Sweet Deception

by Heather Snow

  When she did draw air again, it came in a harsh, hiccuping gasp that echoed off the cold marble floor. It was the equivalent of a dousing in St. William’s Creek in early spring. Emma’s chest constricted, and her mind cleared in an instant. She was acting the trollop in the middle of her own foyer. Oh God. The servants. George. What would they think if they saw her? What would they say?

  Derick’s lips continued downward in hot licks, his mouth nearing her scooped neckline.

  “Derick, please.” She pushed at him. “Anyone might see.”

  He lifted his head and a strange light flickered in the emerald depths of his eyes, as if that very possibility excited him. His gaze dropped to her mouth and he leaned in to capture her lips once more.

  Emma turned her face away, ducking her head to bury it against his heaving chest.

  After an endless moment, she felt his hands leave her body, sensed him brace them against the wall behind her. All the molten heat that had pooled low in her body now rose to her chest in a seething ball of mortification. What had she been thinking?

  What had he been thinking? Was there a chance he held some feeling for her?

  “Why did you kiss me like that?” she whispered, her lips brushing against the fine linen of Derick’s shirt.

  His chest leapt beneath her, as if he’d huffed in disbelief at what he’d done. “I wanted—” Fast, choppy pants ruffled her hair. “The bet,” he rasped finally, his voice deep, full of gravel. “You owed me.”

  The ball in her chest burst, flinging hot moisture to sting the backs of her eyes. Of course. It hadn’t anything to do with her charms. He’d just been caught up in the heat of their argument and had seen a convenient way to vent his frustration with her and to collect his due at the same time.

  She shoved harder at his chest, ducking below his arms when he wouldn’t budge. She stiffened her spine as she put several paces between them, counting them off to calm herself. Four. Five. Six. Seven. “Consider my debt paid, then.”

  With Emma’s back to him, she was unable to see him blanch. Derick was glad for it, because at this moment he didn’t think he could hide anything from her. If she only turned to look at him, he was certain she’d see all. His lust. His confusion. His regret. Maybe even his secrets. They had to be written all over his face, as clear as covert messages scrawled in invisible ink after having been revealed over a hot flame. He tunneled his fingers through his hair as blood slowly returned to his face.

  Never had he been so undone.

  He hadn’t meant to kiss her. Not now, at any rate. And not like that, for God’s sake. He’d meant to tease her, coax her, slowly introduce her to the “degrees of kissing,” as she’d so quaintly put it. Somewhere comfortable, somewhere private, somewhere they wouldn’t have been disturbed for a long, long time.

  Instead, a protective rage had fired his blood. As Harding had stretched out his fingers, all Derick could see was the ugly purple bruising around poor Molly Simms’ neck and her blue eyes washed whitish in death. Then, in his mind’s eye, that eerie blue had turned amber—and Derick had seen red.

  When Emma had insisted on allowing the blackguard to remain in her home, something primitive in Derick had roared his dissent…and demanded her submission. Still, he shouldn’t have kissed her to gain it.

  “Emma, I—”

  “Don’t,” she said, the word shooting from her lips like a lead ball from a dueling pistol. The wounded quality of her command pierced him as surely as a bullet would have. He heard a suspicious sniff that twisted his gut. What in the hell did she have to be hurt over? Angry, yes.

  Derick tensed, waiting for her to turn so he could see exactly what she was thinking. If he knew the nature of the wound, he could repair the damage.

  But when Emma faced him, her expression and posture were cool, collected. “Do you truly think Thomas killed Molly?”

  It was all Derick could do not to gape at her. If her lips hadn’t still been swollen from his kiss, and her hair mussed from his touch, he’d have thought that kiss had been a figment of his imagination.

  Or an erotic dream.

  “Back to business, Emma?” he said, still trying to wade out of a fog of lust. Damnation. Had their kiss not affected her at all? How could she stand there, so proper, her spine straighter than a ramrod while he felt the need to lean against the wall until he was certain he was steady?

