She knew what he had just done.
And he knew she knew.
The knowledge sat awkwardly between them.
Neither of them said a word more.
He led her back to Lady Lamerton in silence, bowed and returned to stand by his steward.
She did not look at Devlin.
‘Come, my dear, I have something of a headache. Let us return home.’ And with that Lady Lamerton swept her companion from the Foundling Hospital hall out into her waiting carriage and the grilling that awaited there.
* * *
Three hours after Emma left the Foundling Hospital dance, Ned stood within the study of his mansion in Cavendish Square. The fine engraved crystal glass containing gin sat untouched on the mahogany desk behind him. He stood before the grand bow window, staring out into the night.
The summer night was warm so the hearth was bare and black. A wall sconce on either side of the mantelpiece each contained two flickering candles. Their light was warm and amber in the dimness of the room, rendering the darkening blue night through the window black and sombre by comparison. A single silver candlestick sat on the desk behind him. He could see the reflection of its tiny flame in the paned glass, framed by the dark curtains that Ned never touched. The sweet expensive scent of burnt beeswax hung heavy in the air.
‘You knew what they were doing as soon as they started dancing with her,’ Rob accused.
Of course he knew. Devlin had nothing of subtlety about him. ‘Making Emma Northcote the belle of the ball.’
‘This ain’t some sort of a jest, Ned!’ Rob’s anxiety made his speech revert to their Whitechapel days. ‘They were making it clear they don’t want you anywhere near her. They must have thought your dancing with her the other night was some kind of threat.’
‘They can think what they like.’
‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’
‘I forget nothing.’
‘They’re dangerous, Ned.’
‘I know what they are.’
‘They could destroy you and everything you’ve worked for.’
‘You think I’d let them do that?’
‘I think after tonight you might have just started a war.’ Rob raked a hand through his hair. ‘What the hell were you thinking of, taking her from Devlin mid-dance? You might as well have taken off a glove and slapped him in the face, called him out and been done with it!’ Rob shook his head. ‘Why?’
He closed his eyes and saw again Emma in Devlin’s arms and the way she had looked at Ned in that moment. He had understood what she was feeling, understood, too, her appeal and knew very well he should have turned away and ignored it.
‘What the hell were you thinking of?’
‘There is something between Emma Northcote and Devlin. She needed rescuing.’
‘And you had to be the one to do it?’
‘Yes,’ he said simply.
‘Are you deliberately trying to goad Devlin? Because if so you’re doing a damn good job of it.’
Ned turned from the window to look at Rob. ‘The woman I was seeing. My mystery woman as you called her. It was Emma Northcote.’
Rob stood very still, unnaturally so, as if he had suspended even his breathing for that moment.
The silence hissed loud. He heard Rob swallow even louder.
‘Is this some sort of jest?’
‘I wish it were.’
Rob stared at him slack-jawed, unable to comprehend the magnitude of what Ned was telling him.
The clock on the mantel punctuated the silence.
‘Hell.’ Rob raked a hand through his hair. ‘Hell!’ he said again, louder. He rubbed his fingers against his forehead as if by doing so he could wipe what Ned had just told him from his mind.
‘Of all the women out there, you have to go and start messing with Emma Northcote...?’ Rob stared at him in disbelief.
‘I didn’t know who she was when I met her.’
‘How can that be?’
‘It’s complicated.’
Rob lifted his glass and emptied its contents down his throat. There was a silence before he said, ‘Well, I suppose that explains things.’ He looked pale even in the candlelight. His eyes shifted to Ned’s. ‘Are you still seeing her?’
Ned gave him a stony look.
Rob held up his hands. ‘I was only asking.’
Ned refilled his friend’s glass. His own remained untouched.
‘What are you going to do about Devlin?’
No pause before Ned answered, ‘Ignore him, as I always do.’ He looked out on to the barely visible rustle that was the sway of trees in the night.
‘And Emma Northcote?’
He looked through the trees, across to the other side of the Square, to where the lights illuminated the rectangles of windows. ‘It’s over with Emma Northcote.’ His voice was uncompromising. ‘There’s nothing between us any more.’ But in his mind he heard again their conversation upon that dance floor and felt that same draw to her, that same attraction. And although he would not act upon it, he knew that it was very far from over between him and Emma Northcote.
* * *
‘The audacity of the man,’ Lady Lamerton was still talking of the previous night’s Foundling Hospital ball at luncheon the next day. ‘Does he not know that a gentleman does not cut in on another gentleman’s dance?’
Ned knew all right, despite all that he said. And she knew that he had done it to help her. She knew what the ton would be saying about him and felt a level of guilt.
‘Any other man would be castigated. Would have curled his toes in embarrassment when it was pointed out to him what he had done. Not Mr Edward Stratham. He gets away with it, because he does not seem to care if he is castigated or not. And probably the fact that he is such a handsome rogue goes a long way to helping.’ Lady Lamerton sipped at her tea. ‘Lady Routledge has quite a soft spot for him, you know.’
