She dropped into a curtsey and Will bowed. When they rose, he held out his arm and she slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. It trembled. They walked from the floor toward Milne.
Will drew in a breath and exhaled. “You are right in your summary of me, you know.”
She stopped, apparently oblivious to the rancor shooting in her direction from Milne’s eyes. “I am?”
“It is highly unlikely I will ever be a gentleman or have the money to buy jewels such as the one hanging around your exquisite neck. That does not mean I do not have sufficient funds for a comfortable future. Maybe that’s not enough for you?”
Anger stormed in her gaze. “By saying that, you merely reinforce the short amount of time we have been acquainted and how little you know me. Money, inheritance, is often more about legacy and loyalty. Sometimes if you walk away, you toss dirt in the faces of the people who strove for more before you were born. Do not stand in judgment of something you know nothing of.”
Her anger was palpable and washed over Will in an undulating wave. She was full of passion and determination. She was strong. He looked over her head toward Milne and her father. Judging from their body language, Milne was insistent on joining them but her father had other ideas. His grip was ironclad on Milne’s arm. Why? Why was her father stopping him?
He turned. “I am not judging. I want to see you again.”
She regarded him suspiciously before her gaze marginally softened. “Loyalty and fervor, Mr. Samson. That’s what impresses me, not money or possessions. Keeping a promise is the most noble thing of all.”
The tone of her voice implied something he didn’t understand. “Meaning?”
She shook her head. “It does not matter.”
“It does to me.”
“Mr. Samson, please.” Another glance at Milne. “You must stop this. It was fun while it lasted but now it’s over.”
Resisting the urge to grasp her hand, Will lowered his voice. “Tell me where you live.”
She flinched. “What?”
“Take a risk, Miss Darson. Tell me where you live.”
Her cheeks reddened but the excitement in her eyes was undeniable. “You do not scare me, you know.”
“That is the last thing I want to do.”
The seconds ticked by like minutes and then she pulled back her shoulders. “Royal Crescent. I live at Royal Crescent.”
She strode from the dance floor. Milne and her father rushed toward her as excitement churned like a tidal wave through Will’s body.
“Enjoy her while you can, Milne. Before long she won’t know you exist.” Will smiled and strolled confidently toward the exit.
Chapter Four
Emily frowned as her father set to pacing another circuit around the drawing room.
“Papa, please. Come and sit with me. So it’s been three days since the ball. Do not let Nicholas irritate you so.”
He halted and glared. “I beg your pardon?” His cigar trembled between his fingers and his breath rasped from lungs thick with the black stuff that was slowly killing him.
She stiffened. “I don’t mean to snap but every time I see you with a cigar, it makes me scared for you. Please. Grind it out.”
He shook the cigar in her direction. “This is the only pleasure I have left. Don’t you dare try to take it away from me.”
“How can you say that?”
“I’ll tell you how. We have no idea when the man you are supposed to be marrying will see fit to honor us with a visit, that’s how. Why does he feel the need to keep acting in such a juvenile manner?”
“Nicholas likes to feel in control.” She waved her hand. “Pay him no mind.”
“I don’t care how he likes to feel. My patience to overlook his dramatics is stretched to breaking. This cannot go on.”
Emily rose from the settee and strode toward him. She grasped his hand. “I want you to enjoy your remaining time, not waste it worrying over Nicholas and his uppity moods.”
He took two rapid puffs of his cigar, exhaling the toxic smoke in a thick plume between them. Dropping his hand, Emily whirled away in frustration. Damn Nicholas for putting her father through this.
“You know the reason for his absence, do you not?” Her father’s tone was accusatory.
Emily squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, Papa. Not again.”
“I was wrong to encourage you to dance with Mr. Samson. God only knows where Nicholas will go from here.”
“I am not afraid of him. He needs me. Do you not see that? This is nothing more than a power play. Nicholas and I . . . we had an altercation before the ball. He doesn’t like the idea I want our marriage on a more even keel.”
“Even keel? Oh, Emily. Are you still fixated on this belief that Nicholas will return to the relationship you had before the engagement?”
“Well, yes. If—”
“A man must be a man in his home. I completely concur with him on that level. He is the owner of a successful business, a man who people want to know, a man of influence. How on earth do you think he will feel to have his wife contradict him in public?”
Emily’s cheeks burned with frustration. “I am not suggesting I would contradict him in public. I am saying between us, behind closed doors, I would like him to talk with me rather than bark at me, demanding I obey.”
Her father stared. “But obey you must. It is the law of marriage. It is a vow. It’s no wonder Nicholas keeps disappearing for days on end. You clearly exasperate the man.”
Humiliation quivered deep inside her and Emily walked to the window, lest her anger show in her eyes. “It’s time for a change.”
He huffed out a laugh. “Change will come soon enough but I would rather go to my grave knowing you will be a good wife.”
“As Mama was before me?” She snapped.
Silence. Emily closed her eyes, shame flowing through her. “I’m sorry.”
“Your mother had your fire.” Her father’s voice was quiet. “It got her killed.”
She turned and opened her eyes. “I shouldn’t . . . I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “Come here.”
