She kneeled, sitting on her feet, and looked into her heart. For the first time in her life it was not an easy thing to do. An odd emotion tried to block her reflection. Her inner voice warned that illusions and lies had their place in the doings between men and women, and honesty would bring only pain.
Contemplating Southwaite’s thinking and feelings indeed provoked a fearful anguish. She set the attempt aside. She could never really know what he was about. It would be ridiculous to attribute motives or emotions to him. She could and would expect nothing there, nor blame him for less affection than she might wish.
Honesty with herself was all she could hope for. Once summoned, it did not take long for her to face the fullness of it. She had become accustomed to Southwaite’s attention and the excitement he could create with his mere presence. She had reveled in the new sensations he woke in her. But she could not claim her true emotions were very sophisticated. She was still here, wasn’t she? In his bedchamber now that night had fallen, agreeing without saying so to stay with him while she could?
It would be harder to leave this time. Terribly hard. The mere thought made her composure wobble.
“What are you doing there, Emma?”
Southwaite’s question jolted her out of her reverie. She looked over to where he stood at the door to his dressing room. His own robe, of brown brocaded silk, made him appear both dissolute and exotic.
“I cannot find my reticule.”
He came over and helped her up. “We will find it later. It has not gone far. It is among the sheets and garments somewhere. Come and eat something.”
The servants had set a table in the huge dressing room. Silver and fine porcelain bedecked exquisite linens. Two comfortable armchairs faced each other. The food had already been served, and no servant could be seen.
She marveled at how discreet it all was. Also at how expertly arranged. Even the food on her plate, some fowl and sauce and a compote of warm fruit, would not suffer too much should the earl get distracted before he dined.
Perhaps it came together so well because there had been much practice. Lydia could be wrong about where her brother seduced his women. How would his sister even know whom he spirited up here and sent out again at dawn?
A spike of jealousy speared her at the thought. She tried to laugh the reaction off as ridiculous. It needled for a while longer all the same.
Southwaite poured some champagne. “Finally, at last, we must make that toast to your triumph today.”
She almost made a joke about whether the champagne had been smuggled in, but bit her tongue. The impulse only reminded her of the way she had disobeyed him on those lots. To gain the prize, she might be required to do so again.
“It is unfortunate Cassandra is not here,” she said. “I think she is celebrating too. She will see more than she expected from those jewels. Your friend Ambury was very aggressive on the sapphire and diamond earbobs.”
“I tried to stop him, but he would not hear me.”
“Perhaps he intends them for a special lady.”
“If so, she had better be ready to feed him for a spell. His father keeps him on a limited income, and he can ill afford such indulgences, even for special ladies.”
“I trust that he will pay up. I would not like to tell Cassandra that—”
“If he does not, I will.” He raised his glass. “To eyes both expert and beautiful, to a mind most extraordinary and exasperating, and to a body wholly captivating and deli—”
“Why, thank you!” she quickly interrupted.
He laughed. “Forgive me, but I thought you preferred plain speaking.”
Her face was already hot and now it burned even more. “I have decided there are some things better left unsaid.”
“That is an unexpected complication. How am I to know which things those are?”
She narrowed her eyes on him. “You know already, I think.”
He appeared ready to tease her more, but instead he ate his food. “I have been thinking about your eyes. Fondly, of course, but also about the expertise they have, as learned from your father. You must have seen more art pass through Fairbourne’s over the years than I did on my grand tour. You would have learned much from that.”
“There was more than the consignments,” she said. “When we journeyed anywhere—Father would be asked to visit estates to give estimates, so we did at times—he would bring my brother and me to the private galleries along the way. Other travelers might request to tour the gardens of those manor houses, but he would speak to the housekeeper and beg that his children see the art. There are some amazing rarities tucked away in the collections of England.”
“Then your brother had the same education, and had the same expertise, I expect.”
Had. He spoke of her brother in the past tense. Only she and Papa had not.
She wanted to correct him. She wanted to explain she was not some madwoman who refused to accept the truth of Robert’s fate. She fought the unexpectedly strong urge to blurt out that she had received proof now that vindicated her belief, and would soon have him back as well.
The desire to share this with him, the weighing of it all, immobilized her for a long count. If he found her reaction either visible or noteworthy, he did not say so. He ate his meal and did not seem to notice that she had stopped eating hers.
“English collections are very fine, but you will still be impressed when you go to the Continent and see the abundance of riches there,” he said. “You can walk into an obscure, humble church and find an old master to rival the best we have here.”
“Is that how you spent your grand tour? Visiting obscure churches to seek out old masters? I thought young men used those months to pursue bad women and drink too much wine.”
“I confess that I wasted my tour just like the rest of them. That is why I need to do it again. Here is a thought—when this infernal war is over, you will come with me. During the days you will advise me as I buy a collection to rival the one Arundel amassed. During the nights I will teach you everything I know about sharing pleasure.”
