Chapter 11

In the three weeks Emmeline had been at the Duke's house, she had gone out of her way to prove to him that she was unsuited to being his wife. Nothing had worked.

Now, with his constant disappearances and the scars on his back, she found that not only did she want his attention so she could persuade him to send her back home, but she wanted to know more about him.

When she found herself in the east wing, she told herself that the only reason she was breaking one of his rules was to push the bounds of his temper and finally convince him to send her packing.

Part of her, however, was curious about what secrets he was hiding. Perhaps she would find a mad wife hidden away somewhere, or his dead brother still alive in some attic room, chained up so Adam could inherit.

No, she didn't believe Adam was capable of that. But there were some secrets hiding in this expansive house, she was certain of it, and she would find out what they were even if it killed her.

Not, of course, that she expected Adam to kill her for trespassing. But he would likely be very angry. This was one of the rules—one of the only rules, in fact—he had established when she had become his wife.

But one of the conditions of joining his household was that she not break his rules, so surely that, for him, would be a deal-breaker.

She came across the door on the second floor where Adam had found her the first week she had come to the castle. Then, she hadn't known what she was doing, but now she pushed it open with an air of trepidation.

This part of the castle felt older than the rest, as though it had been the first thing built and everything else had been constructed around it. The wooden floor underneath her feet was uneven, her feet catching on the protruding floorboards, and there was a hushed air in the corridor. The walls were largely plain, only ever adorned by the occasional portrait of a lady Emmeline stopped to look at.

She was beautiful, undeniably so, and many of the portraits displayed her wearing clothes that were twenty years out of fashion. She had blonde hair, unlike the Duke's, but she had the same blue eyes that appeared to pierce Emmeline from the canvas.

This was, undoubtedly, his mother.

She knew little of his mother, save for the fact she was now deceased, but the regular portraits made her wonder. This entire wing felt a little like a shrine to her. Perhaps she had once lived in this section of the house, sewing by the fire, speaking with the servants and bearing her children in one of the upper bedchambers.

Curiosity, now, more than her plan, had Emmeline moving forward. This wing, this part of the house that felt more like a castle than a manor, held the secrets to her new husband's past.

But she would have to be quiet, or else she would attract his attention before she had finished her exploration.

When she came to a set of stairs that were now stone, she didn't hesitate a moment before taking them. Like the wooden floor, they were old and worn, dipping in the middle where footsteps had worn them down. She rested her hand on the banister as she climbed up.

The next floor was dimmer, the windows smaller and the walls thick. There was some evidence here that there had been some restoration work done, the paint and plaster here fresher than it had been in the rest of the house.

No wallpaper. Odd, given how the rest of the house had been papered over, as matched the current style. This part of the house felt separate from time, as though it existed outside of it.

The signs of restoration diminished as she crept through the old passageways. Here there was a tapestry covering what she suspected to be bare stone. A few locked doors that she did not dare to rattle too hard in case it attracted attention.

She trailed her fingers along the tapestry, feeling the old fabric under her fingers, wondering who had made it, who had put it there, and whether the Duke even remembered its existence.

The material swayed unexpectedly, space between it that she hadn't anticipated. She pushed and finally encountered something solid. A door, perhaps. Fizzing with sudden excitement, she drew the tapestry aside so she could slide behind it. The darkness was sudden and absolute, but she felt along the rough stone wall until she came to the door again. It was small, barely large enough for her to step through, and she traced along the smooth wood until she came to the ring handle. Gripping it firmly, she gave it a vicious twist, and to her surprise, the door clicked open.

Stale air greeted her. This passageway clearly hadn't been explored in a long time. Perhaps even as long as the Duke had been in the castle.

Had the lady in the portraits below known about this? The tapestry had been old and sun-damaged. It was entirely plausible that some previous owner of the castle had built this passageway and never told anyone about it.

A shiver went through her. Perhaps she was the first one in hundreds of years to come across something like this. Her imagination went wild, playing all sorts of tricks on her. Perhaps this was a scenario where she would discover that the castle and all its inhabitants were under some terrible curse.

Or perhaps a witch lived in these darkened rooms, bound to the Dukes of Kant and forced to do their bidding. Perhaps all dukes had a witch.

She laughed under her breath at the lunacy of her thoughts and ventured another step into the darkened passageway. The lack of light made it almost impossible to see where she was going, and she was operating almost entirely on touch alone.

