“Yes, sir,” came Baldwin’s dry voice from behind them.
“And a maid, too. One who will assist you with maintaining the house but who is also familiar with waiting upon ladies.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’d prefer to be the one to help you dress,” he murmured to Emma with a wicked glint in his eyes, “but a maid might be able to assist you in other things.”
Emma had had her own maid ever since she’d entered adolescence, but over the past year, she’d become quite accustomed to doing things on her own. “That’s not necessary,” she told him.
“Of course it is.” And the subject was closed.
Luke gestured through an open door as he pulled her along. “Dining room. I think I’ve been in there once, when I bought the place. This is my study. I spend more time in there.” He grinned. “Sometimes.”
He waved to an arched doorway at the far end of the corridor. Beyond the arch, Emma could see a small table and a square-paned window beyond. “That’s the breakfast room, and the kitchen is down there.” He gestured to a set of stairs at the end of a short corridor to the right.
He swiveled around and they returned to the stairway. On the first floor he showed her the drawing room, which looked out over Cavendish Square. Then he took her into his bedroom. “We’ll be sleeping here. But now, what do you think about harassing Baldwin for something to eat?”
She smiled. “That sounds excellent. But what’s up there?” She pointed to another set of stairs.
“There are three additional bedrooms on the second floor—rooms I haven’t ever used—and servants’ quarters in the attic.”
They went downstairs and sat in the breakfast room while Baldwin served them an extremely simple dinner of beef stew with apples and a bottle of wine.
For some reason, it was the most excellent dinner Emma had eaten in ages. Perhaps because it was the first time in weeks she wasn’t eating inn food.
As they ate, they discussed their plan for locating Roger Morton.
Tomorrow, they would head to Soho to see if they could find anyone who knew his whereabouts. If that didn’t work, they’d go to church on Sunday and look for the sister and her Irish husband—today was Tuesday, so they’d have to wait a few days for that.
“What if we don’t find him?” she whispered. “London is so enormous, it’s quite possible we won’t—”
“We’ll find him, Emma.” Luke said it like a promise. She hoped he was right.
* * *
The next day they went to Soho. They questioned just about everyone they saw—all the people who seemed to be fixtures in Soho, from the boy selling the Times on the corner of Oxford and Dean Streets to the orange lady on Frith Street to the bookseller in Soho Square.
It was true that their account of Roger Morton wasn’t very helpful—the man had brown hair, brown eyes, and was of average height with no marks or scars or other distinguishing characteristics. That description could have described anyone from Henry Curtis to one of Luke’s younger brothers.
They asked about the sister and her husband, too, but with no more than the fact that the husband was a redheaded Irishman with an O’ name, they only received blank stares and reminders that every tenth person who resided in Soho was red-haired and Irish.
With the vague information they had, Emma worried they’d never find the man.
Luke, however, was optimistic. “There’s still Sunday,” he told her. “We’ll find the sister and her husband at church.”
Emma wasn’t so sure, but she gritted her teeth and nodded. There was nothing to do but wait until Sunday.
They spent the better part of Thursday in bed. In the afternoon, they met the new cook and went to Bond Street for a little shopping Luke insisted on, because Emma’s dresses had grown wretchedly shabby during the journey to Edinburgh. Both of them were a dull shade of gray rather than white now, and both had ugly dark stains near their hems. The velvet ribbons on the half-mourning dress had begun to fray, and the muslin had already looked well used when she’d packed it. Now it was hardly wearable.
Of course, Emma didn’t possess the funds to purchase new dresses. A part of her didn’t want to accept Luke’s charity. Another, more practical, part of her knew she couldn’t saunter about London in nothing but her chemise, so she gritted her teeth and allowed Luke to buy her two ready-to-wear dresses, both of finer quality than she would have chosen for herself.
On Friday, the Duke and Duchess of Trent came for a visit. Emma and Luke were still in bed when Baldwin knocked on the door. As usual, his voice was completely flat and devoid of emotion. “Sir? The duke and duchess are here. Are you at home?”
