Chapter Sixteen
The newlyweds’ time alone in the carriage started quietly. As the silence stretched into awkwardness, Emma searched for a topic to inspire some pleasant conversation and distract her from her burgeoning awareness of the man seated across from her, and that man’s effect on her physical state. Even the duke’s grand carriage was a relatively small space, and she was painfully conscious of her posture, the location of her limbs, the temperature of the air, and the pace of her own heartbeat.
“I received word that Charlotte is due to arrive quite soon,” he said, to her great relief. “We probably should have been married in London, I suppose, since we shall have to return there so soon. Though I have to confess, I would not have preferred the fuss associated with a London wedding. I find I tire of London quickly these days.” His smile was wan, almost sheepish, with the admission.
Emma smiled, relieved for the benign topic. “I was thinking something similar myself,” she admitted. “I try to spend very little time in London and usually do so only to please my aunt.”
“Do you not travel back and forth from your uncle’s estate as they do? Do you stay in the country even while they have come to town?”
“The country, yes,” Emma explained, “but not my uncle’s estate. I do visit there, but home for me is my cottage. I am there most of all. I did caution you, did I not, that I was not very duchess-like.”
“I recall you did, as a matter of fact, and gave it as one of the strongest reasons we should not marry.” He smiled warmly. “Yet I consider that to be one of your more pleasing attributes.”
The slow warmth that had been churning at her center developed tendrils and began to creep outward. “Do you?” she asked, averting her gaze to recover her serenity. “But I understood your primary purpose for marrying was to acquire an ally in preparing your sister to meet the ton?”
“That is my entire purpose for marrying,” he admitted without hesitation, “but the more time I have spent in London, the more I understand how I have been altered by my time away. I find myself feeling a bit…constrained… by everything. There are so many strictures and formalities…” John’s brow furrowed with the effort to find the words to express himself. “I am able to enjoy a bit more freedom in the country.”
Emma wondered if he even realized that he tugged at his cravat as he spoke.
“Suffice it to say, life in Boston as a clerk was very different than life here as a duke. There are so many things here that must be just so. I’ve no doubt you can demonstrate for Charlotte what those things are. It’s just…”
Emma watched with some wonder as he struggled to land upon the words that would convey his intended meaning. He shook his head as though settling for words that were not quite right. “Are you offended by my admission? That I was a clerk in Boston? I should have told you, I suppose.”
She shook her head. “I am not offended.” She did not explain that she already knew.
“Well, I appreciate that you might be unoffended or even have a preference for a relaxation of those strictures from time to time, when we are keeping no one’s company but our own.”
He had managed land upon precisely the reason she preferred life outside London. “Oh, I do have a preference for fewer strictures, Your Grace.” With a timid smile, she awkwardly amended her statement, “er…John.” She may as well speak his Christian name since she’d been mentally putting his Christian name to use for some number of days.
His brow arched. “Do you?” He leaned toward her, his warmth intensifying.
Emma’s eyes widened as she pressed herself back into her seat. What sort of invitation had she inadvertently communicated?
He released a low chuckle. “How difficult we British are to un-train,” he teased. “Spend a few years abroad and, I assure you, your training will be threatened.”
She exhaled. Was that a stab of disappointment she felt? She chose to ignore it and contemplated his statement instead. How very different life must have been for him in Boston. “You’ve had a rare gift, haven’t you?” she observed. “Not just in experiencing life in a far-off place, but in experiencing life in another sphere. Would you tell me about it?”
“You’re a smashing success in abandoning strictures, my dear,” he commented with a droll look. “No proper duchess would find interest in the life of a lowly clerk, even if that clerk did inherit a dukedom.”
Emma released a laugh and felt the lightness of it. It seemed to carry some of her anxiousness away, this ability to laugh with her new husband. “I’m sure not,” she returned. “I suppose I should refer to it only indirectly and with the use of some vague but offensive epitaph such as ‘The Folly’ or ‘Your Unfortunate Period.’”
