Once she got over the shock, she rather liked the feel of him. The pain was easing. She stroked her hands up his sweat-slick back.
“This is how babies are made, love.” He lifted himself on his elbows and moved his hips. “I spill my…seed”—his hips flexed, pushing him into her—“deep”—he moved in and out again—“inside”—again—“you.” He surged forward and held there. Emma felt something warm spurt into her.
“Mmm.” Charles relaxed onto her. She threaded her fingers through his hair. She was having a little trouble breathing, but that was all right.
She was having a little trouble thinking. Feeling was about all she could manage…the weight of his body on hers, the soreness between her legs. And the fullness. He was still there, still inside her.
Some permanent connection had been forged between them, beyond the obvious physical one. She didn’t understand it yet, nor could she explain it, but she knew it had happened.
She felt very married.
“God, Emma.”
Charles raised his head to smile down at her, and her heart turned over. His eyes held a look of such…possession. No, it was more than that. Acceptance? She felt as if she had just stepped through a door, and now she was with him. Just the two of them. Together. She smiled back.
“Mmm.” Apparently lucidity was eluding him as well. He bent his head and kissed her slowly, thoroughly. It was definitely possession this time—she was filled by him. By his tongue and his…
“I’m too heavy for you.” He lifted himself off her. She felt empty and cold. “And you are probably sore.”
“No.”
“Yes.” He climbed out of bed.
“Where are you going?” Emma did not want to spend the rest of the night alone. “You said you would stay and protect me.”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I am definitely not leaving your bed for long.” He vanished through the connecting door. She heard him rummaging in his wardrobe.
“Here we are. I took the precaution of locking my door—don’t want to surprise poor Henderson, do we?”
Emma flushed. “No. Definitely not.”
He locked her door, too, then came back to the bed. He had something in his hand.
“What’s that?”
“An old cravat. Sorry, the water is a bit cold.” He reached between her legs.
“What are you doing?” Emma tried to close her thighs, but Charles’s hand was already there. She scooted up the bed. “That is cold.”
“I know, love. I’m sorry. I’m just cleaning you up.”
“Cleaning me up?”
Charles showed her the blood-stained cravat. “Your maidenhead, sweetheart. It’s only a little bit of blood, and it will only happen this once.”
“Let me do that.” Emma was mortified. She hated messes.
“No, love. It is my pleasure. Did I hurt you very much?”
“No. Just a little.”
“I am sorry. Trust me, when we do this again, you will have only pleasure.”
Charles was still wiping the wet cravat over her. It felt extremely…odd, having him do something so intimate. The slight roughness of the linen and the cold of the water made her stomach flutter. And he was actually looking at her. He combed his fingers through the hair growing there. Surely that was inappropriate?
“Um.” What had Charles been saying? Oh, God, he was running his finger around, um…and she could feel him spreading the, um, lips of the, uh…“It was very nice in the beginning.” She swallowed, trying to close her legs again, but he would not let her. He blew on her, and she shuddered.
“And it will be very nice the next time we do it—in the beginning, the middle, and the end.” He dropped the stained cravat and grinned up at her. “You know, I think I should kiss your hurt and make it better.”
“What—what do you mean?”
“This.”
Emma stared as Charles bent his head. He couldn’t mean to…No, it wasn’t possible….
She felt his warm breath on the secret place between her legs, then the lovely, wet rasp of his tongue.
CHAPTER 14
Charles dreamt a woman’s hand was on a very private part of his anatomy.
This was not the confident touch of an experienced whore. No, it was hesitant, glancing, as if the woman were afraid to do what she was doing. Don’t be afraid. Please, God, don’t be afraid. He rolled slowly farther onto his back, spreading his legs, giving the questing fingers plenty of room to work their magic. And magic they were definitely working.
