And then she fell slack, and he did too, and the colors and shapes in the room all swung back into place. She listened to the sound of their labored breathing. He had collapsed on top of her, his head in the crook of her neck. He gathered her up, holding her tightly against him, and she flopped an arm across his back.
When her breathing had almost returned to normal, she said, “Would you be insulted if I found your description of this endeavor to be wholly insufficient?”
He laughed and slowly lifted his head. “Was it? And what, madam, did I leave out?”
“Well, you left nothing out certainly,” she joked, and he laughed, “but your suggestion, I believe, was that we would enjoy it.”
“By this do you mean that you did not?”
“I suppose ‘enjoy’ faintly suggests what I felt. But it’s more like I was ‘swallowed whole’ by it.”
He sighed at this, and she could see that she had pleased him.
“Yes, well,” he said, his voice going a little hoarse, “we’ll get to that.”
“Oh, another lesson,” she teased. “I do hope you’ll go over everything first as if I’m a lily-white maiden, and you were the first man to ever dream it up.”
He shouted then, the sound of fake outrage and laughter and—oh how she hoped—love. She loved him so much in that moment she felt her heart would burst with it.
But she wouldn’t say it now, knowing somehow that it would spoil the moment; and anyway, he’d rolled in the bed, taking her with him, and she absolutely did not want to miss whatever came next.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
When Beau awakened on the morning after his wedding and blinked at the ceiling of his brother’s home, his first thought was, This might actually succeed.
He turned and stared at his wife’s sleeping face beside him on the pillow. Her slight, delectable body had wedged against him, and she slept unabashedly nude, as he had done.
There was always the chance that she would awaken shy and apologetic, but he would be surprised if this happened. She hadn’t been the least bit nervous last night. They’d made love three times, each interlude more intimate and brazen than the last, and she’d betrayed not a moment of hesitation.
And this was why he was hopeful. She’d always tempted him, but he had not known if she could excite him. Forever. Until death did they part. He’d married her to free her from the Duke of Ticking. In doing so, he’d refused to dwell of his own freedom and simply . . . hoped for the best. In fact, he’d been breathless to discover the best. How gratifying to discover that their promising preludes were but a fraction of the passion she would eventually offer. She was a minx in bed, playful and open and so enthusiastic. If he had to have a wife, he could think of no better wife to have.
He looked forward, in fact, to having her just as soon as possible.
In the meantime, he would ring for coffee and breakfast and task Sewell with locating something fresh for her to wear. As much as Beau resented the responsibility of servants, he could see the advantage when he considered someone else’s comfort besides his own.
He’d never thought of anyone else’s comfort, of course—if he had, he might not have found the courage to really marry her. But this did not mean that he could not anticipate what she might need or figure out how to get it. He was resigned to learn as he went. And Emma was a self-reliant girl; he would not have married her if she’d been helpless or needy. Best of all, she was perfectly capable of telling him what she needed when she needed it.
He pulled on his trousers and a clean shirt, thinking of her many needs from the night before. When he looked in the mirror to button his shirt, he saw he was smiling.
“But look at you,” Emmaline said from the bed. “Fresh clothes, a smile on your face. I think marriage suits you.”
Beau turned to her and immediately froze. She was propped up in bed with only the sheet and her long hair to cover her. “Perhaps,” he said, crossing to the bed. “The clean clothes were always here. I sleep in this room whenever I stay with my brother. Space is limited, as you might expect, on the boat.”
“Your room?” she mused, looking around. “Elisabeth told me yesterday I would inhabit the viscountess’s suite after we were married.”
He cringed. “Is that what you want? The big rooms upstairs?”
She’d been a duchess before yesterday, and a rich man’s daughter before that, he thought. Of course, she would expect nice accommodation and nice things.
She shrugged. “I don’t care, really. We’ll be sailing for New York soon. I . . . I should like to share a room with you.” She licked her lips and looked away. “If you prefer this room, I don’t mind.”
Beau breathed more easily. He said, “I prefer my boat, but I will not subject you.”
“We would be hard-pressed to fit comfortably inside that terrible boat. You know that when you married me, you took on Teddy too.”
“Yes,” he said, “I know.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “There is a lot we did not discuss before we did this. Where we would live, what our lives would be like.”
She giggled. “I’d venture to say we discussed nothing before we did this.”
He nodded, watching for some disapproval from her. “It was better that way for me. If we said too much, I might not have been able to do it, Duchess.”
“I’m not a duchess now,” she teased. “Perhaps you should refer to me as Viscountess.”
He blinked at her and looked away, not wanting to spoil the pleasant moment. This was another thing they had not discussed. His hated title was now squarely on her shoulders too.
He walked to the window. “I should like to call you Emma,” he said, staring down.
“All right,” she answered.
“And when we sail for New York, I should like us to be referred to as Mr. and Mrs. Courtland. I—” He stopped, glanced at her, and then started again. “As you know, I use the title as little as possible.” Another pause. “Your journey to America appealed to me because nobility matters so much less there.”
“Why?”
He looked up. Why? The usual reasons sprang to mind. Because I am lazy and irreverent and disobedient.
