Teresa Medeiros (37 page)

He leaned forward and scanned the rows of boxes with his opera glasses. The gaslight from the crystal chandeliers shimmered off diamond chokers and gold Albert watch chains. The women clustered like multicolored blooms planted in window boxes next to their black-garbed escorts. Their fans fluttered like delicate petals in the wind.

Justin finally spotted Emily in a box on the tier below. She was on the same side as they were, but much farther from the stage. His worst fears were founded. The box was packed to overflowing with rowdy young swells and milling girls. He glimpsed the countess dozing in her ruffles in the back of the box.

“Sir,” Penfeld said, tugging on his coat. “The performance is beginning.”

Justin lowered the opera glasses and settled irritably back in his seat. There were two empty seats beside him, since his mother and Edith had begged off with throbbing megrims, refusing to admit they both detested the opera.

“Why don’t you sit down, man?” he asked Penfeld, indicating the vacant chairs.

“Oh, no, sir.” The valet stared stoically ahead as if even glancing at the stage might be considered a breach of duty. “It wouldn’t be proper.”

The first notes of the overture began, and the massive curtain rose. Lily tapped his shoulder. “May I borrow your opera glasses?”

“No,” he snapped.

She leaned back in her seat with a wounded sniff.

The chandeliers dimmed and stage arcs flooded the brilliant backdrop with light. Justin was deaf to the musical
charms of Bizet’s
La Jolie Fille de Perth
. He was too obsessed by another
jolie fille
.

Using the opera glasses, he turned his gaze away from the stage and back to Emily. She was wearing the soft shade of rose so complimentary to her coloring; her curls had been caught up in a loose topknot.

Justin adjusted the glasses. A furious breath escaped him as a blazing shock of red hair came into focus. Who else could that be but Richard “Dick” Claiborne slobbering all over her bared shoulder? Someone passed in front of them. He leaned over the balcony, craning his neck. A fat eyeball filled his vision.

He slowly lowered the glasses. The gentleman in the next box was glaring at him. “The stage is that way,” he said gruffly, pointing.

Nodding a curt apology, Justin ducked back into his seat. The door to the box opened, sweeping in the unmistakable scent of lavender.

Suzanne’s husky whisper raked over him. “Do you mind if my husband and I share your box? It seems ours has been seized by my visiting cousin and his family.”

Without waiting for an invitation, his ex-fiancée claimed the seat next to his while her husband settled in the back of the box. “Deplorable stuff, opera,” he grumbled. “Don’t know what the women see in it.”

Justin grunted an agreement, too distracted to defend his fondest passion. Within minutes the dapper little man was snoring. Justin cast Suzanne a wry glance, wondering if she was remembering their last disastrous night at the opera when she’d called him a foolish bastard for turning his back on his inheritance.

He shifted in his seat. Studied his program. Drummed his fingernails against the balcony railing. When he could no longer resist, he jerked up the opera glasses and trained them on Emily’s box. Suzanne leaned curiously over his shoulder, enveloping him in her perfume. Justin found
himself staring down the twin barrels of another pair of opera glasses.

He started. Emily was watching him. As she realized she’d been caught, she dropped the glasses in her lap and stared fixedly at the stage as if entranced by the trilling vibrato of the plump prima donna. Justin lowered his own glasses, feeling a slow smile spread across his face. He leaned back and dropped a casual arm over the back of Suzanne’s chair.

“I can’t see,” Millicent whined.

“It’s opera, Millie,” he said. “You don’t have to see. Just listen.”

He dared a glance from the corner of his eye. Emily was watching them again. He tilted his head toward Suzanne as if sharing the most intimate of confidences.

As act one approached its majestic climax, there was a stir in Emily’s box. Justin snatched up the glasses. Several of the young people were sneaking past the drowsing countess, probably off to seek the more invigorating and forbidden entertainment of the music halls. Emily and Claiborne were left quite alone in the front row.

Justin stood, ignoring his sisters’ protests. The soprano’s aria soared, rattling the crystal drops of the chandeliers. Justin’s fingers bit into the pearl casing of the glasses as he watched Claiborne loom over Emily. She whacked him with her fan. Undaunted, he grabbed her around her slender waist and planted a sloppy kiss on her neck.

The soprano drew in a breath, and in that perfect lull of silence between one note and the next, Justin slammed down the opera glasses and shouted, “Dammit to bloody hell! I’ve had enough!”

Chapter 26
 

E
very eye in the opera house turned to Justin, even the shocked prima donna’s. Her plump chin quivered. The tenor quickly cut in, his magnificent voice wavering as he sped through the music to bring the rattled company to the haven of intermission. The audience was more fascinated by the scandalous performance of the Duke of Winthrop.

The curtain began to unfurl. Penfeld lunged for the tails of his master’s coat too late as Justin vaulted over the rail and swung into the box below. The audience gasped, then began to pour out of their own seats, not wanting to miss a moment of the delightful spectacle.

Justin sped down the wide marble steps that led to the lobby, ignoring the crowds streaming around him. Towering columns limited his vision, but his gaze found Emily as unerringly as if she’d been the only woman in the room.

His voice rang out, echoing back from the vaulted ceiling. “Emily!”

The excited chatter faded to a breathless murmur.

Emily kept walking, her delicate slippers and narrow train forcing her into tiny, mincing steps. The crowd cleared a wide swath between them, recoiling from Justin’s long, dangerous strides. He caught up with her easily.

He fell into step behind her. “Get your cape. We’re going home.”

“You’re insane. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“I said,
get your cape
,” he thundered.

The crowd fell into dead silence.

Emily whirled around, her dark eyes flashing. “And what if I don’t?” Her tongue darted out to moisten her parted lips. “What are you going to do? Spank me?”

