Sally MacKenzie Bundle (101 page)

“Oh, climb off your high horse. I am not complaining. Make all the advances you care to, just slip a ring on the girl’s finger before you slip something else between her thighs.”

“Aunt!”

“For God’s sake, Charles, you ain’t a virgin, are you?”

“That is not your affair—but I certainly thought
you
were.”

Charles blinked. Aunt Beatrice actually blushed—the color did not go well with her ensemble.

“And that,” she said, “is not
your
affair.”

“Right. Quite agree. Not my affair.” The thought was…There
had
been rumors…No, he couldn’t let his mind contemplate…Well, if she had had a paramour, the fellow must have been color-blind. Though one assumes she would have removed—No, he would not think about it.

“Emma, however,
is
a virgin.” Aunt paused and raised an eyebrow. “She is, isn’t she? I mean, still? You didn’t…?”

“No!”

“Good. However, I believe you did
something
to her.” She shrugged. “Young girls are so skittish nowadays. You probably only gave her a little too intense a kiss, though there is the matter of her dress…”

Aunt looked him over carefully. Charles kept his face expressionless.

“Hmm. Well, whatever happened, it obviously unsettled her. Go upstairs and apologize. Very nicely. Very thoroughly. I want to announce your betrothal at the ball.”

Charles acknowledged as he climbed the stairs that he had let his passion outrun his good sense that morning. He was as certain as he could be that the kiss he’d given Emma in his curricle the day he arrived had been her first. And that kiss had been a mere brushing of lips. Well, with Emma nothing was “mere.” But still, he should never have taken her so far and so quickly down the road to seduction as he had by the lake.

He knocked on her door. “Emma?”

“Go away.”

He looked down the corridor. The Misses Farthington stared interestedly back at him. He bowed and continued on to his room.

He knocked on the connecting door.

“Emma?”

“Go away.”

“We need to talk, sweetheart.” He pushed on the door. It didn’t move. “Have you put something in front of the door, Emma?”

“Yes.” Her voice sounded muffled, as though she had been crying.

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to be afraid of me. Let me in. I promise we will only talk. I won’t touch you or distress you in any way.”

Silence greeted this statement. Charles took this as an encouraging sign.

“Emma, you must have questions. Do you understand what happened at the lake?”

“No!”
This was delivered in a wailing, teary tone, followed by a definite sniff. He felt the oddest sensation, as if his heart had turned over in his chest.

“Let me come in, Emma. We can talk quietly. You don’t want anyone to overhear our conversation, do you?”

“No.” This time there was a touch of panic also. He heard her cross the floor and push something out of the way. She opened the door. Her poor eyes were swollen from crying.

“Emma.” He broke his promise without a second thought. He squeezed past the small chest she had pushed in front of the door, and drew her gently up against him, holding her close. “Emma, sweetheart, I’m so sorry I upset you. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

She sighed and leaned against him.

“Come.” He led her back to the big chair by the fire and pulled her down onto his lap. He held her head against his shoulder, stroking her hair as he would Isabelle or Claire.

He loved the feel of her body relaxed and heavy against his. He was amazed he felt no lust. Oh, it was there, of course, but like an orchestra playing in the ballroom when one was standing on the terrace. Wonderful, magical, but in the background.

He felt strangely content. He rested his cheek
against her head, kissing her hair, breathing in her sweet scent.

“What did you do to me?” she whispered against his chest.

How to answer that question?

“I made love to you, sweetheart.”

He felt her tense.

“So, am I…um…Am I…p-pregnant?”

He might have found the situation funny, if she hadn’t been so distressed.

“No, Emma, you aren’t pregnant.”

“Are you certain?”

“Completely certain, sweetheart. There is no way you could be increasing.”

“But something very…odd happened to me.”

She was whispering again. He had to hold his breath to hear her.

“I felt so…wild. Needy. I ached for you to…I don’t know…
fill me
in some way.”

Charles took a deep, shuddering breath. Now he felt lust. It threatened to stampede all his good intentions.

He knew exactly how he could fill her.

