The Wicked Wallflower (16 page)

Emma watched his eyes darken, then close. His lips parted, a moan escaping. She now recognized what he must be feeling: the same heat, the same tension. It pleased her tremendously to give him such pleasure. Especially since she was just a wallflower and he must have surely known accomplished women. His every sigh, his every groan, emboldened her.

Just one kiss . . .

Emma bit her lip, dwelling upon the wicked thought that had just occurred to her. Kissing him, there, as he had done to her. Could she? Should she? Tonight was for daring. So she adjusted her position and took him in her mouth.

“Oh God, Emma,” he groaned. She took more of him in, reveling in his sharp gasps. She clasped the rest of him with her palm, moving up and down in time with her mouth. He murmured her name. His breathing became shallow and fast and then he quickly rolled away from her with a shout as he reached his climax.

“Just one kiss,” he murmured, pulling her close against his chest.

“Just one kiss,” she repeated, curling up in his warm embrace.

 

Chapter 13

“You should tell Emma the news about Benedict,” said Prudence.

“Or you can,” Olivia said.

“No, you can,” Prudence countered.

“No, you,” Olivia replied.

And so on and so forth.

T
HE
F
ORTUNE
G
AMES
were over. All that remained was goodbye.

The others left immediately after breakfast, their departure marked by the explosion of cannons on the front lawn. Blake lingered; he wouldn't, couldn't, say goodbye, and wouldn't, couldn't, say why. It had something to do with the madness that happened last night, what awaited his return to London, and what he would leave behind today.

Blake linked his arm in Emma's and together they watched as Agatha slowly climbed the stairs whilst holding onto the arm of her ever faithful footman. Her solicitor, Eastwick, followed behind, ready to draft yet another version of her will. Blake hoped it wasn't her
last
will and testament, but perhaps second to last, or third, or more. He could get by without the fortune. He wasn't sure that he could get by without Agatha, the one person in the world who knew him and who didn't fuss preciously over him.

Agatha and her men paused for just a moment, a few stairs from the top.

Blake felt something tighten in his chest, as if a pugilist's fist clenched his heart and squeezed hard. He wanted to call out to her, had to tell her . . . Well, he didn't know what to tell her. His mind went blank. Any words died in his throat before he could give voice to them. But he knew that this moment was incomplete, and that if he got in the carriage and drove off now, he would regret it forevermore.

He dashed across the foyer and bound up the steps two at a time, meeting Agatha at the top. He pulled the frail old woman into his bearish embrace.

“Last ditch attempt to win the games,” he said, stepping back. When of course it wasn't that at all. It was
Thank you
and
I love you
and
I will never forget you.

“I am undone by your sentimentality,” she said dryly. Of course, she meant
Thank you
and
I love you
and
I will never forget you.
He knew because he knew
her.
Also, he saw the slick sheen of tears in her eyes.

Afterward, in the carriage, Blake knocked hard on the roof, signaling it was time to go. The carriage jolted to life and rolled down the drive, away from his only family, Agatha, who was probably dying. Away from the only place he had called home, which would soon belong to someone else.

If he couldn't stay forever, then he wanted to leave immediately.

Emma sat across from him, dressed in a green traveling dress. Though her eyes were full of questions, she had the good sense to stay quiet and leave a man to his brooding.

Or so he thought.

“Is everything all right?” she asked in a small voice.

“Of course,” he replied, settling his gaze out the window.

“We have survived the Fortune Games,” she remarked.

“Survive is one way to put it,” he said. But he didn't quite feel like he had. He glanced across the carriage at Emma. Plain, bluestocking, on the shelf wallflower who had thrown her arms around his neck and kissed him . . . in the water . . . in the moonlight. And it was a greater pleasure than he'd ever experienced. But he couldn't be falling for her. Not
him
, not
her
, as the lady herself would say.

Yet, the thought of her with lover boy tied him up in knots.

“Lady Agatha did not announce a winner. When do you think we might hear?” Emma asked, mercifully interrupting his thoughts. Did she ask only so she might know when she might jilt him? Why did that cause another sharp pang in the region of his heart?

“She has already made up her mind,” Blake said. Hell, Agatha probably knew the first night. “We will only wait on how fast her secretary can write as she dictates. And the postal ser­vice, of course. She sends the same letter to everyone who participated. Then the gossiping starts.”

“Let's hope we hear before the wedding,” Emma said.

The wedding.

It hadn't occurred to him that the wedding date would arrive before Agatha's pronouncement. He'd heard vague rumblings around town about Emma's mother planning the wedding of the season, but dismissed them as something not to worry about and ceased to give it another thought. After all, one did not have a
real
wedding for a fake betrothal.

