Clarice waved a languid hand. “All you needed to enchant them was to speak of monkeys. Caleb and Robert are already planning how to persuade Jack to let them have one.” She frowned. “I must remember to mention to my other half that I have no wish to have a monkey in our house.”
“No, indeed!” Leonora agreed. “But then I already have three.” She glanced at Emily. “Have you and Gareth spoken of children—of how many you might like?”
Emily nodded. “I said lots—I come from a big family.” Then she frowned. “However, Gareth doesn’t. He was very much an only child.”
“That means little,” Leonora said. “Tristan was an only child, too, but his attitude is that we should have as many as possible—I think to fill the void as the old ladies pass on. He’d be lost if any of his houses were quiet.”
Clarice was nodding. “I have three brothers, and I did wonder how Jack would manage with the unaccustomed noise, but he seems to thrive on it—apparently, if it’s his offspring making it, it’s music to his ears.”
They laughed and continued to talk of this and that, sharing experiences, inquiring as to Emily and Gareth’s relationship, and touching on what she expected of their marriage. This was exactly the type of feminine discussion she’d wanted and needed.
By the time the first gong sounded, and the three of them climbed the stairs and parted to go to their rooms to dress for dinner, she had a much firmer grasp of the dynamics of married life—specifically the sort of married life she wanted. With the help of the other two, she’d defined her holy grail—the vital elements that, if they were present between her and Gareth, would guarantee the type of future she wanted.
Gentlemen, as her hours with Leonora and Clarice had confirmed, could not be expected to achieve this shining goal alone, by themselves. They needed help in emotional matters, guidance. She would need to steer and prod and nudge, but she was sure that Gareth would, indeed, want the same style of marriage she had set her heart upon.
Entering her room, she found Dorcas laying out her other evening gown. While she dressed, they chatted of household matters. When she sat on the dressing stool and Dorcas brushed, then started pinning up her hair, they fell silent, and her mind returned to its principal preoccupation.
Perhaps that was what she sensed Gareth was still uncertain over—the specific style of marriage she wanted. Especially for a man like him, a warrior who had spent so many years out of society, he would be feeling his way. Given his background, he would have far less experience of marriages of any sort than she.
They would need to sit and talk—but when?
They might have another day here, in relative safety, yet his mission still hung over his head—and hers, too. She retained a personal interest in seeing poor MacFarlane avenged. And once they set out again…the last thing she would want was to distract Gareth, or herself, with thoughts of something so deeply absorbing as marriage.
That issue deserved, indeed demanded, their full and undivided attention.
So…not yet. She would use the time to better define her ideas and visions, and find the best words with which to describe all she now longed for, all she believed they could have.
“There.” Dorcas tapped the top of her topknot and stepped back. “You look just as you ought.” She met Emily’s gaze in the mirror. “But I warn you, if we stay here much longer, you’re going to run out of evening gowns.”
Later that night, as she climbed into her bed, Emily envisioned the reaction if she appeared clad in the begum of Tunis’s version of an evening gown.
The thought made her smile; even now she could barely believe she’d had the courage to don the scandalous outfit.
When Gareth arrived to join her, he found her in a pensive mood. “Penny for your thoughts,” he said as he climbed into the bed beside her.
She let herself roll into his arms, an action she delighted in every night—mostly because he caught her so readily, settling her against him as if she belonged there. “I was just thinking…while on our travels I did things I would never imagine doing—would never have the courage to do here, in England.” Wriggling around, leaning an elbow on his chest and rising up, she regarded him through the shadows. “Have I lost my courage, now I’m home?”
His smile was slow and infinitely warming. “No—never. Your courage is a part of you—you can’t lose it. And adjusting to social reality, knowing and understanding what you can and can’t do without risking ostracism—that’s a strength, not a weakness.”
After a moment, she smiled back. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
Gareth looked into her eyes, too cloaked in the night’s shadows for him to read. This pensive mood was new to him, but only intrigued him all the more—yet another aspect of the mystery that was her. She was a many-faceted diamond, infinitely alluring. Every day, he learned something new about her—and about himself.
Like what sort of marriage he longed for, and the trials, tribulations, and difficulties inherent in attaining that. He still wasn’t sure he could manage it, much less that it was the sort of marriage—a “more”—she would accept.
Yet he thought it would suit her—a marriage like Jack’s and Clarice’s, like Tristan’s and Leonora’s. He had no real idea of the modern institution, but what he’d seen of their relationships…that would suit him, too; he doubted it would be easy, but the benefits would be great.
More, he could see himself with Emily in a relationship like that, but he didn’t know—truly had no clue—how to make it happen, what such a union was based on. What agreements were necessary to underlie the whole.
“I…” What? What could he say? I want what Jack and Clarice have?
They weren’t Jack and Clarice.
And he wasn’t sure she loved him enough. He seemed to be rushing forward, tripping over his feet in his haste to secure her, to discover the “more” he could entice her with in lieu of those three little words, but he needed to go slowly, surely, step by step.
Sliding his hand into the silken fall of her hair, he drew her down.
Arm braced on his chest, she held back. “What were you going to say?”
