Emmeline was not about to play the coward. Straightening her shoulders, she turned around and confronted Alex.
“More of your secret tricks?” she asked coolly.
“They aren’t tricks, Em,” he said softly. “I’m not lying when I tell a woman she interests me, or show it with my attention to her. Women fascinate me—you fascinate me.”
What could she say to that? When he acted serious, it played havoc with her emotional control. She wanted to run into his arms, to ask why she couldn’t be the only woman who fascinated him.
“I haven’t forgotten our wager,” he said. “Now do you believe I can make Max a sought-after gentleman?”
“I know you’ll try, especially if there’s money involved.” He walked closer, until she was forced to back up step by step.
“I already told you, I don’t want money.”
Her back hit the paneled wall. “Then what do you want?”
She made herself ask it boldly, even as he braced his hands on either side of her shoulders, trapping her. Her breath shuddered in and out of her lungs, and heat shot from her breasts deep into her belly.
“I want a kiss,” he whispered, leaning his head down, and his black hair fell about his cheekbones.
“Why do you keep wanting to kiss me?”
“Because I like it—I like you. You arouse me, Em.”
She closed her eyes, pressing her hands against the wall instead of his chest. “Surely other women arouse you,” she said, hating how her voice shook.
“Yes, but since I met you, I—”
With what sounded like a moan, he closed the last inches between them and kissed her. His body pressed hers into the wall, his mouth opened and slanted over hers, willing a response she gladly gave. His tongue stroked hers; his teeth nibbled her lower lip. All the while he pressed urgently against her, as if he would fall if she did not hold him up. She thrilled to the hard length of his body touching her everywhere.
Emmeline was the first to break the kiss. She turned away and felt his head lean against hers as his breath came in deep gasps. Was he truly as affected as she was? Did he desire her honestly, or only because she was not so easily attainable?
She wanted to laugh—not attainable? She responded to his every touch with an indecency that bordered on sinful. There was something about Alex, ever laughing, ever hiding what he was feeling. If only she understood him.
“Please, any of the servants could see us.”
He lifted his head and straightened, but continued to keep her against the wall. “Perhaps the wager shouldn’t just be a kiss, which until now I’ve taken freely, but rather a kiss freely given by you.”
“Oh Alex,” she whispered, feeling sorrow and guilt seep through her. “Why do you do this to me? What about Blythe?”
“Blythe who?”
He rubbed a stray curl of her hair between his fingers, then covered her mouth when she opened it in outrage.
“I barely remember her name, Emmeline.”
His hoarse words should not thrill her, but they did.
“I may have originally come here to see her, but no longer. She is…not you.”
His hands moved up her shoulders and behind her neck, and the laces on her ruff were suddenly loose. When the neckpiece fell to the floor, she stared at his hands as they worked the little buttons down the thin material of her bodice. He was shaking, which moved her as much as a declaration of feelings.
He spread the top of her bodice and looked down on the valley of her heavily corseted bosom. He took a sharp breath, and she watched in stunned amazement when his fingers dipped between her breasts. She moaned.
“Beautiful,” he whispered, then bent his head and placed a kiss there.
It was heaven and the torture of hell all at the same moment to have his mouth on her skin, to imagine her clothing gone and his mouth even lower.
But oh God, she was standing in full view of anyone who walked into the room, with Alex’s head at her breasts.
And he had just declared that he only wanted her to satisfy a physical need. He didn’t love her.
Rallying her courage, she ran her fingers through his soft hair and whispered, “Is this a proposal, Alex?” knowing it wasn’t, knowing that was for the best. He was too wild, too unsettled for someone as simple as she.
He froze, and in disappointment she pushed him away and pulled her bodice together, barely able to work the buttons. When she looked over her shoulder he had one hand braced against the wall, his head hung low.
“That is as good an answer as any,” she said. “You must go.”
“I know.” He lifted his head and his dark eyes smoldered. “Em, I have no plans to marry anyone.”
“Why?”
