by Abby Ayles
“And what situation might that be?” Lucius said, his voice becoming more mocking by the moment.
Emma leaned across the desk, putting her finger pointedly on the pages between them.
“This situation,” she said. “It is quite clear what is happening with these ships.”
“Is it?” Lucius said with a chuckle. “And can you prove anything?”
Emma stared at him, her mouth falling open. Was he serious?
“I believe that this paper is more than proof enough,” she said, fuming.
Lucius looked at the paper again, then looked up at her with a wide, cruel smile.
“What I see is a page from a legitimate business ledger, with your very own signature,” he said evenly.
Emma grabbed the page and held it up.
“I absolutely never signed anything like this,” she said.
“Where is your proof?” Lucius asked again.
At last, it hit Emma what Lucius was saying. The forgeries were excellent, perfect even, and it would be difficult to argue that she had not signed the paper, and any others like it, herself.
It would not be too difficult to argue that she had done it during a state of deep grief, either for her parents or because of her brother’s failing health and impending death.
“I do have witnesses,” she said, thinking quickly.
She knew that Rosaline believed her about not knowing the ships existed, and Marcus certainly knew that she had never put any signatures on any business ledgers related to any ships whatsoever.
And she felt sure that Francis would vouch for her, as well, if it became necessary. Surely, an earl’s word would count for something.
However, Lucius’s grin grew impossibly wider.
“Once they find out what you have been up to, I have no doubt that they will all but act as though you do not even exist,” Lucius said.
Emma blinked, confused.
“And what is it, exactly, that you believe I have been up to?” she asked.
Despite his apparent dishonesty, she could not believe his arrogance or his obvious pride at having deceived her for so many years.
“Oh, it is what I know you have been up to,” Lucius said. “Or, rather, what everyone else will believe that you have been up to.”
Emma shook her head, her rage returning.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, frustrated and wanting to scream at the top of her lungs.
Lucius slowly rose from his desk and walked over to his many rows of files. He took one from the shelf just as slowly, and then sauntered back over to his desk, his hideous smile never leaving his face.
Emma could not understand how he could be so smug when she could easily end his career with everything she now knew.
Lucius opened the folder and tossed it down on his desk, turning it so that she could read the pages as he flipped through them.
“It would seem that you are having inappropriate relations with your employer,” Lucius said. Emma barely heard him, however. She was reading the pages as he turned them, and she could barely believe what she saw.
How had he found out about her kiss with Francis? Had Francis betrayed her? And why would he use the kiss against her? Her mind was reeling.
Lucius seemed to notice her distress and laughed.
“That is not all, my dear,” he said. “You have gone to great lengths to keep Marcus and his illness a secret. I do not suppose that people will wonder why that is, do you?”
Emma felt the color drain from her face, and Lucius laughed maniacally.
“You- you will never get away with this,” Emma said, keeping her voice even and firm.
“Won’t I?” Lucius asked.
“Lord Ashfield will love to hear of all of this, I am sure,” she said.
“I doubt very much that he will be pleased to hear that someone he believes he knows so well is capable of such atrocities.”
Lucius howled with laughter. Emma gripped the edge of the desk to keep from slapping him, or from swooning and hitting the ground, which she rapidly felt slipping out from under her.
“Oh, Miss Baker,” Lucius said, wiping his face with his handkerchief. “You still do not understand. It seems that there is a thief at Blackburn Manor.”
Emma gasped. “You cannot honestly think that that has anything to do with me,” she cried.
Lucius shrugged, still laughing.
“What I think is quite irrelevant,” he said. “The point of the matter is that Lord Ashfield is most certainly going to notice that things have started going missing since you came into his employ.”
“He knows that I am no thief,” Emma said, her temper flaring.
“Does he?” Lucius asked. “I would not be so sure if I were you. Especially when something very valuable and precious to the Earl, something once belonged to his wife, goes missing.”
“How could you possibly know—” Emma began.
Realization hit her hard enough to leave her breathless. Her knees trembled, and for a moment, she feared that she would collapse on the floor between the chairs where she stood.
She leaned on the desk, for support this time rather than out of anger.
“Oh, yes,” Lucius said, as though reading her thoughts. “I believe something quite valuable, indeed, is about to go missing from Blackburn Manor.”
Emma stared at him, in complete shock. She floundered for something to say, but all she wanted to do was cry.
