How to Tame Your Duke(54)

"Who sent you?"

The man lurched up. Ashland sent another fist into his jaw, and this time he went still into the pavement.

"Damnation," Ashland muttered.

A low cry floated behind him. He whipped around.

In the blur of darkened bodies shifting through the fog, he couldn't  make anything out. Four people, maybe five. The hard smack of a fist  connecting with flesh. A howling cry. Emilie's voice, shouting  something.

Ashland's pistol dug into his ribs, but the quarters were too close for  bullets. He reached for the knife in the grass, leapt forward, and  grabbed the nearest figure. Broad, bulky: not one of the women. Ashland  had at least eight inches of height on the man. He brought his right  elbow down hard in the juncture of neck and shoulder, and the attacker  crumpled to the ground without a sound.

In the murky darkness, Emilie's pale face flashed by, her neck enclosed by a thick woolen arm.

A white glare lit behind Ashland's eyes. He let out a low growl,  balanced the knife in his hand, and thrust his stump forward with  exacting precision, just to the right of Emilie's ribs, directly into  her attacker's gut.

The man's grip loosened. Emilie dug her elbow into his ribs. He released  her with an oof, and even before Emilie had slumped forward, Ashland  took the man about the chest and laid the knife against his throat.                       
       
           



       

"Who are you?" he growled. "Who sent you?"

The man gasped something.

"What's that?"

A shot cracked out. Something blurred before his eyes.

"Damn it to hell!" Ashland said. He threw the man heavily to the ground and grabbed Emilie's hand. "To the carriage!"

"I can't leave Stefanie!" she cried.

"Right here." Hatherfield's voice came at his ear, calm and steady. "Shot came from the river."

"Take the women to the carriage. I'll cover." Ashland drew out his pistol.

"Right-ho." Hatherfield dashed off, herding Emilie and Stefanie, and  Ashland turned to the river. It was encased in fog, ghostly and  impenetrable. How the devil could anyone have aimed a pistol from there?

Another shot cracked out. A bullet whistled past his ear.

Not the river. The bridge.

Ashland swore. At his feet, the man stirred, but there was no time to  deal with him. Ashland hurried toward the carriage, half running,  keeping his pistol trained toward Albert Bridge. Hatherfield was  bustling the women in, shielding the door with his body.

"Go south," Ashland said to the driver, swinging in behind Hatherfield. "Away from the bloody bridge."

The carriage lurched forward as he shut the door. Ashland found Emilie, scooped her up, and crushed her into his chest.

* * *

There will be no ball tomorrow," said Ashland. He was holding the knife  in his hand, turning it about in the trace of light from the carriage  window. They had just seen off Stefanie and her marquess into an  anonymous black hansom cab on the Brompton Road, and the interior of the  carriage had grown heavy with the shock of aftermath.

"We can't cancel it now."

He looked at her. "Are you mad? You were nearly killed just now."

"He wasn't trying to kill me. If he were, I'd be dead."

"Then what was he doing?"

"Trying to take me away. To kidnap me." She spoke quickly, her words  running together. Her brain kept jumping about, as if struck by a charge  of electricity, unable to settle into logic. She tried to remember the  exact sequence of events, but she could only muster flashing  impressions. The elation of seeing Stefanie, touching and talking to  Stefanie, as if they'd only been parted for hours instead of months. The  sudden attack, the arm squeezing her neck, the flight to the carriage.

Had it all really happened? To her, the quiet and unremarkable Emilie?

"Oh, a thousand times better, then." Ashland tucked the knife into the  pocket of his overcoat, and a trace of a wince passed across his face.

"You're hurt!"

"It's nothing. A nick."

She grabbed his left sleeve. A rent showed through the cloth at the  forearm; the edges were wet. "It's not a nick! You've been cut!"

"For God's sake, Emilie. I've seen worse."

She looked up at his scarred face. Guilt washed over her heart. "Yes,  but you're not in the Afghan wilderness anymore. You're in London.  You're with me."

He touched her cheek. "Yes."

A streetlamp ghosted along his face. His expression was soft with  longing, the way it had looked when she had first removed her blindfold  in the hotel room at Ashland Spa.

