Emily’s pulse beat inside her head as she waited for the axe to fall, for Will to carry out his threat and punch Nicholas to the ground. She closed her eyes, not wanting to witness it.
The footsteps across the tile floor and the ring of the bell above the door made her heart kick painfully in her chest. She opened her eyes. Will had done as she asked.
Chapter Eleven
Unease rippled through Emily’s blood. The interior of Nicholas’s carriage had never felt so close or claustrophobic. His driver slammed the door on them and the seconds ticked by in fraught silence until the carriage jerked away from the front of Katherine’s shop. Emily clenched her trembling hands tightly together in her lap, her heart beating an erratic tattoo and her mind racing.
She wished Nicholas would just get on with whatever he wanted to say. His theatrics were becoming intolerable and her impatience was wearing thin. If he thought for one minute she was going to sit silently while he ranted and raved, he had a surprise coming. There was every possibility Aimee was his child and there was every possibility when they returned to Royal Crescent she would find Will had gone for good. Both likelihoods added fuel to the already raging fire inside of her.
She cleared her throat. “Nicholas, will you please say something.” He turned and his glare bored down on her. “You want me to say something?”
Emily straightened her spine and kept her gaze level with his. “Yes.”
A muscle leapt in his jaw. “Fine, if you want to do this now, we will. I will not stand for it. Neither would my father have.”
“You will not stand for what?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “You know exactly what. Samson.” His eyes snapped open and they blazed with anger. “Our marriage contract does not state at any juncture I should tolerate third-party involvement.”
In an attempt to still her temper, Emily shook her head. What did he consider Katherine if she were the mother of his child? A figment of their imagination? “You are giving far too much credit to Mr. Samson by calling him a third party. He is a guest in my father’s home, nothing more, nothing less. Another week or so and he will be gone.”
Nicholas narrowed his eyes. “ ‘Nothing more, nothing less,’ she says. I am not stupid, Emily. I see the way he looks at you.”
A flush of satisfaction pinched her cheeks and Nicholas’s scowl showed he’d seen it. She huffed out a laugh and looked through the window at the passing town houses. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
He gripped her wrist and Emily turned. His face was flushed and a vein throbbed like a lightning bolt down his forehead. “Do not laugh at me.”
Fear burst behind her ribcage and she swallowed. It would be foolish to further anger him. If he were to strike her, his driver would undoubtedly turn as deaf as a doorpost. “I’m sorry, but the notion that Mr. Samson is interested in me . . .” She slid her wrist from his hand, relief shuddering through her when he released her without a fight. “It shouldn’t anger you even if it were true. It should make you proud to have me on your arm. To show the world I am yours despite another’s admiration.”
A flash of what could be deemed as jealousy shot into his eyes, turning them almost black. He tipped his head back and the rare laugh that emitted from his open mouth sent a shiver down her spine. The sound was eerie in its execution. Dangerous.
“You are quite the clown, my dear.” Nicholas dipped his head, his gaze hot and intense. “There is clearly a need to sidestep manners and just say what I see.”
Emily smiled, in the hope she took his laugh for humor, rather than intimidation. “What do you mean?”
“You, my dear.”
Her smile faltered. “What about me?”
“How you look at him.” The laughter was gone, his tone icy-cold.
Emily’s smile froze. Her mind blanked of all thought.
“Nothing to say for once.” Nicholas smiled. “Well, then what I suspect must be true. You have feelings for Samson.”
Say something. Anything. Lie. Deny.
Emily cleared her throat and plucked at a nonexistent piece of lint on her skirt. “I really do not like what you are suggesting. If you are accusing me of some sort of dalliance with Mr. Samson, you are insulting me.” She met his gaze directly. “Is that what you are suggesting?”
For a long moment, Nicholas said nothing and their eyes locked in silent battle. The sounds of the street filtered through the window, sounding inappropriate and loud. Emily trembled. He would not win this battle. She’d done nothing wrong.
“Fine. I do not suggest a dalliance.” His jaw tightened. “However, I will no longer tolerate the man’s presence around you. I demand he leave your house immediately. I am a patient man, but you must deem me without a backbone if you think I will consider that man staying there another day. If we return to your father’s home and find him there after our heated exchange at the milliner’s, he clearly has no respect for your wishes and your thoughts are wasted on him.”
My thoughts . . . oh, if only you knew the depth of my thoughts as far as Will is concerned. “His concern is for his nephew. Not me. Father will want him to stay until the boy is found.”
Nicholas glared. “Rubbish. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn the boy doesn’t even exist. I do not trust Samson as far as I could throw him.”
“Maybe so, but Papa will not like being told who he can or cannot invite to stay in his own home. Until such time as he passes, it is his decision who stays there and for how long. As you have already said, neither of us knows for certain Mr. Samson has not gone of his own free will, so I think we are wasting our breath discussing him.”
Nicholas narrowed his eyes. “If we find him gone, will you be pleased or saddened? That is the question.”
