If His Kiss Is Wicked

by Jo Goodman

  Grinning at her precise accents, Restell wondered why he found the primly set lips so inviting. “Perhaps it is the challenge,” he said.

  “Pardon?”

  Restell had been unaware he’d spoken aloud. He simply shook his head, dismissing her question, and lifted her across the seat until she straddled his lap.

  Now it was Emma who shook her head. “Here? I think not.”

  “A kiss. Nothing more.”

  She placed her hands over his. They had already risen to her knees, along with the hem of her gown. His thumbs were brushing her bare skin above her stockings. “I suppose you think you are clever or that I am weak.” She closed the small distance between their mouths and kissed him with deliberate thoroughness. When she drew back she knew herself to be decidedly overheated. “Perhaps you are clever,” she admitted softly. Still, she removed herself from his lap and curled instead on the bench beside him. She smiled contentedly when Restell slipped his arm around her shoulders.

  “Will Lord Breckenridge be put out with you for removing his guests?” she asked.

  “No. When he bought the establishment it was home to the worst sort of vices. He has been moving steadily toward respectability.”

  “Respectability?”

  “Of a kind.”

  “What of those private rooms?”

  “I couldn’t say. They’re private.” Restell felt Emma nudge him lightly in the ribs. “Breckenridge does not manage a brothel, if that was the bent of your mind, but I think it is safe to suppose there are patrons who use those rooms to entertain their companions.”

  “You have never been in one?”

  “On a matter of political intrigue,” he said. “Not for the purposes you are imagining.”

  “Oh, I was imagining political intrigue,” she told him, lying without even a twinge of guilt. “After all, the foreign minister calls upon you to manage such details as would cause distress at the highest levels of government.” She lifted her head to look at him. The hack’s lamp put his profile in golden relief, and she thought she detected a glimmer of a smile edging the corner of his mouth. “Really, Restell, you might have told me the truth.”

  “I did.”

  “Well, you might have made me believe you. You must know that it seemed you were having me on. The French ambassador’s son, indeed. He was rather forward, I thought, though you seemed more concerned by the viscount’s attentions than Jourdain’s.”

  “Breckenridge is a credible threat. You could manage the other.”

  “Still, it was rather comforting when you pulled my chair closer to yours. I shouldn’t like it if you were so commanding all the time, but just then, well, it made me feel very warm toward you.”

  Restell said nothing for a moment. “Have a care, Emma, else you will be making a declaration of some finer feeling for me.”

  Nodding faintly, Emma returned her head to his shoulder. “You’ll tell me that the feeling will pass, won’t you?”

  “If that’s what you’d like to hear.”

  She spoke in hardly more than a whisper. “I think I would, yes.”

  Restell gave her shoulders a slight squeeze. “I imagine you are yet afraid. You never talk about the man you gave your heart to.” He felt her stiffen ever so briefly, then become almost boneless, and he knew his guess had been the correct one. “Was it Neven Charters?”

  Emma closed her eyes. “Yes.”

  “I see.” Restell had hoped he was wrong. “Do you love him still?”

  Emma’s lips parted, then closed. She merely shook her head in response.

  “Did he know how you felt?”

  “I thought he did. I thought he loved me.”

  “So you were being disingenuous when I told you my suspicions of that very same thing. You acted as if I couldn’t possibly have correctly interpreted what I witnessed when we visited his home.”

  “He is my cousin’s fiancé,” she said. “What you observed on that occasion matters not a whit.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “I married you.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  Emma’s attention was caught by a hint of uncertainty in Restell’s voice. She sat up and regarded him with some astonishment. “Do you imagine I entered this marriage to provoke some feeling from Mr. Charters?”

  He felt rather foolish admitting it, but he suspected she would see straight through to his soul if he lied. “It occurred to me, yes.”

  “I am not so small-minded, Restell.”

  “No, you’re not. Forgive me.”

  “I don’t love him.”

  “I believe you.”

