Lords of the Isles

by Le Veque, Kathryn

  Woods guffawed with laughter. It blended with the echoing chuckles from the men in nearby hospital beds.

  Looking around at her growing audience, she nodded for good measure. “No, truthfully, I gave them a little slap.” She teasingly demonstrated said slap on Sebastian’s fingers, and earned another round of laughter.

  Sebastian pointed his eyes towards the ceiling and shook his head. “I will return after my meeting,” he muttered. His response only fueled the soldiers’ amusement. He turned to the nurse who’d followed them into the ward and handed, Emmaline’s books over to her.

  Emmaline gave him a quick buss on the check and then he left. She returned her attention to the basket. “Ahh, let us see…what have we here?” She extracted a raspberry scone and handed the confection to Woods.

  He accepted it as though he’d been offered the King’s crown. “My lady,” he said in solemn thanks and then took a wide bite of the treat.

  Emmaline sat beside him for a short while, reading some of Byron’s work before she moved on down the rows of beds. She stopped to inquire after each of the soldiers, occasionally reading to those who asked her for a poem.

  Then she reached the last bed in the ward.

  No buoyant grin met her at this particular bedside. No warmth. Nor amusement. As long as Emmaline had been visiting London Hospital, this bed had been devoid of any trace of cheer.

  Emmaline turned to the nurse who’d accompanied her. “Nurse Whiting, I will just be reading here. You can see to the other soldiers.”

  “You are always so kind, my lady.” Nurse Whiting dropped a curtsy and turned her attention to a soldier at the far end of the room, calling out for assistance.

  With the woman gone, Emmaline shifted her focus to the soldier. “Lieutenant Jones,” she greeted with the same smile she had for each man.

  Jones, whose bed was situated at one of the back windows, had his eyes closed and his head directed toward the window. It was much the same every time she visited. Sometimes his closed eyes would be pointed to the end of the room and sometimes out the window.

  They very rarely fell on her. They were never open.

  Lieutenant Jones had lost an arm in the war. He had been gaunt three years ago. A skeleton of a human being. Since then, he’d gained weight, but seemed trapped within the hell of his experience fighting Boney’s forces.

  Emmaline had committed to never abandoning Jones.

  She waved one of her copies beneath his nose, so close it wafted his skin with the movement of air.

  “Coleridge,” she said.

  She waved another.

  “Byron?”

  And a final copy. “Or Blake?”

  She waited.

  As usual, there was no answer. “You are always so kind to let me decide. I choose…” She thumbed through the volumes, “…Coleridge today.” She scanned several pages. “Would you know, Lieutenant Jones, my brother had the audacity to tell me you are assuredly disappointed in my reading selection. He called poetry frivolous. Can you imagine that?” There was no outward reaction from Jones. “I told him, with utmost confidence, I was sure you approved of my selection. But,” she leaned close and whispered, “upon careful consideration I was forced to wonder if you ignore me because of the poetry.”

  For the first time in three years, Lieutenant Jones opened his eyes. They were a startling shade of grey; like a summer sky right before a turbulent lightning storm.

  Emmaline gasped, and dropped the volume at his bedside.

  Lieutenant Jones continued to stare.

  Emmaline smiled. Tears stung her eyes but she blinked them back. The last thing this man needed to see was her weak display of emotion. “Should I take that as a yes or no, Lieutenant? You just let me know. I assure you I shan’t be offended.” Her hand shook as she turned the page and began to read.

  A long while later, she glanced up when the soldiers at the front of the ward called out greetings to the Duke of Mallen. She snapped the book of poems closed.

  “I must tell you one of my favorite things about you, Lieutenant, is that you are the only gentleman here I am certain isn’t fond of me simply for the treats I bring from Cook.”

  She gasped when his hand shot out and wrapped around her wrist. For all his years of confinement and his lack of physical exertion, his hold felt like a weighted chain on her person. Emmaline stared down at the strong hand that gripped hers. She supposed she should feel some sense of alarm—and yet, she didn’t. Deep inside, Emmaline knew he wouldn’t hurt her.

