Rake's Guide to Pleasure. (34 page)

Hart nodded absently, fairly certain they'd find nothing here, as they'd found nothing in the other huts and manors and cottages. Every lead seemed like a good one, every land agent perfectly sure that he'd dealt with a woman of her description. But a week of traveling up and down the coast through every village and hamlet had turned up two widows, several harlots, and one woman old enough to be his grandmother.

She wasn't here, and if she wasn't on the Yorkshire coast, then she may as well have sailed to America.

Jesus, she probably had sailed to America. And it would take his investigators years to find her, if they ever did. A headache bloomed to life behind his left eye.

"Just coming up on it now, sir. Shall I drive past?"

"Yes." He pushed wearily off the seatback to look out at the view. Green grass, wind-shaped trees, the same vista he'd been studying for seven days. And then a cottage, worn but charming. Chickens pecked at the yard. Hart's eyes began to glaze over.

The far side of the house came into view and two women bent over the furrows and hills of a garden. One of them looked like . . . He leaned closer to the door until the breeze touched his cheek. One of them looked like
Bess,
and the other. . .

She wore a wide-brimmed hat and a stained apron tied at the waist. Her dress was simple and modest, blue muslin sprigged with little green leaves.

It couldn't be her, laboring in a garden like a drover's wife. She was a baron's daughter, a gentlewoman. Then Hart remembered the extensive plots that had surrounded the burned-out shell of her uncle's home. He remembered that Mr. Bromley had commented on her dedication to the gardens.

But the dress and the chickens and the worn hat, and then she looked up and . . . and it was Emma. Her face transformed itself in an instant, from caution to intensity. She narrowed her eyes at the carriage, clearly studying its crest.

"Stop," Hart said, and the wheels began to slow as her face settled on stark fear.

He heard her say, "Bess." His foot touched the packed dirt lane.

She'd dropped her little bucket of weeds and was moving toward the back of the house when he snapped the carriage door closed. That froze her in her tracks.

Hart's emotions were held strangely at bay. He felt every inch the impervious lord as he walked toward her. Impenetrable and heartless. "I've been looking for you for weeks, Emma. Now I get the feeling you are about to claim you're not receiving visitors."

Her shoulders heaved with her panting, pale fingers twitched against her skirts.

"I have a few questions for you. I'm sure you understand."

Her hands reached beneath her chin to untie the ribbons of the hat. "Bess, I'll need a moment," she rasped.

Hart caught the motion of Bess rushing around the back corner. A moment later, a door slammed. Emma eased off her hat and smoothed her hair down before she turned slowly to face him.

She looked . . . lovely. Rested and healthy, cheeks turned pink in the warmth of the garden, hair damp at the temples. But her eyes had gone nearly vacant, animated solely by fear.

She said nothing, just stared at a spot beyond his ear. Whatever heat had colored her cheeks was retreating now, leaving sick white behind.

"Surprised to see me?"

When her eyelids fluttered, Hart felt satisfaction rush through his limbs. He was no longer the helpless one.

He cocked his head. "Did you think I would simply shrug and count myself lucky that you had gone? Did you think I would bathe away your scent and dress for the first ball of the Season?"

Her lips trembled as she tried to form a word. "Y-yes. Why would you not?"

"Why not? Hmm." He clasped his hands behind his back and looked her up and down until her fingers wound together in tight anxiety. "I was drunk, Emma. And angry. I was not, however, unconscious. Did you think I would not notice the blood, or remember the way you went so still beneath me?"

"I. . . I don't. . ."

"I know who you are, who you really are. Emily."

Her gaze finally snapped to his, eyes wide and swirling with dark emotions. "Please don't. Please don't tell. I am done with the kind of life I lived in London. This is all I have, all I wanted."

"And what of the deception you perpetrated in town? It is illegal to impersonate a noblewoman, you know."

"I know! I am sorry!" But her eyes were glinting with thought now, instead of regret. "I promise not to return. I've disappeared and that's all I ever wanted. I did just as you advised and bought into the funds. And I've never stolen from you or anyone else."

"Really? What of our trust and our friendship?"

"Please . .. I'll. . ." Her eyes darkened. "I'll do anything to make it up to you.
Pleased

Well, she'd gotten there quickly. Hart forced a laugh to cover his hurt. "Anything? Then invite me in. We will start with tea."

She nodded, a simple assent to the implication that he would use her body as payment for her crimes. And that cool nod finally popped the bubble that had muffled Hart's mind since he'd spied her. Everything he'd learned about her in the past month rushed into him like a tidal wave, sweeping his detachment away. By the time he'd recovered enough to think to pull her into his arms, Emma had walked past him.

Shaken, Hart turned and followed her toward the front of this new home she'd made for herself. At that moment, he felt sure he would have followed her anywhere if only she would give him some truth.

Chapter 21

The heart was surely not meant for this type of abuse. Emma's pulse beat madly, the same fluttering, useless speed that afflicted a captured bird. And like those birds, she was sure she would fall dead at any moment, that useless organ too overwhelmed to go on.

