“Hmph,” Emma said.
“You don’t find the situation at least somewhat tragic?”
“Not particularly. I helped bathe him. He’s not missing a thing, and all would have been in working order. He’s been having somebody on.”
Melisande looked nonplussed for a moment. “Really? How odd. He must have been desperate to avoid Charles’s matchmaking skills. I shall have to reassure Benedick. . .”
“You will say nothing!” Emma shot back. “Brandon has forgotten who I am, presumably he’s forgotten his entire time in hospital. There’s no earthly reason why I or anyone else here would know whether he was intact or not.”
“But Benedick is so distressed!”
“The perhaps Brandon will tell him the truth. In the meantime, you are not to say a word! Promise me?”
“I promise,” Melisande muttered in a grudging voice, and Emma was content. Whether her friend liked it or not, she would never break a promise. “So you aren’t going to say anything either?”
“I’m going to be gone, I told you. The entire situation is much too complicated. I think that it’s better if I leave and let the family work this all out. . .”
“You are family, Emma. You’re my sister, just as important as Benedick’s assorted siblings. And you love Brandon.”
“Would you stop saying that? Of course I don’t. I just. . . I just. . .” Words failed her.
“Exactly. And you’re in no fit state to travel. You’re going to stay right here for the next few days while you recover and we find where Rosie ran off to. The girl has some questions to answer.”
“I’m not the frail flower you imagine me to be. I’ve survived a lot worse than this and been back on my feet in less than a day.”
Melisande shook her head. “When did you. . . I don’t want to know, do I?”
“You do not. I’m better off not remembering. Just leave it. I promise you I’ll be fine.”
“And I promise you that you aren’t going anywhere.” There was a stubborn set to Melisande’s jaw. “Don’t worry—you won’t have to see anyone. I can have a tray brought to you.“
“You are not to say or do anything,” Emma said fiercely, and there was no missing the edge in her voice. “Do you understand me, you are not to interfere in any way. I would never forgive you. That is not hyperbole, that is the simple truth. I would still love you, but I would never forgive you.”
Melisande nodded, the light fading. “I know. I still wish. . .”
“Don’t,” Emma said flatly. “Wishing is a waste of time.”
Benedick was standing impatiently at the head of the breakfast table when Brandon came down in search of coffee, and three other men were in attendance, including Charles, dressed for riding. “What a slugabed you are, Brandon,” Benedick greeted him. “It’s good to know that some things never change. Mother used to make me try to get you up in the morning and you resisted every effort.”
For a moment Brandon remembered those long-ago days of youth with the three of them tumbling around their country estates. He’d been the youngest, of course, and he’d made it his mission in life to annoy his older brothers. “I believe I even slept when you poured a bucket of water over my head. Mother wasn’t best pleased with that.”
“You weren’t asleep,” Benedick said. “You were feigning it.”
Brandon’s mouth curled in a seraphic smile. “You’ll never know. What are we all doing here?”
“We’re going to continue our search for Mrs. Cadbury’s attacker. Also, Rosie, one of our maids, has disappeared. She’s the one who told Mrs. Cadbury to take that roundabout way, where it appears that the man was waiting for her. I want to know who paid her and why.” His face was grim.
“Give me a moment and I’ll join you,” Brandon said, tossing his coffee back ruthlessly.
“I need you to stay here.” Benedick was as autocratic as only an older brother could be. “With the rest of us gone, I’d like at least one Rohan on site to make sure the women feel comfortable.”
Brandon nodded, accepting the decree without pleasure. “And you believe I’m less able bodied than the others.”
Benedick’s laugh was unrestrained. “Hardly. I may not have been a soldier, but I know how to apportion my troops, and one leaves one’s most powerful weapon in charge of one’s most precious assets. If that man shows up here I want you to be the one he has to face, not Charles here.”
“I say,” one of the other men objected, clearly not wanting to be relegated to the rank of less dangerous.
