The Marriage Wager (16 page)

“You’re so certain after only one night?” he replied, smiling.

“Yes.”

“I appear to have married a woman of decision.”

“Didn’t you know that?” Emma asked absently. “I saw gardens down below. Let us go look at them.”

Colin caught her arm as she started from the room. “We will walk along the terrace on our way to the dining room,” he commanded. “I want breakfast.”

“Tyrant,” accused Emma, matching her steps to his.

“In the blood,” he answered, leading her toward the stairs. The young housemaid polishing the paneling on the landing grinned to see her master smiling at the new mistress.

“Would you like to go riding?” said Colin a bit later, over coffee and eggs and fresh-baked bread with honey.

“I’ve probably forgotten how,” said Emma. “I haven’t ridden in years.”

“Why not?”

A cloud passed over Emma’s face. There had been little opportunity for carefree rides as she waited in shabby lodging houses wondering whether her last few pounds was being lost at the gaming tables.

Colin looked conscious of a misstep. “I keep a few horses here,” he said, “eating their heads off in luxury in the stables. Let us go and see what we can find.”

“I don’t have a riding habit,” she said regretfully.

“There are trunks of clothes in the attic. Mrs. Trelawny can find you something.”

“But—”

“We’ll ride along the coast,” he said. “I’ll show you the singing caves.”

This sounded too intriguing. Emma abandoned her objections.

An hour later, she found herself mounted on a docile bay mare and dressed in a musty black velvet riding habit from the previous century. “I look ridiculous!” she complained.

“No, you don’t,” answered Colin. The habit had been made long ago for a young girl—perhaps even his great-aunt Celia, Colin thought—and it was tight on Emma. It clung to every contour of her body, revealing all the subtle curves that her everyday garments only suggested. Watching the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed, Colin was roused. “Come,” he said, turning his horse toward the gate.

Colin’s mount was not up to his usual standards, but perhaps that was just as well, he thought, as they reached the cliff path and started along it. He did not know the level of Emma’s skill, and a spirited horse might have spooked hers and sent them into danger.

Turning, he checked her position. She had a good seat and held the reins lightly, looking very much at home on the mare. She was, perhaps, paying a bit too much attention to the foam-flecked sea spreading below them and too little to the trail. But the mare knew her way and would not be tripped up by the loose stone. Taking a deep breath of the crisp salt air, he picked up the pace.

Emma followed. Though she was a little bothered by the tightness of the riding habit across her chest and shoulders, it was a small annoyance, and the glorious scenery more than made up for it. The path meandered along the headlands, each turn revealing another breathtaking vista of cliff and sea and veils of tiny flowers falling over the stone. Already, she felt completely at home on horseback, as if she had last ridden a few days ago instead of years.

“Care to try a gallop?” asked Colin when they came to a straight section of the shoreline.

Emma smiled and kicked the mare’s flank, darting past him and away. With a startled exclamation, Colin gave chase, and they pounded along the sandy path with the air streaming through their hair.

Leaning over the front of the saddle, Emma felt the armhole seams give way on the riding habit. The pressure on her shoulders eased as the old thread tore and gaps opened in the cloth. Now she really looked a sight, she thought. Probably she ought to turn back, but she didn’t want to. With her knees and heels, she urged the horse on.

They galloped in a great loop around a bay, pulling up on the far headland where the waves crashed on both sides of a narrow point and splashed high in the air. “Wonderful,” cried Emma. She spread her arms, and more of the sleeves came loose from the bodice of her dress.

“The riding habit is not a complete success,” Colin remarked.

“I think it’s older than Mrs. Trelawny remembered,” said Emma. “The thread is giving way.”

“I see that it is. Shall we turn back?” The glimpses of pale skin through the holes in the black velvet were disturbing.

“Must we? There’s no one about. You promised me singing caves.”

“So I did. But there’s some weather brewing. I didn’t notice it earlier; I have been away so long I’m losing my weather sense.”

Emma followed his pointing finger to a bank of clouds on the far horizon. “Those are miles away,” she protested.

“A squall can blow up quickly on the sea.”

