Chapter Seven
Bracebridge’s question paralyzed her. She could not answer him, because there was no safe answer. Then words tumbled out, all in a rush, without her able to take in enough air to steady herself, and they weren’t remotely the right ones. “I want so badly to be at home. In my room with Mrs. Elliot to bring me tea and bread and my own maid to dress me.”
He cocked his head.
Oh, heavens. She wanted to disappear. She was tired and on edge, and now she’d said something that could only reinforce his poor opinion of her. “That’s how I want to imagine home. Just Mrs. Elliot.”
Bracebridge replied with unexpected gentleness. “We’ve had a long and tiring day full of the unexpected.”
She did not want him to be kind. How could she live if he was kind to her? She wanted—needed—the safety of his disdain, and now it was gone. Underneath the table, she clasped her hands so hard her fingers hurt. She forced herself to release her grip. “I never want to see him again. Anne only sees him because of me and her sense of duty, but she’s as frustrated and angry as any of us. The same for Mary. I don’t think Lucy intends to see him again. I know I shan’t. He’s done enough.”
She struggled to maintain her calm. He wanted to engage in intimate relations. Tonight.
As the silence lengthened, she exhaled slowly. She wanted to know what happened beyond kisses and embraces. She wanted. Wanted.
Bracebridge stood and held out his hand, and she stared at his fingers, her stomach a knot of pain. He flashed that sinister, wicked grin that always made her heart fly away with her breath. That look was full of secrets kept from proper young ladies and lines never crossed.
As if there were nothing shocking about his asking where he would sleep, he said, “Shall I be your lady’s maid tonight?”
She held herself still. What if she’d misunderstood him? Thoughts whirled through her head too fast for her to examine but for these few facts. He could have arranged for one of the tavern maids to assist her tonight. He could have taken adjoining rooms. He could have said nothing at all. He could have left the bedroom to her without ever raising the subject. He could have. He should have.
Why hadn’t he?
Shall I be your lady’s maid?
“Does your silence mean the chair is my bed tonight?” His voice was deliberately light, completely the opposite of how their exchanges usually progressed. He spoke to Anne that way. Not her. “Never fear if it is. I’ve slept in worse places and been more uncomfortable than I would be here.”
She touched her napkin to her lips, then dropped the linen to the table before she rose. She had no idea what to say. She knew what it was like to be in his arms. To have his mouth on hers. Every time she was near him, she was aware of him, the size of him, the way he was so at ease with his body. She wanted him.
“Bracebridge,” she managed to say.
He gave her a lopsided grin as he came around to stand beside her. “I’ll borrow a pillow and a blanket, if I may, and be up before you in the morning. There’s no need for you to sleep in your clothes, though. I’ll help you ready yourself for bed.” He held out his hand. “Nothing more.”
She turned his hand palm down and gently kissed his knuckles. “I’m sorry you were hurt because of me.”
He did not speak or withdraw his hand. Not right away. He turned his hand over and, two fingers under her chin, tipped her head up. All the air in the room disappeared. His kisses had been brutal, savage, and overwhelming, and she wanted more of that. She wanted to know what lay on the other side.
She’d often wondered whether he understood the potent effect he had on women. She was now certain he did; he was far too confident of himself.
He trailed a finger from the point of her chin along her jaw. Tomorrow did not exist. There was no future to be ruined, no family to be shocked. There was only Bracebridge and right now.
Forever fixed in her mind was the truth that wicked, improper, ruinous-to-know Mr. Devon Carlisle was also one of the kindest, most generous men she’d ever met. He was a gentleman and a nobleman, but to her, he had always been larger than life, compelling, and impossible to ignore.
“I can be charming when I put my mind to it,” he said.
When he said charming, he meant seductive. “So you say.” She prayed her flippant reply was not a mistake.
“True enough,” he said with a low laugh. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen much charm from me, but even with this face, I promise it’s true.”
“Yet I find you unbearably attractive.”
He tipped his head to one side. In the shifting light, his eyes seemed darker than black. He let out a short, soft breath, and she was off balance again. She had no idea whether it was even possible for her to withstand a deliberate seduction. How, when she did not want to?
“I’m too tall for you.”
A thrill shot through her at his low comment, uttered as if he did not believe what he’d just said, or else meant something else entirely. “You’re not too tall. I am too short.”
His appeal, she’d long believed, lay in the expressiveness of his face and in the passion of his eyes. Well. Also in his size and brawn and his crooked nose. “What other nonsense is stuck in your head?” he asked in a silky voice.
