“I don’t want to hurt you,” he growled, his movement becoming more urgent.
She laughed at that and held him closer. “You couldn’t,” she murmured. “Let go, Devlin. I’ll catch you.”
Let go… Something he hadn’t done in any way, shape, or form for years. He hadn’t let go of his temper, his physical conditioning, his grief, his loneliness, his terrible weariness of spirit. Hadn’t permitted himself uncontrolled laughter, a mean drunk, a howl of rage or indignation. Hadn’t… Let go.
Something in him broke free. He gathered Emmie closer, anchored one hand under her tailbone, shifted the angle of his penetration, and hilted himself inside her. His movements became not faster but more intense, more focused. He settled his free hand over her breast and closed his fingers around her nipple.
Emmie tightened her hold on him, and St. Just knew he was moving beyond reason. He would not hear her words, but he would hear her body. She strained to meet him, thrust for thrust, arched her breast into his hand, buried her fingers in his hair and held him to her with all her strength. He found her mouth with his, even as inarticulate sounds of need and arousal welled in her throat, and still he drove her on.
“Ah, God, Emmie love,” he murmured fiercely, and then, “Sweet Christ…”
She exploded beneath him, keening her pleasure into his kiss, writhing with mindless abandon in counterpoint to his thrusts. He chased her into a long, grinding wrestling match with satisfaction more pure, intense, and shattering than anything he’d known. And still, when they were reduced to shuddering in reaction and fighting for each breath, they held each other tightly.
“Ye gods, Em,” he whispered in disbelief, trying to raise himself even two inches off her boneless form. “I can’t ever…”
She placed two fingers over his lips without opening her eyes. “Hush, love.” With her hand on the back of his head, she urged him to lay his cheek against hers. “I just need a minute.”
He, on the other hand, thought he might need a lifetime to recover from what had just transpired. For a long moment in her arms, his awareness had expanded beyond his own body to encompass hers, her pleasure, her desire in addition to his own, and even beyond that. He had been formless and weightless and yet more real than he could ever recall being.
He struggled to his elbows, giving them both room to take deeper breaths, but kept his cheek next to hers. He waited, mind drifting, letting his erection subside, so when he disentangled from her, she would not be uncomfortable.
“You’ll be sore,” he whispered, contrite and concerned. “I’m sorry.”
“I will not be sore,” Emmie murmured without opening her eyes. “Though I might be moving a little slowly tomorrow.”
“Emmie, I am sorry. I never imagined I was capable of such a loss of self-restraint.” He tried to shift off her, but she caught him in a surprisingly strong grip.
“Don’t you dare be sorry,” she said, eyes finally open and glittering in the dim light. “You did not lose your self-restraint, Devlin St. Just. For just a few moments, you let go of the dead weight on your heart and your spirit. Maybe all that sorrow and regret won’t hold you so tightly after this.”
He buried his face against her neck, not knowing what to say. She was right: For a few moments, he’d felt alive and whole and glad to be that way. But those moments were over, she was still leaving him, and sorrow was crowding close once more.
St. Just extricated himself carefully from her body and lifted himself off the bed. Emmie watched while he used some of the warmed water to wring out a flannel cloth then wash off his genitals. He rinsed out the cloth again and brought it to the bed.
“Let me.” He sat at her hip and waited while she raised and spread her knees. “You are swollen,” he remarked, brushing the backs of two fingers over her engorged flesh. Even that light caress caused her to flinch, and he smiled wolfishly at her response. “Swollen and beautiful.” But he covered her gently with the warm cloth and held it against her sensitive skin until he felt her ease.
“Thank you,” she said when he draped the cloth on the edge of the basin. “Would you like me to return to my room now?”
“I do not ever want you to go back to your room or your cottage or your vicar, Emmie Farnum. I thought you agreed to give us this night.” She nodded, and he saw she was shy and uncertain rather than looking for a way to leave him so soon.