But she deserved more than this, so he said, “Well, in America, success depends almost entirely on one’s hard work and talent, not heredity. Naturally, family support and resource—”
“Not why is nobility less valued in America,” she interrupted. “What I want to know—what I’ve always wanted to know—is why do you despise the title so much?”
He opened his mouth, ready with another of the many excuses he’d fed Bryson over the years, but she interrupted him again.
“The real reason,” she said.
It occurred to him that the very aggressiveness and curiosity that had thrilled him in the dark of night was now skewering him in the light of day. It should have grated, but he could not help but feel a little bit aroused by it, just as he’d been in bed. She challenged him, but not in a way that felt judgmental. Not in a way that hinged on whether she might stay or go. She lay casually naked in his bed. She did not appear to be going anywhere.
He ambled back to the bed and sat beside her, leaning against the headboard and stretching his legs out. “What makes you think I would delude you about it?”
“Not deluded—evaded. I have asked you this many times before, and you have always danced around the question.”
He considered this. She was too clever for her own good.
She went on. “I’ve heard you say before that men like the Duke of Ticking abuse the power given to them by the accident of their birth. If you felt so strongly about the political nature of the thing, why not run for the House of Commons?”
“Because the House of Commons does not allow bloody viscounts, of course.”
“I meant before you were a viscount. I assume you felt the same way about the nobility, even then. You could also take a seat in the House of Lords and rally for less power among these land-owning families. You�
�d be unpopular, but the notion is not unheard of.”
He cringed. “I can think of nothing I would rather do less than argue in the House of Lords. I’d rather die first.”
“But why?” she persisted, and he looked down at her. He thought of the great leap of faith she took, marrying him with little or no notice. He thought of her enthusiasm and openness in his arms. He thought of the answer to this question—the real answer, as she’d called it—which he had never shared with another living soul. He should tell her. She deserved to know. More so, he realized he wanted her to know.
“I will tell you,” he began, “if you drop the sheet.”
She squinted at him, clearly disbelieving that he would trade sexual favors for something so earnest. He cocked an eyebrow. “You decide.”
“Very well,” she said, and she scooted up in bed to sit beside him, leaning against the headboard as he did. The sheet did not follow her up. She sat, gloriously naked, beside him. She waited.
He cleared his throat. “The reason that I despise the title—and all titles—so much is that I was betrayed when I was nineteen years old by five so-called noblemen who should have known better.”
“What happened?”
He rolled his shoulders. He took up her hand and stared at their linked fingers. “In my second year at Cambridge, I was invited, along with some other classmates, to the country estate of our mutual friend, Lord Arthur Ellis, who was son and heir to the Earl of Laramie. Have you heard of him? Lord Laramie?”
She shook her head.
“Arthur’s father is dead now, and he is the earl.”
“The two of you are no longer friends?” she asked.
He scoffed at this. “No. We are not friends. But ten years ago, when I was in school, I felt lucky—indeed, I was lucky—to be included in Laramie’s circle. He was clever and accomplished. And rich. His allowance was seemingly unlimited, and he shared it generously, buying drinks and girls and even clothes for his friends.
“It was not widely known that Bryson and I were forced to take jobs to finance our own educations, but my close friends knew. Laramie knew. I had no money to spare for holidays or leisure pursuits. My clothes were passable but not fine. I did not travel. But I was . . . passably charming and able to attract females, and Arthur and his friends seemed to like me very much.
“His parents, the earl and countess, liked me too, despite the notoriety of my own parents, and I was their guest both in London and at their country estate many times. Their holding in Essex is called Hollin Hall, a sprawling estate and lavish manor house. Invitations to their quarterly weeklong parties were highly sought after. I never passed up an opportunity to visit home with Arthur. Bryson loved it when I went. He was ambitious and dazzled by high society, even then.
“And so,” he went on, dropping her hand, “at one of these country house parties, Arthur complained to me and our other assembled friends that his mother’s guests that week were boring or old or tedious. Furthermore, he convinced us to steal away after dinner to a barn on the property. Claimed to have many fine memories of this structure, as he used to ramble around it as a boy. His plan was to slip out after the meal with a little pudding and a lot of liquor and get roaring drunk, away from the disapproving eyes of his parents and their friends.”
Beau shoved out of the bed now, too restless to sit. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that it took little to convince us. We stole away, taking along enough spirits to require a horse to pull it on a cart.”
“Just the two of you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “There were six of us: Arthur, the twin sons of a wealthy baronet from Wales, the son of another earl, the third son of a duke, and me.”
“That’s quite a distinguished collective.”
Beau glanced at her. She’d returned the sheet to her chin, he noticed, covering herself. This was better. It wasn’t the sort of story that leant itself to playful barters with naked women.
“And so you stole away to the barn,” Emmaline prompted.
Beau nodded and began to pace. It was ridiculous, how clearly he remembered the beginnings of that night. Later, they would become so very drunk that the details were blurred. But he remembered how confident he’d felt among these friends. He was the second son of an impoverished viscount, his family’s title was a laughing stock, but he must be very winning and strong, indeed, he’d thought, to run in this crowd.
