Dukes Do It Better, page 9
I learned young that consistency was an attribute no wise woman should expect from a man. First my fickle father, then the man who ruined me. I still have nightmares about how he laughed when I told him I was expecting. How he claimed he couldn’t be sure the baby was his.
Yet I can’t shake a hope that somewhere out there you exist. And you are trustworthy.
What were the chances that Emma and the journal writer were one and the same? The question wouldn’t go away after thinking it. Olread Cove, where he’d found the book, was a tiny community. He didn’t know where Emma lived, but how many unwed mothers with a young son with a name beginning with A could there be in the village?
Except Emma was a respectable widow. He’d heard the tragic story of how her husband passed away before the birth of their son. Surely, if a man were married to a woman like her, he’d react with joy and gratitude when discovering he’d be a father, not the way described in the journal.
Unless someone was lying.
Or Emma wasn’t the journal author.
But what if the mysterious writer who’d kept his brain engaged this past voyage and the widow who inflamed his desire were the same woman? Such good fortune would be entirely out of place in the life circumstances in which he found himself.
At the front door, Coswell shot Malachi one more worried glance, then dragged Roxbury out into the night.
Right, then.
Abandoning the casual pose, Malachi slipped around the corner and counted doors in the increasingly dim hallway. The latch clicked under his hand, quietly allowing entrance to the dark room. Leaning against the door to close it, he barely registered her saying, “It took you long enough” before his arms were full of warm vanilla-scented woman.
Roxbury, the Royal Navy, and secrets would have to wait.
* * *
“Honestly, did you go woo a wallflower while I waited—”
Mal’s mouth cut off the rest of Emma’s words, and then speech felt superfluous. Who needed words when they created their own language of pressing lips, tongues, sighs, and the eager quest of fingers reacquainting themselves with each other?
Emma’s bones might have turned to jelly entirely if not for the desire roiling through her. Like flames dancing up a chimney on a windy night, the simmering heat Mal inspired in her flared into an entirely different beast the second they touched. The tips of his fingers were rough against her arms and neck. The sandpapery slide against her skin woke up every nerve ending. Sure, she wanted to eat the man up like a decadent dessert, but she also just wanted those hands to touch her. If she could strip on her bed and have him lightly caress her from head to toe with those working hands, Emma would happily stay there until she expired from contentment.
“God, Emma, you’re so soft.” His voice was ragged as his fingers slid from her shoulders, tracing her collarbones, thumbs dipping to the tops of her breasts.
It had been so long. Months since their night together, and right now, her body was telling her exactly how many days, weeks, and months she’d been without a man. Especially this man.
Pulling her head back enough to speak, Emma gasped, “You’re still leaving soon?”
Mal froze. “That hasn’t changed. I’m going back to my ship and you’ll return to the coast. Like last time, this isn’t forever.”
She raised to her tiptoes and then sank back on her heels, enjoying the delicious slide of her body down his hard frame. His erection dug into her belly like an iron pike. Her fingers clutched his biceps, and the wet heat between her thighs demanded satisfaction.
“How long do you think until you leave?” She could enjoy him for a month, then let him go. One blip of time in the grand scheme of things. A short affair.
Mal smoothed his delicious hands over her shoulders, then down her arms. “Probably a few weeks.”
Emma ran a finger down the soft bristles of his beard. “Will you give me those weeks? No more. No less. No one else until you leave, then we go our separate ways.” The bulge of his Adam’s apple fascinated her and she couldn’t resist scraping her teeth over it. The responding purr of pleasure vibrated under her lips.
He bent to place an open-mouthed kiss along the side of her neck and growled. “I found the vanilla.”
Emma giggled. “Is that a yes, Captain?” Wrapping her arms around his neck, she tried not to squeal when he lifted her off her feet and walked them toward the nearest piece of furniture, which turned out to be a desk. Something tipped, then rolled away and fell to the floor when he sat her on the top. It didn’t sound breakable, so any concern disappeared when his mouth moved down her neck, to her shoulder, then to the swells of her breasts above the neckline of her gown.
