Magical Weddings (83 page)

Dammit, he should not need to make excuses to himself for why he was here—he should stop visiting Lillian.

He sighed and turned around as the door opened. Emily came in.

“Papa said you wished to speak with me here.”

“Yes.”

She was as different to Lillian as it was possible to be, and yet she was beautiful in a different way. Emotion tied up in a knot inside him.

He crossed the room and took both of her small hands in his. She was a petite woman in every sense.

He’d approached her in the beginning to provide a screen for Drew to seduce his chosen wife, and then Peter had begun courting Emily simply because she was kind and gentle, a genteel woman, and pretty. It had been amusing in the beginning, something different, nothing more, and then once Drew had stolen her friend away, Peter had been banned from all association. But when Peter had seen Drew’s son, George, and envied his friend, the only woman who had come to mind when he thought of creating children and a home to bring them up in, was Emily. Even now, that was who he saw—the mother of his children—a perfect wife.

This was right.

He gripped her hands gently, his gloves a layer between her skin and his.

Her eyes were brown, a rich radiant colour, and as he looked at her the sunlight caught in her light brown hair and gilded it with an auburn tint. Warmth flowed through his chest, and then a burning sensation of guilt. When he was with Emily he wished only to be with Emily, and yet when he was with Lillian…

He must forget Lillian.

“I am sure you have guessed why I came.”

She smiled. She had such a pretty smile.

“Emily, I have admired you for a long time, as you know, and… I wish you to be my wife.” If he was doing this he supposed he ought to do it right. He lowered to one knee. “Will you marry me?”

“Oh.” It was a slight breathless sound of excitement. Emily was so timid and unsure of herself. She would become a perfect lady. “Thank you.” It was an odd thing to say, but it was absolutely Emily, she behaved as though she had no expectation of life, or herself, she was as self-denying as he was self-obsessed. She would be good for him. She would calm him down, help him to behave as he ought, and she would be a wonderful mother.

“Yes.” Her smile broadened, catching like a little stitch through his heart. “I will marry you. I would love to be your wife.”

He rose to his feet in a rush. The door had been left open for propriety’s sake but he was betrothed, he did not think it would matter. He gripped her nape and pulled her lips to his; they were cool and gentle and unassuming. She had known nothing of the physical act. He had kissed her only twice before. She’d been too strictly chaperoned for any regularity in captured kisses, and he was probably the only man who had ever kissed her.

He pulled away and held her gaze. Entirely charmed. He had as much affection for Emily as he did for Lillian—it was simply different. His feelings for Emily were warm and tender. What he felt for Lillian was dark, wild, and desperate.

That was the old person he’d been. Emily was a part of who he wished to become.

“May we tell my mother?”

****

Emily turned, holding on to his hand.

He gripped her hand tighter and pulled her back around. “Wait a moment. I am not finished, Emily. Do not become a desperate female with me now. You have never been that.”

She laughed at his jesting. She adored his easy sense of humour. It was that which had drawn her to him first. No, that was a lie. A burst of humour left her throat. She had fallen for his looks and his title too.

“Here, Emily.” He withdrew a ring from his inside pocket, then lifted her left hand, selected her third finger and slid a diamond engagement ring onto it.

She breathed in, tears clouding her vision, then lifted her hand and looked at it in the light from the window. The stone was flawless.

She glowed inside when she looked into his brown eyes.

He had finally asked her. She had sensed that he would for weeks, and Mary had kept hinting that Peter had spoken to Drew, but he had not come, and now here he was, and he had asked.

She was to be Lady Brooke. Oh. That was daunting. Yet he must think her worthy of it.

“Come, let us tell Mama.” She caught hold of his hand, and pulled him behind her, hurrying him.

“Mama,” she said, feeling the brightest she had ever done when they entered the dining room. “Peter has asked me to marry him.”

“Oh, how…“ Tears flooded her mother’s eyes and silenced her. She had told Emily she was so proud that someone of Lord Brooke’s status had been courting her, and now Emily was to be a lady. “I am so thrilled.” She came across the room, and when Emily released Peter’s hand, her mother gripped it. “I welcome you to the family.”

