Judith Ivory (13 page)

He said, “You don’t seem fully to appreciate what you did to me. You take it lightly. And now you’re going to get away with it. But not before I demonstrate how wrong going into places that don’t belong to you, uninvited, is—”

“No,” she shook her head. No!

“Be quiet. If you were fragile, I wouldn’t do it. But you aren’t, and it will only take two minutes. For two minutes you can live with what it’s like to have surprising places of your privacy transgressed. As I have for four months now, I might add, thanks to my uncle, the Crown, the College of Arms, the courts, lawyers—and now you.” He let out a complaining snort. “Nothing I have seems inviolable anymore, financially speaking at least, but you’d be surprised how invasive that is. They’ve been through how I pay people, what I buy, where I go, how much it costs, whom I see, whom I pay for what. And some of it is not entirely pleasant to explain, though I accept that I must—the consequences of my making myself so remote from my father that he didn’t even know I was alive: for arriving so late to lay claim to my titles and their entailment that I gave my uncle his day in the sun. So. For two minutes, you now get this privilege as well. Welcome to the world of consequences, retribution, and personal trespass.”

Trespass? No, no, no, she kept shaking her head. He wouldn’t. Surely, he didn’t mean
that
. Two minutes? A man couldn’t force a woman to—well, not in two minutes, he couldn’t, could he? No, that would take longer. Or, for her, it certainly would: She would see to it. So what did he mean?

What were her options? Could she throw herself and the chair on him? Would that do any good? She scooted back, deeply into it, retreating as far as possible. While anxiety came up through her like a clacking bell.
What did he mean? What did he mean?
The question echoed as her heart began to thud so hard her chest wall vibrated in rhythm.
What did he mean? What did he mean? Whadittymean?

He did nothing except reach out, though that was enough. Emma grew rigid, holding her breath. But he only laid his fingers against her cheek, then ran his thumb across her lower lip, back, then forth.

Involuntarily, a reflex, she wet her lips, her tongue coming in brief contact with his dry thumb, leaving a bitter spot at the tip, an acrid taste, like ink or pennies. He left his thumb there against her mouth, wet, studying her as if she were an interesting development. Or dilemma. Then with the light weight of his thumb he rolled her lip down, open. She let it roll, did nothing to take her mouth back, already appalled by herself that she’d tasted his thumb, made it slippery—and that, for God’s sake, she had to hold herself in check or she would have done it again.

She wanted to lick his thumb. How bizarre was that?

It was going to be the longest two minutes of her life, because all he did was watch her for the first minute and simply that much frightened her, thrilled her: that whatever he planned—and there was something behind his eyes—he had the nerve for it. Something sexual…there was something sexual here, the whole notion unfamiliar, riveting. She couldn’t assess it, though she was virtually certain he could: that he had her at a supreme disadvantage by virtue of far greater experience. So what was he doing? Gauging the likelihood of her biting him?

She felt his thumb trace the bottom ridge of her lower lip, then down the undercurve to the indentation above her chin. In a way, she wanted to sink her teeth into him. Then did. Of sorts. When he slid his thumb back up, her teeth found the
flesh at the edge, and she took hold, firmly though not hard, gently, and tasted his thumb again. She ran her tongue along the edge of it, her eyes closing.

Immediately, his fingers curled, and his warm hand cupped the side of her cheek, her chin. She sighed as a momentary wave of pleasure came over her so strong she couldn’t see for a moment, blinding.

Then in the next, no, it felt wrong. She pushed his hand away the only way she could—by closing her wet lips and pushing his thumb forward. It rested there, balanced on the end of her wet, puckered mouth, as if on a kiss, and their eyes met. He and she stared at each other.

Then—quite surprising, almost disappointing—
he
broke the tension by letting out a breath, then a light laugh. He took back his thumb with a contradictory, half-smiling shake of his head, looking down.

