Читать книгу The Maverick's Bride - Catherine Palmer, Catherine Palmer - Страница 9

Emma adjusted her crinolines on the narrow trolley seat as Nicholas Bond sat down beside her. She would have preferred to sit by Cissy, but the layers of petticoats lining their skirts prevented that possibility. As a result, she was forced to ride back-to-back with her sister. The space was cramped, and Emma found herself pressed awkwardly against Nicholas as the trolley jerked to life.

The air smelled of the sea. Emma lifted her face to the sunshine. The turquoise ocean mirrored the sky. Long rippling clouds paralleled an endless white-sand beach. Between shore and sky, seagulls fluttered, calling raucously above the crash of waves and the shouts of dockworkers.

“Mombasa town is on an island,” Nicholas explained over the rattle of the trolley. “Actually the coastal strip belongs to the sultan of Zanzibar, while we English control the inland region all the way to Lake Victoria. As you’re well aware, Mr. Pickering, we’re in dispute with the Germans over control of the Uganda territory to the west.”

“Why do you think I’ve come, young man?” Godfrey Pickering retorted. “It is imperative that our railway reach the lake before theirs does. I don’t mean to leave until I’m certain we shall win that race.”

The younger man nodded. “I am glad to hear it, sir. My own dream is to see the protectorate become a full-fledged colony of the Crown.”

Aware the conversation was little more than bluster, Emma gazed out across the landscape. Huts with thatched roofs graced the shade of stately palm trees. Chickens wandered across the road, oblivious to the trolley. In this populated area, the air was thick with the smells of salted fish and smoke.

Emma had longed for this moment, dreaming of the day she would see Africa. Lying awake at night on board the steamship, she had pictured a land, animals and people known only from sketches in books. Here at last, she could hardly keep her focus. Rather than the white-rimmed waters and the fishing boats, her eyes saw a dark man rising into the sky on a black stallion. Her ears heard not the sounds of clattering trolley wheels, but a deep voice with a strange, lazy accent like a long, slow river winding to the sea. Her ungloved hands felt the touch of a man’s fingers—worn and callused yet gentle, too. Even the strong sea scent faded beneath a memory of leather and dusty denim.

Emma wondered what her Aunt Prudence would have thought of Adam King. She smiled, knowing that her beloved mentor would find the man intriguing. Her thoughts slipped back in time to Aunt Prue’s large house in London where she and Cissy had spent the years after their mother’s death. Before Mrs. Pickering’s calamitous visit to the continent, the family had enjoyed happier seasons at their country estate. But after she died, their father’s business and his failing health had forced Emma and Cissy to the city.

Emma redirected her thoughts from her father to the memory of her clandestine ventures to the Nightingale Training School for nurses at St. Thomas’s Hospital. In a year’s time, she had attended all the required lectures and worked with patients under the supervision of the ward sister. Like the other new nurses, she enjoyed the culminating event of her training—an invitation to take tea with Florence Nightingale herself.

Miss Nightingale had told Emma that at age seventeen, while in the gardens of her home in Embley, she had experienced a call from God. Emma felt a similar divine urging. She intended to imitate Miss Nightingale who had never married, preferring to spend her time writing books and overseeing the nursing school.

When Godfrey Pickering’s daughters learned his business was to take him to Africa, they had pleaded to go along. Cissy was eager for the adventure. Emma viewed the journey as God’s open door to escape her father and find a mission hospital.

“And how is the railway progressing, Mr. Bond?” Pickering’s voice broke into Emma’s thoughts.

“Quite well, despite a few setbacks.” Nicholas hesitated a moment. “Did you receive the letter about the lions?”

“Lions? No, what about them?”

“We’ve had a bit of trouble, sir. Farther north, in the Tsavo area…” Nicholas glanced at Cissy. “Perhaps we should discuss it later.”

Emma sat up straight. What was this about lions? The Englishman’s classic profile, pale against the black trolley hood, revealed a subtle tension.

“Do speak frankly, Mr. Bond,” Emma told him. “My sister and I are familiar with railway business.”

