by Sara Portman
Emma did not disappoint. Though her posture was rigid and her countenance one of studied serenity, a flush crept from her bodice to her hairline as he met her gaze with a warm smile. As warriors went, she was a delectable example—an ideal choice, really.
“Since we find ourselves with a private moment, I should like to discuss our engagement,” she said primly.
Resisting the temptation to simply sweep her into his arms and continue their activities from two days prior, he gave an exaggerated courtly bow. “I am at your service, madam.”
Her prim posture fell to one of impatient defeat. “May we please have an earnest discussion, Your Grace?”
He could point out the regression to formal addresses, but he thought the better of it, and nodded instead. “Certainly.” He was not entirely sorry for baiting her if it had the effect of relaxing the formality of their conversation, but he did very much desire to hear what she had come to say.
“You’ve been very insensitive to my wishes,” she pointed out, partly readopting the scolding expression of a schoolmistress. “The greatest example of that is having the banns read in church despite knowing my intent.”
“My intent in having the banns read was not to trap you,” he assured her. “The engagement is widely known, banns or no, and will have to be broken if we are not to wed. Calling for the banns simply moves the clock along in the event I can convince you to proceed with the wedding. You will recall, I believe, how anxious I am to have the matter finished.”
Her eyes surveyed him, her expression unreadable. “A wedding is rarely the end of a matter.”
He nodded, conceding this point as well.
“I don’t entirely believe your claim that calling for the banns was merely a considering of the calendar. I believe you are operating under the misguided assumption that I will be less likely to break the engagement if I am unable to do so quietly and without notice. You should understand,” she continued, “I do not appreciate your attempts to lock me into this betrothal through these public spectacles, but it matters not. I am not concerned with my reputation. As I explained before, I have no interest in pushing my way into the ton like a mushroom among the flowers.”
He laughed and stepped closer. “I can assure you, Emma, I have never likened you to a mushroom.”
She cast him a wary glance and took a step back. “As I was saying, I will not be trapped into marriage, but I have decided to consider it.”
What was this? He had planned to convince her. He didn’t expect her to simply announce a complete reversal.
“May I ask what has caused this change of heart?” From his view, there had only been one event in the past several days that could have made the difference. If his suspicion was correct, he should have kissed her at the Fairhavens’ house and saved a great deal of trouble.
“I am only considering it,” she said, ignoring his question, “under certain conditions.”
She had conditions, clever girl. John smiled down at his bride-to-be and marveled again at his great luck. She was formidable and self-possessed. She would make an excellent champion.
“What would these conditions be?” he asked.
“They pertain to my cottage and my garden.” She averted her eyes as she answered. “If we are married, I want to keep it. I want it to remain mine.”
He shrugged. A simple enough request, really.
“I also want your assurance that I will be allowed to spend time there.”
John thought her second condition would go without saying, given the easy distance between Brantmoor and Beadwell. Neither of her conditions appeased his curiosity as to why she had ceased objecting to the marriage. He preferred to assume it was their amorous compatibility, but pragmatism prevented him from adopting the idea as truth.
A deflating thought.
“You still haven’t told me why you are willing to consider it.” He pressed closer, wanting her to look up and meet his eyes so he could judge the honesty in them.
When she finally met his gaze, he saw only the challenge his words inspired. “My reasons are simple. Though I have valid objections, practicality requires that I set those objections aside. It is your desire that we be married. I am now willing to marry you, provided you grant me this one consideration.”
“Two considerations, actually.” He couldn’t resist provoking her.
“Two considerations, then.” She appeared suitably provoked.
John sighed, tapped his chin with his finger and otherwise made a display of considering her conditions. It was not the conditions that gave him pause, as he had no intention of denying them. Rather, she had not really given a reason other than practicality, which had applied from the outset. Could there be another reason she was unwilling to give? “I’m not sure,” he said, deciding to test his theory. “What you ask is not a minor consideration.”
Her chin snapped up and her eyes sharpened. “I don’t see how it’s anything but a minor consideration. What possible interest could you have in my cottage?”
“None, of course. Allowing you to spend time there, however, will be in direct conflict with your duties to Charlotte.” He cocked his head to one side. “My sister is a lovely girl, but she’s wholly unprepared to take on the ton. I need a duchess who will dedicate herself to Charlotte’s education.”
She looked confused by his objection. “Your sister will not require my supervision or instruction every hour of every day. I will not be absent for days at a time.”
John released another exaggerated sigh. “Perhaps what you ask is too great and you’ve been correct all along,” he said, watching her closely. “I may have been hasty in my choice.”
The annoyance that flashed through her features at this teasing informed him she had now firmly decided that marrying him was wiser than not. Perhaps his dismissed suspicion had been correct after all. Practicality seemed a more convincing argument when paired with growing attraction, was it not?
“Although…” He shifted closer and gently brushed his hand down her forearm. “It seems a shame not to marry when we’ve only just discovered what a compatible pair we will be.”
She looked up, her amber eyes bright with alarm. “The vicar is across the hall.”
