“John …” she breathed, but not in protest, as she still held him tightly, her head tipped back as he dared to press his lips against her bare flesh above the neckline of her gown.
Her mourning gown.
Christ!
He took her hands in his and raised her to her feet, not letting go of her as he looked deeply into her eyes. “I’m sorry. I had no right …”
“You were not lacking an invitation, Captain Alastair,” Emmaline told him quietly, shifting her gaze to the ground at her feet. “Shall we just put this down to an aging spinster feeling reckless, even desperate, on the event of her twenty-eighth birthday?”
“I don’t think so, no. Not unless we explain my behavior with the notion that I’ve been too long at sea, and haven’t seen a woman in months and months, so that any woman will do. You’re not that old, Emmaline, and I’m not that young.”
She smiled weakly and pulled one hand free, turning so that they could retrace their steps to the house. “You’ve quite the way with words, or else I’m eager to be convinced.”
She shivered then, only slightly, as the setting sun had slipped behind a blanket of thick clouds, and John slipped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer beside him as they walked along the path.
“I had an idea as I dressed for dinner,” he told her as they approached the doors to the main saloon. “I’ve remembered the name of the brother of Josiah Coates, my steward aboard ship. Phineas. Yes, I’m positive that’s it. Phineas Coates. He’s with the Bow Street Runners, but Josiah told me the man is unhappy with his position, so that he’s actively seeking employment as a valet. Josiah and his other brothers are all gentleman’s gentlemen, in one form or another, you understand.”
“Not really, not yet,” Emmaline admitted as they stepped inside the main saloon, to see that Grayson had already ordered the evening tea tray, a not-quite subtle hint that he believed her ladyship should soon be saying her good-night to the captain. “But you’ll explain?”
John availed himself of the well-stocked drinks table, pouring a glass of wine while Emmaline prepared a cup of tea for herself. He returned to the main seating area, but did not sit down.
“Josiah left for his home at the same time I was coming here, to Ashurst Hall. I know his direction, and I’m sure he’ll be there by the time a letter from me reaches London.” He didn’t add that Josiah had only gone to the city to visit his widowed mother before heading to Warrington Hall, as that was information best kept to himself for the moment.
“Ah, you’re thinking this Phineas Coates might be the man who can find Rafe for me.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m thinking. You could go through the War Office, but the extremely busy people there might not consider the mission as important as you’d like.”
“And, since Mr. Coates is a Bow Street Runner, he should have no problem in running down Rafe if we tell him what we know, that my nephew is in Paris. He could even, considering the man’s desire to leave the Runners, offer his services as the new duke’s valet, and stay with him, accompany Rafe home to Ashurst Hall. All very neat and tidy.”
“Only if you’re agreeable. I don’t know Phineas, but I can vouch for Josiah.”
“Very well, then, that’s what we shall do. I’ll write to Rafe tonight, and you can include the letter along with your instructions? And, yes, I’d feel much more comfortable if this Mr. Phineas Coates stayed at Rafe’s side until he’s home safe. I might even suggest they stop in London for a few days, to do something about Rafe’s wardrobe. The boy has been in uniforms for half a dozen years. Now he has to dress himself as befits a duke. Oh, dear, I wonder if he’s going to like that. He left here a boy, but he’s a man now. I wonder if he’s going to like any part of this, to be truthful. He had no ambitions in this direction, and no training, when it comes to that.”
“Three hearts away from the title, two of them young and I’ll assume vital, I can see why your nephew might not have considered that such a day might arrive. The title, this estate and, I’m sure, several others? He’s inherited considerable responsibility. Is he up to it, do you think?”
Emmaline nodded. “Rafe is a good, sound person, boy or man, I’m sure. He may be somewhat discommoded to see how his sisters have blossomed in his absence, and I don’t envy him having to ride herd on his mother once she decides she is now the dowager duchess—but, no, I have no serious qualms for the title now that it is in Rafe’s hands.”
