Page 38 of If I Loved You
And then his hand, still holding hers, yanked her toward him, and with such might that she all but crashed into his chest. Only her free hand, lifted and pressed between them, saved her from actually colliding with him. She opened her mouth to protest this savage treatment, but found her words swallowed by his kiss.
He crushed his mouth to hers, over hers, releasing her hand now to wrap her up in his arms, his hold strong, his kisspunishing. Emma whimpered under his lips, which instantly diminished the severity of his embrace, though he did not abandon the kiss. His hands splayed across her back, one reached up to the bare skin above the back of her gown, his fingers leaving prickling flames in their wake. His mouth glided over hers, his tongue was thrust between her lips. She moaned again, but not in fear. Her fingers clung to the thin lapels of his jacket, her face was lifted to him, her tongue met his and a heat began to build in the pit of her belly. Awkwardly, knowing only what his previous kiss had taught her, Emma pushed her hands up his jacket, over his broad shoulders, and into the hair at his nape. She slanted her head, giving him better access, returning his kiss with equal fervor, while pressing herself against the hard length of him. He kissed and licked and teased and savored, and she could do no more than follow his lead, happy to go wherever he might take her.
One of his hands left her back, slid around the front, between their bodies, and cupped the full weight of her breast at the exact moment that Emma was aware of his growing erection, pressing just below her belly.
Awareness gripped her. She lowered her hands and used all her wobbly strength to push him away. Gasping, she touched her fingers to her swollen lips and stared at him. He was breathing heavily, and that scowl was still in place, or was returned.
And finally, Emma thought she understood. The scowls and darkened looks were not particularly portraying anger at her. She had to truly consider that all those times she’d caught him staring so feverishly, so frighteningly at her, he was only besieged by this need. To kiss her. Were they not scowls at all, but only the earl fighting himself, trying not to kiss her? Dear Lord, that suggestedso many occasions of an internal battle, waged with himself, to...not kiss her? Could this be true?
But why would he not want to kiss her? She knew her own practical and cautious reasons for hoping he did not kiss her, even as so many parts of her wished that he would. But what might his reasons be for not allowing himself to kiss her?
Her own response—dear God, his kisses were dangerous!—was another baffling thing altogether.
Lady M’s earlier words, her warnings uttered inside her fine carriage trilled in Emma’s mind just now.He is toying with you, nothing more.
She took out her frustration on him, the annoyance of not really knowing what was happening between them, the fear that Lady M had simply told the truth. In a ragged whisper, she insisted, “You need to make up your mind what it is you’re doing with me, or what you think of me, or what....You cannot one day tell me I look ravishing and then kiss me. But manage to look as if you don’t want to kiss me. And then act like nothing had happened. And then so wonderfully dance a waltz with me and now scold me for only speaking to a man and then...and then kiss me again even as you look as if you cannot stand the sight of me. I don’t understand this behavior. Do you? Do you even understand what you’re about? What motivates your kisses and your surliness and your sometimes very pleasant treatment of me?
He stared at her hard. Finally, when she thought he might make some apology to her, he spoke, but his words only left her more befuddled.
“Are the kisses in any way related to thesometimes very pleasant treatment?”
It was perfect, actually, his flippant response. Perhaps she’d only just this evening, in the midst of that kiss and the immediate aftermath, convinced herself that he might have genuine and serious interest in her; maybe he, too, was plagued by thoughts of her, as she was so bloody often about him; maybe his wanting to kiss her was rooted in true affection; maybe this would not be her one and only visit to London, maybe she would be on his arm again.
Reality crashed, with his words, and just in time.
How ridiculous I am. I am falling in love with him, and I remain only a passing fancy to him, still the chambermaid from Hertfordshire that may or may not have been his father’s mistress.
So the part of him that wrestled so often, trying not to kiss her—if she now understood everything accurately—was only whatever small amount of honor he did possess that would refuse him the opportunity to ruin her? Perhaps—and what did she know, really?—his baser self was attracted to the chambermaid, but his righteous self would not condone acting upon it, taking up with so low a creature.
It didn’t matter. From the day she’d met him, they’d rather been at odds. It was wisest and safest that it remain that way.
“I will, for the remainder of the evening, comport myself with greater restraint,” she told him, mentally shaking herself free of his hold, though he touched her not at all just now. Giving him what she truly hoped was a disdainful scowl, she turned on her heel and left him.
She did not seek out Lady M, but found a quiet place upstairs, a room removed from the ballroom. The music room, she surmised easily, as a grand piano sat in one corner of the redpapered room, and close to that, sat a tall and golden harpsicord, whose strings she idly plucked as she passed.
“Ah, a melancholy note, if ever I heard one.”
Emma jumped, yanking both her hands to her chest, and turned to find an elderly man sitting by himself upon an oversized red striped settee.
“I’m so sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t realize the room was occupied.”
The man lifted tired green eyes to her, under thick brows that likely showed more hair than the top of his head, though above and around his ears, wiry gray hair was combed fashionably forward, toward his cheeks.
“Do not apologize, my dear,” he said kindly.
“Are you all right, sir?” She wondered and stepped much closer, concerned as he seemed to be listing to the left.
At her voiced worry, he straightened himself. “Oh, I’m just fine. Biding time until we might go home.” He put his arm upon the roll arm of the settee and propped his chin in his hand.
“May I?” Emma asked, and sat in the middle of the settee when he nodded and smiled at her. “Who might you be waiting for? Who is the other part ofwe?”
“My son,” he said, his tone suggesting he’d been waiting for a while.
“Have you eaten? I can fetch you—”
He lifted a wrinkled hand and fluttered his fingers. “You are kindness itself, my dear, but I am not very hungry.”
Emma thought to ask, “Do you mind the company, or shall I leave you alone?”
