Matthew prised the champagne flute gently from Emma’s fingers and she was powerless to stop him. ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks,’ he said.
‘No, I …’
Matthew set her glass down on the side table. He took both of Emma’s hands in his. She knew she ought to wriggle them free, but, damn it, it felt so right having her hands in Matthew’s. His long fingers, cool and bony and dry, curling around hers. And her heart was doing the most amazing dance of it own, an entirely different rhythm to the music that had just started up again.
‘Now then, Mrs Jago, look me in the eye, if you can, and tell me you’re married.’
The second Seth rushed through the double doors of Nase Head House a steward came to take his coat. Someone else thrust a glass of champagne into his hand, before a woman he’d never seen before snatched it away again.
‘Not yet,’ the woman said. ‘I need a partner for this dance.’
‘I don’t dance,’ Seth said, his eyes searching the room for Emma. But there were so many people thronging the dance floor and standing chatting together in groups, holding glasses of champagne, that he couldn’t see her. He hoped she wasn’t on the dance floor dancing with someone else.
‘You do now,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Clara Newson. Cousin of the bride. And you are?’
‘Seth Jago.’ He waited for her to take her hands off his arm, to recoil at the Jago name, but she didn’t.
Instead, she said, ‘Ah, so it’s your clever little wife who’s prepared the buffet. I sneaked a look just now. And a crab tart, I’m afraid. You don’t think she’ll miss just the one, do you?’
‘I’m sure she won’t. And I won’t tell.’
Clara Newson swayed in front of Seth. He could smell alcohol on her breath, but then most people here would probably have had more than a drink or two. He had a lot of catching up to do. He reached for the champagne Clara had plonked down on a side table, spilling some of it. And downed what was left. Dutch courage. It would be churlish not to dance now he was here. A waiter appeared with more champagne, and Seth soon sent the second glass to follow the first.
‘Ooooh, you are naughty,’ Clara said, reaching for his hand.
And then Seth found himself being dragged to join in something he thought might be a country dance. He did his best not to stare down at the very impressive bosoms of Clara Newson, thrust upwards towards him as they were as she clutched his elbows in long, thin fingers.
It seemed to be Seth and Clara’s turn now to gallop down between two rows of clapping hands. As he reached the end, Rupert Smythe clapped him on the back and said, ‘Good to see you at last, Jago.’
‘And you,’ Seth said, aware that Rupert Smythe’s bonhomie owed much to the amount of champagne drunk as anything else.
But still people would have seen that clap on the back, seen he was welcome, accepted despite everything.
All would be perfect now, if only he could see Emma.
Where was she?
‘I don’t need help, Matthew,’ Emma said. ‘You shouldn’t have followed me out. And it’s not seemly.’
‘Seemly?’ Matthew said.
Even though she wasn’t looking at him, Emma knew he would have his eyebrows raised, his head cocked on one side, waiting for her to explain.
She turned off the gas under the lobster soup. It needed a few minutes to settle, a few minutes to get the burning heat from it so it didn’t scald the diners’ mouths, and for the flavour to be enhanced. She took the soup plates from the warming oven, and laid them out in neat rows, began to decorate them with sprigs of parsley.
‘You and me, alone in the kitchen,’ Emma said, answering Matthew at last. ‘It isn’t seemly.’
He guffawed, and Emma knew how ridiculous she must have sounded. She had slept in Shingle Cottage all night with Matthew Caunter in the other room for months and months. And they’d spent hours together in the kitchen there, hadn’t they?
‘The Victorian age has been and gone, Emma, in case you haven’t noticed.’
‘Of course I have.’
‘Well, then, let me help you decorate those soup plates with that grass.’
‘It’s parsley!’
‘Yes, Mrs Jago. If you say so.’
‘Stop it, Matthew. If you’ve come here to mock me, then you can just go again. I’m sorry about your wife, but you don’t have to take it out on all women.’
‘Ouch!’ Matthew said, effecting a punch to the gut. ‘Below the belt, that remark.’
‘But, it’s true, isn’t it?’
