Harlequin Historical September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: The Lone Sheriff\The Gentleman Rogue\Never Trust a Rebel (34 page)

Emma knew just how hard it was to live in a different world from the one you had been born to and raised within. One's roots coloured everything. To sever them and walk the other path was not easy. She thought of how much she had had to learn to survive in Whitechapel. Ned must have done, and indeed still be doing, the same here. He always seemed so confident, yet she knew that every small thing would be alien to him.

The sky was darkening, changing through shades of grey to a deep, menacing charcoal.

A storm was coming. She could feel the ominous stillness of the air. Smell the scent of promised rain, sense the slight winding of tension deep within. Knew she was still too far away from Grosvenor Place to reach Lady Lamerton's home before it hit. She cast a worried glance at the green silk of her skirt. Once a rain-ruined dress would have meant nothing more to Emma than an excuse to visit the mantua maker. Now it was different. She had walked the other path, where women had one dress to last a lifetime.

She gave a grim smile at that thought and took the short cut through Green Park.

Halfway through she saw the gentleman sitting on the wooden bench.

The image reminded her of another man sitting on a different bench, in a different place, at what seemed a lifetime ago. But within a few steps her heart began to thud harder and something trickled into her blood, making it rush, for she knew that figure with its dark-blond head and she knew that trip and magical roll of the token over his fingers. It was like the replaying of a dream in her head, except it was real and happening before her eyes.

Her heart skipped a beat. Her feet faltered and ground to a halt.

He glanced up, met her gaze, as if he had been sitting there waiting for her. The token ceased its rhythmic tumble.

Time stretched between them. A tiny moment encapsulating something too big to contemplate.

Ned got to his feet. Stood there, his eyes never leaving hers.

Emma's heart was thudding fast and hard enough to escape her chest. Swallows were diving and swooping inside her stomach. She took a breath. Resumed her walking. But she did not look away any more than he did.

She stopped before she reached him.

‘Emma.' Her name was low and husky upon his lips.

‘Ned.'

The ensuing silence stretched tense. She could feel the strain of so much between them.

‘How are you?' he asked softly.

‘Well enough, thank you,' she said slowly. ‘And your wound?' She glanced down to his tailcoat and what she knew lay beneath.

‘Healing well, thanks to you.' His eyes scanned hers. She saw the movement of his Adam's apple. ‘You shouldn't have had to see any of that.'

‘I have seen worse,' she lied. ‘You forget that I worked in the Red Lion.'

‘I forget nothing, Emma.' The undercurrent strengthened. Nights in darkened alleyways, passion and kisses, that last sunlit morning at the stone bench, promises and insinuations... All of it was there, whispering between them. ‘You risked your safety and your reputation to help me, Emma.'

‘Then we are even, Ned.'

‘We will never be even.'

She did not understand his words, just saw the dark intensity in his eyes and the way he was looking at her, that made her heart race all the faster and ache for him.

She swallowed. ‘I should be getting back. Lady Lamerton will be waiting for me.'

He said nothing. Just gave a tiny hint of a nod as if he agreed with her.

She gave a curtsy.

He gave a bow.

She walked on, leaving him standing there.

Only a few paces before she stopped. Touched her fingers to her forehead. Closed her eyes to stop the tears that threatened. Knew she might not get another chance to ask him, not in all of her life to come.

She turned and met his gaze.

He had not moved. He seemed tenser than normal and there were shadows in his eyes.

‘May I ask you something, Ned?'

He gave a nod.

‘Why did you come back to Whitechapel all those times?'

‘It is my home. Where does a man go to relax but his home?'

‘Cavendish Square is your home.'

‘Cavendish Square is where I live.'
Not his home.

‘Can you find no relaxation here?'

‘Here I must play the part of a gentleman and we both know I am nothing of that.'

‘You seem to play it with ease enough.'

He smiled at that. ‘I thank you for the compliment. But it took many tutors and much practice to achieve.'

She smiled, too, a sad smile. ‘And the change of clothes was so that you would not draw unwanted attention.'

‘Turning up at the Red Lion dressed in Weston's best...' He raised his rogue eyebrow.

She traced the scar through it with her eyes and thought of her own trip to Whitechapel. ‘I can imagine.' She paused before asking, ‘Have you been back recently...to the Red Lion?'