  “Why do you persist?” His voice came out rusty from ill use. “Why do you not go away? Why can you not let me be?”

  Emmaline met his steely grey-eyed gaze square on. “I don’t think you want me to go away, Lieutenant. I think, whether you’ll admit it or not, you like me. And for whatever reason, I have grown to like you. Though, I must say you have proven far more amicable when you don’t say anything at all.”

  His eyes narrowed, passed over her face, as if he sought the answer to some question she wasn’t privy. He abruptly released her wrist. Then, for the first time in three years—smiled.

  Chapter Thirteen

  My Dearest Drake,

  After scaling down one of the ancient trees outside my bedroom window, I found my mother and father waiting for me at the bottom. They forbade me from climbing that tree ever again. I solemnly assured them I would respect their orders. So I have taken to climbing the trees far away from view of the house!

  Ever Yours,

  Emmaline

  For the better part of a fortnight, Lady Emmaline had been there. By there Drake meant, in attendance at every event he attended. With her ability to ferret out his plans, she’d have made a hell of a spy for Wellington.

  It begged the question why, at that precise moment, as Emmaline, her friend Miss Winters, and a maid snuck into a bookshop on the corner, did he not want to remain hidden in the confines of his black lacquer carriage? He didn’t pause to pay the silent question rolling around his mind much thought. Drake rapped on the roof of the carriage which came to an immediate halt.

  Drake jumped down, and crossed the bustling street to the Old Corner Bookshop. He entered through the single door that set a tinny bell a-jingle and did a quick survey of the establishment.

  The adage “Old” seemed rather generous. With an overwhelming scent of stale must, the inside of the establishment was ancient…and that too, might have been magnanimous. The rows and rows of books held a pungent odor of aged leather. Drake ruffled his nose and quelled the urge to sneeze. Clearly, the Old Corner Bookshop was not the most thriving of establishments.

  “My lady, Miss Winters, so good to see you both.” The boisterous greeting caught Drake’s ear and propelled him deeper into the shop.

  The ladies’ murmured response was lost in the rows of shelving.

  “Why yes, yes I do in fact have the very novel.” The shopkeeper’s voice had dropped to a clear attempt at conspiratorial whisper, a feat Drake was sure the other man hadn’t exhibited in at least two decades.

  Drake’s ears perked up. His betrothed enjoyed literature. What were Emmaline’s reading preferences? Poetry. She struck him as a romantic. The thought summoned a memory from long ago. He was kneeling down beside a five-year-old Emmaline. She’d fallen and he’d helped her to her feet. “Are you a prince?”

  He started. He’d all but forgotten that moment in time. It wasn’t particularly something a boy of thirteen would remark upon, let alone remember. But in his mind he could clearly see the five-year old girl’s brown eyes pooled with tears of pain. He remembered the way they’d widened in wonder at the sight of him.

  The muffled sound of Emmaline’s whisper brought Drake’s attention back to her circumspect efforts. With a sure-step, he moved deeper into the shop, closer to the voices in discussion, and peered around the edge of the shelf.

  Emmaline’s smile stretched wide, as she displayed a row of pearl-white teeth and one slightly angled, yet highly endearing fron
t left tooth. She accepted the work proffered by the rotund little man as gingerly as if the Archbishop of Canterbury had offered her the Holy Grail. Turning it in her hands, she studied the cover, and said something to Miss Winters, who laughed, and accepted a second copy from the shopkeeper.

  The man bowed and continued down the aisle, leaving the ladies alone.

  The furtive glances his betrothed continued to steal only heightened Drake’s intrigue. What could she be up to?

  Battlefield experience had shown him the importance of having the upper hand.

  “Lady Emmaline, Miss Winters, what a pleasure seeing you both!” he called out.

  A squeal of surprise rent the quiet hum of the empty bookshop followed by a thump as the book Emmaline had been holding fell to the floor. The novel tumbled open, and landed indignantly upon its spine, the title still concealed.