Nicholas cleared his throat. “It appears…it is quite clear, that lions have taken to…to raiding the workers’ camps.”

“Raiding?” Cissy spoke up. Her eyes darted from Emma to Nicholas. “Whatever can you mean, Mr. Bond?”

His cheeks suffused an awkward pink color. “The lions…two of them…have become man-eaters.”

Cissy gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Emma touched the foreman’s arm. “Mr. Bond, are you telling us that lions have been killing…and eating rail workers?”

“Do let us discuss this later, sir,” Pickering cut in. “Your first instinct was correct. Such conversation has no place in the company of ladies.”

“I quite agree, sir.” A thin line of perspiration trickled from Nicholas Bond’s sideburn. “The situation is righting itself even as we speak. Lieutenant Colonel Patterson has tackled the problem head on. Your daughters have nothing to fear, I assure you.”

“Have you need for additional personnel or munitions? I can telegraph for the funds from England if need be.”

“No, no.” Nicholas shook his head. “It is under control.”

Emma heard her father give a brief harrumph. This lion business was no small thing. With laborers huddling in fear of their lives, work should be stopped. But her father would never halt the race against the Germans toward Lake Victoria. Surrender was not an option.

Looking out again, she saw that the trolley had taken them into the narrow, cobblestone streets of Mombasa town. Flat-roofed two-story houses sagged upon one another as if weary of standing in the blazing heat. Corroded iron balconies thrust out over the street. Wooden doors, carved in geometric shapes and studded with brass, stood open to let in air.

“This is the business sector,” Nicholas said, his voice stronger now. “Luxurious wares arrive from the Far East on dhows—the small trading ships you saw in the harbor. They sail the monsoon winds up and down the coast. Ah, here we are…”

The trolley rolled up to an iron gate, and the four passengers descended. The grounds of the compound were a sea of lush grass dotted with islands of orange and blue birds of paradise, deep purple bougainvilleas and green philodendrons.

The men deposited their hats with white-gloved servants and walked ahead into the shadows of the wide verandah.

“Emma,” Cissy whispered, catching her sister’s arm. “Do you think there’s danger here? From those lions?”

“No, Cissy,” Emma assured her. “There’s a fence all around. And guards. We’re quite safe.”

“I feel at odds with everything here. It’s dreadfully hot, and the talk about man-eating lions gave me a fright. Oh, Emma, I’m not suited to this sort of place.”

Emma squeezed Cissy’s hand and led her up the stairs into the cool depths of the verandah. “Perhaps you are and you just don’t know it yet.”

“Emmaline, Priscilla, do come here.” Their father stood beside a handsome couple. A tailored tea dress identified the woman as a lady. Her husband’s refined face with its aquiline nose was a study in classic grace.

“Lord and Lady Delamere,” Pickering said. “I present my elder daughter, Miss Emmaline Pickering. Her sister, Miss Priscilla Pickering. Ladies, this is Hugh Cholmondeley, third Baron Delamere of Vale Royal in Cheshire, and his wife, Lady Delamere.”

“Such formality!” Lady Delamere laughed. “I’m Florence, and everyone in the protectorate calls my husband ‘D.’ You must do the same.”

“You have a lovely home,” Emma spoke up.

“Oh, this is not our home! It belongs to Sir Charles Eliot, Her Majesty’s commissioner in East Africa. He’s on leave in England. Hugh and I live up country at Njoro. But you both must be exhausted. Shall I have tea sent to your rooms?”

“Yes, thank you.” Emma looked ruefully at her blood-spattered gown and dusty hem. “I must apologize for my appearance today.”

“Take no trouble over it, Miss Pickering,” Lord Delamere said. “You’ll learn one can’t be terribly proper here—though we try to keep up a good show.”

“Thank you, sir. You see—”

“Never mind, Emmaline,” Pickering interrupted. “Get on with you now. I shall see you at dinner.”

Biting her tongue at being summarily dismissed, Emma watched her father step into the house with Lord Delamere. His wife led the young women into the house. The grand home might have been in England for all the lace antimacassars and porcelain figurines scattered throughout. Only the zebra skin on the hall floor reminded Emma that she was in Africa.

