Mary Brendan - The Silver Squire

Emma sensed her teeth grinding, her fists curling. He was deliberately impressing on her just how easily he could keep her here, and that he was exercising patience in waiting for her to obediently disclose all to him. Her nails stabbed her palms as she suppressed a terrifying need to bound across the few feet that separated them and hit him.

‘Do your parents know where you are?’

‘My whereabouts are of no interest to them,’ she snapped back. ‘Why should they be? I am a spinster of twenty-seven and perfectly able to live alone.’

‘I know how old you are, Emma,’ he said softly. ‘I attended your twenty-fourth-birthday celebration…remember?’

‘Not by my invitation…’ she sniped, then twisted away and closed her eyes. Do not antagonise him, she severely, calmingly chided herself. He is of no importance whatsoever. Just use half-truths and guile. It will satisfy his base curiosity, thus enabling you to rid yourself of his damnable presence…then all will again be well. He is simply a hedonistic fool ruled by lust and alcohol…She hesitated in her unspoken censure, recalling that there had been less of an inebriated haze about this man than about Matthew on their reunion in Oakdene this week…and several times since.

‘Well?’ His mild impatience shattered the tension after several silent minutes. When she steadfastly refused to look at him or speak because she still hadn’t quite worked out which lies would serve her best, he added, ‘Have you nothing at all to say?’

‘Yes, I have something to say,’ she announced, honey-voiced, as feral eyes pounced on him. ‘And I do not think you will want to contact my parents to relay this. If you do not remove yourself this instant I shall scream and weep loud enough to wake the street and charge you with…’

‘With…?’ he prompted mildly through long, dark fingers curled against his sensual mouth, watching her from beneath heavy lids.

‘With attempting to force your vile attentions on me…with molesting me. Now what do you say, Mr Du Quesne?’ she flung at him, inclining slightly towards him in triumph.

He was out of the chair in a lithe second, making her jerk back and whirl away so fast, treacle hair flowed out thickly towards him.

‘I’d say you’re a little early with that complaint, Miss Worthington,’ he purred as he walked right up to her. Smoky silver eyes eventually reached her white face, having leisurely mounted her body.

He watched real fear dilate her pupils. He also saw that she was still itching to slap him. His teeth met, shifting his jaw aslant, as he finally accepted that he wanted it too. He was just longing for her to touch him…in any way…in that way.

He forced himself away from her, cutting off her escape route, for she was now liable to flee and damn the consequences, then he still wouldn’t know what the hell was going on. He stood with his back to her yet with her colouring, her sharp, sculpted little features imprinted on his mind. He laughed, low and private, in a way that had Emma swinging about, eyes raking the breadth of his shoulders to try and discover the reason for it.

Richard raised his sardonic dark face to the ceiling. So Yvette deemed herself a wildcat, did she? he mused ironically. Yvette was nothing more than a spiteful harlot…and spiteful in a manner that had little to do with how she liked to brand him as hers in a way easily recognisable to other women.

This was a wildcat, he realised ruefully…the genuine, un-adorned article. She even looked the part with her spare, graceful body and tawny colouring: like a small woodland creature…too beautiful to touch…too beautiful not to. And he felt a sudden drenching disgust at having resorted to subduing her with the threat of violation.

He’d never in his life done that…never needed to. Women, and plenty of them, came to him very willingly. Yet what tormented him most was, now he’d acknowledged the desire, self-discipline seemed to mock him. Angry frustration culminated in a dark fist cracking savagely against the door as he moved abruptly past it.

Emma jumped and stifled a small scream; so did Mrs Keene on the other side of the door, with one pudgy hand clamped to her mouth and the other to her battered, ringing ear.

Giddy with fatigue and hunger, Emma leaned against the wall to steady herself. She had eaten nothing since her meagre breakfast and was now ravenous. Her stomach endorsed its need for attention by growling loudly.

Richard arrowed a look at her as she instinctively pressed both hands to her flat abdomen, bending over a little as though to hide the offending noise.

‘You’ve still not eaten, have you?’

‘No.’ There was no point in lying about something this trivial and obvious, she thought wryly. Deceit would be better employed on major issues.

‘Mrs Keene…?’ Richard said quite normally.

After a momentary scuffling sound, the woman was in the doorway, her apron polishing at the brass knob as though she intended shining it away.

‘Just afinishin’ off me chores, sir,’ she explained gruffly, still managing to bob her head at him as she toiled.

‘Quite…’ he said very drily. ‘I take it you have something appetising to eat about the place?’

Emma choked a spontaneous laugh, making Mrs Keene look nervously at her and Richard arrow her a speculative look. Now why had that not occurred to her? she thought hysterically. Had she offered him one of Mrs Keene’s delicious dinners, no doubt he would even now be halfway home.

‘Why, o’ course, your lordship. I’d be happy to fetch it direct,’ Mrs Keene hastily offered, elevating Richard’s rank in her enthusiasm. ‘La, miss, you missed out on your supper, didn’t you now? You should’ve said for it slipped me busy mind. Now, there be beef silverside and vegetables roastin’. Or mutton hotpot on the hob…an’ a dumplin’…’

Richard looked at Emma questioningly for a choice but she simply held onto her newly gurgling stomach and stared at Mrs Keene in amazement. Beef? Mutton? Dumplings? Where was salt bacon and carrots?

‘Now, not that it be none o’ my concern, o’ course, as to what you choose, but the beef do look a treat an’ fit for a conasewer o’ fine fare…’

‘Fetch two plates of the beef and hurry, if you please,’ Richard clipped across Mrs Keene’s recommendations, making the choice for them both.

Mrs Keene was like a whirlwind. Within a few minutes of her leaving them alone, she was back, accompanied by the young girl who helped in the kitchens. Cutlery, bread, butter, pickles, wine and beer all decked the small parlour table while Emma watched. Then, just as she was about to get a grip on her pride and her senses, and tell him he could dine here alone for she wanted none of it, the steaming plates appeared and she was lost. The beef certainly looked and smelled as good as her landlady had lauded.

Mrs Keene hovered in the doorway with her knees bent and a piece of her skirt held daintily out at an angle in thumb and forefinger.

‘Thank you, Mrs Keene,’ Richard said graciously. ‘And your chores for the day are finished now, are they not?’

‘Yes, sir, indeed they are, sir,’ she emphatically declared, and at his peremptory nod she was gone.

Emma remained by the wall, her eyes on the table, still striving for the courage to reject it…and him. Just a chunk of that aromatic bread would suffice, she realised, if she could snatch it on the way to the door.

‘Sit down.’ His order sliced evenly through her half-hearted abstemiousness and for some reason she immediately obeyed. Approaching the table, she sank into the chair he had pulled out. Seating himself opposite, he pushed one laden plate of beef and vegetables towards her, lavishly buttered a chunk of springy warm bread and, unperturbed, started eating.