Читать книгу Regency Scandals - Sophia James - Страница 12

Emerald dressed in black trousers and a jacket, stuffing a candle and tinder box into its deep pockets. It was already after three and the last sounds of people moving had been well over an hour ago.

She had memorised the layout of the rooms that she had been in, but was glad for a full moon. The light slanted against her as the curtain opened and she stepped out on to the balcony.

Night time.

She had always loved the darkness, even as a child, and here the sounds of the countryside after the stuffiness of London were welcomed. Shimmying down the ivy that hung from the latticed balcony, she crept around the edges of the lawn, careful to walk where the vegetation overlaid the grass so her footprints would not show. At the wide door that accessed the library from the garden she paused and drew out a piece of wire. Slotting it into the lock, she was glad to hear the mechanism turn and the portal spring open.

One minute at most.

Letting herself into the room, she stood against the velvet curtain and waited until her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness before lighting the candle.

Bookcase upon bookcase greeted her, the leather-bound copies of a thousand volumes lending the musky scent of learning to the air. Her fingers ran across the embossed titles closest to her: Milton, Shakespeare, Webster, Donne and Johnson. A library that embraced great authors and their ideas. She wondered which of the Carisbrooks was the reader and guessed it to be Asher, the thought making her smile.

A low shelf to one side of the room caught her attention. Rolls of paper were stacked against a cupboard and behind them there was an alcove containing other things. Umbrellas, parasols and walking sticks.

Her heart began to hammer. Could it be this easy? She held her breath as she sorted through the objects. A stick of ebony, another of some fragrant wood and a third handmade, using the shiny limbs of birch. Her father’s cane with the map inside it was not among them. Neither was it in the next room nor the next one.

Some time later she knew that she would be pressing her luck to keep searching. Already she had heard the stirrings of the servants in the kitchens and knew very soon other maids would come to set the fires or draw the curtains. Creeping out of the room she was in, she found herself in a smaller salon with a row of windows gracing one wall—it was then that she saw it.

The first light of pale dawn slanted across a portrait. A portrait of the Duke of Carisbrook and a woman. Her Grace, Melanie, the Duchess of Carisbrook, the title written beneath it said, and she was beautiful.

Melanie. As in the ship that was ready to launch in London? Asher’s wife? A red-haired beauty with eyes the colour of midnight. Emerald could not keep from studying the face.

What had happened to her? Where was she? The date on the painting was from ten years ago and she would have been merely the age that Emerald was now. Who could she ask? Lucinda, perhaps. Quietly, of course. She ran her fingers across the thick swirl of paint that made up a brocade skirt and looked again at the painting. Asher Wellingham’s hair was short and he was young. As young as his wife and in love. She could see it in the light of his eyes and in the way his hand curled around hers, holding them together in an eternal embrace.

And the ring that Melanie Wellingham sported on her marriage finger was the same ring that Asher Wellingham now wore on his little finger.

An unexpected noise to one end of the room had her turning and she left the house with only the slightest of whispers.

Asher stood against the door to the small salon and watched Emma Seaton blow out her candle and slide through the opened window with all the expertise and finesse of a consummate thief. Hardly a noise, barely a footprint. He had thought her an intruder at first until the light from the flame had thrown her high cheekbones into relief.

What the hell was she doing here? He walked across to stand where she had just been, in front of the picture above the mantel, and his heart wrenched with sadness.

The wedding portrait painted just after they had returned from their honeymoon in Scotland. God. It had been so many years ago now he could barely recognise the man he was then. Cursing, he turned away and went to the window, watching as a shadow, black against the pearly dawn, flitted around the edge of the house leaving no trace of its presence. No sign of what he could not believe that he had seen.

Who was she?

A thief? A robber? Something more sinister?

Another wilder thought surfaced. What had Lucinda said of Liam Kingston? Tall. Accented. Thin.

Emma Seaton.

Hell! There was no Liam Kingston. It had always been her. The Countess of Haversham had certainly appeared bemused by Emma’s insistence on a cousin. And now he knew why.

He almost laughed at the ruse and would have marched to her room then and there and confronted her had not another thought stopped him.

She had saved his sister.

She had risked her own life for the well-being of a stranger. The bruise on her cheek. Her embarrassment. Her ridiculous story as to how it had happened.