“Thank you.” Peter bowed slightly, as eloquent as ever. Peter had a wit and enthusiasm for life that was contagious, and he was intensely clever; he could turn a conversation to anything he wished. He had charm, and he had charmed her. How wonderful it was to have found a man as perfect as Mary’s Drew, and as she was Mary’s friend and he was Drew’s they might stay close and become a set.

Her hands gripped together at her waist as she watched him speaking with her parents, his gloved hand lifted and swept back his hair from his brow when he said something.

He was to be her husband. Lord Brooke…

She wished to tell Mary, and yet Mary was at home on Drew’s estate, miles out of town. Emily would write her a letter when Peter had gone.

“Emily,” he turned and smiled at her, “are you going to the Stimpsons’ ball this evening?”

“We are, yes,” her mother answered.

“Then may I escort you?” He looked at her father. “You may all ride in my carriage, if I collect you from here.”

“Of course, Peter, that is very kind of you.”

A long breath left Peter’s lungs. This was madness. He was mad. Emily had begun suffering with a headache at the ball and so she and her family had cut their celebrations short and he’d taken them home. He’d done everything he ought to at the ball. He had been solicitous, and he’d stood at Emily’s side as numerous people had come to congratulate them, he should have been revelling in it, revelling in the smile of jubilation on Emily’s lips.

And now he ought to be at home in bed. Or sitting in his library drinking brandy. Or looking for Harry and Mark in the clubs. He ought to be anywhere but here.

But he was here.

Whatever the hold that Lillian Hart had over him, it had pulled him back again.

He gripped his head in his hands. He’d found his way to her dressing room and sat within it alone, waiting, sitting on the chaise longue where they had enjoyed their happy interludes. He had not gone in to watch the show because he was not in the mood for the satire.

He stood up. He was impatient. His conscience roared, while something else inside him urged. He opened the door and went out in the narrow, whitewashed hall. He could hear the audience even from down here. He found his way to the route he knew she would take when she slipped through the hatch under the stage, and waited.

A gasp echoed down the corridors from the auditorium. Milligan must have just sliced off her head.

Peter’s arms folded over his chest as he leant a shoulder against the cold, stark wall. His temple rested against it too. What was wrong with him? He’d always been able to take or leave whores. They had been nothing special. But then that perhaps was all it was; Lillian was special. What other woman had eyes the colour of teal, and what other whore gave her all to sex as though she truly cared?

He sighed. He could hear the casters of the bed being spun about on the wooden stage. He straightened up.

Lillian burst through the door that led from under the stage, gripping her paper posy, her white dress floating about her.

He blocked her path.

“Peter! I have to get to my place.”

“I know.” He gripped the back of her head, his fingers clasping in the wild dark curls, and pressed his lips on hers, then his tongue into her mouth. Her free hand came up and touched his cheek as her tongue briefly brushed against his. But then she pulled away and turned and ran, with a laugh and a smile thrown across her shoulder.

On the way here, he’d called at the Covent Garden Hotel and booked a room there; he did not wish to return to the Bristol Hotel and draw attention to them.

He went to her dressing room and laid out her clothes. He would help her dress and help her hurry and they would enjoy themselves in the comfort of a bed, not in her cramped dressing room.

“Peter,” she declared when she came through the door. “You must not delay me when I am on stage, I will be in trouble with Arthur and Victor if you throw me off my performance.”

Sod Milligan and the bloody theatre manager, he did not care what they thought. “Come here, let me help you change. I am taking you to a pretty room and a comfortable bed.”

She reached to her side and began untying the ribbons. Between them they had her out of her costume and back into her clothes in moments, despite his hands trailing to places they ought not to go.

He kissed the back of her neck. Then she turned.

“I have not said thank you yet. How awful of me. I loved my gift, it was beautiful. I did not put it on, though, because I wished you to put it on for me.”

He had left the gift there with no intention of ever coming back. She would never have worn it then.

“Here.” She went to her dressing table and took it from a drawer, then held it out to him, a tiny silver heart dangling on a thin silver chain. The back of the heart was glass and beneath the glass was a short lock of his hair. It would rest against her skin—always.

