by Aileen Fish
“You’re up,” Tilly murmured as she entered baring a tray of toast and tea. “Are you meaning to ride this morning?”
“Have I missed Da?” Emily asked as she moved to take the tray from the girl.
“Went out not ten minutes ago. Might be you could catch him.”
“No, I’ll have my tea and see if anyone else is up and about when I go down.”
“Mr. Nicholas is awake. Leastwise his man came up with a tray a few minutes ago,” Tilly replied with a wink.
“Oh, not you, too, Tilly,” Emily groaned as she pulled her night gown over her head.
“You could do worse, Miss,” Tilly replied before going into the dressing room to rummage through the tall armoire that housed her mistress’s clothing. “It’s bitter cold out. You’d best wear a guernsey.”
Emily eyed the navy blue wool guernsey her maid brought out to her. “A thick linen shirt under, please. That wool is terribly itchy against my skin. And my gray britches, I think. Did we bring Nate’s old frock coat?”
“I’ve already got it aired out and hanging on a peg downstairs,” Tilly answered. “But didn’t you promise your aunt you’d keep to dresses?”
“She promised to stop trying to marry me off,” Emily replied. “That lasted all of a day.”
Emily dressed in the warm garments while she drank her tea and nibbled at her toast.
“How’s your arm today?” Tilly asked.
“Only a little sore.” She rotated it around and really it barely pained her at all.
“Good thing that handsome man was there with you when you run into them beasties.”
“Yes,” Emily agreed as she tugged on her tall black boots.
“He’s a fine, brawny one, Mr. Nicholas.”
“You’re not going to start in on his large hands, are you?” Emily asked with a laugh.
“Why ever would I go on about his hands?”
“I’ve no idea, but Maggie seems to think his giant paws are reason enough to wed him.”
“No, I’m of a mind you should marry him for his merry blue eyes and smile. He’s a charmer that one.”
“He’s certainly that,” Emily agreed. “Charms every lady he happens across, I’m sure.”
“Hope and Charity Gimble would eat their ruffled bonnets were you to bring that one home. He’d put their lily-livered men to shame. And wouldn’t Peter Marshall’s nose be outta joint to see you on his arm?”
Emily laughed at the image of prancing down High Street with her arm tucked into Nicholas’ and him smiling down at her for all the world to see before reality set in. “We’d not be in Buckstown were I to marry Nicholas. We’d be in London, living in that crowded, dirty city, with all those snooty ladies looking down their noses at me.”
“They’d never,” Tilly retorted. “Not with you being married to the son of a lord, why you’d be a lady just like them.”
“I don’t want to be a lady if it means being just like them.”
“Well, not just like them. You’d still be you.”
“For how long?” Emily asked. “Lord Talbot and Mr. Avery and Lady Avery, and Nicholas, too, would want me to change, to be more ladylike, proper.”
“I don’t know about all that. It seems to me Mr. Nicholas likes you just the way you are.”
“Oh, sure, for now he does. While he’s trying to corner me in stables and behind hedges and up against trees stealing kisses and wooing my fortune right out of Da’s pockets. Believe you me, Tilly, once I uttered my I do’s, he’d be singing a whole different tune.”
“Maybe so,” Tilly replied doubtfully.
“No, I’ll be sailing home with Da in the spring, make no mistake.”
“Might be you’ll change your mind.”
“Not bloody likely,” she replied, borrowing one of Aunt Margaret’s favorite expressions.
Nicholas was waiting for Emily at the bottom of the stairs, his powerful frame ensconced in tight buff buckskins that hugged his muscular thighs and a black coat over a crisp white shirt. He’d left off his cravat, baring his thick neck and she remembered running her hands over and around that neck before diving her fingers into his golden curls. He smiled up at her and Emily was struck anew by just how handsome he was, how large and masculine. Brawny, Tilly had called him. It was an apt description of the man.
“My man Martin said he saw Tilly bringing you a tray,” he said when she reached the landing and stood looking up at him. His eyes slid down her snug blue guernsey, past her hips in the form-fitting breeches and down to her booted feet. Her skin tingled at the appreciation she read in his eyes. “I had a hunch you’d not be able to resist galloping through the fog.”
“Think you’ve got me all figured out, do you?” she asked and couldn’t help giving him a wide smile.
“I wouldn’t dare to presume,” he answered as he waved her ahead of him and followed her down the hall where they collected their coats and hats from Jackson. “I doubt very much I’d have you all figured out if I lived to be a hundred.”
“And aren’t you full of compliments this morning,” she threw over her shoulder as she headed out the door.
She heard him bark out a laugh behind her before she hopped down the steps and onto the frosted grass, fog whirling around her legs.
“I’m convinced you are the only woman in the world who would recognize the compliment.”
“Some ladies might like to be praised for their grace or their glowing blonde ringlets or the moonbeams in their eyes.” Emily slowed her step, allowed him to come up beside her, and tucked her gloved hand through his arm. “I myself prefer to be praised for my agile mind and multifaceted personality.”
