Page 34 of Never a Bride
She slowly lifted her head and smiled at him, a womanly smile full of promise and passion. Alex told himself she was unaware of what she was doing, but she might as well have kicked him in the stomach, for the effect was just as profound.
He watched the slide of her hair along her arms and neck as she slowly let her head fall back again.
She licked her lips and spoke. “I still remember your tongue on my hand.”
He stared at her and his voice became hoarse. “What are you talking about?”
“That night—in the stables. Your tongue touched my palm when I was trying to keep you quiet.”
“I remember.”
“I would have thought such a thing to be loathsome.”
“Was it?”
She laughed. “Not at all.”
“Might I do it again?” he asked softly, seeing Kent Hall slide ever closer and wishing he could stop time. “I long to taste other parts of you, as well.”
She looked wide-eyed at him and he could see a shiver move through her. She made him feel so unlike himself. Where was his easy control?
The wherry bumped against the stairs leading up to Kent Hall. Emmeline was the first to look away, and as she stood up, almost capsized them. Alex grasped her waist. Her hands dropped to his shoulders and they stared at one another a moment too long. When he let his thumbs rub across her stomach, she leaned over him, her hair a curtain about them. Would she actually kiss him? But her eyes went wide and she broke away to climb out of the boat.
“Thank you,” she called over her shoulder as she disappeared up into the garden.
Alex dropped his head to his chest, then gripped the oars and rowed as fast as he could away from Emmeline Prescott.
Chapter 11
Alex thought for certain that Emmeline was cured of her curiosity, but he was mistaken. When he took in a play at the Curtain with a young woman, he frequently escorted, there was Emmeline in the balcony across the theater, her narrow-eyed gaze taking in everything he did.
Alex only smiled at her, bowed his head, and then threw an arm about his companion. Emmeline nodded back in challenge, then left, as if him seeing her was all that mattered.
What was her game?
Even an afternoon spent fencing with Edmund at the queen’s tiltyard could not keep him free of Emmeline. He felt her gaze before he saw her. He parried Edmund’s blade aside, then shielded his eyes as he searched the balconies at Whitehall. He saw her then, standing alone at a railing just above, watching him. He swept his hand before him and bowed low.
Was that a glimpse of a smile? What did she hope to achieve by following him?
But still she didn’t go away, so he turned back to Edmund and gave her the show he was capable of. Edmund stumbled back a few paces, eyes wide. He glanced between Alex and Emmeline speculatively, then brought his sword up and attacked. Steel met steel and rang repeatedly through the tiltyard. Soon Alex’s breathing became labored, and his arm felt afire. He had never beaten Edmund before, for Edmund had raised himself up from poverty through mercenary work, and his body was massive because of it. Alex was good enough to survive a duel, but Edmund was good enough to survive a war.
Inside Alex’s focused mind he and Edmund were youths again. Edmund had been the best friend of his childhood, a poor laundrywoman’s boy who’d never shown fear of his masters, only belligerence and stubbornness. After a fight, the two had become fast friends, and as they’d aged, Alex had insisted Edmund be his squire, instead of the noble boy who fostered with the Thorntons. Side by side they’d learned and trained, until Edmund had left to make his own way in the world.
Suddenly with Emmeline watching, Alex was determined to hold his own.
And Edmund knew it. With a grin, he increased the tempo, increased the power of his sword thrust. From somewhere Alex thought he heard the sounds of men cheering, the call of bets.
Emmeline gripped the balustrade so hard that the stone scraped her palms. The skill and grace Alex displayed were mesmerizing. She could tell that Edmund would soon triumph by sheer size alone, but Alex was crafty and intelligent, as she already knew.
With a sudden flurry of motion, Alex drove hard at Edmund, who stumbled back and tripped. As he landed on his backside, Alex knocked his sword away, threw back his head, and laughed.
Then he turned and looked up at her, as did all the soldiers in the tiltyard. She was on display, conspicuous beneath the glare of the sun. But it didn’t seem to matter. All she could do was stare at Alex, who wore a sleeveless leather jerkin that bared muscular arms the likes of which she’d never seen displayed. She’d been held tightly in those arms, pressed against that body he now used like a weapon. She felt overheated and overwrought, and very aware that he was a man and she a woman, because his eyes told her so.
Suddenly he dropped the sword and came toward the palace.
With a gasp, Emmeline drew back from the edge of the balcony and fumbled for the door handle. She knew he was coming to her.
All week she’d followed him, taking notes on his behavior, telling herself she would use it all against him somehow. Yet she’d said nothing to her sister so far, even as she’d watched Blythe open Alex’s letters, or set his gifts next to all the others she’d been sent by various admirers.
