I hope you enjoy it! As always, your thoughts and feedback mean the world to me, so feel free to drop a comment. Happy reading! 😊

Huge thank you to my beta ARandomDream for correcting my mistakes ❤️


Chapter 13: J'adoube

Despite the impromptu detour at Stonehenge, Killian's carriage arrived at Ashbourne's grand entrance precisely at eight o'clock, right on the dot. By twenty past eight, he and his bride had reviewed the domestic battalion, all impeccably turned out in ceremonial regalia, and had, in turn, been discreetly scrutinized. Save for a few exceptions, none of the current staff had ever laid eyes on their master before. Nonetheless, they were too well-trained and handsomely compensated to display any hint of emotion, not even curiosity.

Everything was flawlessly arranged, exactly as Killian had decreed, with every requirement met to the letter and to the minute, per the detailed schedule he'd dispatched ahead. Their baths were drawn while they conducted the staff review, and their dinner attire was pressed and meticulously laid out.

The first course was served the moment the lord and lady took their seats at opposite ends of the vast dining table in the cavernous hall. The cold dishes arrived chilled, and the warm dishes arrived hot. Smee, the ever-dutiful valet, hovered near His Lordship's chair throughout the meal, ready to assist with any task requiring two hands.

Emma seemed entirely unfazed by a dining room the size of Westminster Abbey or the dozen liveried footmen standing at attention by the sideboard, awaiting their cue for each course.

At a quarter to eleven, she gracefully rose from the table, leaving Killian to savor his port. With the poise of a matriarch who had reigned for centuries, she coolly informed the house steward, Murphy, that she would be taking tea in the library.

The table was cleared before she had fully exited the room, and the decanter materialized before Killian almost instantaneously. His glass was filled with silent precision, and his legion of attendants dissipated with a ghostly swiftness upon his curt, "That will be all."

This was the first semblance of solitude Killian had enjoyed in two days, his first opportunity to ponder the delicate dilemma of deflowering his bride since it had dawned on him as a dilemma.

His thoughts wandered to the length of the day, the persistent throb of his paralyzed arm, the unnerving silence of the dining room, the displeasing hue of the drapes, and the ill-proportioned landscape painting hanging over the mantle.

At five minutes to eleven, he abandoned his untouched wineglass, rose from his seat, and made his way to the library.


Emma stood at a lectern where the gargantuan family Bible lay open, displaying the obligatory entries of weddings, births, and deaths. As her husband entered, she shot him a reproachful glance. "Today is your birthday," she declared. "Why didn't you tell me?"

He approached, his stony visage shifting into its customary sardonic mask as he glanced at the page she indicated. "Imagine that. My esteemed father didn't obliterate my name. I'm all amazement."

"Are you telling me you've never once perused this book?" she queried. "That you had no curiosity about your lineage—despite knowing all about Sir William Ashbourne?"

"My tutor regaled me with tales of my forebears," he replied. "He tried to liven up the history lessons with regular promenades through the portrait gallery.'The first Earl of Blackmoor,'he would intone, stopping before a painting of a cavalier with flowing golden locks.'Created during the reign of King Charles II,'he would solemnly inform me. Then, he'd delve into the events of that era, explaining how my illustrious ancestor fit in and what feats he'd performed to earn his earldom."

It was his tutor who had told him, not his father.

"I should like to be tutored in the same manner," she said with a playful glint in her eye. "Perhaps tomorrow you'll take me for a leisurely jaunt through the portrait gallery. I gather it must stretch for ten or twelve miles."

"One hundred eighty feet," he corrected, his gaze drifting back to the page. "You seem to have an overly grandiose impression of Ashbourne."

"I'll acclimate," she replied breezily. "I managed not to gawk too much when introduced to the cathedral village otherwise known as Her Ladyship's Apartments."

He continued to stare at the page where his birth was recorded, his sardonic mask unchanging, but his blue eyes churned with hidden turmoil. Emma suspected it was the entry directly below that unsettled him. It had saddened her, and she grieved for him.

"I lost my parents the year after you lost your mother," she offered gently. "They were killed in a carriage accident."

"Fever," he said, almost to himself. "She died of a fever. He noted that event as well." Hook sounded almost surprised.

