
Healing Hearts
By Taryn Kincaid
As a girl, Emma Whiteside asked Adam Caldwell, Viscount Riverton, to wait for her to be of marriageable age. Now, twelve years later, Emma hates Adam as much as she once loved him, holding the former army major responsible for the death of her brother on the battlefield.
Adam already blames himself for the loss of the men under his command. But the fiery young woman Emma's become sparks his arousal, as well as emotions Adam thought long dead. The passion between them makes him want to reclaim the man he was before the war.
Though she tries to hold on to her hatred, Emma's longing for Adam is undeniable, especially after the two share a smoldering kiss. Still, Adam is certain no woman would want a man so damaged. Can Emma prove him wrong?
Dear Reader,
A new year always brings with it a sense of expectation and promise (and maybe a vague sense of guilt). Expectation because we don't know what the year will bring exactly, but promise because we always hope it will be good things. The guilt is due to all of the New Year's resolutions we make with such good intentions.
This year, Carina Press is making a New Year's resolution we know we won't have any reason to feel guilty about: we're going to bring our readers a year of fantastic editorial and diverse genre content. So far, our plans for 2011 include staff and author appearances at reader-focused conferences such as the RT Booklovers Convention in April, where we'll be offering up goodies, appearing on panels, giving workshops and hosting a few fun activities for readers. We're also cooking up several genre-specific release weeks, during which we'll highlight individual genres. So far we have plans for steampunk week and unusual fantasy week. Readers will have access to free reads, discounts, contests and more as part of our week-long promotions!
But even when we're not doing special promotions, we're still offering something special to our readers in the form of the stories authors are delivering to Carina Press that we're passing on to you. From sweet romance to sexy, and military science fiction to fairy-tale fantasy, from mysteries to romantic suspense, we're proud to be offering a wide variety of genres and tales of escapism to our customers in this new year. Every week is a new adventure, and we want to bring our readers along on the journey. Be daring, be brave and try something new with Carina Press in 2011!
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Contents
The wind blew off the sea, moaning and wild, buffeting the man pacing the cliffs.
Hidden by a wall of rock, Emma Whiteside shielded her eyes against the bite of salt spray and continued to watch him, as she did every dawn.
Today, she thought. Today she would approach him at last. Confront him. Give him the royal tongue-lashing he deserved. She had nothing left to lose, after all. And she might not have the opportunity tomorrow. Or ever again.
The things I will say to you, Riverton, will peel the skin from your bones and lay you lower than anything Napoleon's Grande Armée had to offer.
A small voice nagged Emma from within, the advice reasonable considering her current dire circumstances. Better to seek the man's aid than chide him. But she snapped her mind closed against the unwanted counsel. The viscount was the last man on earth she'd ever ask for help.
Grief chilled her, numbed her heart, deadened the tender feelings she'd once had for him. Only her need for vengeance broke through her frozen emotions now. She longed to set Riverton in his place, however little effect her words might have on a man so impervious to remorse.
But once again Emma could neither confront him nor beseech him. The evidence of his stiff-necked pride---and her own---continued to hold her back with as much force as if an unseen hand pressed down upon her shoulder. She glared in the man's direction, as if it were his hand oppressing her.
Fierce gusts punished him, impeding his tortured progress. Pain twisted his handsome features but he confronted the gale without flinching. A tiny chip splintered off from the ice sheath encasing Emma's heart.
Damn him.
How do you bear it, Riverton? Are you made of stone?
She knew he was not. She saw the agony against which he fought, the stalwart way he pushed himself onward, despite the uneven gait that hampered his progress.
A cold blast of wind whistled past, ripping the hood of Emma's cloak aside, whipping her hair against her neck. The frigid current stung her eyes, wringing reluctant tears. She blinked the moisture away and rubbed the damp trail from her cheeks.
No tears, she instructed herself. Not for him. Never for him.
Riverton wore no coat or cravat. His linen flapped about him, white shirttails torn from his trousers---an unlikely flag of surrender when he refused to give quarter.
Did you stand so against the French?
Emma could think of no oath dark enough to curse a man so remarkably stoic. She envisioned him in her mind's eye, saber raised, hastening up and down the lines, shouting at his men to hold: Major Adam Caldwell, Viscount Riverton, at his most courageous.
She shuddered, conjuring the brutal attack that haunted her grimmest moments, the scene clouded by smoke and thunder, blurred by the limits of her grief and imagination. The battle where her twin had fallen, belly pierced by an enemy bayonet.
Michael admired you so, Riverton. I will never stop blaming you. 'Tis time you knew it.
Anger burned within her breast, bright as her love for the viscount once had.
And yet...her gaze swept him again, lingering on the trousers that molded his muscular thighs, the loose shirt that emphasized the breadth of his shoulders. 'Twas but the vicious wind that stole her breath, she told herself.
Why was he here? Why had he come now? What was he doing marching about the windswept cliffs so close to the manor when he had not had the decency to call upon her family? He had not answered the letters she'd sent after they'd first learned of Michael's death at Albuhera. And now, considering her current untenable situation, Riverton's presence here seemed too cruel a taunt.
Go to him, her inner voice dared again. Ask him for aid. You know he will help you.
Emma straightened and shook her head. She knew no such thing. She did not know this resolute, unyielding man at all anymore. No matter how dire her plight, she would never beg Adam Caldwell for a farthing. She might have little of value left, but she still had her pride. And that pride demanded she read him a scold---if she could only muster the courage to do so.
Emma studied Riverton's grim, determined face, experienced etched upon the angles like the engraved lines on a printmaker's plate. She stifled the sigh that threatened to escape her.
What would it be like to be held in this man's powerful arms, crushed against his hard body? Odd tingles raced down her spine. Nightmares of war may have chased her girlhood dreams but her fascination with Riverton persisted, despite the world-weary air that now settled over him like a cloak.
The viscount planted one booted foot in front of the other and trudged across the rock-strewn ledge mottled with dying chalkgrass and choked with brambles. He clenched his jaw, as if grinding his teeth to bite back the pain.
Grudging respect for the single-minded effort with which he exercised his wounded limb stole over her. Warring emotions wracked her. She fought an urge to run to him, to soothe his knotted brow with her fingertips, stroking the grooved lines of care away. Bittersweet passions swelled and crested until her heart raced. Despite the wretched weather, a surge of heat engulfed her. She flattened her palms against her warming cheeks.
Damn his eyes.
"I am not that silly minx in pigtails anymore and I will not let you do this to me again!"
Emma gripped the embroidered handkerchief she had labored over with the last of her silk thread, never finished when the skein ran out. She forced her fingers to unclench before she tore the fragile muslin square.
How her circumstances had changed since that long-ago garden party!
Twelve years earlier, watching the viscount flirt with young ladies his own age, she'd marched over to him, abuzz with indignation. Throwing back her shoulders and jutting out her chin, she'd tugged on his coattails until he turned and smiled down at her.
"You have succeeded in capturing my complete and undivided attention, Miss Whiteside. Or should I call you 'general'?"
The startling glint in his blue eyes---a sparkle bright as a shooting star streaking across the midnight sky---thrilled her. She'd ignored his gentle teasing.
"You will wait for me," she'd ordered him.
He'd dropped to a knee, leaning toward her until mere inches separated his face from hers. A dark eyebrow lifted like an elegant black bird drifting into flight formation.
"What do you mean, poppet?"
"You will wait for me to grow. I will marry you and be your lady."
He hadn't laughed. Instead, he'd regarded her with wry solemnity.
"Of course, I will, poppet. You've stolen my heart. I will wait for you forever."
Then he'd straightened, hauling her up with him and swinging her around until she'd shrieked with delight.
How stiff his left leg seemed now, in contrast to the nimble teenager he'd been. He favored it, as if uncertain whether the limb would bear his weight. She tamped down another unbidden flare of compassion.
A man like you will never need bend a knee. But that was too callous a thought, she chided herself, even for a wretched man like Riverton.
Thank God she remained too far away to see his eyes. From the rigid set of his jaw, Emma suspected the horrors of war had doused the ready light that had once shined there. She was certain bleak shadows now dulled their remarkable blue the way a pall of smoke turned day to dusk on the battlefield.
Emma tried to stoke the fast-ebbing fires of her resentment. But the more she watched Riverton's exhibition of sheer stubborn will, the more she softened, her pangs of longing growing ever more insistent.
Adam Caldwell still possessed the power to make her heart flutter. More so now as a virile man of nine and twenty than he had as a stripling of seventeen.
But she had lost too much. Her twin brother lay in a forgotten grave in Spain, her father had gone missing, and she would be turned out of her childhood home tomorrow.
Then what? How will I save Papa? How will I ever find him? What if she could not secure a position as a governess or paid companion? Would she be forced to make her way in the world on her back? There was so little time left.
Talk to him.
Emma shivered and wrapped her cloak tighter around her to block out the persistent carping of the voice of reason. She knew now she was fooling herself. She would never confront the blasted Adam Caldwell. Not to dress him down. Not to ask his aid. But her predicament remained. High time to stop her useless spying on the wretched viscount and seek some other solution to her thorny dilemma.
Chores awaited her at the manor. The muslin torn from her few worn chemises would not block and stitch itself. Perhaps she could never satisfy Papa's debts by embroidering handkerchiefs to sell at the village linen-draper and haberdasher shop, but at least she could stock the larder until she found a way to rescue Papa and save their home.
Some way other than the one with which Papa's creditor had presented her.
Emma rose from her hiding place and brushed sand from her hands.
Riverton abruptly stopped pacing. He tilted around and stared straight at her. Emma shrank behind the stone outcropping again. Had he seen her? Impossible.
But his gaze skewered her like a rapier. He took the decision out of her hands.
"The show is over, madam. I've entertained you long enough."
His deep voice reached her across the windy bluff, affecting her as if he stood close beside her, his hand encircling her wrist and pulling her forward. The rich timbre resonated through her, as intoxicating as sherry. Her hunger flared.
Emma took a gulp of salt-tinged air and emerged from concealment to face him.
"We meet again, Miss Whiteside."
The young woman's sudden appearance, after she'd remained hidden so long, broadsided Adam like a cannon shot.
He'd sensed her presence but had never actually seen her as anything more than a vague shadow, concealed in the gray mists of dawn as she darted to her secret observation post like a French sharpshooter. He had not placed her. Until now.
Her luminous countenance flooded with surprise as she swayed back against the shelf of rock, covering her mouth with two fingertips. The gesture drew Adam's attention to her gently parted lips. Kissable lips. Very.
"You did not expect me to know you, Miss Whiteside? You've changed a great deal. But I'd know you anywhere."
Emma dropped her hand and her spine took on the brittle rigidity of iron. Swathed in her cloak, she gazed at him with fierce fire burning in her eyes, as long tendrils of wine-red hair escaped her hood and slashed her cheeks.
"Why have you come, Riverton?" Her tone could have peeled the rind from a lemon. He was not accustomed to such address; even during the war men had leapt to obey his barked commands. This young woman, such a study in contrasts, baffled him. His nostrils flared, like those of a beast aroused by its mate. His blood coursed faster.
Adam flicked his hand toward the steep cliffs and the churning waters that slapped the rocks below. "The air," he informed her. "I'm taking it."
"Why not? You've taken everything else precious to me."
What in bloody hell was that supposed to mean? Perhaps he had been tardy in paying his respects to her family. He had bided his time, healing his body, if not his soul, as he gathered his strength and---more recently---collected disturbing information in the village below. But devil take the wench, he was here now. Despite the physical and mental toll his presence on the windswept cliffs cost him.
Her acid words sizzled across the thick scar tissue encasing his heart, burning away all that no longer mattered. And undoubtedly producing the precise opposite of the effect she'd intended. It had been a long time since he'd looked at any woman with interest. But suddenly he hungered to run his hands over Emma's flawless skin, taste her sweetness and tang on his tongue.
"Not everything precious, surely. I dare say we'd both have remembered that."
His suggestive words found their mark. Color sprayed her face like a Spanish sunset, arousing him further. She did not pretend to misunderstand him, as a wilier girl would have. With no coy fan to hide behind, her emotions spilled across her expressive face as plainly written as the headlines of a broadsheet.
"I dare say your memory would be as suspect in that regard as in any other, my lord."
"I'm rather certain the experience would prove unforgettable, madam. For both of us."
What possessed him to say such outrageous, rag-mannered things to her? Was it the bold way she continued to hold his gaze with eyes the changeable color of a stormy sky? Or the troublesome rumors he'd heard at the local tavern?
"No doubt the war has robbed you of many things, my lord. As it has me." Her gaze slid to his leg, the walking stick upon which he leaned, the edge of his jaw, where a thin, white scar crawled like a worm. "But despite the depths to which I may have fallen, I have managed retain my manners."
He deserved nothing less than such a chiding, but he heard only half her rebuke.
"What depths?" he demanded, stepping forward and seizing her chin in his hand. Were the damned rumors true? If not, he'd flay the skin from the back of any man he heard spreading them. He tilted her face and stared into her eyes. "What depths, Emma?" Her color flared hotter and he felt the quickening of her pulse where the side of his hand rested against her throat. But she twisted out of his grasp.
"That is my business. I thank you for your interest in my affairs, my lord, but I shall take care of myself."
Her cool, sarcastic words tore something within him. What had happened to her father? When last he'd seen George Whiteside, the man had been a complacent country squire, a regular fellow, if occasionally somewhat high in the instep, a man who'd sought the best for his children. Now his son and heir was dead and, if the gossip Adam had heard was correct, Whiteside had taken to drowning his grief, becoming a drunkard and inveterate gambler far out of his league. Was that it? Had Whiteside landed in dun territory, gambling away his daughter's prospects along with her dowry?
Adam considered the small squares of cloth in his pockets, with their tiny elegant stitches, one of them so horribly stained with blood. Anger akin to the red rage of battle momentarily seized him in its grip, and he wished he had a sparring partner to pummel. But he took a calming breath. If he'd learned nothing else in the last few years, he'd learned the emptiness of violence.
Did Emma have no one to protect her now? What had happened?
"Do not trouble yourself, Riverton," she said, as if reading his thoughts.
Adam frowned. Should he place her under his protection? He had not taken a mistress since before the war. His soul might be dead but he was still a man. A broken, damaged man, perhaps, but one with needs. He had not had a woman in nearly a year---not since before he was wounded at Albuhera. Better to put some distance between them, he thought.
