The Wicked Wallflower (12 page)

A quick kiss wouldn't be enough. Blake nibbled on her lower lip and his hands skimmed along her back, coming to rest on her bottom. He felt her stiffen, then relax. He wanted her arms around him, to feel her breasts against his chest, to hear her sigh with pleasure.

“Lord Copley, how long must we persist in this foolishness?”

This was just pretend.

“Until we have a spark. A second after that we'll have a full blown fire.”

Or was it becoming something else, something real?

“And burn down our inheritance in the process!”

“Mmm . . .” Had he murmured or was that Emma? He didn't know anything, except that her lips were soft and her kiss was so innocent, so curious, in spite of herself. If nothing else he would always know that he was the one with whom she learned to kiss. Not her lover boy.

“Look! It's starting to smoke!” Lady Copley exclaimed. Her husband only grunted in acknowledgment.

Slowly but surely Emma began to yield. Her lips parted and he slid in, tasting her at last. Had he expected to be her first? Expected that this would be new to her? She kissed him as if she'd had
some
experience—­this set his blood simmering—­but she kissed him as if she didn't have
much
experience.

From a deep, unthinking part of his brain came the overwhelming desire to be her
only
experience.

“Oh! The edges are starting to glow!” Lady Copley declared. “The leaf is smoldering now!”

Emma's skin was warm under his touch. He had dared to touch her bare arms and the soft skin left uncovered by her bodice. His own temperature was spiking and he wanted to rip off his jacket, tear off the cravat, waistcoat . . . everything, and lie down here, on the soft mossy ground and make love to this women who slowly but surely was starting to spark and then to smolder from his touch.

For a kiss that had been just an act, a decoy, part of the games, it had turned into something else entirely.

“Fire!” Lady Copley exclaimed.

Blake pulled back suddenly and looked away, but not before a glance at Emma. Her eyes, half closed in dreamy pleasure. Her mouth, redder from the heat and friction of their lips together.

Had something changed? It felt like something changed. Blake took a step back. Emma clasped the jar of little white butterflies to her chest.

“How long does the first feeling of love last?” he mused.

“I don't know,” she answered.

The sound of music

Emma's heart was still racing as they crossed the gardens and strolled through the cool, dark rooms of the house until they came to the music room. Against her chest she held a jar of fluttering butterflies . . . much like the strange sensation in her belly. They had left behind the Copleys and the small fire they created with just a few dried leaves and the magnifying lens of his spectacles.

It was nothing compared to the fire smoldering within her.

Blake had kissed her.

It hadn't meant anything, of course, but tell that to her racing heart! She tried. It didn't listen. The cursed thing had a mind and desire of its own, quite at war with her wishes.

The Duke of Ashbrooke had kissed
her
—­plain old wallflower Emma Avery. Not only that, but there were strong indications that she was not immune to the Ashbrooke Effect, as she had thought. Not in the slightest. Her lips still tingled.

To be fair, she hadn't had time to dodge his advances or to conjure up Benedict's face in her mind. Which didn't matter because the kiss meant nothing. It was all just part of the ruse.
But no one saw.

Once in the music room, Blake searched for “his” flute. Overwhelmed by nervous energy, Emma sat down at the pianoforte and began to play. She started with “I Once Loved a Lass (the False Bride),” her solo performance that never was, and ought to have been were it not for the evil machinations of Lady Katherine Abernathy. It had always been her favorite.

It was a pretty song, with highs and lows rising in sweet repetition and a melody that was at once hopeful and slightly melancholy.

“You play well,” Blake said, abandoning his search and coming to stand beside her. Her fingers found the chords, one after another, and flew over the keys. She hadn't played in years and she was pleasantly surprised that her hands still knew their way around the keyboard and that the song she'd spent hours diligently learning had stayed with her.

Blake took a seat beside her on the bench. Heat suffused her. Her fingers slowed, tripping to a stop.

“No, don't stop. I know that song,” he said softly. “Keep playing. I shall sing along with you.”

