After a pleasant reunion meal, where Alex stared at her so much she had trouble remembering how to eat, Emmeline accepted his offer to escort her home. Lady Thornton approached her, and to Emmeline’s amazement, kissed both of her cheeks and whispered, “Courage, dear one.”
Soon Emmeline and Alex were alone in the coach, leaving the Thornton estate for the busy streets of London. She said nothing, but just allowed Alex to sit at her side in silence, listening to the soft patter of rain on the roof. She had no plan—she could hardly blurt out her love for him, knowing that he would reject any such sentiment.
“I still don’t know why you came,” he finally said. “You said you never wanted to see me again.”
“I changed my mind.” 334
“I can’t change what I did, or explain it in better terms.”
“I don’t expect you to.”
“Then what do you want of me?”
Your love, she thought desperately, knowing it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. But all she said was, “Maybe I came because I thought you might need me.”
He smiled. “According to you, I needed you for only one thing.”
“I’m reconsidering that.”
He stretched his long legs out in the casual, uncaring sprawl he was so good at. “Why?”
“I had thought that you might need some support while your brother was missing.” Hesitantly, she laid her hand on top of his. “It must have brought up all the worries you felt when he was gone so long helping the government.”
He pulled away. “Worries? What worries did I have, Emmeline? I had all my brother’s wealth and all his power. Maybe I didn’t even want him to return.”
“You don’t truly mean that.”
“Don’t I? Don’t you think there were moments when I was only him, not myself? I looked in a mirror and saw him. I looked at his friends, and to them I was him.” He paused. “Maybe some part of me didn’t want to give that up.”
His sudden despair made her ache for him.
Without looking at her, he said hoarsely, “I’m afraid there was some part of me that didn’t want Spencer to return. Maybe I only needed to rescue him today out of guilt, or some old loyalty that became meaningless long ago. When he was gone so long, I never even looked into where he was!”
“You couldn’t, not without risking his life.”
“You don’t know that—I don’t know that. Maybe I wanted him to be dead.”
Emmeline rose up on her knees on the bench and leaned against his chest, framing his face in her hands. “Don’t do this to yourself. You may have envied your brother, but you wouldn’t wish him dead. I know you.”
“You don’t know me, Em.”
She kissed him hard on the mouth, putting all her love there in hopes that he’d recognize it for what it was. “I want to know everything about you, good and bad. I want you to let me in.”
She kissed him again, softly, gently, and moaned when his hand cupped her head.
“Em—”
“No, don’t talk.” She reached behind him and unrolled the curtain, then did the same on the other side, muting the light in the coach. When she came back to him he was watching her, the despair receding from his face and passion taking its place. She didn’t want him thinking, only feeling, and maybe that was really the way to communicate her love to him.
Staring into his eyes, she spread his doublet wide and let her hands run down his chest, her thumbs brushing over his nipples as he’d done to her. He shuddered and whispered her name.
Oh, this was heady, this sensation of knowing she could affect him the way he’d affected her. She pushed him lower onto the bench, then straddled him, pushing her skirts to the sides. Pulling him toward her chest, she removed his doublet, then remained still as he spread kisses down her neck and against her gown. He quickly unbuttoned her bodice even as she unbuttoned his shirt. He held her upright and she sat directly on his lap, with only his loose breeches separating them. Instinctively she wanted to rub against the hard ridge of him there.
He suddenly froze, his dark, wicked eyes staring at her breasts covered only by her thin smock. “No corset?”
She shook her head. “When I received your mother’s letter, I had no time to dress properly.”
“My lucky day,” he murmured, as he pooled the gown at her waist.
She slid his shirt over his head. The broad expanse of his chest was fascinating, and she trailed her fingers through the scattering of hair about his nipples.
Alex slowly pulled her smock down and her breasts were revealed in the dim light. The rumbling of the carriage over rutted streets made them bounce, and she wanted to cover them. But he groaned and buried his face between them, his arms around her body as he held her tightly.
“Em, you’re so beautiful,” he whispered in a husky voice.
