Frail Blood (9 page)

"I'm part-owner, Father. I can't abandon the newspaper.
We've just begun to turn
The Gazette
around."

"You can and you will, Emma," her mother said
calmly.

Emma's laugh sounded harsh and brittle to her ears. What game
were her parents up to now? Why did they think they could control her when they'd
failed to do so for the last four years? "You can't make me."

She immediately regretted the childish words.

"But we can," her father said, the coldness of his
voice like sharpened icicles. "Your grandmother's legacy to you has a
clause. A codicil if you will."

"Codicil? What are you talking about," Stephen
thundered. "Mother left the money to Emma unattached, Frank. What have you
done?"

"Nothing a prudent father wouldn't do. I invoked my
right of veto until Emma is twenty-three." Her father's face glowed with
self-satisfaction. "She cannot touch the money until then."

"But I turn twenty-three in six months!" Emma
exclaimed.

"Yes, and six months in Switzerland will give you time
to think about your proper place in society," her mother said.

Emma rose, a tight ball hardening in her chest. "By
then I will have defaulted on my property loan."

"Yes," Papa answered, looking at her over the rim
of his coffee cup. "And given up this nonsense about publishing."

"And returned to live with us as you should," her
mother said, the success of victory in her eyes.

"What if she marries within that time?" Stephen
asked, his eyes trained on Emma.

"Why then, of course," her father answered with
grim satisfaction, "the funds will be released directly to her."

Chapter 9

"Is whispering nothing? Is leaning cheek to
cheek? is meeting noses?" –
The Winter's Tale

The temperature had dropped nearly ten degrees by the time
Malachi abandoned his carriage at his cabin and set off on foot to cover the
distance back to Emma Knight's home.

Plunging his hands into his overcoat pockets, he worried at
his reasons for going there instead of relaxing in his own warm cabin. But,
welcome or not, he wanted to be waiting for her when she returned from what
looked to be an explosive confrontation with her parents.

He
should
leave the woman alone. What did he care if
her father and mother hounded her about the newspaper business? In truth, if
she abandoned it, he and his client would be better off. No meddling Emma
Knight. No danger of damaging accounts splashed across the news page.

He'd offered her a job, an investigative opportunity, mostly
to keep her out of his affairs, but Emma might be quite good at ferreting out
information for him. Stephen Knight seemed to be sure of that. She had a
certain way about her, brazenness and innocence mixed together, that was
charming and lulled a person into confidence.

When he arrived, Malachi first walked the perimeter of the
house, assuring himself that no one was about. Silence outside and darkness
within. The help must spend their nights elsewhere.

Did Emma sleep alone here at night, then? Lonely business,
that, with the woods menacingly close and deep and the lake nearby.

Around to the side of the landing he discovered a swing that
had been fashioned into the overhang so that a person could rest there on a
cool summer's day and watch the mysterious lure of the forest. He slouched down
in the white-slatted seat and rested his head on the back.

Why had a woman like Emma Knight – stubborn, even bullheaded
beyond normal reason – given in so easily under the censure of her parents? He
knew she was stronger than that.

Perhaps she chose her battles carefully, for he knew he
would not have capitulated, not at the same tender age of twenty-two. But he
was a man and she was little more than a girl.

By the time he was fourteen, he'd been twenty pounds heavier
and half a head taller than his father. The last time his father raised his
fist in anger was the day Malachi left home. But not before he'd broken his
father's forearm and bloodied his face.

In the dark Malachi smiled in satisfaction, but the feeling
evaporated when he thought of his mother. He'd known even at fourteen that he
should've taken her with him. But how? And where?

For all his great size, he was still a boy. So he'd left her
behind, too callow to understand how effectively his drunken, violent father
would punish his mother for her son's transgression.

He heard the sounds of the Curved Dash before he saw the
motorcar putter up the dirt road and pull into the turnabout. Doors opened and
slammed shut again, and quiet murmurings wafted to him around the corner. He
couldn't make out the words, but he knew it was Knight, bringing his niece home
from the family ordeal.

Their relationship seemed one of mutual affection and
respect. Malachi would never have left her alone with her parents if Stephen
hadn't been there, although clearly Emma was a woman who could hold her own in
any argument.

He wondered what leverage her parents had used against her
after he'd left.

Suddenly he realized Emma might not thank him for appearing
unexpectedly at her doorstep. Interfering, meddling in her personal affairs. She
didn't need him. She had her uncle to comfort her.