He shook his head. “Later.” Once he’d worked it out, once he’d found the words.
She opened her mouth, but before she could probe further, he kissed her.
Caught her and waltzed her into the passion, into the fires that rose so readily, into the latent whirlpool of their desires.
Here, on this plane, all was straightforward, all within his ken. Here, he knew just what made her gasp, what made her moan—what she liked.
What she wanted.
He set himself to give her that—and more. Committed himself to the task of showing her what he’d yet to find the words to convey.
Palming her head, holding her steady above him, he took his time savoring her mouth, languidly reclaiming the sweet hollows, the succulent softness she’d so readily yielded. He stroked his tongue alongside hers and felt her bones melt. Felt desire rise.
He took his time. Running his hands over her shoulders, down the supple feminine planes of her back screened by her fine nightgown, sculpting her body as it rested over his, her breasts, her waist, her hips, her taut thighs, her rounded derriere, relearning her curves, her valleys and contours, reclaiming them, too, making them his.
The first step of many.
She grew restless, wordlessly demanding. He rolled, taking her with him and settling her beneath him in the billows of the bed. His lips held hers, held her awareness; he fed and supped with lips and tongue while between them his fingers slipped buttons undone.
Until he could push aside her nightgown’s bodice enough to bare her breasts. Enough to close his hands about the firm peaks, and caress. Possess. He kneaded until she arched, until beneath his lips she moaned and surrendered.
The first of many such moments.
He drew back from the kiss, through the shadows surveyed the bounty that filled his hands, then he bent his head and set his
mouth to the furled peaks, and feasted. Her hands fisted in his hair, clutched as her body arched, as, breathless, she accepted and asked for more.
Begged, her body subtly surging beneath his, primitively taunting, urging him on.
Still he took his time, thoroughly laving the swollen mounds before divesting her of her nightgown inch by slow inch, and claiming each inch of skin revealed by touch, by taste.
By right.
Branding her inch by inch, nerve by nerve.
Layering fire beneath her skin until she burned.
Emily writhed beneath him and rejoiced, even as her wits spun and her senses reeled and sensation crashed through her in swelling waves. The previous night, she’d taken the lead, pressing her quest. Tonight, he held the reins, and wielded them.
Drove her, consistent and insistent, scaling the familiar peak via a long, tortuous and novel path, while he assessed, weighed, worshipped.
Under his hands she felt precious. Every drift of his fingers over her skin screamed with primal possessiveness, while every brush of his lips, every subtle caress, was laden with reverence.
She felt like a goddess as he stripped her bare, as he drew back, parted her thighs, bent his head and kissed her there—as he used lips, tongue, teeth and his hot, demanding mouth to drive her wild. To, steady and sure, push her ever higher, until she gripped his hair, body bowing as a silent scream ripped from her throat and a cataclysmic climax shattered her.
He lapped, fed, continued to taste her until she eased back to the bed.
Then his hard palms smoothed over her fevered skin—a primitive claiming and a promise of more—as in the night he rose above her, pressed her thighs even wider, and the broad head of his erection found her entrance and he pressed in.
Slowly, deeply, completely.
The feel of him there, solid and hard, hot velvet over steel stretching her sheath, swamped her mind. She knew nothing beyond the fact that he filled her, that he banished the hot, aching, restless emptiness within her, that he completed her and fulfilled her and he was hers as she was his.
He withdrew and thrust in again, deeper still, demanding.
Hands sliding blind, splayed, over and around his chest, arms locking, she embraced him, rose to his rhythm, to the driving beat, meeting him and matching him in the compulsive dance, clinging as it whirled them high.
Worshipped him with her body as much as he worshipped her. Tipped her head back, found his lips with hers, and kissed him.
Engaged him in a duel as heated as the communion of their straining bodies. Nerves flayed by the indescribable friction of tautly encased, hair-dusted muscle, heated and hard, moving constantly, repetitively, over her satin skin, abrading the excruciatingly sensitized peaks of her breasts, by the rhythmic thrusting of his body into hers, the way he rocked her, by the echoes that found expression through the flagrant mating of their mouths, she joined with him and climbed, nails sinking, scoring as they reached the peak and her nerves snapped, unraveled.
He thrust in one last time, hard, deep, and she came apart.
And fell. Plummeted from the peak. Fractured and broke.
Disintegrated as ecstasy swept in, as it claimed her, filled her, buoyed her.
Joy followed, sweeping inexorably in as, over the pounding of her heart, she heard his ragged groan. As he went rigid in her arms, holding deep within her as his seed flooded her womb.
As at the last, muscle by muscle yielding to the inevitable, he collapsed, crushing her beneath him.
A smile curved her lips as she hugged him close, as satiation slid in and claimed them both.
17th December, 1822
Early evening
My bedchamber at Mallingham Manor
Dear Diary,
I have a little time before I need to dress for dinner. Today has been a day for consolidation and waiting. As usual, Gareth was gone when I awoke this morning, continuing his recent habit of exhausting me before slipping away with the dawn. Yet the events of the night confirmed my thoughts—the connection between us runs so deep neither he nor I can hold back from it. Indeed, when we come together, it is increasingly in mutual fascination and devotion. Together, we accept, embrace, and worship. On that front, at least, our way forward is clear.
