The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne

by Madeline Hunter

  He reacted badly to her bluntness, but he managed to swallow his sense of insult. He had asked for forthright, hadn’t he?

  Apparently her mind had spared neither herself nor him during the time upstairs while she washed and dressed. He pictured her, weighing it all, putting the pleasure on a scale and stacking all the potential costs against it.

  She had surrendered herself to him last night, but not forever. Hell, not even for an entire day, it seemed.

  Which meant he now had a choice. Either he could dismiss the servants and persuade her with pleasure right here in the morning room, or some of those things that should be said would have to be said right now.

  He stood and offered his hand. “Let us take a turn outside, so that I can explain my thinking on what is wise or not.”

  * * *

  Southwaite’s hard expression surprised Emma. Perhaps he assumed she should be so bedazzled that she would melt at the insinuation that he wanted this tryst to continue?

  She was not untouched by his interest, or unmoved by the way he looked at her. The familiarity in his manner kept her blood simmering with the remnants of this morning’s heat. She was not so conceited as to think that this attention was her due either. On reflection it had impressed her that she did not wake up alone in that ballroom, with her packed valise waiting outside the door.

  He could not really expect an affair, however. He had to know that the risks were too high for her. Nor could she consider it for her own reasons. For the real reasons, she ruefully admitted.

  She had finally shaken off her sensual daze while she washed, and acknowledged the impossibility of being the lover of a man from whom she needed to keep secrets of a potentially criminal nature.

  The terrace was shaded this time of day by a large elm that hovered overhead. The edge of the back gardens bordered an expanse of grass dotted by other trees and shrubs, and the sounds of a brook twinkled in the air.

  He took both her hands and drew her into an embrace. The contact moved her all the more. The thought entered her mind that he would not play fair, and would just seduce her again to get his way. She more than half wished he would. Then she could succumb for another night and another morning, and live for a while in a place of magic where there were no duties and no secrets.

  “Emma, you were correct this morning. I ruthlessly seduced you. Nor am I at all sorry for it. You were an innocent, however, and I cannot even claim I thought otherwise. Therefore—”

  “I am not sure the word innocent ever applies to a woman of my age. I was, however, a virgin; that is true. Now I am not. I am not regretting it yet, and do not expect to later.”

  “A gentleman who compromises a lady is—”

  “Are you feeling guilty? Is that what this is about? Well, I am not a lady, so I think that absolves you of the rules your kind has about these things. Doesn’t it?”

  For a man facing logic that favored him, he appeared exasperated.

  “Damnation, Emma, I am trying to—If you would stop interrupting—” He took a deep breath. “I will not treat you differently due to our different stations, although you keep assuming that I will. We will marry, and very soon at that.”

  That deep breath tickled her memory. It reminded her of something. Ah, yes, Mr. Nightingale, as he braced himself to speak words he did not mean so that he might get his hands on Fairbourne’s.

  Southwaite did not want Fairbourne’s, although he might not mind having total control over its future. But this was not about that. Like Mr. Nightingale, however, he was making a proposal for all the wrong reasons.

  She did not respond right away. She allowed herself to experience the flutter of excitement that filled her on hearing this proposal, despite its motivations. She permitted a series of rapid fantasies to fly through her mind, of her being the Countess of Southwaite.

  Unfortunately other images followed them, of this man’s reaction when he confirmed his wife’s father had cooperated with smugglers. Of his cold silence when he learned that she had continued that right under his nose. Of his anger when her brother returned and revealed their father had not been coerced at all, but had used the auction house thus for years.

  She set aside those sadder pictures and focused on the face in front of her eyes. She gazed hard and deep so she might never forget what he looked like right now, and how he made her feel anything but ordinary, even if he was only doing the right thing as gentlemen were taught to do.

  “I am honored, of course. I dare not be,” she said. “However, I know you do not want to do this. I am not suitable, and we both know it.”

  “I know nothing of the kind. You are suitable if I say you are.”

  He really believed that. How adorable his conceit could be sometimes. “I cannot accept. I think you already know most of the reasons why.”

  She eased out of his embrace. An unexpectedly deep disappointment and pain in her heart said that she would indeed pay dearly for their passion, but not in ways assessed by the world.

  He paced away, stopped to look at her in amazement, then paced some more. “You are impossible sometimes.”

  “I like to think I am practical, not impossible.”

  “How is it practical for you to choose scandal over marriage to an earl? It is so impractical as to put your sanity in question.”

  “There will be no scandal. No one will find out. Your famous discretion will see to that. So there is no reason to swallow the bitter medicine and do the right thing.”

  “You are most understanding. Oddly so. If you had not been moaning with pleasure mere hours ago, I might take offense at all your practical consideration.”

  She was trying very hard to keep this civil but he simply would not allow it. “What is odd is your insistence on having a row about this, when instead you should be rejoicing in your close call.”

  Something passed through him that brought a poignant warmth to his eyes. “If you will not accept my proposal, then be my lover, Emma.”

  Ah, now they were down to it. She was suitable for that.