“Put a sock in it, Duckworthy,” Charles grumbled. “It’s bad enough we have to go out.”
That explained why Charles was going—Benedick hadn’t given him any choice. Brandon accepted his fate with more grace.
“Just promise me one thing,” he said, pouring himself another cup of the strong coffee and seating himself.
“What’s that?” Benedick demanded.
“Let me kill him.”
If Melisande thought Emma would remain meekly in bed then she didn’t know her nearly as well as she thought she did, Emma decided, pulling on her clothes with minor difficulty and only a few curses. She’d dispensed with all but the lightest of corsets years ago—they constricted her movements— so she had no difficult laces to deal with, just a general stiffness. She glanced around her comfortable bedroom. Someone else had come in and laid her fire, another had dealt with her ruined clothes. Where in the world was Rosie?
She had no difficulty understanding yesterday’s mistake—Rosie was fresh the city, coming out only a few weeks ago and taking up her first position at Starlings Manor. She would hardly be the one to know shortcuts, and she must have gotten the directions wrong. Although, considering that the one place she’d go would be to the Dovecote to visit her old friends, it seemed odd that she’d be so mistaken about it.
It also made sense that, realizing her mistake, she’d run off. Rosie had been one of the youngest they’d found on the streets. By her age she was well-experienced—at sixteen she’d been selling her body for five years—but she’d retained a curious sort of innocence that would have been unusual in a ten-year-old, and God help them, they’d recovered ten-year-olds on the streets.
The younger girls were sent to schools and decent families, and only half of them returned to the street. Melisande bewailed that so many did, but Emma viewed the matter more pragmatically. When they’d first begun they’d only saved a handful.
Her shoes were nowhere to be found, and she vaguely remembered the squelching mess as she’d picked her way through the muddy field. She slid on stockings and tied them, then looked down. She could go into Melisande’s dressing room and filch a pair of slippers, but Melisande’s feet were smaller, and she’d end up hobbling. She didn’t bother with the small bustles that were just going out of style, nor was she tempted by the new, wide crinoline cages, so her lone remaining gown—a simple one of an unfortunate rose color that flattered her much too well—hung close to her body and down to the floor. With luck no one would ever notice she was without shoes.
“Ha,” she said out loud, the sound startling in the stillness of the early afternoon. Brandon would know. The man was the very devil.
It would be too late to leave today, and she had no choice but to accept it. Her arrival downstairs would, however, signal her recovery. She would leave the next morning if she had to walk all the way back to London. The longer she remained here the more likely it was that Brandon would remember, and she doubted he’d be happy about it. She should have told him, she should have brushed it off as a stray coincidence. Instead she’d held the truth to her breast and yet treated him with far too much intimacy. She’d been an idiot, but then, it hadn’t been entirely her fault. The moment she’d seen him she’d tried to leave. He had never been at any family gathering, not in the last three years since Benedick and Melisande had fallen in love, and apparently not much before that. He’d been a soldier, never at home. His sudden appearance in the church had
shocked and numbed her. If only she could still maintain that deadness of spirit, instead of the roiling, twisting ache deep inside.
Shoes or no, she was going downstairs. She paused in the door, glancing back at her room. It was safe, warm, a place of study and reflection and better sleep than she knew anywhere else.
It was also now a place of writhing torment and sleepless nights, and she wondered if she’d ever feel safe here again.
The rare, sunny day was encouraging, though dark clouds lingered ominously in the distance, and there was no sign of Melisande or her guests when Emma reached the main floor, clinging to the railing as long as no one could see her. Melisande’s favorite green salon was empty, as well as the larger drawing room, and looking out the floor-length windows that fronted the house, she could see a rousing and obstreperous game of croquet being held in the still-muddy lawn, the women’s skirts splashed liberally with mud that would take a maid hours of labor to remove. The men weren’t in sight.