He smiled wickedly. “I believe I may want to add a condition.”
He watched her flush deepen as possible conditions tumbled through her mind.
“But you already have a condition.” Her words were hasty and flustered. “You…you want me to help Charlotte.”
He shrugged. “Another condition, then.” He pressed even closer, using up the remaining inches between them.
When she lifted her amber eyes to his, he took her gaze and held it locked with his own, transmitting all the intensity he’d felt since she’d entered his home, and watched her flush from top to bottom. She’d been feeling the same attraction as he throughout their conversation, and with his stare, he challenged her to admit it.
Her eyes widened, apprehension growing, until she did admit it. She didn’t say it, but for a brief, nearly imperceptible moment her gaze dipped to his mouth, betraying her thoughts.
He broke the moment with a triumphant smile.
“I’d like you to ask me.”
Her shoulders fell with an exasperated exhale of air. She glared. “You want me to ask you to marry me?”
He nodded. “Sweetly. With a kiss.”
“But the vicar is across the hall.”
“You’ve already said that.”
“It bears repeating.”
He laughed at the reprimand in her tone. She needed kissing—an excessive amount—and he rather looked forward to providing it.
“That is my condition.” He made the declaration firmly, but he softened it with a coaxing smile. “Come now, Emma. A chaste kiss shared by an affianced couple won’t scandalize the Betancourts or anyone else.” In truth, if the vicar understood what John would really like to do with his daughter’s dear friend, he should have charged across the hall with a pa
ir of dueling pistols.
Emma swallowed. “Oh, very well.” She exhaled and clasped her hands in front of her before looking up at him. “Will you marry me, please?” She darted quickly forward to place a brief kiss in the air near the general location of his cheek.
He shook his head slowly back and forth as she looked defiantly up at him. “That was, frankly, weak in every respect. Surely you’re braver than that.”
Her eyes narrowed. “My Lord Duke,” she began with venom, “would you do me the very great honor of allowing me to become your wife?”
He waited but she failed to follow her words with action. He leaned in. “Now the kiss, dear.”
She sent him a look clearly meant to communicate her displeasure before lifting her eyes to the ceiling. Then she set her shoulders and moved toward him with the pursed lips one might use to kiss an elderly relative.
That, he decided, would not do.
As quickly as her lips touched his, his arms stole around her.
The touch of their mouths was brief, but not without impact. When she looked up at him, her amber eyes glowed. “Will you let me go now?” she asked with a voice turned husky.
“I have another condition,” he said, his eyes boring into hers.
She pushed at his chest without success. “No more conditions. You’re playing with me.”
“I want to know the reason—the reason why you changed your mind.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter, but I think I know.”
She looked wide-eyed up at him. “You do?”
He pulled her fully up against him. “I can think of several reasons.”
Her fists balled at his chest but she didn’t push him away. He held her gently, easily, as he bent his head to brush his lips near her ear. “Why, your reputation, of course.” He nibbled at her earlobe. “You’re worried what society will think if you cry off.”
He let his breath whisper across her damp earlobe and shared the shiver as it ran down her body.
“I’ve never cared what society thinks.” Her voice came ragged, breathless.
“No?” He trailed his lips from her ear to the base of her neck and felt her fists unfurl on his chest. “It must be Charlotte, then,” he murmured.
He dropped his head and touched his lips to her collarbone. “Surely, you haven’t forgotten about poor Charlotte, who needs our help.”
She shook her head. Whether she meant, “no, she hadn’t forgotten,” or “no, that wasn’t the reason,” he had no idea and didn’t much care. Her answer to the question his body asked was a resounding yes. She released a soft sigh as the heat of his mouth grazed her nipple through the thin fabric of her dress.
John used one arm to support her as she weakened against him. The other dropped to her hip to tuck her more firmly against him while his lips trailed back upward to her ear. “All of those are good reasons,” he whispered between kisses and flicks of his tongue along her neck. “But I suspect another.”
He slid the hand from her hip up to cup her breast. It felt full and weighty in his grasp and he longed to free it from its restraint.
She moaned softly, pressing forward into his touch as her arms slid around his neck.
“I think you enjoyed our kisses,” he murmured into the crook beneath her jaw. “I think you are as anxious as I am to find out what would have happened if we weren’t interrupted that day in the garden.” His hand released her breast to stroke slowly down the side of her—over the round of her hip and back up again. “If we had the privacy of a bedchamber and a comfortable bed, I could lay you down and love every inch of you like you were made to be loved.” God, what he wouldn’t pay for that right now.
Her eyes closed, she shivered at his words. Her fingers clutched the hair at his nape.
He couldn’t tease either one of them any longer. He seized her mouth with all the hunger that had been building since she’d arrived—hell, since he’d left her two days ago.
He probed with his tongue until her lips parted to allow him full access and felt more than heard as she moaned into his mouth. God, Emma. He could barely restrain the need to lay her back, lift her skirt, and make her his wife in all ways but one, right there on his dining room carpet. What was she doing to him? He could hear the music of the harp coming from across the hall, yet he couldn’t peel himself away. He cupped her breast again, even as he promised himself he would end it before they got carried away.
