James frowned. “You’ve been of great help to me tonight. Can I be of some to you?”
Sheffield held his gaze for a moment and then he shook his head. “No, my friend, I think not. Thank you for the offer, though. I do appreciate it.” He pushed to his feet. “I’ll be off to bed now. You should do the same. It seems you have some damage to repair with Miss Liston tomorrow. I hope you will make it clear to her that I have no intention of speaking to anyone about finding you two in the library tonight.”
“I will,” James said, holding out a hand to Sheffield. They shook. “Thank you.”
Sheffield shrugged. “You’re welcome,” he said. “Good night.”
He left the room then, leaving James to stand and stare at the flames dancing in the fire. Tonight he had gone too far with Emma and he should have felt sorry for it. He didn’t. In fact, all he felt was a stronger urge to do it again. To do more.
And all he could do was try to control that part of him that wanted to take and claim her. To focus on the true matters at hand and not let Emma Liston’s unexpected charms veer him from his course.
Chapter Ten
If Emma had hoped that a good night’s sleep would help, that was not to be. First because sleep had not come at all, second because no amount of time or space could change what she had done with James in the library.
Now she sat at the breakfast room table, staring at her plate, reliving every heated, passionate moment between them. Could the others see it on her face? Would the Duke of Sheffield tell anyone about their encounter?
She had no idea, but she trembled at it and the knowledge of what either of those things could do to her. And in truth, she trembled at her memories too. Wrong or not, what James had done to her when he touched her was nothing short of magnificent. She’d never felt such pleasure. Even now her toes curled when she thought of it.
It was all very confusing.
As if the universe sensed her confusion, James came through the breakfast room door at that moment. She made a soft, strangled sound in her throat as he paused, his dark gaze sweeping over the room until he found her. Their eyes locked, and in the depths of his smoky stare she saw passion and heat and promises that would never be fulfilled.
She turned her face to break the eye contact and focused on slowing her breathing as best she could. To no avail.
“Good morning,” James said to those who were already awake and eating. It was not their entire party, that was certain. Only about half those in attendance were downstairs, but those who were called out greetings.
James strode through the room and plopped himself in the seat across from Emma. She felt the eyes of the ladies track to her, and blushed as she glared at him.
“Don’t,” she said through clenched teeth. “Don’t.”
His expression softened as stared into her eyes, concern written across every line of his handsome face. “Emma,” he said softly.
“Your Grace,” she said back, sending him a look to remind him they were in public now, not a private garden or on the dancefloor or in a…library.
He pressed his lips together hard and glanced up at the servant who brought him coffee and a plate of food. Once they were alone again, he leaned in closer. “I want to talk to you.”
She shook her head slightly. “Here?”
“No,” he said. “Too many people. Excuse yourself and meet me on the terrace off the parlor across the hall.”
“Everyone will watch us leave together.”
“Isn’t that the plan?” he asked.
She sighed. The plan. God’s teeth, after last night she’d all but forgotten his plan. His plan to find her some other man to marry, a man who wouldn’t know that the Duke of Abernathe had put his hands up her skirt and made her world turn to rainbow colors and intense waves of unimaginable pleasure.
Damn him.
“Fine,” she said, pushing aside her half-empty plate.
She rose and departed the room with just a few words here and there to those in attendance. Thank God her mother and Meg both weren’t up yet. Emma was quite certain each of them would notice the odd interaction between Emma and James. Meg because was too sharp not to. Mrs. Liston because she was obsessed with every move Emma made when it came to the prospects of a duke.
She stalked across the hall, into the parlor and out the French doors onto the terrace. The late spring morning sun hit her face and she drew in a long breath of fresh country air. Her heart rate began to slow as she did so. Her hands stopped shaking and for the first time since last night, her wild mind calmed and let her think clearly.
But all she could do was think of James touching her. Of her body doing things she had never imagined were possible. Things she’d liked, if she were honest with herself.
All her life, she had been forced into situations she didn’t enjoy. She’d been forced to be afraid thanks to her father’s antics. Forced to dance when she did not wish to. Forced to pretend that rejection didn’t hurt. Forced to hide her intelligence.
But last night it was if the chains of all those things, all those situations, had been lifted from her and she’d flown beneath his hands. Spiraling up to the sky until she feared she’d burn in the sun. And it had felt damned good.
“Emma?”
She jumped at James saying her name and turned to find him closing the terrace doors. He moved toward her, hesitating, his expression uncertain. Her heart sank at the sight. He must regret what they did, especially since his friend had seen them together in what would be a compromising position by any definition.
“Good morning,” she said with a sigh.
He tilted his head. “Are you…well?”
“If you are asking if I slept well, I did not,” she said, looking away from him so he wouldn’t see her blush.
“I admit neither did I,” he said, his tone almost relived. “I-I couldn’t stop thinking about the library, Emma.”
She dared to look at him and found him focused so intently on her that it felt like he imprisoned her with his stare. Her lips parted and she took a half step toward him. “I have also thought of it a great deal since last night.”
