The duke stood
up and walked over to Emma. He placed kisses along her bruised neck. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think Windbourne will escape with his neck unscathed.”
“I should hope not. The man is a—”
But the duke had had enough talk of Windbourne and he covered her mouth with his own. He had meant to silence her for only a moment but once his lips met hers, there was no further thought of letting
go. He ran his hands down her back and felt her instant response. He picked her up and carried her to the disheveled bed, leaving the sheet on the floor by the fire.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next morning,
Emma was awakened by the noise in the hallway, but she resisted the impulse to open her eyes. The duke’s arms were around her stomach, his warm breath brushing her neck. She would not be the one to bring this beautiful night to an end.
Several minutes later she felt the duke stir. He placed a kiss on her ear, sending shivers down her spine.
“I know you’re
awake, so there’s no use in pretending,” he said, turning her onto her back and observing her shut eyes.
“If you’re here, then I’m still dreaming,” she said softly as the people above them pounded on the floorboards.
“There you go again with that drivel,” the duke said, well satisfied with her turn of phrase. “That you are so romantic pleases me.”
“Does it, your grace? Is that the only thing
about me that does?” she asked, playing with the hair on his chest.
“Alex,” he corrected. “And no, there are one or two other things as well.”
She kissed his chest. “Would you care to name them?”
“Your lips, for one. They are—” He broke off as she lavished attention on his nipple.
She looked at him with an impish smile. “You were saying, Alex, about my lips?”
“Your lips are magical,” he
whispered before covering them with his own. For a few long moments he lost himself in the sensation of her but then he fought the burgeoning desire. He pulled away. “We must ready ourselves for departure. The hour grows late.”
Emma didn’t care to talk about the hour. “Please, Alex,” she purred, pressing her body sensuously against his, “an extra half hour won’t hurt. Please, just one last time.”
Trent tried to resist the arousing lure of her body. “Vinnie is probably out of her head with worry by now. When we are married, I promise we will do nothing but make love all the time.”
Emma froze. “Married?” she asked.
“Yes, of course. Two people cannot behave as we have and not get married,” he said, laying a whimsical kiss on her nose. “It’s just not done.”
“That’s not a reason to get married,”
she protested, giving him an opportunity to provide a better one.
The duke looked down at her in surprise. “I’m a gentleman, Emma. I do not make love with innocents and then desert them.”
Emma listened to his answer with a growing sense of alarm. If he had given any indication of his regard, had hinted in the most meager way that he loved her, she would accept his offer with zeal. But she would
not accept this, this customary sense of obligation. She would not—indeed, could not—marry a man who didn’t share her feelings. That way lay disaster. The Harlow Hoyden could not take a husband who’d come to her from the arms of a dancer in Chelsea, especially now that she knew what women and men did alone together in bed. What she had done with Trent was sacred, and she would not let him devalue
it—and her—with his marriage of obligation. “Thank you for your…flattering offer, your grace, but I have no wish to get married. You have done your duty by asking, so let there be no more talk of desertion. Really, we should get dressed. The hour grows late.” She moved to get out of the bed, but the duke held on to her arm.
“What madness is this, Emma?” he asked, trying to understand how her
demeanor could change so swiftly from lover to stranger.
“No madness. Please let me go. No doubt Vinnie is out of her head with worry by now.”
But he did not let her go. He could scarcely believe that only a few minutes earlier he had woken without a care in the world. Never in his life had he been happier. “How can you talk so coldly after what we’ve just done?”
“What we’ve just done?” she
asked, her voice almost harsh in her disappointment. “Is it not what you do with dancers in Chelsea and widows and any willing female who crosses your path? Isn’t that what you libertines do? Come now, your grace, there is no need to get maudlin on me. We have passed a pleasurable evening. There’s no reason for you to ruin it with unreasonable demands.”
