Just One Night (Le Débauché Club) by Aubrey Beck

Berridge Downs, Essex – April, 1810
     
    Trepidation washed over Emma, Lady Alnwick, as she stared out at the line of coaches from her carriage window. What was taking so long this evening? She was already nervous.
    What had she been thinking? She shouldn’t be here. She certainly shouldn’t have asked him to escort her. And every moment that stretched out before they reached Lord Longfield’s estate, the more she was certain she would be caught, found out, publicly ruined.
    “Lift your skirt s, Emma,” James Armstrong, Earl of Haswell, called from the darkness across the coach.
    She gulped. Was she really going to do this tonight?
    “I said,” he began, his gravelly voice, laced with a bit of determination, “lift your skirts, Emma.”
    “M-my skirt?” she asked, like a ninny. That had been their agreement, hadn’t it? He’d take her to Longfield’s Le Débauché Masquerade and she’d do whatever he asked in return.
    James flicked his fingers upwards, gesturing for her to get on with it, a patch of moonlight catching his movement. Panic, fear and a bit of desire washed over her. She did want him. She had for some time. And this was their agreement, but what if someone found out?
    “Emma,” he said her name with steely determination, “lift your skirt s and open your legs. I want to see what I was promised for the evening.”
    She gulped again, but then leaned back against the plush squabs of his coach. With shaking hands, she drew her skirts upwards into her fists, the soft material brushing against her calves, stopping briefly at her knees before she tugged the dress further, over her thighs until she finally released the fabric at her waist.
    The masculine tsking sound coming from the other side of the coach, made her heart stop. Emma’s eyes shot across the darkened carriage. She could see him now. Well, mostly. A black domino covered most of James’ face, but she could make out his chiseled jaw and the piercing blue of his eyes. She’d know those eyes anywhere.
    “Naughty girl,” he chided, folding his strong arms across his chest. “I distinctly told you no drawers tonight.”
    He had. But she couldn’t imagine going out without them, and what would she have said to her maid? “I—um—”
    “Take them off.”
    The coach moved forward and panic squeezed her heart. “We’re almost there, my lord.”
    “We could be waiting at the steps, with the door open, but we’re not getting out until you have removed your drawers , my lady . So you can do so for an audience of one or for all of Longfield’s staff, waiting to greet us. It’s entirely up to you.”
    Oh good heavens! He meant it. She could hear it in his voice. Though Emma had embarked down this path, she didn’t want anyone else to ever learn of it.
    Her fingers shook even more as she untied the ribbon at the top of her drawers. His eyes stayed on her, watching every movement, as though soaking it all in to replay in his mind over and over in the future. She wasn’t sure what she thought about that, what she felt about that. Was it a good thing?
    Emma lifted her bottom from the bench so she could slide the drawers down her legs. Cold air swirled around her as she leaned back against the squabs, her dress up around her middle.
    “Very good,” he said softly, moving forward on his bench, toward her.  Both of his gloveless hands grasped her knees. Warmth shot through her from his possessive touch. Then he pushed her knees wider for his gaze.
    No one had ever looked upon her like this , not even Michael, and alarm raced through Emma. She would have closed her legs, if James wasn’t holding her open, as he was.
    Again he tsked. “You are the one who asked for this,” he reminded her, sounding for the first time like the charming man she’d known him to be the last five years.
    “I—I—know.”
    He nodded, taking her words as a sign that it was all right to continue this masquerade of theirs. James’ warm hand trailed up