  *

  Blast and double blast!

  She’d rather have ripped her hair out one strand at a time than have him find her here. After all her chance-meetings with Drake, this would be when he happened upon her.

  “Lord Drake, what a pleasure to see you,” she lied.

  Emmaline saw his lips moving but didn’t pay attention to his response. All her focus remained on the book at her feet. She peeked out the corner of her eye at Sophie. She dared hope Sophie had formulated a plan to recover the volume without attracting Drake’s notice, for Emmaline was stymied.

  In an attempt to distract him, Emmaline favored Drake with her most winning smile and stuck the tip of her satin slipper out as she tried to drag the leather volume toward her.

  Drake’s jade eyes fell to her extended foot.

  So much for her winningest smile.

  “Please, allow me,” he insisted.

  Like hell, she silently fumed. She made one last valiant attempt to collect the novel but he bent down to rescue the source of her quandary.

  “No need. I have it, my lord.” She bent over just as Drake did. Their heads met with a loud crack.

  “Oomph,” Emmaline gasped. The world rocked from under her and she would have splayed in an inelegant heap at his feet, but Drake’s arms were already out. He expertly righted her, rescuing her before she crashed to the floor and cradled her slender frame against his sculpted chest.

  Emmaline’s breath caught. The press of his body against hers left her incapable of formulating one coherent thought. All she could comprehend was the absolute and total heat of his touch, the scent of sandalwood clinging to his person, tantalizing her senses.

  Sophie sighed.

  It would appear Drake heard it, too. As though Emmaline had spiked thorns along her forearms, he set her from him with alacrity.

  She hated that her whole body should go on alert the moment he entered the same room, when he remained impervious to her. She might as well be a matronly relative. No…he probably would treat matronly relatives with far more regard than he showed her.

  Sophie stammered her pardon and scurried down another aisle. Emmaline wasn’t certain if her friend was either: one, allowing her time alone with her betrothed or whether two, she sought escape before he discovered their scandalous reading habits. Which reminded her…

  Emmaline made one more attempt to retrieve the work, but alas her betrothed had the reflexes of a lightning strike. He intercepted her efforts, and rescued the volume, holding it aloft, well beyond her reach.

  A single, strand had escaped Emmaline’s neat chignon during her exertions and hung over her brow. She blew the lock back and folded her arms across her chest. “I would like my book back, my lord.”

  Her eyes were drawn to the slow smile that quirked one corner of his lips. Drat the man. He seemed far too amused by this exchange. She briefly contemplated snatching the volume from his hand and dismissing him without a further word. Based on his earlier speed, any effort she made to retrieve it would prove ineffectual.

  “Hmmm, what have we here?” he wondered, and lowered the book to eye level. His smile widened and he revealed a row of perfectly white even teeth.

  Of course he would have perfect teeth, she thought, promptly snapping her mouth shut. She’d not allow him to see her own imperfect row, the way her front left tooth angled slightly over its right counterpart. Her brother had forever teased her over it, and it had always been a source of insecurity. She could only imagine what her betrothed would think about it.

  Drake glanced at the title.

  At any other place, at any other time, Emmaline would relish the levity of their exchange. Not, however, at this particular moment. Her reading preferences were an exceedingly intimate part of herself that she did not want to share. He very well may be her betrothed, but he was still a veritable stranger.

  He blinked several times. “This is what you’re reading?”

  Emmaline did not like his emphasis on the word, this. “I’ll take it now, my lord,” she said. She held her hand out, and waited for him to turn it over.

  Drake ignored her and opened the front flap of the book. His eyes scanned the words, and then snapped in her direction “This is what you are reading?” There was a measure of haughty disdain in his words.

  Annoyance blossomed inside her chest at the way Drake kept repeating himself. “You needn’t sound so…so…incredulous.”

  Drake closed the book and shook his head. “Gothic novels. This is where your interests lie.”

