The Education of Mrs. Brimley (10 page)

She smiled tenatively, feeling control shift in her direction even though she remained physically trapped by a man more powerful than she.

With each breath, the lace of her chemise scraped against the starched linen of his shirt. If she filled her lungs deeply, she imagined she would feel the press of his wide, hard chest. For the briefest of moments, she longed for that pressure. Just to know . . . just to feel . . .

She licked her parched lips.

“Oh,” he said again, releasing his hold on her wrists and straightening slightly. She let her arms slide to her side but otherwise remained very still; his close physical proximity left room for little else. No etiquette book gave guidance for this exact situation. His gaze dropped to the rise and fall of her exposed corset.

Heat smoldered deep in Emma’s chest. She knew she shouldn’t desire Chambers’s prolonged stare. But her fingers remained frozen by her side, unable to tug the sheet further between them. The distant toll of the mantle clock broke the spell.

Emma reached for the sheet, but he was faster. He pulled the sheet up to her neck and tenderly tucked it around her shoulders.

“I . . . I apologize,” he said, averting his eyes and clasping his hands behind him.

She wasn’t sure whether he was apologizing for his brusque behavior or his provocative stare. Either way, she surmised such pronouncements uncommon for him.

The room felt colder, less welcoming. Even with the addition of the sheet, she was chilled.

“I’d like to get dressed now,” she said softly.

“Yes, yes, of course.” He edged toward the door, fidgeting with the lapels of his jacket. “Perhaps you’d like something to eat? You didn’t touch the food downstairs and you need to recover your strength.”

She nodded. Indeed she wondered if his question was more motivated by the faint rumbling of her stomach as opposed to an excuse to escape her presence.

“Come when you are ready. I’ll wait downstairs.” He turned to open the door but stopped and commented over his shoulder. “And, Mrs. Brimley, only one gown this time?”

“My lord?” She stopped his progress out of the room. He opened the door but didn’t turn around.

“How long have I been here?” The excuse given at Pettibone would have enabled her only enough time to secure answers to a few important questions. She hadn’t counted on the morning’s developments.

He sighed. “I daresay not long enough.”

NICHOLAS PACED IN HIS STUDY WITH THE ASSISTANCE of his stick, waiting to hear her footfall on the stairs. What an idiot he had been. He hadn’t intended for his little game to lead to her complete collapse. Although his actions were motivated by his desire for her rapid recovery, instead he had embarrassed the overripe innocent. It would be his own fault if she vowed never to return to Black Oak. He stabbed at the carpets with the tip of his stick. His own damn fault.

“Brandy, sir?” Thomas stood at the ready with a full glass on a silver tray.

“Thank you, but no. I believe I’ll need a clear head for this one,” Chambers replied. “I’m afraid I’ve ruined any chance of retaining Mrs. Brimley as a model.”

“Are you sure, sir? If I’m not mistaken, you thought you had discouraged her on her last visit and yet she returned.”

“Yes, but this time, I pinned her to the bed like a common trollop.” The memory refused to leave his mind. Mrs. Brimley, tendrils of her rich brown hair loosened from her struggles, thrashing beneath him. Her breasts swelled and pressed above a corset that mirrored the same color of her flushed cheeks.

“I suppose that would frighten the girl,” Thomas said with a patient monotone.

“It wasn’t intentional. I was angry,” Chambers explained with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Still, there was something about her reaction . . .” He remembered her eyes, open wide and trusting, and her smile, so accepting even as he held her captive, and her lips . . .

His own body had responded immediately with a jolt that had traveled from the tips of his fingers straight to his groin. He had to turn and leave before she recognized the result of their encounter. He winced. She would recognize it. After all, he had drawn her a picture of his very condition.

Reflecting on both of their reactions, a faint hope glimmered amid his otherwise fumbled handling of events. He glanced at Thomas, perplexed. “The thing of it is . . . I rather think she may have liked it.”

Thomas raised his brows. “We are discussing the widow Brimley, are we not, sir?”

Chambers nodded. “What do you make of that, Thomas?”

Thomas lifted the glass of brandy and took a swallow, grimaced, then said, “I suppose we shan’t require the assistance of Henry’s wife, after all.” He turned on his heel and continued down the hall.

 
IMPATIENT, CHAMBERS HEADED TOWARD THE ENTRY BUT stopped just shy of the opening. Mrs. Brimley, burdened by an unwieldy bundle of garments gathered in her arms, silently descended the circular stairway in her old-fashioned, ill-fitting black bombazine. The hem of her skirt fluttered with her advance, briefly exposing slim ankles encased in black boots.

Delicate ankles, he remembered, that marked the start of a long stretch of shapely calves and what promised to be well-proportioned hips hidden beneath frilly petticoats. Bloody hell!

What was he thinking! He straightened and readjusted his jacket. Blast her pink corset! He had no right to be entertaining such thoughts about one of those Pettibone women. Indeed the young chit could well be a spinster-in-training. She said as much. He frowned. That would be a waste.

She paused midway down the stairs as if she could hear his exasperating thoughts. She glanced toward his hiding place before performing a more intense study of the wide expanse of floor between the foot of the stairs and the door.

“Are you planning to run away again, Mrs. Brimley?” he challenged, allowing free reign to the irritation stirred by his mental scolding. He stepped into the spacious entry. “At least this time you’ve retained your shoes.”

She blushed, drawing that winsome pink to her cheeks that stirred a reaction in his private regions.

“I’m afraid I shall have to decline your invitation for refreshment,” she said, straightening as if she balanced Dickens’s complete works on her reordered topknot. “I’m long overdue at Pettibone and the spinsters will ask questions.” She continued her downward progress toward him.