He remained there like that, on a knee and a foot, an expression of rue or self-rebuke or both on his averted face. Then, as if he could turn everything he’d just said and done on its ear, he bent forward, rising, straightening at the knees as his face came toward her, and said, “The truth is, I want to kiss you like this. Let me.”

Let him? He was asking permission?

If so, he didn’t wait for it. His hand guided her face as he brought his mouth squarely against hers—against the mouth of a befuddled woman, rattled to the point of shaking: While under the rather outlandish circumstance of her being utterly helpless to prevent it, the Viscount Mount Villiars placed his full mouth onto hers.

And it was no light peck or buss he wanted. His thumb returned to roll her lower lip down again, gently opening her mouth as he took a full, deep kiss, his thumb remaining a part of it, moving in the wetness of their mouths across her lower lip, then into her mouth itself, out again. Her face became surrounded by him. Horrible. Delicious. The fingers of his other hand, their tips, dug into her hair at the base of her
skull, spanning nape, neck, and jaw as he took her face in both hands to kiss. Oh, good heaven, it felt so abominably, breathlessly wonderful—and odd, like nothing she was familiar with—she hardly knew what to do.

His mouth and thumb and tongue did. Sweet heaven, such a burning kiss, so full of unabashed want. He kissed her full-passioned, openly, flagrantly carnal, unhampered by shame or self-censure. His mouth on hers was purely flabbergasting. Something Emma couldn’t match, though simply to feel its melting languor on the other side of her mouth was marvel enough. She let him kiss her like this—did she kiss him back? She must have; she certainly opened her mouth, too amazed, dazed, drawn in to do otherwise, while Stuart’s sexuality communicated itself: dark, blossoming, florid like his other tastes, varied, complex. It seemed almost wholesome for its lack of self-consciousness, unapologetically passionate, individual—what Stuart Aysgarth wanted in particular, singularly and exactly, the only limit being his own appetite under his own limber, fluid exploration…willing to kiss a woman lavishly, handle her face, penetrate her mouth, while she was tied to a chair….

Then what he wanted was her thigh, because the backs of his fingers drifted there, to the inside at her knee, gliding upward, which made something light up inside her and also made her all but pant into his mouth with a kind of panic. He caught, literally, her little, terror-struck breaths into his mouth, and his hand dropped away in seeming response. Good.

He turned his head, standing up slightly onto his knee, his renewed deep kiss a relief after that little scare. Sweet. She let its sensations wash over her. How long had it been since a man had kissed her? She couldn’t remember. Like this? Never. Stuart’s kiss was so utterly warm and soft and strong: as delicious as a lump of sugar melting on her tongue. His tongue moved in her mouth in a curious new way, not a thrust, not a mimic of coitus. More like an exploring, as if the inside of her mouth were something interesting he wanted to
know in taste, shape, and texture. She could smell him again, the citrusy spiciness, so faint she decided it might have come merely from soap. Yet so distinctive, it could only be he.

Stuart Aysgarth was the most sensuous, sensual man she’d ever met, she realized. The way he felt, smelled, looked, sounded, and, alas, tasted—it was as though he’d set out single-mindedly to engage every sense in her like some extravagant intruder who barges in and lights every candle in the house.

Somewhere along the way, his hand returned to her knee, light, dry, warm, possessive. Just his hand on her knee. For balance. Still, for a second, she knew a tiny panic. He stroked it away. His thumb rubbed the inside of her knee, two soft, short strokes along the bend, the first reassuring, the second bringing such a shocking physical rush of blood to the core of Emma, she nearly lost her breath. Her legs…dear heaven, her legs. She felt all at once exposed…aware how close he was to…well, he could have put his hands, that thumb, those fingers anywhere.

