by Mary Balogh
Emmy. Part of him leapt with hope and with gladness. But the saner part of him knew that she was the last person he wanted to see at this moment. He was not in a mellow mood. However, there was little point in saying anything. In the darkness and at this distance it was unlikely that she would be able to read his lips.
She came up the rocks toward him, her eyes on him the whole time. She stood in front of him, close to him, looking at him. She made no attempt to say anything, as she could have done with her eyes and her hands. He knew very well why she had come. It was why she had always come. She had come to listen. She had come to give of herself.
“No, Emmy.” He shook his head. “Go back to the house. Go back to bed.”
But she touched her fingertips to his chest and then to her own heart. Speak to me. It was a gesture that had been part of their silent language. Not just Talk, but Speak to me; tell me more than facts; open your heart.
“There is nothing to say.” He laughed harshly. “You heard it, Emmy. They died and I blame myself. I am filled to the brim with bitterness and self-pity and am no decent company for anyone. Least of all you, on this of all days. The happiest day of your life. Go away.”
But she shook her head. She was watching his lips intently. She touched them very briefly before beckoning with her fingers. Speak to me. Tell me. She touched his heart with her fingertips again.
He felt a sudden, shocking, and quite unexpected stabbing of desire. And realized fully the danger.
“Listen to me, Emmy.” Desire converted quickly into anger—annoyance against her dangerous innocence in coming to him alone like this, in the middle of the night; fury against his unwanted response to her. “We are out here alone together, a single man and a single woman in the dead of night. The impropriety of it would be obvious to an imbecile. The danger of it should be apparent even to an innocent like you. Go home while you have the chance.”
But being Emmy, she could see beyond his anger. Her eyes, gazing deeply into his, told him so. Let me share it, she begged him without having to use her hands at all. But then she did lift her hands to cup his face gently in her palms. One of her thumbs brushed his lips. Speak to me. This had never been part of their language. But it was very eloquent.
She was incredibly, foolishly generous, as she had always been. This surely must have been a deliriously happy day for her, and yet she had made room in it for him. This morning and again now. For old times’ sake she was offering all her understanding and sympathy. She was offering her deaf ears for his dark secrets. She was offering her ability to probe beyond words. She wanted to soothe his pain.
And all he could do in return was—desire her. He felt himself harden into uncomfortable arousal. He took her hands from his face and held them tightly in the space between them.
“I have no use but one for you tonight, Emmy,” he said harshly. “Go away while you may. Go!” And yet he clung, without realizing it, to her hands.
She raised their joined hands and set the backs of his against her cheeks. Emmy. Dangerously innocent or dangerously courageous or both. Feeling his need and not really caring how that need showed itself. Prepared to give all that was needed to comfort him. Prepared to give until there was nothing more to give. Emmy, his savior—the forgetfulness and the peace he had sought single-mindedly since leaving India, not knowing that it was she he sought.
He groped blindly for her mouth with his own, his eyes tightly shut. Her lips were cool, closed, trembling, pushing back against his. He pressed his tongue urgently against the seam of her lips and she opened to him, so that he tasted all the warmth and moistness and sweetness of the inside of her mouth. He withdrew his tongue and thrust deeply inward again. Desire was one strong, insistent pulse in him. He was still gripping her hands. He had lowered them from her cheeks and was using them to keep the rest of their bodies from touching. He raised his head.
“’Tis your ruin you have come to tonight, Emmy,” he said. “’Tis the only use I have for you. Go away. Leave me.” He felt unfamiliar and unexpected tears spill down one cheek and then the other.
She removed her hands from his, but even as he felt a mingling of panic and relief, expecting that she would turn and bound away down the rocks, she stepped closer and set her arms around his waist. She leaned lightly against him, turning her head to rest one side of it against his shoulder. He could feel all the warmth of her generosity. All her incredible foolishness. He wondered if she fully understood.
He drew a deep breath and wrapped his arms about her. He shuddered.
“Damn you,” he said, lowering his face to her hair. “Damn you, Emmy. Damn you.” He knew she could not hear him. He swallowed—and swallowed again.
And then he had a hand beneath her chin, lifting her face so that she would see his lips. So that there would be no doubt of her knowing.
“If you wish to give me comfort tonight, Emmy,” he said, “it must be as a woman. My need for you tonight is physical.” He took her hand in his, turned it palm out, and brought it against the front of his breeches, beneath his cloak. He was trying desperately to shock her. Her eyes widened, but there was no real alarm in them. “Go now. Go while you still can. While I can still allow you to leave.”
With all his mind he willed her to go. With his eyes he begged her to stay. She heard only what his eyes had to say. And she had come to give—whatever he needed. He knew that and did not have the strength to reject her gift.
He scooped her up into his arms suddenly and strode downward with her. Part of him—the cold, rational, intellectual part—could still not believe that this was going to happen, that one of them would not impose sanity on a dangerous situation before it was too late. But his body burned for hers; with blind instinct he yearned for her.