Drawing on his last shred of will, he pulled his lips from hers. Placing his hands upon her waist, he set her away and stepped back to create a buffer of distance.
She looked up at him, lips parted, eyes clouded with passion. Her breath was labored as she recovered herself.
He couldn’t stop the satisfied grin that settled onto his mouth to replace her lips. “There is your reason, Emma.” His chuckle was weak for want of breath. “We have to marry. Or risk a much greater scandal than anything either of us has done so far.”
She brought her hand to her swollen lips as though she might touch what just happened there. Her voice was odd and weak when she spoke. “That wasn’t necessary.”
John laughed, this time with the full power of his lungs. “Of course it wasn’t necessary, Emma. But it was rather enjoyable, don’t you think?”
She looked at him with the strangest, almost accusatory expression. “This is a marriage of convenience.”
What in heaven’s name was she thinking? “True, but just because it’s convenient for Charlotte and convenient for society, that doesn’t mean it can’t be convenient for us as well.” He stepped forward, picked up her hand. “You are a very desirable woman, Emma. I anxiously await the day when I have all the rights of a husband and we can finish what we’ve only just started.”
Emma pulled her hand gently from his grasp and clasped it with its mate in front of her. She looked down at them before meeting his eyes again. Her expression was hesitant, uncertain. Where was his clever, snapping Emma?
“I…I have another condition,” she said finally.
He stopped. “Another condition?”
She nodded. “If this is to be a true marriage in which we behave as husband and wife, I want you to honor me as a husband.”
“Of course, I’ll honor you as a husband. Did you think I would mistreat you? You’ll have everything you want, Emma. You’ve only to ask.”
“That’s not what I mean.” She didn’t meet his eyes. “I want you to honor your vows as a husband.”
“You mean you want me to be faithful to you?”
“Yes. Otherwise, if this is to be truly just a marriage of convenience, let it be a marriage in name only.”
“Ridiculous.” Was she not in his arms just minutes ago? “Of course, it will not be a marriage in name only,” he sputtered. “What of heirs? What of continuation of the line? What of…what just happened, for God’s sake?”
“I will give you heirs,” she said with quiet resolve, “under the condition that you promise to honor our marriage vows.”
He gaped at her. Where in heaven’s name was this coming from? He’d only just come to realize his good fortune in marrying a woman whom he found appealing and already she was questioning his fidelity.
He…well, he hadn’t thought that far ahead. They weren’t even married yet. There was Charlotte, and the estate. He certainly didn’t plan to set out as soon as the vows were exchanged and locate a mistress, for God’s sake.
“Fine,” he said, his tone carrying the extent of his frustration. “I will honor our vows. But no more delays or conditions, Emma. We’ll be married in two weeks. Here. There is no time for a society event in London.”
She nodded silently.
“We should return to the others. We can tell everyone the happy news,” he said more sharply than he had intended.
“The shawl.” Her voice was barely louder than a whisper.
“What?”
Emma cleared her throat before she spoke again,
this time more firmly. “We came for Lucy’s shawl.”
The duke strode to the chair in which Lucy had been seated for dinner and spied a blue bit of fabric peeking out from underneath the tablecloth where it hung to the floor. He tugged on it, revealing the missing wrap, and returned to Emma’s side. Wordlessly, he handed it to her.
Chapter Fifteen
“Is your father at home?”
Emma stood once again on the doorstep of the Crawford house. Now that her circumstances had changed, she saw no sense in waiting to inform Mr. Crawford. She was looking forward to it.
Juliana Crawford gave her the same unreadable yet haunting gaze that always left Emma wondering if the girl sought rescue, or if she was just as miserable a person as her father. “Is your father at home?” Emma repeated.
Juliana nodded. “He said you would come.” She pushed the door wide and turned toward the parlor. Emma followed.
“You are quite proud of yourself, I imagine.” Mr. Crawford marched into the room before Emma’s weight had even settled into her chair. He stared at her, making no effort to hide his dislike or anger. She nearly recoiled from the malice there.
She stiffened. “I presume you are referring to the fact that I am to be married.”
“To the duke.” He spoke the words as an accusation.
“Yes. To the duke.” She stared steadily back at him. “We have been engaged since before our parents’ deaths.”
“That’s all very convenient for you, isn’t it?” he spat out, taking a chair across from hers.
“Do you mean the death of our parents, or the four-year delay in our marriage? I don’t find either convenient.”
“I mean that my family’s land is now going to be the duke’s land. Don’t think I don’t know why you’re here with that satisfied smirk.”
She was not smirking at all. She was working very hard, in fact, not to scowl at the man. “I am here, Mr. Crawford, because the situation regarding Simon is unresolved, and I wish to resolve it.”
She caught his attention with that. He leaned forward in his chair and eyed her shrewdly.
“Do not misunderstand,” she clarified. “I am not here to bargain for Simon’s innocence. He is innocent. I have only come to seek your confirmation that you understand the same and agree the matter is ended.”