Healing Hearts (3 page)

“I am going to kiss you now, Miss Whiteside.”

She gazed back at him, one brow lifted elegantly in challenge. Aside from the anxious flutter of her long lashes, she did not show her nervousness. Nor did she pull away.

Adam brushed his lips against hers with gentle grace, the exact opposite of what he wished to do. Ah, but she was sweet. So very sweet. Emma’s eyes drifted closed and he deepened the kiss. She responded with a little sigh, circling her arms around his neck and tugging him closer. He wanted to savor every moment of the kiss and make it last as long as he was able, but the innocence of her velvet lips and the feel of her young body curved against the hard ache of his arousal pushed the limits of his self-control. His passion flared hotter. He crushed her against him and plunged his tongue into her mouth.

She emitted a mewling little squeak he did not know how to translate. He broke off the kiss.

“Too much?”

At first she did not reply. Then, a whisper. “No.”

“Show me what you want, poppet,” he growled into her ear.

His use of the old nickname drew a swift reaction. She stiffened, shoving against him to stare into his eyes, her own uncertain.

“Don’t be frightened, Emma.”

“I am not frightened. I am…confused.”

He would have to decipher those turbulent feelings for her, Adam decided.

But before he could put any plans into action, she surprised him by sliding her fingers into his hair and giving him an ardent tug, even as she cursed him like a Cheapside doxy.

“Kiss me again, you bloody bastard.”

Her shocking words enflamed him. No virginal miss would ever issue such a stunning directive. But there was little question in his mind that their last kiss had been her first. The bossy little harridan he remembered had never been shy about issuing orders, he reminded himself. He needed no further invitation.

Adam’s lips seized Emma’s with urgent desire, the kiss hot and carnal and raw. His whole body blazed with hunger, his cock rigid and rock-hard with brutal need. He was desperate to possess this beautiful bundle of feminine contradictions. He’d never wanted any woman more. God help him.

Emma pressed herself into him, twisting as if she could not get close enough, and kissed him back with startling thirst. This was insanity, Adam thought. Her tongue slashed his as if they were engaged in a fiery duel. She panted, as aroused as he was. He couldn’t wait to tear all her clothes off and drive himself into her tight, wet heat. He had to have this woman. Soon.

He clamped his arm fast around her, bonding her to his chest. Selfish of him. He was at least a head taller and outweighed her by several stone. When he crashed, he would bring her tumbling to the ground with him.

Heated images blistered his thoughts as he pictured Emma’s soft body beneath his, spreading her velvet thighs wide for him. He imagined her legs wrapped around his waist as he thrust into her with pounding need, losing himself in her slick, inviting warmth. He fantasized driving into her again and again, as her fingers dug into his shoulders and he swallowed her moans of pleasure with his hot, sensual kisses, spilling his seed in urgent release. For once forgetting the cursed war.

Damn him for the blackguard he was.

He expelled a groan that had nothing to do with his injuries and lifted his head from hers at last. He struggled for the control to call a halt to this madness. A dazed rapture filled her eyes, turning them a dreamy, liquid silver.

“Let me go, Riverton,” she said, several heady moments too late, utterly breathless, her face aflame.

“I’m not quite ready to do that, Miss Whiteside.”

She paused a beat and he felt her shiver. He loosened his fierce grip.

“When might you be?”

Never.

The silent word burst in his head and Adam suddenly realized he wanted something more than a sexual romp from Emma. He wanted to
find
himself again—if such a thing were possible any longer. Before he’d kissed her there had been nothing in the world he cared about. Now he did care—he did not want this woman to hate him any longer. He wanted her to soften toward him, body
and
heart. The feel of her steadying hand on his arm bathed him in soothing tenderness. Nothing had touched his stricken soul in a very long time.

He gritted his teeth. The honorable thing would be to protect Emma from the damaged, desolate man he was now. Did he have that much nobility left? What to do with her, though?

Adam hadn’t considered the girl’s plight when her father’s worthless vowels had come into his possession. Clearly, Whiteside hadn’t either, when he’d attempted to gamble away pieces of the property, one by one. The manor’s true ownership was apparently a mere nuisance that Whiteside had decided to overlook when he’d papered the local tavern with his valueless notes. Adam’s annoyance with the heedless reprobate who’d been willing to risk everything—even the house his daughter lived in—had been foremost in Adam’s mind. Now, new emotions occupied that place.

He stole another glance at Emma. Tendrils of hair the color of a fine ruby port whipped her cheeks. Her mouth remained reddened from his kisses. He still hadn’t answered her question. All he knew was that he didn’t want to let her go. Not today. Nor any day after.

She pushed against his arm again and stepped back, as if she could read the dangerous thoughts warming his eyes. He’d fallen out of practice in the art of flirtation.

