License to Kiss

by McKinley, Kate

  “Speaking of marriage,” Stephen said, ignoring his mother’s comment. He would not allow her to see that her barb had hit its mark. “Miss Westgate and her companion are due to arrive any moment.”

  His mother’s gaze flicked over him critically. “You had better make haste and change. Miss Westgate doesn’t need to see you in mud-spattered boots until well after the wedding.”

  “I have not yet offered for her hand.”

  “Precisely my point,” she intoned with disapproval in her voice.

  With a grunt, Stephen took his leave and headed to his bedchamber, just down the corridor. Once inside, he untied his cravat and tossed it aside, then removed his jacket, waistcoat and shirt. Then he sat on the edge of his bed began removing his boots. Just as his second boot hit the carpet with a dull thud, a faint, delicate moan drifted across from the other side of the bed.

  He paused. What in the devil?

  Standing, he moved around and saw a mysterious female form in his bed—a small, mere slip of a woman in a dull gray dress, lying on her stomach across his mattress. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed her when he had walked in.

  Given her dull, unadorned attire, she was clearly one of the upstairs maids—and plainly, one with very little regard for her position here.

  His gaze wandered over her, taking in every detail of her slight frame. Even beneath the too-large dress, he could see she was thin, with just enough curve to her arse to provoke a man’s imagination. Her skirts were twisted up to reveal miles of creamy, shapely leg. She had taken her shoes and stockings off and tossed them onto the floor. They appeared quite wet.

  “Girl,” he intoned firmly. “Wake up.”

  No response. He squinted down at her.

  Cautiously, he reached out and touched her shoulder. She moaned again.

  “Girl,” he repeated, louder. “Wake up and return to your duties.”

  Silence.

  Excellent. Just excellent.

  He would do well to retrieve Mrs. Porter and allow her to reprimand her errant maid.

  But as he looked down at the woman, a thread of sympathy sprang up from some unknown source within him. Mrs. Porter was stern and would undoubtedly rip the poor girl to shreds. The chit would be fortunate to keep her position at the end of it all.

  He shouldn’t care. She had made her bed—or his bed, it appeared—and would now need to sleep in it. Which…was precisely what she was doing.

  He frowned down at her.

  The kind thing to do would be to wake the girl up and allow her to leave on her own without alerting Mrs. Porter. But when had he ever been accused of being kind? Fair, certainly. Agreeable, perhaps. But kind was a bit of a stretch.

  Still, the urge to help this woman tugged at him.

  Reaching out, he took her by the shoulder and rolled her onto her back. Her head lolled to the side and he caught the first real glimpse of her face. Brushing a stray curl off her cheek, a long, hot breath leaked from his lungs. She was exquisite with a small, upturned nose, high cheekbones and pink, dewy lips that would tempt the robes off a Trappist monk.

  And she looked vaguely familiar—but not as a maid. Why?

  Leaning over the woman, he pulled her up into a sitting position, her face mere inches from his. He shook her gently, and that, thank God, seemed to rouse her to some degree.

  “Girl, are you ill?”

  “Mmm,” she murmured. Sleep clung to her and the image reminded him of the fairytale his governess had often read to him as a boy, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood. A beautiful young princess cursed by an old fairy to sleep for one hundred years. Only a kiss from a king’s son could wake her…

  His gaze slid down her cheek to her rose pink lips and he drew in a breath, inhaling her scent. Lemons and honey. This woman had a lure about her, even in sleep, that pulled at him.

  The cap of her sleeve had slipped off her shoulder and as he reached over to right it, his fingertips brushed over her smooth, petal-soft skin. He sucked in a stuttering breath.

  Half-dazed, he found himself leaning down, his mouth tantalizingly close to hers and wondering idly, if a kiss from an earl’s son might wake this sleeping beauty…

  Blessed warmth enveloped Emily like a cocoon and she burrowed into it, willing herself not to wake. In the last months, she’d dreamt of Stephen often, but rarely did his voice come to her so clearly. Indeed, she could practically feel his hard body pressed to hers, his hot mouth brushing across her lips.

