Miss Darling's Indecent Offer Page 3

  That set her to laughing and coughing. “Oh, Jack! No one would believe that!”

  He lifted one long brow at her. “You are an innocent, aren’t you? Of this escapade, I think the ton will have a merry dance for months. Then when you divorce me, it will revive once more.

  And on until you open your home for ragamuffins. Once more society will chew me over for abducting you.” He examined her now from lips to eyes to hair and back again. “They will never forgive me.”

  “I will always praise you.”

  He chucked her under her chin. “Darling Emma, your word won’t count. The ton will label you a ruined woman who will say anything to make her way in the world.”

  “Jack, I promise you. For what service you do me here, I will daily proclaim your honor.”

  He smiled, sad and mellow. “If you are to have your way, I will dishonor you.”

  She tipped her head, aware of his word play. “You have your way with me as I have asked and we both shall be content.”

  “Do you think so? Tell me. The first man you cared for, what happened to him?”

  “He died in Spain with Wellesley.”

  “I see. Hideous place. My brother Wes was horribly wounded at Talavera last year. He survives well though. Did your young man not wish to marry you before he left?”

  “He did.” Emma pressed her lips together and glanced at her hand held by his. “I regret I did not run away with him. Daniel forbade the match. It was the first indication of how conniving my stepfather could be.”

  “And Trayne? Has he said that he will accept only a virgin?”

  She rolled a shoulder and felt the heat rise in her cheeks. “He asked me in front of Daniel if I was still untouched.”

  “Bastard.”

  “I told him the truth. I see now I should not have.”

  Jack brushed her strawberry ringlets back from her cheek and pressed her closer. “No matter now.”

  “So you will have me?” Her pulse leapt at the joy and she glanced up at him. “Teach me?”

  Jack considered her lips, full and smooth. “Have you, yes. Teach you, why? You have no plans to take another, do you?”

  “No!” She was outraged that he would think her so forward. “Not at all. But I have heard our maids tittering in the downstairs parlor about their…”

  “Affairs? Encounters?”

  “Yes, quite right. And they seem to think it all great fun.” She knew she was running on at the mouth about all this but she had to know. “Is it? Great fun?”

  “It can be. It should be.”

  “Will ours be?”

  He examined her soft grey eyes for a small eternity. “I will ensure it will be.”

  “Oh, thank you. I am delighted. If I cannot marry, I want to experience this for once in my life.” With you and no other. For one night, if no more. “I can be content and have all I require.”

  “Really?” He picked up an errant wisp of her hair and twirled it about his finger. His gaze met hers and locked. “Do you not require love in your life?”

  “I will have it from children who give love freely. Unendingly.”

  For some odd reason, he blinked. He turned his face quickly toward the window.

  He was…undone?

  “What did I say to upset you?”

  He snorted. “You are damnably persistent.”

  “Yes. A trait Daniel wishes to disabuse me of. I will not change. I would not have survived if I succumbed to all who–”

  “Dear Emma,” he said as he turned to consider her face, “keep your determination, but do not use it against me.”

  “Tell me how I unnerved you,” she insisted.

  He smiled but the expression never traveled to his eyes. “A small thing. Your reference to how children love. Well and without censure. So should we all, eh?”

  “Yes, Jack. So should we all.” And I am now bound to see why you believe it possible for children and acceptable for your brothers and sister, but not for yourself.

  Chapter Three

  Jack sat in the gentlemen’s waiting room of the newest Durham dress shop, tapping his hat against his knee. The place was a tiny establishment run by a woman who claimed to be a French comtesse before fear of Madame Guillotine had sent her scampering to English shores and the town of Durham.

  Why the hell did women’s clothes require forever to sew?

  He sighed and stood. They had to get over to the vicar, who was a peevish man, punctual to the second. Curse him. Why couldn’t I have a cleric in my patronage who is late as hell, like the one near Wes’s and Lacy’s hunting lodge?

  Jack took to pacing the store, the bolts of fabric appealing to his senses.

