hope and the evening's disappointment behind her, she could perform a hasty wash in the chilly air, tug on her nightgown, and blow out her candle. Cheered by a darkness relieved by the familiar warmth of a fire, she could climb into bed and wrap herself up in memories and dreams as warm as the covers she snuggled under.
At night she relived every minute of her time with James. She pictured him on the boat to America.
Sometimes she imagined receiving a letter from him a few years from now, telling her all the strange and wonderful things he had seen and done in the New World.
She didn't dream of anything more personal in the imaginary letter. Not because she possessed the strength of mind to banish such longings, but because they hurt too much. There was comfort in thinking of him prospering in America, and in her somehow learning of it. There was no comfort in imagining what could never be.
But on the fifth night of her banishment, Emily couldn't summon contentment from the darkness. It was Christmas Eve, and she felt painfully alone. She tossed and turned, and found neither sleep nor fantasies to distract her. So when the tapping came at her window very late that night, Emily was wide awake.
She sat bolt upright in bed, her eyes huge. Surely she was losing her mind. She hadn't heard what she thought she'd heard. There was no way—
Tap, tap. Tap-tap-tap.
Emily threw back the covers and raced to the window. She threw back the drapes, releasing the cold air trapped between glass and cloth, and shivered with cold and excitement.
There was a man on the roof outside her window. His shape was no more than a huge, caped silhouette against the star-strewn sky, his face invisible in the darkness—but she knew. Oh, she knew.
Her fingers were thick and clumsy unlatching the window, but finally she had it open. And the man she couldn't see reached in, grasped her face in gloved hands, and leaned in and kissed her.
His lips were cold, the inside of his mouth was warm, and his taste was utterly, wonderfully familiar. "Emily," James said, his voice thick. "I tried to get word to you, but no one from this house would speak to my groom—except for Marcus, and I gather he got in trouble for it, though he did manage to get me word of which room was yours."
"Your groom—that was what you said, that your groom would stay in the village?" And that he would come back. He had said he would come back, and here he was. At her window. She laughed from sheer happiness. "Where have you been? Why aren't you on your boat? And how did you get up here?"
"A ladder," he said, "and I'll answer the rest of your questions inside. If you want me to come in."
Of course she wanted him to come in. Her window was smaller than the one at the hall had been, so he had to take off his greatcoat and toss it in first, and she hurried to light a candle with the flint by her bed. When she turned, he was there—there in her tiny, shabby room. Sudden uncertainty made her hug herself instead of throwing her arms around him. "Have you come to say good-bye, then? Before you sail?"
"God, I hope not." He crossed to her and took her in his arms and made everything right in her world once more, if a trifle dizzy. After a long kiss, he pulled his head back. "We've much to do and little time, and I'm thinking too much of that bed beside you, sweetheart. I'm afraid you'll have to make do with what you can pack quickly, plus what we can buy before the ship sails. If…" He looked suddenly uncertain. "If you want to come with me, that is."
"Of course I do. But I have to know if… that is, you withdrew your offer, so I'm not perfectly sure what you want, but if you are here because of your honor, or mine—"
For some reason, that made him kiss her again. Then he laid his cheek against her head. "I'm an idiot. Emily, I want to marry you, if you'll have me, not for any honorable reason, but because I am madly, absurdly in love with you, and—"
Of course, she had to kiss him.
A long time—a very long time—later, he was doing up the buttons on her second-best wool dress, a process that seemed to take much longer than unbuttoning did. Her nightgown lay on the floor on top of his jacket and greatcoat. His cravat was draped over the bedpost. And her body was still tingling.
The climactic moment he had told her about was even better when it happened while he was buried inside her.
"Better get your things together, love," he said, pressing a kiss to her neck as he finished the last button. "We need to be in Portsmouth in time to use the special license in my pocket before our ship sails."
Our ship. It sounded wonderful. But questions pressed against the happiness, making her heart ache a little. Emily brushed her hair and did it up again quickly, then spread her old black shawl out on the bed to serve as portmanteau. She didn't look at him when she started on the first of her questions. "I don't understand why you didn't say something about your feelings before. And—and why you withdrew your offer."