Almost gentlemanly, sweetly, as if he read her mind, he broke away long enough to lean over sideways. With one hand, he yanked at the ties at her legs, ripping them in part, setting her right leg free first—oh, lovely!—coming back to kiss her again briefly—then stopping long enough to lean in the other direction. She lifted her free foot out, straightening her leg to stretch, as he undid her other one. Not that he was letting her free or up exactly, because as soon as her legs were freed, he came back to that astonishing kiss, having her rather trapped against the chair.

Then, the next thing she knew, his hands hooked under her knees, and he lifted her legs up as he moved forward and straddled the chair himself, sitting, while in the same movement lifting, running his hands under her legs down her calves to her ankles. He sat, taking her legs up over his. He still had to bend forward slightly, he was so much taller, but he was less awkward, more comfortable, she thought, sitting
on the chair—until he moved forward and brought their bodies close, up against each other. She would have slapped him perhaps. Maybe. Difficult to say, since her hands were still held behind her. In any event, it was a shock at first to feel him—his male body up against her spraddled female one.

He bent forward, kissing her harder. One moment, his hands were at the sides of her, gripping the chair posts over her head. He curved his hips, hard against her, and she knew the heady thickness of him. All so oddly familiar, yet not. The next moment, one of his hands was between them, at her waist, then the back of his hand glided down her belly, almost protective. Then he took his hand away—and nothing. Absolutely, positively nothing whatsoever was between them. Unless one counted something else she hadn’t felt in a very long time: a very capable, fully naked, and perfectly beautiful male erection.

He either knew or was inventing on the spot how to have sexual congress on a chair…they were about to…she was letting him…no, she jerked on her hands, they weren’t free in back…she was his prisoner…wasn’t she? Was she letting him? She wet her lips to say
stop
. The word didn’t come out. Did she want him to? Now was certainly the moment to say so. Decisions seemed to hang, demanding her attention, yet her brain couldn’t seem to keep up with her body.

She felt herself swollen, lit, as the head of his penis dropped against her. It slid down the length of her in an instant acknowledgment of how ready she was. The warm movement of his hand was there, adjusting himself into position—here was certainly the moment to protest.
Did she want to?

Then it was too late to protest anything. With a swift, sure movement of hips, he thrust himself deeply, thickly inside her. Her body all but pulled him into her, swallowing him up.

His arms were at either side of her again, enfolding her against the chair, against him, his chest, the spicy-warm smell of him…his strong, muscular shoulders hunched to
ward her, one hovering at her face till the starchiness of his shirt rose into her nostrils like steam, till she tasted it in her mouth…his hips under her, his presence inside her, hot and substantial, driving…intrusive, amazing…he lifted into her with a kind of rhythmic spasm that was so satisfying she bit down on his shirt, clenching her teeth. Seconds. It lasted seconds—perhaps three deep, solid stokes of Stuart’s body into hers. While her own contracted around his the moment of entry and simply kept contracting…tighter and tighter and tighter…until an explosion…or implosion, things collapsing and shoving and moving inside as she couldn’t remember in years, maybe ever…with both herself and Stuart making such noises, mutters, animal sounds, groans.

She came to her senses again like this, her heart pounding with him right there in her face, his body up against her, still inside her.

Two minutes. Had it taken two minutes? Feasible. It was entirely feasible.

W
HAT
had happened here? Emma’s mind couldn’t absorb it. Had she just…accidentally…had sexual union with the Viscount Mount Villiars? On a chair? With her hands tied behind her?

Was that possible?

Judging by the way the man’s shirttails hung out and how he was fixing himself under them: yes.

Stuart had risen from the chair. He stood, giving his full, long-tailed shirt one tuck, before he thought to reach around her and completely free her hands. The moment Emma owned them again, she drew her arm back and hit him as hard as she could. She meant to catch him in the face with her palm, but because he stood up too fast, she caught him across the shoulder with the side of her hand.

“Hey. Ow!” He flinched. “It wasn’t
that
bad.” He rubbed his arm. “A little brief, but, second for second, rather near paradise. For me at least.” He frowned and asked, “I’ve never done a chair before, have you?”

