Pretty Poison (25 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

What followed were two of the strangest days of Nicholas Avery’s life. No sooner had he and Emily mastered their amusement over her badly timed rendition of the old battle lark, then Lady Margaret rounded the corner and found them locked in a heated embrace.

“Good Lord, haven’t you two caused enough mischeif for one day?” she demanded in feigned annoyance.

Reluctantly Nick lifted his lips from Emily’s and peeled her from the wall onto which he’d plastered her with his body. He trailed his hand down her arm to clasp her hand snuggly in his, unwilling to release her entirely.

“I doubt very much any of the ladies had the faintest idea what I was singing about,” Emily said with a negligent shrug of her shoulders.

“The Nasty Baggage certainly made the connection,” Margaret replied. “Mr. Boone has remarkably large hands.”

“So it was Mr. Boone?” Emily exclaimed. Nick hadn’t the foggiest idea what the ladies were discussing but his betrothed seemed quite shocked.

“Judging by the purely ridiculous grin he’s been sporting all morning,” Margaret responded. “I’m guessing they’ll make an announcement of their own in the coming days.”

“Poor Ronnie,” Emily murmured.

“Save your sympathy for Gerald Boone,” Margaret replied.

“Boone and Miss Ogilvie?” Nick asked in surprise.

“Good Lord, Nick, try to keep up,” Margaret reprimanded him. “You’re nearly as slow as your brother today.”

Nick released Emily’s hand and advanced on Lady Margaret. He placed his hands on her cheeks, ignored her surprised yelp and pressed a loud smacking kiss to her lips.

“Thank you.” He met her shocked green gaze, held it.

“Yes… Well… I…” she stammered and he heard Emily’s soft laughter behind him.

“Truly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

“You’re not going to break into song are you?” Margaret asked, her soft cheeks warming beneath his hands.

“I just might,” he replied as he dropped his hands to his sides. Emily came up beside him and tucked her hand into his.

“I’d greatly appreciate it if you did not,” Margaret replied archly. “Who knows what lyrics would likely fall from your lips.”

“What rhymes with breast?” Nick teased.

“Hush,” Emily and her aunt ordered together.

Nicholas spent the remainder of the afternoon attempting to lure Emily into empty rooms and avoiding the accusing gazes of the Duchess of Martindale and Mrs. Sanderson. Every time he remembered the beat of startled silence when Emily turned into the hall with the last note of her impromptu serenade ringing out, he chuckled. He laughed outright remembering the ladies’ improvised rewriting of the lyrics. Wonderfully large lands to the North, indeed.

Emily Ann Calvert was the sassiest, sweetest, funniest, warmest and most passionate woman he’d ever encountered. And she was going to be his wife. He was going to spend the rest of his life talking and teasing and laughing with her. And loving her. Good Lord, how he loved her.

He’d meant what he’d said to her the morning they’d rode out together through the swirling fog. He could live to be a hundred and still not truly know her. She was a wonderfully complicated lady. Sometimes she was bossy, so sure of herself, so confident in her abilities, so blessedly aware of her worth. Other times she seemed little more than a confused young girl trying desperately to figure out where she fit into the world.

She had a temper, one he’d only seen glimpses of thus far. Still he knew without a doubt it was there. It went without saying that they would argue. He pictured a future peppered with the occasional screaming match. But he also knew she was quick to forgive, that holding a grudge went against her very nature, as evidenced by her repeated forgiveness of his many missteps throughout his courtship.

He knew there were scars on her heart, secrets she held close. He looked forward to the day she would lay her heart bare to him, trust him with the mystery of how she came by the jagged circle and the tail that slashed across her chest like a comet. He knew instinctively that the scars on her person were intrinsically connected to the scars on her heart.

“Why have the servants moved you to a room down the hall?” Emily whispered that evening when the gentlemen joined the ladies in the parlor after dinner.

They were standing together beside the pianoforte ruffling through the music sheets ostensibly deciding upon a selection for Emily to entertain her aunt’s guests. In reality, Nicholas was trailing his fingers over her delicate hand and wrist.

“Your father’s idea,” he replied softly. “He seems to think our close proximity might lead to gossip.”

