How to Tame Your Duke, page 10
The hallway was clean and well-lit, with electric wall sconces and a soft blue carpet, smelling of paint and lilies. Emilie’s eyes fastened on the doors passing by, white and rather blurred in the absence of her spectacles. Good God. This could not be happening. She could not possibly be doing this.
Damn Miss Dingleby and her public meetings.
She would explain. That was it. She would go into the room and wait for Ashland, and she would turn away so he couldn’t see her face, and she would tell him it was all a dreadful mistake. That was it. Ashland was a just man; he would let her go. She could steal away, and that would be that. If she were quiet and firm and did not make a scene, the incident would be forgotten in an hour, and no one would think to connect her face with those starched official photographs in the newspaper.
“Here we are.” Mrs. Scruton whirled Emilie around a corner, where a single door sat in the center of a recess. She took a key from her pocket and fitted it into the lock. “He’ll be up in two minute. Do ye want to refresh yersen first?”
“I . . . No, I . . .”
Mrs. Scruton ushered her through the door, into a dim and spacious parlor. The blue and yellow curtains were drawn snugly against the fading daylight, and the room was lit by a single oil lamp atop a round table in the center. A sofa and two armchairs sat companionably by a fireplace. There was no sign of a bed, but a door stood ajar along the opposite wall, suggesting another chamber.
“There, ye see? I’ll nobbut take yer coat and hat, madam,” said Mrs. Scruton, and in the next instant Emilie’s worn black coat was slipping down her arms. Mrs. Scruton folded it neatly, laid it across the back of the sofa, placed the hat on top, and turned back to Emilie with an expression of deep relief. “There, then. All ready. Oh! Heavens, I’d near but forgotten.”
“Forgotten?” Emilie asked faintly.
Mrs. Scruton marched to a polished demilune table against the wall, between the two windows. She opened a drawer and pulled out a length of black cloth.
“Yer blindfold, madam.”
EIGHT
The Duke of Ashland paused briefly in the threshold. A new girl tonight, Mrs. Scruton had said.
Not that it mattered, really. So long as she was discreet and clean and well mannered, so long as she couldn’t see his face, the woman herself made no difference. His craving was animal in nature, and a warm and sentient female body was all he required.
She would be obliging. She was paid to be obliging.
She wouldn’t be able to see him.
He pulled the key from his pocket and let himself in.
Mrs. Scruton had, as always, put out all the lights but one. His good eye stretched and adjusted into the dimness, searching for the woman who awaited him.
A shadow moved by the window. “Sir?”
The word had an odd ring of familiarity. Had she come to him before, in the early months, when the women changed each time? Before he had settled on Sarah?
She stepped forward from the darkness near the windows, a woman of above average height, her fair hair gleaming above the black blindfold. “Are you there?” she whispered.
“I am here.” He took off his hat and gloves and laid them on the lamp table. “Please sit down.”
“I’m afraid I can’t.” She spoke very softly, almost a whisper, but her clear accent was that of a gentlewoman.
“Of course not. Forgive me.” He stepped toward her and grasped her hand. It was slender and chilled, the thin bones fragile in his palm. She made a gasp. “The chair is just here, madam,” he said, and led her forward from the shadows.
“No, it’s not that,” she said. “I fear . . . there’s been a mistake, you see, and . . .”
“A mistake?”
“I was . . . lost, you see, and . . . I didn’t know how to explain to your . . . to Mrs. Scruton . . .”
“Yes, I know. It’s quite all right. You were only a few minutes late, after all.” He smiled kindly, before remembering she couldn’t see him. Her hand was still in his, trembling, unless that telltale vibration came from his own body. He summoned himself and drew her fingers to his lips. “It’s quite all right.”
“But I . . .”
“Please sit.” He urged her into the chair. “Would you like a glass of something? Sherry, or wine? Have you eaten?”
“Yes, I’ve had tea. I . . .”