  She pressed her lips together tightly, probably miffed that he’d not answered her question. But God’s truth, he couldn’t think about Harding right now. How the hell could she?

  “Because I think we should discuss what just happened between us,” he found himself saying. Where the devil had that come from? And what would he say should she agree?

  Emma cocked her head to the side. “Oh? Was my payment not satisfactory, then?”

  Good Christ. Had it been any more satisfactory, she’d have found her skirts tossed up and her legs dragged around his hips—and he’d have a lot more to apologize for.

  “Did the exchange not meet your standards for ‘duration and thoroughness’?” she continued.

  “That’s not what I—”

  “Good. Because I think we should discuss why you’ve been pretending to be someone you’re not, instead.”

  Derick went very still.

  Pretending to be someone you’re not… That could mean so many things, couldn’t it? Vague things. It seemed little Pygmy was a quick study—now she was the one fishing. The question was, what exactly was she angling for?

  Emma stood before him, tapping her foot as she waited for his response. Derick nearly smiled. Silence was a tactic he used to great effect on others. It never bothered him, so he’d have no difficulty waiting her out.

  Indeed, Emma broke first. “Where were you all of those years?”

  Hmmm. The question was an easy one, even when he wasn’t certain what she was seeking. He gave the same answer he always did—one that was quite factual, but far from the whole truth. “Here. There,” he said in an intentionally bored singsong. “The Continent, mainly. France, Vienna, Belgium. Wherever my fortunes took me.”

  Emma frowned, clearly unsatisfied with his answer. Crossing her arms, she demanded, “Tell me where you learned to discern what people are thinking by how they carry themselves.”

  An uneasy frown pulled at the corner of Derick’s mouth. He didn’t like the direction she was heading. He quickly turned his lips up into a smile of masculine arrogance before she could notice his discomfort. “Why, the ballrooms of Europe, of course,” he bluffed, waving an idle hand. “I was as hot-blooded as any young buck in my youth, always with my eye on one attractive woman or another. Experience taught me which ones were worth…pursuing, and which weren’t.” Again, another half-truth. The best lies were filled with them. Though women were often his targets, he hadn’t been pursuing them for their charms.

  Emma’s eyes narrowed further. “While I can certainly picture you as some youthful Lothario, I must say—I don’t believe you. Where did you learn to interrogate people?” she pressed. She held out her right hand in a staying motion. “Don’t deny it. You do it too well.”

  Ah, hell. He shouldn’t have gone after Harding so hard. But the bastard had just stood there. No remorse. No feeling. Just an emotionless recitation that spoke of indifference. It had made Derick’s blood run cold, then hot. Harding may or may not be Molly’s killer, but either way, Derick still wanted to put a fist through the man’s face for his callous attitude.

  “And how do you sneak up on people without them hearing a sound? No one even noticed you slip into the dining room at the castle the other night. We didn’t know you were there until the precise moment you wanted us to.” Her amber gaze leveled on him. “And how is it that you hear every little thing I say, even when I know I said it under my breath?”

  Damnation. He needed to deflect her. Now. He forced a light chuckle. “Don’t be ridiculous, Emma. A little overzealousness on my part, and you’re imagining all kinds of nefario
us things.”

  She actually snorted. “You’re the ridiculous one if you think I don’t see through you. In fact, I don’t know how I was so blind before.”

  Emma cocked her head, and the golden gleam in her eyes, along with the self-satisfied press of her lips, told Derick he wasn’t going to like what she was about to say.

  “You were a spy, weren’t you?”

  Chapter Nine

  Derick barked a laugh, doing his damnedest to inflect it with just the right mixture of scoffing disbelief and innocence. “Really, Emma,” he drawled. “You must get out of Derbyshire more often. I knew, of course, the place was deadly dull, but it is worse than I remember if you must entertain yourself by concocting such ridiculous scenarios. Believe me”—he lowered his voice, deliberately trying to embarrass her out of this dangerous line of thinking—“there are…diversions aplenty to keep a man in his prime quite satisfied to remain on the Continent.” He added a slow wink, to make sure she grasped his meaning.