He grinned. “Come, now, certainly we can be more creative than that. What of ‘The Dark Years’ or ‘The Humiliation?’”
Her laughter bubbled up again. “Oh that does sound bleak. And most assuredly offensive.”
He laughed as well. It rumbled low and filled their small space with warmth. “I’ll admit ‘The Folly’ applies best, as my time away was indeed self-inflicted, but I confess to a strong preference for ‘The Dark Years.’” He inclined his head. “It’s rather mysterious, don’t you think?”
“Oh, yes,” she assured him in mock sincerity. “I’ll make every effort to refer to it as such in the hearing of others…for your sake, of course.”
“Of course.”
Emma pivoted in her seat and found she was a bit more comfortable leaning against one of the cushions. “But since we are not in the hearing of others presently,” she pointed out, “and since I suffer from an unpardonable lack of disapproval for your choice to go to your family’s aid, I would like to know more of your time in Boston. Perhaps it would help me to understand Charlotte better.”
John’s shrugged as though to imply there was not much of interest to tell. “What would you like to know?”
Everything. In truth, Charlotte was not the only person whom Emma wished to know better. As she had resolved to make the best of their marriage of convenience, she found herself impatient to know more about this man to whom she was forever bound and of whom she knew frighteningly little.
Where does one begin when one wants to know everything?
“How did you travel there?” It was as good a place to start as any.
“Not easily. There were no trading ships going to Boston because of the war with the Americans. I took advantage of a connection of my father’s and was able to arrange for passage on a naval ship. I was gone before he was able to prevent it.”
“Once you arrived in Boston, how did you find your mother and sister?”
“It wasn’t difficult. I had the direction from my mother’s letter.”
Of course. Silly question. “Well, what did you do when you found them?”
He thought a moment before answering that question, as though straining for the exact memory. “I suppose we had a reunion of sorts,” he said finally. “I had not seen either of them in some years.”
She had forgotten that. Well, not really forgotten as much as hadn’t really considered it. She would have crossed the world for her own family, but would she have done so if she had not known her family?
“How long did you believe them dead?” she asked.
“Ten or eleven years, I’d say.”
“Ten or eleven years,” she mused. “So long?”
“Yes. I learned of their existence shortly after I completed my schooling. For several years after that, I sent money when I could, but my desire to aid exceeded my allowance and my debts grew. That is when you became my father’s plan to rescue me from my presumed dissolute lifestyle as a gambler and spendthrift.”
“Until you learned your mother was ill,” she supplied.
“Yes. Until then.”
“What was it like, seeing them again after so much time had passed?”
He hesitated before answering.
“Odd,” he said finally. “Good.”
She sensed his simple answer was probably as articulate as one could be regarding the complicated emotions of those moments of reunion. He’d been a motherless child for so many years and yet he’d determined as a man fully grown that he owed his mother and sister the very care and compassion he’d been denied through no fault of his own. It was, she thought, really quite noble of him. Her eyes roved over him. That nobility was rather appealing. He was rather appealing. She realized then that she had at some point during their conversation scooted forward in her seat and was leaning inward even farther than that.
His eyes caught hers as they had several times as they conversed, but this time her cheeks warmed.
He noticed. He had to have noticed, because the lightness and laughter in his eyes intensified to…something else, something that very eloquently reminded her she was married to this man and the vehicle that carried them was not so much racing toward a place as it was racing through the day toward the night. Her wedding night.
Emma dropped her gaze to her lap. She swallowed, leaned back, and immediately regretted not finding out where the moment could have led. Why should she shy away? They had kissed on more than one occasion and it had been nice. Better than nice. Now they were married. They were allowed to kiss. They were supposed to kiss. If only she weren’t so nervous.
She sighed. Perhaps it was better that the moment passed. “How old was your sister when she left home?” Emma asked, prodding their conversation forward. “Do you think she has any memory of England?”
She looked up again. The heat had quieted in his gaze, and instead he looked at her with an odd, assessing expression.
“You have not yet asked me about my decision to go to Boston in the first place and whether I had considered the injury my decision would cause you.”
