Page 9 of A Bride for the Devilish Duke (Marriage by Midnight #2)

CHAPTER NINE

E mma stared at her reflection in the mirror as Elsie brushed her hair. She had bathed in preparation for dinner.

Presently, she sat at her dressing table, clad in a dressing gown, naked beneath. She had thought of the intimacy she shared with Damien during her long soak in the steaming water. She thought of it now—she could not stop thinking of it.

“You seem distracted, my lady,” Elsie noted.

Emma focused. “No, not particularly,” she lied.

Her noirette maid raised an eyebrow. “I have just spent the last hour tying and untying your hair,” she said levelly.

Emma stared at her in the mirror and then burst into laughter.

“You did not!” she exclaimed.

“No, I did not,” Elsie admitted, “but you thought I might have, which is the same difference. Care to share what's on your mind besides the obvious?”

“And what is the obvious?”

“A handsome man with the body of Hercules,” Elsie said, holding Emma's gaze in the mirror.

Emma blushed, watching the color spread to her chest from her neck and face. That made her think of her nakedness, and that, in turn, reminded her of Damien's hands upon her.

“I fear that I have... disgraced myself,” Emma murmured.

Elsie's eyes bulged, and she promptly perched on the edge of the dressing table to look at Emma directly.

“Tell all, please do!” she said eagerly.

“Oh, Elsie, I do not know whether to laugh or cry. You know that I have never desired a husband, but I find myself unable to resist this perfect stranger.”

“So, he is perfect, is he?” Elsie gossiped mischievously.

“Yes,” Emma sighed, then remembered herself, “ no . He is a bully. He is far too serious and...”

“A good kisser?”

“Yes. No ! Oh, I don't know what to think. I do not want to marry.”

Elsie folded her hands in her lap and put on a thoughtful expression.

“That was not how you felt before... you know... that man.”

She is not speaking of Damien now. She is talking of Sutherland. That day is seared into my memory, and his actions have scarred my mind and body.

“It was not,” Emma sighed.

“When we met at the sanatorium where you came to recover, you were unable to allow a man near you. And now?”

“Now, I have been intimate with the man who wishes to force me to marry him. Does that not make him no better than Sutherland?” Emma murmured.

“I don't know him. But you have said that the Duke wishes to protect you both from scandal and that he does not intend to... take advantage of you. I think that makes him different.”

I cannot feel the scar through my dressing gown, but I know it is there, tainting me. Yet I did feel desired when Damien held me in his arms for the first time since that awful day.

She had allowed him to touch her. Touch her all over, even beneath her clothing. She felt wanton, and that, in turn, aroused her further, bringing back vivid memories of his body and his touch.

“My lady, I can't speak for you, but I don't regret the man I loved and gave myself to the first time. Or the second, for that matter. I don't want to get married just yet. I haven't met the right man. But I have loved it and don't see it as bad. You haven't loved it before. What's so bad about taking a bit of pleasure? He's a well-set-up fellow.”

Emma was scarlet at Elsie's frankness, but that was the precise characteristic that had prompted Emma to ask Elsie to come and work as her ladies’ maid.

“He is intolerable in his attitude. Imagine believing he can claim me as though I am a possession…”

Elsie watched her, and Emma knew she was still blushing. Despite her protestations, Emma's emotions were tangled threads when it came to Damien. The thought of standing naked before him was both intensely exciting and repulsive. The idea of his eyes on her scar, let alone his hands, was enough to make her clutch her dressing gown tightly. But those thoughts had been far from her mind earlier when passion and desire had ruled her.

A knock at the door sounded like the tolling of a bell. Emma jumped, startled from her reverie. It did not sound like the diffident tap that would announce her father. Nor the impatient rap that would mean Charles. Neither Josie nor Rosie would knock, at least not before opening the door.

Emma sprang to her feet and dashed across the room to the door which led to her study. She did not know who was knocking, but instinct drove her to take refuge behind the study door, while Elsie went to answer the knock. From her place behind the door, she pressed an eye to the narrow crack just as Elsie moved to answer it.

Then came a voice—deep, smooth, unmistakably male.

And achingly familiar.

Damien?

Elsie glanced at her. Emma found herself nodding.

“Come in, Your Grace. Lady Emma is in the study but won't open the door; she isn't decent.”

“I only wish to talk,” Damien clarified.

“You may leave us,” Emma called to Elsie from behind the study door.