He had to be doing something, something to cover his anxiety. The woman was unexpectedly lovely beneath the blindfold. She had high cheekbones and a firm chin, and her mouth curved with beautiful fullness, a cherry-ripeness that fastened his hungry gaze. She seemed young, quite young, and altogether inexperienced despite her poised shoulders and upright posture.
No, this woman had certainly not come to him before. He would have remembered her. And yet he could not quite set aside an elusive sense of familiarity, a hint of that relief one felt when returning to one’s own home after a time spent abroad.
Did he know her from elsewhere?
Ashland stepped away and made for the liquor cabinet. “You must have something. It’s not a journey for the timid, at this time of year.”
“I’m not timid.”
“Of course not. I only meant . . .” He reached for the sherry and poured two glasses. The splash of liquid in the glass soothed his jangling nerves. “I only meant that your way has been long, and the weather uncomfortable. I hope Mrs. Scruton was hospitable, Miss . . . I beg your pardon. I haven’t even asked your name.” He returned to her and pressed the glass into her hand.
“Thank you.” She took a drink. “My name is Emily.”
“Emily . . . ?”
“Just Emily.” Her voice was firm.
“Emily, then.” He touched her glass with his own. “I’m Anthony Brown.”
“Mr. Brown.” She took another drink. “Do you always take the trouble to introduce yourself?”
He paused at her sharpness. “It seems the courteous thing to do. We are both human beings, after all, deserving of respect.”
“Indeed.” She set her glass on the table and rose from the chair, nearly bumping into his nose. “I am afraid, however, that a great mistake has been made. I cannot . . . I cannot stay with you.” A little emphasis fell on the word stay.
He fiddled with his glass. The light gleamed on her hair: a beautiful color, a rich gold, the color of wheat in late summer. Her chin was tilted at a regal angle. Who the devil was she? Nothing like the women who had come to this room before; even Sarah only clung by her fingernails to the brink of gentility. This Emily was a lady of quality, without a doubt. Perhaps fallen on hard times? Perhaps accepting this employment as a last resort? He felt a sudden bone-crushing desire to stroke that alluring hair, and was glad—for once—he had no right hand to reach out and pillage her while his left was already occupied. “Cannot stay long?” he asked softly. “Or cannot stay at all?”
“Cannot stay at all.” She whispered the words. She stood very close; the heat of her body tingled his neck and his hand, which held the sherry glass. She seemed to be breathing in shallow little gusts, as if agitated. If not for the blindfold, she would be staring directly into his collar. Ashland gazed down at her, transfixed by the perfect curve where her earlobe met her graceful neck.
He wanted her.
The desire struck him suddenly, with the force of a firing gun.
“Very well. If you wish to leave, you will find your fee in your coat pocket.”
A blush crept over her cheekbones. “I don’t . . . I don’t want your money.”
“You are entitled to it, after coming so far today.”
“I don’t . . . I can’t . . .” She sat back down again. “Please remove the money from my pocket, sir.”
He set down his untouched glass next to hers. “Have you never done this before?”
“No.”
The word sent an animal thrill through his veins. He forced it back, forced himself to civility. “You are free to go, of course, if this . . . if you cannot overcome your disgust.”
“Disgust! No, sir. Not disgust.” Her hands knotted together in her lap. As he watched from above, the little red tip of her tongue slipped from her mouth to wet her lips.
Ashland swept up his glass of sherry and finished it.
“I will double the fee, if that might persuade you,” he said.
“No! Dear God. I must go. This is impossible.” She rose again, so abruptly that Ashland had no time to step back, and she collided into his chest with an Oh!
He grasped her arm reflexively to steady her.
As always, his senses crashed at the physical contact. He braced himself for the instant rush of panic, for the excruciating memory of a million nerve endings recoiling in his body.
The panic rushed, the nerves recoiled, but something lay atop the sensation: a warmth, a lithe softness, a curving femininity.
