by Tessa Dare
What a miracle that he’d survived at all. Then again, he was excessively ill-tempered and intractable. No doubt he’d simply refused to follow when death beckoned. That would be so like him.
Oh, you stubborn, brave, impossible man. Curse you for being more attractive than ever.
Conflicting emotions overwhelmed her. She was seized by the urge to run to him, but she didn’t know what she’d do when got there. Kiss him, hold him, grope him, weep over him . . . ? She’d probably make a fool of herself doing all four at once. It was for the best, she supposed, that she was forced to remain behind this settee until he left the room.
A clattering noise startled her out of her skin.
Alexandra’s carnet—and its metal case—had tumbled to the floor. Sorry, she mouthed.
“Who’s there?” The duke grabbed his razor from the washstand and whirled around.
Emma cringed. There was nothing else to be done.
“It’s me.” She popped up from behind the settee, giving him a smile and a jolly wave. “Just me. Only me. Definitely no one else.”
He stared at her with an expression that blended anger and disbelief. “Emma?”
She gave Alexandra a soft kick before coming out from behind the settee and approaching her husband. “I . . . I thought you were downstairs. In the ballroom.”
“I was downstairs. Then I came upstairs.”
“Yes, of course.”
Behind him, Alexandra crawled out from behind the settee and began to scurry across the bedchamber carpet on all fours.
If Emma didn’t keep his attention focused on her, he would see Alexandra, and this already uncomfortable scene would enter . . . well, not quite the ninth circle of Hell, but Dante’s lesser known invention: the sixth octagon of awkward.
She asked breezily, “More badminton this afternoon?”
“Fencing.”
“Oh, yes. Fencing.” She touched her ear. That would explain the clanging, wouldn’t it.
In her peripheral vision, she saw Alexandra’s farewell salute from the other side of the door. She exhaled with relief.
“My turn to ask the questions,” he said. “What the devil do you mean, coming in here to spy on me?”
“Before I continue, could you . . . put aside the blade?”
He looked surprised that he was still holding the thing. He folded the razor closed and tossed it on the washstand, where it landed with a bang. “Now explain what you were doing crouched behind my settee.”
She set her chin with confidence, having thought of the perfect excuse. “I was looking for the cat.”
“The cat.”
“Yes. The cat.”
“You mean that cat?” He nodded at the settee she’d been hiding behind.
She turned. Breeches was curled up on the cushioned seat, asleep.
When had that happened?
As if he knew himself to be the subject of conversation, the cat lifted his head, stretched his long legs, and gave her an inquisitive, innocent look.
Not since she’d been sixteen years old had Emma felt so thoroughly betrayed.
You furry little beast. I found you starving in the streets, took you in from the cold, and this is how you repay me?
“Enough,” her husband said. “Just admit that you came to gawk at me. To invade my privacy against my wishes and satisfy your curiosity.”
“No.” She shook her head in vehement denial. “No, I would never.”
“Don’t lie to me,” he thundered.
She swallowed hard.
He spread his arms and turned in a slow circle. “Well, take what you wanted. Have a good, long look. And then get out.”
Once he’d finished his display, Emma locked her gaze on his, careful not to let it stray. “I didn’t come here to spy on you. I swear it. Though I won’t deny that once I was here, I couldn’t help but stare.”
“Of course you stared. Who wouldn’t? There are freak shows in the Tower of London that you’d have to pay a sixpence to see, and they aren’t nearly this grotesque.”
“Don’t say that,” she pleaded. “Do you really have such a low opinion of me?”
“I have an understanding of human nature.” He thumped a fist to his chest. “I want you to own the truth. This is hardly the first time I’ve caught you staring, even if it is the most intimate intrusion yet. Do you dare deny it?”
“No. I can’t.”
He advanced on her. “You came here—hid behind my settee—to indulge your morbid fascination.”
She shook her head.
“Admit it.”