"Who recorded your father's death?" she asked. "That doesn't look like your handwriting."

He shrugged dismissively. "His secretary, perhaps. Or the vicar. Or some officious busybody," he pushed her hand away and slammed the ancient Bible shut with a decisive thud. "If you're interested in family history, we have volumes of it on the shelves at the far end of this room. It's documented in excruciating detail, likely going back to the Roman conquest, I daresay."

She reopened the Bible with gentle determination. "You are the head of the family, and you must now include me," she said softly. "You've acquired a wife, and it must be documented."

"Must I, indeed, right this very minute?" He raised an eyebrow, his tone teasing. "And what if I decide not to keep you? Then I'd have to go back and blot out your name.

She left the bookstand, glided over to a study table, picked up a pen and inkwell, and returned to him. "I'd like to see you try to get rid of me," she challenged.

"I could always get an annulment," he mused. "Claim I was of unsound mind when we married. Lord Midas had his marriage annulled on those very grounds just yesterday."

Despite his words, he took the pen from her and made an elaborate show of recording their marriage, his bold script adorned with a few extravagant flourishes.

"Ah, splendidly done," she remarked, leaning over his arm to admire the entry. "Thank you, Hook. Now I am part of the Joneses' history." She was acutely aware that her breasts were resting on his arm.

So was he. He jerked away as if scorched by hot coals.

"Yes, you are now immortalized in the Bible," he said dryly. "I suppose next you'll want a portrait, and I'll have to evict some famous ancestor to make room for you."

Emma had hoped that a bath, dinner, and a few glasses of port would settle his nerves, but he remained as jittery as when they first entered Ashbourne's gates.

"Is Ashbourne haunted?" she inquired, ambling with feigned nonchalance toward a towering set of bookshelves. "Should I brace myself for the clanking of chains, hideous midnight wails, or the specters of quaintly attired ladies and gentlemen meandering the corridors?"

"Good heavens, no. Who put such a notion into your head?"

"You," she replied, stretching on tiptoe to peruse a shelf of poetic works. "I can't tell if you're bracing yourself to tell me something dreadful or anticipating something equally ghastly. I thought perhaps some Jones ghosts might be poised to leap from the woodwork."

"I am not bracing myself for anything," he retorted, striding to the fireplace. "I am not braced. I am perfectly at ease. As I should be, in my own damned house."

Where he had learned his family's history from a tutor, instead of his father,she mused. Where he learned his mother had died when he was ten, a loss that still seemed to wound him deeply. Where an immense, ancient family Bible sat, untouched by him until today.

She wondered if he had known the names of his deceased half-siblings or if he had read them for the first time today, as she had.

She pulled out a handsome, exquisitely bound volume ofDon Juan.

"This must have been your purchase," she observed, examining the tome. "The final cantos ofDon Juanwere published scarcely four years ago. I didn't know you had a penchant for Byron's work."

He had wandered over to the fireplace. "I don't. I crossed paths with him during a trip to Athens. I bought the thing because its author was a notorious rogue and its contents were said to be scandalously improper."

"In other words, you haven't read it." She opened the book and selected a stanza from the first canto."'Wedded she was, some years, and to a man / of fifty, and such husbands are in plenty; / And yet, I think, instead of such a ONE / 'T were better to have TWO of five and twenty.'"

Hook's hard mouth twitched upward. Emma flipped through the pages."'A little she strove, and much repented, / And whispering "I will ne'er consent"—consented.'"

A stifled chuckle escaped him. But she had him, Emma knew. She settled down onto the sofa and skipped ahead to the second canto, where she'd left off reading the night before.

She explained that the sixteen-year-old Don Juan was being sent away because of his affair with the beautiful Donna Julia, wife of the fifty-year-old gentleman.

Then she began to read aloud.

At Stanza III, Hook abandoned the fireplace.

By the eighth stanza, he was seated beside her. By the fourteenth, he had sprawled indolently, with a sofa pillow under his head and a padded footstool supporting his feet. In the process, his crippled left hand had somehow found its way onto her right knee. Emma pretended not to notice, continuing to read about Don Juan's sorrow as his ship sailed from his homeland, his resolve to reform, his undying love for Julia, and how he would never forget her or think of anything but her.

