He opened to the chapter and began reading. Halfway through the second page, Socrates moved onto his lap and curled up. Emily leaned into him, and he put an arm around her shoulder.
When he reached the end of the chapter, she said, “That was lovely. Thank you.”
“Perhaps another chapter tomorrow.”
She swallowed once. “I’d like that.”
He nodded.
“By the way,” she said, “Mr. Simmons delivered tickets to Othello for this Thursday. I should like to go, unless you have plans that require me to be elsewhere. I should like to bring Miss Iddings with me. She and her mother are in London, and Miss Iddings likes the tragedies.”
“I am free that evening.” If he wasn’t, he would make sure he was.
Again, she was taken aback. “Yes, of course. Mrs. Quinn is your friend, after all.”
“And you are my wife.” He put Socrates on the floor and stood. “I shall wear one of my new waistcoats and be quite splendid.”
“I shall write to her mother to ask whether she’ll allow Miss Iddings to join us.” She yawned, covering her mouth just in time. “My goodness. I don’t know what’s come over me.” She took Rob Roy from him. “Fortunately, I’ve plenty to read tonight.”
“You’re going to continue without me?”
“Do you really want to read the book together?” She yawned again.
“I’d like that.” He moved in and swept her into his arms, surprising himself as much as her.
She cried out, “Oh!” and swung an arm around his neck to keep her balance. “What are you doing?”
“Taking you upstairs.”
She let her head fall back and laughed. “I can walk, sir.”
“I can carry you, ma’am.” She was such a small woman. He towered over her, outweighed her by nearly eight stone. Compared to her, he was a brute and a monster, and what a lucky man he was that she liked that about him. He grinned at her. Amusing his wife was no betrayal of himself or anyone else. “Do you doubt me?”
Though she smiled in return, there was no answering rise from her. “Never,” she said.
“You don’t, do you?”
“No,” she said softly before she looked away and rested her head against his shoulder. “I never doubt you.”
He carried her all the way to her room, through the anteroom and to her dressing room. Her maid came in from the other room but retreated when she saw him. He set her down slowly, letting his hands linger. “You must admit, Lady Bracebridge, I am no weakling.”
She busied herself straightening out her skirts. “I never said otherwise.”
He knew his weakness where she was concerned, so if he was to learn more about his wife, he ought to keep his distance. Until tonight, it had only been during intimacy that he caught even a glimpse of who she was. That too, he suspected, was but a facet of the woman to whom he was married.
“Sit, my love.” He walked them toward her dressing table but gave her a quick look when he realized what he’d said. Had she noticed? No, he decided. She hadn’t, and that was for the best. He’d misspoke, that’s all. “Since I’ve frightened away your maid, I’ll prepare you for bed.”
“Very well.” She sat, hands folded on her lap. There was a plain wooden box at one corner of the dresser. Next to that were the brush and comb he had bought her in Scotland. He had been in enough boudoirs to know there was not half of what a lady of fashion kept at hand. One bottle of scent, one small bottle of lotion of the sort one got for a penny. On the opposite side was a battered leather-bound book small enough to fit into a pocket. He could read only a portion of the text imprinted on the spine: Wordsworth. So. Poetry.
He began with her hair. He touched the filigree of one of the combs he’d bought her on their way back from Scotland. “Do you like this?” he asked. He had brought her to London to outfit her, but he did not recollect seeing any receipts from a jeweler, and now that he thought about it, he couldn’t recall her wearing anything but her garnet ring. “Do you wear these often because they’re all you have?”
“Does it matter? I like them very much.”
He pulled out the other hair comb and placed it beside the other. “It matters if you feel, for some reason, you cannot purchase things you like. I intended that you would start anew. I wish I could replace the pieces that had private meaning for you, but perhaps between the two of us, we can see about making new meaning for what you have yet to replace.”
She folded her hands before her. His heart sank because he had learned to recognize when she was presenting a facade that all was well. “You needn’t concern yourself, though I appreciate the sentiment. It happens that I am a most fortunate wife. To have a husband of such bracing size.”
He said nothing more until he had removed hairpins and unraveled the braid at the back of her head. Then he moved aside her hair and brushed his fingertips over the nape of her neck. “I am a fortunate husband to have a wife who likes a bracing husband.”
“Very much.”
She sounded sad. Why? He let the silence stand, for he recognized now that she had deflected his attention, and he needed a few moments to reflect on that. The process of brushing her hair was soothing. He liked the intimacy. “Women of fashion and society have tiaras, rings, earrings. Necklaces and brooches.”
“Does it matter?”
He leaned down and braced his hands on either side of her on the dresser. “My dear. I want you to have beautiful things that make you happy. I like to see you smile. A proper husband thinks of what shall make his wife happy.” He picked up the brush again and returned to work. Gently, he untangled a spot where her hair was partially plaited. “In this very house is a safe with jewelry that belonged to previous countesses. I ought to have put those into your hands before now. I’ll have them brought up for you to choose what you like. Some of the pieces must remain in the safe if you are not wearing them, but others can certainly be here. You ought to know your choices.”
“Thank you. I should like to see.”
