“Help?”
“I know how disagreeable you find her.”
“I will muddle through.”
“You are very brave, since she vexes you so. I will go pack, then. Tell them to have the carriage outside in half an hour.”
She drifted off, to make her preparations. Darius gave instructions about the coach, then returned to the library. The champagne had arrived. He sat down beside Emma on the divan and handed her a glass.
“Won’t your sister be rejoining us?” Emma looked at the door expectantly.
“She is otherwise occupied.”
“That is unfortunate. I like her.”
“I will encourage her to call on you. Now, let us toast your—”
“If she does call, does that mean that you find me dull? She said that you only allow her to be friends with uninteresting people.”
Darius thought it astonishing that Lydia had confided her thinking on that, or anything at all, in such a brief time. “I discouraged a few of her friendships—that is true—but I do not restrict her to uninteresting people. She restricts herself. She makes no calls; she shows no emotion; she is—” He threw up his hands. “I confess that she is a worry to me. A cipher.”
Emma sipped her champagne. “Perhaps she is hiding something.”
“What could she have to hide? And if she did have something, why hide it from me? I am her brother.”
“You are more than ten years her senior. She probably has no memories of you as an accomplice during her childhood. Maybe she sees you as more of a parent. I would if I were her.”
That was a ridiculous idea. Except it really wasn’t, he admitted in the next thought.
“This is very good champagne,” she said. “I expect it is very old.”
“Some years. Now, about that toast—”
“Before you praise my victory, I need to explain something,” she said. “You were correct. There are large expenses that will affect the actual profit that Fairbourne’s sees. I have the money for some of them with me, which is why my share looked so much bigger than yours.”
He did not want to talk about this now. She had decided that she did, however. Why did he think that meant he would not be hearing the whole story?
“What kind of expenses?”
“Commissions. I paid someone to find the drawings for me, for example, and I must now give her twenty percent.”
“You paid someone twenty percent to find you those lots? That is ruinous.” He did not care how thick his stack of banknotes ended up being, but giving out 20 percent of the income would close Fairbourne’s within the year for certain.
“It was necessary. Nor is it a practice that I will continue. Why, I only paid ten percent for the count’s collection, for example.”
“Ten percent of the amount of the final bids, or of the count’s commission paid to Fairbourne’s?”
“Of the commission, of course.” She laughed at him like the question had been too stupid to endure. Then a small frown formed. “I am sure I explained it that way to Cassandra. She knows how auctions work and she would never misunderstand.” A bigger frown. “Yes, I am certain she knows it is ten percent of the commission and not the final bids.”
He stood and walked to the front windows. Down below the coach waited. “You had better hope she does, or you will see very little from today.”
Lydia’s bonnet came into view as she left the house. A footman hefted her portmanteau onto the carriage, and another handed her in. Before her head ducked inside, she glanced back at the house.
Her expression surprised him. She looked happy. It seemed Lydia preferred a boring aunt in Kent to a tedious brother in London.
The carriage moved, taking Lydia away. Free now to contemplate the evening’s privacy, he looked back over his shoulder at Emma.
Her frown remained, deeper now. She reflected hard on something. She appeared worried. Desperately so.
“I am sure that Lady Cassandra has no illusions that she is getting all of Fairbourne’s income from those paintings, Emma,” he said, going back to her. “That is what it would be if she received ten percent of the total take.”
“I wish I were as confident as you are. Now that you raise the chance of it, I am scouring my memory to recall exactly what we said to each other on the matter.”
“If she misunderstood, I will make sure that you are not out anything for the error of her thinking.”
She turned her attention to him. “I am sure it will not come to that. Anyway, I thought that I should explain the commissions, since you noticed so quickly that the expenses were too high. Is there anything else that you found suspicious and want me to explain?”
Suspicious had been an odd word for her to use. Unfortunately, it had also been an accurate one.
In accordance with his instructions, there had been no lots consigned by discreet anonymous gentlemen except for the drawings and the Raphael. Instead there had been lots of silver and sumptuous silks and lace consigned by Emma herself, on her own account. Emma had obeyed the letter of his command, but not the spirit, he suspected.
The proceeds from those lots now rested in Emma’s reticule too, if his quick reading of her preliminary accounting had been correct.
If he asked her about them, what would she say? That they were family items she decided to turn into coin? He could never disprove that, even if he felt sure it were not true. As had happened often since they had met, he did not want to accuse her outright. There was little reason to, when he could not prove his suspicions. She would never just break down and confess it all. Nor did he really want her to confess it, he realized. If the sale of illicit goods became a fact instead of a suspicion, it would have to change everything.
Still, he should mind those lots more than he did right now. But then, she appeared very lovely and vulnerable sitting here. The dove gray of the dress she had worn to the auction flattered her hair and emphasized the subtle rose tint on her cheeks.
Confronting her about the source of that silk could wait. Perhaps forever. The sum total of those lots was not very large, and after today she would not do it again. He would make sure of that.
