Page 17 of If I Loved You
Alice raised her shoulders. “There could be. I’ll be all right.”
“Alice,” Mrs. Smythe cried, “ye must come with us.”
“You have always been fair to me, the both of you,” Alice said, looking suddenly, uncharacteristically sheepish, “but I think it’s time I moved on. I want—need—something other than a cottage in the dead of the country.” With what appeared to be a false bravado, she added, “I’ve been thinking for some time now to be heading to London anyhow. What family I do have, they’re all there.”
Emma saw that Mrs. Smythe’s bottom lip hung open. Mr. Smythe only nodded, saying nothing. Langdon was still staring at Emma.
Emma tried to think of something else to say to Alice to change her mind. But Mrs. Smythe spoke first.
“If yer sure, dear...?”
Alice nodded, trying to smile to back up her words. But to Emma, she only looked guarded and somehow peeved.
“Miss,” Peter prompted again from the doorway. He seemed unperturbed, perhaps only uninterested in the scene he’d witnessed, but eager to be on his way.
Emma nodded, and retrieved Bethany from Mrs. Smythe. “I must go. I’ll return, or send word, once we’re settled at the house. Hopefully, it will be soon.” She quickly kissed Mrs. Smythe and called goodbye to all. She stopped once more in front of Alice. “Be safe, Alice. Come back if you need to.”
Alice nodded again. “Goodbye.”
Chapter Eight
SOME PART OF HER—THEpart that wasn’t hounded by so much intrigue over the earl—was happy to be informed that he was gone to London for the day, and would she mind taking her supper in her rooms. This suited Emma perfectly, as she had yet to find ease with the sometimes practice of handing the child off to a servant while she’d partaken of meals with the earl in the dining room.
Later that night, she tucked Bethany into her crib just as a wild summer storm began to kick up. Fortunately, Bethany had fallen asleep before the thunder began to sound in earnest. Emma stayed inside the nursery for quite a while, making sure she wasn’t wakened and frightened by the storm. When the rains seemed to be moving away, and the thunder and lightning began to fade, Emma finally sought her own bed. She had no difficulty falling asleep herself, as she found herself of late to be rather emotionally exhausted by day’s end.
She woke to the sound of a huge crack of thunder pealing across the night sky. She leapt from the bed, imagining that if this round of thunder and lightning had woken her, it might frighten Bethany as well. But she heard no crying as she quietly walked through the connecting door to the nursery, which she always left open. Stepping within the room, she stopped suddenly upon finding the earl already there.
Her heart beat faster at just the sight of him. Dressed only in his black trousers, he must have heard Bethany wake whilst in the midst of preparing for bed. His back was to Emma, and Bethany’s sleepy head was just visible over the top of his shoulder.He was soothing Bethany with a soft hum and a slight, fluid rocking motion.
Emma could only stare, half aghast at this picture—at the very fact that he seemed so tenderhearted as to be found rocking a frightened child to sleep—and half breathless as she hungrily absorbed the sight of his naked back and arms. The Earl of Lindsey boasted a magnificent figure; in the dim light, afforded by the open door to the connecting room she’d not yet dared to explore, he was a bronzed god of sinewy muscle; shadows danced merrily over this contour and that hollow of his skin; the very size and chiseled purpose of his arms alone brought her hand to her chest, as if that might still the rising rate of her heart. True it was that Emma had labored many years at an inn, but she had never seen a nearly naked man before, and still, somehow, she was quite sure that none could rival the form of this man.
Lightning streaked just as he moved to lay a sleeping Bethany down, and the noise paused him for a moment. He waited until he was certain she remained asleep and then did stretch his magnificent form over the edge of the baby’s crib. Skin and muscle moved in conjunction with his reach, shapes appeared and disappeared, arms flexed and tightened.