“So.” He put one knee on the bed. “You’ll hold me now?”
“Haven’t I been holding you?” Emmie looked hesitant but flipped the covers up so he could join her under the blankets.
“There’s holding”—he eased down beside her—“and there’s holding.” He pillowed his head on the slope of her breast and brought one arm and a leg across her body. “Tell me if I’m too heavy for you.”
Emmie slipped her arms around him, resting her cheek on the tangled mess she’d made of his hair. “You’re not too heavy.”
***
And that seemed to be all he wanted, just to cuddle up in her arms and share a warm, comfortable silence. Once she realized she wasn’t going to be evicted nor expected to make coherent conversation, Emmie let herself enjoy of the privilege of such a trusting embrace. How much more quickly might he have healed if he’d had a place of such pleasure and trust and caring to come to each night?
“What?” he asked, flicking his tongue over her nipple. “You had a thought, and it made your body frown.”
“It did not.” She brushed her fingers over the end of his nose in the gentlest parody of a reprimand. He’d been right, of course. The idea that she wasn’t going to share more such embraces with him, ever, made her frown mightily. He deserved this, he’d earned it, and she wanted to give it to him. Worse, she had a sneaking suspicion that once she left, he wouldn’t admit to such a need ever again, with anybody else.
He’d soldier on, riding his horses only to sell them, raising another man’s child, making a routine that wasn’t a life, two hundred miles from the people who loved him.
“Don’t cry, Em.” He leaned up and brushed a kiss to her cheek. “Whatever it is, we still have tonight.” She nodded, but in his words was the tacit admission tonight was all they had, and to her surprise, she was able to start to talk about what came next. Needed to, in fact.
“Winnie will want Gany and Io,” she said when he’d turned her on her side to rub her back. And they tiptoed through more that needed to be said.
“Have you any miniatures of your aunt or yourself that Winnie can keep?” That he could keep for Winnie.
“There’s a portrait up in the playroom of Winnie’s father on a pony,” Emmie recalled. “She might like it in her room.”
“Was Winnie’s mother or father musical? Will you write to her?”
“Will you encourage her to write to me? Will you at least let me know how she goes on if she’s too upset to write to me?” And she did not ask: will you let me know how you go on?
Then conversation would drift off to the meaningless intimacies of lovers.
“Is this a bruise?” He traced a finger over a slight discoloration on her shoulder.
“Winnie’s birthday is at the end of February, and she will be seven.”
“The age of reason,” St. Just murmured. “And when is your birthday?”
But as those painful questions and thoughts slipped out between other less painful exchanges, it became apparent to St. Just that Emmie was not truly thinking through the upcoming separation. She would not—or more likely, could not—organize the practicalities while she suffered under the weight of the emotions.
He’d been so angry with Emmie and so confused by her insistence on leaving, he had not measured her heartache against his or Winnie’s. Holding her, listening to her dance around a wound too painful for her to even clearly admit to herself, he realized, of the three of them, Emmie was the most unlikely to recover from her decision to leave.
The least he could do was manage the transition for her. His years in the army prepared him to do th
at, much as elderly relations understood the practicalities of organizing a funeral.
But first he would complete the gift of this one night, he thought, spooning his body around hers. He entered her gently and let her drift easily from one peak to the next before withdrawing and rolling her to her back. Throughout the night, he let her alternate between dozing in his arms and being treasured with his loving. He used his mouth, his hands, his cock, his every resource to give her pleasure upon pleasure.
This should have been our wedding night, he thought as he gazed at her in sleep. A clock chimed three times downstairs, and Emmie’s eyes fluttered open.
“Go back to sleep.” He kissed her forehead. “You are forbidden to set foot in the kitchen this day. It’s your turn to have a cold.”
Lying on her side facing him, she met his gaze and reached out to stroke a finger down the side of his cheek. “Devlin?”
“Here.”
“I need to go,” she said, swallowing, “from Rosecroft and Winnie. I can’t seem to make myself do it.”
