Suzanne Robinson Page 11

  Resolutely Emmie banished all hot and unmanageable thoughts from her head. She rose and went to stand beside Valin before the fireplace. The massive facing over the fireplace went from floor to ceiling, and the armorial bearings of old Henry Beaufort were carved over the mantel. Emmie glanced at the shield surmounted by the coronet of rank, but while Valin described the coat of arms, her gaze fell to the frieze decorating the front of the mantel and stuck there.

  Spirals. Dozens of spirals carved into the Italian marble. In the chimneypiece put here by Henry Beaufort shortly before he was arrested for treason. Shortly after he’d received all that lovely Spanish treasure.

  “What’s wrong, Emily?” Valin asked.

  “Nothing, nothing’s wrong. What could be wrong? There’s nothing wrong.”

  “Then why are you babbling?”

  Emmie tore her gaze from the spirals only to meet his gentle regard. Gone was the irascible frown. Instead she found a gaze that seemed bemused and entranced, and Emmie was caught off guard.

  She couldn’t look away. She wanted to. She wanted to escape this feeling of standing exposed on a hill while great thunderclouds filled with lightning rolled toward her. One of her feet lifted seemingly of its own accord, and she’d almost forced it to step back when he said her name again.

  If only he hadn’t said her name in that rough-gentle way he had. If only he would move away so that she didn’t feel his warmth or hear the way his breathing speeded up. If only he hadn’t spoken again. But he did, in that intimate whisper that seemed to wind a steel spring inside her tighter and tighter.

  “I don’t want to fight with you, Emmie.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “Can’t we have peace between us?”

  “I don’t know.” Her mouth was dry, and if he didn’t stop kissing the back of her hand she’d scream. “If you don’t stop kissing the back of my hand, I’ll scream.”

  Emmie clapped her free hand over her mouth, but the words were out, and Valin was smiling at her. Only this smile was one she’d seen before. It was a smile at home in ladies’ bedrooms, in haystacks with farm girls, and in closets with parlor maids. Emmie felt her cheeks burn. She pulled her hand out of his grasp and scurried for the door. She nearly ran into him when he blocked her way.

  Careening backward, she said, “Stay where you are.”

  “Nonsense. I want to make you scream.”

  He stalked toward her like a duelist. She retreated, desperate to regain her composure.

  “I shan’t scream unless you fail to remain where you are.”

  “Oh, Emmie. We both know you’re not going to scream. Not yet.”

  Emmie’s foot hit a baseboard, and she sidled along the wall. “We know nothing of the kind. I—I’ll do more than scream.”

  He stopped then. Emmie stared at him, and wished she didn’t feel so cheated now that he was immobile. Drawing herself up, she nodded to him and walked toward the door. As she passed him, he slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her close.

  “Bloody h—” The word was smothered by his mouth.

  Emmie began to struggle, but he lifted his mouth just enough to whisper, “Don’t, my love.”

  Valin moved his head back, and they stared at each other. To Emmie it seemed as if that one word froze him, but he lowered his mouth to hers so quickly she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined that fleeting, startled look in his eyes. Love. That one word stunned her. It was a word she seldom heard, and never had a man used it in reference to her. Such thoughts clamored in her head, but the insistence of his mouth drew her into a whirlpool of heat and pressure and intensity. His hands pressed against her back; his fingers traced designs of fire on her ribs, and her breasts were crushed against his chest.

  In moments Emmie’s own hands began a fevered exploration of their own until they found bare flesh. She touched a mound of muscle over his shoulder as her gown loosened and fell around her waist. His mouth traveled from her neck to her breast as he bent her back over one arm. Emmie gasped at the feel of his lips, but her world of fire and frenzy exploded when she heard Courtland’s voice.

  “Miss de Winter?”

  Almost dizzy, she made no protest when Valin immediately left her, slipped through the door, and closed it. She heard the men’s voices outside. Evidently Courtland had found a volume of Elizabethan history for her. She listened to Valin as he redirected his brother’s attention. Then she noticed that her hair was falling around her bare shoulders. She looked down at herself.

