After an hour of rereading the letters and rethinking everything that had been said between herself and Simon during the past few days, Emily forced herself to confront certain inescapable conclusions.
The first conclusion was that her family was right. Simon had established a relationship with her for the sole purpose of using her to extract vengeance against her father. The entire chain of events she had been attributing to a benevolent fate now exhibited a terrible, implacable logic.
But Emily had reached a second conclusion after rereading Simon’s letters. The man who had written those sensitive, intelligent notes could not be the kind of monster her father claimed he was.
The third inescapable conclusion was that she was still in love with the mysterious, golden-eyed dragon of the East.
She came from a long line of gamblers, Emily reminded herself. It was time she took a risk for the sake of her own future happiness.
Pulling a piece of foolscap toward her, she picked up her quill and penned a short note.
My Dear Sir:
I must see you immediately. Please do me the courtesy of meeting me in secret at that spot where we first discussed the difficulty of finding a rhyme for glitter. Please exercise discretion and caution and tell no one. Much is at stake.
Yrs, A Friend.
Emily frowned over the note as she folded it and rang the bell to summon a footman. She hoped the wording was vague enough not to give anything away in the event the message was intercepted. One had to be very careful when one arranged clandestine meetings.
Simon was waiting for her at the pond. Emily heaved an enormous sigh of relief when she saw the chestnut stallion loosely tethered to an elm.
The dragon came toward her through the trees, his golden eyes unwavering. Emily steeled herself.
“As you can see, I received your note, Miss Faringdon.” The earl reached up to help her dismount.
“Thank you, my lord.” Emily deliberately kept her voice formal and totally devoid of emotion. The heat of his hands warmed her through the fabric of her habit. She stepped back from Simon as soon as her feet touched the ground. Briskly she turned to walk toward the stream. “I will not take up much of your time. It is getting late.”
“Yes, it is.” He followed her, his black Hessians making no noise on the soft carpet of old leaves that blanketed the ground.
Emily sat down primly on the boulder where Simon had first kissed her and risked a quick glance up at him from under the brim of her chip straw bonnet. He did not smile. He simply braced himself with one booted foot on the boulder, rested his elbow on his knee, and waited.
This man is good at waiting, Emily realized. He had waited twenty-three years for vengeance.
“I have been speaking with my father and brothers. Several things have become clear,” Emily began slowly.
“Have they indeed?”
She looked toward the stream. “I want you to understand, my lord, that I fully comprehend your reasons for this rather bizarre course of vengeance you have embarked upon. In your shoes, I would most likely have tried something just as drastic. We are not unalike in some ways.”
“Your father has been quite talkative, I see.”
“He has explained about what happened all those years ago. How my family acquired St. Clair Hall. And about the terrible tragedy of your father’s death. You have a right to pursue revenge.”
“You are very understanding, my dear.”
She wondered if he was mocking her. It was impossible to tell from his cool tone. Emily drew a breath and kept going. She was committed now. “I realize that you have no real intention of extending a legitimate offer for my hand. You plan to threaten to run off with me and keep me tucked away as your mistress for a few months or so unless my father hands over St. Clair Hall. You will not doubt keep me dangling emotionally during that time by promising marriage.”
“Only for a few months?”
Emily nodded. “Just long enough to ensure that my family comes to some financial disaster that is severe enough to force them to give up the great house. Without me to guide their investments and restrain their excesses the way Mama used to do, that should not take long. Especially if you arrange for them to be lured into particularly deep play at the tables. Once you have St. Clair back you no doubt intend to send me home to my family in disgrace.”
“How very Machiavellian of me.”
“It is quite a brilliant plan, actually.” Emily felt obliged to give credit where it was due.
“Thank you,” Simon said softly. “But I assume it will all come to naught now that you have discovered my scheme?”
“Oh, no, you can still make it work. All you need is my cooperation. And you know well enough you have that, my lord.”
“You are telling me that you are willing to run off and live for a time as my mistress?” He picked up a small twig and toyed with it.
Emily folded her hands together. “Yes. If that were my only option. You know my feelings for you are very deep, my lord. I would, however, prefer to marry you. I would like to live with you for the rest of my life, not just for a few months or a year.”
“I see.”
“I know marriage was not your initial intent but I would like you to consider certain aspects of this matter that may not have occurred to you.”
Simon did not respond to that for several seconds. And then the twig snapped in his fingers. “What aspects?”
She did not look at him. “I realize I am not precisely what a man of your position would wish for in a wife. I have no looks or position to speak of and you cannot have any affection for any Faringdon at the moment. And then, of course, there is the Unfortunate Incident in my past. But I feel I can make up for my deficiencies in several ways.”
“Miss Faringdon, you never cease to amaze me. I cannot wait to hear the rest of this.”
“I am very serious, my lord. First, I would like to point out that if you marry me, you will have achieved your goal of vengeance just as surely as if you had merely run off with me. You will have made my family financially dependent on you. They would only have access to my investment skills by applying to you for permission to consult me. Would that not be a suitable sort of revenge?”
