“No answer?” she prompted. “Then I think this conversation is over.”
If he allowed that, he would never learn precisely what had happened. And he would never know what came next in this odd, adversarial … friendship, he supposed it was. “I’ll make you an agreement,” he said aloud.
Her brow furrowed. “What sort of agreement?”
“A truth for a truth, a secret for a secret, until you feel that you hold enough of my life in your hands to trust me with yours.” Laurie would be howling with laughter—or annoyance—to hear such a thing, since he’d told his brother almost nothing of his life in Europe. But he wanted to preserve that sense of innocence Laurence still managed to keep about himself, and Portsman had lost hers long ago. And it would be nice to have someone in whom to confide—if he could trust her.
It would be a dance, certainly. They both knew the steps, but not where it would end. And apprehensive as it left him, he also found it exciting, and interesting. And arousing. If she agreed to it.
“Well?” he prompted after a moment.
Emily cleared her throat. “I’d like a bit of time to consider.”
Damnation. “Very well. I can’t fault you for that.”
“Yes, well, that said, I don’t mind spending a bit more time in your company. But if you lie to me from this moment on about anything—your spectacles, your limp, anything—any agreement between us is over.”
He stuck out his hand just as she had earlier. “Agreed.”
She gripped his fingers and shook. “Agreed.”
Emily knew she’d been lucky. If Westfall had been determined to turn her over to Ebberling, she wasn’t certain she could have gotten away from him. Not without killing him, anyway—and she was beginning to realize that the Earl of Westfall was quite a bit more formidable than she’d first thought.
By agreeing to his little exercise in secret-sharing she’d earned herself a little more time, but for what? Once he returned her to the Tantalus she could gather up her things, ask Lord Haybury for the money he’d invested on her behalf, and go. If she could make it to Brighton and purchase passage on a ship, Ebberling would never find her in America. She glanced again at Nathaniel as he sat cross-legged opposite her. Ebberling might not have any idea how to hunt her down, but she couldn’t say the same thing about this man eating luncheon with her.
And then there was that odd thought she’d had when she shook his hand, that it would be pleasant to be able to trust someone. That in a perfect world Nate Stokes would heroically work to defend her, to protect her from Ebberling, that he would prove to be as gifted in gentlemanliness as he was in looks. But experience told her that was just foolishness.
“Has Ebberling sent anyone else after you?” he asked, momentarily interrupting the birdsongs and frog chirps coming from the stream and the woods beyond.
“I don’t know. I thought he would, but everything’s been so peaceful until now that I’d begun to think he’d convinced himself I was already dead or some such thing.” She tilted her head. “Did he give you a reason for hiring you now?”
“He’s remarrying.”
Dismay ran through her. “The poor girl.” Somehow, she’d never considered that, never thought that once a man murdered his own wife he would go seeking another one. It made sense that he would begin his search for her anew now, though. His marriage would be in the newspapers, in the Society pages, on the tongues of every wag in England. If she ever meant to emerge from the shadows, it would be now.
Did she mean to emerge, though? It could cost her her own life, or her freedom. After all, she still wasn’t entirely certain she could trust the man currently studying her face. And Ebberling might have hired more than simply one man. If she stayed hidden, though, and if something happened to Ebberling’s new wife, it would be her fault.
“You feel guilty,” he stated. “For the first wife, or the possible fate of the second one?”
“I liked it better when I thought you needed spectacles,” she returned, shifting. “You didn’t seem as keen-eyed then.”
“That was the idea.” Light green eyes lowered to take in his oversized jacket pulled over her breasts. “Did he threaten to kill you?”
“I didn’t give him the chance. Why?”
“Because you don’t strike me as a chit who turns tail, is all. Of course his butler and half the staff said you were a pointy-nosed, high-in-the-instep snob, and I don’t see that, either.”
He’d spoken to Ebberling’s staff. A shiver ran down her spine despite the warm jacket that smelled of him and leather and the warm, sunny day about them. “I was … overly proud back then, I suppose.”
He sighed, handsome as sin in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat, and more dangerous than the devil. “I thought we were being honest, Portsman.”
Emily scowled at him. “I find you annoying. I told you that I’m not discussing anything before my employment with Ebberling, so leave be.”
“I find you to be a conundrum,” he responded, emptying his glass and setting it aside. “I can’t seem to stop attempting to decipher you.”
“Well, stop it anyway. And you haven’t told me anything about yourself, Westfall. Tell me about the people you betrayed in the name of duty, why don’t you? That should help me decide whether I can trust you or not.”
Nathaniel rose up on his hands and knees, then reached out to grab one of her legs and pull her toward him. She flailed backward, but before she even realized it she was flat on her back, looking up at him looming over her. “I betrayed nearly everyone I ever met, all in the name of duty,” he said in a low, rumbling voice, reaching down to lay open the loose jacket covering her. “Since I left the service, it seems I’ve only betrayed one man’s trust.”
“Ebberling,” she whispered.
