“Alright,” she said reluctantly.
His hand was still on her chin, and he allowed himself a moment to brush his thumb along her jawbone. As he did, her cheeks grew pinker, and the look in her eyes softened.
“I’m sorry to have been so irritable these last few days,” she murmured. “The truth is, I was actually in an excellent mood after the ball. I wish that the gossip I heard hadn’t put me into such ill humor.”
“Don’t worry,” Lucien said softly. “You are allowed a few days of irritability after all the good you have done for our family.”
A cheeky smile curled Emery’s lips, and she took half a step toward him. “Do you know why I was in such a good mood after the ball?”
“Because you got to dance the waltz?” Lucien had a feeling, however, that this wasn’t what she meant.
“No,” she said, and her eyes blazed suddenly. “It was because of the flowers you got me afterward.”
Suddenly, Lucien found it difficult to breathe. She was closer now, and his hand was still on her chin. And then, without even thinking about it, he had moved his hand down along her throat, and then to the back of her neck, cradling her.
“You deserved those flowers,” he heard himself say. “You did so well, despite how nervous I knew you were.”
“Georgina said that the flowers meant something,” Emery said. Her eyes were locked on his. He couldn’t have looked away even if he’d wanted to.
“What did she say they meant?” he breathed.
“She said they meant you have feelings for me.”
Lucien’s throat had gone completely dry. He swallowed and tried to lick his lips, but couldn’t.
“I told her you don’t believe in that kind of thing,” Emery continued. Her voice was so soft and so low that he had to lean forward to hear her.
“I don’t,” he murmured, and his nose touched the tip of hers; his lips brushed against hers.
“Then why,” he heard her whisper, “are you holding the back of my neck?”
He had no answer to this except to kiss her.
And it was as if he forgot his own name. Nothing mattered except to feel her lips on his, to run his hands along the back of her head, her neck, and her shoulders, to pull her close to him until he was completely lost in her.
Give into this.The words blazed through him, more powerful a call than anything he had ever felt or thought.Don’t pull away from this. See where it could lead. It might be the best thing that ever happens to you.
So he didn’t. He continued to kiss her, until she was sighing against him, and he wondered, as he held her in his arms and allowed his hand to trace the side of her face, allowed himself to gaze down into her eyes as she smiled up at him with adoration, if perhaps his parents had simply done love wrong. Perhaps it was possible to take care of Leah, Eve, Celeste, and Henry, to run his estate responsibly, and still feel this way for his wife. Surely it was possible.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“How is Leah doing?” Emery whispered to her husband as she leaned on his arm, watching where Leah was talking to several other debutantes. “She seems to be fitting in quite nicely with the other young ladies.”
“She does seem to be doing well,” Lucien agreed, although when Emery glanced at him, he didn’t seem to be looking at his sister at all. Instead, he was looking down at her, a small, secret smile playing across his lips.
“What are you smiling about?” Emery asked, feeling the tickle of a smile in her own mouth even as she spoke.
“No reason at all,” Lucien said, looking away, and this time actually glancing across the garden to where Leah was standing, Henry hovering nearby. Henry was Leah’s main chaperone today at the O’Farrell’s garden party, a yearly event that was much anticipated, as the O’Farrell’s, a noble Irish family who spent half the year in Dublin, had one of the most elaborategardens in London, complete with a huge hedge maze. Emery used to read about these garden parties when she only knew about theton’smovements from the gossip sheets. Every year, it was famed for having at least one scandal take place there. This year, Emery had been determined to attend, and her husband had surprised her by agreeing to go.
“Are you sure?” she had asked him as they were getting ready to go. “I thought you would want Leah to avoid any party famed for bringing about scandal.”
“Well, usually I would,” Lucien had said, giving her a mischievous smile that made her heart flutter. “But we can’t deprive her of one of the biggest parties of the year, can I?”
“Are you talking about Leah or me?” Emery had asked, a teasing smile on her lips.
He’d pretended to think for a moment, then risen from his vanity and gone to her and wrapped his arms around. “Maybe both,” he’d murmured in her ear, and her whole body felt as if it had been set on fire.
Things had been like this between them for the last week: a simmering and sweltering tension that made Emery woozy every time she was in her husband’s presence and cautiously very, very happy. She didn’t quite know what was happening between them, and she wanted desperately to trust it, but of course, she was afraid.