He wanted to close his eyes so she wouldn’t see the pain in them.
“I’ll interview the top three candidates for governess, Em. Let’s plan on moving you back to the cottage at the end of next week, and I’ll have your choice of the three start the week after that.”
Her eyes filled with tears, but she just nodded and crawled into his arms to cry herself to sleep. When she was truly beyond awareness, he lifted her into his arms and put her in her own bed. Because the sheets were cold and her fire burned down, he climbed in with her, warming her with his body until she was again deep in slumber.
And how tempting it was, to be discovered in her bed, to take away the option she most wanted to exercise and give himself the one he wanted for himself. That, he sternly admonished himself, would not be the way a man showed he cared for a woman in difficulties, though; so he pressed one last kiss to her forehead, built up her fire, and returned to his own bed.
There to toss and turn until the sun came up two hours later.
Fourteen
The days dragged after the night St. Just had spent with Emmie. When it was fair, no matter how cold, he spent long hours with his horses and riding out on his estate. He conferred with Emmie in the late afternoons over the details of moving her baking back to the cottage, but when he asked her what would become of her business when she moved to Cumbria, she gave him a blank look.
“Anna Mae can do it, I suppose.” She blinked, looking puzzled. “I can lease her the cottage or give it to her.”
“You don’t want the cottage held in trust for Winnie?” St. Just suggested, sitting beside her on the sofa.
“Oh. I suppose I could do that, couldn’t I?”
St. Just resisted the urge to wrap her in his arms. She didn’t look as tired and pale and wan as she had—he was insisting she sleep more—but she looked even more lost. “Have you spoken with Bothwell about this?”
“He is off at Ripon. There’s some gathering of the clergy of the West Riding, and he won’t be back for at least a week.”
“I see.” For a woman on the verge of a very estimable match, Emmie did not seem to care that the vicar had left the area. “And how did you learn of his plans?”
“Anna Mae told me,” Emmie replied, missing entirely the consternation on St. Just’s face. He’d considered Bothwell was not calling at Rosecroft in a display of tact, and had not concerned himself with how the man was communicating with his intended.
Tried not to concern himself, anyway. It appeared there was no communication, at least not lately, and there were no plans to transition Emmie’s thriving business.
“Emmie, have you thought about a trousseau?” he asked gently. “Where you’d like to be married? When?”
“No.”
Just that, one word.
“Are you pregnant?” he asked, bewildered. How could a woman be so set on a plan and be doing so little to implement it?
“I don’t know yet,” she said in a small, miserable voice.
Well, that must be it. She was on tenterhooks waiting to see if their night of passion had ruined all her plans.
“You’ll know soon?” he asked, hesitantly patting her hand only to see her glance down at his fingers with dismay.
“A day or two. If I’m not, I will tell you.”
“We wait, then,” he said, rising but frowning down at her. “If there is a child, the banns should be cried immediately.”
“I doubt Bothwell will want a wife pregnant with another’s child,” Emmie said, rising, as well. “He does have a title to consider.”
“Emmaline Farnum, for God’s sake. If you carry my child, you will marry me and no other. How could you think I’d let my child be a cuckoo in Bothwell’s nest?”
“I’m sorry.” She glanced down, not meeting his gaze. “I didn’t think that… I just…”
“It’s all right,” he said, bringing her hand to his lips. “When we know what our situation is, we’ll go from there. Get some sleep.”
She left the room without meeting his eyes.
Could she do that, Emmie wondered as she stumbled off to her room? If she carried St. Just’s child, could she condemn him to a lifetime of marriage to a woman who would never make a creditable countess? A woman no longer pure of body or heart? She’d have to tell him the truth first, but in his mind, the only truth would be that his child not be born to bastardy.
God Almighty, she thought as she prepared for bed, how could she have been this shortsighted, this selfish, this simpleminded, to take advantage of St. Just’s generous and lusty nature without any thought to the consequences for them both?
