Emilia glared. “I do not need anyone to wash and dress me, and until now, my clothes were always in my wardrobe exactly where I want them. Bessie has better uses.” She turned in the opposite direction of their suite, her husband still on her heels. She’d swear he radiated curiosity.
She opened the door on the chamber her grandfather had once used as his private office. Bessie glanced up from her work, and left an ink smudge on her brow as she brushed a wisp of hair out of her face. “M’lady? Do you need me?”
Dare leaned his shoulder against the jamb and studied the dusty bookshelves and old-fashioned walnut secretary desk. “Are those botanical prints?” He nodded at the frames studding the walls.
“Pressed leaves with inscriptions,” Emilia replied curtly. “They were my first herbals. I learned from the books on that wall.”
She crossed to examine the pages Bessie worked on. “You are a wonder, thank you. You should probably rest your eyes and hands for a while. It’s almost time for dinner.”
“Yes, ma’am, m’lady. Let me finish up this sketch, and I’ll be right with you.” She picked up the watercolor brush resting in a glass swirling with colored water.
Dare loomed over Emilia’s shoulder, studying the pages Bessie worked on. “She’s your secretary?” He glanced over at the valise she’d carried in the coach with them. “This is your pharmacopeia?”
Emilia nodded, swung on her heel, and walked out. “I have only the one complete draft besides my notes. Bessie is creating a final copy for the printer.” The printer she would have to pay herself because no male publisher believed the book worth the paper it was written on. She seethed with irritation, but it was an old story. One she had learned to overcome—with money.
“One copy?” he asked in disbelief. “One copy could be lost in fire, to thieves, flood, anything!”
“You think I have not thought of that?” She marched back to their suite. “Do you have any idea how long it took to find someone to make a fair copy? Finding a reasonably competent artist took forever and then I had to train Bessie after Aster found her. It’s taken a year to reach this stage. I made the first draft from my notes, staying up in the evenings to do so when everyone else was attending balls and the theater. I could not spend additional years making a second copy. I’ve learned so much more. . . I really need to be editing this edition.”
All her frustration, anger, and hopes were tied up in that office with Bessie. She didn’t know how to express them to her new husband without pounding him and the walls with her fists. She’d certainly pounded enough desks over the past year.
The moment their door closed and they were alone, Dare pulled her into his arms and hugged her. Briefly, she risked resting her head against his wide shoulder. His embrace had a way of depleting her temper. She’d never allowed anyone to hold her because she hadn’t been able to deal with the. . . connection. . . established. It wasn’t just the prickles and pain, but an elemental drain of energy she could not quite describe.
But oddly, Dare blunted the pain that others exacted. And her own emotions wrapped her in a hot blanket akin to steam—almost painful but also relaxing and comforting. She sank into his embrace as she would never venture to do with any other.
“I apologize for thinking your work was no more than my mother’s foolish embroidery,” he said into her hair. “Ladies have to occupy their time and minds, I know, but I had no notion. . .” He hugged her tighter and kissed her ear. “I wish I had you and Bessie to organize my chaos of notes. It has not once occurred to me to hire someone to do so, much less train anyone!”
She relaxed even more and nodded against him. “I can help with hiring and training. But I suspect you’ll have to keep your own notes. Most secretaries do not wish to be blown to bits.”
“Are you laughing at me?” he asked, setting her back to study her expression, grinning lopsidedly as he did so. “I’ll admit my methods aren’t orderly, but my few attempts at articles have been accepted in scientific journals.”
“While you ride about investing in railroads and steam engines and microscope glass and things my father refrained from telling me about,” she replied, stepping away from his aches and his warmth. “Do not think I walked blindly into this marriage. Whereas I approach all change with caution, you, sir, are a risk taker.”
“I am.” He crossed his arms and accepted her accusation. “And I have wrecked my health as a consequence, I know. But it had to be done.”
She lifted a quizzical eyebrow. “Someone held you at gunpoint and said kill yourself?”
“My father, essentially.” He shrugged. “He ran us to the brink of ruin, then rode off a cliff one drunken evening, leaving me to deal with the consequences. I had to come home from Oxford not just to console my mother and sisters, but to keep the creditors from carrying off every stick of furniture. One cannot overcome obstacles that high without taking risks.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed. He stood there looking authoritative and gentlemanly, as if he’d just asked which party she would like to attend that evening. He must have been no more than a boy. . . “That, my father did not tell me,” she said in a whisper of awe.
“It is not something we let get about,” he admitted. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that wealth attracts wealth.”
She chuckled at his paraphrase from a popular novel. “So you pretended to still have a nice income, put off the creditors, and gambled on what?”
“Waterloo, essentially. I wagered Wellington would win and soon bring home his men. I invested borrowed money in horses and ships, hoping there would be hundreds of soldiers needing good transportation. It was lucky timing.”
“The timing was there for anyone to see. You’re the one with the confidence to use it,” she corrected. “And knowing what I do of you, I assume you burned the midnight oil racing about the countryside in all sorts of weather to gather the funds, the horses, and the ships.”
