How to Tame Your Duke(28)

"Since Christmas."

The woman turned, paused, and looked back over her shoulder. The shadows  made her face look strangely ancient. "Do he ever touch you, ma'am?  Touch you proper, I mean."

Emilie gathered herself up and tightened her woolen muffler around her throat.

"Not yet." She tilted her chin. "But he will."





TWELVE




She was late.

Ashland pretended not to notice the clock ticking away on the mantel. He  walked to the round table, Emily's table, and picked up the book he'd  selected for the evening. It was new; he'd just picked it up in the  bookshop the other day, and the scent of new paper and fresh ink rose up  to meet him as he flipped unseeing through the pages.

He put the book down and went to the window. No sign of her; no neat  black-coated figure illuminated by the gas lamp on the rear portico.

The clock ticked on, unmoved. She should have been here ten minutes ago.  She had promised to come straight from the station now, so he wouldn't  worry. He should have sent the carriage; that was it. What was he  thinking, trusting the darkened winter roads of Ashland Spa to bring his  Emily safely to his side? He should have . . .

A knock sounded on the door.

He turned. "Come in."

The door opened, and there was Emily, gloved hands outstretched, blindfold in place. "Good evening, sir."

"You're late." He meant to punish her, to make her endure the same few  minutes of unreasoning worry he'd felt himself, but the sight of those  outstretched hands dissolved his anger. He strode across the room and  seized her kidskin fingers and kissed them. "You're shaking. What's  happened?"

"Nothing." She withdrew her hand and laughed, a high and artificial laugh. "It's frightfully cold outside, that's all."

He studied her mouth. "It isn't the cold. What happened, Emily?"

"Nothing. I . . . I fell, that's all. On the path in the garden. The paving stones were uneven, and it's so awfully dark . . ."

"Good God. Are you all right?" He lifted his hand and touched her cheekbone, her jaw.

"Perfectly." She turned away.

"Come to the fire and warm yourself."

He led her to the fireplace and urged her into the nearest armchair. She  was trembling with something, some emotion, though her hands clenched  tightly in her lap with the effort to disguise it. She sat ramrod  straight, as always, as if she were still in the schoolroom with a book  balanced on the crown of her head by a purse-lipped governess.

Ashland plucked away her hatpin and drew the small felt hat from her  hair. The golden strands gleamed in the firelight and disappeared  beneath the black blindfold. He knelt before her, took off her gloves,  and rubbed each hand between his large fingers. "I'll send the carriage  for you, from now on," he said. "I should have thought of it sooner."

"Oh no. It's quite unnecessary. I like the walk, really. So bracing."

"Nevertheless." He examined her face minutely. She was steadier now,  whether from the warmth of the fire or from the steady massage of his  fingers. It no longer pained him at all to touch her like this, hand to  hand; he hardly even remembered the old sensations of dread, of recoil.  "You've scraped your chin," he said.

She touched the tip and winced. "So I have."

He rose and went to the bathroom, where he found a washcloth and ran it  under the cool water, avoiding the sight of his face in the mirror above  the sink. When he returned, Emily had unwound her muffler and was  rising from her seat, struggling with her coat.

"Don't be silly." He drew off her coat and set her back in the chair.  "Here," he said, and held the washcloth gently to her chin.

"Oh! Don't, really. It's nothing."

He said nothing. The coals hissed behind him; the clock ticked. Emily's  breath rushed warm and fragrant against his cheek. Her lips had parted  slightly as he pressed the washcloth on her skin, and her teeth peeked  out in a thin white line between them. He imagined running his tongue  along that alluring seam of rosy lip, opening her mouth millimeter by  millimeter, until he was tasting her deeply. Until she was tasting him.                       
       
           



       

Ah, how would Emily taste?

She lifted her hand and placed it over his. "Thank you."

Her fingers were still cool from the January air. The light touch  trapped him, held him utterly captive on his knees before her. The glow  of the fire illuminated her skin, as if she were lit from within.

Kiss her. For God's sake, kiss her.

With inhuman effort, he lifted his hand away from her chin. "Let me pour your tea. That will warm you quickly enough."

"I am quite warm already, thank you."

He rose and poured the tea with his shaking hand.

"Mr. Brown," she said, in that voice of hers, perfectly low and perfectly dulcet, "I have another impertinent question for you."

He couldn't help smiling. "What is it, Emily?"

"Why am I here?"

He added the cream and sugar, stirred with a tiny silver spoon, and  placed the cup and saucer in her waiting hands. "Since you must know  your own motivation, I can only assume you're asking me why I wish you  to visit me every week. The answer is that I enjoy the pleasure of your  company."

"That's not an answer. It's a drawing-room pleasantry. You know perfectly well what I mean."

Ashland did not want tea this evening. Not that he ever wanted tea; he  had drunk too much of it in India, and the taste reminded him of other  things, unpleasant things. He went to the fireplace instead and rested  his right elbow on the mantel, which somewhat relieved the ache in his  missing hand. "But I do enjoy your company. Is that somehow  inexplicable?"

"You know we cannot go on like this. You must make a decision eventually."

"What decision?"

"Whether we will lie together or not."

The porcelain clinked as she lifted the teacup to her lips, drank, and  set it down again. Ashland watched her lips as they parted to accept the  tea, her throat as she swallowed, her fingers as they curled around the  delicate white S-curve of the handle.

She went on, into his silence. "I presume you're wrestling with the  morality of it all. But surely it's just as much a betrayal of your  marriage vows to sit in a room alone with another woman, to undress her,  to watch her nearly naked as she sits at a table and reads to you. To  pay her for the service. After such an intimate relation, what does it  matter if copulation occurs or does not?"

"It matters to me." He turned to the wall and rested his chin on his forearm. "It matters to you, I daresay."

"We will leave my own desires aside, for the moment. The dilemma is yours."

Ashland left the fireplace and walked to the window.

She continued. "Don't think me unfeeling. I can see how it pains you. I presume your wife is no longer living with you?"

"She left me twelve years ago." He fingered the windowpane. He felt he owed her the truth, as much as he could tell her.

"I see. Have you never considered a suit of divorce for abandonment?"  She said the word divorce crisply, without emotion, as she might refer  to the glazed orange cake lying in slices on a flute-edged plate atop  the tea table.

"I have not. I returned from war a different man, a beast, maimed and  charmless. Her departure was not without provocation." A tiny smudge  marred the corner of the glass; he wiped at it with his thumb. "And I  had made a vow, of course. A vow before God."

"So did she. For better or for worse, and yet she left you in your  trouble, and did not return." The porcelain clinked again. "Did she  leave alone?"

Ashland closed his eyes to shut out the dark-haired image of the Earl of Somerton. "She did not."

Emily whispered, "Oh, my dear sir."

He turned from the window to face her. She was still sitting before the  fire, but she'd placed the cup and saucer on the table and sat with her  hands together in her lap and her head bowed. "I don't require your  compassion," he said.

"It is not compassion," she said. "It is admiration."

He stared at her golden head, and his breastbone, his ribs, his muscles  and skin, his every defense fell away from his chest and left only his  madly beating heart. "I have a son," he said.

She lifted her head. "I'm sure he's a fine boy."

"He is. He's nearly sixteen. He has . . ." The words had to be pushed  from his throat. "He has been everything, and he is her son. He was born  from her own body. To betray her flesh is to betray his."

"She didn't share your conviction."

"We are not discussing her behavior. We are discussing mine."

Emily bent her head again and stared at her fingers. When she spoke, her  voice was choked with tears. "My dear Mr. Brown. Where does that leave  us?"