Swishing her skirt defiantly, she turned and marched away. Justin stood unmoving for a moment, then closed the distance between them in two furious strides. He grabbed her arm and pulled her around, jerking her against him.

A shadow of his New Zealand accent touched his speech, his low, flat words meant only for her. “We’re going home. Now, you can walk or I can throw you over my shoulder and carry you. It makes no difference to me.”

Emily went dead white except for the furious splotches of color in her cheeks. Her bosom heaved with impotent rage, but something in his eyes must have warned her he wasn’t bluffing. She lowered her gaze to his buttons, her lips tightened in mutinous rebellion.

“Sir, your cloak!” Penfeld tossed the garment.

Justin caught it in one hand and threw it over Emily’s shoulders. Two footmen swept open the double gilt doors, letting in a blast of bitter cold. As the duke ushered his young charge into the night, the lobby of the opera house erupted in a scandalized roar.

A light snow had begun to fall. It dusted Justin’s hair as he handed Emily into the waiting carriage. She threw herself into the broad seat opposite him and slumped into a
sullen knot. She shoved his opera cloak from her shoulders, finding its rugged warmth offensive. It smelled warm and spicy, like Justin’s bay rum. Like his bare skin heated by an island sun. A stray tendril of hair flopped out of her topknot; she irritably raked it away.

The carriage lurched into motion. They rode in dead silence. Emily stared at the curtained window. Justin stared at her. She could feel the condemning heat of his gaze.

The confines of the carriage seemed to grow smaller with each turn of the wheels. They were cordoned off from the winter night by the cozy glow of the lantern and the warmth wafting from the coal footstove. Justin seemed bigger somehow, more overwhelming. His arms were crossed over his chest, his long legs relaxed in an arrogant sprawl. Her senses were enveloped by the sound of his breathing, his heat, his masculine scent. An arc of tension sizzled between them.

When she could no longer bear the silence, she said, “Doesn’t it concern you that half of London thinks you a madman?”

His eyes flicked over her like tawny flames. “Better than having them think you a shameless trollop.”

She gasped, stinging from the unfair cut. “What’s wrong, Justin? Does it gall you because a man found me attractive? Because he dared to treat me as a woman, not a child?”

He snorted. “I’d hardly call that freckled toad a man.”

“As avidly as you were watching us, you probably counted every one of those freckles. Wasn’t your own trollop holding your interest, or are you one of those debauched men who gets his thrills by spying on others?”

His eyes darkened. “What are they teaching at Foxworth’s these days—de Sade? Your education has been quite extensive, my dear.”

“Not as extensive as yours, I’m sure.”

He spoke through gritted teeth. “When we get to the
house, you will go directly to your room. I will no longer tolerate your insolence.”

Her voice rose to a shout. “You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my father!”

Her words hung in the air. Justin went utterly still. A thoughtful glint appeared in his eyes. Then a smile of profound wonder slanted his lips. “Why, I’ll be damned. I’m not, am I?”

Then he was on her. He came across the carriage with the grace of a lunging tiger, bearing her back into the plush cushion. His mouth came down on hers in an unholy surrender to a dark and sweet temptation. His tongue savaged her mouth even as his hand reached up with cool calculation to extinguish the lamp, leaving Emily to drown in his taste, his fragrance, the feel of his hands hot and rough against the bare skin of her shoulders. The darkness rendered him a dangerous stranger. His touch consumed her in flame. She couldn’t fight him. She could only cling to him, bunching the fine broadcloth of his coat in her helpless fists.

Not only did she no longer know him. She no longer knew herself. Who was this wanton who moaned and tugged at the dusky silk of his hair, drawing him deeper into her kiss? Their bodies slid against the lush velvet, gliding downward, ever downward, into forbidden delight.

He muttered soft, rough words against her lips. His hands reached for her skin, too fervent in their need to be anything but clumsy. She lifted her hips to help him until she lay beneath him, her dress bunched around her waist, thighs parted, garters and stockings sprawled in wanton abandon. A word that might have been either prayer or oath escaped him as he molded the damp cambric of her drawers to the silky mound beneath.

When his beautiful, strong fingers slipped beneath the fabric to touch her, Emily, who had so long prided herself on her fierce independence, hid her face in his shirt, unable
to face the terrifying knowledge that there was nothing she wouldn’t let this man do to her. Nothing.

Pleasure ribboned through her in dark cascades as he gently fingered her throbbing flesh, all of his haste and clumsiness vanquished by wonder and grace. Too soon she felt the first shiver of ecstasy approaching through the darkness. A soft cry escaped her as he brought her to a sweet, fierce climax that shattered them both.

For an eternity there was no sound within the carriage but the hoarse rasp of their breathing in the darkness. Slowly, other sensations came into play: the rocking motion of the carriage, the clatter of the wheels against cobblestones, the jingle of the harness ringing like a bell in the crisp winter air.

The bitter wine of guilt poured through Justin. Emily nestled into his chest like some small, fragile creature, kneading his waistcoat between her fingers. He had never meant to humble her, but to exalt her with his touch. A latent tremor rocked her, and he cupped his arm around her, beset by a fierce desire to protect what was his.

Take care of my little angel, Justin. Swear you will
.

Even the memory of David’s charge wasn’t enough to stanch the fire flaming in his belly. She was as trusting as a kitten in his arms. How easy it would be to slide her drawers down over her knees. To part her gartered thighs and undo the buttons of his trousers, freeing that part of him that ached to take her like the most common of whores on the seat of his carriage. He sensed that she wouldn’t stop him until he’d plunged them both into the abyss of their own erotic destruction.

Emily’s eyes fluttered open. Even in the darkness they had a luminous shine. “Was that in lieu of a spanking, or are you going to spank me later?”