  “Please do not be insulted, but—I think not. Please know that my decision in no way reflects on…your amorous skills.”

  His eyelids lowered. “I am heartily relieved to hear it. Your good opinion of me is so very important. Can I ask what your decision does reflect on? Perhaps there is some other area in which I can improve.”

  “You do not have to be sarcastic. I thought you would want to know it was not due to…that. I would if I were a man. As for the rest, there are many areas in which you can improve. There are for all of us. However, my decision mostly reflects that your pursuit of me, beginning with the Outrageous Misconception, has never made any sense.”

  “Who said such things make sense? Hell, if they made sense, or had to make sense, I—”

  “You would have never kissed me, let alone the rest. No, do not object to spare me a truth that I already know. I am sure I am not typical of the women you have had as lovers before, and we rarely converse without arguing. That is why your pursuit has been, well, suspicious.”

  “Suspicious now.”

  “Yes, suspicious. I would have to be stupid not to wonder about ulterior motives.”

  “Do not impugn my motives just because you think you are ordinary, Emma.”

  Oh, for heaven’s sake. “I will speak plainly since your pride will not allow you to hear anything less—”

  “Heaven spare me. I think you have been plenty plain already.” His furious eyes settled on her, darkly. “Fine, explain my motives that you know so much better than I do myself.”

  “I think that you used your flirting and pursuit to try to make me pliable so I might bend to your will about Fairbourne’s. If something resembling true desire eventually moved you, I am flattered. However, I would like to keep last night a fond memory, and avoid ever wondering about your motives in the future. For that reason, and because of our frequent rows and…everything else, I do not think any kind of intimate alliance between us would
be wise.”

  He gazed in her eyes deeply, directly. “I’ll be damned before I accept a fond memory and nothing more.”

  She did not miss that he did not disagree with a single word she had said. “Then I fear you will be damned, Lord Southwaite. Now, please, call for my carriage. I must return to London. I have an auction to prepare.”

  * * *

  The woman was infuriating. Maddening. Irritating as hell…

  Darius released his anger while he galloped up the coast.

  Did she really expect him to stand down? Now?

  “You do not really want to do this.” Hell, no man wanted to marry but most did eventually. Not because they wanted marriage itself, but because they wanted a woman. Some marriages came about because a man seduced a woman and it was the right thing to do. She knew that, damn it, but acted as if the rules did not apply to her.

  Just as she ignored that a woman once seduced was supposed to stay seduced, especially if it was her first time with a man.

  She had expected him to be relieved at her refusal. And he was, in a way. Not entirely, which was odd. All of which was beside the point, damn it.

  “I am not suitable.” No, she wasn’t. If he were willing to overlook the ways in which she wasn’t, including the potential scandal looming about her father, why should she feel obligated to be “practical”?

  Hell, Emma Fairbourne was not a woman to care if she was not suitable anyway.

  Both rejections had probably all been due to the “everything else.” She knew that he was suspicious that her father had been in league with smugglers. She might be too. Well, he would take care of part of the “everything else” today, and the rest very soon.

  Head still pounding with curses, he followed the slope of the cliff path north of Fairbourne’s cottage, where it dipped down to the sea. Before it leveled again, he turned his mount right onto a rocky path that took a more precipitous route to the shore. Fifty yards before it met the water, he dismounted, tied his horse to a ragged, bony tree, then walked along a narrow ledge. Almost like magic one of the deep shadows on the cliff face turned into the mouth of a cave.

  Tarrington lounged against its edge, calmly honing a very large knife against a stone. He looked up on hearing Darius’s footfall.

  “Good that you came,” he said. “I don’t want to be paying for their board another night.”

  “Of course I came. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I thought maybe you were still busy protecting that lady.” He grinned. “To say your face looked black yesterday is putting a fine point on it. Not that you appear any friendlier today.”

  “I would be much friendlier if you told me what she wanted with you.”

  Tarrington shook his head. “Gave my word as a gentleman not to say.”

  “You are not a gentleman, so you are free to talk.”

  “Gave my word as a cutthroat, then.”

  Darius assumed a cutthroat could be persuaded. He would take care of that later. Right now he would make sure one thing at least was understood. “I warn you now to have nothing more to do with Miss Fairbourne. If I learn that you meet with her again, or discover that you are providing her with special consignments, or even send others to her for that purpose, you will answer to me.”

  Tarrington laughed. He sheathed the knife and gestured. “Come meet our guests. We saw them coming by the light of the moon, and waited onshore and took them there. They landed not far south of here.”

  Darius followed him deep into the cave. A fire burned there for light, and five men sat against the cave wall. Most were dressed well, even elegantly. All wore expressions of disdain. Some of Tarrington’s lads lounged about, their pistols at the ready lest their guests decide to bolt.

  “They are émigrés,” Darius said to Tarrington. “You did not need me at all.”

  “They are indeed, each with his bag of gold and jewels and most with a sack of items of value or sentiment. It is impressive how they can grab two handfuls that are worth hundreds, even thousands sometimes.”

  “Let them go. With their bags and sacks. Where is the crew?”

