Suzanne Robinson (21 page)

Thus his mood was foul when he went down
the front steps to find Emmie’s coach waiting, with Emmie and her little band of thieves in their usual places. Acton was already mounted, his revolver stuffed unobtrusively in his waistband. Turnip slouched on the coach box eyeing the gun, but he made no threatening moves.

Emmie stuck her head out the carriage door. “Where are we going?”

Mounting his horse, Valin ignored her and pulled up beside Turnip. “Follow me, and don’t do anything stupid. My brother will be beside you all the way.”

They were almost at their destination when Emmie stuck her head out again and shouted at him.

“You sneaking nobbler, you can’t throw us in there!”

Riding up to the forebuilding of Hartwell Keep, Valin wore a bitter smile. It didn’t take long for him to supervise Turnip in moving Emmie’s luggage into her new room. When Valin returned to the carriage, he ordered the thief to resume his post, then yanked the door open and stuck his head inside.

“Get out, Emmie.”

She gave him a look he’d seen on Russian cavalry officers charging his troops in the Crimea and stayed where she was.

“If I have to carry you, it will be over my shoulder.”

Emmie’s gaze assessed his determination. She sighed and nudged her friend.

“Come along, Betsy. Pilfer, take care when you jump down.”

“They’re not coming,” Valin said.

A chorus of protest ensued. He lifted a brow and brushed his coat aside to reveal his pistol. The volume of the complaints lowered to a continuous, fulminating grumble.

Emmie put her foot on the carriage step and scowled at him. “Where are you taking them?”

“Somewhere where they can’t make mischief for me or help you.”

Valin offered his hand. Emmie slapped it aside and jumped to the ground.

“I give you notice,” she said as she lifted her skirts and climbed the stairs of the forebuilding. “You harm them, and I’ll do for you, I will.”

“It’s quite amusing how quickly you lose your polished accent and cultivated expressions when you’re frightened.”

Emmie rounded on him, looking down from three steps above. “I ain’t frightened, I’m furious at meself for allowing a false, mean, odious villain like you to—”

“To what?”

“Never you mind! I curse the evil wind that
blowed you in my direction, I do. And if it’s cultivated expression you want, how’s this one: ‘The villainy you teach me, I will execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.’ ”

“I’m not the one who’s the villain here.”

With a sniff, she whirled around and marched inside the keep. When he guided her to her new room, she halted on the threshold. He watched her eyes widen and her cheeks lose their color. Then she walked into the room and continued past the giant bed to stand looking out the window. Valin waited for her to say something, to protest, but she remained silent until he was about to close the door and lock her in.

“You really are a bloody bastard, you know.”

She didn’t turn around, and he closed the door softly and turned the key in the lock. He stared at the thick wooden panels of the door, her words echoing in his memory. He detested Emmie more than he ever had Carolina, the only other woman to provoke such a strong emotion from him. He was going to figure out a way to prevent her from working her evil on more unsuspecting gentlemen.

Back at the carriage Acton was waiting for him.

“Valin, this is absurd.”

“What?”

“Allowing these criminals to go free.”

“For the last time, Acton, I won’t have them prosecuted. It would be disastrous for Aunt Ottoline
if it were known that she entertained a professional thief, even accepted her as my future wife. We’re taking them to the village. Mr. Leslie is meeting us there with a couple of men who will escort our guests to the nearest port.”

“I cannot believe you’re going to pay for their passage to France,” Acton said with a roll of his eyes.

“It will take them some time to get back, since I’m paying only for one-way passage. Please, Acton, no more discussion.”

“Very well, but you’re too soft.”

In the village Valin’s arrangements went without a hindrance, and two hours after leaving he was back at Hartwell Keep. Acton had gone home to keep Aunt Ottoline company. As he climbed the stairs to Emmie’s new jail cell, he reflected upon how cooperative and sympathetic Acton had been. His brother had been greatly offended by the deceit practiced on Valin and conscious of the mortification and hurt that had resulted. Indeed, Acton was behaving very unlike himself. Perhaps all that had been lacking was some great crisis to bring forth his good qualities. Valin was grateful, for he’d never been so confused or felt so alone.

