She bumped against the edge of her narrow bed, skittered sideways and pressed against the wall of her small room, breaking their dance.
Daniel laughed. “Surely you don’t fear me, Lady Emmeline. I remember a time when you would have run into my arms had I looked at you the way I just did.”
That enticing blush stained her cheeks once again. “We knew each other well then. I daresay we’re strangers now.”
“Fair enough. But for my part, I’m ever so anxious to make your acquaintance again. Surely you won’t deny me the pleasure.”
He lingered on the last word and was rewarded by the visible shake of her shoulders.
She cleared her throat. “Is that the price of your silence about my identity?”
He narrowed his eyes and appraised her from the top of her auburn curls to the tips of her kidskin boots. “If my silence is worth so much to you, perhaps I’ve set the price too low.”
She worked her throat, and when she finally managed to speak, her voice again rasped and scraped so divinely against his skin. “If you must know, I’m avoiding the obligations of playing the part of the earl’s daughter. My days on this ship are the last days of freedom I’ll have.”
Her echo of his exact sentiments gave him pause. But he refused to let her dissuade him from his agenda. “In that case, Lady Emmeline, yes, the price of my silence is your cooperation in our reacquaintance.”
She gave him one curt nod. “Then we’ll meet under more respectable conditions and speak as old friends. If that’s all...”
He shook his head. “Not so quickly, kitten. It’s a start, but just a start.”
She stared past him, over his shoulder, and seemed not to have heard him, although he knew she had. “But you must remember to call me Miss Trent.”
“Even in private?”
She glanced at him, then looked away again. “In those cases, Lady Emme. It’s what I prefer to be called now.”
Her words were like a bucket of cold seawater poured over him. Only her sister used to call her that. “I was sorry to hear of Eleanor’s passing,” he said quietly. “I sent a condolence letter to the family through my solicitor.”
“Yes, Edward told me.” She looked directly at Daniel. Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “He said he didn’t know whether it would comfort or cut me.”
When she didn’t offer any more, he took one small step away from her. “So, which was it? A comfort or a cut?”
“A comfort, of course. Not only the condolences, but knowing you were alive and well somewhere in the world.”
She’d been as anxious as her brother to see Daniel leave England. When had she become so skilled a liar? He ignored her feigned concern.
“Let me take this opportunity to offer you my condolences personally. It would have been difficult for any family, but for yours...”
Her younger siblings, twins, had died of scarlet fever when Meriden was twelve and Emme was nine. Each of them had spoken of it to Daniel—separately—exactly once, but it had been easy enough to see the pain it caused them.
Emme crossed her arms in front of herself. It made her look smaller, younger. “Mother never recovered from the twins, not really. And then Eleanor...she was the brightest light of the whole family.”
He clenched his fists at his sides as a familiar anger swept through him. He remembered far too well how their parents had doted on Eleanor. At least Meriden, for all his faults, had loved his younger sisters equally. It was one of the things Daniel had liked most about his best friend, in the days when they had been friends.
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. When she opened them again, she looked more like herself. He remembered that look as well. She no longer needed comfort and she wouldn’t accept it if he offered it.
“Thank you for your condolences, Mr. Hallsworth. You were always kind.”
He wasn’t. He hadn’t been for a long time. But she had always been a bit more naïve than she’d cared to admit. After all the world had taken from her, she still trusted it was more good than evil. As was she. Her love for him might have been fickle, but she’d been under no obligation to him. They’d taken no vows. He’d made no proposals, and she’d made no promises.
“Goodnight, Lady Emme. I’ll call on you tomorrow to discuss the terms of my silence.”
He left her room and made his way to the railing above decks. Staring at the white caps peaking on the black depths of the ocean, his head admitted what his heart had known all along.
He wouldn’t hurt Emme. He couldn’t. He’d been kidding himself to think for even a moment that he’d wanted to do so. Face to face with the goodness of the woman he’d painted as evil for the past five years, he could no longer carry his grudge against her. Her family deserved his vengeance for cutting him out of their lives, but he wouldn’t ruin and abandon her to exact it. There were other ways to make them pay. What had Granville said about the path to redemption? A good match would be the quickest route to it.