“You will never get away with this,” she choked at last. She cursed herself for how helpless and defeated she sounded. She was horrified at all that had transpired.
“Won’t I?” Lucius repeated.
“I will explain what is really happening to Lord Ashfield,” Emma said.
Some of her confidence returned as she thought about what Francis had said to her at the cemetery. If he had feelings for her, she knew for certain that he would give her the benefit of the doubt and let her explain.
“And how will you prove it, my dear?” Lucius asked. “I have never set foot inside Blackburn Manor. My hands are perfectly clean.”
Emma understood the implication of Lucius’s words well. However, she had faith in Francis’s kindness and fairness, and she believed that she would get him to see what had been going on.
“I suppose that is for me to worry about,” Emma said confidently. “Rest assured, however, that I will explain it, and he will believe me.”
Lucius only responded with another bout of laughter. Emma had to resist another urge to scream at the man.
Instead, she stormed out of his office, determined to prove him wrong and show him that Francis would believe what she told him.
Chapter 28
Francis grew more furious by the moment.
He could not believe that Emma was the exact kind of person Charles had insinuated that she was. Worse still, he could not believe that he had jeopardized his friendship with the man by vehemently defending someone who could do such a thing to him.
What angered and wounded him worst of all, however, was that he had allowed himself to feel so many things for her.
Thinking back, he knew that he should have suspected that something was not right with Emma. All her secretive behavior, her refusing to tell him things, even whenever he asked her directly, and her frequent trips into town for reasons she would never quite disclose should have given him a clue.
And to think he had exposed his children so blatantly to someone as underhanded as her. He had been so blinded by her sweetness and beauty that he allowed himself to mistakenly place all his trust in her.
He could not change the past, but he knew he could do one thing. He could protect his children from her. And that was exactly what he intended to do.
A dreaded thought occurred to him. What if the children came seeking Emma and overheard the argument? It would be difficult enough to explain things to them after it was all over, without having to try to coax them to forget whatever they heard.
Think
ing quickly, he called for the nanny.
“Margaret,” he said, perhaps a bit louder than he intended.
A moment later, the nanny appeared at the head of the stairs.
“Yes, milord?” she asked.
Francis cleared his throat and tried to appear casual.
“I need you to keep the children occupied for the rest of the evening,” he said, his gruff voice betraying the calm air he was feigning.
“Of course, milord,” she said. She started to walk away, but she turned back, her face wrinkled up in a strange expression. “Has something happened?”
He thought her words as strange as her expression, but he felt that it was just her nervous perception of his agitation.
He bit his lip to keep from growling at her. Drawing unnecessary attention to the situation now would utterly defeat the purpose of trying to remain fairly discreet until all was done.
He gave her a tight-lipped smile.
“In due time, Margaret,” he said slowly, fighting to keep his voice calm. “For now, please just do as I ask.”
“Yes, milord. I am sorry,” she said, turning and practically running in the direction of the children’s room.
As the nanny hurried away, he considered speaking to some of the servants. The more evidence with which he could present Emma when he confronted her, the stronger his case for dismissing her.
But he thought better of it. Even in his infuriated state, he could not deny the pang in his heart where his feelings for her had once been.
He could fire her, which would result in the end of her career in the ton, no doubt. But just because she was conniving did not mean that he could be. His servants would learn what had happened soon enough, without him perpetuating things.
He was a more refined man than to stoop to the level of humiliating her in front of his entire household staff. She would be humiliated enough throughout the ton.
And, despite his anger and shame and feelings of betrayal, he found he could not bring himself to hurt her like that.
As soon as the front door opened, Francis closed the distance between himself and Emma in two long strides. He had already been quite furious but seeing her face, and her surprise at seeing the rage on his, made his blood boil.
He took a deep breath to keep his voice low.
“We need to talk, Miss Baker,” he said.
The color drained from Emma’s face, and Francis knew in his heart that she knew she had been caught.
“Yes, we certainly do,” she said. “I just returned from town—”
“I am well aware of what you were doing in town, Miss Baker,” he hissed.
Emma gasped. An expression Francis could only identify as guilt crossed her face.
“You are?” she asked. “But, how?”
Francis laughed bitterly.
“How long did you think it would take me to catch on?” he asked.
For a moment, Francis thought he saw something like relief on Emma’s face, and it confused him. But only momentarily. As Emma opened her mouth to speak, Francis interrupted her.
