Splendid (20 page)

“Please credit me with a little sense.” Emma rolled her eyes. “I would hardly creep onto a ship now.”

“Yes, but God only knows what else you'd do,” Alex muttered.

“May I finish?”

“Please do.”

“Well, I snuck out of my house early in the morning, and it wasn't terribly easy because my bedroom is on the second floor.”

Alex groaned.

“It was fortunate that I am such a good tree climber,” Emma continued. “I had to jump from my window and grab hold of the branch from the oak tree outside my house, wiggle to the trunk, and then ease down to the ground.” She looked
up at Alex to see if he was about to interrupt her yet again. He made a great show of not saying anything.

“Once I got to the ground,” Emma continued, “it wasn't very difficult to make my way to the docks and then onto the ship.”

“Didn't your father notice your absence?” Alex inquired.

“Oh, I had all that worked out,” Emma said offhandedly. “He always leaves for his office very early in the morning. He never made a habit of looking in on me before he left. He was afraid he would wake me up. I'm a very light sleeper,” she explained, her violet eyes earnest.

Alex smiled, thinking that he'd like to have firsthand knowledge of that fact. “What about the servants?” he asked. “Surely one of them would notice you were gone.”

“We really don't live in as grand a manner as you do here,” Emma said with a light smile. “My father and I don't employ a fleet of servants. Mary, our housemaid, usually came to wake me at half past seven—”

“A barbaric hour,” Alex murmured.

Emma pursed her lips and gave him a look of mild reproach. “We also don't keep your crazy town hours in Boston.”

“How provincial,” he said dryly, just to goad her.

It almost worked. She started to wag her finger at him, then stopped in mid-wag, her hand still suspended in the air. “On second thought,” she said slowly, narrowing her eyes, “I am not going to deign to discuss this matter with you.”

“I'm crushed,” Alex replied, reaching up and snatching her hand. With one swift tug, he pulled her down next to him. Emma squealed as she landed
alongside his strong frame, her legs caught in the tangle of her skirts.

“Alex!” she yelped, trying to pull her legs free of the cumbersome material. “What are you doing?”

Alex let go of Emma's hand and reached up to stroke the delicate line of her jaw with his knuckles. “I just wanted to get close enough to smell you.”

“What?” she croaked.

“Everybody has their own special scent, you know,” he explained softly, his thumb trailing across her full lips. “Yours is particularly sweet.”

Emma cleared her throat nervously. “Don't you want to hear the rest of the story?” she said hoarsely. She scrambled up into a sitting position although Alex was not inclined to let her move away from him.

“Of course.” His hand moved to her earlobe, which he caught gently between his thumb and forefinger.

“Umm, where was I?” Emma blinked a few times in rapid succession as she realized that Alex had succeeded in turning her into a complete peagoose.

“You were explaining why your housemaid didn't notice you were gone,” he reminded her, wondering if her fluttering eyelashes were as soft as they looked.

“Oh,” Emma said with gulp. “Well, she
did
notice I was gone, of course, at half past seven when she came in to wake me, but I knew that by the time someone could reach my father and he could make it to the docks, we'd be well out to sea.”

“So what happened?” Alex prodded, his fingers leaving her earlobe and moving down to stroke her neck.

Emma looked up into his eyes and was mesmerized by the raw passion she saw there. “What happened when?” she asked blankly, every thought flying out of her head.

Alex chuckled, pleased at her reaction to his caress. “What happened when your father realized you were gone?”

Emma wet her lips and swiftly lowered her eyes and fixed her gaze on his chin, which she figured would be considerably less disconcerting than looking directly into his emerald stare. “Well,” she said slowly, trying to regain her composure. “There was nothing he
could
do, really. We were already gone. The trouble started when I finally revealed myself to Captain Cartwright at sunset that evening. I thought he was going to explode.”

“What did he do?”

“He locked me in his cabin and turned the ship around.”

“A sensible man,” Alex commented. “I ought to send him a note of gratitude.”