At this thought gloom descended upon him, a mood darker than the winding stairwell he was climbing. Valin reached Emmie’s room, unlocked it, and gave the door a slight shove. It swung open
noiselessly to reveal an unexpected sight. Emmie was standing in a pool of fabric; the yards of her silk skirt formed waves of indigo on the floorboards. The bodice of the gown and a corset lay on the bed.

She hadn’t seen or heard him, or she wouldn’t have continued to remove her delicate chemise. Valin stood in the middle of the doorway, his mouth slightly open in surprise, as Emmie pulled the chemise over her head. Watching her was torture—seeing the pale curves of her hips and breasts. His whole being suffused with his physical reaction to her. It was like swallowing a magic potion that drained all the ugly emotions from him—even his rage—and left only desire.

He must have gasped, because Emmie suddenly looked up and cried out. She stooped, grabbed her skirt and petticoats and shielded herself.

“Rot your soul, Valin North! Get out of here.”

“Don’t screech at me. How was I to know you’d be—”

“Civilized people knock and ask, you bloody fool.”

Valin’s feet seemed to move of their own accord, and he found himself approaching Emmie as she backed away.

“I forgot,” he said. He seemed unable to tear his gaze from her bare shoulders or exorcise the memory of her naked body.

Emmie kicked a length of midnight blue silk out of her way as she moved farther from him. “What kind of gentleman forgets the simplest of courtesies?”

“What kind of lady undresses in the middle of the day?” Only a minuscule portion of his mind heard what she said. The rest was on fire.

“A lady who’s tired of waiting for her luncheon and wants a wash after a dusty trip, that’s what kind.” Emmie bumped into a dresser behind her and edged along it. “You stop where you are, Valin North.”

Valin kept easing toward her and whispered, “Do you know you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen?”

That stopped her. She fluttered her lashes, then said, “I am? But you’ve seen many women. I’m not as pretty as Miss Kingsley. I know I’m not.”

“Miss Kingsley is irritating in her perfection. She’s like a petit four—every tiny curlicue of her icing is molded into place. She hurts my eyes with her perfection.” Valin stopped within touching distance but kept his arms at his sides. “You are real, Emmie. I love your nose, your fingertips, your toes, especially the little one that turns sideways. I love the way your ears turn pink when I kiss you. I love that little scar on your left wrist.”

Emmie hugged her skirt. “I got it when I was a
girl, trying to filch lace at a shop. The shop owner chased me with some scissors.”

Valin slowly lifted a hand and touched one of the curls on her shoulder. “I love the way your hair is always trying to escape those elegant arrangements you concoct for it.” He bent and kissed the curl, then turned to find her staring at him, her face a few inches from his. “I love everything about your appearance, Emmie.”

Dear God, he still cared for her. Deceitful and hard of heart as she was, he even loved her. He closed his eyes, willing himself not to feel what he knew he couldn’t control, then he looked at Emmie, and lost his soul in her eyes.

“Oh, Emmie, I’m so sorry.”

“Me, too.”

Valin kissed her, his lips settling over hers as if they belonged nowhere else. He was already aflame, and when he slipped his arms around her, skirt and all, a wave of painful arousal swept through him. It made him desperate. He lifted Emmie and almost ran to the bed. A moment’s feverish struggle with his clothing, and he sank inside her. He felt Emmie’s nails sink into his buttocks as he moved, heard her gasps, and allowed the fire to engulf him.

Emmie heard Valin cry out her name, but she was trapped in her own realm of wicked pleasure, too breathless to respond. When he fell to her side in a tangle of indigo skirts and his own clothing, she lay in the vastness of the bed trying to catch her breath. Her eyes flew open in surprise when Valin rolled on his side to face her with a bemused expression.

“I still have no notion who you are.”