Emily’s body against his.
She lay there only an instant. Almost before Ashland understood the comfort of her, she pulled away and put her hands to her blindfold. “I beg your pardon!”
His left hand still grasped her arm. “The fault is mine.”
She went still. She wore a plain but well-tailored dress of some rich midnight blue; the bodice fitted her waist and chest without a wrinkle, buttoning up the front to the middle of her neck. Underneath that bodice, her lungs heaved for air, the only perceptible motion in all her body. “Sir,” she whispered, “your hand.”
Ashland was seething with lust, pounding with it; his single eye blurred with it. He forced his offending fingers to drop away from her arm. “You are free to go, of course,” he said. “But I ask you . . . madam . . . Emily . . .”
“Sir.”
“I beg you to stay.”
He knew his voice, dark and rough-edged, did not match his words. He knew his plea sounded more like a command, but he could not speak tenderly. He was too full of need, this unexpected cataclysm of sexual desire, and in twelve long years he had forgotten what tenderness sounded like.
What was Emily thinking? The black blindfold, which kept her from seeing what a monster stood before her, also kept him from reading her expression. She hadn’t moved away; surely that was promising. The curve of her well-covered bosom still rose and sank deeply under the pressure of her breathing. Her chin tilted upward, as if she were trying to peer at his face through the blackness before her eyes.
“Madam?” he said, and this time, thank God, the word came out gently.
Her hand made some movement at her side: lifting a few inches, then falling back. She wetted her lips again.
Ashland closed his eye. He was going to perish.
“I think . . .”—a long pause, during which Ashland could count the seconds snicking away on the nearby clock, could hear a faint note of laughter ascend and fall from some distant room—“. . . I think I will stay.”
He caught her fingers just before they reached his chest. “Remember the rules.”
“The rules?”
“You are not to touch me. You are not to lift the blindfold.”
Relief was running through his body in a flood, mingling with the renewed surge of lust. A stout and long-suffering dam seemed to crack apart inside him.
God, who was she? What was she doing to him?
Emily.
“Not touch you?” she whispered. “But how . . . how are we to . . .”
He released her hand and touched the topmost button of her bodice. “Let me.”
A sigh slipped between her lips.
He could not quite steady the trembling of his fingers as he undid the first button, and then the next. He could only hope she was as unsettled as he was, that her own nervousness concealed his yearning. Her throat, uncovered, glowed like new cream in the lamplight.
Another button, another, and his knuckles were brushing against the warm cloth that covered her breasts. She stood obediently before him, her hands concealed in the folds of her skirt; a scent drifted across the air between them, a hint of soap, mixed with something else: lavender, perhaps, from the sachet in her drawer. She did not wear perfume. She smelled only of herself, of cleanliness and female skin. He wanted to bury his nose in the hollow of her throat and fill his lungs with her.
Another button, and the bodice gave way from her breasts. She made another of her sharp intakes of breath, and her hands lifted again, as if by instinct.
“Shh,” he said. “It’s all right.”
Her hands dropped, fisting around fabric, and her lips parted. Ashland undid the last button on her bodice and worked it carefully over one shoulder and then the other, until she stood before him with her arms bare, with only her corset and chemise to shield her bosom from his gaze. He folded the bodice and placed it on the chair, and as he rose again he passed by the gleaming curves of her breasts, the fine lace trimming of her chemise, and his heart nearly stopped in his chest. She was breathing in quick little pants; he wanted to soothe and excite her all at once, to hold her in comfort and to take violent possession of her.
What was happening to him? He had only just met her, and it was as if a field of electricity crackled between them.
“It’s all right,” he said again, because that was all his dizzy brain could manage. He found the fastenings of her skirt and removed it, concentrating on his awkward one-handed task to keep his lust under control. She was not wearing one of those odd and abominable bustles, thank God. He reached for the tapes of her petticoat, and she moved at last, stumbling back against the chair.