“I may have failed your brother, Miss Whiteside. But I do not intend to fail you.”

Emma tensed at his mention of her twin. “I have no need of your assistance, my lord.”

“But have it you shall.”

He knew then what he had to do. His path stretched clear and wide before him, like a road map of his future. A future that suddenly had meaning and did not at all displease him. He suspected his father would not approve. Yet, he’d done precisely as he wished from the time he’d cast off leading strings. While still a lad in short coats, he’d abandoned all pretense of trying to please the earl. He saw no reason to change now.

“How do you propose to help me, Riverton?” Emma taunted him. “You can barely stand.”

Adam sucked in another deep breath, attempting to relax his body. If he could unknot his cramping leg for a moment, he would be able to straighten up. The limb failed to cooperate. He bit back an anguished grunt and staggered.

Emma clutched his arm again. He shook her off and leaned upon his walking stick until he could uncoil to his full height. He wanted to be upright.

“I can stand at an altar long enough to wed you.”

Emma gasped, as if he’d dashed her in the face with a pail of icy water. Staring at him in disbelief, she sidestepped farther away.

“Why so surprised, madam? You did offer for me once upon a time.”

“I was a child.”

“You’ve grown. I’ve decided to accept your proposal. Simple as that.”

“Not remotely simple, you chuckleheaded man.”

Adam’s gaze roved over her, hot and intense, as if the potency of his appraisal alone might brand her as his.

Under his scrutiny, Emma’s blush deepened, ripening her curved cheeks like fruit on a vine. Her gaze never left his. Adam admired her steel, the backbone that allowed her to stand up to him now, as the little girl of eight had done.

He struggled to keep on his feet, despite his certainty that his unreliable knee would not hold him much longer.

“Accustom yourself to the idea, Miss Whiteside. You
will
marry me and be my lady.”

Emma stared back at him in shock. Was he mocking her?

The old Riverton would never have done so. The youth she’d known might have teased her. He would never have made sport of her emotions. But she did not know this damaged, brutally handsome man.

Did not
know
him? Could she still say that after the devastating moment that had just transpired between them? After kisses so steamy and blistering she’d melted? After he’d made her ache and throb with need? He’d robbed her of all sense and coherent thought. All she could think of now were his scalding kisses, the touch of his hands and his mouth. And making love to him. Dear God, how she wanted that!

He gazed back at her, his midnight eyes knowing, as if he clearly read her thoughts. The corner of his mouth lifted.

And then, suddenly, his leg buckled beneath him. His powerful frame crumpled to the chalky ground, as if he were no sturdier than a bundle of twigs.

Emma cried out, as stunned by the viscount’s clumsy proposal—if that’s what it was—as by his fall. She tried to take some of his weight, but though she clutched at him, she could not prevent the headlong lurch that sent him sprawling among the dead horseshoe vetch and faded wild thyme.

Riverton gasped, his back heaving as if all the wind had been knocked out of him. Emma crouched beside him, panicked as he struggled for air. She touched his shoulder, increasing the pressure until his breathing evened and he rolled to his side, his brilliant blue eyes clouded with effort.

Emma exhaled a sigh of relief, clasping Adam’s large hand in hers. Such a man’s hand, she thought. Firm and tanned. A light sprinkling of hair dusted his knuckles, and grew darker and denser above the edge of his wrist. She loosened her grip and turned his hand over to examine it more intently. The skin on his fingertips seemed tougher than a viscount’s ought to be. A small burn mark marred the heel of his palm. She traced the tiny imperfection.

“Gun powder,” he said.

“I’d guessed.”

Unquestionably, the war had bruised this man. How deeply, she did not know. Could she have been wrong about him? More of the anger she’d so long nurtured ebbed away.

Adam watched her as she studied him, his expression unreadable, but heating steadily as her hand learned his. When their eyes met, Adam pointedly threaded his fingers through hers. The strength of the hand curling around her own sent sensual tingles skipping up her arm and rippling through her whole body. She wanted his hands on her, touching her in all the places he made her throb. How could she feel these things for him?

“You liked it too, didn’t you, Emma?”

Confusion and distress immediately chased her initial sense of relief. She must not entertain any tender emotions for this man. She owed her twin’s memory that much. But when she was close to Riverton she could not think clearly. Her gaze slid away from his.

“Yes. Yes, I liked it.”

He tightened his grasp on her hand, until she looked at him again. What she read in his eyes stole her breath and made her pulse race. But the real danger lay in his touch, she knew. His touch made her forget. Everything. Emma quickly extricated her fingers from his.

The viscount frowned when she broke the contact between them but Emma could not allow herself to be drawn to him. She plucked bramble thorns from his sleeve, trying to adopt a more detached, more distanced demeanor.

“What should I do, Riverton?”