Delicate fingers brushed over him and withdrew. Come back, come back. He held his breath, lying still, all his prayers focused on that small hand. God heard him. The fingers came back to trace his length and dip down between his legs. A soft palm held him; fingers lifted and stroked. The touch was too light, too teasing. He needed more. The fingers circled him. He leapt to their touch, and they fled. But they came back. Thank God. Hesitantly, cautiously, they slid over him. And then…God Almighty. He swore he felt the slightest touch of a small, wet tongue, like a kitten’s lick, just on his tip.
Sweat pooled on his chest to trickle down his sides. His groin was on fire. Please, please, please. He wanted to feel her mouth on him. He moaned.
“Am I hurting you?”
His eyes flew open. This was no dream. There was a very large, Emma-sized lump under the blankets. He peered underneath to see her wide, worried eyes looking back at him. Her beautiful hand was still holding him.
“No.” His voice wavered. He swallowed and cleared his throat. “Not at all. Please, don’t let me interrupt you.”
Emma smiled and ran her finger up him again. “You do expand in the oddest way. It is quite remarkable. When I first touched you this morning, you were smaller and…limper. I could just about cover you with my hand.” She rested her hand against him, measuring him from the tips of her fingers to the heel of her palm. “Now you are much longer, and”—she wrapped her fingers around him—“thicker. You are also much, um, stiffer.”
“Yes.” He was finding this discussion incredibly erotic. “Very, um, true.”
“Can I do to you what you did to me last night?”
“Which would be…?” He had done a number of things to her, but not nearly the number he would have liked.
“Kiss you.” She stroked him again. “Here.”
“Yes. Definitely. Kissing any part of my person is perfectly permissible. Please.” He tried to drag air into his lungs. “I would be delighted to have you kiss me there. Or just…lick…me.”
“Like this?”
She ran her tongue up the length of him. His hips lifted off the bed. He grabbed the bedclothes.
“Yes. Definitely. Just. Like. That.”
She did it once more, and he knew he could not hold on any longer. He pulled her up beside him.
“I’m not finished.”
“Another time, sweetheart. I can’t wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“This.”
He flipped her onto her back. He hoped she wasn’t too sore from the nighttime, because he really could not wait. He had never felt this madness with any other woman. He kissed her, stroking her tongue with his as he stroked her below with his fingers. She was already wet. He almost cried with relief.
He loved the taste of her. He loved the feel of her breasts against him. He left her mouth to suckle her nipples. She panted and arched. He licked his way lower. Her legs parted wide. She raised her hips and he tasted her, flicked her hard little nub with his tongue. She moaned, and he surged into her, sliding into the tight passage that was already contracting around him, welcoming the seed he planted in her womb.
It took a few moments for rationality to return.
“That was a lovely way to wake up.” He kissed her, keeping himself buried in her. “Are you going to greet me like this every morning?”
She smiled. “Perhaps.” A small frown appeared between her brows. “You aren’t scandalized?”
He ro
cked his hips, moving in her again. “Do I feel scandalized?”
She caught her breath. “No.”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “I cannot think of a thing you could do in our bed that would scandalize me, sweetheart. My body is yours to explore.” Regretfully, he eased out of her. “Just not right now. If we don’t make an appearance at the house party soon, we will scandalize a significant portion of the ton.”
“Oh. Yes. Indeed.” Even Emma’s beautiful breasts blushed. “Lady Oldston…”
“Exactly. Lady Oldston or Mrs. Pelham will run all the way to London to spread the interesting word that the new Lord Knightsdale spent the day in bed with the vicar’s daughter. I’m certain Lady Dunlee will be an especially interested recipient of the news.”
“Ohh.” Emma moaned, covering her eyes.
“Don’t worry. Marriage will cure all.” He caught her left hand, turning it so they both could see the Knightsdale betrothal ring. “We have only anticipated our wedding vows, sweetheart.” He grinned. “As I fear we will anticipate them again several times before your father has finished calling the banns. It doesn’t matter. We will be married soon. If I’ve managed to get you with child, the babe will be only a month or two early.” He kissed her finger, just above the betrothal ring. “I hope you didn’t have your heart set on an elaborate wedding?”