But what if the wedding date approached before Agatha made her choice known?

What if they did something drastic and irreparable—­like marry, or jilt each other?

Blake looked out the window, seeking a distraction in the endless expanse of fields.

“Do you think we will win?” Emma asked.

“I have no idea. It is impossible to anticipate the inner workings of Aunt Agatha's brain. I have not yet been able to determine the formula by which she calculates the winner, for she forgoes any sort of logic or rationality that another person might recognize,” Blake replied.

“You speak so harshly to her. I am still not used to it.”

“That is how we are. For if we display a moment of softness, everything will be lost,” he said.

“Whatever do you mean by that?”

Blake sighed and glanced longingly out the window. He foresaw hours of dodging Emma's honest, heartfelt, devastating questions, and he'd opened himself up too much already. But there was no avoiding those blue eyes, so he told her just enough.

“At the age of eight I was orphaned,” he explained, sounding bored even to his own ears. “I trust you read Chapter Ten in that exhausting history book about the Ashbrookes.”

“I did.”

His parents had died in an accident because of a stupid miscalculation. A damn fool architect relied on faulty calculations from his reckoning book. There had been too much weight and the whole damn roof collapsed. Exactly the sort of thing his Difference Engine would prevent. He couldn't fix the roof, but he could make sure it never happened again. In the meantime, he'd keep everyone at a distance so he didn't experience that devastating loss again. Obviously.

One glance at Emma's blue eyes and he knew she had read between the lines of Chapter Ten and pieced together the truth. There was no need to explain more, for which he was grateful.

“After that, I stayed with a series of nervous, smothering aunts, cousins, and other overly emotive relatives. Then I went to live with Agatha,” he said, smiling faintly at the memory of their first meeting. “She had just lost her fourth husband, Harold—­the one she actually loved. We could have moped, the two of us.”

“But instead you carried on as if everything were just fine,” Emma said. “When my brother died, my parents tried to pretend it never happened. But his presence is still felt. I might not have to marry for money if he were still here.”

Blake pocketed that information, finding that Emma made more sense now. The games were about lover boy, but even more. Money, she needed money. But she wanted love.

“But one always wonders what might have been,” Blake said, and she smiled so sweetly, as if he had understood and said the right thing.

“Does it bother you that she holds the Fortune Games rather than just give the fortune to you, her favorite?”

“It's her fortune to do with as she wishes. Would possessing it make my life easier? Yes. But so would a more respectable reputation,” he said with a shrug. He saw that now. If he possessed the money, he could build his damned engine himself. If he possessed a good reputation, he could solicit investors. Either way he needed Emma.

That was in addition to the raw, driving need for her taste, the sensation of feeling her soft hands on his chest, and the sound of her soft moans in his ear. That kiss had destroyed him. He never
needed
a woman before, and the prospect terrified him.

For if he needed her and craved her, it would be impossible to maintain the distance with which he conducted all of his affairs. But then again, Emma had never been just another affair.
What did that make her?

Too many questions he couldn't answer.

Besides, the answer didn't matter. She had her lover boy, whom she loved so much that she was willing to embark on a sham marriage in order to swindle a fortune from an aging old broad.

Or had things changed for her, too?

“What happens when we return to town, Blake?”

“You will go to your house. I shall return to mine. I will probably have a bath, and then a whiskey,” he said, even though he knew she was not asking about logistics, but about fate, their future, the contents of his heart and his innermost thoughts and feelings.

He did not have an answer for her.

“No, you blockhead,” she said with a delicate upturn of her lips. “With us. What happens if neither of us wins? What happens if one of us wins?”

“I shall prepare to appear desolate and inconsolable as you jilt me and run off with whatever his name is,” Blake said, repeating their plan. If they stuck to the plan, then he need not examine his heart and feelings. He need not renege on every promise he'd ever made to himself. All because of just one kiss. Ridiculous. “Presumably lover boy will wait for you. Did you explain this charade to him?”

Across from him in the carriage Emma paled.

“Of course he'll wait for me,” she whispered.

“You didn't tell him?” Blake lifted one brow.

“I couldn't,” she whispered. “I couldn't get away to see him and I didn't dare put it in writing. The last time I—­ Never mind.”

Blake watched her fingers anxiously gripping and releasing the fabric of her skirts.

“I'm sure he'll wait for you. How long has he been courting you?”

“Three seasons. Without proposing.” There was a twinge of bitterness in her voice.

“Then it is highly unlikely that he has, upon a moment's notice, proposed to another woman,” Blake said to console her. She looked so distraught that he wondered if they should pull the carriage over for her to be sick.