“Do you suppose you might call me Adam now that we are betrothed?”

He offered her a rusty, lopsided grin. She nearly laughed. The man was clearly impossible.

Despite all he’d been through on the Peninsula, despite his present inelegant position and the pain that still tightened his brow and skewed his smile, despite her certainty that he had gotten very unused to the habit of smiling at all—the wry humor she remembered from that long-ago garden party somehow managed to seep out.

Deep within she felt a steady
drip, drip, drip
and knew this virile man was melting the ice around her heart. Could he hear the thunder of its erratic beat over the roar of the waves crashing on the rocks below? She was so close to him she could see the thin, jagged white scar edging the line of his jaw. Another souvenir of the war, no doubt.

“Did you hear me accept your ‘proposal’?” she murmured, nearly swallowing her words.

“You will.”

Emma bit her lower lip and looked away. “There is too much between us.”

“Yes. There is something between us.”

She shook her head, as if to deny to the truth of his statement.

“You must marry me,” he insisted.

Her ready indignation sparked and she returned her gaze to him, sharp as a lance. “Why? Because you kissed me?”

“Because you liked it. And want more. You want me to touch you.” His hand slid to her breast. “Here.” His fingers glided lower. “And here.”

Emma burned. Thank God for her heavy cloak and the layers of clothing beneath it, she thought. He could not possibly feel what he was doing to her. Could he? But she knew he must read her yearning for him in her eyes, see the way she reacted to him in the blazing color of her cheeks. Still, the unconscionable liberties he took…

Before she could retort, the viscount mustered his fortitude to let out a piercing whistle. A waste of his strength, Emma thought. The moment he’d toppled, the chestnut hunter had trotted over to guard his master.

“What should I do?” she repeated.

He arched a dark eyebrow. “Marry me. I thought we’d established that.”

She ignored the comment. “About your condition.”

“Oh. That.” A muscle twitched in his jaw.

She could not bear that he found amusement in the situation.

“I need a hot bath,” he grunted, clenching his teeth. “Help me onto Champ. He knows the way. He’ll get me home.”

“You are in no shape to ride all the way to Summerlake,” Emma protested.

“I’ve been stopping at the Bird & Barley.”

Emma’s jaw dropped. Well, what had she expected? Of course he did not travel the miles to his ancestral home and back each dawn. Even at a fast gallop the journey would take several hours and no horse—not even as splendid a Thoroughbred as this magnificent specimen—could run flat-out the whole distance.

But why would Riverton stay at the public house in Brimley simply to take the morning air on the cliffs? Surely, there were prettier walks at Summerlake. Had he been at the Bird & Barley all this time? Is that how he knew about the dire straits into which Papa’s gambling had plunged them?

“You have not told me what you are doing here, Riverton.”

“Exercising my leg.”

“That is a bald whisker.”

“I am here to see your father.”

“Why?” She adopted a brisk tone to hide her fear and confusion.

“Because I have a need to see him. And now that need is more urgent than ever.”

Good lord, the man perplexed her. She had to drag her gaze from his lips with effort.

“Well, you have wasted your time then. I—I do not know where he is.”

The fury that gathered in his frown made her blanch. She would not like to have been a Frenchman confronted by that glare.

“How long, Emma?”

“How long what?”

He clenched his jaw. “I warn you, Miss Whiteside. Do not play with me. ’Tis not a battle you will win.” His voice softened a fraction. “How long have you not known your father’s whereabouts?”

“It has been…several weeks now.”

Riverton’s curse curdled her blood. “I see.”

“I doubt you do.”

“My leg may be troublesome, my girl, but I assure you there is nothing wrong with my eyes. I see very well. Nor has my time here been wasted. I intend to put things right. Now help me to my horse.”

Perhaps she could deter him from his course. Under such circumstances, she was not certain what he would do. He had not seemed the least sympathetic toward Papa’s plight. Perhaps he would find her own situation as distasteful. After all, he was the son of an earl. And, as a result of the secret sales of the handkerchiefs she embroidered, she had practically gone into trade. How to distract him?

“The village is a good distance from here and the way is not easy.”

“I’ve ridden rougher terrain.”

But when he reached for Champion’s dangling reins to hoist himself up, he groaned in agony, went white as a shroud and passed out.

“Riverton!” Emma cried. “Adam!”

The viscount lay flat on his back and did not respond. Exhaustion drained from his face, erasing his torment, along with the years.

“This is how you looked before the horrid war,” Emma whispered. “When you were a boy of seventeen and didn’t have a care in the world.”

She lifted her hand to his cheek, then traced the light scar on his jawline with her fingertips. She brushed the dark hair off his brow. “When you stole a little girl’s heart.”

Emma leaned closer. “If I’m not careful, you will steal it again.” She couldn’t stop touching him. “And that will not do either of us a bit of good.”