“You had your lips on my…um…you know. Like a baby nursing. And then, I—I…shattered. Something inside me pulsed and, and everywhere got hot and flushed and then…it all relaxed.”

“Uh.” God, he was going to explode. “Um, that sounds a little uncomfortable. Did you like it, sweetheart?”

She was silent for a minute, and Charles thought his heart would stop.

“Yes,” she whispered finally. “I liked it.”

He sighed and hugged her closer. “I’m glad.”

“But how do you know I’m not increasing?”

“Because…” What could he say? He did not think she was ready for the specifics. “Because something has to happen to me, too, sweetheart, to make a baby. And that thing did not happen today.”

“Oh.” She looked up at him. “Were you sorry the thing didn’t happen?”

God, he had to kiss her. He brushed his lips over her forehead.

“A little sorry, sweetheart, because it feels very nice. But I knew it wasn’t the right time.”

She dropped her face before he could taste her lips. Her fingers twisted one of his waistcoat buttons.

“So, you’ve made babies before?”

“No!” At least he was almost certain no children had resulted from his other encounters.

“Then how do you know it feels nice?”

Charles felt desperate. “I just do, Emma. You will have to trust me on that. It’s something men know.”

“That sounds like humbug to me.”

“Well, it’s not. Now, do you forgive me for this morning?”

She nodded. “I guess so. But I have one more question.”

“Yes?” Charles felt a sinking in his stomach as she dropped her eyes to her hands. Why did he think this was going to be the hardest question?

“You said you made love to me.”

“Yes.”

“Does that mean you love me?”

Charles felt as if he had just been kicked in the stomach.

Emma had been so frightened and so embarrassed. Embarrassed when she thought of how she
had behaved by the lake; frightened when she thought she might be increasing. She was unmarried. How could she care for a child? Where would she live? Hot shame drenched her. Her father, Meg—they would be so shocked, so disappointed.

She could not imagine what her father would say.

She locked the door to the corridor and pushed the chest in front of the connecting door. She did not want to see Charles. She held her hands to her burning cheeks. Oh, God. He had
seen
her breasts. He had had his
mouth
on them, on her nip—She squeezed her eyes tightly closed. He had
touched
her. And she had writhed against him, like, like…She didn’t know what she had been like. The entire event was beyond her experience.

No, what had happened at the lake didn’t bear thinking of, yet she had spent these past hours thinking of nothing else—when she wasn’t crying, terrified she was enceinte.

She was possessed by Charles. It was a madness. When she closed her eyes, she saw him as if his image had been burned into her eyelids. She saw him standing in the morning light like a Grecian god, saw his broad shoulders, the muscles of his arms, his chest. Inches and inches of warm skin.

She hugged herself—and felt his hands sliding over her again, over her bottom, her breasts. She felt his lips, his tongue on her skin, his mouth sucking. She felt the wet, throbbing emptiness between her legs. Her skin grew hot and sensitive.

What was the matter with her? This illness was beyond the lust she had felt in the conservatory, beyond the urges Mr. Stockley had warned her of. It truly was a madness.

So when Charles had scratched on her door, she’d
been both afraid to let him in and afraid to keep him out. When she’d seen him standing there, she couldn’t say if he were her salvation or damnation. It didn’t matter. Whatever he was, she needed him.

She almost cried with relief when his hands touched her and brought her up against his chest. She breathed in his scent, the clean smell of linen and soap and something else, something male.

He was so calm. His hands and voice soothed her. He made the tight knot of fear and shame in her stomach relax.

He was Charles. He was the boy she had idolized as a girl, who had dried her tears when she’d cried all alone by the stream in the woods. He was the young man she had dreamed of when she was putting her girlhood behind her. He was the first man she had kissed, the only man who had touched her.

She let him pull her down to sit on his lap. She felt warm and protected. There was none of the tension and turmoil she’d felt at the lake. Well, perhaps there was some. Just a little. She felt his hard shoulder under her cheek and his hand stroking through her hair. A pulse began to beat low in her middle.

“What did you do to me?” she’d asked.

“I made love to you, sweetheart,” he had answered.

She’d tensed. She had heard Mrs. Lambert say those words to a pregnant maid once.

