Rain lashed down on them. Emmaline ducked under her umbrella and gamely splashed behind the footman along a path that led under an arched entrance to the stable yard. Beneath the arch a flight of steps rose to the grooms’ quarters above the stables and, once out of the rain, Fred stopped. He wiped the rain from his face and hair and looked pale and very young.
“We can go through the passage ways in the stable blocks,” he told her, “or straight across the yard and through that gate over there. His Lordship’s work shop is the first building beyond it.”
“Thank you, Fred, I shall manage from here.” Emmaline smiled at the young man. “You hurry back to the house and get dry before you return to your duties.”
He bowed and Emmaline listened to his footsteps scrunching on the wet gravel before she turned and made her way to the gate he’d indicated. Once beyond it, she quickly saw the building and hurried along a muddy path towards it. She grasped the door handle but in doing so lost her grip on the umbrella. The wind bowled it back along the path and pinned it against the gate.
Letting loose a string of very unladylike invective, Emmaline went to retrieve it. Rain ran in rivulets through her hair and down her neck and thoroughly chilled her, but she folded the umbrella and went back to the door.
This time her temper all but opened it for her and she pushed inside, her tongue ready to lambast Lucius for her loneliness and the weather and.. she stopped. Her mouth dried and her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth.
Speechless, she watched Lucius as he bent over a work table. His hair escaped its leather tie, his shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbows revealing muscular forearms. Breeches torn at the knee showed a wide strip of skin before his legs disappeared into very worn and wrinkled top boots.
He looked nothing like the man she had married. If anything, he looked more wholesome, more natural and her heart beat faster.
He ran the plane he held along a length of wood set over two trestles and she watched, fascinated, as a long shaving curled up from its tongue.
“So, you’ve run me to ground,” he said without looking up.
Emmaline moved closer, shavings and sawdust on the floor catching on the hem of her gown.
“What are you making?”
“A new kitchen table for Mrs. Swift.” He ran his hand over the wood but, not satisfied with the surface, carefully slid the plane over it once more before testing the surface again. “The one she has does not, apparently, have deep enough drawers.”
Emmaline breathed in the scent of fresh pine and cedar and looked about her. Close by, tools were arrayed on the wall above a bench. A few books were stacked on a shelf and pieces of furniture in various states of completion hung from the wall or were stacked on the floor.
Emmaline ran her hand across the curved arm of a spindle backed chair.
“You made all these?”
“Yes. Shocking is it not?”
A slow smile spread across her lips as she recalled their first meeting.
“Perhaps not shocking, but certainly unusual.”
The husky tremor in her voice made Lucius look up and he started. The expression he had first seen in her eyes, the expression that had bound him to her in an instant, was there again. A warmth, the promise of passion in those violet blue depths only now she was not an unknown friend of his sister’s, she was his wife.
“Come here,” he said softly.
She reached up and unfastened the soaked cloak, letting it fall on the ground as she moved towards him.
His arms opened and she walked into them. This, her heart told her, was home and wherever Lucius was it would always be so. She lifted her face and his lips met hers in gentle welcome that quickly turned to greedy demand.
Her wet hair and damp dress were ignored as he lifted her to the edge of the table, spreading her legs so he could nestle between them.
Her hands were in his hair, pulling his head to hers but, sweet though her kisses were, they were shy, uncertain. An uncomfortable thought assailed him and he drew back a little to look into her face.
Could this be a pretence? Was she fooling him as he had been fooled before?
She reached up, kissed him again and he ignored the thought in his haste to pull her skirts above her knees. Running his hand along her firm inner thigh he soon found the heat he sought.
A moan escaped her lips and her head dropped back. He could no more resist kissing the hollow at the base of her throat than he could have resisted water in the middle of a desert.
She arched her body towards him and in a moment Lucius unbuttoned his breeches and pulled her closer to him. His tongue tangled with hers as his fingers sought her soft, moist centre.
There. Wet. Waiting. He closed his eyes, steadied his breathing, wanting to savour the moment when he entered her but he stopped, puzzled, as he felt a delicate barrier in his way.
“Emmaline, you have not....?” He could not finish his question.
Her eyes filled with tears as she shook her head.
“No.”
“But the French officer...” Again he could not complete his question, hovering as he did between the inferences he’d heard and the evidence before him. “So you have never....?”
“No.”
“You’re still a virgin,” Lucius murmured, realizing only now that what he had recognized in her kisses was nothing more than inexperience. “But you were with a Frenchman ...”
“And so I am branded a whore.” Emmaline sat up, pushed him away from her and rearranged her skirts. “Are you done with me?”
“Done with you?” Lucius caught her arms. “I haven’t even begun with you, but I think I would like you to now tell me what happened.”
Emmaline looked down and shook her head.
“I cannot, for it involves someone who may yet be compromised because of it.”
“Then tell me what you can.” Lucius gathered her into his arms and laid his chin on her hair. “That you are not what you were purported to be is plain. So who was this Frenchman?”
Emmaline took a deep breath.
“His name was Etienne du Lully and he killed my father.”
“But I thought your father died of his wounds.”
