Emily clapped a hand over her mouth and, with a telling look at Leon’s flushed face, gloating, walked off in a fit of the giggles. Leon’s flush intensified.
Later, after due consideration, Emily confessed herself stymied. Leon Devereux, she supposed, was a taking creature, if one had a fancy for tall, darkly handsome boys with the wild look of a Gypsy about them. She preferred something quite different. Uncle Rolfe’s blond good looks were more to her taste. Uncle Rolfe was refined.
Sara, Emily decided then, needed her head examined. She was sweet on Leon. “When I grow up,” Sara had declared, “I’m going to marry Leon,” and all the grown-ups had laughed. Emily had decided that it was all beyond her ken and not worth troubling her head about.
“What are you thinking?”
Leon’s voice brought her back to the present with a start. His broad shoulders blocked out the light from the candle on the mantelpiece.
Emily delayed answering, giving herself time to come to herself by the simple expedient of bringing her cup to her lips and sipping at her lukewarm tea. A quick glance over Leon’s shoulder revealed Aunt Zoë ostensibly busy at her embroidery but with one ear surreptitiously cocked to catch the conversation.
Uncle Rolfe was more direct. Laying aside the newspaper he had been perusing, he said, “You’ve been lost in a brown study these last several minutes. What on earth have you been thinking about, Emily?”
“I’ve been thinking that tomorrow is a big day for me, and I ought to have an early night.”
She was smiling when she left them, but at the top of the stairs, her smile faded. What she was really thinking was that Sara would be home on the morrow and it would be interesting to see if they would fall into the old familiar pattern. Leon and Sara would be inseparable, and she would be the odd man out.
Within five minutes of Sara’s arrival, Emily had her answer. Sara came tearing into the breakfast room shrieking like a banshee. “Leon? Leon? Where…?” Leon had risen from the table and had just time to fling down his napkin before Sara catapulted herself into his arms. “I can’t believe it!” she cried out, laughing and crying on the same breath. “When the footman told me, I couldn’t believe it! You devil! Why didn’t you let us know that you were coming? Have you seen my new hunter? He’s in the stable. Uncle Rolfe gave him to me for Christmas and on my next birthday…” The torrent came to a temporary halt as a new thought struck her. “Many happy returns, Emily,” she called out over her shoulder. “You’ll adore the present I’ve picked out for you.” She linked her arm through Leon’s and made to lead him away. “Come along, Leon. Don’t dawdle! I’ve got so much to tell you.”
He didn’t disengage himself but he did manage to halt her momentum. “Sara!” he admonished, amused, exasperated. “You are still an incorrigible tearaway!”
“Oh, Emily and Aunt Zoë don’t mind, do you, dears?”
“Well…” Aunt Zoë began uncertainly.
“Not in the least,” said Emily. Her expression was one of amused tolerance. “Run along, both of you. As you may understand, Aunt Zoë and I have a million things to occupy our time before our guests begin to arrive.”
“You don’t mind?” Leon resisted the tug of Sara’s hand on his arm, but not very forcefully. He took a step toward the door and then another.
“I shall be glad not to be falling over you at every turn,” said Emily, forcing a smile and inwardly congratulating herself on the way she was carrying the whole thing off. It was just as she had anticipated. She was the odd man out.
As it turned out, Emily had a million and one things which required her attention. She was everywhere at once and nowhere to be found. Guests were arriving in droves and though everyone was sure they had seen her, no one could quite catch up to her. Emily made sure of it.
She did not see Leon again until just before the ball got under way, when the family gathered for the present giving. Emily was hardly aware of what she received or what was said to her. She had only one object in mind—to get through the evening without disgracing herself.
“I think she is all grown up now,” Leon said, kissing her on the cheek, flashing some unspoken message to her guardian.
She didn’t feel grown up. She felt like a child again, and Leon Devereux was the horrid boy who knew every trick ever invented to humiliate her. She would fall on her face and he would walk away laughing—with Sara. She was bound and determined that it wasn’t going to happen this time around.