“He didn't give me any food.”

“Good,” Alex said flatly. “You didn't deserve any.”

“I was really quite hungry,” Emma said earnestly, trying to ignore the heat on the nape of her neck where Alex's hand rested. “I hadn't eaten for nearly twenty-four hours when he locked me up, and it was another eight or nine hours before we got back home.”

“He should have horsewhipped you.”

“My father took care of that,” Emma replied with a grimace. “My backside was about as red as my hair for the next week.”

Alex fought long and hard to resist the temptation to ease his hand down her back and squeeze the part of her body she was discussing. He glanced
surreptitiously over at Emma to ascertain whether or not she had any idea of his thoughts. She was gazing over her right shoulder, her eyes fixed on some point along the horizon, her lips curved into a reminiscent smile. Suddenly, as if she felt the weight of his eyes on her, she turned, her bright hair catching a breeze and flying around her face. The delicate smile remained on her features, but Alex saw wariness creep into her eyes. He sighed. She wasn't stupid.

Hell, he supposed that was why he liked her so much.

Emma took advantage of Alex's brief reverie to scoot back across the blanket to her original position, using hunger as an excuse. “I'm famished!” she declared. “I wonder what Mrs. Goode packed for us.” She began to rummage through their picnic lunch.

“Not one of Cleopatra's new kittens, I hope,” Alex remarked.

Emma made a face. “You're impossible,” she decided, pulling out a plate of roasted chicken. She sighed. “I wish she hadn't packed chicken.”

“Why not?” Alex asked moving to a sitting position as he reached for a drumstick. “Don't you like it?” He took a vicious bite and smiled rakishly at her.

Emma's face revealed an expression of concern. “It's just so difficult to eat in a ladylike manner.”

“So don't act like a lady. I won't tell anyone.”

Emma looked hesitant. “I don't know. Aunt Caroline has labored so hard to reform me. I would hate to ruin all her good work with one picnic.”

“For God's sake, Emma. Use your fingers and enjoy yourself.”

“Really? You won't go back to the assembled multitudes and report that I was not behaving like a proper English lady?”

“Emma, have I ever given you any indication that I wanted you to be a proper English lady?”

“Oh, all right,” she capitulated, plucking the other drumstick from the pile and daintily tearing a small piece off. It was all Alex could do not to laugh as she popped the minuscule morsel in her mouth. “It's your turn now, you know,” she said with a lift of her eyebrows.

Alex did her one better, arching only his right brow in an expression of supreme confidence.

“I hate people who can do that,” she muttered under her breath.

“Hmmm?”

“Nothing.” Emma took another tiny bite of chicken. “It's just that it's your turn to tell me the worst thing
you
did as a child.”

“Would you believe I was a model child?”

“No,” Emma replied bluntly.

“Then would you believe that I was so awful that I would be hard-pressed to settle on one single incident?”

“It's a bit more likely.”

“Why don't we strike a deal?” Alex offered, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees. “How would you like the story that has the most potential to embarrass me as a grown man?”

“Now
that
is intriguing,” Emma said enthusiastically, completely forgetting her resolve to behave properly as she bit into the chicken and tore off a fair-sized piece.

“I was about two or three,” Alex began.

“Just wait one moment,” Emma interrupted. “Are you trying to tell me that your most embarrassing moment occurred when you were two? That is quite
the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. People shouldn't even be
allowed
to feel embarrassment over what they did as babies.”

“Are you going to allow me to finish my story?” Alex inquired with a cheeky tilt of his head.

“Certainly,” she replied, magnanimously waving her chicken leg in the air.

“I was about two or three.”

“You said that,” Emma reminded him, her mouth full.

Alex shot her an annoyed look and continued. “My mother's sister had given me a stuffed dog for Christmas. I wouldn't let it out of my sight.”

“What did you name him?”

His expression was sheepish. “Goggie.” He looked over at Emma, who was valiantly trying to stifle a laugh. She quickly pasted a wide smile onto her face. “Anyway,” Alex continued, “I played with Goggie so much that his stuffing eventually fell out, and I was heartbroken. Or at least my mother tells me I was heartbroken,” he quickly added. “I don't remember any of this.”

