by Anne Stuart
She’d tasted so good, so right. It had felt like coming home, that kiss, all those kisses behind the door of the salon, and his head kept filling with fantasies so depraved he should be ashamed of himself. He wasn’t. He’d always had strong sexual appetites, ones he’d done his best to bank down since the horror of his time with the Heavenly Host, but Emma Cadbury woke something in him he’d forgotten.
A visit with the discreet Widow MacKinnon would take care of it, he told himself. All cats were gray in the dark, and Fiona MacKinnon was a talented and enthusiastic lover. If anyone could put Emma out of his mind it would be Fiona. If anyone could.
In the meantime he had to go downstairs and be attentive to his meek little fiancée, unless someone had been kind to her and set her at a distance from him, and he’d try to remember his duty, when all the time he was wishing he was in the kitchen drinking whiskey with Noonan. No, he didn’t miss the whiskey, he thought, prodding that old desire like one prodded a sore tooth to see whether it still hurt. He just missed his simpler life.
Would Emma even come down to dinner? Could he sit, expressionless, pretending? He had no choice in the matter, and Benedick would skin him alive if he knew he’d kissed his wife’s best friend.
He straightened his shoulders. He was a Rohan, more than anything. He did what he had to do, by conventional or unconventional means, and he tried not to let anyone bear the results of his wayward desires and morals but himself. His grandfather Francis would approve, the old satyr.
There was a definite pall over the group gathered for dinner that night. Charles was gone, and Brandon neither knew nor cared where. To the devil, he hoped. His absence was about the only good thing about the evening. He entered the grand dining room, Miss Frances Bonham’s tiny, gloved hand on his arm, looking around for Emma. He couldn’t decide whether her absence was a blessing or a curse.
He’d done his duty with the perfect air of courtesy and amiability, meeting with his intended to give her a chance to get used to him. After the debacle in the reception room he’d been sure she’d cry off, but his hopes were in vain. She didn’t like this any more than he did, but she had fixed her gaze on his shoulder, determined not to see the ruination of his face, and she made the proper responses as if she’d memorized them, while the dragon beside her kept a strong, comforting hand on the heiress’s shoulder. She seemed to like their proposed marriage even less than the bride and groom did, and he wondered if there was something she could do that would put an end to this. Miss Marion Trimby was in her mid-thirties, and she looked like someone who was used to being in charge. If he really was forced to marry Miss Bonham, there’d be a battle over who controlled her. It was quite clear that young Frances had no interest or ability to assert her independence.
The other guests had already been seated when he escorted her into the dining room, and they all immediately rose, applauding politely as he led Frances to her seat between Benedick and one of the chowderheads who’d gone in search of the maid and apparently became violently ill over her remains. He settled the girl carefully, the perfect husband-to-be. The word was out, then, not that it made any difference. Once a Rohan agreed to something he didn’t renege—he had promised to give this terrified young creature the protection of his name, what little protection it was. As a married woman she would exist on a completely different level of society, and while there was no way to erase his hideous accusation, the fact that he married her would speak for something. This was her only way to return to the kind of life she’d been born to.
“Is something wrong?” his nervous fiancée whispered when his arm jerked.
He smiled down at her with determined benevolence. “Nothing at all, my dear.” He couldn’t call her Frances, and Miss Bonham seemed ridiculously formal. He looked up, and there were two empty seats at the table. Correct social behavior was automatic, and he headed toward the proper seat, wondering who could be even later than he had been, when there was a shadow at the door, and whom he had been looking for, whom he had been dreading, had arrived. Emma Cadbury stood in the door, murmuring abject apologies, never sparing him a single glance.
She had her thick black hair scraped back away from her face, and the bruising near her temple did not show as prominently, although he thought she had helped that along with rice powder. There were still shadows under her eyes, her mouth was tight and thin with determination, and the gray dress she wore was even frumpier than her previous ones, something he wouldn’t have thought possible. She was breathtaking.
