“For us both,” he said softly. “I, too, am tired and out of sorts. I apologize if I made you feel unwelcome here. I did not intend that.”
She pressed her palms together and lay the outer edges of her first fingers to her nose, as if she were praying. Oh, thank goodness, she was too weary for tears. She dropped her hands and stood. “We can only do our best whilst circumstances keep us here.”
He nodded once and held out his hand. “Shall we?”
Thankfully, dinner was an informal affair. They managed to get through the meal while discussing the weather, Frieda, and whether Maggie would suffice until Emily’s maid arrived. The weather was fine. Frieda was asleep upstairs. Yes, Maggie gave excellent service.
At one point, she put down her knife and fork and said, “It’s lovely to know that tomorrow I am not required to rise well before sunrise for another grueling day of travel.”
For the first time, Bracebridge smiled naturally. “I share your pleasure in that. I shall rise early, though.”
“By habit?”
He patted his stomach. “I have a regimen of training. In fact, I meant to ask if you mind my taking Frieda with me on my morning breather.”
She knew she ought to say yes but could not bring herself to do so. “She might run away.”
“I shan’t be careless with her. You know that.”
“Yes, but suppose she escapes? Through no fault of yours.”
“I’ve told the gamekeeper about her. Nothing untoward shall happen. Unless you account her coming home tired as being undesirable.”
“I suppose not.” Bracebridge liked Freida. She knew that, and yet the thought of him taking her with him filled her with panic.
They were coming to the end of their meal, and Bracebridge helped himself to several slices of the cheese that had just been served to them. “On my honor, I shall not allow her to escape. She’s young. She needs exercise and I wouldn’t mind a companion. She’ll learn the property.” He waited for her response and, when none was forthcoming, said, “I did not lose her on our recent travels. She’s a most excellent dog, as, of course, you know.”
“Indeed, sir. She is.”
They sat in silence while she gathered herself. “May I take your silence for assent?” he asked.
“Very well.” Inside, she howled with the fear that Frieda would encounter some disaster. She might escape, or run away, or, upon being allowed to run free, be shot by a hunter or gamekeeper even with Bracebridge’s warning. “Take her with you.”
“I shall keep her close, I promise you.”
“Thank you.” She knew her worry was exaggerated, but she could not stop; she could only live with her fault.
A few minutes later, Pond brought in glasses and a bottle of champagne arranged in a bucket of ice. “Thank you, Pond,” Bracebridge said. “You may go now.” He reached for the bottle and turned the label toward him. “I obtained this just a month before the war ended.”
“You were not able to sell it?”
“This is from my private stock.” The bottom of the bottle made a dull, crunching thud in the ice when he replaced it. “I always kept back several cases for myself and friends.”
“Cynssyr and Aldreth, you mean.”
“Among others, yes.” He poured a dash of champagne into a glass for her and substantially more for himself into another. As he extended hers, he said, “Join me in a toast?”
She took the glass from him. “Thank you.”
He watched the fingers of her left hand. She curled her fingers around the stem of her untouched champagne.
He lifted his glass and tipped it toward hers. “To the future.”
“The future.” She touched her glass to his. The future. Not their future. Not to happiness. To resignation seemed an awful toast to make. She took a tiny sip.
“You do not like it?”
“On the contrary. This is delicious.”
He gestured toward her glass. “You are a married woman now. You may have more, if you like.”
There was much wrong with their marriage, from the reason they’d gone to Scotland to how little they had in common, but she would go forward with the truth between them. “I do not care for spirits.”
“May I ask your objection?”
She rested her hands on her lap, out of his sight. “Because of Papa.”
“Ah.” He stared into his glass. Bubbles rose toward the surface. “Do you mind if I do?”
“Not at all.” She straightened on her chair. She was going to lose her mind from the tension of being alone with him, with no idea how to behave or what to expect of their first night here. She opened her mouth to make an excuse and return to her room.
Bracebridge stood and said, “You are a generous soul. Thank you.” She nodded and told herself he did not intend to look at her as if she were already naked. She wished she were. She wished he were.
Then he held out a hand and said, “Lady Bracebridge, shall we retire?”
Chapter Thirteen
Over the past several days, he had learned to distrust his wife’s pleasant, gorgeous smile; she was quite the actress. Bracebridge drank the last of his champagne and set down his glass. He had no hope of interpreting her expression. Either she was truly pleased with the state of the world or not. He had no notion which was true, but he suspected the latter.
On impulse, he took her hand in his. She went still. Their eyes met, and the outer edges of his restraint and good sense blurred. He could sweep aside the remains of their meal and make love to his beautiful wife on the table without the guilt of seducing an innocent or ruining reputations.
He passed his thumb over her wrist. He shouldn’t. He should not subject her to his lusts. “Emily.”
“My lord?”
Well, then. He wouldn’t. They were done with traveling, but restraint was still required. She was his wife, not his mistress. She was young and so intensely beautiful, and he did not trust himself to treat her with respect. “How far we’ve come from when I first met the Sinclairs of Bartley Green.”
