Then she remembered—tonight she was not herself. She wore a raven-coloured wig and a mask, as well as her full-skirted, old-fashioned gown in a vivid colour a modern young lady would never wear. He would not even know it was her. Somehow, that thought gave her a new confidence.
“Thank you for your assistance, sir,” she said, pitching her voice low and soft. “I’m sorry I bit you.”
He held out his hand ruefully to display her faint bite marks on his palm. “I should not have grabbed you like that. I didn’t want you to fall.”
Emily nodded. She didn’t know what to say next; she was utterly tongue-tied. All she could do was stare up at him in fascination. If she was not herself tonight, then neither was he. He was not the duke, he was just a man. What if they were indeed two strangers, encountering each other by chance on a pretty moonlit night? Two people with no knowledge or expectations of each other?
It was a heady, frightening thought.
“You shouldn’t be alone here, miss,” he said, still in the rough voice. “Unless you are meeting someone?”
Meeting someone…? Oh! Emily almost clapped her hand to her mouth at the sudden realisation—he could not know who she was, therefore he probably thought her a doxy, or at least a lady of somewhat loose principles. Being not herself was not so easy after all.
“No, not at all,” she said quickly. “It was just much too warm in the supper box; I wanted some fresh air.”
“Most understandable,” he answered. “The crowds can be most overwhelming.”
“Yes, exactly so.” Emily’s head was spinning, and she felt oddly fuzzy-headed and giggly. “And I was a bit giddy.”
Nicholas laughed. The sound was most delightful, and made her want to laugh, too. Everything just seemed so much grander tonight, larger and brighter and louder. “Too much of the excellent arrack punch? I know the feeling well.”
She remembered the two—or was it three?—large glasses she had consumed of that delicious concoction. “What’s in that stuff, anyway?”
“It’s quite simple, I believe, grains of Benjamin flower mixed with sweet wine and rum.”
“Simple and deadly, I would say.” Rum and wine? She never consumed more than a tiny bit of wine at a dinner party—no wonder she was so dizzy now.
“It is rather potent, especially if one is not accustomed to strong drink.”
“How do you know I am not accustomed to it?” Emily said, oddly indignant.
“You don’t have the look of a habitual drinker,” he said. The back of his hand gently brushed over her cheek, leaving soft warmth in its wake. “Your skin is too clear, your eyes too bright.” He took her wrist lightly in his hand, turning her palm up on his. “You are too slender and pale.”
Emily stared down in bemusement at her hand in his, so small against his rough skin. Did he ride without his gloves, work on his estate? Singular indeed. “No, it’s true. I don’t generally imbibe.”
“Is that how you came to stumble?” he asked, his voice full of infuriating amusement.
She snatched her hand away. “I stumbled because my heel broke. Blasted old shoe. I don’t know how ladies wore such heeled contraptions all the time.” She had a difficult enough time with her usual flat slippers.
“Let me see. Perhaps I can fix it,” he said. Much to her shock, he knelt down before her and gazed up at her in steady expectation.
“Are you a cobbler, then?” she said tightly.
He gave her a wide grin. A tiny dimple appeared in his cheek, just below the edge of his mask. It did very strange, twisty things to her stomach. “Oh, I am a man of many talents.”
“That I can believe.” Emily felt that odd, bemused spell come back over her again. She didn’t seem quite in control of herself, especially with her stomach fluttering so nervously like that. She slowly lifted her hem a few inches and held out her foot in the broken shoe.
Nicholas slid his hand around her ankle, his fingers strong and hot through her white-silk stocking. She shivered as his caressing touch slid over her instep. It felt as if he touched her bare skin, and it was quite shocking, quite…
Delightful.
He slid the gold brocade shoe off her foot and examined the broken heel as he still cradled her foot. She would never have thought she would enjoy someone touching her foot. Feet were merely utilitarian, of course, made to carry a person around. They were not especially attractive. But Nicholas touched it as if her foot was something beautiful and precious.