Done
a chair? She hadn’t
done
anything in eight years. “No,” she said. She would have hit him again, but he looked
as confused as she felt. She let it go, instead rolling her shoulders, then stretching her arms. Lord, it felt good to be able to move again.

Then it felt awkward: It registered that her underclothes were back together. She had to think a moment to remember his being bent over her, his hand on her: The man before her had slid off the chair, then fixed and retied her drawers, while she had sat there like a lump. He’d settled everything back exactly as it should be—she touched her belly to be sure, finding the smoothness of a well-arranged corset, corset cover, chemise, drawers, petticoats, everything more or less in order. He’d undone them; he’d fixed them. Stuart Aysgarth understood the complexity of an Englishwoman’s undergarments, something Zachary Hotchkiss after twelve years of marriage never had gotten right.

She blinked, trying to take that information in.

While Stuart asked, one arm behind him, “How did we do that?” He continued to tuck his shirt as he threw a bewildered glance just over her head, at the chair posts: as though the inanimate object could tell him.

Emma snorted. “Can we leave?”

He looked up from his trousers abruptly, stopping in mid-motion, his long fingers pausing over the first button and buttonhole of his open fly: apparently only now putting together that she’d tried to slap him and wasn’t happy. “Oh, wait,” he said as if
he
were the wounded party. “You aren’t going to claim you didn’t let me do that.”

She stopped rubbing and flexing her wrists to fix him with a glare. “Let you? My hands were tied.”

“I know.” He actually laughed, shaking his head. “I’d have never guessed: Aren’t you the perverse little thing?”

“N-no, I’m not. You made me—”

“Oh, please. I didn’t. I wouldn’t. You chose to, exactly as you said. I’d hardly rape you.” Then he blinked, laughed, and recanted. “Unless you wanted me to.” He raised that eyebrow. “Aren’t
you
the dark one? I simply can’t get over it.”

“I most certainly am not!”

“You liked it. For godssake, you all but bit my shoulder at the end. You—”

Bit his shoulder
. Had she? No, surely not. At which point, she bit her lip, her face heating, because she did remember something else. She’d done that thing, she realized that she could do sometimes. She grew warmer still as she let it fully register. Oh, dear, that convulsing, quivering—oh, blast, that really good feeling, only it had never been quite so quick to arrive, and, worse, the sensation hadn’t wholly departed yet. She had no name for it, for what her body had just done, yet there its aftermath was, an echo of “it,” that feeling, that lingered as a warmth in her belly as a kind of liquidy, pourable languor, only better and everywhere, but particularly in her pelvis and right between her legs.

“I did
not
bite your shoulder,” she muttered.

“Here,” he said, that eyebrow coming up in an expression of both amusement, the jackass, and mild annoyance. “Look,” he said as if
he
were put out! Oh, the cheek of the man! He pulled at his shirt. He was going to untuck it again, unbutton it, show her his shoulder—

“Keep your shirt on,” she told him sarcastically. “All right. I let you. Just don’t imagine I ever will again. I won’t.” She could barely believe she had this one time. Within the first forty minutes of their being alone together. With—this really upset her now—her hands tied behind her. What kind of a depraved woman did such a thing?

It was his fault.

And, all right, her own, she thought with disgust: Dear God, didn’t she love the good-looking ones, though? And wasn’t old Stuart here one of
those
? Good-looking ones with renegade casts of mind, the rogues and rascals and black sheep. And wasn’t this member of the upper house, who returned his attention to the buttons of his fly here, a surprising, though fully initiated, member of
that
club? He could outscoundrel the darkest blackguard she knew.

She stood up ever so slowly, yet recognized she was fine. Better than fine. That odd, warm feeling in her pelvis persisted. She felt relaxed in her belly in a way she hadn’t in years. Relieved somehow. Probably from all the fright, she thought. Not that she wanted to think about it. “We won’t be doing it again,” she repeated.