He lowered his head, taking a breast in his mouth, teasing at her nipple with lips and tongue and teeth. Emily gasped, tangling her hands into his disheveled brown hair and arching into him. Was this why she was still a free woman? Because he desired her? That seemed only fair, since she’d already half decided to tell him everything, and she couldn’t come up with a reason for wanting to do so other than the fact that she couldn’t push the feeling of his hands, his body, the weight of him, the color of his eyes or the sound of his voice from her thoughts. It was ridiculous and heady all at the same time.
She’d never trusted any other man she’d been with; she’d only decided she could fool them. Nate Stokes, as he called himself, knew when she was lying just by looking at her face. He was dangerous, and he already knew more about her than even Jenny did. What she needed to do was run and find another place to hide. Immediately.
Instead she reached between them to unbutton his waistcoat, shoving it down his arms until he lifted away from her a little to shrug out of it. He pulled his shirt off over his head, flinging it somewhere behind them, then took her mouth in a hot, openmouthed kiss. And to think she’d avoided kissing because it seemed too intimate, because she didn’t like the idea of kissing men to whom she was lying. But she wasn’t lying to Westfall.
Lowering her hands still further, she opened his trousers and pushed them down past his hips. He’d already removed his boots, so kicking out of the buckskins only took a moment. His cock pressed against her inner thighs, hard and full. Emily arched her hips, opening to him, and without lifting away from her he slid inside.
She closed her eyes at the heated, filling sensation. Good God, what was she doing, trusting a man who lied for a career? But she did trust him. Or at least she trusted that today she would be returning safely to the Tantalus. Tomorrow … was tomorrow.
He entered her again and again, both of them breathless and so aroused it almost hurt. She came hard, stifling her ecstatic moan against his shoulder before she remembered that they weren’t in her small room with its thin walls and close neighbors and that only frogs and birds and rabbits could overhear them. Harder and faster he thrust inside her, and Emily dug her fingers into his shoulders, th
eir gazes locked. How could she have ever thought him dull and absentminded? People saw what they wanted—what they expected—to see, she supposed. And now she saw him as strong and hard and sharp, and perhaps her best, last, and only hope.
“Westfall, wait,” she panted, feeling him tense against her.
“I know.” At the last moment he pulled away, spilling himself across her stomach, burying his face against her neck.
For a long moment they lay there, arms and legs entangled so that she couldn’t tell where one of them ended and the other began. For the first time in a very long time she felt safe. And content. And … No, not happy, but hopeful. Or something more, that she couldn’t quite name. It wouldn’t last, but for the span of a few heartbeats it was oh, so very welcome. She kissed his ear, drawing her fingers slowly through his thick hair.
Slowly he pushed up on his arms to gaze down at her. “Well, it likely won’t matter,” he murmured, a wicked grin touching his mouth, “but I apologize.”
Suspicion darted through her again. “For what?”
“This.”
He straightened, slid his arms beneath her thighs and her shoulders, and lifted her up. Standing, Nathaniel walked them over to where the stream widened and deepened, and—
“Don’t you dare!” she shrieked, grabbing his shoulders.
Instead of dropping her, he simply fell forward, submerging both of them in the cold, clear water. A surprised fish darted by her face, its tail whipping her lightly on the nose. With a gasp she surfaced again, wiping water and sagging brown hair from her face.
“Good God, that’s cold,” he rasped from directly in front of her, laughing.
“A fish slapped me,” she exclaimed, splashing at him when she could see again. Emily opened her mouth to curse at him, but the sight of him waist deep in water, rivulets running from his hair and down his face and chest, was simply too magnificent for her to complain about. She grinned back at him.
“Shall I attempt to capture him? We could fry him up for dinner as punishment.”
“Nonsense. I can hardly blame him for it, with what his poor fish eyes must have beheld falling from the sky.”
“True enough.” Still chuckling, goose bumps appearing on his arms, he reached over and pulled pins and leaves from her hair. “What do you dye it with, to turn it this color?” he asked, brushing the disheveled mess it must be out of her eyes again.
“Henna and very strong tea,” she returned. “I began with just the henna, but it turned a terrible shade of orange. The tea darkens it to a more believable color.”
“It’s a lovely color. Chestnut, or teak.”
“At least those are pretty colors of wood,” she returned, splashing him again. “A lady prefers that her hair be compared to a degree of sunlight, or autumn leaves.”
“Autumn leaves, then,” he said, sweeping both thumbs slowly across her budded nipples. “Cold, sweetling?”
“Aren’t you?” She reached beneath the water for his cock. “Ah, yes, you are. Poor thing.”
A rueful grin softened his abrupt grimace. “You’re an evil woman, Portsman.”
“Ha! I’m not the one who threw us into the water.”
Before she could begin shivering, she stepped onto a water-smoothed rock and climbed back up to the bank. Nathaniel followed her, stepping naked and barefoot and utterly breathtaking over to the picnic blanket. He dumped the remains of their luncheon into the basket and pulled up the blanket, wrapping it around her shoulders.
