She was trembling now. The bodice of her gown hung slack at the neck. She said, “But you could still be a gentleman if we . . . if I—”
“I am being a gentleman, Duchess,” he said, sounding strangled. He blew out a heavy breath. The bodice of her gown felt looser with each pluck of a hook. “If I weren’t being a gentleman, you would already be naked.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Beau wondered idly, his brain fogged with lust, how many women’s bodies had been laid bare to him in his life. Five hundred? A thousand? In all of those years, with all of those women, he could honestly say that no woman—not the first saucy chambermaid, ten years his senior, or his favorite Parisian courtesan—had ever filled him with such a pounding, heady rush of desire as this woman. And he couldn’t even see her body.
Well, he could see part of her body—but none of the parts that he usually found interesting. He saw the line of her neck, graceful and long. He saw the point of her shoulder, round and smooth and so proudly upright. He saw the whorl of her ear, the baby curls at her hairline. The more he saw, the more he wanted.
Please, his mind and body seemed to shout in unison. Please, please, please.
But please what? Possibly for the first time ever, Beau found himself torn between lust and protectiveness. He wanted to make love to her, but he also would not scandalize her with his raging lust. He wanted to rip the dress from her body, but he was terrified that she would bloody well freeze to death.
She turned her face slightly to look over her shoulder, accentuating the provocative view of her drooping gown, now open down her back. It was unintentional, of course, which made it all the more provocative, and his world shrank to the widening V that exposed her back. He channeled every bit of willpower he possessed to keep his hands on the line of hooks.
When he released the last one, he moved to her shoulders and peeled off the heavy wool, edging it down her arms. She’d tipped forward just a bit, a rote move she likely affected every day when her maid unfastened her dress. The pop of her bottom and the arch of her back nearly shattered his self-control. He swallowed a groan. The sleeves were at her elbows now, and she affected an eye-popping little shimmy that slid the heavy, dripping fabric to her wrists. He rested each side of the open back against her skirts, and she pulled her arms out, allowing it to hang from her hips like a wet apron.
“There you are,” he heard himself say, his voice raw. “We’ll push it down over your petticoats. Does your maid typically take it off over your head?”
She nodded.
“Right. But it’s too wet and heavy for that now. Can it go unaccounted for?”
“Do you mean will they notice if it comes home in a wet, reeking tangle on the carriage seat?”
“I mean will anyone care if I toss it into the canal?”
“No,” she laughed. “My maid is discreet, and we can make up a tale for the laundress.”
“Good. Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
She was shivering violently now—quaking—yet he hesitated again. Was she truly ready? Could she want this?
He said, “I’m sorry for the indelicacy, but you know the dress has to go, and it’s too bloody complicated to remove yourself.”
“Yes.” More shaking.
“If old Lady Frinfrock had fallen into the canal, I would insist upon disrobing her as well. I hope you know that.”
Again, “Yes.”
But she’s not Lady Frinfrock, is she? Beau thought, taking hold of the bunched fabric at her waist. On the contrary, she was a young woman who, if he was being totally honest, he’d wanted since the first moment he’d seen her. And each moment spent with her made him want her more.
Forget seduction, he thought—she was seducing him. And why not, for a bloody change? Let her drive whatever intimate interlude would develop between them. He was too selfish to vow that it wouldn’t happen—God, please let it happen—but she should propel it. It must be her choice.
But now she had taken matters into her own hands and begun to wiggle and shove the dress down. He was spurred to action, tugging from the back, sliding the dress past her hips. It fell with a sucking sound to her feet, and he took what he thought of as a very gentlemanly position at her elbows, steadying her as she stepped out of it.
And then they’d done it. She stood before him in her shift, corset, and petticoats. She wrapped her arms around herself, still cold. She rolled her shoulders and shook her head, sliding several locks of long, blonde hair swinging down her back to brush the base of her spine.