Emma couldn’t deny the question had crossed her mind. She knew the answer, though, didn’t she? She asked it anyway. “Did you consider the injury to me?”
Despite having invited her to ask, he did not answer immediately. He gazed upon her with a pained expression for a long moment then shook his head.
“No,” he said. “No, I did not.”
Well, then.
He released a heavily burdened sigh before continuing. “Life is complicated in unforeseen ways, it would seem.”
“How do you mean?” she asked.
“Well, take my predicament of four years ago,” he said. “I harbor no regrets for the choice to alter my life for what was then an uncertain number of years to protect my mother and sister from the consequences of my father’s rage and spite.” He reached forward and took her hand in his. “But mine was not the only life for whom the course was changed by that decision, was it?”
“No.” Still, Emma could not allow him to take responsibility for the full extent of tragedy and upset in her life. “But you could not have predicted my parents’ passing,” she pointed out. “No one could have. It was a horrible accident.”
A horrible, life-altering accident.
“True,” he conceded. Then, still with her hand in his, he crossed the small space that separated them and repositioned himself next to her, on the same cushioned seat. “But I should have predicted that you would be marred by scandal due to my actions.”
Emma could not deny his reasoning, but chose not to confirm it. At one time her bitterness had been sharp indeed, but now…
“I suppose if the time has come for fairness in perspective, I must ask your forgiveness as well,” she said.
“And what transgressions have you committed to require forgiveness?” he asked, his mouth quirked into a disbelieving half smile.
“I allowed my anger to prevent me from understanding the complexities of your position, Your Grace.”
His brow lifted.
“John,” she amended. Then she smiled at him with genuine friendship, or the hope of it. Yes, peace and friendship were what she desired.
“I was placed in a difficult position,” she continued, “and my prospects for marriage were…altered…by the events of that season. But I had never desired marriage in the first place. At least not then—not to anyone in particular. And certainly not to you. I mean no offense, I assure you.”
He chuckled. “I assure you, I take none.”
“We didn’t even know each other,” she rushed to explain. “At that time, I only assumed you detested me. I understand now you behaved as you did that day out of disgust for your father, not necessarily for me.”
“That day?”
“The day we were introduced.”
“I only vaguely recall it,” he admitted. “I apologize if I behaved badly, which it seems I did. Was I particularly boorish?”
“I believe you said, ‘I will not have her,’ or something of that sort,” Emma reminded him.
He swallowed. “That was, you’ll understand, a rejection of my father’s attempt to control me. It was not, as you said, a rejection of you, personally.”
Emma must have failed to mask the doubt she felt at his words for he searched her features and spoke again.
“What else did I say that day, Emma?”
She coughed delicately and avoided his direct gaze when she finally answered his query. “You, er, said, ‘This owl-faced girl isn’t old enough to be out of the school room.’ Then you leaned over to me and said, ‘but you’re old enough to know you want to be a duchess, eh?’” Her shoulders stiffened slightly at the memory.
To his credit, he cringed. “I am so very sorry for that.” He squeezed her hand and then lifted his to draw a finger gently down her cheek. “You are strong and utterly lovely, and I was a fool not to have seen it then.”
Of all the emotions whirling through Emma just that moment, she didn’t think any were aptly described as peaceful. His eyes fell to her lips. She blinked, uncertain what would happen next. Would he kiss her?
Please.
She froze, this time unwilling to break the moment, hoping desperately that he would not.
He leaned toward her and her eyes fluttered closed as his lips fell to hers. They moved gently at first, like a soft caress of his mouth on hers. Then the pressure deepened, his tongue urged her lips apart and met with hers, and the heat inside that she’d worked so hard to constrain broke free.
This was the other part of her bargain, she decided then. Theirs was no great love, but she could have this. She could experience passion, for as long as it lasted. As her palms traveled his back and across his shoulders, she had the satisfying thought that old maids in cottages did not experience passion, did not have kisses from a man like this one. Her lips curled into a smile against his mouth..
