He rewarded her by bending her back against the mattress and plundering her breasts through her chemise. The ribbons came loose, and soon he had her nipple in his mouth, suckling, until she cried surrender.
They were supposed to be going slowly, but the night air filled with song and vibrated with seduction and it had been so long. . . The flickering light gleamed in his honey-gold hair and revealed his broad, bare chest beneath the half-open shirt, and she wanted to lick him all over.
He had other plans. Emilia cried out as Dare tugged her skirt and petticoat up, and cool air caressed her thighs. She felt as if she would die of emptiness if he did not join her now. Wrapping her legs around his hips, she urged him toward her. He hastily finished unbuttoning his trousers. She whimpered with need as his male organ brushed her female petals.
“I wanted to do this properly, my love,” he murmured, coming up for air and letting a draft blow across her aroused nipples. “I have a speech prepared telling you how much I adore everything about you, how you’ve changed me for the better, and how much I will love you until the end of time. I don’t think I can remain coherent to speak it properly. Thank you for being mine.”
He loved her? Emilia was beyond thought. Grabbing the front of his shirt, she tugged him down so she could kiss him again.
As his tongue invaded, she opened for him, and wept in joy as he pushed past her petals to fill her. She didn’t have words, but this, she could do. She rose up against him, milking him with her inner muscles as he pounded her with need—until they both shattered and cried each other’s names.
The bath water was only lukewarm by the time Dare undressed his beautiful wife and dipped her into it. Emilia leaned against his shoulder and submitted to his ablutions while her silky hair caressed his skin. He loved sliding the soap over her, exploring every inch of this magical woman who had given herself to him.
“I am not hurting you, am I? I love touching you.” Now was a fine time to think of that, he knew, but she had allowed him so much already. . . He needed to adjust to knowing that being special came with consequences.
“I’m learning the differences in healing connections and personal ones,” she murmured. “This is just blissful.”
Just because he could, Dare leaned over and kissed her plush lips again. He had missed what felt like a lifetime of soul-melting kisses, and he couldn’t have enough.
“I didn’t think it could be like this,” she continued, stroking his jaw. “No books explain how it feels to love and be loved. My heart feels as if it might explode with joy. And my head wants to know why you decided kisses are now allowed. I love you and your kisses.” She brushed her mouth against his.
It was a few minutes later and the bath was even cooler before they gasped for air.
She’d just told him she loved him, even though he had done nothing but give her grief since she’d known him. “Women are beyond contrary,” he protested, pulling her from the water so he could dry her off. “How can you love a man who marries you for your money, plans to die on you, runs off to play with trains when your life’s work is in danger, and then foolishly almost dies in a brawl?”
He was afraid if he told her how stupid he actually was, that she’d flee as fast and far as she could.
She laughed. She actually laughed at his idiocies. Then she went on to explain. “Because he is the same man who doesn’t mind if I spend my time beating up herbs, working with a school that will most likely have me vilified, and who turns around and misses an important meeting to help save my life’s work. And because you see me and care enough to give me this bliss.” She gestured at the flickering candles and bouquets. “You do not need me to simper and flatter to know I exist.”
“It may be the smashed herbs and vilifying that causes lesser men to look the other way,” Dare said in amusement. “It takes a brave man to stand up to a woman who proposes to him on sight. The world is full of cowards.”
She beamed dreamily as he carried her to the bed. “And you are no coward. You face death with such manly courage that I cannot help but love you.”
“About that. . .” He tucked her beneath the covers before padding around the room, snuffing candles. When he joined her in the bed, he took her in his arms and whispered in her ear, “It’s possible that I’m not dying.”
She shot upright, suddenly wide awake. “What?”
Dare prayed he’d done everything right, even though he’d bungled the speech making. Heart pounding a little too hard, he propped himself up on his elbows and admired her pearlescent breasts in the moonlight. “Will you kill the messenger, even if he loves you?”
She chuckled and leaned over to push him back against the pillows. Her long black hair stroked his chest. “Do you think I’ve exhausted myself keeping you alive just to kill you for any reason?”
