She couldn’t believe how daring she was being, and from the way his eyes went wide, he also was surprised by her boldness. “You want to?”
She nodded. “James, even if your grand plan plays out just as you hope and some man takes an interest in me and asks for my hand, in my heart I’ll always know he wanted me only because he felt he was taking something from you. I have little choice in what my future will be, thanks to my circumstances, but if I could go into that future with more memories of…” She shivered. “What we did, I would like it.”
His frown deepened, and she thought for a moment that he might refuse her. But at last he sighed. “Very well, we can make it a term of our agreement. We will continue our pretended courtship, just as we decided last night. If we have the chance to find a bit of pleasure like last night, we will.” He leaned in. “And I vow not to ruin you, Emma, no matter how difficult that promise may be to keep.”
She held out a hand. “That is a bargain, Your Grace.”
He smiled at the offering and took it, but instead of shaking on it, he lifted it to his lips and pressed a kiss to the top of her glove. “A bargain,” he said. “Now we should rejoin the others. Margaret has a whirlwind day planned, I believe, including a rousing game of Pall Mall on the west lawn and a picnic by the stream. All of which will allow us ample opportunity to enact the first part of our plan, if not the second.”
She smiled, for the lightness had come back into his tone and his face, but beneath her smile there was a stir of wanting. She’d been reluctant to come here, but now her entire life had been set on its head by James, his plan and his touch.
She could only hope she could maintain some kind of control over herself and her emotions, lest she begin to believe there could be something more between them than a ruse and a few stolen moments of pleasure.
James couldn’t help but grin as he watched Emma and Margaret from across the wide lawn. In the midst of the Pall Mall game, the two were laughing riotously as Emma tried to set up a winning shot and failed miserably. She bent at the waist, her entire body shaking with mirth.
And she was glorious. Lit up like a thousand candles lived within her, flushed just like she’d been beneath his hands the night before, relaxed and at ease like she belonged here. With him.
How anyone could see her as she was in that moment and not want to be near her was beyond his comprehension. He certainly wished to cross the distance between them, swing her around by the waist, press a kiss to her full lips until she went limp in his arms.
“Interesting little creature, isn’t she?”
James stiffened as Sir Archibald approached, a drink in his hand and a leer on his round, sweaty face.
“I’m certain I don’t know who you mean, Sir Archibald,” James said, his tone cool.
He’d never liked the man, but he lived in James’s shire and had always ingratiated himself to James’s father and later to him. But James found him a pompous windbag who ate and drank too much.
The fact that he’d been hanging around Emma earlier in the party only made James’s disdain all the more focused.
“Don’t you?” Sir Archibald said with a chuckle. “I thought I’d seen you sniffing around Miss Liston, was I wrong?”
James let out a long, deep breath. “She’s a good friend of Margaret’s,” he explained, then thought of their plan. He’d promised Emma he would infer his interest to garner that of others. He hadn’t exactly been thinking of someone like Sir Archibald, but what could he do? “And I like her.”
Archibald smiled broadly at that admission. “She isn’t exactly a great beauty, eh? But there’s something about her. Something with a little fire to her. I might throw my hand in there for her, myself. It’s not as if she has many prospects, does she?”
James felt his nostrils flaring. Sir Archibald had insulted Emma not once but twice in the span of five sentences, and James now wanted to do nothing less than slam a fist through his face. Instead, he gripped his drink harder and said, “She may have more prospects than you think. And isn’t she a bit young for you?”
“The younger the better,” Sir Archibald laughed with a friendly nudge to James. “But you could have anyone, Abernathe. For God’s sake, don’t drop yourself low. Your father would have wanted you to wed someone of importance, someone to increase your name.”
James gritted his teeth. Yes, his father would have wanted him to do a great many things. Exactly why James had no plans of doing them. “If you consider Miss Liston so low, why wouldyouconsider her?”
“Well, as you said, I’m an old man,” Sir Archibald chuckled. “My heirs and spares are already older than you are, the ones who aren’t could use a woman around to deal with them. I don’t need to raise myself through a marriage. I just want a young chippy to spread her—”
“Enough,” James said, turning on him with what he knew was a dangerous look. “You shall not speak of Emma in such a fashion. Not here, not to me nor to any other guest.”
Sir Archibald’s face fell and there was a flash of anger in his eyes before he held up his hands. “Coming to the girl’s aid, are you? Well, before you throw yourself headlong into some kind of arrangement with her, you’d best do a bit of research on her. And her father.”
James folded his arms. “I know about her father.”
It was a half-truth, of course. He knew the man had been cut off from his family, that he was not around in Emma’s life at present, but little else.
“I used to gamble with him from time to time,” Sir Archibald said. “You know he’s put Miss Liston on the table more than once. Sometimes her hand, sometimes her virginity. He’s just never lost. But some day he will, Abernathe. Somedaysomeonewill win her from him. Then she’ll be no one’s prize. Isthatwhat you want in a duchess?”
There was a cruel tilt to Sir Archibald’s mouth and James threw his drink aside. He caught the man’s lapels with both hands and shook him.
“Get out of my house,” he said, low and dangerous. “And never come back here again, you pompous prick. Or you shall be very sorry.”
Sir Archibald squirmed and James shoved him away, sending him staggering across the lawn. It was only then he realized that the entire party had turned their attention to him, tothem. Sir Archibald looked around at them, too, face red, and straightened his clothing.
