Chapter Thirty
When Bracebridge came to her dressing room holding the copy of Rob Roy they were reading together, Emily felt the impact of his presence like a blow. It’s him, him, him, and I have come alive. The reaction wasn’t new anymore, but it still took her breath. He was here in her room, not two feet from her.
“Good evening,” she said once Maggie had put down the hairbrush and made her exit. Every time she saw him, the same shivery anticipation shot through her. She was tired again, but never too tired for Bracebridge. Their relationship had settled in and become more comfortable.
Book in hand, he moved close and brushed the back of his first two fingers across her cheek. She did so adore the way he looked at her as if he were imagining the wickedest things possible. She certainly hoped so. “Good evening to you, too, Em.”
She set her hands on his stomach, and he reached down to slide his hands under her forearms and lift. She moved happily into his arms. Her breath caught before she could rein in her feelings.
He brought her close, and she reveled in the hardness of his arms and chest. He cupped her head and began a search for hairpins that he discarded without thought of the mess or the work for Maggie. Before long, he was combing his fingers through her loosened hair. “Like gold,” he whispered. He filled his hands with her hair. “Such a color might inspire a man to poetry.”
She laughed. “You’re not going to go on about Byron again, are you? I prefer Wordsworth or Shelley. I like their poems. Now, no more nonsense about my hair. I’ve always wished I were dark-haired like Mary or Lucy.”
“You’d be exquisite no matter what color your hair.” He returned one arm to her waist.
“I dyed it once.”
“You didn’t,” he said.
In all the time they’d been married, she’d never shared anything but the most superficial of stories about herself, but he did not look as if he was asking merely to be polite. In fact, his smile was eager and encouraging. “I did, indeed.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen or fifteen, I think.”
“What color?” He took a lock of her hair between his fingers. “Ginger, was it?”
“Brown, though that was not the color advertised. A peddler came to town and among his wares was a hair dye guaranteed to provide the most miraculous, most excellent, and blackest of hair color. I bought his concoction, and that very afternoon I went to my room and followed the instructions exactly.” The memory of her excitement that day made her laugh. “It smelled awful and made the most terrible mess. To this day, there is a stain on the floor where I spilled some. I was so pleased I would have lovely black hair, just like Lucy’s.”
“I cannot picture your hair any color but this. It was brown, you say?”
“Not raven’s-wing black at all but a horrible brown. Like dirt. All one color. I would have been pleased to have hair like Mary’s. Glorious chestnut would have pleased me almost as much as raven’s-wing black. Alas, the peddler’s miracle dye did not produce anything close to either color. Anne was furious when she saw, but I was heartbroken.”
“What happened? Obviously, it was not permanent. How long was your hair that color?”
“Fortunately, it washed out with a week of daily washing. My hands were stained for days afterward too.” She laughed and was relieved to see him smile in return. “What a waste of my hard-earned sixpence. I learned my lesson well. The next day, I went out with my head wrapped in a turban to demand my money back, but he was already gone.” She touched the silk of his black hair. “If I couldn’t have Lucy’s hair, I would have wanted yours. Curls every which way across my forehead and the nape of my neck.”
The corner of his mouth curved. “Your hair is perfect just as it is.”
She kept her smile.
He put both hands to her waist and frowned at her. “I know that look,” he said. “You don’t believe me. Why not?”
“I believe you meant to compliment me, and I thank you for that.”
“I haven’t poetic words for you about your hair.” He drew her hair over one of her shoulders. “Just my sincere appreciation of the color, how soft it is in my hands. How randy I am when I see you like this.”
“There has to be some use for my looks.”
He frowned again. “Em . . .”
This was no time to argue. She wanted him in her arms, his body against hers, in hers, his drugging kisses, and the climb to passion. She leaned against him, thinking the most reprehensible thoughts. Him naked, her hands on his person, her mouth on him. “You like my looks. Do not deny it.”
He laughed and rested his forehead against hers. He had to slouch a little to do so. “I shan’t, for it’s true. I like how you bring me to a cockstand, and now I’ve told you as poetically as possible for a brute like me.”
“That’s very good, considering your execrable taste in poetry.”
“My God, sometimes you do make me laugh.”
“I like it best when you make me scream.”
“Emily.” He whispered her name, rasped the syllables, and her response to that was a jolt of arousal. “When you look at me like that . . .”
“What?”
“I want to know what you are thinking.”
