“Then make me forget the anger,” he said. “And make love to me.” He stood very still, looking down at her, and his intensity had narrowed. The brilliance of his eyes was now heavy hooded, the muscles of his face tense, and the long scar down his left cheek seemed deeper, tighter, sinister, catching the flicker of the one remaining candle across the room. He said nothing more, but waited, watching.
With one hesitant fingertip she reached up and touched the tiny scars across his body where on their wedding night the flames had pricked and spat and marked him forever. Up his forearms, where the dark hair was sparse, there were a hundred memories of old fire. “So many wounds,” she said. “Did the fire hurt you again today? I see no new marks.”
Then he took both her hands in his, and brought them down to his groin. “Today I helped save others, and suffered nothing. Now it’s myself I intend to save, but you must help me, my love, as I’ve taught you before, until the anger is all forgotten.”
He brought her fingers to the closing of his codpiece, pulling at the hidden tie through its tiny eyelets which held the stiffened cup to the opening of the hose. Emeline took a deep breath and began very slowly and carefully to pull out the thin ribbon. Then she untied the band of his braies from around his waist, and even more slowly pulled his hose down over his belly and hips, smoothing downwards over the muscled curves of his thighs, the knees, the long slim swell of his calves, and finally, bending almost to the floorboards, she took them off over his feet. The braies and the hose and the codpiece fell away together, leaving him naked in his own shadows.
He stood easy, waiting a moment. But as she hesitated, he shook his head and pulled her close, lifting her a little, his hands beneath her arms, and pushed her back against the wall. She felt the hard cold planks behind her and shivered. “Cold?” He pressed against her and instead of the cold behind her, she felt the strength of him and the urgency. “Open to me then. I’ll warm you.”
She whispered, “I can’t move.”
“I move. Not you. Now open your legs.”
He held her firm, her toes not touching the floor. “Don’t let me fall.”
“Fall?” he smiled, but all she saw was the sudden glitter of blue sparkle in his eyes. “Tonight you’ll go where I put you and do what I tell you. I won’t let you fall, and in a moment I’ll carry you to bed. But first do as I say. Now open your thighs.” She leaned her head against his shoulder, and did as he told her. He nodded. “Now reach down, take me, and put me inside you.”
He had made love to her like this before. Their unions had been few enough and she remembered each one. Now once again she felt the tingle thread through her body, like the ties of his codpiece through its eyelets. She shivered again, though no longer from the cold, as her fingers crawled down across the taut muscles of his belly to the thick hair at his groin. “Further,” he demanded. “You can hardly miss me, my love.”
She did not miss, wrapping her fingers around him and guiding him between her legs. As she brought him close, he pushed immediately, battering his entrance. She squeaked, and he grinned, pushing again. Then balancing her against the wall, he hoisted her higher and with both hands beneath her buttocks, lifted and carried her, still inside as if speared, and brought her to the bed. Without releasing her, he laid her down on the mattress, his own weight on top. He quickly forced deeper within and she grunted, catching her breath.
“I said I wouldn’t hurt you. Tell me if I do.”
She whispered, “Not hurting. But unexpected.”
He chuckled and pushed again. “Then squeeze tighter. Push up against me.”
“I can’t. I’m crushed.”
“Poor love,” he laughed at her, wedging himself up on his elbows. “Now push.”
As she raised her hips, he forced in deeper, his hands beneath her and keeping her tight. When he stopped suddenly, unable to wait, she felt the pulse of him growing inside, the shuddering climax, and the explosion of silent energy. He made no sound except the hoarse release of breath, but it seemed a long time before his hands relaxed, his body calmed and he lay still against her.
Eventually he lay back, rolled her over away from him and tucked himself behind her, her buttocks to his groin and his knees beneath hers. Then he wrapped his arms around her, one hand to her breasts, and spoke softly into the back of her ear. She had thought to sleep, warm snuggled and feeling loved, and his sudden words surprised and alarmed her. “So, my Emma,” he murmured, his voice sounding drowsy but his words were somehow harsh. “What did you do – ever – with Peter? Tell me.”
Now she opened her eyes with a jolt. “So you’re still really angry.”
He still held her tight back against him. “No, not angry. If I was angry, I’d not dare to ask you. I’d not risk your answer. I’m merely curious. He told me, you see, being a bastard and a liar, what you were like. What he taught you to do, and what you wanted him to do. What you said. How you moved. He was wrong in almost everything. But I have wondered, sometimes, because of your passion for him back then, if something occurred between you after all.”
“He never even kissed me.” She pulled away, with the first tinge of her own anger only just controlled. “He played the gentleman. Oh, I thought myself in love. I was a fool. But I wouldn’t ever have let him touch me. How could you – ever – think it?”
He tugged her back, almost roughly, one arm again across her breasts, the other around her hips. “Sometimes,” he said softly, “when I make love to you, Peter’s words echo in my head. Thoughts slip sweat fuelled between us. It’s as if he’s still fucking as both.”
“That’s horrible.” She wriggled around to face him but he held here firm, keeping her in his embrace.
His voice buzzed against the back of her neck. “Yes, absurd, and the absurdity is mine. Nor should I tell you, but it’s tiresome, keeping those goading whispers out of my head. They come back when I least need interruption.”
She bent down and kissed his hand, still clasped tight on her breast. “I hate even the memory of Peter. Why think of him now?”
His voice had grown softer, kinder, as his fingers traced between her breasts. “I missed you, little one, while I was away. More than I’d expected. Then the race to find you and the danger of the pestilence. Threat and loss are good lessons. But what I’ve now found in loving you, I don’t intend to lose. Especially not to Peter.”
“I thought it was Adrian you were angry with?”
“I let my father think the best of Peter. My cousins too. Other family friends, I didn’t care. It even served my purpose at the time. But you, little one, I’d like to keep free of him.” Nicholas kissed the back of her ear, and she felt the warmth of his breath. “Adrian doesn’t know me, and that was my intention. I learned as a child to keep my thoughts to myself. But now I find that perhaps Adrian has done the same. I know nothing of his secrets.”
“Like poor Sissy. Her secrets were the worst of all. And she still forgives Peter.” Emeline sighed. “It makes me angry, thinking what he might have done to me, just as he did to her.”
There was a pause. “Sissy?”
“Perhaps you don’t know.”
“I don’t know.” He sat up abruptly, pulling Emeline up with him so they both sat back against the pillows, his arm around her shoulder, her face nestled to the curve of his neck. “She was an infant, and still is. She thought herself in love with him. What more?”
Emeline paused, wondering who deserved her loyalty. Then briskly and quickly she decided. “I don’t know who else knows. Obviously your father doesn’t. I don’t think Adrian does. But your Aunt Elizabeth knows, and of course Peter did. Now Avice and Maman do.” She drew a deep breath and spoke fast. “So you should know as well. That Sissy was carting his child, and he arranged for her to have an abortion in some squalid little alley in London away from prying eyes.”