Sweet Enemy (49 page)

No longer a blonde, he noted.

And no longer a girl,
his baser side chimed in. Derick pressed his lips together, hard. Damnation. The neighbor girl, Miss Wallingford.

Anna? Ella? No,
Emma.
Derick was surprised he recalled her Christian name. He’d always just called her Pygmy. She’d hated the nickname, thinking he poked fun at her tiny stature. There
was
that, but he’d really given her the moniker because her golden eyes and tenacious nature had reminded him of the pygmy owlets who hunted these hills at twilight.

She was apparently still a pest—and one who was already interfering with his plans, even if she couldn’t possibly know it.

Miss Wallingford’s wide gaze narrowed, and her mouth flattened in what was certainly pique.

Derick waited for her answer, tapping the rolled-up map against the highly polished mahogany tabletop in feigned irritation.

Well, mostly feigned. This wasn’t quite the foot he’d hoped to get off on with Miss Wallingford. As sister of the local magistrate, she could prove integral to his mission.
He’d intended to call on her at her home, play on their childhood friendship—if one could call it that—to gain better access to her brother. Not snap her head off in front of a room full of witnesses.

But what was done was done. Derick had learned long ago that the key to a good deception was to always go on as one had begun. He’d brazen through, play his part, and find a way to sweeten Miss Wallingford later.

Emma Wallingford had never felt so riveted to one spot in her entire life. It was as if she were carved out of marble, much like the statues of the Greek scholars she’d so admired on her only trip to London.
Move Emma, you ninny!

What was this abominable awareness? It was only Derick. Her stomach fluttered and Emma amended that thought. Yes, it was Derick, but he was also…
more
. His hair was still black as night, thick and unruly, yet the lines of his face were more angular now, more chiseled. His shoulders seemed wider, his hips more narrow. His eyes hadn’t changed, though. They still glittered like fiery emeralds and still gazed at her as if she were the bane of his existence, sent by Hades himself with the express purpose of bedeviling him.

“My—my Lord.” Billingsly, Aveline Castle’s aged butler, brushed past her, his stooped form cutting through her line of sight, rescuing her from Derick’s hard green gaze. Emma dropped her eyes to the floor, grateful for the moment to collect herself as the chaos of stammered excuses erupted around her.

His arrival shouldn’t be such a shock to her—the entire village knew he was due today. Only she hadn’t intended to come anywhere near Aveline Castle while he was in residence, but then Billingsly’s note had arrived and—

Emma gasped. How could she have forgotten?

Taking advantage of the continued distraction, she stepped forward and plucked the map from Derick’s
loosened grasp, berating herself for her loss of focus. She spread it out on the table and resumed drawing the border she’d started. With dusk coming, time had become critical.

The voices around her stilled abruptly, and Emma swore she could feel Derick’s gaze boring into her more surely than Archimedes’ famed screw. Which was impossible, of course, as a mere gaze had no actual physical properties.

She didn’t look up from her task as she said, “I’m certain Lord Scarsdale will agree that explanations can wait until
after
we find his missing upstairs maid.”

Crack!

The sharp, sizzling pop of lightning served as harsh punctuation to her pronouncement. A low rumble of thunder followed quickly behind. Emma glanced over her shoulder at the window in time to see the first fat drops of a summer storm splash against the panes.
Fig
. If Molly were outside and injured… Emma mentally kicked herself for the bit of time she’d squandered mooning over a man who obviously didn’t even remember her. She returned her eyes to the table and scanned the map again.

“My missing upstairs maid?” Derick repeated, sounding dubious.

“Yes.” Without raising her gaze to him, Emma held up a hand to forestall any more questions. She ran her finger over the map. If her calculations were correct, the only feasible place Molly could be that they hadn’t already searched was this area to the east of—

“
Miss
Wallingford,” Derick growled in a voice that demanded her attention.

So he did remember her.

“As these are
my
resources you seem to be marshaling,” he said, “I expect an explanation.”

She looked up at him then, annoyed. Had he just referred to his staff, and some of hers for that matter, as
his resources
? Emma narrowed her eyes, considering the
possible ramifications of ignoring him completely. She had more important things to do than appease his “lord of the manor” sensibilities, particularly when this lord hadn’t bothered to grace this manor with his presence in more than a dozen years.

But Derick had risen to his full formidable height, taller even than she remembered. His glittering eyes had taken on a look of arrogant command. Emma gritted her teeth.

“Molly Simms,” she explained. “The gardener’s daughter. No one’s seen her since she retired last evening.”

His shoulder rose in a half shrug. “That’s not even twenty-four hours,” he said. “I’d hardly consider that
missing
.”

Emma pursed her lips. What did he know of anything? “Well, the rest of us disagree,” she said. “We feel Molly did not leave of her own volition, and fear her situation may be dire.”

She’d given him as much of an explanation as he was going to get. Emma dismissed him and returned her gaze to the map.

“Yes, but
why
do you disagree?” he asked, plopping his hand down in the center of the map to block her view. “Do people in this village routinely find themselves in dire circumstances? Have you had a rash of dastardly events?”

Emma pinched the bridge of her nose. The Derick she remembered hadn’t been so tiresome. But then, she’d only known the boy. He’d been seventeen when she’d seen him last, a whole lifetime of changes ago.

“Of course not,” she said. Being situated at the south end of the Peak District, they’d had a bit more crime than perhaps was normal due to the number of strangers that passed through. Even a few suspicious deaths, but nothing like that for at least two years.

“Were there signs of a struggle?” he persisted.

“No,” Emma admitted.