  Yes.

  In her dream, he kissed her and she kissed him back eagerly, touching her tongue to his, drinking in the heady taste of him. His flavor, mint and spice, was so intoxicating, she feared she might never get enough…

  But when he touched her jaw to deepen the kiss, the spell broke. Perhaps it was the weight of his hand or the warmth of his skin, but whatever the reason, she awoke instantly, her eyelids popping up like a spring.

  Oh.

  All at once, she realized she had been kissing Stephen. Not in a dream, but in the flesh.

  Pushing at his chest, she sat up and leaned back as far as the headboard would allow. She had not been here a full day and already she was kissing him! Keeping her composure was going to be a lot more difficult than she imagined.

  You mustn’t melt. You mustn’t melt.

  She took a moment to compose herself, breathing slowly until she had her wits about her again. She must remain firm. Steadfastly resolved.

  “Lord Devon,” she breathed. “Thank heavens. You’re here.”

  Her eyes had adjusted to the dimness and she could now see him more clearly. He was more beautiful than any man dared to be, with blond hair, a straight aristocratic nose and sharp green eyes that betrayed his shrewd nature.

  Statues. Paintings. Ethereal creatures of myth had the right to such beauty perhaps. But a flesh and blood mortal had positively no claim to this degree of perfection.

  Against her better judgment, her gaze slid past his face and down his torso. It was then that she saw he was unclothed from the waist down. Miles of warm molded muscle flexed as he leaned back and regarded her with those glimmering, intelligent eyes.

  But it was the scar on his right shoulder that caught her notice. Even now, four months after The Incident, the wound was still red and angry, as though it were in no rush to heal.

  “Does it still pain you?” she asked.

  “Are you here to inquire after my health? Is that why you’re in my bed?”

  He was still sitting next to her, though farther now that she’d moved away. Still, it was not far enough. He leaned forward and reached out to slide his large hand up her calf, past her knee, before finally settling on her thigh. His hand was warm, heavy.

  Why had she come? She had no ready answer.

  It was important, she knew. It was vital to her survival. Then his head dipped toward her and his lips met with the curve of her neck. All sensible thought scattered. She was bathed in sensation, a slave to his touch, hungry for the taste of his lips.

  With his free hand, he tugged on the neckline of her dress, causing the too-large bodice to sag. Beneath were her stays, still damp from the rain.

  No, no, no. She put a hand to her bodice, clutching the fabric, and shook her head. She could not do this. Not again. She’d given into desire once and look where it had gotten her!

  “Please, don’t.”

  He stared at her a moment, then pulled back, allowing her some blessed space to breathe.

  “What’s your name?”

  She blinked. “My name?”

  “Yes,” he chuckled, rising off the bed to stand. “What do people call you?”

  She let out a nervous laugh. This was surely a jest. “You are well acquainted with my name, my lord.”

  “No,” he said with a half-smile. “I am certain I would never forget the name that is paired with those lips.”

  “I—” She shook her head. “I don’t understand. We are well acquainted.”

  Even before Scotland, Emily was
employed as his fiancés lady’s maid. Surely, he would acknowledge that connection, if nothing else.

  “Do you—” She paused. “Do you remember nothing of Scotland?”

  “I was shot,” he said. “And taken to hospital. That is what I’ve been told, in any event. I remember very little of the ordeal.”

  Her heart sank at the flatness in his voice. It was as though she never existed, as though the bond between them had faded into nothing. On his end, at least. She, however, was cursed with remembering everything. Every kiss, every caress. Every whispered word.

  She felt so foolish. “Oh.”

  How did one say, we are acquainted because you were shot defending me and I spent a week nursing you back to health, delicately?

  With her mind still reeling, she shook her head. “I had not anticipated this.”