“I can’t admit it! It isn’t true. I . . .” Her voice wavered. “I do stare at you, yes. But it’s not because I find you grotesque. It certainly isn’t morbid fascination.”
“Then what, pray tell, could it be?”
Her heart pounded in her chest. Did she dare admit the truth? “Infatuation.”
“Infatu—” He retreated a pace and stared at her. As if she’d sprouted horns. And then sprouted pansies and teacakes from the horns.
Emma didn’t know what to do or say. She’d already done and said too much.
Without another word, she ran from the room.
Chapter Sixteen
That evening’s dinner was uncharacteristically free of Emma’s usual teasing and relentless chatter. Ash could only suppose his wife was ashamed of herself, and well she should be. He wished he could stop caring—about her intrusion, about her lies.
And about the way she wasn’t taking any food or wine whatsoever.
“You’re not eating your soup,” he finally said. “It’s putting me off mine.”
“I . . . Never mind.” With a dutiful grimness, she took a tiny spoonful of soup.
He rolled his eyes. “Spit it out then.”
She froze, spoon poised in midair.
“Not the soup. Whatever it is you mean to say.”
She put down her spoon. “We need to talk about this afternoon. About the fact that I’m infatuated with you.”
Ash shot a glance at the footmen. Go. Away.
They went.
He returned his attention to his addlebrained wife. “Why do you keep saying that?”
“Because you keep asking! Because I must tell someone, and I don’t know how to tell anyone else.” She studied her soup. “I’m infatuated with you, however unwillingly. It’s a problem.”
“It would be a problem,” he said, “if it weren’t a product of your imagination.”
“I’m not imagining things.”
He shrugged. “Maybe you’re nearing your monthly courses. I hear women become seething maelstroms of irrational emotion at that time.”
“Well, now I’m seething.” She gave him an irritated look. “You are such a man. And I’m stupidly attracted to you despite it. Perhaps even for it. Yes, I am certain it’s infatuation. I’ve felt it before.”
Now Ash was the one who became a maelstrom of irrational emotion. That emotion being jealous anger. “Toward whom?”
“Why should it matter?”
“Because,” he said, “I like to know the names of the people I despise. I keep them in a little book and pore over it from time to time, whilst sipping brandy and indulging in throaty, ominous laughter.”
“It was a young man back home, ages ago. Surely you know the feeling of infatuation. Everyone does. It’s not merely physical admiration. Your mind fixes on a person, and it’s as though you float through the days, singing a song that only has one word, thinking of nothing but the next time you’ll see them again.”
“And you claim to be feeling this way. Float-ish. Singsong-ish. About me.”
She sighed. “Yes.”
“That’s absurd.”
“I know, but I can’t seem to stop it. I have an unfortunate habit of looking for the best in people, and it makes me blind to their flaws.”
“I’m entirely composed of flaws. I can’t imagine what more evidence you’d need.”
“Neither do I. That’s w
hat worries me.” She fidgeted with her linen napkin. “I mean, it will end. These things always do. Either you wake from the spell, or you fall properly in love.”
“Which was it with this boy back home?”
“I thought it was the second, but then he made it clear he didn’t feel the same. The illusion snapped, and I saw him for who he truly was.”
He sat back in his chair. “There’s your answer, then. We can settle this right here and now. I’ll tell you I don’t feel the same. Because I don’t.”
“I wouldn’t believe you.” She paused. “I think you’re infatuated with me, too.”
Ash carved the roasted pheasant, sawing away at the blameless bird with displeasure. He slung a portion onto her plate. “I can’t imagine what would make you believe that.”
“You come to my room a bit earlier each night.”
“Perhaps I’m eager to have it out of the way.”
“It’s not only that your visits are earlier. They grow longer, too.”
He stabbed a fork into the pheasant’s breast. “What is this? Are you keeping a little ledger of my virility in your nightstand? Charting my stamina? Making graphs?”
