She tried to balance her weight, so she was not fully sitting on him. The dog cart started away, and Emmeline fell back, settling all of her weight on Stratford. His hands closed around her, pulling her back against his chest and securing her bottom against his, er—male parts. At least, that’s where she imagined her bottom was resting.
“Mr. Fortescue,” she began.
“Oh, I’m Mr. Fortescue now, am I?”
“This does not feel entirely proper.”
“It’s only for a few minutes. The horses will cover the distance in no time.”
“Still.” She tried to wriggle away from him, to put some space between her body and his.
He leaned his head close to hers and said in her ear, “Stop wiggling or this will become quite improper.”
From what she felt against her bottom, things had already become quite improper. Was she really responsible for causing that reaction in him? Was it possible he did not mind having her bottom on his lap? She went very still then and though she tried to concentrate on the fields rushing by, it was difficult not to notice how his arms felt warm and strong around her and how his chest was hard...as well as other parts of him. She wished he would speak to her again, his lips against her ear, his mouth so close to her neck.
“You’re trembling, Emmeline,” he said, his mouth right where she had wished it a moment ago.
“Am I?” Even her voice trembled.
“Do I make you that nervous?”
The truth? Yes, he did. She had known him all of her life, known his brothers and sisters all of her life. She had conversed, argued, laughed, and played comfortably with all of them—except him. She’d never been comfortable with Stratford. When he walked into a room, the hair on the back of her arms stood up. She seemed to sense him even before she knew he was there. For his part, he seemed not to notice her at all. He didn’t ignore her, but neither did he make any effort to speak to or engage her. They never had a conversation alone until the first time he escorted her to a ball and was obliged to ask her to dance. And then she’d been so nervous that she couldn’t remember what she’d said or if it had been anything more than one- or two-word phrases.
She’d become more used to him, of course. He’d escorted her to many social events, and she’d developed a sort of careless persona with him. She acted as though she barely noticed him, which was how he had always behaved with her. Except he was actually a very good escort. Stratford was attentive but not so attentive as to chase away any potential prospects—not that she had any. On occasion a less than honorable man would approach her, and Stratford was excellent at intercepting the objectionable man and steering him away.
And then of course it had been Stratford who had come after her. How she wished it had been any of his brothers or his father. She could have easily run away from them. She’d had a dozen chances to run from Stratford. She told herself she did not take advantage of the opportunities because it was not safe for a woman to travel alone. But if she’d wanted to be safe, she would never have run in the first place. The problem was she did not want to leave Stratford. She enjoyed his company. She enjoyed sparring with him. She enjoyed seeing his frustration when she insisted on taking Loftus with them. Sometimes she thought she behaved in certain ways just so he would have to notice her.
And now it was clear that he had noticed her. At least parts of him had noticed her. And though she was flattered and thrilled, and her body was all but quivering with arousal, she was also vaguely ill. She had tried very hard not to feel anything but friendship for him. Now that he touched her, held her, whispered in her ear, she would be devastated when he forgot about her again. It would be better if he never noticed her.
“You? Make me nervous? Of course not,” she lied. He could not help his body’s reaction to a woman pressing against him. She should not make more of it than there was.
“May I make a confession?” he asked.
She turned her head to look at him. That was not the sort of thing he usually said. It didn’t seem possible, but his words made her more nervous. “If you must,” she said cautiously.
“You make me nervous.”
She burst into laughter, and the surgeon actually turned to look back at them, which caused her to cover her mouth and try to tamp down her mirth.
“It’s true,” he said when she had regained her composure. “I never know what you will do next. Even as a child I found your behavior impulsive and erratic. Unpredictability makes me nervous.”
Emmeline straightened. “I was neither impulsive nor erratic. I always had reasons for everything I did. I still do.”
“And what reason do you have for the dog under the box at the moment?”
“He needed help. Anyone would help an injured, hungry animal. That is quite a predictable behavior.” She turned her head to look back at the fields they passed. Looking into his eyes for too long made her nervous all over again.
“If you believe that, you are more innocent of the world than I thought.”
She huffed in response. “I suppose I should take that as a compliment.”
“If you are not erratic and impulsive, explain to me your reasoning that summer at Odham Abbey when you jumped into the pond.”
“I jumped into the pond?” She could not stop herself from looking back at him again. “I don’t remember that.”
“I do. We had gone for a walk and you and Marjorie had come along. You wore a pale blue dress with a white pinafore over it, and your mother had put a blue ribbon in your hair. It had come loose, and you swung it in your hand like a whip.”
Emmeline stared at him. How on earth did he remember all these details? She had no recollection of the dress or the day at all. “How did I end up in the pond?”
“That’s just it. None of us knew why you did it. One moment you were pulling your sister along and the next you scampered to the pond, grabbed the rope we’d tied to the tree branch, swung over the water, and jumped in.”
It was coming back to her now. The memory of swinging on that rope had remained with her. It had been so freeing, so exhilarating.
“My brother and I almost went in after you, but you came up laughing.” He still sounded bewildered.
“As I recall, the water was not very deep. I could stand on the bottom.”
“Which was a good thing because it saved us from having to go in after you and receiving a scolding for ruining our clothing. Yours was bad enough.”
She gave a rueful smile at the memory. Her father’s brows had lifted in surprise when he saw her, and her mother’s face had gone crimson with embarrassment. Emmeline seemed to always be embarrassing her mother.
“It was that sort of behavior that made me nervous. One could never anticipate what you might do next. There was no rhyme or reason to it.”
“Oh, there was a reason for it,” she said. “Several, in fact.”
He turned her sideways so her legs fell between his, her bottom on one of his knees. “What could possibly be the reason?”
“I was cross and hot. What you may not remember was that I was all of about seven. That would have made Marjorie only four, and my mother had probably told me I was responsible for her. And here was my chance to play with the older kids, and I had to take care of a whiny baby who could not keep up. That was my thinking, at any rate.”