It made her feel dizzy all over again, and she reached down to balance her hands on his shoulders. The feel of those hard muscles and smooth skin sheathed in fine black wool and velvet did nothing to steady her, though. It just made her even dizzier.
“I’m afraid it is quite hopeless,” he said.
“Hopeless!” she cried. Yes, it was hopeless, feeling this way about him. They were so entirely wrong for each other.
And yet, at this moment, she had never felt more right.
“Your shoe is broken beyond repair,” he said.
Emily laughed. “Some cobbler you are, sir!”
“I said I was a man of many talents. I fear I am master of none.”
“I find that hard to believe,” she whispered. He was obviously a master in the art of touching a woman in a way that made her mind go all soft and misty. Every light caress he ran over her toes, the arch of her foot, sent fiery tingles up her leg that made her want to whimper.
“I beg your pardon?”
Thank goodness he had not heard her! “I said—how am I supposed to walk on a broken heel?”
“Luckily, another of my talents is ingenuity.” He slid the shoe back on to her foot and gently placed it on the ground. Then he reached for her other foot, curling his fingers around her ankle. Emily let him; in that enchanted, time-out-of-time moment, she might have let him do anything.
He removed that shoe and said, “Hold on to me.”
She curled her fingers tighter over his shoulders, and he let go of her foot. As she tucked it back into her skirts, he twisted hard on the intact heel of that shoe and broke it off as well.
“Voilà, madame,” he said. “Slippers. Very à la mode.”
Emily giggled. How very silly she felt tonight! It was really rather nice not being herself. She should do this more often. “You are a cobbler, sir.”
“I do try my best at any task that presents itself.” He reached again for her foot, but that mischievous imp that sometimes came over her took hold. Laughing, she tucked it further in the voluminous folds of her skirt, making him search through the ruffles to find it.
When he caught her by the ankle, he drew her closer to him and leaned down to kiss her instep. A great shiver rushed through her at that touch.
Shocked, she almost cried out his name before she remembered they did not know each other. Her fists curled on his shoulders as his lips slid up her ankle. It was—oh, so very delicious.
And surely not proper in the least! She shouldn’t let him do that, she should—well, maybe just one more little touch. Just to see what happened.
Emily closed her eyes tightly against the sensations his touch created. His hand slid slowly, slowly from her ankle up the back of her calf. His mouth followed, open, hot through the silk. Oh, why had no one ever told her such feelings could exist! This was nothing at all like the terror Mr Lofton’s kiss awakened or the slight disquiet of Mr Rayburn’s touch. This was something else entirely.
He nipped lightly at the curve of her knee, and she gave a strange, strangled mewling sound. She opened her eyes and looked down to see a most startling sight. He was almost hidden by the frothing ruffles of her gown. And he was—oh, he was kissing her knee.
Emily’s legs went weak under her, and she collapsed to the ground beside him. Her skirts dragged free of him, leaving his cloak askew. Off-balance, he fell atop her, sending them both flat on to the path with him above her.
He braced his hands to either side of her head, pushing up to stare down at her. His
body blocked the moonlight, the trees, everything. He was all there was in the world, him and his wondrous eyes looking at her as if she was all he desired.
No one had ever, ever looked at her like that, as if they saw her right down to her soul. People saw her beauty, her façade; sometimes they even thought they saw who she was, and dismissed her as chilly, proper and dull.
Ironically, no one had ever looked at her, as he did not when she was in disguise.
Full of wonder and terrifying fear, she slowly reached up and touched his face below the edge of the mask. His skin was warm and taut as bronzed satin, roughened by whiskers along his jaw. She touched the echo of that dimple, hidden now by his sudden solemn intensity. She ran her fingertips over his lips, which parted on a gasp. They were surprisingly soft.…
He lowered his head and touched those lips to hers. Emily had been kissed before, once or twice by brave suitors, and thus she thought she knew what a kiss felt like—sloppy, wet, an unpleasant intrusion.