She had saved Lucinda from certain damnation and ruination and she had demanded nothing in return.

Why?

He would find out.

But first he had to determine whether Lady Emma Seaton posed a danger to his family. Starting from today.

The Duke of Carisbrook was still at the table when Emerald went down to breakfast later that morning. Folding his paper, he waited as she gave the hovering servant her preference of beverage.

‘I trust you slept well last night.’

She smiled at his query and helped herself to a slice of toast from the rack in the centre of the table. ‘Oh, indeed I did, your Grace. It must be the country air.’ She yawned widely.

‘And your bed was comfortable?’

‘Very.’

‘You were not disturbed by any noises in the night?’

She gave him a sideways look to determine where this line of questioning might be leading. ‘No, I certainly was not. Why, as soon as my head hits the pillow I am generally asleep and stay so until the morning.’

‘You are most fortunate, then.’

‘You do not sleep well?’

‘I don’t.’ He raised his cup of coffee to his lips and peered at her over the rim. When his eyes locked on to hers, it was she who looked away, making much of buttering her toast. He might suspect her, but that was all. And tonight, forewarned of his lightness of sleep, she would be far more careful in her searching.

‘I was planning a ride across the fields of Falder. Would you like to accompany me? Lucy has a spare riding skirt and jacket and you will find anything else you need in the room off the stables.’

‘I’m not certain. It has been a long time since I was on a horse.’

‘We will go slowly, Lady Emma.’

Emerald frowned, for beneath the outward affinity there was a look that held a hint of something much darker. A rage kept only in check by a steel-strong will. She tried to keep the conversation light.

‘Lucinda said your mother resides here in Falder but I have yet to meet her. She also said that the Dowager Duchess enjoys keeping bad health.’

He smiled at that, the white of his teeth startling against the tan on his face.

‘That she does. Lucinda surprises me sometimes with her insights into others. Take your cousin for instance.’ A gleam of something she could not quite interpret danced in his eyes. ‘Liam Kingston. She saw him as an honourable man. A man who would not lie. A trait of character to be commended in a person, would you not say?’

‘Indeed, I would.’ She hoped he did not hear the waver in her voice.

‘Indeed, you would,’ he repeated and lifted a silver knife to take jam from the pot before him. He used his left hand for almost everything, she noted. Writing. Smoking. Eating. The hand that was not ruined.

Her mind went back to the day they had boarded his ship and she took in a short breath. He had once been right-handed. She was certain of it. The enormity of the realisation made her stiffen. When had the accident happened? Lord, not straight after she had toppled him overboard? Surely not right then.

‘My family is extremely important to me, Lady Emma, and as the head of the house it is my duty to see that they remain safe.’

‘I see.’ The beat of her heart was twice its normal speed and rising.

‘I’m glad that you do.’ The smile that he gave her did not reach his eyes.

‘Good morning.’

Lucinda’s voice had Emerald turning in relief. Asher’s questions had an edge to them that she didn’t understand—it was as if he was furious at her. An awful thought surfaced. Could he have seen her last night? She had heard a noise as she had left the small room off the library, though she was certain that if he had seen her she would hardly be sitting here and being served a very substantial breakfast. With growing unease she looked across at Lucy.

Today Asher’s sister was dressed in a deep-blue riding habit and had a wide smile on her face. A complete and utter contrast to her own, she supposed, and was unreasonably tired by such innocence and openness.

Petty, she knew, and belittling to honour. Taking a breath, she tried to rally.

‘Are you joining us for breakfast, Lucy?’ Asher asked as he pushed out a chair for his sister.

‘No, I have already eaten. Taris said you would be going into the village this morning and I thought to ride with you, for I am spending the day with Rodney and Annabelle Graveson. Will you be leaving soon?’

‘As soon as we have breakfasted.’

The cold lash of his eyes gave Emerald the feeling that he was ordering her to go with him for this had nothing to do with choice. Swallowing her gall, she squared her shoulders and faced Lucy. If the Duke of Carisbrook meant to confront her, she would rather the scene take place away from Falder. ‘Your brother mentioned a riding habit of yours that I might use?’