  “Bloody damnation!”

  With shaking hands she pulled her gown over her shoulders and tried to fasten the buttons in back. It was impossible after the first three, so she dropped to her knees and began gathering hairpins.

  “Gracious mercy, what have I done? Gracious mercy.” It was the yew maze all over again. Lost wits and agitated body, these were her downfall.

  She heard the door open and close, and heavy steps behind her, but she refused to turn around. That was a mistake, because Valin dropped to the floor beside her, grabbed her shoulders, and kissed her. Emmie felt his fingers exploring her naked back and cried out. She pushed him and jumped to her feet.

  “No!”

  “Now, Emmie.”

  “I said no,” she said, and she rushed to the door.

  Valin chuckled and stood up. “You can’t leave with your dress falling around your waist and your hair down.”

  Twisting around, Emmie put her back against the door and watched him with distrust. She might look disheveled, but he looked wild. He was breathing heavily and his eyes looked like sterling silver in the sun’s glare. He was coming toward her! Emmie put her hand on the door latch. Valin stopped and lifted his arms away from his body in a gesture of conciliation.

  “I’ll be a gentleman.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  Valin lowered his arms. “Emmie, my dear, you have three choices. You can leave in your present state and be disgraced, or you can allow me to fasten your clothing and straighten your hair. Or you can fight me as you’re doing now, in which case we’ll end up on the floor and more than your gown will be ruined.”

  Only moments ago he’d used the word love. Had he meant it? Or did he use the word as a common term of endearment to ladies he desired? Emmie blinked rapidly and tried to think, but she had no experience in real love. In her many deceptions her victims had declared worship, affection, yet she’d always recognized the illusion. Now she wasn’t sure.

  Once she’d played a governess for a few weeks to discover the plan of a house. Its owner had tried to seduce her behind his wife’s back. That wasn’t love, and it had reminded her of her mother’s tragedy. As a French comtesse she’d dallied in society for brief periods during which many men had paid her attentions and made illicit proposals. That wasn’t love.

  She was convinced that what her mother felt for Edmund Cheap couldn’t have been love. She loved Flash, Phoebe, and Sprout. She loved Dolly and Betsy and Turnip and Pilfer. There had never been the time or the chance to love anyone else.

  Hesitating, with reluctance and cold palms, Emmie went to Valin and turned her back to him. “Please fasten my buttons.”

  She felt his hands on her gown for a moment. Then they lifted without having fastened the buttons, and she turned around to find him staring at his fingers. He looked up, his face devoid of any anger or severity. His eyes were wide with astonishment.

  “My hands are shaking.”

  “I was shaking all over when I heard Courtland.”

  “No, you don’t understand. They weren’t shaking until—”

  “Yes?”

  Emmie waited, but Valin only shook his head and turned her around. This time he fastened her gown. When she began to restore the arrangement of her hair, he helped her lift the heavy curls in place at the back of her head. She handed him the last pin, and he slipped it into place. His hand remained on the hair gathered into its neat coil.

  “Upon my soul,” he whispered.

  She turned her head. “
What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” he said absently. His hands came down to rest on her shoulders, and his lips hovered near her ear. “Emmie, what have you done to me?”

  Twisting around, Emmie cried, “Me? I’ve done nothing. You’re the wicked one, kissing me and—and undoing my—and making me—Oh!”

  He was grinning at her in such a knowing manner that Emmie turned red again and blurted out, “I’ll not stay here to be crowed over by you, my lord.”

  She picked up her skirts and marched to the door. Yanking it open, she swept through it majestically. Between chuckles, Valin responded.

  “Don’t go, my dear. If you stay we’ll have more kissing and undoing, and I know you’ll like it just as much as before.”

  “I’d rather spend a week with muck snipes, lags, and mutchers, or take my chances with the crushers, than stay another minute with you!”

  She was about to shut the door when his voice came to her again, this time as soft as the breeze that still played with her skirts.

