Sophia James - The Wild Wellingham Brothers - High Seas To High Society / One Unashamed Night / One Illicit Night / The Dissolute Duke

‘And then they offered to follow you up here?’

‘Yes.’ Even to her ears the explanation sounded implausible.

‘And you did not think to ask me to house them at Falder, in the servants’ quarters?’

‘They like their independence. Once they saw I was safely at your house and that you were a gentleman—’

He interrupted her. ‘How do you contact them?’

‘By the signal of a candle at night.’ She was honest in her answer, for he looked as if another lie might well incite his anger.

‘Through the window of your room?’

‘Yes.’

‘And should I worry that they may frisk Falder with even more competence than you have?’

Because his summation of the situation was so close to what she had just been thinking she blushed, giving him his answer.

‘I see.’ He ran his fingers through his hair. Or what was left of his fingers, she amended.

‘It is not as you think,’ she began.

‘Then how is it, Emma? Explain to me exactly how it is.’

‘I cannot,’ she said simply and turned away. In the shimmering glass her reflection was barely visible, a thin reminder of the person she purported not to be.

‘You cannot because the truth is that you are a liar, Lady Emma Seaton. A beautiful liar, but a liar none the less.’

‘Yes.’ She faced him directly and left it at that. Tonight the untruths just would not come and his kisses still burned on her lips and hands and neck.

Lady Liar.

Pirate’s daughter.

There was some sort of symmetry of verse in the expressions and both left her with a completely groundless counter-argument.

She was a liar. And would be a thief if she could only find the damn map. Regret swamped her. All she wanted to feel again was the warmth of his lips against her own.

And know again the safety he offered.

She could not remember ever being truly safe. Not since her mother had left and not for a while before then too.

Blood.

And screaming.

The sounds of cold arguments on the warm winds of Jamaica. She tilted her head and tried to catch the glimpse of something elusive. But she couldn’t, and when the Gravesons’ house came into view she was pleased, for it released her from the close confines of the carriage.

Dinner was horrible.

Oh, granted, Annabelle Graveson had gone to an enormous amount of trouble and was the most gracious of hostesses, just as her son Rodney was the very epitome of excellent manners and careful conversation.

But Asher barely looked at Emerald and when he did she could see only a veneer of distrust in his eyes and a good amount of distance. She missed his banter. She missed his smile. She missed the breathless possibility that he might lean across and touch her and she would feel again the slow rise of passion and the quick burn of excitement.

What was she coming to? She was at dinner, for goodness’ sake, with a widow woman and her son. With an effort she tried to listen to what it was that Rodney was talking to her about.

Guns. She’d never liked them.

‘I can now hit a target at thirty feet. Sometimes more. We often hunt in the grounds of Falder.’

‘We.’

‘Carisbrook and I. He’s teaching me.’

‘The Duke of Carisbrook is teaching you?’

His eyes swivelled around at the mention of his name.

‘Is there a problem with that, Lady Emma?’ he asked in his frostiest voice. A voice that implied she thought he could barely hold a gun, let alone shoot it.

‘Certainly not.’

‘I am pleased to hear it,’ he returned and his smile was strained.

Annabelle Graveson seemed oblivious to everything as she leaned forward and placed her hand on Emerald’s. On the third finger of her left hand was a ring bearing a diamond the size of a large rock. The house. The jewellery. The clothes she wore. Annabelle Graveson had become a rich woman on the death of her husband.

‘I would like to make you a gift of some gowns, Emma. Would you accept that from me?’ Her voice quivered.

‘Gowns?’ She did not umderstand the reason for such an offer.

‘For your Season in London.’

‘Oh, no, Lady Annabelle.’ She went to say more, but could not.

‘Is it because I am a stranger to you? I am hoping we may change that.’ The fingers on her forearm tightened.

He looked as puzzled as she felt.

‘Lady Emma is staying with the Countess of Haversham, Annabelle, and is well looked after.’

‘Yes, of course,’ she replied, a semblance of calm once again in place. ‘Of course she is. When is your birthday, my dear?’

The question was so unexpected it took Emerald by surprise. ‘My birthday?’

Annabelle Graveson nodded.

‘It’s on the third of November.’

Tears filled Annabelle’s eyes and she dabbed at them with her handkerchief and waved the attention of her son away. ‘No, Rodney,’ she said. ‘I am quite all right. In fact I have never felt better.’ And with that cryptic remark she bent over the pudding she had before her and demolished the lot.

‘They are unusual people,’ Emerald chanced into the silence as they wended their way home a few hours later. When she got no reply, she amended her observation. ‘Nice and unusual, I meant.’

Still no reply. She was not daunted.

‘Annabelle seems rather a nervous woman,’ she continued.

‘Whereas you, on the other hand, are not.’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’

‘Name one thing that you afraid of.’

She was silent and unexpectedly he laughed. ‘Thank you, at least, for not lying to me.’

‘I did not lie about James.’

‘I know.’

She held her breath and looked out of the window. The clouds against the moon reminded her of her little brother’s curls as he had lain there asleep while she watched him.

Tonight he seemed close. Perhaps that was because it had been so long since she had spoken to anyone about him. And Asher Wellingham had been a good listener.

What else had he been? A would-be lover, a man whom she could trust and respect and like.

Like? Too tame for what now raced inside her and yet with the ghost of her father hanging so baldly between them nothing else could be possible.

Nothing.

She saw he kneaded his thigh with the fingers on his left hand and chanced the opening.

‘Do you have a cane, your Grace?’

‘A cane?’

‘For your leg. Perhaps if you took your weight off it…’

He stopped rubbing immediately.

‘My uncle had a cane once. A fine one, carved in ebony. He had hurt his knee at Waterloo and found the stick to be invaluable.’

God, how many more clues could she safely give him?

One more.

She took in a deep breath and spoke.

‘Walking sticks are actually quite a passion of mine. I collect them, you know.’

She did not let the pained look on his face dissuade her.

‘I have twenty from all parts of the world.’

‘Fascinating.’ The tone he used intimated that he found the subject anything but.

‘Indeed, your Grace, it is.’ She was grateful for the dark and for the movement of the coach. ‘If you had any at Falder, I would be pleased to look at them for you to give you some idea of their value.’ She felt the thick beat of duplicity in her throat when he did not answer and the look in his eyes was one of singular calculation.

She should not have gambled on his intellect. Already she could see the wheels of his brain turning and so she was not surprised by his next question.

‘Would it be a cane by chance that you are looking for at Falder?’

‘No.’ She met his question directly as the lights of his home came into view. As the carriage began to slow he lifted her gloved fingers into his.

‘What happened to your hands? Are they also a part of the mystery of Emma Seaton?’