Chapter Twelve
“Taste me?” Emma gasped, her hips arching of their own accord as James pressed each warm hand on one of her bare thighs and parted them a little wider.
“Oh yes,” he purred, opening her drawers so he was looking right at her sex.
Heat flooded her cheeks at his intense perusal. “I really don’t understand what you mean by—”
Before she could finish the statement, he leaned in and pressed his mouth to her, tracing his tongue along her folds.
Intense sensation mobbed her and she jolted against him, which only drove his tongue harder against her and made what he was doing all the more powerful. He held her steady and licked her again, this time spreading her folds open for better access.
She knew she should protest. That she should crush this wanton creature he awoke in her and tell him no. He would stop. She had no doubt he would.
But she didn’t stop him. Instead, she collapsed back a little on his desk, opening herself wider to him as he stoked and stroked with his tongue. He found the little nub of nerves just at the top of her sex and circled it languidly, making her shudder as electric pleasure sizzled through her. But then he backed away and went back to making love to her body with his wicked, talented tongue.
She arched against him, unable to stop the tide of sensation that was washing through her, over her, threatening to drown her with its intensity. He looked up at her and their eyes met as he pleasured her.
“I would love nothing more than to do this for hours,” he panted between licks. “But I can’t. Not now. So…”
He trailed off and she let out a tiny cry as he focused his mouth on her clitoris. He sucked her, gently at first, then harder, and she clung to the desk edge with one hand while she covered her mouth with the other to hold in the cries of pleasure she could no longer control.
The sensations were building, higher, faster, stronger than the last time he’d touched her and then, almost without warning, the bubble of release burst. She jolted her hips against him as wave after wave of intense pleasure rocked through her. She was drowning, she was flying, she was lost and she was saved all at once, and he never relented as he licked her harder and harder and harder.
Finally, after what seemed like a blissful eternity, the tremors subsided and he lifted his head from between her thighs to smile at her. Heat burned her cheeks at the intimacy of what they had just done, but she returned the expression nonetheless.
He caught her hand and helped her sit up then get to her feet. She straightened her skirts, aware for the first time of the harsh, hard bulge in his trousers. She knew very little about sex, but her mother had told her the barest necessities. This was proof that he wanted her.
She glanced up at him and found him watching her. He shrugged one shoulder. “I’ll find satisfaction on my own later.”
She swallowed hard. He meant he would…touch it, she supposed. The very idea was intriguing, and her heart began to race, tingles flooding her and settling to the very place he’d been licking mere moments before.
Great God, but she was a wanton.
She turned away from him and continued to fix herself. He cleared his throat. “Now, wasn’t that a better use of our time than engaging in some pointless conversation?”
She froze and slowly pivoted to look at him once again. There was a smirk on his face. It was an expression she knew far too well from over the years. A look people got when they’d pulled one over on her. Or played some kind of joke.
She stared at him, hands beginning to tremble. “Did you…do what you just did because you wanted me or because you wanted to put me off?”
He shifted—it was barely perceptible, but she saw it. “Of course I wanted you,” he said.
She shook her head, keeping her stare trained on him when she wanted nothing more than to turn away. Walk away. Run away.
“You lie,” she whispered. “You didn’t like my questions or my observations. You wanted to stop me so you used my weakness against me. You found a way to distract me that you knew I couldn’t resist. Oh, it was a far kinder way than some others have done in the past, but you were still hiding from me.”
“And what if I was?” he asked, his tone growing cooler as he folded his arms across his broad chest. He was no longer her gentle lover—he was Society’s golden child again, and she was just a wallflower. “It isn’t as if you revealed any secrets to me when I asked for them.”
She faltered, for he wasn’t wrong. He’d asked about her father and she’d refused to respond. She’d dug deeper into his past, into his motivations about never marrying, and he had done the same, albeit with far more pleasant results.
“It seems we are both cowards,” she said at last, bowing her head as she backed toward his office door. “Too afraid to give anything for fear it will open us to hurt, to betrayal. We will protect ourselves to a bitter end. And it will be bitter, James. Because we both know that the path we are on will guarantee we end up alone. Even if I find a husband here, even if you one day accept that you must find a wife…we will still be alone.”