Left alone at last in their suite, Emma and Cissy hurried to the settee and dropped onto the soft cushions. “I could do with a bath to calm my nerves.”

“Nothing better,” Emma agreed. Then she frowned. Actually, things could be better. But a bath would have to do.

With a warm soak and a cup of tea to rejuvenate her, Emma set her sights on the evening ahead. As Cissy laced the corset over her sister’s chemise, Emma worked out her strategy.

She would not allow the evening to go to waste. Nicholas Bond had lived in the protectorate for some time. She must make him tell her everything she wanted to know—locations of hospitals, the need for nurses and all the other questions that clamored to be asked.

Once she had answers, Emma could map out a plan. The sooner she set that plan into motion, the less time her father would have to think up other options for her future.

When the sisters were dressed at last, they descended the stairs to dinner. Cissy floated in a cloud of blue silk and feathers. A pair of nervous African ladies’ maids had managed to arrange her golden hair around an artificial bluebird, and she did look stunning.

Emma felt as awkward as she always did beside her glowing sister. Although her green gown had a silk sash and was trimmed in soft pink roses, she could never compare with the dainty treasure at her side. Her sleeveless shoulders were just as creamy and her waist as narrow, but she knew she would never look as enchanting as Cissy did. Such trivialities had long ago ceased to matter. Neither men nor fashion were the objects of her dreams.

Cissy placed a gloved hand on Emma’s arm and leaned close. “Do I look all right?”

Emma smiled. “You’ll turn all the men’s heads.”

Cissy’s face did not brighten. “I miss Dirk. I miss him dreadfully.”

Stifling the sigh that threatened to escape at the hundredth mention of Cissy’s German soldier, Emma directed her sister’s attention to the opposite side of the room, where their father stood. “You must not speak of Dirk to Father, Cissy. You know how he feels about that sort of thing.”

“I know how he feels about our future husbands,” Cissy replied. “Well, I won’t marry without love. I assure you that.”

The dinner bell rang, and the young women made their way to the dining room. It might have been an evening at Aunt Prue’s house in London for all Emma could tell. Course followed course down the long table with its spotless white cloth. The gentlemen and ladies attending behaved as though they were visiting Queen Victoria herself. Even the conversation revolved around the empire.

After dinner, Emma rose with the others and left the dining room. She stepped into the center of the ballroom, her eyes on the tall figure standing beside the fireplace. Nicholas turned, and for an instant Emma felt as if she were in the presence of her father. Something in the set of the man’s shoulders and the look in his eyes evoked the dark, uncompromising demeanor of Godfrey Pickering.

But the moment passed as Nicholas smiled and made a gallant bow. “How lovely you look, Miss Pickering. I’m delighted to be your escort this evening.”

Emma saw that Lord Delamere had ascended the platform to stand before the military band. He was addressing the hushed crowd.

“I have known Mr. Godfrey Pickering only a few hours, yet I assure you, he is as fine a representative of our Queen as I have ever had the privilege to meet. Mr. Pickering is a man who believes—as do we all—in the supremacy of our beloved isle and the God-given directive to expand her empire. It is with pleasure that I give you the director of the East African Railway, Mr. Godfrey Pickering.”

Emma clapped with the others as her father stepped to Lord Delamere’s side. She should be proud, but as he lauded England and his part in her glories, she saw nothing but a hollow man. For all his wealth and power, Godfrey Pickering was a bitter person who expected the world and the lives of those around him to conform to his exacting expectations. He had demanded that of her mother, and look what had happened.

“Your father is the sort of gentleman who has made England what she is today,” Nicholas murmured, surprising Emma as he took her into his arms and turned her onto the dance floor. Lost in memory, she had not heard her father stop speaking nor the music start. She stumbled a little as she strove to match her step with that of her escort.

“You were brave this afternoon at the harbor, Miss Pickering,” he murmured, his mouth a little too close to her ear. “I don’t wonder that your father was concerned. This is not England. You must be careful.”

Emma recognized her chance and seized it. “I assist others as the need for my skills arises, Mr. Bond. I am a nurse.”

