LITMIR.BIZ

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their fingers accidentally met, and everything slowed.

      Time.

      Breath.

      Fear.

      The beat of her heart narrowed as she felt the warmth of his skin. Reaching out, she grabbed the arm of the sofa. To stop herself falling. Into him. For ever.

      Whatever was wrong with her? She was acting like the simpering misses so prevalent in London and she did not even recognise these constant, damning blushes that seemed to consume her from head to toe. Her resolve firmed.

      ‘Excuse me,’ she said when she saw his pupils widen. ‘The accident at the ball yesterday has left me rather poorly…’ Leaving the explanation in mid-air she noticed that he had placed his cup on the side table as if making ready to catch her again.

      Poorly?

      When in her life had she ever used such a word? In the fading light of day she suddenly saw herself as he would see her. Vulnerable. Delicate. Feminine. She almost had to repress a smile. So easy to make men believe exactly what you would want them to. So simple to become a person of such little account. Lifting a fan from the table next to her, she was pleased for the cooling breeze it engendered and used the moment to take stock.

      Asher Wellingham was older and harder now and the icy brittleness that coated his eyes was disconcerting. Here, in the blandness of a London drawing room, she could feel a barely concealed danger, a thread of the warrior only lightly clothed beneath his well-pressed jacket and pantaloons. Untamed. Ready to pounce should she put a foot wrong. Oh, God, she blanched, she had already put a foot wrong, last night in her haste to get home, and she was worried by the way he watched her now.

      How could he not know me?

      She almost smiled at the whisper of the words as she took a sip of sugary tea, the quick infusion of sweetness bolstering her confidence further. With the practice of one well used to schooling her expression into the shape of something she wasn’t, she placed her hand across her mouth and stifled a yawn. Effortlessly.

      Asher watched Emma Seaton with an ever-growing feeling of speculation. He could not understand this woman at all. Nothing about her quite made sense. She still wore the same gloves she had had on last night, which was odd given that they were stained. And this morning, although the scar above her eyebrow was still unhidden, a nasty bruise on her cheekbone had been smothered in thick beige face paint in an attempt to conceal it. From whom?

      ‘You have hurt yourself?’

      ‘I fell against the side of a door. Miriam treated it for me just an hour ago and I hoped it was not too…too noticeable.’ Her hand hovered across the mark and he was touched by the movement. She wore the oldest clothes he had ever seen a woman dare to at any social occasion and her hair today was as badly tended as it had been yesterday. Yet she was embarrassed by the bruise upon her face? Nothing about Emma Seaton made sense.

      Nothing.

      She always wore gloves. She had the same accent as the mysterious and absent Mr Kingston. And she was frightened and decidedly delicate.

      Looking around him, other things jarred. The furniture was as badly down at heel as her clothing, yet in the shelf by the window sat well over a hundred books, leather bound and expensive. Kingslake. Wordsworth. Byron and Plato. English was the predominant translation, though many were embellished with the script of the Arabian world. Who the hell here would read those? Defoe stood in company with John Locke, non-conformist authors who chided the establishment with an underlying hint of something darker.

      Could the books be Liam Kingston’s? He was about to question the Countess on the matter when the doorbell rang and his sister and her maid swept in.

      ‘I am so awfully sorry to just drop in on you like this, Lady Haversham, but I had to come. I am Lady Lucinda Wellingham, and I was informed that Mr Kingston returned home here last night. After he helped me?’ The final enquiry was murmured somewhat breathlessly. ‘It’s just that I would so like to thank him, you see?’

      Asher crossed the room to stand by his sister. ‘Liam Kingston has departed, Lucinda. Back to…?’ His voice was filled with question.

      ‘His home.’ Miriam’s hesitation shrieked volumes.

      ‘But he will return?’ Lucy could barely contain her interest.

      ‘I do not think so. No.’ Emerald had regained her wits now that Lucy Wellingham’s face held not even the slightest hint of recognition. ‘He is married, you see, and his wife is from America. From Boston. She wants to move back there as soon as she has had her fourth child.’

      Lucinda paled noticeably. ‘Married with four children?’ She gawped. ‘But he hardly looked old enough.’

      ‘Oh, people are always saying that to him. Are they not, Aunt?’ Desperation lent her voice credence and she was pleased to see Miriam nod vigorously. ‘Perhaps in the dark you did not see him properly.’

      The Duke of Carisbrook’s face was inscrutable, though his sister insisted on some recompense. ‘We are going to Falder next week, Asher. Could we not invite the Countess and her niece? As a means of saying thank you.’

      Emerald’s heartbeat accelerated at the question.

      ‘Indeed.’ His reply could hardly have held less of a welcome, but, seeing the glimmer of opportunity, she seized upon it.

      ‘We would be delighted to visit your home, Lady Lucinda. Why, I could hardly think of anywhere I should rather go.’

      A way into Falder. A first unexpected providence. And although Emerald wished that he could have shown more enthusiasm for the promise of their company, she was not daunted. One night. That was all it would take.

      ‘And your cousin, Liam Kingston, would be most welcome,’ Lucinda added, ‘for I should deem it an honour to thank him for his assistance in person.’ She gripped her brother’s arm in entreaty and Asher Wellingham inclined his head in response.

      ‘Bring him along by all means, Lady Emma, for a man who can dispose so summarily of the Earl of Westleigh and deliver my sister home without recompense is to be much admired.’

      The thought did cross Emerald’s mind that his voice had an odd edge of question to it but she couldn’t be certain, for he did not look at her again before gathering his sister’s hand into his own and politely bidding them goodbye.

      As they heard his carriage pull away, Miriam began to smile. ‘I would say that went very well, would you not, my dear? Aye, very well indeed.’

      Emerald crossed to the window and looked out.

      Very well?

      She wondered if her aunt needed new glasses and smiled at the thought before gingerly touching her own throbbing cheekbone.

      ‘What do you know about the Countess of Haversham, Jack?’ Asher leaned back in a chair in his library and drew on his cigar. He’d barely managed an hour of sleep last night but, with his body mellow with brandy, the peace here was pleasant. For just a moment the familiar anger that haunted him was quieter.

      ‘Her husband, Matthew, died from heart failure five years back and it was said that his gambling debts were substantial.’

      ‘So the Countess sold off the furniture to pay her creditors?’

      ‘She what?’

      ‘Sold off the furniture. I was at the Haversham town house in Park Street this morning and there were three chairs and a table in one room and little else in any of the others.’

      Jack leant forward, intrigued. ‘That explains the gowns they wear then. And the niece’s hairstyle. Home-done, I would wager, and by her very own hand, though there was something Tony Formison told me yesterday that did not ring true. He said that Lady Emma had not come down from the country at all, but had arrived a few months ago aboard one of his father’s ships with two black servants and a number of very heavy-looking chests.’

      Asher

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