“Of course not.”
“Good.” He kissed her one last time and sat up. If he didn’t force himself out of bed now, he would try to have her again. He didn’t care terribly what the old cats said, but he didn’t want to make things unpleasant for Emma.
“We should tell the girls.”
He nodded. “Yes. We’ll do that first, shall we? And then Aunt Bea—and Meg, of course. Your father is coming to the ball, so we can tell him tonight.”
“Will he be surprised, do you think?”
“No, I don’t believe he will.” Charles did not want to tell Emma that her father most likely would be relieved. “I’ve already asked his permission to pay my addresses.”
“You have?”
“Of course I have. You don’t have to look so surprised. Did you really think I was such a havey-cavey fellow that I would be quite so particular in my attentions without speaking to your father?”
“Well.” Emma shrugged, making her naked breasts move in a very entrancing fashion. “I guess I didn’t think about it.”
Charles grunted and forced himself to stand. If he looked at Emma once more, he swore he’d be on her again. He looked at the floor instead. Something glinted in the morning light. He bent down.
There where Emma had seen her ghost the night before was a very unghostlike watch fob.
“What is it?” Emma scooted over the bed to see what Charles had bent to pick up off the floor.
“A watch fob.” He displayed a flat gold disk on his palm. “A Spanish doubloon.” He hefted it. “Much too substantial for a specter to sport.”
Emma looked at the gold coinlike fob—and the broad palm that held it. The strong forearm, the muscled upper arm, the shoulders, chest…“Do you think you could put some clothes on?”
“Hmm?” Charles grinned. “Am I distracting you, sweetheart? Mind wandering to other matters, perhaps?”
Emma sat back on her heels, spreading her knees, and gathered her hair in both hands, pulling it off her shoulders. Charles’s face tensed. His eyes focused on her breasts, then dropped to a spot just visible between her parted thighs.
She had become much more knowledgeable in the past few hours. She leaned forward slightly, her eyes looking down to gauge his interest.
“I’d say you were distracted, too, Lord Knightsdale. Greatly distracted.”
Charles looked down and grinned. “I see your point. I will go put my breeches on.”
“If you can!”
Charles paused. “Are you offering to assist me in seeing that my clothes fit more comfortably?”
Emma slid off the bed and walked toward him. If she let herself think about it, she would be shocked at her boldness—wherever had the vicar’s daughter gone, the old maid who worried about propriety? When Lady Beatrice had urged her to take a few risks, she surely had not envisioned this—Emma naked, sauntering toward Lady Bea’s equally naked nephew.
“I’ll be happy to help you make the necessary adjustments,” she said, wrapping her hand around his very large, very interested male appendage.
“Sweetheart.” His hands moved over her breasts. “We…must…get…dressed.” He shuddered as she rubbed the tip of him with her finger. “Now. Regretfully.” Gently, he disengaged her hand. “Very, very regretfully. But remember what you were doing. Tonight, after the ball, you can resume your ministrations.”
“But we aren’t wed yet.”
“Love, I will die if we wait to continue our bedroom explorations until your father pronounces us man and wife. Plan on seeing me tonight. Please?”
Emma admitted she did not want to wait a few weeks to experience again the amazing things Charles had done to her. She wasn’t certain she could wait a few hours. “Well…”
“We are betrothed.” Charles kissed her finger that wore the Knightsdale ring. “We will be married very soon…but not quite soon enough. I don’t want to spend the night in my own bed unless you are there with me, but I will if you insist. If you need to wait, I will…try.”
Emma laughed. Charles looked almost desperate. “It does seem a pity to waste a perfectly good unlockable door, doesn’t it? I mean, if I were supposed to keep you out, the door would have a key, wouldn’t it?”