  A flicker of doubt clouded Emma’s face.

  He hoped to hell his bluff worked.

  Her eyelids fell briefly and Derick noticed her thumb moving in a rapid circle against the pads of the fingers on her right hand. She’d done that before, hadn’t she? When she was trying to recall something. A focusing maneuver, perhaps?

  Emma opened her eyes, settling her feet as if preparing to literally hold her ground. “No.”

  Son of a bitch. He knew only too well how tenacious Pygmy could be once she’d sunk her talons into something.

  “No,” she repeated, clenching her fist and bringing her curled fingers to tap against her lips. “If you were the pompous ass you pretend to be—”

  “Pompous ass?” Derick sputtered.

  “Yes.” She colored, but she didn’t demure. “Unruffle your feathers, Derick. It’s not an insult,” she said, tossing his earlier words back at him with a chestnut eyebrow cocked at a jaunty angle. “I’m certain you’ve worked very hard at affecting the perfect degree of pomposity.”

  Well, yes, he had actually. But he didn’t appreciate her pointing it out. Or noticing that it was an affectation, for that matter.

  “However, if you were the skirt-chasing ne’er-do-well you want me to believe you are, you wouldn’t be here,” she said. “You would care naught for finding Molly’s killer or for”—she averted her gaze—“watching over me, as you say.” Her eyes returned to him and she pointed a delicate finger directly at him. “You’d still be traipsing around the Continent sowing your wild seeds.”

  Something between a choke and a cough closed his throat. Derick huffed twice to clear it. “That’s oats, Emma,” he murmured. “Wild oats.”

  “Whatever. The point is,” she said, turning slightly as she paced a tight circle in front of him, “something about you has been bothering me since the moment you arrived at Aveline Castle the other night and I’ve finally figured out what it is.”

  He had to throw her off, give her another explanation—a convincing one, a heady one. “You’ve got it all wrong, Emma. It’s the attraction between us that has you bothered,” he said, stepping ever so slightly closer to her. He bent his head toward her and inhaled her lavender scent. Satisfaction stole over him when she unconsciously leaned in. This could work.

  “You so much as admitted you’ve carried a torch for me all of these years, and now…here I am.” He reached out a finger and brushed it against her cheek, feeling the cad for using her girlhood infatuation against her. “In the flesh. It’s only natural you’d be…bothered.”

  Her lips parted as his finger caressed the corner of her mouth and her gaze held his for a long moment.

  Then she pulled her head back smartly. “That’s not it.”

  “Damnation, Pygmy!”

  Rather than take issue with his use of her nickname, in vain even, she actually smiled at him, a Cheshire-like grin that made him feel like kicking an entire family of cats. “You wouldn’t be trying so hard to convince me otherwise if I weren’t right, you know.”

  “I wouldn’t be trying to convince you at all if you had a lick of sense,” he growled, going for the one sure thing to dig at her.

  “That’s not going to work this time,” she said, wagging her finger at him and despite his immense irritation, he burned with the urge to kiss that smug little smirk right off her face.

  But it disappeared on its own as Emma chewed at her lower lip. “You forget, Derick. I knew you well. Once.”

  His annoyance unexpectedly burst into true anger, all dissemblance forgotten. “You know nothing!” Derick tunneled his fingers through his hair, spinning away from her. She’d never known him. How could she have? Even he hadn’t known the truth then. Who he really was. What was in his blood. What he was capable of.

  Appalled at his lack of control, he turned back to face her. Emma’s amber eyes had gone wide, and it seemed she held her breath, waiting for him to explain his outburst. Well, he had no intention of enlightening her, so he said instead, more gently, “I was just a boy, Emma. I’ve lived an entire life since then.” He hoped to God his voice didn’t sound as weary as he felt in this moment.