But he couldn't remember when he'd last seen a chit this striking. Had his blasted leg allowed him greater agility, he might have leaped on her then and there, dragging her to the hard earth for a satisfying ravishing.
What the bloody hell was he thinking? He had never in his life done such a thing. Not with the prostitutes and women of easy virtue who followed the drum. Not with the Iberian women whose bodies were pillaged along with their homes. He was not about to start now.
Certainly not with this woman---no matter how plump and kissable her lips. She deserved better than a man with no heart. No matter how far she had fallen. If, in fact, she had.
Adam leaned on his staff and reminded himself he was a gentleman, even if he'd seen things no gentleman should see, and done things no gentleman would do. Things that would haunt him forever. He further reminded himself that the young woman before him---however much she currently resembled a wild-haired, blazing-eyed banshee ripe for his plucking---was a lady, gently reared. Even if her own father had forgotten that.
The honorable Miss Emma Whiteside. Michael Whiteside's twin.
The corporal's hair had been light, not this astonishing claret color. And the finely whittled features that seemed to resemble Michael's at first blush were far different, indeed.
His gaze rested upon cheeks, soft and rounded as plums, that invited the touch of a man's lips, and then lingered on a sultry mouth shaped for more wicked delights.
The willful, unruly little chit had grown into a diamond of the first water.
Her intriguing gray eyes, silver as a saber, fairly snapped at him, the battle waging in them as intense and wrenching as any Adam had experienced on the Peninsula.
Sparks flew as they stared at each other, like those borne by the clash of Toledo steel.
Emma moistened her lips as if they'd gone dry, the tip of her tongue darting out. Quite different from the calculated flirtations practiced by the fan-wielding ladies of the ton. No artifice here. None at all.
Adam's cock stirred and his balls tightened. He longed to taste those unschooled lips. He ached to invade her mouth with his own tongue, drawing sweet sighs of pleasure from her as he savored her kisses and seduced her with his.
As if she sensed the direction his thoughts had taken, her gaze travelled to his mouth, making him burn. Mixed emotions marched across her face, ragged as raw recruits.
Adam swallowed, trying to squelch his feverish attraction by recalling a long ago tea---a lifetime ago, it seemed to him---and a young lady's impertinent proposal. But the feisty woman confronting him was decidedly a woman, all of twenty now, not an impetuous eight-year-old suffering a bout of puppy love. Her eyes flayed him as if only by stripping the skin from his bones would she know any respite from her grief. The starch that straightened her spine held her rigid as the chalk that formed the cliffs upon which they stood.
He dipped his head and stifled his groan. She did not yet know the mission that brought him here. Only the thought of the wretched piece of cambric embroidered with the initials M and W and blotched with her brother's blood had tempered his irritation when he'd learned the extent of her father's misdeeds. The man's worthless paper was popping up all over the county. Adam had sent his batman, Oliver Garrett, on fruitless missions to Whiteside's favorite haunts, but the squire had not been ferreted out as yet. Now Garrett was searching venues less frolicsome.
Was there some way to shield Emma from what was to come?
Despite her apparent distaste for him, something more than ire animated her. Mutual awareness flared between them like dry kindling under a match. The desire to fan those reluctant embers into flames of passion, blazed through Adam again. His longing grew more intense, more difficult to shake off.
"Why have you come now?" Emma demanded. "I wrote and wrote, after that first brief letter you sent us from the Peninsula. You did not deign to answer."
"How do you fare, Miss Whiteside?"
"How do you think I fare, my lord? My brother is dead and my father..."
Her voice trailed off and Adam noted her wince. But he decided this was no time for sugar-coated sentiments. Even in London drawing rooms he had never minced his words. And this harsh, windy bluff was hardly a Mayfair salon. Emma Whiteside's stiff back and unwavering glare convinced him she was made of sturdy stuff.
"Your father is a drunken lout who gambled away property not his to wager," he finished for her with a tight-lipped lack of diplomacy. "That is why I am here."
Emma's hand fluttered to her throat. Did his blunt words shock her? Had she been unaware of what her father had tried to do? "Not his?"
"You did not know?"
"I do not believe you."
Adam stared at her in disbelief. "I am not in the habit of lying, Miss Whiteside."
Emma's posture lost some of its starch and Adam caught a furtive mote in her silvery eyes, before her long lashes descended and her glance slid away. She swiftly regained her composure, tilting her chin with a defiant air as she returned his gaze. He admired her spirit. More than her hen-witted twin had possessed.
"I thought perhaps you had come to apologize for taking my brother from us. For leading him into a battle from which he would not return."
Adam's guts wrenched as if she'd stabbed him and then twisted the blade. But he bore her words without comment. What was one more assault upon a heart so bruised and battered it had turned to dust?
The loss of his men would haunt him into eternity, their faces appearing in nightmares that gallons of brandy could not wash away. He punished himself for all of them. Including the foolish Michael Whiteside. Emma did not need to know that her brother's death had been more senseless than most. But Adam had put off this hard visit long enough.
"Your father's dissolute nature is not the only reason I've come."
"My father is grief-stricken, my lord. If he has taken to drink, 'tis to ease the ache in his heart. Have you no charity in your soul?"
Adam well understood the oblivion found in spirits. Perhaps the man's drinking was responsible for his lack of judgment, his indiscriminate play at cards.
"I've come, also, to pay my respects."
"Too little, too late," Emma muttered, as if to herself.
"Miss Whiteside." Adam took a step toward her. A nerve-jangling jolt of pain tore through his left leg, setting his teeth on edge. The price he paid. But a precursor, he knew, to the relentless agony that always threatened to lay him low. On occasion, he could overcome the crippling effects of his wounds through sheer force of will. He suspected this morning would not be one of those times. He had pressed himself too hard.
"What is it?" Emma demanded.
"M'leg," he grated through his clenched jaw.
"Take my arm."
"No."
"Have you always been so bloody stubborn?" Her eyes flashed again.
"Some might say." Such as his father or his equally stubborn batman, Oliver Garrett.
"I don't remember that about you."
"The man you remember is gone."
Emma flinched as if he had struck her but her unwavering gaze held his, challenging him more than any idle wager he'd ever taken up at White's. "I am sorry to hear that. I quite liked that man. So did my brother."
Adam's fingers tightened on his walking stick, and he sucked in a breath. Had it not been for her blasted brother---
He shook his head to repel his dangerous thoughts and muttered a low oath beneath his breath. He refused to shatter the girl's illusions about the corporal. War had consequences, after all. He'd been Whiteside's commanding officer. He had no one to blame but himself.
"No one understood why you did it," she murmured.
He started and then stared at her, his gaze raking over her in a forthright manner, daring her to continue in the face of his displeasure. But she braved his mounting ire and would not be turned from her course.
"You were such a brilliant rogue, cutting so vast a swath through the ton. All the fashionable society ladies and their mamas dangled their lures for you, hoping to bring you up to scratch. All the rakish young men wanted to be you. And when you inexplicably marched off, they...Michael...wanted to follow your lead, as he'd always done. He followed you straight to hell, Riverton. But you returned. And he did not."
Young Whiteside had taken the king's shilling because of him? Of course, he had known that, in some dark corner of his soul.
Adam swayed and gripped his stick until his knuckles whitened, as another jangle of pain ripped through him. He would not embarrass himself in front of the stalwart young woman confronting him.
"Take my arm," she insisted. "Unless...perhaps you are too much man to accept a woman's support?"
Adam snorted. "I suddenly recall a bossy little girl who ordered me about as if she had a perfect right to," he said, raising an eyebrow. "That much, madam, has not changed."
A hint of English rose splashed Emma's cheeks. Adam could not allow himself a moment to appreciate the pretty blush---or to acknowledge that he was actually enjoying this absurd banter with her in the midst of his increasing discomfort. But something about Miss Emma Whiteside---something apart from her striking looks and his immediate physical attraction---caused his blood to race and all his senses to go on alert.
He shut his eyes and ground his back teeth, hoping to ward off the worst of the attack he knew was coming---at least until he could whistle Champion back to his side and swing himself into the saddle.
But his strenuous exercise and the harsh weather, combined with his horrific memories of combat, blasted him like an explosion of enemy artillery. Thunderbolts lanced his leg, flooding him with agony so intense he nearly doubled over. He felt the blood drain from his face and he staggered.
Emma leaped forward to support him. Concern replaced the belligerence in her eyes, darkened to gunmetal-gray.
"This will not do, Riverton. You must lean on me."
"Still the bossy little harridan."
She sighed and reached for his forearm. The brush of her fingertips sent a coil of shock through him more stunning than the waves of searing fire radiating from his leg. He'd anticipated that pain. But he had not expected the soothing glow generated by the touch of Emma's hand or the warmth flowing through his linen sleeve. His reluctance to accept her help evaporated.
Nor was Emma unaffected by the contact, he decided. He heard the small hitch when she inhaled, the low huff of breath she expelled with an odd little choking sound. The slightest of tremors shook the fingers that gripped him.
Despite his misery, Adam remained completely aware of her clasping his arm as if her slight frame could prevent a man of his size from toppling. Though wracked by pain, his body still hummed with arousal.
Adam inhaled. The scent of her hair reminded him of the tart fruit of the Portuguese strawberry tree, used to make potent aguardente de medronho. He'd often drunk himself senseless on the powerful brandy, trying to numb his physical agony as well as the hollow ache that gnawed the dry bone of his heart.
Now, pondering his reaction to the dauntless Emma Whiteside---and hers to him---he decided he might benefit from the more restorative tonic of her touch. This girl rejuvenated his exhausted spirit more than any forced march over the cliffs helped to rehabilitate his leg.
He slid his arm around her waist, dragging her closer. She fit comfortably against his side, as if she belonged there. Her breath caught again, then settled into a ragged, irregular cadence. Her response seemed to invite a more seductive touch from him. His fingers splayed against her rib cage and slid toward her breast, drawing a gasp from her.
"I don't think..." Emma's words trailed away.
"I do."
Adam's gaze slid down her, eliciting a sultry flush, a more rapid thrumming of her heartbeat beneath his hand. Her eyes still snapped at him with pique even as his proximity coaxed her nearer.
"Riverton..."
"Yes?"
"I---I am but trying to help you."
"There are many ways a woman might ease a man's pain," he murmured, his gaze locking on hers. She did not look away. She did not move away. But plainly she understood him.
Adam hesitated briefly. She had him all at sixes and sevens. What a confusion of messages she was sending. Did he confound her as much as she baffled him? He chose to swiftly interpret her signals in masculine fashion, responding to the unconscious way she beckoned him closer.
He leaned toward her, curling his larger body around hers as he dipped his head. Emma's lips parted, her breath uneven on his cheek. His own breath quickened, as he traced the line of her jaw, feathering one fingertip over her smooth flesh while his thumb caressed the soft skin beneath her chin. He wanted to taste her. Slowly and deliberately. Before she realized what he was about and slapped his face.
But of course, he could not be such a bounder.
"I am going to kiss you now, Miss Whiteside."
She gazed back at him, one brow lifted elegantly in challenge. Aside from the anxious flutter of her long lashes, she did not show her nervousness. Nor did she pull away.
Adam brushed his lips against hers with gentle grace, the exact opposite of what he wished to do. Ah, but she was sweet. So very sweet. Emma's eyes drifted closed and he deepened the kiss. She responded with a little sigh, circling her arms around his neck and tugging him closer. He wanted to savor every moment of the kiss and make it last as long as he was able, but the innocence of her velvet lips and the feel of her young body curved against the hard ache of his arousal pushed the limits of his self-control. His passion flared hotter. He crushed her against him and plunged his tongue into her mouth.
She emitted a mewling little squeak he did not know how to translate. He broke off the kiss.
"Too much?"
At first she did not reply. Then, a whisper. "No."
"Show me what you want, poppet," he growled into her ear.
His use of the old nickname drew a swift reaction. She stiffened, shoving against him to stare into his eyes, her own uncertain.
"Don't be frightened, Emma."
"I am not frightened. I am...confused."
He would have to decipher those turbulent feelings for her, Adam decided.
But before he could put any plans into action, she surprised him by sliding her fingers into his hair and giving him an ardent tug, even as she cursed him like a Cheapside doxy.
"Kiss me again, you bloody bastard."
Her shocking words enflamed him. No virginal miss would ever issue such a stunning directive. But there was little question in his mind that their last kiss had been her first. The bossy little harridan he remembered had never been shy about issuing orders, he reminded himself. He needed no further invitation.
Adam's lips seized Emma's with urgent desire, the kiss hot and carnal and raw. His whole body blazed with hunger, his cock rigid and rock-hard with brutal need. He was desperate to possess this beautiful bundle of feminine contradictions. He'd never wanted any woman more. God help him.
Emma pressed herself into him, twisting as if she could not get close enough, and kissed him back with startling thirst. This was insanity, Adam thought. Her tongue slashed his as if they were engaged in a fiery duel. She panted, as aroused as he was. He couldn't wait to tear all her clothes off and drive himself into her tight, wet heat. He had to have this woman. Soon.
He clamped his arm fast around her, bonding her to his chest. Selfish of him. He was at least a head taller and outweighed her by several stone. When he crashed, he would bring her tumbling to the ground with him.
Heated images blistered his thoughts as he pictured Emma's soft body beneath his, spreading her velvet thighs wide for him. He imagined her legs wrapped around his waist as he thrust into her with pounding need, losing himself in her slick, inviting warmth. He fantasized driving into her again and again, as her fingers dug into his shoulders and he swallowed her moans of pleasure with his hot, sensual kisses, spilling his seed in urgent release. For once forgetting the cursed war.
Damn him for the blackguard he was.
He expelled a groan that had nothing to do with his injuries and lifted his head from hers at last. He struggled for the control to call a halt to this madness. A dazed rapture filled her eyes, turning them a dreamy, liquid silver.
"Let me go, Riverton," she said, several heady moments too late, utterly breathless, her face aflame.
"I'm not quite ready to do that, Miss Whiteside."
She paused a beat and he felt her shiver. He loosened his fierce grip.
"When might you be?"
Never.
