Alex's Angel (36 page)

He patted her on the head.

Emily’s heart stopped. She ran towards them.

The man looked up, his boyish features pale. Richard Green.

Emily sucked in her breath. “Elizabeth!”

Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder and her sky-blue eyes turned huge. With a little cry, she turned and ran back for the house, going the roundabout way along the line of hedges that marked the perimeter of the property, her hair streaming behind her, glinting silver in the moonlight.

Emily picked up her skirts and turned and ran after the child. The sound of boots clanking on paving stones sent another jab of anxiety pounding through her. She ran harder, lifting her knees high.

Richard Green came running in front of her and stopped, forcing her to halt.

She stood there, taking great gulps of air.

“I’ve been needing to speak with you, Miss Eliot. It is about your father.”

Chapter Fifteen

Richard Green’s manner was polite, as if he hadn’t just forced his presence on her. As if he had never attacked her previously. Yet the way he stood there, his limbs twitching almost as if he were dancing, the way he kept cutting her sideways glances and putting his hand halfway over his mouth, sent prickles over her skin. It made her afraid to make a sudden movement. Some instinct, at the hint of a wild glimmer in his eyes, told her he would be best handled through watchful calmness. If he were to grasp her—

She backed away slowly, moving further into the garden. Further away from the safety of the house.

He quickly closed the distance. He took her hand.

A scream welled up in her throat, burning, pressing its way up. She swallowed it. If she screamed, she would have to explain to others why she was alone in the gardens with him.

It would also give credence to all the rumours that she had been the petite, thin, dark-haired girl in the Blue Duck that night, whom Alex and Richard Green had fought over.

With all of that against her, who would believe her an innocent in this?

The gardens had been empty in any case. The music from the house carried to them. No one would hear her screams.

“Please, let me pass.” She tried to voice the words evenly but her throat constricted on the last word.

His grip tightened on her arm.
“Aren’t you going to pay me the least civility and ask how I have fared? Or do you see me as something less than a fellow human now that your lover has beaten me to the ground?”

She gaped at him. Had the man forgotten his own bestial treatment of her?

“We didn’t meet on exactly friendly terms, Mr Green. Nor did we part well on our last meeting.”

He loosened his hold and frowned. “I am sorry for that. I’d had a bit too much to drink. Now, are you going to ask me how I have fared or do I have to assume you despise me now?”

She decided to placate him, then pick her moment to slip away and run back inside.

“How have you fared, Mr Green?”

“I’ve had some bad luck since our last meeting. A ship I invested heavily in was one of those captured.”

“I am sorry to hear it.”

His green eyes burnt with righteous conviction. “You helped him humiliate me that night. I’ll never forgive you.”

She shook her head. “No, no—I didn’t even know who you were.”

He smiled, his lips trembling as if he were simply a boy, nervous about talking to a girl. “I must apologise for the other night—at the Blue Duck. I had been drinking quite a bit that night as well. More than I normally do. Seeing Alex there after so long…well, it’s never easy, you understand, to face someone who hates me so much. I always need something to fortify myself.”

“Why does Alex hate you so much?”

“Why, indeed—how smoothly you say that, as if you don’t know why.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“Let’s not play this game—we’re not children, either of us. You want to keep your secrets from me, then keep them. But I wanted to apologise.” He laughed softly, the sound full of chagrin. “I thought you were a harlot. I should never have assumed such a thing and I treated you savagely. I am not like that. I do know how to treat a young lady and so I shall treat you from here on out.”

She nodded. What else was she to say? Whether he was regretful or not, he terrified her. She wanted nothing more than to get away from him and go back inside. “Thank you, Mr Green, for explaining. I really should be going inside now.”

“I knew your father well and I wonder how you can hold your head up so high today.”

“What do you mean?”

“The food you ate, the clothes on your back, the very roof over your head, were paid for with the blood of slaves. How can you live with that, Miss Eliot?”

“You’re insane. My father was a kind man. A just man. He could never have been a slaver. Anyone who knew him would know that.”

“I knew your father well, I served under him as a boy.” Green continued in detail, giving the name of her father’s ship, his officers, the distinctive marks on her father’s face. “I was called upon, just as any other member of that vessel, to toss the bodies overboard—the men and women who had died wallowing helplessly in their waste—”

“You’re insane! My father never traded in slaves.” Emily pulled hard on his hold.

He let her go.

She ran from him.

“Miss Eliot! Hold up!”

She picked up her skirts and ran faster.

“But we’re not done talking!”

His voice carried on the wind, barely audible above the music that seemed to pound in a staccato rhythm in her ears. She reached the safety of the balcony. On this chilly night, it was still empty.

She leaned against the wall, backing along it.

But Green had followed and he was approaching. The gay music echoing loudly from inside the ballroom provided a surreal juxtaposition as he came closer, then loomed over her, his boyish features twisted into a menacing expression. Finding herself fixed tightly in the corner, she swallowed convulsively against rising nausea.

Of course Green was lying—but why? Just to hurt her? Just because of Alex?

He slammed his hand on the wall next to her head. She jumped and her breathing increased as he leaned in to her, his green eyes burning into her without mercy. “He was a slaver, trading in flesh and blood, packing them in ships as thoughtlessly as other men stack cord wood. Thousands died at his mercy, all for your pretty frocks and ribbons. It’s poetic justice that your father died in shameful captivity.”