Luke pulled back from Emma. He’d been lying over her, making a sensual perusal of her body with his lips. She stared at him with wide eyes. Oh, God. The Duke of Trent was in Luke’s house and she hadn’t a stitch of clothing on her body.
Luke rolled his eyes. “Very well, Baldwin,” he said, sounding exasperated. “Put them in the drawing room. Offer them refreshment and all that nonsense.”
“Yes, sir,” Baldwin said, and they heard his retreating footsteps.
To Emma, Luke growled, “How like my brother to show up at such an ungodly hour.”
“It is ten o’clock,” Emma pointed out.
“Too early for visiting.” With a grumpy sigh, he rolled off her and went into the dressing room. Emma rose more slowly, acutely aware that the drawing room was on the other side of the wall. Here she was, naked, and the Duke and Duchess of Trent were hardly more than ten feet away from her.
With the new maid’s help, Emma dressed as quickly as she could in one of her new plain white muslins. Luke left the room to greet his brother while Delaney went to work on Emma’s tangled hair, taming it into submission and then twisting it into a tight chignon just above her neck.
She took a deep breath, looking into the mirror. Her cheeks were flushed—whether it was from the attentions Luke had been bestowing upon her moments ago or from nerves about meeting the Duke of Trent, she didn’t know.
She was about to meet the Duke of Trent, in the flesh. Jane—and the rest of Britain’s female population—would be so jealous.
She rose, smoothed her skirts, straightened her shoulders, and left the bedroom, leaning on her cane as she hobbled next door.
“Here she is,” Luke said warmly as she opened the drawing room door. He went to her side, grasped her hand, and slid his other arm around her, supporting much of her weight. Again, she was surprised at his flagrant show of affection. What kind of message did this send to the duke and duchess?
The duke had risen as she’d entered. His hair was a few shades darker than Luke’s, but they were of a similar height and build. His eyes were green, though, while Luke’s were blue.
His wife stood beside him, a demure woman an inch or two shorter than Emma, with a slender build, black hair, and pale skin. Her stomach showed the first signs of increasing with pregnancy. Her gray-blue eyes immediately struck Emma as kind, and even before she said a word, Emma knew she’d like the duchess.
“Emma, this is my brother, Trent, and his wife, Sarah.” He held up her hand. “This…is Emma.”
Well, that wasn’t a particularly standard introduction. And to a duke, no less. Emma swallowed hard.
But both of them smiled at her. “Lovely to meet you,” the duchess said. “But do you mind if I call you Emma?” She flashed a gently quelling look at Luke. “Lord Luke does enjoy being informal, but would you prefer a different name?”
“Oh, no,” Emma said. “Emma is fine. Wonderful, in fact. So few people call me Emma, but I’d be honored if you would, Your Grace.”
The duchess made a noise low in her throat. “Then you must call me Sarah.”
“Thank you,” Emma said, pleased. She glanced at the duke. Amusement danced in his green eyes.
Amusement was far, far better than disapproval. Which she might have expected, given the way Luke still firmly held her hand and the way the duk
e kept glancing down at their entwined fingers. This was…completely improper.
According to some people, anyhow. Evidently the Hawkins family was rather relaxed when it came to matters of propriety.
“We heard you were back in Town,” Sarah told Luke, “so we came right away.”
Luke smiled at Sarah, then gave his brother a wary look. “Any luck in finding our mother’s whereabouts?”
The duke shook his head. “No. What about you? I heard you had traveled north.”
Luke raised one brow. “Now where did you hear that?”
The duke just shrugged. “I have my sources.”
“Are you having me followed?” A slight edge of fury resonated in Luke’s otherwise mild voice, and every muscle in Emma’s body went tight.
The duke shrugged. “Not anymore. I called him off when you were in Bristol.”
Emma could virtually feel the righteous anger rise in Luke. The temperature of the room seemed to rise by ten degrees in that instant. She squeezed his hand, hard.
“Why?” Luke pushed out.
Sarah stepped forward. “We wanted to be sure you were all right, my lord.”