Emily fought the tears pricking the back of her eyes and turned to the window once more. “Mr. Samson has done nothing wrong beyond this afternoon’s events. For that outburst, you are both equally guilty of putting poor Katherine in the most awful situation. If he is gone, then so be it. We will all get on as we were before.”
“So you still do not see he is trouble?”
Emily drew in a shaky breath and released it. She faced him. “There is trouble at every corner of our society. We face it when it comes and then try our best to put it behind us. I refuse to waste any more time talking about this. You talk of respect, so please, extend some to my father. If Mr. Samson returns and wishes to stay, my father would like it so and we would both do well to accept that. Also, Will saved the life of my father this morning when he was choking on some food.”
His green eyes blazed. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Fine. I will say no more of it. Clearly my hands are tied.”
Their eyes locked and Emily fought the trepidation that raised the hairs at the nape of her neck. This was far from over. Nicholas never gave in to anything he didn’t want to happen. The realization that he would no more walk away from his inheritance than she would burned bright and clear.
Emily stared ahead lest Nicholas detect the shiver of fear that swept over her. Will knew something about him she did not. To see the look in Nicholas’s eyes made her understand just what he was capable of.
He shifted beside her. “I have one more question.”
Sending up a silent prayer for strength, she met his eyes. “Yes?”
“What am I supposed to say to my peers when asked why a man I know nothing about is escorting my fiancée about town?”
Emily swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat. His anger was palpable. “You will tell them the truth. That I was hit to the ground in the park and when neither Papa nor you are able to accompany me, Mr. Samson does so at Papa’s request.”
“I see.”
Unease rippled across the surface of her skin. His wore the expression of a poised cat waiting for the exact moment to strike. Her heart picked up speed.
He frowned. “So, if Mr. Samson returns, according to your father, he will escort you for as long as it
takes him to find his nephew . . . or us to marry. Correct?”
She nodded. “Yes. I believe that’s what he said.”
“Hmm. Well, then, there is only one solution should we find the man there when we get back.”
“Which is?”
“We are not set to marry for another two months. Even if we assume this boy is real and not a figment of Samson’s imagination, it could take weeks to find him. If he’s not already dead.”
Emily flinched. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”
Nicholas lifted his shoulders. “We do not know Samson, my love. He may not have any family. He could be a criminal. Have you not considered his past?”
No. Just his future. “Of course I have, but one cannot accuse people of things. Mr. Samson has done nothing to make me fear or dislike him and until such time—”
“You are happy for me to be ridiculed for my lack of control over you.”
Anger washed through her veins. “You are sadly mistaken if you think I will stand by and let you control me, Nicholas. Do we really have to keep having this conversation?”
He glared, two spots of color darkening his cheeks. “It seems we do. This is not the way things were done in my father’s household and it is not the way they will be done in ours. My father expected my mother to love and obey. As it says in the Church’s marriage law.”
Frustration burned. The limited freedom of Emily’s future tightened around her. She tilted her chin and met his fiery gaze. “Be that as it may, I am proud of who I am and hope you will be too. However, if you think you will struggle with such a notion and my assertiveness is too much for you to tolerate, why not reconsider Papa’s notion of you refusing the marriage?”
His eyes widened and then narrowed. “If you’re suggesting I walk away—”
“I understand you daren’t walk away for fear of breaking your word to your father. You are a good man. A man who stands strong and firm in his family’s ambition and values. A man who has made his father very proud. Yet, if you wish to withdraw from the contract and not marry me because you find my conduct intolerable, then I will accept that.”
A wry smile twisted his lips. “You must really think me a fool.”
Cold perspiration burst at her upper lip. “I think no such thing. I am merely reminding you no one is forcing you to marry me. If you do not wish to spend your life with me and my nonsubmissive ways, then you are free to break our engagement.”
The carriage came to an abrupt halt and Emily glanced past Nicholas’s shoulder to see they had arrived at Royal Crescent. She met his eyes once more. The silence went on, only broken by the clacking of passing horse hooves and the calls of children playing in the park. She prayed for his surrender.
Nicholas’s tone was icy cold. “You are more stupid than I thought to mess with me.”
His wolverine smile froze her words.
“All you have succeeded in doing is pushing me into finding a way to bring the wedding forward. I will never break the contract. Never!”
Emily’s stomach plummeted. “Nicholas, that’s impossible. There is no need—”
His smile stretched to a grin. “There is every need and better. It is entirely possible. I am owed favors all over the city. There isn’t a priest in Bath who wouldn’t help a churchgoing man . . . and generous donator at that, to cure his heart-wrenching impatience to marry the woman who vowed to be his wife nine years before.”
The determination in his eyes left little doubt in Emily’s mind of his ability to not just deliver on an earlier date but to make sure everyone in town knew about it, too. She stared, her body devoid of feeling.
“Nothing to say, my dear? How refreshing.”
Trapped like an animal in an invisible cage. Emily stared. There was no escaping her situation or Nicholas if her children were to ever have a future of possibility. The door swung open and Nicholas’s driver stood waiting outside.