Then his hand slid beneath her traveling cloak and closed around one breast, his thumb teasing the nipple that pebbled underneath his touch. A new wave of sensation shot through her, sending the heat to her stomach and lower. She knew what she felt was desire. She desired him in the most basic physical way. She had been warned, as all girls had, to be wary of men’s lust. She never understood until just then that a woman could feel the same lust, the same reckless want, for a man.
But she did. She pressed herself boldly against his hand and returned his kiss with every measure of passion he gave.
He groaned and wrenched his mouth from hers, sending her reeling into disappointment, until she realized he had immediately set himself to the task of unfastening her cloak. She waited in silence, anticipation building within her. He cast the cloak aside and gazed down at her chest as it rose and fell. He pushed one side and then the other of her wide neckline down her shoulders then slid his fingers inside the fabric to grasp one breast in his bare hand and pull it free.
Emma’s eyes fell shut at the delicious feeling of his warm hand cupping her. Then his mouth closed over the peak and she moaned, her fingers lacing through his hair as she held him there at her breast, reveling in the exquisite new sensations this created.
His lips traced her neck and jaw and captured her mouth again, his hand warming the place his mouth had abandoned. Then he held back again, freed her other breast from its fabric prison and gazed thickly down.
“Beautiful,” he whispered.
She blushed, bared openly before him without the distraction of his kisses, but her ardor did not cool.
He pivoted away from her, sitting back, with his knees toward the other seat then motioned to her. “Come here.”
She hesitated, her hands fluttering to her bare chest. Where exactly?
“We’ll be more comfortable this way,” he said and patted his hands on his lap.
Emma scooted toward him then awkwardly lifted herself and backed onto his lap, arranging herself like a child might sit.
John laughed, not unkindly. “I meant the other way, Emma. Sit like a man rides a horse, so I can kiss you again.”
“Oh,” she breathed. She blushed again, suffused with embarrassment. She hadn’t realized.
She turned and brought her legs up onto the bench so she was seated sideways on his lap, then realized her mistake as she tried to bring her one leg up over his lap to sit astride him. It was impossibly tangled up in her skirts and she couldn’t lift it across without kneeing or kicking him somewhere, and she was painfully aware throughout the entire bungled attempt that her breasts were loose, bare, and bouncing the whole time.
This definitely cooled her ardor.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, trying to arrange herself in some way that wouldn’t land her on her bottom on the floor of the carriage.
“Hold on,” he said laughingly. He placed his strong hands on her waist and held her up, thus freeing her hands to untangle herself from her skirt, then set her down next to him on the seat. Turning to face her, he gently lifted the fabric of her bodice up over her breasts until she was somewhat covered. “I suppose that was a poorly thought-out plan,” he said with a crooked grin.
She stared back at him, fervently wishing she could bury herself under her cloak. How on earth had she completely muddled that? She hadn’t realized what he meant and then had managed to ruin everything by nearly strangling herself with her own dress. One moment she’d been congratulating herself on her introduction to passion and the next she had been completely humiliating herself as the inexperienced child that she was.
“We were getting a bit ahead of ourselves anyway, weren’t we?” He lowered his head to kiss her and lingered there for a moment before staring intently into her wide eyes. “I look forward to our wedding night with great anticipation.”
She smiled hesitantly, thankful for his effort to lessen her embarrassment. She reached down and tugged one shoulder of her dress back into place and then reached up with her other hand to adjust the opposite side.
Silently, John pulled her traveling cloak back around her, leaving it still unfastened at her throat. She thought he would return to the opposite seat but he did not. He pulled her firmly against his side and draped one arm across her shoulders. He took one of her hands and held it in his.
She swallowed and leaned back against her husband, realizing that sitting up against him this way was better than if he sat across from her. Here, he could not see how hotly her face still flamed, and she did not have to meet his gaze, as she was not ready to do so. She sensed he knew her discomfort and was intentionally trying to lessen it. If only her embarrassment were not so all-encompassing in that moment, she would be grateful for his kindness.