“You’re becoming a humbug, Emma Cadbury,” she informed herself out loud. “You’re in trouble when you start finding fault with simple pleasures.”
Emma Cadbury didn’t reply. It wasn’t her real name, of course. She’d taken it in honor of what had once been her sole pleasure in life—cups of steaming hot chocolate. The Quaker, John Cadbury, sold the very best chocolate in town, as well as tea and her other delight, coffee, and when she’d been prodded for a last name it had been the first to come to mind, though her family name, Brown, had been anonymous enough to use safely.
“You should be in bed.”
The deep voice startled her, the words setting up the all-too-familiar churning inside her, and she turned to look at Brandon Rohan. He was dressed casually—no carefully-tied neckcloth, his unfashionably long hair awry—and she imagined that was what he’d look like when he was home in the wilds of Scotland.
“You should be out there playing croquet,” she countered, sinking just slightly to make sure her stockinged feet were covered. He’d kissed her. The memory, which she had managed to put from her mind, came sweeping back, along with so many other memories, and her cheeks felt warm. Impossible, she reminded herself. Whores don’t blush.
His eyes narrowed, as if he recognized her move. “It’s too muddy,” he said. “My leg’s not strong enough to support me if I slid.”
His casual acknowledgement of his wounds surprised her. No one ever talked about anything as personal as scars, of course, but given his rapid descent into self-destruction after he left the hospital she had assumed his leg would be a matter of sensitivity as well. He certainly made a concerted effort to disguise any hindrance or discomfort, but she was too well-versed in the surgery not to recognize just how difficult it might be.
Not sure what best to say, she simply nodded. “I was feeling trapped in my room,” she offered. “I’m stronger than most of the women you know, and I heal quickly. I’m suffering from no more than slight discomfort and hiding in my bedroom was growing tedious.”
He cocked his head, looking at her. “Then why don’t you go out and join the rollicking festivities?”
“I’m not a fool, Mr. Rohan. My ribs are bruised and I feel rather like a large cur has taken me by the scruff of the neck and shaken me thoroughly. I believe spending the afternoon curled up with a cup of tea would suit me very well, particularly since I intend to spend tomorrow in a coach on my way back to London.”
His eyes narrowed. “Is that wise?”
“Of course it is. I’m perfectly fit to travel,” she snapped, then wanted to kick herself. She was angry again, when she really shouldn’t be. As far as he knew she had no reason to be hostile, which was simply the truth. With luck he might have forgotten all about that midnight kiss. . .
What kind of idiot had she become? Of course he hadn’t forgotten, and her only defense was to distract him from that ridiculously potent memory. “Indeed, I’m feeling quite well,” she said, belying her recent assurances. “Though perhaps I should go out and join them.”
“You can’t without shoes,” he said, and she wanted to do something childish like stamp her stockinged feet. She’d known he would notice.
“My shoes have disappeared,” she said stiffly.
“I imagine they have. They were caked with mud and blood. And there’s no way you can be feeling as sprightly as you maintain—I’ve seen grown men laid flat by what you went through.”
“Men are notoriously bad patients.”
There was something ridiculously melting about his rare smiles. Only one side of his mouth turned up, the other frozen in place with scar tissue, the devil and angel in his face incredibly alluring. “I won’t deny it. I imagine I was a baby like all the rest.”
She was about to assure him that he was a far better patient than he supposed, but at the last second remembered there’d be no way she could know. She smiled politely and lied. “I would have no idea.”
It came out oddly. His comment had been random, seeking no reassurance, and her denial had been unnecessary. She really had to get away from him.
“I believe I might return to my room after all,” she added. “I can’t imagine anyone would be pleased if they returned to the house and found us together, particularly your fiancée.” Another unwise choice of words, she thought.
“I don’t care.”
Before she could respond the door was pushed open, and Richmond appeared in all his august glory, a maid following behind him with a heavy-laden tray. “Your refreshments, Mrs. Cadbury.”