And for Winnie.
She drifted off to sleep, wondering how much worse things could get before the weight on her heart began to lift.
In the morning, she found she was not expecting a child, and for all the contradictions and complications it implied, the weight on her heart doubled.
***
“Wee Winnie.” St. Just hoisted the child onto his lap where he sat at his desk in the library. “There was something I wanted to ask you concerning a discussion you had with Lord Val.”
Winnie’s brow knit. “If he told me a secret, I won’t tell you.” She scooted around, settling with her head pillowed on his chest.
“I won’t ask you to tell secrets. This had to do with asking if you wanted to move to Cumbria with Emmie.”
“I don’t,” Winnie said with perfect equanimity.
“Why not?” St. Just inquired in the same pleasant tones.
“It’s complicated,” Winnie said warningly, “but it goes like this: If I am here, then Emmie might come home if she’s unhappy in Cumbria. If I am there, then Emmie will stay in Cumbria and try to make me happy there. Besides, Emmie went away before.”
“What do you mean?” St. Just asked, smoothing a hand over Winnie’s blond curls. When had the child’s hair gotten so long? It was almost to her shoulders, almost long enough to pull into two pigtails if not quite braids.
“My mama told me Emmie lived with us when I was very little, but then Emmie went away to Scotland. When she came back again to care for the old earl, she lived in her own house. Emmie went away to school before I was born, too.”
“You didn’t expect her to stay here, then?”
“I hoped she would. But you won’t go away.”
“I already have,” he countered. “I went away to Morelands.”
“That was just a visit, to see your mama and papa and to meet Rose. That wasn’t going away away. You live here now, and you’ll stay.”
“Why will I stay when Emmie, who was raised here, will not?”
“She’s a girl,” Winnie said patiently. “She will marry Vicar and go away. You are not a girl, and besides, you were in the army for a long time.”
“What has that to do with anything?” St. Just asked, prepared for any answer. There was no telling where a child’s mind turned and doubled back. He’d learned that much a
lready.
“You don’t run away,” Winnie said, meeting his eyes. “Soldiers are brave, and they stand and fight. You fought and fought and fought, longer than I have been alive, Lord Val says, because you didn’t stop fighting until old Boney was done for, did you?”
“I did not stop until we won.” St. Just smiled. He’d still fought after Waterloo, until he had to be dragged off to the stables like an old warhorse—lame, scarred, and dazed, unable to comprehend the cessation of violence.
“So I will stay with you,” Winnie said, the logic settled in her little-girl mind, “and I hope Emmie is miserable with her silly old vicar and that she wants to come home lots.”
“We might need another plan, Win. Like Miss Emmie is happy as a hog in slop with her vicar, and you can go visit her for weeks and weeks every summer. It’s very fashionable to see the Lake District in the warmer months.”
“I am not the one running away just so I can have a title and wear jewels,” Winnie said with chilling evenness. “Let her come visit me, and if Scout and I feel like it, we’ll invite her to tea.”
“I’m not too happy about her leaving, either,” he admitted, “but when I joined the army, Her Grace cried and cried and cried, and still I went. People don’t always do what you want them to.”
Winnie rolled her eyes then closed them and snuggled into his chest. She’d dropped off to sleep a few minutes later when Emmie tapped on the door and joined him in the library.
“Have you said anything to her yet?” Emmie asked, glancing anxiously at Winnie.
“Nothing specific,” he said, keeping his seat in deference to his burden. “She knows you plan to leave the area.”
Emmie just nodded, but she was glancing around the room anxiously, not meeting his eyes.
“Em?” He did get to his feet then and deposited Winnie on the sofa, draping an afghan over her sleeping form. Emmie met his gaze and began to blink, then threw herself at him.
“There’s no baby,” she murmured in a miserable whisper. His arms closed around her, not sure if she was relieved, unhappy, or just upset on general principles.
The Duke’s Obsession Bundle Page 61