He looked at her with such deep scrutiny, she had to look away. She heard him say, “A shame. You don’t want to talk about it?”

“No.”

Out the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse—he was frowning at her as he ran his hand down his buttoned fly, shifting on his feet a moment as he also shifted his privates to a comfortable place in his trousers, then dismissed the whole business. “Whatever you want,” he said. “Here.” He tossed her a boot. “So what is the plan?” he asked.

“What plan?”

“The poke. Whatever you call it. If that was the poking part, then we’re up to the send.” He let out a syllable of laughter, just full of jokes.

“Very funny.”

Emma took her boot and sat down on the floor, unable to face putting her bottom back on the only chair in the room. She drew on one boot, then the other in utter silence, so unnerved—or unused to the exercise she’d just had—her muscles trembled a little as she shoved her foot into the sloppy boot.

“Are you ready?”

She cranked her head around. Stuart stood by the door. He had her coat and clothes, the little sack in which she’d brought what she was wearing, her stupid wig, his own coat, and presumably the five hundred pounds—the money wasn’t on the bed any longer. “Where are we going?”

“To my room to pack, then to my house, where you’re going to explain in great detail everything we need to do in order to outsmart my uncle.”

“I can’t.” She suddenly thought of a host of unarguable
reasons not to do what they’d just agreed to. “There’s a tup I made an appointment to see. At the Stunnel farm. I have to go there. They’re expecting me.” She pulled a sarcastic face. “I was going to buy a new ram with your fifty quid, since you killed my other.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Is the Stunnel farm far?”

“Six miles from here.”

“We’ll go together. I’ll send for my carriage.”

Delightfully, this brought forth another reason they couldn’t proceed. “I have a mule at the livery—”

“We’ll have my footman fetch it. Where would you like it taken?” He hitched his things and hers up under one arm, letting his shoulder drop against the door: a tall, long-legged man in a white shirt resigned, as far as could be told, to further delay.

It must have been the fit of his clothes or the way he carried himself. The quality of the fabric. Something. Because, in a shirt, no neckcloth, and country breeches tucked into black boots, in these simple clothes, as he leaned there, he was so genuinely upper-class, so elegantly handsome, he all but hurt the eyes.

Emma stared at him. They were really going through with this. She and Mount Villiars, the viscount. Whom she’d just—no, she wouldn’t think about what she’d done. That was past now.
Live in the present
, her mother used to tell her. Or words to that effect.
You are such a dreamer, Emma
, she had said when Emma was young.
Stop dreaming. Stop making things up
, and so Emma had.
Become practical
, she reminded herself now.
Concentrate on the man before you
. Who was actually, practically proceeding to drag her into swindling his uncle.

She had to gather her wits a moment to answer old Stuart’s question—
Stuart, Stuart, Stuart
, she told herself. No false respect, just what is due him. Let him have her respect the old-fashioned way: Let him earn it, if he could. “Um, John Tucker’s, I suppose,” she answered with a degree now of equanimity. “Do you know where that is?”

“Will someone in the village? If so, my footman can ask and find the place. Anything else?”

He knew she was stalling. Then—yes!—she thought of another potentially immovable obstacle they hadn’t explored yet. “Are you serious about your seat in the House of Lords? If you aspire to success there, you can’t set up your uncle. You can’t afford scandal.”

“We aren’t talking about a scandal. Are we?”

“There’s a risk.” What a surprise. He didn’t deny political ambition. This unorthodox peer actually had some interest in the seat he’d assumed in the upper house. She felt a shot of glee. For a moment, she was sure she had something over him—she could make quite a stink merely over what he’d done so far.

Then he said, “For your information, I’m quite serious about sitting my seat. Though none of the important debates will begin till after Easter session break. As to scandal, I don’t want it, but politics is not clean, Mrs. Hotchkiss. I presume, having navigated my way through the whims of Turkish caliphs, Persian protocol, and the court in Petersburg, I’m one up on most Englishmen when it comes to political intrigue. I’ll manage.” He added, “Though thank you for your concern.”

