Sweet Deception

by Heather Snow

  “What could we possibly gain?” She continued to keep her voice low. She’d hate anyone to overhear. They might find her and Derick’s conversation tasteless, given the occasion. “I spoke with each person within hours of Molly’s disappearance. Do you suppose their memories have gotten better over the past two days?”

  “Do you suppose Molly’s murder was random?” he asked, rather than answer her once again.

  Emma scoffed. “Of course not. That’s impossible. Random selection implies that all options are given equal weight. The killer would have had to have considered each and every potential victim in Derbyshire.”

  Now why was Derick looking at her with that confused frown? She reconsidered his question. “Oh. I think you must have meant ‘arbitrary,’ which is very similar in meaning but would take into account human…bias…”

  The vee between Derick’s brows had deepened and his lips had quirked into an amused twist.

  Emma’s cheeks heated in embarrassment. She was being literal again, wasn’t she? “You were asking if I thought Molly knew her killer,” she said, a bit sheepish.

  “Yes.”

  “Statistically speaking, she must have.”

  Derick shot her an odd look. “Statistically speaking? Who would keep track of such things?”

  “I would,” she said. “I’ve compiled years of magistratorial and other parish records from all over England.”

  “You’re not going to tell me you have all of those memorized, are you?” he said.

  Emma shrugged. “Not all…There are reams of them.”

  “Why would you—”

  “It doesn’t signify,” she said. “We were discussing Molly’s murder.”

  Derick eyed her for a moment as if he were a schoolboy and she were a geometric proof he didn’t quite understand. “We were,” he said finally. “Given what a close community this is, the person who killed her is most likely in this room.”

  Emma’s own gaze shot out over the crowd, to her friends and neighbors. Nearly the entire village was here. Surely…But she knew Derick was right. She shivered, looking around at the grim faces. “I can’t imagine anyone in this room as a killer. I’ve known these people my entire life.”

  Derick slanted his eyes to her, and Emma couldn’t shake the feeling that he viewed her as naive. “I’d wager the person who killed Molly knew her very well,” he said. “We start with those closest to her and work outward from there.”

  “But if one of them is the killer, they’re not going to tell us, just because we ask nicely,” she said, frustrated. “Now who’s being naive?”

  Derick huffed with amusement at her loose tongue. “They may not tell us with their mouths, Emma, but they very well may with their bodies.”

  “With their bodies?” Emma scrunched her face. “How in the world would they do that?” she asked.

  Emma waited for Derick to answer. Instead, he ignored her, his gaze taking in the small group of villagers hovering around Molly’s parents. She pinched the underside of his jacketed arm. Not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to show her displeasure.

  “Damnation, Pygmy!” he growled, rubbing at the spot, his face almost comical in his shock and indignation. “If you were a man—”

  Emma snorted. “Well, I’m not,” she said, not even taking him to task for calling her Pygmy this time. “And what’s more, Derick Aveline, I’ve known you since before you were one. Just because you have the advantage right now doesn’t mean you have the right to treat me as though my opinions and questions are a bother to you. I demand you start answering them when I ask—with real answers, not another question. You owe me that respect.”

  Derick sighed. “People talk with their bodies all of the time, Emma. More than they do with their mouths. I’m amazed you’ve been successful as magistrate this long without knowing that,” he said.

  She lifted her chin. “I’ve been successful because I’m thorough and I analyze things logically,” she argued. “And you still haven’t answered my question sufficiently. Do you have any evidence that what you say is true?”

  “The way you just pinched me tells me you’re angry with me.”

  Emma rolled her eyes. “The words that accompanied that pinch told you that.”

  “True,” he said, and a strange light glinted in his emerald gaze, “but your body is also telling me that, while yes, you are angry with me, you also want me.”

  “W-want you?” Emma sputtered, drawing herself away from him. He couldn’t possibly know that, could he? She’d been trying so hard to hide her inconvenient feelings.