Beau sighed and soldiered on. “Yes—to the barn. We left a stately home and a lovely meal to sit around, telling off-color jokes, gambling, and drinking, in a drafty barn. For whatever reason, this appealed to us. For the first hour, I’m sure it was quite the lark.”
“You . . . can’t remember?”
“Not really. It was all very forgettable, I’m sure. Eventually, boredom overtook us, and we began to dare each other to risk this or that reckless thing to show off. We jumped from the hayloft. We swung from a rope on a hook high in the ceiling. And then we began to toss about the torches we’d brought for light. They were the silly, childish games of overindulged young men who should have known better.”
“Oh, no,” Emmaline said. She’d drawn her knees up to her chest. If he thought she would allow it, Beau would have left off telling the painful ending with a dismissive, “And it ended very badly, indeed . . . ”
But she would not allow it, so he stopped pacing and came to the foot of the bed.
“Anyone can guess what happened next. We were careless with the torches—more than one of them dropped into the hay stores. At first, we barely noticed. Only when a real, honest-to-God fire roared to life, with shooting flames and a heat that burned our eyes, did we realize the danger. The fire spread so quickly and consumed the barn so completely we barely staggered out with our lives. When we cleared the structure, we scattered, sprinting through the hay field, through the gardens of tenants’ houses, fleeing into the woods.”
“And so a call for help . . . ”
Beau could not look at her. “There was no call. We did not slow down to raise even a warning. Nothing. We ran like inebriated cowards into the forest and let the fire roar. Honestly, I have no real memory of this bit. I remember only the other boys waking me from a drunken sprawl at the edge of a field in the morning. The fire, by then, had burned itself out. Arthur’s parents were hysterical, searching for us.
“As we slowly came to in the woods that morning, finally sober, the other boys began to formulate a story we could tell the earl to absolve ourselves from blame. I . . . I argued against an outright lie. I enjoyed liquor and stupid boyhood larks as much as the next lad, but it felt wrong not to admit that we started the fire. I beseeched the other boys to simply tell the truth to Lord and Lady Laramie.”
“I believe you,” Emmaline said softly from the bed. “I believe you wanted to tell the truth.”
Beau sat on the bed and dropped back into a sprawl. “Oh God, I wish that was the worst of it.”
There was a pause. He wondered if he could find the words to say the rest.
Finally, she asked, “Tell me the end.”
Beau rolled into a sitting position and propped his elbows on his knees. He stared at the floor. “As we rushed back to the main house that morning, we passed by the barn, which was in ashes, but also the farms of the tenants who worked the Laramie land, tenants who used that barn to shelter and feed their livestock. They were—” He squeezed his eyes shut. “The farmhouses had burned as well. Roofs mostly, but one house had burned to the ground, just as the barn had done. The family that lost their home stood outside when we walked back to the manor house. It was impossible not to see them. They were huddled together in the charred remains of their garden, speaking to the vicar. A doctor was also there, kneeling over a victim who was hidden from our view.”
“Oh, no, Beau. Did someone die?”
He shook his head. “No—not dead. He was just a boy. One little boy, not six years old, was terribly burned, almost beyond recognition. It’s a miracle he lived
, but oh—what a difficult life he has now.”
“You know this boy?”
“Allow me to finish. My friends and I hurried on, whispering again about an excuse. I wouldn’t hear of it. I insisted that we take responsibility. As gentlemen, I told them.” Beau shook his head bitterly. “I suggested that it was our duty. For whatever reason, they eventually agreed. When we showed ourselves to Arthur’s parents, we would tell the truth about the fire.”
“Good,” she said. “Good for you—for convincing them.”
“It made no difference,” he said, turning back to drop his head in his hands. “It made no bloody difference at all. We did admit what we’d done to the earl, and he bade us return to our rooms without telling a soul. The parents of the other boys were summoned. My parents only made bad situations worse, and I dare not bother Bryson in London with such regrettable news. I told Lord Laramie that my parents were abroad but that I would accept whatever punishment the other boys took.
“When the parents arrived, we were summoned to the earl’s library, and—I’ll never forget this—the fathers of these boys worked together to contrive a story that, for all practical purposes, would free us from all blame with the local magistrate and allow us to return to school without so much as a reprimand. There was no mention made of the lost houses or the burned child. None at all.”
“No,” said Emmaline, shaking her head.
Beau went on, shoving up from the bed again. “Oh, yes. I did not know much at this age, but I knew enough to see the injustice in this. So I—a boy of nineteen years old, barely able to afford to stay in school, the son of a disgraced, bankrupt viscount—dared to contradict them. I stepped forth and respectfully suggested that it was wrong to deny starting the fire, that people’s homes had been destroyed, and at least one boy had been horribly burned. Someone must be responsible, I told them. We are all responsible, I said.”
“And they hushed you up?” Emmaline guessed.
“Well, they asked who I thought I was to suggest the moral superlative to them. And then, after discussing it in front of me like I wasn’t even there, these great noblemen changed the bloody story from its being no one’s fault to its being entirely my fault. They made me scapegoat for all of it. They turned me over to the magistrate. And they made me responsible for the damage to the barn.”
One for the Rogue Page 24