“What I did…what I did was ungentlemanly, Emma,” he said. “And dangerous.”
“Your friend…the Duke of Sheffield—” she began, but he cut her off.
“Baldwin will not say a word, I vow that to you. He is a good man, he has no desire to hurt either of us,” he said. “Our secret is safe with him.”
She let out a short breath of relief. “And yet you still regret what you…did?” she asked, hating to hear the answer but knowing she needed to hear it. Only the truth would wake her from this dream that somehow this man really wanted her.
He swallowed hard before he spoke. “That is not what I said, Emma. I said what I did was wrong. I did not say I regretted it.”
She gasped and shook her head. “What do you mean?”
“I wanted you,” he whispered. “And that wanting took over my reason, which was wrong. I put you in a situation where you could have been damaged greatly by my actions. But as far as touching you went, as far as making you come…that was a pleasure.”
“You liked it?” she asked, shocked.
He nodded slowly. “Very much. But I know I must apologize because I am far more experienced than you are. I never should have coerced you into allowing me such liberties, no matter how strong my desire for you was.”
She moved forward again, and now they were dangerously close. Not quite inappropriately, but edging toward it. And she didn’t give a damn.
“James,” she whispered, breathless. “What happened last night…that was the first time I have felt alive in…in a very long time. I didn’t even know it was possible to feel like you made me feel.”
He lifted a hand, and in that moment everything slowed. He clearly wanted to touch her and she so desperately wanted him to do just that. But then his gaze slid to the door and he lowered his hand with
a frown.
“I’m glad you don’t regret it,” he said softly.
Relief flowed through her, as well as desire she was starting to understand. “Could we…do it again?”
She couldn’t believe how daring she was being, and from the way his eyes went wide, he also was surprised by her boldness. “You want to?”
She nodded. “James, even if your grand plan plays out just as you hope and some man takes an interest in me and asks for my hand, in my heart I’ll always know he wanted me only because he felt he was taking something from you. I have little choice in what my future will be, thanks to my circumstances, but if I could go into that future with more memories of…” She shivered. “What we did, I would like it.”
His frown deepened, and she thought for a moment that he might refuse her. But at last he sighed. “Very well, we can make it a term of our agreement. We will continue our pretended courtship, just as we decided last night. If we have the chance to find a bit of pleasure like last night, we will.” He leaned in. “And I vow not to ruin you, Emma, no matter how difficult that promise may be to keep.”
She held out a hand. “That is a bargain, Your Grace.”
He smiled at the offering and took it, but instead of shaking on it, he lifted it to his lips and pressed a kiss to the top of her glove. “A bargain,” he said. “Now we should rejoin the others. Margaret has a whirlwind day planned, I believe, including a rousing game of Pall Mall on the west lawn and a picnic by the stream. All of which will allow us ample opportunity to enact the first part of our plan, if not the second.”
She smiled, for the lightness had come back into his tone and his face, but beneath her smile there was a stir of wanting. She’d been reluctant to come here, but now her entire life had been set on its head by James, his plan and his touch.
She could only hope she could maintain some kind of control over herself and her emotions, lest she begin to believe there could be something more between them than a ruse and a few stolen moments of pleasure.
James couldn’t help but grin as he watched Emma and Margaret from across the wide lawn. In the midst of the Pall Mall game, the two were laughing riotously as Emma tried to set up a winning shot and failed miserably. She bent at the waist, her entire body shaking with mirth.
And she was glorious. Lit up like a thousand candles lived within her, flushed just like she’d been beneath his hands the night before, relaxed and at ease like she belonged here. With him.
How anyone could see her as she was in that moment and not want to be near her was beyond his comprehension. He certainly wished to cross the distance between them, swing her around by the waist, press a kiss to her full lips until she went limp in his arms.
“Interesting little creature, isn’t she?”
James stiffened as Sir Archibald approached, a drink in his hand and a leer on his round, sweaty face.
“I’m certain I don’t know who you mean, Sir Archibald,” James said, his tone cool.
He’d never liked the man, but he lived in James’s shire and had always ingratiated himself to James’s father and later to him. But James found him a pompous windbag who ate and drank too much.
The fact that he’d been hanging around Emma earlier in the party only made James’s disdain all the more focused.
“Don’t you?” Sir Archibald said with a chuckle. “I thought I’d seen you sniffing around Miss Liston, was I wrong?”
James let out a long, deep breath. “She’s a good friend of Margaret’s,” he explained, then thought of their plan. He’d promised Emma he would infer his interest to garner that of others. He hadn’t exactly been thinking of someone like Sir Archibald, but what could he do? “And I like her.”
Archibald smiled broadly at that admission. “She isn’t exactly a great beauty, eh? But there’s something about her. Something with a little fire to her. I might throw my hand in there for her, myself. It’s not as if she has many prospects, does she?”
James felt his nostrils flaring. Sir Archibald had insulted Emma not once but twice in the span of five sentences, and James now wanted to do nothing less than slam a fist through his face. Instead, he gripped his drink harder and said, “She may have more prospects than you think. And isn’t she a bit young for you?”