She smiled, but there was no light in her eyes. He was learning how to look past the perfection of her features. “Indeed,” she said.
“Not Mr. Devon Carlisle any longer.”
A smile flitted around her mouth. Breathtaking. “I rather liked him.”
“That rogue?” He’d always been aware of her beauty, but a man in love, as he was still with Anne, could admire another woman’s looks without considering action. After he’d emerged from the depths of his grief over Anne’s marriage, he’d lost his restraint with Emily. He’d kissed her more than once, and then came that day, that infamous day when he’d come within inches of being obliged to marry her.
He’d spent years making himself deserving of Anne, yet he had reverted to his old ways at the first serious temptation. Out of anger. Out of despair. Out of resentment that after losing the entirety of his family, he’d also lost the woman who had filled the hole in his heart.
“Mr. Carlisle was kind to me.” Her tongue darted out to touch her lower lip, and he thought about that night on the road when he’d indulged his lust. Oh, but her mouth. Her mouth on him, and the way she’d groaned. The way she’d felt, the soft warmth of her, that quick intake of breath, the shattering pleasure when he came inside her.
He kept his attention on her lips and imagined more of what they’d already done and many things they hadn’t yet. “What of Bracebridge?” He filled the question with carnal suggestion. Because he was a wicked man. “Do you like him?”
The moment stretched out, then something in her sparked, and she looked him up and down. He had no doubt whatsoever regarding what she was thinking now, and his body responded. “My lord.” One side of her mouth curved up. “I like him very well.”
Once again, he was speared by eyes the color of the sky. Thick, inky lashes made them bluer than anyone’s eyes ought to be, as divine as everything else about her. He poured more champagne but stopped with the glass halfway to
his mouth. “Do you object to my drinking?”
He expected her to demur, but what she said was worse. She said, “Have I that right?”
“You have the right to tell me what is disagreeable to you.” He put down the champagne. Whatever their future, however long it lasted, she had that right, but she did have a talent for confronting an issue straight on.
“Are you cruel when you’re drunk?”
His heart twisted up. The reason for her question was at the Cooperage in a bottle that had shattered against the wall by his shoulder. “I don’t believe so. I hope I am not. No one has complained that I am.”
She fiddled with one of the buttons on her gloves. “It’s not my place to say what you may do or not.”
That sounded like pure resignation, and the Emily he knew never resigned herself to anything. He tapped the tabletop. He did not know her. Not the way he knew Anne. This exchange had become something that mattered more than it ought to. Take one conversational path and the distance between them would remain. Take another and he might well meet whoever she was inside. “Was your father violent?”
Her eyebrows drew together. “In the main, Papa is blind to my flaws. That is, until recently. He thought I would marry Mr. Davener, but I knew I never would. I am not that sort of daughter, and now he knows.”
“You persist in not answering my questions.”
“You asked me about Papa. I answered you.” She tilted her head just so, all innocence and delightful confusion. “Did I misunderstand you, and you meant something else?”
Here was that wall around the core of her, disguised with smiles and practiced charm. He might circle the perimeter and never find a way past. He said, “Did he ever strike you?”
“He’d never do such a thing.” Her smile transformed her from a serious-minded stranger into the Emily he knew—thought he knew—open and easy to read, careless and carefree. The wall was there, though. And she’d stood behind that impenetrable facade.
He would not be misdirected like this. “He threw a bottle at me.”
“Did he?” Her eyebrows arched in a careless fashion, but there was tension in her shoulders.
“He missed.”
“He was not in his right mind, I’ll warrant. Throw something at you, of all people. He could not possibly have understood what he was doing.”
“He was not sober at the time, but I believe he knew exactly what he was doing and why. Therefore, I wonder whether he ever behaved so with you.”
“He never threw a bottle at me.” She rested a hand on his upper arm, and her touch threatened to obliterate the resolve that had kept him from repeating that one night of lust. “You took me to task for not answering your questions. Rightly so.” Her smile dazzled. “I realize I have not answered your first question.”
As a diversion, this was tactical genius. He was completely diverted, for he knew exactly what she meant. “Which was?”
“Whether we ought to retire,” she said slowly. “To which I reply, yes, my lord. We should.”
He stepped closer to her, drawn by her inconsequential, entirely innocent reply that wasn’t innocent at all. When she did not retreat, he kissed her, a soft touch of his mouth to hers once, then again. And another kiss from which he did not disengage.
She relaxed against him with a sigh, a capitulation that sparked his arousal and turned his best intentions to ash. She made love as if the world would end any moment, as if there were no one else in the entire world but him.
He drew back, not much, and said, “If we do not go upstairs now, we’ll not leave this room for some time.”
Her smile in return was pure, mischievous joy. “Let’s not scandalize the staff on the first day.”
Never once had he imagined walking the corridors of Corth Abbey with Emily at his side and a destination of the nearest available bedroom. But he was doing that now, and their destination was the rooms intended for the mistress of the house.
He opened the door to her suite and immediately brought up the lamp on a table by the door. Across the room, the fire glowed. These rooms had never been used for their intended purpose, but now he was a married man, and he was here with his wife.
