Emma (22 page)

“I am well aware of my circumstances.”

“You will seal your fate against marriage,” he reminded her once more.

“All the more reason to see it through,” she answered just as boldly.

“So be it.”

Mr Knightley stroked his thumb over her distended tip. Emma caught her bottom lip as a gasp escaped her and sensation roared through her body to settle in that private place between her legs. The more he flickered his thumb back and forth over the nub, the more her skin sang to be touched.

Expertly, he lowered to kiss her, taking her lips when she’d made no protest against his actions. She leaned into it, accepting and willing to try as much as he would permit. But still he passed his thumb slowly, relentlessly along its same path.

Mr Knightley pressed her into the tree, pushing his knee between her legs. Emma’s face burned but she clung to his shoulders not knowing what to expect next. His thigh lifted her to her toes, burying the tips of her slippers in soil and forcing the full measure of her slim weight to rest on her cleft, which in turn, parted folds against her skirts and his firm leg.

Emma gasped in earnest then as her opened body exposed a sensation so raw and unexpected that she had no way to contain the instant delight of feeling it so abused. Mr Knightley made quick use of her opened mouth and plunged his tongue deep inside. Her mind floated. He gripped her hips through her dress and he pulled them forward, rocking her cunny on his leg. Emma’s cry of pleasure could not have gone unnoticed, had not gone unnoticed as he moaned softly in reply.

Her senses shredded between the wicked onslaught of his tongue and his rhythmic tilting of her hips upon his leg. Heat built low in her belly, until clutching his shoulders became inadequate to her desires and she used her hold to slide along his thigh with little assistance from him.

Mr Knightley brushed his lips on the side of her neck. He pinched her nipple and she discovered, much to her shame and embarrassment, that he no longer needed to encourage her to rock as she did so of her own accord. He moulded her breasts in his palms. He plucked and rolled her needy breasts until she thought she might not breathe for the sheer pleasure of his manipulation.

Something hot and dangerous built where she rubbed her cunny on him. It forced her to quicken her pace while he used his fingers and lips to encourage her on.

“You have it, Emma. It is yours to take when you want it,” he soothed, his rough whisper adding to the building flames consuming her.

She wanted his hands on her, inside her dress, but he made no move to do so. Was this the ecstasy Mrs Weston had described? Surely, it was! Never had she experienced such bliss and to tell of it would indeed cause her to blush as Mrs Weston had.

There she lost thought, consumed to chase that which lay just out of reach and without name. She could no more still the movement upon Mr Knightley’s thigh than she could cease from breathing.

“Close, Emma. Have it,” he commanded her.

Emma rode him shamelessly, her soft cries becoming louder though she seemed unable to quiet them. Mr Knightley covered her lips with his own, sealing off her turbulent sounds with tongue and breath mastering her own. He pinched hard on her nipples and light exploded behind her eyelids.

She screamed—Mr Knightley dragging his hand to cover her mouth where once his coaxing lips had been. She sagged against him, out of breath, out of sense and trembling. Mr Knightley clutched her close and lowered his thigh until she had regained her feet. One large hand cupped her bare nape.

“There, there, Emma darling. Well done. Now you truly know what’s in store for you if you continue down this path to your undoing—and mine.”

She pressed her forehead to his shoulder, still unable to stand on her own. “There is more?”

“Much, much more. If you want it, I can only say yes to you, and so it is yours to have should you wish it,” he confessed.

She could not imagine, could not fathom something beyond what she had already experienced. How could there exist more bliss than this? Was it possible? Did he have the means, and in having them how could she not wish for more? Her body seemed as foreign to her as ever. Once having discovered pleasure, she was loath to let it go.

“I wish for more. I wish for all of it.”

“Then it shall be yours.”

VOLUME II

Chapter One

Emma and Harriet had been walking together one morning, and in Emma’s opinion had been talking enough of Mr Elton for that day. She could not think that Harriet’s solace or her own sins required more, and she was therefore industriously getting rid of the subject as they returned, especially as her mind favoured a subject more highly prized in Mr Knightley. Though what she could speak of regarding him, Emma did not know, so she set upon a gentler topic. But the subject of Mr Elton burst out again when she thought she had succeeded, and after speaking some time of what the poor must suffer in winter, and receiving no other answer than a very plaintive, “Mr Elton is so good to the poor!” she found something else must be done.