“An interesting notion.”
“You can keep all the Faringdons dangling on your financial puppet strings forever.”
Simon looked thoughtful. “That is true.”
Emily bit her lip anxiously. “Please consider something else, my lord. I think you will find that I will make you an excellent wife. I understand you, you see. I feel I know you very well through your letters. We have a great deal in common intellectually. We will have a certain conversational rapport that most couples never achieve.”
“In short, you will not bore me over dinner, is that it?”
“I am certain we shall find much of mutual interest to discuss through the years. Surely that sort of companionship would be very rewarding to a man of your intellectual nature?”
“You are proposing that our relationship continue on the higher plane that characterized it in the beginning? You foresee our union as an intellectual association of two like-minded people?”
“Yes, precisely,” Emily said, gaining enthusiasm as she saw he was paying close attention. “My lord, I fully comprehend now that you are not in love with me. Knowing that, I also realize you will not welcome any excesses of romantic passion on my part and I assure you I will not press for any from you.”
“Miss Faringdon, you shock me.”
“And you mock me,” she retorted, stung.
“Not at all. I merely wonder what led you to conclude that I would not welcome any excesses of passion from you.”
She looked down at her clasped hands, her face burning. “A detailed analysis of last night’s events in the library, my lord.”
“What about last night?”
She stifled a small sigh. “I thought at the time that you refused my offer of an illicit affair because you were bei
ng quite noble and gallant. I assumed you halted your lovemaking because you could not bring yourself to take advantage of a woman you cared about, even if she already had a sordid past.”
“In other words, you assumed I was behaving like the gentleman I claim to be?”
She nodded quickly. “Yes. I realize now that you rejected my quite shameless offer because you are not in love with me.”
“I see.”
“And as you were not planning to actually marry me and were very unlikely to be forced into running off with me because my father is certain to give in to your demands, there was no real need to pretend to a passion you did not feel. Actually, under the circumstances you did behave like a gentleman.” She frowned thoughtfully. “That is to say, as a gentleman plotting revenge might behave. I believe you are innately noble and generous, Blade.”
“Now you flatter me.”
“My lord, let me finish this business. I will summarize the advantages involved in marrying me. You will have achieved your goal of having a most excellent revenge against my family. You will be acquiring a wife with whom you can communicate on a higher plane. You will have a guarantee that I will not pester you with my ungoverned romantic passions. And there is one more thing.”
“I am already overwhelmed by my good fortune, but pray continue.”
Emily lifted her chin to face him. She was counting on this last item to carry the day for her. “Why, it is obvious, my lord. You will have full advantage of my financial abilities.”
Simon’s eyes glittered briefly. “That is certainly an interesting notion.”
“My lord, consider,” Emily said earnestly. “I know you are very wealthy but I would bid you remember that even the greatest fortune is subject to disaster. A few bad decisions in one’s investments, a few reckless nights in the gaming hells, a bad spell in the funds, and all can soon lie in ruins.”
“But with you around I will be assured of being able to recoup any losses I might sustain in the years ahead, is that it?”
Emily’s hopes soared. She sensed she had finally driven home the bargain. “Yes, that is it exactly, my lord. Think of it as something like marrying an heiress. My talents on ’Change and related financial matters will constitute a sort of economic security for you, just as they have for my family in recent years.”
“In other words, my dear, you are telling me that marrying you would be a particularly shrewd investment on my part?”
Emily relaxed for the first time since her tea party had been ruined. She smiled brilliantly. “Precisely, my lord. Marrying me will no doubt be the best investment you have ever made.” She paused as honesty got the better of her. Her smile faded. “There is, of course, the Unfortunate Incident to be considered. I realize that it is a great strike against me. But perhaps if I stay in the country and do not attempt to enter Society, no one will notice?”
“Miss Faringdon, I assure you, the Unfortunate Incident is the least of my concerns.”
“You believe we can successfully keep the scandal hidden?” she asked eagerly.
“I can safely promise you, Miss Faringdon, that if we wed, the scandal will cease to exist.”
“Marry her. Damnation, man, you cannot be serious. What devil’s game are you playing now?” Broderick Faringdon, barricaded behind the massive mahogany desk in the library, glared at his visitor in open-mouthed astonishment. “We both know a man with a title like yours ain’t about to marry a chit with a past.”
“I believe I should warn you to be extremely careful about the manner in which you speak of my fiancée. The fact that you are Emily’s father would not stop me from calling you out. In fact, it would give me great pleasure.” Simon walked over to the brandy decanter and poured himself a glass of the amber liquid.
He knew the simple, overly familiar act would further infuriate an already confused and angry Broderick Faringdon.
“Calling me out? Calling me out? Damn it, Blade, I cannot believe I am hearing this. It makes no sense. Tell me what is going on here, blast you. I know what you originally intended. You planned to blackmail me into giving you St. Clair Hall on the threat of making my daughter your mistress.”
