She skipped over the details of the encounter. "We were caught together, which was humiliating enough. Then he refused to marry me--which was devastating. Apparently there'd been some family understanding that he would wed a distant cousin."
"To the Devil with any cousin. Someone should have brought the knave up to scratch."
"There was no one to try it. I hadn't any brothers to defend my honor, and my father . . . My father didn't even attempt to force his hand. He blamed me for everything. What treatment did I expect, he asked, going about in a harlot-red dress. He called me a strumpet, a jezebel, said he didn't blame the young man for refusing. He told me no decent man would ever want me, and that I was to leave his house at once and not bother coming back."
Even six years later, the pain felt as fresh as if it were yesterday. She'd known society would judge her harshly for her mistake, but her own father . . . ? Giles had disappointed and misused her, but Father was the man who'd broken her heart.
This was why she had to help Davina Palmer. She would never allow another young woman to face that sort of rejection and abandonment. Not if she could help it.
She swallowed back the bitter lump in her throat. "It was winter and snowing. I hadn't much money. So I walked to London."
"And you arrived with nine toes."
She nodded.
"And every so often, you still shiver."
She nodded again.
He was silent for several moments, and when he spoke his voice was low and stern. "Emma, you should have told me this."
Chapter Eighteen
You should have told me this.
Emma's heartbeat faltered. Guilt moved through her like a cold wind. She reached for one of the quilts. "You didn't ask about my virtue. But you're right, I should have told you anyway."
Not every man would condemn her for such an indiscretion, perhaps--but a titled gentleman would have genuine, understandable concern. Laws of primogeniture and all. If he was angry with her, she couldn't blame him.
Perhaps her father was right, and he'd believe he'd been sold a bill of damaged goods.
"It was ages ago," she assured him. "And I didn't conceive, thank heaven. You needn't worry. Your bloodline is secure."
He cursed. "Really, Emma. That thought hadn't crossed my mind."
"Then . . . what thoughts are crossing it?"
"A great many." He rolled onto his back and folded his hands behind his head. "Primarily, I'm debating how best to kill both this squire's son and your father. A pistol would be the most efficient method perhaps, but will it be too quick to be satisfying? And I'm wondering if I'll have time to off both of them in one night, or if I'll be forced to stop over in some miserable inn."
She couldn't help but laugh a little.
"I'm not joking," he said.
"Of course you are. You're the Monster of Mayfair, not the Murderer."
"You are my wife. Some villain took advantage of you."
"I wasn't your wife then, and he didn't take advantage. I made my own choice. It may have been a poor choice, but it was mine. Besides, even if you desired to kill him, the war beat you to it."
He cursed under his breath. "There's still your father. He treated you abominably. Pestilent codpiece."
Emma had to hide her face, lest he see how close she was to tears. She'd never been able to shake the feeling that perhaps her father had been right. That it was her fault--not entirely, but in part. Perhaps she had been a shameless hussy for seeking passion and love. At the least, she'd been a fool.
For that reason, she'd long resolved to keep emotions out of any relationship. However, it was growing more and more difficult to keep that resolution--not merely by the day, but by the hour. She was feeling too much tenderness toward the man currently plotting murder at her side. No matter that he deflected any suggestion of decency with a jaded, biting humor and had determined to convince the world of his monstrous nature.
Emma knew the truth. He wasn't a saint, and he wasn't easy to live with. But he did possess a heart--a large and loyal one--and some part of it was now committed to defending her. How could she fail to be moved?
"Come." He tucked her beneath a heap of bed linens. "Will four quilts do tonight? Or should I fetch another?"
"Four quilts are fine, thank you. Can you . . . I'm feeling a bit fragile right now. It would mean a great deal if you'd hold me. You know, with your arms."
Brilliant, Emma. As if he might have tried to hold her with his knees or eyelids without those instructions.
After a brief hesitation, he slid beneath the four quilts and draped his arm about her shoulders. He was growing very good at these things. Just as she had in the dark at Swanlea, she felt secure and protected. Safe.