The silent word burst in his head and Adam suddenly realized he wanted something more than a sexual romp from Emma. He wanted to find himself again---if such a thing were possible any longer. Before he'd kissed her there had been nothing in the world he cared about. Now he did care---he did not want this woman to hate him any longer. He wanted her to soften toward him, body and heart. The feel of her steadying hand on his arm bathed him in soothing tenderness. Nothing had touched his stricken soul in a very long time.
He gritted his teeth. The honorable thing would be to protect Emma from the damaged, desolate man he was now. Did he have that much nobility left? What to do with her, though?
Adam hadn't considered the girl's plight when her father's worthless vowels had come into his possession. Clearly, Whiteside hadn't either, when he'd attempted to gamble away pieces of the property, one by one. The manor's true ownership was apparently a mere nuisance that Whiteside had decided to overlook when he'd papered the local tavern with his valueless notes. Adam's annoyance with the heedless reprobate who'd been willing to risk everything---even the house his daughter lived in---had been foremost in Adam's mind. Now, new emotions occupied that place.
He stole another glance at Emma. Tendrils of hair the color of a fine ruby port whipped her cheeks. Her mouth remained reddened from his kisses. He still hadn't answered her question. All he knew was that he didn't want to let her go. Not today. Nor any day after.
She pushed against his arm again and stepped back, as if she could read the dangerous thoughts warming his eyes. He'd fallen out of practice in the art of flirtation.
"I may have failed your brother, Miss Whiteside. But I do not intend to fail you."
Emma tensed at his mention of her twin. "I have no need of your assistance, my lord."
"But have it you shall."
He knew then what he had to do. His path stretched clear and wide before him, like a road map of his future. A future that suddenly had meaning and did not at all displease him. He suspected his father would not approve. Yet, he'd done precisely as he wished from the time he'd cast off leading strings. While still a lad in short coats, he'd abandoned all pretense of trying to please the earl. He saw no reason to change now.
"How do you propose to help me, Riverton?" Emma taunted him. "You can barely stand."
Adam sucked in another deep breath, attempting to relax his body. If he could unknot his cramping leg for a moment, he would be able to straighten up. The limb failed to cooperate. He bit back an anguished grunt and staggered.
Emma clutched his arm again. He shook her off and leaned upon his walking stick until he could uncoil to his full height. He wanted to be upright.
"I can stand at an altar long enough to wed you."
Emma gasped, as if he'd dashed her in the face with a pail of icy water. Staring at him in disbelief, she sidestepped farther away.
"Why so surprised, madam? You did offer for me once upon a time."
"I was a child."
"You've grown. I've decided to accept your proposal. Simple as that."
"Not remotely simple, you chuckleheaded man."
Adam's gaze roved over her, hot and intense, as if the potency of his appraisal alone might brand her as his.
Under his scrutiny, Emma's blush deepened, ripening her curved cheeks like fruit on a vine. Her gaze never left his. Adam admired her steel, the backbone that allowed her to stand up to him now, as the little girl of eight had done.
He struggled to keep on his feet, despite his certainty that his unreliable knee would not hold him much longer.
"Accustom yourself to the idea, Miss Whiteside. You will marry me and be my lady."
Emma stared back at him in shock. Was he mocking her?
The old Riverton would never have done so. The youth she'd known might have teased her. He would never have made sport of her emotions. But she did not know this damaged, brutally handsome man.
Did not know him? Could she still say that after the devastating moment that had just transpired between them? After kisses so steamy and blistering she'd melted? After he'd made her ache and throb with need? He'd robbed her of all sense and coherent thought. All she could think of now were his scalding kisses, the touch of his hands and his mouth. And making love to him. Dear God, how she wanted that!
He gazed back at her, his midnight eyes knowing, as if he clearly read her thoughts. The corner of his mouth lifted.
And then, suddenly, his leg buckled beneath him. His powerful frame crumpled to the chalky ground, as if he were no sturdier than a bundle of twigs.
Emma cried out, as stunned by the viscount's clumsy proposal---if that's what it was---as by his fall. She tried to take some of his weight, but though she clutched at him, she could not prevent the headlong lurch that sent him sprawling among the dead horseshoe vetch and faded wild thyme.
Riverton gasped, his back heaving as if all the wind had been knocked out of him. Emma crouched beside him, panicked as he struggled for air. She touched his shoulder, increasing the pressure until his breathing evened and he rolled to his side, his brilliant blue eyes clouded with effort.
Emma exhaled a sigh of relief, clasping Adam's large hand in hers. Such a man's hand, she thought. Firm and tanned. A light sprinkling of hair dusted his knuckles, and grew darker and denser above the edge of his wrist. She loosened her grip and turned his hand over to examine it more intently. The skin on his fingertips seemed tougher than a viscount's ought to be. A small burn mark marred the heel of his palm. She traced the tiny imperfection.
"Gun powder," he said.
"I'd guessed."
Unquestionably, the war had bruised this man. How deeply, she did not know. Could she have been wrong about him? More of the anger she'd so long nurtured ebbed away.
Adam watched her as she studied him, his expression unreadable, but heating steadily as her hand learned his. When their eyes met, Adam pointedly threaded his fingers through hers. The strength of the hand curling around her own sent sensual tingles skipping up her arm and rippling through her whole body. She wanted his hands on her, touching her in all the places he made her throb. How could she feel these things for him?
"You liked it too, didn't you, Emma?"
Confusion and distress immediately chased her initial sense of relief. She must not entertain any tender emotions for this man. She owed her twin's memory that much. But when she was close to Riverton she could not think clearly. Her gaze slid away from his.
"Yes. Yes, I liked it."
He tightened his grasp on her hand, until she looked at him again. What she read in his eyes stole her breath and made her pulse race. But the real danger lay in his touch, she knew. His touch made her forget. Everything. Emma quickly extricated her fingers from his.
The viscount frowned when she broke the contact between them but Emma could not allow herself to be drawn to him. She plucked bramble thorns from his sleeve, trying to adopt a more detached, more distanced demeanor.
"What should I do, Riverton?"
"Do you suppose you might call me Adam now that we are betrothed?"
He offered her a rusty, lopsided grin. She nearly laughed. The man was clearly impossible.
Despite all he'd been through on the Peninsula, despite his present inelegant position and the pain that still tightened his brow and skewed his smile, despite her certainty that he had gotten very unused to the habit of smiling at all---the wry humor she remembered from that long-ago garden party somehow managed to seep out.
Deep within she felt a steady drip, drip, drip and knew this virile man was melting the ice around her heart. Could he hear the thunder of its erratic beat over the roar of the waves crashing on the rocks below? She was so close to him she could see the thin, jagged white scar edging the line of his jaw. Another souvenir of the war, no doubt.
"Did you hear me accept your 'proposal'?" she murmured, nearly swallowing her words.
"You will."
Emma bit her lower lip and looked away. "There is too much between us."
"Yes. There is something between us."
She shook her head, as if to deny to the truth of his statement.
"You must marry me," he insisted.
Her ready indignation sparked and she returned her gaze to him, sharp as a lance. "Why? Because you kissed me?"
"Because you liked it. And want more. You want me to touch you." His hand slid to her breast. "Here." His fingers glided lower. "And here."
Emma burned. Thank God for her heavy cloak and the layers of clothing beneath it, she thought. He could not possibly feel what he was doing to her. Could he? But she knew he must read her yearning for him in her eyes, see the way she reacted to him in the blazing color of her cheeks. Still, the unconscionable liberties he took...
Before she could retort, the viscount mustered his fortitude to let out a piercing whistle. A waste of his strength, Emma thought. The moment he'd toppled, the chestnut hunter had trotted over to guard his master.
"What should I do?" she repeated.
He arched a dark eyebrow. "Marry me. I thought we'd established that."
She ignored the comment. "About your condition."
"Oh. That." A muscle twitched in his jaw.
She could not bear that he found amusement in the situation.
"I need a hot bath," he grunted, clenching his teeth. "Help me onto Champ. He knows the way. He'll get me home."
"You are in no shape to ride all the way to Summerlake," Emma protested.
"I've been stopping at the Bird & Barley."
Emma's jaw dropped. Well, what had she expected? Of course he did not travel the miles to his ancestral home and back each dawn. Even at a fast gallop the journey would take several hours and no horse---not even as splendid a Thoroughbred as this magnificent specimen---could run flat-out the whole distance.
But why would Riverton stay at the public house in Brimley simply to take the morning air on the cliffs? Surely, there were prettier walks at Summerlake. Had he been at the Bird & Barley all this time? Is that how he knew about the dire straits into which Papa's gambling had plunged them?
"You have not told me what you are doing here, Riverton."
"Exercising my leg."
"That is a bald whisker."
"I am here to see your father."
"Why?" She adopted a brisk tone to hide her fear and confusion.
"Because I have a need to see him. And now that need is more urgent than ever."
Good lord, the man perplexed her. She had to drag her gaze from his lips with effort.
"Well, you have wasted your time then. I---I do not know where he is."
The fury that gathered in his frown made her blanch. She would not like to have been a Frenchman confronted by that glare.
"How long, Emma?"
"How long what?"
He clenched his jaw. "I warn you, Miss Whiteside. Do not play with me. 'Tis not a battle you will win." His voice softened a fraction. "How long have you not known your father's whereabouts?"
"It has been...several weeks now."
Riverton's curse curdled her blood. "I see."
"I doubt you do."
"My leg may be troublesome, my girl, but I assure you there is nothing wrong with my eyes. I see very well. Nor has my time here been wasted. I intend to put things right. Now help me to my horse."
Perhaps she could deter him from his course. Under such circumstances, she was not certain what he would do. He had not seemed the least sympathetic toward Papa's plight. Perhaps he would find her own situation as distasteful. After all, he was the son of an earl. And, as a result of the secret sales of the handkerchiefs she embroidered, she had practically gone into trade. How to distract him?
"The village is a good distance from here and the way is not easy."
"I've ridden rougher terrain."
But when he reached for Champion's dangling reins to hoist himself up, he groaned in agony, went white as a shroud and passed out.
"Riverton!" Emma cried. "Adam!"
The viscount lay flat on his back and did not respond. Exhaustion drained from his face, erasing his torment, along with the years.
"This is how you looked before the horrid war," Emma whispered. "When you were a boy of seventeen and didn't have a care in the world."
She lifted her hand to his cheek, then traced the light scar on his jawline with her fingertips. She brushed the dark hair off his brow. "When you stole a little girl's heart."
Emma leaned closer. "If I'm not careful, you will steal it again." She couldn't stop touching him. "And that will not do either of us a bit of good."
The open collar of his shirt revealed the tanned V of his throat. Below his collarbone, she spied a sprig of dark hair. Outrageously, she twisted the errant curl around her forefinger, testing its soft texture. Much as she wanted Riverton to wake, she'd die if he did so now and found her handling him so intimately. Emma smoothed the coil back in place. She'd never stroked a man with the familiarity of a lover. She thought again of his potent kisses. So many leagues past gentlemanly pecks. The raw carnality of his kisses had made her tremble, had made her underclothes damp. Even the memory of them made her quiver.
Oh, God. Adam Caldwell. Her lover.
The fever of longing melted more of the ice encasing her heart. What would it be like to know every inch of Adam Caldwell? To lay with him, writhing beneath him in amorous passion? She did not for a moment entertain the possibility his spontaneous proposal had been more than a jest. And he'd certainly withdraw it once he learned the truth about her situation.
But perhaps he'd enjoyed the taste of her enough to offer carte blanche...No question he'd been as hungry as she.
What would it be like to be Riverton's mistress? Her face flamed at her scandalous thoughts. To have him come to her bed every night and wake beside his naked body each morn?
In all likelihood, she reminded herself, she soon would be another man's mistress, due to Papa's dissolute behavior. That had been the choice she'd been given when she'd attempted to answer for Papa's debts.
Why shouldn't she know Riverton first? He'd hinted he would make the experience unforgettable. After kissing him, she did not doubt that for a second. She'd wanted him her whole life. Even when her dreams had turned as bitter as ashes.
The coarse man who would come for her tomorrow was far less comely than Riverton. Papa's creditor was a man wicked and corrupt, a crude man who would not treat her like a lady, as she was sure Adam would. Farraday was certainly not anywhere as brave or decent as the unconscious man stretched out before her.
Decent! Emma upbraided herself once again. The improper things he'd said to her today, the familiar liberties he'd taken, his smoldering hot kisses---taxed the borders of respectability. He might as well have been Farraday. She shook her head to clear her mind. How quickly she had forgotten it was the viscount who'd sent Michael to his death! What on earth was she thinking?
She tried to pull the sharp edges of her rancor around her like a cloak. But the animosity she clung to was vanishing fast. In her heart, she knew Riverton for man of courage. The way he suffered now, while striving to overcome his disability, was evidence of that.
Emma leaned her face against the warm column of Adam's neck, telling herself she wanted only to make certain of the steady, even beat of his pulse. Despite Riverton's recent exertions, he smelled fresh and bracing as the brisk wind that sprayed them with sea mist. She rubbed her cheek against him, inhaling a hint of leather mingled with the crisp scent of piney juniper.
Could she fall in love with a man's blasted shaving soap, she wondered? A surge of keen, demanding hunger flared to life within her. Her yearning for this man was so sharp she nearly wept.
"Damn you, Riverton. Do not put me in this position."
His continued lack of movement knotted her belly and seized her with panic again. She had to get him home. If she could but reach the manor, Jemmy would help her get him inside. Thank heavens the stable boy and his mother had agreed to stay on when she'd let the other servants go. Emma did not know how she'd have survived Papa's disappearance if not for Mrs. Billings's reassuring presence and household economy. And, of course, it was Mrs. Billings who arranged the sale of the handkerchiefs in the village shops.
Emma tugged at Riverton's broad shoulders, but his solid muscles refused to yield. Dear God, he was heavy.
How she wanted those strong arms around her! Oh, to be nestled against that firm chest, loved and protected and kept safe from all the problems that beset her. You are fooling yourself, Emma. This man is not a knight in shining armor. If Riverton wanted anything from her, it was only what she had between her legs. Like Farraday. Like any other man. And nothing more.
She prodded him again, rousing him at last.
"God's blood, Emma! I am not a sack of potatoes," he sputtered. "What in Hades are you trying to do to me?"
A wave of relief so overwhelmed her she nearly threw her arms around him. But this time reason prevailed. There would never be anything between them.
