The Princess and the Pauper (9 page)

Why was she different?

Her heartbeat quickened
just as lightning
sparked, and she wasn’t sure what had set off her pulse—his
admission or the storm.

“
Besides,” he said offhandedly.
“She has her reputation to consider.”

A strumpet with a
reputation?

“
A lady cannot visit a bachelor
in the dead of night . . . or so I’m told.”

A lady? His mistress was a real
lady?

And Emily
was not.

She
closed her eyes. He would dredge the
past and bring to light every sin. But she wasn’t prepared to
remember the ill-fated night she had gone to him, tempted
him.

She should have let
Rees walk away with
Papa’s admiration and his honor intact. She knew that now. But she
had risked everything for one kiss. Something a proper lady would
never do . . .

“
Are you well,
princess
?”

His voice
dropped
, and
the low timbre sent a shiver through her spine. All those years
ago, she had yearned for more than his friendship, more than his
music.

She had yearned for him.

“
I am well,” she lied and lifted
her lashes. “Why?”

“
You and I must clear the
air.”

“
What more is there to
say?”

There was plenty
more to say, of
course, all of it ugly, and they both knew it. She just couldn’t
express any of it, much less hear it from him.

“
You lied to me,” he
said.

She took a measured breath. He would not
let the past rest. And she had nowhere to hide. “I don’t know what
you mean.”

“
Your father—”

“
My father?”
Chair legs screeched against the
hardwood floor as she pushed the furniture back and vacated the
seat. “I won’t talk about Papa.”

He followed her across the room. “And
why is that?”

“
I won’t speak of the
dead.”

“
You won’t speak ill if the
dead, you mean?”

She whirled around. “How dare
you
?”

“
How dare
I?
How dare
he
leave you penniless, investing in wild
schemes?”

She balled her hands. Had
Rees
searched
the city for gossip about her father? Is that how he’d spent day?
Why? Why did it matter to him?

Because Papa destroyed his
violin.

Her m
ind returned to the awful moment when
Papa had crushed the magical instrument. He had crushed her heart,
too, for she would never hear another note from that violin again.
She would never hear Rees play again.

But Rees should be angry with
her, and her alone.
She
had tiptoed from her bedroom to be with him.
She
had tempted him into
a kiss. Her father had only protected her. And he wouldn’t have
needed to protect her if she hadn’t been so reckless, so
wanton.

Emily
glanced at the door, expecting Papa
to explode into the room. Again she remembered he was dead. He
never treated her the same after booting Rees from the house. Once
his fury had settled, he’d asked her one probing question. How had
Rees dragged her from her bed to his room without anyone seeing or
hearing the assault? And when she’d failed to deliver a prompt and
reasonable response, he’d viewed her with suspicion, right to his
dying day.

“
Outrageous speculation in
Argentina. Indiscrete investments across America. He was throwing
away money,” accused Rees. “Why would he do such a
thing?”

She stiffened. She
wouldn’
t
admit the truth about her father’s declining mind. His solicitor
had begged her to have him declared insane and save what was left
of his fortune. Her former fiancé, the Earl of Dresmond, had
pleaded with her to do the same, but she’d refused. She had already
betrayed Papa once with her entanglement with Rees, and she would
not do it again.

Besides, she
woul
d never
bring him down in such an inglorious manner. He’d established a
formidable reputation as a man of business prowess. Let the world
believe he’d made a series of ill-timed investments, that fortune
hadn’t been kind to him, but
never
let the world think Augustus Wright hadn’t a sharp
and brilliant mind.

Her fingers shaking, she walked
ove
r to the
stack of violin cases. She had piled the instruments in the corner
of the room earlier in the day.

“
What are you doing?” demanded
Rees.

She opened a case and pulled out a violin.
“I’m going to play for you.”

“
I’ve not asked you to play
for me.”

“
But you will.”

And t
he sooner the better. Already
disturbing memories of her father’s failing health crowded her
mind. His physical pains and violent mood shifts. His memory loss
and eventually delusions. And it had all started soon after he’d
found her with Rees.

She had pushed him
into
madness.

Rees
took the violin from her unsure
hands. “What are you hiding, princess?”

“
Don’t call me that,” she
snapped. “I’m not your princess.”

Not anymore.

“
Who are you, then?” he
asked quietly.

She had wondered that for most of her
life. As a child, the answer had been simple. She was her father’s
daughter, a lady. But as she matured, the simple things in her life
developed thorny branches. Her behavior grew more unladylike,
especially her behavior toward Rees.

Oh,
why
had she taunted fate so foolishly,
selfishly, the night she’d gone to him? She had betrayed the two
most important men in her life that day. And she’d lost them
both.

“
I don’t know
who I am,” she answered
truthfully. That much she wouldn’t hide.

“
You are my
guest
.” He
set down the violin. “I’ve advised the staff to do your bidding in
all matters. If you’d like to go shopping, take a maid with you and
charge all accounts to my name. If you’d like to go riding, take a
groomsman with you and enjoy the air in Green
Park. But I want you here every
night.”

“
To play for
you.”

“
That is our
arrangement.”