Step.

Step.

Step.

Her toes brushed against another uneven flag on the floor, and she settled more firmly on it. It shifted and gave way under her feet.

Click.

There was a whooshing sound, and something grazed her cheek, hitting the opposite wall with a crash. Emmeline shrieked, throwing herself backwards and landing heavily on the floor. She screamed again, putting a hand to her cheek and feeling it come away wet.

Get away, she needed to get away.

Picking herself up, she turned in the direction of the door and the tiny glimmer of light that filtered through it. This passageway didn't just potentially contain secrets—it was dangerous.

There was another crash behind her, and she screamed again, half sobbing as she stumbled toward the light.

"What's going on?"

Light flared, and Adam's blessedly familiar figure emerged from the darkness. He was holding a lamp, and she didn't think before throwing herself in his arms.

Immediately, one arm curled around her, holding her against his chest as he raised the lamp to take in the destruction behind her. She didn't dare investigate, didn't look, just pressed her face to his silken waistcoat and wished she had imagined the entire affair.

"Are you hurt?" Adam's voice was gruff, and he pulled back, raising her chin and examining her face with eyes that seemed dark with worry. "Emmeline, what happened? What are you doing here?"

She shook her head, not wanting to remain in this passageway a moment longer. Nor in the dark. She was a creature of light, and what had seemed like a fun, innocent adventure had turned into something terrifying.

Adam's finger swiped under the burning wet line on her cheek, and his face hardened.

"Come with me," he said, his arm still around her shoulders as he led her out of the room and back into the light.

Emmeline could have wept. Traces of tears were still on her cheeks, stinging her cut as she turned her face toward the window. The sun was shining, making her fears seem silly and unnecessary, and she took a deep breath of fresh air. Her head was still spinning, and her chest was tight.

"I'm cold," she said, suddenly realizing it was true. She wrapped her arms around herself. "Why is it so cold?"

"Shock," Adam said grimly.

Without hesitating for a moment, he led her back the way she had come and out of the east wing altogether. She thought he was taking her back to her bedchamber, and she was about to protest the idea of being left alone, but instead, he led her to his.

Like in her bedchamber, his enormous four-poster bed dominated the space, although his was significantly less piled high with pillows than hers. There was no fire in the hearth, but the armchair before it made Emmeline suspect he had spent a great deal of time there.

That was the chair to which he led her, and she sat without thinking, her mind a jumbled mess of thoughts and questions and that awful moment when the stone had given way beneath her foot.

How long had she been screaming for?

Adam spoke with someone at the door. A servant, perhaps, before coming to kneel before her. When he was like this, she thought perhaps he wasn't so bad. His eyes were not as cold as she remembered them being, and he was almost unbearably handsome. There was the barest hint of stubble on his jaw, and she reached out without thinking, the rasp against her fingertips a new and interesting sensation.

His eyes flashed, and he caught her hand. "I—" he began, but a knock at the door interrupted him, and he stood up, speaking in a low voice before coming back with a bowl of steaming water and a few white rags. "Let me see to your cut," he said with a quiet insistence she wasn't entirely sure how to deny.

"What happened?" she asked.

"That portion of the castle is rigged with traps. It harks back to the Civil War." He dipped one of the rags into the water and dabbed at the dried blood on her cheek. "You were merely unlucky enough to discover a section we have not yet dismantled."

"You knew it was there."

He fixed her with a hard, angry look, his expression at odds with the gentleness of his hands. "Of course, I knew it was there."

She had been so foolish to think that perhaps she had stumbled across something no one else had discovered. Hubris of the highest order, and had paid for it.

"What cut me?" she asked.

"An arrow. There was a crossbow lodged in the wall." His hand paused on her cheek, and his jaw ticked. "If you had been standing one step ahead, it would have killed you."

"As though I was unaware," she snapped back. "I know how close to perishing I came, and believe me when I say I know how terrifying that was."

"Why, then." His words seemed to fail him, and he dropped the bloody rag into the water. Her cheek throbbed, but it no longer seemed to be bleeding. "Why did you disobey me? You were never supposed to enter that side of the house."

Her anger rose, along with the fear that she might as well have lost her life. "Well, perhaps I wouldn't have come if you had so much as explained to me the reasons behind your instructions."

"I gave you one rule. Is that so difficult to comprehend?"

"You never gave me any reason to obey you."