Matthew shrugged.
‘I’m pleased to see marriage hasn’t taken the fire out of you, Emma.’
‘Why should it?’
Emma decided not to comment on Matthew’s heavy emphasis on the word ‘marriage’. If she did, then he would only press her to prove she and Seth were married and she knew she couldn’t do that. She also knew that with Matthew’s experience of undercover reconnaissance it would probably be the easiest job in the world for him to search out details of her ‘marriage’ to Seth. The less she said on the matter the better it would be.
Emma placed the last piece of garnish on the rims of the soup bowls. She’d need to go and tell the hired kitchen staff they were needed in another minute or two.
‘I’ll go and tell Rupert Smythe it’s all ready,’ she said, her back to Matthew.
‘Off you go, then,’ Matthew said. ‘But before you do – I claim my kiss.’
Emma whirled round to say ‘you most definitely do not’, but she felt Matthew clasp her shoulders gently but firmly. And then he kissed her. Not on the cheek, but on the lips. Emma counted the seconds, unable to pull away. Aching to respond. The kiss was firing up all sorts of feelings and desires and longings.
Those feelings weren’t love – she knew that because she got a totally different feeling when Seth kissed her, a much more warm and comforting sort of feeling, like being wrapped in a towel warmed on the fireguard when she’d stepped from the tub.
The way Matthew was making her feel, she could only describe as raw. She wondered if this new feeling might be lust.
Well, she wasn’t going to stay around to find out.
Emma wriggled from Matthew’s grasp and ran from the room, almost colliding with Seth in the corridor outside.
‘There you are,’ Seth said.
Emma mentally crossed her fingers that Matthew wouldn’t follow her out. And that her flushed neck and face didn’t make her look guilty.
‘And here you are,’ Emma said. ‘I saw you pulled onto the dance floor the second you got in. Did you enjoy the dance?’
She had tried to keep carping and sniping from her voice, but knew she hadn’t succeeded entirely. She’d seen the young girl tottering, rather drunkenly, on too much champagne, from man to man, trying to find someone to partner her. Seth had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, hadn’t he? She’d seen him scanning the room for her. Then she’d disappeared so that he wouldn’t see her sitting next to Matthew.
‘That’s not a whiff of jealousy I smell, is it?’ Seth said. He reached for Emma’s hands and held them. ‘You look beautiful. More beautiful than ever. You look as though you were born to wear fine dresses and jewels and to live in grand places.’
‘Do I?’
‘Didn’t I just say?’ Seth laughed.
Emma knew Seth was going to kiss her and she wondered, when he did, if he would taste the scent of Matthew Caunter on her mouth. She ran a tongue over her lips. She could taste champagne and the saltiness of fear.
‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ Seth said, copying Emma by running his tongue underneath his top lip. ‘It makes me want to ravage you.’
‘Seth!’ Emma said. ‘I—’
But Seth silenced her with his lips, pulled her to him to let someone pass.
Emma knew beyond doubt, as a hand patted her bottom in passing, that that someone was Matthew Caunter.
Chapter Eighteen
Caunter! If he’d
known he was going to be here, then wild horses wouldn’t have dragged Seth through the doors of Nase Head House. And he’d have locked Emma in the house rather than let her be here, accepting the compliments about her cooking, and her dress and her hair and how radiant she looked. And every bloody thing.
Seth had been jealous of Caunter once, but since the man had left for America Seth had put those feelings away. Now he recognised them again, much as a man would recognise his own mother after decades of not seeing her. They tasted bitter in his mouth.
‘You look wonderful, my dear,’ Mr Smythe was saying again now.
For at least the fifth time in Seth’s hearing alone and as though he was surprised, or that he’d had a hand in it somehow.
Caunter, head and shoulders taller than all of them, was staring down at Emma with a look on his face Seth would have liked to swipe off for him – a look of admiration. No, adoration. A look no man should have for another man’s woman. It was as though Seth didn’t exist for Caunter in that moment.