  “You don’t, but it is good of you to pretend.” She returned to the curve he made for her with his arm and shoulder. “I think you want to believe me.”

  “You might be right.” Restell fell silent for a time. The hack clattered down the cobblestone street, filling the void with its peculiarly comforting rhythm. “Charters is the reason you think love is a temporary condition of the heart.”

  “It did seem short-lived,” she said, then added softly, “On my part as well as his.”

  It was hearing this last admission, added almost unwillingly, that eased Restell’s conscience. He had pressed his suit with some urgency, giving her little time to consider all of the consequences. In spite of that, she’d done well to negotiate the best provisions she could for the short term, but that had never entirely assuaged his guilt. He had had occasion to wonder if she would give him the same answer now that she had given him then. The question hovered on the tip of his tongue, then he called himself a coward when he bit it back.

  “Did you say something?” asked Emma.

  “What?” Had he spoken aloud? “No. Nothing.”

  The hack slowed as it approached their town house. Emma picked up the cloak she’d discarded on the opposite seat and allowed Restell to help her put it on. He fastened the frog at her throat and raised the hood over her wig, then looked at her consideringly.

  “I have the oddest sense that I am inviting my mistress into my home,” he told her. “It is altogether disconcerting.”

  “I believe the less said on that count, the better.”

  He grinned, kissed her on the forehead, then opened the door and helped her down. Emma hurried ahead while Restell spoke to Whittier. Once inside, she politely refused Crowley’s offer to take her cloak and asked him to send Bettis to her. She went straightaway to her sitting room and waited for Bettis to arrive. She could hear Restell in conversation with the butler in the entrance hall and suspected he was giving her a few moments to collect herself.

  Emma threw off her cloak when Bettis entered, then led the way to the dressing room. Catching her reflection in the cheval glass, she stopped. “I look like the veriest tart, Bettis.”

  “Madam is flushed.”

  Emma regarded herself critically. With her eyes perhaps a bit too bright and her pink complexion finally revealed through the fading rice powder, she looked as if she might be overset, fevered, or excited. Perhaps all three. “That is the very least of it.”

  “Shall I have a bath drawn for you?”

  “Yes.” She continued to stare at herself in the glass. The ends of her scarf were looped around her elbows, but the rest of it had fallen across her lower back. Her long white gloves had the odd effect of making her more aware of her naked shoulders and the delicate line of her collarbones. Her breasts had never once climbed above the gown’s dipping neckline, but even now, when she took a deep breath they seemed tantalizingly close to doing so. She slipped two fingers between her breasts and removed Restell’s marker. Palming it, she smiled.

  When she turned away from the mirror, she saw that Bettis had disappeared. There was no movement in the bedroom to indicate that Restell had joined her. She walked back into the sitting room and poured herself a glass of wine while she waited for the maids to bring heated water. It was not long before they were marching to and fro through the bedroom, leaving her in peace while the tu
b was filled. Puzzled by Restell’s continued absence, Emma occasionally ventured as far as the landing to see if he was visible in the entrance hall. She neither saw him nor heard his voice belowstairs.

  When she was alone again with Bettis, she inquired after Restell.

  “I couldn’t say, Mrs. Gardner.” Bettis grunted slightly as she pulled the tub off the hardwood floor and onto the area rug. A petite woman with delicate features, Bettis nevertheless could do the heavy lifting of a dockworker. “Don’t know why those girls couldn’t see this was a problem for themselves,” she mumbled. Straightening, she placed her hands on her hips and stretched her back. “I saw Mr. Gardner with Mr. Hobbes and Mr. Crowley, but that was just before I answered your summons. I haven’t seen any of them since.”

  “Curious.” Emma waved Bettis aside as the maid came to help her disrobe. “That’s all,” she said. “You may retire.”

  “Are you quite certain?”

  “Quite.” Emma wanted to wait for Restell. She’d thought it was what he wanted also, but his delay in arriving made her wonder if she’d misunderstood. In the carriage it had seemed he was bent on satisfying certain carnal inclinations. Now that the opportunity was upon him, he’d gone missing. Shaking her head at his perversity, Emma dipped her fingertips into her bathwater and discovered it was satisfactorily hot and infinitely inviting.