She cast a little smile into her wineglass. “Don’t pretend you wouldn’t be flattered if I did.”
“Stop smiling. There’s only one reason I come to visit your room at any hour. You’re supposed to be conceiving my heir. To that end, I insist on your proper nourishment and good health. Eat your dinner.”
She picked up her fork. “If you say so, my treasure.”
“I daresay I do, you little baggage.”
Ash glowered at the silver candlesticks. This was a problem, indeed. It was all well and good—expedient, truly—if they pleased one another in bed. Outside the bedchamber, however, maintaining distance was essential. He must not encourage any foolish sentiment on her part, even if her admiration of him could be credited—and it couldn’t.
The truth was plain, he reminded himself. She was making excuses for having been caught in his bedchamber and then having fled as though the Devil licked at her heels. She hoped to forestall his anger by puffing up his pride.
Infatuated, she’d said. Unthinkable.
And if she believed him to be taken with her, she left him no choice but to prove her wrong.
Tonight, Ash resolved, he wouldn’t go to her bed at all.
Keeping his resolution proved more difficult than Ash could have guessed.
He didn’t know what to do with himself. It was too early to go out walking—the streets would be thick with people at this hour. To pass the time, he poured himself a brandy and decided to look over the land agent’s report from Essex.
No sooner had he stoppered the decanter and turned to the desk than the hellion cat pounced atop it, circled, and settled into a heap—directly on the very papers he’d intended to inspect.
“Great help you are,” Ash said sullenly. “Lump of foul deformity.”
Breeches blinked at him.
“Do you hear me? Get out. ‘Thou art a boil, a plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle.’ King Lear, Act Two.”
The embossed carbuncle gave a bored yawn.
Ash gave up. He might as well go to sleep.
He removed his boots, snuffed the candles, and lay down on the bed. It was a monument of a bed, passed down through generations of dukes. Four carved mahogany posts and hangings of richly embroidered velvet trimmed with golden tassels. The hangings trapped heat on cold nights and blocked light on unwelcome mornings.
They also made a nice little cave for hiding from reality.
He folded his hands on his chest and groaned with displeasure. Perhaps Emma was right. Maybe he was infatuated. All the symptoms were there. Though he knew she had flaws—many, many of them—he couldn’t pinpoint a cursed one at the moment. Her name kept running through his mind. The song with only one word.
Emma Emma Emma Emma Emma.
He took comfort in one thing. She had also said it wouldn’t last. Ash would just have to snap himself out of it.
He clapped his hands, sending a booming sound through the room. That resulted in nothing but making him feel incredibly stupid.
He squeezed his eyes closed until stars exploded behind his eyelids, counted to three, and then opened them. Stupider still.
He thought of the most unappealing things his imagination could conjure:
Shards of fire propelled with bullet-force, colliding with his face.
Vomiting himself dry while quitting opium.
Pus. Not even the mildly repulsive yellow sort. Green, oozing, malodorous pus.
That helped for a few minutes, but apparently his brain didn’t want to dwell on those memories anymore—not when his mind could so easily reach for her.
Emma Emma Emma Emma Emma.
Ye gods.
He sat up in bed. Tomorrow he’d burn twists of sage and wave the smoke through the house. He was clearly hexed. Bewitched.
The door to his bedchamber creaked open.
“Don’t be alarmed. It’s only me.” Emma entered the room, holding a candelabra with three glowing tapers.
Ash rubbed his eyes. “Why, pray tell, are you in my bedchamber?”
“Because you’re not in mine.” She set the candles on a chest of drawers, directly across from the foot of the bed. “And because I owe you something, in the spirit of fairness.”
She was dressed in only a thin night rail, and her dark hair was woven into a loose plait, tied with a bit of muslin at the end.
As he watched, rapt and disbelieving, her hands went to the buttons of her shift.
Glory above, she began to undo them. One by one by one. As she worked them open, the two sides fell apart, revealing a slice of pale flesh that widened as it dipped from her neck, to the valley between her breasts, to her navel.