He simply shook his head. “I have no answer to give you that would make sense. But I’ll be back to tutor Max on Monday.”
She nodded wordlessly, then sank into a chair as he strode from the room. Sorrow tightened her chest. If he didn’t want to marry her, then the reason that he no longer came to see Blythe was because her sister would not give in to his seduction, as Emmeline had done. She wanted to feel guilty—but she couldn’t. Her feelings for him overwhelmed her, and the more she discovered about him, the more he dominated her thoughts. He wasn’t at all what he showed the world.
On Monday Alex stood before Kent Hall, feeling renewed of purpose. He had spent the weekend wrestling with his desire for Emmeline, trying to drink and gamble away the indecision that wracked him. What was wrong with him? Shouldn’t her mention of marriage send him fleeing London, or at least into the arms of another woman?
But he hadn’t had another woman since he’d met Emmeline Prescott. He was shocked to realize it had been two months now. Had he ever in his adulthood gone that long without taking a willing woman to bed?
When he was finished with the project that was Emmeline, she would live her life free of the past and its sadness. He would find a new mistress, and life would go back to the way it was before he’d been the viscount, before his life had upended.
He felt confident that he had everything under control.
He greeted Emmeline, and Willoughby arrived soon after. Alex’s brows rose as Willoughby swept into a bow and kissed Emmeline’s hand with gusto. There was an unexplainable knot of tension in Alex’s stomach, until Willoughby looked deeply into her eyes—and the two of them convulsed with laughter.
His relief was like a sudden rush of pleasure. She didn’t laugh when he looked at her. “Nicely done, Max. Emmeline, do you wish to eat before resuming our work?”
She did, and he magnanimously allowed Willoughby to escort her into the dining chamber. While they were waiting for the first course, Alex said, “Max, tomorrow night is Lady Rutherford’s card party. We can practice today’s lesson there.”
Willoughby’s smile was not quite confident. “And what would today’s lesson be?”
“Touching.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw Emmeline flinch, even as she kept her gaze on her plate.
Willoughby’s face flushed. “I assure you, I do not wish to lose a lady’s respect by something so improper.”
Alex laughed. “I’m not suggesting you grope the girl in question. But you must learn to take advantage of a situation’s opportunities.”
“As in?”
“The table is a good place to start. Emmeline?”
She jumped as if Alex had announced to Willoughby how much he’d already touched her. Ah, how fond he was of her and her sweet innocence—even as he wanted to take it away, too.
“Emmeline, do be good enough to drop your napkin, and then reach to pick it up. Max, pay attention.”
While glancing at him in obvious bewilderment, she did as he’d asked. Alex reached for the cloth as well, and they bumped heads and brushed fingers. She straightened, clutching the napkin in her lap.
“Did you see that, Max?” Alex asked.
“Well, I saw you bump into her.”
“I also brushed my fingers along hers, and I smiled at her when we were but inches apart.”
“Surely that means nothing,” Maxwell scoffed.
Emmeline prayed that Alex would not ask what she had felt, for just the touch of his fingers had made her heart answer with a faster beat. Even when she knew she was being manipulated, she could only bask in the warmth of his apologetic smile, and overlook how contrived it all was.
Alex shook his head. “Max, my young friend, you have much to learn. Every touch means something. Look for every opportunity, even if it’s only your leg brushing her skirt. Come back to the parlor and I’ll show you.”
Though Alex’s methods were suspect, she knew everything he said was right, because it all worked on her.
She was so gullible, so foolish.
Yet these lessons had to help Maxwell, and she could not throw such an opportunity away. So she followed the two men back to the parlor, feeling her pace lag with reluctance. When she stepped through the doorway, Alex was waiting.
“Come, Emmeline, I have so many more demonstrations in mind.”
For another hour she endured his onslaught, feeling aroused and angry and near tears. He demonstrated how to brush against a woman when he passed by, how to take her arm so she wouldn’t stumble down the stairs. Her skin, her very awareness, was attuned to him, and she despised her weakness even as she allowed it free rein. If all this was an act on his part, why was he so successful at it? Why did everything seem so real?