For the first time, she truly believed him. He held her breasts with both hands, looking at each as if he didn’t know which to choose. She savored the rough skin of his palms and the admiration in his eyes. As he bent his head and leaned her back in his lap, he locked his gaze to hers and they stared at one another as he opened his mouth to her breast. She knew his touch would feel wondrous, but the searing pleasure that rocked through her as he drew her nipple into his mouth made her cry out and convulse against him. He pressed his erection hard between her legs, sucking on her nipple. When she didn’t think she could take such wild pleasure for another moment, he moved to her other breast, this time licking gently as if she were a sweet he’d not treated himself to in a long time. She clutched his shoulders and held on as he ran his hands down her back and beneath her skirts. She groaned and pressed herself even harder against him.
The touch of his hands on her bare buttocks was a wicked shock. He squeezed her, rubbing her hips against his. She was lost in what he did to her, in the rise of hot desire that had her yearning for what only he could give her. What was this terrible need that raced through her body, centering between her thighs?
Suddenly she found herself rolled over on her back on the seat. Looking into her eyes, he seemed to flinch.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“I’m getting wet,” he said with a lazy grin. “There’s a leak in the roof.”
He leaned aside, and a few raindrops splattered across her breasts. She caught her breath at the cool sensation, then almost choked when he bent and licked each drop off, following the winding path of water between her breasts and even to the very peaks. For an endless moment, he suckled one nipple and caressed the other with knowing fingers, until she was squirming beneath him.
“I need to see you,” he said, sliding her out of the rain. He knelt down on the coach floor between her thighs.
Her face hot, she whispered, “Really? Are you certain?”
He gave a deep laugh, even as he rolled her skirts up and bunched them with her bodice. She was naked to him above the waist and below, and she tried to clutch her thighs together, but he stopped her.
“No, love, let me look upon your beauty. How wondrous you look with your hair tumbling about your breasts and that flush on your cheeks.” He sat back on his heels, running his palms in slow circles up her inner thighs then spreading her legs wider.
She couldn’t stop shaking with the incredible sensations he evoked, even as she covered her face in embarrassment. But she peeked between her fingers as he bent his head. She felt the gentle kiss he placed between her thighs like bolt of lightning. Her hips lifted off the bench in a spasm as she cried out his name.
She should beg him to stop, but she was mindless with the rising surge of pleasure that rocked through her. She felt his hot breath a moment before his tongue swept over her, parting her.
“I knew you’d taste like the sweetest wine,” he said hoarsely, even as his fingers spread her wider.
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think as he bent his head and licked her again. He suckled the most sensitive nub of flesh into his mouth, and the pleasure roared through her in waves that buffeted her body and shuddered across her skin in a final release unlike anything she’d imagined. She was mindless and aware at the same time. Even as she sagged in his arms, she thought, This is what brings women and men together. This is why women risk everything for love. And she would, too.
Moments later, the coach slowed and they heard the coachman call out to the gatekeeper.
“Oh, sweet heaven,” she whispered, sitting upright on the bench. “We’re home.”
Alex groaned and laughed at the same time, dropping his head to her shoulder for a moment. “Ah, how I wanted to join you in such bliss.”
“I—”
“No, you mustn’t worry, love. Here, let’s get you assembled.”
Together they tugged up her smock and gown, and pulled her skirts down about her legs. She buttoned her bodice while watching him slide his shirt over his head and tuck it back in his breeches. He looked down at himself, then back up at her with a grin.
“What?” she asked in confusion as she did her best to pin up her hair.
“You’ve made me damp in a rather inconvenient place.”
She didn’t understand until he tied up one of the curtains and she saw the wet stain across his breeches. She gasped. “That’s from…me? From when I…”
He kissed her quickly. “That’s your body preparing for me—and nothing could excite me more.”
“But you didn’t—we didn’t—”
He slipped on his doublet and collapsed beside her. “Believe me, I know. But I didn’t want your first time to be in a leaky coach.”
She stared at him, wishing she could ask what this all meant to him, hoping he knew what it meant to her.
When the coachman threw open the door and helped her down, she looked back up at him.
“I can’t come out,” he said with regret in his voice.
“I know.” She blinked the rain out of her eyes and asked, “Will you come to visit me?”
He grinned. “Nothing could keep me away.”
