by Sara Portman
Emma dropped her gaze to her lap. She swallowed, leaned back, and immediately regretted not finding out where the moment could have led. Why should she shy away? They had kissed on more than one occasion and it had been nice. Better than nice. Now they were married. They were allowed to kiss. They were supposed to kiss. If only she weren’t so nervous.
She sighed. Perhaps it was better that the moment passed. “How old was your sister when she left home?” Emma asked, prodding their conversation forward. “Do you think she has any memory of England?”
She looked up again. The heat had quieted in his gaze, and instead he looked at her with an odd, assessing expression.
“You have not yet asked me about my decision to go to Boston in the first place and whether I had considered the injury my decision would cause you.”
Emma couldn’t deny the question had crossed her mind. She knew the answer, though, didn’t she? She asked it anyway. “Did you consider the injury to me?”
Despite having invited her to ask, he did not answer immediately. He gazed upon her with a pained expression for a long moment then shook his head.
“No,” he said. “No, I did not.”
Well, then.
He released a heavily burdened sigh before continuing. “Life is complicated in unforeseen ways, it would seem.”
“How do you mean?” she asked.
“Well, take my predicament of four years ago,” he said. “I harbor no regrets for the choice to alter my life for what was then an uncertain number of years to protect my mother and sister from the consequences of my father’s rage and spite.” He reached forward and took her hand in his. “But mine was not the only life for whom the course was changed by that decision, was it?”
“No.” Still, Emma could not allow him to take responsibility for the full extent of tragedy and upset in her life. “But you could not have predicted my parents’ passing,” she pointed out. “No one could have. It was a horrible accident.”
A horrible, life-altering accident.
“True,” he conceded. Then, still with her hand in his, he crossed the small space that separated them and repositioned himself next to her, on the same cushioned seat. “But I should have predicted that you would be marred by scandal due to my actions.”
Emma could not deny his reasoning, but chose not to confirm it. At one time her bitterness had been sharp indeed, but now…
“I suppose if the time has come for fairness in perspective, I must ask your forgiveness as well,” she said.
“And what transgressions have you committed to require forgiveness?” he asked, his mouth quirked into a disbelieving half smile.
“I allowed my anger to prevent me from understanding the complexities of your position, Your Grace.”
His brow lifted.
“John,” she amended. Then she smiled at him with genuine friendship, or the hope of it. Yes, peace and friendship were what she desired.
“I was placed in a difficult position,” she continued, “and my prospects for marriage were…altered…by the events of that season. But I had never desired marriage in the first place. At least not then—not to anyone in particular. And certainly not to you. I mean no offense, I assure you.”
He chuckled. “I assure you, I take none.”
“We didn’t even know each other,” she rushed to explain. “At that time, I only assumed you detested me. I understand now you behaved as you did that day out of disgust for your father, not necessarily for me.”
“That day?”
“The day we were introduced.”
“I only vaguely recall it,” he admitted. “I apologize if I behaved badly, which it seems I did. Was I particularly boorish?”
“I believe you said, ‘I will not have her,’ or something of that sort,” Emma reminded him.
He swallowed. “That was, you’ll understand, a rejection of my father’s attempt to control me. It was not, as you said, a rejection of you, personally.”
Emma must have failed to mask the doubt she felt at his words for he searched her features and spoke again.
“What else did I say that day, Emma?”
She coughed delicately and avoided his direct gaze when she finally answered his query. “You, er, said, ‘This owl-faced girl isn’t old enough to be out of the school room.’ Then you leaned over to me and said, ‘but you’re old enough to know you want to be a duchess, eh?’” Her shoulders stiffened slightly at the memory.
To his credit, he cringed. “I am so very sorry for that.” He squeezed her hand and then lifted his to draw a finger gently down her cheek. “You are strong and utterly lovely, and I was a fool not to have seen it then.”
Of all the emotions whirling through Emma just that moment, she didn’t think any were aptly described as peaceful. His eyes fell to her lips. She blinked, uncertain what would happen next. Would he kiss her?
Please.
She froze, this time unwilling to break the moment, hoping desperately that he would not.
He leaned toward her and her eyes fluttered closed as his lips fell to hers. They moved gently at first, like a soft caress of his mouth on hers. Then the pressure deepened, his tongue urged her lips apart and met with hers, and the heat inside that she’d worked so hard to constrain broke free.
This was the other part of her bargain, she decided then. Theirs was no great love, but she could have this. She could experience passion, for as long as it lasted. As her palms traveled his back and across his shoulders, she had the satisfying thought that old maids in cottages did not experience passion, did not have kisses from a man like this one. Her lips curled into a smile against his mouth..
Then his hand slid beneath her traveling cloak and closed around one breast, his thumb teasing the nipple that pebbled underneath his touch. A new wave of sensation shot through her, sending the heat to her stomach and lower. She knew what she felt was desire. She desired him in the most basic physical way. She had been warned, as all girls had, to be wary of men’s lust. She never understood until just then that a woman could feel the same lust, the same reckless want, for a man.