“Indeed it would.” He kissed her neck, just below her ear. “You have a wonderful mind as well as a wonderful body. So clever. Of course we should share a bed. How silly of us not to have figured that out earlier.”
Emma licked his nipple. “I do not care to waste any more time, do you?”
“No. Not another moment. Except we do need to attend to other things at this particular moment.” He turned her and swatted her on her naked bottom. They both caught their breaths at the sound and feel of the playful slap.
“Get dressed,” Charles said, his voice hoarse. “Now.”
Charles tucked in his shirt. Putting clothes on was a very good idea. Clothes definitely were an aid in focusing on the matter at hand, whenever the matter at hand was not Emma. He stopped at the threshold of her room.
“Are you dressed?”
“Yes. It’s safe to come in.”
Emma still had her hair tumbling over her shoulders, but at least the rest of her beautiful self was confined. He squatted down at the spot he had found the watch fob.
“Can you remember any more about your ghost?” He ran his hand over the rug but found no other clues.
“Well, I did not have my spectacles on, so I didn’t get a good look at him—or her. I assume ghosts can be female?”
“Emma.”
“Yes, well, I heard a creak and a scrape, rather like a door opening—a door on rusty hinges. And then I saw something white coming out of the wall. And then I, um, screamed and dove under the covers.”
“Hmm.” Charles stood and turned to look at the wall. “And you think the ghost appeared here?”
“I think so.”
Charles studied the surface. “When I was a boy, my Great-Uncle Randall visited one summer—it was before you came to Knightsdale.” He ran his fingers over the wall, looking for any odd protrusions or depressions.
“Great-Uncle Randall was the black sheep of the family—my father was extremely annoyed when the man appeared on our doorstep—and even more annoyed when he stayed the whole summer and paid a local sculptor to immortalize his unattractive visage in stone.”
“I’ve seen the bust in the long gallery.”
“He wasn’t the most attractive Draysmith.”
“No, nothing to compare to the current marquis.”
Charles grinned. “No indeed. Keep that thought, sweetheart. I want your heart to flutter—and other things to, um, respond—whe
n you think of me.”
“I shall remain silent so I don’t risk feeding your burgeoning sense of importance.”
“Please, don’t restrain yourself. I shall suffer all the plaudits you should like to heap on me.” Charles frowned at the wall. He’d be damned if he could find the tiniest bump or dip in the blasted thing.
“In any event, Great-Uncle Randall spent a good portion of his stay that summer drinking my father’s brandy and sleeping off its effects. Paul and I thought he was a pirate—he may even have told us a tale or two about the high seas, but since he was usually drunk, we didn’t really believe him. Still, searching for buried treasure was an enjoyable way to spend a summer, even for Paul, who was usually not very fond of my company.”
“Paul wasn’t fond of many people’s company.”
Charles shrugged. “You barely knew him. It couldn’t have been easy to assume the title at such a young age—he was only fourteen when our father died.”
“No, I suppose you’re right.”
Charles put his hands on his hips and stared at the wall. He could kick it, but that probably would not be a reasonable way to proceed. “Besides telling us stories of piracy, Great-Uncle Randall told us there was a maze of passages in the walls of Knightsdale. We looked one rainy day, but when we didn’t find anything, we decided it was another of Randall’s drunken stories. Now I’m not so certain.”
Not certain at all. Nanny’s ghost, the fire in Emma’s earlier room, the apparition last night—someone was moving around Knightsdale at will, and he did not think it was a spirit. But where the hell was the door to the bloody passage?
“Hmm. Mr. Stockley was looking behind pictures in the long gallery yesterday,” Emma said, examining a landscape a few feet away.
“He was?” Charles was ready to put his fist through the wall.
“Yes. And he was behaving oddly in the grotto.” Emma lifted a corner of the painting.
“He wasn’t the only one behaving oddly. You definitely looked most peculiar when I came upon you. Almost guilty.”
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