The hint of a smile vanished. ‘I have been too busy.' His eyes held hers with an intensity that lent other suggestions to the reason he had not returned to the chop-house.

The tension ratcheted between them, humming with the strain. The very air seemed to crackle.

Great heavy rain droplets began to fall, hitting her cheeks and rolling like tears. Big and slow. Hitting the olive-green silk to darken it with spots, each one so big and juicy that it seeped right through the thin muslin of her spencer.

She glanced up to find the charcoal sky dimmed almost dark as night.

‘I have to go.' But her words were dwarfed by an enormous crack of thunder that peeled and rolled across the heavens. The rain began to pelt with a fury that matched the roar of the emotion between them, as the storm was unleashed.

‘Too late, Emma,' he said and they seemed the most ominous words in the world. Ned peeled off his tailcoat as he spoke, wrapped it around her shoulders and, taking her hand in his, they ran through the weight of the drumming rain to the nearby oak trees.

He pulled her under the cover of the low leaf-laden branches to the shelter beneath. They stood facing one another, their hands still entwined. So close that she could see the glitter of raindrops on his waistcoat and the sodden linen of his shirt, moulded transparent to the hard contours of his chest. So close that she could feel the brush of his chest against her own, the rise and fall of his breathing. So close that she could smell the scent of rain-soaked material and beneath it the scent of him, clean, familiar, tantalising.

She tilted her face up to look at him.

His hair was sodden, turned dark with the rain and slicked back against his head. And his eyes, the most amazing eyes in the world, were like a window to his soul.

The trees and driving rain were like a curtain around them, locking out all of the real world, creating a moment they would never have again.

‘The last time I saw you in Whitechapel... That day on the old stone bench...when you said that when you returned we needed to talk...' The rain ran in rivulets down her face.

He stroked the drops away from her cheeks with gentle fingers. His eyes studying hers.

‘Yes,' he said, answering the question she had not asked. ‘I would have told you of Mayfair. I would have told you it all.' And he really would have done because he had thought her the same as him. Hard-working, smart and ambitious enough to climb from her working-class roots. A woman who would have shared his vision, who would have understood. A woman who could straddle both worlds.

‘Ned...' she whispered.

She was the same woman. The same woman beneath that name and there was such a cruel irony in that.

Emma let her gaze wander from his eyes to his lips and he knew that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He was made for loving her. She was made for loving him.

And in the heavens above was the crash of thunder as if something of the world was being torn apart. Lightning flickered, illuminating her face in its stark white light. Illuminating everything she was, everything he wanted.

‘God forgive me,' he whispered with shaky breath and lowered his face to hers.

He kissed her with tenderness. He kissed her with passion. Savouring this moment that was everything they could not have.

She slid her arms around him, anchoring them together. They lost themselves in passion and emotion, and need. Lost themselves with a fury that matched that of the storm all around.

Her heart beat with his. The thunder reverberated through them, the crashing and splitting of the skies only reinforcing what was happening between them. Fate and destiny proving that they would not be denied.

He kissed her until the furore of what flowed between them calmed enough to let them breathe again. They stood there entwined, chest to chest, lip to lip, the brush of his eyelashes against hers. Two lovers, beneath the old oak trees in a busy and fashionable park in London in the middle of the day, whose reunion the heavens had conspired to hide. The thunder was quieter now, the storm moving away. The lightning no longer flashed. In the silence there was only the drum of rain, drawn like a grey screen around them.

He held her in his arms, savouring these last few moments together. He kissed her one final time. And never again.

The sky was lightening to a pale dove-grey, its dark cloak moving to the north. The rumble of carts and carriages sounded from the nearby streets as normal life resumed.

Soon the rain would cease and they would once more become visible to the world.

He closed his eyes and dug down deep, knowing what he had to say to her.

‘Emma...' His voice was low and husky.

But she shook her head. ‘I know,' she said. ‘You need to marry a title.'

‘Yes.' But it was a lie. He did not need to marry a title. He just could not marry her. ‘You will make a good match, Emma.' With any man other than him.

‘I will,' she said. She had her pride. Her head was high. All her defences slotted back into place. She moved out of his arms, seemingly cool and calm and removed, but he was not fooled.

‘I think it would probably be wise if we stayed away from one another, Ned.'

‘I think you're right. It would be for the best.'

They looked at one another for a moment longer.