“Oh! You don’t mean to . . . Is it necessary . . .” She was blushing furiously now, an eager pink, and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Shh,” he said. “Let me. I want to see you, Emily.”
He tugged gently at one of her bare arms, until both fell back away and opened her to him once more. He removed her petticoats, and this time he didn’t bother to fold them; he almost kicked them aside in their frothy whiteness.
“Turn around,” he whispered, and miraculously she turned, exposing her bare neck with its golden chignon, her smooth white flesh. He examined her corset, but he could not quite figure out how it went: Where were the laces? “Your stays,” he said.
“They fasten in front,” she said, a faint whisper, “so I can dress without a maid.”
He stepped closer, until his belly and his straining erection nearly brushed the elegant curve of her backside, and he looked over her shoulder. “Ah, I see. Very clever.”
“Can you manage it?” she asked, in the same faint whisper.
“I believe so.” He brought his left arm around and plucked awkwardly at the grommets, until at last the stays fell away to the floor and her breasts sprang free.
For a long moment he simply breathed into her hair, not quite touching her, studying the curves of her body through the translucent veil of her chemise. Her nipples stood erect, two alluring pink nubs beneath the muslin; her waist and hips and legs flowed in elegant lines beneath. A faint shadow nestled at the juncture of her legs, almost hidden by a trick of the cloth.
You’re beautiful, you’re perfect, he wanted to say. His hand ached to cup her breast. She would fit him exactly, a ripe and flawless palmful of Emily. He imagined his finger running along her skin, his thumb caressing the very tip of her nipple.
“Sir.” Her voice was low, almost a growl.
He turned his lips to her golden hair and held them there, exerting not a single ounce of pressure.
The clock chimed, six delicate notes into the stillness.
He stepped away, and the agony of separation rent through the length of his body. He picked up the bodice and skirt from the chair, picked up the petticoats and the stays, and laid them all across the back of the sofa.
“Sir?” she asked, a little forlorn.
“Sit.” He positioned the chair just so and urged her downward. From his pocket he drew a small volume, the copy of Jane Eyre that Mr. Grimsby had brought out of the library cobwebs nearly a month ago. “Here you are, my dear. I will let you know when to lift the blindfold.”
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Remember, you are not to look back. You know the story of Lot’s wife, of course?”
Emily swallowed. Her fingers curled around the book. “She looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt.”
“Exactly. You are Lot’s wife, Emily.” He turned and began to walk across the room, to the armchair in the corner behind her, cast in deep shadow.
“But . . .” Her voice was bewildered, bereft, the way his own body felt in the absence of her warmth. “But I don’t understand.”
“Did your Mrs. Plimpton not explain everything clearly?” He lifted his tails and settled into the armchair. The back of Emily’s body glowed before him, prim and upright in the ladder-backed chair, unbearably seductive beneath the sheerness of her chemise. Her neck was long and sinuous, curving like a swan’s into the trim line of her collar. One sleeve of her chemise had fallen to expose her round shoulder.
“No, she . . . she did not.”
The Duke of Ashland took in a long breath and leaned his head back against the upholstery. Above him, the ceiling coffers sat in their orderly squares, their white paint turned to pale gold in the lamplight. Inch by inch, nerve by tortured nerve, he brought his seething body under control.
“You are to read, Emily,” he said softly. “You are to read to me.”
* * *
Emilie stood rigidly against a column of the back portico, staring straight ahead into the dark gardens of the hotel. They were bringing around a carriage for her, to convey her back to the station for her supposed train to . . . well, wherever it was. York, probably.
Her insides were still trembling; her fingers were cold inside her gloves.
He was still up in the room, the Duke of Ashland. If she looked upward, she might perhaps see a crack of light through one of the windows, the window of the room where they had sat together. Where he had undressed her to her chemise, with his broad, firm hand; where she had read to him, taking little sips of sherry to fortify herself, while he sat behind her and watched and listened.