  “Emmie.”

  Her gaze locked with his.

  “Please don’t leave me.”

  Something flickered in his eyes, and he held out his hand to her. The sight of him standing there alone, so tall and perfect, was more frightening than the most fearsome underworld enemy.

  “I can’t stay,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  She only stared at him, and he went on. “We have to talk.”

  “No, we don’t. We have an agreement, my lord. Please adhere to it and keep away from me.”

  As she closed the door, she heard him say to himself, “Oh, Emmie, you do ask the impossible, don’t you.”

  When she was gone Valin took in a deep breath and let it out, then went to the window to stare out at the tree-covered hills in the distance. A breeze brought the smell of meadow and wildflower. Was it honeysuckle?

  Valin shook his head. He had done something just now that he’d never done before. He’d called Emmie “love.” The endearment was on his lips before he knew it, slipping out so naturally that at first he thought he’d imagined it. But Emmie’s startled look had confirmed his fear. He’d really said it.

  And her reaction to him had made him forget the blunder. She desired him as much as he desired her, but she didn’t trust him. She was afraid. No doubt the men she usually associated with were untrustworthy. Still, he could see in her eyes the warmth of feeling they shared. They were fond of each other, and they desired each other. He didn’t want to think beyond this.

  “Don’t make that mistake again,” Valin said to himself.

  He knew why he didn’t tell women he loved them. He had avoided the word since Carolina and his father were killed. Father had loved Carolina. For years after the fire he’d been bitter about love, certain that with the emotion came danger, betrayal, unavoidable unhappiness. Women came and went in his life, but he trusted none of them. In the last few years he thought he’d left those foolish and unhappy notions behind, but the word had remained unsaid.

  His friends used the word with their wives and mistresses all the time. Until now no woman had ever provoked in Valin an urge to utter such a declaration. Perhaps the only significance lay in an improvement in his disposition brought on by Emmie’s charm.

  “Perhaps that’s it,” he muttered.

  Whatever the truth, one thing was certain. He and Emmie had but to occupy the same room for attraction to explode between them. Life had suddenly gotten quite interesting.

  11

  Emmie spent the rest of the day in Aunt Ottoline’s company so that she wasn’t forced to be alone with Valin again. She needn’t have worried, for he was obliged to attend to his other guests. He had to placate the affronted sensibilities of the prospective brides and their families, in addition to smoothing the feathers of dowagers and martinets who found the abrupt announcement lacking in decorum.

  The eligible young ladies had packed themselves off, having suddenly found important engagements in town. Miss Kingsley lingered the longest. Emmie had developed a dislike of the young lady, for the way she’d assumed that only she had a chance of attracting and keeping Valin’s attention. Until Emmie’s engagement had been announced, Miss Kingsley’s disdain for her had been apparent.

  The evening passed tolerably for Emmie, due to the fact that Acton had invited a few friends of his own for dinner. Their rowdiness and inebriation demanded Valin’s constant attention. By the time he was free, Emmie had retired to her rooms where she waited until the Agincourt clocks struck two. Then she and Betsy gathered their workbags and crept through the house to the entrance to the Gallery Tower. There they waited for Turnip and Pilfer.

  Lurking in the shadows, Emmie sighed. Betsy set her bag down and crept over to her.

  “All right, my girl. What’s wrong? You been moping about all day, sighing and goin’ about looking like a sick cat.”

  Emmie mumbled, and Betsy moved closer. “What did you say?”

  “I said, the marquess told me he’s in love with me.”

  “Coo!”

  “Why would he say it?”

  “Don’t know. Is he one o’ them rum coves that does for the ladies?”

  Emmie sighed again. “He’s certainly never lacked for their attention, but, well, he’s also not one for hiding his irritation or anger at people.”

  “That’s lucky, that is.”

  “Why?”

  “ ’Cause, stands to reason,” Betsy said. “He’s the kind o’ bloke who speaks his mind, so he’s spoke it to you.”