Emmaline rolled her head wearily on Lucius’ shoulder.
“He would have done, but Etienne hastened his end by running a sword through him as he lay in his sick bed. When I was told of this, I vowed revenge and made sure Etienne found me so that I could get close to him. He knew me as Marguerite Dufresne and had no idea he had a spy at his side.”
“But why would he have killed your father?”
Emmaline looked up. “Lucius, you are I think, too much the gentleman to understand the ways of war. Etienne discovered, I know not how, that my father was a Code Master and made sure he did not survive.”
“And he had no idea that it was your code.”
Emmaline, startled, looked up. “How did you know that?”
“Sir Miles told me.”
“Oh.” Emmaline relaxed a little and shook her head. “No. Etienne had no idea. And I had no idea that Etienne had other tastes.”
“What? You mean he ..”
“.. preferred men,” Emmaline said quietly. “I was nothing more than a shield for his depravity. When Etienne’s brother, Raoul, brought him a boy, I was sent to my room. And,” she continued quietly, “if there were no boys, then the brothers would take to bed.”
“Could you not have escaped?”
She shook her head again. “Not as long as I could send intelligence back to Wellington and the allied forces. My chance to end it all came at Waterloo.”
“How?”
“That I cannot tell, and you must not ask me.” Emmaline’s face was pale in the dimming light in the workshop and Lucius felt her shivering through the thin muslin of her gown.
“You may still have your maidenhead, but you are more of a woman than any I have ever known. Come.”
He held out his hand to her, a soft smile creasing
his lips.
She put her hand in his, looking up at him, breath baited at what might come next.
Would he turn away from her? Had what she told him disgusted him? It appeared not as he tipped his head to hers and claimed her lips, nibbling at her full lower lip and teasing the upper with the tip of his tongue. He smiled into her eyes.
“If tonight is going to be your first time, my sweet, then we must make it a night for you to remember.”
CHAPTER 23
Emmaline sat on the edge of the wide four poster bed with her hands in her lap, trembling with apprehension and desire, remembering half heard tales of the marriage bed whispered by the older girls when she first went to school, the occasional giggling comments from servants.
“I am ready.” Her heart beat a wild tattoo and her breathing quickened in anticipation. What started in the work shop would end here, in this bed, when Lucius at last would claim her as a husband claims his wife.
He came across the room to her.
“My sweet,” he took her hands, that gentle smile as if he were amused playing across his lips. He pulled her to her feet, “You are far from ready.”
Still holding her hands, he took her across the room towards the window. The curtains had not been drawn and the cold light from a newly risen moon cast its silver beams on the bare boards beneath the sill.
Lucius reached up, pulled the pins from her hair. In the silence that surrounded them, Emmaline heard the sharp snick of them hitting the surface of a side table where he dropped them.
His hands slid into her hair, hefted the weight of her thick locks before he let them tumble about her shoulders. The smile was still on his face as his thumbs traced the outline of her jaw, then his fingers burrowed into her hair, caressing the back of her head.
Emmaline closed her eyes.
“You may well understand the mechanics of mating,” Lucius whispered, “but I doubt you know the true delights of love.”
He leaned in and Emmaline lifted her face, expecting his kiss. His lips almost brushed her cheek as his mouth skimmed by. Not knowing why she did so, she tipped her head to one side. His breath was warm in her ear and she felt the soft tip of his tongue explore its outer shell. A thrill shimmied through her. Little licks of flame torched a ferocious heat in her limbs.
“Oh!” Her eyes flew open as her breasts tightened. Her toes tingled inside her slippers. She placed her hands flat on his chest, meaning to push him away but, at the last moment she glanced up into his face and stopped.
His eyes had darkened to a storm hazed grey and the intensity of desire in his expression stilled her.
He gently took her wrists, turned her hands over and placed a kiss in the centre of each palm. The sensations that flooded through her veins left her breathless.
Lucius ran the tip of his little finger down her cheek and along her jaw to lift her chin. It was the lightest, tenderest touch but it set her aquiver. He watched the moonlight play over the soft contours of her brow and cheeks, her slightly parted lips.
Holding her breath, suspended in time, Emmaline waited. A deep longing took hold of her heart, her senses yearned for something she could not have put into words had she the wits to try. It was as if, in that pool of silver light, she was bewitched by his touch, by his heat, by the heady essence of musk and cologne that surrounded him.
His hands were light on her neck. She shivered in delicious anticipation as his fingers slid over her skin to her shoulders, pushed aside the confines of her shift. She gasped in shocked delight as those same fingers explored the upper swell of her breasts. His hands moved again to cup their fullness. His thumbs whisked over her taut nipples.
Did she cry out? She thought she might have done, but then his mouth was on hers, his tongue teasing the soft pillow of her lips until, God help her, she opened them and let him in.
A hot gush of moisture instantly pooled between her legs and her lower belly tightened. The inside of her thighs burned but the insistence of his tongue caressing hers filled her mind. His exploration of the soft silk of the underside of her tongue was a gentle dance of advance then retreat, a dance whose steps she had yet to learn.
And oh, how she wanted to learn.