But she did. She pressed herself boldly against his hand and returned his kiss with every measure of passion he gave.
He groaned and wrenched his mouth from hers, sending her reeling into disappointment, until she realized he had immediately set himself to the task of unfastening her cloak. She waited in silence, anticipation building within her. He cast the cloak aside and gazed down at her chest as it rose and fell. He pushed one side and then the other of her wide neckline down her shoulders then slid his fingers inside the fabric to grasp one breast in his bare hand and pull it free.
Emma’s eyes fell shut at the delicious feeling of his warm hand cupping her. Then his mouth closed over the peak and she moaned, her fingers lacing through his hair as she held him there at her breast, reveling in the exquisite new sensations this created.
His lips traced her neck and jaw and captured her mouth again, his hand warming the place his mouth had abandoned. Then he held back again, freed her other breast from its fabric prison and gazed thickly down.
“Beautiful,” he whispered.
She blushed, bared openly before him without the distraction of his kisses, but her ardor did not cool.
He pivoted away from her, sitting back, with his knees toward the other seat then motioned to her. “Come here.”
She hesitated, her hands fluttering to her bare chest. Where exactly?
“We’ll be more comfortable this way,” he said and patted his hands on his lap.
Emma scooted toward him then awkwardly lifted herself and backed onto his lap, arranging herself like a child might sit.
John laughed, not unkindly. “I meant the other way, Emma. Sit like a man rides a horse, so I can kiss you again.”
“Oh,” she breathed. She blushed again, suffused with embarrassment. She hadn’t realized.
She turned and brought her legs up onto the bench so she was seated sideways on his
lap, then realized her mistake as she tried to bring her one leg up over his lap to sit astride him. It was impossibly tangled up in her skirts and she couldn’t lift it across without kneeing or kicking him somewhere, and she was painfully aware throughout the entire bungled attempt that her breasts were loose, bare, and bouncing the whole time.
This definitely cooled her ardor.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, trying to arrange herself in some way that wouldn’t land her on her bottom on the floor of the carriage.
“Hold on,” he said laughingly. He placed his strong hands on her waist and held her up, thus freeing her hands to untangle herself from her skirt, then set her down next to him on the seat. Turning to face her, he gently lifted the fabric of her bodice up over her breasts until she was somewhat covered. “I suppose that was a poorly thought-out plan,” he said with a crooked grin.
She stared back at him, fervently wishing she could bury herself under her cloak. How on earth had she completely muddled that? She hadn’t realized what he meant and then had managed to ruin everything by nearly strangling herself with her own dress. One moment she’d been congratulating herself on her introduction to passion and the next she had been completely humiliating herself as the inexperienced child that she was.
“We were getting a bit ahead of ourselves anyway, weren’t we?” He lowered his head to kiss her and lingered there for a moment before staring intently into her wide eyes. “I look forward to our wedding night with great anticipation.”
She smiled hesitantly, thankful for his effort to lessen her embarrassment. She reached down and tugged one shoulder of her dress back into place and then reached up with her other hand to adjust the opposite side.
Silently, John pulled her traveling cloak back around her, leaving it still unfastened at her throat. She thought he would return to the opposite seat but he did not. He pulled her firmly against his side and draped one arm across her shoulders. He took one of her hands and held it in his.
She swallowed and leaned back against her husband, realizing that sitting up against him this way was better than if he sat across from her. Here, he could not see how hotly her face still flamed, and she did not have to meet his gaze, as she was not ready to do so. She sensed he knew her discomfort and was intentionally trying to lessen it. If only her embarrassment were not so all-encompassing in that moment, she would be grateful for his kindness.
Chapter Seventeen
There was no family to greet John and Emma as they arrived at Brantmoor, but the staff turned out en masse to honor their master and new mistress. Emma idly wondered at their thoughts. Surely, when the staff had seen the heir to the dukedom return from the dead, his arrival with a duchess acquired in the normal fashion would not be cause for much curiosity.
Not that she would be aware, of course, even if gossip had risen to a peak below stairs. The staff of Brantmoor was no doubt as well trained as one would expect. Everything about her first evening at the Georgian mansion was precisely as expected—full of ceremony and the structure of ducal life. A staff of at least one hundred, she guessed. Yet there were only two of them in residence. They would be three when Charlotte arrived. It was but a few short miles, yet a world apart from her cottage. When she was shown to her suite of rooms, which connected to the duke’s, and introduced to Liese, who had been assigned as her lady’s maid, she was very cognizant of her position here at Brantmoor, where daily life would supply ever present reminders of her station and its expectations.
That evening, the newlyweds shared a quiet dinner in the blue parlor, as the main dining room was far too vast for the two of them. Emma was aware of little else through the meal besides John’s attention. She must have eaten, but she had no recollection of what was served. They lingered over their last drink of wine, however, and she was glad for the bolster to her courage.
After the remains of the meal had been cleared, John smiled warmly at her and leaned back in his chair. “We have had a very long day. I am anxious to retire.”