She'd almost drifted into a warm, comforted sleep--
When he slipped from the bed and left the room.
It was well after midnight when Ash reached the village.
He slowed his horse to a walk as he approached the borders of the sleepy hamlet, then roped it to a tree branch beside a stream. The gelding deserved a rest, along with water and a graze. And for his part, Ash needed to make a stealthy approach.
It proved easy enough to find the right house--the smug cottage sitting next to the church. Just looking at it made him furious. The white boxes beneath the windows, stuffed with innocent red and pink geraniums. Botanical lies, every last one.
He found a place where a stone fence bordered the house and used it to hoist himself up on the ledge, just below the largest window. The one that looked out on the church.
He was prepared to put a wrapped fist through the window, but he found it was unnecessary. Apparently no one latched their windows in a goodly little village like this.
He lifted the window sash, then thrust his lantern through the opening. Bending himself nearly double, he managed to work one leg through, and then the other. Not the most graceful of entrances, but then--suaveness wasn't his purpose tonight.
"Who are you?" An old man shot up in bed and pressed his back to the headboard. "What are you?"
"What do you think?" Ashbury raised his lantern to the gnarled, scarred side of his face and took pleasure in the vicar's anguished whimper. "A demon come to drag you to Hell, you miserable wretch."
"To Hell? M-me?"
"Yes, you. You crusty botch of nature. You poisonous bunch-backed toad. Sitting in this weaselly little house full to reeking with betrayal and . . ." He waved at the nearest shelf. "And ghastly curtains."
"What's wrong with the curtains?"
"Everything!" he roared.
The old bastard drew the covers up to his chin and began to weep.
Excellent.
"Never mind the curtains, you milk-livered, flap-mouthed dotard." He loomed over the bed. "There aren't any windows in Hell."
"No. No, this can't be."
Ash stepped back at once. "Oh, it can't? Perhaps I have the wrong house." He drew a scrap of something from his pocket and peered down at it. "Vicarage . . . Buggerton, Hertfordshire . . ."
"This is Bellington."
Ash straightened the paper and made a show of peering at it. "Yes, you're right. Bellington, Hertfordshire. Reverend George Gladstone. That's not you?"
The old man moaned. "It's me."
"Thank Pluto." He crumpled the paper and cast it to the floor. "Such a nuisance when I cock these things up. It's a devil of a delay when there's so much to be done. Once you arrive in the eternal furnace, there are sinful debts to be settled. 'Hell to pay' is not merely a saying. Then there are the endless papers to be signed and filed."
"Papers to be filed?"
"Naturally there are papers. It should surprise no one to learn that Hell is a vast, inefficient bureaucracy."
"I suppose not," the old man said meekly.
"Now where was I? Oh, yes." He lifted the lantern and made his voice an unholy crescendo. "Prepare for eternal hellfire!"
"B-but I'm a vicar! I have been a faithful servant of the Lord."
"Liar!"
The clergyman quivered. A dark puddle seeped across the dimly lit bed linens, and one sniff told Ashbury what it was. The craven piece of filth had pissed the bed.
"You are the veriest varlet that ever took to the pulpit. Doesn't your Holy Bible have something to say about forgiveness?"
The man cowered in silence.
"No, truly. I'm asking. Doesn't it? I'm a demon, I don't read the thing."
"Y-yes, of course. The gospel is a story of grace and redemption."
Ash stepped toward the foot of the bed, until he loomed over the shrinking reverend, and lifted the lantern high. "Then why, you rank, miserable, piss-soaked serpent, did you fail to offer that grace to your own daughter?"
"Emma?"
"Yes, Emma." His heart wrenched when he spoke her name, and his voice shook with fury. "Your own flesh and blood. Wasn't she worthy of this forgiveness you preach?"
"Forgiveness requires penitence. She was warned. Given every explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted in her sinful behavior, and she would not repent of it."