I did not write this morning as, on the wider question of our marriage, I was still formulating my thoughts. And with the snows, although melting, still confining us to the house, in this place of relative safety where danger and its distractions are held at bay, I have indeed been able to make progress—at last.
Speaking with the old ladies—they truly are dears—and through further observing Leonora and Tristan, and Jack and Clarice, I have defined and confirmed what the principal elements necessary to underpin a successful marriage between Gareth and myself are.
Trust. Partnership. An appreciation and acceptance of each other’s strengths, and a willingness to allow for the other’s weaknesses. A sharing freely given and readily accepted in all areas of our lives, allowing the other to share the burdens, to help meet the challenges, and share fully in the triumphs.
Those are the elements I need to explain to Gareth, to make him see and understand how vital they are, and how wonderful our marriage and our future will be if we can work together to embrace them.
I do not imagine that will be simple and easy, but then nothing worthwhile ever is.
So now, dear Diary, I am clearheaded and resolved, and waiting—here is the waiting—on only one thing. The end of Gareth’s mission. The end of the Black Cobra. In my view, that cannot come soon enough.
My resolution and clearheadedness have given birth to a certain eagerness. I feel I am standing on the cusp, not just of great happiness, but of an exciting journey that will fill the rest of my life—but I cannot take the first step until that wretched Black Cobra is caught and put down.
We are hoping to hear from Wolverstone soon.
Pray that it is so.
E.
A messenger from Wolverstone rode in late that evening.
The greatcoated rider handed his packet to Tristan in the front hall. “Would have been here earlier, m’lords, but the drifts are still thick through Suffolk. Howsoever, I was to tell you that as per those orders”—he nodded at the packet—“you shouldn’t have any trouble getting through, seeing as you’ll be in carriages and there’s no more snow coming down.”
“Thank you.” Tristan handed the man over to Clitheroe, then followed the others back into the drawing room, where they’d been sitting and chatting by the roaring fire.
They resumed their seats and waited expectantly as Tristan opened the packet. Frowning, he pulled out two folded sheets, then handed one to Leonora. “From Minerva.” He glanced at Gareth and Emily. “Royce’s duchess.”
Opening the second missive, Tristan scanned the lines within, then glanced up with an anticipatory smile. “Tomorrow we’re to travel via Gravesend to Chelmsford, seeing what cultists we can draw along the way, especially north of the Thames. After spending the night at the Castle Arms in Chelmsford, we’re to head to Sudbury, stop for lunch at an inn, then continue through Bury St. Edmunds to Elveden.” He offered the letter to Gareth. “Delborough is expected to be at Elveden to greet us.”
Gareth took the letter. “That’s excellent news.” He glanced over the instructions, then looked at Jack and Tristan. “So—how will we handle the travel?”
They discussed various options, the ladies contributing as much as the gentlemen, the missive to Leonora having contained an invitation from Minerva for Leonora and Clarice to visit Elveden with their families. Jack and Tristan exchanged a glance, but didn’t argue, clearly deeming Elveden to be safe enough, especially as they would soon be there.
In the end, it was decided that Leonora and Clarice would travel with their children in their own carriages, with their customary retinue of coachmen, grooms, and guards, taking Dorcas, Arnia, Watson and Jimmy with them. They would go via London directly up the Great North Road, then acros
s via Cambridge and Newmarket to Elveden.
Gareth and Emily would go in another carriage, with Mullins driving and Bister and Mooktu as guards. They would follow Wolverstone’s stipulated route, shadowed by Jack and Tristan on horseback.
“The better to eliminate any cultists we find,” as Jack put it.
The two family carriages would leave three hours after Gareth and Emily’s, but as their route lay along major highways, it was likely the families would reach Elveden first.
With a glance at the clock, then at Clarice and Emily, Leonora rose. “It’s late, and we’ll need to leave as early as possible.” She looked at the men. “We’ll leave you to organize the carriages, coachmen and horses while we organize the people.”
The men nodded, and returned to their planning.
Rising with Clarice, Emily followed Leonora into the hall. Leonora rang for Clitheroe.
Emily had the simplest task. She explained to Watson what had been arranged, knowing she could rely on him to alert the others and have everyone ready in good time in the morning. Leaving Leonora deep in discussion with her housekeeper, and Clarice issuing instructions to her senior nursemaid, Emily climbed the stairs and headed for her room.
By the time she reached it, excitement had taken hold. Entering, she found herself smiling.
One last push from Mallingham Manor to Elveden, and their journey would be over. Two more days, and she and Gareth could turn their attention to their future—their marriage—to planning both.
She was in her nightgown, but, too excited to sit let alone lie still, she was pacing before the fire with a shawl about her shoulders, imagining, when the door opened and Gareth came in. She halted, eagerness lighting her face.
Closing the door, he met her eyes, read her expression, and smiled. But as he closed the distance between them, he sobered. Halting before her, he looked into her eyes. “Two more days.” He hesitated, then, to her surprise, he reached for her hands, enclosing them in his.
As his eyes searched her face, she remained silent. Wondering.