He gathered her against him and inhaled deeply of her lavender scent. “I love you. I would never have met you had I not thought I was dying. I cannot regret what we’ve done. But I do regret worrying you and my family when it’s possible I’ve simply poisoned myself.”
She dug her sharp elbows into his chest. “Explain yourself.”
So he told her of his experiments and the possibility that he’d breathed in arsenic for years.
“So you may not have consumption, are not contagious, and you may live forever?” she asked in excitement. “I just need to keep you from breathing when you work?”
He laughed and cradled her against him, luxuriating in the press of her breasts into his chest. “I’ll create some sort of mask to filter out fumes. I need to experiment more, write a paper to warn others.”
She snuggled down at his side. “It is all too much to think of just now. I am about to explode like an over-filled balloon from all the wonder of what the future might have in store. A lifetime. . . It is so very hard to imagine. But these last days, I have discovered how much I would miss living with an impossible man.”
Satisfied just to hold her and know she wouldn’t flee at the possibility of a lifetime of explosions and brawls, Dare closed his eyes and drank in the wonder of the night.
The celestial notes of a lullaby drifted through the walls. The walls hummed with excitement, Dare thought sleepily. Were they spirits? Was the place haunted?
Beside him, Emilia uttered an excited Oh. She grew momentarily still, which jarred him from foolish dreams. Fearing he’d hurt her, he sought her hand. He found both of them covering her abdomen. “Are you all right?”
She kissed his jaw. “Your child just quickened. As it says in the journals, I felt it. It’s like being handed a miracle.”
Dare froze, fearing to disturb her or the spirits or the child she couldn’t possibly know about this early. But the magic of the night and the woman whispered of truth and miracles, and he wanted to believe it with all his soul. “I will trust anything you tell me this night.”
She laughed softly. “And question in the morning. But you will see I’m right. My courses are often late, but I’ve had none since we married, you realize. It’s possible. And I felt the spirit enter me.”
“If it’s possible,” he said with a contented sigh at this explanation, “I love you more just for your mystery. Sleep. You have to save your energy to bake my child.” He said that with a pride and satisfaction he’d never experienced in all his years of success.
Emilia cradled Ashford’s lusty, bellowing heir. In the bedchamber, Bridey examined the new mother. Emilia was grateful for Bridey’s confirmation that a new white aura resided under her heart, but Malcolm instincts had already told her of the life she carried. Now, she needed to grasp the challenges she faced—a forever husband and a child.
She needed her cousin Aster to explain how she managed all her new duties of wife and mother but still kept up with her astrology studies. But Aster had gone home with Theo to oversee the estate harvest and Theo’s growing glass manufactory.
“When Serena cries without reason,” Celeste said in sympathy as Emilia awkwardly try
to quiet the squalling infant, “I try to imagine what gifts might be upsetting her. Do you think Ashford’s son might be gifted?”
“I think he’s large enough to be three-months old and won’t need anything except his fists and title to move mountains,” Emilia said dryly, watching the boy wrinkle up his face for another tempest. “Have they settled on a name yet?”
“At the moment, the list is an eternity long. He may need a brain larger than even his broad shoulders can carry to remember them. The weight of all those ancestors is heavy.” Celeste placed her sleepy daughter over her shoulder to rub her back.
“It’s a little terrifying to know we hold the future in our hands.” Emilia offered her finger for the infant to suck, thus distracting him.
A servant tapped at the door to announce, “Lord Erran has returned and wishes to visit. And Lord Dare wishes to accompany him.”
“We’re dressed. Allow them in,” Celeste called.
The men filled the feminine salon with their masculine energy and the aroma of fresh air and horses. Both exuded subdued excitement. Dare looked healthier than Emilia had ever seen him. Color had returned to his skin, although he was not as naturally swarthy as the Ives men. His gaze fell instantly on her and the babe, and his eyes lit with a lovely azure.
“Practicing?” he asked suggestively, but pride beamed from his expression.