She heard the bedchamber door close and then the creak of the floorboards as Damien quietly crossed the room. She realized that he would see the clothes laid out for her, including her undergarments, all spread out on the bed, as was Elsie's habit when helping her mistress dress. She drew a shuddering breath at the thought. It felt incredibly intimate.

“Emma.” His voice came from just beyond the door.

She jumped at the proximity; she had not heard him coming so close.

“I see there is no lock on this door,” Damien said after a pause. “Do not worry. I will not try to enter.”

“I do not doubt it.” She raised her voice a little, hoping he could hear the steadiness in it. “You strike me as a man of honor.”

A dry laugh followed, quiet and sharp-edged. “On what grounds? I have done nothing but behave like a bloody cad since the moment I met you.”

“I disagree,” Emma murmured, moving closer to the door.

Her fingertips grazed the wood, and she nearly drew them back when it creaked slightly. As if, on the other side, Damien had done the very same.

She breathlessly wondered if they were touching the same part of the door, their hands separated by a few inches of wood. It would take so little for him to reach her. The door was hardly a fortress.

“I came to apologize. For the times I have been unable to control my baser instincts. It has happened twice now… and it isn’t like me.”

“It isn’t like me, either,” Emma breathed.

His voice was so close now, deeper too, as though his lips rested against the wood. Emma's dressing gown had loosened, wickedly so, the cord coming undone in her haste to reach the study. The thin fabric fell further apart so that her breasts almost touched the door. How far from his hands were those bare bosoms? How far from his lips if the door were not there?

“If this is to work,” he continued, voice taut with restraint and something darker, “we must agree to certain boundaries. I will not be accused of being a ravisher or exploiting you. Do you agree?”

Emma’s lips parted. Her breath shook.

“Yes,” she exhaled, the word slipping out of her like sin.

The rich timbre of his baritone reverberated through her. She had experienced nothing like it before. Her body was pressed against the door now, and her dressing gown slipped from one shoulder. Her cheek lay against the smooth, painted wood, as did her breasts and her hips.

“Are you well?” Damien asked suddenly, “You sound... odd.”

Emma swallowed hard, amazed at the erotic imaginings that were exploding into her mind's eye. She did not want him to stop talking. She did not wish to reply. She wanted to revel in his hoarse voice and recall the feel of his hands on her. She was no better than a harlot in thought. No better than the courtesans whispered about in drawing rooms with disapproving clicks of the tongue.

But in that moment, she could not bring herself to care.

“ I am well ,” she replied, gasping the words.

A pause stretched between them.

“It is far from easy to say these things,” he murmured finally, voice low, frayed at the edges. “Part of me wants to throw open this door and finish what we began. I realize it makes me the lowest, most base creature, but I cannot help it.”

Emma’s breath hitched, her nails curling against the painted wood.

“We are both base creatures then.”

The doorknob turned. It was round and made of smooth brass.

When she saw it move, she panicked and clamped both hands around it, moving so that she could stand over it with all her strength focused on holding it. It turned in her hands, and the cold metal touched her intimately. She bit her lips against an involuntary moan but pressed her hips firmly forward.

But the handle shifted again, slow and insistent, twisting wickedly beneath her palms. Each time, the metal rubbed against her most intimate area. The knowledge that it was Damien controlling the movement of that metal sent Emma wild. She gritted her teeth, feeling such pleasure that she had never experienced before. She raised herself onto her tiptoes, her thighs tensing urgently, squeezing tightly together.

And then—it stopped.

Silence. A floorboard creaked. He was stepping away.

“Don't stop!” she cried hoarsely.

Her eyes went wide with horror as she realized that she had spoken the words aloud that were far better kept within her head. She clapped both hands over her mouth.

The doorknob twisted again, fully this time, and the door cracked open. Emma flung herself against it before Damien could see through. She slid one arm through the gap, palm out to hold him off, to keep him from seeing her like this.

Damien said nothing.

The door opened no further, but she felt a gentle hand take hers. Her knees trembled and then melted as she felt soft lips against her palm. Then the inside of her wrist, then her forearm.

She wilted against the door, gasping as Damien's lips came closer. When he reached her shoulder, how would she stop him from pushing aside the door and seeing everything?

Except… he would see the scar. See her shame…

“Elsie!” she cried out, “come in please!”

The kisses stopped, and Emma felt her arm released when she heard the door of her bedroom open.

“Thank you for speaking to me, Lady Emma,” Damien choked out as formally as he could, retreating across the room by the sound of the footsteps. “I shall see you at dinner.”

Then, the antechamber door shut, and Emma slid down the study door to the floor.