If Stephen remained, Malachi would slip away without seeing
her. No need for Emma to know he'd been here at all.

Moments passed and finally he heard the wheels of the
motorcar grind on the gravel as it turned around and followed the bumpy trail
to the main road. The clear night scattered jewels across the swath of black
sky, and Malachi's breath puffed in the frosty air.

So, he checked briefly on her. That was all.

He rapped lightly on the door and then gazed up to the
second floor where a dim light burned in what might be Emma's bedroom. No
answer.

After knocking again with no response, he swung around to
leave when the door creaked slowly open and the light from the inside
silhouetted her slender form. She hadn't yet removed her suit jacket and
gloves, but her head was bare, the auburn strands curling around her ears and sweeping
across her forehead.

"I knew you'd come," she said without preamble,
her pale face even paler against her dark clothing.

He glanced behind her to the empty foyer. The solitariness of
their situation hit him like a sudden blast. The risk of compromising her
rooted him to the spot. "Come outside and talk with me a while."

She followed him around the porch and sat beside him while
he gently moved the swing back and forth with one foot. She placed her hands
beneath her thighs in a charming gesture that reminded him how very young she
was – at least from his vantage of thirty-one years and far more experience.

After several silent, but not uncomfortable minutes, she
whispered, "It was awful. They've schemed to rob me of my home and
eventually the newspaper."

He'd known this was coming. Emma was foolish to believe she
was powerful enough to thwart the combined resolve of her parents, two wealthy
and influential community members. He placed his gloved hand on the back of her
neck, kneaded softly and murmured quiet, soothing nonsense.

When she finally turned to him, great fat tears spiked her
lashes and her nose, red from the cold, began to run. "Why do they hate me
so?"

He removed his handkerchief and handed it to her, sighing
heavily. "They don't hate you, Emma. They're afraid of you."

She blew her nose and snorted. "As long as I can
remember, they've disapproved of me."

"They don't understand you. You want so much more than
any woman they've ever known. You unsettle them."

Her chocolate eyes flickered and he detected a glimmer of
warmth in their black centers. A warning crawled up his spine as she smiled
wryly at him. "But you do," she murmured, shifting infinitesimally
closer.

Her arm and thigh brushed against his and a jolt of desire
shot straight to his groin.

"You understand me," she said.

He laughed and rose smoothly, turned to lean against the low
wall of the wraparound porch, his legs crossed at the ankles. Distance was
prudent. Distance protected both of them.

A mocking tone entered his voice. "I doubt anyone
understands you fully, Miss Knight."

"Emma," she whispered as the faint scent of her
perfume, mixed with the headiness of her closeness, overwhelmed his senses.

He could not afford involvement with a woman now. And she? –
well, Emma was far better off without the stench of his reputation tainting
her.

But she apparently had no such reservations. Biting her
lower lip, she moved toward him, standing so close he could feel the warm
moisture of her breath and the slight trembling of her body. She smiled and
gazed up at him rather naughtily. "Are you afraid of me, Malachi?"

Jesus Christ!

"Why should I be afraid of a young, inexperienced girl?"
he countered, controlling the primitive impulse to take her harshly here and
now, without preliminaries or finesse.

She jutted out that bottom lip. "I'm nearly
twenty-three, hardly a girl."

"If you say so."

"I do. And I'm not untutored at all." As if to
prove this fact, she reached up to draw a gloved finger down the line of his
jaw and over his lips, all the while never removing her eyes from his face.

This was shaky ground, dangerous ground. He'd ascertained
she was none the less for wear from her parents' verbal thrashing, and now he
should leave. But he remained motionless, inflamed by the look and smell of her,
lemon and oranges and some spice he couldn't identify emanating from her hair
and her skin.

One brush of his fingers against the soft smoothness of her
cheek, clear as porcelain. One press of her parted lips against his. One touch
of her round, perfect breasts.

What harm there?

She'd already claimed she was no innocent, and she spoke and
moved her body like a woman familiar with the many ways to entice a man. Likely,
she'd experimented with a score of young men at Wellesley, led them on until
they were hot and eager for her.

Slowly, one finger at a time, he removed his gloves, all the
while watching those clear brown eyes widen. How far would she let him go and still
consider herself a lady?

How far would he go and remain a gentleman, his conscience
countered?