Emily walked into his open arms and her father’s breath brushed across her hair. “I know what you think you must do to be heard but antagonizing Nicholas is not the way. Your mother was the epitome of compliance in the home. A true lady in every sense of the word. Gracious and loving, attentive and obedient. What she fought for outside of the home had nothing to do with our relationship.”
Emily nodded. “I know. Nicholas is doing what he thinks is right.” She pulled back from his arms. “I’ll try.”
He smiled. “Good girl.”
“I just want more for my children than hopes of inheritance and arranged marriages. Society will not change while I am young enough to forge the life I crave.” She slipped her hands from his and pulled back her shoulders. “Everything will be there for my children, though. I hate the fact money paves the way, makes acceleration easier, but it does. I will not forsake money that is rightly mine at a cost to my children, your grandchildren.”
“You have a lot to learn. If I haven’t shown you prosperity comes from the fire residing here . . .” He pushed his fist into his stomach. “I hope one day you will meet someone who does.”
Mr. Samson’s face flashed into her mind’s eye and Emily stubbornly pushed it away. Her father’s upset shocked her. Confusion had her wavering on a turbulent sea.
“Papa, please understand. Take Aunt Edith for example. She is bitter and twisted by a life not unlike the life you suggest for me. Her husband died and left her with nothing. She lives alone, her children scattered around the country either dead or alive. I don’t want that.” She swallowed. “Neither do you.”
Their eyes locked before his shoulders slumped. “Of course I don’t.”
Relief flooded her veins that their quarrel had come to an end. “Sometimes when Nicholas looks at me . . .” She shook her head. “I know his reasons for this marriage run dee
per than the inheritance. There is something that pulls at him to make this marriage work. His ego was certainly damaged by my single dance with Mr. Samson but when he looks at me, he sees a good wife. Maybe he believes that together we can make the business into something bigger than it already is.” Hope dared to spark inside her. “You’re right. I owe it to you and Nicholas’s father to try. To try my hardest . . . without forsaking my true self.”
He nodded and walked to the settee, collapsing his weight onto the cushions with an exhausted sigh. Emily swallowed the lump lodged in her throat. From now on, she would ease his every worry and concern until the day of his passing came. She could not allow his final days to be tainted with contemplation and tension.
“There is nothing for you to fear. I promise. Nicholas will write or send a message soon and I will deal with his reprimands then. I didn’t hide my association with Mr. Samson. It was one dance and then I spent the entire evening with Nicholas. He will see I have done nothing wrong.”
“My dear, we both did wrong. I encouraged the dance, thinking Mr. Samson a handsome chap who could bring a smile to your evening. Little did I know what was to unfold.”
She forced a smile. “What do you mean?”
“You, my dear.” He smiled. “It warmed me from the inside out to see you look so happy. For one beautiful moment, you were alive. Even if you were in another man’s arms.”
Emily’s heart stopped. Was her enjoyment really that transparent? She laughed and waved her hand. “Mr. Samson and I spent most of the dance arguing. He is quite insolent.”
Her father’s smile widened. “Maybe he is, but you still liked him very much.”
She opened her mouth to protest but the words died on her lips. What was the use of denial when her body still tingled at the mere thought of him?
Her father sighed.
“That matter is now complete. Mr. Samson has gone and now we can concentrate on the situation at hand.”
His breath left his lungs on a rasp of exhaustion. Emily swallowed. Her father suspected the sensations Mr. Samson provoked in her. The way he made her want to scream and shout, dance in the rain, and laugh until she cried. It was madness. Two short meetings and the man had yet to leave her thoughts for a single second.
It was little more than a heated attraction borne from the reality that she’d never be free to explore the feelings he evoked in her. She accepted that but when Mr. Samson looked at her, she felt naked. Like he had the unseen power to make her clothes slip soundlessly from her body and pool in a heap at her feet.
Emily moved to the window. She would forever hold that feeling and wish it for her daughters . . . whenever they came. Her daughters who would be free to marry men they loved, not men who held the power of their future in the palms of their hands—or worse, on signed pieces of parchment.
She gazed at the sunset as pink blended with the color of fresh peaches. She wanted to go out, breathe in the evening air. Claustrophobia threatened and the evening was a beautiful one.
Her thoughts returned to Mr. Samson and his dark blue eyes and so-often insolent smile.
She shivered. His voice was deep and powerful, yet when they danced and he stood not four inches from her, the same voice softened to something infinitely more seductive. How she longed to hear it again. The man was a mystery. An intrigue.
Emily closed her eyes. Why did her life have to revolve around money and marriage when all she wanted was to find true love and right some of the awful wrongs in the world? Was she selling her soul for a piece of silver? A tear dropped to her cheek and she swiped at it.
“Emily?”
She opened her eyes and turned. “Yes?”
Her father’s brow furrowed. “Are you feeling unwell?”
Forcing a wide smile, she stepped from the window. She needed to get out of these four walls. “Not at all. Quite the opposite. Would you like to accompany me on a stroll around the park?”
He threw a perplexed look toward the window. “You want to walk now?”
“Why not? It’s a beautiful evening and we live in one of the most admired places in the whole of England. Why shouldn’t we enjoy it at every hour? Dusk is falling and the sky is the most enchanting color. Please say yes.”
