The Education of Mrs. Brimley (32 page)

“Why are you smiling?” he rasped in between gasps for air.

“You can’t see me.” She hadn’t realized that she was, but then with so much joy and love inside, how could she not? His shoulder hovered a fraction from her nose. “How do you know I’m smiling?”

“I can feel it,” he said. “I can feel every movement of your luscious body as if it were my own.”

She delighted in the vibration of his words rumbling through his chest. Her fingers idly danced across the bare skin of his back. Bathed in his heat and attention, she could lay here forever, even with the bits of hay and straw stabbing her in unusual places.

“I should get you back to Pettibone before a horde of females come looking for you,” he said, though his only movement was to kiss the top of her head.

“Yes,” she reluctantly agreed, more concerned with one young female in particular. One to whom she had made a promise. Nicholas shifted his weight, and Emma released him, instantly mourning his loss.

He stood above her like a Greek god, one carved from veined marble. Perhaps if he would model for her, she would complete those painting projects he teased her about.

“The next time, Emma,” he said, smiling down at her prone body, “I promise we’ll make use of a proper bed.” He offered his arm and helped her to her feet. “Unfortunately, with houseguests—”

“The next time?” She smiled, pulling a shaft of straw from his hair. She hadn’t considered beyond this evening. “Doesn’t this complete my education?”

He laughed. “Emma, my love, it’s just begun.”

My love.
The words rippled through her brain, making her giddy. He had known her in the most intimate way conceivable, yet he still loved her! The thought expanded inside her while she dressed, making her feel featherlight and bright as the sun. In her current condition, she could easily have held her shawl aloft and floated back to Pettibone. Nicholas, however, completed dressing and readied a horse for a more conservative approach.

After he had mounted the chestnut mare, he reached for her waist and swung her up into his lap. All her petticoats couldn’t protect her from the stab of pain on her sensitive bottom. She almost jumped off the horse, but Nicholas held her in place.

“I know it must hurt.” He jiggled the reins and set the horse in motion before kissing her cheek. “But it will pass. Do you remember when we talked about the ways to alleviate the pain of the first time?”

Already, the ache was receding. Emma leaned lightly against Nicholas’s chest, adjusting to the sway of the horse’s easy walk.

“I remember,” she answered, thinking less of his actual advice than the incident that had preceded the conversation. He had undressed her and held her to the bed. What a fool she was to have been frightened. Nicholas wouldn’t have hurt her. Remembering how his gaze had appeared fixated on the rise and fall of her pink corset, she felt a low tingling building once more in her feminine core. Perhaps they could try that scenario again, only this time—

“You’re so quiet,” he said, brushing his lips across her forehead. “Have I displeased you?”

She heard the catch in his voice. “No,” she hastened to reassure him. “I am not disappointed. I was just . . . thinking.”

He nodded his head. “I expected as much.” He shifted in the saddle. “Emma, if our coupling brings forth issue . . .”

“Issue?” A shiver of dread sliced through her soft fantasies of attachment with Nicholas. She jerked upright.

“A child, Emma,” he soothed, trying to nudge her back into her former position. “There are precautions one can take. We’ll talk more about them the next time we meet. But if our coupling has resulted in a child, I wish to reassure you that I will not desert you as your father did your mother.”

A coldness settled in the pit of her stomach. What had she done? She knew the consequences that befell a woman carrying a child out of wedlock. Had she not lived those very consequences? Why had she not considered the possibility she could conceive a child earlier?

“I’m a commoner,” she whispered, already feeling a rift in their magical experience. “A lady bred, perhaps, but I’m still—”

“There’s nothing common about you, Emma.” His chin nuzzled the side of her face. “I will hold you to your promise.” His voice carried a warning tone. “No more running. You will stay at Pettibone.”

But if indeed she carried Nicholas’s seed in her womb, how long before the sisters at Pettibone forced her to leave?

The horse stepped free of the woods. Through the fog that gathered at this lowest point, she could see the looming structure of Pettibone at the top of a gentle slope.

“Emma, look at me,” Nicholas commanded with a sense of urgency.

She tilted her head up and his lips crashed down upon hers. His tongue filled her in remembrance of an earlier shared intimate posture. Her hands slipped around his waist, needing to feel the protective wall of his chest. He groaned in response before pulling back and resting his forehead on hers.

“Promise me, Emma. You won’t leave.”

In that moment, she knew without question that Nicholas would protect her and her child if need be. He would never hurt her. He loved her.
Just not enough to marry,
an internal voice whispered.

“I promise,” she replied, trusting in his protection of her future. “But I should dismount here, while the fog covers your presence.”

After another quick embrace, he lowered her carefully to the ground. She gathered her skirts and started up the hill, feeling the heat of his gaze measuring her progress.

NICHOLAS COULD BARELY FOCUS ON PREPARING his Academy submission for transport to London. Barely two hours had passed since he had returned her to Pettibone and already he missed the soft press of her sweet body, his flesh-and-blood goddess sent to earth. His gaze slipped to Emma’s compassionate smile in his completed portrait. She had accepted his passion without demand or complaint. She had accepted him as an artist, not as a connection to peerage, nor as a means to an unlimited supply of Worth gowns. She brought out the best of him as an artist, as a man, and as a . . . father?

His fingers fumbled the nail that he had positioned on the wooden transportation crate. Was it possible that Emma could even now carry his heir? That thought, as distasteful as it may have been with other women, felt somehow right with Emma. A smile pulled at his lips. He could imagine Emma with a swollen belly. Fumbling on the floor for the dropped nail, he imagined her reading long passages of Wordsworth and Coleridge to their unborn child, and he’d paint her every expression. A deep warmth crept up from his soul. He repositioned the nail and tapped it with his hammer. She would be a loving mother, just like his own, and he’d be a . . . A vision of his own father slipped into his mind.