“But my days of juggling a dozen balls have run out.” He shrugged out of his coat and began unfastening his linen. “What time did you tell Mrs. Peacock to serve dinner?”
She wanted to linger and watch him undress. He had apparently realized that arriving at the table covered in road dust was not polite. But people waited on them. Now was not the time to indulge in her womanly curiosity. She glanced at her pocket watch. “In another half hour. If you would prefer to rest, I can have dinner sent up.”
He shook his head, sending a gold-dusted lock tumbling over his brow. “Abandon my bride for our first meal together in our new home? Not likely. I am not entirely an invalid yet.”
She wanted to explain that she might help extend his life a few months by laying her hands on him, using her gift, but perhaps giving him that hope was not a good idea. If she failed. . . he might hate her. Sometimes, she was very slow thinking through human reactions.
Daringly, she stood on her toes and kissed his whiskery cheek. “You are more man than most,” she murmured, darting out of his reach before he could grab her, and retreating to the dressing room.
She really needed to think about tonight, and the expectation of a man who was not entirely an invalid yet.
Dare hadn’t been really hungry in longer than he could remember, but apparently country air was good for him. Or Mrs. Peacock’s light broth, meltingly delicious bread, fancy greens, and thin slices of ham sat easier on his stomach than richer fare. He was afraid to eat too much. Nausea was a poor companion to lust. But he felt remarkably satisfied as they departed the table.
“Did you help Mrs. Peacock choose the menu?” he asked his bride as they faced the parlor jumble together after dinner.
“Not at all. She had an enormous list. I suggested she make do with what had arrived. Dinner was the result. Was that enough for you? I fear she’s trying to please me by assuming I eat lightly.”
“A meal designed for ladies and invalids, no doubt. Word spreads quickly among the servants, and James knows I do not eat.” Dare lifted boxes he re
cognized as his and shifted them to one corner. He didn’t want to wear out his renewed energy before bedtime.
“If so, Mrs. Peacock did well. You ate everything set before you. That trunk is books. Do not think to move it,” she warned.
The reminder of his weakness irritated him. Once upon a time, he would have taken it as a challenge. With a grumble, he realized illness had taught him caution, a little late. He said nothing but sorted out other trunks he knew weren’t his. “Which of these will you need on the morrow?”
“The two smaller ones should suffice. I’ll stay home and help Mrs. Wiggs organize and interview, I suppose. I cannot move my equipment to the abbey until a room is prepared.”
She sounded so sad, he wanted to hug her again. Instead, Dare lifted one of her small trunks to his shoulder, and offered his other arm to her. “We’ll have the marquess’s footman for a while longer. We may as well keep him employed. James has cleared the worst of our suite. Let us repair to our private parlor.”
Where he could divest his beautiful bride of all her clothing was the thought primarily on his mind. Her bold kiss earlier had stirred him more than his lust. Lust was for interchangeable women who offered physical release. His intriguing wife stirred him in possessive, proud ways he’d never experienced—and aroused his need to explore.
As Emilia took his elbow and lifted her skirts to go up the stairs, she sent him an admiring glance. The look sizzled his innards, and Dare realized he’d never suffered even a calf love for any woman. He’d never had time. In his youth, he had sought the favors of young ladies whose fathers he wooed for business reasons. Once he had access to the right clubs, he’d discarded that approach. She was right—he’d been living in an all-male society of his own making.
Surrounded by his mother and sisters, he’d never noticed the lack of feminine company. Lust could be quenched by women he saw in bedchambers and nowhere else. They weren’t exactly conversationalists—but then, neither was Emilia. Yet her company captivated him as others did not.
Perhaps it was just his perverse desire to prevent his cousin Peter from inheriting, as slim as that chance might be. It was the kind of gamble he enjoyed.
Dare set the trunk down in the dressing room while she examined the wardrobe and dressers. “Did James leave you any space?”
“He very neatly divided everything in half,” she said with one of those rare smiles he craved because they made him feel special. “I’ll have Bessie clear the wardrobe in the smaller chamber for my gowns. I have a great many, I fear, even if I do not wear them often.”
“There is so much I’d like to learn about you.” Knowing it was early yet and that she probably had a list of tasks as long as his, Dare traced his finger down her peach-soft cheek. A blush rewarded him. “Have you given any thought to our discussion about an heir?”
She blushed deeper. “Is there. . . I mean, I know it’s unlikely, but. . .” She looked frustrated at her inability to phrase the question.
“Would you like to write out your query as a botanical theory?” he asked in amusement. “I can explain birds and bees, but not plants so much.”
“Birds and bees spread plant pollen,” she said crossly. “It’s a nonsensical phrase referring to pollination. It is not at all the same for people.”
Dare had a hard time not laughing. Intellectual discussions caused his bride no problem in speaking. “Is there a logistical problem I should be aware of?” he asked, doing his best to use impersonal phrases.
“Several,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I had not really anticipated. . . Well, men usually aren’t interested in me.”
There was an opening he could use. Dare tugged at the fine muslin chemisette adorning the neckline of her bodice. “I believe we have already established that I am not just any man. I am a man of rare perception with the ability to see past your shyness to the intelligent, beautiful woman you conceal.”