He stared at her, gape-mouthed, and she turned away as she clutched at the door handle. Her hands were shaking so hard she could hardly turn it to free herself from this room, this space, from this man, from the things she, herself, had said, that felt so real and so painful.
“Your Grace,” she whispered, and fled from him.
She entered the hallway, her breath coming hard and fast, and stumbled blindly away from him and what they’d just done. Not just physically, but how they had built a wall between them. She’d never expected anything less, but seeing it and feeling it there now stung her in ways she’d never imagined. All she wanted was to go upstairs, lie down and be alone. Away from others, away from James, away from the truth about herself that her accusations about him had revealed.
“Emma?”
She froze at the sound of Meg’s voice floating down the hallway behind her. She drew a deep breath, fighting desperately to keep herself from showing her turmoil on her face, and spun to look at her friend.
“Meg,” she said with false brightness. “I didn’t see you.”
Meg smiled, but there was hesitation in the expression that made Emma’s heart sink. Of course there would be. James had already told her his sister knew of their ruse. Now Meg would confront her about it and there was a strong possibility that Emma would lose a friend.
Her heart hurt with the thought.
“I think we need to talk,” Meg said, slipping up to her and motioning to a parlor door just up the hallway. “And this is the first chance we have to be alone, so will you join me?”
Emma hesitated. That urge to run away was even stronger now. And yet there was nothing to it. She couldn’t run, not really. This kind of disappointment always caught her when she tried. It was better to just let it happen now and be done with it.
“Of course,” Emma managed to say past dry lips.
She followed her friend into the parlor and watched as Meg shut the door behind her. She leaned against the barrier and stared at Emma.
“My brother told me something today,” Meg said.
Emma bowed her head. Part of her appreciated how direct Meg was. There was no pretending with her. No dancing around uncomfortable topics. And yet she wished they could pretend just a little while longer, because somehow Meg had become important to her in the brief time they’d known each other.
“Yes, I know,” Emma said. “He told you about our arrangement. He mentioned your conversation to me on the way to the picnic. And he told me about your disappointment.”
Meg stepped forward. “I am disappointed, Emma. Truly.”
Emma shivered. Right now her game with James seemed worse than ever and she longed to escape it. But she had earned this censure and she would have to just face it.
“I understand,” she choked out. “And if you do not want to be my friend—”
Meg caught her breath and reached out, grabbing Emma’s hand. Emma clung to her, like Meg was a life raft on a boiling sea.
“Of course I want to be your friend,” Meg said. “Gracious, my relationship with you was never predicated on your relationship to James. You are my friend regardless of what happens between you or what agreements you two make outside of our friendship.”
Emma nearly buckled with emotion at those words. Tears leapt to her eyes, but for once in this awful day they were tears of relief. She wouldn’t lose Meg in all of this.
“I’m so glad,” Emma whispered.
Meg smiled as she drew Emma to the settee and they sat together there. “My disappointment stems from the fact that I think my brother would have an easier time of it if he had the support of a woman like you. I wanted your courtship to be real.”
Emma stared at her, shocked firstly that Meg would want her brother tied to a woman with so little in the way of prospects, with no influence and with questionable family connections. But also shocked that what Meg said revealed something of her own heart.
Because in that moment Emma realized some part of her also wished that this courtship were real. That what had just happened between her and James in his office was the beginning of something greater, not just a way for him to hide from her.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” Emma asked.
“Of course.”
“Why is your brother so opposed to marriage?” She knew some of that answer, of course. He’d told her about the terrible consequences of the loveless marriage of his own mother, but she knew there was more.
And she was willing to go behind his back to discover what that more was.
Meg let out a long, pained sigh. “Father was so cruel to him.”
Emma drew back in surprise. She’d never known the previous Duke of Abernathe, for he had died long before she came out in Society, long before she was being taught or grilled about those who were her betters. But she’d never assumed he’d been cruel.
“How?” she whispered. “Why?”
Meg shifted in discomfort. “James wouldn’t want me to speak about this. He would consider it a betrayal, I know. His past is private—only his closest friends know even a glimpse of it.”
Emma nodded slowly, disappointed that she would be kept from the truth, even if she understood Meg’s reasons to keep her in the dark.
