“Into your carriage, my little flower of mischief,” Odham said, slipping his arm conspiratorially into Adrian’s. “Wonderful performance, Wolverton. It does remind me of my rakehell days. A little disguise only enhances desire, eh?”
Adrian suddenly found himself spirited across the street and into the earl’s waiting carriage. He barely managed to wrench off his pumps before Odham pushed him onto the seat, rapped his knuckles against the roof, and the driver urged his two grays into a smart trot.
Odham stamped his foot in glee. “We’ve done it! This is the most fun I’ve had in decades. Hermia has always been known for her daring. Heaven help me, Wolverton, the woman drives me mad, I tell you. And now I’ve tipped the scales in my favor.”
Adrian pulled the cloaked hood from his head, his expression morose. “I don’t wish to appear rude. Obviously I am indebted to you for life. However, I must ask—have we ever met before?”
The earl’s dark brown eyes lit up. “Speaking as one scoundrel to another—does it really matter?”
Adrian grunted and glanced out the carriage window. Jane stood on the sidewalk, a satisfied smile on her face. A tall man emerged from the house. He could not tell which of the Boscastle brothers it was. But one thing was certain, the devious Jane would undoubtedly keep him at bay.
And tomorrow there would be the devil to pay.
Heath stood behind his sister-in-law Jane, both of them watching the carriage bowl away into the night. A horrible suspicion entered his mind. What had he just witnessed? An escape? It wasn’t possible. At length, Jane turned to him, sighing deeply. “It’s late, isn’t it? I should be putting my son to bed. Is Grayson with Drake?”
Heath stared at the receding carriage. A reluctant smile flitted across his face. “As far as I know he is still upstairs.”
Jane glanced up at him, a remarkably convincing actress. “Upstairs? Doing what? I thought you held your male cabals in your study.”
An amused female voice called out behind them. “What have I missed that you two are whispering together?”
Heath pivoted. His heart never failed to lift at his wife’s presence. Even if, as he was beginning to suspect, Julia and the other ladies of the family had outfoxed him.
He shook his head. No. It couldn’t be, but—“Where is Aunt Hermia?”
Julia came down the steps and laid her head on his shoulder. “She’s still upstairs with Emma, I think.”
“But Devon said—who just left in Odham’s coach?”
Jane sailed past him back to the house. “Odham, of course. I shouldn’t think you would need to ask.”
Heath’s mouth tightened. “But I thought that Hermia—”
Julia drew away from him with a frown. “Hermia is with Emma, Heath. If you are worried about her, I’m sure she would not mind reassuring you that she is in good health, although I understand that her throat hurt earlier in the evening.”
“I see,” Heath murmured.
He walked slowly back into his house, then up the stairs to the hall to come to stand at the closed door of Emma’s suite. It was there, a minute or so later, that his brother Grayson found him.
“I say we storm her room,” Grayson said, his fist raised to the door. “This has gone on long enough. Wolverton cannot hide in there forever.”
Heath shook his head. A wise man knew when to lay down his hand. “Be my guest, Grayson. I would prefer, however, that you not break the door.”
Grayson pounded on the door.
It was Emma who answered, her brow furrowed in agitation. “Grayson,” she said in annoyance, “whatever is the matter that you are making such an ungodly noise? Is someone ill?”
He pushed around her into the room. “Why doesn’t Adrian come out of hiding and answer that question himself? Is he in your closet?”
She looked affronted. “Grayson Boscastle. I absolutely forbid you to take another step.”
He froze, such was the power of her command. “I do not blame you, Emma,” he said after a moment. “Wolverton is an alluring man. Duke’s heir or not, however, he will be made to—”
He paused, took a breath, and opened the closet door only to rear back in alarm at the indignant shriek that met his assault.
“Oh, my heavens. Oh, God almighty, Hermia—I had no idea. I had no—”
Lady Dalrymple stood before him, unwigged, her hands on her hips, her ample bosom quivering in its multitude of wrinkles. “I do hope you have an explanation for this violation, Sedgecroft.”