‘Of course. Come with me now and we can find it—I have just the colour to go with your hair. Dark green—have you ever worn that colour? You tend more to the pastels, you see, and I thought really the deeper shades might just suit you better. The tone of your hair is unusual. Not quite blonde, but not red either. Do you take after your mother?’

Shaking her head at all the questions, Emerald followed Lucy from the room, glad to have a genuine reason to leave.

An hour later they were wending their way into Thornfield. After a shaky start Emerald had picked up her old skills in riding and was enjoying the freedom of being on horseback. Lucinda beside her chatted about her childhood; in front of them Taris rode a little further back from his brother. She could see how he concentrated on the path before him and on the sounds of the horse’s hooves upon the road. Lucy sometimes called out to him, warning him of an incline or of a particularly deep ditch.

Asher gave him nothing. No help. No leeway. She wondered what it was Taris had been doing off the coast of the Caribbean when he had lost his sight.

Thornfield was beautiful. A village set beside the sea with a main road sporting a number of shops and many well-built houses, round a deep harbour where a ship was moored.

As Asher dismounted and helped his sister down, Emerald was already fastening the reins of her horse and looking towards the ship.

‘It is yours?’

‘Ours,’ he amended. ‘She’s the Nautilus, built for the Eastern Line and due out to India at the end of the month to fill a silk contract we have in Calcutta.’

‘She’s beautiful. What does she draw?’

‘You know something about ships?’

Cursing her slip, she lied easily. ‘Liam was always interested in ships, so I suppose some of his knowledge must have rubbed off on to me.’ Deliberately she turned away from the harbour and perused the inn, glad that the brim on the hat she wore was wide, for she doubted she could have hidden the longing she was consumed with.

To set foot on a ship again. To ride in the winds of a wide-open sea with the smell of salt and adventure close to the bone. To climb up the rigging of an eighty-foot mast and hang suspended against the blueness of a horizon that stretched for ever.

A voice calling to them brought her from her thoughts and she looked around to see a man hurrying forward.

‘I had hoped to see you here today, your Grace,’ he said when he was upon them. ‘There was a break-in on the Nautilus last night, though from what I can gather nothing was taken. But the lock on the main cabin door was forced and a few papers shifted.’

‘Did anyone see anything untoward?’

‘No, nothing. Davis heard noises after midnight and thought it was me checking on the ropes.’

‘Set a double shift tonight, then,’ Asher ordered, ‘and have Silas bring his dog back on board.’

Emerald stiffened as his eyes raked across her and again she felt some sense of complicity and an uncertainty that was hard to pin down. Had Azziz and Toro frisked the ship already? It could well be possible. She had determined to contact them tonight and let them know of the new plans Asher Wellingham had set in place to guard his ship when the arrival of a beautifully dressed woman in her forties made her turn. At her side there walked a boy, his eyes firmly fixed on Lucinda.

‘I didn’t realise that you would be up for the week, Asher.’ The woman smiled, looking at Emerald and waiting for an introduction.

‘Lady Emma Seaton, meet Lady Annabelle Graveson and her son, Rodney. Emma is newly come to London to stay with her aunt, the Countess of Haversham.’

‘Miriam of Haversham?’ Her glance sharpened on the locket around Emerald’s neck; if she had been pale before, now she was even more so.

‘You are her niece?’ Her fingers pulled at the lace around her collar before her eyes rolled up and she fell into the arms of Asher Wellingham.

Again, Emerald thought.

How tiring it must be to for ever have collapsing women swoon around you. This faint, however, hardly looked like the one she had pretended in the Henshaw ballroom. It was obvious that Annabelle Graveson was truly ill for her face had taken on a greenish-grey pallor and sweat covered her brow.

Asher Wellingham hardly seemed fazed as he lifted the woman up effortlessly and led the small contingent into the inn, where a space was cleared on a cushioned seat.

‘Fetch some water and give us some room,’ he ordered and the innkeeper wasted no time in doing as he was bid.

Rodney stood at the foot of his mother’s makeshift bed. ‘She said that she felt ill this morning, but I didn’t think she meant this ill.’ Emerald noticed Lucy’s hand resting on his shoulder, trying to give him comfort and almost laughed.

This ill?