He smothered a growl. “I’ll throw the dress out then,” he said. “It’s too wet to burn.”
“What if Miss Breedlowe doesn’t come with another dress? What if the boys cannot reach her?”
“The boys have been promised enough sweets to last them until spring, not to mention my undying gratitude. And Miss Breedlowe is nothing if not resourceful.”
She nodded, and he took up the blanket again and dropped it on her shoulders before scooping up the dripping gray dress and pitching it out a window onto his deck. A proper navy burial would come later. Now . . . her corset.
He opened and closed his hands at his sides. He cleared his throat. “Listen, Duchess. We’ve reached a crossroads. It’s one thing to take off the outermost layer but quite another to strip you bare.”
He looked down at her, bracing himself to see the scandalized expression for which he’d been waiting.
She fluttered her eyelashes and licked her lips, looking back at him with perhaps the least scandalized expression he’d ever seen. She appeared in no way scandalized. She did not even appear particularly cold.
His gaze dipped to her mouth. She licked her lips again.
“What do you want, Duchess?” he asked hoarsely.
“I want to kiss you,” she said. “That is what I want.”
He blinked and took a half step back, uncertain he’d heard correctly.
“I beg your pardon?” he rasped.
Her eyes grew wide, and her cheeks glowed pink. She opened her mouth to speak but hesitated. He stared, waiting, willing her to say it again. He had to be sure.
But she did not say it again. She squeezed her eyes shut and looked away. He’d hesitated, and she’d lost her nerve.
Bloody hell, Beau thought, reaching out. What’s happened to me?
In hindsight, it was a valid, telltale question, but he did not wait to answer himself. He scooped her against him—sweet relief, yes—and dropped his lips on hers.
She made a little gasping sound—surprise and uncertainty and pleasure; truly one of his favorite sounds—and he kissed her.
Years later, long after the resolution of the things that began that day, Emmaline would think back and marvel at the rare mix of courage and impulsiveness that precipitated her bald-faced request for a kiss.
Well, perhaps she would not marvel at the courage, because she’d come to know courage since Ticking had died. Courage had been her steadfast companion as she made the plans that would free her from his son. Courage allowed her to seek out the viscount in the first place, to make good on a promise to Mr. Courtland that wasn’t even really a promise. Courage had not been long in her life, but she was well suited for it, she discovered, and the more she employed it, the more she could conjure it out of thin air.
And today, the air seemed to swim with it.
While Beau had issued simple commands to lift, or bend, or step out of the wet clothes, she’d been fantasizing about spinning around, tipping her head up, and tasting him. Just once. Well, perhaps more than once.
There was so much more, of course. She’d wanted to feel his arms around her and feel the rasp of his beard against her cheek. She wanted to put her hands on all the dips and swells and planes she’d seen beneath the wet shirt on his back. She wanted to crawl up his body and coil around it. She wanted and wanted and wanted. After a year spent needing to do things simply so she and Teddy could survive, she was exhilarated by the impulse to do someth
ing out of pure desire.
And oh, what desire.
They were new, these impulses, and she wasn’t entirely sure what to do with them except to . . . ask for them.
The moment his lips had touched hers, the conscious world hung in suspended stillness. Like being pitched over the side of the boat again. But instead of the cold slap of water, his mouth was warm, and his big hand anchored her against him at the waist.
She tried to breathe but forgot how; she tried to turn her head, but so did he. She turned the other way, and he did too. She felt herself floundering, but she didn’t care. She could do little more than hang on.
“Careful, Duchess,” he said gently, pulling back. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, and he dipped his head. Again she felt the indescribable sensation of his lips on her lips, his breath with her breath, her eyelashes batting up against his cheek.
His mouth nibbled and nicked, and she tried to follow along. Her hands left his chest and wrapped around his neck to get a better grip. The blanket sagged, and she let it go.
He pulled back again. “Emmaline? Emmaline, sweeting—wait.”