“And yet you suspect foul play…” Derick lifted his hand and crossed his arms with a slow negligence that
set her teeth on edge. “The girl is young. She’s probably visiting with a…
friend
and has lost track of the time.”

The tips of Emma’s ears burned with indignation.

“Or perhaps she eloped with the lucky git,” he offered.

Emma nearly gasped at his cheek. Could Derick truly have become such an insensitive boor? A lifetime of changes or not, people didn’t usually transform into someone completely unrecognizable.

Regardless, she’d heard enough. She raised herself to her full five feet two inches, which unfortunately only put her at his chest. Her cheeks warmed as she remembered that horrid nickname he used to call her as a child. Still, she gave Derick her fiercest glare. He was
going
to take her seriously and get out of her way, so help her.

“I suppose that in the realm of possibilities, these are all reasonable questions. However, if I may point out”—she emphasized the point with a poke of her finger right to his breastbone—“that you don’t know Molly from Eve. You can credit those of us who do for having considered all likely scenarios and having exhausted them.”

Another rolling boom of thunder sounded, ever closer. A quick glance confirmed that the sunlight was fading fast.

She turned her gaze back to Derick and narrowed it on him. “Molly is out there, somewhere, and the more time we waste chatting about it, the less chance we have of finding her before dark.”

Derick regarded her. He still looked as though he doubted her conclusions, but gone was the arrogant tilt to his nose, the pinched lines around his mouth, the bored ease of his stance. “I su—”

“She t’weren’t anywhere, Miss Emma.” Two footmen came through the door then, cutting off whatever Derick had been about to say. The taller one spoke for them. “We searched the whole spot ye told us.”

Emma grimaced. The men stood in the doorway, taking great gulps of air and wiping moisture from their faces. Her frown deepened at their rain-sodden coats.
She waved them toward the kitchen, not caring if Derick took issue with her directing
his
resources
. “Thank you. Go on and get a hot drink, then hurry right back. We’ll need you both as soon as you’re able.”

She turned back to the map, bracing herself on the table with her left hand and using her right to draw lines through the section the men had been assigned—another search area combed through without success. Emma scanned the darkening sky through the window, mentally calculating how much daylight remained. She factored in how much area a man could cover on foot in that time, divided by the number of servants available.

Rain pelted the glass in an ever-increasing tattoo.

She’d better account for that variable in her time estimations. She was doing just that when a large bronzed hand planted itself to the outside of her smaller pale one. Emma sucked in a breath, startled by the long, blunt-tipped fingers, the knuckles and skin dusted with a hint of black hair. Her entire body warmed as Derick leaned over her back to see what she was doing.

“You’re mapping search areas,” he said, his voice sliding past her right ear in a hot breath.

“Y-yes,” Emma answered, damning herself for the catch in her throat. What in the heavens was wrong with—

She shuddered as the inside of his jacketed arm brushed the outside of her pelisse. His right hand reached out to run a finger down the eastern border she’d recently traced, and she almost swore she could feel the light touch as if it were she he stroked rather than the vellum.

“And this unshaded portion is what you have left to search?”

Emma gave a jerky nod. “Those two footmen just finished searching here.” She pointed to a marked area to the northeast, abashed to see her finger tremble just a bit. “Since their greatcoats were soaked, I can only assume it’s been pouring east of here for some time, which you may remember—”

“Is prone to sudden flooding,” Derick said. He straightened, pulling away from her so quickly that gooseflesh prickled her skin at the sudden absence of his heat. “Don’t let me interrupt further, then.”

She nodded, relieved, but whether more from the fact that he’d capitulated or that he’d moved away from her she wasn’t certain. At least he would no longer interfere. Emma quickly divvied up the eastern boundary into manageable sections.

“Right.” She addressed the tired servants, her middle tightening with unease. “We haven’t daylight left to search the remaining area in pairs,” she said, suppressing her discomfort as she always did—with action. “We’ll all have to take our own section.”

As each man or woman came forward, Emma assigned them a small, defined boundary until only she, Billingsly, and Derick remained in the room.

“Billingsly.” Emma motioned the butler to follow as she exited the dining hall and made her way toward the front entrance. The old servant was too frail to be out searching in the rain, but she knew he’d want to be useful. “As the searchers return, you and Cook do what you can to get them warmed, dry, and fed. God forbid we need to continue the search tomorrow,” she muttered, shoving her arms into a coat and struggling to pull it on.

The coat lifted from her shoulders, as if by unseen hands, before the heavy wool settled around her. She whirled around in surprise, her elbow coming into solid contact with a hard wall—

“Ooof,” Derick grunted, his black brows dipping as he winced.

—of abdomen, as it were.

“Oh! Oh, pardon me…,” Emma mumbled, though truthfully she didn’t regret the accidental jab. But how had he appeared behind her? She looked down at his heavy black boots. Certainly she should have heard a man of his size clomping down the hall after her.

Derick rubbed at the spot where Emma’s elbow had
speared him. The spot she’d poked on his chest still smarted, too. She was quite strong for such a compact little thing. And as bright as he remembered, given what he’d seen of her tactical mind, even if she were overreacting. Emma always had been one to take things too seriously and infect those around her with her imaginings. He guessed she was making a mountain out of the proverbial molehill.

She was also adept at giving orders and accustomed to being obeyed. Oh yes, little Pygmy had grown into just the kind of woman he’d thought she would.

Emma turned her back on him—again. Derick shook his head as he watched her struggle with the heavy oak door.

She still had more intelligence than common sense, however, since she was apparently planning to run out into a dangerous storm alone.