And then he wanted to dance with her, and he put his lessons in gazing and touching all together in one devastating package. Maxwell was so oblivious to what was happening that he happily pounded out the beat to a dance on a table. He seemed to approve every soulful look Alex bestowed on her as he clung to her waist just a moment longer than the dance required.
“Enough,” she finally cried, breaking from Alex’s hold, her breath coming hard from exertion—or so she told herself.
He smiled at her. “Then you’re ready for Max’s turn at the dance?”
“No! I need—fresh air,” she stammered, giving Maxwell an apologetic look before taking his arm. She led Blythe’s suitor out the tall, windowed doors leading into the gardens, knowing that Alex followed because she could feel his movement like a part of her.
“Why, this is a perfect idea,” he said, coming to stand beside her on the terrace.
She glanced warily at him. “What do you mean?”
“What a fine way to again demonstrate the art of touching.”
He was gazing at a meadow on the side of the mansion, where archery targets had been set up.
“Many of your lady friends practice archery, do they not?” he asked, walking toward the grass.
Emmeline had no choice but to trail behind the two men, for Maxwell seemed intrigued—or at least, amused by the possibilities.
“Come, Alex,” he said, “surely there is not a way to court a young lady on an archery field!”
Alex grinned back at him. “There is always a way. You must use ingenuity to find it. Emmeline, do you shoot?”
“A bit,” she murmured skeptically.
“Good. Do come here, then, and show me your form.”
She inhaled and glared at him.
“I mean your archery form, my lady. Max, she takes such easy offense, does she not?”
Maxwell’s grunt was noncommittal.
Emmeline lifted the bow she had been using that morning, but before she could even take the correct stance, Alex was at her back, his hands on her arms. Stunned, she wondered what to say, how to make him stop without Maxwell realizing how much Alex affected her.
But Alex didn’t seem to be feeling the same things. “Max,” he called, “see how I lift her elbow to the correct height, how I lean close, how I allow my breath to lightly fan her neck?”
Maxwell chuckled and Emmeline forced herself to do the same, trying desperately to control her blush and the shivering that made her arms seem not her own.
She almost kissed Maxwell when he strode toward them. “I can do this, Alex. Let me try.”
Alex’s grip tightened, and she heard his quickly inhaled breath. She glanced over her shoulder at him and saw not playfulness, but unguarded anger in his eyes.
Anger?
Then Maxwell stepped between them, and he guided her left hand to lift the bow, and her right hand to pull back the string.
“Just a bit farther, my lady,” he said in an almost apologetic voice.
Suddenly the back of his hand touched her breast, and he jumped away from her as if she’d burned him.
“Oh, my lady, forgive my clumsiness!” he cried, looking mortified.
Flustered, Emmeline glanced at Alex, ready for his amused laughter. Instead his narrowed gaze pinned Maxwell like a sword. Was he angry that another man had touched her?
“Willoughby, you’ve gone too quickly to the advanced lesson,” Alex said in a low voice unlike his own.
She gaped at him, wondering if he was actually jealous—over her? She didn’t know if she was giddy at the possibility or frightened. She was held motionless, trapped by the mysterious depths of his gaze.
Maxwell blathered on, obviously unaware of the emotions raging around him.
“Your friendship has meant so much to me, my lady, but how will I ever look upon you again?”
“It was merely an accident,” she said quickly, needing to end their lesson. Watching Alex, she felt like she was trying to stop a rising storm.
“I should go,” Maxwell said. “I can’t believe I—”
“Willoughby, you’re not using my lessons enough,” Alex said slowly.
She watched with awe as he seemed to lock every emotion behind an effortless mask of friendliness. He was much more complicated than the face he showed the world. What did he hide, and why did she desperately want to understand it all?
“But tomorrow night you will,” Alex continued. “You will practice touching at Lady Rutherford’s card party.”