He lifted the bundle of garments from her arms. “Then I shall escort you to be certain that you don’t faint en route.” He stilled the beginning of her protest with his hand, lowering his voice to a more intimate level. “Were you planning to leave without bidding me farewell?”

“I . . . I . . .” Her lower lip fell in apparent distress as if she couldn’t choose between good manners and good sense. Chambers smiled to himself. He’d wager she’d choose good manners.

“Lord Chambers,” she said, pushing her spectacles higher on the bridge of her nose, “our bargain is obviously forfeit. I think it best if I leave immediately.”

“Why should our bargain be forfeit?” he asked with an innocent air. “Have you suddenly discovered all there is to know about relations between a man and a woman?”

Her green eyes, luminous like polished emeralds, narrowed behind the cover of the lenses. Her lips pulled to a taut straight line.

“You’ve undressed me, much to your amusement and my shame,” she said in a voice akin to a harsh whisper. “You’ve accomplished your goal as men are wont to do. The spinsters warned me about you, and I didn’t listen. It’s time to end this play. It’s past time for me to leave.”

How had the trusting girl in the pink corset transformed so quickly into a judgmental prude in an ugly black dress? He could accept, perhaps, chastisement over pinning her to the bed. However, to accuse him of wanting to merely strip her naked, as if he were not already intimately familiar with a woman’s body, that was beyond contempt. He tossed her pile of garments into a nearby chair, letting them fly pell-mell over the furniture. He advanced on her, effectively backing her toward the wall.

“Don’t come near me,” she said, panic affecting her voice.

“My mission, as you call it, is to complete a painting, Mrs. Brimley. A painting that I cannot hope to finish without your assistance.” She could not retreat further, yet he still pressed on, perversely enjoying the alarm flashing in her eyes. Let her be worried. Her fool trick had cost him several years growth as it was.

“My purpose in undressing you was not part of a schoolboy’s prank, but rather to alleviate the intense heat you suffered while wearing an inappropriate amount of clothing.”

He braced one arm against the wall, blocking her means of escape.

Her eyes widened. “What are you doing?”

He braced his other arm alongside her, trapping her in the narrow space between his chest and the wall. “If I’m to be accused of being dishonorable, I’m bloody well going to get something for the trouble.”

She was trapped, much like a fox in a hole. Just as he had manipulated her in his bed upstairs, she was once again ensnared by his arms. She looked toward the hallway for assistance, but the broadcloth encasing Chambers’s well-muscled arm blocked her view.

Emma turned her gaze back toward Chambers, intent on pointing out the inappropriateness of his behavior. Before she could say a word, his lips crushed down on hers. She tried to shake her head, but his hands moved quickly to hold her firmly in place. Once the shock of his actions passed, she eased her struggle, focusing instead on his kiss.

His kiss! She had dreamed of precisely this moment from the day of her arrival at Pettibone. Poets wrote odes about the power of a kiss, though her limited experience in this area had shown the fireworks at the Crystal Palace to be far more exciting. However, with a man like Chambers . . . emotions should swell to dizzying proportions, desire should explode at the meeting of their lips. She waited . . .

Nothing happened. No bells rang in the heavens. No outpouring of rhyme engaged the spirit. Perhaps she was what her uncle had implied her to be: a cold fish. Her euphoria faded in a crush of disappointment.

The pressure eased, taking with it the discomfort of having her lips plastered to her teeth. She willed herself to relax. After all, stealing a kiss was hardly akin to stealing her virtue. His hands gentled on the sides of her face. She felt the soft tracing of his thumb edge along her cheek. His lips teased hers with playful little tugs.

“Open for me, sweet lady.” He whispered before kissing her eyebrow. “Let me show you how it feels to be truly kissed.” He kissed the other eyebrow. “Then you’ll have an experience to share with your girls.”

“Really, sir, I hardly think—”

He seized the opportunity her words afforded him. Instantly, his lips joined hers in the most delightful fashion. Half out of curiosity, she pressed back with wondrous results. His hands found her waist and pulled her tight against his solid chest. She had to move her hands to his forearms to avoid having them crushed. The strength in them reminded her that just a few hours earlier, these very arms had carried her up the steps. Heat, ignited earlier by his intense stare, spread at the thought of being lifted by his arms and cradled by this chest. Tingles raced to her fingertips.

Suddenly, his tongue touched hers, then teased and coaxed an interchange of play.
A strange sensation to have someone inside a part of one’s body,
she marveled,
exciting and surprisingly delicious.
Curious about this unique stimulation, she allowed her tongue to trace the length of his. A low rumble vibrated throughout his chest. He pulled her closer still, bending her frame into his. She could have lived a lifetime in that moment. Surrounded by another, sharing a breath.

After too short a time, he withdrew, and Emma, believing it was part of the play, followed the retreat of his lips. Somewhere her disappointment had disappeared.

“So you like my kisses, Mrs. Brimley,” Chambers said with a superior lilt.

Her eyes opened to his dazzling smile. “It appears I like kissing,” she admitted. It would do no good to deny that fact when she had so enthusiastically responded. Who would have thought that the mating of two lips could set other parts of the body to simmer and hum?

“I don’t know if my enjoyment has to do particularly with your kisses, Lord Chambers. I simply don’t have enough experience to compare.” Although her response had been honest, she silently admitted to enjoying the surprise that widened his eyes a moment before his laughter shook her frame as well as his own.

“I have the experience you lack, madam, and I’ve been told my kisses are better than most.”

“Proper etiquette would demand no less of a response.” Although in truth, none of her texts addressed such an issue.

“Yet etiquette didn’t prevail upon
you
to praise my kisses.” His hands dropped from her waist. She felt an instant sensation of loss.