by Julia Donner
Cold horror seeped through her veins. “You left the table when I did?”
His smirk widened into a full-out smile. “I waited a few minutes.”
A sudden urge to pick up the quill and stab him with it swamped her being, made her heart’s rapid pace slow to angry thuds. What a preposterous ass. It boggled her that she had ever allowed this arrogant twit within a foot of her person.
Unable to suppress the anxiety in her tone, she said, “What is wrong with you, Langston? The least you could’ve done was wait until the ladies left the table.”
“But that would not have served my purpose, my sweet.”
A distant awareness made her conscious of the fact that her fingers had closed around the quill, crushing the swan feathers. She unclenched her teeth to ask, “And that purpose being?”
His chin came up. He glared down his narrow, aristocratic nose. “You publicly humiliated me, Emily. Fobbed me off in the most vulgar manner imaginable. I can’t have everyone thinking less of me because of your lies, especially Lady Sutherland.”
She felt her upper lip wrinkle into a sneer. “You should consider yourself fortunate that I never warned the women of London society. You are the most appalling waste of one’s time as a lover.” When his lips pinched into a tense line, she added, “No, not lover. That’s not accurate. You’re merely a selfish, crude-mannered fornicator.”
Her insult had no effect. Nothing she said would pierce his confidence. He’d made it clear that his goal was to punish her. A slow smile displayed smoke-discolored teeth. A brown, dead tooth distracted her from deciding on the perfect spot to stab the quill tip.
“Liar. If that were true, why did you come back for more? You wanted it, like the little slut you are.”
Her reply came out in a low guttural voice she didn’t recognize. “No, Langston, that’s not the reason I allowed it the second time. The first was so inexcusably poor a showing that I believed myself at fault.”
“Emily, you continue to lie to yourself. Women have been praising me since I first came into manhood, but to be honest, I’ve never had a woman as addictive as you. Your body fairly screams out for the taking. It’s one of the reasons I couldn’t resist taking you up on this rendezvous, but first, we will speak of the child.”
She stilled. Terror slithered up her back and raised the hairs on her arms. She hated that he noted her reaction. He chortled and took advantage of the silence.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice the change? There is an extravagance about you, even though you’ve lost weight. There was always something terribly fetching about your body and now it’s even more so.”
The sweep of conflicting emotions almost blinded her. Fear for her baby, mother’s outrage, frustrated fury, and the nagging dread that Hugh would hear that she’d gone off somewhere with a former lover only a day since they’d returned to town.
She didn’t know how to respond or sort through so many feelings wrenching her heart and whirling in her head. In that moment of vulnerability, Langston pounced on an opportunity to exploit.
“There’s no need to worry about Sir Hugh. He won’t want another man’s get after I tell him it’s mine. I’ll take the boy, of course. He’ll have bastard status in my house, naturally, but I will see to it that he is well looked after. Can’t say that I like the idea of another man swiving you and leaving his seed in the vicinity of my offspring, but there it is. Perhaps I should insist that you refrain from sexual relations until after the babe is born. I say, here’s another inducement. I could make my relationship to the babe known to the world at large. Your husband is rather particular about his reputation. Is that an incentive to keep your pretty legs together?”
Fury took control. “You will not use my child as a tool for revenge.”
Blinded by the drive to punish the fiend, she raised the quill as she advanced. He caught her wrist when she moved to strike. A cruel twist of her wrist sent her feeble weapon falling from numbed fingers. Langston captured her other hand when she swiftly lifted it to slap. He imprisoned both to his chest. When she jerked away, he shoved them down and around her back, low against her spine. The position pressed her against his length. Blake was taller and his bulk, more intimidating than Hugh’s. She fought a rush of fear and held fast to her outrage.
When she squirmed violently to get free, he pulled her closer. “God, Emily, what is it about you that makes men mad to have you?”
He leaned down and she warned, “You keep your fat lips off me. I swear I’ll bite them off.”