For the first time in his life he was doing the right thing but, ironically, nothing had felt more wrong.

Better she think him a selfish scoundrel than learn what he really was, yet it did not make this any easier.

The rain eased around them. The curtain began to draw back.

‘We should not be seen leaving here together,' she said, practical and capable as ever, no matter what she felt. And he knew she felt. He could sense it in her. He could feel it in the way his chest ached. He was doing the right thing, he told himself again and gave a nod. But he could not avert his gaze and he did not walk away.

‘Goodbye, Ned.'

‘Goodbye, Emma.'

It was Emma who walked away, ducking under the low-hanging branches to make her way with such dignity back to the path. He stood there and watched her until she disappeared from sight.

Even then he waited before taking a breath and following that same path.

There was a glimmer of sunlight in the sky, but it did nothing to warm the cold in Ned's bones.

He thought of Emma and of what could not be.

And he, just like Emma before him, did not notice the tall dark figure that stood watching from the shelter of a distant doorway.

Chapter Eleven

E
mma's eyes were fixed upon the page of the book in her hand, but she was not reading it. Fatigue blanketed her shoulders and head, the result of a night spent with little sleep and much regret. She knew she should not have kissed Ned. It did not matter what she felt in her heart, it was what she knew in her head that counted. He was seeking a titled and powerful alliance. She had known that before she kissed him. But when she looked into his eyes, she saw a mirror of her own feelings. She saw desire and connection and care. She saw respect and admiration and tenderness. And she saw love. Or maybe she only saw what she wanted to see.

He had no serious or respectable interest in her. He had told her plainly to her face. She could not trust him. Worse than that, she could not trust herself. It was just lust on his half, just physical desire, she told herself. But she knew in her heart that was not true, that physical desire was just one part of it.

Whatever it was that existed between them, this love and desire and passion, it would ruin her. It would cast her from society for a second time. It would destroy her only chance of finding her brother and make a mockery of the vow she had sworn to her mother. It would dash all of her father's hopes. And it would destroy her own pride and self-worth.

Emma had to stay very far away from Ned Stratham.

Far enough to watch him court a title. Far enough to watch him marry another woman and feel nothing.

And she would do it. No matter what she felt in her heart. She had to do it, for her family and for herself. She had to do it, because it was the right thing to do.

‘You look tired today, Emma.' The dowager interrupted her train of thoughts.

She glanced up to find her employer no longer engrossed in her romance novel, but watching her. ‘Do I?' She returned her eyes to the book in her hand, placing her bookmark within its pages. ‘I am quite well.'

‘And yet you do not seem your usual self.'

‘Perhaps I am a little tired after all,' she admitted.

‘You need not worry so over your papa. I am sure he is all the more at ease for knowing you are here.'

‘You are right.' More so than Lady Lamerton could ever realise. But it was not her father she was thinking of. With his new job she had less cause to worry over him. The new job made her think of Ned again.

She was saved by the knocker sounding at the front door. Lady Lamerton exchanged a look with Emma. It was her look of intrigue and curiosity. ‘I wonder who that might be. I was not aware that visitors were expected.'

‘They are not,' said Emma.

The butler came in and announced that the Earl of Stanborough had come to call upon Lady Lamerton.

‘Show him into the drawing room and have some tea sent in, Wilcott.'

‘Very good, my lady.'

‘Come along, Emma. Let us see what has brought Alfred calling upon me this fine afternoon. He was a dear old friend of mine. Such a pity he married beneath him. But I suppose the March girl was dangling the heiress card and one might argue that one's papa owning a bank is not really trade. But I never believed it,' she snorted and gave a little wicked laugh.

Emma smiled. Lady Lamerton might be a terrible elitist, but she was rather endearing with it.

But the smile faded when she entered the drawing room and saw there were two gentlemen standing there waiting.

‘Wilcott did not mention that you had brought your son, Devlin, with you.' Lady Lamerton smiled and flicked a gaze at the tall, handsome man who was a younger, dark-haired version of the one standing before her.

‘I trust it does not inconvenience you...or Miss Northcote?' Lord Stanborough added, casting a concerned look in Emma's direction. ‘But we go direct to a meeting at White's after this.'

‘It is not the slightest inconvenience.' Lady Lamerton smiled again. ‘Either for myself or for my companion. Is that not so, Miss Northcote?' Lady Lamerton looked at Emma.