If only Lady Katherine would see me now, Emma thought, and not just because of the unfathomable sight of the duke of Ashbrooke beside her on the piano bench, but because of the warmth in his eyes when his gaze lifted from her fingers to her face.

Emma started over from the beginning, her fingers moving back to the first chords and keys, stumbling slightly here or there. It was one thing to play a song, quite another to do so with a handsome rogue beside her. Quite, quite another when he had just kissed her in the garden.

Blake began to sing in a low, rich baritone. His voice was rough in an appealing way. She pursed her lips in annoyance. Was there nothing he was bad at?

“ ‘Oh, I loved a lass and I loved her so well,' ” Blake sang. Then turning to Emma, he said, “You know the next line, don't you? Sing with me, Emma.” Really, there was no way she could say no.

Shyly and softly, she sang the next line, “ ‘I hated all others who spoke of her ill.' ”

He sang the line that followed: “ ‘But now she's rewarded me well for my love.' ” Her heart, cursed thing, beat harder at the prospect. It had never occurred to her to imagine such a thing, until he sang the words to her on a quiet summer afternoon.

“ ‘For she's gone and she's married another.' ” It was her line, and her voice wavered. She planned to marry another, truly. But what if she stayed with Blake, rather than jilt him as they had agreed?

In perfect time and in perfect pitch, Blake sang, “ ‘When I saw my love to the church go, I followed on with my heart full of woe.' ”

She couldn't help but imagine it. As she did, her finger stumbled, missing a few notes until her fingers tangled and the song came tumbling to a halt.

“I always liked that song,” he said softly.

“I was fond of it, too,” she said.

“Perhaps we have something in common after all,” he remarked, and she saw the hesitancy in his suggestion. It was just a song . . . but as they accumulated more common ground, would it be harder to part?

“Nothing like shared preference for the same music for a lifetime of matrimonial bliss,” she remarked lightly.

She had to keep things light. Distant. Because that kiss had knocked her off balance, left her dizzy and breathless. If she wasn't careful, she could fall right in love with him.

“Please don't take this the wrong way, Blake . . .”

“That sounds like the prelude to a grave insult,” he remarked with laughter in his voice. Emma smiled.

“Perhaps our chances of winning this game are greater if we perform this song,” she said gently.

“Instead of my flute playing? What are you saying about my flute playing?” He feigned a wounded expression.

“To start, one could hardly call it playing,” Emma said frankly.

“You speak so cruelly of my talents, my darling
Emily.
” In spite of herself, she smiled.

“Talents?” Emma echoed. But then she started to laugh.

“Oh, I'll show you my talents,” he murmured.

“Oh?” she questioned.

Blake dipped his head, seeking another kiss. She closed her eyes, waiting for the warmth of his lips upon hers. She would indulge, just for a second because she craved him. His lips touched hers. Another spark. Another shiver up and down her spine.
Benedict . . .
Or
this?

A passion she had never imagined.

A desire she had never known.

A happiness she couldn't afford.

After but a moment—­a dangerously sweet moment—­Emma turned away from Blake. She had to, for her own good.

Eternity

Lady Agatha's private sitting room

Blake paused in his search for eternity to visit Agatha, hoping to find her alone. He knocked on the door to her private sitting room and strolled in without waiting for an answer, just as she had instructed him to do so many years ago.

She sat on her settee, indulging in the sacred ritual of afternoon tea and perusing a thick stack of gossip-­laden correspondence and periodicals.

“My dearest Aunt Agatha,” Blake said, settling into the seat opposite her. “How are you enjoying this year's Fortune Games?”

“Shouldn't you be participating in them?” Agatha inquired. “And where is your beloved fiancée?”

“She is seeking truth and I have come to you in search of eternity,” Blake replied. He didn't add that they were taking a break because they needed to cool their heads and allow their pulses to subside to a normal pace. At least, he needed that. The woman affected him. When he was the one who usually did the . . . affecting.

