by Lauren Smith
“I promise I won’t escape tonight.” She tried to remove herself from his lap. “I gave my word.”
He grunted softly and grabbed her by the back of the neck, bringing her mouth towards his. He kissed her deeply, almost primitively, with a harsh penetration of his tongue. Her body melted against his fire.
Ashton cleared his throat.
Emily wrenched her face away, embarrassed he would treat her like this in front of the others. She tried to slap Godric, but he caught her hand.
“I’ve had enough bruises for one day. I won’t let you slap me. Remember that, Emily.”
“I am not a fast lady. You cannot go about manhandling me.”
“She has you there.” Ashton snickered into his wine glass.
Godric ignored him, his full attention on her, her hand still raised, and his still holding it back. There was something in his gaze, a wildness born of his desire to chase her.
“May I go now, Your Grace?”
“You may.” She started to pull free but he prevented it. “If you give me another kiss goodnight.”
He flashed her that smug grin, and she really did want to hit him. Emily was beginning to despise her confusion when it came to Godric.
“Very well, although in my opinion you’ve had far too many kisses today, Your Grace.”
She leaned down to kiss his forehead. He caught her chin and brought her mouth further down to meet his. Her raised hand dropped to his shoulder as he delved into her mouth with his tongue. It was so easy for the world to fade when he kissed like that. Damn him.
Godric’s arm around her waist tightened, but that called her back to reality, and she wriggled free of his grasp.
“Fine, go.”
His treatment of her only reaffirmed her belief that she would be nothing more than a mistress, a body to warm his bed. He didn’t respect her the way he would a wife. Then again, there was no guarantee he’d respect a wife. His reputation was shadowed with tales of seducing married women away from their cold marriage beds. Obviously, he had no concern for the sanctity of marriage. Which meant even if he married someone like her, he’d most likely continue on with his affairs. The thought was sickening.
But something teased at the edge of the realm of possibilities. What if…what if she could get him to fall in love with her? If she found a way to make him realize she wasn’t like other women, that she was perfect for him. She’d be with a man who wanted her.
She passed Simkins in the hallway on the way to her room. “Mr. Simkins? Could I trouble you to send up a maid to help me undress?”
“I shall have Mrs. Downing send someone up,” the butler said, and Emily thanked him.
Her room was dark in the purpled evening light as she sat at her vanity table, planning. The question was how did one seduce the master seducer? The chase. He loved the chase, and if she was honest, she rather enjoyed it as well. Was that the answer?
Minutes later, Libba knocked and entered with a broad smile. “Evening, Miss.”
“Libba, please call me Emily. I should like to be friends.” She rotated in her chair to smile at the maid.
“But it wouldn’t be proper, Miss.”
“There is nothing about this situation that is proper, Libba. Now, please, let us be friends. I have no one here to talk to.”
“Talk? I can certainly do that, Miss…Emily. Now, let me get you out of that dress.” Libba’s hands were nimble as she helped Emily rid herself of her clothes and step into a white muslin night rail, which flared out past her calves like the petals of a moonflower. More of her figure was outlined than she would have liked due to its thinness.
Being around a woman her age made Emily feel more comfortable. She grinned at the maid.
“What gossip is there downstairs? I’d love to hear more about His Grace and his friends.”
Libba’s cheeks reddened. “Well, I heard from Bethany, who heard from His Grace’s valet, Jonathan, that Lord Lennox beat His Grace something dreadful over a slight he made against you this afternoon.”
“But…you mean to tell me they were fighting over me?” She recalled Godric’s bruised knuckles, beaten face and split lip. She hadn’t forgotten Ashton’s knuckle bruises, or his black eye, but it was clear Ashton had been the victor.
“Jonathan also said he heard Lord Lennox threaten to kill His Grace if he ever made you cry again!”
“Really? That seems to be a bit of an overreaction, but Ashton is sweet.”