  “Yes. Want me. Shall I tell you how I know?”

  His voice had dropped into a raspy baritone that made Emma’s mouth go dry. She found herself nodding, as if her body did indeed want to know how he knew such a thing, even though her mind rebelled against the idea. Did her traitorous body truly communicate secret private desires to him?

  “Well, the first tantalizing cue is your shoulders,” he said, dropping his lips closer to her ear so she might hear him better. She tried to focus on his words, but his warm breath dancing across her skin proved a mighty distraction.

  “See how they are angled just so, open to me, facing me squarely so that all you have to do is open your arms to welcome me to your bosom?”

  Emma instinctively crossed her arms. She didn’t miss Derick’s quick, flashing grin.

  “Next is how you tilt your head toward me when we speak,” he said, “as if placing your delectable lips as close as you can to mine, hoping I’ll bridge the gap and touch my own to yours.”

  Emma jerked her head back. “That’s outrageous,” she said. “I only lean closer so that you might hear me.” She pursed her lips on a frown. “Fat lot of good that does me,” she muttered, “since you refuse to answer five-eighths of the time.”

  She nearly jumped out of her skin when he brought a hand up behind her back and ran a finger lightly over the soft nape of her neck. Her eyes immediately sought the crowd, but no one was watching them. Derick’s hand was behind her, anyway…It was unlikely anyone would have seen that he’d touched her so.

  But oh, did she feel it. Gooseflesh popped out in waves over her skin, only to be chased away by a rolling heat.

  “But what really gives you away,” Derick murmured, “is the way you stroke your neck after you’ve tilted your head. It’s as if your body is begging me to do the same.” One long finger stroked her neck then, as if on cue, starting just below her earlobe and running down the side, stopping to caress that raised freckle she so hated just above her collarbone. She couldn’t control a shiver. “You don’t even know you’re doing it, do you?” he murmured.

  Emma swallowed, mesmerized. No. She’d had no idea.

  “Your neck is one of the most vulnerable places on your body. It carries your breath to your lungs, your blood to your brain. It can be easily broken,” he whispered. “When you expose your neck to me so, your body also tells me that you trust me—”

  Emma jerked away from his touch, from him, taking a step back that brought her backside up against the wall. “I absolutely do not trust you.”

  “Yes you do. You may not think so, but your body doesn’t lie.”

  “No. Numbers don’t lie. I’m sure bodies lie all the time,” she said, feeling a bit inane. But was he right? How she detested this feeling that he knew her better than she knew herself. It was rubbish, wasn’t it? How could she trust him? She didn’t know him…not anymore.

  Something in her proclaimed that thought a lie—as infuriating as he’d been these past days, she had found herself more and more comfortable with him, despite the fact that she still suspected his true personality was at odds with who he was being.

  Her protest brought a warm chuckle that sent her receding gooseflesh back to full prickle.

  “And what’s more, Emma, you’re relieved I’m here.”

  God help her, she was. For so long, she’d been handling everything on her own. While she relished the sense of acc
omplishment and responsibility, it was also a burden. It might irk her to have him question her at every turn, but she had to admit that Derick had proven to be more insightful than she’d expected. And didn’t he tend to have his own sort of logic behind his arguments, even if he wasn’t forthcoming in sharing it?

  Derick dropped his hand from her neck so swiftly she felt the cool breeze. “Now that that’s established, let’s go question Molly’s affianced first, shall we?”

  Chapter Seven

  Derick was reeling as he crossed the crowded parlor—and not just from the unexpected pleasure still rippling through him from his whispered interlude with Emma in the corner.

  Her memory astounded him. Oh, it would need to be tested, but if she truly could do what she said? He would have to be much more careful what he said around her, for one thing. He also knew spies in droves who would kill for such an ability, himself included. What he could have done with a mind like that. Which begged the question…could Emma be the traitor he was looking for?