“It would not surprise me,” said Rolfe, “if I were to find myself fending off scores of marriage proposals before your ball is halfway over.”
Emily smiled brilliantly. “Don’t be a goose, Uncle Rolfe. You know perfectly well how much I am looking forward to my come-out in London.”
Rolfe’s eyebrows rose. “Indeed?”
That brilliant smile on Emily’s face was to endure until it came time for her dance with Leon. She knew that she could not face him. Her wits were too dull to engage in the rapier-sharp thrust and parry their verbal contests brought. Before he could find her, she slipped away to her uncle’s book room where she could lick her wounds in private.
But she was there for no more than a minute or two when Leon walked in. At the click of the latch, she jerked.
“This is our dance, I believe,” he said, and there was a wariness about him.
The words spilled heedlessly from her lips. “I’d as soon dance with a snake as dance with you.”
Shaking her head, putting one hand out to fend him off, she backed away. She had seen that murderous look in his eyes once before, when she was a child and had played a wicked trick on him, and he had thrashed her for it.
“Words don’t work with you,” he said. “Perhaps this will teach you a lesson.”
There was no point in trying to evade him. He stood between her and the door. Like a mesmerized little rabbit cornered by a cobra, she waited for him to strike.
When he moved, pure instinct took over. She lashed out with nails curved like talons. He deflected her movements effortlessly, forcing her arms behind her back. She opened her mouth to cry out. In an instant, his mouth was pressed fiercely against hers, smothering her scream. His arms were clamped so tightly around her body that she thought her ribs would crack.
Though Emily knew nothing of love, she knew that this could not be a lover’s embrace. It was too rough, too smothering, too wild. He released her so suddenly that she stumbled back. Tears of mortification slipped from beneath her lashes. “I hate you,” she said brokenly, and scrubbed the taste of him from her bruised lips.
Leon’s eyes were not on her, but on a point beyond her shoulder. “Rolfe,” he said, and grinned crookedly.
Keeping her head well down, Emily picked up her skirts and made her escape.
“I warned you,” she heard her guardian say before he closed the door, shutting her out.
Not a long time was to pass before Rolfe and Leon entered the great hall together. She went as cold as marble when Leon’s eyes found her. Without hesitation, he crossed to her.
“Lady Emily,” he said, “I owe you an apology.”
His eyes weren’t apologizing. They were mocking her. Conscious that her guardian was watching them from across the room, she managed some polite commonplace.
Leon made as if to say something more, then, with a coarse obscenity, he turned on his heel and left her.
The party was over. Rivard’s guests had long since retired for the night. Emily was too keyed up to sleep and had yet to undress when Sara burst into her chamber. Dismissing her maid, Emily waited for the predictable torrent of words.
Sara was in a passion. Leon had humiliated her in the worst possible way. He had defected to another lady. Emily was well aware of it. Her eyes had trailed Leon all evening. He had made quite a spectacle of himself, with his frequent trips to the punch bowl, and outrageous flirting with anything in skirts. His interest had finally settled on Lady Judith Riddley.
“They made an assignation right in f
ront of my nose,” wailed Sara. “Oh, not in so many words. But anyone who knows anything would have divined what was going on. Can you believe it? They have arranged to meet at the dower house when everyone at Rivard is snug in his bed.”
“But Lady Riddley is a married lady,” Emily objected. “And her husband is a connection of Uncle Rolfe’s.”
Through her tears, Sara made a grimace of disbelief. “What has that to say to anything? She is a veritable trollop! And Lord Riddley, the doddering old fool, is three sheets to the wind. He wanted two footmen to carry him upstairs. Sometimes, Emily, I despair of you. You’re such a child!”
As Sara swept from the room, Emily ran after her. “What do you intend to do?” she cried out.
“Do?” sobbed Sara. “What should I do? I think I shall take a whip and go after them, or perhaps fetch Uncle Rolfe’s pistol. Leon Devereux is a knave! It would serve him his just deserts if I put a bullet in his brain.” Her voice cracked. “Or perhaps I shall put a bullet in my heart. I might as well. And then think how sorry he will be.”