  Rules of etiquette be demmed, Emmaline snatched the volume from his hands. “I do not appreciate your condescension. Nor do I care for the way you keep repeating yourself.” Somewhere along the way his words had ceased to be a question and had become a statement.

  Drake opened his mouth to speak but Emmaline continued before he had the chance. “How terribly stuffy of you, my lord. It is difficult to imagine that you, who’ve had scores of mistresses littering the better part of England, should be so scandalized by a mere piece of literature. Your reaction is simply staggering.”

  Drake advanced a step in her direction and Emmaline took a step back. There was something overwhelmingly masculine and at the same time predatory in his hooded expression.

  “Stuffy?”

  His words washed over her like a silken caress. She told her brain to remind her head to nod. “Yes, stuffy.”

  Before she even suspected his intentions, he again relieved her of her copy.

  The work under his scrutiny was Glenarvon by Caroline Lamb. Emmaline had always had a love for Gothic novels; however, this one was even more intriguing than most, for it told the story of doomed love between a married Lady Calantha and a dashing Irish Revolutionary. The work was not even a thinly veiled disguise of Lady Caroline Lamb’s own tempestuous love affair with Lord Byron, and that, combined with her rather unflattering satire of leading members of Society, had set the ton abuzz.

  “Are you mad, reading this?” His voice was a harsh whisper. He stuffed the volume on the shelf behind him, and cast a glance about as though discovery were imminent.

  Emmaline tugged the volume out from the spot where he’d haphazardly deposited it. “First, that is not where this book goes,” she reprimanded. “Second—”

  “I don’t care where the bloody book goes as long as it is not in your hands,” he bit out. He wrested it from her grip, returning it yet again to the wrong shelf.

  Emmaline directed her eyes to the ceiling. Who’d have imagined Lord Drake would be squeamish when it came to a gothic novel?

  “I am purchasing it, my lord.” She snatched it back from the shelf and held it protectively to her chest. She hadn’t had a say in the man she would wed, not one aspect of her future. She would be damned if she would be denied a say in her reading choice.

  “I should have expected you would be interested in one of the most controversial novels, and one about a great love affair.” His words fairly dripped with condescending irony.

  Her eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said, you’re filling your head with extreme nonsense. You’d be bet
ter served by reading the classics.” He paused. “I do not want to see you suffer, Lady Emmaline.” Drake’s usual jade eyes had lightened to a gentle moss shade, and Emmaline read something warmly protective in his expression.

  And she realized—he’s concerned about me. The realization nearly bowled her over. For years he’d been indifferent but now, he seemed utterly panicked on her behalf. Warmth filled her.

  “I’m concerned about you,” he said, as if he’d read her thoughts.

  There was something seductive about his softly spoken words. Emmaline swayed toward him.

  “I say, are you all right?” His hand shot out to steady her.

  She gave her head a small shake. “Fine.”

  Drake swiftly dropped his hands from her person and redirected his attention to the volume held against her bosom. “Of all the silly, nonsensical things to read.”

  So they were back to that, were they? “You sound like my brother.”

  A sound caught in his throat. “Don’t ever say that.”

  Emmaline crossed her arms at her chest. “Well, you do. He’s so hidebound when it comes to what I read, so very ducal. And you, you aren’t a duke, but…” She gave an exaggerated sigh. “You will step neatly into the role, I imagine.”

  “You’re an impertinent thing.” He took another step toward her and her arms fell back to her sides. She took yet another step back. “And I will say just one more time, enough comparing me to Sebastian.”

  A palpable tension radiated from his person, as he eyed her with a hard glint in his eyes, and she knew better than to debate the point.

  “Have you ever read a Gothic novel, my lord?”

  Drake snorted. “I would never waste my time with such drivel.”

  His reaction killed any of the earlier warmth she’d felt toward him.

  “By your own admission, you’ve never so much as read a Gothic novel.” She clicked her tongue. “Tsk, tsk, I would have never thought you were so stodgy and judgmental to develop such an uninformed opinion.”