‘No inconvenience at all, Lord Stanborough.' What else could Emma say?

‘I am most relieved to hear it, Miss Northcote,' Viscount Devlin said and bowed.

‘Lord Devlin,' she said and sank into a polite curtsy.

‘Now, Alfred, I take it you are here to discuss our little charity event?'

‘Indeed, I am.'

‘Excellent. I have already drafted a list of possible donors and guests.'

‘Capital, capital.' Lord Stanborough followed Lady Lamerton to take the armchair opposite hers.

Emma was very aware that only left the sofa on which she and Devlin would be obliged to sit together. She walked over to stand by the window, looking out at the sunshine and blue sky.

‘Such a pleasant day,' she said.

‘Indeed.' Devlin came to stand beside her.

‘What sort of numbers are we running to?' she heard Lord Stanborough ask Lady Lamerton in the background.

There was a shuffling of paper. The earl and Lady Lamerton leaned in closer and fell to conferring on the details in earnest.

Devlin smiled that so-charming smile of his, but there was something in the way his eyes held hers that stroked a sliver of unease down her spine, or maybe it was just the memory of their dance or the thought that he might have been behind the attack on Ned.

He looked at her. ‘How have you been, Miss Northcote?'

‘I have been well, thank you, Lord Devlin.' Unease stroked again. She knew with Devlin that his presence here was no chance event.

There was a small silence.

She lowered her voice, for his ears only. ‘Why are you here, Devlin?'

‘To enquire as to your welfare.'

She raised a cynical eyebrow.

He smiled again.

‘And observe that Mr Stratham seems to have made quite the impression upon you.'

She glanced away. ‘I am sure I do not know what you mean, or what business it is of yours.'

‘Since we are speaking so plainly...I saw you together in Green Park yesterday...beneath the trees.'

There was a silence. In the background were the voices of Lady Lamerton and Lord Stanborough, convivial and chatty. But Emma's focus was all on Devlin and that sharp look in his eyes and the thud of her heart in her chest. She held her head up and eyed him with a calm confidence she did not feel.

‘What of it?'

‘I am not sure that your employer would have quite such a
laissez-faire
attitude.'

She stared at him with incredulity. ‘You are here to blackmail me.'

‘Blackmail is such an unpleasant term. Think of it more as a warning.'

She swallowed, glanced over to see if Lady Lamerton was listening, but the dowager was smiling and nodding over something that Devlin's father was saying. Her eyes moved back to Devlin's. His gaze was fixed and cool.

‘And what is it that you want for your silence, Devlin?' She thought of the way he had sat beside her at dinner, the way he had danced with her and the probability that he had been behind the attack on Ned—because Ned had cut in on their dance. And there was a cold dread in the pit of her stomach.

A moment passed before he spoke.

‘I want you to stay away from Stratham, Emma,' he said so softly that she thought at first she had misheard.

They were not the words she had expected to hear. She stared at him.

The silence hissed between them.

‘Why?'

‘Because he is not the man for you,' said Devlin.

‘He is not the philanderer you portrayed him.'

‘Maybe not, but he is not of our world, Emma. Not one of us.'

‘I cannot believe your arrogance.'

‘Oh, believe it,' he said quietly.

She still could not quite believe this conversation they were having.

‘What is it to you what I do with Edward Stratham?'

‘I have a care for you, Emma.'

The words hung awkwardly between them.

‘Devlin...' she began.

‘And what gentleman could stand by and watch a gently bred lady be devoured by a rat from the gutter?' he interrupted.

‘Do not speak of him like that!'

‘You may not like it, but it is the truth.'

She shook her head. Glanced away.

‘I know I do not have to point out how well Lady Lamerton would take the news were she to discover what her latest companion has been up to.'

‘You really would ruin me?' She looked into his eyes. This man who had already led her brother to his ruin. This man who professed to have a care for her but, in truth, had nothing of a care for anyone save himself.

‘I will do what I have to, Emma.' The words were uttered in a soft tone, yet beneath them she could hear both the steel and the promise. Then, ‘Come, Miss Northcote,' in a voice loud enough to be heard by the dowager and his father. ‘Let us rejoin the party.'

She had no choice but to do as he suggested, perching at one end of the sofa when she got there.

‘May I?' Devlin asked, his face a mask of polite innocence.

