Page 8 of Dukes Do It Better
Lady Emma offered a tinkling laugh, sounding nothing like how he remembered. “Apologies for my less than ladylike tendencies, Captain. Or should I say Your Grace?” She waved him toward the space beside her on the gold silk sofa.
Thrusting the bouquet of flowers at her made him feel like a young lad charming a maid with a fistful of daisies, but she took the flowers with a smile wide enough to make the corners of her dark eyes crinkle.
“Thank you. These are lovely,” she said, setting them aside.
Their shoulders nearly touched when he sat, balancing his hat on his knee. The edge of her gown—a cobalt blue thing, trimmed in simple but no-doubt expensive lace—was trapped under his thigh. Flashes of memory coursed through his limbs, as he remembered what it had been like to have the entire woman under him, and not just the edge of her dress. Damn, he was staring at the sliver of fabric peeking from under his leg. Malachi cleared his throat and shifted, but didn’t free the gown.
An enameled clock on the mantel chimed the quarter hour in the silence as he tugged off his gloves and searched for the conversational thread. She’d asked about his name. Specifically, the title. A reminder that while they shared a past, they weren’t in a coaching inn on the edge of England anymore. This was London, and she wasn’t merely a merry widow who’d turned his head.
But then, he wasn’t merely a sailor either.
And they were sitting in her brother’s drawing room. Bollocks. Not an ideal place to bring up their history and ask for more time with her. But when would he have another opportunity to speak freely without an audience? Besides, if she turned him down flat, there would be no one to witness it.
“Would you prefer formality in London?” he asked, not sure what to expect from her in this environment. Emma seemed different here. More uptight, refined. She—the woman who’d used the word fuck in bed—had apologized for her mild language, for God’s sake.
Emma tilted her head toward him conspiratorially, and he caught a whiff of her vanilla scent. “I suppose it would be disingenuous to stand on formality at this point.” The dark brown of her eyes warmed and a charming blush covered her cheeks. “I, ah, didn’t expect to see you in London, Malachi. I thought you were at sea, occasionally visiting ports to drink vodka with Russians.”
A sigh rumbled out of him, infused with dramatic flair to break the tension between them. “I miss vodka. You can’t get decent vodka in London.” Icy cold, followed by a fiery burn to warm a fellow from the inside out, a good Russian vodka would change a man’s standards for alcohol forever. And God knew after the newest developments in his situation with his mother and the Admiralty, a frigid slide of vodka would be just the thing.
The rustle of fabric as she shifted in her seat brought him back from his musings. Beneath his thigh, the fabric of her gown was tugged but didn’t break free of the weight of his leg, which made him perversely happy.
Dancing around a topic had never been his style, so he asked what was on his mind in plain terms. “Is it uncomfortable to see me now? Are you regretting our night?”
Emma had been boisterous, warm, and flirtatious back in the village. This woman, with her perfectly coiffed hair and fine gown, wasn’t the same one who’d laughed aloud and shimmered with a fine sheen of sweat as she raucously joined in a reel across the floor.
“Our encounter in Olread Cove was…”
He waited, but she didn’t seem inclined to finish the sentence. The heat of her so close to him sent tingles of awareness up his leg as if his skin could feel the silky smoothness of her gown beneath him.
The gold and yellow furnishings in the room seemed designed to complement her elegance and coloring. Like living inside a Fabergé egg. The perfection of it all made him want to muss her a bit. See if that passionate woman who laughed a little too loud was still in there somewhere behind the polished exterior.
Malachi crossed one ankle over his knee and teased, “Exciting? Enticing? Entertaining? Enthralling? Erotic? Our encounter in the village was erotic as hell.”
So erotic she’d haunted him for months. The ink on the lease to his new house was still wet, but his bedchamber was now miles away from his family home and, more importantly, his mother. Malachi finally had the privacy to pursue more than a single night with Emma.
Either Emma was open to an affair, and he could burn this attraction out of his system, or she would reject him, and he could cling to that instead of her sweet kiss goodbye, and the memory of watching her get dressed in the faint morning light.
A blush spread across her chest as she met his eyes with the boldness he remembered. “It was erotic.”
“I’m happy to see you again, Emma. Even if it is a surprise.”
“A pleasant surprise, milord.” With one finger, light as a feather, she traced the line where her skirt disappeared under his thigh and sent him a sly smile.
Mal hoped the smile was intended to be encouragement, because that’s how he was taking it. “If you’re amenable to the idea, perhaps we could see more of each other while we’re in London.” He shifted slightly, canting his body toward hers to rest an arm across the back of the sofa. For a moment, he lost his point when her tongue darted out to wet her bottom lip. Sweet heaven, he missed those lips. In October, she’d tasted like wine and happiness and passion, and he wondered if this polished version of her would taste the same.
“Let me make my intentions clear. I want you in my bed again,” he said, voice rough.
“We agreed to one night.” Negating her own words, Emma reached out and smoothed her fingertips down his bearded cheek. Neither rejection, nor agreement.
“And it was spectacular.” He turned to kiss her palm. Her breath caught, making him smile. Yes, that crackle of interest they’d experienced to explosive consequences at the assembly room ball was alive and well. What a relief to know she felt it too.
Heat sparked in her eyes. “I’ve thought about you,” she confessed.
“I’ve thought of you often.” An understatement. He’d thought of her lips and the husky laugh he’d teased out of her, more times than he could count. Those memories kept him warm on frigid nights bobbing in the Baltic. The journal he’d found had entertained his brain, but mental images of Emma brought him to pleasure, alone in his cabin, so often his fantasies always began now with dark eyes and gold hair.
“How long are you in London?” she asked.
Malachi sighed, some of the budding arousal leaching from him at the question. “I’d love to know the answer to that as well. A few weeks, probably. My mother bewitched someone in the Admiralty and pulled me home, but I’m handling it.”