She put down her cup. “John … about what happened in the gardens …”
He shook his head slowly. “No, let’s not talk about that now. You’ve had a long and extremely trying day, one way or another, and I certainly wasn’t any great help to you.”
“I feel as if I’ve just been told to take myself off to bed,” she said to him, smiling. “All right. And I’ll have that letter for you in the morning. Oh, and I suppose there are others I’ll need to write. To some distant aunts … perhaps the newspapers?”
“Tomorrow, Emmaline. There is nothing you can do anymore tonight that can’t wait until tomorrow.”
“Do I look that exhausted?”
“No, Emmaline. You look that vulnerable. And I’m not as strong as I thought myself. Not since I kissed you, at any rate.”
He watched as hot color invaded her cheeks once again. “Oh. Well, then, all right. It has been a long day.”
“Until tomorrow, which is already much too far away,” he told her, not daring to kiss her hand because he knew neither of them would be able to stop with such a simple, formal gesture.
He watched her walk, chin held high, toward the foyer, and then drank the rest of his wine, resisting the temptation to then fling the glass into the fireplace.
What in bloody hell had he done out there in the gardens? The woman had just had a terrible shock. Had he really believed that seducing her was the answer to all her problems?
And lying to her? How was that helping her?
His deception had begun easily enough, but there had been ample opportunity for him to correct her when she addressed him as captain.
She’d been impressed to hear he was a captain in the Royal Navy, that he had, like her nephew, gone to war to defend his country. And all of that was true enough.
She’d also felt comfortable with him, possibly because he was, to her mind, a relatively simple man. She’d felt free with him. Free to tell him the truth, bare her troubled soul to him. Free to lean on him in her time of need.
Free to let him kiss her.
She was Lady Emmaline Daughtry, daughter of a duke, sister of a duke, aunt to a duke. There would be no real social consequences for her if she kissed a captain in the Royal Navy. Kissed him … or more.
John poured himself a second glass of wine, preparing to settle himself in for at least another few hours of thinking, and most probably drinking. He had to tell her. He couldn’t put off telling her.
How would he tell her?
“Your Grace?”
John’s head turned toward the door before he could stop himself, and he watched as Grayson entered the main saloon, to bow in front of him.
“Excuse me, Grayson? That’s Captain, not Your Grace.”
“No, Your Grace, it’s not. I took it upon myself to personally unpack your bag. There were letters inside. I left them tied as they were, but could not avoid reading what few lines I saw. You are His Grace, Captain Jonathan Alastair, Duke of Warrington. I’ve taken the liberty of removing your belongings to the large bedchamber just to the left at the top of the landing, Your Grace.”
“Lady Emmaline?”
“Doesn’t know, no, Your Grace. May I ask why?”
“I was just sitting here asking myself the same question, Grayson. She seemed … she seemed pleased that I served in the Navy.”
Grayson nodded, transformed from the stiff and stern butler to the sort of old family retainer who had come to look upon his employers as well-loved children. “Her ladyship is very admiring of those who chose
to defend this country from that rascal Bonaparte, yes, Your Grace.” The butler bowed, turned to leave, and then turned back to look at John, his expression stern once more. “She is also, begging Your Grace’s pardon, quite fond of honesty and truthfulness.”
“Yes, thank you, Grayson. Lady Emmaline is, indeed, a very truthful, forthright person. She deserves nothing less in return.” Grayson bowed again. “As you say, Your Grace.”
CHAPTER FIVE
… SUCH SAD AND shocking news. I imagine you reading this wherever you are, and marveling at how quickly lives can change. In truth, I have been thinking much the same thing ever since Captain Alastair walked into the gardens of Ashurst Hall this afternoon.