“Whatever gave you that notion? My intentions are quite honorable, I assure you.”
“The devil they are. I’ve heard about you, sir. You’re known for being a deep one. There’s something strange going on here. Why should you want to marry my daughter?”
Simon studied the view outside the window as he sipped the brandy. “My reasons are no concern of yours. Let us just say that I am convinced she and I will do very well together.”
“If you think to hurt her somehow, you’ll pay for it. I swear it.”
“I am relieved to hear you have some fatherly feelings for her. But do not fret. I do not intend to beat her.” Simon glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the bookcase. “Not unless she causes me an excessive amount of trouble, that is,” he added, raising his voice just slightly.
“Do you think I’ll give you St. Clair Hall as her dowry? Is that your game?” Broderick demanded. “If so, you can think again.”
“Oh, you will give me St. Clair Hall, Faringdon. I intend to take both your daughter and the house.”
“The hell you will. How do you propose to make me turn my house as well as my daughter over to you?”
“Because I am going to dangle the possibility of seeing Emily once in a while in front of you as a lure. We both know that as long as you perceive any chance at all of communicating with her, you will do whatever I say. On the other hand, if I forbid contact altogether, which as her husband I can do, you and I are well aware of what your fate will be. St. Clair Hall will be on the market within three months. Six on the outside.”
“I can maintain this place on my own. I kept it all going while she was growing up,” Broderick snarled.
“Yes, you did. I found that fact quite amazing, initially. The first thing I did when I got back to London was look into just how you had managed to keep things going until Emily’s remarkable talents began to emerge. As it happens, my man of affairs knows yours. Davenport explained everything to him one evening over several glasses of claret.”
“How dare you pry into my private affairs.”
“The answer was simple,” Simon continued, swirling the brandy in his glass. “It took you several years to gamble your way through my father’s fortune, thanks to your wife’s efforts at restraint. Also, your sons were still quite young at that time and had not yet joined you in your irresponsible ways.”
“Your father lost his inheritance in a fair game, damn you. It was not his fortune after I won it. It was mine.”
“I am not at all certain it was a fair game.”
Broderick turned livid. “Are you accusing me of cheating, sir?”
“Calm yourself, Faringdon. I am not accusing you. I can prove nothing after all these years. I merely admit I have a few questions. My father was an excellent player, from all accounts, and he had never gambled to excess before. One does wonder.”
“Damn you.”
Simon smiled slightly at the note of impotent rage in Broderick’s voice. “Even the Blade fortune could not hold out forever. But just as you were facing disaster again, your next stroke of luck came through. That bit of luck was the death of Emily’s aunt on her mother’s side, was it not? The woman conveniently died, leaving Emily a large sum of money. But the aunt made the mistake of making you the poor girl’s trustee. You went through Emily’s inheritance by the time she was sixteen. And then things got a bit desperate for a while, didn’t they?”
“You make it sound as if I frittered away my daughter’s inheritance, you bastard.”
“So you did.”
“I spent it on her and this house, which is her home,” Faringdon rasped.
“And on your London life, your excellent bloodstock, expensive clothes, and the gaming debts you were piling up. As I said, the money was gone before your daughter was even out of the schoolroom. I doubt
if you could have scraped together enough to give her a Season even if you had been inclined to try. Which you were not, of course, because by then she was starting to show her remarkable talents. Davenport told my man about those, too, and how you capitalized on them.”
“There was no point giving her a Season. She’s not the sort to attract much notice on the marriage mart.”
“And you certainly did not want to assist her chances of contracting a good marriage by giving her a decent dowry, did you?”
“Damn you, her mother died the next year. We were in mourning. No possibility of a Season. Then she went and ran off with that bastard, Ashbrook. Impossible to bring her out after that.” Faringdon beetled his brows and gave his nemesis a shrewd look. “She was ruined, sir. Do I make myself clear? Utterly ruined.”
“That is a matter of opinion.” Simon put down the empty brandy glass. “Now, then. I shall want you and your sons to vacate St. Clair Hall by the wedding day. I think we shall set the date for the first week of April.”
Broderick gasped. “That’s less than six weeks away.”
“I see no need to delay matters. We have settled the financial end of things. And I do not believe Emily is inclined toward a long, formal engagement. I will want to spend my honeymoon here at St. Clair, so you and your sons will definitely have to be gone by then. Your staff can stay. Emily seems quite fond of them and they appear to be well trained.”
“There is the matter of settlements,” Broderick said desperately.
Simon smiled grimly. “There will be no settlements as such. You must rely on me to look after your daughter.”
“I do not believe this is happening.” Broderick looked rather like a fish that had just been pulled out of the water. He was gasping for air and his face was blotched with unnatural color. “You cannot want to marry her. Not after that scandal of five years ago. Think of your title, man.”
Simon’s mouth hardened. “I warned you not to say any more on that score, Faringdon. I meant it. Now, I believe that seals the bargain.”