He set her down on her feet on the grassy bank beside the river, removed his cloak and spread it on the ground, removed her cloak, and laid her down.
“Emmy.” He came down beside her, leaned over her, brushed his lips lightly over hers, touched a warm, firm breast through her dress, and tried to tell himself that it was still not too late. But it was. It was far too late. He lifted her loose dress with both hands, and her shift with it; then she raised her arms so that with one motion he could remove the garments entirely. He dropped them above her head. She was wearing nothing else; she had kicked off her shoes when he had laid her down. Ah, rash, innocent Emmy.
He made love to her with urgent, ungentle hands and lips, touching, stroking, pressing, sucking. She touched him with warm, gentle hands and made strange low sounds in her throat. He had no time to undress. Need was a pulse that drowned out even the sound of the falls, and a pain that drove him onward to release and oblivion and obliterated conscience. He undid the front of his breeches, his fingers fumbling with the buttons.
He tried to mount her slowly. She was slick with wetness, but the passage was tight and virgin. He felt the barrier. He felt it stretch and thought it would never give and release her from pain. But then it was gone, and he eased his full length inside her. He could hear someone sobbing. Himself. She was crooning to him with unknowing sounds.
He waited in an agony of patience, giving her time to adjust to the hard and painful invasion of her body. He had his hands spread beneath her in an unconscious attempt to cushion her against the hardness of the ground. His face was buried in her hair, which had come loose from its ribbon.
He tried to take her slowly, but she had lifted her legs and wrapped them about his own, and pivoted her hips, so that his pain was enclosed in a cradle of soft, warm womanhood. He drove into her, far too deeply, far too fiercely, half aware that this was all wrong. It was all give on her side, gentle, generous giving, and all take on his side, harsh, selfish taking.
But she gave.
And he took.
He heard himself shout out as he burst and spilled into her. He heard himself sobbing as one of her hands smoothed over h
is back while the other softly played through his hair.
And then for a few blessed moments or minutes or hours he lost himself. For a few moments he found what he had blindly sought for a whole year and longer, and rested in it.
9
SHE gazed up at the stars, finding the formation that always reminded her of a giant soup ladle with a slightly bent handle. She lay still and quiet and uncomfortable, cradling his too-thin body with her arms and legs while he slept. She would hold him all night if necessary.
She knew she had deceived herself. She knew she had come because she loved him. She knew she had come to comfort him. She had known and admitted those facts before she came. But she knew now that she had come with the sole purpose of giving—of giving herself, if that was what he needed. And she had known deep down that her mere sympathetic presence would not be enough, as it had used to be. She had known that the passing of the years would have made all the difference. Even then, seven years ago, when he had been leaving her, the change had been coming. He had begun to be aware of her as a woman, and so the possibility of pure friendship had been disappearing.
Of course, she had always loved him as a woman loves a man. Even at the age of fourteen she had known that her love for him involved the whole of her person, body as well as mind and emotions.
She had come tonight to give her body for his comfort if that was what he needed.
And so she had betrayed the promise she had made to herself just that morning. Worse—far worse—she had betrayed another promise. She had involved another person in her betrayal. Other people. She thought of her own family, and of Lord Powell’s. He had written to them that morning and sent the letter on its way.
Tomorrow she would know bitter remorse. She would live with guilt and remorse for the rest of her life. She doubted she would ever forgive herself.
It was all her fault. Entirely. He had been completely frank with her. He had not only given her the chance to stop it and to escape to the house, he had urged her to do so—more than once. And she did not have the plea of innocence. She had known—deep down she had known—almost from the first moment. Perhaps before the first moment. Perhaps she had known it before she left her room.
It had been different from what she had expected. Not sweet union, sweet romance. It had hurt. Constantly, from the first moment. From the moment he had started to push into her. He had felt too big. She was still sore. He was still inside her, though she was no longer stretched painfully by his hardness. There had been no shared emotion, no shared tenderness, as she had dreamed there would be in such an intimate act. It had not been an act of love—not in the romantic sense, anyway. She did not believe he had enjoyed it. But then it had not been done for enjoyment.
She could not feel sorry. She could not feel the wrongness of it. She could only think about her own guilt and think about her sorrow for those innocent people she had wronged tonight. But she could not feel sorry.
He was at peace. For these few moments at least he was at peace.
She thought of the kind of grief and guilt that could still torment him so even after a year. Of the kind of love there must have been to have left such a storm of darkness behind it. She was exquisitely lovely, Emmy . . . Is it any wonder I tumbled head over ears in love with her?
She stared upward at the stars, her fingertips still absently massaging his head through his hair.
And then she knew that he was awake. There was tension in his body, a vibration in his chest. He had said something. He drew free of her body and lifted himself to one side of her, sliding an arm beneath her neck and about her shoulders as he did so. Cool air rushed at her naked body, but he reached over and drew his cloak about her. She could see his face quite clearly in the moonlight.