It would all blow over, Emily assured herself. She’d seen Sara in these takings before. Her temper was like a flash fire. Once ignited, it was soon spent. Still, she did not care for the reference to Uncle Rolfe’s pistol. There was no saying what mischief Sara might get up to. It was safer to remove the pistol from Sara’s reach.
This was soon done. The pistol, a toy really, was kept in the bottom drawer of Uncle Rolfe’s desk. The drawer was locked, but Emily and Sara, unbeknownst to their guardian, both knew where the key was hidden.
Emily was never sure afterward why she chose the course she followed that night. Her emotions were in a turmoil and had been thus since Leon had humiliated her with his hateful kiss. She knew she wasn’t thinking straight. And one thought seemed to have taken possession of her mind. Leon Devereux must not be allowed to desecrate the house where her grandmother had once lived.
The dower house had stood empty for years. The doors were locked and the furniture was under Holland covers. Leon would know all this. Without reflecting too deeply on the wisdom of what she was doing, Emily slipped out a side door.
The house was shrouded in darkness. An owl hooted, and Emily jumped, bringing the pistol up. She let out a shaky laugh. Thankfully, she had come on a fool’s errand. She must be more like Sara than she suspected. Her anger had quite dissipated. Even if she were to find Leon Devereux making free with her grandmother’s house, she knew perfectly well that she would creep away with her tail between her legs before anyone was the wiser.
The locked doors of Rivard, like the locked drawers, had never been known to keep Ladies Emily and Sara out if they had a mind to enter. At the back of the house was an old laburnum tree. Climbing it was child’s play. One branch gave onto a small landing window, the neck of which had been broken for years. Within minutes, Emily had gained the interior. When she entered her grandmother’s bedchamber, she was overcome with nostalgia. Moonlight streamed through the window, casting ghostly shadows. She sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to recall her sixth birthday. She had spent it here, with Grandmama. In those days, she and Sara were the best of friends. That was not the case now. Her last thought was of Leon Devereux.
“Leon?”
Had she said his name out loud? Blinking the sleep from her eyes, Emily pulled to her elbows. She must have dozed. The pistol was clutched to her bosom in a death grip and she was chilled to the marrow.
“Leon! Please!”
Emily froze. The husky feminine voice belonged unmistakably to Lady Riddley. She was in the bedchamber across the hall, directly opposite. The door was open, as was the door to the chamber Emily occupied. From her bed, Emily could see straight into the room. A candle was burning, casting grotesque shadows on the wall. A man with his back to her was peeling out of his garments. The woman on the bed was naked. Hair like black silk spilled over her milky-white shoulders and breasts.
“Hurry,” said Lady Riddley. “I burn for you.”
Low, masculine laughter answered her. “You’re like an animal in heat, do you know?”
Leon’s voice. His speech was slurred, but Emily had no difficulty recognizing it. She felt sick to her stomach. Not in her wildest fancies had she imagined anything so ugly. An “assignation” Sara had called it, and in her ignorance Emily had thought of the time Leon had been kissing the downstairs maid in the pantry. She didn’t want to be a witness to this. She had to get away.
Clamping down on her chattering teeth, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and rose unsteadily to her feet. Inch by slow inch, she approached the open door, keeping to the shadows.
“If I’m an animal in heat, what does that make you?” asked the woman coyly.
More masculine laughter. “A stallion who has caught the scent of a mare?”
Emily’s hand flew to her mouth, catching back her gasp of horror. She had never seen an aroused male before. Her eyes swept over Leon’s powerful naked torso, irresistibly drawn to his swollen, jutting sex. “Stallion,” he had called himself. It was the truth. Once, when she was where she was not supposed to be, she had watched as a stallion had cornered a mare and forcibly mounted her. It was brutal. The poor creature had wailed her terror. The men observing from the edge of the paddock had applauded. Emily had been violently sick.
