Regency 02 - Betrayal (5 page)

Connor engaged in a few moments of small talk
with the actress. Then, “I have a favor to ask, if you would allow
me a few private moments of your time.”

Biting her lip, she had to ask, “You are not
going to ask me to be your mistress, are you, my lord? As
flattering as the offer is, I am quite taken.”

Connor almost thought she was in earnest.
Then he caught the amusement in Adam’s eyes. “I am heartbroken,
indeed, Miss Emerson. However, that was not exactly what I was
interested in discussing.”

She threw a puzzled look at Adam who returned
it with one of his own. “How can I be of service to you,
gentlemen?”

“I understand you have some experience with
nursing sick persons,” Connor said. It was not a question.

“Nursing, my lord? Why, yes, I do. My father
was sick for many years before I finally journeyed to London. I
helped my mother take care of him until she died and then it was I
who nursed him for a time with the help of my sisters.”

Lord Connor appeared satisfied. Adam had a
sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. What the devil was the
other man up to?

“Good. I have need of your services.”

“Just what the devil are you doing?” Adam
asked then in a fierce whisper that was actually pointless since
Raven was standing right in front of him and could hear every word
anyway.

Giving his friend a look of supreme
annoyance, he said, “You have a patient whom you desperately need
to keep secret. Miss Emerson would never dare gossip about the
situation.”

Returning his attention back to Raven, he
asked, “Are you willing to see my patient and attempt to help in
any way you can?”

Raven looked from one man to the other, her
dark and perfectly arched brows drawn down in a V of confusion. “I
suppose I can meet your patient, but beyond that I cannot promise
anything.”

Adam listened with mixed feelings. On one
hand, Connor had a point. Raven would be the perfect candidate for
such a position. She would help Bri to the best of her ability
while keeping her mouth firmly shut. Society might be unhappy with
him bringing his mistress into what was more or less his family
home, but Society could go hang for all he cared.

On the other hand, Bri was a countess.
Despite her past, she should not be subjected to the company of a
kept woman.

With that thought, Adam glanced at Raven and
immediately changed his mind on the last point. Raven was more of a
lady than Brianna, Countess of Rothsmere. Bri’s past put her beyond
the pale.

Realizing he was being stared at, he nodded
once.

“Would tomorrow afternoon be too soon to meet
her, my lord?”

“Perfect,” Connor replied with a smile.
“Three o’clock?”

She nodded.

“Shall I send a carriage to you tomorrow?”
Connor asked quietly.

“Yes, thank you,” she replied, dismissing
them as regally as a queen.

Adam spent an unusually sleepless night,
tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable. His mind whirled
with thoughts of his guest, worry over her health and sorrow over
her actions.

Rising earlier than was his wont, he visited
his ward, found nothing to have changed, and sequestered himself in
his study to catch up some much neglected paperwork. When the hour
neared three, he rose and relieved the housekeeper of her post at
the countess’s bedside.

His expected guests arrived promptly and were
shown into Bri’s room. He rose to his feet and greeted them stiffly
before retiring into the corner to await the outcome of Raven’s
meeting with her potential patient.

They spoke in hushed voices by the bed as
Connor explained everything that was wrong with the countess and
the treatments he recommended. He listened attentively to any
opinions or questions Raven had and offered his own in return. They
were both very professional. Mrs. Campion returned and joined them
there, adding her two pennies worth with a confidence Adam had
never before seen her display.

It was at the very moment Connor turned to
say something to him, Adam, that Bri awoke.

“Adam?”

Her voice came out as a pathetic croak and
Adam rushed to her side. He picked up a glass of water and sat down
on the bed beside her. He slid one arm beneath her and gently
lifted her so she could drink. She still felt hot to the touch but
she seemed to be coherent at least. He hoped it was a good sign. It
had to be. The thought of her dying caused a distinct and very
uncomfortable pang in the region of his heart.

“Adam?” she said again, a little stronger but
still a pathetic whisper.