Ha, she thought. “I could tell people what you’re doing.”

“You could. I’d say otherwise.”

“It wouldn’t matter what you said. It would all make interesting reading in the newspapers.”

“Without doubt.”

She pivoted on her skirts, slowly spinning to face him fully as she encircled her knees with her arms. “People would think badly of you.”

He laughed. “Those who don’t know me, and some who do, already think badly of me. What concern is that to me? If anything, people love to imagine their leaders have steel bollocks. Getting back at both my uncle and you in one blow,
once all the facts were out, might even make me popular. The way I’m going about it would certainly make me a household name.”

What an amazing view for a politician—more amazing still: He was one. “Aren’t you frightened what they might do to you?”

“They? Who?”

“People. The newspapers. If not the law.”

He shrugged. “I can take care of myself, if I have to. You’ve just seen an example. I’m formidable: not by nature a cruel man, but, if you’ll notice, when someone is unfair to me, I can protect myself in a very large way.”

She snorted again, shaking her head as she stood, dusting her skirt, onto legs that were still faintly shaky from all this, the monster. “You enjoyed frightening me,” she accused.

“Yes,” he agreed as if she were a promising student who’d just caught on. “That’s why,” he said. “If I must frighten someone, I do it with gusto. Coming?” He put his hand on the doorknob again.

She remained where she was, standing fully, staring at him, feeling unsettled again.

“Emma.” The man at the door answered her discomposed look almost patiently. “It’s a dark, nasty world, and you are looking at a well-adapted piece of it. There’s no point in causing someone discomfort, then hating yourself for it. If it’s appropriate, I go after people in a way that thrills me. Enjoy every moment of life is my motto, even the mean ones. Come on,” he said and turned, taking the doorknob into his hand.

Just for her own “enjoyment,” she didn’t move.

He did. He opened the door wide this time and waited, expecting her to precede him. When she didn’t, he looked back over his shoulder, seeming perplexed. Good.

“Are you coming?” he asked.

“No.”

His eyebrows shot up, his whole face clouding over. He certainly had a quick temper, when a person flouted him.

“Yes, yes, yes.” She laughed. “I’m coming. I was just teasing you, Mr. Democracy. ‘Enjoying’ myself, as you call it.”

As she passed through the doorway, she shot him a look that said,
Lordy, are you ever impressed with yourself
.

By then, though, he was smiling faintly again, unfazed, the level look of a man who
was
impressive and knew it. Once more Emma felt the unfamiliar swing—like a boom cutting across her prow—of humility. Watch yourself, dear. Don’t underestimate the reach of this man’s power.

Old Stuart, on a number of levels, wasn’t run-of-the-mill.

That feeling, that quivery feeling. Emma couldn’t forget it for its traces lingering inside her. It left her limbs weak. As she and Stuart traipsed down the hallway, her belly still felt melty from it. Such a strange feeling, so familiar, yet distant. One moment, her mind wanted to remember it; the next, she wanted to hide from any recall of it, never face where the feeling came from or what it was exactly ever again. She was in Stuart’s room, her buttocks leaning back on his door, her hands behind her, watching her new confidence game partner collect his possessions, before she pinpointed the last time she’d known this feeling: with Zach in London. Jesus God save me, she thought. She closed her eyes a moment.

When she opened them again, Stuart had dragged a suede satchel up onto his bed, spreading its hinge wide. He dropped her own things he’d carried into his leather bag, then shook the money into it from his coat as well, then laid the coat down. He threw in a book by his bed, then another from his pillow. Books. God, she’d loved Zach’s books. She stared at Stuart and felt something inside her chest move, as if her heart had literally slid down six inches in her chest. He was too many things she liked. He was everything she liked. It frightened her silly, just looking at him.