That made him hesitate. Muffled voices in the hall broke their glaring contest. Langston barred his teeth in an ugly smile. “You’ll kiss me nicely, my girl, or I’ll shout out to whomever is in the passage to come in here. Everyone will know we’ve been behind closed doors for long enough to get up to all sorts of misbehaving.”
Her lips quivered from indecision and revulsion. Rage urged her to fight, to resist the instinctive drive to escape and cry out for help. That would mean discovery.
He studied her indecision with satisfaction. “Go ahead, Emily. Call for help. Much good it will do. You will still be talked about all over town.”
“I don’t care. I’ll scream the house down.”
The door opened as Langston slammed his mouth down on hers. When she attempted to retreat, he lifted her off her feet and pressed his lips harder against her muffled protest.
Over Blake’s shoulder, she froze at the sight of Hugh’s reflection in the mirror, his brief exposure of shock and disbelief followed by fury.
She squirmed and stumbled to regain her footing when Langston shoved her away, as if attempting a guilty parting. Emily only saw the scene through Hugh’s eyes. His reflection in the glass was one of disgust and repugnance. She pressed the back of her wrist to her mouth to wipe away the kiss and gathered the courage to turn around, to face what had surely looked like the worst kind of betrayal.
Langston stepped around her. Jovial and unrepentant, he said, “Sir Hugh, so glad you arrived. Emily left the table in a rush. Not well, it seems. Her delicate condition, I expect. I was about to offer her my escort, but now that you’re here, you’ll want the honors. Good evening to you both. I do hope you’re feeling more the thing, Emily.”
Hugh stood statue-still. His icy, unwavering stare only revealed profound revulsion. In a sudden rush of understanding, she knew why he said and did nothing. A footman waited in the hallway by the open door. Hugh would never say anything where a servant might hear nor create a scene in someone else’s residence.
“Hugh, it’s not—”
“Say nothing.”
She crossed the room to whisper, “If you would only listen.”
In a voice of steel and precision, he sliced a wound through her heart. “There is nothing to say except that I came by hansom. Get in the carriage you have waiting out front. I will join you shortly.”
He didn’t have to say the words. She heard the accusation without him saying it. Miserable, she swallowed and managed a nod. Hopeful for forgiveness, for the kindness and patience she knew he possessed, she tried again and looked up with a silent plea. When he continued to stare over her head, she reached up to touch his chest but he stepped back.
He closed the door and in that cold, unrecognizable voice from before he said, “I must beg leave to make my regrets to Lady Asterly before I join you. I suppose you and Blake had planned to make use of our coach. I will ask you to not mind that he shall have to make arrangements for another conveyance. The two of you will no doubt find other opportunities for a tryst.”
Pain stole her breath. He yanked open the door so she could flee and hurry down the stairs. Leaving her cloak behind, she dashed out the front door. A groom leaped down from the bench to let down the steps and open the door. She sat inside with her arms wrapped tightly over her chest. Shivers ran over her flesh. Heat scorched her face. Hugh’s reflection in the mirror, his disbelieving expression refused to wane.
Waiting for him was out of t
he question. She felt too tender and overwrought to sit in an enclosed space with his restrained anger. She didn’t fear him hurting her physically, but he could cut her into shreds with words. She’d discovered his power to do that only minutes before. His comments and corrections over the years had been annoying, but never hurtful. The corrosive tone he’d used on her in the book-room had sounded alien, unrecognizable. The memory of his revulsion, the echo of his disgust repeated inside her head, lashed at her broken pride.
Nothing sounded better or safer than her own room, to hide from his scorn, where Ferris could brush out her hair in soothing quiet. She needed a haven where she could sort through the disaster that was this evening and find a way to repair what seemed to be irreversible damage. How could she convince him that she could be trusted after walking in on that scene? She’d never seen him so furious, so hurt. She hid her face in her hands, but oddly, she couldn’t cry.
Chapter 20
The sharp rap of knuckles on her bedroom door came as Ferris hung up the evening gown. She left it unanswered to quickly retrieve a night robe from a hanger and bring it across the room. Emily snatched it and sent Ferris to answer, while she tied closed the robe’s silk sash with shaking fingers, making a mess of it. With a yank of impatience, she threw the ribbon aside. If he didn’t care to see her in an untied robe and flimsy shift, then he should have asked ahead of time to see her.
