by Anne Stuart
But he wasn’t. And even as he gazed at her, she knew she didn’t want him to be.
“No,” she admitted. “I just want us to be comfortable with each other.”
“We are, Cousin Emma,” he said, and there was only the faintest irony in his firm voice. “We’re bound together by our dependence on Killoran’s hospitality.”
“And my ability to best you at cards,” she added cheerfully. “I may decide to earn my living at it. Isn’t that how certain gentlemen support themselves?”
“It’s how Killoran acquired his current fortune,” Nathaniel said frankly.
“Does he cheat?”
“God, don’t let him hear you say such a thing!” Nathaniel said, aghast. “Don’t even think it, much less utter the possibility out loud. I doubt your femininity would protect you from his wrath.”
She doubted it herself. For all his cool, distanced charm, she suspected Killoran could be very dangerous if riled. “Perhaps you’d best warn me,” she said, shuffling the cards with recently acquired dexterity. “What else am I not allowed to think?”
“It would probably be best if you didn’t allow yourself to think at all,” Nathaniel told her. “Society frowns on women with minds.”
“I hardly think I’m going to spend much time in society, despite what Killoran said.” She glanced down at the embroidered dressing gown. “Though I would have liked to go to the opera.”
“You’re fond of opera? I can’t abide it myself. A lot of fat women running around screeching.” Nathaniel shuddered. “Though, come to think of it, Killoran seems to like it. I can’t imagine why.”
“I’ve never heard it,” Emma said. “We weren’t allowed much music in the house. If Father had stipulated that my lessons were to be continued—”
“What kind of house was that?” Killoran’s voice was smooth, cool, and completely unexpected.
He couldn’t have thought she’d answer him. Instead she jumped a mile, pulling the dressing gown more tightly around her throat as she turned to look at him. Nathaniel had risen, and there was a faint, guilty color on his cheeks. She wasn’t sure why. She only knew she had a touch of the same guilt herself.
“My father’s house,” she said after a moment, then felt herself blush. She always blushed when she lied.
“And what was your father’s name?”
“Mr. Brown.”
There was a trace of amusement in his eyes at her pert answer. And then he dropped the subject though Emma had no doubt that it would resurface sooner or later. Probably when she was least able to deal with him.
“I was teaching Cousin Emma to play cards,” Nathaniel said in a slightly defensive tone.
“Were you indeed? Does she show any aptitude?”
“Too much,” Nathaniel muttered, aggrieved. “She’s decided to become a professional gamester.”
Killoran sank down in Nathaniel’s vacated seat. “I imagine you would do very well, my love,” he said. “Men would be so busy admiring your loveliness that they’d pay no attention to their cards.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Emma said, uneasy.
“I’ve seldom been accused of being so,” he murmured. “To what do you object?”
“First of all, I know perfectly well that I’m not lovely. Not like Lady Barbara. I may have lived a... a quiet life, but I know what is the current style, and I am not it.”
“Pray tell, what is the current style?” he asked politely.
“Petite brunettes,” Emma replied frankly. “And fragile blondes. I am too tall and too… robust for fashion, and my coloring is lamentable.”
“Fishing for compliments, my dear?”
She snorted, enjoying the unladylike sound. “Hardly, my lord. I believe in honesty and plain speaking.”
“I hadn’t realized that. Why don’t you tell Nathaniel and me about your childhood, then? Indulge us in a little honesty and plain speaking.”
She looked past him, to the deserted doorway. “Nathaniel has left us.”
Killoran didn’t bother to turn and check the veracity of her words. In truth, he’d probably been aware of Nathaniel’s desertion before she was.
“So he has,” Killoran said smoothly. He leaned back, stretching his long legs out in front of him. His stockings were clocked with tiny diamonds, hard and cold as his heart. “Go along to your room, child. Mrs. Rumson awaits you.”
“Why?”
“Your clothes have arrived. Your introduction to society is at hand.”
