To look at the chit, he’d not have guessed her to be worth the monies put to her, but Zach had to conclude that his father certainly thought her wares pleasing enough, if he’d bothered to include her in his will only two months ago, and include her generously indeed.
Distastefully, he inclined his head to summon the wench once again to him, bound to get on with this business, however offensive it might be. Ambling his way with a practiced sway to her ample hips only fueled further Zach’s already pounding irritation. As she neared, Zach again wondered at his father’s tastes, for this woman was clearly one who’d seen more years than likely she’d admit to, not all of them kind, and whose brazen manner with any and all left a distinctly sour taste in his mouth.
When she stood directly before him, her tray pushed with strategic ambition into one hip while her hand clasped the other, she offered him a flirtatious and hopeful smile, just as she had every time she’d approached him today. “What can I do for you, fine sir?” She asked, aiming for a seductive tone, which proved completely off-putting to Zach.
“You are acquainted with Earl Lindsey?” He asked, his tone informing her that he wasn’t here to seek companionship.
“I might be,” she answered saucily, but with suspicion. “Who’s asking?”
“When was the last time you saw him?” He wanted to know. Zach needed to know how recently this tawdry affair had taken place, for certainly it had a lasting effect on his father.
The wench frowned a bit now, not prettily. “I still want to know who’s asking.”
“The present Earl of Lindsey is asking,” Zach answered curtly. “Now answer the question.”
Sensing now that she’d get no offers from this gent, the wench sighed audibly, looking irritated herself. The false sultriness disappeared from her voice. “I ain’t seen him in months. And I only seen him a few times anyway. He was all about Emma, only wanted her.”
Startled, Zach frowned sharply at the server. “You are not Emma Ainsley?”
“Nothing to confuse between me and the princess,” she said with ill-concealed hostility.
“Where can I find Emma Ainsley?” He wanted to know then.
But she only shrugged her shoulders and made to depart. Wishing to smack her, but needful of her help, Zach grabbed her by the arm and thrust several coins into her free hand. “Fetch her now.”
He watched the red-haired wretch consider denying him, her eyes contemplating the coins in her hand. She might have liked to toss them in his face but with a small huff, pulled her arm from his grasp and left the taproom.
Zach blew out a frustrated breath and set to wait for the real Emma Ainsley to appear. Twining his long fingers around the empty tankard before him, he contemplated his growing fury, and wondered if Emma Ainsley was cut from the same cloth as the red-haired woman. Keeping his eyes trained on the door through which the woman had disappeared, he was soon rewarded with her reappearance. But no one had followed her, and Zach’s frown darkened yet again.
In the next instant, however, the frown vanished completely when a woman—a girl, really—walked into the taproom. Stunned by this unexpected turn, Zachary Benedict sat a little straighter upon his seat as he studied whom he supposed now was the actual Emma Ainsley.
The tart gave her no direction that Zach could see so that Miss Ainsley was left to search the taproom for whoever might have summoned her.
Zach’s next breath emerged rather quickly, and it came to him quite suddenly that his father had indeed not lost his mind. If this in fact were Emma Ainsley, he blamed his father not at all for forgoing his well-heeled position in life to take up with her. In all his thirty odd years, Zach could not ever remember being deprived of breath upon first sight.
Until now.
Emma Ainsley’s eyes moved about the room, having started at the side opposite from where Zach sat, affording him several long seconds to appreciate her allure. Beautiful was too tame a word to apply to such a beguiling face and form. She stood perhaps a few inches over five feet, her build slender, yet curved in all the right places. Long gleaming tresses of perfect mahogany were tied in a neat ribbon at her nape, falling then to her hips, while a few stray tendrils escaped to frame a face over which the angels must certainly sigh. She was too far away to discern the exact color of her eyes, but they must be blue, he decided—only blue would do justice to those eyes, large and round and tilted so charmingly up at the corners, set upon skin perfectly creamy and smooth, just a hint of color from regularly seeing the sun, he guessed. Her nose was small and delicate, and below, her parted lips bowed generously enough to surely tempt a saint.
In the next instant, her eyes did settle upon him, and Zachary determined that Emma Ainsley was just about as enchanting a creature as he had ever seen. As he was watching her and did not look away when her eyes landed upon him, she wisely guessed that it was he who had called her, and began to walk toward him. Something inside him twisted and roiled as she moved, as at least half a dozen hungry eyes followed her with frank appreciation. This, however, recalled the reason for this meeting, and Zachary was miserably reminded of exactly what she was. Strangely, this seemed to lessen her appeal not at all.
But something in his visage must have changed with these thoughts, for her steps faltered—almost imperceptibly—and her ethereal features took on an anxious mien. In a moment, she stood beside his table, her hands worrying the skirt of her apron, which covered a simple and well-worn gown of gray.
“I am Emma Ainsley,” she informed him, her voice soft and slow, nearly exotic the lilt of her tone.
“I am Lindsey,” was all he said, scrutinizing with great intent her face at this introduction. He knew immediately when this clicked in her head, for her lips parted again, her beautiful eyes widening with distress. Slender fingers flew to her mouth to stifle a cry as her eyes watered immediately.