“I’m here, Bri,” Adam said softly, still
holding her up. She let her head fall against his shoulder and he
set the glass aside. He brushed a few strands of dark red hair from
her face.

“I’m scared,” she admitted with a catch in
her voice. A strange feeling of protectiveness welled up inside of
him at her faintly spoken confession.

“I’m here,” he said again as he held her
against him and stroked her hair.

He remembered the way she was before. She had
been vibrant and beautiful, full of life and willing to fight
anyone unwise enough to set her off. She had proven to be quite a
formidable prey to track and he had always secretly admired her
fortitude and inner strength. He hoped she was physically strong
enough now to beat the illness holding her. It would be a sad loss
if she were to die.

She was soon asleep and Adam became aware of
his surroundings once again. He looked up into the amused face of
his best friend and the blank expression of his mistress. He
wondered what she was thinking. He knew what Connor was thinking.
And Adam very much wanted to hit him for it.

Laying the countess gently back into her bed
and tucking the covers up around her, he turned to glare at Connor
and Raven. The former grinned back and the latter offered a
hesitant, fleeting smile as well.

“So are you willing to help, Miss Emerson?”
Connor asked the actress then.

“It is up to Adam, I think, my lord. It is
his home after all and his…secret.”

Her voice had very little of the husky note
it usually carried and Adam became aware for the first time of her
appearance. She wore a dark blue wool gown of very modest—one might
even say strict—cut with long tight sleeves and a high neckline,
although the waist was up around the armpits as fashion dictated.
Her hair, that glorious mane of shining black silk, was pulled
severely away from her face and actually gathered into a knot,
a
knot!
at the nape of her neck. She still had the seductively
exotic eyes but with the severe hairstyle, she appeared a little
less like she’d just emerged from a bedroom after a particularly
energetic session of lovemaking. She looked so very professional,
less like an actress and more like a governess.

Except for her lips. Her lips were made for
kissing and she would never be able to escape that fact.

Perhaps Bri need never know that her nurse
was an actress?

“Very well,” he capitulated with a slightly
mocking bow. He turned and left them to their plans.

She came awake slowly. She heard a husky but
decidedly feminine voice coming from somewhere far off to her
right. The voice was asking her how she felt and if she wanted some
water.

Water, yes. Bri opened her eyes and tried to
nod. She felt her body lifted and a glass was pressed to her
cracked lips. The water was cool and tasted subtly of barley. She
must be sick, she thought suddenly. What happened?

The glass disappeared, she was laid back
against the pillows and she turned to ask the voice where she was
and what had happened. The owner of the voice had gone, however,
and she was forced to wait.

She felt tired and achy all over but her mind
was restless. She drew every ounce of strength she possessed into
her arms and back and resolutely pushed herself up to rest her head
weakly against the headboard.

She must have dozed lightly because she
suddenly became aware of voices speaking quietly together right
beside her.

“You didn’t lift her up?” said a male one
sharply. Adam, she knew.

“No, I didn’t. She must have done it after I
left to fetch you.” It was the husky feminine voice again. She
sounded quite amazed and Bri felt very proud of herself for
accomplishing such a mundane feat as raising her tired body up.

“Does she have the strength to do that?” Adam
again, incredulous this time. Bri felt unaccountably hurt by his
disbelieving tone.

“I don’t see how she possibly could,” replied
a wondering third voice, male. She recognized Verena’s husband,
Lord Connor.

“I think she’s waking up.” The woman this
time. Amusement was rife in her voice.

Bri swallowed hard and opened her eyes. She
must have moved in some way to indicate she was awake. How else
would they have known?

The countess studied her three visitors with
a blank stare. Adam, she remembered well. She seemed to dream of
the man constantly. He haunted her. Lord Connor looked the same as
she remembered him except his hair was a bit longer. His eyes were
just as blue as always but the laughter was missing. They were
cloudy with concern.