  She swallowed. “Yes,” she said cautiously, her head dipping in the affirmative, “but while modern philosophy disagrees about whether our personalities are inborn or whether they are a product of our environment, it does suggest that it is very rare for a person to grow to be the polar opposite of how they were as a child. Rather, it suggests our personalities are set at a young age. That’s why you’ve seemed such a contradiction to me. The boy I knew never could have become the man you pretend to be.”

  Derick veiled his eyes. She couldn’t understand unless he told her everything, and that he would never do. “This conversation grows tiresome.” And it had. In fact, this life had grown tiresome. How he longed to start fresh. While he couldn’t change what was past, he could leave it all behind. Forever. And as soon as Molly’s killer was caught and a traitor unmasked, he would.

  “You know, I could give you a dozen reasons why I know I’m right about you,” Emma said.

  “Don’t waste your breath.”

  “Then just admit that I am right, and I’ll drop it,” Emma said.

  Derick snorted. She’d drop nothing.

  “We didn’t come out into the hallway to discuss me,” he reminded her. “I believe your intent was to take me to task for tossing your murderous footman out on his arse?”

  Emma heaved a very unladylike sigh, her shoulders slumping in resignation. “Do you truly think him murderous?”

  Thank God. She was letting the spy talk drop.

  “Knowing now that you have experience in such things, I am willing to defer to you in this matter,” she continued.

  Derick nearly growled aloud.

  “What do your finely honed instincts tell you?” she pressed and he knew—just knew—she was taking some sort of perverse delight in this.

  He heaved a sigh of his own. It seemed now that Emma was convinced that she’d blown the lid off of his own personal box of secrets, he had two choices. He could continue to deny, knowing she wouldn’t believe him and would consequently dig deeper and deeper. Or, he could control what she thought and how much she found out by leading her in the direction least dangerous to his mission.

  He just needed a little time to decide exactly what direction that was.

  “I’m not sure,” he said finally, his face and posture relaxing as he dropped the pretense. Had he ever noticed how tightly he held himself when acting a part? He did his best to ignore Emma, who was trying very hard—and failing—to conceal a triumphant smile. Superior, nosy little chit.

  “Some people are simple to read. Harding, however, is a cold fish,” he continued. “He gave nothing away, which typically means one of two things. He is either one of those few people who lack genuine emotions, or he is highly trained to hide them. Since it’s doubtful a footman from Derbyshire would have had that kind of training…”

  Or was it? Har
ding would certainly have had easy access to Wallingford—could have easily been the one to wheedle Wallingford’s secrets from him. Could the footman be the man he was looking for? “How long did you say Harding has been with you?”

  “I didn’t. Thomas joined our staff just after my brother’s accident. It was actually your mother who sent him to us. She insisted that we needed an additional servant to assist with the extra care George required.”

  “My mother?”

  “Yes. It was very kind of her. At the time, coin was very dear to us. She even paid Thomas’ wages until we could absorb them on our own.”

  That was a disturbing connection. First, he’d learned that a stranger, who could be Farnsworth, had been asking questions about his mother, and now he discovered she had placed a member of her own staff close to George Wallingford? It might be best to keep the man underfoot after all.

  “You know, Emma, I’ve decided you’re right. It would be unjust to toss Harding out with no real proof of his guilt.” Derick thought quickly. He couldn’t allow Harding to sleep in the same house as Emma—he wasn’t certain why not, since the man had lived at the manor for several years and Emma had never come to any harm. But he couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

  “Do you have faith in your stable master?” Derick asked.

  Emma blinked, frowning. “McCandless? Of course.”

  “Until Harding can be proven innocent, I will not allow him to remain in your home.”

  He waited for Emma to fight him, but she remained silent. Perhaps there was some silver lining in this bloody situation of her pegging him as more than what he pretended to be—it seemed now she knew he wasn’t some wastrel, she put a little faith in his judgment.

  “Therefore I propose a compromise. I suggest he remove to the stables, under the watchful eye of your man.” Of course, he would interview McCandless himself, to take his measure before he left Harding in his custody. He’d also give a few orders as to how the man should be accommodated.