She turned her back and raised her hair. He lifted the locket over her head and lay it about her slender neck. Her nape had the perfect feminine curve. When he’d secured the catch, he leant down and kissed her there.

She faced him, her red lips parting in a smile that shone in her eyes as her fingers pressed over the locket. “Thank you. It is truly beautiful. I will keep it on, always.”

In his mind Peter saw the element of her act, where Milligan slid on the ring and then it flew off back into his hand. Earlier Peter had placed a ring on Emily’s finger pledging himself to her.

Yet this was no sin. He was not married, not yet.

****

Lillian rolled over on top of him, knocking Peter to his back as she laughed. The sheets were tangled about them, and their clothes were strewn across the floor. She liked being in a bed with him. She liked that he was naked too. She straddled his hips.

He’d purchased supper for them and champagne and port too, and the remains of their feast was scattered about their room. She grasped his half-drunk glass of port and let it trickle onto his chest.

“You will have us thrown out for staining the sheets.”

“I do not intend to waste it on the sheet.” She licked it up from the lines of ridges and hollows defined by the muscle beneath his skin. He gripped her thighs. Then as she licked lower, he gripped her hair. He’d always liked touching her hair. The tight curls seemed to fascinate him.

She kissed his tip.

“More port…” he jested, reaching for the glass.

She laughed too, but she took it from his hand. Yet instead of pouring it, she dipped her tongue into it, then leant and circled her tongue about his most sensitive flesh. Then she took a sip from the glass, held him in her hand and gently released the liquid, letting it run down.

“You are being cruel to me, Lillian.”

“I am being very good to you.”

“Yes.” His agreement came on a sigh.

She took another sip and taunted him again. Then she licked up the liquid with long strokes from his root to his tip.

He sighed.

She took another sip, and let it drip, drop by drop, onto him. His muscles tensed with every touch on his skin. She licked it up again, and then knelt up and drank the last of the port in the glass, then returned the glass to him empty.

He laughed. But his laughter stopped when she moved still farther down the bed, gripped him in her hand, and…she kissed him first, then opened her mouth.

He gripped her head, his palms on either side as she moved, absorbing him, caressing with her tongue and using her hand to consume him too.

His hips lifted as he rocked up against her and his hands gripped her head and helped her move in the same rhythm. He was sighing, repeatedly. Then suddenly her head was gripped more firmly. “Lillian, stop.” He pulled her up, tumbled her backwards onto the bed and pressed his tongue into her mouth as his knee came up and parted her thighs, entwining their legs.

He broke the kiss, then rose, kneeling over her, before gripping her thighs and hauling her down so that she was positioned with her thighs draped over his, and then he leaned over her and invaded her. She squealed at the force of his thrust.

His dark eyes glittered, and he pulsed into her as though he wished to teach her a lesson, that he was all she would ever need, as though he wished to fill her and make her feel so complete she would never want this again with another man.

Her fingertips touched his chest. It was such a novelty to see him so fully and gloriously naked. His back arched then bowed as he moved, his flat stomach creasing and yielding. Her fingertips slid to his stomach. Then, as though he thought her too conscious, he bent and kissed her, pressing his tongue into her mouth.

She focused on his kiss and his movement within her, letting her feelings absorb her thoughts.

He pulled away and concentrated on filling her again, his movements long, swift and harsher, striking against her pelvis, telling her body to give in to him. She gripped his shoulders as her body jolted, again and again, the locket he’d bought her swayed at her neck. She reached above her head and pressed her palms against the board at the top of the bed.

“Oh.” The hard sigh came from her lips. “Peter,” she said into the air as she fell to pieces.

He gripped her arms and pulled her up so she sat astride his lap, impaled. Her arms wrapped about his neck, holding on as he gripped her hips and lifted her up then brought her down. She panted out a breath with each stroke, her fingers curling in the back of his soft hair. “Peter,” she breathed into his ear as she broke again. He pressed up into her thrice more and broke, his hands slipping to her back and clutching her close, holding her tight. Her arms about his neck gripped tighter too.