When his figure darkened the doorway, Emma jumped, though she'd been standing there waiting stupidly for him to appear. He had to duck to clear the lintel and so he looked that much larger when he straightened to his full height.

The door of Bess's private room creaked open; Emma heard her tentative footsteps as she came toward them through the kitchen.

"Bring tea, please," she said. "And then we will need privacy, Bess."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Privacy," Hart muttered as his eyes roamed the large front room.

This was all there was, this large space and the kitchen and two small bedrooms besides Bess's room in the back. She had her own entrance. She could come and go as she pleased, though she rarely budged. It was the perfect situation for Bess and for Emma, and he would ruin it all.

She hated him for gazing upon the walls, taking stock, and no doubt dismissing it as little worth losing. He could not see the tragedy he was about to unleash; it would mean nothing to him. And still he looked beautiful and tempting. Still she wasn't horrified to think that she would take him to her bed.

"How did you find me?"

He took his time finishing his perusal. By the time he looked at her again, Bess was rushing in with tea. Emma found herself trapped in his gaze for that long moment. Where there had been coolness, there was now heat. His ice blue hatred had shattered into sparkling torment.

She couldn't breathe, couldn't speak, until the sound of Bess's door slamming snapped through the room, and Hart blinked.

"How did I find you? I looked for you. I traced you back to Cheshire, spoke to everyone you've ever known. By all accounts you have always loved the ocean."

"But. . ."

He actually offered a pitying smile then, which spun her into confusion. "I am a duke, Emma. Most of our good countrymen will never meet a duke in their life. My status is a useful tool for gathering information from, say, land agents."

She snapped her jaw closed. "I see. Life unfolds its creases for you as it always does."

Hart cocked his head in agreement, surprising her. "I have never known a life like yours, that is certain." His gaze was gentling, his mouth losing its hardness.

He pitied her.

Oh, that scraped her pride in a vicious slash, even though her brain insisted his pity would prove useful. It could save her, save this life she'd carved for herself. And still she bared her teeth in a sneer.

"So you heard my story, did you? Found yourself melting
for that poor orphan girl? Let me guess the rest: you thought to yourself 'Well, here is a girl who needs a hand up. A gentle woman unused to a life of labor. She could use an income, a way to buy herself the pretty things she deserves, and I can provide that for her.'"

"Of course not—"

"Did you come here to strike a deal, Your Grace?"

The pity had vanished, along with her most likely chance of mercy. "You are as ridiculous and shocking as ever, I see. I did not come to make you my mistress."

"Do you mean to have me arrested?"

"No."

"Well, pardon my ignorance, but why have you gone to all this trouble if you don't mean to punish or take advantage?
Why are you here?"

At least she was no longer terrified. She'd passed terror and headed straight to reckless and irrational, challenging him when she'd meant to appease. But she could either meet him as an equal or fall to her knees and beg for mercy.

She would not grovel, not yet, so she forced herself to wait quietly for his answer, sure that if he would only give his reason, she could turn it on him, talk him out of it. But she'd shocked him somehow. He only swallowed and shook his head as little furrows formed between his brows.

Emma lost her patience. "You've hunted me down like a fox. I have a right to know why. What will you do with me?"

His hands opened as if to show that he held no weapon. "I don't know."

"Come, Hart. You claim to have searched weeks for me. Don't lie about—"

"Damn you,
I do not know.
I meant to have revenge, repay you for your lies. I hated you. But I promised someone I would not see you hurt. Strange to say it was an easy vow." His voice had fallen to a husky warmth that worked through her, but she fought the pull of that sound.

"Just your coming here hurts me." Her words were too close to the truth, so Emma scrambled to cover her feelings. "Your coach is parked in my lane, ducal crest ablaze in the sun. My neighbors will think me your doxy."

He raised that arrogant brow. "Ah, yes. What would a modest young woman have to do with a bachelor lord? How could the grieving widow of a merchant even have met a duke?"

He knew everything, had ferreted out all her lies. Emma's mouth went bone dry. He was drawing this out, torturing her like a cat tortures a mouse. "What do you
want?"

"Emma, I . . ." The words broke away on a sigh and he glanced at the chair behind him. When he dropped into it, Emma realized how very disturbed he was. He had probably never taken a seat before a lady in his whole life. This wasn't an act. He stared up at her, unaware of the emotion he'd betrayed.

He whispered, "I believed your lies in London." "Yes."

"And I treated you as a widow."

"Yes."

"I did things I shouldn't have done. Said things to you. . ."

How strange men were. Out of everything, this was his greatest upset? As long as some other man had taken her maidenhead, Hart had felt her deserving of all manner of lust. But her virginity had transformed her into some other being, someone more worthy than who she'd really been.

"Lay your guilt aside, Hart, if that's what it is. I was a maiden, but I was no innocent. . . in case you could not tell."

"You could not have known the—"

"Of
course
I knew." She was trying to show disdain through her look, but as the seconds passed it grew more difficult. His eyes, his beautiful blue eyes, were normally so shielded. But now she could see everything in them: worry and pain and knowledge, and a dawning horror. And then softness that wanted to pull her in and make everything better.