“That’s handy, as you haven’t a blonde ringlet in sight,” he replied, eyeing her hair pulled back into one long braid as they walked through the swirling mist across the stable yard. “And I’d more likely compare your eyes to emeralds, which is cliché to say the least.”
“And my grace?”
“You were certainly graceful as you swung up into that tree.”
“Oh, don’t remind me,” she groaned. “I had terrible nightmares last night.”
“You should have knocked on my door,” he offered. “I’d have let you crawl into bed with me.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt you would.”
“All in the name of a good night’s sleep, of course,” he replied with a wicked gleam in his eyes.
“You’re a rake.” She couldn’t hold back the giggle that escaped. He was a rake and more, the dratted man.
“I’d like to be your rake,” he replied, his warm honey voice heating her insides in the most peculiar fashion.
“Mine and who else’s?” she asked as they entered the dim interior of the stables. She looked up at him through her lashes expecting to find him smiling down at her. Instead, he regarded her with the oddest expression on his face. Surprise, perhaps, or maybe dawning comprehension.
“What?” she asked when he only stared at her.
“Do you think I would be an unfaithful husband?” Nicholas stepped ahead of her and turned so that he blocked her with his broad chest.
“I’ve no idea whether you would or you wouldn’t,” she answered and it was almost the truth.
“But you suspect I would,” he pressed.
Emily considered evading his question, tossing out some teasing comment, and quickly rejected the idea.
“The thought has crossed my mind.” She looked up, met his intent gaze and held it with her head tilted back and her shoulders square and proud.
Nicholas looked down at her, his mouth set in a firm line, his eyes searching hers. Then he gave a small nod. “I see.”
Emily thought that perhaps he did see. He saw her, saw right into her heart, saw her greatest fear, her fondest wish. He did not attempt to convince her otherwise, and for that she was grateful. It would have been a futile effort, one that would have surely made hypocrites of them both.
She ducked around him and continued down the aisle t
o the last stall where Danny Boy waited impatiently.
“Would you like to ride him?” she offered.
“You weren’t planning to take him out?” he asked in surprise.
“He’s too much for me with my shoulder not quite as it should be.” She opened the half door and stepped into the black’s stall. “But he’s itching to be out I’ve no doubt.”
“Thank you,” he answered as he followed her into the stall.
“You’ll have to saddle him, and the gray mare two stalls over, if you don’t mind.”
“Is the shoulder paining you?” he asked.
“Not so much paining me, but I’ve not got the full range of motion back,” she explained.
She waited while he saddled the horses and led them out into the yard.
“Will you give me a lift?” she asked and then fairly flew into the air when he grasped her about the waist and heaved her up and over Clover’s back. “Good Lord, Nick, you’re a strong man.”
“When I first saw you in the theater, I thought I was too big, too large and lusty for a dainty little thing like you,” he replied when he’d seated himself atop a prancing Danny Boy.
Emily dragged her eyes over his large frame, from his thick neck, across his wide shoulders and broad chest, down to his trim waist and powerful legs.
“I couldn’t imagine putting my hands on you,” he continued, his voice soft and warm, as he lifted his hands holding the reins, turned them this way and that. Emily followed the motion, her eyes riveted to those great big hands with their long thick fingers and rough palms. “I thought that if I ever took you to my bed I’d likely crush you.”
“Oh,” she whispered, heat washing over her.
“What a fool I was,” he said as he turned Danny Boy to walk him out of the yard and Emily followed him as if in a strange trance, a trance brought on by his deep voice and the images he evoked with his words. “You aren’t the same fragile fairy creature you were then.”
“No,” she agreed, catching up to ride beside him.
“I wish I’d known you were ill. Or that I’d seen beyond the illness. We’d be married by now.”
“Perhaps,” she replied, suspecting it was true. Had he not cried off the Almost Betrothal, she likely would have married him. Would he have seen what Aunt Margaret had failed to see? Would he have recognized her fall into the pretty blue bottle and sought help for her before she nearly killed herself?
“You’d be waking up each morning in my bed, well-loved and content.”
“Nicholas,” she protested weakly. “You should not say such things to me.”
He reached over and laid his hand over hers where it rested on her thigh. “I’m not going to give up.”
“You must.”
“I won’t.”
Emily pressed her heels into Clover’s sides and the horse jumped forward. Nicholas’ hand dropped away and she cantered ahead. But only for a moment, then he was beside her once more and they rode together in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.
She wondered if he truly intended to continue in his pursuit of her and if so, why. There were any number of ladies he might marry, ladies who would bring generous dowries with them, ladies who would not bring frightening cravings and useless hopes for loyalty and devotion with them. She could not be this man’s wife.
The sad, hard truth was Emily was afraid to entrust her heart to Nicholas Avery. She feared she would fall back into the blissful oblivion she’d found in Dr. Peabody’s Magical Elixir if she married him and he paraded a string of mistresses before her. She could never hope to hold such a man, to keep him by her side and in her bed. And if he learned of her addiction, if he discovered the weak-willed girl who lived within her, he would surely pity and despise her.
No, she would not relent. She could not. It would destroy them both.