Rolling his eyes, he waved her toward the door. “Take Annie with you and spare your poor ailing father the exercise. I am quite happy here with my paper.”
She walked to him and pressed a kiss to his sunken cheek. “I’ll not be long.”
“Go on. Go on.”
Emily left the room and rushed into the hallway. “Annie? Annie, where are you?”
Her maid appeared at the top of the stairwell and hurried down to greet her. “Yes, Miss?”
“Go and fetch your shawl and bonnet. I need a breath of fresh air and would love for you to join me.”
Annie grinned, delight sparkling in her amber eyes. “Give me just a few moments and I’ll be right with you.”
Emily threw her cape over her shoulders. At just eighteen, Annie was barely two years younger than her. The two of them had become firm friends over the three years Annie had worked in the house. Emily pinned her bonnet in place. There couldn’t be a better diversion from the subject of her looming marriage to Nicholas than discussing the day’s events with her loyal and pretty maid.
Will stared at the damp-stained ceiling of his rented room and inhaled a long breath. He’d been busy in the five days since the ball but not achieved enough to dampen the fire in his gut. He now knew Milne’s father died this last year leaving Milne partial heir to the Darson/Milne tobacco empire. Three thriving factories situated in and around Bath that the two founders built with a minimal amount of money and a hell of a lot of sweat and tears.
His jaw tightened. Milne came in with the top of his head already brushing the damn ceiling and hadn’t done a thing to deserve it. Having infiltrated the workers’ lunchtime eating area outside the biggest of the three factories, Will learned how the staff took to their new boss being at the helm, over a sandwich and mug of tea. It seemed Milne couldn’t put a foot wrong, shinier and more valuable to the staff than a damn piece of newly minted silver.
He’d gone there expecting stories of tyranny or at least disregard from the men who worked for Milne but no, the man seemed to be keeping up his end of the bargain as far as his father’s legacy was concerned. Will looked into the second half of the whole.
Emily’s father was dying, leaving his daughter heir to the other half of the business. The ruse was that a marriage contract was drawn up to ensure the money remained in both founders’ families. Further investigation led Will to discover just how trapped Emily was. If either party refused to marry, the willing party received everything. Milne and Emily each had solid motivation to marry the other.
Will curled his hands into fists. If they divorced, she’d be entitled to her half but then what? How would they work together in harmony? Would she sell to him? To another? Will’s vision turned red. Milne, in one way or another, would come out the winner.
He closed his eyes. His plan to seduce Emily meant she would lose everything she was entitled to if she broke off her engagement. He needed to leave her out of it. Find another way to hurt the bastard. And what? Leave a woman who no longer served a purpose in his vengeance to a man who didn’t deserve her—worse, would undoubtedly hurt her.
Emily Darson had haunted his dreams for the last five nights. He woke in the early hours with his arm slung across the bed as though he reached for her in the night.
How could a woman like that be engaged to Milne? The thought of the scum touching her, talking to her—God, even looking at her—made Will want to vomit. He tightened his jaw and grappled to get his temper under control. The man was vermin. Shit on his damn shoe.
The situation was a delicate one. He’d walked blindly ahead and by doing so hit a brick wall. His plan was messed up, no matter which way he looked at it. Going after Emily would cost him dearly. He liked and respected her. She was strong, h
er humor intelligent and quick. Will rubbed his hand over his face. It was lust at first sight. It had to be lust. Anything else was inconceivable.
Her eyes sparkled with secrets and mischief. She challenged him with every syllable that tripped from her tongue and she fit within the circle of his arms as though made for him. He would endeavor to find a way to make Milne pay as well as save her from the fate of becoming Mrs. Nicholas Milne. But how could her entitled fortune remain hers too?
He wouldn’t hurt her or make her think a future lay between them. He wouldn’t do that when he had nothing to offer her . . . if, of course, he felt that way about her in the first place.
If he could release Emily Darson from what bound her to Milne, it would go a long way toward soothing his guilt for deceiving her. To tell himself he was her savior was the only way Will could keep focused, keep planning Milne’s demise. If the wheels he set in motion crushed him along the way, he would ensure Milne felt their fatal tread first.
He wandered across the few feet of space in his tiny rented room and rested his hands on the peeling windowsill. The sky held the rosy hue of twilight. Beyond the roofs of the town houses, the magnificent treetops that graced the grounds of Victoria Park—which lay so close to Royal Crescent—called to him. He smiled.
“A perfect evening for a walk. Do you not agree, Miss Darson?”
He pushed away from the window and whipped his coat from the bed. Plopping his hat on his head, he headed out the door. It was time to take a step in the right direction; enough time had passed since the ball. He would “drop by” Royal Crescent. . . .
Chapter Five
Will raised his hat to the stone lions that stood like sentries atop the nine-feet-high pavilions at the entrance to Victoria Park. On the short walk there, his mood lifted from subdued anger and frustration to one of buoyant optimism. He would continue working on his relationship with Miss Darson until the solution to his problem became clear. Which it would. The answers always came . . . if you bided your time.
The Seduction of Emily Page 5