But now she saw she had no idea whatsoever what a kiss was. This was a kiss.
It was slow and soft, almost gentle, as he brushed his mouth back and forth over hers, pressing little kisses to her lower lip. Those slow caresses, though, ignited something deep inside of her, some burning, frantic need. She curled her hands in the folds of his cloak and dragged him closer, her lips parting instinctively.
He groaned deep in his throat, and the kiss changed, became more frantic and needful. Shockingly, she felt his tongue trace the line of her lower lip. When she gasped, he slid inside.
It was so very intimate. She could taste him, wine and mint and night air, feel him as his tongue twined with hers and she tentatively responded. Her palms flattened and slid around his back. Through the layers of cloth she felt the taut shift of his muscles, the tension of his body as he held himself above her.
But she did not want him to be away from her! She wanted him closer. She arched up against him, holding on tightly as that kiss deepened. Through the sparkling haze that had fallen over her mind and senses, she vaguely felt his hand slide along her side to her hip. He traced its curve before curling into her upper thigh and urging her closer to him. His palm smoothed over her backside through her heavy skirts.
Emily was sure there was something—everything— she should not be doing. Her everyday, practical, shy self was screaming at her to cease at once! She should certainly not be rolling around on the ground with the Duke of Manning, kissing and letting him touch her there. But that scream seemed the merest of faint squeals through that fog of heady need. She wasn’t Emily, not now, and he was not the duke.
His lips slid from hers, along her cheek below her mask, tracing the line of her jaw. He nipped at a spot just below her ear that was shockingly sensitive. Emily gasped at the pleasure, like a burst of ripe summer fruit, sparkling and tart on her tongue. She sought his lips with hers again, eager for another kiss.
Barely had their mouths touched when something did break through that haze—an explosion high over her head. A real explosion, not one in her fevered mind.
Emily’s eyes flew open to see fireworks in the sky above her, red and blue and bright-white against the black night. It was as if they illuminated the truth of what she was doing.
She pushed him away. His blue eyes, lit by those incandescent fireworks, were wide with a shock that echoed her own. Their spell was broken.
“I am so very sorry…” he began brokenly.
Emily frantically shook her head. She didn’t want to hear his apologies; this was all her fault. She had forgotten herself in the most appalling way. She had forgotten the lesson so hard-won with the incident of Mr Lofton.
She was never drinking again, that was for certain.
She searched for her lost shoe by the sporadic light of the fireworks. “I have to find my friends. I’m sure they will be missing me by now.”
Nicholas found the shoe by the side of the path and held it out to her. She was glad he didn’t try to replace it on her foot—she didn’t know what she would do if he touched her again. Obviously she was a complete wanton who could not be trusted.
“Let me see you back to the colonnades,” he said quietly.
“No!” Emily cried. She thrust her foot into the shoe and leaped to her feet. She swayed uneasily at the sudden movement, completely unsteady. The punch, which had made her feel so sparkly and giggly earlier, now made her feel rather sick.
He was beside her in an instant, steadying her with a gentle touch on her arm.
“I am fine, thank you,” she managed to say in a semi-ordinary voice. “I can find my way back.”
“I know why you would not want to be seen with me,” he said. “But at least let me follow at a distance and make sure you find your friends safely.”
Safely? Emily nearly laughed aloud. What more danger could she possibly find? The danger obviously lay inside of her. She was a hoyden.
The thing that truly made her sad and regretful, though, was that one moment when she imagined he really, truly saw her. He didn’t even know the woman he had kissed was her, Emily. She was just a stranger to him, and tomorrow he would surely forget her and this moment in the dark woods.
But she feared she would never forget.
“Please?” he said. “You won’t even know I’m there.”
Emily nodded, and set off towards the colonnade. “You’re going the wrong way,” he called.