“What—where is...?” She couldn’t seem to form a complete thought, and if Zachary didn’t know better, he’d have imagined that her grief was genuine as she realized that if he were the earl, it could only mean that his father was deceased.
“My father died on the 19th,” he said simply, nearly brusquely, disliking this feigned anguish of hers.
With a small squeak at the harsh slant he applied to his tone, Emma Ainsley slumped into the stool opposite Zach, covering her face in her hands, crying with such trueness he nearly thought her sincere. She tried noticeably to control her sobs, taking huge breaths to stave them off, but they continued to come. She did not cry loudly, as to attract attention, but with seeming true pain, keening softly. After a moment, in which time Zach’s discomfort had grown powerfully, she lifted red and wet eyes to him.
“What happened? He was not unwell,” she protested, waving her hand in agitation. “I saw him a fortnight ago—was there an accident?”
Zach shook his head, beginning to believe that her sorrow might be genuine indeed. “No, he was not unwell,” he answered vaguely, his mind moving ahead, for if this torment before him were real, he needed then to know the exact extent of the relationship between this lovely woman-child and his father. “He, ah...” he said, making an effort then to bring himself back to the question at hand, “he suffered a stroke, that is all. He was gone almost instantly.”
This evoked a fresh wave of tears and Zachary began to feel decidedly uncomfortable, as he knew not what to do to console the poor girl. As they—her vocal sorrow, that is—were beginning to draw undue attention, Zach touched his hand to hers to garner her attention, as she had covered her face again. She startled and jumped at his touch and looked sharply at him.
“Perhaps there is a private room we might use to conclude our business,” he suggested, raising a brow expectantly, “and where you might...grieve without so many watchful eyes upon you.”
Surveying the room then as if it hadn’t occurred to her that many eyes indeed did watch her—perhaps often and fixedly, even when she wasn’t beset by grief—she nodded quickly and stood, facing Zach on
ce again. “Um, I have rooms abovestairs,” she said, pointing imprecisely toward the door from whence she’d come. Something seemed to strike her then, some thought made her tilt her head curiously at him. “Had you... other business with me other than... bearing this news?” she asked and then sniffled more.
Taken aback as he was by the sight of those haunting eyes, Zach did not answer immediately, but considered as he also stood from his stool, that she tried just now with this query, to dismiss him.
“Yes, I have business with you, Miss Ainsley,” he said coolly.
She nodded tensely and led the way from the taproom, ignoring the watchful and frowning eye of the beefy man behind the bar. Zach met the proprietor’s stare straight on, in such a foul mood as to nearly want to provoke something here. But the man, having curled his lip to advance his own opinion of Zachary, continued only to apply a damp towel to the inside of the used tankards and otherwise intrude not at all.
Zach followed her down a dim corridor and up a flight of narrow stairs at the end of the building, pretending that he was not at all entranced by the smooth sway of her hips, nor the length of her dark hair floating down her back. Upon the second floor, she opened the last door and stood holding its handle while her hand invited him inside.
A middle aged woman, with a harsh country look of long years of sun-up to sundown work, sat in a chair within the room. She may have been dozing but jumped a bit as light spilled into the room.
“What is it, girl?’ She asked, rising and going to Miss Ainsley, giving a quick matronly frown to Zachary.
“Oh, Mrs. Smythe, the earl... he’s gone,” the younger woman cried. Mrs. Smythe looked equally upset and hugged the girl long enough to cause Zachary discomfort, impatience perhaps, standing in the doorway.
He took in the whole of the room in one glance, the lone narrow cot in one corner of the room, the pretty lace curtains hanging from the one small window, the neatness of these chambers despite its cramped appearance, and even the warmth they seemed to emanate. But his brow furrowed, forgetting all of this, when his eyes settled upon a pine crib, crudely made, in another corner. Zach’s brow lifted as he realized the crib was occupied.
Sitting up within that piece of furniture, while two chubby hands held tightly onto the side rail, a cherubic blonde baby began to bounce her bottom upon the firm mattress at the sight of Emma. “Mama! Mama!” The child cried happily.
“Thank you, Mistress, for looking after her,” Emma Ainsley said rather absently but dismissively as she went to the child. Mrs. Smythe bobbed her head a bit, her own eyes glistening with tears and left the room, giving one more hard glare to Zach and making a point of pushing the door even wider open.
Glancing nervously at Zach, Emma went directly to the child, scooping her up and out of the crib. “You should be sleeping, darling,” she said softly, kissing the girl’s pink cheeks, seeming not at all put out that the child was indeed awake. But upon gathering the baby to her bosom, another bout of tears consumed her, and she kept her back to Zach while she cried heartily into the baby’s hair.
Zach witnessed this scene with something akin to horrified shock. While the child looked nothing like his father, seemed in fact to resemble her mother quite favorably, aside from the very blonde hair, Zach had to imagine that this was indeed...his sister.
He erased all expression from his face as Emma turned to him again, while the child clung to her neck. He discarded the idea that Emma Ainsley appeared entirely too young and too...innocent to have borne a child—for the evidence stood not ten feet from him—and finally understood the stipulations in his father’s will. The monthly stipend had been created to care for his father’s child, not simply the mother.