"She was a girl. Vulnerable. Trusting. Afraid. You threw her to the wolves to protect your own selfish, sinful pride. And you call yourself a man of God. You are nothing but a charlatan."
"Tell me what I can do to atone. I'll do anything. Anything."
"There is nothing you can say. No excuse you can make."
Ash drew a slow, deep breath. If he were here to satisfy his own wishes, he would have happily killed the old fellow here and now. Dispatched him to Hell in truth. But he hadn't come all this way to take his own bloody revenge.
He was here for Emma.
Because she'd touched him, kissed him, made him feel human and wanted and whole. Because her disgusting coward of a father had hurt her so deeply, she still didn't trust her own heart.
Because he was probably halfway in love with her--and wasn't that the Devil's bollocks.
For her sake, he would confine his vengeance to methods involving fewer sharp objects and entrails. He would let the man keep his life. But Ash would do his worst to make certain he didn't enjoy it.
"What day is this?" Ash demanded.
"Th-Thursday."
He shook his head. "I'll be damned."
"But . . . aren't you damned already?"
"Silence!" he boomed.
The man jumped in his skin.
"I have the day wrong. You've a reprieve. A brief reprieve."
"A reprieve?" He cast his eyes to the ceiling. "Thank you, Lord."
"Don't thank the Lord. You should be grateful to me."
"Yes. Yes, of course."
"Know this, you mammering canker-blossom." Ash skirted the bed in ominous steps. "We will meet again. You will not know the year, nor the day, nor the hour. In the cold of every night, you will feel the flames licking at your heels. Your daily porridge will taste of sulfur. With every breath, every step, every heartbeat in the remainder of your miserable, lumpish life . . . you will quiver with unrelenting fear."
He went to the window and prepared to climb through it, disappearing into the night. "Because I will come for you. And when I do, there will be no escape."
Chapter Nineteen
Why, you little thief.
Though Ash had to admit--as thieves went, this was a deuced pretty one.
His morning had been filled with dreary correspondence. Once he'd sent off a contract to the solicitors for yet another revision, Ash had gone in search of luncheon. Then he'd returned to his library--only to find his wife ransacking his bookshelves.
Apparently the volume in her hands was sufficiently absorbing that she hadn't noticed his presence. As he stood in the doorway watching, she tucked a stray wisp of dark hair behind her ear. Then she licked her fingertip and turned the page.
His knees buckled. In his mind, he scrambled to piece that half second into a lasting memory. The crook of her slender finger. The red pout of her lips. That fleeting, erotic glimpse of pink.
She did it again.
Ash gripped the doorjamb so hard, his knuckles lost sensation.
He wanted her to read the whole cursed book while he watched.
He wanted the book to have a thousand pages.
She closed the volume and added it to a growing stack on the chair. Then, turning her back to him, she stretched on tiptoe to reach for another. Her heels popped out of her slippers, revealing the arches of her feet and those indescribably arousing white stockings.
God's blood. A man could only take so much.
"Don't move."
She froze. Her arm remained lifted; her hand was still poised to take a green volume from its shelf. "I only wanted a book."
"Don't," he repeated, "move."
"A novel, poetry. Something to pass the time. I thought perhaps I'd even try some Shakespeare. I didn't mean to disturb--"
"Stay. Just. As. You. Are." He approached her in slow, deliberate paces--one step for each low, deliberate word. "Not one finger. Not one toe. Not one tiny freckle on your arse."
"I don't have freckles on my . . . Do I?"
He didn't stop until he stood directly behind her. He reached to cover her raised hand. With a flex of his fingers, he tipped the green book into place.
"I'll leave you to your work." She moved to lower her hand.
He pinned her wrist to the shelf. "Not just yet."
She sucked in her breath. He knew her well enough to recognize that sound. It wasn't fear, but excitement.
Good. Very good.
"Do you know," he said in an idle tone, stroking his thumb along her delicate wrist, "I've been thinking."
"That sounds ominous."
"Oh, it is." With his free hand, he cupped the swell of her breast, stroking her softness through the muslin. "The object of this marriage is to get you with child."