She leaned into him. “No great surprise there. I want to see you without the encumbrance of these fine clothes. Have I told you how much I like your new waistcoats?”
He took the bottom hem of the garment in both hands and pretended to rearrange the fit. “Yes, but tell me again.”
“I do like this color.” She traced the shape of one of the embroidered leaves. “It reminds me of Mr. Rachagorla’s waistcoats. Not everyone can carry off the look, but you do.”
“I went to his tailor.” He slid his hands around her shoulders and fumbled with the hooks at the back of her gown.
“I approve,” she said. “I would approve even more if you removed all your clothing so I might gaze upon Adonis.”
He lowered his head and pressed his mouth to the side of her throat. “Adonis, you say?”
“Mm. Yes.”
He drew just far enough away to murmur, “What a wicked woman you are.”
She tipped back her head to look into the inky pools of his eyes, and while she stared into those depths, she unbuttoned the topmost button of his coat. Her heart beat as if it had wings that meant to fly her soul out of her chest. “Strip off, my lord.”
Somehow, he’d managed to unfasten enough of the back of her dress to make it gape at the neckline. He moved behind her in one smooth motion. “Your every wish is my command. As soon as I have you naked.”
He worked quickly until her gown fell to her feet. She kicked off her slippers and stepped free of the fabric. He stripped off her chemise but left her in her stockings. She turned and said, “I wanted to see you and . . . this is the result?” She spread her arms. “Unfair.”
He drew two fingers down the center of her body, reverently. “You give a good account of yourself in your skin.”
“I am attempting to recall if you do as well.” She shook her head. “You’ll have to strip off to refresh my memory.”
“Soon enough.” He withdrew a parcel from his coat pocket.
“If only you wished to oblige me, my lord. What a shame you do not.”
“I want you to have sufficient time to admire me in my waistcoat. But first—” He opened the package and withdrew a strand of aquamarine beads and another of pearls. He gave her a searingly wicked grin. “I should like to see you in nothing but these.”
“Are they from the safe?”
“No.” He put both around her neck, double looping the pearls. “They are lovely on your skin. Quite suitable for Lady Bracebridge, if I do say.”
“Thank you.” She was more touched than she ought to have been. The aquamarine beads were faceted just enough to shimmer in the light when she held some of them on her palm. She fingered one of the buttons of his waistcoat. “I should hate for your lovely waistcoat to be damaged, my lord. Surely you agree you must remove this.”
He shrugged off his coat and, while she watched, he undressed without hurry. His waistcoat, neckcloth, braces all landed on the floor. With every item removed, she saw the man who made her empty with longing. Rough. Disreputable. Unbearably masculine. She was transfixed. Breathless with anticipation.
He dropped his shirt on the floor, then bent and removed his boots gracefully. Muscles flexed up and down his arms and across his torso. He pushed down his trousers and smallclothes in one smooth motion and tossed them one-handed on the floor with the rest of his clothes. He stood with his hands on his hips, a smile glinting in his eyes and around his mouth. “Do you like what you see?”
Her reply caught in her throat because she did. Too much. “Yes.” She longed to touch him, to curl her fingers around his upper arms, to drag her hands down his torso. “I always have.”
“Touch me, Em.”
She could not speak. Words were lost to her. And of course, Bracebridge misunderstood.
“Are you feeling well?” He put a hand on her stomach, then turned his hand so his fingers pointed diagonally down. “If you are feeling delicate . . .”
“Not in the least.” She was tired, but her exhaustion had faded away in the heat of this encounter. She closed the distance between them and put a hand on his torso. The beat of his heart transferred to her palm. “Do not move.” She glanced toward the cheval glass, then back, careful not to meet his gaze. “I can see your back from where I stand. And lower.”
“And?”
“You’re magnificent, as well you know.” She leaned in and pressed her mouth to the spot where her hand had been.
“I like to hear the words.” He’d tipped his head back, eyes closed. She gazed at him, drank up the structure of his face. The crooked nose, strong features, and though he could never be called beautiful by a dispassionate observer, to her, he was. Painfully so. “You don’t care for compliments, but I do.”
She drew her palm down the center of his torso. Whatever the state of their marriage or of his lack of feelings for her, there was always electricity between them when they were like this. “You are magnificent,” she said with heartfelt sincerity.
He opened his eyes and looked down at her, and as always, she was drawn into the depths. Mystery lived there in his eyes. Lust. Desire. “How magnificent?”