“Please, have a seat,” Emma offered, indicating the small cloth covered table and two slat-backed chairs which were pushed snugly against the wall at the end of the cot.
Feeling as if the wind had been knocked out of him, Zachary certainly thought he should sit right now and pulled out the closest chair, depositing himself upon it.
“Who is this?” He asked, wondering why—embarrassment not being a plausible excuse—his father hadn’t informed him that he had a sibling.
“This is Bethany,” Emma told him in a teary voice, taking up the opposite chair, pulling a very expensive looking doll upon the table top nearer to the child, whom she settled nicely in her lap. The little girl, however, seemed as curious about Zach’s presence as he was about her very existence. “Bethany, say ‘good day’ to Lord Lindsey.”
“Good day,” said the baby, though it sounded more like ‘goody’. And then she giggled and gave her full attention to her doll, whose dress, it seemed, might have cost more than the plain frock that Emma herself donned.
“I am sorry for your loss, my lord,” Emma finally said, but her eyes did not meet his. “Your father spoke often of you.” She struggled with these words, and Zach thought she might begin to cry again, but she did not. Eventually, she did raise her watery eyes to his, and he was amazed anew at the bright blue of those orbs, and the pain reflected there presently.
“Thank you,” he acknowledged, and found himself so disturbed by this woman and these circumstances, and the presence of this child that he thought to get right to the crux of his visit. “I came today, having been read my father’s will only yesterday. I was not aware of your existence until only then.” Without further preamble, he informed her, “My father made provisions for you in his will, added only recently, and you will thus be given a monthly allowance. I assume his intent was that these monies be used for the care of...Bethany.” Admittedly, at this moment, he was a bit surprised to find no spark of interest in her eyes at this news, no lightening of those sad features upon hearing of her good fortune. Purposefully, he named the monthly sum she was to be granted, expecting now for certain to witness some selfish jubilation, some twisted grin that might have said, Ah, I swindled the old man after all, but there was no evidence of this either.
“I don’t understand,” she said instead.
Perturbed by her lack of telling response, Zach said tersely, “Miss Ainsley, my father changed his will to include you—apparently you made quite an impression upon him—and changed it so benevolently toward you that you needn’t remain here in this hovel if you preferred not to, and you needn’t slave belowstairs for little more than a swat on your rump and too little coin. I am only surprised that my father allowed you to remain here while he lived.”
She waved this aside, seemingly still affected by the very fact of the earl’s death, and said vaguely, “He...he tried often to persuade me to find other accommodations—your father was exceedingly kind and generous when he needn’t have been—but it wasn’t his responsibility to take on the burden of Bethany and me.”
Growing angrier by the moment, her continued pretense at innocence draining him, Zach bit out sharply, “I beg to differ, Miss Ainsley. Many mistakes my father might have made—pardon me for saying you might have been his greatest—but he was a man of honor and he knew his obligation and thus, it was his duty to see to your care, and that of the child.”
Now it was her turn to frown heavily at this, but she also appeared a bit shaken by his rough tone and pointedly unkind words. The child in her lap had refocused her attention on Zach as he’d spoken so callously, and now he met with two pairs of equally blue eyes, both wary and unnerved.
Emma Ainsley stood, settling the child again at her trim hip, and squared her shoulders as she said to Zach, “Lord Lindsey, I am sorry for the loss of your father and I do thank you for bringing me this news when it is quite apparent you’d rather be anywhere else.” She walked to the door with clear intent, holding the handle firmly. “I did not ask anything of your father, and I do not need it. Bethany and I do just fine by ourselves. Good day, my lord.” And she waited expectantly, her breath coming in short and shallow huffs.
Zach stood and strode purposefully toward her. “This is not something you may refuse, Miss Ainsley. I will not allow
the child to continue to live here.” He gestured angrily to the sparse room as a whole, and again his tone was brusque. After all, who was this chit to refuse these monies? Was she holding out for more? “If you think—“
Her hand, lifted to silence him as no man had ever dared, did indeed quiet him.
“I think, my lord,” she began with mocking emphasis, “that your father was twice the man you are—for you are not more than an overbearing brute without a speck of his kindheartedness. The money is yours. I refuse it. Good day.”
“So be it,” he allowed contemptuously. With only one last look at the baby, he stalked from the room, hearing the door slam behind him when he was barely passed through it.
Zach Benedict seethed the entire ride home to his estate in Cheltenham, which he had made his permanent residence upon his sire’s death, giving up his bachelor pad in Mayfair for now. No doubt the chit had gotten under his skin, but he didn’t know if he were angrier at her refusal of the allowance and her dislike of him, or because she was reasonably off-limits because she had been his father’s mistress. Yet one thing he did know, the very picture of Miss Emma Ainsley, in all her proud glory as she’d effectively kicked him out, would stay with him for a very long time. There had been rare occasions in his life when he did envy his father, despite the fact that he loved him truly, but of a certainty this was one of them.
If I Loved You (Regency Rogues: Redemption Book 2) Page 3
