Was it Miss Hathaway crying in pain?
No, it couldn’t be. He’d heard a fair bit from her tongue, and she’d never sounded so tiny and fragile. It wasn’t her. But it was coming from where she sat upon the ground.
He took a few more steps in her direction, and the sounds came more frequently, and then he knew.
A kitten.
It was a kitten. A tiny one, by the sound of its cries.
As he drew closer still, the soft, calming tone of Miss Hathaway’s voice carried over the night air, though he could not make out her words. Then more cries met him, one on top of another, until there could be no doubt that there was more than one kitten. Finally, he distinguished a panting sound.
Good God, a cat must be birthing at that very moment. What did she think she was doing? And how on earth did she always find these people and animals in need?
He ought to leave Miss Hathaway to her task. Her talent for attracting broken and helpless things to her seemed to know no bounds, and he was no use in such situations. Amidst the crying mewls and pants of the mother cat, and Miss Hathaway’s gentle murmurs, Aidan backed with the good intention of returning to the manor house without looking back. None of this was any of his concern. Emma Hathaway was none of his concern.
Until his plodding foot snapped a twig beneath him.
Her head shot up at once, and she met his eyes. In the moonlight, hers were dark, almost black, and shining with excitement. They locked onto him, rooting him to the ground.
He should go. He should turn around and return to the house, and forget that he’d ever come after her in the first place. That would be the intelligent thing to do—the rational thing.
Instead, he closed the distance between them. “You just can’t seem to help yourself, can you?” God only knew when he’d learn to act rationally again—not so long as Miss Hathaway was in the world.
Just can’t help myself. Emma tamped down upon her anger, firming her resolve not to allow Mr. Cardiff to have such control over her emotions. How did he so easily incite her anger?
What was he doing out here? Could she not escape his interference no matter what she did or where she went? It seemed, no matter how little encouragement she gave him—and for that matter, no matter how frequently he sent indecipherable looks in her direction—he turned up in her general vicinity every time she batted an eye.
It was infuriating, even if it was a little bit thrilling.
And here, of all places? The thought that he could possibly hold an interest in birthing kittens was ludicrous, so what other excuse might he have for his sudden appearance?
Emma forced a calm expression upon her face—or at least she hoped she was successful in doing so—before she turned to face Mr. Cardiff. “I suppose you can’t help yourself, either. Or else how would you explain your penchant for following me, when you can never bear to be in my presence?”
She winced slightly at the coldness of her words, the crass bite pouring from her tongue. So often, he brought out the absolute worst in her. It perturbed her to no end how she became an icy, cantankerous miss every time he opened his mouth in her general vicinity. That reaction was easier than letting herself give in to the intoxicating flutters and breathtaking heat he inspired.
His shoulders jerked back, and even without the aid of a lantern, his scowl was visible across the brief span between them. “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
She shouldn’t, but that was beside the point. And it was none of his business whether she was out alone or not. He ought to be looking after Morgan, not worrying about anything Emma was doing. Oh, heavens. What if he’d finally decided to leave Morgan to do as she would, and now intended to repeat the coddling process with Emma?
Emma opened her mouth to let him know her thoughts on such a thing just as the mother cat, a calico, let out a soft sound of distress. Another kitten must be on its way. Instead of delivering Mr. Cardiff an earful, Emma cooed softly into the night and ran a soothing hand over the poor dear’s back.
“Can’t the cat manage without your assistance?” he grumbled. “Cats must birth kittens all alone in the wild all the time. How else would the infernal creatures be so pervasive everywhere?”
“Just because they can doesn’t mean this one should,” Emma replied, spinning to glare at him before returning her full attention to the cats. “Not while I can sit here with her and ease the way. Would you want your sister to experience childbirth without someone with her to assist the process?”
“My sister isn’t having a child, and she is a human, not a cat.”
He had a point, but Emma had no intention of conceding hers. She bit her tongue to keep from lashing out at him again.
The first bit of the sac pushed through while the mother cat panted. Moments later, the kitten was free and the mother was hard at work cleaning it up. This was the third of the litter, but Emma was fairly certain there were more still to come. Her belly had been far too large for only three little kittens. If she had to guess, she’d imagine there were five or six, in total. And she had every intention of staying right where she was until such time as every last one of them had been born, no matter what Mr. Cardiff’s thoughts on the matter might be.
He started making impatient noises behind her again, little grunts and heavy breaths. But there was no cause for impatience. The kittens would come when they were ready. All in due time. Mr. Cardiff could not increase the pace of the process, no matter how much he may want to do so. Nevertheless, she stole glances at him to see if he would leave.
His sighs and groans were liable to drive Emma to the brink of madness. She could well imagine he was adding to the mother cat’s stress, which just would not do.
“Feel free to return to the party at any time, sir.” She looked up at him for a moment, nodding her head in the direction of the door to the great house. “You wouldn’t want to be missed.”
He scoffed. Loudly. “And leave you alone? Again? I can assure you, Miss Hathaway, there is nothing I would rather do, but it is also something I cannot do.”