One of Mal’s hands wrapped around her ankle, then slipped under her skirt until he found the ribbon garter and end of her silk stockings. “I won’t share you. You won’t share me. We walk away satisfied when I return to sea. Those are your terms?”
“Those are my terms. I also expect us to do all we can to prevent pregnancy. I’ll take measures during future meetings, but I don’t have anything with me tonight. I require your agreement. On this matter I won’t budge,” Emma said.
His hand traveled higher up her leg and paused on her thigh. “Agreed. I give you my word as an officer and a gentleman.”
Emma grinned, then lifted her skirt higher to spread her thighs and make room for his body. “Well then, permission to come aboard, Captain.” She caught her breath when he brushed a thumb along the wet slit between her legs.
“Good. Because I have the fiercest craving for apricots.”
She laughed, then lost her breath entirely when he knelt and laid an open-mouthed kiss on her most intimate place. Mal kissed with confidence, no matter where he happened to lay his mouth. The man didn’t ease into anything. He barreled forward, and her body wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of sensation. A shuddering moan finally returned with her gulp of air.
Goodness, he was good at this. Not that she had much to compare him with. Roxbury hadn’t been interested in this position. He far preferred to receive than give, which wouldn’t surprise anyone who actually knew the man. The one time he’d kissed between her legs had ended with Emma changing position to make him stop. The jab, jab, jab of his tongue had been annoying, not arousing.
Thoughts of her only other lover acted like a splash of cold water, and she stiffened on the desk, while her thighs instinctively tried to close, clamping on the sides of Mal’s head.
“Where’d you go, Emma?” His question blew a hot breath of air against her inner thigh.
She blew out a sigh and forced her knees to fall open. “Nowhere you need worry about.” Thinking about the cad in her past would have to wait for later, when she wasn’t so pleasantly engaged.
“Want me to stop?” His hand slid along her calf, then up her thigh, gently massaging the tension out of her muscles.
“Don’t you dare.” Emma shook her head so hard, a hairpin fell to the desktop with a tinny tink.
Mal placed a gentle kiss on the inside of her knee. “You can stop me at any time. If you’re not enjoying it, I’m not enjoying it. Clear?”
She closed her eyes, grateful he likely couldn’t see the details of her expression in the low light. Dissecting the utterly foreign sweetness of his statement would have to wait as well. This was about seizing the moment and feeding her body the sensations it desperately craved, not feelings. “As clear as crystal, Captain. Now get to work.”
His huff of laughter blew against her core. “Aye, aye, ma’am.” And he did.
Emma sighed as a wave of pleasure rippled from her core, down to her toes, and up to her chest to settle in a fizzy feeling under her breastbone. Leaning back on her palms, she used the faint light available to watch the dark head between her legs. More shadows than anything, but somehow the lack of sight heightened every other sense.
The musk of her arousal mingled with his bay rum scent and the tang of lemon wood polish from the desk under her.
Mal’s tongue did something that sent a lightning bolt to her toes and she gasped. He did it again, then added a gentle scrape of teeth and a flick of his tongue to sooth the slight sting.
Large hands gripped the soft flesh of her inner thighs, keeping her open to his mouth. The pressure holding her to the desk was barely enough for Emma to let go of her carefully guarded control. The illusion of being pinned made her hips soften and her spine go weak, even as her breath shortened into panting little gasps.
For the first time during sex, Emma wished for more light. She’d like to see if his pale eyes darkened with desire. As it was, she relished the heated breaths against her tender flesh, the luxuriously soft tongue contrasting the firm, long-fingered hands keeping her hips in place. All of it combined to make the tension gather low, shimmering under her skin, until her nerves paused, waiting for one final push over the edge into oblivion.
Mal seemed to know. When he sucked her clitoris lightly, in rapid pulses, it destroyed any remaining calm she might have been clinging to. Even as her bones turned to jelly and her thighs quivered against his ears, Emma refused to stop watching the dark shadow of him until the final quake finished within her.
