Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride (Scandalous Seasons #1)(37)

Emmaline’s hand flew out and she slapped him soundly on the cheek.

His head jerked back under the ferocity of the movement. He cradled his sore cheek. “Damn. For one so small, you can deliver quite the wallop.”

He deserved more than that slap and still, guilt filled her at the crimson stain her fingers had left on his scarred cheek. “Uh, why thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment,” he mumbled, his words somewhat muffled by the edge of his palm as he still held his cheek.

She jabbed him in the chest with her pointer finger.

“Ouch!”

“How dare you?” she demanded. “You come here.” Another jab that forced him backwards. “And reprimand, me?” Another jab. This time he flinched. Good! “You, who have forgotten for the better part of fifteen years that I so much as exist,” A fourth jab drove him back another step back. “dare to address my behavior?”

“Grace, will you excuse us?” She ordered, not even bothering to look back at her maid.

“Very well, my lady,” Grace called. The young woman’s tone indicated she approved of Emmaline’s outrage.

Emmaline redirected her attention on her betrothed. “How dare…?”

“I will not be subjected to another of your rants,” he muttered.

He kissed her.

***

Drake tugged the silly, too-large bonnet from Emmaline's head. The hasty movement unsettled the precarious chignon in which her silken brown tresses had been arranged, and sent the chocolate waves tumbling to her waist. Had he really ever thought the color mousy? He tangled his fingers in the luxurious strands, angling his head to better avail himself to her mouth.

She whimpered, and her body melted against his like a Gunther’s ice on a summer day. He held tight to her so she didn’t dissolve into a puddle at his feet. Filling his hands with her gently rounded buttocks, he anchored her against his center.

“Drake,” she moaned against his lips.

Another groan tore from his chest and he stroked her tongue with his. He ran his hands over her body in an attempt to explore the subtly seductive flare of her hips, the delicate swell of her buttocks.

He cupped her breast in his hand.

“Ohhh,” she gasped.

The husky timbre of her voice drove him wild, and he ached to slide between her moist folds and stroke her with his length.

He wanted to take her here and now, right on the garden floor. He sat down the bench and adjusted her on his lap which set the gardening tools in her apron front a-jingle. That small tinkling of metal meeting metal penetrated his consciousness. Drake pulled away with infinite slowness. He placed one more lingering, kiss upon her swollen lips and rested his brow atop hers. His breathing labored and harsh blended with the loud beat of his heart and made thinking difficult.

What hold did Lady Emmaline Fitzhugh have over him? When he was with her all logic and reason fled. Enough of his life was riddled with bouts of lost control. But she was like a tonic he could not live without, and whether he liked it or not, whether he wanted it or not, he craved her with an intensity that bordered on physical pain.

Emmaline’s breathing settled into a normal cadence. He stroked the small of her back, grateful at the time she took regaining her composure for it afforded him the same opportunity.

She spoke first. “Waxham is a friend of my brother’s.”

Apparently his kiss wasn’t as powerful as he liked to think. She hadn’t forgotten the reason for his earlier upset, the reason he’d kissed her into silence.

She went on. “Waxham has been like a brother to me.”

In spite of her words, Drake felt that awful emotion, he was beginning to recognize all too well as jealousy, rise in his throat, and nearly choke him. Emmaline might view Waxham as a brother but Drake had recognized the very appreciative male gleam in Waxham’s eyes. There had been nothing brotherly in the way he’d eyed Emmaline. “I don’t care about your relationship with him. I worry about how it reflects on our betrothal,” he lied. A bloody pathetic lie.

That callously insensitive remark drove Emmaline from him and replaced all warmth in her eyes with a sheen of coolness. Drake regretted the transformation even as he knew he was the cause of it.

“You’re worried about our betrothal, my lord?” She mocked. “Now? After all these years? After three Seasons? Now, it bothers you who I converse with?”

Drake braced himself for another assault from her finger.

Then the fight seemed to go out of her. The sparks glimmered, flickered, and finally dimmed. She hugged her arms across her stomach. “I am tired of this.”

Drake’s brows dropped.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she whispered.

“Then stop dogging my every step.”

As soon as the harsh words left his mouth, he wanted to call them back.

The sad, detached expression she wore tugged somewhere in the vicinity of his chest filled him with panic, a fear that he had said something irrevocable. He fished for another rejoinder, to rouse some other emotion than the defeated one she now wore. He wanted to redirect her thoughts away from… from…

From what?

Giving him exactly what he wanted?

Except of a sudden he realized he didn’t know exactly what it was he wanted anymore. He’d spent nearly fifteen years lashing out over the betrothal he’d been committed to as a child. It had redefined his relationship with his father, had resulted in Drake fleeing to fight on the Peninsula. He’d built up years and years of resentment toward Lady Emmaline, who’d herself been a victim of their circumstances.