"I am trying to hoist you onto your blasted horse so I can get you into a bath!" Riverton did not respond at once and the moment of silence stretched out so long Emma thought he might have lost consciousness again.
"Nice of you to oblige," he said at last, his tone as dry as desert sand. The thread of humor underlay the pain that shadowed his voice. "Although at this point I might prefer that you get me into a bed."
Emma's cheeks heated again. Could he possibly suspect how intimately she had touched him? How much she ached to explore his body still? Yes, he knew. She reminded herself of Riverton's rakish reputation as a ladies' man, forged long before he'd marched away to war. Even if he were aware of her clandestine caresses, her clumsy fondling would not have made a very strong impression upon him.
The knowing gleam in his eyes made her shiver now. And bristle. She threw back her shoulders and faced him with as much bravado as she could muster.
"Bold words for a man who cannot sit a horse, my lord."
As if her taunt presented a gauntlet he could not fail to take up, Riverton hauled himself upright. His features twisted into a grimace as he surveyed his mount. The large gelding stood a good seventeen hands high, Emma guessed. She linked her hands to offer Riverton a leg up.
His brows veered darkly downward. "I'd sooner put my neck in a noose than my booted foot in a lady's hand."
"So bloody stubborn," Emma sighed.
"Such salty words from so gently reared a miss."
Despite an accompanying fanfare of grunts and groans, Riverton managed to insert his foot in the stirrup and boost himself into the saddle unaided. This was a man never to be underestimated, Emma recognized.
He grinned at her with an expression so triumphant Emma felt another inner icicle thaw around her heart. He leaned down and extended his hand to her.
"I know it's not quite the thing, Miss Whiteside. But would you mind riding with me?"
Beneath his lightly drawled words, a more somber bedrock lent gravity to his tone. Speechless, Emma studied Riverton's face. His smile had vanished again. He was still deathly pale, his blue eyes dull with pain.
"You believe you will pass out again."
"Distinct possibility."
"Where do you wish to go?" she whispered, taking his hand without a thought for consequences.
His sure, firm grip locked on her forearm, shocking her. He hauled her up with masterful strength and set her astride the chestnut gelding, her skirts bunched nearly to her knees.
"I leave that to you, Miss Whiteside."
Riverton placed the reins in her hands and slumped against her back.
During their journey, Adam drifted in and out, but the scent and softness of the young woman curved against him left him in a constant state of semi-arousal.
"Emma," he murmured.
He wrapped his arms around her narrow waist, the tops of his fists deliberately brushing the curved undersides of her breasts through layers of clothing. One day he'd peel every stitch from her. The sooner the better.
"Please, my lord." Her feeble, half-hearted plea could be taken either as protest or encouragement.
Adam chose the interpretation that suited him best. His hands roved more freely. When the wind pushed the hood of her cloak away, he nudged the material still further with his chin, hunching over to rest his head in the curve between Emma's neck and shoulder.
He knew he was behaving abominably and taking outrageous liberties with a gently reared maid. But with Miss Emma Whiteside snuggled in his arms, he felt more alive than he had since all the bloody losses and suffering he'd witnessed at Albuhera. The memory of the way she'd returned his kisses and set him ablaze made him hard as marble.
As a battle-scarred man with a frozen heart and numbed soul, he had little to offer a woman aside from his protection. For many, that would be enough. But this girl was not of that category, despite the astonishing passion with which she'd returned his kisses.
She stunned him. Made him feel. Made him want. And taking her as his mistress would simply not do.
To the brave and beautiful Emma Whiteside, he wanted nothing less than to offer his family's name, enveloping her in all the security and consequence his title could provide. If she would have him. If she refused him, the pain would far surpass the residual effects of his wounds.
He nuzzled her neck, kissing the tender skin below the curve of her jaw, nibbling her ear---the only parts of her exposed to him. Emma tensed, but he felt an excited quiver ripple through her.
"This isn't at all proper, my lord."
"Adam."
"Adam." She exhaled his name in a small, uncertain sigh of contentment.
"Do you wish me to stop, poppet?"
She remained silent so long, he nearly missed her low, trembling "No." And then, more forcefully, "You know I don't, you terrible wretch."
"Excellent. Because I'm not at all sure I can."
Adam bent toward her again, kissing her temple, her cheek. Her delicious, velvety flesh heated beneath his questing lips. Her reaction made his spirits soar and his pulse race. She leaned back against him, the soft cushion of her curvy rump presenting a particularly cruel bit of torment between his spread thighs. His cock leaped and throbbed as he pushed the thick ridge of his erection against her, groaning into her fragrant hair. Sweet torture. Could she feel how hard and hot she made him?
He tasted her from her tender earlobe, across her jawline, up her smooth cheek to the corner of her mouth.
"May I kiss you now, Emma?"
"Isn't that what you have been doing?" She sounded completely breathless.
All Adam could think about was the kind of noises she would make when she was lying naked beneath him. Would she cry out and moan? Scream his name? Yes, he wanted to hear his name on her lips, when he made her come. Over and over again. His fanciful visions made him burn as nothing else had ever done.
"I want more," he said, his voice stark and raw. Only a supreme exertion of will kept him from whispering what he wanted more explicitly into her ear.
But their awkward positions and the trotting gait of the horse slamming them together and apart did not allow Adam to continue his seduction. A particularly jarring bump caused him to strike the edge of his hard jaw beneath Emma's chin.
Lights twinkled before his eyes. Emma yelped, informing him that he'd made her bite her tongue.
"We can't have that," he said. "I can think of far better uses for it."
Far better.
Vivid sexual fantasies enthralled him. God, he ached. His balls were tight enough for copper pennies to bounce off them. Too stiff to move and too tired to think, he put a little more space between him and Emma and dozed the remainder of the way.
\*\*\*
When the large chestnut gelding clattered over the cobblestones in the courtyard, both Mrs. Billings and Jemmy came running from different directions, the plump housekeeper wiping her hands on her apron, the stable boy stumbling over his feet.
Jemmy gawked at Emma's tumbled skirts. She jerked them down as best she could with Adam's weight leaning upon them.
"Where have you been, Miss Emma? You gave us such a fright!" Mrs. Billings broke off in the midst of her scold and surveyed the magnificent Thoroughbred and the second rider, still slumped against Emma's back.
"Good heavens! Is that Viscount Riverton? What on earth has happened to him?"
"He---I---" Emma took a deep breath and started anew. "His lordship was exercising on the cliffs when I happened upon him. His leg gave out. Give me a hand with him, Jemmy. We must get him inside."
The young stable boy helped Emma dismount and between the three of them, they managed to carry the viscount inside and lay him on the damask settee in the parlor.
"Thank you, poppet," Adam murmured. "But you promised you'd take me to bed." He'd barely managed to pop open one eye and slur the words before falling asleep again.
Mrs. Billings stared at Emma, sucking in her breath.
Emma colored. "I promised him no such thing. He's out of his senses and doesn't know what he's saying."
"What's wrong with the man, child? And what in heaven's name did you promise him?"
"He's in a lot of pain, I think. And he wore himself out, trudging over the cliffs."
The housekeeper nodded, her cloud of curly white hair bobbing around her face, despite the mob cap perched on the crown of her head. "They say he was very badly wounded in Spain. Albuhera, I recollect it was, where Master Michael---"
"Yes," Emma cut in. "I'm aware of that."
Mrs. Billings pressed her lips into a tight, thin line. "I see, then." But her stern expression was belied by the gentleness with which she touched Emma's hand.
"I know you, Miss Emma. I know what's going 'round in that hard head of yours. You can't blame the poor man for serving king and country. And just look where it's got him." She shook her head and clucked her tongue. "What a fine figure of man he used to be."
He still is!
Emma swallowed the lump in her throat. Did she blame Riverton merely for marching off to war? Still? Phrased the way Mrs. Billings had put it, the sentiment seemed so petty. Emma's eyes burned. Michael had always been headstrong. As headstrong as she, she was forced to admit---perhaps even more so. She thought of the many occasions when her twin had led her astray, challenging her with his risky behavior. She'd broken her arm once, falling out of a walnut tree that Michael had dared her to climb, while he'd sat on the ground, laughing.
Emma shook her head to dispel the images, her emotions roiling like the crashing sea. Her feelings for Riverton were so complicated now she'd never sort them all out.
"Any word from Papa?"
"No, Miss Emma."
Emma looked away from the pity in the housekeeper's eyes and studied Riverton anew. She grazed her fingertips against his brow. She did not suppose she would ever tire of gazing upon him. Or touching him.
The gesture did not escape Mrs. Billings's hawklike eyes. "I believe the viscount to be a good man, Miss Emma. He always was that. Whatever suffering he endured cannot have wrung such character out of him."
Emma snatched her hand from his forehead. "Better he doesn't wake just yet," she advised the housekeeper. "He has exhausted himself." She paused. "He said a bath would ease his sore muscles."
"Best we start heating the water then. Jemmy, there's a good lad, get his lordship up the stairs. Miss Emma will help you with that. Mind, you come straight back to me in the kitchen, Miss Emma. You'll have to manage the hip bath yourself, boy." She looked from the wiry Jemmy back to Adam's powerful frame and shook her head. "If his lordship doesn't rouse, you'll have quite a job on your hands, lad."
"I'm stronger than I look, Ma." The stable boy grinned. "If I'm able to handle ornery beasts as big as that hunter outside---and I am---" the lad puffed out his chest, "---I reckon I can dunk his lordship with no fuss."
Emma smiled at the boy's confidence. Between them, they managed to drag Adam upstairs. Emma sat on the edge of the bed, gazing down upon Adam. Even asleep and unconscious he made her blood heat. She pressed a gentle kiss to his lips and then tiptoed from the room.
"There's only enough tea left for one weak pot," Mrs. Billings told her, shutting the cupboard door. "The viscount will be hungry when he wakes. You cannot feed the poor man bread and butter, Miss Emma. We should have a pie or a chop for him, at least."
Emma sighed. "We won't even have butter, if Jemmy sells these two tubs."
The housekeeper set aside one small ramekin of the creamy spread for their household use. "Nothing for it, Miss Emma. We cannot slaughter a chicken, we agreed. Be glad we've still got a cow and a few hens left." She looked up from the market basket she was filling with eggs. "Have you got those handkerchiefs ready for me, child? They'll be good for a few pence, even without the fancy monograms."
Emma produced a small pile of folded muslin squares. Mrs. Billings clucked her tongue. "Such a pity to cut up your pretty chemises. Without your elegant embroidery they won't fetch near the price of the others."
Emma bit her lip. Where had Papa gone? What had he done? If they were turned out of the house tomorrow, how would she ever find him? Could she become a man's mistress to save their livelihood? Now? After she'd seen what joy the touch of man who tangled her emotions could bring?
She squared her shoulders, hardening her resolve.
"I'm afraid it's as you say, Mrs. Billings. Nothing else for it."
\*\*\*
Adam awoke in a bed not his own. Nor was he lodged in the rooms he'd taken at the Bird & Barley. Afternoon sun slanted into the bedchamber from a narrow parting in the drawn window curtains. He wore another man's nightshirt, but his own clothes had been brushed and were folded neatly at the foot of the bed.
He stretched and groaned, and then slowly dressed. His left leg remained a bit stiff, but the worst of the pain had ebbed away, leaving only the dull muscle soreness that visited him after strenuous exertion---a strengthening ache he could live with. Not nearly as bad as usual today. He surveyed the room. A copper hip bath, a pile of damp towels heaped next to the foot, as if someone had forgotten to whisk them away. Someone had bathed him?
The indomitable Miss Emma Whiteside?
Not very likely, though it pleased him to entertain that notion. Yet, somehow Emma had managed to transport him to her home. He smiled as memories of their ride came back to him like shards of a colorful mosaic. He thought of the way he'd fondled and caressed her, inhaling her wonderful scent. The way his touch had plucked reluctant sighs of contentment from her.
The sounds of a violent argument belowstairs erupted through the bare floorboards. Adam couldn't decipher the words, but a man's booming voice clashed with a woman's horrified cries.
Emma.
He had to reach her. He glanced swiftly around the bedchamber in which she'd placed him. Her room, he wondered? All soft shades of blue and cream. Not masculine. But no feminine frippery, either. How the hell had she gotten him up here?
His walking stick lay across the foot of the bed and he snatched it up, scrambling as fast as he was able across the room. He clattered down the stairs, nearly stumbling in his haste.
A burly man in a many-caped cloak, a man who had not even had the manners to remove his dusty hat upon entering the house, confronted Emma across the sitting room. Muddy boot prints tracked over the polished wood of the front parlor, the pattern like those of an animal stalking his prey.
The sight of those careless footprints on the bare, carpetless floor made Adam's blood boil, in a way it had not done since he'd dragged Michael Whiteside's body from a ditch at Albuhera.
Emma gripped the back of a damask-upholstered settee. Adam suspected she'd leapt behind the long, low sofa in order to put some distance between herself and the intruder. Adam sized up her adversary. As his gaze swept the room, he also noted the absent rugs, and the dearth of the sort of figurines and boxes that usually cluttered sitting rooms.
"Today?" Emma offered the bearlike man a glare that could have shriveled a gooseberry, but her knuckles were white and her voice broke as she beseeched him. "I'd thought...tomorrow. Please, Mr. Farraday, you must give me a little more time."
"You are out of time, wench," Farraday spat. "I've come to collect."
With an agility that belied his beefy frame, he moved around the piece of furniture that separated them and seized her by the shoulders. He bent her backward, attempting to steal a kiss, as Emma strained, horrified, to avoid his grasp.
"Get your damned hands off her."
The thump of Adam's walking stick drew Farraday's attention. Emma froze when she saw Adam standing at the foot of the stairs, her face a white mask of horrified shame.
"Who the bloody hell are you?" the other man demanded.
"Riverton."
Farraday blanched and released his grip on Emma, but quickly recovered. He offered Adam a distrustful shrug. "This doesn't concern you, my lord."
"Reckon it does." Adam enunciated each word as crisply as if he were biting the end paper from a musket cartridge before loading the gun. "Since Miss Whiteside is my betrothed."
He turned toward her and held out his arm. "Emma."
Emma stared from one man to the other as if a bolt of lightning had riveted her to her place behind the large piece of furniture. Revulsion filled her eyes when she looked at Farraday---shame when she gazed upon Adam.