“Emme will be mine,” he said aloud.
After all these years, he still wanted her. And damn it, he would have her. She probably wouldn’t agree to a marriage proposal to an as-yet-untitled man, as she’d never loved him and perhaps never would. But she had desired him and perhaps would again.
Beginning the very next day, he would set out to seduce her. And then the arrogant earl and his pompous son would have no choice but to allow Daniel—nay, beg him—to marry Emme.
Regardless of what the Committee for Privileges decreed.
* * *
“I’m beginning to worry sea travel doesn’t agree with you after all,” Aunt Juliana told Emme the next afternoon.
They stood on the main deck enjoying the calm seas and warm sun from under their parasols. Emme would have loved to toss hers into the ocean, but Aunt Juliana was insistent the freckles must fade from Emme’s face before her father caught a glimpse of them. Her aunt had also insisted Emme change out of her dull gray frock and into something cheerier. Their opinions of cheery diverged, judging by the look her aunt had given the prim forest-green skirt and blouse Emme had chosen, but it did feel good to wear something different.
“It’s a headache, not the sea,” Emme said.
Being near the water no longer brought her physical discomfort, and today, unlike last night, she’d tamed the fear of it again. The source of her distress was something else entirely. The lovely weather had brought forth from their cabins everyone on the ship. Everyone except the one person Emme feared seeing. And yet his absence unnerved her.
“Let’s sit on the deck chairs.” Her aunt led the way and waited for Emme to take the seat beside her. “I’ve been thinking about your dilemma.”
Emme startled at her aunt’s words, wondering how she’d found out about Daniel and his price. Then it occurred to her that her dear aunt, who’d been her only confidante for the past year, was pondering Emme’s other crisis. “My father’s plan to display me like a prized cow to attract a husband. And what are your thoughts?”
“Tell him the truth. Tell him why you want to join the Spinsters’ Club. Tell him about the work they do for widows and deserted mothers with no prospects for themselves or their children. Under his gruff exterior, I believe he loves you. Perhaps he’ll listen.”
Emme could never tell him the truth, not all of it. She could never tell the whole truth to anyone, not even her beloved aunt.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I wish I could be as sure of his sentiments as you are. Since Eleanor’s passing, he’s hardened. Maybe if I convince Mother how important this work is to me, I’ll draw her over to my side. Between her and Edward, we’ll have to be able to convince him.”
Her aunt shifted in her seat. It made Emme feel off-kilter. “I don’t think you should count on your mother’s influence over your father, dear.”
“I know they’ve had their difficulties. There’s been a divide. But surely she can help me.”
Aunt Juliana patted Emme’s hand and silently stared ou
t to sea. Salty spray misted over the deck and moistened Emme’s skin. It chilled her to the bone.
“It’s a problem for another day,” she told her aunt. “Let’s not borrow trouble.”
There was already trouble enough for this day. Emme clutched the handle of her parasol and kept her gaze fixed on the horizon, dreading yet oddly anticipating, the imminent arrival of the man whose very presence could cause her carefully laid plans to come undone.
* * *
Daniel knew the moment Emme sensed his approach. She sat up even straighter and let out a sigh, whether out of anger, boredom, or resignation, he couldn’t have said. And he damn well didn’t care. Just as he didn’t care that Granville was scowling down at him from the bridge that very minute, Daniel having just told him he was staking a claim on “the governess” after all. Granville would get over it the minute he set his sights on his next conquest, if not sooner. In the meantime, Daniel had more pressing concerns than his old friend’s wounded pride.
He exchanged greetings with Lady Kendall, who had been a lovely dinner companion for the past several nights, then bowed to her niece.
“Mr. Hallsworth, let me introduce—”
“Lady Emme.” Daniel took Emme’s gloved hand and held it for several heartbeats longer than was respectable. “I’m an old friend of your niece, m’lady.”