Weeks ago, a lifetime ago. How she'd missed him, the open and unguarded Ashland.

She unbuttoned her coat and jacket and waistcoat, revealing her white  shirt. She pulled one tail free from her trousers. Before Ashland could  protest, she took the knife from his pocket and started a tear in the  fabric.

"Damn it, Emilie. We're a quarter hour from home. I'm not going to bleed to death."

But he let her ease his arm from his coat and jacket. He let her roll  back the sleeve of his shirt to reveal a cut, not particularly long or  deep-thank goodness for well-made winter woolens-but still leaking  blood. She wiped away the excess and bound it up.

"There. That's better, isn't it?" His thick forearm lay passively in her hands, without so much as a flex of muscle.

"Much better."

His voice was husky. She looked up, and her silly eyes filled. "I'm  sorry, Ashland. I'm so sorry for all this. You haven't deserved any of  it."

"No, I don't. I don't deserve you at all."

She whispered, "Oh, you fool."

She released his arm and put her hands to his cheeks. They were warm and  damp beneath her palms, from exertion and from the relentless London  fog. The leather half-mask had molded to his skin.

"You fool. You're too good for me. You fool." She lifted herself from  the seat and straddled his thighs. "You fool." She kissed his mouth.                       
       
           



       

"Emilie." The single word was hardly more than a rumble in his chest.

Ashland's lips savored hers, too slowly. She thrust her tongue between them and stroked the silken lining of his mouth.

All at once, his arms were bound across her back. He urged her into his  body; his mouth returned her kiss as if to consume her. She cradled his  hard and muscled lap between her legs, his unstoppable strength, and she  ground herself into him. "I want you," she said. "Now."

"Emilie . . ."

"Now, Ashland. Please."

Ashland's fingers thrust against the waistband of her trousers and  fumbled with the fastening. It fell open, and his hand slipped down to  caress her, his thumb rubbing against her nub, his index finger sliding  down her lips and surging inside her. She cried out.

"God, you're wet, you're so wet," he said in wonder.

She went up on her knees. He brought down her trousers in brutal tugs,  forcing them past the seat cushions and down to her ankles. The air was  cold on her skin, but she hardly noticed, with Ashland's hot fingers  sliding up to wrap around her bottom. She tore at the fastening of his  trousers, unbuttoning his flies. Her bones shook at the shape of his  hardness through the fabric.

His fingers dipped into the cleft of her bottom. His cock filled her hands, too much to hold.

"Put your arms around my neck, Emilie," he said.

Ashland's breath rushed in hot gusts against her jaw. Tiny beads of  sweat had broken out on his brow, as if he were fighting some unseen  battle. She brought her arms up around his neck, anchoring herself, and  he guided her downward, bringing her to rest on the tip of his vertical  member.

"Ashland." Emilie's mind went white with need.

"Easy, now." With two gentle fingers he parted her lips and nestled  himself inside the outermost walls of her passage. "Make it last."

"I can't," she panted, wriggling downward on him, desperate.

He held her buttocks firmly in check. His voice was stern. "Make it last."

She eased herself down, begging softly at the infinite delight, the steady encroaching size of him.

"That's it. That's it." He groaned the words.

Deeper and deeper he went. The carriage jounced, but he steadied her,  keeping them joined, until with a last rough little tilt of his hips, he  buried himself fully inside.

"Oh my God," she said. He was bone deep, lodged in place against the  entrance to her womb. She shifted her hips to relieve the ache, but  there was nowhere to go.

"Emilie." He kissed her neck, her jaw, her ear, frantic and tender.

She lifted herself carefully back up. Their bodies made a slick sound, wet flesh against flesh, richly carnal.

The jolting of the carriage brought her down again. A lurching turn, and  Ashland swore savagely, fighting to keep her atop him. His hips tilted  upward, seeking hers, and she came down hard, lifted herself, and  slammed down again with an inhuman growl of satisfaction at the  pleasure-pain of it, the sweet bruising heat of cramming herself full of  Ashland. Over and over she drove home his eager cock, while he muttered  lewd and thrilling words into her ear to the frantic beat of her  movements: telling her how to use him, telling her what she did to him.