LITMIR.BIZ

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the game was up.

      ‘It was easy to open.’

      ‘Open?’ She tried to inject a great sense of surprise into the word.

      ‘Move the catch and turn the body of wood to the right.’ Said flatly as though he was running out of patience with the whole pretence. With trepidation she did as he instructed.

      Nothing was inside save a sheet of paper twisted strangely to stop it from disappearing down into the sharp end of the cane. Removing it, she ironed it flat with the palm of her hand.

      If you want what was in here you will need to trust me.

      The ornate Carisbrook baronial seal was stamped on to the bottom in red wax and her shock was compounded by the wariness on Asher’s face. It was all she could do to stop her voice from shaking.

      ‘Where is the map?’

      ‘I want a promise first.’

      She stayed silent, not trusting her voice enough to speak. Where the hell would he have hidden it? Her eyes flashed around his room in a quick survey of possible places.

      ‘Not here,’ he continued. ‘Falder is the only place I will return it to you and I want your promise to come there with me.

      ‘I cannot—’ He didn’t let her finish.

      ‘Where are your men?’

      ‘Outside.’

      ‘Bring them in.’

      ‘Now?’

      ‘Now.’ The lighter webbing in his eyes was easily seen, giving him a dangerous and predatory look. Not willing to chance a denial, she walked across to the window and lifted a candle, waving it twice.

      He noticed the sash had been raised. For her entrance, he supposed. And her exit. Lord, if he felt stronger this would have all been so much easier.

      A man came through the window with a knife in his teeth and two pistols tucked into his belt and he was closely followed by a second.

      Not servants at all, Asher thought, but pirates. He had had enough dealings with the likes of Beau Sandford to recognise those who scoured out a living on the open oceans. Lord, his ordered and controlled world was tipping up into more chaos by the second and he was angered anew by the silent questioning message that passed between the men and Emma.

      Complicity and knowledge. They had seen the cane and it was impossible not to feel the flare of anticipation. Nothing quite made sense and the ache in his head blurred a nagging connection that he knew he should be making.

      The burly Arab stationed himself at the door and Asher hoped that his sister would not take it on herself to grace him with one of her midnight visits. Taking a breath, he steeled himself to the task.

      ‘I would like Lady Emma to stay here. With her aunt,’ he added when he saw that she was about to argue.

      ‘You what…?’

      He ignored the smaller man’s outburst completely and carried on in a measured tone. ‘She will be chaperoned and protected.’

      A slice of steel was the only answer. The knife at his throat pressed in before he could utter another word. He made himself relax.

      ‘No, you will not hurt him.’ Emma’s voice shook and the knife melted away to be replaced by the angry dark visage of its owner.

      ‘If you cross us, your Grace, the last thing you feel on this earth will be my blade.’

      Asher laid back against the pillow. His head throbbed and the steady beat of blood in his ears made the world echo. Why did he not just give them the damn map and get them out of his life once and for all? Let them go back to Jamaica with the hard-won spoils of greed.

      He knew the answer as he looked at Emma. Because, like it or not, they were connected somehow. He could almost feel the tie that bound them, and see in the turquoise depths of her eyes the same loneliness that was inside him. He’d felt it from the very first moment of seeing her at Jack’s ball. Affinity. Alliance. Knowledge.

      And the realisation that her prime motivation for being in England was greed had not bent him from his purpose.

      A treasure map!

      He noticed she had replaced her gloves before calling in her men. And yet she would show him the angry scars upon her hands. Nothing made sense.

      ‘What did you want us here for?’ The man at the door spoke for the first time. ‘She could have told us what you have so far.’

      ‘I want you to stand guard on the trip back to Falder. I will pay good clean gold for you to find the safest way back.’

      The slur was not unheeded. ‘And what do you get in return for all this?’

      ‘The absolution of a debt.’

      Emerald started at the words. Had he remembered her from the Mariposa or was it the incident after the Henshaw ball that he spoke of? Nothing showed in his face save exhaustion, the tinge of red around his irises giving him the look of someone who had ingested too much bad liquor.

      Asher.

      He had been as near death as she had seen anyone, the blood from the wound on his arm coursing across the floor in a red river, taking away consciousness and making him clammy. She put the image from her mind and walked to the window, raising her hand against the moon. Her fingers shook when she thought of it. Still.

      Lord. The options closed in on her because she also knew enough about medicine to realise that for the next few days at least he should not be moved. And though his offer of a place here was appreciated, she could barely contemplate what his family must think of her.

      The absolution of a debt.

      The words floated in between the cracks of uneasiness and she felt both the power and the impossibility of them, for when she had torn off his shirt to tend to his wound she saw what she had not before.

      Scars. Rows of them cut across his back, ribboned flesh silvered and sliced diagonally. She imagined the pain he must have felt and the sheer raw fury of powerlessness. She turned back to face the room, and when Azziz nodded she let out the breath she had not realised that she had been holding.

      They would follow his instructions? They would take orders from a man who lay pale faced in a bed with a quarter of the blood that should have been flowing through his veins and the marks of slavery on his back?

      Yes, they would, because, even given his wounds, leadership and authority stamped itself easily into the lines of Asher Wellingham’s body and into the cadence of his words. A raw untamed wildness, all the more startling for the setting she had found it in. England. With its manners and protocols and ludicrous comportments.

      For a moment she was disorientated with the sheer longing of reaching out and just holding on. He could protect her as he protected his brother and mother and sister. And the tenants on his land at Falder and the servants in all of his homes.

      But she was Emerald Sandford and these dreams of safety were not for her. When she got the map, she would take ship for Jamaica, find the treasure and clear the debts that hung over her father’s name. And then she would rebuild St Clair.

      St Clair. Even the name was hard to say. She remembered crouching in the shadow of the trees with Ruby and watching the place burn, the flames lighting up the night sky for miles around, small pieces of ash floating into her sister’s outstretched hand. Ruby had laughed as she had wept, waiting in the glade against the red, red sky; when the morning had finally come, leaving the skeleton of one remaining wall, they had picked through the rubble and salvaged three pots and a half-burned spade. And her jewellery box, slung beneath a beam that had not quite caught fire, a small buffer against impending poverty.

      She shook her head and gestured to Azziz and Toro to wait outside. Using the moment of their departure to take the acupuncture needles from his arm, she found the darkness about his eyes worrying.

      ‘A

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