She opened her eyes.
He stared down at her; his beautiful blue eyes narrowed. “You have kissed a man before me, haven’t you? Some beau before you were married? The old duke himself, no matter how decrepit?”
She felt heat rush to her cheeks. “Well . . . ” she began. She was winded, and it made it difficult to speak. “I was not allowed to court men before the duke. And the duke was not given to . . . er, kissing. Not me, at least.” Thank God, she added in her head.
She watched his expression. It had not occurred to her that she might fail at kissing. Especially with Beau Courtland, who seemed put on this earth for the sole purpose of flirting and kissing and whatever else came next.
“Am I terrible at it?” she asked.
“No,” he said carefully, “by no means . . . ” He looked so incredibly adorable in that moment, unguarded and perplexed, that she could not resist rising up on her tiptoes and kissing him again. One quick peck on his lips. He caught her and kissed her back, longer, smoother, better.
He made a moaning sound and gathered her closer, his hands roaming from her shoulders down to her waist, grazing the swell of her bottom. She shivered, rising on her toes again to better reach his lips. His hands left her bottom, and he cradled either side of her head and pulled back, just resting his forehead on hers.
“Try this, Duchess,” he said between heavy breaths. “Lips together to begin. One quick brush”—he brushed his lips across hers—“then the other way. Then back again.” He demonstrated again. “When you can no longer resist the movement of brushing, we’ll settle together, your lips on mine. Then, we nibble.” He demonstrated this too.
Emmaline loved all of it. She loved it so much, and he demonstrated it so gently but also with such heat, as if he could barely wait to gobble her up, that she forgot to feel abashed. And oh, how he was right. Everything he suggested, in fact, did make it better.
The second time he pulled away and rested his forehead on hers, breathing hard, her eyes were closed. She was lost to the sensation, savoring the feeling of being held and the strange, strumming awakening in her body.
“Do I have it?” she asked, opening her eyes.
He laughed, a painful, choked sound. “Yes, Duchess, you have it. You are a natural. And the old duke was a fool.” He kissed her again. “But I’m worried, because you’re actually still wet. Despite my best efforts.” He let out a pained laugh. “What should we do about the shift, and corset, and the petticoats?”
Take them off, said a voice in her head. But even in a fog of desire, she knew it was one thing to ask for a kiss and quite another to be stripped bare.
“I can wear them until Miss Breedlowe arrives,” she said.
“Or you could take them off, and you could enjoy a proper kiss without being miserable and wet and rank at the same time,” he said. “Here is what I suggest . . . ”
The explanation was lengthy, and it took him away from her. He swiped up the nightshirt on the bed and waved it in front of her. She would slip this on first, he told her, over the wet undergarment. When she was covered, he would reach beneath it and unlace them. The shift could be rent in two. Then all of them would fall to the floor, and she could step out of them as she had the others. When they were gone, only the dry nightshirt would remain.
It was a reasonable solution—well, reasonable in the upside-down, unreasonable world inside the cabin of his boat, where she allowed him to undress her and invited him to kiss her. In that world it sounded reasonable.
Emmaline nodded and held up her arms to receive the nightshirt over her head. After that, she stood perfectly still, holding her breath, as the viscount lifted the tail of the shirt, reached up from behind, and unlaced her corset beneath.
When the wet corset fell—a sweet relief she would not soon forget—he reached beneath the shirt again and untied her petticoats at the waist. When they were loose, he stepped back, and she pushed them down—more relief—and stepped free. They mounded on the floor like a wet sail, limp on the deck after a storm.
Before either of them lost heart, he steadied her and reached beneath the nightshirt again. The sound of ripping linen came next—she heard it before she felt it—but then there it was, a swift, controlled jerk, and her shift hung in two pieces. With minimal maneuvering, she shouldered from it, and it shed to the floor.
“Now,” he said, stepping to her again, “we’ll use the shirt to dry all the wet places that remain.”