"'"A mind diseased no remedy can physic—" / Here the ship gave a lurch, and he grew sea-sick."'"

Hook snickered.

"'"Sooner shall Heaven kiss earth—"(here he fell sicker) / "Oh Julia! What is every other woe?—(For God's sake let me have a glass of liquor; Pedro, Battista, help me down below.)"'"

Had she been reading alone, Emma would have giggled as she had last night. But for Hook's benefit, she delivered Don Juan's lovesick laments with melodramatic anguish, her performance becoming increasingly distracted as the hero's seasickness outpaced his undying love.

She deliberately ignored the large body shaking with silent laughter so close to hers and the occasional half-stifled chuckle that stirred a tickling breeze over her scalp.

"'"Beloved Julia, hear me still beseeching!" / (Here he grew inarticulate with retching.)'"

The breeze brushed the top of her ear, and she didn't need to look up to feel her husband leaning in closer, peering over her shoulder at the page. She continued to read, aware of his warm breath against her ear and the vibrations of his low, rumbling laughter reverberating through her.

"'No doubt he would have been more pathetic,—'"

"'But the sea acted as a strong emetic,'"he gravely completed the stanza. She allowed herself to glance up, but his gaze shifted away, and the expression on his ruggedly handsome face remained inscrutable.

"I can't believe you bought it and never read it," she said. "You had no idea what you were missing, did you?"

"I'm sure it was more entertaining to hear it read in a ladylike voice," he replied. "Certainly, it's less effort."

"Then I shall read to you regularly," she said. "I'll make a romantic of you yet."

He drew back, and his idle hand slipped to the sofa. "You call thatromantic? Byron's a complete cynic."

"In my dictionary, romance isn't just syrupy sentiment," she declared. "It's a curry, spiced with excitement, humor, and a generous dash of cynicism." She lowered her lashes, casting a sidelong glance. "I think you'll make an excellent curry, Hook—with a few minor seasoning adjustments."

"Adjustments?" he repeated, visibly bristling. "Adjustme?"

"Certainly," she said, giving the hand lying beside her a gentle pat. "Marriage requires adjustments on both sides."

"Not this marriage, madam. I paid—dearly—for blind obedience, and that is precisely—"

"Naturally, you're the sovereign of your household," she interrupted smoothly. "I've never met a man more adept at orchestrating everything and everyone. But even you can't anticipate every nuance or seek out what you've never experienced. I daresay there are advantages to having a wife that you've yet to imagine."

"There's only one," he said, his eyes narrowing into slits. "And I assure you, my lady, I've contemplated it often. It's the only damned thing—"

"I devised a remedy for your morning malaise," she interjected, stifling a surge of irritation and anxiety. "You thought there was no cure. You have just discovered Byron, thanks to me. And that seems to have improved your mood."

He kicked the footstool aside with a snort. "I see. So that's your game—humoring me. Softening me up— or attempting to."

Emma closed the book with a decisive thud and set it aside.

She had resolved to be patient, to fulfill her duties, to care for him because he so obviously needed it, whether he acknowledged it or not. Now she wondered why she even bothered. After last night, after this morning, after being banished to the end of a mile-long dining table, the blockhead had the audacity to dismiss her superhuman efforts as meremanipulation. Her patience shattered.

"Attempting…to…soften…you," she dragged the words out, her heart pounding with indignation. "You insufferable, dim-wittedbuffoon."

"I'm not blind," he said, his voice low and measured. "I see exactly what you're up to, and if you think—"

"If you think I couldn't make you eat out of my hand if I so desired," she interrupted sharply, "you'd do well to reconsider, Beelzebub."

A heavy, resonant silence filled the room.

"Out of your hand," he repeated, his tone dangerously quiet.

She recognized that chilling quiet and what it foretold, and a part of her mind screamed,Run!But the rest of her was a roiling tempest of fury. Slowly and deliberately, she placed her left hand, palm up, on her knee. With her right index finger, she traced a small circle in the center.

"There," she said, her voice mirroring his low tone, her mouth curling into a taunting smile. "Just like that, Hook. In the palm of my hand. And then," she continued, still drawing circles on her palm, "I would make you crawl. Andbeg."

Another explosive silence rolled through the room, making her wonder why the books didn't leap from their shelves in terror.