Emma was a lady. And he a gentleman even though he'd never
claimed more than a thin veneer of gentility. Still, even ladies and gentlemen
succumbed to the occasional enticements of the flesh.

His gloves dropped to the redwood flooring. He reached for
her, traced his bare finger down the straight slope of her nose and over the
curve of her bottom lip, tugged gently until she opened her mouth to him and he
felt the soft moistness of her inner lip.

With his other hand, he reached behind her and removed the
remaining pins from her hair's loose knot, let the spiral hairpins join his
gloves on the floor's planks with a soft plink. The rich hue of her hair
glistened in the moonlight like molten lava as it tumbled around her shoulders
in violent disarray.

He pulled her toward him. The swell of her breasts beneath
her jacket pressed against his chest as she wrapped her arms around his waist
and spread her palms up his back. She dug her fingers into his body as if she'd
score his bare flesh if it were handy to her nails.

Desire raced through him like jolts of lightning. Emma was
no innocent. She knew exactly how to inflame him.

His cock pushed hard against her belly, her body quivering
at the jutting insistence. He lowered his mouth to hers even as she opened her
lips and his tongue began to trace the curve of her bottom lip. Deepening the
kiss, he sensed her ragged intake of breath and her heart pattering to the
pounding roar of his own.

Her hands dropped from his waist to linger on his hips and,
taking the cue, he grasped the gently rounded curve of her buttocks, holding
her firmly against him, letting her experience the hard line of him through his
trousers. As he trailed kisses down the long column of her neck, she moaned and
arched closer, inviting him to taste her. His blood roared in his temples like
a fiery conflagration.

He obliged for a few sweet moments before pulling back. God,
she was an intoxication more heady than liquor.

"More." Her breath fanned across his jaw, hot from
his assault, her fists clenched tightly around his hips.

He complied by gazing at her closed eyes, unbuttoning
several fastenings of the jacket and shirt waist beneath. "Is this what
you want, Emma?"

Her eyes fluttered open, glazed over with passion.

"Yes," he murmured and ran his finger along the
swell of full breasts jutting above the corset. "Yes, you do."

His voice sounded harsh to his ears, ragged and out of
control. She'd bewitched him and he wanted nothing more than to take her here,
on the hard porch, in the cold night.

"Say it," he urged, moving his mouth downward to
cover the fiery path his fingers had just traced. "Say you want this."

He felt the pulse at her neck race wildly against his lips. He
tugged at her chemise until one small pink nipple opened to his sight. "Ah,"
he whispered and set to work there.

Emma caught his head between her hands, her fingers curling
in his hair, and drew him closer to her breast. Another jolt of desire shot
through him.

"Yes," she cried. "Yes, harder." She
squirmed against him as if in pain and he bit back a gentle laugh.

He tugged and nipped at her nipple, then turned to the other
one. God, he was hot for her. And she was ready for him. He fancied he could
smell her arousal through the layers of clothing that separated them.

When he spoke, his voice shook. He wanted her badly, but
common sense prevailed for a brief moment. She didn't deserve being taken like
a common trollop.

"Inside?" he muttered.

"Yes, please," she begged, and at that moment
opened her eyes again so his gaze fixed with hers in the light from the moon. Passion
and sexual need filled her face like a brilliant light. He wanted nothing more
than to sweep her in his arms and find the nearest bedroom.

But the realization of the consequences shocked him like a
plunge into the icy winter lake. Christ, Emma Knight was a lady! Even though
they clearly panted for one another, the complications that could arise from
making wanton use of her body would surely come back to plague him.

He dropped his hands from her hips. "Ah, Emma," he
breathed on a regretful sigh.

"What? Wh – ?"

 He placed a chaste kiss on her smooth forehead and inhaled
a deep, ragged breath. With inept fingers, he pulled the jacket around her
exposed body and fumbled with the buttons.

"What are you doing?" Her voice was a mixture of
protest and passion, mirroring his regret.

"Nothing. I'm – we're doing nothing."

Confusion and disbelief played across her face. "But,
but I want this," she protested, reaching for him again. "You want
this."

"God, yes," he groaned into her hair before taking
several steps away from her. "But it's been a long day, Emma, for you –
for both of us. You need rest now, not ... not this."

She'd likely never know the cost of those words.

Without another sound he turned on his heel and tramped off
into the forest, his cock protesting with a will of its own against the
tightness of his pants.