She had the sudden, horrid vision of her plain, fustian wardrobe that scarce took up a quarter of the space in her cupboards at Cousin Miriam’s house. “What clothes?” she asked hoarsely.
“Why, something to set off your... what did you call your dazzling attributes? Over-tall, over-robust, with lamentable coloring?”
She couldn’t very well object. She glared at him, more openly this time. “If you won’t return the clothes I came in, something simple would suffice.”
“I thought pink and apricot,” he said in a mild voice. “You should see your face, dear Emma. Do I look like the sort of man who would dress you in pink and apricot? Does my house look like the abode of a man with execrable taste? Go find Mrs. Rumson. I’ll be along in a matter of moments. We’ve the opera tonight. Orfeo and Eurydice. I only hope it will be bloody enough to please your violent soul.”
Emma rose, torn between the desire to tell him she had no interest in new clothes or the opera, and her very natural desire to indulge in such rare treats. She stiffened her back, the ornate dressing gown gathered around her. She wanted to tell him her soul wasn’t the slightest bit violent, but recent history disproved that. Besides, she was currently possessed of the rather violent urge to throw something at her host. “As you wish,” she said stiffly, sweeping from the room.
She half expected to hear his mocking laughter follow her. But as she closed the door behind her, she heard nary a sound.
Killoran’s house was less than a mile from the DeWinter house in Crouch End, but it might as well have been a continent away. Miriam DeWinter favored drab colors, stiff furniture, function, and formality. Compared with that austere atmosphere, Killoran’s house was like a seraglio, all bright, jeweled colors, silks, and cushions. Emma’s third-floor bedroom was a sybarite’s dream, with thick Persian carpets beneath her feet, a bed so soft she felt as if she slept on clouds, and silken hangings at the tall windows that overlooked the snowy London streets.
Her room at Cousin Miriam’s had been a nun’s cell, with a narrow, hard bed, bare floors, and scratchy wool blankets. It was little wonder Emma had a difficult time reminding herself that this household was no better for her than the DeWinter manse.
She should leave. She would, she promised herself, as soon as she found some decent clothing. Unfortunately, the shimmering black silk gauze Mrs. Rumson was holding reverently didn’t seem to qualify as decent.
“His lordship said you were to wear this one tonight, miss,” the elderly woman said, as Emma stripped off the dressing gown and stood there in only the lacy white linen undergarments.
“How can you tell?” she countered, glancing at the heap of new garments on the bed. “All the clothes look the same—there doesn’t seem to be much choice.”
“His lordship’s orders. He has a very strong sense of beauty, he has. You’re to dress entirely in black and white and silver.”
“Why?”
“Ask him yourself, miss. He’ll be here in a minute.”
“He certainly won’t!” Emma cried, leaping for the black dress and pulling it over her head, slapping away Mrs. Rumson’s clumsy attempts to assist her. The gown was barely around her shoulders when the door opened, without so much as a knock. Beneath the yards of filmy material, Emma allowed herself a quiet snarl.
“Arguing with Mrs. Rumson again, my angel?”
Emma yanked the gown down, half hoping it would rip. It didn’t, and the clinging black silk gauze settled around her curves perfectly. “I’m not used t
o dressing in front of an audience,” she said sternly.
Killoran had already availed himself of the most comfortable chair and seemed prepared to enjoy himself. “Accustom yourself, Emma,” he said. “It is quite the fashion. Great beauties have their cicisbeis to guide their choices of jewelry and maquillage. Think of me as merely a servant to your exquisite loveliness.”
She scowled. “I am not a great beauty,” she said, advancing on him as Mrs. Rumson struggled behind her, trying to fasten the myriad of tiny black buttons. “I don’t wear maquillage, and I have no jewelry.”