“Sarah, how many times have I asked you to stop calling me that?”
She frowned. “I don’t know. Once? Forgive me, I forgot.”
Luke took a deep breath. “You’re my sister now. Did you forget that?”
“Sometimes…” She flushed a little. “Well, sometimes, yes, I do.”
“Luke,” he growled. “Just call me Luke.”
“I’ll try to remember.” Sarah directed a soft, defusing smile at Luke, and Emma liked her even more.
The duke cleared his throat. “In any case, after he was in Bristol, I brought my investigator back to London. Where he found nothing. I’d hoped you were more successful.”
“That scarred man. That was him, wasn’t it?” Luke ground his teeth.
The duke just gave him a noncommittal shrug in response.
Luke slid Emma a frustrated glance. She gave him a nod of encouragement, and he blew out a slow breath, seeming to release all his tension. He gestured to the brown-and-white striped chairs arranged around a low table near the hearth.
“Sit down, Trent. This will require a few minutes.”
The four of them sat on the scattered chairs, Luke helping Emma into hers like a true gentleman, then laying her cane aside. When they were all settled and Baldwin had entered with refreshments, Luke glanced at Emma. He raised a brow. “The story begins with you, Em, so perhaps you should tell it.”
Emma bit her lip, then nodded.
And she told them everything. From her ill-fated courting by Henry Curtis, to her short-lived marriage and Henry’s subsequent death. Her father’s missing fortune, and her discovery of the connection between Colin Macmillan, Roger Morton, and her late husband.
She told them about how she’d heard Lord Lukas Hawkins had come to Bristol asking after a man named Roger Morton. Finally, she told them how she’d accosted Luke in a hotel in Bristol and had proposed to join him in his search for Morton in exchange for information that might lead to his whereabouts.
Luke took over the story from there. “We found Macmillan in Edinburgh.”
Both the duke and duchess were poised on the edges of their seats, the tea that Baldwin had brought them forgotten on the table. “And?” the duke asked. “What did he tell you?”
“His arrangement with Morton appeared to be one of an entirely legal nature. He’d loaned Morton money to go into a brewery venture with Emma’s husband, but when Morton failed to pay the loan, Macmillan grew impatient. He threatened to seek legal reparations, at which point Morton—” Luke broke off and looked at Emma.
“Killed my husband,” she finished softly. “He stole my father’s fortune and used part of it to pay off Macmillan.”
“We don’t yet know what he did with the rest of the money,” Luke added.
“But where is he now?” the duchess asked.
“Mr. Macmillan believes he’s in London,” Emma told her.
“His sister and her husband live in or near Soho,” Luke told them. “So we thought Morton might live there as well. We went yesterday but didn’t get very far. The problem is that he seems to possess no distinguishing characteristics.”
“We’re planning to attend holy services on Sunday. We’re hoping his sister will attend,” Emma added.
Sarah clasped her hands in her lap. “It sounds to me like you have made great strides toward finding the duchess.” She gave an optimistic smile. “I think we’ll know everything soon.”
“I hope so,” the duke said.
“So do I,” Luke said. The two men’s gazes locked for the briefest of seconds, then they both looked away. For the first time, Emma wondered how brothers showed affection. She and Jane were quite affectionate, but men were so different. From the subtle messages they gave with their expressions and words, it was clear to her that these two men cared for each other, but they were also uncomfortable with each other.
“Do you require my help on Sunday?” the duke asked.
“No!” Luke nearly roared it. Then he added in a softer voice, “No, Trent. Allow me to do this, will you?”
“Of course,” the duke conceded. “But if you need any help—”
“I don’t,” Luke bit out.
The duke’s lips firmed, and Emma saw a hint of Luke in that expression. They might only be half brothers, but they certainly were brothers.
The duke glanced at Sarah. “I’m required at parliament in an hour. I’ll take you home to Esme—I know the two of you have plans for this afternoon.” He turned his attention back to Luke. “Contact me if you learn anything.”