She spun around and headed in the opposite direction. The lights and noise grew as she came closer, the glow of the real world surrounding her again. She glanced back to see if Nicholas still followed her, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter Six
He was the biggest damnable fool that ever lived.
Nicholas strode down the street. The walkway was crowded with shoppers and servants laden with packages, yet he hardly saw them or heard the greetings of his acquaintances. He wasn’t there, in the fine, sunny day on Bond Street, but back in the darkness of Vauxhall, holding Emily Carroll in his arms.
Emily Carroll! Of all women, how could it come to be her? She had made it clear she disliked him, and she was not the sort of lady he usually liked. She was quiet, watchful, where he liked blithe gregariousness, daring and humour. Yet last night had been beyond daring—it had been sheer lunacy. How did it happen?
Nicholas rubbed his hand over his face, trying to erase the vivid memory of her mouth under his, soft, sweet, eager. The feel of her body against his touch. He knew all too well how it happened. Lady Emily was tipsy on Vauxhall’s potent punch, and he was a little foxed himself. Alcohol and masks were never a wise combination. They always gave the illusion of freedom and anonymity, of lack of consequences.
Well, there was no such thing as lack of consequences. He knew that all too well. His own father had lived his life grabbing whatever he wanted, heedless of its effects on his family name or the people around him. For him, there were no consequences; Nicholas and his poor mother and his siblings were the ones who lived with them. When he himself married Valentina, he didn’t care what happened next, he only cared about his love for her in that moment. And Valentina died because of it.
Since he lost her, he had been so careful. So determined not to be like his father. Until last night.
He had only followed Emily when he saw her stumble away from the colonnades because he was worried about her safety. He didn’t want to think too closely about why he watched her all evening in the first place. Ever since they ran into each other on her arrival, he had been acutely aware of where she was, her laughter with her friends, her tears at the sad song—the glasses of punch she consumed.
He could scarcely believe it when her friends let her wander off alone, and when she went off down the dark pathway. Had she no clue of the danger that awaited a beautiful woman in such places?
Of course she did not. Most young ladies did not grow up as his sisters had, knowing the ways of the world and sophisticated about its dangers. So he had followed, to make sure
she was left alone, and when he saw her fall…
He caught her. And it was as if something deep inside of him, something cold and dormant since Valentina, sprang to life. And not just the thing in his breeches, either.
Emily, or rather the tipsy, black-haired lady with Emily’s green eyes, had put her arms around him and made him feel strong and protective and—and needed again. The power of the lust that seized him when he merely touched her foot, felt the warm, rose-scented, feminine life of her, shocked him. It was powerful and primitive, completely instinctive—and not something he would ever have associated with Lady Emily Carroll.
Nicholas kicked at a chink in the pavement, making passers-by veer away from him with startled glances. When he first kissed her, he hadn’t been thinking at all—that burning lust completely took over, and he had to taste her. At first she seemed quite surprised, not sure what to do, but then—oh, hell, but then she responded to him with a gasp, reached out to him, learned the patterns of their kiss.
She learned quickly, ardently. And he forgot they were in a public garden, on the ground amid the trees. He forgot he was the Duke of Manning and she was Lady Emily Carroll, daughter of an earl who was his father’s old friend. They were only a man and woman who wanted each other, needed each other.
He had, blast it all, touched her backside. And a lovely, shapely backside it was. If the fireworks hadn’t gone off, who knew what would have happened. Lady Emily fled and rightfully so, though he watched to make sure she rejoined her friends and seemed unharmed, though shaken.
He had first followed to make sure no one attacked her on the dark walks, and it turned out he was the attacker. He was just like his father after all. No, he was worse. His father’s amours, culminating in his elopement with Lady Linwall, had all been worldly women at his own level.
He himself seemed to lust for young, innocent ladies tipsy on arrack punch, who did not even know who he really was. He was a fool and a cad.
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