Bronwyn Scott - Playing the Rake's Game

Sherard shook his head. ‘No, thank you. I leave tonight on business and there’s much to be done before I sail. Now that the wagon’s unloaded, I’ll return to town.’ He gave her a strong look that reminded her Sherard was a man with a well-warranted reputation for fierceness. ‘I expect you’ll take good care of my friend, Miss Ward.’ He nodded to Dryden. ‘Ren, I’ll look in on you when I’m back in port.’

Great. The notorious Sherard was on a first-name basis with her guest and now felt he could use that familiarity as a reason to call regularly at her house. Her conscience prodded at her again. The bloody nuisance had been busy today. It probably served her right for stranding Dryden at the docks. She’d left him to his own devices and this was what she got.

Having the new partner befriend Sherard was not what she needed, considering the other rumours swirling about her. Never mind most people didn’t believe the rumours wholesale about her, the mere presence of those rumours was enough to still cast a certain cloud on her reputation. It called attention to her, something no decently bred woman deliberately sought. Nor did Sherard’s presence help her disposition towards her new house guest. Sherard already acted as if Dryden were in charge with his damnable fifty-one per cent, no matter that he technically was. She was the one who’d been here. She’d seen to the planting and nurturing of the crop. If Dryden had been a few days later he would have missed the harvest too. How dare he swoop in here, unannounced , at the last and claim any sort of credit for her labour.

Emma tamped down her roiling emotions and led her guest through the house to the back veranda. She liked that word, ‘guest’. It was precisely how she should think of Dryden. It was a far nicer term than ‘Mr Fifty-One Per Cent’ and, better yet, guests were temporary. She would make sure of it.

He could stay forever! Ren let the lemonade slide down his throat, cool and wet. He didn’t think anything had ever tasted as welcome, or any breeze had felt as pleasant. Things were definitely looking up. When Kitt had pulled up to Sugarland, Ren had been more than pleasantly surprised with the white-stucco manor house, threats of witches and magic receding. He’d felt an immediate sense of affinity for the place. This was somewhere he could belong, somewhere he could thrive.

Such an intuition was an odd sensation for a man who prided himself on logic, yet Ren couldn’t deny it was there. Possession, pure and primal, had hummed through his blood; his , his , his , it had sung. Then she had appeared at the top of the steps and his blood had hummed a more familiar tune of possession, a lustier tune. It was hard to mind being Trojan Horsed when it looked like Emma Ward. ‘She doesn’t look like a witch,’ he’d murmured to Kitt.

‘They never do.’ Kitt had laughed as he leapt down from the wagon. ‘Witches wouldn’t be nearly as effective if they did.’

But Emma Ward did look like something else just as worrisome and perhaps more real, Ren thought as they sipped their lemonade. Trouble. She had a natural sensuality to her. It was there in the sway of her hips as she led him through the airy halls to the veranda, it was there in her dark hair, in the exotic, catlike tilt of her deep brown eyes. It emanated from her, raw and elemental; a sensuality that coaxed a man to overstep himself if he wasn’t careful.

This woman was no virginal English rose. She was something much better and much worse. Maybe she was a witch, after all. He would have to reserve judgement. Ren raised his glass and stretched out an arm to clink his glass against hers. ‘Here’s to the future, Miss Ward.’

For someone who’d wanted to talk, she was awfully quiet, however. Perhaps he had misunderstood. He took the opportunity to learn a bit more about her. ‘It is Miss Ward, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, Miss Ward is fine.’ She supplied the bare basics of an answer and the briefest of smiles. Ren noted that smile didn’t leave her mouth. Her eyes remained politely impassive. Perhaps her coolness was a result of his surprise arrival. She hadn’t known he was coming and she was wary. A stranger had just arrived on her doorstep and announced his intention to live there.

‘I am sure all of this comes as quite a shock...’ Ren began congenially. He fully believed in the old adage that one caught more flies with sugar. It wouldn’t do to put Miss Ward on the defensive without cause. ‘It’s a shock to me as well. Cousin Merrimore didn’t mention anything about you in his papers and here we are, two strangers thrown together by circumstance.’ He gave her a warm smile, the one he reserved for the ton ’s stiff-necked matrons, the one that made them melt and relax their standards. It didn’t work.

‘In all fairness, Mr Dryden, I believe I have the upper hand. I knew of you by name. Merry did mention you in the will quite specifically.’

Intriguing. Ren’s critical mind couldn’t overlook the self-incriminating evidence. She’d known of him. She could have contacted him, something his lack of details had prevented him from doing on his end. He could be forgiven for a surprise arrival having no information about who to contact in advance, but she’d known. She’d had the ability to send a letter with the copy of the will. She’d chosen not to.

Ren gave her a wry smile. What would she do if he confronted her? ‘There is that, Miss Ward. You had my name. You were quite aware of my existence and yet you left me to find my own way here in my own time.’ He would have to tread carefully here. It seemed Miss Ward was already on the defensive, a very interesting position for a woman. Given her circumstances, he would have thought she’d be quite glad to see him, to have him remove the burden of running the place alone. The past four months must have been daunting for a woman alone.

She flushed at having been called out. Good. She understood precisely what he was implying, a further sign Miss Ward was an astute opponent. ‘It’s nearly harvest season, Mr Dryden. There’s hardly time for someone to sit for hours at the docks waiting for a ship to come in when it might possibly not and even if it did, it might not carry what you’re waiting for.’

Touché. She had him there. ‘Even for a relative?’ Ren probed. It was a shot in the dark, but he was curious to know how Emma Ward clung to the family tree. Undoubtedly she was more familiar with ‘Merry’ than he was. Where did that familiarity come from? Was she a lover? A mistress? Or merely a distant cousin like himself? Ren had met Cousin Merrimore, as his family called the old man, perhaps three times in his entire life, the last time being eight years ago when he’d finished his studies at Oxford.

Emma Ward gave a short laugh at the reference, but it was not warm. Ren had the distinct impression things were not getting off on the right foot. ‘You and I are not family, Mr Dryden. Merry was my guardian for several years until I attained my majority. After that, he was my friend.’ There was no help for him there. In his experience, ‘friends’ came in multiple varieties, bedfellows included. But if Merrimore had been her guardian, he could assume nothing untoward had followed.

‘Ren, please,’ he suggested again, making the most of the opening the conversation provided. ‘I should like for us to be friends as well.’ If there was any naughty innuendo in his response, he would let her relationship with Merrimore be the measuring stick.

‘ We are business partners at present,’ she replied firmly, moving the conversation away from the personal, although there were a host of questions he wanted to ask—how had a confirmed bachelor like his ancient cousin ended up as someone’s guardian? Why hadn’t she left the island? Surely Merrimore would have sent her to London when she came of age?