“To be sure, Da always has been one for closing the barn doors after the stallion’s run amok,” she drawled.

“So I’m back to being a stallion, am I?”

“My stallion,” she murmured with a wicked glint in her eyes.

“Does that make you my broad mare?”

“Your
only
broad mare.”

“Em, my girl!” her father bellowed from across the room. “Are you going to play for us?”

“Yes, Da,” she called out. “I fancy a rollicking reel.”

True to her words, Emily played a spirited country song that called a number of dancers to the space that had been cleared in the middle of the parlor. Without Jamison and the Parker twins there were few gentlemen to partner the ladies and Nick looked behind him to see Miss Ogilvie sitting alone on the settee, her face turned away from the dancers before her.

“Go on,” Emily urged him over the tinkling of the piano keys.

“May I have this dance?” he asked as he bowed before the tense lady. She turned her head and blinked up at him, her lips lifting into a smile that contained an odd sort of wariness, perhaps even a bit of panic. Before he could interpret the expression, it disappeared and she was her usual calculating self.

“It would seem your financial difficulties shall soon be coming to an end,” Veronica said as they moved to join the line of dancers.

Nick had no time to reply to her statement before they were parted by the changing of partners.

“I thought to hear the announcement this evening,” Veronica picked up her earlier conversation when they came together once more.

Nick made no reply, not the least inclined to discuss his relationship with Emily with this waspish woman who did nothing to hide her animosity toward his fiancé.

Emily had requested they wait until the last night of the house party to announce their betrothal and, suspecting she needed the extra time to marshal the nerve to share the secret she held close to her hear, Nick had agreed.

“Ah, not quite set in stone, then?” Veronica murmured with a twist of her lips.

Nick wordlessly released her into Mr. Endicott’s arms and smiled down at Lucinda Davis.

“We are all on pins and needles,” Lucinda said, smiling up into his face.

Nick groaned.

“Mother is forcing us to wait to make our announcement until after yours,” she continued with a giggle. “So as not to steal your thunder.”

“Congratulations,” Nick said with real pleasure.

“And to you,” she responded before turning to take Kildare’s hand once more.

“I think you would find me a more complacent wife,” Veronica whispered as she pretended to stumble, brushing her breasts fleetingly against his chest before stepping back again.

“You believe I want a complacent wife?” Nick asked.

“I doubt Miss Calvert would turn a blind eye to your pursuits.”

“And you would?”

“Yes.”

The last bars of the song ended and Nick bowed to Miss Ogilvie, bending low over her offered hand so that she did not see the amusement in his eyes. She was right about one thing, Nick thought. Emily would not look the other way should he ever pursue another woman. She would likely grab the rusty blade from her aunt and make mincemeat of his bollocks.

It was a good thing he intended to be a faithful husband.

“Leave your door unlocked,” Nick whispered to Emily as she followed the other ladies from the parlor just after midnight.

“Nicholas, we cannot, my father is clearly suspicious, seeing as he had you moved to another chamber,” she replied quietly.

“He’ll never know,” he said while images of making love to Emily again danced in his head.

“Please, he would be so disappointed in me if he should learn I allowed you into my bed,” she murmured.

Seeing his opportunity to frolic with his lovely fiancé dwindling away, he shook his head and smiled down at her. “As you wish, love.”

But three hours later he lay sleepless and aroused in his lonely bed. The house was silent but for the crackling of the low fire in the hearth. Emily was separated from him by only four chambers, he thought with longing. They’d spent every night for the past week together and her father hadn’t learned of it. Why should tonight be any different?

With that thought in mind he rose, donned his dressing gown and crept out of his room on silent, bare feet. The hallway was quiet and dim, lit only by a single candle tucked behind the beveled glass of a wall sconce halfway between his room and Emily’s. He paused to listen, to assure himself that no one lurked in the shadows before stealing toward her door.

He turned the knob and hastily snuck inside, closing the door silently behind him. The room was warm, the flames from the fireplace casting shadows upon the walls. He turned to see Emily asleep in her bed. As he approached her he took in the bedcovers that were thrown off of her slumbering form to bunch behind her where she lay on her side facing him. She slept with one dainty hand tucked beneath her cheek on the pillow and the other dangling over the side of the bed. Her nightgown was twisted around her hips offering him an unfettered view of her long shapely legs.