Libba chuckled. “All of those men are sweet on you. You best watch out or His Grace will act on his desire for you to share his bed, just to keep the others from winning you away.”
“Thank you for the warning, Libba.” She hadn’t considered that. If she were to play the men off each other, she might end up in Godric’s bed quicker than she intended.
“I’ll go now.” Libba shared a conspiratorial smile before she left.
Alone again, Emily crossed to the window and gazed out at the view below. The garden stretched out below it. Mazes of hedges and flowered bushes still clung to their blooming petals despite the approaching fall.
A vine-coated trellis had been constructed six feet below the lip of her window, and next to the trellis, on the ground floor, a window that looked into one of the parlors.
“Admiring the view, or contemplating escape?” Godric’s voice drifted through the room behind her. Her blood heated at the very rumble of his sensual voice.
How long had he watched? Attempting to conceal her surprise, Emily didn’t turn around. He was too quiet; she’d have to remember that.
This time his steps padded barefoot across the floor.
“I made a promise, if you’ll recall. I was admiring the view, unless that isn’t allowed?” She turned to face him.
“That is allowed, so long as admiring the view doesn’t entail you falling out of the window. The height is too great to make a safe leap. It would be a nasty way to snap those beautiful legs of yours,” Godric said, in a mockingly tragic tone.
“A few broken bones might be worth my freedom.” She raised her chin, hiding the urge to smile.
“I’d like to see how far you got on broken legs. Quite painful, I’m told.” He stared at her seriously.
“Is…is that a threat, Your Grace?”
“What?” His eyes widened. “No! Of course not. I would never… I was simply trying to protect you…” he trailed off she when she laughed lightly. She was teasing him.
Godric chuckled and came towards her. He’d lost quite a few layers of clothing since dinner. Gone were the waistcoat, boots and cravat. He stood in her bedchamber clad only in breeches and a white lawn shirt, the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. He approached her and leaned casually against the wall a few inches from her, warmly surveying her body from head to toe.
With a flush she remembered she wore nothing more than a night rail. Hands flew over her chest as she turned her back to him.
“Avert your eyes, sir!”
He didn’t obey. “Took you long enough to notice…and might I say that this view is just as delightful as the front,” he purred, a step closer, one finger tracing the curve of her spine.
Emily repressed an achy shiver. “You made it very clear earlier that you had no interest in a kissing a child; and if that is what I am, then don’t mock me with threats of your lust.” Her irritation had returned, pressing against her chest.
Her harsh reply brought Godric’s temper to the surface. “Bloody hell, Emily, I apologized!”
She whirled on him, jabbing a finger in his chest. “And I accepted your apology, but that doesn’t mean you can change your mind and waltz in here!”
“Like hell I can’t!” He snagged her wrists with one hand, forcing them up over her head as he pinned her against the window with the length of his body.
“Let go of me or I’ll scream!” She tried to break his hold on her wrists, but his hand ensnared them tightly above her head.
“Scream. I dare you. Who will come?”
In mere hours he’d gone from prince to villain. She wasn’t frightened, only furious. He thought he was entitled to her, but after the way he’d treated her in his study, he deserved no cooperation, not unless he groveled…on his knees…for at least an hour.
She tensed as he pressed himself against her. His other hand dug at her chemise near her thighs, dragging it up so he could push one of his own muscular thighs between her legs. Emily fought to keep her knees together, but he was too strong.
“Oh!” she gasped as he thrust his thigh hard against the soft melting core between her legs. Her head fell back against the wall as her body shivered.
“Godric, please…please, I…” She tried to speak but he wasn’t in the mood to listen. She wasn’t even sure what she was trying to say. His mouth came down on hers, rough, unyielding and brief. He kept her against the wall, his forehead falling against hers as he took a deep breath.
“Would it be so bad for you to just enjoy your time here? Why keep looking for ways to escape?”