She swallowed, knowing very well that rest was not his intent. They had no guests to entertain; there was no family to whom they must make excuses. They could simply retire for the night. Their wedding night.
* * *
Emma found Liese in her room, laying out the nicest of her nightdresses and smoothing the linens of an already-made bed.
“Thank you, Liese,” Emma said softly, hoping she did not reveal the extent of her trepidation. She faced away from the girl, presenting her back and the long row of tiny buttons that fastened her gown.
Liese made quick work of the buttons and, once Emma’s gown was removed, was equally quick at unknotting the laces of her corset. Emma was grateful for the girl’s efficiency.
“I will see to myself from here,” she said once she was down to her chemise and stockings. She did not need her lady’s maid to see the new mistress of Brantmoor shaking with anxiety for her wedding night.
What had she been thinking, asking him to promise fidelity?
She’d just felt so lost that evening, as though she’d ceded control of her mind and her body. She’d grasped for something, anything, to regain a sense of power over herself and her future. Yet she’d only succeeded in making herself more vulnerable. She’d wrenched from him a promise he never intended to make and would like come to resent. He’d looked at her as though she were delusional. Would he question on this night the value of the bargain he’d struck?
“Very well, Your Grace.” With a brief curtsy and a flash of conspiratorial smile that proved she had misinterpreted the reason for being rushed away, Liese scurried out of the room.
Emma breathed deeply before discarding her chemise and stockings in exchange for the night rail. She had always seen to herself at the cottage and was fully capable of dressing in her nightclothes and unpinning and braiding her hair without the help of a lady’s maid. She was a bit clumsy at the chore this evening however. Her fingers shook as she fastened the short row of buttons on the top panel of her plain night rail. The plait she managed in her long, brown hair was not the tidiest she had ever achieved. Then she looked at her reflection and wondered if she should have left her hair loose. Did it matter? Would he have a preference? Her nightdress and wrapper were not precisely alluring either. They were serviceable. She supposed delicate, prettily embroidered nightclothes were among the things her aunt had wanted for her, but there had been no time.
There was a gentle knock of warning and the adjoining door creaked open.
She turned but kept a steadying hand on the bureau.
John walked slowly into the room. He wore a loose, untied white shirt. He still wore breeches. He carried a brown velvet dressing gown draped over one arm. His feet were bare.
Emma’s feet were also bare. She knew this, of course, having removed her stockings herself, but somehow noticing his bare feet made her more aware of her bare feet.
He did not appear to notice her feet. His eyes glowed in the candlelight. They locked with hers, and she remembered his promise to lay her down and love every inch of her. Every inch. Surely, every inch of her was alive and aware of him now. Her heart beat like a rabbit’s. Her limbs tingled. She was aware of her fingertips, her breasts, the backs of her knees, and the apex of her thighs. Her fingers fumbled as she toyed with the sash at her waist.
He crossed the room to where she stood waiting for him. He leaned forward and gently touched his lips to her cheek. Then he drew back and looked at her again. His lips broke into a wry half smile. He was looking forward to this.
The warm twist in her stomach tightened.
Emma had been alone with John in the interior of the coach all afternoon, and had managed to thoroughly embarrass herself. She was certain of only one thing—she would be a disappointment. She didn’t see how she could be anything but, given she didn’t have any inkling of what to do, really. She had a general sort of knowledge of what would occur, but no details.
Of course, it wasn’t as though John would have p
referred an experienced wife. Certainly that would be a disappointment.
Oh heavens, her mind was rattling.
Oh heavens, he was taking off his clothes.
She froze as she watched him drape the dressing gown over a chair and pull his shirt over his head. He was as lean and strong as she had felt in the brief embraces they’d shared. He reached down to unfasten his buckskin breeches and still she could not look away, though a voice in her head insisted she must or risk appearing immodest. That voice had very little success in dictating to the rest of her.
John’s fingers paused at the fall of his breeches. She looked up and met his eyes, mortified to have been caught watching.
He let the laces alone and stepped back to her, the intensity in his eyes only growing. As he grew nearer, she felt closer to panic, wanting to flee.
He leaned forward when he reached her and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. He placed another on her cheek and another at her jaw. He turned her and placed one more electric kiss on the back of her neck before reaching around to untie the sash at the waist of her wrapper.
Well, then. She briefly wondered if he would be willing to delay the consummation of their marriage if she wished it.
Did she wish it?
It would seem not, for although her mind coursed with thoughts of flight or delay, she gave voice to none of it. She remained transfixed as he stood behind her, pushing the fabric of her wrapper over her shoulders and down the length of her arms, revealing the plain white nightdress beneath. His arms wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her back to his chest as he reached to unfasten the buttons she had fastened just a few minutes before. His chest was warm but she shivered from the contact.
With the short row of buttons undone, the neckline of her muslin gown sagged open, leaving the upper portion of her breasts bare. She had ball gowns that were more revealing, but this was different. The muslin was thin and loose. She had felt the warmth of his hands through the fabric as he unbuttoned it. And, most significantly, she knew it would soon be gone.