“If you are determined to marry me, so be it, but by doing so, you are accepting Papa’s wish to have Mr. Samson escort me before such date as I become your wife whether you like it or not.”
Nicholas shook his head. “That is not a condition of the contract and never will be. This is merely a pathetic attempt at igniting my temper enough that I will sever our agreement. You are determined and wily, Emily. I will give you that.” He pushed to his feet and stopped by the open carriage door to face her. “I will respect your father’s wishes and condone Mr. Samson’s escorting you, my love.” He smiled. “After all, the man’s time with you is merely a moment in the rest of our lives.”
Chapter Twelve
Will came out of his rented room and slammed the door. Thank goodness he’d had the insight to keep paying his rent while staying with the Darsons. If there was one thing he’d learned through his financial struggles growing up, keeping as many options open as possible was always the best way forward.
The night away from Emily gave him the time he needed to refocus on a plan of action. He would avoid another repeat of his total loss of self-control at the milliner’s and concentrate on keeping his temper intact. His growing desire to have Emily for his own was making him lose focus on every aspect of his plan to ruin Milne. The thought of her near Milne, let alone marrying him, had become as much of an issue for Will as wringing Milne’s scrawny neck with his bare hands.
He knew there was nothing in her heart for Milne. Once upon a time, she’d been secondary, a tool in Will’s agenda. Not anymore. Her smile haunted his nights, her scent his days. Even when he kissed her under the streetlight, it wasn’t under false pretenses but with a clear and conscious need to hold her in his arms for a single beautiful moment.
It had done nothing but fuel a seemingly endless hunger.
His intellect told him to stay away after her rebuff at the milliner’s but he could not. He could not leave her with nothing but strong words and missing explanations between them. The only disadvantage to returning to Royal Crescent was he would find it impossible to look into her beautiful brown eyes and walk away again. He wanted her—not as a way to hurt Milne but for himself. The reality was a blow to his gut, his heart, and his once-angry motivation.
A new softness emerged into his heart; one he didn’t know he was capable of feeling. One Will wasn’t sure he even liked. She’d woken a new person in him. A person who cared about someone so much, it consumed him. He hadn’t felt like that since his mother died and hadn’t thought he’d feel it again. The anger he carried around ate him up from the inside out. Yet, Emily Darson dampened it whenever she was near him. She was the light filtering into his very dark world.
His guilt for deceiving both her and her father stained his soul deeper every day.
Damn Milne and damn that contract.
Blinking, Will refocused on the day’s mission. He hoped to dig out some information to break a further thread in Emily and Milne’s upcoming union. Having put the last two days since the showdown at the milliner’s to good use, Will was confident his research and patience would pay off. Hopefully, if this day was a fruitful one, he would be back in Royal Crescent by nightfall.
Picking up his pace, he made his way along the maze of streets toward the center of town. He passed shops, stalls, buskers, and street jugglers until he came out the other side where the stench of the river grew stronger and the houses more squalid.
Eventually, he stood at the end of the street he’d followed Milne into a few days before.
Pulling down the brim of his hat, Will lowered his head. He could not risk recognition and to have his presence reported back to Milne. He reached the door of the house Milne entered and tilted his head from side to side in an effort to loosen the tension in his neck. Exhaling a long breath, he smoothed his hands down the front of his jacket.
“Here goes nothing.” Will rapped his knuckles three times against the door.
After a few moments, the door swung open. He guessed the woman standing there to be around twenty-five or twenty-six, but she could easi
ly have been younger. Poverty aged a person like nothing else. Her eyes, sadder and bluer than two flints of glass floating on the Dead Sea, struck Will’s heart like the claws of a hatchet. Her dress clung to her bony frame like a second skin and matted dark brown hair showed above the dirty scarf holding it back from her face.
Surely this wasn’t the woman Milne visited?
“Are you going to stand there staring at me all day or did you want something?” She crossed her arms.
Will blinked and forced the most nonchalant grin he could muster. “Good morning, Miss.” He lifted his hat.
“Good morning to you, too. Now, what do you want?”
“A moment of your time.”
A flirtatious smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “I hope you got money, handsome. Moments of time are coins in my hand.”
“The time I need won’t take me a step inside, but it would be appreciated all the same.”
Her smile dissolved and her eyes narrowed. “If you ain’t here for services, what do you want?”
Guessing he was about five seconds away from having the door slammed in his face, Will cleared his throat. It was now or never. This woman would not be bought off with any amount of charm.
“I was given your name by an associate of mine.”
Her frown deepened. “My name? Who told you my name.”
“An associate of mine. Your reputation precedes you, Laura.”
“I’m not Laura.”
“You’re not?”
She uncrossed her arms and made as if to close the door. “No, now get lost.”
Will slapped his hand to the door. “Wait. I need to speak to her. It’s important.”
“Laura’s busy. Now get out of here.”
“I’ll wait.”
The seconds ticked by as the standoff took root.
“Laura ain’t at nobody’s beck and call.” She fisted her hands on her hips. “Not even a handsome bastard like you. What’s your name?”
“I’d much rather introduce myself to her.”
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