Slumping back to rest on her elbows, she closed her eyes on a contented sigh, letting her heavy head loll back as the release settled over her like the softest blanket. Lord, she couldn’t tell if she wanted to run laps around the garden or sleep for a month.
The soft silk of her skirts shifted to cover her legs, then she heard Mal rise.
“Give me a minute to catch my breath, then it’s your turn,” she said.
The warm presence of his body overwhelmed her senses. With her eyes closed, Emma focused on the many ways she felt him. His cologne carried on the stir of air as he leaned close, a butterfly-light brush of a kiss on the plump top of one breast, then the smell of her on his lips and the soft bristle of his beard on her chin when he hovered at her mouth, waiting for her to meet his kiss.
They tasted good together. Emma licked into his mouth lazily, welcoming the rise of desire again.
“Can you come to me tonight? I’d hate to meet your brother in the hallway outside your bedroom,” he said.
The idea made a snorting laugh burst out, and Emma covered her mouth to call back the indelicate sound. “Cal would kill you. As if he was any better with Phee. But yes, he’d kill you.” If she was going to keep to her plan for the Season and not hide things from her family, she’d probably have to be open about where she spent her nights. Eventually. Maybe. If asked.
That line of thinking made her close her eyes and take a breath. No. No lies to Cal and Phee. Besides, they’d need to be available to run interference with Alton. Because no way would she bring this affair to her bedroom, where her son could wander in and see a strange man in her bed. “I’ll come to you. First, I need to leave instructions at home in case Alton wakes and I’m not there.” Mal made a grunting noise she took as consent.
“How long do you plan to stay at the ball?” she asked.
“About thirty seconds longer than you. I’ll find Simon, say my goodbyes, and we can share a carriage if you like. We’ll stop by Hill Street first.”
“Then on to your house?”
“Then on to my house. The carriage is at your disposal to return home whenever you choose.”
Emma straightened, putting her bodice to rights, although it hadn’t shifted too much during their interlude. “I’ll tell my family I’m leaving early and meet you out front in ten minutes, shall I?”
She’d reached the door when she paused and turned. “Wait. On second thought, I’ll take the family carriage and send it back for Cal and Phee. Give me your direction and I’ll take my own transportation to your door later.”
That felt right. To not be beholden to anyone to get home whenever she chose. Perhaps by the end of their affair she would be comfortable with him having such power. But now? No thank you.
His kiss acted as a poker stirring the coals on a banked fire, and Emma sighed happily against his lips.
“You go first,” he said ruefully. “I need a few more minutes to get my body under control.”
Emma grinned, then ran an appreciative hand over the front of his trousers.
“Not helping, milady.” He laughed, then gave her another short kiss and nudged her toward the door. “Don’t dawdle. I’ll see you shortly and we’ll finish this.”
At the door, she glanced back. “These few weeks will be delicious, Captain.”
“Plan on it.”
Chapter Eight
A—’s hair is a sweaty mat on his head, and he simultaneously wants all and none of the blankets on him. Nothing satisfies his discomfort. This terror as a parent is overwhelming. I’m so awfully aware of my loneliness tonight. Which is why I write this by the light of a single candle as I sit at his bedside. I need someone to write to. In this way, you can be scared with me.
—Journal entry, April 3, 1824
The lingering effects of the release she’d had at the efforts of Mal’s talented mouth fizzed under her skin like bubbles in her blood.
Charles the footman opened the carriage door and offered his hand down to the steps. “Welcome home, Lady Emma.”
“Thank you, Charles. Could you make sure the staff eats before returning the coach to the Vanfords’?”
Charles nodded. “Of course.”
Inside the hall, the butler took her outerwear.
“I trust it’s been an uneventful evening, Higgins?”
“I wish I could say so, Lady Emma. I believe Nelson has a more thorough briefing of tonight’s events when you go upstairs.”
That didn’t sound good. Emma picked up her hem and took the stairs at a run. Surely if there’d been an emergency, the staff would have sent word to the ball. No amount of dancing, punch, and desktop liaisons were more important than Alton and Freddie.