“I like your rough looks.” She had his full attention, and she was melting inside, surrendering already.
“What else?” he asked.
“Your eyes are outlandishly beautiful.”
“Outlandishly beautiful, you say?”
“They are soulful and expressive. Your eyes always make me wonder whether you are thinking thoughts you should not.”
“Do you wonder that now?”
“Yes.” She pressed her palm to the side of his face. His cheeks slashed hard, and his nose was permanently crooked from having been broken one time too many, and she adored that too. “Your mouth is stern most of the time.” Tenderly, she passed a finger over his lower lip and his soft mouth. That touch was an intimacy she’d never dared before, and he permitted it. At last. At last. “The shape fits perfectly with the rest of your face and your so-outlandishly-beautiful eyes.”
He pitched his voice to a rougher tone. “No woman ever went to bed with me on account of my eyes.”
“You’re a fool if you think that.”
“One contradiction of me after another.” His amusement was just evident enough, and she thanked the heavens for that.
“Your mouth puts me in mind of kissing you, and I don’t care what you think of me for that. It’s true. Long before I knew what kissing was like, I dreamed of kissing you. You call yourself a brute. Since I find you beautiful, it stands to reason that either you are wrong or I like a brutish man.” She stroked his cheek again. “Tell me whether you think it matters which it is.”
The room—the entire world—shrank to just the two of them. His amusement vanished. “Do not say such things to me if you mean for me to sleep on a chair tonight.”
Smiles were a talent of hers. Numerous gentlemen had declared undying love after just one smile from her. “I don’t, my lord.”
Bracebridge took her hand in hers. “Come to bed with me, Em. Now.”
“Yes,” she said. “Now.”
He led her to the bedchamber and closed the door before Frieda could follow. Inside, he crossed to the fireplace and crouched to add more coal.
She stared at his broad shoulders. Twice she’d seen him stripped down to his bare skin. The first occasion had been not long after Anne’s marriage, when she’d gone to his townhouse because Anne was missing and someone had to fetch him to help find her. The less Emily thought about that day, the better. She’d never meant to interrupt him in a moment of such intimacy.
The second had been when she’d followed Lucy to a private boxing exhibition between him and Lord Thrale. Both men had been peeled off, and though there was much to admire in Lord Thrale’s physique, Bracebridge had transfixed her. He still did. That was the day, the infamous day she would have surrendered all to him and he’d told her he could never love her.
He finished at the hearth and stood. The muscles of his thighs flexed and relaxed.
“Bracebridge, I—” None of her feelings had changed. He walked out of her line of sight. She couldn’t move or speak. Bracebridge. Bracebridge. He would kiss her again and touch her, and her body would respond. He would tear her heart to shreds.
The sound of cloth rustling disrupted her paralyzed state. He’d taken off his coat and draped it over a chair. “Yes, Em?”
He did not want to marry her. Not the way he’d wanted to marry Anne or even Clara. His love for her sister was the sort of emotion that came but once in one’s lifetime. Papa had never loved another woman after Mama. Bracebridge loved Anne like that. Completely and without reservation, with the whole of his heart and soul. Emily loved Bracebridge that same way. She wouldn’t be herself if she did not love him.
She blinked until she’d mastered the tears that threatened her composure. He’d ruined her the day she and her sisters had arrived at Bracebridge’s country estate with the expectation that Cynssyr would offer for her and rescue them all from their father, and that Bracebridge would make an offer to Anne. Her moment of irreparable ruin had come when Anne had emerged from their carriage, and his smile was his soul lit with love. She still grieved for his losing Anne when he loved her so deeply.
Somehow, he’d managed to stand behind her without her realizing. He rested his hands on her shoulders. He was not wearing gloves. His bare fingers were warm from being so near the fire, and his breath warmed her cheek. “We’ll be married soon. Two days with a little luck. Three at the most.”
She fought for calm when he swept two fingers across the nape of her neck. With the contact came her body’s recognition of him that always left her so stubbornly unwilling to retreat. Whenever he touched her, she came alive and wanted more. She wanted to follow where that thrill took her. Oh, how she wanted to, even if it meant disaster and a heart that could never be put back together.
They were not married, and she did not care in the least. Tonight, tonight at last, she had hours with him instead of the minutes they’d snatched before. One night. One night with him was worth the ruin of her life.
He unfastened the first hooks of her gown. It wasn’t the same as her lady’s maid undressing her. His hands were bigger, and he took his time. “So many fastenings to manage,” he said in a voice as dark and dangerous as his eyes.