The woman was probably just hot or the stays binding her stick-thin waist were too tight. Already she was coming to. She thought back to the aftermath of battles aboard the Mariposa when sailors had sat in silence against the bulwarks and nursed broken bones. Or worse.

But this was England, she reminded herself, where a faint still retained an important place in the whole scheme of things. A vivid reminder of the place of fragile women.

She watched as the woman sat herself up and wiped her brow and upper lip with a delicate hanky she had extracted from the sleeve at her wrist.

‘Oh, my goodness,’ she said, repeating it over again as she looked around the group. ‘I said to Rodney this morning that I was not feeling up to a jaunt into the village. My stomach, you understand. It is rather unpredictable and yesterday the cook served a strong soup that I can only surmise was badly made. Old meat, if I were to hazard a guess, or fungi plucked from a place it should not have been. Rodney, where are you?’

‘I am here, Mama.’ He did not move and Emerald looked away when she perceived that both Annabelle Graveson and her son were watching her, their blue eyes a mirror copy of each other’s.

Asher, as usual, had taken charge, ordering large platters of food and wine and making certain that Taris was aware of the fare that was placed before him. Glancing across the room, she saw a group of young men looking her way, but the scorching glance of the Duke of Carisbrook discouraged them.

She almost smiled. How easy it must be to slip into the role of a protected woman.

How simply easy.

Lucinda. Annabelle Graveson. They let him take charge without even noticing what they had given up.

‘Are you at Falder for long, Lady Emma?’ Rodney Graveson was sitting on her left side, next to Lucinda.

‘For a week. My aunt, the Countess of Haversham, is here, too, but she has been laid low by a cough and has taken to her bed. Perhaps you know of her—your mother seems to.’

‘Mama seldom travels outside of Thornfield these days, but I have heard her mention that name.’

He blushed, his fair hair standing out against the colour, but he did not look away and Emerald liked him for it. Once, years ago, she too had been cursed with such shyness and Rodney Graveson seemed like a kindred spirit and in desperate need of friendship. Looking up, she caught Annabelle Graveson watching her.

‘What is it you are speaking of with Lady Emma, Rodney?’ Her voice was high and the colour in her cheeks was better.

‘He was just asking me how long I planned to be here for, Lady Annabelle.’

‘Oh, I see. And your answer?’

‘Seven days, I think.’

‘Then we shall have you over to Longacres for dinner next Sunday. Asher will bring you. About six.’

She did not ask the others at the table, which struck Emerald as both odd and rather impolite, and the Duke of Carisbrook’s perfunctory nod was such that she wondered if he meant to honour the invitation at all, but as she felt the squeeze of Rodney Graveson’s hand against her own beneath the table she was touched by his gesture and hoped that it would be possible to go.

Two hours later, after saying goodbye to the others Emerald sat on Hercules and picked her way down the incline behind Asher Wellingham on his tall black stallion. Lucy had stayed in Thornfield with the Gravesons and Taris had met a friend at the tavern and had decided to embark on a game of chess. Emerald wondered whether the whole thing had been a set-up, for Asher Wellingham seemed very keen on riding back with her and left as soon as the first opportunity presented itself. She also wondered as to the propriety of being alone with him, but dismissed that notion with indifference. Her reputation here was unimportant—she would be gone from England as soon as she found the cane.

The sea lay before them and, licking her lips, she could taste the salt. Here the sand was not fine and white, but grey and coarse, the pebbles mulched by the movement of this lonely, lovely coast. The sea. Her heart sang at the joy of being beside it again. If this was my home, she thought, I should never leave it.

After the warning at breakfast Asher Wellingham had seemed withdrawn and quiet. He did not tarry or offer her any explanation of beaches, cliffs or field.

His land, she thought.

If he loved Falder, it was not obvious.

‘What is the peninsula in the distance?’ she asked as the sun lit up a long low tongue of land to their left.

‘The Eddington Finger,’ he said promptly. ‘Though my great-great-grandfather always called it “Return Home Bay.” The last sight of Falder lands as he left the coast, I suppose. He was a sailor with a love for adventure.’

He stopped as they cantered down on to the sand and dismounted and the image of an old duke naming the place made Emerald laugh.

‘What was his name? Your great-great-grandfather’s name,’ she qualified when he looked puzzled.