Damn it to bloody blue blazes, he thought. The hell with her stiff-backed pride. He would have leapt to her side and knocked the other man senseless if he could. But he'd left his agility in a Spanish ditch.
"To me, Emma," Adam repeated, his voice calm but forceful.
Emma flew across the sitting room toward him. He wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders. A cold shudder ran through her. He hugged her closer until her trembling stopped.
"I will never let anything happen to you, poppet," he murmured into her fragrant hair. "Never."
"Touching," Farraday snorted. "And sudden. Your betrothal must have slipped the wench's mind when she agreed to become my whore."
Adam stiffened, his dark brows veering downward as his lips tightened into a thin, hard line. Emma glanced up at him, and immediately wished the earth would yawn beneath her feet so she would never again see the fierce, dark expression that crossed the viscount's face.
The arm slung so possessively across her shoulders tensed, pressing down upon her like an iron bar.
"I---I didn't agree." Her voice sounded feeble and dispirited, even to her own ears.
"No?" Farraday scoffed. "Have you found another way to save yer home and pay off yer father's debt?" His gaze rudely traveled Adam's length, his eyes narrowing. "Mayhap you have."
Farraday widened his stance and slouched against a rosewood side table. He leered at Emma and offered the viscount a mocking look. "She agree to spread 'er legs for you, then, guv?"
Emma gasped, mortified by the man's crude words and even more shocked at the blinding speed with which Adam suddenly released her. Despite his uneven gait, he crossed the room in seconds.
The viscount's fist shot out, cracking Farraday's jaw with a bone-crunching thud that knocked the other man off his feet and sent him crashing to the floor. Blood spurted from Farraday's nose and split lip.
No one had ever before defended her honor. Not even Michael.
Emma hastened to Adam's side and touched his sleeve in a gesture of gratitude. "Thank you, my lord."
Beneath the fine linen, his hard muscles leaped. Harsh anger still vibrated through him. "It's not your thanks I want, Emma."
What did he want from her? The same thing as Farraday? Or something more? A whirlwind of emotions swept through her, throwing her into a state of bewilderment. Not sure where to look, her gaze moved to the side table under which Farraday now thrashed. With a pang, she recalled the delicate Spode tea service that once had rested upon its marquetry top. Now, only the lace doily she'd tatted to hide the nakedness remained.
"Emma, I believe something in the kitchens requires your attention," Adam said, as he stood over Farraday.
He didn't look at her. He trained his focus, sharp and single-minded as a hound's, on the sprawling man he had felled as easily as he might have brushed a bit of lint from his lapel.
"Now, Emma," he instructed when she hesitated.
"Riverton---"
"Adam," he corrected, his voice toneless this time, as if his response was involuntary and automatic.
"Adam."
Would this be the last time she would ever say his name, she wondered? How briefly they'd been in accord. Just those few precious moments during the journey back from the cliffs, when he'd leaned against her and she'd allowed him to nuzzle and fondle her, allowed his wayward hands and lips to roam over her body. As if she were a slattern.
She'd tried hard to avoid such a fate. But so little was available to a woman fallen on hard times. She'd nearly lost herself in the warmth of the viscount's seductive embrace, as a parade of mistresses likely had done. His potent, blazing kisses, the temptation he offered, had seemed so right at the time. But now, after Farraday's crude assertions, Riverton almost certainly thought her a whore. Her sudden sense of loss seemed too bitter to bear.
As if Adam guessed the bleak alley down which her dark thoughts were leading her, he turned toward her. His eyes warmed as he met her gaze, his deep voice softening when he addressed her.
"Nothing's changed between us, poppet. Go now. I'll return to you shortly."
Undoubtedly, Riverton assumed she'd obey him without question, because he instantly turned his attention back to the limp man on the floor. Emma admitted to herself she was at least partially relieved to have the viscount take the matter in hand, even if only to administer a sound thrashing to the bounder.
But she bristled nonetheless. This was her fight. She couldn't allow Riverton to march into battle for her. Capable and competent as he had proved himself to be, she did not want to involve him in the turmoil of her private hell.
"My lord---"
"Leave me, Emma. I shan't tell you again."
Adam toed the wretched Farraday with the tip of his boot and then poked him in the side with the blackthorn staff. "Up, Farraday. We're taking this outside."
As the hulking bear of a man grasped his bleeding nose, stumbling to his feet and out the door, Adam rolled up his sleeves. But deliberately set aside his walking stick.
\*\*\*
Emma paced from the kitchen to the pantry and back again, becoming more anxious with every second that passed. Was Adam all right? Why didn't he return? He'd passed out from pain earlier in the day. Had he had enough time to rest? How could he possibly be in any condition to fight the other man?
With Mrs. Billings and Jemmy off to the village, Emma was the only one able to assist him. She snatched a butcher knife off the counter and secreted it within the folds of her skirt. Then she marched back to the empty parlor. She had to help Adam.
No raised voices came from outside. She paced before the cold hearth, shuddering as she relived the devastating blow that had brought Farraday to his knees.
Adam had never learned to administer such a powerful clout while sparring with his noble peers at Gentleman John Jackson's pugilist academy. No. He'd learned such life or death fisticuffs in hand-to-hand combat on the Peninsula. Once again, Emma considered the toll his military experience had taken on him. As bad as his painful leg and uneven gait were, she doubted they held a candle to the scars he guarded inside.
Worry for him consumed her. He'd taken Farraday unaware with that astonishing shot to the jaw. But now Farraday would be ready for him.
"I must do something. This is not his fight."
"'Course it is, poppet," Adam said from the doorway, making her jump.
She'd been so lost in thought she had not realized she'd muttered her words aloud. He leaned against the door jamb. Her eyes narrowed as she scanned him in concern.
"Are you all right, Adam?"
He massaged his bruised knuckles. "Managed to make that bleeding rotter see the light, I believe."
Emma examined him minutely as he stepped into the parlor, and she was relieved he did not seem that much worse for wear. She wanted to race across the room to him and throw herself into his arms.
The notion shocked her. Only a few hours ago, she had nurtured her loathing for this man. Had she ever truly hated him? How could she have been so wrong?
"You may put down your weapon, m'dear. It's all over."
Emma started, but laid the carving knife on the mantel with a clatter. How had Adam known she'd hidden the blade within her skirts? Did the man know everything? She sighed, as her hand brushed the empty mantelpiece. Once, a pair of ornate silver candlesticks had adorned the marble ledge. Another reminder of the circumstances that had befallen the household. Adam's gaze tracked her movement. He raised an eyebrow.
"It'll never be over," she muttered, shaking her head.
"Farraday's taken himself off. I advised him I will not countenance threats to my wife."
"I'm not---"
"Not yet."
A clang of alarm drowned out the thrill of excitement his words sparked. Why would he tease her in such a fashion? He could have his pick of any young lady in England. A girl of far better family. Certainly a woman of more wealth. A woman who had not fallen so far in substance and standing. A woman who had not been called a "whore" by another man in the viscount's presence.
"Don't mock me, Riverton," she warned, her voice so brittle and tense it cracked. "I don't know why I allow you the liberties I do."
"Because there is something extraordinary between us, poppet. Something that cannot be denied or contained and must be fed by touch."
"Lust, then."
"Your education may be lacking in this area, Emma. Lust can be controlled, despite whatever you've heard. Or I'd have taken you already. The moment I saw you on the cliffs."
Emma's face flamed. "I've never done such things with any man before, despite what you must think of me. I'm not a woman of such easy virtue as you suppose."
"Your opinion of me is that low, madam?"
Emma swallowed. "After what occurred between us on the cliffs---"
"Kisses, Emma."
"---I could understand if you wished to offer me carte blanche..."
The warmth left Adam's eyes. His lips tightened. She could nearly see the anger vibrating through him and marveled at his restraint.
"You would agree to become my mistress but not accept my name?" he demanded, his voice cold. "I realize I am damaged goods without much heart or soul left to surrender to a maid. If you cannot accept me for that reason, I understand. I understand if your grief and bitterness regarding your brother precludes our union. But...you would place me in the same blasted box with the likes of Farraday? That I cannot fathom."
"No. I---" The sudden bleakness in his eyes made her forget what she had been about to say. "Why would you want to marry me?"
"May I hope you are no longer so opposed to the idea?"
Emma's glance slid away from his. She felt the heat rising in her cheeks. She could not pretend she did not care for the glide of his hands and his lips on her body. Indeed, she craved his touch. He perplexed her so. She didn't know what she felt for him anymore. Lust, certainly. Many successful marriages did not have even that. But she had to admit her feelings had grown more profound than mere desire alone. Her heart swelled when he was near, threatening to burst from her chest.
"You are mad, Riverton. I will not marry a man who's taken leave of his senses. I don't even like you."
"Now that's a whisker, m'dear. You enjoy touching me. I know you do. And your sweet sighs of contentment tell me you are not averse to me touching you. That's enough of an attachment between us, if you cannot admit to more. At least for now."
The reminder of the way she had explored him with her hands, and how much she loved his caresses, scalded her with torrents of blistering heat. A searing flush sparked between her breasts and spread upward until Emma was sure her cheeks were on fire.
She began to pace again. What did she feel for him? Her girlish infatuation was long gone, her more recent bitterness ebbing away. She did not know if she wanted to wed him, but she most definitely wanted to bed him.
Adam watched her in silence. "Do you mind, Emma?" he said at last. "Much as I enjoy seeing you parade about so prettily, I'd prefer to sit for a time." He nodded toward the settee.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. He would not sit until she did, of course. "Oh, certainly."
She settled herself on the sofa, expecting Adam to lower himself into one of the chairs arranged closer to the fireplace. Instead, he sat down beside her and stretched his long legs out in front of him.
Emma cringed as she thought of the missing ottoman, on which he might have rested his battered left leg. She couldn't look at him and stared at the cold hearth, twitching a fold of her skirt into place.
Adam brought his hand to her heated cheek. He traced his forefinger lightly over the line of her jaw, then tilted her chin toward him and turned her until she had no choice but to face him. He took her hand and brought it to his lips. He narrowed his eyes, staring at her fingertips. Did the sewing calluses repulse him?
Holding her gaze, he deliberately brushed his mouth against her knuckles and then kissed each of her fingertips in turn, sucking her forefinger into his mouth. A powerful hunger surged through her, melting her so quickly she felt damp between her legs. Her nipples strained against her flimsy muslin bodice and her sex ached to be petted and caressed.
Adam slid his arm along the back of the settee. His hand cupped her shoulder and he pulled her closer to him. Emma resisted her urge to rest her head on his broad chest.
"How can I convince you there is no need for you to fear, my dear?" He pressed her cheek to his collar, as if he suspected what she was thinking.
"I am not afraid of you, my---Adam," she murmured.
"Ah, a first step." He smiled. "'My Adam.' I like the sound of that."
His fingertips played up and down her arm, leaving trails of warmth, exciting and soothing at the same time. Little by little, he was setting her on fire.
"I did not suppose 'twas me you feared, poppet. You never have."
"Adam, I---"
"I admire your courage, sweetheart. And courage is something I set great store by." He pressed a finger to her lips to silence her. "That has always impressed me about you. The impetuous little girl has grown into a brave woman. Now you've taken on a burden no young lady should ever have to shoulder."
"But so many do." She thought of the poor women forced to labor night and day as seamstresses, for as little as a shilling a week. So very little to live on. And with families to feed, they were undoubtedly worse off than she.
"Yes, many do. But you have no need to be one of them."
He dropped his hand and shook his head. "You will have nothing to fear from Farraday or any other of your father's creditors any longer. I will see to that."
Emma blinked, staring at him as if he had taken leave of his senses. Had she taken leave of hers, she wondered? Could she allow herself to believe that this nightmare might finally be over? What would she owe him? Would it be a debt she could ever repay?
And yet...overwhelming relief flooded her. She did not care what Riverton might expect from her in turn. The realization gave her pause. Even if his mention of marriage was but a lure to get her to warm his bed, she did not find the thought repugnant. Indeed, she wanted to bed Adam Caldwell.
But the possibility that he wished to use her like Farraday did not truly seem likely. Her suggestion that Adam might make her his mistress had angered him. Riverton was an honorable man. Not a devil like Farraday. He would never trick her in such a fashion.
Yet, a wicked imp still nagged at her, whispering into her ear. She could not trust any man anymore. Michael had marched off and left her to fend for herself and, in his grief, Papa had thrust them into debt so deep she'd had to sell off everything they owned.
When she searched her heart, she was forced to admit that, when it came to this man, she wanted to trust. She wanted Adam as she had never wanted any man. Could she really give herself over to his safe keeping?
"Whatever you're thinking, please stop." His thumb massaged the inside of her wrist. "You're wound tighter than a watch spring."
"With reason."
"I know, my dear." He tucked her more securely against him. "Do you think I have not noticed the empty spaces in this room?"
He swept his hand around the parlor. His walking stick rested against the naked rosewood table. Emma realized he had not wanted to confront Farraday with the advantage of a weapon in his hands. Her heart clenched. Would a man as honorable as this have led her brother to his death?
"I've been holed up at Brimley for a fortnight, Emma. I have some idea of what's been going on here. How you've tried to stave off disaster. I've sent my batman to find---"
He stopped abruptly and a grunt of frustration escaped him. "Why didn't you come to me with this?"
Emma stiffened and moved to pull away from him again, but he kept her glued to his side.
"Why would I, Riverton? You didn't reply to any of the letters I wrote after Michael died. Why would I suppose you'd involve yourself in my problems?"
"Back to 'Riverton' again, are we?" He sighed. "Yes, I know. My fault entirely."
He frowned but let her go. He looked away from her for a moment, studying his hands. "I'd sent off hundreds of letters to dozens of families after Albuhera, you see. I was not in very good shape myself for several long months after. Barely lucid sometimes. Very often drunk. Not fit to write a lady."
Emma absorbed his ragged statement, inwardly cursing herself. Of course, he would have had had his own difficulties. She had been so torn and broken over Michael's death she had never once considered Riverton's own physical and mental condition.
"Oh! I am so sorry. I should have realized---"
"Do not apologize to me." A hard edge roughened his voice. "Do not ever apologize to me. I couldn't stand that." From his pocket he withdrew a tattered muslin square and gave it to her. "I should have returned this to you long before now."