“I suspect I shall have to personally remedy your lack of adornment.”
“As you wish.”
“Yes, precisely. In the meantime, tell me about your day. What did you do and see when you were out?”
In the mirror, he saw her blink several times. He could not read her expression. At least now he knew she had retreated from him. A year ago, six months ago, three months ago, he’d never have known.
“We walked around Cavendish Square. I met Mrs. Strand. She lives across the square. She and Frieda became acquaintances. She and her husband have just returned from Argentina, of all places. Tomorrow, I am engaged to call on her to hear more of her adventures. Her husband is one of the Devonshire Strands. Aldreth knows him.”
“It would be pleasant to have a friend so close. Perhaps we should invite them to dinner.”
“Did I tell you I’ve had a letter from the vicar in Hinderhead? They’ve hired a teacher for the school.”
“Do you approve of the choice?”
“I do. He was my preferred candidate.” She picked up one of the combs and turned it over and over in her hands. “He is a recent graduate of Cambridge. He is bright and ambitious with excellent references, and he does not disagree with the education of girls.”
“How did you come to hear of him?”
“We advertised. He was one of five whom we interviewed. That was right before we left for London. He had glowing recommendations from two of his professors at university.”
“What else did you do today?”
She continued turning the hair comb from one side to another, stroking a finger just under the filigree. “I wrote letters. Read. Consulted with Mrs. Elliot and Pond. I think Mrs. Elliot is doing an excellent job.”
“I did not doubt that she would. She is an invaluable addition to the staff.”
“She is, isn’t she?”
“I’ve made my calls.” He referred to the custom of a newly married man leaving cards with acquaintance
s he meant to continue as appropriate to his new status in life.
“Have you?” But her smile did not reach her eyes.
“Is there anyone you recommend I call on? I’ll await your recommendation about Mr. Strand.”
Her fingers went still. “I’ll ask my sisters for a list.”
“You know as well as they, perhaps even better, who would be advantageous for me to know in this new phase of my life.”
“For reasons of politics or finance?”
“Either, I suppose.”
“Cynssyr or Aldreth can advise you better than I of what clubs you ought to join. Those two and Thrale make you more connected than most anyone.”
“I should like your opinion.”
She spoke carefully and without much inflection. She was being cautious with him, and the fault for that was his and his alone. “I suppose I might prepare a list.”
“Thank you.” He braided her hair, and when he came to the end, she handed him a ribbon. When he had assisted her out of her clothes and into her nightrobe, she went to the basin and scrubbed her face. While she did so, he picked up the book of poems she’d left on her dresser.
When she turned, still patting her face dry, she stared at his hands and the book he held. He said, “I like Wordsworth, too. Shall I read to you?”
“Yes, please.” For an instant, her delight at his suggestion turned his heart too big for his chest. Almost immediately, she smothered the reaction. “I should like that.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The night Bracebridge read Wordsworth to Emily was the start of a ritual. It happened that they shared several favorite poets but also disagreed sharply on others. Sometimes she read to him, and one night she read him a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That too, he learned, was a play she and her sisters had enacted. She was really very good at reading out loud.
The pace of their evenings together changed. And though there was still an essential part of her she did not share with him, he had learned a great deal about her that he had not formerly known. About a week after this, he joined Emily on his bed and lay on his side, propped up on his elbow, while she read from the works of Keats.
When she finished, he took a handful of her hair and curled the tresses around his finger. Anne’s hair was straight and so pale it was nearly white, but Emily’s pure gold hair was so perfectly suited to her that he had no complaints.
She moved toward him.
“Mm,” he said, flattening his hand on her shoulder. “Let me look at you awhile.” Light from the lamp Keller had left on the table threw shadows across her delectable, delicious, divine body. True, she was not as tall as he would have liked, but all the rest? A man would have to be made of stone not to appreciate her form and the unexpected lushness of her bosom.
Her eyes were bluer than Anne’s, but just as darkly lashed, and no less beautiful or lively. As he drank in the perfection of her form, he smoothed a hand along her curves. Such soft skin. She stretched, pressing upward with his touch. He knew her better now, just from listening to the way she read poetry. He wondered whether she learned half as much about him when he read to her.
He’d learned to recognize when she was hiding her emotions and when, as she was now, she was open to him. The several and varied ways he’d been wrong about her expanded into a moment of time that placed him at the edge of a river with currents too fast to navigate. He’d been so certain he knew how she felt, and he’d been wrong. Not just wrong, but blind. He’d been blind to the real Emily Sinclair for years. She wasn’t spoiled or frivolous. She read enough poetry to have an opinion on Byron and Rochester. She had a brain, and she used it. God help him.
“You have on too many clothes,” she said.
“Madam,” he said with mock sternness and a swift glance at himself. He was randy beyond belief. “I dare not stay another moment in such a state. Shall I remove my coat? Will that be sufficient?”
“I don’t believe so, sir. Let’s remove this and see.” She unbuttoned his coat.