“Did you really think that you would get away with a scheme so grand and I would go on not noticing forever?” he asked.
Realization dawned on Emma’s face, which was rapidly going from white to burning red.
“Please, allow me to explain,” she began.
Francis held up his hand.
“Do not interrupt me, Miss Baker,” he said. “That would be most unwise right now.”
Emma’s face continued to redden, but she fell silent.
“I have already discovered what it is that you have done, and denial of your crime will serve you no good,” Francis said. “This is your only opportunity to confess, and perhaps you will be able to show your face in public in less than a decade.”
A new level of understanding flashed on Emma’s face. Her eyes filled with a deep, wounded hurt. She should be an actress in one of her beloved plays, Francis thought bitterly.
“Please, you must believe me,” she begged. “I have not done what you think I have.”
“You liar,” Francis said, his voice rising. “You think to treat me as a fool, and then lie right to my face when confronted?”
“I have done nothing wrong by you,” Emma said.
Francis saw indignation beginning to take form with her hurt, and he had to choke back another dry laugh.
“Still more lies,” Francis said. “It is much worse than I thought. Not only will you not confess when caught and confronted, but you continue to lie.”
Emma’s indignant, wounded expression deepened.
“How could you even think such things?” she asked, her voice trembling.
Francis’s terrible, dry smile melted into a fierce scowl. He was tired of playing Emma’s games, and he was ready to exile her and be done with the whole affair.
“You know how,” he growled. “You came here, pretending to be this sweet little thing, which you, quite obviously, are not.
“You got yourself close to me, flirted me, even enticed me into kissing you, so that I would lower my guard around you. And now, this. Stealing so many of Caroline’s things.”
He took a deep breath, trying to steady his ever-rising, now trembling voice. He could see that he had effectively stunned Emma into at least a temporary silence, and he took a dark pleasure in it.
“You did so well that I actually allowed myself to lower my guard around you, and as such, was completely blind to your treachery,” he continued. “But that was your plan all along, was it not?”
Emma remained silent, but Francis could see her entire body begin to shake. Trembling in fear will gain you no mercy here, he thought.
He briefly felt something like remorse, but he pushed it away. It was only the last of her spell fighting to keep him in its grasp, after all, and he refused to fall victim to it any longer.
Taking advantage of her continued silence, Francis sighed.
“I suppose that some of the blame is mine, however,” he said. “I really should have known better than to trust you. If anything, I should have known that the sweeter one appears, the more deceitful they are.
“You are nothing but a snake in the grass, and you did well in hiding that from me. Until now, that is.”
Emma seemed to break free from the silent paralysis that had gripped her. She began to ball her hands into fists, and the color of her eyes was distorted by the tears that filled them.
Francis dared to hope that she was, at last, prepared to confess, and expedite the end of this ugly mess.
“Before these terrible things you have said to me, I was prepared to tell you that I do not blame you for thinking what you must about this situation, and to beg for your unbiased ear while I explained everything,” she said.
This time, Francis was silenced by the intense, vibrating emotion in her voice. If he did not know better, he would swear that she was truly hurt by his words.
Francis supposed that the hurt and anger was real, however. He himself had never been any sort of criminal, let alone a thief, and he imagined that they must feel something like what she was feeling in that moment once they had been caught.
Her reaction was a powerful one, nonetheless, and he remained quiet.
“But now…” she said, her body tensing and her eyes turning red with tears she seemed determined to prevent from falling.
Her face was impossibly red, and Francis had to remind himself what kind of person she had turned out to be to keep from acknowledging how bad he was beginning to feel.
“Now, I do not feel at all inclined to try explaining anything at all to you. I will say that you are, indeed, quite blind, but it is not by me. I understand that you feel betrayed, but you are a very cruel, horrible person—”
“You dare call me horrible,” Francis growled. “You still feign innocence and presume to continue lying to me.”
“I am not lying to you, nor have I ever,” Emma hissed. Her absolute conviction stunned Francis, but it a
ngered him more.
“Oh?” he asked. “Then perhaps you would care to explain the lies you told about your brother.”
Emma stilled and paled suddenly, so much so that, had Francis not known better, he would have thought her a statue.
“Yes,” he said. “I suppose you thought I would forget about that, once you succeeded in getting me to care for you. But you underestimated me. I have certainly not forgotten.”