Grayson stood in stone-faced shock, unable to utter a word in his own defense, until Heath, laughing, pulled him aside. “It’s over.”
“What the devil do you mean?” Grayson demanded, stumbling back out into the hall.
“We have been trounced,” Heath said with a rueful grin. “It is time to beat a retreat.”
“Did you find him?” Devon called up from the entrance hall below.
Hamm’s gravelly voice resounded behind him. “Lord Wolverton has not passed through the front doors, my lords. I have stayed at my post as you requested. There is no possible way that he has escaped our guard.”
Grayson turned to Heath with an irate expression. “Are you absolutely certain that Wolf was here in the first place?”
Heath shook his head. “I should have known,” he muttered in admiration. “I did know.”
Grayson looked at him in disgust. “Then why didn’t you take appropriate action?”
Heath smiled.
Emma had stayed awake all night, or what remained of it, whispering about her secret engagement to Adrian with her conspirators Chloe, Julia, Charlotte, and Aunt Hermia. Now that she had accepted Adrian’s proposal, and had admitted to herself what was in her heart, she saw no reason not to share her delight.
In a decorous manner befitting a future duchess, it was to be hoped, and if her dignity had slipped—then so be it. She and Adrian had a life ahead of them during which to make amends.
“The girls will have to learn to address you as ‘your grace,’” Charlotte said, stretched across Emma’s bed with a dreamy expression and a glass of champagne in her hand.
Jane’s footman, Weed, had delivered four bottles of Grayson’s prized Dom Pérignon less than an hour after the marchioness returned home from her successful escapade in the name of amour. Chloe had expertly unpopped the cork barks to toast her older sister with the sparkling wine made famous by a humble Benedictine monk, whose profits he donated to the poor.
“It gives being in one’s cups a charitable aspect,” Chloe announced with glee.
Emma’s eyes brightened. “Then drink up, all!”
“To the Boscastles and their friends!” Hermia said stoutly.
“How do we tell the girls about your engagement, Emma?” Charlotte asked softly.
Emma stared down into her glass. “I’m not quite sure. I do know that I cannot simply abandon the academy without a backward glance.”
“Why the devil not?” Hermia wondered aloud, her voice faintly slurred. “I never knew as much contentment in my life as when I gave in to impulse. There. I have said it. My secret is revealed. The world beware. I am a dangerous woman.”
“Only to handsome young men who resemble Greek gods,” Charlotte said unthinkingly.
Her niece Julia burst into laughter, and it was not long before the other ladies followed suit. Emma slid off the chaise in alarm. “Ladies, please. We must—we must—”
“—drink more champagne,” said Chloe, lifting the bulbous-necked bottle into the air. “Oh, Emma, Emma, who would have guessed you were capable of honoring our ancestry? I swear I shall go to my grave with a smile on my face. Adrian is the most adorable rogue, and now he shall be my brother-inlaw. Our family infamy lives on, and I am not at all ashamed.”
Soon they subsided into weary silence. Charlotte picked up her shoes, kissed Emma, and left to check on the other girls and seek her bed. Hermia fell asleep on the chaise. Julia covered her with a warm counterpane and tiptoed through the house to
join her husband for what remained of the night. Emma and her little sister Chloe snuggled in bed together as they had often done in childhood. In joyful times, and in sad, Emma had gladly mothered her wild siblings. And now they would have to manage without her. But could she let go of them?
Chloe rested her head on Emma’s shoulder. “If I gave in to my wicked impulses, I would cast up all those occasions during which you lectured us on—”
“Do not turn wicked,” Emma said sternly, then softened the effect of this admonishment with a sigh. “Not when I am so thoroughly chastising myself and—bubbling over with happiness.”
“Then nothing shall spoil it,” Chloe whispered. “Live, Emma, enjoy life.”
Emma sighed again, smiling at the memory of Adrian escaping her room in Hermia’s wig and cloak. What if her brothers had caught him? What if one of her students had awakened in the midst of his gamble? It was sobering enough to consider what would become of the academy once her betrothal was announced.