“I had no idea.” The old woman glanced at Emme, who was absent-mindedly rubbing her gloved hand that Daniel had just released. “Then you must join us. Please, both of you, sit on my left side so you don’t obstruct my view.”
Emme opened her mouth to say something, then shot Daniel a murderous look. “Of course,” she told her aunt as she rose and moved to the chair on her aunt’s left side.
Daniel took the seat next to her.
“You do realize why she’s done this, don’t you?” Emme asked.
“Why she’s asked me to join you? I assume it’s because she has manners.”
That nettle seemed to stick as it drew him another murderous glare. “Not that. Why she’s seated us to her left.”
“To keep a watch out for pirates on our starboard side?”
Emme rolled her eyes. “You can be such a ninny. She’s done it because she’s deaf in her left ear.”
Daniel took a moment to consider her words. “So, our conversation, while chaperoned, is still private.”
Emme blushed a lovely color of pink as he emphasized the last word.
Daniel leaned back in his deck chair, stretched out his legs, and crossed them at the ankles. When she graced him with a glance, he shot his most wolfish grin at his prey. But he had no intention of being a merciful hunter, striking with one quick blow.
“So, tell me, Lady Emme, why were you in Spain?”
The confusion reflected in her furrowed brow proved he’d put her off-balance. She told him about her aunt’s infirmities and the need for a sunnier clime. She recounted walks along the cold sea in Valencia, and climbs through ruins in Barcelona, having spent half a year in each place. Somehow it stung to learn she’d been so near him. When he’d thought of her, which had been far too often, he’d still pictured her in London drawing rooms, English countryside fields, and especially the library at her family’s country estate. Yet for the past year, she’d been in the same country as he had, a few hundred miles away from the new home he’d made for himself. If he’d had any idea, he could have invited them there and shown her the beauty of the place that had earned a piece of his heart.
He told her about his chateau on a hillside in San Sebastian that overlooked the turquoise sea. He’d tried to spend at least a week there each month, watching the clouds turn pink and orange over the lush green hills at sunset, and enjoying wine and pinxto—a type of local hors d’oeuvres—on his balcony. He stopped short of telling her how lovely she would look, standing on that veranda, a glass of wine in her hand, the cool evening breeze streaming through her long, loose hair. Or how alluring she would be, flushed with color, wearing a brightly colored traje, dancing the flamenco with him at one of the nearby taverns. He told her instead about the time he’d spent along the French Riviera, but he didn’t tell her what had drawn him there, didn’t mention the man he’d visited, the old family friend who shared Daniel’s blood.
Emme smiled prettily when there was a companionable lull in the conversation, then twirled her parasol above her head, reminding Daniel of the flirtatious girl she’d been when he’d met her. He let the memory sink into his bones.
But he was well aware the flirtatious girl was just that—a memory. When he’d known her then, when he’d loved her and believed she’d loved him, he hadn’t kept any secrets from her. On the very day the Radcliffes had turned him away, he’d planned to tell her the marquess and marchioness, unable to have children of their own, had taken in their friend’s bastard and raised him as an heir. Now that time was past, their trust was broken, and with the marquessate in his sights, his secret would go with him to the grave.
“Whenever did you find time for all the harem girls, I wonder?”
He laughed quite genuinely. She was still a spitfire. He was glad to see grief hadn’t taken it out of her. “One can always find time for harem girls. Are there any other bizarre rumors, which might or might not have been propagated by our illustrious captain, we should discuss?”
“Captain Granville attached such elaborate scandals to you? Did you have a falling out at some point? Or perhaps you lost a bet?”
“To Granville? Never. I assume he meant well. He thought muddying the waters might distract from the speculation surrounding my departure from England.”
