Emily's Seduction (12 page)

As they entered, Mrs Webbs came from the direction of the kitchen, looking fresh faced for having spent two days at her daughter’s crowded and busy household. She smiled broadly. “Miss Emily, Mr Alexander.”

Alex turned his charming smile on the housekeeper. “Did you have an enjoyable time away?”

“I sure did,” Mrs Webbs answered.

Alex made further enquires about her many grandchildren, remembering them all by age, temperament and inclination, as was part of his favourable way with people. Emily couldn’t help but feel that he was delaying resuming his discussion with her. Impatience pressed on her until she gritted her teeth.

But it wasn’t coming any time soon. Alex could hold people in absolute thrall and make them believe he found them to be the most interesting subject in the whole world. Mrs Webbs wasn’t immune. She smiled broadly, sharing the most intricate details of her family’s life. Normally, Emily would have been interested but today she longed only to be alone with Alex. She hated feeling so distant from him and wanted the air cleared between them as soon as possible.

But Cato came in and the conversation turned to the current events reported on in the newspapers. They both were soon laughing soundly at Alex’s wry jests about politics.

Finally a knock sounded on the front door. No one seemed to notice. Emily rolled her eyes, sighed and stalked over to answer it.

Her eyes met a cravat tied so perfectly it seemed humanly impossible. She looked up, taking in features that were handsome in a polished, patrician way and queued, coal-black hair. His eyes, glacial grey, flickered over her impersonally, impatient.

Emily shivered with immediate dislike.

“Is Mr Dalton here?” he asked briskly, as if he’d been kept waiting forever.

“Yes, he is…” Her voice broke and, irritated with herself at letting this person fluster her, she cleared her throat. “May I ask who is calling?”

“You may tell him Mr Asahel Sexton of New York is here. I am expected.” His ebony eyebrows drew together slightly and he turned back towards the drive.

She followed his eyes and saw a dark-haired young man kneeling along the edge of the drive examining something very closely.

“Grey.” The single word held a paragraph’s worth of admonishment. Almost as if the name were a swear word.

The young man looked up. His face resembled Sexton’s but was more angular, leaner, skin stretched over hard bones.

“It’s an African mouse, I think. But I’ll have to show it to Mr Peale and ask his opinion to be sure. It must have come from some packing crate and travelled here in Mr Dalton’s carriage. The poor devil probably got the shock of its life in our chilly weather.” He sounded as if the unfortunate rodent were the most interesting thing ever contemplated.

It just appeared to be an ordinary mouse to Emily.

Mr Sexton released an exasperated sigh. “Will you get your mind off such trivial matters for once? It’s just a rat. God help me that it hasn’t carried some deadly disease with it to kill my only heir, addle-brained as he is.” He turned back to Emily. “May I please come in?” He blew a plume as he spoke but his eyes and tone were frostier than the air.

She nodded and backed inside and collided with something solid and warm. She gasped and looked over her shoulder. Alex smiled down at her. His charming, public smile. She iced over inside.

He took her hand. “Emily, this is Mr Asahel Sexton of New York.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr Sexton,” she said without any feeling of truth.

“Asahel, this is Miss Emily Eliot.”

Sexton’s eyes cut to her and bore into her, grey as lead. Then they narrowed. “Yes, I gathered as much. You do have Tom Eliot’s look about you.”

It almost sounded like a curse. Inexplicably, she suddenly felt like crying. She shook herself and forced herself to smile. Mr Sexton continued to stare at her. Or through her. She wasn’t sure.

Alex’s hand laced with hers and he pulled her along with him. Good manners forced her to follow him.

“We’ll go talk in my study,” Alex said.

Sexton gave a terse nod, his eyes lighting with something close to warmth. Apparently, Alex rated some respect.

After they had settled in the study, Alex showed Sexton Emily’s book. Sexton thumbed through the pages briskly, nodding to himself.

“Yes, you’ve done good work for our cause with her,” Sexton said, as if Alex alone were responsible for the quality of the book and her artistic talent.

Emily swallowed deeply, biting back a retort. Alex gave her a sympathetic look and winked at her. She forced back the urge to smile. She was still vexed with him.