The hammer missed its mark and caught Nicholas’s thumb. “Bloody hell!” He slipped the sore finger between his lips. The action reminded him of Emma sucking ever so sweetly on his seed that she’d collected on her fingers. His manhood stirred and his lips lifted in a smile.

“Look at you.” William strode into the studio, his eyes widened in astonishment. “There you sit with a finger in your mouth, grinning like a half-wit. Is this delirium due to the advent of our departure, or a result of your earlier activities in town?” He lifted a brow. “You were plying your talents in the local tavern this day, were you not?”

Nicholas simply smiled and finished pounding the nail home. Best let his brother imagine what he may. In truth, he hadn’t visited that tavern in months. Not since he had found his Artemis.

“I thought as much,” William said, a knowing tilt to his lips. “And I must say I’m pleased to see you back to your old self.”

Nicholas lifted a landscape fitted in a gilded ornamental frame off the easel, then held it up for his brother’s viewing. “Do you think this will be accepted in the exhibition?”

The smile froze on William’s face. His eyes narrowed slightly, and his words slowed as if carefully chosen. “You plan to enter two paintings, then?”

“This is the only painting I’m sending to the competition.”

“Surely, you jest!” William scowled, pointing to the similarly sized, framed painting leaning at the easel’s feet. “
Artemis’s Revenge
outshines that landscape in depth and substance, as well as in pure artistry and emotion. You can’t seriously intend to submit that, that . . . sheep pasture in its place.”

Nicholas looked with mock horror at the landscape in his hands. “Do you really think it is that bad? I rather thought the inclusion of some of the Pettibone students made an interesting contrast to the rural scene.”

Indeed, he had no doubt
Artemis’s Revenge
would have secured a place of honor in the juried exhibition, but that was no longer his concern. Emma had already secured a similar placement in his heart.
Artemis’s Revenge
would serve as a private reminder of the levels to which he was capable. There would be another year, and another painting opportunity for Academy recognition.

“Are you sure, brother?” William dropped his outrage for a confidential inflection. “
Artemis
would win the respect you’ve struggled years for.
She
wouldn’t need to know.”

“I would know and that’s enough.” Nicholas hoped his tone conveyed the end of that discussion. “I’ve made my decision, William. Let it stand.”

Nicholas slipped the framed landscape carefully in the crate, then hammered home the carefully placed wooden lid. “There,” he said once the task was completed. “It is all ready to be loaded in the morning.”

William shook his head in disagreement but didn’t say another word.

As an afterthought, Nicholas draped a gray cloth over the framed
Artemis’s Revenge
destined to stay in his studio. As long as guests tarried at his house, his masterpiece had best remain covered. Emma would never forgive him if Lady Cavendish viewed the painting.

Once
Artemis’s Revenge
was properly draped, he wrapped his arm around his brother’s shoulder. “Let’s adjourn for a nightcap. My work here is finished.”

 
NICHOLAS GREETED THE DAWN WITH AN ENTHUSIASM not often displayed at this ungodly hour. His brother and Lady Cavendish were leaving. The household fairly hummed with the bustling necessary to pack up the guests and send them speedily on their way. Nicholas located William in the dining room finishing his breakfast.

“What is that awful smell?” William asked, wrinkling his aristocratic nose. “It smells like burnt cork.”

“Coffee,” Nicholas replied, immediately drawn to the special pot Thomas had left on the sideboard. “It clears the mind, energizes the spirit.” He wafted his hands over the pot, pretending to inhale a magic elixir.

“It chased Lady Cavendish from the room. She thought she’d suffer an apoplexy and dashed away with linen covering her nose.” William turned to regard Nicholas over his shoulder. “I seem to recall that you usually indulge in another type of spirit in the morning.”

Nicholas poured his dark brew into a cup. “I am a reformed man, William. Emma has taught me the need to keep my wits about me, even at this abominable hour.”

William harrumphed, then patted his mouth with a napkin. “Lady Cavendish wishes to make her farewells. I didn’t think it wise for her to traipse back to the studio looking for you. I suggested she wait in the salon.”

“Thank you, William. That was most considerate.” And surprising, given his brother’s sentiments last night. Perhaps he was learning to respect his little brother’s opinions. Nicholas smiled. By acknowledging the talent behind
Artemis’s Revenge
, William appeared ready to forge a new relationship with Nicholas, one based on mutual respect.

William waved him toward the door. “Go on. I’ll see that the crate is properly loaded on the carriage.”

“Thank you.” Genuine affection for his brother’s improved attitude warmed his heart. For an instant, he wished William would delay his departure so they could discover more common ground. But Lady Cavendish waited, and he didn’t want to delay
her
departure by a single minute. Her constant questions went beyond idle curiosity to barely tolerated nuisance.

“Where that woman finds the energy at this unnatural hour is a mystery to me,” Nicholas said, sipping from his cup. “I don’t envy you the trip back to London. I’ll be back to bed five minutes after you leave.”

And scheming to lure Emma back to Black Oak, he mentally added. Now that his houseguests were leaving, he could instruct her in all the various coupling positions without interruptions.

“While you lay in your bed,” William intoned, “I’ll be listening to the lady’s endless chatter. I’m hoping she’ll talk herself into a nap so my ears can rest.” William waved him out of the room. “Go along now. Allow me to postpone the inevitable prattle as long as necessary.”

Nicholas repaired to the salon to smile and nod at all the woman’s continuous observations and lamentations. His brother’s eventual arrival brought not only relief but also pity for poor William. Together they all walked out in the early dawn, where the horses steamed in anticipation of the long journey south.