When all the buttons were undone, he heard her draw a shaky breath. Then she slid her arms free of the shift, one and then the other, before letting the entire garment drop to the floor.
Jesu Maria.
“I have a confession to make,” she said.
“God, I hope it’s a long one.”
“Breeches isn’t my pet. Or he wasn’t, until the morning of our wedding day. I plucked him off the street. Given the nature of our arrangement, I needed something warm and cuddly to bring with me. Some creature I might be able to care for. Love.” Her lips curved into a slight, rueful smile. “The little beast didn’t even have a name until you asked me for one.”
Ash had no idea why she was standing there naked, talking about the cat, but he’d be damned if he was going to complain about it.
By all means, do go on.
He drew to a sitting position, the better to see her. All of her. He let his gaze linger on the delectable orbs of her breasts, then the gentle curve of her waist where it flared to her hips. Those tempting handfuls of femininity he’d gripped with fervor in the dark.
And then his gaze traveled to its logical destination . . . the dark triangle between her legs. All those sweet, secret places he now knew so well with his lips and tongue.
He could taste her from here.
“Of all the names that could have come to me,” she said. “Buttons. Boots. Even Pocket would have been better. But no. I had to blurt out Breeches. Do you want to know why?”
“I don’t know how you expect me to give a damn right now.” He’d moved on to memorizing every contour of her thighs.
“Because that’s where I’d been looking at the moment, you see. At breeches. More accurately, your breeches. Admiring how you . . .” She cleared her throat. “. . . filled them.”
He lifted his head. Now he gave a damn.
“Admiring,” he echoed in disbelief.
“Yes. Perhaps even lusting.”
That settled it. None of this was real. He was dreaming.
Lord, let me never wake.
“I am wildly attracted to you. Physically attracted to you. I have been from the first. And yes, I’ve done a grea
t deal of staring.” She stepped free of her pooled chemise. “I want you with a keen, carnal passion. I won’t pretend otherwise, and I’m not going to apologize for it. Not anymore.”
He swallowed hard. “I see.”
“Good.” She moved toward him.
Ash leapt to his feet and held her off with an extended arm. “You’ve made your point. Quite vividly. Now you may return to your bed.”
“Return to my bed? Without us even . . .” She waved her hand to fill the gap in her sentence. “Why?”
“Because the only activities I can imagine at the moment involve complete and utter depravity. And you”—he waved his hand in imitation—“cannot bring yourself to speak the tamest of them.”
“We don’t have to do much speaking, do we?”
Very well, he could demonstrate.
Wrapping his good arm around her waist, he lifted her against him. He pushed his hard, aching cock against her belly, rubbing her nakedness through the barrier of his trousers. “Do you feel that?”
Her gasp was more of a squeak. “Yes.”
“I have a bad side, Emma. One that has nothing to do with my scars. You’ve no idea what I’d like to do to you. Push you against a wall. Drive my cock into your sweet, wet heat. Tup you senseless. Raw. So hard that you wouldn’t walk for days. And that’s only to start.”
Heat sparked and crackled between them. Her nipples hardened, pressing against his chest like spear points.
“Was that speech meant to put me off?” Her voice was breathless. “Because if so, I must tell you it backfired.”
Damn it. Of course it had. He should have never expected anything else.
Everything in his life backfired.
First that rocket at Waterloo. Then his engagement. Now this whole blasted arrangement with Emma. Despite the supposedly impersonal nature of their marriage, she was slowly working her way under his skin, under his scars. If not deeper.
Infatuation was dangerous enough. It must stop here. If he allowed her in, Fate would surely laugh in his face. His own heart would backfire, explode to shrapnel, and he’d be as destroyed inside as he was without.
She had to leave his room at once. And he must lock her out, in every way.
He made one last attempt, his voice dark and stern. “Go. Now. Before I use you in ways you don’t want to be used.”