“Of course you can. Turn around to face the other direction, put one foot firmly before the other, and keep going until you reach the door. I’m certain your hands will remember how to open it when the time comes.” The hefty dose of sarcasm in her voice seemed to coat the air between them, as heavy and pervasive as it was.
“Touché,” he said, the sarcasm dripping just as heavily from his tongue. “And if I should not remember how to open the door? What then, Miss Hathaway? What brilliant suggestion do you have for how I should return to the party in that instance?”
“A strong man such as you ought to be able to figure it out without my help. But if you do require my assistance, I’m certain I can open the door for you. Even I can manage that without causing someone harm.” She could return to the cat and her kittens as soon as he was gone. Surely they could manage that long without her.
He fell silent then, blissfully so, and Emma allowed herself to hope it an indication that he would finally leave. She took up one of the cloths Cook had allowed her to bring outside—she’d gone back in to beg for some after she’d discovered the mother cat in distress—and used it to assist the mother in cleaning her babies.
No matter how long she sat there waiting for the sound of his retreating footsteps, it did not come. Mr. Cardiff seemed to have no plans to leave.
“Can you not remember how to turn around, sir?” she asked, amazed that she’d removed some of the sarcasm from her tone. It had not been an easy feat.
“Why in God’s name can you not allow me to act as a gentleman with you?”
“Not allow you?” Emma set the cloth down on the ground beside her and painstakingly stood, then turned to face him. “How, pray tell, can I possibly have such control over you?” While she didn’t know why he was so fascinated, she knew, without a doubt, that she fascinated him to no end. It both fascinated and perplexed her.
“If only I knew!” Mr. Cardiff closed the dis
tance between them in two brisk paces, taking her upper arms in a solid grip as though he intended to shake a naughty child. “I have done nothing in three years but try to burn you forever from my mind, and yet I cannot possibly stop thinking about you no matter how hard I try. I dream about you. I find my thoughts straying to you at every turn. And, as much as I have hated you in the past, I find that I can’t continue to do so.”
His eyes burned through her, scorching her very soul. She shook her head, tried to piece it together in her mind.
He took deep, rapid breaths, and his eyes kept moving over her, as though memorizing every feature of her form. “Not when you have taken my sister under your protection,” he said raggedly. “Not when, even though I have objected to the blasted dog at every turn, you have made it possible for Morgan to become more independent again by working with him. Not when every time I look at you, you have taken some new helpless and broken creature into your care.”
His impassioned diatribe left Emma shaken to her core and breathless, as though he’d stolen all the air from the night. The rapid pulse pounding in her throat felt ready to burst if she couldn’t take a solid breath soon. What was he trying to tell her? That he loved her? That couldn’t be. Even if it was, she didn’t want it to be. Did she?
Blast, but the flutters were back and more intense than ever before. Perhaps she did want it.
“I don’t…” She didn’t know how to respond. Not in the slightest. The only thing she could think at the moment was that she needed to put more space between them, because when she and Mr. Cardiff were so close together, it never ended well. She pushed against him, to no avail, the corded muscles of his arms and chest like steel beneath her fingertips. It was impossible to escape his grasp. Some small part of her reveled in the feel of his strength enclosing her. “I don’t go off in search of animals in need of help. They just find me.”
She tried to take a step back, but his grip remained firm and unyielding.
“And people,” he added, more softly, and yet with a certain deep power in his tone. His expression was the same as it had been in the drawing room earlier, when he’d left her so flustered and overheated she’d sought refuge from its penetration outside. “They find you, too. Broken and helpless people. They gravitate toward you in droves, and you help them. All of them.”
Emma swallowed, and yet it didn’t seem enough. Being so close to him, she couldn’t think clearly, and her body reacted in strange and confusing ways. Her breasts felt full and heavy, and she could almost sense the weight of his lips pressing against hers. The flutters in her belly changed, almost pulling her closer to him against her will. It was downright infuriating, especially since he still seemed so in control. “Yes,” she finally said. Her voice cracked on the word, and so she wet her lips and said it again more firmly. “Yes.”
Mr. Cardiff’s eyes fell immediately to her lips, studying her so intensely she trembled beneath his gaze. “Then help me,” he said with his voice breaking like pea gravel under carriage wheels.
Her breath escaped her mouth in a great whoosh, but no words. Help him? Emma shook her head, at a loss. He didn’t need her help, and even if he did, he would never accept it. What help could she possibly give him? And why should she?
The hands upon her arms tightened to a near-punishing hold. Never taking his eyes from hers, he inched closer and closer to her, until his heated breath fanned over her cheeks and warmed her skin. She licked her lips and could almost taste the spiced port on his…and she wanted to taste it more. She wanted the swollen, tender sensation his lips had left before. She wanted his hands to rove over her again, teasing and exploring, inciting her body to react in whatever way it would. Each second which passed with him staring at her, holding her so close left her trembling harder, pressing closer, aching in places she never knew could ache.
“Help me,” was the last thing she heard before he kissed her.
His lips pressed against hers, warm and soft despite the slight stubble along his jaw line that scratched her flesh. She let out a gasp at the contact but angled her head to renew the scratching instead of retreating from it.