“A nurse?” The flicker of a frown crossed his face. “Nursing is an unusual pastime for a woman of your standing, is it not, Miss Pickering?”

“Pastime? Nursing is my vocation, Mr. Bond.”

“Strong words for a strong belief. I like conviction in a woman.”

Emma glanced up at him in surprise. Although Nicholas seemed sincere, she wondered whether he spoke the truth. If so, he was a rare man, indeed.

A disturbance in the hall drew his attention, and he paused in the dance. Emma took the opportunity to study this railway officer who so admired her father.

Nicholas Bond wore a finely tailored black suit with a tailcoat and white gloves, and his stiff white collar stood fashionably high. Not a bad looking fellow at all. Just the sort to turn Cissy’s thoughts from her German soldier.

As for her own feelings about the man, Emma had only one mission in mind. “Mr. Bond,” she ventured. “Can you tell me where I might find a hospital in the protectorate? I’m hoping to—”

“Excuse me, Miss Pickering.” He released her and took a step toward the door, his eyes on something at a distance.

Emma followed his gaze across the room. As the dancers ceased moving and all attention turned to the hallway, the musicians broke off in awkward discord. Voices, arguing and growing louder, carried into the ballroom. A group of agitated men surrounded a figure who rose head and shoulders above them.

Emma caught her breath as she recognized Adam King. The American. The cowboy. His blue eyes surveyed the crowd until they met hers. His focus unwavering, he took off his black hat and started across the room in her direction. Instantly the commotion began again.

“What is the meaning of this?” Lord Delamere’s voice rose over the hubbub.

“Sir, this man insists on entering the consulate without invitation,” a servant explained apologetically.

“Adam King?” Lord Delamere blinked in confusion. “I had no idea you were in Mombasa.”

The taller man halted. “I’m here, D. Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all, sir. Do come in.” Lord Delamere smiled and shook his guest’s hand. He turned back to the musicians. “Carry on, carry on!”

As the violins sounded again, the dancers drew their eyes away from the tall rancher. Lord Delamere rejoined his colleagues at the fireplace. Emma decided it was time to find her sister and retire. But Nicholas gripped her elbow as Adam King made his way through the swirling skirts.

“Good evening, Miss Pickering.” The American’s blue eyes fixed on Emma’s as he acknowledged her companion with a nod. “Bond.”

“Good evening, Mr. King.” Emma extended her hand, and this time he lifted it to his lips. His thick hair, glossy in the lamplight, shone a blue-black.

“What do you want, King?” Nicholas’s tone was hostile. “You can have no good purpose in joining our company.”

“But I do. I came to return these.” Adam reached into the pocket of his black trousers and pulled out Emma’s lavender gloves.

Her cheeks grew warm as she took them. “My goodness—I thought I would never see these again. Thank you so much, Mr. King. How kind of you.”

“Yes, well done, sir,” Nicholas said. “Now if you’ll excuse us—”

“Mr. Bond, would you be so good as to see to my sister’s welfare?” Emma heard herself ask. “Cissy was greatly fatigued this afternoon.”

Nicholas stared at her.

“I believe I owe Mr. King the next dance,” she went on. “In gratitude for returning my gloves.”

He opened his mouth to protest, then obviously thought better of it. “Of course, Miss Pickering,” he consented. “I am happy to oblige.”

As he stepped away, Emma noted Adam’s amused expression. “Perhaps I spoke out of turn, sir,” she said. “Normally I am not so bold.”

“Aren’t you? You were mighty bold this afternoon on the pier.” His mouth curved into a warm smile. “You took control of the situation without stopping to think about consequences. That’s good. A woman needs courage in this country.”

“Thank you. I have been trained as a nurse, you see.”

He searched her eyes. “But your father said—”

“My father disapproves. Nevertheless, I have undertaken rigorous instruction at Miss Nightingale’s school in St. Thomas’s Hospital.”

“I don’t know who Miss Nightingale is, but I’m sure she has a fine school.” He stood before her, making no move to dance. “Miss Pickering, do you—”

The music stopped and Adam’s question with it. Clutching her lavender gloves, Emma peered around his broad shoulder to see Nicholas striding across the room toward them. She looked back at Adam. Now strains of the “Blue Danube” waltz began to swell in the warm air.