It did not matter that she suspected she was falling in love with him. She would not allow it to matter. She would keep that secret close, bury it in her heart and guard it with her life. She would enjoy him, enjoy his teasing and flirting, his humor and intelligence, and the warmth that flowed through her when he looked at her with desire in his eyes. She would help him to choose a bride, one worthy of his good qualities and willing to look the other way when his eye wandered. And in the spring she would board a ship for the journey home.
In time she would forget Nicholas Avery, forget the way she felt in his presence, forget the yearning that overcame her just to look at him. And she would forget the time she’d spent drowning her pain and sorrow and humiliation in a ghostly laudanum fog.
“Tell me about Emerald Isle,” Nick said two hours later when they’d slowed their horses to a steady walk. The fog had lifted, leaving behind a wet wonderland of rolling green hills and shadowy woods all around them.
“It’s beautiful,” she replied wistfully. “Flatter than England, lusher, almost tropical in the summer. We’re only a few miles from the bay and what a sight she is. Miles of glassy green water as far as the eye can see, tall marsh grass and birds of every imaginable kind. And oysters and crab and fish. And deer. I was this close to bagging an eight point buck not long before we set sail. You might even say it was that deer that brought me to England.”
Nicholas lifted a brow in question.
“Oh, it’s a ridiculous tale,” she answered with a wave of her hand.
“I’m partial to ridiculous tales,” he replied.
“Well, I’d spotted him a time or three and one day I found his tracks in the snow leading into the woods. I decided to follow him, meaning to stay on Emerald Isle, mind you. I’d no intention of wandering onto the neighboring land. No one should have seen me.”
“Let me guess,” he said with a deep chuckle. “You were dressed much as you are now.”
“I couldn’t very well track that buck in a gown.”
“No, of course not,” he agreed. “But somebody did see you.”
“To be sure, it was three somebodies, and not just any old bodies either, but the gossipiest most meddlesome females who ever walked the Eastern Shore.”
“Don’t tell me your father, who surely knew of your proclivity toward men’s garments long before then, was so surprised and outraged by your shenanigans that he dragged you off to England to foist you off on some poor unsuspecting Englishman.”
“Not exactly,” she admitted as she reined in atop a small knoll. “What a pretty view.”
“None of that, Miss Calvert. Don’t even think to change the subject.”
Emily laughed at his high-handedness, at the devilish gleam in his eyes.
“Things would likely have righted themselves had I not jumped into the pond in my unmentionables two days prior, only to come up from the frigid water to find two gentlemen, other than the two in the pond with me, watching from the dock.”
“You went swimming in your drawers with two men?” he demanded.
“Only Nate and Tate.”
“And the two men who watched from the dock?”
“One was the fiancé of one of the aforementioned busy bodies.”
“And the other?” he asked, his voice slow and measured.
“The brother of mine.”
“Your what?”
“My fiancé.”
“You were betrothed?”
“To Peter Marshall.”
“And he broke the betrothal?” There was surprise and anger in his words and Emily wondered who the anger was directed at — Peter for his less-than-honorable behavior or Emily for her less-than-proper behavior.
“He told Da he couldn’t marry a woman so lacking in propriety and common sense.”
“I see.”
“Yes, well, then Maggie’s letter arrived and that was when Da decided to foist me off on some poor unsuspecting Englishman.”
“I see.”
“I was trying so hard to be good, not to be a hoyden, to be all that is proper that I allowed myself to become ill. I was so weak and foolish, so terribly foolish, and then I w
as a ghost. The Sleeping Wraith, just like the papers said.”
“I see,” he murmured again as he jumped from Danny Boy’s back and held up his arms to help her down from Clover. She went willingly into his waiting arms, allowed him to pull her against his massive chest and slowly lower her to the ground.
“Da said Peter was my last chance,” she mumbled against his shoulder as he wrapped his arms tightly around her. “Then he said you were my last chance.”
“I am,” he whispered, his breath warm against her neck.
“No,” she argued even though she was beginning to believe it.
“I’ve always dreamed of marrying a hoyden.” He whispered before he caught her earlobe between his teeth, gently nipping, and then soothing the sting with his warm lips. “Ever since I was a little boy.”
“Oh,” she gasped.
“I told my mother I wouldn’t marry until I found a woman who swung through the trees like a high flyer.” He trailed fiery kisses down her neck and she arched to give him greater access, loving the feel of his open mouth on her flesh.
“Forget your fortune, it’s your treasure trove of useless knowledge I’m after,” he murmured as his hands burrowed inside her coat to clasp her bottom, kneading and squeezing and pulling her firmly against him.
And Emily was lost. Lost to the warmth radiating from his big body in waves, lost to the heat of his mouth as it latched onto the tender skin at the juncture of her shoulder to torment her with his lips, teeth and tongue. Pleasure speared through her, shivering down her arms, across her chest, to her breasts and her belly and beyond until it became an ache, a throbbing pulse between her legs. She squirmed against him, rubbing, searching for relief.
Nicholas dragged his hands down her bottom, between her legs, grasped her thighs and lifted her, spreading her legs. Instinctively she wrapped her legs around his waist, twined her arms around his neck and blindly searched for his lips with her own.