Emma gasped as she took the piece of material, monogrammed with her twin's initials. Michael's handkerchief. The one she'd stitched with love and pressed into his hand right before he'd left England, never to return. The edges were now dyed burnt-rust with his blood. Had he suffered? Had death come quickly? Was it Adam who had taken the scrap of fabric from her brother's lifeless body?
"Michael," she murmured. "Oh, Michael, how I miss you!"
It was as if Adam had ripped a scab off the gaping hole in her chest. The pain of her loss threatened to overcome her. Her eyes stung. She stared at Adam through her blinding tears.
"I did my best to protect him," he said. "To protect them all."
Adam's broken voice recalled her from her own grief. His blue eyes grew steadily bleaker, losing their ever-present gleam. Emma began to fear he had traveled to some hideous place captured deep inside his memory---a prison from which he might not ever escape. She was no longer certain for whom she was weeping.
Ignoring the tears streaming down her cheeks, she reached out to cradle his face in her hands. "Come back, Adam. Please come back to me."
His focus returned to her. He produced another handkerchief, this one embroidered with a single initial C. C for Caldwell, she thought.
"I bought this in the village," he said, gently dabbing her eyes and swabbing her cheeks with it. "I thought I recognized the handiwork, the tiny, elegant stitches. I would have paid a lot more than the merchant asked for it. I envied your brother, I think. That he had someone who loved him so much and made him so wonderful a keepsake to remind him of home---and of all we were fighting for."
His quiet words worked on her frazzled emotions, bleeding her raw. Her tears ran anew. He blotted them away.
"I will stitch you as many as you want," she murmured. "I'll make you scores of handkerchiefs."
"If it pleases you to do so. As a wife sewing for her husband. I hope you will not have to go into trade, Emma. Not ever again."
He took her hand, examining the pricked fingertips her thimble had not shielded. His lips grazed each one again. Over her hand, his eyes suddenly smoldered with unbanked passion. The naked desire she read there made her quake, and kindled a similar blaze within her.
Emma could no longer fight her attraction for this man. The idea that he had recognized her craftsmanship in a shop in town and wanted to have one of her handkerchiefs melted everything within her.
How could she keep blaming him for Michael's death? Michael had been a grown man. No one had forced him to take up forty shillings on the drum. He hadn't purchased a commission or trained to be an officer, as Adam had. The military had not meant that much to him. He'd enlisted on a whim, running off to the Peninsula as a lark. And he'd been cannon fodder. She would always feel the pain of his loss. But could she hold the viscount responsible?
Adam was such a fine, good man. The touch of his hand on hers made her want to promise him anything. His heated look thrilled her. The memory of his potent caresses made her yearn for more. She wanted him to stroke her again, and to hear his soft groans, as if he'd never experienced anything so sweet.
She wanted to know him in every possible way.
"Kiss me, Adam. Please. Just kiss me."
Emma's words acted on Adam like a drug. Desire pulsed through his veins like liquid heat, spreading to every part of him, quickening his breath, hardening his cock. His whole body tightened with arousal.
Was Emma in nervous shock from the recent encounter with Farraday, or merely grateful to him for helping to extricate her from her dire circumstances? Could she really want a man so damaged?
His admiration for her had steadily increased over his weeks in Brimley. He'd known she'd watched him on the cliffs. His awareness of her gaze had driven him to push himself harder, to try to speed the healing of his leg. Ever since their meeting this morning, his sexual need for her had intensified, the fierce passions always simmering below the surface. When Emma tilted her head, shutting her eyes and parting her lips expectantly, the pot abruptly boiled over.
Adam leaned toward her, sweeping her into his arms until she was lying against his chest. Every masculine part of him roared with hunger. He knew he should proceed slowly but burned to ravish her.
His mouth closed over hers, as gently as he was able considering the ravening male beast she had loosed. With a little cry, Emma looped her arms around his neck. The fragrant scent of her hair, combined with her warm, feminine essence, intoxicated him more than the most potent brandy. Made him desperate to possess her.
He deepened the kiss, his mouth slanting against hers with such wild ardor she trembled in his arms. He cursed himself.
"Forgive me, sweetheart, I do not mean to be so clumsy. But I---"
Emma squirmed against him, cutting off his words. "Hush. I don't want you to stop."
Her arms tightened around him and she deposited a row of frantic kisses on his throat.
Her excitement spurred his, making him so hard and stiff he thought he might embarrass himself like a green boy. He ached with his need, and knew he could not contain his lust or control his desire much longer, despite what he'd told her. Emma did this to him. Only Emma.
He groaned as she drew him down to her. When their lips met, a bolt of hunger hit him like a cannonball. This woman made him half-crazy, as delirious as when he'd thrashed with fever after falling, bloodied and broken, to the sun-baked Spanish earth. No, not like that. Then, he'd struggled to regain his senses even though consciousness meant he'd arrive back in his world of suffering and pain. Now he basked in his delirium, wanting to wallow forever in his joy of Emma. He could drown in her and be a happy man.
The thought startled him. Happy? He barely remembered that emotion. Emma made him want to go on living. And so much more.
"I don't think you understand," he growled. "You're driving me wild, Emma. I---"
"Show me." She slipped her fingers into his hair, and he was lost. "Teach me."
He crushed her against him, desperate to feel her soft, lush form curved into his larger frame. His mouth came down urgently over hers, his demands more insistent. He parted her lips with his own, sliding his tongue inside to strafe against hers.
"Oh." She exhaled the soft word as a wondrous sigh, as if she were savoring something both marvelous and unexpected.
The taste of her drove Adam to the edge of his limits. He felt as if he were standing on the dangerous lip of the chalky cliff again, about to fall off the precipice and plunge toward an unknown heaven. His body ached, his groin on fire and his cock throbbing with urgent need. Nothing had ever been as bittersweet as this.
He ran his hands up and down Emma's sides until she arched back. Her sweet breasts strained against the flimsy muslin of her dress. Her hands left his hair to grip his shoulders, her fingers digging into his taut sinews. Before he took final leave of his senses, he had to allow her a last chance to choose.
"Are you sure, poppet?"
"Chuckleheaded man. Do I appear unsure?"
"You're trembling, sweetheart."
"Not from fear." She groaned and nipped him in the hollow between his shoulder and neck. "Except the fear that you will cease what you are doing and pull away from me."
She gave him another tiny love bite. The feel of her teeth pricking his skin made him insane. He rained savage kisses on her temple, her brow. He seized her mouth, his lips so demanding against hers that she gasped.
"God help me," he muttered.
"You don't need any help." Her arms tightened around him.
Her neck and throat were bared by her gauzy frock. He pushed the tiny cap sleeves off her shoulders to expose still more of her, nuzzling her pink flesh with more intimacy and urgency than before, claiming her with his lips and teeth and tongue, marking her as his own.
"You're mine, Emma," he growled. "Say you're mine."
"Yes. Oh, God, yes. I'm yours. I've always been yours."
Adam tugged the gathered bodice of her gown lower, pushing the material out of his way to free dusk-tipped breasts. He groaned and sucked in a breath, cupping the gently rounded fullness in his palm, as if her breast were a delicate bird. Her skin warmed, silky as rose petals. Beneath his hand, her heart leaped wildly.
"Adam!" Emma's hand closed over his.
He paused, nearly shaking with need. If she stopped him now, he thought he might lose his mind.
"Emma." He heard the ragged hitch in his voice. "Let me, Emma."
Oh," she sighed. "That feels so...delicious." She quivered, arching upward as if to give him greater access. "Touch me. Touch me all over."
Beneath their joined hands her flesh heated, the coral blush spreading across her chest to the graceful column of her neck until her cheeks burst with color. Her eyes met his, turning a dreamy, smoky silver Adam found mesmerizing.
Emma increased the downward pressure on his hand, guiding his strokes in lazy circles over her breast.
But touching wasn't enough. Adam wanted to taste. He inclined his head, bending to kiss her breasts, replacing the gentle persuasion of his hand with the hungry need of his lips.
"You are delicious, sweetheart."
When she cried out, he recognized her stunned wonder. Her nipples peaked and hardened as he brushed first one, then the other, with his tongue.
"Do you like that, Emma?"
"Oh, yes." She panted a little, as if finding it difficult to draw air into her lungs. Her eyes drifted closed, her pretty lips curved in a delighted smile.
He sucked her nipple, lips closing over the stiffened bud, his tongue flicking back and forth greedily, as if she were a confection dissolving in the moist heat of his mouth.
"Oh, yes, I like that," she repeated. "I love that, Adam." She feathered more frenzied kisses into his hair.
Her hands moved from his shoulders, down his chest, and she tugged the linen from his trousers. Her hand dipped below the fabric, her delicate fingers exploring him, cool against his burning skin. Her touch sent him to a place well beyond lust. Beneath her probing hand, his muscles leaped.
"Do you like that?" she asked, tearing a husky groan from him.
He sat up, disposed of his shirt, and leaned back against the damask cushions of the settee with a wink. If she wished to explore, he wanted to let her.
"Have at me, poppet."
Emma stared at the jagged pattern of scars etching his chest.
Bloody damn!
How stupid to think this woman could thaw him. How stupid to think she---or any woman---could ever accept him the way he was. His marred chest was nothing compared to his mangled leg, which she had not yet seen. His leg was nothing compared to his bruised psyche. Emma was the one woman he most wanted to shield from the wretched sight of his wounds, souvenirs of the same battle that had taken her brother.
"What is this from?" she demanded. "Albuhera?"
"Yes." His voice emerged toneless and cold. He could not hide his bitter disappointment. Only a paid whore would shut her eyes to his disfigurement. He grabbed for his discarded shirt. Emma swept it out of his hands and onto the floor.
"How?"
"Emma, I don't want---"
"How?" she repeated.
"Pieces of shot. Flying fragments of metal."
"It was very bad, wasn't it?"
His gaze slid away.
"Oh, Adam. I am so sorry. I should have known, but---"
"It's all right," he grated through clenched teeth. "I understand."
He reached for his shirt again, but Emma stilled his hand. Her eyes flashed at him, like angry bolts of lightning.
"I don't think you do."
Adam's bleak words tore her apart. Deliberately, Emma placed her palm against his chest, running her fingertips over the thin, white scars.
"Your wounds hurt me because they hurt you. They do not offend my sensibilities."
"I didn't want to remind you. I---"
"I wish I had not wasted so much time trying to hate you. I wish I could have eased your pain. I wish I could have held you in my arms long before now. Don't you realize how much I want you, Adam? How much I've always wanted you?"
She curled against him, petting him, increasing the pressure of her hand, her fingers meandering over his rib cage and then his pectoral muscles, making them leap. Her strokes became caresses. "I wish I could tease you back into a fever. Set you on fire like you've done to me."
He met her gaze. "Do you think you haven't?"
Emma shook her head. "Not yet, I think." She bent her head and pressed her lips against his chest, flicking her tongue over his nipple the way he'd suckled hers, making it pebble.
Adam groaned and dragged her down to a bed of sofa pillows, his hard body pinning her, her skirts jumbled between them. He rubbed his bare chest against hers. The friction of his flesh on hers felt sublime. He set her ablaze, melting her so thoroughly that her sex tingled and throbbed, feeling full and soft and open. She'd never experienced such strangely compelling sensations.
She wanted Adam to touch her there.
The thought shocked her. But not enough to keep her from spreading her legs a little, and writhing beneath him as if to instinctively guide him where she wanted him.
"Adam." She whimpered, nearly crying, so great was this new need.
Although Adam braced himself on his elbows and forearms, his weight, the feel of his strong, firm muscles crushing her into the cushions, made her belly contract and stoked her powerful need. Lust for him overwhelmed her. How had she lived all her years without this? Without this man? Her arms looped around his neck. His crisp juniper scent dizzied her with desire. Through his trousers, she felt the hard ridge of his bulging erection.
Suddenly, she was very glad she was a country girl, not completely ignorant of what took place between males and females. She fumbled with his buttons, but he moved her hands away.
"I want to touch you now, poppet."
"Yes," she whispered. "Yes. I need you to."
He seized her hem, pushing her scattered skirts up, past her knees, past her thighs. Cool air struck the naked skin above her stockings. She closed her eyes and bathed in Adam's warmth as he lovingly caressed her legs.
She sucked in a breath. "Oh, Adam."
He kept up the mesmerizing massage, his hand moving higher and higher along the inside of her thigh, tearing soft sighs from her. She wanted more, so much more. She ached and throbbed. She knew he could feel how wet she was. She pushed against him in desperation.
"I don't want to hurt you, Emma." She heard the strain in his voice.
Her lashes parted and she gazed up at him. His eyes burned with raging need. "You cannot. Except when you stop touching me. That is torture. I'm on fire for you."
She spread her legs wider and her blatant invitation wrenched another groan from him. His hand glided up her leg. He cupped her mound, easing a finger into her swollen sex.
"Merciful heavens." Emma sucked in another shivery breath. The erotic invasion was like nothing she had ever experienced. Only this man could thaw her heart so completely. Her blood thundered in her ears, pulsed in her sex. Adam withdrew his finger slowly.
"No," she cried, grasping at his hand, bereft at the sudden feeling of emptiness, an emptiness she desperately needed to be filled.
"Stop?"
"No!"
He slid his finger back into her.
"Oh. Oh, yes." Her head fell back against the cushions and she moaned.
"Like wet silk. Tight and slick."
The wonder in Adam's voice made her tremble. She knew he'd done this before, but he made her feel the art of lovemaking was as new to him as it was to her. She felt their mutual desire swirl around them like a living thing, holding both of them enthralled. She clenched her feminine muscles.
"By all that's holy," he ground out.
The glide of his finger had her clutching his shoulders, the cushions beneath her, and yet it was not enough. She gripped him with her inner muscles again. "Adam." She whispered his name as if it were a prayer, moaned the syllables in a voice that broke with passion.
He teased her, withdrawing his finger and then slipping it back into her. Slowly. So excruciatingly slowly. In. Out. Again. And again. Her juices poured from her. His rhythm hastened. The slippery sucking sound as his finger entered and withdrew had her writhing. The tension within her increased as the pad of his thumb stroked back and forth over her throbbing button.
"Adam. Adam, please."
She dug her fingers into his shoulders as a need both exquisite and indescribable built. She was certain something had to happen, but she was not sure what. She knew only that he had brought her to a feverish pitch that rendered her speechless. She did not know how long she could remain tottering on this brink of the beautiful unknown.