His eyes darkened with anger, and she saw the moment his rage overpowered his concern. "I am your husband," he growled, rising to his feet so he towered over her. "That is reason enough."

"Well, I'm sorry, My Lord Husband, but I disagree." Emmeline also rose. She could not compete with his height, but by heaven she would match his anger. "I am not in the habit of blindly obeying without explanations."

"That was what you agreed to when we married."

She raised her chin defiantly. "I will obey you as and when you give me cause to. And my being your wife does not make a difference to me. You cannot control me just because I am bound to you by law."

He caught her chin, but this time, there was no tenderness in the action. He was ablaze with fury, and she burned under him, matching him pace for pace. If he thought he was the only one with a right to anger, he was mistaken. And if he believed she would give ground purely because he expected her to, then he would be sorely disappointed.

"I am not the wife for you," she said, delivering the words as though she hoped they would hurt. "You would do better to return me to London."

"Is that so? And have the world think I am incapable of keeping my wife by my side?" His fingers tightened on her chin until they were almost painful, and the sensation made something bloom in her lower stomach. Warmth. Want. "I will not be sending you back to London, Emmeline, so accept that now. But I will punish you for your insubordination if you continue to defy me."

Punish. Her heart leaped and stuttered at the word, but there was something in his eyes—an endless hunger—that made her tremble with anticipation and fear.

"Punish me? You wouldn't dare?"

"Wouldn't I?"

With his fingers still on her chin, Adam brought his mouth down on hers in a blazing, bruising kiss.

* * *

Adam had not intended to kiss her then. Underneath his touch, she quivered, and he might have thought it was fear if not for the way she opened her mouth to give him access to its sweet secrets.

This was madness, he knew it, and yet he felt like a man possessed as he kissed her again and again, deepening the kiss, sweeping his tongue into her mouth. She moaned, and he thought he did too, holding her close, his hands on her waist, then trailing up her back to the contained mass that was her hair. She had such luscious brown hair and always kept it tightly pinned at the back of her head.

He wanted to see it framing her face. He wanted to run his fingers through it.

He was out of his depth, lost to momentum and desire that had been days, weeks in the making.

"What are you doing?" Emmeline gasped as he tugged the first pin free.

"Nothing." He kissed her again, punishingly hard, and she squirmed underneath him. "None of your concern."

"But—"

"Quiet." He reached around to smack her behind, and she gasped again, but this time in pleasure.

So she liked it when he was rough with her, didn't she? That was dangerous knowledge to have when all he wanted to do was pick her up, throw her onto his bed, and never let her leave again.

By God, he wanted her more than breath.

The urge to take her was all-consuming.

"Is this part of my punishment?" she whispered as he freed the final pin, casting them aside onto the chair to find later.

He stepped back, seeing his wife with her hair about her shoulders for the first time.

She was unspeakably beautiful, the kind of hidden beauty that takes a second look to uncover, but once he had taken that second look, he had been unable to see anything else.

Her hair fell about her shoulders in sensual waves, so long that it almost reached her back. So much hair, caught in loose waves, only the locks around her face still tightly curled.

He ached with how much he wanted her.

Her gaze dropped to his breeches, where evidence of his desire was blindingly obvious, and she glanced up at him again, her eyes wide.

"Adam."

He strode forward and kissed her again, burying his hands into her hair and losing himself somewhat in the silky, loose locks. She matched him kiss for kiss, running her hands over his shoulders and down his chest, her movements clumsy and inexperienced but not less frenzied.

If there was one thing he was certain of, it was that she might despise him, she might hate him for bringing her here and imposing his rules on her, but she wanted him.

He might never be able to give her the life she had wanted, but he could give her this.

He could make her understand what pleasures a man and a woman could experience together, if given the chance.

Unable to help himself, he rubbed himself against her, pressing himself against her stomach in the search for friction. She responded in kind, wiggling in response. It was as if she knew what she was doing to him.

He wanted to sink into her.

This need for her was taking over, and he reached down her body, his thumbs skimming her breasts. Even through the layers of material, he could feel her stiff nipples, and she let out a low sound of surprise and pleasure when he flicked them. He cupped her breasts again. She was a cozy handful, and when he flicked her nipples again, her hands tightened in his hair.

"Adam," she gasped.

There was no conceivable way he could deny her now. He bent to pick her up and carried her to the bed, depositing her on the mattress and crawling up her body.

"This is your punishment," he said as he kissed her again.