  Something within him balked at the very idea, though he didn’t know why it should. Certainly not because she was a woman. As a spy, he’d crossed—and sheathed—daggers with many a cunning female counterpart. Derick knew all too well how deadly, and deceptive, women could be.

  There was no question that Emma had the mental agility to decode the messages the missing couriers had been carrying, and to code the ones that had fallen into Farnsworth’s hands in France—the ones that had ultimately led the agent, and finally Derick, to upper Derbyshire. And she would be the one with the best access to her brother, if that was indeed where the information sprang from.

  The object of his consideration fell into step beside him only a couple of yards before he reached the gathered mourners surrounding Molly Simms’ parents. Actually, Emma kept a toe just ahead of his, as if unconsciously communicating that she was the one in charge here.

  Derick couldn’t resist a soft snort of amusement.

  As they drew close to the group, Derick whispered, “Which man was Molly’s affianced?”

  Emma pointed out a short, stocky man, probably five or six years their junior, with a surprisingly square jaw that matched his blocklike fists. Hands capable of taking life, Derick noted. But would the man’s fingers prove long enough to match the bruises on Molly Simms’ neck?

  “James Marwell,” Emma whispered. “He’s apprentice to the butcher. He and Molly had been—”

  “Say no more. I’d prefer to get the particulars from Marwell himself.”

  She reached out and grabbed his arm, bringing them to a halt. “I can see you intend to go through with your interrogation against my wishes. Fine. I can’t stop you.” Her eyes shifted in a way that he was fast coming to recognize precluded one of her under-the-breath mutters.

  He waited for it.

  “No matter that I’ve spent years acting as magistrate and you’ve spent them acting as…well, as God knows what,” came her barely audible grumble.

  The urge to grin took Derick by surprise. Accustomed as he was to those around him carefully veiling their thoughts, this habit Emma had of spouting hers was quite refreshing.

  “A man of leisure, of course. A complete libertine,” he lied, enjoying the rush of color that infused her face and upper chest.

  It was the primary reason he had trouble believing she could be a traitor. She blurted out any little thing on her mind, no matter the cost to her pride. And was duly mortified by it. That sort of embarrassment wasn’t easily faked.

  He’d just have to unnerve her randomly—er, arbitrarily, he corrected himself—to see if her behavior remained consistent.

  Rather than acknowledge that little exchange, Emma gamely went on. “You say you can get information that I did not. I say this is a waste of time. I propose we put our currency where our mouths are.”

  Currency? “You mean ‘money,’ Emma. Money where our mouths are.”

  “Money,” she said with a brisk nod, as if filing it away for future metaphoring.

  “How is it that you claim to remember long-ago conversations with complete clarity, but you can’t keep your idioms straight?”

  Emma shrugged. “It’s just a tic in how my mind works, I suppose. Probably because most idioms are so ridiculous, they don’t bear remembering.”

  “Hmmm. Well, what did you have in mind?” he asked. “For your currency?”

  “Oh. Well, if, as I believe, your questions lead to nothing more than I learned when I conducted my own interviews, then you will agree to step back and let me run the investigation the way I wish to from here on out. Alone.”

  “Alone. Hmmm.” He’d be a fool to take that bet. If Emma won, it would set his investigation back days, maybe weeks. And yet, he was confident he could get something out of conducting interrogations that she hadn’t. Perhaps he could think of information she could give him as forfeit that would make the gamble worth it. “And what do I get from this bargain if I do discover a new lead?”

  “An apology, of course,” she said, as if the word itself were worth its syllables in gold.

  “An apology?” Derick scoffed. “Since you are such a capable woman, I’m sure an apology from your lips is a rare and coveted thing indeed.” A dozen erotic images involving her lips and various parts of his body flitted through his mind like a fairy nymph bent on teasing. And before he’d even given the words any thought he murmured, “However, I’d rather have something else from them. A kiss would do nicely, I think.”