‘I did not,’ said Emma.
‘But handsome rogue or not, he has danced twice with you, Emma, cutting in to secure you for one of them. A man who does not dance. It is quite the latest on dit.’ She gestured to the mountain of letters that lay on the tea table. ‘Everyone wishes to know if there is something between the two of you.’
‘How could there be anything between us? I barely know the man.’
The dowager took another sip of tea, and gave Emma a shrewd look. ‘Stratham is no fool. He has money. What he needs is power, influence and social acceptance.’
‘That marrying into a title would bring.’
The dowager gave a smile. ‘Precisely.’
Emma smiled and lifted the teapot. ‘More tea?’
The dowager nodded. ‘That would be delightful, my dear.’ She gave a small satisfied sigh. ‘And then, of course, there is Devlin and his friends.’
To Emma’s credit she did not spill the tea. She finished pouring it smooth and steady, added a few drops of cream and three lumps of sugar and sat the cup and saucer before Lady Lamerton.
‘I am so glad that you have managed to put the past behind you.’ The same words Devlin had used.
Emma smiled. ‘One has to move on with one’s life.’
‘One certainly does.’
She had moved on with her life after what Devlin and his friends had done to Kit. But could she so easily move on from Ned? When she had to see him every day? When she would have to watch him court and marry a title?
‘I wonder if Devlin and Stratham will be there tonight. After last night, it will be very interesting to see.’
Emma glanced away. Interesting was not the word she would have chosen. ‘I wonder,’ she said. They both affected her, albeit in very different ways. And she had to pretend that neither did. She sipped her tea and hoped neither
of them would be present that night. That was the only way it was going to get any easier.
* * *
That evening Ned and Rob sat with Misbourne and his son, Linwood, watching the first half of Romeo and Juliet in the Botanical Gardens down near the river.
Ned was there, not because he was interested in Shakespeare or because he wanted a night in the Botanical Gardens, but because Misbourne had asked him. The day’s business had been concluded in the study of Misbourne’s Leicester Square home. The deal agreed in principle on handshakes and glasses of brandy, instructions given for the contracts and plans to be drawn up by their associated men of business. And when it was done, Misbourne had suggested coming here to this Shakespeare in the Gardens.
Misbourne was on board, but Ned needed the earl committed to the alliance so, until then, he would do nothing to jeopardise their arrangement.
Across the way on the other side of the grassy stage, he could see Emma and Lady Lamerton.
The dowager had given him a little nod of acknowledgement at the start of the evening, and he replied with a bow of his head. Emma did not. Following on from their dances he knew that speculation was rife about his interest in her and Devlin’s, too. Her name was upon every gossiping tongue in the ton and he felt a degree of regret over that.
She was wearing a dark dress and matching pelisse, the colour of which he couldn’t discern in the dying light of the dusk. The light of the flambeaux around the stage and the lanterns that lit the garden’s paths lent a faint orange shimmer to its silk. Her hair was pinned up in a cascade of dark curls that stirred in the breeze. She might not have acknowledged him, but her eyes met his before she returned her attention to the players upon the stage.
* * *
It was halfway through the second act when Ned’s footman came with the whispered message. His eyes moved to Emma once more and held for a second too long; such a tiny moment to make such a momentous decision.
He spoke quietly for Rob’s ears only. ‘It’s important that you keep Misbourne sweet until I get back. Don’t leave him.’
Rob gave a nod.
‘If you will excuse me for a few moments, sir,’ Ned said to the earl.
Misbourne gave a nod. Watched him with those black eyes of his before murmuring something to Linwood and returning his focus to the stage.
Ned made his way down the lantern-lit path towards the glasshouses.
* * *
Emma watched the footman deliver the message to Ned. Watched Ned slip away with so little disruption that she doubted too many others had noticed him leave and wondered what was so important to have him abandon Misbourne mid-play. The fact that Rob Finchley remained suggested that Ned would return. She knew whatever business he had with the earl was important. The most important deal of his life, he had called it.
She turned her eyes back to the stage, to Romeo and Juliet, but the play could not hold her attention. She was too aware of Ned’s absence. The act came to an end. The players’ manager appeared to announce the interval and that footmen would be circulating with a selection of drinks. And still Ned had not returned.
There was an apprehensive feeling in her bones, a gnawing sense that all was not well.
Rob Finchley looked like he was worried, too, and that he was struggling to pacify Misbourne. The earl and his son’s expressions were cool and remote. They were men that few others would risk insulting, having something rather dark and silent and sinister about them.
‘I wonder where Stratham has got to,’ Lady Lamerton whispered in her ear. Other people were beginning to notice, too.
Unease made the skin on the nape of Emma’s neck goosepimple.
When Lady Lamerton’s friends wandered over to speak to the dowager, Emma exchanged civilities with them, then sank into the background and watched Misbourne.
The earl was saying something to his son. He looked irritated and as if he were on the verge of leaving.