But Emma was filled with the elation of the ride and the sea air. “Oh, come,” she urged, and set her heels to the mare’s flank once again, racing farther along the coastal path.

Colin spurred his mount after her, knowing that he should insist, but caught up in her gaiety. They pounded along side by side until the twisting path forced them to slow to a walk. “Where are these caves?” demanded Emma, her cheeks glowing from the exercise, her eyes bright with enjoyment. A strand of pale hair had come loose and curled along her temple.

Her beauty silenced Colin for a moment, and filled him with a sharp longing. “A little further,” he said. “In the next bay. But Emma.” He indicated the clouds again. They were racing in from the sea and now covered a third of the sky.

She looked. It was obvious he was right; a storm was on the way. But Emma was reveling in the first feelings of freedom she had allowed herself in a long time. “We can shelter in the caves until it passes,” she said, and moved away before he could argue.

She kept her horse to the best pace she could manage, but on the winding path, that was not rapid. As the clouds raced across the sky, Emma realized that she had miscalculated. They would never be able to reach the next wide bay before the rain. She was just turning to admit as much to Colin when the first drops began. There was a flurry of rain, like spray from the sea, and then, suddenly, a heavy drenching downpour that pounded on her head and shoulders. Gasping, Emma bent her head to keep the water out of her eyes and mouth.

Colin rode up beside her. “Give me your reins,” he said. He had to repeat it in a near shout before she understood and handed them over. Leading her horse, he began to pick his way along the path, now running with water like a small stream. Slowly, they made their way toward the final headland.

Slumped under the pounding of the rain, uncomfortable in soaking wet velvet, Emma felt an odd loosening, slithering sensation. The storm was too much for the ancient riding habit, she realized then. All its seams were giving way, and the bodice was literally sliding off her in tatters. She grabbed a part of the front and tried to hold it against her breasts, but the waist of the dress was sagging over her hips now, and she had to shift her fingers to that, afraid the whole garment would abandon her for the ground. Sheets of rain sliced over her bare shoulders. Emma started to shiver with cold.

Colin could scarcely see the path, the rain was so heavy. But he knew the way from countless boyhood excursions and soon had them twisting down the cliff on a narrow shelf that slanted toward the shore. Wiping the streaming water from his eyes, he peered at the rocks. Where was the blasted entrance? There. Urging his mount forward, he rode under the tall arch of stone, pulling Emma’s horse after him.

The relief was immense. From pounding rain roaring in their ears, they came into dry silence. Four feet behind, the downpour continued, but they were safely out of it, though soaked to the skin. Colin turned back to Emma, who was plucking futilely at the trailing remains of her bodice.

“My poor Emma,” he said. The black dress was sliding off her as if it were made of liquid instead of cloth. Not only the seams, but the very fabric itself was giving way. Colin dismounted and went to lift her down from the mare. The riding habit completed its disintegration as he did so, ending in a sodden heap on the stone floor and leaving her standing before him clothed only in her soaked shift. The rain had turned the thin cotton nearly transparent, he noticed. Her breasts were perfectly outlined by the clinging material, their tips erect and pressing against it. The cloth clung to every curve of her waist and hips. “Emma,” he said again, in quite a different tone, his eyes wandering over her.

When she met his gaze, she flushed and looked down.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. With her silver-gilt hair falling about her shoulders, she looked like a nymph risen from the sea. The pearl and rose of her skin shone through the soaked shift. He felt himself growing aroused by the glorious, sensuous picture she presented.

Wrapping her arms around her chest, Emma shivered in the damp breeze from outside.

“You’re cold,” he said, forcing himself to look away from her. “I’ll light a fire so that we can dry our clothes.”

Emma let out her breath. “How will you make a fire here?” she wondered, looking at the rock and sand. They were in a shallow cave that narrowed some twenty feet back into a crevice. There was nowhere to retreat from the open arch at the front.

“With a flint and steel, and driftwood. There’s some in that crevice.”

Emma walked over and examined the splinters of smooth gray wood lodged in the back of the cave. “Does it come from the sea?”