He came to her and took her hand.

“Miss Eliot and I are to be wed.”

Emily caught her breath. God. Alex had finally told someone outside of his innermost circle. Someone important.

Sexton closed the book with a snap and glanced up over his spectacles sharply at Alex. “You are? When?”

She hardly dared breathe. Surely Alex would have to commit himself. He patted her hand and dropped it. “Soon.”

She let her breath out and her shoulders sagged. That horrid word! It was getting to be too much.

”Well, I have heard nothing about this,” Sexton said in a tone that suggested that, if
he
hadn’t heard of it, it couldn’t possibly be true.

“We haven’t made a formal announcement yet. I hope I may rely on your confidence on the matter.”

“I see,” Sexton said, turning his penetrating grey eyes to her. Clearly he weighed her and found her lacking.

Rather than continue to subject herself to that chilly, piercing gaze, she dropped her eyes to her lap and listened as Alex and Sexton began to talk of business matters and the launching of the
Sophia,
a joint venture of theirs that would sail for the Sandwich Islands and the Pacific Northwest.

Boots sounded on the floorboards and she glanced back up.

The tall young man entered, and, though dressed in well-tailored clothes of obviously expensive materials, his build was that of one poised between adolescence and manhood, all gangly limbs and broad, oversized jaw.

“Done playing with rats?” Sexton asked in dry tones.

The young man’s ears tinged red and his mouth came open. Then it quirked up and closed. He folded his arms over his chest and looked woefully out of place and uncomfortable.

“Miss Eliot, this is my son, Grey.” Sexton didn’t sound particularly happy or proud of the fact.

“Emily.” Alex’s tone was tender but with a hard edge beneath it, one that demanded her attention.

She turned to him.

He smiled. She didn’t.

“Why don’t you take Grey down to the kitchen for some refreshment?” he suggested.

“Certainly.” Emily walked to the desk and retrieved her book.

Alex offered her a soft look. She compressed her lips. She didn’t feel particularly soft towards him. He ought to commit to their wedding and set a date or else forget it. But this wasn’t the time or the place. She swept out of the chamber without a backwards glance but Grey’s footfalls sounded behind her.

“They’re very rare,” he said when they were a way down the corridor.

“What?” she asked without stopping.

“The mouse that I saw on the lawn. It’s very exciting to see one, don’t you think? He got to travel all this distance to die in Mr Dalton’s yard.”

“Fascinating,” she said dryly, trying to hurry her pace without tripping.

“Is that
your
book?”

“Yes,” she replied

“May I see it?”

“Yes, when we get to the kitchen,” she said, trying not to snap. It wasn’t the boy’s fault that his father had all the charm of a corpse or that Alex kept putting off their wedding plans.

“It is about the Barbary captives?”

“Yes.” She gave an inward sigh. All she needed at this moment was to have to deal with some inquisitive adolescent boy.

“It is so unfortunate. They are kept in worse conditions than Negro slaves are here,” he said as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

That made her pause and turn. “Well, perhaps the captives in Barbary are not treated so much worse.”

“Yes, the conditions in which the Barbary captives are kept are absolutely worse. Everyone knows this.”

The arrogant tilt of his chin mirrored his father’s. Irritation bristled over her. This obviously pampered boy didn’t know the first thing about slavery in America. For that matter, she didn’t either, not first hand. But she’d taken the time to listen to those who did. She inhaled deep and forced her tone to be patient. “In many cases—most, I fear—it is very much the same here with our slave masters and plantation owners.”

He compressed his lips, his grey eyes piercing her for a moment as if he would quell her statement simply with the sheer force of his persona. When that didn’t work, he added, “Do you really think so?”

Damn it anyway, she’d had enough of men and their arrogance. She certainly wasn’t going to let some gawky boy tell her that she didn’t know what she was speaking of. Especially when she happened to be correct.

“I know so,” she said, lifting her chin with calm confidence.

He raised his brows and dropped his jaw slightly in a somehow elegant gesture of doubt. “How can you know that? Did you ever know any slaves from a real plantation? I mean, personally know them?”

