Page 81 of Dukes Do It Better
A warm glow had entirely replaced the dread she’d felt earlier. “Were you like that?” she asked.
He was quiet a moment. “No. But George was. I’m glad he had a good childhood. I ran off to the Royal Navy as soon as I could. When I didn’t return after my first voyage, my father promised to buy me a commission once I was of age. He kept the promise, but he never stayed entirely out of my career afterward. The commission came with strings. Puppet strings.”
“I’m sorry.” The mood in the room had shifted to something less teasing and more pensive. “What will you do after the court-martial?”
“I’m still weighing my options.” Mal returned his empty cup to the tray. “No matter what, I’ll likely resign my commission. The estates will demand all of my time if I don’t delegate, but the dukedom is a responsibility, not a joy. Once I have trusted agents in place, I might buy a ship of my own. Sail where I want, when I want. It all depends.”
“On what?”
“On you and Alton.”
* * *
Emma watched through the narrow crack between her door and the frame as Mal disappeared into the bedroom she’d assigned him. When he closed his door without looking back, she wilted against the wall, then shoved her door shut.
The room was as she’d left it, with the exception of the dirty clothes from earlier, which Polly had taken to launder. A collection of personal items littered the top of her dressing table. A holey stocking draped half in the sewing basket, awaiting her attention. The bed seemed bigger than normal. Emptier.
Ignoring the thought, Emma crossed to the window and flicked aside the curtain. Outside, the moon reflected off waves rolling like ink spilling from a bottle against the coastline. Near the horizon, a boat was visible only by its tiny flickering light. On the boat, it was probably a massive oil lantern, illuminating the deck and surrounding water. But up here, snug in her house, it was no bigger than a wink of flame.
Perspective. Emma turned from the window and shed her dress, following her nighttime routine as she always did before bed. Yet even as she brushed her hair, washed, and donned a night rail, part of her was attuned to sounds from across the hall.
The muffled thud of a boot falling to the floor. The thump of what she assumed was a traveling trunk. No matter how hard she strained, Emma couldn’t hear the bed creaking, or anything else to enflame her senses, yet knowing he was there, close, and shedding clothes was enough to make her pace the length of her room.
Feelings were tricky things, yet the angst of earlier in the day had fled. Somehow, she was confident that no matter what sins she confessed to, Mal would not condemn her. Was it possible his love for her was the kind that Cal and Phee shared? An affection and passion rooted in friendship?
Lord help her, but he seemed to actually like her. The real her. The at-home Olread Cove version of her, and not the facade she put on when out in public. Even at the assembly rooms, there’d been a certain amount of society manners at play. Yet Mal hadn’t blinked amid the little-boy jokes at dinner, the baby goats on the furniture, or even her cook taking him to task over wiping his feet. He fit her life here as well as he’d fit in London, and it was both exhilarating and terrifying. Not only that, but he’d made it clear that his future plans were on hold for her and Alton. Someone being willing to change their entire life trajectory for you was no insignificant thing.
Emma sank onto the bed.
The house grew still with the kind of silence found only at night in the country. The chirp of insects played their own lullaby, but she couldn’t get comfortable. Restlessness wiggled under her skin, creating shivers and twitches in her limbs that prevented her from settling in.
After a while, the nerves won and she threw back the covers and slipped from her room. Navigating the halls by memory, she found the kitchen, then brought a glass of milk back to her bedroom.
And paced. Sipping the milk was soothing, and after a while, the rhythmic creak of the floorboards was its own kind of balm. A thought had occurred to her in the kitchen, and now that she was upstairs again, it was hard not to consider it.
She knew her body. This restlessness wasn’t unfamiliar. Frankly, she should have predicted it, with Mal in the house being sweet and charming and heart-shatteringly attractive all evening. Damn the man, she’d asked for time, and he was giving her time. Which meant she hadn’t even been offered a kiss good night.
Roger was tucked away in the same drawer as always. The smooth wood felt like ceramic under her hand, long and cylindrically phallic. After an orgasm or two, her body would sleep without issue. Years of living with this restless ache had taught her what worked and what didn’t. She shot a look at the door. No doubt her houseguest was sleeping peacefully across the hall.
The bed shifted under her weight as she crawled atop the covers with Roger in hand. A tingle of anticipation threaded through her veins, and she ignored the fact that Mal was a few walls and doors away. Her night rail would only get in the way, so she removed it, flinging the garment toward the end of the mattress, without a care about where it landed.
With a contented sigh, she settled onto the pillow. Light from the lantern shone pink through her eyelids and she cracked one eye open. Blast, she’d forgotten to extinguish it. Oh well. She’d do it later. There were more pressing demands on her time right then. She smiled and closed her eyes again.
In her mind, she let herself drift as one hand caressed the sensitive side of her neck, across her collarbone, then down to the valley between her breasts. Mal had followed that path so many times. The skin warmed at the memory. A familiar fantasy began to play in her mind like an erotic theater act. The sun was a heated bath on her skin, as she lounged under the blue sky, with blades of grass tickling her through a colorful blanket. Her lover smiled wickedly, with his pale hazel eyes and—no. Not hazel. Blue. A blue-eyed lover would do fine, thank you.
A blue-eyed lover inched her skirts up her calves and over her knees, moaning in anticipation when the fabric pooled down her thighs and settled at her hips, leaving her most intimate parts open to his gaze. On the bed, Emma raised and spread her knees slightly, while one hand played with a nipple, exactly like she did on the imaginary blanket under the summer sky.
The man with the blue eyes raised one bisected brow in a smile that sent her pulse racing, then lowered his face between her legs.
Emma squeezed her eyes tight, as if she could reset the image in her mind. Fine, her brain wanted Mal. Her body wanted Mal. And yes, her heart was leaning in that direction too, but she wouldn’t do anything so silly as walk across the hall and tell him at almost midnight.
Light hazel eyes, then. And a scarred brow, and a wicked mouth she knew so well. The scene coalesced, and she sighed, sinking into sensation. A hand stroked lightly over her breast, then pinched a nipple hard enough to send a spike of sensation straight to her core. The other hand traced the edge of her lower lips, then dipped in, seeking her own heat. A slick greeting welcomed her fingers, as she ran a finger up and down the imitate folds the way Mal’s tongue had the last time they’d been in bed together.
Letting her imagination run wild, rubbing circles around her clitoris and slicking her fingers into her, in her mind, Mal’s tongue lapped her up. A breeze from the open window tightened her nipples into tight nubs under the plucking motion of her fingers. A soft moan escaped through her parted lips.
Roger nudged at her entrance, and Emma was on the cusp of inserting the length of wood into herself when the door opened.
Chapter Twenty-Two