It was quite chivalrous of him, but she had a better idea. Holding the light covering open again, she stepped forward to envelop him, as well. His skin against hers was cool, but the goose bumps the sensation caused weren’t entirely from the cold. However much he’d deciphered about her, whatever insights he seemed to gain into her character and her thoughts and her past at every instant, he was an enticing, arousing man, and she enjoyed his company. More than was likely wise, or safe.
* * *
Nate left Emily off at the front door of The Tantalus Club. He would have preferred to see her safely through the door, back into the employees’ area, and to her own private room, but then he wouldn’t be able to resist removing her clothes and having at her again. Which wouldn’t be so terrible except that he’d already had her twice today, it was growing dark, and he had several rather thorny details to think through.
And if he’d discovered one thing, it was that thinking clearly and Emily Portsman did not go well together. When she’d agreed to a second outing he’d reckoned either that she meant to confess her identity, or that he could use the opportunity to wheedle the truth from her.
Instead she’d announced that she knew him to be a spy, and he’d stupidly counterattacked with her name. Or rather, the name she’d gone by while in Lord Ebberling’s employ. He didn’t think Rachel Newbury was her true name any more than Emily Portsman was. So who the devil was she? And what did he mean to do with her?
He hadn’t found the answer to either question by the time he reached Teryl House and handed the phaeton and team of grays over to Clark, the head groom. As much as he loved a good puzzle, this felt like three or four of them. And he didn’t think he had all the pieces to any single one.
“You have a leaf on your arse,” Laurence announced as he strolled into Nate’s bedchamber.
“When the lord and master of the household is changing clothes in his private rooms you are supposed to knock and announce yourself before you come barging in,” Nathaniel countered, brushing off his backside before he stepped into a clean, dry pair of trousers.
“I tried that same faddle on the headmaster when he came storming into my room at Oxford,” his brother said mildly, taking a seat by the window. “Except I said ‘brother to an earl’ and not ‘lord and master.’”
“I imagine it didn’t suffice any better for you than it did just now for me,” Nate returned, pulling on a shirt but leaving it untucked. He had no plans to go anywhere else this evening, and he might as well be comfortable for once. “Have you eaten?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“Have Garvey bring dinner up to the billiards room then, will you?”
“Certainly.” Laurence cracked open the door and called down to the butler, then resumed his seat while Nate padded over barefoot to run a comb through his damp, disheveled hair. “You have scratches on your back.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You had sex.”
“I did.”
“With a woman.”
Nate glanced at his brother’s reflection in the dressing mirror. “And did you do anything useful today?” he asked, to change the subject.
“I took young George out riding, if you must know.”
That surprised him. “You did? Just you and the little viscount?”
“And one of Ebberling’s grooms, but yes. I’m half convinced to change Dragon’s name to Dandelion, after all. That’s what the poor fellow thinks it is by now, anyway. George must have said it a hundred times.”
Nate knew how the horse felt. There were some days he hadn’t remembered his own name, he’d gone by so many. “Did you and the lad discuss anything interesting?”
His brother led the way down the hall toward the billiards room at the back of the house. “Interesting to an eight-year-old boy, yes. The Derby, fox hunting, the mummies at the museum, the war, and especially anything to do with insects.”
A few months ago Nathaniel would have made some comment about the boy and his brother having much in common. Lately, though, he and Laurie had been dealing surprisingly well together. He’d excluded his family from his life for their own safety, and when the time had come to return, he’d had no idea how to manage a sixteen-year-old boy. It couldn’t all just be about logic and facts, but he hadn’t realized that three years ago. Now things had changed—or they’d begun to, and in part because of a very bright chit running for her life.
“Did our young lord divulge anything more about his governess?” he asked alo
ud, pulling a billiards cue from the rack on the wall and tossing it to his brother.
“More of the same, mostly. He hates her because his father said she killed his mother. That bit’s always in there—‘his father said.’ And otherwise everything he says about her tells me that he adored Miss Newbury.”
With a slow nod, Nate racked the billiards balls. Although Portsman had told him nothing specific about the murder, he knew she’d either seen or overheard Ebberling kill his own wife. Young George’s comments only supported that; the lad only knew what his father had told him, and it had been drummed into his head so many times that it was spoken by rote rather than with any feeling.
“Did you discover anything more?” Laurie pursued. “Or were you otherwise occupied?”
He wasn’t certain that he wanted to admit to finding Rachel Newbury. For one thing, it wouldn’t give him the excuse of going to see her again on the pretext of hunting her down. For another, it meant that he would have to decide what he intended to do next.
What he wanted to do was arrange for another picnic or two or three with Portsman, take her about London where she’d been too fearful to venture for the past three years, because he could ensure that she would remain safe. He wanted to chat with her, learn not just what she knew about the murder, but also simply about … her. It wasn’t merely her secrets that intrigued him, he was beginning to realize, but the woman herself.
In the past that would have been dangerous. Hell, it would have meant his own death, more than likely. A spy learned what was needed to perform the assigned task, then went on to the next task. And frequently that meant killing the very person who’d just confided in him. Becoming acquainted with that person, coming to appreciate their wit and their company, only made the task more difficult. It made him hesitate, and that was death.
The Handbook to Handling His Lordship Page 14