“If your son is as demanding as this one, then you will have to tend him,” Emilia said sternly. “It’s a good thing Christie is big and healthy or this child would exhaust her within days. Do you have news you wish to impart? The two of you are practically spilling over with excitement.”
Dare settled on the settee beside her and gestured at Erran. “You did the work. You may have the honors.”
Erran shrugged and leaned over his wife’s shoulder to examine his sleeping daughter. “It is odd how honors no longer matter so much when one is blessed.”
Celeste kissed his jaw, then smacked his hand. “Tell us, O Smug One.”
The usually stern lawyer flashed a brilliant grin. “Your wish is my command, your highness.” He straightened and rested a hand against his wife’s chair back. “The duke is thrilled with the pharmacopeia. He has endorsed it fully, which made my task simple. I have negotiated a deal with a publisher who will be pleased to release it under the author name of E.M. Dare, botanist, and under the auspices of the Duke of Sommersville. The first printing will be enormous. If he sells even half of it, you will have a nice nest egg for feathering your laboratory.”
“Mixed metaphors, old man,” Dare said, hugging Emilia.
Without his hold, she might have floated straight to the ceiling. She sat stunned, unable to speak the volumes of gratitude that needed to be expressed.
Dare laughed and spoke for her. “Emilia is preparing a speech in her head that essentially says thank you a thousand times over. We are deeply in your debt.”
Emilia poked him with her elbow, reddened, and nodded agreement at the same time. Her tongue was lost. Published, at last!
Erran took a seat on the arm of his wife’s chair and lifted his sleeping daughter. “We’ll make Dare earn it back when the next election comes around. In the meantime, Will and his dogs have dug up your box with the draft copy and left it with your secretary. And Dare’s cousin Peter has been all that’s helpful in opening doors in Harrogate. Given the scene of carnage you left behind, it wasn’t an easy task.”
“How is Mr. Crenshaw faring?” Emilia asked, finally able to express her sorrow.
Dare hugged her tighter. “You are not to concern yourself with him. He carved his own path, and it is a greedy, crooked one. In related news, I’ve had my consortium working with Erran on our Harrogate problem. I hadn’t realized Peter’s wife is related to several merchants in the area. There’s a story for another day, but apparently, I have underestimated him to some extent.”
“Not to the extent that your cousin is a callous termite,” Emilia interjected.
“Selfish, entirely,” Dare agreed. “But not stupid and more honest than Crenshaw. We may set him up as our man of business in Harrogate, give him something better to do than complain that I’m not dying soon enough to suit him.”
“What did your cousin do?” Celeste asked impatiently.
“Mostly, Peter is a fountain of information. For instance, he told me that our gardener, Mr. Arthur, is actually Arthur Crenshaw, father to the wretch who took your funds and threw out your servants. Our gardener owns the house Frederick Crenshaw and his ruffian son occupied. Mr. Arthur is an old friend of Emilia’s grandfather. They worked on the bog garden together, and he’s kept it up all these years. The executor didn’t know that Frederick Crenshaw wasn’t the man specified by your grandfather as his trusted agent. The banker knew and didn’t care.”
Emilia could only stare at him in disbelief. “I remember grandda’s friend. Is that why he’s been hiding from me?”
“We should let Peter tell the story over dinner,” Erran suggested.
“He’s back?” Emilia blinked in astonishment.
“He’s to escort my family to London,” Dare acknowledged. “He’s eager to return to his family, so my mother is packing as we speak.”
“His family?” Emilia asked faintly. “The one measuring your home to see if it suits?”
Dare chuckled and kissed her forehead. “As I said, he might be more useful than I thought possible. I’ve been rather goal-directed for a long time and hadn’t really paid him much attention.”
“Goal directed being a polite way of saying obsessed with money and success?” Emilia asked with amusement, willing to be distracted.
“Ashford loves a good story,” Celeste added. “We have much to celebrate, so let us do it properly. I’ll see if Christie will be up to joining us.” Leaving Erran holding their daughter, Celeste removed the squirming protesting infant from Emilia’s arms. “Go, say farewell to your family.”