Emmaline lifted her pen and stared at her words. Why had she written them? She should tear up this letter, as well, and put it with the other discarded efforts she had begun and then abandoned. But it would make no difference if she began again; no matter how she tried to concentrate on the matter at hand, John Alastair kept creeping back into her thoughts, and onto the page of the letter to her nephew.
She dipped the pen once more and continued:
You are, of course, needed home as soon as you are able, but I understand the demands of your service, and wish to assure you that we are all quite safe here, and capable of holding things together until you find it possible to return. I ask only that you write to us as often as you can, and that you allow Mr. Coates to be of any and all assistance to you.
Rafe, you will make an exemplary Duke of Ashurst. You hold my deepest confidence and blessings.
Yrs. In Greatest Affection,
Emmaline
Before she could change her mind, Emmaline sanded the page, folded it and then used the Ashurst seal to press the warmed wax onto the folded page. There, it was done. She’d arrange for funds to be given to Mr. Coates, who would carry them with him to Paris, so that Rafe would not feel penny-pinched as he made arrangements for his transport back to England.
She kept the letter separate from the small stack that would go out with the morning post, informing a few distant aunts of Charlton’s death, and then reluctantly added the letter to Helen, Rafe’s mother, to them. She could not in good conscience delay sending that particular letter, especially since the London newspapers were bound to make a huge announcement in the next few days.
After all, it wasn’t every day that a duke and both his heirs drowned in the Channel thanks to their own utter stupidity.
“Stop it,” Emmaline muttered under her breath as she rose from the small writing desk in her bedchamber and turned to contemplate the mantel clock. She was surprised to see that it had only gone past midnight. She’d hoped for more, perhaps that it was already after three, or even four.
How long before she would see John again at the breakfast table? Knowing she would not sleep, could not sleep, she believed the hours between now and then could be more easily measured in months.
In any event, it was no longer her birthday, although she could still consider it such until the sun rose in the morning. The next time she marked her birthday, it would also mark the day she’d learned that her brother and nephews had died. How odd. Which was worse, she wondered: to grow older every year, or to be reminded how many years it had been since those deaths?
“If they were going to die, anyway, they could have been just a little bit more considerate,” Emmaline told her reflection in the dressing table mirror as she pinched at her cheeks to bring color into them and then checked the neckline of her ridiculously virginal white night rail and dressing gown.
And then, before her better self, her saner self, could talk her out of it, Emmaline headed for the door to the hallway, intent on spending her twenty-ninth birthday thinking back over a much nicer memory of her twenty-eighth.
She headed for the west wing, hoping her courage wouldn’t desert her, but halted before she got to the center staircase, having seen light peeking out from beneath the double doors to the bedchamber reserved for their highest-ranking guests. The prince regent himself had stayed in the chamber twice, this last time breaking a fine antique chair just by sitting his bulk in it.
Why would Grayson put John in this chamber? It wasn’t like the butler to stray from the strict rules of social protocol that made up such things. Captain Alastair should have been put in the west wing, and probably at the end of the corridor at that, right next to the servant stairs.
Perhaps Grayson had taken a liking to John. Although Grayson rarely took a liking to anyone.
And what did it matter where Grayson had put John, or why? She told herself that all she was doing now was standing in a drafty hallway, possibly to be seen by any servant who might be up and about for some reason. Either she was going to do something for herself or she was going to die old and dry and with a regret that had her sighing into her teacup while her relatives murmured behind her back: “Poor old Emmy, unlucky in love, you know.”
She raised her hand, hesitated as she took one last, deep steadying breath, and then closed her fist and rapped her knuckles on one of the doors.
Emmaline winced as the sound of that knock seemed to fill the quiet night like cannon shot woke the world to mark a dawn battle.
“You wanted something, Emmaline?”
She nearly jumped out of her skin, whirling about to see John standing almost directly behind her.
“Why aren’t you in bed?” she asked, saying the first thing that came into her head.
“I should perhaps ask you the same thing,” he responded, his magnificent eyes slipping lazily up and down her dressing-gown-clad body.