They were just approaching the house where lived Mrs and Miss Bates. She determined to call upon them and seek safety in numbers. There was always sufficient reason for such an attention—Mrs and Miss Bates loved to be called on, and she knew she was considered by the very few who presumed ever to see imperfection in her, as rather negligent in that respect, and as not contributing what she ought to the stock of their scanty comforts.

She had had many a hint from Mr Knightley and some from her own heart, as to her deficiency—but none were equal to counteract the persuasion of its being very disagreeable, a waste of time—tiresome women—and all the horror of being in danger of falling in with the second-rate and third-rate of Highbury, who were calling on them forever, and therefore she seldom went near them. But now she made the sudden resolution of not passing their door without going in—observing that it would put her in good favour with Mr Knightley when he heard of it.

He had not made an effort to see her intimately again since their assignation in the greenhouse and Emma had grown anxious to revisit their conversation. In truth, she’d grown anxious to revisit quite a bit more than mere conversation—in fact, her body insisted upon a reacquaintance with his thigh. So, as she proposed it to Harriet, as well as she could calculate, they were just now quite safe from any letter from Jane Fairfax and a visit of the women might be in order for the purpose of removing Mr Elton from Harriet’s thoughts—a recommendation Harriet eagerly accepted.

The house belonged to people in business. Mrs and Miss Bates occupied the drawing room floor, and there in the very moderate-sized apartment which was everything to them, the visitors were most cordially and even gratefully welcomed. The quiet neat old lady who with her knitting was seated in the warmest corner, wanting even to give up her place to Miss Woodhouse. And her more active, talking daughter, almost ready to overpower them with care and kindness, thanks for their visit, solicitude for their shoes, anxious enquiries after Mr Woodhouse’s health, cheerful communications about her mother’s and sweet cake from the buffet. Mrs Cole had just been there, just called in for ten minutes, and had been so good as to sit an hour with them, and
she
had taken a piece of cake and been so kind as to say she liked it very much, and therefore she hoped Miss Woodhouse and Miss Smith would do them the favour to eat a piece too.

The mention of the Coles was sure to be followed by that of Mr Elton. There was intimacy between them, and Mr Cole had heard from Mr Elton since his going away. Emma knew what was coming—they must have the letter over again, and settle how long he had been gone, and how much he was engaged in company, and what a favourite he was wherever he went, and how full the Master of the Ceremonies’ ball had been. And she went through it very well, with all the interest and all the commendation that could be requisite, and always putting forward to prevent Harriet’s being obliged to say a word.

This she had been prepared for when she entered the house, but meant, having once talked him handsomely over, to be no farther incommoded by any troublesome topic, and to wander at large amongst all the Mistresses and Misses of Highbury, and their card-parties. She had not been prepared to have Jane Fairfax succeed Mr Elton, but he was actually hurried off by Miss Bates. She jumped away from him at last abruptly to the Coles, to usher in a letter from her niece.

“Oh! Yes—Mr Elton, I understand—certainly as to dancing—Mrs Cole was telling me that dancing at the rooms at Bath was—Mrs Cole was so kind as to sit some time with us, talking of Jane, for as soon as she came in, she began enquiring after her, Jane is so very great a favourite there. Whenever she is with us, Mrs Cole does not know how to show her kindness enough, and I must say that Jane deserves it as much as anybody can. And so she began enquiring after her directly, saying, ‘I know you cannot have heard from Jane lately, because it is not her time for writing,’ and when I immediately said, ‘But indeed we have, we had a letter this very morning,’ I do not know that I ever saw anybody more surprised. ‘Have you, upon your honour?’ said she. ‘Well, that is quite unexpected. Do let me hear what she says.’”

Emma’s politeness was at hand directly, to say with smiling interest, “Have you heard from Miss Fairfax so lately? I am extremely happy. I hope she is well?”

