“I’ll e-mail her later,” Emily responded. “And as lovely as this interlude was, I think we both have to get back to work, Devlin.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “I’ve got a lunch date with some sexy new author.”
“Think of me when you’re with her,” Emily told him.
“That’s the problem. If I think of you I’ll get a hard-on. We wouldn’t want another woman getting the wrong idea, now, angel face, would we?”
Emily laughed. “Good-bye, Devlin,” she said as she hung up the phone. She hadn’t answered his question. She couldn’t. But the truth was, she didn’t want him with any other woman. Almost eleven weeks ago Michael Devlin had walked into her life. She had lost her virginity and fallen in love for the first time. What an idiot she was. She was in love with a man who owned a house in London, and had women with titles fighting over him. “You have finally gone around the bend, Emily,” she said aloud.
She had seduced him in order to experience sex so she could write the kind of novel Stratford wanted her to write now. She had blackmailed him into becoming her lover, and teaching her all those wonderful, delicious, and sensual things she needed to know. He thought of her as business, and nothing more. Oh, pleasant business, to be sure—for both of them, if she were being honest with herself. But she had no business falling in love with a man like Michael Devlin. He was going to break her heart. But until then she was going to enjoy every minute of her time with him. Autumn was coming. The book would be finished by November, the way she was writing. And then it would be over.
Emily started to cry. She didn’t want it to be over. She wanted it to go on forever and ever. Her heroines got happy endings. Why couldn’t she have a happy ending? Her intercom buzzed. Emily struggled to compose herself. “Yes, Essie, what is it?”
“Rina’s here. She says you were to have lunch. You didn’t tell me you were having company. I was doing your grandma’s silver,” Essie grumbled.
“We’re going out, Essie. That’s why I didn’t tell you to fix lunch,” Emily replied. “Tell Rina I’ll be down in five minutes.”
“Oh, that’s okay then,” Essie said, and the intercom went dead.
Emily sat for a long moment. Then, realizing the dildo was lying on her desk and her sleep shirt was up around her waist, she began to giggle helplessly. Good thing Rina hadn’t come up, she thought, and found her with her legs spread open on her antique desk, fucking herself while she talked dirty on the phone with her editor. She wiped the dildo down with water from her water pitcher, and replaced it in the cream-and-gold silk box it had come in before putting it back in her bottom desk drawer, which she locked. Standing, she pulled her sleep shirt down. Then she hurried downstairs to her bathroom to wash her face and hands, get quickly dressed, and run a brush through her tangled strawberry-blond hair.
“You look cute,” Rina noted as Emily came down the stairs. “I like the capris.”
“Where are we going?” Emily asked her.
“I thought the club,” Rina said. “It’s quiet there with so many kids still in camp.”
“Essie, I’m going now,” Emily called to her housekeeper.
They drove to the Egret Pointe Country Club in Rina’s Lexus, parked, and went through the bar to the terrace by the pool, seating themselves beneath an umbrella table. The waiter brought them peach iced tea, took their orders, and disappeared. No one was swimming, and there was only one other couple across the pool at a table. Emily recognized Nora Buckley and her employer, Kyle Barrington.
“He is so dishy,” she remarked to Rina.
“Isn’t he?” Rina chuckled. “But as was said of Lord Byron, mad, bad, and dangerous to know. At least, that’s his reputation. I hear he’s broken up one marriage and endangered at least two others. And he seems to do it just for the pure sport of it. He really isn’t interested at all in the women he screws. I don’t know how Nora manages to work for him, but she says he’s a good employer, is nice to her, and hasn’t hit on her.”
“I think Nora’s the nice one,” Emily remarked. “And so brave, after everything that happened. She’s your neighbor, isn’t she?”
Rina nodded. “Yes, and she is nice. Ah, here’s lunch.”
The waiter set down salad plates, each holding a scoop of chicken salad, potato salad, and cole slaw along with a sliced tomato. The two women ate, and Emily was unable to resist dipping into the breadbasket for a miniature blueberry muffin. Sex always increased her appetite.
