Cardiff Siblings 01 - Seven Minutes in Devon (28 page)

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 distance 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.