  “Monsieur Le Vicomte!” Madame Duhamel swept from her dressing room in a cloud of gray silk and too much rose perfume. “Your lady will emerge in a moment. She is very lovely.

  Cuts a good figure, as you say here.”

  Jack chuckled. A good figure for your services, too, I imagine. “I am eager to see her. What keeps her?” She had no case of nerves when we arrived but was bubbling at the very idea of her marriage.

  “She is eager to please you, Monsieur.”

  She has. She does. “She will do it better if she appears promptly,” he said, directing his words toward the dressing room.

  “I’m coming, Jack!” Emma called to him from the curtained rooms in the back.

  He was eager to have done with this ceremony. There was so much to do in London for Emma, yet caring for her clothes and comfort was necessary. Caring for her reputation had become even more important to him. To that end, before he’d hired a travelling coach four days ago in London, he’d penned a note to his younger brother Adam that he was leaving for his Durham estate for a week or more. He did not reveal the reason, lest Adam storm over to Grosvenor Square in shock at the news of his pending marriage. Then, too, he’d rejected Emma’s suggestion of Gretna Green in favour of the more legitimate ceremony by his vicar’s hand. Jack needed to marry Emma as quickly as possible, as lawful as possible, then return to London to right other wrongs against this charming woman. That he also contemplated the consummation of his marriage to her with a yearning he’d not known for any woman made him testy.

  How to please a virgin, old man?

  Absurd quandary for a man who has bedded— let’s be honest—too many women.

  Absurd quandary for a man who has never wished to marry any woman, but now cannot wait to claim this one.

  He spun and touched another roll of cloth. “Tell me about this velvet, Madame.” His fingers sank into the deep pile of forest green velvet and imagined it against the swell of Emma’s breasts. If they were as pert and full as they seemed beneath that awful muslin she had worn to waylay him, then she was a rare find, indeed.

  “Silk from Lucca, Monsieur. You like it?” Her French accent tore his attention from his future wife’s assets and made him wince at the destruction of his native tongue.

  “I do. We will also need a chamber robe for the Viscountess.”

  “But of course! I have a wonderful length of mink that would look superb at the bodice.”

  She ran her fingertips down her own to illustrate.

  “No,” he shot back, thinking of the purity of his future wife’s complexion. “I want the contrast of the green against her skin.”

  “I see,” the woman demurred as he moved toward a table of sheer chiffons. “And shall Madame have a gown for her boudoir?”

  “Of course.” She could not sleep for months in the nude. Could she? “This one.” He pointed to the pale pink. “And this.” The ivory.

  “The style, Monsieur?”

  He caught her eye and her meaning. Lascivious in her query, she covered her innuendo with a deft smile as he replied, “She is my bride. Yes. You may say so in the village. So do give her the newest style, Madame Duhamel. And send along with the other items, a long night rail of brushed cotton, too.”

  The woman bowed her head. “Of course. May I suggest thre
e more items?”

  He nodded, his eyes on her gaunt eagle’s face.

  “Slippers to match the robe. Kid walking shoes to match her new coat. And an evening gown,” she suggested as she lifted a long bolt of embossed sapphire satin, “the color on your family crest. For dinner parties. A low décolleté, don’t you think?”

  Jack could already see Emma in the regal blue. How she would walk, how she would dance in the sinuous fabric. Knew as well which necklace to give her to accent the gown and her firm, young breasts. “Done!”

  “Jack? You are buying me more?”

  He turned. My God. His gaze ran down her form. In plum georgette, Emma Darling appealed to every sense he had. For the eye, the classic Greek elegance of a strawberry blonde with flawless creamy skin, her face framed by the en Coeur neckline. For the nose, the fragrance of jasmine. For the hands, the tautness of her shoulders, the point of her breasts, the curve of her hips, all to be adored with reverent touch.

  “You are lovely, darling Emma.” He made a motion for her to whirl about. “Let me see how I shall be beggared. Delightful. And the new cloak for the lady, Madame Duhamel?”