“Do you care for him?”
Emma gulped in a breath at the unexpected question and the focused way Meg was staring at her. “I-I—you know it is a ruse.”
Her friend was watching her and her expression was serious. “Yes, I do. But sometimes when I’ve seen you together, I’ve sensed something deeper than what could be construed as a ruse. I wonder if you care for James. If there is any part of you that wishes there could be more between you than just some elaborate game he has concocted in order to protect himself…to protect you?”
Emma stared at her hands, clenched tightly in her lap. Meg was dancing too close to the truth, too close to the edge. Emma didn’t want to reveal so much of her heart, and yet she found herself unable to do anything but just that.
“I do care for him,” she whispered. Saying the words out loud stole her breath and she struggled before she continued. “Even though I know there is no hope for a future with him. There is something about him that makes me want…more.”
Meg smiled, and there was no mistaking her triumph. “I knew it.”
“But Meg, there is no indication whatsoever that he feels anything for me,” Emma said swiftly. “Nor that he has a desire to change any of his plans for me. You must know that it is a losing battle. The best I can do is follow what he wants, try to use his attention to find another match.”
Meg wrinkled her brow, and there was understanding on her face. Something that went deeper than a mere empathy for Emma. “Yes, I know that sometimes we can’t have what we truly want,” she said softly. “Though I would wish more for you and for my brother than an arrangement you didn’t want and a lonely, empty existence.”
“I appreciate your thought, but…I must accept what is,” Emma said. “I know that.”
Meg bent her head and took a long breath. “James was not the firstborn son,” she said without looking at Emma. “Our father was married before our mother.”
“He was?”
“Yes. His first wife died giving him his heir. And then the boy died years later, as well, in an accident.”
Emma caught her breath. “That poor man.”
Meg shrugged. “I do not know how he was with that first family. It’s hard to imagine he was ever kind or loving, for I certainly never saw that capacity in him. But whether he truly cared for his first family or not, our father was a duke and continuing his line was his obsession. He needed an heir, so before his mourning period was even over, he courted and married our mother. They produced James in short order. I was an attempt at a spare, and a disappointment to him, for certain.”
Emma reached for her, catching her hand. “I’m sure not, Meg. No one could do anything but like you.”
Meg’s smile was sad. “Thank you, Emma, but I promise you my father did not. He used to tell me so to my face before he stopped talking to me entirely when I was fourteen.”
“He stopped talking to you?” Emma repeated, her jaw dropping at the very idea of such cruelty.
Tears leapt to Meg’s eyes but she blinked them back. “He said I was my mother’s problem. But it wasn’t just me. He didn’t like any of us. He despised us for being the replacements for the family he truly desired. In truth, I appreciate being ignored. James wasn’t and he bore the brunt of our father’s hatred. One of my earliest memories is the duke slapping James across the face so hard across the face that he split his lip.”
“How old was he?” Emma whispered.
“Eight? Perhaps nine?” Meg swallowed hard. “As my brother bled and cried, Abernathe berated him for not being Leonard, our half-brother. The true heir, as our father always called him. He loathed James and that broke my brother’s heart.”
Emma covered her mouth with her hands and held back a sob of pain at the story she was being told. She could hardly imagine how much that must have hurt James.
“He hated my brother for being who he was. And James grew to hate him in return. He does not want to be like our father,” Meg continued.
Emma nodded. “I can see why he wouldn’t after what you say he endured.”
Meg let out a long, heavy sigh. “Our father only wanted him to carry on his legacy. And so James’s desire is to end that legacy once and for all. Not marrying is a punishment for the previous Abernathe, one exacted after his death. Or perhaps it is a penance, for our father, for James himself.” Meg shivered and at last a tear slid down her cheek. “So now you know the truth.”
Emma put an arm around her friend and stroked her hair as Meg rested her head on Emma’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry you both went through such an ordeal,” she said softly.
Meg nodded and let out a sigh. But as she comforted her friend, Emma found herself thinking of James. What Meg had told her made everything she knew about him, everything she saw that he didn’t want her to see, make perfect sense. And she felt for him. She cared for him.
Even though both those things were incredibly dangerous to her own well-being, she still felt them, and she still wished that there was something she could do to ease his pain.