Ash shot a glance at the footmen. Go. Away.
They went.
He returned his attention to his addlebrained wife. “Why do you keep saying that?”
“Because you keep asking! Because I must tell someone, and I don’t know how to tell anyone else.” She studied her soup. “I’m infatuated with you, however unwillingly. It’s a problem.”
“It would be a problem,” he said, “if it weren’t a product of your imagination.”
“I’m not imagining things.”
He shrugged. “Maybe you’re nearing your monthly courses. I hear women become seething maelstroms of irrational emotion at that time.”
“Well, now I’m seething.” She gave him an irritated look. “You are such a man. And I’m stupidly attracted to you despite it. Perhaps even for it. Yes, I am certain it’s infatuation. I’ve felt it before.”
Now Ash was the one who became a maelstrom of irrational emotion. That emotion being jealous anger. “Toward whom?”
“Why should it matter?”
“Because,” he said, “I like to know the names of the people I despise. I keep them in a little book and pore over it from time to time, whilst sipping brandy and indulging in throaty, ominous laughter.”
“It was a young man back home, ages ago. Surely you know the feeling of infatuation. Everyone does. It’s not merely physical admiration. Your mind fixes on a person, and it’s as though you float through the days, singing a song that only has one word, thinking of nothing but the next time you’ll see them again.”
“And you claim to be feeling this way. Float-ish. Singsong-ish. About me.”
She sighed. “Yes.”
“That’s absurd.”
“I know, but I can’t seem to stop it. I have an unfortunate habit of looking for the best in people, and it makes me blind to their flaws.”
“I’m entirely composed of flaws. I can’t imagine what more evidence you’d need.”
“Neither do I. That’s what worries me.” She fidgeted with her linen napkin. “I mean, it will end. These things always do. Either you wake from the spell, or you fall properly in love.”
“Which was it with this boy back home?”
“I thought it was the second, but then he made it clear he didn’t feel the same. The illusion snapped, and I saw him for who he truly was.”
He sat back in his chair. “There’s your answer, then. We can settle this right here and now. I’ll tell you I don’t feel the same. Because I don’t.”
“I wouldn’t believe you.” She paused. “I think you’re infatuated with me, too.”
Ash carved the roasted pheasant, sawing away at the blameless bird with displeasure. He slung a portion onto her plate. “I can’t imagine what would make you believe that.”
“You come to my room a bit earlier each night.”
“Perhaps I’m eager to have it out of the way.”
“It’s not only that your visits are earlier. They grow longer, too.”
He stabbed a fork into the pheasant’s breast. “What is this? Are you keeping a little ledger of my virility in your nightstand? Charting my stamina? Making graphs?”
She cast a little smile into her wineglass. “Don’t pretend you wouldn’t be flattered if I did.”
“Stop smiling. There’s only one reason I come to visit your room at any hour. You’re supposed to be conceiving my heir. To that end, I insist on your proper nourishment and good health. Eat your dinner.”
She picked up her fork. “If you say so, my treasure.”
“I daresay I do, you little baggage.”
Ash glowered at the silver candlesticks. This was a problem, indeed. It was all well and good—expedient, truly—if they pleased one another in bed. Outside the bedchamber, however, maintaining distance was essential. He must not encourage any foolish sentiment on her part, even if her admiration of him could be credited—and it couldn’t.
The truth was plain, he reminded himself. She was making excuses for having been caught in his bedchamber and then having fled as though the Devil licked at her heels. She hoped to forestall his anger by puffing up his pride.
Infatuated, she’d said. Unthinkable.
And if she believed him to be taken with her, she left him no choice but to prove her wrong.
Tonight, Ash resolved, he wouldn’t go to her bed at all.
Keeping his resolution proved more difficult than Ash could have guessed.
He didn’t know what to do with himself. It was too early to go out walking—the streets would be thick with people at this hour. To pass the time, he poured himself a brandy and decided to look over the land agent’s report from Essex.
No sooner had he stoppered the decanter and turned to the desk than the hellion cat pounced atop it, circled, and settled into a heap—directly on the very papers he’d intended to inspect.
“Great help you are,” Ash said sullenly. “Lump of foul deformity.”
Breeches blinked at him.
“Do you hear me? Get out. ‘Thou art a boil, a plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle.’ King Lear, Act Two.”
The embossed carbuncle gave a bored yawn.
Ash gave up. He might as well go to sleep.
He removed his boots, snuffed the candles, and lay down on the bed. It was a monument of a bed, passed down through generations of dukes. Four carved mahogany posts and hangings of richly embroidered velvet trimmed with golden tassels. The hangings trapped heat on cold nights and blocked light on unwelcome mornings.
They also made a nice little cave for hiding from reality.
He folded his hands on his chest and groaned with displeasure. Perhaps Emma was right. Maybe he was infatuated. All the symptoms were there. Though he knew she had flaws—many, many of them—he couldn’t pinpoint a cursed one at the moment. Her name kept running through his mind. The song with only one word.
Emma Emma Emma Emma Emma.
He took comfort in one thing. She had also said it wouldn’t last. Ash would just have to snap himself out of it.
He clapped his hands, sending a booming sound through the room. That resulted in nothing but making him feel incredibly stupid.
He squeezed his eyes closed until stars exploded behind his eyelids, counted to three, and then opened them. Stupider still.
He thought of the most unappealing things his imagination could conjure:
Shards of fire propelled with bullet-force, colliding with his face.
Vomiting himself dry while quitting opium.
Pus. Not even the mildly repulsive yellow sort. Green, oozing, malodorous pus.
That helped for a few minutes, but apparently his brain didn’t want to dwell on those memories anymore—not when his mind could so easily reach for her.
Emma Emma Emma Emma Emma.
Ye gods.
He sat up in bed. Tomorrow he’d burn twists of sage and wave the smoke through the house. He was clearly hexed. Bewitched.
The door to his bedchamber creaked open.
“Don’t be alarmed. It’s only me.” Emma entered the room, holding a candelabra with three glowing tapers.
Ash rubbed his eyes. “Why, pray tell, are you in my bedchamber?”
“Because you’re not in mine.” She set the candles on a chest of drawers, directly across from the foot of the bed. “And because I owe you something, in the spirit of fairness.”
She was dressed in only a thin night rail, and her dark hair was woven into a loose plait, tied with a bit of muslin at the end.
As he watched, rapt and disbelieving, her hands went to the buttons of her shift.
Glory above, she began to undo them. One by one by one. As she worked them open, the two sides fell apart, revealing a slice of pale flesh that widened as it dipped from her neck, to the valley between her breasts, to her navel.
When all the buttons were undone, he heard her draw a shaky breath. Then she slid her arms free of the shift, one and then the other, before letting the entire garment drop to the floor.
Jesu Maria.
“I have a confession to make,” she said.
“God, I hope it’s a long one.”
“Breeches isn’t my pet. Or he wasn’t, until the morning of our wedding day. I plucked him off the street. Given the nature of our arrangement, I needed something warm and cuddly to bring with me. Some creature I might be able to care for. Love.” Her lips curved into a slight, rueful smile. “The little beast didn’t even have a name until you asked me for one.”