And while she stood before him, trembling, heart pounding, he pressed his hands to the voluminous fabric of the nightshirt and gently swabbed the skin beneath, working in small circles to soak up the residual moisture.
It had the potential to be as breathtaking as his removal of her shoes and stockings, but he was businesslike and efficient—at first. With every circle, his movements grew slower and more lingering. She swayed, entranced by the sensation, and he brought his free hand to her waist and held her steady. His eyes grew dark blue and half-lidded. He let his head fall forward. She felt his breath on her skin.
After he’d rubbed her back through the shirt, he applied his ministrations to her belly, then lower, to the side of her hip, then her legs. Emmaline’s knees threatened to give way, and she grabbed his shoulder for support.
“I believe that is enough of that,” he rasped, and his eyes slid to her lips.
This time, she did not bother to ask him. She tipped her face up. He understood and scooped her to him, gathering fistfuls of the nightshirt, clinging, his lips sealed to her lips.
They bypassed the brushing and the nibbling altogether now, and he pounced on her mouth. She grabbed his shoulders and held on. He chuckled, pulling back only to suck in breath and nuzzle his cheek against her ear.
“How much time do you think we have until Miss Breedlowe and Teddy arrive?” Emmaline asked.
“Enough,” he breathed, and he took two steps to the side and collided with the bed. He fell, pulling her down on top of him.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Beau hit the bed with a satisfying thump and tightened his arms around her, collecting himself against her.
“Careful, Duchess,” he mumbled, trying to arrange her on top of him. She wiggled. She jostled. She was unsettled and jittery. He couldn’t remember ever being in bed with a woman quite so jittery or jostle-y. It felt good—everything about her felt good—but it did not go unnoticed, and faintly, regretfully, he began to hear something that sounded like an alarm bell in the back of his head.
“Careful,” he repeated, more cautiously this time. He held her secure with a hand to her hip. “You’re all right. Are you comfortable?”
“Sorry,” she said, laughing, her hair falling all around them. She dipped her head to kiss him, but the bells were louder now, outringing the roar of blood in his ears. Deftly, he scooted to the side.
“You want thi
s, Duchess, right?” he said. “You want us to—”
“I want you to kiss me,” she said thoughtfully, and her eagerness sent another jolt of desire straight to his groin. He closed his eyes.
When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse. “Forgive me, but I may have failed to clarify one small detail.” His voice broke like a youth’s, and he cleared his throat. “When I asked you about the kissing, I did not specifically ask you if the old goat had taken you to bed. If he had consummated the marriage and performed his duties as, er, husband.”
He opened his eyes narrowly and regarded her. When she said nothing, he pressed, “Is this true, Emmaline? You are not a . . . Ticking took . . . ” He searched her face.
She ducked her head. “I don’t wish to talk about the Duke of Ticking,” she said.
“Neither do I; believe me.” He sat all the way up. “But Emmaline, this is very important. I must know.”
“How could he consummate the marriage if he had not kissed me?” She still would not look at him.
“It can be done. Or . . . so I’ve heard,” he said lowly. Silently, he added, But I hoped it had not happened to you.
He stared at the ceiling. Oh God, if she was a virgin, this could not happen. Not even the kissing. If she was a virgin, he could not touch her at all.
She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. She placed a shaky hand over her eyes, breathed in and out, and then let her hand fall. She looked away when she spoke. “The duke came to . . . er, my bed only rarely. Maybe a dozen times? Fifteen? He was always drunk, every time. He did not kiss me. He endeavored to . . . touch me, but it was . . . ” She took a deep breath. “He usually became entangled in my dressing gown or could not work the buckles on his trousers. Once, he fell from the bed. Several times, he passed out, and I slipped from beneath him to sleep on the chair beside my fire.” She looked back at him. “So the answer is no, I’m afraid. Being intimate in this way was not a . . . feature of our marriage.”
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