Emma conjured a vision of a small, black-haired, green-eyed boy crying over the demise of his favorite toy and decided that the image was altogether too adorable to think about without the risk of falling in love on the spot. “So what happened?” she asked, giving her head a slight shake to banish the dangerous thought.

“My mother took pity on me and restuffed the dog using her old stockings. And we would have all lived happily ever after except”—Alex said with a lopsided smile—“I continued to abuse the poor animal and it fell apart again, and this time my mother couldn't mend it.”

“And?” Emma prodded.

“And this is the part where the story gets embarrassing.”

“Oh, good.”

“Apparently, I couldn't bear to part with Goggie even when his death was quite irrevocable, and so since I couldn't drag the dog around with me anymore, I decided that the stuffing would do just as well.” Alex paused for a moment, casually running his hand through his windswept hair. “You will recall,” he said lazily, “that my mother every kindly restuffed the dog with stockings. So for the next few months I wandered the halls of Westonbirt dragging ladies' stockings with me everywhere I went.”

Emma laughed merrily. “I don't think that's embarrassing. I think it's adorable.”

Alex leveled his eyes on her with a look of mock severity. “You do realize I have a reputation to maintain?”

“Oh, believe me, I am well acquainted with your reputation,” Emma replied, her eyes bright with amusement.

Alex leaned forward and tried to appear grave. “I am trusting you with my darkest secret. How do you think it would look if it became known that the Duke of Ashbourne spent his formative years in ladies' stockings?”

“Now, now. You weren't
in
ladies' stockings; you were enamored
of
ladies' stockings. And now that I think about it,” Emma paused for a moment, a saucy grin creeping across her face, “it makes perfect sense. You're certainly rather interested in ladies' stockings now.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Really, Alex,” Emma teased. “You do have a reputation with the ladies, you know.”

“One I'm fast losing due to you,” he muttered.

Not hearing him, Emma sailed right on. “No less than two dozen women have warned me about you.”

“I wish someone had warned me about
you
,” he sighed.

“What?” Emma asked, startled.

Alex leaned forward, his green eyes serious. “I think I'm going to kiss you now.”

“You—you are?” Emma stammered, feeling all of her self-confidence and composure drain right out of her.

Alex gazed over at her. Her bright hair had been tossed around by the wind and now framed her face with charming disarray. Her violet eyes were open wide and glowed luminously as they watched his approach. She wet her lips nervously, completely unaware of her own seductive powers.

“Emma,” he said hoarsely. “I think I have to kiss you. Do you understand that?”

Emma nodded uncertainly, barely aware of his words as her entire body seemed to catch on fire, ignited by the pulsating heat that rose from his powerful frame.

Alex's eyes finally settled on her lush mouth, and his last rational thought was that nothing short of a natural disaster could prevent his kissing her now. And ever so slowly, he touched his lips to hers.

Chapter 12

M
esmerized, Emma could not tear her eyes off of Alex's face as his mouth descended to rest on hers. The touch was fleeting, his lips lightly brushing hers. She felt paralyzed, barely able to breathe.

Alex lifted his head to look at her. Her eyes still open wide, she gazed up at him as if she'd never seen him before. “Emma?” he questioned, touching his fingers to her chin.

Emma continued to stare at him as he scanned her face with his brilliant green eyes. She fought the urge to reach up and brush a lock of tousled hair from his forehead. He was looking at her so tenderly, she thought that all she really wanted to do was burrow in the warmth of his arms and melt in his embrace. She knew he didn't love her, didn't intend to marry her. But she also knew that he did care for her and that he wanted her very much. And God help her, she wanted him just as badly. She had spent months trying to convince herself that there was nothing special about the strange, new feelings she felt whenever he was near. Alex had said he had to kiss her. It was finally time to be honest with herself. She needed to kiss him, too.