Timid at first, she began an exploration of her own, darting her tongue against his, then daring to run it along his upper lip and lapping at the corner of his mouth.
She heard a groan in his throat and he pulled her into his arms, pressing his face into her hair. Against his chest, Emmaline smiled at his reaction.
“Did I do that right?”
“Oh, yes, sweetheart, you certainly did.”
His voice was low as if his throat was constricted and he held her close. Emmaline felt the solid ridge of his erection against her belly. She lifted her face and he bent to kiss her again, a kiss that was deeper, sweeter than the first.
His lips teased her neck, her shoulder, her breast. Her knees weakened and Emmaline clutched his arms to prevent herself from collapsing. Her breath came in little gasps as his tongue teased her left nipple, circling it until her head dropped back and her only thought was that nothing could be more exquisite than this.
But , when his lips closed around her and he began to suckle, she knew she was wrong. Flashes of light burst behind her closed eyelids. She arched her back, pushing her breasts into his eager mouth and hand. Almost unaware of what she was doing, she slipped her hand behind his head and pulled him to her.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered. “Please don’t stop.”
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes.
“So all is to my Lady’s liking?”
Emmaline laid her head on his chest, slipped her arms around his waist and held him tightly.
“Oh, Lucius, I had no idea.”
He lifted her chin and she felt his lips on her forehead, felt them feathering down her nose to deliver a kiss on its tip. Butterfly light, he kissed her eyelids, her cheeks. A low groan escaped her throat.
“Did I do that right?” he asked in a softly mocking tone.
“Oh, yes, sweetheart, you certainly did,” she mocked back and then burst into a delighted giggle.
“Minx!”
He swept her up into his arms and spun her around. Their entwined shadows danced across boards that shimmered like liquid mercury. Emmaline wound her arms around his neck and rested her cheek against his. How patient he had been with her. How loving. How much she wanted him.
Her eyes jerked open at the thought. After all her hopes, all her dreams, here she was in his bed, naked in his arms. She glanced towards the window. Somehow, between there and the bed, her shift had been left in a pale heap on the floor. She looked up into grey eyes that were smoky with desire. She smiled and stretched against him like a cat and Lucius groaned again.
He caught her chin and she felt his hot breath on her face then his lips on the soft skin of her neck just below her ear.
How delicious it felt. How decadent.
She sighed as those lips trailed down her neck, travelled the terrain of her breasts, slipped lower to her stomach and came to rest in her navel. His tongue swirled in that delicate depression, making every part of her shiver.
He moved his hand on the inside of her thigh, fingers kneading gently at the soft flesh he found there. She moaned against the pillow and parted her legs in answer to the craving that swept through her. She felt Lucius’ breath on the soft curls at the juncture of her thighs, but jerked upright as his intent became clear to her.
“Y-you c-cannot!” she said in a shocked whisper.
His smile told her could.
“Y-you would not!”
Her voice was faint as his fingers and lips told her more eloquently than words that he definitely would.
Emmaline lay back, eyes closed, pulsing with sensation as his lips teased the inside of her thighs.
Oh, Lord, how could this be so good?
She opened her legs wider, lifted them and in an instant his tongue dipped into her very centre.
Heat scorched through her as he lapped at her and her belly clenched. She reached down and twined her fingers into his hair, moaning as he lifted her legs higher. Caught her breath as he suckled on the engorged bud he found there.
Bucking against him, her skin glistened with thousands of miniscule diamond bright beads of perspiration. The tension in her loins was almost unbearable until, in one indescribable instant, everything stopped. She quivered uncontrollably, balanced on the edge of the void between the known and the unknown.
“It can’t stop! Not now!”
A rasping cry tore from her throat as the first pulse of wild sensation rippled through her body. She cried out again, not knowing that she did so, and mindlessly rode each wave of the most exquisite, bone melting bliss with neither thought or care, heeding only the fluttering spasms in her body and limbs.
She fell back, exhausted, against the pillows.
Myriad colours flashed behind her eyes, the sound of her pulse hummed in her ears, her skin burned. She stirred when Lucius took her hand and placed a kiss on the inside of her wrist. Felt the cat-with-the-dish-of-cream smile spread across her face.
“I never knew,” she whispered, looping a limp arm over his shoulder.
His face was close to hers on the pillow and she reached up and kissed him.
There was a smile in his eyes as he pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair, drank in her scent and warmth. His fingers began to make slow, lazy circles on the nape of her neck, continued into long steady strokes down her spine.
She shivered and pressed against him, suddenly impatient that the fabric of his shirt separated them. She broke free from his embrace.
“Sit up,” she commanded.
Lucius did as he was told. She tugged the shirt free from his breeches, her knuckles skimming the warm skin on his belly.
“Arms up.”
As soon as he complied Emmaline pulled the shirt over his head. Her eyes opened wide with delight at the sight of his bare, muscular shoulders. She clutched his shirt to her breast, gazed at his chest with its mat of dark, wiry hair that narrowed to a thin line and disappeared below the waist band of his breeches.
His Dark Enchantress (Books We Love Regency Romance) Page 20