The coachman closed the door, then climbed up above to take up the reins. As they headed back for the gate, Emmeline linked her hands behind her back and went around the mansion, avoiding the front entrance. Her legs felt wobbly and she was getting wet—but she needed to think.
Heading down the sloping gravel path toward the Thames, she breathed deeply of the spring flowers and tried to plan what to do next. She couldn’t keep giving in to Alex, or “The Seduction of Emmeline” would turn into “The Ruination of Emmeline.” How could she convince him they belonged together, that he’d be happy married to her?
She felt a hand on her arm and she turned, expecting her sister. Instead she looked up into the faces of the Langston brothers. Stunned, she opened her mouth to scream, and they stuffed a gag in instead.
After Alex had changed, he and Edmund rode their horses to Langston House to confront Lady Elizabeth and her brothers once and for all. A maidservant graciously showed them into the great hall, with its old black-beamed ceiling and stone walls. When the girl reappeared, her plump face had taken on a decidedly hesitant demeanor.
“My lady is not feeling well, my lords. She requests that you visit another day.”
“That won’t do,” Edmund said, walking toward the door the girl had just come from.
Alex stayed at his side, brushing off the maid’s distress. “We won’t harm your mistress, girl, we just need to speak with her.”
A woman was trying to escape out the glass doors into the garden when they entered the room.
“Elizabeth!” Edmund called, running to catch her arm and haul her back inside.
“Let me go!”
Her pink cheeks were flushed, and blond tendrils of hair framed her lovely face. Alex could see why Edmund had allowed himself to be swept away.
“All we need you to do is answer our questions,” Edmund said gruffly. “I know I’ve wronged you—and I promise to make it right—but that is no reason to send your brothers after my friend. And only you could have told them such a thing. Why did you do it?”
She pulled away from him and stood with her head held high. “I had no choice!” she said coldly. “I had already dishonored myself. The only way I could atone to my family was by offering them a husband more suitable to them.”
Edmund’s face reddened. “I was good enough to pleasure you, but not to marry?”
She whirled to face him. “That is a crude thing to say!”
“But ’tis the truth, isn’t it?”
Alex stepped between them. “You both have much to discuss, but right now we need to tell your brothers the truth. Where are they?”
Lady Elizabeth stiffened. “I don’t know.”
“You’re lying,” Alex said flatly, advancing on her. She backed up step by step. “I have done nothing to you, but you’ve made sure your brothers stalked me, robbed me, and kidnapped me. Last night they took my brother in my place. I will have this done, my lady, and it won’t be in marriage to you! Tell me where they are!” he shouted.
She looked away. “I don’t know what they mean to do. All I heard them say was that they planned to hurt you in any way that they could until you agreed to marry me.”
“In any way that they…” Alex’s words faded as a chill of foreboding seeped through him. There was only one real way to hurt him now. Hellfire. “Edmund, they’re after Emmeline.” He grabbed the stunned girl by the shoulders. “Where have they taken her?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she cried, her wide eyes frightened.
Edmund gripped him from behind. “I believe her, Alex. Let her go and listen to me.”
Alex was stunned by the blind rage that had seized him. But he released her and she ran out of the room.
“I just left her at Kent Hall,” he said slowly. “I didn’t even see her to the door. All I could think about was my problems with Spencer.”
“Before we jump to conclusions, let’s see if she’s at home.”
Thankfully, Kent Hall was nearby and Alex’s galloping horse covered the distance in only minutes. But his fears were confirmed when a servant told him that Emmeline had not returned from her morning visit to see him.
Frantic now, he ran behind the house into the gardens, calling her name. No one answered, and a chilling bleakness overcame him.
Edmund caught up with him. “Alex, she’s not here. We must think about where they would take her.”
“Edmund, what if they—”
“I don’t think they’d hurt Emmeline. They just want our attention. I’m assuming they wouldn’t take her to your brother’s home, nor to Langston House and risk tainting their sister with another scandal. Where, then, could they have gone?”
Alex had never felt so irrational. He wanted only to pound their faces into a bloody mess. But he forced himself to consider what the Langston brothers’ purpose could be. “Well, if they want to hurt me, they’ll want me to know about it. So where could they wait, knowing I’d come?”
At the same moment, they both said, “The Rooster.”