The Naked Marquis. Sally MacKenzieЧитать онлайн книгу.
Charles had been serious about his marriage proposal, he must be congratulating himself now that she had declined his offer. She was turning into a shocking shrew.
If only Mrs. Graham would move back to where she had come from. If only things could be normal again.
She looked over at Charles. He raised an eyebrow.
“Is the danger past?”
“What danger?” Emma frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve been sitting there growling and flexing your hands. I feared you might explode at any moment.”
“I was not growling. How absurd!”
“You were.”
“I was not. I don’t even know how to growl.”
“Well, it sounded like growling to me. Would you like to tell me what the problem is?”
“No.” Emma pressed her lips together. “There is no problem.”
Charles sighed. “I imagine it has something to do with Mrs. Graham, but frankly, I can’t fathom what it could be. She seemed like a perfectly normal, respectable lady to me.”
“Well, she’s not!” Emma grabbed Charles’s arm and shook it. “She is shameless. Brazen.”
“Mrs. Graham?”
“Yes.”
They rode in silence for a few moments. Emma tried to get control of her temper. She was shaking inside.
“All right, Emma, I give up. The thought of Mrs. Graham as brazen boggles my mind. I know it is indelicate to ask, but I’m asking anyway—what did she do?”
“I found her in the study kissing my father.” Emma could see the scene as clearly as if it had just happened, yet it had been two months since she had walked in to talk to her father and found him sitting on the settee with Mrs. Graham. Emma always made a point of knocking now.
“And…?”
She looked at Charles. He raised his eyebrows.
“What to you mean, ‘and’?”
“And what else? You saw your father kissing Mrs. Graham, and…?”
“Isn’t that enough? And I didn’t actually see him kissing her, but it was quite clear that is what he’d been doing. Her hair was disordered and the neck of her dress was loose.”
“I see. So they were expressing affection for each other. Perhaps strong affection. It has been—what?—seventeen years since your mother died?”
“I don’t know what difference that makes.”
“Has there been a procession of ‘Mrs. Grahams’?”
“Of course not. My father is a man of God.”
“Precisely. So perhaps he is ready to take a wife again and has found he cares for Mrs. Graham.”
“He is too old to marry.” Emma dug her fingers into Charles’s arm. The thought of Mrs. Graham moving into the vicarage in truth…It had always been just her father and Meg and she. No one else. That was the way it was supposed to be.
“Sweetheart,” he said, taking the reins in one hand and gently loosening her fingers, “your father cannot be very much more than fifty. He is not too old.”
“But I don’t want a mother.”
“And I’m sure Mrs. Graham knows that. You are twenty-six and Meg is seventeen. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that you will both be married before the year is out—at least, I hope you will be. To me. Your father will then be all alone. You should be happy that he has found Mrs. Graham.”
Emma dropped her hold on Charles’s arm. She’d known he wouldn’t understand. How could he? He was a man, after all.
“I’m not getting married.”
He smiled, turning his attention back to the horses. “Perhaps not. That is your choice. You must allow your father the same freedom.”
“But you don’t understand. He’s my father. He has a duty to his family.”
“He’s a man, too, sweetheart.”
Emma looked down at her hands. “I thought he loved me and Meg. Why does he need her?”
“It’s a different kind of love, Emma. Have you no understanding of a man’s needs? Of a man’s wants?”
Emma shook her head. What could possibly be more important to a man than his children? She had tried so hard to keep the house as it should be, to be a mother to Meg. What had she done wrong? What was lacking?
“No,” she said, “I don’t. I don’t understand at all.”
“Then, my love, permit me to show you.”
CHAPTER 3
This kiss was different. The first one had been a light brush, cool and dry. This was hot and wet. Charles’s mouth slanted over hers; his tongue traced the seam of her lips. She gasped and he slipped inside.
Who would have thought such a thing possible? She had certainly never conceived of the idea. She should be disgusted—but she was not. Not in the least.
There were so many sensations. The fullness of his tongue in her mouth. The slight friction as he swept through her. The shifting pressure of his lips. The smell of his shaving soap and skin.
His tongue withdrew and she whimpered. He surged back into her and she moaned. She grabbed his arm again so she wouldn’t fall out of the curricle.
Lud. Her body throbbed in places she blushed to consider. Her heart pounded. When Charles finally, gently, let her go, she shuddered and blinked up at him. His magical lips were smiling, but there was a hunger, a blue flame in his eyes—a flame that must reflect the fire running everywhere under her skin.
Is this what she had seen on the Knightsdale terrace so many years ago? Surely not. The woman would have spontaneously combusted, just as Emma was certain she would at any moment.
“What did you just do to me?”
“Not everything I’d like to, sweetheart.”
Emma looked delightfully dazed. He felt rather dazed himself. If his horses hadn’t protested the long inaction, he wasn’t certain when he would have stopped. And he definitely had to stop. An open carriage on a public road was not the place to initiate a virgin into the joys of lovemaking.
“Sweetheart, next time we do this, it will not be in a curricle with two prime bits of blood threatening to bolt.”
“Next time? There will be a next time?”
“Oh, definitely. As soon as I can manage it.”
“My lord!” Her brain must have finally emerged from its sexual stupor. A hot flush turned her cheeks a very becoming pink. She straightened her spectacles. “I am certain this is most improper.”
“Most, I’m sure.” He grinned. “But oh, so delightful.”
She turned to face squarely forward. “I believe we should be returning to Knightsdale.”
Charles obligingly gave his horses their office to start. “Don’t you think you should call me Charles now, love? The ‘my lording’ seems a trifle disingenuous. We have just been somewhat intimate, after all.”
“I’m certain we have not.”
“No? Well, what would you call it? I did have my tong—”
“My lord!”
“If you do not wish me to describe in detail everything we just did, I think you’d better call me Charles. Not that I would