He moved behind her chair, ready to pull it out for her, and for a moment the memory of their afternoon kisses flared in her eyes before it was quickly extinguished.
Everyone had, of course, risen again, including his sister-in-law, and for some indiscernible reason Melisande had a truly miserable expression on her face. “Emma!” she cried, and there was an odd tone in her voice. “I didn’t think you’d be able to join us for dinner.”
Emma looked suddenly alert. “A short rest improved everything,” she said, and Brandon could attest to it. He wanted to cross the room, take her hand and pull her out into the hallway, back to the salon with the divan and the door to hide behind, or back to his vast room and his empty bed. He didn’t blink, his face impassive.
Melisande had already started around the table in Emma’s direction. “You cannot be too careful, my love. You’ve been through an awful experience—I can’t imagine even being out of bed, much less coming downstairs twice in one day. Why don’t you retire and I’ll have a plate brought to you?”
The extreme oddness of the conversation didn’t escape the other couples at the tables, but then, Melisande was known to be eccentric and egalitarian in her views and behavior. For some reason she seemed intent of sending her friend away from the dinner table. All eyes swerved back to Emma, awaiting her response. As he was, he realized, not even glancing at Frances.
Emma narrowed her magnificent eyes for a moment, as if trying to understand what Melisande was hinting, and then she did something very interesting indeed. She cast another glance at him as he stood there waiting, as if he had something to do with Melisande’s very odd behavior.
Benedick caught Melisande’s arm before she could reach Emma, and he shook his head, frowning at her. What in Christ’s name was going on with them, Brandon thought. He had enough frustration on his own without some new disaster involving his brother.
Emma wanted to run, he knew that as well as he knew his own name, even if her expression remained politely blank. He didn’t blame her—if he could get his horse out of Benedick’s clutches he would take off like a bat out of hell. He could even offer Emma a ride to escape whatever she was trying to avoid, and the two of them would head to Scotland, with Noonan barely able to catch up.
But he wouldn’t do any such thing. He had too much to atone for, so many things that he couldn’t do anything about. He could do something about Frances, and he would do his duty.
Emma straightened her shoulders and smiled politely. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen a real smile from her, one that reached her eyes and her heart. He had the odd sense that she had smiled at least once, but that was impossible. He would have remembered.
“I’m feeling well, my lady,” she said formally. “I wouldn’t have come down if I weren’t up to it.”
“Perhaps we might change the seating, and you could sit by me. . .”
“My dear,” Benedick murmured, and Melisande seemed to come to her senses.
“I’m fine,” Emma said meaningfully.
“Of course you are,” Benedick said, releasing Melisande and moving to take Emma’s arm. “Don’t mind my wife—she has her moments of extreme silliness.” He brought her over to Brandon’s side. “You’ll take care of Mrs. Cadbury, won’t you, Brandon? She’s not the frail flower my wife seems to think she is, but if she seems ill you might see her out and find a maid to assist her.”
Emma was stoic once more. “What a huge fuss over nothing. Good evening, Mr. Roha
n.”
Brandon looked at her. He almost missed her calling him Lord Brandon, simply because she did it to annoy him. “Good evening, Mrs. Cadbury,” he replied, helping her to the chair before taking the seat beside her.
Everyone at the table had been watching this little drama with avid eyes, including, he noticed, his fiancée. Conversation immediately began again, but rules were rules and Frances was following her hostess’s lead and making desultory conversation with the elderly knight on her right. Halfway through the meal the very polite guests would then turn and talk to the person on the other side, rather like a stately court dance his parents might have been involved in.
Then Frances had left his mind completely. He was damned if he was going to wait until the fish or roast course to talk to Emma. “What’s going on?” he demanded in a whisper. The lady on his other side, Mrs. Beauchamp, had a consuming passion for rolls, and the wise server had put three on her plate. She was busy ripping small pieces off them and slathering them with butter—she wouldn’t want to be interrupted with polite conversation.