Her toes curled in her slippers.
“I didn’t hear you come down the hallway.”
“Or up the stairs, either, I’d imagine,” he said, smiling. “Perhaps, next time, I should have one of the footmen lead the way, blowing on a trumpet.”
“Now you’re making sport of me.”
“No,” he said, his tone serious as he stepped closer to her. “I’d never do that. For one thing, I’m too grateful to see you. It has been hours and hours.”
“Yes, it has,” Emmaline told him, daring to look straight into his eyes. “And it’s just as you said, John. Tomorrow is much too far away …”
He put his hands around her upper arms and then leaned in ever so slowly, touching his mouth to hers with a gentleness that brought her closer to tears than she had felt all day.
At first she thought she was floating, but quickly realized John had picked her up, lifting her high against his chest, even as he went on kissing her. She sensed his knees bending slightly as he tried to manage the brass latch. She was about to tell him that romance was lovely but perhaps they were both a few years too old for such gallantry when the door opened and he walked her inside, kicking it closed behind him.
By now she had her face buried against the side of his neck. “That was quite … impressive,” she whispered, keeping her eyes shut as he carried her across the large chamber and toward the bed that had housed kings, queens and rotund princes.
“Thank you. I thought so, too,” John told her as he laid her on the already turned-down bed. Bless Grayson, he was nothing if not efficient.
Standing next to the bed, John stripped off his uniform jacket before joining her on the lush satin sheets, pulling her once more into his arms. His mouth mere inches from hers, he said, “I’ve wanted this for so long.”
Emmaline thought that a lovely thing to say. “We barely know each other.”
“No. We’ve known each other forever, my dearest one, always known the other of us was out there somewhere in the world, waiting. We only just happened to meet today.”
They made love slowly, because it was her first time, because they had the rest of their lives, because to rush something this beautiful, this perfect, would be tantamount to a crime.
He kissed away her silent tears when the lovemaking threatened to undo her; the unexpected intensity of her arousal, the tenderness of his every intimate touch, swelli
ng her heart and wordlessly telling her she was cherished, she was beautiful to him, she was desirable.
But there was more. She hadn’t expected what she’d felt so far, what he’d caused her to feel, and her surprise manifested itself in a rather startled gasp as he found the very heart of her most intimate place and touched it, teased and stroked it, doing amazing things to her suddenly eager body.
She lifted her hips to him, wanting to know more, wanting to learn her feelings even as he was learning her body. A new tension invaded her every muscle, urging her forward, telling him without words that, yes, yes … there. And again, there. Do that … please do that. Don’t stop doing that … right there … please …
And when he mounted her, when her body relieved her of the responsibility to think and just reacted to his, when he settled himself deep inside her, Emmaline knew that every word he’d said to her was true. She’d been waiting for him all of her life.
Their bodies had become one, their hearts and minds, as well. He whispered sweet words in her ear, urging her to move with him, feel with him, fly with him.
Emmaline had already waved goodbye to all of her misgivings and inhibitions of eight and twenty long years. She lifted her hips to him, met his every thrust as she held on tight, pulling him deeper, deeper inside her. She felt her most secret parts bud, unfurl, bursting into the full flower of her womanhood.
And then more. Just when she felt she had nothing more to give, to take, to feel, her body began to throb around him, sending stunning sensations through her, glories both wonderful and frightening.
“John!”
And he knew, somehow he knew. His hold tightened on her and he thrust one more time as he held her close, his mouth on hers, taking in her frantic breaths, her wondrous sighs.
She felt his body clench. Clench, and then release. Again and again and again, until he seemed to collapse bonelessly against her, his warm breath audible next to her ear.
“I will never … leave your side. Never. At last I’m alive …” he whispered, and her tears fell once more as he kissed her hair, her eyelids, even the tip of her nose, before settling once more against her mouth. “Neither of us will ever be alone again.”