He ought to have taken over the process, but he didn’t. He was captivated by the idea of her undressing him. He backed up to the headboard, and she sat up to continue. Every so often as she worked, he caressed her because he could not help himself, and that was arousing, to touch her so freely. To have his palm filled with her breast or the curve of her hip. He’d had so many wicked, unconscionable thoughts about her, and all of them were proper now.
Nimbly, she unfastened his watch and chain and threw herself diagonally across the mattress to set them on the bedside table. He set a hand to her lower waist and followed the curve of her from waist to hip to bottom, such a luscious curve, and she lay there, on her stomach, for several enjoyable minutes before she returned to work at the buttons of his waistcoat.
Coat, gone, fled to he did not care where. Waistcoat vanquished. Neckcloth, stickpin. Braces next, and then his shirt, too, no longer covered him. She blinked slowly, staring at his torso.
“What do you make of me?” he asked as if she were the sort of woman who visited him at Two Fives or at the house where she’d once found him in the bloody middle of fornication with a married woman.
“You know I find you magnificent.” She drew her hands down his chest, and he watched her face, transfixed and so hard now he wasn’t sure how much longer he wanted to wait. He drew a breath. Then another while she touched him. Savored him.
She leaned in and licked his nipple, the fingers of her other hand lightly touching his thigh. The contact sent a shiver of arousal straight to his balls. He spread his legs to accommodate the change in his state. He was disappointed when she drew back, but she kissed his stomach just above the waist of his trousers, with all that implied about travels south. She removed his shoes and stockings and, good God, she traced a finger from his toe along the top of his foot, his shin, up to the waist of his trousers and sent his sanity into a whirl of lust.
“God, yes,” he said.
What remained of his clothes was disposed of, and he too was naked. She gazed at him as if he were the only man in existence, and it made his heart feel too small for his chest. He was no stranger to women who liked what he had to offer, and he was beyond grateful that she fell into the category because it meant she wanted the hard irreverence of fucking.
His heart raced away as he brought her close enough to thread his fingers through her curls once again. He kissed her without holding back. She clung to him, forgave the demand of his mouth, and he felt the rise of desire. He could no more stop this descent into fire than he could choose to stop the beat of his heart.
He learned the shape of her body through touch. Soft at first, then not. A harder grip on her breast. Fingers between her thighs, finding the soft wetness of her desire. He drew back, but only enough to rasp, “This is what I like, Emily. No regard for this delicate body of yours.”
Her arms twined around his neck, one hand curving over the back of his head. “Poor Mr. Devon Carlisle,” she murmured, but when he opened his eyes, there was an unmistakable glint of amusement. “You understand so little of your wife.”
He was unable to smother a laugh even though it was uncomfortably true. “I am greatly to be pitied.”
Several reactions flickered over her face, and then she settled against him, into his hand still between her legs. “I am about to faint away from the disregard your manhood has for me.” She put a hand over his sex. “It’s so—” She curled her fingers around him. “—substantial where I am not at all.”
“Where do you mean, my dear wife?” He put his hands around her waist and lifted her onto his lap. When she straddled him, he pushed three fingers inside her. The tension of arousal burned him from the inside out. “Here, do you mean?”
She held his gaze. “Yes, my lord.” With that expression, those words, in that tone, the words my lord became a promise that released the final shreds of his decency. “Just there.” She settled her arms around his shoulders. “I am bereft of you. Dying for proof of you
r disregard of my delicacy.”
He lifted her up and thrust into her in a moment of unspeakable need. He lost the faculty of speech. There was only their bodies, and his cock inside her, and her passage around him. She separated her thighs until her knees were on the mattress. She held his shoulders, as desperate and needy as he was. More, perhaps, for her arms tightened around him.
The room disappeared; his senses narrowed until he knew nothing but her body, her responses, his body, and his need for her. He slipped a hand beneath one of her thighs, out of his mind with the softness of her skin. Beneath his fingers, he felt the flex and relaxation of her taut muscles.
He kissed her hard and deep while he thrust into her, wild and on the edge, and he believed utterly what she wanted was the beast he was. She groaned with abandon when he wrapped his arms tight around her and held her in place while he pushed hard into her. They ended up with her on her back, hips straining toward him, and with him, Jesus, God, him slamming into her. “Good, so good.”
She set her fingers to his cheek. “Look at me. I want to see you.”
How he managed to pry his eyes open, he had no idea. But he did, and he was stunned at the sight of her. The need conveyed in the curve of her mouth and her half-open eyes. He slowed, a little, because he wanted to last longer. He wasn’t a selfish lover, and she hadn’t come yet, and he wanted to be certain she did.
“I want you to lose control.” She put her hands on the mattress and pushed up, eyes storm-cloud blue, so perfectly blue, her golden hair spread over the mattress.
A response required more coherent thought than he was capable of, but he managed to ask, “You want me to fuck you with no regard for your pleasure?”
She braced a hand on his shoulder and pushed back. “Yes.” She let out a breath. “You have no idea how that would please me.”
He moved over her again and grabbed her wrists, pinning them above her head on the mattress as he shoved into her. Once again, he was gone. He knew no language, no civility, nothing but him putting his cock into her again and again and again. She came just from his savage fucking. She groaned his name.
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