She pushed him toward her bed, and he took a step backward in the direction they both intended to go. “You make me weak. I tremble with this . . . passion.” She could not say the word love even though that was the word she meant. He did not want to hear that from her, and she did not want to spoil the one aspect of their marriage that pleased them both. “Allow me to demonstrate what I mean.”
“Tell me, too.”
“I’m not a poetess.”
“You are,” he said with an odd bluntness. “Every day you bring beauty into my life.” He wrapped his hand around hers and kissed her knuckles. “Have I told you how grateful I am for that?”
“Why, Bracebridge, that’s most poetic of you.”
“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” He grinned. “It comes of my reading Byron.”
“No, it doesn’t.” She gave him a gentle push. He sat on the edge of the mattress, his feet firmly on the floor because so much of his height was in his legs. She placed her hands on his thighs and stepped between his legs. He smiled, and it made her heart twist up. She drew her fingers along the inside of his thighs toward his sex. “I adore how big you are.” She swept her gaze downward, then back to his face. “Everywhere.”
“More poetry. Do go on.”
When he was like this, attentive to her during intimacy, she was freer than at any other time. She left one hand on his thigh and put the other on his pectoral, tracing the shape of the muscle, sliding a finger over his nipple because she’d discovered he liked that.
“Em.” He cupped the back of her head in one hand and stared at her. “Why would a woman like you prefer me over any other man?”
“Because you are my husband.”
“Before we were married.” His voice sounded thick. How odd. “Before I was Bracebridge. Before and after Anne. Why would a woman as perfectly beautiful as you want a man like me?”
She didn’t mean to sound cross, but that’s how the words came out. “My looks have nothing to do with my heart or my affection for anyone. If looks are all that matter, why did you prefer Anne? Why did you and Ciolini become lovers? Why we fall in love has much more to do with what we are inside. You know that as well as I.”
“I know why I fell in love with Anne.” He wrapped a length of the pearls around his hand. “Why did you fall in love with me?” He slipped his other hand down her body, and she sighed because the way he touched her was so delicious. “It doesn’t make sense.”
She bent her head for a moment. “Don’t do this. Please don’t. What difference does it make?”
He slid his fingers between her legs, and she made sure to accommodate him. “Why a brute like me?”
“I like you as a brute.”
“That’s no answer.”
“I can’t think when you touch me like that.”
“Try.”
“I’ve known for years I prefer large men. Tall and brawny.” She rubbed her hands up and down his arms. “Even before I met you. Of course I did not learn the reason I like brutes like you until recently.” She brushed her other hand along his shaft and smiled when he drew in a breath. “I adore the shape of you. The feel of this hair in my hands, this skin, this part of you.” She met his gaze. “The way you cover me. You. Inside me.”
He gave her an arch look. “Are you saying you love me because of my looks or because of my cock?”
“Both, of course. Oh, more of that, please. I loved you because you were kind to all of us Sinclair sisters. You were amusing. Are amusing. You had been through so much. Losing your family the way you did. The fact that you fell in love with Anne.” She drew a shuddering breath. “Enough talk. Let me see you.”
He glanced down. “I stand ready to accept your appreciation.” She burst into delighted laughter that made him smile. “The two of us are a better match than I ever anticipated.” He put his hands on her waist and brought her onto the bed with him. “You make me smile and laugh. You make me glad to come home, and I never thought I would ever be glad to come here.”
She expected him to enter her, wanted him to badly, but he did not. Instead, weight on his forearm, he stroked his other hand down her body, from the top of her throat to her knee. “Your skin is soft,” he murmured.
She knew the litany of compliments, and she wasn’t displeased by them anymore. He found her beautiful, and that was nothing to complain of. They were not, alas, two people who cared deeply for each other. She was well aware the feelings were one sided. She was bitterly relieved there was something about her he found worthy of admiration.
His hand wandered over her body, touching, caressing, bringing her to a peak of arousal, to the edge of losing herself to him. “Be Emily with me,” he said.
Her eyes popped open, but he was absorbed by her breasts at the moment, and as she watched, he bent to take her nipple in his mouth. Her thoughts were swept away.
Some moments later, he lifted his head and positioned himself over her. As ever, her body responded. “Be Emily with me,” he whispered.
As he pushed inside her, she could not help but say, “Why, when you do not like Emily?”