"Because I could see you were going to hold stubbornly to your promise not to trap me into marriage, and I couldn't stand the way they were treating you. And I didn't want you forced into marriage." He finished tying his cravat. "Does this look as bad as I think it does?"
She giggled. "As bad as my hair, I suspect. James?"
"Yes?" He had his waistcoat on and was struggling into his jacket.
"Why didn't you tell me how you felt?" That still hurt.
He came to her and kissed her lightly. "I'm sorry. I wanted so badly to do right by you, and I've had little experience at that. I didn't know what was right. With any other young miss, the answer would have been obvious. Marriage." He smiled. "But you're not like anyone else. It wasn't until your relatives surrounded us that I realized I did have something to give you."
"Was that when you realized I loved you?" she asked shyly. "When I finally found my resolution and stood up to my aunt?"
He traced a finger down her cheek. "No, sweetheart, though that moved me greatly, I had a pretty good notion of your feelings already. You fairly shimmered with love when you gave yourself to me— which was what made me forget everything except making you mine. But I didn't know what I could give you in return until I saw how your family smothered everything bright and special in you. Then I knew I could give you one thing others wouldn't— the freedom to be who you are. It just took me a few days to arrange things."
She turned and reached for her jewelry box. "You had to get your money back from the ship's captain you were to have sailed with, I suppose, and arrange passage for the two of us. It must have been expensive." She held out her one piece of good jewelry, her mother's pearls. "These should help."
He folded her fingers around the pearls. "You needn't worry about money, Emily. Are you ready to go?"
"James," she said, exasperated, "I know you don't have any money. I don't, either, but I do have the pearls and a small dowry. I don't think my uncle will withhold it once we're married. He blusters and yells, but he does care about me."
"But you truly don't have to worry about money. I've, ah, persuaded my father to release my inheritance. It took a spot of blackmail—"
"What? How?"
"The Earl of Mere has been the cause of too many scandals himself to be concerned with the world's opinion of him—normally. But it is one thing to be known as a wicked rake. Quite another to appear ridiculous." He grinned. "I paid a visit to the parents of the bride my father had been trying to foist on me. I assured them they needn't worry about their daughter's safety if we wed, since I hadn't suffered one of my spells in months, and besides, my father never turned violent when he was suffering from our little family problem. Why, the last time it happened, I told them, the earl did nothing more alarming than borrow my aunt's court dress and feathers."
She choked on a laugh. "You didn't! Oh, heavens. You did."
"They didn't entirely believe me, but they were delighted to have an interesting bit of gossip to pass on. My next interview was with my father. I made it clear that unless he released my inheritance, my only goal in life would be to convince the ton that our family was subject to the most foolish sort of madness. Once the gossip started to spread—aided by the way I behaved at Lady Jersey's rout party—he was willing to do whatever it took to get me out of the country."
She was laughing helplessly now. "What did you do at Lady Jersey's party?"
"Suffice it say," he said, handing her shawl bundle to her, "that your neighbors won't be gossiping about you running off with a rake. Instead they'll shake their heads over 'poor Emily,' whose husband barks at the moon." He smiled that tender, devastating smile. "I am as ruined now as you are, you see. No one else will have me if you don't."
So she kissed him again.
The sun was creeping over the horizon on Christmas morning when they finally climbed out her window. There was a ladder to be navigated to reach the ground—another new experience for her, she told him.
"So," she said happily when they both stood on the icy ground. "Am I marrying you to save your reputation, or is it the other way around?"
"Maybe we'll save each other." He took her hand.
"I'll need you in America. I don't want to get lost." He smiled. "Ready to leave the Old World for the New?"
She looked at the house, at eight years' worth of the familiar—and joy bubbled up in her, sweet and heady. There was so much to learn—about ships and America and, most of all, about the man smiling at her on this shiny Christmas morning. The right man. The one who had taken her virginity and her heart— and had given her himself, and the chance to find her resolution. And herself. "Oh, yes. Yes, please."