Emily walked in farther, turning this way and that, touching furniture. A young woman he recognized from Hinderhead appeared in the doorway to their right. The girl saw him, and her eyes opened wide. He presumed this was the servant Pond had hired for Emily. He liked her looks. She seemed friendly and open. And discreet, for she curtseyed and retreated, the door closing after her.
He remained where he was and watched Emily turn in a slower circle, taking in the entire room. She ended by facing him with a ravishing smile. “I have always liked the colors here.”
“Please feel free to make whatever changes and improvements you like here. Pond will see to everything.” A vase of white peonies, fragrant white roses, and pussy willow branches sat on a table to Emily’s right. The arrangement was enormous and striking. He was glad Pond had thought of it.
“Thank you, though I like the room just as it is.”
“You may change your mind tomorrow.”
“I might.”
He strolled to one of the interior doors and opened it. He’d put a good deal of time and effort into making Corth Abbey a home that others would admire and want to emulate. He had succeeded, but with Anne ever in his mind. The boudoir.
She hurried after him. The chimney glass went from the mantel all the way to the ceiling as it did in every room. The mirror reflected light from the lamp the servants had left and from the candles in sconces. “I’ve never had a boudoir before. Well, once when we were in Wales with Cynssyr. I felt quite the grand lady.”
He stepped aside so she could examine the room at her leisure. There were flowers here, too. Roses and carnations this time. She stopped before the vase and touched one of the roses before moving on, and it stuck in his head that she liked the flower. That particular kind of rose in that specific color.
Was that true? Was that something Pond knew about Bracebridge’s wife that he did not? What else was there to know about her that he did not?
He wandered away, thoughtful, and opened the door to a smaller withdrawing room. She’d followed him out and now peeked into this room. He brought up the lamp in here, too, brightening the shelves of books.
“Oh,” she said softly, very much to herself. “I’d forgot how lovely this library is.” She walked to the floor-to-ceiling shelves and inspected the volumes.
“If you had rather it be a withdrawing room—”
“A withdrawing room?” she replied without looking at him. “I should think not.” She ran a finger across the spines of several of them. “You chose these with Anne in mind, didn’t you?”
He did not answer straightaway, though she was correct. Then again, perhaps it was not surprising for her to guess he’d had Anne’s sensibilities in mind at the time. “No doubt you have different preferences in reading.”
“Not as vast as you imagine.”
“I suppose I deserve that pert answer.”
“You do.” He could not see her face since she had continued along the shelves, head cocked as she read the titles. “So many of my favorites.” Her finger paused on one on the books. She took it from the shelf and stroked the front. “Waverley was a favorite of ours. We took turns reading it to each other. I must have read it myself a dozen times. Then one day, it simply wasn’t on the shelves anymore. I accused Mary of taking it. She denied it, and we had the most awful row. Only later did I discover that Papa had sold it.” She turned around, the book in hand. “A great many books went missing like that.”
“Anne told me.”
She nodded as if the loss of those books meant nothing. He could not reconcile her blithe reaction with words that implied she’d keenly felt the loss. Yet her mouth curved in a perfect smile he’d seen a hundred times; careless, perfect, unassailable. She held the book to her chest. “The subscription library in Bartley Green did not always have
what I hoped to read, but we made do.” She headed for the door. “I am very glad to find Waverley here. It’s like coming across an old friend.”
He followed her out, but before she was halfway, she turned and gave him a look that made him picture the two of them naked and between the sheets. Primarily him, poised over her with carnal intention.
“And so,” she said. She was teasing. He was almost certain of it. “I shall retire with a familiar and well-traveled companion.”
“Emily,” he said, drawing the word out low and soft. A seductive tone he’d used on other women, but never her. Until now. “I shall be your companion tonight.”
Everything changed, and he could not fathom why or how, but it was as if she’d removed a mask and allowed him to see what lay beneath. There was some change in her eyes, in the angle at which she held herself: a softening, and more than a little of the spirit that had so often driven him to distraction.
Instead of facing a spoiled young beauty, he stood before a woman who knew precisely what she wanted: him. She wanted him, with his imperfect face and the body he kept honed to a weapon. Not Bracebridge, but Devon Carlisle, that depraved and wicked soul.
This was all those moments when he’d lost his head, him kissing her the way no gentleman should ever kiss a young lady, him backing her against a wall when her family was a mere two rooms away, him putting her on her back in a damned woods, within inches of ruin, him taking her to bed on their way to Scotland. All that, wrapped up in right now, and their marriage.
Chapter Fourteen
He extended his hand, unable to untangle his emotions from his sexual reaction to her. The two things might well be one and the same. There remained a chance he could restrain himself.
Emily remained by the table, one hand resting on the polished surface, the other still holding the book tight against her chest. Such stillness in her despite that breathtaking smile. He drew close and brushed the back of his fingers across her cheek. Her thick, inky lashes fluttered down until her eyes were half-closed. “Such silky, smooth skin.”
Surrender To Ruin (Sinclair Sisters Book 3) Page 12