“Thank you. You are so kind!” replied the happily deceived aunt, while eagerly hunting for the letter. “Oh! Here it is. I was sure it could not be far off, but I had put my huswife upon it, you see, without being aware, and so it was quite hid, but I had it in my hand so very lately that I was almost sure it must be on the table. I was reading it to Mrs Cole, and since she went away, I was reading it again to my mother, for it is such a pleasure to her—a letter from Jane—that she can never hear it often enough, so I knew it could not be far off, and here it is, only just under my huswife. And since you are so kind as to wish to hear what she says, but first of all, I really must, in justice to Jane, apologise for her writing so short a letter—only two pages you see—hardly two—and in general she fills the whole paper and crosses half. My mother often wonders that I can make it out so well. She often says, when the letter is first opened, ‘Well, Hetty, now I think you will be put to it to make out all that checker-work’—don’t you, ma’am? Then I tell her, I am sure she would contrive to make it out herself, if she had nobody to do it for her—every word of it—I am sure she would pore over it till she had made out every word. And indeed, though my mother’s eyes are not so good as they were, she can see amazingly well still, thank God, with the help of spectacles. It is such a blessing! My mother’s are really very good indeed. Jane often says, when she is here, ‘I am sure, grandmama, you must have had very strong eyes to see as you do—and so much fine work as you have done too! I only wish my eyes may last me as well’.”

All this spoken extremely fast obliged Miss Bates to stop for breath, and Emma said something very civil about the excellence of Miss Fairfax’s handwriting.

“You are extremely kind,” replied Miss Bates, highly gratified, “you who are such a judge, and write so beautifully yourself. I am sure there is nobody’s praise that could give us so much pleasure as Miss Woodhouse’s. My mother does not hear, she is a little deaf, you know. Ma’am”—addressing her—“do you hear what Miss Woodhouse is so obliging to say about Jane’s handwriting?”

And Emma had the advantage of hearing her own silly compliment repeated twice over before the good old lady could comprehend it. She was pondering, in the meanwhile, upon the possibility, without seeming very rude, of making her escape from Jane Fairfax’s letter, and had almost resolved on hurrying away directly under some slight excuse, when Miss Bates turned to her again and seized her attention.

“My mother’s deafness is very trifling, you see—just nothing at all. By only raising my voice, and saying anything two or three times over, she is sure to hear, but then she is used to my voice. But it is very remarkable that she should always hear Jane better than she does me. Jane speaks so distinct! However, she will not find her grandmama at all deafer than she was two years ago, which is saying a great deal at my mother’s time of life—and it really is full two years, you know, since she was here. We never were so long without seeing her before, and as I was telling Mrs Cole, we shall hardly know how to make enough of her now.”

“Are you expecting Miss Fairfax here soon?”

“Oh yes, next week.”

“Indeed! That must be a very great pleasure.”

“Thank you. You are very kind. Yes, next week. Everybody is so surprised, and everybody says the same obliging things. I am sure she will be as happy to see her friends at Highbury, as they can be to see her. Yes, Friday or Saturday, she cannot say which, because Colonel Campbell will be wanting the carriage himself one of those days. So very good of them to send her the whole way! But they always do, you know. Oh yes, Friday or Saturday next. That is what she writes about. That is the reason of her writing out of rule, as we call it, for, in the common course, we should not have heard from her before next Tuesday or Wednesday.”

“Yes, so I imagined. I was afraid there could be little chance of my hearing anything of Miss Fairfax today.”

“So obliging of you! No, we should not have heard, if it had not been for this particular circumstance, of her being to come here so soon. My mother is so delighted! For she is to be three months with us at least. Three months, she says so, positively, as I am going to have the pleasure of reading to you. The case is, you see, that the Campbells are going to Ireland. Mrs Dixon has persuaded her father and mother to come over and see her directly. They had not intended to go over till the summer, but she is so impatient to see them again—for till she married last October, she was never away from them so much as a week, which must make it very strange to be in different kingdoms, I was going to say, but however different countries. And so she wrote a very urgent letter to her mother—or her father, I declare I do not know which it was, but we shall see presently in Jane’s letter—wrote in Mr Dixon’s name as well as her own, to press their coming over directly, and they would give them the meeting in Dublin and take them back to their country seat, Baly-craig. A beautiful place, I fancy. Jane has heard a great deal of its beauty, from Mr Dixon, I mean—I do not know that she ever heard about it from anybody else, but it was very natural, you know, that he should like to speak of his own place while he was paying his addresses. And as Jane used to be very often walking out with them—for Colonel and Mrs Campbell were very particular about their daughter’s not walking out often with only Mr Dixon, for which I do not at all blame them, of course she heard everything he might be telling Miss Campbell about his own home in Ireland, and I think she wrote us word that he had shown them some drawings of the place, views that he had taken himself. He is a most amiable, charming young man, I believe. Jane was quite longing to go to Ireland, from his account of things.”