Leon crouched over the woman. She was moaning and panting. His breathing was labored. He groaned and came down on her hard. Muscles clenched and rippled across the breadth of his shoulders. They might have been gladiators locked in mortal combat.
Emily’s brain was frozen. She did not know how long she stood there as though rooted to the spot. Finally, like a sleepwalker, she moved her feet. A few steps and she was past the open door and into the corridor.
It was then that the woman screamed. He was hurting her and he did not seem to care. Tears streamed down Emily’s face and she sagged against the wall. Something awful was happening in that room. The grunts and groans sickened her. At last, they were silent. She had just about steeled herself to move away when the woman’s voice, drowsy with spent passion, arrested her.
“I’ve had my eye on you since the moment I caught sight of you.”
“I know.” Leon’s tone was amused.
Throaty feminine laughter. “Why this sudden turnaround, Leon? What finally decided you to notice me?”
“No particular reason.”
“I think I know the answer. Rivard’s niece…”
Leon’s voice was curt. “We shall leave her out of this conversation, if you please. She is a mere child.”
More feminine laughter. “Make me forget about her.”
“You are insatiable, do you know?”
There was a rustling sound. The bed ropes creaked and the woman moaned. When Leon laughed softly, the bile rose in Emily’s throat and she began to retch in great shuddering gasps that left her weak at the knees.
“Who is there?”
Leon’s strident tones steadied Emily’s nerves as nothing else could. With one hand over her mouth and the other clutching her pistol, she began to back toward the landing window. Leon, naked as the day he was born, appeared in the open doorway.
His eyes closed upon seeing her. “Emily!” he groaned. “Oh, God, Emily!”
He took one step toward her and she bolted. She practically threw herself out the landing window. Hands and knees were scraped raw in her blind haste to descend the gnarled laburnum. Her gown and hair caught on branches and the pistol fell from her hand. Crying, sobbing, she dragged herself clear, oblivious of pain, uncaring of the rents to her garments or the splinters in her fingers, unheeding of Leon’s cries. Once her feet touched the ground, she retrieved her pistol and was off and running.
The Abbey was a good half-mile away. There were no sounds of pursuit, and before long, her strides slackened to a stumbling gait. From time to time she rested, then forced herself to go on.
When she entered the great hall, she took a minute or two to come to her
self. She was distraught, on the point of hysteria. Breathing was painful. Mounting the stairs in a daze, without thought she made for the little turret room, her sanctuary, the place to which she always retreated, even as a child.
At once she turned the key in the lock. Here, in the confines of this small space, she felt as safe as a babe in the womb.
Sobbing, she groped her way to the small table by one of the windows. After a few false starts, she managed to control the trembling in her fingers to get a candle lit. She was wheezing like an old woman.
“Emily!”
The softly spoken word acted on her like melted wax on a raw burn. She flinched away, then slowly turned to face him. It was Leon. She could not believe her eyes. How had he had the time to get dressed and get here before her? How had he known she would come to the turret room?
His voice was taut with suppressed violence. “How long were you there, Emily? What did you see?”
She stared at him with huge, frightened eyes.
His profane exclamation loosened her tongue. “I was there before you. I fell asleep. When I awakened, you were there with that woman.”
“Where did you fall asleep?”
“In the room across the hall. My grandmother’s room.”
She was terrified at what she read in his expression. He’d looked just so when he had kissed her earlier that evening. Only now she knew of other ways, more degrading ways, that a man could use against a woman if he really wanted to debase her.
“I’m almost twenty-seven years old,” he said viciously. “What did you think? What did you expect?” Striving to restrain himself, he said more gently, “Emily, what you saw, what you heard—it won’t be like that for you. When you marry, your husband will love you. He will cherish you. In that room—that wasn’t love.” He wasn’t aware that he had raised his hand in a gesture of appeal.
Inching away from him, leveling her pistol, she said tremulously, “Don’t touch me. I don’t want you ever to touch me. Please, just leave me alone. I know how to use this, so don’t think I’m bluffing. If you go away, I won’t tell a soul. I promise you I won’t say a word to Sara. Please, just go away.”
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