He lifted his eyes up to hers. The two were so close; bodies almost entangled. The hand that held her wrists pinned above her head tightened a little as he shifted his body, trying to move even closer.
“Let me show you a reason to stay…”
Godric nuzzled her jaw until his lips found her neck, planting seeds of heat with his faint kisses. Emily raised her chin, providing Godric a better angle to torture her with the sensation of his lips on skin. His arousal dug into her belly, to which she responded with a sharp, throbbing need.
“It isn’t fair. You’re distracting me,” she gasped as he cupped a breast through her thin chemise, toying with her hardened nipple.
“Nothing in life is fair, my sweet. Shall we continue on?” He flicked his head towards the door that led to his bedroom, and that single gesture killed all the helpless desire in her.
“No,” she said firmly, expecting him to release her. When he didn’t, she looked at the doorway of her bedroom, wondering the length of time it would take someone to break it down if it were locked.
“No? Are you sure?” He raised his thigh between her legs, increasing the pressure on her aching core. She stifled a moan as he did it again, quicker this time. “I said… Are you sure?” A crooked smile crossed his lips when he realized he had robbed her of the ability to speak in clear words rather than moans. His hand on her breast slid down along her belly towards the juncture between her thighs, coiling the fabric of her night rail up again. The instant his fingers reached the aching spot between her legs she cried out, her voice carrying loudly.
Her shout shocked some sense into Godric. He released her immediately and stepped away just as Ashton burst into her doorway. He took one look at the scene and spoke to Godric in Greek.
“I thought you had yourself under control. You said you could manage this.” Ashton took a step towards Godric, who dug his hands through his hair.
“She… I may not be as in control as I thought.”
Ashton looked at Emily’s firmly closed window and her state of undress with narrowed eyes. “If she resisted you?”
“No, she hasn’t…” Godric lied.
“I did not agree either,” Emily said in flawless Greek.
Both men looked at her, mouths agape.
“You lied about the Greek?” asked Godric.
“Erre Es Korokas!” She snapped out. Go to the crows.
Godric wrenched her away from the wall. “What else have you lied about?”
Ashton took a sharp step forward, his hand raised, as if to say, No, Godric, let her go. But he seemed to have his own issues with her deception. “Emily, you lied to me, the one person in this house who stood up to Godric for you. I asked for the truth and you repay me with lies?”
“That was before I trusted any of you…when I still felt myself to be at risk!”
Ashton’s eyes were as dark as the sea at night. “Did you ever think you were truly in danger? We never meant for you to feel that way.”
“You abducted me, drugged me. What did you expect? You may not be my enemies, but forgive me if I don’t consider those the actions of friends.” Her eyes burned but she didn’t cry. “What would you do in my position?”
“Were you… Did you lie to me this afternoon, when you gave me your word?”
“No. That was the truth, on my father’s grave, wherever in the sea it may be. I shall not try to escape tonight.”
Ashton was silent for an eternally long moment.
“I believe you. But I can no longer stand between you and Godric, not tonight at any rate. Please…don’t call for me again.” Ashton turned and left, shutting the door behind him.
Emily’s knees shook. Her only protector had abandoned her.
Godric jerked her towards the small door that led to his room. Emily dug her heels into the floor and tried in vain to stop him.
“Go ahead and fight me! I’ll take your rage and turn it into passion!” Godric cast her to the floor and locked the small door, sealing her inside his chamber.
Would he really force himself? She didn’t expect cruelty, but Godric had changed. This wasn’t the man who read to her this afternoon.
The duke gripped her upper arms and yanked her to her feet. She looked at him, cold and unflinching even as she shook in his arms.
“Go ahead, Godric. What are you waiting for? Prove to me what sort of man you are. Prove to me that you are just the same as Blankenship.” His fingers dug into her arms.
“I am nothing like that old cretin, you hear me?”
“Taking me by force would make you the same as him in the eyes of the law and God.”