  “A kiss?” she said, her own brows now winging toward her forehead.

  What the hell had he just said? He’d meant to bargain information, not bloody temptation. Yet he couldn’t very well back out now that the offer was made. “A kiss. It will be much more pleasurable for me, and I’m fairly certain, less painful for you to give.”

  “But why on earth would you want to—” Emma clamped her lips shut on the question, her eyes darting away. One hand went up to self-consciously sweep a lock of hair away from her face, while the other splayed across her stomach.

  Those two tiny movements sucked the air from Derick’s chest. Because they told him two things.

  First, Emma had no idea how beautiful—nay, how breath-capturingly desirable—she was. Which, strangely, made her all the more so.

  And second? That the mere idea of kissing him set off tremors of excitement in her belly.

  His gut clenched with a warm heat. He didn’t even want to try to name the emotions those two bits of knowledge sent ricocheting through his own body.

  “Well, what say you, Emma? Are you willing to place a kiss on the line? Mind you, I’d demand a real kiss—not just a quick peck. I wouldn’t want either of us not to get our…currency’s worth. In fact,” he said, warming to the idea now that the offer had been made, “I would demand full discretion as to the kiss’ duration…and thoroughness.”

  Emma visibly swallowed at his emphasis. “There are degrees of kissing?” she asked with a slight cocking of her head that said she really had no idea what he meant. The darkening of her amber eyes told him, however, how very much she wanted to know.

  Good God. He couldn’t wait to demonstrate. After all, it was just a kiss. It couldn’t hurt anything. And he wasn’t using the kiss as a means to get anything out of Emma, so he wasn’t really breaking his vow, was he?

  He waited for her response.

  Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips, before she tugged the lower one between her teeth and worried it.

  In the end, she gave him one short, decisive nod that sent heat rushing through him.

  He turned his attention to Marwell, determined to get some new bit of information out of the butcher.

  As Derick and Emma approached the small group surrounding Molly’s grieving parents, the conversation quickly lulled. Likely because of his presence. While he, by title and association, was a part of this community, in reality he wasn’t. He knew it. And they knew it.

  “My lord.” Molly Simms’ father stood t
o greet him. “Sarah and I—we want to thank you for your generosity.” The gardener waved a shaking hand to encompass the parlor and the refreshments that had been laid out. “You honor us and our Molly.”

  “Think nothing of it,” Derick murmured.

  An awkward silence followed. He didn’t show any reaction to the curious stares. Just like the villagers he’d encountered while searching for Farnsworth, even those on his own estate didn’t know what to make of him. In fact, they would probably afford more trust to a stranger than they would to him. He was glad to have Emma at his side to ease the way.

  “I’ve asked Lord Scarsdale to assist me in my investigation,” Emma began, her voice confident, assured. Calming. So much different than when she spoke with him.

  Derick noticed the way the group turned to her as one. She was well respected among them. And while there was a raised brow or two, there were no signs of protest. It seemed that if Emma trusted him, the villagers would accept her judgment. Perfect.

  “I understand the timing is not ideal.” She flicked a glance at him, betraying her annoyance at his insistence. “But I’m sure you’ll agree that finding whoever did this to Molly is of utmost importance. We can’t waste a moment.”

  Everyone nodded, but Derick didn’t watch their heads. He watched their feet. In his experience, the farther one got from the head, the less control people had over how their unconscious mind used their body to communicate. Lies were often given away first by the feet.

  He saw nothing that gave him pause.

  “Mr. Marwell, we’d like to speak to you first,” Emma said. “In the study, if you please.”

  The man’s eyes darted around the rest of the group, but he quickly nodded his assent.

  As the trio discreetly made their way across the parlor, Derick considered his strategy. Emma was sure not to like it. It was not the way a woman would handle an interrogation.

  He turned on the man as soon as the door was closed, not even giving Marwell a chance to be seated.