“Mr. Bond has completed his mission, I see,” she said. “Thank you once again for returning my gloves, Mr. King.”

Nicholas slipped his arm beneath Emma’s. But as he moved to lead her away, Adam stepped in front of him. “Just a minute, Bond. I believe I was promised a dance with this young lady.”

“Mr. King.” Nicholas spoke the name in a steely voice. “Miss Pickering offered you the last dance. Now I’ve returned. If you will excuse us, please.”

“No, I won’t excuse you.” Adam loomed over the Englishman. “But I will thank you to take your hands off the lady until I’ve had my dance.”

Nicholas’s eyes blazed. “And I’ll thank you to hold your tongue. I am Miss Pickering’s escort this evening. Have you no manners, sir?”

“Don’t talk to me about manners, Bond. I was invited to dance by this young woman and I am accepting.”

“Gentlemen, please,” Emma interjected. She must end this nonsense quickly. “Mr. Bond, I did offer to dance with your friend. And then I must declare my dance card full for the evening. Mr. King?”

She looked up at him, but Adam made no move toward her. His focus had narrowed on the other man, and for a moment Emma feared Nicholas’s disdainful expression would be shattered by a blow from the American’s fist. Instead, Adam set his hat on his head, swept Emma into his arms and spun her out onto the floor.

“Mr. King!” Her eyes flew open as he whirled her around the room, barely avoiding collisions with more genteel dancers who stared at them in alarm.

An unfamiliar thrill coursed through Emma at the realization that the American had come back into her life…had sought her out…was holding her, even now, in his strong arms. Her feet barely touched the floor as the music soared through the room. Releasing Adam’s shoulder, she clutched at the spray of pink roses pinned to her hair for fear of losing it. She might have twirled away entirely, but one of his hands held her waist while the other wove through her fingers.

“I’m not much of a high-toned dancer, to tell you the truth, ma’am,” he said, spinning Emma toward the musicians at such a speed that her dress billowed up around her calves.

“Sir, this is a bit—” She caught her breath as he flung her away from him, then whipped her back against his chest in a crushing hold. “A bit different!”

He threw back his head in a hearty laugh, then looked down at her with shining eyes. “This is the way we dance in Texas. Those musicians just need a few lessons in fiddling, and then they’d do this tune up right.”

Emma spotted Cissy gawking at her in astonishment. “But I do believe this is the way Mr. Strauss intended it played,” she told Adam.

“Dull, don’t you think?” He grinned at the glowering Nicholas as they passed him in a mad whirl.

Emma gave up on her hair and tossed her head, letting the curls pull out and tumble down her back. Catching his shoulder once again, she felt a ripple of shock at the hard muscle beneath his white linen shirt. His black tie fluttered at his neck and his hair bounced loosely, falling over his ears and down his forehead. He was all movement, all liveliness and rhythm—nothing like the stiff gentlemen who held her as though she were made of porcelain.

As she and Adam danced, Emma felt her body loosen and sway against his, melting into his easy whirl. And then the music slowed. Adam guided her toward the wide French doors that opened onto a long verandah.

“Something you said today intrigued me,” he spoke against her ear. “I came here this evening because I wanted to talk to you. Would you like to take a walk, Miss Pickering?”

Her heart warned her not to be foolish. Hadn’t Nicholas said this man was untrustworthy? And he was married, after all. Married. Somewhere his wife waited for him, wanting and missing and loving him.

“Mr. King, I—” Before she could answer, he eased her out onto a dimly lit walkway.

The last strains of the waltz faded. Adam glanced back into the crowd and caught sight of Nicholas Bond searching for them.

“I really should go back in, you know,” Emma protested.

But as she looked into his eyes, Adam knew she would not return. He held out his arm. She hesitated, then slipped her hand around it. “Let’s take a stroll,” he suggested. “I never have liked crowds.”

“What is it you wish to discuss, Mr. King?”