Her heart started to pound so hard in her chest that it thumped inside her head when Hugh entered without invitation. She slid her feet into the slippers she’d worn that night and stood.
She placed a hand flat on the vanity table’s polished surface, needing its solid support. This was not going to be a pleasant interview. His coldly furious expression hadn’t waned and no wonder, since she’d left him without a conveyance. He stood just inside the doorway, the cobalt blue of his jacket looking richer in color in the dim light. She’d asked to have only two candelabras lit. After enduring so much tension this evening, she needed to avoid any kind of brightness. Hiding in a dark corner sounded appealing, but she’d save that for later, when she was alone. Hugh was about to open some wounds that would require the ministrations to soothe her belated regret over actions better not taken. Too late now for reviewing that long list of regrets. It was time to face her punishment, but she wouldn’t cower. Her mistakes had never been intentional.
Her maid looked ready to faint when he ordered in a tight voice, “Ferris, please excuse us. My wife will ring if she needs you.”
Ferris scurried out of the room and silently closed the door. The muffled click of the latch sounded loud in the tense quiet. His hard stare sent a shiver over her flesh. It wasn’t like Hugh to be impolite. She’d seen him disinterested, revolted and standoffish but never in this kind of frigid, mute rage. She noticed that as he stared the rigid containment of his emotions was beginning to progress into a shivering fury. He’d removed his gloves, showing white-knuckled fists. She rather be beaten than hear the words. It might be worth it to see the passion underneath the man’s fierce control. Her chin came up, ready for whatever, knowing that this boiling pot was about to throw off its lid.
Ah, well then, perhaps he wasn’t such a stick, but he hadn’t shown this much violence of emotion when he’d come across her and Langston in the Asterly’s book-room. He was quite obviously in a fine mood now, looked ready to strangle something. Or someone. She had given him cause.
Her defiance waned. She needed something to do to avoid looking at him. She reached up, but her fumbling fingers couldn’t undo the lacy ribbon tied around her neck. Frustrated, she turned to the mirror, thinking to pick apart the knot by twisting it around from the back to the front, but she halted when she encountered Hugh’s reflection in the glass.
Impatient to have what was coming over and done, she whirled and confronted him. His gaze dropped to where her haphazardly tied sash allowed the robe to gape open.
She quickly pulled it closed over the pink lawn shift. “Out with it, Hugh. Say what you must, then leave me in peace.”
He answered in another voice she hadn’t heard before, hoarse and clipped, making her grateful they’d left the assembly in different carriages. “If you must find satisfaction with Blake, at least use some discretion. I will not be made a fool of due to your lack of restraint.”
“My—?”
The speed with which he crossed the room stopped her words and breath. He loomed over her before she could recall what she wanted to say. He helped her remember by demanding, “Is Blake really the father? Is that what this is all about? You want to go back to him?”
The outrageousness of that accusation ignited her temper. “You beast.”
“Answer me!”
She wished the silver-backed hairbrush was within reach to give him a whack. “I’ve done nothing, did nothing tonight!”
He took another step closer. “You contrived an assignation with him at Astley’s. You used my sons to do it!”
She gave him a shove that didn’t move him. “I did no such thing. Langston found me there.”
His next advance backed her rear into the dressing table’s edge. “Like he found you tonight?”
“He kissed me, Hugh. I didn’t kiss him! And you lied. You let me think lovemaking wasn’t safe during pregnancy.”
“I didn’t lie. I didn’t correct you, and if you’re that much in need, keep it at home and ask me to do the honors.”
Infuriated by his sarcasm, she reached for a rouge pot, ready to throw, or hit him on his stubborn head. He twisted it from her grip, yanked her forward. Pressed against her, she felt the fine quivering of his entire body as he glared down into her defiance. When she pushed on his chest, he captured her wrists, pinning them behind her back, low on her spine as Langston had done.