“While I'm thrilled you have thought of me when you sought eternity, I must tell you an unfortunate truth: I won't live forever, Blake.”

“It only seems like it,” Blake said with one of his charming grins.

“You're so witty, aren't you? All the bloody time,” she replied, with a roll of her eyes and a dismissive wave of her jewel-­bedecked hand.

“How are you, truly, Agatha?” Blake asked, leaning forward.

“I'm tired,” she confessed. “Bored. Very glad you showed up with that girl.”

“Her name is Emma,” he said. Not Emily, though he did love the appalled expression on her face when he called her that.

“I like her,” Aunt Agatha said.

“She's nice,” Blake said benignly, because his real impression of her was a tangled knot of feelings he didn't dare sort out.

“No she isn't,” Agatha retorted. “She's blunt, outspoken, and too plain to get away with it. But she's exactly the woman you need if you ever stop thinking with your twig and bits and used your brain instead.”

“I cannot believe you just referred to my intelligence as twig and bits,” Blake replied.

“I raised you, boy,” Agatha said, bracelets jangling as she shook her finger at him. “Also, I am old and don't give a damn about propriety anymore.”

“One wonders if you ever did,” Blake mused.

“Oh, of course I did, once upon a time,” Agatha replied, lips pursed. “Sometimes, you must play by the rules. If only so one can break them more effectively. For example, showing up to a house party when one had not been invited.”

“I have forgiven you for that lapse in etiquette,” Blake said.

“Having said that, I am happy you are here,” she said gruffly.

“Even though you didn't invite me?” He tried to keep up his easy demeanor and speak in a carefree voice. He didn't want anyone to know how bothered he was that she hadn't invited him.

“I have learned the rules by which you operate, Blake. A lack of invitation was a surer way to have you come running than if I were to send you the same one as all the others.”

“What does that mean?”

“You were born with looks, money, charm, wit . . . “

“Do go on,” he drawled and she scowled at him.

“Those things have made life easy for you,” she said, speaking softly, though her voice wasn't weak. “It's funny, you thrive on a challenge, and yet so rarely are you faced with any. Well, any that really matter. Stupid wagers and loose women don't count. I want you to know how sweet victory is when you have fought for it.”

He wanted to ask
Why now?
, but he didn't want the answer. Was she dying? She must be dying. It was inevitable, given that the old broad had to be pushing eighty years of age. Possibly even ninety. Or one hundred. Blake took the opportunity to look out the window. More to the point, he couldn't quite meet Agatha's gaze.

She had a way of getting directly to the point.

Why did it matter, anyway, if he played her games for a fortune he burned to have, but didn't desperately need? Not the way George did, or Miss Dawkins, or even Emma.

Or did it only matter that he was
here
with
her
in the closest thing to a home and family that he had experienced? What did it say about him that the surest way to guarantee his attendance was a lack of invitation?

Or that the surest way to capture his attentions was to push him away?
Emma.

“No one knows me like you do,” he replied. He meant to sound flippant. He failed.

“Well that's really up to you now, isn't it?” Agatha replied.

Blake shifted uncomfortably in his chair and said, “I shall mull that over at another time. I have this ridiculous game to play. You would not believe what some batty old broad put on a scavenger hunt. Eternity!”

“How clever,” Agatha said, grinning.

“Devious, more like it,” Blake replied, standing. “Want to give a man a hint? Don't want to overexert my brain.”

“If you'd actually apply your intellect to the list you would detect a theme, at which point eternity becomes completely obvious,” Aunt Agatha said. She didn't need to say
you dolt
, but it was there in her tone.

“I'll ask Emma. She'll know,” Blake said confidently.

He walked down the hall thinking of sparks, the feeling of love at first sight, beauty and truth, happily-­ever-­after, and eternity . . . and a theme . . .

“Well doesn't Aunt A have a romantic streak,” Blake muttered to himself as he turned around and strode back to her sitting room. He barged in without knocking.