Bone-shaking desire filled her—subsumed her. His fingers brushed her skin wherever he bared it. They were alone here, and he had unfastened all the hooks down the back of her gown. She tried to speak, but the words lodged in her throat.
“Come to bed,” he whispered. His hands tightened on her shoulders as he leaned against her—or maybe he drew her back. “With me.”
“What would you do . . .” she began in a trembling voice. “What would you do if I told you I want to wait?”
He released her, an abrupt disengagement, and she turned around. She would not cry. Would not. She refused to humiliate herself with him. But now that they were here, at the very moment, the enormity of her desire for him and her fear that she would be crushed by how hopelessly she loved him was too much. Too much. She met his gaze because she owed him that.
“What would you do?” she whispered.
His eyes were fathomless pools of black, and she was lost there. She always had been. “Nothing. I would do nothing.”
She had to tilt her chin to look at him. “What if you change your mind?”
“About what? Doing nothing?” A furrow appeared between his eyebrows. “You have my word on that.”
“Not that.” She spoke too fast. “I did not mean that.”
“What did you mean, then? Leaving by four? I won’t change my mind about that either.”
“You’re willfully misunderstanding me.” The room was shrinking by the second. She was so wound up now, she could scarcely think.
“How? For I can tell you, I do not understand where this conversation has gone.”
“I mean about me. What if you change your mind about marrying me?”
Several emotions flickered across his face. She took a step back, but not far enough to prevent him from closing the distance between them. He cupped the side of her face. “I would not leave any young woman ruined because of my actions or inaction.” His voice turned hard. “Make no mistake, before the end of the week, you will be my wife. Nothing but death will prevent that. Nothing.”
Outside the door, Frieda whined once.
“What if I change my mind?” she asked.
“About this or about marrying me?”
“Either.”
At his sides, his fingers flexed and relaxed. “Have you?”
She backed away, a mass of conflicting emotions. “I don’t know. No.”
He held his breath a moment, then released it slowly. “I cannot take you back to Rosefeld as you are now. Not after a night spent on the road. The damage to both our reputations is done. All we can do is live with our regrets.”
“You know how it is between us. And while that may have changed for you, it hasn’t for me.”
“That hasn’t changed,” he said.
If ever he guessed how desperately she loved him still, he would know exactly her weakness. He would know that love had lived in her without encouragement, an emotion as one-sided as it was unreasonable. He would pity her for such abhorrent weakness. Or worse, he might never notice.
She spun on her heel and faced the fireplace. Her head was full of images of him crouched before the fire, a physically powerful, confident man. Her thoughts whirled with no place safe for them to land. “Something might happen.”
“Yes,” he said with wicked amusement in his voice. He was breathing up all the air, taking up all her senses. “Perhaps the moon will crash to Earth. Do you require time to write letters informing loved ones of your plan in such an eventuality?”
She looked over her shoulder at him. “Do not make fun.”
He lifted his hands in a warding-off gesture.
“The perils of our situation are unequal,” she said. “Should something prevent us from marrying, your life will not appreciably change.”
“Point taken.”
“It’s not as if we are bound for Scotland no matter the obstacles to our passionate love.” She faced him. “Nothing holds us together but spite.”
“Spite?” he said, eyebrows arched.
“For Papa. For me.” How was it possible she wanted two things in such fundamental opposition? It was not possible to be with Bracebridge and protect her heart.
He considered that for several seconds. “I am not a forgiving sort. That’s a fault I readily confess.”
“He never meant for Anne to marry anyone at all. He meant to keep her at home, caring for him the rest of his days. He’d convinced her that was all she deserved. Anne! Anne, the best of us all. How could any of us forgive him for that? I haven’t.”
He looked thoughtful. “Did you agree to marry me out of spite?”
“I don’t know. It’s likely.”
“You don’t know?”
“If it was spite, it was for Papa, not you.” She extended one arm; the other she needed to hold up her loosened gown. “I am not a dutiful daughter. I’ve tried and failed to be better than I am. I cannot set aside my resentment of him. I hate him for what he did to you and Anne. Mary and Lucy, too. He oughtn’t have done that.”
“We have that opinion in common.”
“I’m not good and gentle and loyal like Anne. Anne never resented Papa the way I do. She never plotted her escape even if it meant leaving him with no one to care for him. I thought I could be like Anne and be a dutiful daughter. But with every day that passed, I grew more and more resentful.”