“You, mostly.” He could see the toes of her slippers beneath the hem of skirt as they walked along a gravel path. Away from the stuffy air of the ballroom, he caught the scent of her perfume. Jasmine and roses.

He drew her closer. Somehow—against every shred of sense and determination he possessed—he’d let this strange, willful woman affect him. All he could do was stare down at her and feel things he shouldn’t feel. Her flushed cheeks and shining green eyes mesmerized him. Her full rosy lips, barely parted, were tilted slightly upward. He bent toward her.

Just then, she stopped walking and touched her forehead. “Oh, my.”

“Miss Pickering? Are you all right?”

“Out of breath. Perhaps it was the dancing.”

Or maybe not. He was having a little trouble breathing right himself. “Would you like to sit down?” he asked. “I saw some chairs at the other end of the porch.”

“No, I’m fine. Truly I am.” She took her hand from his arm and wove her fingers together. “You wanted to speak with me?”

“Yes, I do.” He straightened, forcing away the discomfort she’d given him. He couldn’t let himself think about the fact that she was beautiful and brave…and completely a woman.

Emma Pickering could be useful to him, that was all, and he might as well lay the cards on the table. “I want to know more about your nursing skills.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Nursing?”

“How much practical experience have you had?”

“Not enough to satisfy me.” She shook her head. “Miss Nightingale does not permit nurses to learn pure medicine. I’ve always longed to know as much as any doctor, but such a course is not possible. I have looked after patients at St. Thomas’s Hospital, many of them gravely ill, but that is the extent of my training.”

Adam started forward again. “Can you do surgical kinds of things?” he asked as she hurried to match his pace. He took her hand and set it on his arm again. “Can you sew people up and set bones?”

“I’ve watched those procedures being done. But I have neither the tools nor the skills to do them myself. Mr. King, why are you asking me these questions?”

He couldn’t tell her everything, but she was too smart to keep completely in the dark. He would have to lead her around until he had learned what he wanted to know.

“I understand that doctors have ways to make people unconscious,” he said. “Know anything about that?”

“Ether. I’ve seen it used. Why?”

“Do you know much about drugs? Medicines?”

“Morphia, quinine, cocaine, laudanum and others—I’ve dispensed them all.”

“But do you know what they’re used for? Do you know what can help pain—constant pain?”

“Laudanum is best, I believe—although one must be careful. Its use can become a habit. Morphia is similar.”

“Miss Pickering?” Nicholas Bond’s voice rang out down the long verandah and startled Emma into silence. The Englishman stood silhouetted in the light from the ballroom, his long coattails fluttering in the night breeze.

“Yes, Mr. Bond,” she spoke up. “I’m just here on the path.”

“Your father is concerned for your safety, Miss Pickering.”

“The lady’s fine, Bond.” Adam escorted her onto the verandah and into a square of yellow light that fell from the French doors.

“Miss Pickering?”

“Indeed, I’m perfectly well, Mr. Bond. This garden is lovely.”

Adam knew it was time to let Nicholas take the woman back to the ballroom. Good manners demanded it. He had been wrong to lead her outside unaccompanied in the first place. But when he began to remove her hand, she tightened her fingers around his arm.

“Mr. King mentioned his unusual dancing style,” she told Nicholas as they approached. She gave a little laugh. “It’s American, you know. I’m sure you must agree it’s my duty as an Englishwoman to teach him a proper waltz. You won’t mind, will you?”

Nicholas frowned, his lips tightening into a grim line. “Miss Pickering, I—”

“Dear Mr. Bond, it does seem the right thing to do under the circumstances. It would hardly show the English to good advantage if we let this poor man continue in his ignorance.”

Bond flipped back his coattails and set his fists at his hips. He started to speak, paused, then turned abruptly and left. Even though the two men were not friendly, Adam could hardly blame Bond for his displeasure. Emma had rebuffed him.

“Come, Mr. King,” she said. “With one dance you will know all I have to teach. And I shall understand why you asked me such questions just now.”

She crossed to the French doors, and Adam pushed them open. Laying her lavender gloves on a side table, she gave him a little curtsy.

“Shall we dance?” she asked.