Then came the unexpected response, as smooth as velvet, and one she realized instantly she should have anticipated.

"I should like to see you try," he said.


His brain was screaming at him, but Killian couldn't make out the message over the clanging in his ears;crawl…and couldn't think beyond the mocking tone of her soft voice and the fury twisting his insides.

So he retreated into a fortress of icy rage, where he felt safe, impervious to pain. He had refused to crawl and beg when his eight-year-old world crumbled, when the only semblance of love he had known vanished, and his father cast him aside. The world had shoved him into the muck, taunted and jeered, and beaten him mercilessly. The world had turned its back and demanded payment for every fleeting illusion of happiness. It had tried to crush him into submission, but he refused to yield, forcing the world to adjust to him on his own terms.

And so she would, he resolved. He would endure whatever it took to teach her that lesson.

He thought of the massive boulders he'd pointed out to her earlier, impervious to centuries of relentless rain, wind, and biting cold. He made himself a monolith like them, unyielding and unbreakable. As he felt her presence beside him, he told himself she would never find a foothold; she could neither scale him nor melt him or wear him down.

She knelt beside him, and he waited through the tense pause as she remained still. She was hesitating, he knew. She wasn't blind. She recognized solid stone when she saw it, and perhaps, even now, she was beginning to see her miscalculation—and would soon concede.

She lifted her hand and touched his neck—then withdrew it almost immediately, as though the electric jolt she felt was as shocking to her as it was to him, a crackling surge darting beneath his skin and setting his nerves on high alert.

Though his gaze remained fixed straight ahead, Killian caught her puzzled reaction in the corner of his eye. He saw her frown as she examined her hand, followed by her curious scrutiny shifting to his neck.

His heart sank as he detected the slow, deliberate curve of her smile. She edged closer, her right knee pressing gently against his buttock while her left nestled against his thigh. Then she draped her right arm over his shoulders and let her left rest on his upper chest, leaning in with a closeness that made his pulse quicken. Her soft, rounded bosom brushed against his arm as her lips lightly touched the overly sensitive skin at the corner of his eye.

He forced himself to remain rigid, focusing intently on steadying his breath to keep from howling.

Her presence was like a soothing balm, her touch as soft as velvet, with the subtle scent of peach-scented chamomile wrapping around him like a siren's call—despite the sinuous embrace of her lithe form already ensnaring him. Her parted lips traced a tantalizing path, skimming over the scar on his cheek, meandering down his unyielding jaw to the inviting edge of his mouth

AndFool!he mentally berated himself for provoking her, knowing full well that she could never resist a challenge and he had never come away unscathed from issuing one.

He had stumbled into another trap, as predictable as sunrise, and this time, the snare was tighter. He couldn't turn to drink in her intoxicating allure, for that would be surrender, and he would not yield. He was forced to remain as unyielding as a granite monolith, while her soft bosom pressed rhythmically against his arm and her warm breath, like a gentle breeze, teased his skin with feather-light kisses.

Like a block of stone, he sat immovable, while she sighed softly against his ear, her breath hissing through his veins like a seductive whisper. He persisted, a statue of stoic resolve on the outside, while inwardly he was tormented. She meticulously worked the knot of his neckcloth loose and pulled it away.

He watched it fall from her fingers, trying to focus on the disheveled white fabric at his feet, but her lips were grazing the back of his neck, and her hand was sliding beneath his shirt. His eyes refused to focus, and his mind couldn't concentrate because she was everywhere—a feverish coil tightening around him, pulsing with each touch.

"You're so smooth," her voice murmured from behind him, each word a caress, her breath warm against the nape of his neck as she stroked his shoulder. "Smooth as polished marble, yet so warm."

He was ablaze, and her hushed, sultry tones were the oil drizzling upon the flames.

"And strong," she continued, her hands like serpents gliding over taut muscles that tensed and quivered under her touch.

He felt like a great, foolish ox, sinking deeper into the quicksand of her virginal seduction.

"You could lift me with one arm," she purred. "I adore your hands. I want them everywhere, Hook. Everywhere," she flicked her tongue over his ear, sending tremors through him. "On my skin. Just like this."