At these words, the duke felt the most
overwhelming anger of his entire life. He let Emma go, stood up and disappeared into the dressing room. He wanted to argue with her, rail at her, but he was afraid of what he might do. His emotions now were unpredictable, and he could not be relied on for rational behavior. How dare she dismiss what they’d shared as “a pleasurable evening” only? And to call his offer of marriage an unreasonable demand!
To think that when he opened his eyes not ten minutes before he’d believed he was holding the future in his arms, to think that he had foolishly assumed it was all sorted out. No woman had ever responded so passionately as Emma. No woman had ever loved him as Emma had. Why wouldn’t she want to marry him? And to be told that it was all meaningless—nothing had ever crushed the duke so. He could
not risk being in her presence any longer, so fearful was he of causing her harm.
It was for the best, he decided, that he hadn’t admitted his love. It had been on the tip of his tongue, but for some reason—some half-formed fear of being rejected—he’d held back. He’d wanted her consent first. But it was good that she didn’t know the truth, that his heart was hers to do with as she wished, for
no doubt she would trounce on it without a thought. He had been warned about the Harlow Hoyden, but he’d let infatuation override good sense. Poor Vinnie. She had no idea what a soulless creature her sister was.
Dressed, the duke entered the bedroom. He carried his greatcoat over one arm. Without looking at her, he said, “We leave in fifteen minutes. I will meet you at the coach.”
From the bed,
Emma watched him leave. As soon as the door shut, she surrendered to the storm of tears that had been lodged in her throat. He had not denied it! She’d given him a chance to say that what they’d done was not at all like what he’d done with the widow Enderling and the dancer in Chelsea. She hadn’t expected him to, of course, but she had hoped nonetheless. God, had she’d hoped. But the fire that
had blazed in his eyes when he’d beheld Windbourne holding a gun to her temple had been extinguished by the mundanity of regular life. Sanity had returned and with it the realization that an indulged mutual attraction wasn’t reason enough to get married. He’d thankfully made his escape while his bachelorhood was still intact.
Determined not to give away the true status of her emotions, she splashed
her face with water. Then she looked into the mirror. Her eyes were still red and puffy from tears. She dressed herself in the landlord’s daughter’s gown. Its cut was simple, but the color, a light mint green, was unflattering and made her complexion look sickly.
“Well, I feel sickly, don’t I?” she muttered, putting on a bonnet that the landlord was kind enough to provide.
If only I wore spectacles,
she thought, trying cover up her eyes with the bonnet.
She made her way downstairs and was relieved to see no sign of Trent. The landlady offered her a cup of tea, and she accepted it along with an offer of toast. Although she had awoken ravenously hungry, now in the presence of food, her appetite deserted her completely. She could not bring herself to touch the toast; she could only stare at
it and the cup of tea, distracted by thoughts of the duke. Last night had been so perfect. If only this morning he hadn’t uttered that fateful word:
marriage
. Or having muttered it, accompanied it with talk of love.
I will not be bothered by this,
she resolved, picking up a slice of toast and taking a bite. The piece was soggy and soaked with butter, and it slid down her throat easily. Still,
she couldn’t bear another taste. Food was not what she needed now. Now she needed a plan, some way to deal with the duke during the next few hours and the days that followed. She would still see him around town, at social functions that could not be avoided, with the widow Enderling, perhaps, or another woman. Then a horrible thought struck her. What if he was enamored with Vinnie? Oh, God, what
if he wanted to marry her?
The thought was too distressing to contemplate for even a minute, and she forced her mind on to other matters. She wondered how Sir Windbag was faring in a dank Dover prison. That made her smile. If matters between her and Trent had been anything than what they were, she’d have requested a short stop to gloat. It was not often that one witnessed the crushing defeat
of an archenemy.