“He'll wait for me. He'll have seen through . . . all this . . . “

Blake murmured his agreement while privately thinking that if any man suddenly stole his woman, he'd follow them both to the ends of the earth. And lover boy had not followed them. Or fought for her. He declined to point this out to Emma. Truly, she looked devastated, and it killed him.

“I'm eager to have the matter settled,” she said, tightly gripping her hands in her lap. He bit back questions of how or with whom.

“The fact is, it would be foolish to make a decision regarding our betrothal until we hear from Agatha about the outcome of the games,” Blake said, adding a dose of practicality to a conversation that had been far too fraught with
feelings
. “We should maintain the ruse just a little bit longer.”

 

Chapter 14

The most coveted invitation this season is the invitation to the wedding of the Duke of Ashbrooke and Lady Emma Avery. The big event is just days away.

—­
M
ISS
H
ARLO
W'S “
M
ARRIAGE IN
H
IGH
L
IFE,”
T
HE
L
ONDON
W
EEKLY

E
MMA ARRIVED T
O
a home she hardly recognized. Every last inch of it was draped in silks and satins, wrapped in lace, and decked in all manner of wedding frippery. Servants scurried about with bolts of ribbon and sample bouquet arrangements. While Emma was at the Fortune Games, her home had been devoted to plans for her upcoming wedding.

Which was still on.

Presumably.

It hadn't been explicitly canceled. In fact, she quickly learned that the date had been set for a few days hence, on Saturday. In addition, invitations were sent and sketches for her gown were in the works. Her first fitting was scheduled for the following morning.

As far as her mother was concerned, The Wedding Was Happening.

Emma didn't have the heart to say otherwise.

Besides, she had a more pressing—­and private—­concern. Had Benedict waited for her? In spite of Blake's reassurances, she worried that Benedict had betrothed himself to another. Which was madness!

Except that her love for Benedict was now tempered by confusion from her ever-­changing feelings for Blake. They'd only been parted for hours, but she hungered for his presence. She missed the dry remarks he would have made about the explosion of wedding things, and she missed the knowing glance they would have exchanged, for they shared a secret.

Yet what of his own intentions or feelings? He had said those devastatingly romantic things to her. That wasn't just a kiss they had shared under the moonlight. It was erotic, intimate, and intensely wonderful. Even he couldn't have experiences like that every night.

Their careful conversations in the carriage about
what would happen now
had only one conclusion: everything hinged upon the outcome of the Fortune Games, which could be announced at any moment.

It would be foolish to break the engagement too soon, but that did not mean they would indeed marry.

All this ambiguity was driving Emma mad. She had half a mind to tuck into the sherry bottle, her nose crinkling as she considered it.

“What do you think of the guest list, darling?” her mother asked, fussing with an arrangement of peonies and roses. Emma took fortifying deep breaths and reviewed the list. Benedict's name was not on it.

“Lord Stanton?” Emma queried. “He has been introduced to me at least four times. He never remembers who I am.”

“He will now, darling.”

Emma read more of the list. “And Lady Abernathy?” she cried out. “You know she is my nemesis.”

“I thought you would like to make her suffer by celebrating your high ranking and handsome husband,” her mother said, bustling about with a bolt of satin and then a roll of tulle and a seventeen-page list of things to do for the wedding. “She can't possibly refuse the invitation, and it would be embarrassing for her to look put out during the ceremony. Therefore, she will attend and smile prettily while absolutely seething inside.”

“Excellent point, Mother. Thank you.”

“Only the best for my daughter duchess,” she hummed merrily. Mostly, her mother vexed her. But then every once in a while she did just the right thing.

“Oh, there was something I wanted to tell you, Emma, town gossip . . . Oh, well. I'm sure I shall recollect in due time. Speaking of the time—­oh my goodness!” her mother exclaimed, ceasing her bustling to note the time. “We must begin preparing for the ball tonight.”

“It is one o'clock in the afternoon,” Emma pointed out. “The ball is not for another eight hours.”

In fact, Emma had hoped to pen a note to Benedict, perhaps even arrange a walk in the park where she might explain everything. Privately. She didn't dare put such incriminating information in writing. She had learned her lesson about
that.

“You're right, darling. We should have tea first, for fortification. Then Madame Auteuil is coming 'round with a new gown for you. But then you know how long your hair takes to curl, and you must look absolutely perfect tonight. Everyone will be watching you.”

“I am betrothed. Can I not let myself go?” Emma mused, imagining a life of never having to sit with a lethally hot iron pressed to her head for hours at a time. It was almost worth keeping up the betrothal for.

“
Au contraire!
Tonight is your debut in society with your fiancé. He's coming at nine o'clock to collect us.”

But would they still be betrothed when the ball was over?