  Just as she moved to get up, he leaned down, his hands placed on either side of her on the headboard, caging her in. “Oh, no, you don’t, love. Not until you tell me why you’re here.”

  Her heart hammered so hard she feared it would echo off the walls. How could she possibly conceive of telling him now? If he had remembered the intimacies between them, then that would be one thing…but to merely tell him of their intimacy was quite another. It would look calculating. As though she were making it all up to get a bit of coin out of him.

  She shook her head, and scrambled off the bed, standing as tall as her spine would allow. “I—”

  He took a step forward as his hungry gaze wandered over her, sending a hot tremble sweeping through her body. “What I truly want to know is why you feel so familiar to me?” He reached up with one hand and traced her lips. “I have never tupped a maid in my household, so it begs the question, where do I know you from? And how have I failed to recall such a beautiful woman?”

  Oh, sweet heaven. His words twisted inside her, wreaking havoc with her insides. She still remembered their first kiss. On the journey back from Glasgow to Gretna Green, half delirious with pain, drugged on laudanum, he had captured her lips like a man starved, on the brink of death with nothing to lose, which is precisely what he was, she supposed.

  Perhaps he’d feared he was dying. Or perhaps he simply wished to remind himself that he was still alive. Whatever the reason, after that night—or indeed, because of it—they were now irrevocably connected.

  His lips hovered over hers. “Give me your name, or I shall gather the evidence myself and reach my own conclusions.”

  “I am no criminal, my lord, and there is certainly no evidence to be gathered against me.”

  His gaze dropped to her lips. “Another kiss should clarify things admirably.”

  She hesitated a moment too long. Swiftly, he swooped down and took her lips in a hard, intense kiss. The power of it tore the very breath from her lungs. Sheer pleasure ricocheted through her as his tongue swept into her mouth and twined with hers.

  In the four months since she’d seen him last, Emily had imagined this moment a hundred times over. But in each instance, he remembered her. He knew her name. He was relieved—no, elated—to see her.

  This…was not that.

  And perhaps it was just as well. Nothing good could come of whatever this was between them.

  She didn’t know who pulled away first, but moments later, they were staring at each other, his beautiful face blank. Utterly, confoundingly unreadable.

  He pulled away farther, just a little. “You are the maid.”

  She froze. Did he truly remember who she was or was he simply teasing her?

  “Lady Evelyn’s maid. You traveled to Scotland,” he finished. “Emily.”

  He stared down at her, his full six-foot-two towering over her as waited for her to explain herself.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  She should be relieved that he remembered her, but there was something in his voice that gave her pause. He did not sound pleased by his discovery or by her unexpected visit.

  “That little sound you made just now…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought…” He dropped his hand and looked at her as though seeing her for the very first time. “All these weeks. I thought I had conjured you in my imagination.”

  She pressed her lips together. What could she say?

  “I owe you a great debt,” he said flatly. “When I was shot, you took me to hospital in Glasgow. You saved my life.”

  Emily sighed in relief. “Yes, my lord. But surely that cannot be all you remember from your time in Scotland.”

  He nodded once. “Dr. Locke attributes my loss of memory to the trauma of my injury. Such cases of isolated amnesia have occurred, though rarely, I’m told.”

  “That is…rather unfortunate.” For me, she finished inwardly.

  He laughed under his breath, a hopeful sign that his mood was lightening. “As I understand it, my time in Scotland was less than pleasant. I would not call the loss of it unfortunate.”

  The weight of disappointment clung to her. She was relying on his memory. Without it, how could she possibly prove what she was about to tell him?

  “But there is something quite important you simply must remember.”

  He squinted a little. “And what might that be?”

  Heat crept up her chest and she began to perspire. She pressed her hand to her forehead. “Are you warm? Perhaps we should open a window.”

  “What must I remember, Miss Michaelson?”

  She sighed, ready to tell him everything, when a knock vibrated against the heavy oak door.