“Yes,” answered Colin, his voice a bit gruff. Coming up behind her, he had to tear his eyes away from her again in order to pull the wood from cracks in the stone and gather it into a pile in the center of the cave. Keeping his eyes resolutely lowered, he took out his knife and began to make a pile of shavings from the driest piece of wood. When she came and knelt beside him, drawing the shift tight against her hips and thighs, he almost cut himself. And his hands shook a little as he struck the flint and steel together, creating sparks to ignite the tinder. At last he managed the thing, and tongues of flame curled up among the sticks of driftwood. Colin rose and stepped back. “We won’t be able to dry everything,” he said. “But we can do enough to get home creditably.”

“The riding habit is ruined,” Emma protested.

“You can wear my coat,” he said. “And we’ll fix up something with the skirt.”

“Your coat is soaked, too,” she pointed out.

“True.” He hesitated. “We need to hang everything over the fire if it’s to dry at all.”

“Everything?” she asked, a bit alarmed.

He hesitated again, then seemed to come to a resolution. “As much as possible,” he replied. And he began to strip.

“Colin!” Emma looked away. But after a few moments, she couldn’t resist turning back. She found Colin using some of the longest sticks of driftwood to try to prop his garments before the flames. He wore only his wet riding breeches, which the dampness molded to his athletic form.

She found herself fascinated by his bare shoulders and the muscles that played along his arms and flexed in his thighs as he moved. There was something deeply exciting about the strength in his hands and the unconscious grace in all the lines of his body. His entire frame was eloquent of explosive power under strict control—a sort of fierce, careful gentleness that informed his every action. A narrow red scar ran across two of his ribs; from the war, she thought, and was shaken by a sudden rush of feeling.

“There.” Taking a last look at his makeshift supports, he turned back to her. “That should do…” He broke off as Emma flushed scarlet, the color burning down her neck and bosom as well as her face. What he saw in her expression sent a blaze of heat through him and made him acutely aware of the arousal that had been building since he lifted her from her saddle. If he moved, he thought, he would pull her down onto the rocks and sand and take her right here in this decidedly unprivate place.

They stood stock-still, gazing at one another as if they would never get enough of the sight, and completely unable to tear their eyes away.

Rain pocked the waves outside and hissed into the sand. Soft, damp air flowed languorously over their skin, heavy with the scents of pine and the sea.

“You look like a siren,” he whispered finally. “Set to lure men to madness.”

“And what about you?” murmured Emma. “What sort of spirit are you?”

Outside, a gull screeched. The sound caused one of the horses to move impatiently, its hooves thumping on the floor of the cave. The other blew out a snorting breath in response. Emma jerked, the spell broken, and turned. “What… what do you suppose they think of all this?” she asked a bit disjointedly, looking at the animals who screened the front of the cave for them.

Colin took a deep breath. He ran one hand over his face. “They will worry about us at Trevallan,” he said, a little abruptly. “I don’t know how long this rain will last. Perhaps we had better just ride back through it.”

Emma didn’t argue. The calm settled atmosphere of Trevallan seemed extraordinarily appealing just now. She went to the sodden pile of velvet that had once been a riding habit and retrieved the skirt, wishing futilely for a packet of pins.

By the time they were ready to depart, the rain was slackening a little. But even so, the Baron St. Mawr and his new baroness arrived back at their stately home in a scandalous state. Emma wore a man’s riding coat that was much too large for her and a sodden velvet skirt that continually threatened to slide off her hips to the ground. Her hair was blown to bits. Colin sported a soaked linen shirt and breeches that felt as if they had shrunk significantly. His neckcloth was nowhere to be seen.

“Lord have mercy,” said the housekeeper, Mrs. Trelawny, to his lordship’s valet. “Will they be angry with me about that habit, do you think? It looked fine when I brought it out.”

Reddings surveyed Colin, whom he had known in every variety of circumstances over more than ten years, and the new mistress, whom he had been observing with acute interest at every opportunity offered. “I don’t believe they are much concerned with the riding habit,” he said dryly.

Mrs. Trelawny frowned at him, then hurried forward to help Emma into the house. “Too bad your maid didn’t come with you, my lady,” she sympathized.