The mother in her wanted to call down the hall so she could get a report a few seconds sooner. But the smart mother in her noted the late hour and didn’t want to wake children who should be sleeping—and apparently had enjoyed an eventful evening themselves.
As it was, the footman met her at the door. “They’re sleeping now, but they’ve been asleep for only about a half hour,” he said, closing the door behind him so they could speak in the hall.
“What happened?” Emma clutched her hands together, knitting her fingers around one another at her waist. “How is Alton?”
“We think it was the fish,” Nelson said.
Emma paused. “The fish?” The meaning settled over her and she curled her lip.
Nelson grimaced. “Quite right. The staff and nursery ate fish this evening, and several members of the house have spent the night indisposed.”
“I take it you didn’t eat the fish tonight.”
“No, milady. I’m a butcher’s son. I’ll take a slab of beef any day, but I’ve never been fond of fish.” Nelson paused, listened at the door, then resumed speaking. “Miss Lacey is down with it as well. I sent her to bed a couple hours ago and stepped in.”
Things must be rough if the nurse was abandoning her post.
Emma closed her eyes and tried to take a calming breath. “I’m so glad you were here. How are they now?”
“Their stomachs are empty at this point. Alton and Freddie teamed up as usual and comforted each other through it all. I was going to send word to the Vanfords’, but then they finally nodded off.”
“Thank you for taking care of everyone up here. Give me a moment to change out of this gown, and then I’ll take over for the night.”
Emma hurried back to her room, shedding the layers of her evening wear as soon as the door closed behind her. It wasn’t until she’d changed into a comfortable old cotton dress and warm wrapper that she remembered Mal.
“Damn, drat, and double damn.” Her shoulders slumped and she stared at the ceiling. Huffing a sigh, she grabbed a sheet of paper and dashed off a quick note. No matter how long or short their acquaintance, Mal would have to learn he wasn’t the top priority in her life. Alton would always come first.
Back in the nursery, Emma closed the door behind her softly so as to not disturb the boys sleeping in their slim beds by the far wall. Nelson stepped into the room from the direction of Miss Lacey’s chamber.
“Everyone’s asleep. Let’s hope they stay that way,” he whispered.
“Find your bed for the night, Nelson. But could you please ask Higgins to send this out before retiring?” She handed over the folded missive with Mal’s direction inked on the front.
“Happy to, milady.” Nelson tucked the letter in his pocket and bid her good night.
Emma waited until the door closed again before darting to Alton’s bedside. The half-moon fans of his dark lashes rested against pale, chubby cheeks and she smiled. He was beautiful; her heart never failed to flutter in her chest at the sight of him sleeping so peacefully. A tuft of wheat-colored hair stuck straight up in front, and one arm had been flung over his head. She tugged the blanket up under his chin, and he stirred.
“Mama?”
“Shh, little love. I’m here now.”
“Feel icky, Mama. I don’t like fish.”
An entirely inappropriate chuckle threatened to break free, but Emma managed to stifle it. “No, I don’t imagine you’ll want fish for a while after this. How does your belly feel now?”
His eyes drifted closed and he spoke through a yawn. “Better now. Nelson gave us ginger candies.”
God bless Nelson. “Try to rest. We’d hate to wake Freddie.”
“Freddie spewed two times after my last one. He won,” Alton said, half asleep already.
The laugh burst out and Emma slapped a hand over her mouth. They’d kept score how many times they’d vomited. Of course they had. Because boys. Attempting to not giggle, she said, “In this competition, I’m glad you fell behind. Now sleep. I’ll be right here if you need me.”
Miss Lacey’s bedchamber was in an adjoining room, but they kept a sleeping cot in the corner for circumstances exactly like this one. Emma gathered a pillow and blanket from the cupboard and made herself a bed. Alton’s breathing settled back into dreamland, and little Freddie hadn’t stirred since she’d arrived. When she checked on him, Phee’s son lay sprawled on his belly, full lips slightly open on a tiny snore, and one arm hanging off the bed with fingertips clutching the rim of a metal basin.