Maxwell’s face faded to the color of an uncooked pastry. “Alex, I cannot—I wouldn’t know where to begin, what to say.”
“You will wait for a woman to play the spinet, and you will sit beside her, helping her to turn the pages of the music. And you will touch her.”
“Alex!” Emmeline cried. “What are you doing?”
“It will work,” he said patiently, never taking his gaze from her. “You’ll see.”
Maxwell stuttered through his good-byes, and soon she and Alex were alone. The emotions raging through her were only for him. He could manipulate her very heartbeat and the blood that pulsed through her veins.
And the way he looked at her now, his amusement gone, his intensity making him seem like a stranger—
Without a word, she dashed around him at a dead run for the house, knowing she was not capable of resisting him anymore. He caught her arm, pulling her about to face him.
“Em, what did you think you were doing?”
“I?” she cried, aghast. “I’ve only done everything you wanted me to do.”
“Then why did you let him touch you like that?” he demanded, gripping her by both arms now.
“Let him?”
“Very well, I’ll be more blunt. You leaned into his hand.”
“I did not!” How could he even suggest such a thing? Anger clouded the last of her good judgment. “Why are you acting like this over a simple accident?”
He opened his mouth, frustration raging across his face.
“Do you not understand?” he asked in a hoarse voice. “No one can touch you but me.”
The kiss Alex gave her was demanding and possessive, and Emmeline felt tears of frustration fall down her cheeks. She finally pushed him away and wiped her hand across her mouth.
“Stop this!” she cried. “Our encounters cannot always end thus. You don’t mean any of it!”
With a sob, she turned and ran from him, ignoring his call, not stopping until she slammed the door to her chamber and leaned against it, holding the stitch in her side.
And still the tears came. How had he done it? He was destroying all her defenses against him. She’d been wrong about love, wrong about everything she’d ever experienced with her poet. None of it compared to even one touch from Alex—a man too hurt by his own problems to commit to a woman.
Oh, she’d spent nights reminding herself of his past scandals, of the women he must have seduced. But some foolish part of her was convinced there was a different Alex hidden inside him, one who was hurting, who covered it all with scandal and flirting and wagering. Her feelings for him frightened her, because Alex was not the kind of man who fell in love. He pursued her for the adventure, for amusement.
Her plan to be content as the maiden aunt no longer seemed enough—and it was all Alex Thornton’s fault. Did he even understand what he did, how he made her feel like a desirable woman? Yet what would it get her but seduced, or even left with a child and no husband? Had he truly only turned to her because she was more available than her sister?
Wiping away her tears, she gave a reluctant laugh. To think she had never thought to feel this torn by desire. She would have gone to her grave not knowing this painful pleasure, the wonder of being the only thing one man looked at.
But she hadn’t found it with a man who would marry her.
That night at the Rooster, Alex sat at a corner table and finished his fourth tankard of beer, ignoring the tumult of voices raised in a drunken song. But he couldn’t drink away the jealousy that ate at him, jealousy he’d never felt in his life over a woman. Why had he showed Emmeline his emotions? Now she knew he was jealous, and would think she had a hold over him. If he wasn’t careful, he was still going to have to leave London for a while—taking some future mistress, of course.
Because there would be a mistress, he thought, looking dejectedly at the tavern maids. He would not make a fool of himself over a noble maiden he couldn’t have; he’d done that enough while posing as Spencer. He still remembered when he’d first visited Lady Margaret, daughter of a duke, after his true identity had been discovered. They had danced and flirted and kissed for months, and she was the first person he was actually relieved to reveal himself to. But what he’d thought had been feminine interest on her part had been only a lusting for power and wealth. Her father expected a brilliant match, she told him coolly, and she expected no less for herself.
Women like Lady Margaret—and Emmeline—were for men with titles and power. Though Emmeline desired him, she had already learned long ago that desire didn’t matter. She would be a dutiful daughter and marry as her father told her to.