“Oh, he made love to you, did he, girl? He gave you a slip on the shoulder, that’s what he did, and you’ll be paying for it in a few months’ time with a wailing babe.”

“So, am I…um…Am. I…p-pregnant?”

“No, Emma, you aren’t pregnant.”

He’d sounded so certain. He must know. Men were taught these things.

She’d felt immeasurable relief, so she’d told him
how she’d felt by the lake, how she had been overcome by madness. He had not sounded shocked. Well, it probably was not shocking to him. He had done this all before, with other women. It wasn’t anything special to him.

That had become painfully apparent when she’d asked her last question.

“You said you made love to me.”

“Yes.”

“Does that mean you love me?”

His silence left little doubt as to his answer, so she’d made her feelings just as clear.

She’d slapped him.

C
HAPTER
11

“I think our plan’s not working, Isabelle. Mama Peterson and Papa Charles look like they’re angry with each other.”

Isabelle nodded. She and Claire were sitting on the landing, watching the house party leave for a picnic. Uncle Charles had come up to Miss Peterson more than once, but she had turned away from him every time.

“We have to think of something else, Claire.” Isabelle frowned. She had been so certain the hidden hairbrush would bring Uncle Charles and Miss Peterson together. “Is there something else of Miss Peterson’s we can put in Uncle Charles’s room?”

“What about her nightgown, Isabelle? Let’s hide that!”

Isabelle nodded. “She’ll definitely need her nightgown. I think she has only one.”

“Well, if she has more, we’ll hide more.” Claire stood up as the last houseguest left the hall. “Let’s go. We’ll hide them good, so Mama Peterson and Papa Charles will have to look a long time.”

“It doesn’t look good, Lavinia.”

“I wouldn’t give up hope yet, Lady Bea. It’s not like there’s any competition. Lord Knightsdale is not a fool. He would never pick a widgeon like Lucinda Pelham or Amanda Oldston.”

“Miss Haverford is a nice enough girl, I suppose.” Lady Beatrice shrugged. “I’m certain she could get the job done.”

“Perhaps, but she is too young, as you have said.”

Lady Beatrice nodded. She and Mrs. Begley were sitting in the morning room, drinking tea—only tea. “I would like Charles to engage his mind, not just his…you know. If he marries simply to procure an heir, I’m afraid he’ll stay at Knightsdale only long enough to accomplish that goal. The estate—and the girls—need him here on a more permanent basis.”

“Exactly. No, I think Miss Peterson is the only real option.”

“So, what can we do to ensure my idiot nephew makes the proper choice?”

“Hmm. I’m not certain. It will take some thought. Perhaps we should enlist the efforts of the Society.”

Lady Bea snorted. “I don’t suppose it could hurt. Looks like the boy is making micefeet of things by himself.”

Emma was furious, and the more she thought about the concluding scene with Charles in her bedchamber, the angrier she got. Lord Knightsdale had taken incredible liberties with her person, and he didn’t know if he loved her? She could have danced a quadrille to his hemming and hawing as she’d hissed him out of her room. He’d barely gotten his
backside over the threshold before she’d slammed the door.

She was furious with herself as well. She had stupidly assumed the physical activities they had engaged in reflected more than physical lust on his part. She snorted. She was a pathetic, naive, twenty-six-year-old virgin—did she think men
loved
the whores they frequented? Her stomach lurched. Surely she meant more to Charles than a whore?

She strode up the stairs to the nursery. It had started to rain. Most of the house party guests had decided to move the picnic into the ridiculous replica of the Pantheon Charles’s grandfather had had the lunacy to build. Emma had not cared to listen to them “ooh” and “ahh” over the statuary. She had walked back by herself.

“Nanny, where are the girls?” Prinny heard her voice and came dashing out of Claire’s room, barking madly. “Shh, sir. You are disturbing the peace.”

“Visiting Cook—shush, ye heathen beast!”

Emma frowned. When was the last time Claire and Isabelle had had their lessons? She had been extremely neglectful of her duties. Well, that would change. Tomorrow she would come to the schoolroom first thing in the morning.