But if Emma understood the hypocrisy of the Polite World, the scandal of her secret affair would fade away in forgotten notoriety once it was realized that she would one day become a duchess. And be with the man she loved into the bargain.
Chapter Seventeen
Adrian arrived at Grayson Boscastle’s Park Lane mansion at nine o’clock the following morning and formally asked for Emma’s hand in marriage.
Grayson graciously accepted the offer with an appropriate display of surprise and pleasure, as did his wife Jane. In truth, Jane’s astonished exclamations of delight almost convinced Adrian that he had dreamed the events of the previous evening. All was well that ended in holy wedlock, apparently.
“I say this calls for a celebration supper,” Gray son announced, rubbing his hands together with a self-satisfaction that hinted he might have plotted this romance himself. “Could we manage it, Jane?”
She smiled at him. “It should pose no incon venience at all, dear husband. The staff is now accustomed to throwing lavish affairs at the last moment.”
“Nothing lavish,” Adrian said quickly, thinking of Emma’s preference for the subtle. “I do believe that for all concerned we should marry as quietly as possible.”
And so it was that Jane excused herself to leave the two men to discuss widow’s settlements and jointures while she hastened about the happy duty of planning a family wedding. Which meant, of course, that she and the bride would require a new wardrobe and footwear to match and that the Italian shoemaker would need an army of elves to assist him. Jane decided that she would simply have to treat herself to a dozen new shoes to celebrate her sister-in-law’s engagement.
Another Boscastle fallen victim to the family heritage of passion. It was Jane’s role, as she perceived it, to ensure that the path of matrimony followed as smooth a course as possible. One conveniently forgot whatever mischief preceded the wedding march.
As the daughter of an earl, as well as wife to a marquess, she understood intuitively that the addition of a duke and duchess to the family line was a connection to be ardently embraced, if not exploited.
Jane’s son Rowan, her husband’s heir, would grow up with a duke’s son as his cousin and playmate. It was the proper order of life in the English aristocracy. In another decade, indeed within a year, few in the haut ton would remark upon or even remember that any impropriety had preceded the union of Emma and Adrian. No one outside the family dared to mention the scandal of Jane’s own marriage.
For the time being at least, all was well in the world of the Boscastles.
That same evening the Marquess of Sedgecroft hosted a supper party to announce the engagement of his sister, the Viscountess Lyons, to Adrian Ruxley, Viscount Wolverton, heir to the Duke of Scarfield.
Only a few select members of Society, outside the Boscastle family, received an invitation to this affair. The Earl of Odham brought his beloved Hermia, both of them expressing disbelief at the announcement. Two members of Parliament and their wives attended. Still, all in all, it was a private affair.
The wedding two days later, in the private chapel of Grayson’s Park Lane home, proved to be another exclusive event. Emma felt so calm before the ceremony that Julia asked her in private whether she required a vinaigrette to prevent a faint.
“If I lived my entire life in this family without fainting,” Emma replied, “I doubt I shall do so today.”
Yet when she saw Adrian in the chapel, she came as close to a swoon as she imagined possible. He was dressed in a formal deep-blue frock coat and black broadcloth pantaloons. At his side hung a ceremonial sword which she prayed to all the saints in heaven, he would not be tempted to use until after they had exchanged vows. Indeed, he looked so grand that Emma, in an unadorned dress of silver tissue, felt herself pale in comparison.
It was her second marriage, however. She could not in good conscience wear virginal orange blossoms in her wreath. A semi-veil would suffice to hide her blissful smile from the small assembly of guests. This wolf was hers to tame.
Grayson gave her away, and afterward the wedding party enjoyed a breakfast of coddled eggs, prawns, and lamb cutlets followed by apple pudding, raspberry jelly, and lemon cream. As expected, there was a three-tiered wedding cake with heavy white icing.
Adrian toasted his bride with a glass of champagne and the three comfits he had stolen off their cake. “I’m sorry.” He squeezed her hand in his. “But it appears I shall never change.”