Rina chuckled as her companion reached for a second muffin. “The work is going well then,” she said.
“Yep.” Emily nodded, smearing soft butter on the little muffin and popping it into her mouth. “I would never have thought I could write like this, but I can!”
“And having your handsome editor in your bed every weekend hasn’t hurt either,” Rina murmured softly. She reached for the last little muffin.
“And I’m using the Channel too,” Emily admitted. “I was always an observer before, but now I put myself in the heroine’s slippers, Rina. The duke looks just like Devlin, but his personality is quite different.”
Rina’s brown eyes widened. “You’re having sex there too?” she practically whispered. “My God! I thought you looked tired lately, but I put it down to the stress of work, and having to change your style so drastically. Emily, I’m not sure you should be doing what you’re doing in the Channel. Oh, I know a lot of women take lovers there because they can’t be caught or get STDs or get pregnant. And after a while most women need a bit of a change from their spouses. The Channel offers us our fantasies without any of the guilt we would have in our own reality. But I think you’re playing a dangerous game, Emily, honey.”
Emily shook her head. “Look, Devlin is doing what he’s doing with me to help me over the—you’ll forgive the analogy—hump and into a new style. He’s my editor. It’s his job. But once the book is done it will be over. I’ll just have the lovers I take in the Channel. I think he might even go back to London.”
“He’s in love with you,” Rina said quietly.
“No, he isn’t!” Emily exclaimed. And she sighed wistfully.
“Sweetie, I could be your mother. I know these things. I recognize the signs. I’ve seen Michael Devlin with you. I’ve seen both of you in East Harbor at least twice. Once you were having a cozy luncheon in a corner of the Lobster Trap. Sam and I had been antiquing and were going there for lunch when we saw you. We stayed outside on the terrace so that you wouldn’t see us and be embarrassed. It was obvious you just wanted to be with each other. Then we saw you another time at the inn when we went out for the anniversary. Oh, Emily! The way he looks at you. He isn’t treating you like an editor with a writer. He’s treating you like a man in love. Give him a chance, and you’ll see.”
“It’s nothing more than a business arrangement, Rina. You’ll see,” Emily said softly, and she blinked back the tears that were threatening to well up in her blue eyes.
Rina smiled and shook her head. “No, you’ll see I’m right.” “Dessert menu, ladies?” the waiter asked, coming up beside them.
Rina gave him a jaundiced look.
The waiter grinned and handed them the menus.
“I’ll take the key lime pie,” Rina said quickly.
“I want the three-berry sorbet,” Emily decided. “What kinds today?”
“A scoop each, strawberry, raspberry, and blackberry,” the waiter answered.
“Yum! Make it so,” Emily told the waiter, who grinned at her Star Trek reference, and went off to fetch their desserts.
The couple on the other side of the pool got up and wended their way through the large planters of New Guinea impatiens, petunias, and trailing vinca to stop at their table. Rina and Nora Buckley greeted each other affectionately, while the tall, dark, and handsome Kyle Barrington stood waiting impassively.
“You know Emily Shanski, don’t you, Nora?” Rina asked.
“I remember you as a young girl,” Nora said, “and I certainly enj
oy your books. How is your new one coming along, my dear?”
“Very well, thank you,” Emily answered, wondering how Nora Buckley knew she was in the midst of a new book.
“How are the kids?” Rina asked. “I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“My job keeps me busy,” Nora answered. “The kids are fine. Jill starts her last year at Duke Law in a few weeks, and J.J. is going into his junior year at State. And I have terrific news: Margo has finally agreed to marry Taylor. She kept turning him down because she said she didn’t want to be widowed again. Turns out he’s five years younger than my mother.” She laughed.
“Nora.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Barrington. We really have to go, Rina. Call me. Bye, Emily. Nice to see you again.” And then Nora was gone.
“He’s even dishier close up,” Emily remarked when the couple were out of hearing. “But he’s got cold eyes. And he makes me nervous just being around him.”
“Mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” Rina repeated. “But Nora seems to do well with him, and she loves her job. He’s quite the expert on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English and American furniture, if you ever want anything in the house appraised for insurance purposes,” Rina remarked.
“No use insuring antiques if you love them, my grandmother always said. If they’re stolen or lost in a fire, money won’t bring them back,” Emily said.
They ate their dessert, and then Rina drove Emily back to her house. “When do you see Devlin again?” she asked as they drove along the tree-lined road.
“Well, he won’t be staying with me in August because he’s got Aaron’s cottage,” Emily replied. “I’ve got the book pretty much under control now.”
“But you don’t have yourself under control,” Rina said. “Are you in love with him, Emily?”
“Doesn’t matter if I am,” came the reply.
“I told you that he’s in love with you,” Rina continued.
“I don’t think he is, and I’m not going to embarrass him by declaring myself,” Emily told her friend. “My God, Rina, what a wedge that would drive between us. He could never edit me if I went all mushy-gushy on him. And he is a good editor. Best I’ve ever had. Rachel was good, but Devlin’s better, I have to admit.”
“There’s a lovely hot tub at the cottage out on the back deck,” Rina informed Emily. “It’s very, very private too.” She grinned mischievously at her younger companion. “Sam and I did it there once when the boys weren’t home.”
“Too much information!” Emily said laughing. “I don’t ever want to think of my doctor as having sex with his wife, who’s like a second mother to me.”
Rina chuckled as she pulled up to Emily’s big house. “Hey, I’m not dead yet, kiddo,” she told Emily.
“Never said you were, Rina, and never thought it either,” Emily responded as she got out of the Lexus. “Thanks for lunch.” She hurried into the house.
“Your office phone rang while you were gone,” Essie said. “I finished your grandma’s silver, and now I’m going home.” She went out the door Emily had just entered. “Sounded like your agent.”
“I’ll check. Thanks,” Emily called to her housekeeper’s retreating back.
She ran upstairs to find a message from Aaron. She punched in his private number. “What’s up?” she asked when he answered.
“Good news! Good news! J. P. Woods called me today. She wants to make us a new offer.” His voice was brimming with his delight.
“And you told her ... ?”
“When I got back from Italy.” Aaron chuckled. “I said there wasn’t any time to negotiate anything to our mutual satisfaction right now. Your editor must be pleased.”
“He seems to be,” Emily replied smoothly. “We’ll do some work while he’s here. And I’ll have him hire Essie to keep the place neat. Single straight men can be messy.”
“Thank you, my darling. Tell Mick the gardener will be in once a week, so not to be surprised when Tony shows up. I probably won’t talk to him before we go.”
“When are you going?” she wanted to know.
“Tomorrow night,” Aaron said.
“Have fun on Capri,” she told him.
Aaron Fischer chuckled. “Ciao, bella!” he told her, and rang off.
Emily put down the phone. She had heard from Devlin this morning and Aaron this afternoon. In just a few hours the Channel would be up and running. She had a very passionate scene she wanted her duchess to play out with the duke. He has suddenly discovered her secret absences from Malincourt, and is suspicious. She must lull him into a sense of security, but he will not be soothed. And Caro uses her sexual wiles to distract her husband from learning about her secret life. Yes. Her character of the duchess had grown from a vengeful and determined girl into a powerful woman who would control her own life at any cost. It was up to Justin Trahern to save Caro from herself.
Emily had been going over some rather interesting pictures in one of her sexual research books. It offered a variety of positions she considered downright acrobatic, but some of them were quite conducive to the year 1793. Especially the one using the elegant tapestried wing chair, and another where a small silk cushioned side chair was utilized. The footstool she considered boring and a bit acrobatic. There had also been pictures of threesomes, which fascinated her, but there was no way to fit that kind of play into The Defiant Duchess. She giggled. But she would have to consider it for another book. Wouldn’t J. P. Woods be surprised!
