thought he might explode with the red-hot fear, thought he might…
She came up fifty yards further out from where he had last seen her and it was her laughter that sent him completely over the edge, a laughter that stopped abruptly as she turned and her eyes caught his own.
‘Get out of the water. Now.’ He could do nothing to soften his wrath. All he wanted was for her to be safe.
‘Go back.’ Her voice was breathless, horrified. ‘Go away. I do not need any help.’ Turquoise eyes searched the shore for any sign of others and her cheeks, despite the cold of the sea, were a burning bright hot red.
He was not swayed at all. ‘If you don’t come out this second, I’ll come in and get you.’
Emerald bobbed down in the water and wondered what to do now, for Asher Wellingham stood directly in a line in front of her clothes. From the look on his face she didn’t think he’d be making anything easy for her either.
Already the water had lapped at his trousers and was now just above the point of his knees. Would he keep coming? Would he swim in and drag her out as he threatened?
‘All right, then. Turn around.’ Her placatory tone was hardly won, and when she saw the white of his teeth gleam in a quick smile she was pressed not to call his bluff and see just who was the stronger swimmer. But where could she then come ashore?
‘Turn around.’ She repeated the command when he made no move to do so and her trepidation grew as a movement on the high ground behind Asher formed the shape of another man, far away enough to still be safe, but coming closer with each wasted second. Her distraction had Asher turning.
‘It’s Malcolm Howard, a cottar from the hill.’ His barely concealed laughter made her swear and, swimming in on the first wave, she stood up as late as she could manage it. Asher Carisbrook held his bulky jacket out to her, but not before he had had a good eyeful.
‘Most gentlemen would have at least averted their faces,’ she ground out and pulled her hand away, shrugging into his jacket with the intent of showing as little flesh as possible and pleased when the hem fell below her knees.
‘Most ladies would have worn a shift,’ he returned, looking over his shoulder and whistling. His large black stallion walked from the bushes at the top of the beach, carefully picking his way across the sand. Glancing across his shoulder, Emerald was surprised to see no sign of the stranger in the distance.
‘Malcolm generally calls in at his brother’s cottage. It’s just behind that hillock,’ he added with an edge of humour in his words.
‘And you knew that?’
‘I did.’
No repentance. No apology. No remorse. But the light in his eyes had changed. Pulling on his boots, he mounted his horse with one quick movement and held out his right hand.
‘Come, Emma, I will take you home.’
With sand on her feet and slick with seawater, she was hoisted up before she could argue and the warmth of his body made her start. She leant forward, hot with chagrin and flushed with something else much less definable.
‘There is a hay barn in a paddock over the hill. We’ll get your clothes and you can change there.’
‘With you watching?’
His bark of laughter was contagious and she hid a smile as they rode. Dressed in nothing more than a too-big jacket and miles away from anyone or anywhere, she still felt safe. Asher Wellingham always made her feel safe.
‘Where did you learn to swim?’
‘In Jamaica.’ The petulant silence she had meant to maintain seemed childish and stupid in the face of his humour.
‘Sure as hell your father did not teach you.’
‘No, it was a servant who showed me.’
‘Dressed in more than you are now, I should hope.’
‘It was hot and I was a child.’
‘And now you are most definitely a woman.’
His free arm skimmed down across the side of her thigh and her breath stopped. ‘Are you an innocent, Emma?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ She could barely believe that he could have asked her such a question.
‘An innocent. A woman who has not had the pleasure yet of being with a man. If you are, then I should beg your forgiveness for even suggesting it, but if you are not, then you might entertain the notion of a dalliance that could be of benefit to both of us.’
‘A dalliance?’
He pushed forward and she felt the hard ridge of his manhood against the small of her back.
‘You want something of me and I want something of you. Badly. Perhaps we could accommodate each other and both come out the happier for it.’
His words tickled her neck and, with the hot flesh of the horse beneath her bottom and Asher Wellingham at her back, Emerald felt like simply leaning back and falling into his dangerous promise. Jamaica had hardly been a world where the passions between a man and a woman were hidden and the morality that hampered just about every social exchange here would have been deemed ludicrous there.
Say yes, her body screamed. No ties. No promises. Just the simple act of union. Here in the barn. Now.
Another voice countered the first one. The sensible voice of a woman who had been around men all her life and knew the easy empty promises they made when the bloodlust consumed them.
He was a duke, for goodness’ sake, and his suggestion was that of a man who was used to women saying yes. Such men did not offer more to one whom they suspected of being a thief. She had seen Asher Wellingham in the ballrooms of London, seen the hooded glances of a hundred women with more impeccable credentials than she had. A richer family. A fairer face. Titles of equal standing to his own. And that was before she even considered their shared past.
Her eyes fell on his left hand as she shook her head. She noticed the knuckles whiten around the reins and a small voice inside her wished that he might just reach over and take what he had not been offered, a complete abnegation of any decision on her behalf. But he didn’t. The gentleman in him, she mused.
‘I have never—’ She broke off. Horrified. What had she been going to tell him? That she was a virgin? That she had never lain with any man before? Given her behaviour of late, she was certain he would not have believed her.
‘Never?’ The golden chips in his eyes darkened. ‘I don’t usually accost women so blatantly and I—’ He halted in mid-sentence as he pulled on the bridle and, dismounting, walked the horse towards a barn perched in the trees.
Accost. Such a harsh word for what he had offered, she thought. And telling. An interpretation of motive? ‘I will wait here while you change.’ He used the briefest of contact to help her down from the horse.
Formal. Proper. A definitive shift from the suggestion he had just voiced. Clutching her clothes, she scurried into the building, angry at herself for caring.
An