Under his fine cambric shirt, her fingers traced the frantic beat of his heart. She brushed her thumb over his taut nipple, and he exhaled a hissing breath between clenched teeth, as if struck by a bolt of pure sensation.

"I want you to do that," she purred, "to me."

He ached to oblige, oh sweet Mother of Mercy, how he ached. The knuckles of his tightly clenched fist were a ghostly white, his jaw ached from its ironclad grip; those sensations were heavenly compared to the ferocious throbbing in his groin.

"Do what?" he rasped, forcing the words through his thickened tongue. "Was I… supposed… to feel something?"

"You bastard," she said, withdrawing her hand and sending a fleeting thrill of relief through him. But before he could draw a full breath, she was scrambling onto his lap, her skirts hiking up as she straddled him.

"You want me," she declared with breathless confidence. "I can feel it, Hook."

She could hardly fail to. There was nothing between hot, aroused male and warm female but a layer of wool and a scrap of silk. His trousers. Her drawers…soft thighs pressing against his. God help him.

Indeed, she could hardly miss it. There was nothing but a whisper of wool and a mere scrap of silk between the searing heat of male desire and the soft warmth of female allure. His trousers and her drawers, soft thighs pressing against his. God help him.

He knew what lay beneath those drawers: a few tantalizing inches of stocking above her knee, the teasing knot of a garter, and the silken skin beyond. Even the fingers of his crippled left hand twitched with the impulse to explore.

As if she could read his mind, she grasped that useless hand and dragged it over the rumpled silk of her skirt.

Under, he wanted to cry out. The stocking, the garter, the sweet, silken skin…please.

He clamped his mouth shut.

He wouldn't beg. He wouldn't crawl.

She pressed him back into the sofa cushions, and he fell easily, every ounce of his strength devoted to stifling the cry that threatened to escape.

Her hand moved deliberately to the ties of her bodice, and his eyes followed with a mix of dread and fascination.

"Marriage requires adjustments," she declared with a provocative lilt. "If it's a tart you're after, I suppose I'll have to play the part."

He tried to close his eyes, but even that small victory was beyond him. He was transfixed by her slender, deft fingers performing their devilish work—the tapes and hooks surrendering one by one, the fabric slipping downward, revealing the creamy expanse of her flesh, once hidden beneath lace and silk.

"I know my… assets… aren't as monumental as what you're used to," she said, easing the bodice down to her waist.

He was met with twin moons, alabaster and radiant.

His mouth was parched, his head stuffed with cotton wool.

"But if I come very close, maybe you'll take notice," she murmured, lifting herself and bending over him… too close, far too close.

A taut rosebud, inches from his feverish lips… the rich, intoxicating scent of a woman enveloping him, swirling in his senses.

"Emma," his voice rasped, dry and desperate.

His mind was a barren wasteland. No thoughts, no pride, only the sensation of drifting sand in a storm.

With a choked cry, he pulled her down, capturing her mouth—a sweet oasis…oh, yes, please…and she yielded to his frantic hunger. He drank in her sweetness as if it were the only thing that could quench his thirst. She was the rain he craved and the hot brandy he needed, all at once.

He dragged his hand down her sleek, supple back, eliciting a shiver and a soft sigh against his lips. "I love your hands," she murmured, her voice a caress.

"EĂ­sai Ăłmorfi," he replied hoarsely, his fingers curling possessively around her waist. Firm and supple, yet so small under his touch.

You're beautiful.

There was so little of her, but he craved every inch, and he desired it with a desperate hunger. He traced his famished mouth over her face, her shoulder, her throat. His cheek grazed the velvety curves of her breasts, and he nestled into the fragrant cleft between them. His tongue crafted a tantalizing path to the rosy peak that had teased him moments before, capturing it with a fervor. He lavished it with kisses and flicks of his tongue, holding her shuddering form close while he suckled.

From above, a soft, startled cry escaped her. Yet, her fingers tangled eagerly in his hair, roaming restlessly over his scalp, and he knew the cry was not one of pain, but of heightened pleasure.

The tormenting temptress relished it.

In his fevered state, he realized he wasn't entirely at her mercy.

He could make her beg, too.

With his heart racing like a runaway steed and his mind clouded with lust, he summoned a sliver of control. Instead of rushing, he laid siege to her other breast with a slow, deliberate assault.