‘Ashland. My father was Ashborne and his father Ashton, all derivatives of the original family name of Ashalan. It is tradition.’

‘Tradition.’ Longing welled on her face. She was certain he must have seen it and was surprised when he smiled. It made him look younger, as young as he had looked on his ship off Turks Island with the sea winds at his back. As young as the man staring out from the portrait in the small salon with a loving wife on his arm.

Desire snaked through caution and she was shocked by the heavy hammering of her heart. She, who had been around men all her life. Handsome men. Dangerous men. But none like this one. None who had haunted her dreams for five long years with his velvet eyes and night-black hair. None who spoke of a family name that they could trace back through the generations and whose ancestral seat rivalled that of any lord of the realm.

Responsibility and place.

A combination that became all the more appealing with the land of his birth at his back and the full blue day upon his face. Her own shifting lifestyle completed the equation. What must it be like to have your children run in the same fields as their children and their children’s children? Oh, tradition was sweet when you had never had it.

The silence between them stretched in an endless vacuum as he helped her dismount and she felt a breathless shiver of wonder. Did he feel it too? How could he not? She was shocked at her thoughts, shocked at the sheer bald desire for his touch. Schooling herself to wait as he tethered the horses to a branch, she was surprised at his first question.

‘What were you doing in the blue salon last night, Lady Emma?’

‘Last night?’ She hoped the slight catch in her voice would be interpreted as chagrin rather than the bone-deep fear she was suddenly consumed with.

‘Last night when you slipped through the rooms of my house in the guise of one suspiciously similar to the description my sister gave of Liam Kingston.’ He was very still.

‘I am not certain what you mean.’ With her back against the wall she couldn’t afford to give an inch.

He changed tack, easily. Distrust coated his words and was seen in the hard planes of his face. ‘What is it you want from me?’

‘Want from you? Nothing, your Grace. And there is a simple explanation for last night. I have never slept well since my father’s passing. Sometimes in the dead of night I wander …’

‘Dressed as a boy and moving in and out of the house like a shadow. I think not.’

One hand encircled her wrist and she felt the same bolt of awareness that she was almost becoming used to in his company.

‘Are you a thief?’ he asked quietly, his thumb caressing the sensitive skin at her wrist.

‘No.’ The touch of his breath across the sensitive folds of her neck nearly undid her.

‘A spy, then? Who sent you here?’ His fingers tightened. Not a harsh hold, but a tempered one. She knew he must feel the hammering pulse beneath his fingers.

‘No one.’ She could barely get the words out.

‘I do not believe you, but if you are in trouble I could help.’

It was the last thing she had expected him to say.

He hardly knew her and yet here he was offering his assistance. Another responsibility. Another needy supplicant. Another duty on top of all his other duties. Pride made her shake her head and she saw a distinct flicker of relief.

‘You are a guest here at Falder and my sister would be disappointed, no doubt, if I packed you off before your due date of departure. But if you sleepwalk again, Lady Emma, take warning, for I shall not be as lenient as I have been this time. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘Then I’m glad of it.’ Again, his thumb traced the blue veins on the thin skin of her wrist and she felt her world throb. When she looked up, there was muted calculation in his eyes and a worm of worry niggled.

Had he used the caress as a means to an end by underlining his threat with a promise? Admiration surfaced in equal proportions with ire. Such cunning would not be out of place on board the Mariposa, for with it he had gained exactly what he wanted.

And all without raising a finger. She was too much her father’s daughter not to applaud his craftiness.

Taking her reins when he offered them back, she walked her horse down towards the water, the mist of salt enveloping the beach with an opaque whiteness. A wilder bay than she was used to, and colder. Shivering, she bent to pick up a shell and the sound inside as she raised it to her ear was exactly the same as it was at home.

For a second she felt displaced, uncertain, lost in the pull of what had been taken from her, and drawn to the man who now came to stand beside her, his cheeks lightly spattered with the mist of ocean. If she had been braver, she might have leant forward and touched the wetness, felt the swell of cheek beneath her fingers, and understood what it was that she could now only guess at. But she was not brave. Not like that. Not here with the wide brim of her hat tugging in the wind and the fullness of her riding skirt unfamiliar around her legs.

Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

She recited the word over again and again beneath her breath, trying to incite some sort of sense in her actions. Trying to make herself step back from him, out of reach, out of harm, out of temptation. But when his thumb came up to caress the sensitive skin on her bottom lip, she closed her eyes and just felt.

For once.

For this once.

For the time it took to run her tongue across the length of skin and bring his flesh into her mouth.

‘Lord, what you do to me.’ The darkness in his eyes was bottomless as his lips slanted down across her own, the hunger in them easily definable in the afternoon grey. Just the two of them with the damp rivulets of water running beneath her feet, and the green lands of England all around. Just the two of them coming together along the full lines of their bodies and pressing hard.

And then there was nothing.

No today or yesterday, or tomorrow with its sharp uncertainty.

Just him. Just the warmth of skin against the cool of the rain and the burning fiery want that consumed her. She did not notice when he cast aside her hat, loosening the curls to his touch. All she knew was urgency and want and need.

A man’s touch. On her woman’s body. The living reality of her countless dreams. She felt the puckering of her nipples and the clench of an almost-pain between her legs.

More. More.

Everything, she longed to whisper, everything, and when he drew away she tried to hold on, tried to take his mouth in the same way that he had taken hers, but he stopped her simply by pulling her against him, head firm beneath his chin, fitting well into the spaces of his body.

‘Emma.’ Whispered. Barely there.

The frantic beat of his heart against his throat told her that he was as affected as she was. Not all onesided, then, not all her fault. She could not find it in herself to raise her eyes to his.

‘I’m sorry. That should not have happened.’ His voice was husky. ‘There is no excuse at all. I should not have—’ He stopped and the shrill cry of a gull could be heard over the silence.

He was sorry? She stiffened. An apology. For this?

Every man she had ever known in her life would have taken what it was she had just offered and be damned with what happened next. But not Asher Wellingham. No, not him. Confusion ripped through guilt and sheer embarrassment chased hard on the heels of that.

Lord. What now? When she felt his hands slacken she stepped back and reached for the bridle, angry at the help she needed to mount and pleased when he did not speak again as he handed her her hat. Did not explain. Did not even try to draw level with her as they cantered along the beach and up into the valley that led to Falder Castle.

Gaining her room she laid her head back against the solidness of the portal and tried to catch her breath, lost in the run up from the stables. Her breathing was closer to normal when she opened the connecting door to see Miriam sitting in a chair by her window, reading a book.

‘Whatever has happened? You look like you have come across a ghost.’

Emerald’s smile was laboured. Hardly a ghost. Asher’s lips still burnt into the recesses of her memory and raised the temperature of everything.

Hot. Scorching. Torrid.

She poured herself some water, watching the drips run jagged against the side of the glass before drinking it all.

‘You seem better, Aunt.’

‘If you could find the cane, Emerald, I’d be better still.’ The sentence was finished on a bout of coughing and Emerald’s worry grew. After her behaviour today, she was uncertain whether the Duke of Carisbrook would even want her to stay till the end of the week and here was her aunt plagued with illness.

Lord, could things get any worse? She shook her head and made herself concentrate on what Miriam was saying.

‘Carisbrook has a map room at the back of the eastern wing. I saw it today when I attempted a walk round the rose garden. Perhaps he has already found the map, and keeps it there.’

Emerald’s interest was piqued. ‘Near the rose garden you say?’

‘Yes. The Wellingham family mausoleum sits further over to one side. The footman I walked with said that the garden has been laid out in memory of the Duchess of Carisbrook.’

‘Melanie Wellingham is dead and buried at Falder?’

‘She is indeed. The tomb of their son is there too.’

‘A son?’

‘Stillborn at full term three years before she died.’

Death and loss and waste.

The enormity of Miriam’s revelations changed everything. The Duke of Carisbrook had loved his wife. He still loved his wife. The sapphire ring on his finger, the picture in the library and the flower garden, and his self-confessed resistance to being plunged again into the state of holy matrimony—suddenly everything added up, made sense.

She was a small detour in the course of his life. That was all. He was a duke with lands stretching hundreds of miles in every direction and a shipping fleet that plied the world.

He was not for her.

Would never be for her.

She reached into her pocket for the shell she had collected and wished that she could find the map and just go home.