He was teasing her again. Probably. She could not tell. She dared not take him seriously, but fantasies of those distant cities and monuments wanted to occupy her mind. The woman who had surrendered too much to this man wanted to believe he wished it to be true too, that at least tonight he did.
He reached for her hand and raised it to a kiss. “No? Too scandalous a journey for you?” He stood, and guided her to her feet too. “Then the lessons will have to take place here.”
Emma broke her hand free when they entered the bedchamber. With a frown she climbed on the bed and groped amid the sheets and coverlet. She flipped pillows around. “It must be here somewhere,” she muttered.
She was looking for her reticule again. He lounged on his side and let her. Her expression, a little worried and a lot determined, reminded him of how often her private thoughts revealed deep considerations that she did not share with him.
There had been moments in the dressing room when he saw that in her. Thoughts besides games of pleasure would create little flames in the tenth layer of her eyes. She had been a woman with much on her mind these last weeks, but tonight, at least, if ever, she should be relieved of concerns about Fairbourne’s and the future.
He had a passing notion that this reticule’s contents meant more to her than he knew. The idea did not last long because the erotic potential of her position could not be ignored.
She paused, on her hands and knees, and examined him in turn. She crawled over and stuck her hand under the folds of sheet on which he lay. She yanked, and held up the plump reticule.
“You were lying on it,” she said accusingly.
“So I was.” He reached out and cupped the back of her head, and pulled her forward for a kiss. “Do not move.” He took the reticule from her, turned, and hung its strings over a knob on the footboard. “You will find it when you need it now.”
She began to sit.
“No
. Stay like that.”
She appeared puzzled until he reached under her and loosened the robe. The sides fell in silken drapes from her back, offering mere glimpses of her body. He reached between her hands and her knees, beneath the silk, and softly rubbed the tips of her breasts as they hung there.
She closed her eyes and the pleasure transformed her. She always looked so beautiful when aroused. He could see how she concentrated on the sensations, and how she reacted in nuanced ways to what he did to her.
He moved his caress to her thigh. Tension flexed through her when his hand rose higher on its inner flesh. Her lips parted and her tongue rested there, its tip visible against her upper teeth while she tried to control herself.
He caressed higher, to remind her that she could not contain this now. His own arousal made him ruthless and he stroked her until he brought her to the edge, until her gasping whispers both groaned for more and begged for help.
Hunger ruled him then. He knelt and moved behind her and threw off his own robe. She looked over her shoulder, her eyes slitting to reveal confusion amid the glistens of passion’s daze.
“Stay like that,” he said. “That is how I want you. I will show you what to do.”
He lifted the silk that flowed over her hips. He did it slowly, teasing himself, and his phallus swelled harder and larger with each inch of the fabric’s rise. It affected her too, so much that her stance wobbled. He pressed against her back and she dipped her shoulders until her arms and head lay on the sheet.
The pose made her hips rise. He uncovered them completely and let the silk slide down her back. Her bottom rose even more, rounding erotically. The more he caressed those soft swells, the more she angled herself to invite his touch and thrusts. He tortured himself as long as he could bear it, his desire coiling ever tighter as her scent filled his head and her cries filled his ears. He waited as long as he dared so the rest would be all the more intense.
Finally he could deny himself no longer. She hissed an assent when she felt the first pressure at the lips of her vulva, then a loud, groaning one when he entered her fully. He withdrew, and the perfection of the sensation, the intensity created by her snug hold on him, almost caused him to lose control.
He knew little restraint after that. He was not aware of much at all except her body’s velvet hold and the way her bottom rose to his thrusts and the desperate feminine cries that rang through the night until her finish turned them into a scream of ecstasy.
“What do you think she is hiding?”
His question came softly in the dark, as if he knew she was not asleep. They still lay where they had landed, a tumble of limbs and spent bodies too sated to move. She had drifted in a half sleep, but had never lost awareness of him.
“Who?”
“My sister. You said she was probably hiding something.”
A man, most likely. Perhaps a lover. She pictured him getting angry that some scoundrel had dared seduce his sister. Under the circumstances, that would be too comical, and too sad. “Something she thinks you would not approve, I suppose. Another friend like Cassandra, perhaps.”
“Perhaps it is a man of whom I would not approve.”
So much for being sly. “Would she not then embrace social opportunities instead of avoiding them? She is not going to have any time with an inappropriate man if she never leaves the house.”
Unless she sneaks him up to her chambers and feeds him fowl and champagne in her dressing room. Emma doubted Lydia would risk such a thing, or that the servants would cooperate, but for all she knew, such games happened all the time among the haut ton.
“I suppose you are right,” he said drowsily. “Still, it bears some consideration.” He rearranged himself, and her, in an embrace. He breathed the deeply contented way people did as they fell asleep.
She allowed herself a brief, thorough enjoyment of the tender contentment binding them. She tried lying to herself, that this sweetness could last a long time. Until morning if she allowed it, at least. She knew that she should not indulge even that long, however.