Daniel stared out at the ocean and thought of the last days with his mother, days overshadowed by her guilt about his parentage and his uncle’s cruel bid to steal the marquess’s title at the dying woman’s expense. Despite his promise on her deathbed to fight to regain the title and restore the family’s good name, he’d lost heart after he’d lost his best friend and the woman he’d hoped to marry in one fell swoop. A month after burying his mother, he’d collected the sizable portion of his inheritance that wasn’t entailed, set up the shipping enterprise with Granville, and set off for France and Spain to parlay his small fortune into a large one. He’d succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, but every day he lived with the knowledge he hadn’t fulfilled his mother’s dying wish.
Emme reached out one gloved hand and nearly touched his, then withdrew it and set it in her lap. “Your mother was a kind woman. She’d be proud of you.”
Not if she had any inkling of his plans for a respectable young lady, she wouldn’t. Still, a bit of the tightness around his chest eased. “Thank you. That’s kind of you to say.” And Emme was kind, as his mother had been. “How are your friends?” he asked. “I seem to recall the three of you were thick as thieves.”
“Tessa and Luci. It will be such a joy to see them!”
Her face lit up, and Daniel was struck with an urge to trace her cheek with his fingertips. Deep breaths and calming thoughts focused him. He was here to be kind and perhaps mildly flirtatious. Lover’s touches, kisses, and so much more would come later.
“They’re both well,” Emme said of her friends. “Tessa’s married. Perhaps you’d heard? Her husband is a friend of yours and Edward’s from Harrow days.”
“Yes, Alcott. Mr. James Alcott. He wasn’t one of the Five, but we did quite like him. He was an older brother figure to our wayward lot.”
The corners of her mouth turned up at the mention of the Five. Harrow’s Finest Five, as they’d dubbed themselves. Or more precisely, as Granville had dubbed them. Swimmer, Steady Eddie, Granville, Harry, and Hallsy. Heirs to a dukedom, two earldoms, a viscountcy, and in Daniel’s case, a marquessate, all scandal aside.
“Have you heard any news of Lord Harry?” Emme asked.
“Last I knew, he was in the jungles of Ecuador with a team of research botanists. Granville saw him there a year or so back.”
“And did you cross paths with him when you
were pillaging in South America?” She flashed her brilliant smile again.
“I’ve never had the pleasure of setting foot on that continent. Granville’s been the world traveler. I’ve kept up the rather boring side of the business: contracts, licenses, paperwork, other drudgery.”
“Have you kept up contact with the Duke of Wrexham?”
“Mostly by correspondence these days, although he was visiting me in San Sebastian when he received the summons from his father to return home to marry. No one knew at the time it was because the old man was sick.”
“Still, it hardly seems fair to force a marriage on someone who doesn’t want it.” Emme pretended to brush something away from her face, masking a tear, if Daniel wasn’t mistaken.
Perhaps an arranged marriage was the reason she dreaded returning to England. Knowing her father, it was easy to imagine. Daniel wondered whether the earl had already chosen a husband and made promises on her behalf. Not that such promises would matter by the time they disembarked onto English soil, given Daniel’s plans for her.
Was it so different, him making plans for her versus her father? He gripped the arms of his deck chair and stared at the horizon. It was a foolish thought. Her father meant to marry her off by force. Daniel meant to draw her into it through seduction. The new thought didn’t do as much as he’d hoped to assuage the tiny bit of guilt that plagued him.
He turned to happier thoughts of the seduction he’d carry out so very, very soon. Perhaps even tonight. He pushed away ungentlemanly images of what lay in store for them, and stepped back into the role of a well-mannered gentleman like shrugging into an old overcoat to find it too short and tight.
“And do you know how the duke’s mother is doing?” Emme asked, innocently unaware of his licentious daydreams.
“According to Granville, she made her reappearance in society late last spring. And she still knows absolutely everyone who’s anyone in London, and most of their secrets as well.”
She smoothed her skirt and didn’t meet his gaze. “Yes, she’s very well-connected. I’ll be sure to visit her and pay my respects when I’m back in London.”
One Kiss From Ruin: Harrow’s Finest Five Book 1 Page 3