Seth slid an arm around Emma and placed the palm of his hand in the small of her back. But she didn’t lean against him as she usually did. She stayed standing ramrod straight, but with the tiniest of shivers that Seth could detect rippling up her spine under his hand.
She was nervous. Why?
Had Emma known Caunter would be a guest?
The air between them all was dancing with something Seth couldn’t define – as though, in couples, each pair had their own agenda. Him and Emma. Emma and Smythe. Smythe and Caunter. And foremost of all seemed to be Emma and Caunter.
‘Thank you,’ Emma said, acknowledging Smythe’s compliment at last. It seemed to break the spell and everyone started to talk at once.
Seth heard Caunter say, ‘I couldn’t agree more.’ And was that a wink for Emma’s benefit? Was it? Smythe commented that Emma was the most beautiful woman in the room, and then laughed when Emma said he’d better not let his wife hear him say that!
‘And I can’t thank you enough for all your efforts here today, Emma, and that’s the truth. My wife and I are so appreciative.’ He looked back over his shoulder as though searching her out. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘There she is. Won’t you come and meet my wife, Mr Jago? A dance with the bride? It’s obligatory, so I’m told.’
‘Then how,’ Seth said, ‘can I refuse?’
Emma gave him a sharp look – she’d noticed the acid in his tone if no one else had.
‘I’d return the compliment and dance with you, Emma, but I’ve promised my sister-in-law the next dance. Best not to get my in-law relationships off on the wrong footing, eh?’ He laughed, but Seth couldn’t even raise a smile.
The last thing he wanted was to leave Emma alone with Caunter. And then Smythe made Seth’s spirits sink even lower.
‘Weren’t you saying earlier, Matthew, that you hoped to have the opportunity to dance with Emma? I’m sure Mr Jago won’t—’
‘Your sister-in-law is waiting,’ Matthew interrupted. He turned to Seth. ‘And if you have no objection, sir, I would like to dance this one with Emma. We can’t have her a wallflower, now can we?’
Smythe was engineering to leave Caunter alone with Emma, wasn’t he? He’d known Seth wouldn’t be able to turn down a request to dance with his wife. Damn and blast the conniving bastard. And it sounded as though Smythe and Caunter had been talking about Emma earlier.
‘I can be a wallflower if I choose to be,’ Emma said. She stepped sideways, away from the support of Seth’s hand – putting a bit more distance between her and Caunter, Seth was pleased to see.
‘I’ve no objection to you dancing with Mr Caunter,’ Seth said. He knew his manners, and had an understanding of the etiquette required in the situation, even if every word spoken was a blatant lie.
He also knew that to be seen dancing with Smythe’s wife would let the whole room know he’d been accepted back into society – his father’s and his brothers’ wrongdoings forgotten in their eyes. Not that he intended to be sticking around in this society – or even the country – for very much longer. Especially not if Caunter was back in it.
Smythe tilted his head to one side, a slick of a smile playing across his lips. Smythe was doing Seth a favour and he’d better be grateful for it, that slick of a smile was saying.
‘Come, Seth, I’ll introduce you to my wife.’
‘Just one dance,’ Seth said, allowing himself to be led – very reluctantly – away.
One dance was all it took for Emma’s world to turn upside down.
Matthew held out his arms to her and she stepped into them as she’d known she would, despite her comment that she would be a wallflower if she chose to be. All her senses seemed to be being satisfied at once: the touch of Matthew’s large hand on hers covering it almost completely, warm and strong; the scent of the soap on him she remembered he’d always used when she’d been his housekeeper at Shingle Cottage; his deep mellifluous voice as though he was on the verge of breaking into song; the very sight of him in front of her, his eyes perhaps a deeper green than she’d remembered – but there in front of her and not just in her dreams; and the dryness in her mouth with nerves, as though she’d eaten a whole bagful of sherbet lemons.
She didn’t need to be told where to place her hands this time. She remembered. But was she imagining it – willing it? – that Matthew was holding her closer this time than he had when she’d been fifteen and he’d been out of bounds emotionally?