  “Finished tomorrow, my lord. We will sew all night, I promise you. I will deliver it myself to Durham Manor. For today, I give her my own cloak to borrow. The chill demands she have good wool.”

  “Indeed. I am grateful for your foresight,” he praised the woman but could not take his gaze from his bride–to–be.

  Emma ran her palms over the fabric of her dress, smiling like a child at her birthday party and beaming with more good health than the past few days.

  The fact that she had stopping sneezing and wheezing, despite a red nose, pleased him.

  But the fact that he was eager as hell to have this ceremony displeased him. A confirmed bachelor, he marveled that he harbored a growing desire for her. Usually lust hit him quickly and hard. Here, though he knew her for only four days, he felt inspired moment to moment by her lack of artifice and lured by her resilience. Her effervescence. He’d not known women without wiles. He marveled at her forthrightness. And her courage.

  For the first time in his life, he felt refreshed to match her in those qualities. Noble, even, to try. He patted the ring in his frockcoat pocket. By God, you will proceed to this wedding, man.

  “Come, Emma. We must be off.”

  Emma glided forward and took his offered hand. “The rest of my wardrobe?” She asked of Madame.

  “In three days’ time. We will work night and day.”

  Emma grinned at the dressmaker. “Wonderful. Thank you very much.”

  When they were in his barouche with his Durham Manor coachman at the reigns, Jack pulled her close as was now he now wont to do as they travelled. Emma nestled against him like a delicate bird, then stretched up to kiss his cheek. “You are generous, Jack. I did not expect it.”

  “Necessity, Emma. We cannot have you naked for three months.” Though that’s not a bad idea.

  She squeezed his hand, then glanced out the window. “Does it hurt?”

  “What?”

  She tipped her head this way and that. “To be bedded?”

  Her thoughts travelled to the bedroom as well? How intriguing. Gratifying, too. He caught her chin and led her to look up at him. “By some, I am sure. You will feel nothing but pleasure, I do hope.”

  “How is that accomplished?”

  He chuckled, a pang of desire growing in his cock. “Inquisitive chit. Never fear. I will show you!”

  She grinned. “I am eager for it.”

  Bless me, if that’s true. “Outlandish woman. You try me.”

  “How so?”

  “You are forward.”

  “And in the bedroom? Does a lady not ask her husband for affection?”

  “Never having been married, I cannot say.”

  “But you have had mistresses. Has none ever asked you to kiss her…or…do other things?”

  Some have been very forward. Asked for attentions I had no desire to bestow. He glanced away, wondering now here in Emma’s presence why he had ever been attracted to any of his paramours. All had been lovely. None had been as interesting as this woman next to him. Was that because none had ever survived a test of will like this one? “Of course.”

  “Why should a wife be different?” she persisted.

  “Wives are generally not lovers,” he told her.

  “Sad. Is there some rule prohibiting that?”

  I fervently hope not! He shook his head and laughed at himself. “None I know of. Merely convention and the need to marry for anything but love.”

  “Ah.” She thought a long minute. “So have you ever been in love?”

  “No.”

  The curtness and finality of his reply had her lifting her brows at him in question. “How can that be for a man of your age?”

  “My dear, I am not in my dotage.” He was miffed by her assumption and frowned.

  “Still….” Her eyebrows danced in merriment. “Most men are married by your age.

  Especially those of your rank. They want a wife and an heir and a spare.”

  “I have no need to get any. I have two younger brothers, both married. Adam has two sons, and Wes’s wife will bear a child in the summer.”

  “You have avoided marriage,” she concluded with finality to her tone.

  “It is easy to avoid the dice tables if one is objective about the real prospects.”

  “I see,” she said, crossing her arms and frowning in consideration of that statement. “You credit the family curse with this reluctance, I imagine?”

  He nodded. Always a good excuse when one is not amused. “It helps.”

  She sighed. “I am glad then I will not be considered a true wife.”

  A shroud of sadness fell over him. Why should that insult his pride? Why should that inspire a desire to be a true husband? He scowled.