  “They ran for it, and what with keeping this lot together…” He shrugged. “Just paid hands, nothing more. No danger from them, so it is not a loss.”

  The hell they had escaped. Tarrington must have known them and let them go. “Where are the goods the crew brought over?”

  Tarrington scratched his ear. “Goods? There were very few. Not worth your worrying about. So little that I found it odd. Normally the cargo is the reason for the run, and these Frenchies are just ballast. Peculiar that so little for sale came across.” He pointed over his shoulder. “That one there might be able to explain it. He is why I sent for you.”

  Darius glanced over to a man sitting a little aside from the others. He appeared more roughly dressed, and his coats fit as if they had been made when he was less hearty. “Why do you think he has anything to tell me?”

  “He brought almost nothing with him. No gold. No miniature of his dear mother. Just some clothes that do not look so fine as those he wears. He speaks English better than they do too. I thought you might want to have a word with him before we set him loose.”

  Darius examined the man, who refused to acknowledge he was the object of interest. He was young and fit and his dark eyes served as iron doors guarding his thoughts. A soldier? Possibly. If he were a spy, he would never admit it now.

  “I believe you are correct, Tarrington. Since you probably are, it is just as well that you held the others too. Keep a close watch on that one. I will return once I arrange what to do with them all.”

  Darius walked back to his horse, cursing anew. Damnation, it might be days before he was able to follow Emma to London.

  Chapter 21

  By the time Emma returned home her emotions had dulled to the point of melancholy. Even going to Fairbourne’s the next day could not raise her spirits.

  On the second morning, when she arrived at the auction house, Obediah greeted her with the announcement that Herr Werner had written to say he would be consigning the count’s collection to Fairbourne’s. She pretended more joy than she experienced on hearing the news.

  She tried to blame herself for her mood, and for her shocking willingness to be seduced. The guilt would not stick. She could not drum up enough regret to support her efforts at castigating herself. Rather the opposite. At the least convenient moments, memories would slide into her mind, of touches and sensations, of Southwaite’s eyes in the candlelight, of standing naked in the dawn. At night while she drifted to sleep thoughts about that night would own her completely, and her body stirred again, as if she had returned to the ballroom and could feel him in her arms.

  On the third day, a letter came, but not from him. It was delivered at dawn by a young boy who had been paid a penny to knock on the door. Her pulse quickened as soon as she touched the letter. She tore it open and wept when she saw the familiar hand that had penned the few lines.

  Emma,

  I am told that you require evidence that I am alive. How like you to make demands of the devil himself.

  If I had a choice I would not write this, but have you think I am dead. It amuses them that I tell you this. Yes, it is being read, so I cannot reveal where I am. I am also told to warn you to tell no one that I have written to you.

  Better if you forgot you had read this too, dear Emma. I am here through my own failed ambitions, and do not want your future to be ruined too.

  I hold you in my heart, and knowing that you are safe is my only comfort. Remain so, for me.

  Robert

  How like him to warn her off, to rebel against the plans that ensnared her now. She could not obey him, of course. She could never just forget about him. Now that she knew her heart had not lied to her for two years, she had to buy his freedom.

  She called for her carriage and had Mr. Dillon take her to the house where Cassandra lived. Cassandra knew at once that something important had happened. She mad
e her sit and demanded to know the reason for her flushed excitement.

  Fortunately Emma had news that would satisfy her friend, even if it would not be the really important news. “Herr Werner has agreed to give me the count’s collection,” she said. “I want your help in planning the grand preview. I want it to be the finest we have held.”

  * * *

  “I am sure that Miss Fairbourne is not involved in anything that interests us,” Darius said. “I cannot speak for Marielle Lyon, however.”

  Darius gave his report, such as it was, while he smoked a cigar in his library. Ambury nodded sagely and risked a small, knowing smile. “That is a relief to know.”

  “How so?” Kendale asked, his sharp gaze shooting from one friend to the other.

  Ambury blew smoke toward the ceiling. “We hope not to discover trouble of that nature that involves our citizens, correct?”

  “I did not mean how so is it a relief, but how so does Southwaite know for sure that she is not up to no good.”

  Darius had not said she was not up to no good. “I asked Tarrington if he had cause to think she should be watched. He said this was her first visit to the coast in a year, and that there was no evidence she had any involvement with either spies or information.”

  It had been all he had gotten out of Tarrington when he forced the question yet again before leaving Kent. Emma had extracted that promise from Tarrington not to speak of her meeting with him. Damned if Tarrington hadn’t insisted on keeping his word to the end, even when offered a bribe.

  “Well, of course, if the king of smugglers vouches for her, who am I to be suspicious?” Kendale said.

  “You will leave her alone now,” Darius said firmly. “You will no longer watch her or have her watched.”

  “I have not watched her. That was to be your duty, for all the good that did.”

  “Damnation, Kendale, do not take it as yours again, is what I am saying. Turn your attention elsewhere.”

  Ambury raised one eyebrow at his tone, but kept whatever clever retort had sprung to mind to himself. “What did you do with the boat Tarrington stopped?”