The most important deal of my life. Ned would not have just walked out on it. Emma knew that something was wrong. She glanced at Lady Lamerton and her friends in full gossip, then slipped away into the shadows towards the glasshouses.
The first glasshouse had been set up with screens for use as a withdrawing room for the ladies. It was while on her way towards the second that she saw the dark still shape lying between the tall hedging that led into the maze. Her stomach dropped in dread and an iciness stole through her blood because, even in the darkness, she recognised that the shape was the body of a man; a man that the moonlight showed with white shirt and cravat...and fair hair.
Chapter Ten
Emma ran the distance and fell to her knees at his side.
His eyes were closed, his bottom lip grazed as if from a fist. She touched her hand to his neck, felt the beat of his heart beneath her fingers and knew he still lived.
‘Ned!’ she whispered his name urgently. ‘Ned!’ Delivered light butterfly slaps to his cheeks. Kissed his mouth to shock some response from him.
He gave a low moan, opened his eyes, looked directly into hers for a heartbeat and then another, sharing her breath, as the confusion cleared.
‘Thank God,’ she breathed.
He sat up, clutching a hand to his side. ‘How long have I been away?’
‘About twenty minutes or so.’
‘Is Misbourne still there?’
When she nodded he got to his feet, with a wince. ‘I need to get back to him.’ But she glanced down to see his tailcoat open and the seep of a sinister dark stain over his pale waistcoat.
‘You are bleeding!’ Her heart twisted in her chest. ‘I will fetch help.’
‘No!’ He caught hold of her hand. His eyes held hers, resolute and determined.
She gave a nod, understanding what he needed.
‘I’ll make a pad to staunch the worst of the bleeding, if you could rip long strips from your petticoat to tie it in place.’
She did as he asked. There was nothing of false modesty in his seeing her legs. They both knew the absolute urgency of this.
He pulled up his shirt. In the moonlight the smear of blood glistened wet and dark on his pale hard-muscled belly. She could see the dark slash of a wound before he pressed his folded handkerchief to it.
‘What happened?’ She began to wind the strips of petticoat tight around his waist to secure the handkerchief in place as best she could.
‘I received a message from you that you needed my help and asking to meet here.’
‘I did not send any message.’
‘I realised that when I saw the welcome party waiting for me.’
She swallowed and did not ask how many men it had taken to fell him, just concentrated on tying the strips off.
As he dropped his shirt into place she saw the long tear in the material where the knife had cut.
‘It’s worse than it looks. They were paid to beat me, not kill me.’
‘Someone does not like you,’ she said.
‘Quite a few people,’ he replied as she dusted down the shoulders and back of his tailcoat.
But there was one name that whispered between them.
‘Devlin would not stoop so low...not over a dance.’
Ned just gave a grim smile. ‘Go back now so that we are not seen to return together.’ He did not need to tell her what that would do to her reputation. ‘I’ll finish up here and follow in a few minutes.’
She nodded. ‘Good luck with Misbourne.’ Reaching a hand to his face, she wiped a smear of blood from his cheek.
Their eyes held for a tiny second more before she dropped her hand and hurried back to the play.
* * *
Lady Lamerton was still talking to her circle as Emma stopped to speak to an old school friend not so far away from where Misbourne stood...as i
f that was what she had been doing all of the time.
The bell rang to sound the end of the interval.
Emma headed back to Lady Lamerton.
‘Was that Phoebe Hunter I saw you talking to?’
‘It was.’
‘I thought you and she no longer spoke.’
‘We did not. But if I am putting the past behind me with so many people, Phoebe should be the first of them. You know she is having renovations done at Blackloch and a new nursery built.’
‘Indeed?’ The dowager looked pleased with the news. The bell rang for the end of the interval and they resumed their seats once more.
The players strolled upon the stage, just as Ned slipped into his seat.
He looked just as he had done when he left—smartly and expensively dressed, his tailcoat fastened neatly in place. No one save him and Emma would ever have known what lay beneath.
* * *
Rob eyed the wound as Ned changed the dressing on his belly later that night. ‘Luck of the devil, a little bit deeper and they’d have spilled your guts.’
‘Not the devil,’ Ned said and thought how the ivory token tucked in the pocket of his waistcoat had deflected the blade. ‘Besides, they weren’t trying to kill me.’
‘Doesn’t look that way to me.’
‘The knives only came out in retaliation for the loss of their friends.’
Rob’s eyes were steady on his. ‘What did you do with the bodies?’
‘They were gone when I came round. They must have taken them with them.’
‘And you dressed the wound yourself?’
‘I had help.’
Rob looked at him in question.
‘Emma Northcote.’
‘You are kidding.’
Ned met Rob’s gaze and raised his eyebrow.
Rob closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I’m not even going to ask.’
‘Better that way,’ Ned said.
‘What the hell was she doing with you, Ned?’
‘I thought you weren’t going to ask.’
Harlequin Historical September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: The Lone SheriffThe Gentleman RogueNever Trust a Rebel Page 33