After their lovely lunch at the club she really wasn’t hungry for the supper that Essie had left in the fridge for her to heat up. Instead Emily made herself a bacon-and-tomato sandwich with lots of mayo. Nothing tasted better than bacon and tomato when the tomatoes were in season. She had a basket of them on the kitchen table, courtesy of Essie’s garden. She sat eating slowly, sipping her iced tea, waiting for eight o’clock to come so she could get to work. Well, maybe work wasn’t quite the word she wanted.
The phone rang, and she picked it up. “Hello?”
“Just forty-eight more hours, and I’ll be with you again,” Michael Devlin’s voice purred in her ear. “I miss you much too much, angel face.”
“I already talked to you today,” Emily teased him.
“Am I to be rationed then?” he demanded to know.
“I’ll think about it.” she answered.
“Are you working?” he wanted to know. “I can forgive you if I disturbed the muse, angel face.” His voice was warm, and the very sound of it sent ripples of excitement down her spine.
“I just took a break to make a sandwich,” she told him. God, she wanted him here! Wanted his strong arms around her, kissing the side of her neck, her shoulder, his breath warm and moist on her skin. She shouldn’t love him, but she did.
“Can you spend the weekend at the cottage with me?” he asked her. “I’ll stop at Leonardo’s in town and pick up a pizza.”
“A garbage pizza?” she said. “I can only be bribed for a garbage pizza.”
“Your wish is my command, lady,” he told her.
“Then I’ll bring the salad and a bottle of wine,” she promised.
“And your little toy,” he said. “I’m going to show you something new on Friday night, okay?” He rubbed himself, because just hearing her voice made him hard. No woman had ever had such a strong effect on him as Emily Shanski did. He didn’t want their affair to end. He didn’t want any other man fucking her. He wasn’t quite ready to commit himself to her entirely, but he wasn’t a fool. Michael Devlin knew it was just a matter of time before he asked Emily Shanski to marry him.
“Ohh, are we going to be bad, Devlin?” she teased, her voice suddenly very sexy.
“We are going to be very bad,” he promised her. “Good night, angel face. Don’t work too hard, okay?”
“I’ll have some good stuff for you to read on Friday,” she promised.
“Saturday morning,” he said. “Friday night is already spoken for, angel face.”
&n
bsp; The phone clicked off.
Emily smiled happily. Although Devlin would never know it, she loved him, and always would. But just maybe the passion they shared didn’t have to end when the book was finished. Yet it was business between them. But did it have to be all business? Could either of them be that cold-blooded? Emily knew she wasn’t. Yet how was she ever to find out if there was something there besides a mutual desire to keep their careers? Didn’t romance authors get to have a happy ending too? Rina said Devlin was in love with her, but was he? Really? Or was Rina just being a wonderfully romantic fool?
The big tall clock in the front hall began to chime the hour. Emily got up from the table, stuck her plate and glass in the dishwasher, locked her kitchen and front doors for the night, then headed upstairs. Undressing, she slipped on one of her comfortable sleep shirts, washed her face and hands, and brushed her teeth. Climbing into bed, she took up the channel changer and clicked her television set on. She punched in the Channel’s number, and when the grand entry hall of the duke’s home came into view Emily pushed the enter button firmly.
The duchess was standing in the foyer, shaking the rain from her long cape. She turned, startled, at the sound of his voice.
“Where the hell have you been for the last five days, madam?” Justin Trahern demanded of his wife.
“In London,” the duchess answered.
“You detest London, and especially in season,” he replied.
“Yes, I do,” the duchess said. “But my uncle’s valet sent for me. The earl was ill, and he feared for him.”
“You detest your uncle too,” the duke said.
“Detest, milord, is perhaps too strong a word. I neither like nor dislike him. But he is my late father’s younger brother. He has no one else but me, and I have an obligation as his blood relation to help him where I can,” the duchess said coolly.
“And what illness did he have? Something brought on by too much wine, bad companions, and the riotous living he pursues, I have not a doubt,” Justin Trahern sneered. “The man is a lost cause. The title will die with him, for no decent woman will wed him, nor would any decent father give his daughter to Eddis Thornton, despite his ancient title. Not even a rich merchant attempting to vault his family into the nobility with a nubile and well-dowered daughter would have him.”
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