She had no words to tell him what she wanted. She knew only that she wanted, needed, hungered for him.
"Adam, you must!"
Emma clamped her thighs closed, impeding his movements. She spread her legs again, wider than before, thrashing and bucking, nearly crying, as she urged him on in a rush of excitement.
"Must what, sweetheart?" he growled.
"Must do something...more!"
He stroked her again, the finger inside her penetrating deeper and faster, the swirling pressure of his thumb relentless over the nub where all her sensations seemed centered. He glided a second finger into her.
And then, suddenly, everything inside her completely shattered in a spectacular hail of pleasure and bliss. Her body arched and bucked as her muscles convulsed and her mind went blank. Torrents of pure delight broke over her, cresting, sweeping her away. This man. This beautiful man. He had done this magical thing to her.
After a long moment, she slit her eyes open and gazed up at him from beneath her lashes.
"Oh. Oh, Adam. That was beyond anything."
Adam looked down at her, his smile brilliant. But strain knotted his brow. She sensed the tension that still gripped him, and touched his bare chest.
"Emma, I---" He shook his head and gently eased her hand away from his hot flesh.
"What's wrong?"
She'd never allowed anyone such shocking intimacies as she'd allowed him. After the wondrous things he'd just done to her, she wanted him closer. She wanted him to envelop her in his strong arms, wrap his body around her, so she could satisfy him too. She wanted to slide her legs over his hips and rub her still throbbing sex against his hot, hard groin.
His face tightened, as he clenched his jaw. His set expression jarred her.
"I...will embarrass myself if you touch me again." The rawness of his voice thrilled her. "Do you take my meaning, Emma?"
Emma's face flooded with heat. Her gaze flew to front of his trousers. No denying the urgency of the huge erection tugging at the black cloth. She touched him deliberately. His cocked leaped, making the woolen material confining him twitch, and tearing an impassioned groan from his throat.
"Make love to me, Adam. I want to feel you inside of me."
He arched away from her questing hand and ran a hand through his hair. "Don't tempt me, Emma. I want you more than I can bear."
She reached toward him, nudging open a button.
"Didn't you tell me lust could be contained?"
Adam squeezed his eyes shut, as if battling for restraint. "To a point. That I've already passed. It's been a long time for me, poppet, and I---" He sucked in a breath. "The way I feel about you goes well beyond lust, Emma."
"I feel the same," she whispered, suddenly in awe of him, of everything that was between them. And yet...so earthy and feminine and human, shimmering with the strength of her womanly power. She flicked a second button. The combined force of their mutual desire shattered the last tattered remnants of his control.
"Dear God, Emma. Are you very sure?"
"Beyond words." Her voice shivered with her need. She gripped his shoulders and spread her legs for him.
Adam looked down at the glorious woman writhing beneath him. He wanted to take the time to savor her, but he could not. It had been too long. And he wanted Emma too much. God, how he wanted her. She deserved this moment to be wonderful and painless. But the way she moved and cried his name gave evidence of her own powerful need and desperation, her hunger like a living creature demanding to be satisfied. He was afraid he'd come the moment he drove into her.
"The next time it will be better, sweetheart," he promised.
"Nothing can be better than this moment."
"Such certainty." He gazed at her and smiled. "Nevertheless, it will be. I shall make it so. Or die trying."
Adam's hands shook, but he somehow managed to get the rest of his buttons undone without popping any. He prepared her again, with deep, drugging kisses that made her relax, and with his hands and his tongue, until she was thrashing beneath him. And then he gripped the tender flesh of Emma's thighs and guided himself into her hot, wet entrance. She felt like velvet, narrow and tight. Beneath him, Emma tensed. He pressed his mouth to hers again and her body ripened once more.
"I'm such a goddamned bastard," he muttered, his voice hoarse. "I'm not going to be able to stop, sweetheart. Or go as slow as you deserve."
"I want this. I want you." She bucked upward against him, forcing him to move. With one sure hard thrust, he tore through her maidenhead. He seized her lips again, stifling her small cry of pain. In the next instant, he felt her soften, her passage slick and hot and inviting.
Suddenly, her inner muscles gripped him, drawing him all the way inside her until he was seated to the hilt. He thrust into her, increasing his speed. He drove into her again and again, flesh against flesh, bones against bones, all sensation centered at the site of their hungry joining.
He tore cry after cry of joy from her, the sounds filling him with such elation, his groans matched hers. Her legs tightened around his waist, her arms around his neck. He moved still more quickly, pounding into her, utterly lost.
"I love you, Adam," she murmured. "I always have."
He brought her to another orgasm. As he felt her muscles convulse around him, his world exploded in a blaze of heat and light. He poured himself into her in rapture, shouting out her name.
\*\*\*
Emma drifted slowly back to earth. Adam's head lay on her breast, and she could hear the rasp of his uneven breathing. Nothing, nothing, had ever felt so magnificent. She gloried in the small aftershocks, the weight of the man pressed against her. Her fingers sifted through the damp hair at the back of his neck.
"I wanted it to be better for you, poppet," he said.
"I can't imagine anything better than that."
He smiled but shook his head. "We will just have to expand your horizons then." He offered her a wicked wink. "With quite a lot of practice."
After another moment, he untangled himself from her and rose from the settee. Leaning over her, he yanked her skirts down to cover her legs and rebuttoned his trousers. Emma's disappointment was profound. She felt sleepy and aglow and wanted to feel Adam stretched out beside her forever. He'd said there'd be other times like this. She intended to hold him to that.
"I'll ride to Canterbury straightaway," Adam mumbled, his voice gruff. "If the archbishop obliges me with a special license, we'll be wed as soon as I return."
"Adam---"
"I don't want to wait, poppet. And now our nuptials are a matter of some urgency."
Before she could answer him, they heard the sound of voices through the French windows of the parlor and hastened to arrange their clothing. Emma was certain she looked like a harlot. When she touched her cheeks, her skin burned and she knew the heat of passion still colored her face. She twitched her skirts and ran a hand through hair made even more wild by Adam's ferocious ravishing. He'd been as hungry as she. The memory of her name on his lips, the way he'd shouted it to the rafters when he came, made her smile.
She gazed up at him. His flushed face, tousled hair and fierce expression told the story of their recent activities.
Emma linked her hand in his, just as Mrs. Billings rapped on the parlor door and then bustled into the room without waiting for a response.
Emma and Adam exchanged glances. If the housekeeper had arrived but a few minutes earlier, Emma's reputation would have been in shreds.
As it was, Mrs. Billings looked from one to the other with a knowing lift of her graying eyebrows. "You intend to do right, milord?"
"I do."
"Mrs. Billings!" Emma gasped.
But the housekeeper merely nodded at Adam, apparently finding his answer acceptable. More pressing news consumed her at present.
"Yer father's been found, Miss Emma!"
Barked orders, followed by the clatter and scuffle of boots, travelled across the foyer. In the next moment, a fellow in a caped greatcoat with salt-and-pepper hair and a military bearing burst into the parlor and swept past Mrs. Billings. The man had her father grasped by the back of his loosened collar.
An untidy beard covered George Whiteside's florid face and his filthy clothes hung from his frame in disarray. He stumbled into the room and slumped into a chair nearest the fire, immediately holding his hands out to warm them, as if he thought they'd never lose their chill.
"Papa," Emma breathed. Relief flooded her. She knelt beside her father's chair and reached for his dirty hand, but he flinched away from her. His clothes and body stank.
"Do you know me, Papa?"
He remained silent and Emma feared his mind had gone to let.
"I know you, girl," he rasped at last, his voice hoarse with disuse. "I'm too ashamed to look at you."
A tear trickled down her cheek and she dashed it away with her fist. "Please, Papa. I've been so worried." She tried to take his hand again, but he hunched his shoulders closer to the flames, blocking her out.
"Leave him be, Emma."
Overcome with humiliation, she could not look at Adam. She rose and turned away, placing her face in her hands.
"Where was he, Garrett?" the viscount's deep voice inquired.
"Maidstone Gaol, milord. Debt."
Emma swayed on her feet. She felt Adam behind her and then his hand on her shoulder, steadying her. He pressed her head against his chest. None of this could be happening, she thought. She'd known her father was drowning his sorrows and grief and playing cards above his head, perhaps. But she had not guessed the true extent of her father's indebtedness until he'd disappeared and the parade of creditors began pounding on the door. But even so...
"I don't understand, Papa. We still have the manor. We could have sold the property and taken simpler lodgings elsewhere until we found a way to get back on our feet."
"The manor is mine, poppet."
Adam's soft words made her whirl around to face him in fury.
"You played cards with a man too foxed to know what he was doing? You let him gamble away our home?"
"I most certainly did not. The manor was never his to wager, sweetheart. You are tenants. The land's always been mine."
"We are not landed gentry then."
"'Tis a long-term lease that entangles our families for generations. But your father was never free to sell it or gamble it away. Word of what he was trying to do reached me and some of his worthless vowels came into my possession. I told you this morning that was one of the reasons I'm here."
The shock of this revelation made Emma's stomach churn. "You deceived me!"
Adam's face paled, but a brief spark of anger flashed in his eyes. "I didn't."
"You can turn us out whenever you choose---just like Farraday!"
Tight-lipped, Adam shook his head. "I can't. I won't. Good God. Do you think I would ever do such a thing? Particularly after what has transpired between us? I am not Farraday, Emma. Can't you get that through your beautiful head?"
"Papa, Papa. Say something!"
"I'm sorry, m'dear." George Whiteside's shaggy head lolled on his chest. "'Tis true, 'tis all true." He stared at the fire and then turned, suddenly alert. His rheumy eyes narrowed. "Why's Riverton calling you 'sweetheart,' Em?"
"I---he---"
Her father nodded and crooked a bony finger at the viscount. "My pockets may be to let, Riverton, but I'm still the girl's father. I expect to be asked for my consent."
"Do you?" Adam asked tensely.
"You will look after her more properly than I have been able?"
"I will try."
"And this is what you want, Em?"
"Papa..." She lapsed into silence with a shake of her head.
But her father apparently read more in her expression than she was able to put into words. He glanced at Adam with a nod. "You have my blessing then."
Emma gasped in horror as her father nodded off and began to snore.
"Your father needs tending, Emma. Bed, bath, food. Keep him away from drink."
"How dare you tell me---"
"His lordship is right, child," Mrs. Billings interrupted. "Me and Jemmy'll take care of Himself."
"Miss Emma." The youth came in and pulled his forelock. He hoisted the broken man to his feet. Between them, Jemmy and his mother hauled her father from the parlor.
Adam broke the tense hush that descended on the room. "Did you see to it, Garrett?"
"'Twasn't a great deal, Major. The purse you gave me covered the amount with more than enough to spare."
"Good man."
Emma's stomach tightened as the man in the greatcoat handed Adam a clinking leather pouch. How would she repay him? Adam had sent his man to find her father and pay off his debts before they'd made love. Even before they'd met on the cliffs this morning. How had she ever hated this man?
Garrett's use of Adam's rank rather than his title made Emma recall the scars on Adam's body. She shuddered as a lump rose in her throat to join the knot in her belly. He was such a fine, decent man.
"Adam, I---" She did not know what to say to him.
"Glad enough to do it, my love." His voice was gruff. "Sorry 'twasn't sooner, to save you such hardship and pain. I did not know the extent of your troubles until you came out of hiding this morning."
Adam gripped Emma's hand and tugged her forward. "Emma, this is Oliver Garrett, my batman on the Peninsula. Still my right hand."
Garrett bobbed his head. "That's why I slip sometimes, miss, and call his lordship 'Major.'"
"Makes an interesting valet, does he not?" Adam kept his tone light, but Emma suspected the bond between the two men was profound. The viscount confirmed her guess. "He saved my leg. Refused to let the field surgeon take it off."
Emma blanched, horrified at the thought. She owed Garrett a great deal, she thought, extending her hand to the man.
Instead of taking it, Garrett bowed. "Your humble servant, miss."
"And he doesn't yet know of our betrothal."
Emma blushed. Clearly, everyone who had entered the parlor this afternoon guessed what they'd been doing on the settee.
Garrett shrugged. "Hard to miss the way you're looking at the young lady, milord. Expect it's only a matter of time 'til you're leg-shackled."
"As soon as Champ can carry me to Canterbury and back," Adam said. "By tomorrow night if the archbishop cooperates. Within the week, certainly."
"Adam---"
"And as soon as you consent. Do you anticipate any reason you will not give it?"
Stunned at the rapidity with which the course of her life was now moving, Emma numbly shook her head.
"Tomorrow, then, if I have my way. Sunday at the latest. Have you any paper and ink about, Emma? You must sign a statement that there is no impediment to our marriage." He paused, his heated gaze slowly traveling up and down the length of her body as possessively as his hands and lips had done. "There isn't, is there?"
"You hen-witted man," Emma breathed. She glanced toward the settee upon which he had brought her such ecstasy and joy. "I have loved you all my life."
"What then?" Adam demanded.
Was he only doing the honorable thing? He had still not spoken the words Emma wished beyond all measure to hear from him. Tears streamed unbidden down her cheeks.
Adam took a step toward her, then stopped and clenched his fists. "Don't weep, poppet. I can bear almost anything, but I can't bear that. You'll unman me."
He pulled another handkerchief from the pocket of his trousers, this one monogrammed with a single R.
Emma paused in her sniffling and lifted a curious eyebrow. "How many did you purchase, Riverton?"
Adam reached into another trouser pocket. Bits of fine muslin rained down. "A for Adam, C for Caldwell, R for Riverton, B, D, F and G, of course. I have E for Emma, if you'd like it. Should you change your initials, I believe I can manage that."
Her eyes filled. No one had ever done anything so thoughtful for her.
"You're a sweet, sweet man, Adam Caldwell. But you only wish to marry me out of some misguided sense of obligation. Because of what we---" She glanced at the sofa again and flushed. "Because you feel responsible for Michael's death."
"Rubbish!" Garrett barked. "'Twas nearly the other way 'round."
Emma jumped. The batman-turned-valet had stood so silently she'd forgotten he was still in the room.
Adam shot him a lethal look. "Quiet, Garrett."
"No, milord. High time the lass knows the truth. Especially if you mean to marry her."
"She's right. I do feel responsible. I feel responsible for all my men."