That boundary had been crossed now, though. And the thought scared and delighted Emma in equal measure. His kiss in the kitchen had done that. And his hand on her bottom as he’d passed when Seth had been kissing her.
His hand, in the small of her back now, stopped the shivers she’d had when it had been Seth’s hand there, just seconds ago.
‘I’m glad I didn’t have to remind you it would be a terrible waste of a beautiful woman had you remained a wallflower,’ Matthew said.
‘And I might remind you this is going to be a courtesy dance.’
Matthew laughed.
‘Ah, I see you’ve learned wisdom since I last saw you! Even if you are also an accomplished little liar. You almost threw yourself in my arms.’
‘I did not!’ Emma said, knowing every word was a lie. As he’d always done, Matthew knew her better than she knew herself sometimes. And he would know just how fast her heart was beating next to his.
‘Oh, I think you did. Shall I ask Dr Shaw to take your pulse? It seems to me that little heart of yours is fluttering alarmingly fast.’
‘And it seems to me your head doesn’t get any smaller, does it?’ Emma said, but she said it without rancour. She’d been right – Matthew could feel her heart beating faster than a swallow’s does when it flies in a window and can’t escape.
Thank goodness the music was loud and everyone was chatting animatedly as they danced so no one was likely to hear their conversation.
‘It would have been rude to have rejected Rupert’s suggestion. We can’t not dance,’ Matthew said, looking down at her, his breath warm as it ruffled the wispy bits of hair that had escaped her chignon and were curling in front of her ears. ‘Although how I’m going to restrain myself from kissing that very inviting expanse of neck of yours, I don’t know.’
‘You better had,’ Emma said, her voice less strong than she’d hoped it would be.
‘Do you need another lesson in the waltz?’ Matthew asked.
Emma had felt the pressure of his thigh against hers, ready to lead her into the dance, but she’d been unable to move.
‘No. You taught me well enough the first time.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ Matthew said. ‘But the music’s started in case you’ve suddenly gone deaf between the kitchen and now. Which I don’t think you have. If I told you I agree totally with Rupert’s comments about your beauty, would you believe me?’
‘Don’t,’ Emma said. ‘Just dance.’
‘For as long as you want to be in my arms,’ Matthew said.
<
br /> ‘And stop teasing me.’
‘Teasing? I’ve never spoken a truer word.’
Emma opened her mouth to say something, but Matthew let go of her hand and put a finger to her lips – and the touch was like a burn, as brief as it was, before Matthew reached for her hand again, clasped it in his.
He led her into the dance and, as Matthew whirled them round, the hem of Emma’s dress swirled out, then back again, wrapping itself around her calves. Wrapping her to Matthew? Matthew began to hum along to the music.
‘Please, please, don’t sing,’ Emma said.
Matthew laughed and the rumble of it rippled between them and he pulled her closer. ‘I’m not that bad a singer.’
‘That’s my point. People will look at us if you sing.’
‘By people you mean your, er, husband.’
‘Seth. Yes,’ Emma said. ‘I love him, you know.’
‘I have no doubt you do. But do his kisses thrill you the way I know mine did just now in the kitchen?’
‘Stop it,’ Emma hissed under her breath.
God, but the arrogance of the man. And the danger of him – to her relationship with Seth. And her heart?
‘People will notice.’
‘Notice what?’
‘Us. Dancing too close.’
‘What could we possibly do, here on a dance floor, in front of at least – what sixty people? – that could upset your, er, husband?’
‘Sixty-six,’ Emma said. ‘Including you and me.’
She ignored the loaded way Matthew had said ‘husband’. And his ‘er’ which might as well have been in inverted commas. Or italics. Or upper case.
‘You’re very precise about the numbers,’ Matthew said. He brought his head nearer to Emma’s, bent low so that their cheeks were almost touching. But not quite. There was a soupçon of public decency between them still. But only just.
Which was more than could be said for the indecent way Emma’s body was reacting to Matthew’s touch. She was practically squirming with desire in his arms and he, without doubt, knew she was.
Emma: There's No Turning Back Page 26