“Doesn’t seem to matter a precious lot.”

“No, it doesn’t seem to,” he replied with a grin.

She smiled back, but before she could say anything else, someone banged on the door. They both started.

Valin scrambled out of bed and ran to the door. “I didn’t lock it!”

Emmie dove for her chemise while he spoke to someone on the landing and shut the door.

Emmie had turned her back to Valin so he could fasten her bodice. “Who was that?”

“A man I sent for. He served under me in the war, and I knew I could trust him to look after you.”

She whipped around, dragging her loose skirts close to her body, and scowled at him.

“You mean you got me a jailer?”

“No, just someone to see you don’t get into mischief.”

“A sodding bloody nose to keep me in this saltbox!”

“This what?”

“This prison cell, you evil cur. You said you were sorry.”

Valin furrowed his brow. “I meant I was sorry you were a thief and lied to me and that you—”

“Be quiet!” The blood drained from Emmie’s face while she regarded Valin as she would a piece of rotten meat. She teetered on the brink of cataclysm as she realized her assumptions about their reconciliation were misguided. “You said you were sorry just to get me to bed.”

Valin straightened his shoulders. “I would never do that.”

“You just did, by heaven.”

“You said you were sorry, too.”

Emmie fastened the last button on her skirt, picked up Valin’s boot, and threw it at him. Valin was trying to get the other one on his foot and hopped out of the way. The boot hit the door and slid to the floor.

“I meant I was sorry you deceived me, too,” Emmie said, her temper hotter than a steam boiler. “Sorry you’re such a coward you run at the thought of conceiving an attachment to the likes o’ me. I’m sorry, I am. Sorry you made love to me when all the time you meant to keep me like an old lag. Pestilence and death to you, Valin North!”

She grabbed a candle in its stand from a nearby table and threw it at him. Valin ducked, and the missile hit the wall beside the door. Frustrated, breathing hard, Emmie’s gaze darted around the room looking for a weapon. She flew to one of her trunks, found a pair of soft kid walking boots, and threw one at him. It hit him on the shoulder.

“I’ll teach you to play such tricks on me.”

She rushed at Valin, but he snatched his other boot and darted through the doorway. He slammed it just as she reached it. Emmie pounded on it and shouted at him.

“Sneaking bloody coward, you come back and face me.”

Valin’s voice came through the door. “Calm down, Emmie.”

“I ain’t no dollymop that you can—”

“No what?”

“No tart, you dullard.” Emmie banged on the door. “Show yourself, you bloody, lying, sly, deceitful, sneaking …” Emmie ran out of breath.

“I’m sorry, Emmie. I’ll come back when you’ve calmed a bit.”

“I’ve had enough of your kind of sorry. Come back this moment so I can punch you,” Emmie snapped.

She put her ear to the door, but that only blocked all sound. She stood back and kicked it, then yelped at the pain in her bare toes. Sinking to the floor, she wrapped a hand around her foot and cursed the day Valin had been born. She glowered at the remaining kid boot in her other hand. Tossing it aside, Emmie drew her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and lowered her head as tears came. She heard a door slam and the nickering of a horse, then the sound of Valin riding away.

Misery overwhelmed her. She’d allowed her desires to overrule her head again. Why had she been so foolish as to assume Valin regretted rejecting her? Because she’d wanted him to be as in love with her as she was with him, wanted it so badly she imagined sentiments that weren’t there.

If only she hadn’t been undressed when he entered the room. She had spent the time after he left looking for a way out. The last half hour passed with her hanging out the window in the hot sun searching for the best anchorage for a rope. What an evil chance that she’d decided to give herself a quick wash while she considered whether it would be best to escape by going down to the ground or up to the roof.

She was as weak as her mother had been. Emmie moaned and thrust herself up from the floor to pace in front of the bed. If her fortunes continued in this manner, she would end up with child. That meant disguising herself as a widow and moving to a decent part of London. She couldn’t afford that along with her other expenses.