She smiled up at him, her heart in her eyes. “I should never forgive myself if you did.”
It rained on their short drive to the London hotel where Adrian had resided off and on for the last year. His choice of impersonal lodgings had stemmed less from convenience than his reluctance to put down roots again in England. Belatedly he wished he had a proper home in which to be alone with his bride.
It was his wedding night.
He tried not to think of Emma’s late husband. It seemed so petty and unfair to confess jealousy of a man who in death could not defend himself. But Adrian was a practical man, one who had learned to survive.
And he required Emma to survive. If that was a weakness, he did not deny it. She was the warmth of a candle in winter darkness. He did not need anyone, or anything else, but her.
He shrugged out of his jacket while she went behind the screen to wash. He then opened the wardrobe door and peered inside. He went to the window to check the street below for carriages.
Emma stuck her head around the screen, her face amused. “If you are going to confess on our wedding night that you are a spy—”
“I’m looking for your brothers.”
“They aren’t there, are they?” she asked in horror.
He laughed. “No.”
“Thank heavens. Do you mind helping me with this last hook?” She emerged from the screen, her sun gold hair unbound, one hand at her back.
“Please,” he said. “Let me help.” His heart beat fiercely as they met in the center of the room. Then he pretended to struggle with the hook when his every impulse told him to tear the damn thing from its flimsy mooring.
“Be careful.” She angled her head to smile up at him. “The dress is delicate and—”
He placed both hands on her shoulders and ripped the silver tissue gown from her with a decisive tug. Her underapparel followed, the sound of rending silk punctuated by her indignant protests.
“That was my wedding gown, Adrian!”
“It’s not as if you’re going to wear it again,” he murmured, the excuse weak even to his own ears.
“What about our children?” she protested. “What if I had wished to pass that dress down to our future generations? Did you ever think that we might have a daughter one day?”
He smoothed his hands over her bare shoulders. “I have thought of nothing else.” He bent his head to hers. “And if we have a daughter, I hope she will be everything like you.”
“Adrian,” she whispered, bowing her head as his hands drifted down her sides to stro
ke her back. “I have always wanted children.”
He gave her a smile of understanding—far more understanding than she had anticipated. For before she realized what he was about, he’d lifted her into his arms and carried her to their bed.
“Give me dainty daughters who look just like their mother,” he said. “Give me sons. Give me you, Emma.”
She watched him strip off his clothing, unable to control the moisture seeping from her sex. When at last he leaned over her, she did not attempt to hide her approval of his nudity.
Disconcerted, she realized that not only was she staring at his impressive appendage, but that he understood exactly what had captured her interest. If her late husband had caught her peeping at his privates, he would have pulled off his neckcloth and promptly shielded his manly mysteries.
But Adrian, shameless adventurer and uninhibited devil that he was, merely stretched his muscular arms in languid satisfaction and arched his back, thereby thrusting himself out another few inches for her approval.
“My God, but those trousers were tight,” he murmured, one half-closed eye affixed on her face.
She moistened the corners of her mouth with her tongue. “I can understand why.
“Would you—” Her belly fluttered in pleasant confusion. “Would you like a neckcloth?” she asked innocently.
With a deep rumble of laughter, he pulled her against his hard, warm body. “To tie around my tadge?” he teased, leaning in for a slow, promising kiss. “Is there a protocol for such a thing?”
Her heart missed a beat. “I do not believe so.”
“That is a relief because”—he rubbed his turgid penis across her belly—“when it comes to certain issues of impoliteness—”
She turned her face into the pillow to smother a whimper, but any attempt to hide her rising excitement from her husband was futile. Her womb tightened in pleasure as he scattered kisses across her breasts. Heaven forgive her, but she was possessed to behave like a voluptuary of Venus. “If I am to tutor you in the ways of a gentleman,” she said with a heartfelt sigh, “then we shall have to start with an observation of your worst conduct.”
The Devilish Pleasures of a Duke Page 20