Emma sighed just as he righted himself again, which did not go unnoticed; he turned rather sharply, affording her a fine view of his bare chest and lean abdomen. A sparse matting of hair was centered directly below his jaw, beginning at his chest and thinning to one straight line which stretched low and dipped beneath his trousers. His nipples, bare as a newborn come into the world, were dark and small, but peaked enticingly. The very shape of his chest was foreign to her, being that his was squarish while hers was round, his being firm while hers was soft.
She knew he watched her gawking at him but could not seem to move her eyes away from his person, being as entranced as she was. Only when he strode to her, Emma vaguely noticing the long and lean bare feet upon the carpet, did she finally look into his eyes. He kept coming though, seething, it appeared, breathing heavily through his nose. Without stopping, he grabbed her arm in a near-bruising grip, turned her around, and dragged her back into her own chambers. Dark eyes on her, he closed the door to the nursery almost completely with one hand, still holding her with the other.
Neither had yet to say a word, Emma having been rendered speechless while under the profound influence of his glorious form. When she spun around, and they faced each other so closely, she still could neither manage words nor take her eyes from his chest. A rare boldness, called forth by the intoxicating sight of him raised her free hand and set it on his chest. Slender fingers grazed the short, wiry hair of his chest, short tapered nails found the heated skin there. He drew a deep breath at her tentative foray. This drew her eyes to his, reading him, trying to interpret that feral gleam.
And then reality, and embarrassment, flooded her. Yanking her hand away, she curled her fingers into her palm just as he said, “Don’t stop.”
Emma shook her head, mortified, even more so as she was quite sure she discerned a lazy smile in his tone.
A taproom jade, indeed! She’d just unknowingly vindicated him of any outrage she might have felt or sustained from the kiss he’d taken from her only days ago. Closing her eyes against a shame that, while powerful, was unlikely to aid her in undoing the last few moments and her unseemly behavior.
She pulled at the hand he still held and pivoted. But he would not allow her to turn away from him.
She couldn’t—wouldn’t—look at him now. She heard his heavy breathing, felt the stiffness come to him with her actions. And reactions. She swallowed hard, and shook her head again, lest he think to pursue this madness further.
“I don’t know why I—” Staring at the huge and rumpled bed, she was only peripherally aware of his nod, controlled, silent. He glared at her a moment more. He wanted to say something, she knew, but he did not. Finally, he released her hand, turned on his heel and left her room, slipping through the nursery door the way he had come.
THE NEXT MORNING, EMMAapproached the earl in the breakfast room, her cheeks unpleasantly flushed, her lips dry with distaste, and her stomach filled with dread. She’d mumbled through some atrocious apology, excuses such as “I haven’t a notion what I was thinking...I was imbued with sleep yet,” and, “You so caught me by surprise...having no shirt...” coming not so pluckily as she’d have liked them to. He’d lifted his head from his morning paper, considering her with a mute starkness about him that frightened her yet more. When he’d made no immediate response, even as his gaze had seemed to soften, Emma had flown from the room, nearly in tears, heedless of his eventual call for her to return.
She had avoided him for the next several days, quite sure that mortification alone might send her to an early grave. Never in her life had she behaved so wantonly as she had that eve withhim. To her own self, she admitted that never before had she reason to be so tempted into shamelessness. She constantly chided herself, since then, that his figure alone should not have sent her into such depravity, and that his supreme gentleness and regard for Bethany was hisonlysaving grace. Considering the man as a whole, Emma determined that he’d been rude and oppressive and autocratic since the very moment they had met. She wasn’t so naïve as to not understand what he thought of her. And now her own actions supported his belief!
Three days after what Emma now privately referred to asHer Inglorious and Reckless Blunder, the earl came upon her and Bethany taking a stroll, off the terrace and around the well-manicured grounds of Benedict House.
As his stride was quite purposeful across the trim and tidy lawns, Emma was immediately sent into a dither, gathering Bethany into her arms, turning slightly so that the wind stopped blowing the frill of her pretty bonnet into her face.