Emma expected him to do as he’d done before. She braced herself for the sheer force of his heated kisses. But it was different, somehow. Gentler. There was no lack of heat, but instead of his physical force keeping her involved in the embrace, it was his force of emotion. His need was palpable, like something she could reach out and touch—like something she could stroke and soothe, as she had the mother cat’s back only moments before.
The need to soothe his aches, to calm the storm of his frayed nerves nearly overwhelmed her.
He left her mouth to rain sweet kisses over her nose and cheeks, her eyelids, her jaw. “Help me. God, I need—”
“How?” Emma’s breaths came in sharp bursts, and she felt lightheaded, like she might swoon if he didn’t kiss her again.
What help could she possibly give him? He was a man who had never wanted anything to do with her, and while she might consider him a great many things, broken and helpless were two terms she’d never before had any inclination to connect to his person.
“Kiss me.” It was almost a growl from his lips—a curse. “Kiss me, Emma.” Or perhaps a prayer.
He’d never called her by her Christian name before. She didn’t even realize he knew her Christian name. It left her strangely energized. Pushing up on her toes, Emma stretched her neck until her lips could meet his once more. She placed her hands upon his chest, the superfine fabric of his coat smooth under her fingertips, leaving the hard muscle beneath it as a sharp contrast. On a sigh, her lips parted and his tongue slipped between them.
His arms moved behind her back, drawing closer into the warmth of his embrace until she felt completely surrounded by him, enveloped, consumed. He angled his head and deepened the kiss, and his hands roved almost frantically over her back, her shoulders, her neck, her bottom. With every touch, she wanted more. With every breath, she felt more alive than she ever had before in her life, tingling, electric energy bursting through every inch of her body—the lobes of her ears, the soles of her feet, the small of her back. With everything he touched, everywhere they were connected, a growing ache built within her body.
How was this possible? What sort of trance had she fallen into? Or had he enchanted her with some strange magic?
This was precisely the sort of overwrought emotion Emma had been trying, with every ounce of control she possessed, to avoid. Wasn’t it? Was she so mistaken about what she wanted? She had no intention of losing her heart so completely to any man, let alone one so perfectly wrong for her as Mr. Cardiff. And yet, not only was she losing her heart, she was losing her head as well.
“Touch me,” he said, his voice no more than a rasp. His strong hands moved up her arms, the calluses on his fingers and palms catching on the fine silk fabric.
So she did. With her hands, she mimicked his exploration, marveling in the contrast of their two bodies. Her hands were delicate and soft, traversing over hard muscle and rigid planes. His hands were rough and broken, molding against her curves and soft flesh.
He tugged her cap sleeves down, easing the silky material away until her breast was freed in the cool, night air. “So beautiful,” he murmured just before covering it again with his hand.
Emma jumped slightly at the contact, knowing it was wrong but unable or unwilling to stop him. Heaven. It felt just like heaven when he flattened his rough palm against her, then moved back to let his fingers glide over her taut bud. Her knees wobbled beneath her, and she would have fallen to the ground without the bands of his arms holding her in place, and the ache in her center intensified to the point she thought she might explode.
She sucked in a breath, and his lips settled over the rapid pulse at the base of her throat. He breathed in deeply, as though he were trying to memorize the scent of her. “Emma. I need you, Emma, more than I know how to handle.”
It was only a whisper in the silence of the night,
nothing more than a breath, and yet it echoed in her mind over and over again. He needed her.
“Mr. Cardiff, I—”
“Aidan.” He pulled away from her for a moment, his clear eyes shining in the moonlight. “Call me Aidan.”
Oh, how she wanted to. Her heart hammered away, swelling within her chest until she was sure it would soon burst if she didn’t do what he asked of her.
But she couldn’t do that. She didn’t want this with him—not really. She wanted to find a nice, respectable gentleman who would marry her, and only then did she want to experience such depth of feeling, such wealth of passion. Only then did she want such familiarity.
Heavens, but that was a lie. She’d been lying to herself, trying to convince herself of that, but why? Fear?
This sort of passion before she was well and truly married would mean allowing the possibility that she could end up as heartsick and devastated as Morgan had been three years ago. That couldn’t happen. She couldn’t allow it, but she didn’t know if she could stop it either.
And Mr. Cardiff was anything but a nice, respectable gentleman. She knew him too well to believe such falsities. For that matter, she shouldn’t believe he wanted her now in any way that involved anything more than pure lust. He certainly didn’t need her no matter what he said, not for anything more than relieving a…well, an itch of sorts. If she allowed this to continue, then she was absolutely setting herself up for exactly the sort of heartache she’d been trying to avoid.
She shoved against him, harder than before. “Mr. Cardiff, I—”
An oath sounded in the distance, and both Emma and Mr. Cardiff froze in place.
“I should have trusted my inclination.”
It was Lord Trenowyth. There wasn’t a doubt in Emma’s mind. Mr. Cardiff spun around to face his brother, and Emma scurried to straighten her gown and put herself back together before the earl saw her as she was. In her frantic need to hide her state of partial nudity she fumbled with the fabric, which only made it take longer than it ought to have done.
Cardiff Siblings 01 - Seven Minutes in Devon Page 18