Godric’s eyes changed. “Take you by force? Emily…you may be shaking right now and confused, but that’s desire, not fear. Blankenship could never stir those feelings you have at this moment.”
She knew it was the truth.
“The man I want is the man who read The Odyssey to me this afternoon.” She softened her tone. “Find that man again and I’ll reconsider.”
His eyes were like the leaves of English rosebushes. “There’s a darkness in me that I can’t always fight.” His voice was barely above a whisper, as if he didn’t fully understand it himself.
Emily saw that understanding was within reach. “I’m not asking for a saint, Godric. I’m asking for time… Time for us both to understand what we are to each other and what we want.”
His grip on her arms loosened and he finally let go. “How is it that you are so young but so wise?”
“I was raised by two loving parents who educated me well.”
“So you are correcting more of your lies then?”
“Yes, I am very, very well educated. I speak fluent Greek and Latin. You didn’t know about the Latin, so I am telling you now, out of good faith. I’ve ridden horses all my life and am an excellent swimmer.”
At that Godric started. “About that… I may have faked my drowning at the lake.” He waited for her to explode into a rage, but she didn’t. “You knew?”
“Your eagerness upon your recovery had raised my suspicions. The recently drowned are not usually so lively.” She sighed and eased back, to sit on the edge of his bed.
He came over and sat down, then casually slid his hand over hers, lacing their fingers together . He raised their joined hands and held them against his chest. This was not an attempt at seduction. Somehow, in the midst of these confessions, they had reached a kind of understanding.
“Sleep with me tonight?” he asked. Emily started to shake her head but he added, “No. Just sleep, that is all. Just let me have you near. I want to hear you breathing, feel your warmth. Please…”
The word ‘please’ shuddered on his lips and Emily nodded in agreement, even though she hadn’t meant to. How could he always do that?
He cupped her shoulders in his palms and gently guided her back was to the edge of the bed. Pinning her with his hips, he claimed her surprised mouth in a kiss, a long, exploring one that bore no resembl
ance to earlier.
Ashton’s words replayed in Emily’s mind, and she let the emotion she’d held back flood through her, into him once more. His arms wound around her lower back, pressing her tightly to him before he stopped.
“It’s going to take me some time to get used to that way of kissing…” he murmured against her lips.
Emily almost smiled. “Maybe if you adjust to me, I can adjust to you.” She thought of his rough caress with dark fire behind it, and she realized she wanted it no matter how overwhelming.
“It seems we will both learn.”
Godric swept her up into his arms, and settled her on the far side of the bed.
Emily felt a brief flare of concern, but Godric merely shut his eyes. “Goodnight, my little vixen.”
She lay still for a long while before she rolled on her side for comfort. Feeling strangely protected, she drifted asleep.
Well past midnight, Godric woke to Emily talking in her sleep. She shifted restlessly, her murmurings soft and pitiful.
“Stop…please. I beg you… Let me alone…” Godric’s stomach churned in response to the helplessness that underlay her tone. She was dreaming and he hoped to God it wasn’t about him.
“Emily?” He moved over to touch her shoulders. She flinched, and struck out at her unseen assailant. “Emily!”
“I’ll die before you touch me!” she snarled. Godric almost released his hold on her but he wanted to wake her from that dream.
“Emily, it’s Godric. Please wake up…” He wrapped his arms around her and slid her across the bed more fully into his embrace.
“Godric…”
“Yes, it’s me. You’re safe.” He kissed her lips, trying to kiss her the way she had him in the study. He wanted to promise her that no harm would come to her. Those long dark lashes flared out on her cheeks as she opened her eyes. “Emily? Are you awake?”
“I am now… Why…” She stared confusedly at his mouth; her little tongue darted out to lick her lips.
“You were talking in your sleep. Who were you dreaming about?”
“Blankenship. He haunts me even in my dreams.”
Godric exhaled in relief.
“Did you think I was dreaming about you?”