She unraveled.

"Oh, oh, Hook. Please," her fingers fluttered erratically over his neck and shoulders.

Yes, beg. He took the quivering nipple between his teeth and gave a gentle tug.

"Dear God. Please…don't. Yes, oh," she squirmed helplessly, arching toward him one moment and twisting away the next.

He slid his hand beneath the rumpled chaos of her skirt, his touch grazing the silken barriers of her drawers. She moaned, a sound of pure sensation.

Releasing her breast, she descended onto him, her lips parting as she traced a passionate path over his until he responded, drawing her in. Waves of pleasure surged through him as she plundered his mouth with fervent kisses.

As he savored the intoxicating warmth of her kiss, his fingers were already pushing up the gossamer silk of her drawers, gliding over the stocking and inching upward to the knot of her garter. With a deft flick, he untied it and discarded it, sliding the stocking down and letting his fingers roam over her thigh. He moved upward, navigating the crumpled silk to grasp her exquisitely rounded bottom.

She pulled away from his kiss, her breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps.

Still holding her bottom, he shifted their position, guiding her onto her side and pinning her between his body and the sofa's back. His lips captured hers again in a deep, lingering kiss as his hand wandered to the fastenings of her drawers, undoing them with practiced ease. He felt her body tense beneath his touch, but he kept her lips locked in a slow, tender embrace, distracting her as his fingers traced her thigh, caressed her soft skin, and crept toward her most intimate place.

She wriggled, trying to pull away, but he held her firmly, unable to resist the allure of her skin—the taut, sensitive flesh at the juncture of her thigh, the wanton tangle of silky curls, the warm, butter-soft evidence of her desire.

He had stirred her, awakened a need within her. She wanted him.

He began to stroke the tender feminine folds, and she went utterly still, her body responding to his touch.

Then, a soft, surprised "Oh" escaped her lips, followed by a breathless murmur. "Oh. That's…wicked. I don't – " Her voice faltered into a muffled cry as the sweet warmth surged against his probing finger. Her slender form twisted restlessly, shifting toward him and then away, as if caught in a tumultuous dance. "Oh, ."

He barely heard her plea, lost in the cacophony of his own throbbing blood and the storm raging in his veins.

He explored the tender bud and the narrow, inviting cleft beneath, but it was so exquisitely tight, so resistant to his insistent intrusion.

He caressed the delicate peak, feeling it swell beneath his touch. She clung to his coat, making soft, breathy sounds as she pressed against his rigid frame, like a nervous kitten. But she wasn't truly frightened—she trusted him. His own trusting kitten, so innocent, so exquisitely fragile.

"Oh, Emma, you're so beautiful," he murmured, his voice thick with despair.

He stroked gently inside her, but the tight, slick passage was a snug fit for his eager fingers.

His arousal, a relentless force straining against his trousers, felt like a monstrous invader poised to devastate her. He was on the brink of tears, of a primal howl of frustration.

"So tight," he said, his voice quivering with torment, unable to stop the touch that he both desired and dreaded.

She didn't hear him. She was lost in the fever he was feeding. She was touching him, kissing him.

She was oblivious to his distress, lost in the fever he was kindling within her. She touched him, kissed him with an innocent wantonness that only fueled the inferno he had set to conquer her.

"Oh, don't…yes…please."

He heard her gasp, then sob, as her body quivered, the tight flesh pulsing around his fingers in the throes of another climax.

He withdrew his hand, trembling with the aftermath. Every muscle in his body was strained and aching, as if he had battled a relentless storm. His groin felt ensnared in a vice of infernal cruelty.

He drew ragged breaths, waiting for her to return to consciousness, praying his own torment would subside before he had to move.

He waited, but no change came. He could hear and feel her breathing—slow, steady, and peaceful… too peaceful.

In disbelief, he stared at her serene,slumberingface. "Emma?"

She murmured softly and nestled deeper into the crook of his shoulder.

For a full minute, he gazed at her, slack-jawed and exasperated by her tranquil repose.

Just like a damned man, he thought ruefully. She got what she wanted, then curled up and drifted off to sleep.

That was whathewas supposed to do, blast and confound her bloody impudence. He was now left to figure out how to get her to bed without waking her, using only one functioning arm.