Forcing down a swelling sadness, she tried to lift the arm he had draped over her. “I have to leave.”
“I told my valet to rap on the door at six o’clock. I will get you out discreetly.”
“It is not discretion but duty that demands I leave now. I have things that I must do early in the morning. I do not want to arrive home and immediately leave again.”
That arm did not move. The other one did. He propped his head on his hand and looked down at her. “Those duties distract you often, Emma. I see it in you. Even tonight Miss Fairbourne lapsed into deep thought sometimes. Much deeper than one would expect today of all days, when current duties are finished and current responsibilities will be easily settled.”
He spoke in a speculative tone, even a concerned one. There was no accusation, but she feared again that he had surmised much more than she knew.
She was grateful that most of the tapers had burned out. She doubted she could hide her surprise from him.
“Do you need my help in any of these duties, Emma? We are partners, after all, but I could not refuse you anyway.”
The offer touched her deeply. He did suspect something. She knew it now. He was offering to help her rectify it. An earl’s voice and influence could do far more than any other person’s to fix most normal problems. He might be making the offer out of passing sentiment, or even obligation, but he had voiced it all the same. She would remember forever that he had thought her important enough to do so.
For the second time tonight the impulse to confide in him almost overwhelmed her. Fear held her back. Fear and also love. She did not want to entangle him in something she did not completely understand herself. Even if she got Robert back, there might be embarrassing revelations regarding her father and brother. And now her too. She could not ask Southwaite to look the other way when it came to criminal matters, or count on him doing so.
She forced her voice to sound light, even mocking. She stretched to kiss him. “That is good of you to offer, Southwaite. However, you have only been seeing the preoccupation of a merchant’s daughter with handing over money in her safekeeping. Such unfinished business creates heavy weights to such as us. Once I disperse the contents of that reticule and settle the auction payments, I will no longer be distracted.”
His hold on her tensed and tightened a little. Then he raised his arm, freeing her. “Go if you must. I will have the carriage bring you to your house.”
Chapter 25
Emma rapped on the blue door at ten o’clock. Mr. Dillon stood guard at her side. Until she entered this house, she would not risk the reticule that she had tucked under her arm.
She wondered if Mr. Dillon knew that she had not arrived home this morning until close to four o’clock. Maitland knew because he had sat in the reception hall waiting to let her in. Her maid did too, and probably all of the other servants now. Her arrival home in the earl’s carriage must have them all wondering what she had been doing. With any luck they would assume that Southwaite had hosted a dinner party and her social life was reaching new heights.
Mr. Dillon retreated once the door opened, to watch the carriage and horse. The same old woman greeted her, but this time she was expected. They did not go to the studio, but Emma could hear the women working there. Instead she followed the old woman to the back of the house, to a chamber that looked out over a garden.
As arranged by recent letters, Marielle Lyon waited for her with the old man who had consigned the drawings. Emma greeted them, then opened her reticule.
“As you may have heard, the auction proved very successful. People came for old masters’ paintings and jewels, but they bid well on everything.”
The old man nodded, but he had eyes only for her reticule. With no further ceremony, Emma pulled out the banknotes and counted out seven hundred pounds. Then she slid one of the catalogue sheets to him. “The amounts realized for each drawing are noted there. It was a public sale, s
o there is no way for me to cheat you. If you want to add it all up to ensure I am paying you correctly, I will not be insulted. Of course, ten percent goes to Fairbourne’s, as a commission.”
He said something in French to Marielle. She shook her head, took the catalogue sheet, and ran her finger down the figures. “He trusts you. I, however, prefer to add.”
Emma waited until Marielle put down the paper and nodded to the old man. He scooped up the money, stood, bowed, and left.
“It embarrasses him,” Marielle said. “Your discretion with his name—” She pointed to the catalogue line that designated the drawings as from the collection of an esteemed gentleman. “He is grateful. He will tell others, and perhaps more such things will come to you.”
Emma withdrew more money from her reticule. “Twenty percent to you, of what Fairbourne’s received in commission.” She counted out fourteen pounds. Marielle slid it away.
“Where is the other man? I have part of his payment as well,” Emma said. “The proceeds from the wagon.”
“I know nothing of that.”
“I think you do know something of it. He frequents this neighborhood, does he not?”
Marielle shrugged. “Perhaps. Sometimes. It is here that I have seen him, and he me, but not often.”
Emma studied this lovely young woman who had so mastered French insouciance. Marielle appeared bored with the conversation.
“Do you know his name?” Emma pressed. “Do you know if he lives nearby, or only visits these streets? Have you seen him enter any house?” She paused, but risked the insult. “Does he enter this house?”
Marielle turned her brown eyes on Emma. “You think I have lied to you? If I have, why would I now tell the truth?”
“Because perhaps you have surmised that this is about more than a wagon of wine and silks.”
Marielle turned her gaze to the garden. Her lips pursed, then she clucked her tongue. “So much trouble for four shillings,” she muttered.
The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne Page 24