“I love you, my published author and celebrated botanist,” Dare whispered, holding out his hand to help her up, then kissing her until her toes curled.
Titles meant nothing to her, but his kisses. . . Emilia sighed her pleasure. A lifetime of kisses was the only payment she needed.
Chapter 23
Emilia was in the Wystan library searching for a volume to keep Lady Ashford entertained until dinner when William Ives-Madden entered the medieval hall carrying the odor of dog, horse, and sodden wool. Since this illegitimate Ives relation seldom graced Malcolm homes, Emilia followed her curiosity to the door to greet him.
“His Grace is on his way.” Mr. Madden took off his hat and shook it much as a wet dog does. His hair was lighter than most Ives, with a touch of gold.
Like Emilia, this Ives was not much of a talker. “Shall I ask the kitchen to hold dinner until he arrives?”
He nodded curtly. “I’ve a message from Pascoe to Ashford.”
Pascoe had stayed at the abbey to finish business. Emilia knew Bridey and her husband had been exchanging pigeon messages, so he knew about Ashford’s heir. She didn’t know why he couldn’t have sent another bird messenger instead of his nephew. Still, it wasn’t her duty to worry over the mystery of Ives ways. “Ashford and Dare are busy poisoning each other, I believe. Why don’t I have the housekeeper show you to a room where you can wash up. You can join us for dinner too.”
He looked as if he might balk, but his Ives curiosity won out. “Poisoning?”
“You can ask them. Dare is apparently very proficient at poisoning himself. I hope to ask the duke if he might verify his lungs are merely damaged and not consumptive.” Emilia signaled a servant, who led Mr. Madden away.
In excitement that she might finally meet the duke, she had the requested journals delivered to Christie while she ran up to her own room to change. A noted and Malcolm-gifted physician, the duke had actually given her dreams his blessing. Now she needed him to say that Dare was right, and he wasn’t consumptive. She wanted their child to have a father to help him gr
ow to adulthood.
A little later, Dare caught her nervously trying to decide between a black lace ribbon above the bodice of her violet gown or the silver chain she’d worn since her come-out.
“I need to buy you jewels,” he said, kissing her temple and teasing a curl of the coiffeur a maid had created for her. “Amethysts?”
“I have no notion what they are,” she admitted. “I never dine with dukes and have little reason for jewels most times.”
“You could become a celebrated author and dine with kings. You must have jewels. Why don’t you wear both those pieces of flummery? They draw the eye to your lovely throat and make me want to ravish you all over again.”
Gratefully, she kissed his cheek. “A man of decision, thank you.”
At the duke’s insistence, they held their informal dinner in the upstairs parlor so the new mothers didn’t need to be far from their infants. When Emilia entered on Dare’s arm, she nervously scanned the company. The duke was quite visible. Tall, slender, with distinguished silver-gray hair, he probed Mr. Ives-Madden’s thick hair with practiced fingers. Emilia almost erupted in laughter at the taciturn William’s dour expression.
“It doesn’t take a physician to determine that my brother has a skull as hard as rocks,” Ashford said, handing them wine glasses.
“All Ives have skulls hard as rocks,” the duke retorted, jotting notes on some papers he removed from his pocket. “But some, like William here, have pockets of intelligence.”
Dare and the women laughed. William looked relieved to have the duke’s hands off his head. His brothers, Lord Ashford and Lord Erran, merely saluted the riposte with their wine. As host, the marquess introduced Emilia to his distinguished guest.
Emilia curtseyed in awe. “Sir, I cannot express the extent of my gratitude for what you have done for my pharmacopeia.” She’d practiced that line the whole time she’d been dressing so as not to be left completely tongue-tied.
He took her hand and patted it. “Your book is brilliant. I am delighted that you thought to let me see it first. Working with Bridey, you can annotate and edit and update it regularly, and it will be a boon to mankind.”
Chemistry of Magic Page 24