“I am not shy,” she said irritably, but she didn’t stop his marauding fingers. “I simply have no patience with flapping eyelashes and coy titters.”
“A fact I admire more and more,” he said with relish, leaning over to kiss her heated cheek, while whisking off the muslin, leaving her shoulders bare. “Wind gusts from flapping lashes send me fleeing every time.”
She laughed a little and bless all that was holy, began toying with his neckcloth. Just her proximity had his cock primed. Her touch would soon turn him into a drooling imbecile. When he was more coherent, he would write into his will that he wished to be buried with her scent of lavender.
“Nursemaids,” she muttered insensibly, unknotting his linen. “Are they costly?”
Nursemaids—babies—conjugal rights: he worked backward to determine her meaning. “I will indenture my sisters, if you would be so kind as to bear my child.”
She poked his chest to show she understood he jested, then set to work on his waistcoat. “Did no one warn you that Malcolm women seldom bear sons? I did not think to say since I did not think as far as sharing a bed.”
“Whereas, that’s all I thought about,” he said fervently, finding the fastenings of her gown. Hope slammed against his ribs. He was ready, if she was willing. “And right now, I cannot say that infants are on my mind at all.”
She untied his shirt and pressed a kiss to his chest that had his heart galloping.
“If I may have nursemaids and you do not mind about an heir. . .” She took a deep breath, stepped back, and met his gaze with determination. “Then I see no reason why we should not be truly man and wife.”
Chapter 10
Emilia did not know what to expect of her agreement to share Dare’s bed. Her husband had seemed very calm and pragmatic in discussing her concerns. He’d made her believe that he wanted her—not an easy task given her experience.
To her astonishment, at her agreement to share his bed, Dare hooted—literally hooted—with joy and lifted her into the air as if she were a mere wisp.
His reckless joy wiped away all her thinking. It was as if he cast aside the heavy burden of her gift, dispelled all her fears, making her feel lighter and more carefree than she could ever remember being. He encouraged her ecstatic buoyancy by swinging her in a circle, then carrying her out of the dressing room and back to their bedchamber, fervently covering her face and hair with kisses.
“I need to put a dozen years of lovemaking into every night,” he declared.
She didn’t warn him that his lungs were already overworked, and this exercise had exacerbated the problem—that was the fear talking. Instead, she daringly held her hand to his chest and experienced the warning prickles, then the hot shock of energy transferring from deep inside herself to him. Her excitement buffered the pain, creating a risk that she wouldn’t cut off the healing connection in time. But sometimes the desire to heal was so magnetic, it was hard to stop—rather like kissing.
Wrapped up in his lust, Dare didn’t even seem to notice. While she clung to his linen, he set her feet back on the floor and eagerly dragged her bodice off her shoulders. He kissed her breast above her corset—creating a hot river from her breast to her womb. That sufficiently distracted her enough to break the connection.
All the blood left her brain, and she nearly passed out from sensation. She grabbed his arms, whispering, “Slower, please. It is hard. . . I can feel. . .” That had always been the problem—she felt too much. How could she explain?
“Slower, it is.” He ran his hand into her hair and pins clattered against the plank floor.
Light-headed, she almost giggled. “That is not slower.”
“How am I to give you a hundred nights in one if I do not ravish you immediately?” he asked with perfect logic, spreading her waist-length hair across her shoulders. “By all that’s holy, this glory should be woven into gossamer fabric. Men pay fortunes to dress their women in black silk. You need only wear your hair down.”
The cascade of hair over her bare breasts stimulated a flush of desire, and Emilia knew she was turn
ing pink. “Hair is a nuisance that takes too much work. I shall cut it off and ask a weaver to make a shirt of it for you to pet.” Since he was unfastening her bodice, she was not at all certain what she was saying. Her breasts felt tight and swollen, eager for his caress.
“It is not your hair I wish to make love to,” he murmured, nipping at her throat, pressing soothing kisses to her skin as he pushed her bodice to her waist. “Your mane is magnificent, but these. . .” He released her breasts from her corset and pushed them up so cool air blew over the heated crests. “These are triumphs of beauty.”
“That is ridiculous,” she tried to say, but she wasn’t entirely certain her tangled tongue released the words. The erotic sensation of a man’s hands holding her breasts deprived her of all thought.
Dare loomed over her in all his glorious muscular masculinity, and she needed to touch. She tried to tug his shirt free, but his trousers were too tight.
“A dying man is allowed to say whatever he wishes,” he insisted, before lifting her so he could suckle at her breast.
Emilia smothered a shriek and grabbed his shoulders for support. Her spine turned to water and her legs instinctively wrapped around his hips, seeking solace for the ache between them. “Specious argument,” she protested breathlessly. “You are obviously not dying yet.”
“I am dying of lust,” he asserted, holding her with one arm while unfastening his trouser buttons with his other hand.
“Plants in a weakened condition often produce more seeds than usual to ensure propagation of a new generation,” she rattled mindlessly. He dropped her on the bed to wrestle off his shirt and to gaze lasciviously on her wanton state of undress. He cocked a wry eyebrow at her inane utterance.
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