She halted, her anger carrying her so far and no farther. She was already dangerously close to him, and he simply looked up at her, that cool, assessing expression on his face. He said nothing for a long moment, merely let his eyelids droop as he surveyed the length of her.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he said finally. “You are no common beauty. You are, however, quite... magnificent.” There was an undercurrent of heat in his words that terrified her, but a moment later it had vanished, and he was leaning back, watching her with detached interest. “You don’t need maquillage yet, just a beauty mark or two. As for jewelry, I intend to remedy that lack.”
She backed away, completely unnerved, both by his heat and by his coolness. “I can’t accept jewelry from you,” she said.
“Why not? You’ve accepted clothing, food, a bed, and my humble assistance in certain—ah—other matters. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t accept jewelry as well. Believe me, child, the expense is no worry. I have more money than I can rid myself of, no matter how hard I try.”
“I won’t.”
He rose, and she backed farther away. Mrs. Rumson had vanished, leaving Emma alone with Killoran, closing the door behind her, the swine. Killoran advanced, stalking Emma, and she told herself there was nothing to be frightened of. Still, she kept retreating.
The wall came up behind her back, far too soon. Killoran kept coming closer, and closer still, so that his clothes brushed against hers, and she felt the heat of his body penetrate hers. Odd, when she wouldn’t have thought there was an ounce of warmth in the man.
“You will wear what I choose, do what I choose,” he said in a silken voice. “You know that, don’t you?”
She wanted to agree. She wanted to do anything to get him to move away from her, release her from his impaling gaze. She felt like a hunted rabbit caught in a snare, facing the inexorable death in her hunter’s eyes.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t cower and waffle and let him know how very much he terrorized her. “And if I refuse?” Her voice quavered slightly, but at least she fought.
The dress was very low-cut, exposing a great deal of her chest. Her tangled red hair lay around her shoulders, and he picked up a strand, running it between his long, bejeweled fingers like a merchant testing silk. And then he brushed it slowly across the exposed swell of her breast.
She couldn’t control her start of shock at the subtle caress. It shouldn’t have affected her, it was only her own lamentably red hair, yet the touch against her soft skin was shocking, arousing, and she made a frightened little noise.
“You won’t refuse, Emma,” he said softly, repeating the caress. “You’re a very clever child, far too wise for your own good. You know when you can win a battle, and you know when the price of putting up a fight is too high. You’ll wear what I want you to wear. Won’t you?” For a third time the lock of hair danced across her breast, dipping below the décolletage to slip inside the bodice of the dress. Emma wanted to scream.
Instead she bit her lip. “For now,” she said, amazed that her voice didn’t shake. She kept her expression stonily unmoved, but he was too observant to miss the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the heightened color of her cheeks. Doubtless he would make of it what he wanted.
For a moment he didn’t move. And then he released the strand of hair. Emma had barely taken a deep breath of relief when instead his fingers touched her skin, dancing across the top of her bodice, a light, devastating caress. “Diamonds,” he said in a musing voice. “Set in white gold. And your hair loose and un-powdered.”
She gasped. “I’ll look like a whore!”
“You’ll look like an original. No one would dare to call my sister a whore.”
“I’m not your sister.”
He was still touching her breasts. The dark smile that lit his face was far from reassuring. He leaned closer, so close she could sense the warmth of his breath against her parted lips, and she felt herself weaken. If the wall weren’t at her back, she would have been unable to stand. As it was, she held herself very still, not daring to breathe, aware only of his dark green eyes staring into hers, his breath on her mouth, his hands on her breasts.
“Remember that,” he whispered, so close, so desperately close. And then he moved away, abruptly, releasing her from his touch, his gaze, his intensity, and it was all she could do not to collapse on the floor.
But her spine was made of sterner stuff. She didn’t move, merely waited until he was at the door. “Why are you dressing me like this?” she asked in a deceptively calm voice, determined not to let him know how he affected her.
“A particular conceit of mine.”
“You wish people to think I’m your property.”
He smiled. “Such a brutally frank way to put it, my love. Let us say merely that I want to extend my protection to you. With you dressed in black and silver, no one will assume you are fair game.”