Emma’s face was expressionless. “The weather is positively dreadful, is it not? It is a great deal too bad that you missed getting out while the sun shone.”
Considering that those who’d been out had found the mangled body of the murdered maid, that was less than felicitous, and there was a troubled murmur around the table. She flushed for a moment, realizing her mistake.
“The company in the house was more appealing,” he said in the same polite voice.
“I’m so glad,” she murmured, and there was just a trace of malice in her rich, sweet voice. He liked it. She was angry with him over those kisses. That made two of them—it had been incredibly foolish of him. He’d do it again in a heartbeat.
He watched her clever gray eyes sweep the table, linger for a moment on Benedick’s taut expression, then at Melisande’s clear misery, and then light on Miss Bonham, who looked only half as terrified as she had earlier. Emma turned back to look up at him, her beautiful gray eyes serene. “I gather we are to wish you happy,” she said softly. “Will you be taking your bride to Scotland?”
Emma had known the minute she’d walked into the room. It had started as a sinking dread, and Melisande’s less than subtle behavior made it more and more clear. Despite Melisande’s certainty, Brandon Rohan, Lord Brandon, was indeed going to marry Miss Frances Bonham, half-sister of the late Harry Merton. Which was lovely, absolutely right, he’d do well with a sweet, unquestioning young virgin to adore him, once she got over that look of cornered prey in her unremarkable eyes.
Which begged the question—why did Emma suddenly want to throw up?
Brandon was frowning at her simple words, not looking the slightest bit gratified. In fact, he had barely glanced at his new fiancée once since Emma had entered the room.
Emma was concentrating on her water, the voices surrounding her, when she realized he hadn’t said a word. She was used to being rebuffed, but not even this new Brandon would behave so badly. She lifted her gaze to glance at him.
“I doubt it,” he said, and he gave his future bride the briefest of glances before turning back to Emma. “She seems much too civilized a creature for the wilds of the Scottish Highlands.”
At that moment Emma wanted to use Benedick’s vile curse herself. “Then London will have the pleasure of your company? Or will you reside in the countryside?”
Another moment of silence, and she realized she’d been far too inquisitive. There was a fine line between polite conversation and rampant curiosity, and she was stomping all over it. She should have said nothing—what business was it of hers where Brandon Rohan chose to live—but she had a desperate need to know, in order to fortify herself if she was doomed to run into him.
Doomed. Such a dramatic word, she chided herself, glancing up at him. When had she become so infantile?
Brandon was as good as she was at hiding his thoughts. “I will arrange for Miss Bonham to live wherever she chooses, be it London society or a quiet country estate. I intend to return to Scotland posthaste, which I expect will make my wife extremely happy. Would you care to come with me?”
The question was added so casually that for a moment Emma didn’t understand him. “I beg your pardon?”
“I asked if you wanted to come with me. To Scotland. To stay,” he clarified. “It’s cold and rainy and miserable a great deal of the time, and I live in the moldering ruins of a gatekeeper’s cottage, but we manage to keep warm and Noonan does all the housework. He’s not a half-bad cook.”
She had slowly turned to stone at his abrupt words. Stone, with a ripped-up, bleeding heart inside. “I thought I explained to you, Lord Brandon, that I was no longer for sale.”
She saw him blink, but instead of offense she saw a flash of humor. “Oh, I had no intention of paying you, Mrs. Cadbury.” He returned tit for tat. “I rather thought you might like it.”
Her expression could be withering indeed, and she gave him the full benefit of it. “Clearly you rate your attractions a bit too highly, my lord. If performing such services are not worth the money that’s usually offered then I would hardly be tempted to perform them for free.”
She could have remained cold and offended and walled off, except that he smiled at her, and for the first time she saw a glimpse of the old Brandon, the wounded soul who had made light of his grievous injuries, the young man who teased and enchanted her. “Now that’s definitely going too far, sweet Emma,” he said. “’Lord Brandon’ is bad enough, ‘my lord’ is impossibly stuffy. And I could most definitely change your mind,” he added softly, and his low voice beneath the hum of conversation made her flesh heat. “Have you forgotten this afternoon so quickly?”