He shrugged out of his dressing gown and crawled onto the bed behind her, pushing the mound of blankets to the foot of the bed with his feet.

“Mmm,” Emily murmured softly, shifting and rolling onto her stomach, flinging her hand back and smacking his thigh. “What?” she murmured as her eyes blinked open.

“Shh,” Nick crooned, settling next to her and draping one arm across her back.

“What are you doing?” she asked sleepily.

“I just want to hold you,” he whispered, knowing he lied. Already his cock was hard, pulsing with the need to be inside her.

“We shouldn’t,” she cautioned before gasping as he dragged his hand down her back and over her bottom.

“We should,” he breathed against her shoulder.

He bunched her night gown in his hand, dragging it up to the small of her back, exposing her luscious bottom to his gaze. Her skin was soft and warm beneath the palm he spread over one firm globe. He gently squeezed her flesh before skimming his hand up to the small of her back. Softly he dragged his fingers over the dip in her spine and down into the shadowy crease beyond.

“Nick,” she murmured in denial. But her back arched and her hips rose off the bed, bringing his questing fingers closer to his goal.

“Let me love you,” he whispered as he rose up to lean over her and press his lips to her back. “I’ll make it good for you. No pain, only pleasure.”

Before she could offer any further words of denial he dragged his fingers down the seam of her bottom and was rewarded with a soft hum of pleasure that vibrated against his lips on her back. She shifted and spread her legs slightly, opening herself to him.

He continued the downward descent of his hand, dragging the tips of two fingers between her lush cheeks until he reached her center. He paused with his fingers hovering over the entrance to her body.

Again she arched her back, raising her bottom in the air, pushing against his fingers.

“Christ, Em,” he growled. She was wet, wonderfully wet and hot.

He dipped one long finger into that wet heat, withdrew it and slowly pushed back in.

“Wicked man,” she whispered, turning her face into the pillow while her hips rose and fell.

Nick moved between her legs, pushing them wide with his knees until she was spread out before him.

“Nick?” She lifted her head to look back at him over her shoulder.

“Shhh,” he murmured before leaning down to trail a line of kisses down her spine. He started at her neck, his mouth open and hot, his tongue dancing over her flesh, his teeth nipping. She shivered then groaned low in her throat when he reached her tailbone. He paused there, his hands firm on her bottom, his lips dipping into the shadowy crevice.

She moaned softly, clenching her thighs around his before pushing back against him. With his thumbs pressed between her quivering cheeks he squeezed her bottom, dragged his hands down until he once more felt the heat of her.

He pushed one thick finger into her body, her flesh clenching around him. His blood pounded in his head, his cock strained toward the pleasure to be found in her tight cunny. Withdrawing his finger, smiling at her moan of complaint, he replaced the appendage with the head of his cock, loomed over her with his arms on either side of her shoulders and prodded the opening to her body.

“Oh,” she exclaimed as he felt her shiver at the invasion. “We can’t, not like this.”

“We can,” he replied, his voice low and raspy. He nudged his hips forward, slowly pushing the broad tip of his shaft into her sweet quim.

“Ahhh, Nick,” she moaned as he stretched her.

“Can you take me, Em?” he whispered with his lips pressed to the nape of her neck.

“Yes, oh yes.” She lifted her bottom, undulated her hips and writhed beneath him in an attempt to take him deeper into her body. “Please.”

“Emily,” he growled as the last shreds of his self-control evaporated. He withdrew and jackknifed back onto his knees, grasped her hips with shaking hands and pulled her bottom up off the bed. Emily rolled back onto her knees and placed her hands on the bed.

“Like this?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at him.

Nick sucked in a great gulp of air at the provocative pose, at the hunger in her green eyes and the honey rasp of her voice. Emily on her hands and knees before him, her legs spread and her perfect arse in the air, was the most erotic sight he’d ever seen. Her hair was a fiery tangle down her back and over her arms. She was willing and waiting, as eager as he to join her body with his.