  “You are angry with me,” she offered minutes later as intrusion to the pall of silence. “I am most grateful for what you are doing for me. The elopement. The marriage. The gowns. Jack, please look at me.”

  Her warm appeal, so earnest in her apology, made him appraise her lovely face.

  “I am sorry,” she repeated. “I will be quiet as a mouse and agreeable as a parson.”

  “Will you?” he asked, partly to be contrary and partly to prod her. “What if I like you as you are?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Assertive and charming.”

  She tipped her head in question. “Thank you for the compliment.”

  “You are welcome. Now do me one favor.”

  Relief drifted down her delicate features and her gaze reveled in his. “Anything.”

  “Show me how grateful you are.” Where the deuce did that idea come from?

  “I…am…not certain what you mean.”

  “What do you think a man means when he says that to the woman who is about to become his wife?”

  Her doe’s eyes widened in understanding as they examined his features. “Perhaps he means this,” she whispered as she braced herself against his chest, lifted her face and put her soft lips to his.

  Her touch was light, brief.

  He moved not one muscle.

  She withdrew. Only an inch.

  Her gaze found his and lingered.

  His own focused on her mouth.

  “Or this.” She strained toward him once more, this time placing her lips on his in a harder, longer caress.

  He gripped her arms, brought her closer, held her to him like a drowning man clinging to a raft.

  “That,” she murmured as she lifted her warm lips from his, “could be gratitude.” Her gaze locked on his. “Or this might be,” she got out as her lips met his again and this time, covered his in a hunger that astonished him.

  He gathered her up against him, crushing her torso to his. She tasted of need and haste, hot desire fresh on her lips.

  He scooped her up to sit across his lap. This way, he could plunge his fing
ers into her hair, plunder her supple mouth and feel the glory of those pointed breasts against his chest.

  “This isn’t gratitude, Jack.” She broke away, her eyes wide with shock and delight. She came back for more of his mouth, slanting her lips across his one way and the other, inciting him onward.

  He growled, plunging his tongue inside the warmth of her mouth. Christ, she was soft and pliant. He leaned over her, a palm to her breast. Her nipple grew firm and full, blossoming beneath the new gown. He kissed her chin, her throat and worked his way down her bodice to the tip of her pointed areola, hard as a diamond under her gown. There, he sucked her into his mouth, felt her gasp and press closer in offering to him.

  “Milord!” His coachman’s voice permeated Jack’s euphoria. “Milord, we’re ‘ere. The vicar is coming out to greet the carriage, sir!”

  “Ouff!” Emma exclaimed as Jack picked her up by the waist and plunked her onto the seat, then pulled Madame Duhamel’s cloak across the wet spot on her bodice.

  “Come, my dear.” He yanked at his own great coat to cover his raging erection in his infernally snug breeches. Then he smiled at her. “We are about to be married.”

  “And you will kiss me again,” she declared on a thread of sound, a dazed expression in her eyes.

  Oh, he was going to do more than kiss her. “Yes, darling Emma. When you are mine.” I am going to feast on you.

  * * * *

  The young vicar was a tiny rabbit of a man. Shorter than she by four or more inches with long ears, huge eyes and a nervous tick to his pointed nose that interrupted the flow of the service so that Emma wanted to giggle like a girl.

  But, ahem, she straightened herself up time and again while she watched Jack do the same. He took to tugging at her hand to keep her in line, as the two of them each recited their vows.

  As the vicar approached the end of the ceremony, Emma felt herself nearly swoon with delight. To be married was one thing. To be married and out of Daniel’s clutches was much more.

  But suddenly to find herself amused and enthralled by the man she had chosen, the most unlikely man, a rake of the first order, was astonishingly good luck. Jack Stanhope. She must pinch herself when she had the chance. But then, she had other ideas in store for what to do after this horrendously long ritual was complete. In Jack’s bedroom in Durham Manor, she would revel in what she thought never possible for her. And to do it in the arms of a man whom she had met only days ago, but whom she enjoyed and yes, even trusted, she filled with expectation.