Adam made no move. Emma looked into his blue eyes and watched them gazing back at her. They had gone dark now, with black rims that matched the lashes framing them. He set his right hand at her waist and drew her close. Without taking his eyes from hers, he spread her slender fingers with his left hand and squeezed them gently.

The music barely filtered into her ears, even though she knew it was there—for as they drifted out onto the floor, Emma’s sense of the world around her seemed to vanish. All she heard was the heavy throb of her heartbeat and the quiet jingle of Adam’s spurs as his boot heels tapped the wooden floor. She was aware of her skirt, floating behind her on its stiff crinolines—meant to keep the dancers apart, but failing tonight. He held her close, too close for this dance. Yet she could not stop him, could not make herself say the proper words, the polite things, the gracious empty syllables.

“Emma…” The name floated from his lips in his strange, beguiling accent. His breath warmed her ear.

Her mind told her to pull back from him, warned her—he was treacherous, he was foreign. He was married.

Yet he lifted her feet from the floor, and her cheek brushed against his shoulder. The scent of leather and the plains filled her nostrils…and her mind reeled away with all its doubts and warnings.

Her eyes met his again, deep pools in which she thought she might drown. “Mr. King,” she whispered, trying to prevent herself from falling into them.

“Call me Adam,” he said.

They moved into the shadows of an alcove, and he stopped, still holding her close in his arms. The music died and the other dancers separated, sweeping into bows and curtsies and polite applause.

“Emma.” He lifted her chin with a finger. “Thank you.”

Aching to speak, she found it impossible to form words. She glanced toward the crowd as the music started and yet another dance began. Cissy stood in one corner surrounded by a cluster of attentive men. Their father was speaking with Lord Delamere.

And now she saw Nicholas approaching. He made a small bow. “You may leave now, Mr. King,” he said. “I advise you to keep your attentions from Miss Pickering in the future. Her father is not pleased.”

Adam’s eyes flashed with an anger that twisted Emma’s stomach into a knot. “I decide who gets my attention, Bond,” he growled. “If you’ve got a problem with that, let’s step outside and settle this.”

“Do you challenge me, sir? I hope not. I may be forced to speak with Lord Delamere and Commissioner Eliot about the sort of men scratching out a living on the queen’s protectorate. Traitors to the Crown.”

“Talk to anyone you want, Bond. I’m not budging from my ranch—not even for the queen herself. Excuse me, Miss Pickering. I have business to take care of.”

Adam doffed his black hat and strode through the whirling dancers toward the verandah, his heavy footsteps echoing across the floor. Nicholas’s neck was red above his white collar as he faced Emma.

“I must apologize, Miss Pickering. You can see the man has no respect for our queen or her empire. Adam King is a schemer and a liar. Not a word of truth escapes his lips. You must not trust the man for a moment. I beg you to keep yourself under guard if you chance to meet him again. His forward behavior with you this evening was inexcusable.”

“Emma,” Cissy cried, hurrying across the room and taking her sister’s hand. “May I speak with you for a moment in private? Do you mind dreadfully if I take my sister away, Mr. Bond?”

Emma glanced at the young railway man. Even though he tried to maintain his genteel poise, irritation showed on his face. She spoke softly. “I’ll just be a moment, Mr. Bond.”

“Of course, Miss Pickering.”

Cissy slipped her arm around Emma’s and hurried across the room toward the verandah.

“What have you done, sister?” Cissy’s voice was a shrill whisper. “You let that man—that cowboy—take you outside without a chaperone! Father is livid. Honestly, Emma, what were you thinking?”

“Father saw us?” She’d had no idea.

“Of course he did. You’re meant to be dancing with Mr. Bond. He’s your escort.”

“Adam asked about my nursing.”

“Adam? You call him Adam?”

But Emma did not hear her sister’s words. She was gazing at the gloves on the side table beside the door. Lifting her eyes to the window, she looked out into the moonlit night.

A movement caught her attention and she focused on the long gravel drive lined with flowering trees. Down its silvery path galloped a dark shadow of a horse. As the rider urged his mount through the gate and turned onto the street, Emma gingerly lifted her gloves from the table.