  There was a quick knock on the door a moment before his Stephen’s valet, Keating, admitted himself. Fuck, Stephen had forgotten about Keating. Earlier, he’d asked him to come up at a half past ten to help him dress.

  With a squeak of alarm, Emily instantly dropped to her knees, her head perilously close to Stephen’s crotch. His cock twitched eagerly.

  “Miss Westgate and Miss Pearce have arrived. Her Ladyship is in the parlor with them now.” Keating had a clean shirt and Stephen’s freshly pressed blue jacket draped over his arm. “Would you like wear your blue jacket this morning?”

  He glanced down at Emily and her pleading eyes. She mouthed the words, “send him away.” His lips lifted in amusement. He had a mind to draw the conversation out to keep Emily on her knees.

  Shifting on his feet, he made a show of thinking over his options. As he shifted, his crotch brushed against her pretty little nose.

  “No, I prefer the green jacket with the cream colored waistcoat.”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  “Have my Hessians been polished?”

  Keating draped the shirt and jacket across the back of a chair, then picked up Stephen’s discarded clothes and muddied boots. “Yes, my lord.”

  Stephen nodded. “Return in a quarter hour. I shall dress then.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Keating bowed with his usual stiffness and then left the room.

  Stephen walked to the door and bolted it, and then turned to Emily, who was now standing upright, staring at him with those wide brown eyes.

  He took another step toward her, then another until he was standing an arm’s length away. Up close, he could see her brown eyes were flecked with gold, just a hint of green outlining the edges. He breathed in the subtle scent of lemon that clung to her—so unlike the heavy perfumes ladies of the Ton often wore. And though her dress was far too large for her, he could see the outline of her slim body beneath.

  “Can you please put on some clothes, for heaven’s sake?” she hissed.

  He glanced down at his bare torso, then looked back up at her and smiled. “Does my state of undress make you uncomfortable?”

  Her gaze darted away. “Shouldn’t it make me uncomfortable?”

  “If you don’t like it, then perhaps you shouldn’t have snuck into my bedchamber.” He picked up the clean shirt off the chair and pulled it over his head. “You could have come to the door and requested a meeting. There was no need for subterfuge.”

  “Ha,” she blurted
, looking back up. “Your housekeeper mistook me for someone else, and when I tried to correct her, she wouldn’t allow me to get a word in edgewise.”

  Stephen laughed under his breath. That did sound like Mrs. Porter. She was a whirlwind. Invaluable to the household, but a bit wild-eyed and disorganized. Chaos often trailed in her wake. It was a miracle the house ran as smoothly as it did.

  “So I snuck upstairs with the hope of finding you.” Her tongue darted out to wet her bottom lip. A flash of memory flickered in his mind’s eye—her pink lips, wet from his kisses. Her long, slender legs twisted in the skirts of her dress. Her warm body pressed against his.

  Until this moment, he’d assumed he’d been too injured to compromise the maid in Scotland. Now… it was apparent by his body’s reaction to her that something more had transpired.

  “What happened between us in Scotland?”

  Her gaze fell to the floor and she became suspiciously quiet. His gut twisted. There was only one reason why that question would provoke embarrassment in a woman.

  “Miss Michaelson, I must insist you tell me what happened.”

  Her cheeks flushed crimson and he suddenly knew the truth of what he had done. He was the worst sort of cur to have taken advantage of her when it was she who had come to his aid.

  Still, he needed to hear it from her lips. So he waited patiently, riotous inside, while she told him her tale.

  “That night at the inn in Scotland, a man approached me. He was tap-hackled and fancied a kiss. When I declined, he forced himself on me. You must have heard the commotion, because you grabbed him by the collar and pulled him off me. A fight ensued and I am not even certain what happened, but a gun was fired. Everyone fled, save for you. I found you on the ground, bleeding.”

  He raked a hand through his hair. It was a bizarre feeling, having large gaps of his life removed entirely. Worse was the necessity of relying on others to fill in those gaps.