It was instinctive, a bad move, but she didn’t stop to think, she simply kicked him, hard, under the table, and then let out a little yelp of pain. He was wearing riding boots, the bastard, and her soft slippers only did damage to her own foot.
He made a soft, disapproving noise, his eyes still alight with mischief. “Temper, Emma,” he chided. “You don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea.”
“What wrong idea?” she whispered fiercely. “That I kicked you? I don’t care who knows it—my mere existence is already considered highly inappropriate. I could hardly make things worse with my behavior.”
There was a faint softening in his expression, and it was even more painful than his mockery. “Emma. . .” he began gently, but she interrupted him.
“Say one more word to me, Lord Brandon, and I will spill my water in your lap.”
His humor was back. “A cooling off might prove beneficial.” He glanced down at his lap, and before she could stop herself she did the same. Oh, he was a gorgeous man, with those narrow hips, long legs, his. . .
She jerked her eyes away, then reached out and picked up her water, contemplating it meaningfully. “Your supposed injury isn’t going to pass muster if you keep finding yourself in that condition,” she said dryly.
She heard his soft laugh. “Don’t worry—it only happens when I’m around you,” and in the next minute he was deep in conversation with the matron on his left, dismissing her.
The rest of the meal passed in a painful blur. He never addressed another word to her, nor glanced her way as far as she could tell, though it seemed to her fanciful mind that she could feel his eyes on her. Every now and then she stole a glance at Frances Bonham, trying to imagine her with Brandon. Trying to imagine her in bed with him, beneath his large, strong body, taking him inside her, reveling in the act.
No, that was unlikely. Miss Bonham was small and slight and easily frightened—she would not be eager for bedsport. Brandon would force himself on her on their wedding night, but at least then he’d probably leave her alone.
It didn’t matter that she couldn’t really see Brandon forcing anyone. In fact, she couldn’t even imagine that he’d ever had the need to. With his deep, rich voice, his gorgeous eyes, his strength and power he probably had wo
men throwing themselves at him. His ruined beauty would be an aphrodisiac to a discerning woman—she imagined he’d been simply too pretty before he’d gone to war. She knew men—it had once been her business—and she knew he’d be a good lover, a generous one, the kind of man who found little pleasure if his partner didn’t. During the years she’d spent on her back she’d never run into that sort of customer, but the other girls had, or so they swore, and indeed, a number of them had tried to stop charging their favorites.
Emma rubbed her head. It was throbbing, though whether from the blow or something else she wasn’t quite sure, and she wanted to go back to bed and bury herself in the covers. She’d had such hopes for this week—a quiet time with Melisande’s family, playing with the children, walking in the woods for exercise, taking Benedick’s favorite, smelly old spaniel with her for company. Instead she’d found rain and Brandon Rohan, and Brandon was definitely the worse of those two trials. She’d be better off in the city.
Melisande wouldn’t fight her any longer. At least this would put paid to any fantasies her best friend might harbor. A man would never cry off from an engagement, particularly not a good man, and she was convinced that beneath everything Brandon was a very good man.
There was no doubt in Emma’s mind that Miss Bonham would accept him. She had always been an expert of eliciting gossip—it was an important part of her former trade. She knew all about the young woman’s reputation, about her brother, she even knew about the legalities that tied up her inheritance. Men talked to their whores, and women talked among themselves. No, Frances Bonham had come here, accepted him, despite being completely spineless and terrified.
Emma immediately felt wicked. Despite Miss Bonham’s very rational fear of Brandon, she had accepted his haphazard suit. She was braver than she seemed. She wouldn’t cast him off lightly, and she didn’t to be judged.
Emma barely touched her food, pushing it around on her plate with desultory disinterest. Usually she was blessed with a healthy appetite, particularly in London when she was working. Missing a meal or two would do her no harm.