Her breath hitched, and she needed a moment to be sure she could speak over the lump in her throat. “Sometimes,” she said, “I hate him as much as you do. More. I think sometimes I hate him more, and what good daughter hates her father? And now . . . now . . . He wanted me to marry a fool. That foolish, foppish, dandy Mr. Davener, who has never had a thought more complicated than what color waistcoat to wear. He’s not half as amusing as he believes, and he never reads. Is it any wonder he writes the most wretched poetry? I can’t marry a man who struggles to make a decent rhyme. I shan’t. Not even for Papa. Not even if it means he loses the only home I’ve ever known. I’d rather be ruined than allow Papa to win. So you see, I am the most despicable woman possible.”
“Hush, Em.” He stepped close and put his arms lightly around her, and she was enveloped by him, the warmth of his arms around her, the scent of him, the unyielding hardness of his arms and chest. “You are many things, but you are not despicable.”
She curled her fingers in the lapels of his coat and bowed her head. She was shaking. Trembling like a leaf.
“Had I been a dutiful son, I’d be in the army or the navy. You and I have disobedience in common.” He stroked the back of her head. “If I fault you for that, I must fault myself, so no more talk of obedience to one’s father. I only wish I had a counterargument for your fear that the moon might make a crater on the earth before we reach Scotland.”
“You haven’t one, because there is not one.” She was losing her wits. Every last one.
He kept his arms around her. “Allow me to point out that if the moon does come crashing down, it will surely kill us both.”
She swallowed. “I—you—the two of us. Bracebridge.” She grabbed his hand and held it in hers. “Please. Even if I was . . . If something should happen that prevents us getting married—you would not want that ruin upon you. I know you would not.” She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to find some measure of calm.
His reply was low and amused. “Do you fear I’ll perish before we arrive at Gretna Green?”
She did. She absolutely did. Unreasonably so.
“Killed by passion, perhaps?”
Her eyes flew open, and she saw the smile that had accompanied his mirthful tone. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. Awful things happen. They do.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “Mama died. Your family died. Lucy’s first husband. Anne very nearly died. Terrible things happen. They do. All the time, and to people I love.”
He brought her close. “I am sorry for your sorrows. And I am touched that you have given so much thought to mine. But surely we are both grateful that Anne is with us still. Safe and unharmed.” He hesitated. “And deeply in love.”
“Yes,” she said, even though she hated that Anne’s happiness had come at Bracebridge’s expense. “Yes. That’s so.”
“Well, then.” He rubbed a hand up and down her back. “Don’t allow your worries to rattle about in your head until you’re forced to write a dozen letters. Share your cares and worries with me. Our married life shall be well served if you do. We might find we get on rather well.”
He could have poked fun at her. She was grateful he hadn’t. “Everything is so . . . upside down now.” She craned her head back to look at him, and her knees were not steady at all. “The most fantastic scenarios take hold of me, and all I can think of is, what shall I do if the very worst happens?” She drew back, out of the circle of his arms. “Miss Emily Sinclair, tragically killed on her way to a scandalous elopement.”
“Neither one of us shall die.” He gave her a very slow smile, so wicked there was very little left in her head but him. “Not in the way you imagine.”
“No one can promise he’ll live even to the next moment, let alone until tomorrow.”
“Do you fear some slip of a girl will open that door—” he pointed “—and find me naked between the sheets?” He held her gaze. They both knew he referred to the day three years ago when she’d burst into his bedroom to find him with a married lover. “In bed with you, this time.”
“Don’t.” She gripped the front of her gown. “You know why that happened. You know. Besides, if anyone were to burst in here, it would be Aldreth or Cynssyr or Thrale. Or the innkeeper to accuse us of fornication.”
“Not fornication,” he said wryly. “In any event, I assure you, if it happens that we are interrupted, whoever it is will not shoot me.” He was standing close again—when had he done that?—so close, and she wanted to kiss him and let the world fall away. “Your brothers-in-law would be here with a special license and an escort to the nearest parson.”
“Bracebridge, I—”
“You and I—” In a sharp motion, he lifted his hands, stiff fingers spread. “We light sparks.”
His confession shook her mind free of thoughts of disaster. “It’s like that for you, too?” she asked softly.
“I’ve spent months avoiding you because of it.” He took her hand in his. His skin was warm. “There’s desire between us. Passion. Lust.” He bent to her, and for a numbing, blinding moment, she thought he meant to kiss her.
Then he did.