The woman, exotically beautiful and seductive
even in prim brown serge and a severe hairstyle, was a complete
mystery to her. She had never seen her before, of that she was
sure. Any woman that beautiful would be indelibly marked in any
woman’s brain as the ideal one wants to be but will never
achieve.

She looks like a whore,
said a jealous
little part of her brain. Bri immediately castigated herself for
such an uncharitable thought. The woman was obviously there to help
her get over whatever illness had confined her to her bed.

Her bed? No, it wasn’t her bed, she thought,
glancing around with interest. Where was she?

“Where am I?” She whispered since it was all
she could do at the moment.

Adam stepped forward and locked eyes with
her. “You are at Lockwood. My house in London.”

The last was unnecessary. She suddenly
remembered everything. The fear dogging her every footstep; the
certainty that tonight was the night the master would come to take
his pleasure of her; the realization that she had nowhere to go and
night was falling; the intense hunger pangs that resulted in months
of stealing to avoid starvation; her eventual capture and arrest;
the cold stone of Newgate Prison; and the acceptance that she was
going to die.

But she didn’t die. Adam rescued her.

Only to turn her over to the very ones who
intended her harm.

She knew she should be grateful to Adam
Prestwich for saving her from hanging but she couldn’t get past the
fact that he was part of the reason she had ended up there in the
first place. If he hadn’t been tracking her so assiduously for over
a year, she could have stayed in the last tolerable position she’d
held. She could have stayed with Verena, Lord Connor’s wife. They
were friends. Bri badly needed a friend.

She felt so betrayed, by Adam, by her family,
by everyone and anyone who should mean something to her. It was a
depressing thought.

She realized Lord Connor was speaking.

“I’m sorry. What?”

He smiled and placed the back of his hand on
her forehead. The fever had definitely broken. He was relieved. It
had been fully five days since he had introduced Miss Emerson to
her duties until this exact moment occurred. He had begun to wonder
himself if she would recover.

“I merely said that your fever has broken and
you should be right as a trivet in no time,” he replied cheerfully.
“The only challenge now is to get you back to a healthy
weight.”

“I will take care of that, my lord.”

Adam bestowed a warm smile on Raven. She had
been a godsend for the past five days. After telling the manager at
the theater that she needed a vacation, Raven had actually moved
in. She had not been from Bri’s bedside for longer than a few
moments at a time. She even slept on a cot by the bed at night.

He had been tempted to coax her into his bed
at least one of those nights but even he knew better than to offend
his servants in such a way.

Bri caught the look that Adam sent the
mystery woman and she felt a fierce urge to slap her face. Her
feeling of pique was suspiciously like jealousy. But that was
impossible! That would suggest that she wanted Adam Prestwich for
herself. And she most certainly did not!

The woman turned to her then and smiled with
genuine friendliness and an awareness of something in her dark eyes
that the countess couldn’t even begin to understand. Lord Connor
took the woman’s hand and dropped a light kiss on her cheek before
taking his leave. Adam followed him out, leaving Bri alone with the
stranger.

“Who are you?”

Raven smiled again. “I am Raven Emerson.” She
dipped the most graceful curtsy Bri had ever seen.

“Why do you curtsy?” Bri asked curiously. She
hadn’t been curtsied to in over three years. It was something she
had been used to at one time, but not anymore.

“I am not exactly sure who you are—Adam has
left it up to you to tell me if you so choose—but I know that you
are my social superior.”

“If you don’t know who I am, how do you know
I’m your superior?” Bri whispered with a frown. She felt a strange
pang that this goddess referred to Adam by his given name.

“I am nothing but an actress,” Miss Emerson
replied in her strangely husky voice. “Everyone is my superior. I
am of that breed that is studiously ignored by the ladies and
secretly loved by the gentlemen.” She laughed lightly.

“You’re a wh—” She couldn’t bring herself to
finish the word. Which was very strange considering the less than
ladylike way she had spoken to Adam less than a week ago.