Luke ground his teeth. “Yes, sir.”
The duke rolled his eyes heavenward. “Stop being ridiculous. Come, love.” He held out a hand to his wife and helped her rise from her chair.
She smiled sweetly at Emma, and Emma was struck by the oddness of it. Strangers in a carriage in the middle of Northumberland had gazed upon her as if she were the Whore of Babylon. This woman was a duchess, and she surely realized Emma was sleeping with her brother-in-law, but she offered her a genuine, heartfelt smile.
“I do hope we will have the occasion to see each other again soon,” she said to Emma.
“So do I,” Emma said softly. She meant it.
The duke was more reserved. “Luke,” he said. Then he inclined his head toward Emma. “Mrs. Curtis.”
He’d evidently gleaned her family name from her story. She wasn’t surprised; he’d listened in rapt attention.
She curtsied. “Your Grace.”
He wrapped his arm around his duchess, and, side by side, they left.
As soon as the door shut behind them, Emma released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
So that was the Duke of Trent and his duchess. She didn’t know exactly what to think.
She’d liked them, she supposed. Mostly because they hadn’t seemed to pass immediate judgment on her.
She glanced at Luke to find him studying her intently. “Well?” he asked.
She wasn’t sure what he wanted from her, so she simply shrugged. “They seemed…nice.”
His brows jumped toward his hairline. “Nice? Really? Is that all you have to say about them?”
She nodded, and he laughed. He took her hand, then pulled her off the sofa and gathered her into a tight hug. “Nice? Now why do you think you using that word to describe my brother makes me so happy?”
She burrowed her body against him, reveling in his warmth. “Mmm…I don’t know, Luke. Why does it make you happy?”
He nuzzled his nose into her tightly bound hair. “Half the women who meet Trent are besotted at first sight. I was worried you might be one of them.”
“What? First of all, he’s married—”
Luke pressed his hand over her mouth. “But there are certain things about you that I understand now, Emma. And one of them is this: nice is never a word
you’d use to describe a man you’re besotted with.”
She mock-pushed him away. “What words would I use, then?”
“Hmm…” His blue eyes danced with mirth, then he bent down and licked the shell of her ear. “Demanding bastard, perhaps?”
A shudder ran through her—because that was just what she wanted. From Luke. This very instant. She gazed at him. “Back to bed?” she whispered.
“Oh, no.” Luke’s voice was so silky it made her nerve endings tingle under her skin. “We’re going to finish what we started. And we’re going to do it right here.”
And after he’d stripped her, Luke made sweet, rough love to Emma on his drawing room floor.
Chapter Thirteen
That night, Emma was dragged out of sleep by Luke coming out of a nightmare. She’d been so deep asleep, she lay there, half conscious, only partially aware of him leaving the bed.
Time passed. She might have fallen asleep again. Then she jerked awake, suddenly aware that he had not returned.
Her eyes opened, and she saw him on the other side of the room. Moonlight filtered in through the curtains, bathing his body in a silvery light.
She lay very still, but her eyes widened. He was shirtless, wearing only his drawers, which rested low on his hips. It was the first time she’d seen his torso. He always wore a shirt to bed, and when he’d changed his clothes on their travels, he’d always done so behind a screen or when she wasn’t in the room.
His torso was a magnificent thing to behold. Pale and hairless save for the thin trail leading from his navel down into his drawers. Rippling with lean muscle. She’d asked him how he was so strong, given that he lived such a leisurely life, and he’d laughed and told her it was because he rode every day, oftentimes for several hours. Then he’d kissed her and said their bed sport didn’t hurt matters, either.
He was washing himself. Water trickled as he squeezed a towel in the basin, then lifted it to wash his shoulder and underarm. He turned a little, and moonlight bathed his back.
Emma’s breath caught in her throat.
His back was covered in sores. Some circular, some more oblong, like teardrops. There were more than ten, all about the size of Emma’s thumbnail. A straight line of them marred the top of his back, starting below his left shoulder blade and continuing almost all the way across. There was another line of them down his spine.
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