  Emmie dared not comment upon this opinion. Betsy was right. Valin North wasn’t the kind of man who hid what he thought. If he considered a person a fool, his irritation was apparent in those furious-god scowls of his. Should someone incur his wrath, he was capable of turning his back on him and leaving him in the middle of a gathering to suffer the consequences of social embarrassment. It was reasonable that he’d be equally forthright about his more positive feelings.

  “He’s never lied to me,” Emmie mused.

  Betsy snorted. “A rare bloke he is, then.”

  “But—but now that I’ve been able to think calmly,” Emmie said, “now that I’ve thought about it …”

  “Yes?”

  “Oh, Betsy.” Emmie felt her neck and face grow hot. “I don’t know what to think. He called me love at a time when we were—well …”

  “In one o’ them private moments?”

  Emmie bit her lip and nodded.

  “Hard to say, then.”

  “And even if he meant it, he doesn’t know who I am or what I am or—”

  “So? You already said as how he hates all them young ladies what gets thrown at him.” Betsy settled against the wall beside the door. “You got a sight more sense than any o’ them, and you’re lots more interesting.”

  “I’m not a lady, Betsy. I’m not good enough.”

  “And them others is?”

  Emmie hesitated for a moment. “No.”

  “Then why not you?” Betsy put her hand on Emmie’s arm. “Look, my girl. What’s he really got? Besides his blunt and his title I mean. He’s got one brother who’s a worthless sod, another what buries himself in dusty old books, and an aunt that hasn’t got the sense of a hedgehog.”

  “You mean he’s alone.”

  “Right.”

  Like me, Emmie thought. Both of us take care of people, but there’s no one to take care of us. And when he isn’t being scary, he’s gentle and almost sweet.

  “Look at it this way,” Betsy said. “If you don’t have him, someone else will, and how are you going to like that? What if he takes up with that prissy Miss Kingsley you’re so fond of?”

  “That white-livered, pretentious dollymop,” Emmie ground out.

  “Well, then.”

  “But he doesn’t know who I really am.”

  “You going to leave here and never see him again?”

  Emmie hadn’t thought of this. She imagined going back to he
r old life, a life without the dark-tempered lord who had so changed her. If she’d never met him, she could have returned to London easily. Previously, her occupation and her siblings kept her too busy to notice her loneliness. Now, going back seemed worse than being transported to the wilds of Australia, worse than the treadmill or the workhouse, worse even than Newgate prison. In the past few weeks, her attraction to Valin North had taught her much about her mother’s tragedy. Emmie would never have imagined she could be tempted until the devil put Valin in her way. Gracious goodness mercy, what was she going to do?

  “They’re coming,” Betsy whispered.

  Emmie heard a gentle clank as Turnip rounded a corner carrying a heavy carpetbag. Pilfer followed him carrying two more empty bags.

  “Psst! You there, missus?”

  Emmie stepped out of the shadows. “Follow me.”

  One by one they slipped into the tower and up the winding stair. Emmie made sure everyone tiptoed past Courtland’s study and document rooms, as Valin’s brother was known to keep late hours when pursuing some fascinating bit of medieval lore. Luckily the rooms were all dark. Emmie found Beaufort’s chamber deserted as well, and quickly led her little band to the chimneypiece. Turnip produced a lamp and lit it.

  “Coo!” Pilfer cried as he beheld the frieze of spirals. “Where’s the treasure?”

  “I haven’t looked for it yet. Don’t be so impatient.” Emmie set another lamp on the floor and plucked a scrap of paper from her skirt pocket.

  “We might need these.”

  “Not them foreign words again,” Pilfer said.

  “They’re important.” Emmie held the paper to the light. She had translated the four foreign phrases with the help of French and Latin dictionaries.

  “Listen. The first phrase is ‘J’y suis, j’y reste,’ or ‘Here I am, here I remain.”

  She glanced at the others. Turnip shook his head, and Emmie returned to the list. “The rest are in Latin. ‘Sic itur ad astra’ means ‘Thus one goes to the stars.’ Does anyone see any stars?”