He gazed at her for a long while before he spoke. “You have given a great and reckless gift this night, Emmy,” he said at last. “I cannot condemn you. I am too touched by your enormous generosity. I can only wish that I had had firmer control over my desires. I will forever regret what I have just done to you.”
No, not that. No regrets. It had happened. And it had happened because he had had need of her and the need had shown itself in physical form. She had come to bring him comfort, not more guilt. No, not regret. Not forever. Forever was too long a time.
“No,” he said, “I know you will never blame me, Emmy. You never did. You never asked anything for yourself, did you? You encouraged selfishness in me, and I readily took advantage of what you offered. All those years ago and again tonight. Well, it will be my turn now. My turn for the rest of my life.”
Though she did not catch every word he spoke, she could see the bitterness in his face. But he did not give her the chance to reply. He set his mouth to hers, his lips closed, and kept it there for a long time, one hand firm against the back of her head.
“I hurt you,” he said when he finally put a little distance between them.
She did not reply. It had been merely a physical thing. He had not hurt her.
He put a handkerchief into her hand, but she looked at him, uncomprehending. And so he took it from her and used it himself, setting it gently against her sore and throbbing flesh, cleansing away what she guessed must be blood, folding it, and pressing it lightly but firmly against her again, soothing her.
She turned her face in against his chest and closed her eyes. She was soothed by the vibrations, though she did not know what he said. If it had been important he would have lifted her chin so that she could see his lips. His hand massaged her head as hers had done for him just a few minutes before.
She wondered what the future would be like now that there had been this between them. She wondered if it would be more or less bearable than the past seven years had been. But suddenly she knew she would be fooling herself if she imagined even for one moment that it would be more bearable. She knew him now with her body as well as her heart. She had loved him with her body. She had given herself with the whole of her being, but it was her body he had taken, coming inside her and using her as a woman.
She did not regret it. She knew that tomorrow and perhaps for the rest of her life she would bitterly regret many aspects of what had happened tonight. But she knew equally that she would never regret loving Ashley. With her body as well as with every other part of herself. She always had loved him. She always would.
Without even realizing that she was close to doing so, she slept.
• • •
She had slept, he guessed, for well over an hour. Perhaps two. Deeply. As he might have expected Emmy to sleep, warm and relaxed and trusting.
But finally she stirred and looked at him and smiled—how could she smile when she had been so misused tonight?—and moved away from him in order to sit up and pull on her shift and her dress. He adjusted his own clothing, shook out their cloaks, set hers about her shoulders and buttoned it at her throat, pulled his own about him, and led the way through the trees back to the house.
He considered sending her on ahead of him when they came to the open lawn and keeping an eye out for her safety—for her safety!—but he rejected the idea. If they were seen together, what difference would it make now anyway? Tomorrow everything must change. He walked beside her, not touching her, not saying anything. He had not spoken a word since she woke up.
He took her to the door of her room and opened it for her. But there was not enough light for her to see his lips. He put his arms about her and set his lips to hers. Without passion. Merely a good-night embrace.
“Thank you, Emmy,” he said afterward, though he knew she could not hear him. “For what you tried to do and for what you did, thank you. Good night, little fawn.”
He took a step back and waited until she had closed the door between them.
He spent most of the rest of the night standing fully clothed at his window.
He had debauched Emmy.
Through all th
e darkness that had engulfed his life in the past three years, he had finally touched the very heart of darkness. He had taken sweet and bright innocence and destroyed it, pulling it into the darkness with him.
And perhaps she did not even know it yet.
Emmy!
• • •
The Earl of Royce had walked with his wife and child and some of his nieces and nephews out to the hill behind the house. Ashley was strolling alone on the terrace when they returned. He declined the children’s eager invitation to play, and Constance, throwing him a look of sympathetic apology, herded them into the house. Victor would have followed them after nodding amiably, but Ashley stopped him.
“I would have a word with you, Royce, if I might,” he said.
“Certainly. ’Twould be my pleasure,” Victor said, making to stroll along the terrace instead of accompanying his wife and the children indoors. He schooled his features to quiet sympathy.
“In greater privacy,” Ashley said. “Luke is out riding. The study will be unoccupied.”
“Certainly.” Victor looked somewhat surprised, but he followed Ashley willingly enough.
Ashley closed the door of the study behind them and half smiled as he stood against it. “This is going to come as something of a shock to you,” he said. “Especially in light of some of yesterday’s events. But I must ask you for Emmy’s hand.”
Victor, who had been in the process of seating himself, changed his mind. He stared blankly. “Emily,” he said. “Her hand?”
“In marriage.” Ashley clasped his hands behind him.
“In marriage.” The earl still looked blank. “She is already betrothed. To Powell.”
“But ’tis me she will marry,” Ashley said quietly. “She is of age. I do not need your permission except as a courtesy. But there is the matter of a marriage settlement. I am well able to give her the sort of life the daughter of an earl might expect.”