He rested his hands on the back of the divan and bent over her shoulder to pluck the champagne glass from her fingers. The faint scent she had used today teased his nose, and the skin of her neck and face, so close to his own, lured with its promise of velvet softness.
“You can explain the rest at the final accounting, Emma. It is a different matter entirely that we need to settle today.”
Chapter 24
She could not say he had not warned her. That was Emma’s thought as she turned around to look at the man standing behind her divan.
Her gaze moved up his frock coat to his face, hoping she would see humor in his eyes that indicated he was teasing her now.
His expression made her breath catch. It was apparent that at least one of them did not question what would happen now.
“Lydia…” she tried.
“Gone. To an aunt who requested her company on a journey.”
She found it impossible to conquer what his closeness did to her. His desire might be speaking directly to hers, urging it to wake up and enjoy itself. Her reactions came fast, without mercy.
She turned away and closed her eyes and tried to sort out her good sense from those delicious, insidious sensations. It was both fascinating and horrible how alive sensuality made one feel. The mere anticipation of pleasure created shivers and pulses in parts of her body that she normally forgot existed.
Still, she should not do this. Nothing had really changed since she left him in Kent. She should reiterate her reasons for rejecting his offer. They still stood, whether he sought a wife or a lover.
Other reasons did too. She wished she could explain all of them. She wished that she could be the plain speaker she always claimed to be. If she told him everything, and how badly it might all turn out, he would lose interest at once.
He came around the divan
and sat beside her. With careful fingers he turned her face toward him. He was going to kiss her now, and once he did she knew in her soul that she would not stop him.
She should speak at once if she wanted to claim anything other than immediate surrender had occurred. The words formed in her head, but his lips took hers and the discouraging sentences broke apart and scattered into so many unspoken sounds.
She said nothing. Not one word of objection. She made no effort to resist. She admitted, as he embraced her and the kiss deepened and desire broke free and ran through her, that she did not want to give up the chance to feel extraordinary one more time.
Darius was not too good to seduce Emma again. He was glad he did not have to, however.
She joined the kiss and embrace as equally as she knew how. It pleased him to see her forthrightness manifested in this new way, and the part of him still capable of thought pictured her more experienced soon, less artless, not waiting for him but demanding passion as she wanted it.
Her tongue finally ventured some equality too. Her attempt at boldness intensified his arousal abruptly. His body reacted as if he had been starved for years, and not only a fortnight. His imagination already explored her body in ways his body would not for days or weeks.
He held her breast and kissed the unbearable soft swell along the top edge of her dress. Her breaths shortened to a series of surprised inhales when he caressed the fullness he held. His fingers sought the tip and rubbed, and increasingly frantic, anxious cries flowed out on each of her gasps.
Lips parted and her eyes glistening, she looked down at his hand and what he was doing to her. Her acknowledgment of her arousal caused his own to soar.
She licked her lips, as if she were going to speak. He pressed his mouth to her neck, below her ear, so her scent surrounded him. “What is it?” he asked. “Do you not like this?”
“Yes. It is…unearthly. But…can you do again what you did last time?”
Her impatience surprised him. He stood, bringing her with him in his arm. “Not here. Come with me.”
He took her by the hand, and led her out to the hall, then sped her up the stairs. Doors closed softly as they approached while the servants made themselves scarce.
The damned stairs seemed to go on forever. He looked back, and the sight of her so captivated him that he impulsively swung her against the wall and kissed and bit her mouth and neck while he pressed her there.
“Surely not here,” she gasped. His hands sought her breasts and thighs. He barely heard her as he pressed to feel her, know her.
He wanted her helpless and so pleasured she wept. He wanted her now. He wanted—He grabbed her hand and dragged her the rest of the way up to the level that held his chambers. Blood flaming and mind darkening, he brought her into the bedchamber and pulled her into a kiss of triumphant possession.
When he released her she fell back on the bed. He looked down on her breathless surprise while he shed his coats.
* * *
Emma’s senses could barely settle after Southwaite absorbed her into his whirlwind. Views and sounds and emotions fractured into pieces and became a jumble within the sensual turbulence.
Kisses first sweet, then commanding…trickles of pleasure submerged by a coursing river of need…stairs and a wall and a hard body and devastating hands…a chamber with books and chairs, then another with a bed draped in whites and blues…a kiss, a frightening kiss, that did not request surrender but claimed it, as if she had no choice.
She floated alone, slowly, through air heavy with sensual scents. Her skirt billowed from a breeze. Her outstretched arms were empty now. She drifted down until her back hit a mattress and a blue coverlet stretched beneath a sapphire tent.
Her senses righted a little. Enough. She peered through the gathering dusk that still lit the chamber. Southwaite stood near her feet, tall, lean, and strong. His frock coat slid away. Then his waistcoat and cravat. Each movement seemed a taunt, a dare, and a warning. He seemed to strip away his gentility with the garments. Deep in her, a primal thrill said there would be no etiquette at all left in him soon.
