Thomas would shower Emma with love and affection so she would forget this ordeal and never want to leave him. He would prove to her he was a man worthy of her love. He would do anything . . .
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
After a fortnight Emma’s face had healed. The bruises were now nothing more than faint yellow stains, easily hidden by face powder. Her mind, however, still needed time to heal. She knew from her experience as a child that it would take many months before she felt safe again.
Time would have to pass before she would stop looking over her shoulder constantly.
Time needed to pass before she would trust strangers or even minor acquaintances.
Time needed to pass before she would trust her instincts again.
When Thomas first brought her back home he told her everything about her father, even her real name and the scandal attached to her family. Emma now held a letter, handwritten by her papa, in her trembling hands. A letter she knew would explain even more.
My Dearest Daughter,
I pray this letter finds you well. If you are reading it you must be either married or twenty-five. If you are married, I hope the duke found you a husband who loves and cherishes you. If not, I hope your life is everything you ever hoped it would be.
Please forgive me for deceiving you. I had every intention of explaining things in person, but the cancer spread much too quickly through my body, and I knew I would never make the crossing back to America. I did the only thing I knew how; I planned for your future as best I could.
Do not think too harshly of the duke as I toyed with him and gave him no choice but to do my bidding. I will always love and watch over you from heaven with your mama.
You have my love, always,
Papa
Tears streamed down Emma’s cheeks as she thought about her papa. Everything he’d done, he’d done for her. Everything Thomas had done, he’d done for her. In her heart, she knew it was time to forgive and become a real wife in every sense of the word.
But how did she broach the subject without being embarrassed?
***
When Emma heard her husband’s footsteps late that night in his bedchamber adjoining hers, she climbed out of bed, ignoring her robe draped across the foot of it. She would go to him in her thin, sheer night rail. The one she had planned to wear on their wedding night.
Without knocking, she opened the door.
Her husband stood in front of the fireplace wearing breeches and shirtsleeves. He held a glass of amber liquid cradled in his hands. At the sight of him, Emma’s stomach flipped and her heart burst with love. Thomas turned, his piercing blue eyes meeting hers across the dimly lit room.
“Is there something you need, my love?” he asked in his husky voice that never failed to excite her.
Slowly, Emma walked toward Thomas and whispered, “Yes. I need you.”
Thomas’s handsome face broke into a smile as he took her in his arms and swung her around and around, laughing as he did. “I have been waiting so long.”
Then he was serious. He released her by sliding her down his body so her feet barely touched the floor. His trembling hands moved up her sides to cup her face, and his deep blue eyes looked into her very soul.
“Are you sure? Are you ready?” Thomas asked.
There was no stopping the flames of arousal licking inside her body. If he didn’t make her his soon, she would surely perish.
“Yes. I want us to be together in every possible way.”
No sooner had the words left her lips than Emma found herself picked up and tossed down in the middle of the large tester bed. Her eyes never left her husband’s eyes as he undressed. Until she saw his manhood, large, erect, and waiting to join with her body.
Emma thought she would be nervous to lay with Thomas for the first time, but now she was nothing of the sort. Anticipation hummed inside her body and mind. She wanted nothing more than to love and be loved by him, and now their joining seemed the most natural way two human beings could love one another.
Before Thomas joined her in bed, Emma swallowed her modesty and pulled her night rail over her head and tossed it to the floor. Then she lay back, naked, unashamed, her arms held out, waiting for her husband to join her.
“Emma, you take my breath away.” Thomas stood beside the bed, his eyes taking in her nakedness and causing Emma’s face to burn. “You are beyond perfect. Whatever I did in my short life to deserve you I’ll never know. But I can promise you this. I will cherish you until the day I die.”
When Thomas’s large heavy body pressed down on hers, she was lost to the sensation of his lips and hands skimming along her sensitive skin and touching her intimately everywhere.
“I love you so much,” Thomas whispered into her ear, tickling her with his hot breath.