She gave a nod of her head.

Devlin flicked out his coat-tails and sat down by her side.

‘Now look at the two of you getting along so well,' said Lady Lamerton, glancing up at them.

‘Aren't we just,' Devlin said and slid a gaze to Emma.

Emma said nothing.

* * *

‘You and Devlin seemed to be having quite the conversation yesterday.' Lady Lamerton spoke without glancing up from her embroidery. ‘What were the two of you whispering about?'

The smooth flow of the pen within Emma's hand paused upon the paper. ‘The fine weather of late,' she lied.

‘The most appropriate excuse.'

The words made Emma's heart stutter. She lifted the nib of the pen, but too late—the ink had already blobbed, spoiling the letter she was writing on Lady Lamerton's behalf. She took a breath before she looked up at the dowager.

‘Whatever do you mean?' She asked the question lightly, forcing a quizzical smile to her face.

Lady Lamerton set her embroidery aside. ‘Why, just that Devlin seems wont to seek out your company these days. He is at almost every event we attend.'

‘A mere coincidence. The Little Season has barely started. There are few enough events.' But now that the dowager pointed it out she realised it was true. Devlin seemed to be there in the background too often watching her.

‘Tush!' exclaimed the dowager and flared her nostrils. ‘Devlin is enamoured of you, Emma.'

‘You are mistaken.' But after yesterday she feared that Lady Lamerton was right.

‘Why else is he everywhere you go and always appearing by your side? And accompanying his father on a visit here...' Lady Lamerton raised her eyebrows and gave a knowing smile.

Emma said nothing.

‘And then there is Mr Stratham.'

Her heart stuttered and missed a beat. In her chest was the scrape of rawness. ‘I do not know what you mean.'

‘I am sure that you do. Stratham does not dance, but he danced with you. And I am not blind, Emma. I see the way he looks at you.'

She glanced away.

‘And no doubt, so has Devlin.' Lady Lamerton smiled. ‘You do know that Devlin has never liked him.'

‘I had not thought Devlin to be so arrogant or prejudiced in his beliefs to dislike a man because he is self-made.'

‘You sound like one of those political radicals, Emma. You will be telling me next that you think all men equal and we must do away with the class system!'

Emma averted her eyes to hide the truth in them.

‘Devlin would be a very good catch for any woman, least of all one in your position, Emma. And there is nothing like a bit of competition between men to bring them to their senses when it comes to marriage.'

She could not dispute that Devlin was considered a catch. He was a viscount and one day would inherit an earldom. He was rich and powerful. His family owned a bank. But he had corrupted her brother and he was blackmailing her. She was not foolish enough to think that marriage required either affection or love. It was an arrangement between two families for their mutual good. But she could not like Devlin and the thought that he was most probably behind the attack on Ned made revulsion curl in her stomach.

I want you to stay away from Ned Stratham.

The irony was she had had no intention of going anywhere near Ned Stratham again. It just galled her that Devlin would think it was because of his insistence. And there was the added worry of what Devlin might do to Ned, given what he had witnessed in Green Park.

‘I wonder if Devlin will be at Lady Misbourne's little event this evening.' Lady Lamerton slid a knowing look at Emma before lifting her tambour once more.

It was not a thought on which she wished to dwell. Emma put the spoiled letter aside and took a fresh sheet of writing paper from the drawer.

She forced the worry aside and, after dipping her pen in the inkwell, began the letter again.

* * *

The Earl of Misbourne raised a hand and a butler appeared by his elbow. ‘Champagne all round,' he instructed, then returned his attention to Ned. ‘Everything is signed and sealed. The project will go ahead, I give you my word.'

Ned and Misbourne shook hands.

It was done. Ned breathed a sigh of relief and satisfaction.

The butler filled four glasses and passed them round to Misbourne and Linwood, to Rob and Ned.

‘To new ventures and continued success.' Ned made the toast.

And all four men toasted it, chinking their glasses in the process.

‘You'll stay for a while,' Misbourne said to Ned. ‘My wife is hosting a card evening. We have invited a few people round.'

‘Thank you.' Ned took a sip of his champagne.

‘Capital.' Misbourne clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Serious gaming in the dining room. Lighter stuff in the drawing room. If you'll excuse me for a few moments...' He slipped away to speak to his son-in-law, Knight, who had just come through the front door.