“Is this what you wanted, Em? How he was going to take you?”
He imprisoned her exactly as Langston had, but her body’s response was the opposite. She’d cringed away from Langston, but the connection from chest to thighs with Hugh set her on fire, elicited crackling energy under her skin. The feeling of hollow emptiness in her stomach changed to blazing want. She’d never been adept at hiding her feelings and had no control over the instinctive urge to press against him, seek out what she had to have, no more waiting.
Breathing deeply, he stared at her mouth, then looked down at the thin shift against the front of his jacket, the pale mounds pushed up and almost out. He released her wrists. His intentions clear, he slid his hands around her waist then slowly down to cup her bottom. He pushed his hips against hers. She felt the narrowness of her defiant glare widen from the evidence. His passion wasn’t entirely about jealousy. Without words, he explicitly demanded what he thought she sought from another man. Instinct and a wildly growing hunger made her rub against the ridge there.
His eyes closed. He shoved a knee between her legs to hold her in place, to push the hardness of him into her softness. She gasped and his eyes opened, his attention fixed on her mouth. She didn’t move, couldn’t move, as he struggled to conquer his passion and failed. Swift and sudden, he kissed her hard. Then, he stilled against her mouth. So did she, taken over by the shock of pleasure, of rightness, of finding where she’d always wanted to be and never knew that in her husband and friend she had found that place.
He pulled back slightly, as if amazed by what they’d done, what they shared. He stared at her mouth where she panted for air, then looked lower, to where her breasts moved against him with every inhalation. She knew what was coming when he licked his lower lip. She forced down a sob of relief, the eager rush of terrible yearning, of knowing that soon it would be appeased.
Heat burned her flesh but it felt like nothing in comparison to the scorch tearing through her veins when he lowered his head. He hovered, their lips barely touching. She feared connecting with his narrowed gaze, what she would see, what she wanted to see. Then his lips parted and sank down on hers. She moaned into his mouth, tasted a hint of brandy. Her body went lim
p, soaking up exquisite sensations. Suppressed passion, so long denied, roared to life. She reached up to clutch his hair, so thick and soft, so different from the rigid muscles of his chest and arms that felt like iron under the jacket. The strong fingers that cupped her bottom dug deeper to massage and guide. She lifted a leg to allow him greater access. He gasped when she licked across his upper lip.
The world shrank to impatient, roving hands, greed for air and straining to get closer. She clung to his jacket lapels when he lifted her. His fingers clutched her waist to carry her across the room. The backs of her legs hit the edge of the bed. He yanked off her robe. She fell onto her back, struggled to yank up her shift. Beyond shame, she wept and begged. His stare fixed on her lifting hem, never leaving the flesh she exposed as he tore open breeches buttons. He bent to hook his arms under her knees, grasped her waist, and hauled her forward into an abrupt entry.
Heaven, she’d found heaven and arched up into the glory of being filled. Pleasure had never been this sharp, this fulfilling. She abandoned herself to the extravagance of it, sank her nails into his jacket sleeves. Securing her grip on the flexing muscle she found under the material, she pulled herself into his rhythm. Every stroke a seared streak of ecstasy and the greedy strive for more that ended too soon. Her inner muscles and body clenched with a violent spasm. She let fly a silent wail of release that echoed in the black void of bliss inside her head. He continued to move, silent and driven until he stiffened. His grip dug into her hips, pulled her tighter and held her still while he shuddered.
The first thought that filtered through the languor of exquisite relief was the astonishing confirmation that Sir Hugh Exton-Lloyd was not the cold fish she’d always supposed. A berserker lurked beneath the suave control. There might be bruises tomorrow.
In awkward silence, he gently withdrew and turned away. Head bowed and back to her, he wrapped long fingers around the bedpost. Emily struggled to sit up, dazed in the aftermath. Her hair hung off one shoulder. Pins had been scattered across the counterpane. The shift’s hem was still bunched up around her waist, its top sagging off to expose one shoulder. Her right stocking pooled around her ankle. What had happened to her slippers?