Suddenly he stood there naked, his body like marble in the gray light. Then the statue moved, until he knelt on one knee beside her, his body and face braced on taut arms that flanked her. For one lucid moment she admired him, his face and hard shoulders and the intensity that desire gave his dark eyes. Then he came down to her and filled her arms and overwhelmed her, and plain thinking was lost to her again.
He caressed her as if she had ceded everything to him—her body, her privacy, her everything. He created unbearable pleasure that became torturous, so much so that she resented the garments that made a barrier to the body she embraced. When he kissed her breast, the fabric between them became an agony.
He shifted his weight so he could turn her. She hugged the mattress while he unfastened her dress. Each small release sent a tremor down her center, as sure and focused as an arrow. After that her clothes disappeared with astonishing speed, spirited away while she hung on to him and obeyed his words and touches that helped him release her from their bindings.
Free then. Shockingly so. Pleasure and madness did not dim the astonishment of their bodies touching. The closeness awed her again as it had the last time.
He caressed her breasts and they swelled and rose. His tongue flicked at one tip and it tightened even more. Each contact, each breath, sent the most delicious charge through her.
“I promised more, didn’t I?” he said. “Like last time, you asked.”
She was too aroused to be shy or embarrassed. She nodded, and anticipation alone increased her sensitivity.
He moved away from her. “Come here, then.” He reached for her and rearranged them both until he sat with his back against the bed’s headboard and she faced him, her knees flanking his hips and her bottom pressing his thighs. She felt him beneath her, felt the base of his phallus snug in her cleft, teasing that spot he had used to unhinge her at dawn the last time.
He could touch her freely while he kissed her now. He could tease and titillate both of her breasts and he showed no mercy. She loved it. She closed her eyes and let the exquisite pleasure build and fill her until she knew nothing else.
He knew just what to do to make it even better, even more maddening. She rocked for relief. As she did her stomach kept brushing the top of his arousal where it rose between them. He took her hand, finally, and moved it there, so that she might give him pleasure too.
She was groaning soon. Crying and impatient and splitting apart. The edge of desperation began to preoccupy her. He lifted her hips so he could use his mouth, but that only made it worse. She clung to his shoulders, her head back and her mind begging for more, for something, for everything.
He touched her where she pulsed and a shock of pleasure streaked to every inch of her. Another subtle touch, then another. Her essence reached toward a frightening place.
He moved her hands to the headboard. “Stay here like this. I am going to kiss you here.”
She nodded, too dazed to care or even hear, a silent begging for more being her only thought now. She did not care when he moved down or when he spread her legs and lowered her hips. She did not comprehend what he was doing until a most devilish thrill replaced that made by his hand.
She thought she would faint from it. For all its intensity, it also shocked her sane for a moment. She looked down and realized what was happening.
Her confused moment of rationality could not survive what came next. He did something that made her cry out. Another sensation, too intimate to believe, forced a groan from her. Then the insistent and building cravings spread until that was all there was, all she was. She clung to the bed while pleasure pushed her to desire’s ragged peak.
She crashed through the barrier to completion. She seemed to hover, suspended for a long, incredible spell of pure sensation. Then the need itself snapped, creating a scream of pleasure that owned her, body and soul.
She found her
self straddled atop him when her own voice and thoughts could speak again. He entered her, stretching her and filling her and claiming her anew. She had neither will nor strength nor even a secure sense of her own body still. The remnants of her self-possession offered no protection at all from the pervasive intimacy of being encompassed by his tense arms and body while he thrust hard and deep.
She should insist that he call for his carriage and have her brought home.
It took forever for that very sensible idea to come to Emma. Far too long for him to take her resolve seriously should she make the demand.
She sat on the disheveled bed in the glow of fifty candles. Southwaite had lit them himself when he finally rose from the bed. They flickered like fifty exclamation points that required no sentences to communicate their meaning. They burned atop tapers long enough to last all night.
Sounds from a flanking chamber spoke of the meal being set out. She gazed down at the silk robe she wore, provided by the earl. Her state of undress required that they dine in privacy in his dressing room. She had not objected to that plan, or to its implications regarding the hours that would follow.
She had been more herself after the ballroom. For all the magic and astonishment, she had left then, hadn’t she? She could not find the resolve to do so now, perhaps because dawn had not yet come to burn away the sensual dream of the night.
Hopping off the bed, she plucked her dress off the floor, folded it, and set it on a chair. She did not want to appear a waif when she left here. She would have to be vigilant about the time too. She had things she must do, important things, and she dare not allow her heart to delay them.
She sought her reticule. She had not let go of it when he dragged her up here, but it was nowhere in view now. She dropped to her knees to look beneath chairs and furniture. She cursed herself for being careless. Allowing herself to dally for pleasure was one thing, but completely losing sight of her duty could not be excused, not even for love.
She froze on the floor, with her hand under the bed where it had been feeling for the silk and lace of her reticule. Her thoughts had called this love without her choosing the word. She had no right to think of this passion in those terms. Southwaite had been kind, and had even made the obligatory proposal, but she had no reason to permit her heart such sentiments.
The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne Page 23