"Yes." Her voice was drowsy. "I seem to recall that was our bargain."
Her head tilted to the side, and he ran his tongue along the elongated slope of her neck. She tasted both tart and sweet. Delicious.
"So if we do this twice a day," he murmured, "that would make our objective twice as likely."
"I . . . I suppose it would."
"No supposing about it." He tweaked her nipple. "It's simple mathematics."
After a pause, he heard a little smile in her voice. "Is it, my fawn?"
Saucy, impudent wench.
The race was on. She helped him hike her skirts to her waist. He stroked the seam of her cleft, tracing it until he found that essential spot at the apex. She gasped with pleasure, gripped the bookshelf with both hands. He couldn't unbutton his falls fast enough.
After what seemed an epoch of fumbling with garments, they finally pressed flesh to flesh. His hard, aching need against her wet, ready heat.
"Now?" He growled the word.
Her reply was breathless. "Yes."
Yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
The dalliance in the library was the first of many daytime trysts. Now that Ash knew her to be game for unconventional bedsport, his imagination knew no bounds. His stamina was nowhere near depleted, either. Making love unclothed in full daylight still felt like too great a risk. When they were that close, that intimate . . . he hated the idea of pity intruding into moments when he ought to be strong. He worried that if she touched him, he might snap back.
And there was always the other risk: Repulsing her completely.
How could I bear to lie with . . . with that?
No, he couldn't chance it. However, with a willing, adventurous partner, there were ways around the hurdle. Pleasure needn't be confined to fumbling nighttime encounters.
Emma did not object, he found, to being bent over the nearest sturdy piece of furniture. The billiard table made for one particularly enjoyable liaison. He pulled her into shadowy alcoves and deep closets and took her propped against the wall in the hot, musky dark. They discovered all manner of accoutrements--cravats, sashes, handkerchiefs--could be pressed into service as blindfolds.
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No matter what he suggested, she never told him no.
She always said yes.
She said "yes" and "yes" and "more" and "please."
As always, those little sighs and moans sank straight to his cock, urging him closer to release. But as their passionate afternoons melted into weeks, her words found deeper targets. He even came to adore her endlessly absurd pet names. They pierced through his scar tissue, battered at the bony cage around his heart.
Ash struggled to rebuild that barricade daily.
Don't make too much of her willingness, he scolded himself. She was a passionate woman by nature. No doubt she wanted this child-getting business over and done with, too.
And yet he could not stay away from her, could never satisfy his desire. There was no floor to the chasm inside him. It wasn't only her body he craved, it was closeness. Acceptance. The feeling of being wanted, and never turned away.
Yes.
She always said yes.
Until the night she didn't.
One evening, Emma failed to appear for dinner. Her maid delivered a message to the table. Ash sipped a brandy as he unfolded and read the note written in his wife's hand.
She was indisposed, it read, and she suspected a few days' time would pass before she felt fully restored. With apologies, she could not welcome his visits at present.
Well, then. It didn't require much effort to sift through the delicate phrasing. Her monthly courses had arrived. She wasn't pregnant, not yet.
He ought to have been disappointed.
Instead, all he felt was relief.
She wasn't with child. That meant he had another month.
Another month of whisking her into dark spaces, turning her face to the wall, and feeling her teeth scrape the heel of his hand when she came.
Another month of "yes."
Another month of not being alone.
Another month of Emma.
Something in his chest went buoyant with joy.
Ash drained his brandy. Then he propped an elbow on the table and lowered his forehead until it rested against his thumb and forefinger. He massaged the knotted scar on his right cheekbone.
You are a dolt. Ignorant as dirt. This was more than infatuation. He'd allowed a foolish, irrational attachment to develop. Now something must be done about it.
He called for another brandy. And then another. When he'd drained the decanter, he located his cloak and his hat. Then he ventured out into the darkened streets. He'd find some ruffians to menace, or some foxed dandies to scare out of their champagne-polished boots.