“Yes, I did. I know someone who was given her freedom but was once a slave. She saw unspeakable things growing up. And it is not just on plantations. Slaves kept as servants can be treated poorly too.”

All the arrogance dropped from his expression and he grew serious. “You sound very concerned about the matter.”

“If I sound concerned, it is because I am. Slavery is not right, no matter what others try to say. It is just not right.”

His features contorted with something like sympathy and his grey eyes shone like silver coins.

She caught her breath at the transformation.

“It must be hard to reconcile what your father did, then?” he said, his voice suddenly so deep and mature and ringing with compassion. He also looked genuinely curious in the blunt way of young men.

His words skipped over her brain like a stone over ripples of water. She gave a nervous laugh. “Pardon me?”

“Your father, Thomas Eliot. He traded in slaves.”

Her neck muscles went rigid and she clenched her jaw. Oh, damn Richard Green to the blackest hell for his lies. He had tarnished her father’s name forever. It was beastly unfair.

“No, my father most certainly did not trade in slaves!” She took a deep breath trying to control her temper. He was only a boy. “You shouldn’t listen to gossip.”

He frowned. “But it is not gossip. My father knew Captain Eliot—he once sailed for us, when he was a young man, before he earned enough money for his own vessel. Once he had his own ship, he traded in African slaves. Father and Mr Dalton were talking about it just yesterday at tea—”

Her blood began to roar in her ears and she could no longer hear what the boy was saying. It didn’t matter. He’d said all she needed to hear. She stormed back to Alex’s study and burst in.

Both men looked up at her then their mouths fell open one after the other.

But she narrowed her gaze on Alex and turned the full force of her fury on him. “You. Kept. The. Truth. From. Me.”

Chapter Six

At first Alex’s eyes were bemused and then the colour drained from his face and the light of comprehension dawned in his eyes. A small smile curved his lips as he came to her. He reached for her hand, his eyes shining with sympathy and love.

“No, no, no.” She backed up, shaking her head. “You will not charm your way from this.”

He took her shoulders. “Now, my love, let us not air our differences in front of our guest.”

He turned back to Sexton.

The stern-faced merchant prince had already stood. “It’s time I was on my way. We’ll talk soon.”

“Yes, I shall see you at Exchange.” Alex’s hands tightened on her shoulders and he turned back to her, his gaze imploring her silence for those few moments.

She couldn’t refuse him. She closed her eyes and swallowed deeply, struggling for control. She wouldn’t shame herself further in front of that cold-eyed merchant.

The door clicked closed, the sound jarring in her heart.

“Is it true?” She knew she needn’t explain what she meant.

Alex nodded. “It’s true. Asahel told me.”

“Why?” she breathed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t see the need for you to know. Grey told you?”

“Yes,” she said impatiently. What the devil did the messenger matter?

“Insensitive little coxcomb to bring it up to you I shall have to speak with Asahel about it.”

“Please do not. He’s a boy, he doesn’t know any better. He thought he was offering me sympathy and I am glad he told me.”

“Sympathy?” Alex frowned. “It wasn’t his place to speak to you of such things.”

“What is there to say for you? For you’re the one who kept the truth from me?” Her stomach churned sickeningly with her anger.

He stared back at her calmly. “You didn’t need to know. You could have gone the rest of your life not knowing it without adverse effect. I wanted to spare you the pain.”

She couldn’t believe he would actually think that. It related to and affected everything about her. Everything she thought she knew about her father and her own history. “But it changes everything—if it is true.” Hope sprang in her chest. “C-can Mr Sexton really be sure? Maybe he’s mistaken.”

Alex’s expression turned so grave, ashen-grey as if he might be ill any moment. “He is a most careful man. He’d never say something like that unless he were totally sure. And he only confirmed things I had known only vaguely.”

“My God.” She went weak all over.

He caught her. “Why don’t you go and rest.” He caressed her upper arms through her muslin sleeves. “I’ll bring you something to make you sleep. You slept little last night. When you wake, we shall discuss this deeper.”

His high-broad forehead wrinkled as if in sympathy. How dare he pretend concern for her when he hadn’t taken her feelings into consideration enough to be truthful with her?