He had finally figured out what
to do with t
he “unexpected expense” of her—make her a songbird in a
gilded cage.

“
I am to stay here, then?
In this
room?”

“
No.”
His eyes darkened.
“You will have your
own suite of rooms down the hall, just as soon as they are
furnished according to your taste.”

Emily didn’t know why their
business arrangement disturbed her so much. What more could she
want under the ci
rcumstances? And yet she wanted more,
craved
more.

She paced from the window back to the
table. The awful reality of being physically bound to him without
shared tenderness made her increasingly restive, desperate for
escape. But a storm raged outdoors, leaving her with one
option.

“
I’d like to take a walk
through the
house.”

“
You are free to go where you
please.”

“
Thank you.”

“
Do not thank
me
, prin—” He
paused, then, “Our arrangement is a business deal, and I will
uphold my end of the bargain by taking care of your
needs.”

And she would
do her part by
looking after his, though there’d be no affection between them.
He’d made that perfectly clear.

Oh, she was
a fool! She wanted too much. She
had always wanted too much. And her selfish needs had never done
her any good in the past.

“
I’m going to take that
walk now.”

She couldn’t leave the room fast
enough.

CHAPTER
5

Emily explored the
majestic brownstone
mansion. She toured the morning room, smoking room, ballroom, even
the music room, but with the exception of the study and kitchen,
there was not a block of furniture in sight.

She couldn’t imagine why Rees
would purchase a palatial house and leave it
empty. He had plenty of money.
He had paid a small fortune for her. So why cocoon himself in just
one room with his music?

According to the few servants, who had
little instruction from Rees and were like sheep without a
shepherd, their master had one regular visitor, a male friend, and
no other guests. Gifts and invitations poured through the door, but
Rees ignored them all.

He wanted to focus on his music, she
assumed, but still, why maintain a vacant house? And one so large?
A small manor in the country would be more suitable for a
recluse.

Her footfalls echoed through the lonely
passages. She shivered and rubbed her arms, feeling like a ghost.
She would live as one in the unfurnished house, visit Rees every
night, like a haunting, and perform. But why? What did he want from
her? The music?

Her
walk had failed to cure her restless
heart. If anything, she was even more perturbed than when she’d
first left his room.

Emily
mounted the stairs and explored the
remaining bedrooms. At the end of her search, she discovered a
chamber with an en-suite and balcony, papered in more gaudy
patterns. She envisioned the space without the ornamental
trappings, the walls stripped of paisleys and papered instead in a
warm butter yellow, the bed alcove draped in rose fabric. This, she
supposed, would be her own room.

She wouldn’t have an apartment of her own.
She couldn’t press for a flat in a respectable part of town when
the mansion was so spacious and she hadn’t a reputation to protect
anymore. Still, she could fulfill her strange duty and play for
Rees every night if she had her own abode. She could visit him. Or
he could visit her. She needn’t live underfoot when he so obviously
wanted a sequestered life . . . unless he sheltered her for more
intimate reasons.

Her
breath hitched and her heart swelled
with longing, and perhaps a bit of hope, dangerous as that might
be. She yearned for his camaraderie again. She didn’t want to live
with him in the deserted house, like two lost souls. She wanted to
believe he still cared for her, that she wasn’t just a “guest” in
his house, even if he denied it. But how to be sure? A small voice
whispered—
music
.

Of course, music. A musician had to open
his heart to play, but an audience had to open its heart to hear.
And she knew just the melody to play to open Rees’s heart, to learn
the truth about his feelings for her . . . and if there was a
second chance for friendship.

~ * ~

Rain pattered against the window
like fingertips tapping glass.
The worst of the storm had washed over the city
and breaks in the clouds had allowed the moon’s light to cast its
glow—a greenish glow over a festering metropolis.

Grey looked away from his
reflection in the pane of glass and removed the
let
ter from
his trouser pocket. A chronological summary of Wright’s activities
during the last year of his life had been itemized and delivered by
Mr. Smith, who, it seemed, had brain as well as brawn.

More fastidious details were to
follow in a day or two, but the rundown revealed
a troubling turn of
events eight months after Grey had left the household. Emily had
been engaged at the time, and all seemed well, until a blundered
business deal marked the rapid decline of Wright’s
fortune.

Grey
walked across the room and turned
down the gas lights, leaving only the oil lamp burning on the
bedside table. He approached the bed and stretched out over the
mattress, tucking an arm under his head.

A
n unbidden memory came to mind—a small
hand in his, slipping away. He could still hear Emily’s bare toes
frantically scraping the roof tiles. He could still see the terror
in her wide brown eyes as she nearly plummeted to her death. Ten
years later, that “nearly” still spurred his pulse.

He never
imagined it would be her mighty
father who’d fall in the end. But the unthinkable had occurred, and
Grey studied the handwritten lines for the sinister secret. The
evidence was too vague, though, and since Emily refused to confess
what had really happened to her doting papa, Grey would have to
keep digging for the truth.

A rap at the door.

He crushed the paper and stuffed it under
his pillow just as Emily entered the room. Her warm eyes, uncertain
and searching, met his, and his chest tightened. Would a time ever
come when she wouldn’t steal his breath?