“I hate black.”
“A shame. It looks splendid on you. Besides, you happen to be in mourning. Or had you conveniently forgotten your uncle’s unfortunate demise?”
She stared at him, momentarily shaken. “You are a very bad man,” she said.
His smile was beatific. “Bless you, child. I wasn’t certain you’d noticed.”
Chapter 8
There were times, Killoran thought, when he almost missed his humanity. He sat directly behind Emma in the box, silent, watching, for once not bored. The public amused him—the covert glances toward Emma, sitting there almost unaware, enraptured by the spectacle onstage and not the slightest bit interested in the spectacle offstage.
The diamonds around her throat glittered in the lamplight, and he had no doubt that half the matrons there knew the price of those jewels. Not to mention the gentlemen with mistresses in keeping. He’d made a statement, with diamonds of that size and clarity. And the shock waves were still resounding.
Word of her supposed relationship to him had spread throughout the ton, Nathaniel had informed him bitterly, even before her first appearance. Killoran had greeted that information with a bland smile. If things continued at their present pace, he could look forward to a most satisfying spring, replete with revenge and a delightfully distracting passion.
He glanced at his protégé, who sat in front of him, totally unaware of his presence, her entire being concentrated on the rather mediocre performances of Orfeo and Euridyce on the stage.
She fairly vibrated with pleasure. He sat at an angle so he could watch her, and he saw the delight in her eyes, the flush in her cheeks, her dreamy, dazed expression as the music flowed around her. Beneath the diamonds her creamy chest rose and fell, and her red hair streamed over her shoulders like a shawl. Her mass of unbound hair was a lure and an affront to proper society. Exactly as he wished.
Her lips were parted in wonder, and he felt his own sense of wonder: what those lips would taste like.
Absurd, of course. He didn’t like kissing, didn’t like to be kissed. Sex was one thing, a scratching of an itch, a mutual pleasure to be explored between two experienced and willing partners. A kiss was another matter entirely. It was intimate, and there was no room in his life for intimacy.
And yet he wanted to kiss her.
It was probably the tears that did it. She’d looked at him with rage and fury, with despair, yet her warm brown eyes had never filled with tears. She’d been brave and defiant, no matter what she faced.
<
br /> She cried tonight, when Orfeo sang about his lost Euridyce. The tenor was mediocre, his pitch uncertain, his habit of pausing for deep, painful breaths unnerving. Emma didn’t notice. She sat there listening to the music, and she cried.
He didn’t want to remember a time when he was that innocent. That easily moved. It brought back a pain and a guilt so powerful, they threatened to crush him. He was willing to do anything, anything, to drive those feelings away.
It was Emma’s fault. She was making him remember. Painful memories, like the smell of the green earth, the warm untidiness of the horse farm where he’d been raised with his impractical, caring parents. There was a time, so long ago it seemed like a dream, when he’d been happy, and loved.
But then everything had changed. And he had no one to blame but himself.
His only defense had been to close everything off. All feeling, all decency. He’d buried his parents and left Ireland, never to return. For the past ten years he’d barely even thought of it.
But Emma was bringing it back. The memory, and the pain. He missed it. Missed the fire of passion, the noble cause, the idealism that was in reality a cruel trap for the unwary. He could see Emma glow with it, and he wanted to take her slim white shoulders and shake some sense into her. He wanted to take her mouth and see if he could drink some of that innocence. One last taste.
He didn’t move. He’d positioned himself so that although he remained in the shadows, no one could have any doubt that he was there, watching.
He waited until the most tedious part of the opera, for a time when most eyes would be directed at the upper box and not at the stage. Deliberately he leaned forward, resting his hand on her bare shoulder, splaying his fingers across her cool skin, and putting his mouth next to her cheek.
She jumped, but he held her still, with a gesture that would appear to be a caress. “We’ll leave now,” he murmured against her temple.
She kept her face forward, but he could feel the shiver that ran through her body. “It’s not over yet.”