  Restell found Emma up to her beautiful shoulders in water by the time he reached the dressing room. Her head was tipped back against the rim of the tub and her eyes were closed. She’d scrubbed her complexion clean of rice powder and rouge. Fresh-faced, looking younger than her years, the steamy water lent her skin a lovely pink glow. Tiny beads of moisture dotted the margin above her upper lip and the hollow of her throat. The wig lay on the seat of a ladder-back chair. The rose gown was draped over the back of it. She still wore the sheer scarf, but it was wound loosely around her dark hair to keep it away from her face. In spite of that effort, damp tendrils had managed to escape and curled against her temples.

  Restell sighed. She looked thoroughly at peace, even inviolate. His eyes wandered once more to the wig, the gown, then the matching slippers peeping out from under the armoire. She’d shed the skin of the vixen and become the virgin. It was disconcerting to realize that no matter how she came to him, his desire for her defied reason as he understood it and love as he’d practiced it.

  Loath to disturb her, Restell started to back out of the doorway.

  Emma turned her head slightly and gave him the benefit of one raised, henna-tinted eyebrow. “Do you mean to abandon me again?”

  Restell stepped back to the threshold and leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb, folding his arms across his chest. “Is that what you think?” he asked. “That I abandoned you?”

  She returned her head to its previous position and kept her eyes closed. “You disappeared. What was I supposed to think?”

  “That I was in the garret with Hobbes and Crowley examining a hole in the roof.”

  “Oh. Well, naturally that immediately occurred to me.”

  Restell chuckled at her wry tone. The water might be hot, but his wife was decidedly cool. “Is there something I might do to redeem myself?”

  “I suppose you are going to suggest scrubbing my back, but I submit that would be more for your pleasure than mine.”

  “That’s because you’ve only ever had Bettis put a flannel to your skin. If I might be allowed to demonstrate, you will comprehend there is a difference.” He watched her mouth purse slightly. Butter wasn’t going to warm in it any time soon. He was going to have to be clever. “Mayhap you will permit me to brush your hair.”

  The thought of it was so tantalizing that Emma thought she might become as liquid as the water she sat in. Still, she managed to sound as though she were granting a boon. “That would be agreeable.”

  Smiling to himself, Restell picked up Emma’s silver-handled hairbrush lying on her vanity and dropped to his knees behind the tub. “Did it distress you that I was watching you from the doorway?”

  “No. I suspected you were there. I heard you moving around the bedroom, and when I didn’t…” She didn’t finish her sentence as he tugged the scarf from her hair. One tail of it fluttered across her shoulder before it slipped to the floor. “I’m glad you came back.”

  Restell applied the brush to her hair. Starting at the crown of her head, he pulled it through the heavy wave of hair that cascaded over the edge of the tub. “I truly never left,” he said. “Though I understand it did not seem so to you. I am sorry, Emma. Hobbes and Crowley showed regrettable timing.”

  “So you are committed to your hole-in-the-roof tale.”

  “I am until something better occurs to me.”

  “I have always liked it that once you set a course you are not easily moved.”

  He gave her hair a little tug with the brush. “Stubborn?” he asked. “Is that the meaning I should take?”

  “Steady,” she said, sinking a bit deeper into the water. “It’s very…umm…comforting.”

  Restell lifted her hair and dragged the brush through the underside, just caressing the back of her neck with the soft tips of the bristles. Her shiver, he suspected, was not because she was cold of a sudden. He continued brushing, the strokes steady and even, a rhythm that she knew, at least in that part of her consciousness that knew him so intimately. He heard her give up a small sound of satisfaction deep at the back of her throat. Pulling her hair to one side, he held it away from her neck with the brush and leaned forward to kiss the gentle hollow just above her collarbone. He used the tip of his tongue to lick the dew from her skin.

  “Do you trust me, Emma?”