A clock in the parlor chimed the hour, and Emma realized that the inevitable could not be put off any longer. Taking several deep breaths, she got to her feet, thanked the landlord for his hospitality and walked outside into the blinding sunlight. Although still very early in the day, the temperature was already warm and the sent of spring was in the air. It was the sort of day
that made young romantic hearts giddy. Emma cursed the blue sky and walked over to the carriage. The duke had the horses in hand and was only waiting for her to begin the journey.
He acknowledged her presence with a nod but didn’t look at her. The duke wasn’t quite ready to gaze upon her yet. Although his anger had cooled somewhat during the intervening half hour, he feared the sight of her would
ignite the flames again. He’d struggled hard to retain his dignity, to not burst into the parlor and beg her to marry him, and he refused to lose it now that the end of their adventure was so near. He need only return to the Hungry Lion; then he’d be free of her. Well, perhaps not free of her, but he would never have to be alone with her again. The source of temptation would be removed, and he
could begin to recover from this fleeting madness one called love.
He tugged on the reins, indicating to the horses that it was time to depart. There had been a coachman available for hire at the inn, but Trent decided driving was the best way to avoid being trapped for long hours with Miss Harlow in the small compartment of the conveyance. He preferred fresh air and physical distance, however
meager, and the distraction of something to do other than stare at her beautiful features and pine for what could never be.
Emma was relieved by his decision, for many of the same reasons, but she bitterly resented a society that left men free to make choices. She would have preferred to drive the horses herself and end this interminable boredom. The last thing she needed now was to be alone
with her thoughts, her traitorous, torturous thoughts. All she could do was replay this morning’s scene over and over again in her head, from the moment she woke up feeling glorious to the second Trent had uttered the words that crushed her heart. And no good could come of that. There was nothing she could have done differently, nothing save accept his proposal. The very idea was preposterous. Other
ladies might marry to appease a gentleman’s misplaced notion of honor but not she. Miss Emma Harlow had too much pride and too much self-respect and far too much sense. Such a union would end in disaster, and it was better to nip the whole thing in the bud than to let it flower into inevitable public disgrace.
When they returned to London, she would insist on accompanying Roger to the country,
where he could recuperate properly. London was a bustling, dirty metropolis and not at all the sort of place a recovering amputee should pass his days. He needed green rolling hills and sweet Derbyshire air and children’s laugher. Surrounded by familiar things, he would grow strong again. He would grow strong again and forget this wretched affair entirely.
Settling her immediate future made Emma
feel a little better, but it did nothing to rush the carriage to its destination. She could scarcely believe they were retracing their steps from yesterday. Had the journey really taken this long? She looked out the window and examined the passing landscape. It all looked vaguely familiar in that country-scenery sort of way, but the details she’d tried to commit to memory to aid in her escape
eluded her completely.
Finally she saw the Hungry Lion. The instant the carriage came to a complete stop, Emma jumped down and ran to the front door. She found her sister inside the private parlor. Lavinia was sitting near to the fire, reading a book.
“Vinnie darling,” she called as she dashed into the room.
Her sister leaped to her feet in time to catch her sister in a hug. “You are safe,”
she said, the relief apparent in her voice.
“Of course I’m safe,” said Emma, tightening her arms around Vinnie. It was so good to be with someone who loved her. She felt teardrops forming in the corners of her eyes and could not fight them.
“There is no ‘of course’ about it. You left here in the care of a madmen.” Vinnie pulled away and looked at Emma. “A madman whom I almost married. Can you
ever forgive me?” she asked.
Emma wiped away a tear with a cold finger and stared at her sister uncomprehendingly. “Forgive you? Whatever for?”
“You are very gracious, my dear, but the atrocities that Sir Waldo visited upon my family are entirely my fault,” she explained, her bottom lip quivering. “You could have been killed—and Roger, too.” At Emma’s looked, she said bitterly, “Yes, I reasoned
that out for myself. Our brother’s accident was anything but.” The tremendous fear she’d been living with for the last twenty-four hours overcame her, and she started to cry in earnest. “I don’t know what I’d have done if anything had happened to you.”