“Why are you tormenting me with this?”

“You think the noble-minded Dalton will tie himself to slaver’s daughter? He’s going to use you, throw you over when he’s done,” Green said, his voice caressing the words with pleasure. “Perhaps you’ll whelp his bastard, spend the rest of your days begging him for scraps.”

“Get away from me!” she cried, pressing her fist to her mouth.

“People have short memories and back then no one really cared who traded in slaves. But times and sensitivities have changed—and I’ll remind them. I’ll tell everyone exactly who and what your father was. I will. To repay you for helping Alex to shame me at the Blue Duck.”

“Please—just leave me alone.”

He laughed, the sound soft and sinister. “Watch the papers, sweeting. You’re going to be a scandal.”

He moved away from her.

“Wait!”

He stopped. “Yes?”

“You can’t possibly mean to do that to me without proof that I really helped Alex shame you, as you put it.” The words came pouring out of her, a desperate attempt to reach whatever was rational or human within him. “You said yourself you were mistaken about me being a harlot. Isn’t it possible you’re mistaken about this as well?”

He came back to her. “I don’t think I am mistaken.”

“But I don’t know—an—and if I did, I wouldn’t tell anyone. Not if it was something painful that could hurt Alex—or even you. I have no wish to hurt you, I simply wish you to leave me alone.”

He stared into her eyes with intimidating effect. “You say that with such feeling, I almost believe you.”

“It’s true. I don’t know what lies between you and Alex. But I don’t share his depth of feeling about you.”

He nodded slowly. His eyes seemed to burn with some emotion she couldn’t place. “I think you’re a kind person. I am very sorry you had to cross paths with Alexander Dalton.”

He paused and looked off to the side. She studied his face, wishing to see a trace of a clue about what could have made the two men hate each other so.

“What’s your feud with Alex over? He’s the soul of kindness to everyone. I don’t understand—”

He turned and his eyes riveted on her. “Soul of kindness, eh? You didn’t know him as I did. He was an arrogant, insensitive boy. A snot-nosed little prince. He served on the ship but he was not held to the same rigours as the others.”

“But he’s your cousin—”

“On his mother’s side. We’re the poor relations, always beholden to the Daltons for having risen us up from the dregs of poverty.” He wagged his winger at her. “But he was weak from being cosseted and spoiled as a child. He fell into a fever just when strength was needed most. I was in full vigour—I could fend for myself. I could run. He couldn’t carry his own weight.”

“I don’t understand! Explain. Please.”

He waved her off. “You understand, too well.” He closed his eyes.

The moments passed with the strains of music echoing to them.

“I don’t think you really want to hurt me. You covered for me already. You told Rachel I wasn’t the girl at the Blue Duck.”

For long moments there was nothing but the occasional whistle of the chilly wind. She shivered…and waited.

“Mr Green?”

He released a long breath and opened his eyes again. “Very well. If you promise to keep my secrets, I’ll keep yours, too.”

He backed away from her, then turned and walked back to the gardens.

She watched him disappear between the hedgerows. Then she shook herself, smoothed her skirts and walked back into the ballroom.

Frantically searching the crowd, she spied Alex, tall and golden-headed, his back turned to her as he chatted with some older, bewigged gentlemen.

He looked up at that moment and his face instantly sharpened.

Alex took one look at Emily with her pale face and wild eyes and the last of his patience snapped. He would not let her paint him the villain tonight. He made his excuses and went to her. He took her hand. She said nothing, just stared at him with eyes that glistened with tears.

“Come,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

She nodded mutely.

In the carriage he turned to her. She was staring at her lap and would not look at him. She was
that
sore vexed with him, was she?

His anger got the better of him. “I did not appreciate what you did tonight.”

She glanced up. “What?”

“With Maggie. You made it impossible for me
not
to dance with her without becoming rude. Why would you do that when it clearly was not what you wanted and nor was it what I wanted? Then you sulked for the rest of the evening and disappeared. Was this some kind of a game to make me look the villain?”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Then stop acting so hurt now. I won’t stand for these sorts of machinations from a woman.”

She finally turned and faced him. “Well, I won’t stand for a man who wants to rule over my life.”

“Rule over your life?”

“Yes, telling me I may not have wine in my chambers and that I may not go walking alone. I am not sixteen.”

How could he tell her about his own youth after his escape from Turkey, about the struggle he’d waged to overcome the addiction to the drugs he’d been given while a slave? That he didn’t wish to see her become addicted to wine, or anything else, for he understood how easily a young person could slide into such habits unawares? He would never speak of his weaknesses like that. He couldn’t.

“In any case, it was clear to me that you and Maggie were lovers and that you were only turning her down out of politeness. I don’t need any man to make sacrifices for me like that.”

“If I want to dance with another woman, I shall certainly be able to speak for myself. Why are you letting this overset you? I have told you what I am. How my life with women has been. Did you think I was lying?”

“Yes, you’ve told me you shall tire of me soon enough. Do you think I am in danger of falling in love with you?” Her lip curled up. “I am not that much of a fool. I shall never love you.”