The open collar of his shirt revealed the tanned V of his throat. Below his collarbone, she spied a sprig of dark hair. Outrageously, she twisted the errant curl around her forefinger, testing its soft texture. Much as she wanted Riverton to wake, she’d die if he did so now and found her handling him so intimately. Emma smoothed the coil back in place. She’d never stroked a man with the familiarity of a lover. She thought again of his potent kisses. So many leagues past gentlemanly pecks. The raw carnality of his kisses had made her tremble, had made her underclothes damp. Even the memory of them made her quiver.

Oh, God. Adam Caldwell.
Her lover.

The fever of longing melted more of the ice encasing her heart. What would it be like to know every inch of Adam Caldwell? To lay with him, writhing beneath him in amorous passion? She did not for a moment entertain the possibility his spontaneous proposal had been more than a jest. And he’d certainly withdraw it once he learned the truth about her situation.

But perhaps he’d enjoyed the taste of her enough to offer
carte blanche
…No question he’d been as hungry as she.

What would it be like to be Riverton’s
mistress?
Her face flamed at her scandalous thoughts. To have him come to her bed every night and wake beside his naked body each morn?

In all likelihood, she reminded herself, she soon would be another man’s mistress, due to Papa’s dissolute behavior. That had been the choice she’d been given when she’d attempted to answer for Papa’s debts.

Why shouldn’t she know Riverton first? He’d hinted he would make the experience unforgettable. After kissing him, she did not doubt that for a second. She’d wanted him her whole life. Even when her dreams had turned as bitter as ashes.

The coarse man who would come for her tomorrow was far less comely than Riverton. Papa’s creditor was a man wicked and corrupt, a crude man who would not treat her like a lady, as she was sure Adam would. Farraday was certainly not anywhere as brave or decent as the unconscious man stretched out before her.

Decent! Emma upbraided herself once again. The improper things he’d said to her today, the familiar liberties he’d taken, his smoldering hot kisses—taxed the borders of respectability. He might as well have been Farraday. She shook her head to clear her mind. How quickly she had forgotten it was the viscount who’d sent Michael to his death! What on earth was she thinking?

She tried to pull the sharp edges of her rancor around her like a cloak. But the animosity she clung to was vanishing fast. In her heart, she knew Riverton for man of courage. The way he suffered now, while striving to overcome his disability, was evidence of that.

Emma leaned her face against the warm column of Adam’s neck, telling herself she wanted only to make certain of the steady, even beat of his pulse. Despite Riverton’s recent exertions, he smelled fresh and bracing as the brisk wind that sprayed them with sea mist. She rubbed her cheek against him, inhaling a hint of leather mingled with the crisp scent of piney juniper.

Could she fall in love with a man’s blasted shaving soap, she wondered? A surge of keen, demanding hunger flared to life within her. Her yearning for this man was so sharp she nearly wept.

“Damn you, Riverton. Do not put me in this position.”

His continued lack of movement knotted her belly and seized her with panic again. She had to get him home. If she could but reach the manor, Jemmy would help her get him inside. Thank heavens the stable boy and his mother had agreed to stay on when she’d let the other servants go. Emma did not know how she’d have survived Papa’s disappearance if not for Mrs. Billings’s reassuring presence and household economy. And, of course, it was Mrs. Billings who arranged the sale of the handkerchiefs in the village shops.

Emma tugged at Riverton’s broad shoulders, but his solid muscles refused to yield. Dear God, he was heavy.

How she wanted those strong arms around her! Oh, to be nestled against that firm chest, loved and protected and kept safe from all the problems that beset her.
You are fooling yourself, Emma. This man is not a knight in shining armor.
If Riverton wanted anything from her, it was only what she had between her legs. Like Farraday. Like any other man. And nothing more.

She prodded him again, rousing him at last.

“God’s blood, Emma! I am not a sack of potatoes,” he sputtered. “What in Hades are you trying to do to me?”

A wave of relief so overwhelmed her she nearly threw her arms around him. But this time reason prevailed. There would never be anything between them.

“I am trying to hoist you onto your blasted horse so I can get you into a bath!” Riverton did not respond at once and the moment of silence stretched out so long Emma thought he might have lost consciousness again.

“Nice of you to oblige,” he said at last, his tone as dry as desert sand. The thread of humor underlay the pain that shadowed his voice. “Although at this point I might prefer that you get me into a bed.”

Emma’s cheeks heated again. Could he possibly suspect how intimately she had touched him? How much she ached to explore his body still? Yes, he knew. She reminded herself of Riverton’s rakish reputation as a ladies’ man, forged long before he’d marched away to war. Even if he were aware of her clandestine caresses, her clumsy fondling would not have made a very strong impression upon him.