  She could hardly think what he was asking her. “I…I…umm, yes…mmm, yes, I do.”

  “Do you trust me with you?”

  She turned her head to offer up the sensitive cord of her neck. His lips were warm against her skin, his tongue warmer still. “With me?”

  “To do as I like…to do anything I like.”

  Emma simply could not think. Restell’s voice slid over her like honey: smooth and sweet and thick. He flicked his tongue in the shallow curve behind her ear as if he could taste the words he drizzled on her skin. It seemed to Emma that the water had turned viscous, just like her gray matter.

  “Anything I like,” he repeated softly. “Do you trust me?”

  Emma swallowed. He was pulling the brush through her hair again. Her scalp tingled first, then the rest of her. He let her hair cascade over the back of the tub and lightly dragged the brush across her shoulder. She bit her lower lip. The sound at the back of her throat was a whimper.

  Restell withdrew the brush.

  Emma waited.

  Restell waited longer.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

  “Look at me, Emma.”

  She turned her head. Her lashes fluttered, then opened. His face was not far from hers, his eyes dark and watchful. She let him study her features and knew he was gauging the truth of the confession he’d provoked. “I do trust you, Restell.”

  He nodded slowly. “Give me your hands.”

  Emma’s eyebrows rose slightly, but she lifted her arms out of the water and presented her hands to him.

  “Hold this.” He set the brush in her upturned palms.

  Emma curled her fingers around the silver-handled brush while Restell held her wrists together in one hand. Her breath caught as he showed her what was in his other hand. The sheer scarf that she’d worn across her shoulders, then in her hair, was now wound between his fingers and over his forearm. It was not possible for her to look away as he looped the fine, gossamer fabric around her wrists. She stared at her hands as if they belonged to someone else, but when he stood and tugged on the tether that bound her to him, she came to her feet as well.

  Rivulets of water ran down her arms and dripped from her bent elbows. Droplets trickled between her breasts; others clung to her puckered nipples. Her mons glistened. Water fell in a mean
dering stream over her flat belly and along the curve of her hip, but it was the wetness between her slightly parted thighs that Emma felt most keenly.

  The distance separating them closed as Restell made two small circles with his wrist, shortening the length of the scarf. Emma’s slim frame became a wet imprint on his clothes. Lifting her, he carried her into their bedroom. She still clutched the brush in her fingers, but when she realized it and made to drop it, he shook his head.

  “I have need of it.”

  The words were matter-of-fact. It was the husky timbre of Restell’s voice and his darkening look that caused Emma’s knuckles to become nearly bloodless while every other part of her suffused with color. When he set her sitting up on the edge of the bed, she didn’t move. It was unspoken between them now that she would take direction from him. She watched him unwind the scarf from his wrist. The tail slipped through his fingers, brushed her knees, then fell to the floor. It lay in a rosy puddle just below where her heels were hitched on the bed rail.

  Her eyes fixed on it for a moment, but inevitably they were drawn back to that part of the scarf that was still wound around her own wrists. She looked up at Restell. He was watching her, a faint smile edging his lips.

  “You were curious tonight about the hell’s private rooms,” he said.

  Her mouth dry of a sudden, Emma could only nod.

  “Shall I satisfy your curiosity, Emma?” He laid one hand over her bound wrists, bent, and whispered in her ear. “Shall I satisfy you?”

  Emma’s lips never parted, but the tiny moan at the back of her throat was audible to both of them. When Restell lightly squeezed her wrists, she realized it was answer enough.

  “Lie back,” he said, taking the brush from her nerveless fingers. He set it aside while he positioned her arms above her head and tied off the loose end of the scarf to one of the bedposts. “The private rooms are often used for…well, let us say they are often used for the practice of certain singular carnal pleasures.” Restell stepped back from the bed as he unfastened the buttons on his frock coat and removed it. He laid it over the back of the wing chair, then loosened his stock and unbuttoned his waistcoat. “You are perhaps wondering how I come to know that to be true.”