“The younger the better,” Sir Archibald laughed with a friendly nudge to James. “But you could have anyone, Abernathe. For God’s sake, don’t drop yourself low. Your father would have wanted you to wed someone of importance, someone to increase your name.”
James gritted his teeth. Yes, his father would have wanted him to do a great many things. Exactly why James had no plans of doing them. “If you consider Miss Liston so low, why would you consider her?”
“Well, as you said, I’m an old man,” Sir Archibald chuckled. “My heirs and spares are already older than you are, the ones who aren’t could use a woman around to deal with them. I don’t need to raise myself through a marriage. I just want a young chippy to spread her—”
“Enough,” James said, turning on him with what he knew was a dangerous look. “You shall not speak of Emma in such a fashion. Not here, not to me nor to any other guest.”
Sir Archibald’s face fell and there was a flash of anger in his eyes before he held up his hands. “Coming to the girl’s aid, are you? Well, before you throw yourself headlong into some kind of arrangement with her, you’d best do a bit of research on her. And her father.”
James folded his arms. “I know about her father.”
It was a half-truth, of course. He knew the man had been cut off from his family, that he was not around in Emma’s life at present, but little else.
“I used to gamble with him from time to time,” Sir Archibald said. “You know he’s put Miss Liston on the table more than once. Sometimes her hand, sometimes her virginity. He’s just never lost. But some day he will, Abernathe. Someday someone will win her from him. Then she’ll be no one’s prize. Is that what you want in a duchess?”
There was a cruel tilt to Sir Archibald’s mouth and James threw his drink aside. He caught the man’s lapels with both hands and shook him.
“Get out of my house,” he said, low and dangerous. “And never come back here again, you pompous prick. Or you shall be very sorry.”
Sir Archibald squirmed and James shoved him away, sending him staggering across the lawn. It was only then he realized that the entire party had turned their attention to him, to them. Sir Archibald looked around at them, too, face red, and straightened his clothing.
“You’ll find there are people not so worth defending, Abernathe,” he sneered. “And enemies you’ll regret making.”
James took a step toward him, and Sir Archibald jerked away and hustled toward the house at the closest to a run he’d probably made since he was young.
“Ladies and gentlemen, why don’t we all retire to the house to prepare for our picnic?” Margaret called out, but there was deep tension in her voice as she stared at James.
Guilt flashed through him. Meg spent so much of her time trying to mitigate any damage their mother might do to their reputations, and now James had just had a physical altercation with Sir Archibald, who was well known in Society. From the way people were staring and whispering already, it was clear that was going to cause a stir for some time to come.
Then his eyes caught Emma’s in the crowd. She was watching him closely, her lips parted slightly. And suddenly he didn’t give a damn about anything else. She had needed a champion against the bastard. He wasn’t sorry he had taken on the role.
She deserved better than a life shackled to Sir Archibald, being seen as some pretty toy for his pleasure and none of her own. That wasn’t the future he envisioned for Emma.
The crowd began to move toward the house and Meg walked to him, her gaze still even on his. He forced himself to focus on her, letting Emma fade into his peripheral vision as her mother came to her and they walked up to the house with the others.
> “What in the world was that, James?” Meg asked under her breath.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Meg. I shouldn’t have made a scene and embarrassed you.”
“What could you have against Sir Archibald that would make you grab him like that?” Meg pressed.
He always tried to be honest with his sister. He always had been, for in some ways it had always been them against the world. But right now he was reluctant to tell her the truth. “He was…untoward about one of our guests,” he muttered.
Meg leaned in, eyes wide. “One of our guests? Who?” He was silent for too long and she grabbed his hand. “Did he say something about Emma?”
He pulled away. “Why would you guess that?”
Meg put her hands on her hips. “Because I know you. You don’t give two damns about any woman at this party save one. Emma is the only woman I’ve ever seen you pay more than two minutes of attention to. Was it her?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes. Should I not have defended her?”
“Perhaps not so strenuously,” Meg said, and she was watching him even more closely now. “What is between you?”
“Who?” he asked, his voice rough.
“You and Emma, you great lout,” Meg said with a laugh. “God, it must be something if you are trying so hard to pretend it away. I mean, you asked for her to be seated next to you, you danced with her last night, I catch you watching her all the time and you threw an acquaintance out of our party on her behalf…so what is it?”
He hesitated. Partly because he knew Meg wouldn’t approve of his ruse with Emma. Partly because it was much more complicated than just that. He knew it. He didn’t want to admit it out loud.
“Are you interesting in…courting her?” Meg asked slowly. When he didn’t answer immediately, his sister clapped her hands together. “Oh, Jamie! That is wonderful! I have long worried about this drive of yours to have your revenge against Father by destroying your own future. A life alone punishes you more than him. And I adore Emma, I truly do. I’m so glad you will pick someone who is bearable and not some brainless chit.”
The Daring Duke Page 10