"Thousands of terrible, bloody losses that day, Major, but in the end, the Die Hards stood, victory ours. You are not responsible for any of their deaths, least of all the corporal's."
Emma stared from one man to the other. Adam's face grew shuttered and closed. His lips pressed together in a thin, tight line. A muscle leaped in his clenched jaw. "This conversation is done, Sergeant. Go no further."
"Or what? You will have me court-martialed?" Garrett scoffed.
"I will turn you out of my employ," Adam threatened.
"You will never." Garrett shrugged at the viscount and turned back to Emma. "The truth is, miss, your brother was a charmer, but always larking about. Though we all loved him, he took foolhardy risks sometimes and put us all in danger."
Emma nodded. "That is like Michael," she said softly. "I believe you."
"Enough, Garrett," Adam exploded. "Get out of here before I put you to work mucking out stables."
"You will have to find another way to shut me up, milord." Garrett ignored Adam's blustery threats. "Young Whiteside gave away our position at Albuhera, miss, disobeying direct orders. All just to capture an Imperial Eagle from the top of the French flag to taunt the enemy. And yet, when he fell, the major nearly forfeited his own life trying to drag your brother to safety back behind our lines. Instead of a bleeding bronze ornament, his lordship's souvenirs are a mangled leg that will bother him the rest of his days and nightmares you cannot begin to fathom."
Adam shut his eyes.
Tears streamed down Emma's face as her hand crept into his. "You never would have told me this," she whispered.
"No, he wouldn't have." Garrett snorted and shook his head. "Close-lipped bugger about the things that matter, he is." He turned to Adam. "I'll wait for you outside, Major. If you've got anything else to say to the girl, best say it now so we can leave for Canterbury whilst there's still daylight." He stomped noisily from the room.
"You would have let me go on blaming you. Why would you do such a thing?"
Adam linked her fingers through his, cradling her hand as he covered it with his other. "I did not want to cause you any more pain, Emma. I know a bit about that, you see. I did not want to tarnish your memories of your twin."
Emma gazed at the handsome man before her. "You will keep nothing from me once we are wed. Do you understand me, Riverton?"
"Adam," he corrected. His eyelids parted slowly and he slid her a sensual look. "Bossy harridan. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. The love I have been waiting for all of my life."
He spread his arms wide and Emma flew into them. The sparkling glint she remembered so well had returned to his shining blue eyes.
"You've stolen my heart, poppet. I will love and cherish you always." He produced another handkerchief from his pocket. H, perhaps, Emma thought, as Adam dabbed at the tears streaming down her cheeks, and then tweaked her nose with it.
"Oh, Adam," she sniffed.
"Oh, Adam, what?" he demanded.
"Oh, Adam, you are the most magnificent man and I adore you. I will marry you and be your lady."
Adam lifted her off her feet and whirled her around the room until she shrieked with laughter.
Sunlight poured through the tall, mullioned windows of the solarium at Summerlake.
Emma shifted her wooden embroidery frame closer to the golden light and selected a smaller hoop, adjusting the tension to her satisfaction. Humming, she routed among the papers of pins and needles and bundles of rainbow-colored filament that filled her overstuffed work basket.
She located a skein of shimmering blue silk, the exact color of the eyes of the man who had ravished her so blissfully all night long.
"Perhaps a lighter shade." Returning the skein to her quilted basket, she searched for a more appropriate pale blue, closer to the color of a robin's egg.
"Perfect." She squinted as she threaded her embroidery needle.
Indeed, things could not be more perfect in her world. Papa was his hale and hearty self again, content at the manor under the watchful eye of Mrs. Billings, less than a day's ride from Summerlake. During his frequent visits, it pleased him to ramble the countryside on hunting expeditions with Oliver Garrett.
Nor had the earl voiced any objections to the hasty marriage. "I have not seen my son so animated since before the war, my dear," he'd told Emma. "I am pleased to welcome the source of his happiness---and my new daughter---to our family."
Emma loved the dawn, when she roused to the feel of her husband's weight on her body, his hands on her breasts and his mouth leaving tender trails of kisses along the side of her neck. The moment she opened her eyes and smiled at him, he slid inside her.
A perfect way to start each day.
Emma's gaze drifted outside and she searched about the grounds of the estate for his tall, athletic form. She loved the view from her solarium, where she did most of her sewing, not out of necessity any longer, but purely for pleasure. She could see the panoramic sweep of the park---the lake upon which a pair of swans drifted, the pretty meadow dotted with yellow and purple blooms, a field of red poppies and, on the horizon, a hint of the cliffs that meant so much to her now.
There was only one room in the grand house she enjoyed more. It contained a large, imposing bed. And a large, imposing, masculine occupant. Speaking of which...
"Where is that blasted man?"
"I am right here, Lady Riverton," Adam drawled from the doorway. "You cannot possibly miss me already. It hasn't been above an hour since we parted company at breakfast." He shot her a lazy look. "An exceedingly late breakfast, at that, I might add."
Emma grinned back at him. "I must lay the blame for that at your door, my lord."
"Of course you must." He winked. "But I did not hear any complaints from my lady wife. On the contrary."
She beamed at him. "Nor will you. Ever. You have made me a very contented woman."
"No more contented than you have made me, my darling." He paused and sent a theatrical frown her way. "And yet, I could have sworn I heard you refer to me as 'that blasted man' just now."
"I like to know where you are at all times, Riverton."
"Good lord." His put-upon sigh was belied by the twinkle in his eyes. "I am completely under the cat's paw, the most devilishly hen-pecked of all married men. May I ask why?"
"In case I should feel the need of your...services."
"Indeed. My services? That puts an entirely different complexion on the matter." He stepped farther into the sunny room, his eyes just as bright. "Do you feel in need of my...services...now, wife? At this very moment?"
"Why, I believe I do, Riverton."
Adam's smoldering, possessive gaze travelled over her leisurely, his eyes heating to a sultry azure. "In that case, I put myself at your disposal, to do with what you will. I am eager to oblige you in every way. I feel the most urgent need to do so, in fact."
He sauntered farther into the room. He still limped some, but he rarely used the blackthorn staff anymore. When they travelled to London, he occasionally carried a more refined ebony stick during their shopping strolls and walks in the park.
He took a seat beside her, nudging his chair so close their thighs touched. "I fear I was remiss this morning, my love. Had something for you, but...you distracted me."
"I see. I distracted you."
He withdrew a flat case from the pocket of his waistcoat and opened the box. Emma gasped at the exquisite string of pearls nestled on black velvet.
"They are magnificent, Adam."
"Pearls for my pearl." He grinned as she presented him with her back. He fastened the clasp at her neck.
"You know you need not---"
"Hush. It pleases me to do so, wife."
"As it happens, I have something for you today also, Riverton."
"Do you?" He leaned closer with a wolfish smile and then spied her stitchery and shook his head.
"Don't tell me you are making me another handkerchief, Em. I've set aside two drawers of my bureau for them already." He examined the fine cambric stretched taut in the embroidery hoop. "I must say, that is the most deucedly odd-looking handkerchief I have ever seen."
"That's because it isn't a handkerchief, silly man. 'Tis a bonnet."
"Rather small, though, isn't it?" He lifted an eyebrow. "What sort of bonnet?"
"My word, you are impossibly slow-topped this morning, Adam. Perhaps you are not getting enough sleep?"
His hands gripped hers. "What sort of bonnet, Em?"
"The sort that might go with a christening gown."
His jaw dropped and his hands tightened on hers. He stared into her eyes. "Are you bamming me, my dear Lady Riverton?"
"Well, I admit I had hoped for a somewhat different reaction to my announcement that you'll soon have your heir."
Adam let out an ear-splitting whoop and yanked Emma from her chair.
"Yes, indeed. I was hoping for a reaction more like that." She shrieked as he twirled her through the air.
"Have I told you lately how much I love you?" he murmured into her ear.
"Hmm. Let me think back. Not since breakfast, as I recall."
She glanced up at him and started at the profound depth of love and passion burning in his eyes.
"I was a dead and broken man until you came into my life, Em. You've filled my empty heart with joy, given me everything any man could want. Something to live for. Someone to live for. And now...my child growing inside of you...How very blessed I am."
He shook his head as if he could not quite grasp the magnitude of his good fortune. Tears welled in Emma's eyes, her happiness beyond measure.
He brushed his lips against hers, the kiss so sweet, Emma's eyes watered more.
"Good thing I have so many handkerchiefs," Adam said. He produced a bit of fine linen from his waistcoat pocket and dabbed them dry. "Was that a little M I saw you embroidering, my love?"
"I thought, if you would not very much mind, we could name him Michael?"
"Or Michaela," Adam readily agreed. He slid his fingers from her rib cage to belly, as if taking her measure, before settling his hands about her waist. "When do you think, sweetheart?"
"Perhaps six months or so."
"Six months." He grinned and danced her around the room. "And we can still..."
"Oh, most definitely, yes."
As Adam spun her nearer to the entrance to the solarium, he booted the door closed and tugged at the gold chatelaine chains looped at her waist.
"What on earth---"
"I feel the immediate need of your services, Lady Riverton. Immediate. So immediate I cannot wait to get you to our bedchamber."
Emma's gaze shifted lower, to the large bulge straining the superfine of his trousers.
"I see that, Riverton."
He swallowed her laugh in a blistering kiss, his mouth seizing hers until her legs wobbled. His body pinned her against the door. His erection stabbed her thigh, thick and hot and hard. He kissed her again, fumbling past the dangling chains holding a small pair of golden scissors, a cloisonné thimble and the household seal, to extract the key he wanted.
Snick. The lock clicked in the door behind her back.
He grabbed her skirts, bunching the yards of material to her waist.
"Hurry, Adam." She closed her eyes, leaning her head back.
He dragged his hand between them, tearing aside her petticoats. "Oh, God, Emma," he groaned.
The deep, male sound of his voice, splintering with need, made her quiver.
"Open your eyes, sweetheart. I want you to see how much I love you. How much I love your taste, your scent, the silk of your skin."
Emma's lashes drifted apart. His intense expression set her on fire. He flicked his fingers over her swollen sex until she nearly screamed.
Adam slid down her body, positioning himself on the floor, between her legs.
"Oh, Adam. Your leg," she protested. "You'll do yourself damage."
He grunted in response and twisted her skirts out of his way. With one hand planted against the door, he took her garter in his teeth, nudging it downward as he peeled her stocking off with exquisite care. The slow, sensual gesture made her wild with desire. Her flesh ached for his touch, her heart swelled with love.
He grasped her bare thigh and looped her leg over his shoulder, leaning toward her, his warm, raspy breath on her feverish skin making her shiver in anticipation.
"Adam!"
He buried his face in her nest of curls, and a long, slow breath escaped her. He kissed her tender folds, his mouth hungry, his lips teasing, his caresses so devastating, she came the moment he entered her with his tongue. She convulsed around him, but her body still throbbed, needing him to be part of her, like the child she carried.
"Come inside me, Adam," she cried. "Please, my love, I must feel you inside me."
He needed no further invitation. He rose, drawing himself up to his full height and tearing open the front of his trousers. As his erection sprang free, he seized her thighs and spread her legs wide. Emma glanced down at his hard, thick shaft, and melted, all her juices gathering at her hot core, ready to ease his entry.
He drove into her with one sure thrust, a motion so powerful it rocked her back on her feet and made the door rattle on its hinges. They moaned as one.
She flung her arms around his neck, inhaling his familiar manly scent, running her tongue along the side of his neck. She loved the taste of this man so. He lifted her, grabbing the back of her knees and wrapping her legs around his hips. She clasped her ankles at his back, holding him closer. His hands gripped her backside, pressing her into him.
Still joined to her, he sidestepped to the chaise longue, and lowered her onto the quilted satin upholstery, following her down. The sofa's mahogany legs thumped against the carpet as he pumped into her, increasing his rhythm, drawing cry after cry from her, each stroke bringing her closer and closer to heaven itself.
"Emma. Emma, I love you more than life."
His words transported her. She dug her nails into his back, opening her eyes to gaze up at his beloved face, slick with a sheen of sweat, taut with passion. She loved his weight on her, loved the feel of his body, the rasp of his laboring breaths. One last thrust, so powerful that she shattered, convulsing around him as he throbbed, hot, hard and pulsing, pouring himself into her, quaking in release. He roared her name.
She heard a world-thundering crash. And Adam collapsed on top of her.
When Emma drifted back to earth, it occurred to her that she was far lower than she ought to be, sprawled half-on, half-off the couch, with the ceiling tilted at a peculiar angle above her. She stroked her husband's muscled back. He lay at an odd angle, his long legs flung off to one side. Her fingers sifted through the damp hair on the nape of his neck, until his breathing evened.
After a while, Adam lifted his head and grinned at her, his bemused expression a mixture of sheepish chagrin and triumphant masculine pride.
"What?"
"We've broken the chaise," he informed her.
That explained the crack and their curious position. She peered over the edge of the divan, examining the delicate curved legs, now splintered and horribly askew.
"We have, have we?"
"Do you mind very much, Em?"
"Definitely well worth it."
Adam tugged her tighter to his chest and rolled her onto the Aubusson rug as they both howled with wild laughter.
"I dare say we have given the servants something interesting to gossip about, Riverton."
"Let everyone talk. I'm top over tail for my wife and I don't care who knows it. Indeed, I may not be truly satisfied until we've demolished every stick of furniture in this house!"
Emma smiled secretly, thinking of the many wings and rooms they had not yet fully...explored...and all the fine pieces that filled each one. "It will take us lifetimes to get through them all."
"Then by all means, my darling, let us begin!"
About the Author
Taryn Kincaid started writing as soon as she could and never stopped. Sometimes she has been lucky enough to get paid for it. As an award-winning reporter and columnist, she covered everything from fires and homicides, to corrupt politicians and hero dogs. And also the fun-and-fluff stuff. Not usually a bit like TV. Nowadays, she haunts courthouses. That's not usually a bit like TV, either. Taryn reads and writes all genres. She is a member of RWA, Hudson Valley RWA and RWA's Beau Monde, and Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal chapters. She is the author of Healing Hearts, a Regency novella, and Sleepy Hollow Dreams, an erotic paranormal. Taryn is addicted to the blogosphere. And Twitter.
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ISBN: 978-1-4268-9127-4
Copyright © 2011 by Terri Hall
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