“But I didn’t request any. . .” she had begun when Brandon spoke.
“I did.”
She was not going to stay and pour tea for the both of them, she was absolutely not. “I’m not in the mood for tea,” she said, torn between not offending Richmond and a desire to stop Brandon.
“Neither am I. Would you prefer coffee or hot chocolate?”
It had taken her that long to recognize the two seductive scents, and her stalwart soul let out a helpless wail. Tea she could have easily turned her back on. Her twin weaknesses were another matter.
She sighed in surrender. “Just one cup,” she said, moving quickly to the sofa by the window. At least the possibility of an audience would keep him from kissing her again, assuming he had any intention of doing so.
The two small silver pots sat nestled in snowy linen, and she cast an inquiring glance at him. “Coffee,” he said in response, taking a seat that was just far enough away, and then moving it closer. “Black like the devil.”
It was an unnerving comment, when she’d just been thinking of him in terms of his Satanic Majesty, but her gestures were smooth and practiced as she poured him a cup and handed it to him before turning for her own. She almost never had the supreme indulgence that lay before her, and there was no way she could resist the rare temptation, filling the delicate Limoges cup with half a cup of thick, creamy chocolate, then filling the rest with coffee and stirring it with one of the tiny spoons. She took the first sip and closed her eyes in quiet ecstasy. And opened them again at the sound of a soft, strangled moan.
Brandon had never been so damned uncomfortable in his life, and his inadvertent sound betrayed it. Her soft, orgasmic expression had turn his awakening cock into a full erection, and his breeches, although loose enough for working in the field, were still too tight for such doings. He leaned forward, folding his hands over his lap as casually as he could manage. “What the hell are you drinking?” he demanded, hoping his voice didn’t sound as raw as he felt.
“I believe it’s called mocha,” she said, still looking at him oddly. “It’s quite sinful.”
“You don’t look like you know much about sin, Emma,” he said. He meant it, but he hasn’t thought it through.
Her mouth hardened, and he wanted to kiss it back to softness. He wanted to taste that wicked concoction on her skin. “I’m a professional at it, Lord Brandon.”
There she went with the damned “Lord” bit again, showing her displeasure.
“In actuality, you’ve changed professions. You’re a surgeon, Emma, which makes you more likely a professional at pain.”
Her mouth curved in an unhappy smile. “Who’s to say that wasn’t part of my previous profession?”
And that set off all sorts of thought. Sweet Emma with a whip and shackles, taking her anger out on the flesh of willing supplicants. It was only marginally potent—he’d played with every sexual variant that could be thought of during his time with the Heavenly Host, and after the first time he hadn’t found the whole punishment game that interesting. But every thought of Emma and sex made his current situation more difficult.
He shrugged, managing to look unimpressed. “Well, at least you received some recompense for the assaults you suffered.”
He’d surprised her. But then, that was a central part of their relationship—a battle between them to prove whom could shock the other.
Her smile then was real. “True enough,” she allowed, taking a healthy drink of her concoction. Ladies sipped their drinks, they poked at their food, they had no bodily functions. Thank God Emma wasn’t a lady, though he thought far more highly of her than the very peak of society.
“Why did you kiss me?”
He jumped. That was the very last thing he expected—he’d assumed she’d ignore the incident, skittish as she was, and he wasn’t prepared for her flat question.
He knew he hadn’t shown it though—he was an even better master of his reactions than she was. “That’s an inordinately silly question. I wanted to. There’s something about your mouth, I think. Why? You didn’t seem to mind.”
Her face had whitened, which he found extremely odd “You didn’t give me a chance to mind,” she mumbled, taking another hasty drink. He was going to have to tell Noonan about it. In the north they usually got by on gallons of hot, strong tea, but given that he allowed himself no other liquids, Emma’s drink might be a worthy addition to Noonan’s limited cooking repertoire.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “Should I have kissed you longer? Harder? Deeper?”