gave a dry chuckle. ‘I’m not sure that’s a compliment, Hattie.’ Satisfied with her appearance, Emma set out to meet Dryden with a brisk step as if her presence could undo any damage that had already been done. The sooner Dryden was free of Sherard, the better.
She was a little breathless in her eagerness and anxiety by the time she reached the covered porch. This was the moment she both feared and welcomed. At last, the future could begin now that Dryden was here. Perhaps, she thought optimistically, that future would be better than the limbo she’d been living in. If she could manage an entire plantation, she could certainly manage one old man.
The wagon pulled to a halt in front of the steps and she saw the flaw in her hypothesis immediately. Renford Dryden wasn’t an old man, not even a middle-aged one, but an astonishingly handsome young one. The man who jumped down from the wagon seat was certainly able bodied if those wide shoulders and long legs were anything to go on. So much for trying to caution him about the rigours of island life. He certainly looked as if he was up for it and much more.
Emma shot Hattie a sharp look that said: Why didn’t you tell me? But she supposed Hattie had warned her in her own way. She should have known something was amiss the moment Kitt Sherard’s name entered the conversation. Now she saw what it was. Up close, Renford Dryden was six feet plus of muscle topped with thick honey-blond hair and sharp blue eyes set above a strong, straight nose. He mounted the steps, oozing confidence and growing taller with each step he took. Still, he was a man and men could be managed, must be managed.
Emma took a deep breath. She needed to begin as she meant to go on. Men who weren’t managed had run roughshod over her life to date and she was done with them. Emma held out her hand to greet him as if he was precisely what she’d expected. ‘Welcome to Sugarland, Mr Dryden. We are so glad to see you.’ She hoped he couldn’t hear the lie.
His grip was firm as his hand curled around hers, sending a jolt of awareness through her. His eyes riveted on her, making her aware of the male presence of him. Never had a simple handclasp seemed so intimate. ‘I am so very glad to be here, Miss Ward.’ Was that a touch of irony she heard? Did he suspect she hadn’t been entirely truthful?
There was no chance to verify the impression. In the next moment she was very nearly lost. Renford Dryden smiled, dimple and all. It was a most wicked smile that invited the mind to imagine all sorts of pleasantly sinful things without even meaning to. He was that type of man, all charisma. But there was more to him than a charming facade. There was self-assurance and intelligence, too. Those blue eyes were assessing eyes, eyes that took nothing at face value and when they looked at her, they were shrewd and wary. It occurred to her that in these initial moments they were both doing the same thing: measuring the opponent, selecting and discarding strategies.
It didn’t take much guesswork to divine what his strategy would be. It was the strategy of all men when faced with a woman who had something they wanted. Emma stiffened her spine with a stern mental admonition to herself. She would not be wooed into giving up her independence. She had strategies of her own. It was time to teach Mr Dryden it wasn’t easy to run a sugar-cane plantation, time to lead him to the conclusion that his best choice was to leave all this in her capable hands and go back to the life he knew.
She flicked her gaze down the length of him, taking in the cut of his clothes, the expense of the materials. Here was a man of quality, a man used to luxury. Perhaps she could use that against him. Luxuries here were hard won, something men of charisma and charm weren’t used to. Those sorts usually didn’t have to work too hard to get what they wanted, especially when they were endowed with a heavy dose of self-confidence like Mr Dryden. They just smiled. But smiles didn’t harvest crops or pay the bills. Hard work was at the core of everything Sugarland had.
Emma gave him her hostess smile. ‘I have lemonade waiting on the back veranda. We can sit and talk and become acquainted, Mr Dryden.’ And he would learn how different they were and how he didn’t have to be here to reap the benefits Sugarland had to offer.
‘Call me Ren, please. No more of this Mr Dryden business,’ he insisted, stepping aside as two servants came up the stairs with his trunks.
Emma looked past him to the wagon, using the disruption to ignore the request for informality. For now she would resist the temptation. First names were usually the first step in any seduction. ‘Mr Sherard, would you care to join us?’ Politeness required she ask. She hoped Sherard understood politeness also required he refused.
Sherard shook his head. ‘No, thank you. I leave tonight on business and there’s much to be done before I sail. Now that the wagon’s unloaded, I’ll return to town.’ He gave her a strong look that reminded her Sherard was a man with a well-warranted reputation for fierceness. ‘I expect you’ll take good care of my friend, Miss Ward.’ He nodded to Dryden. ‘Ren, I’ll look in on you when I’m back in port.’
Great. The notorious Sherard was on a first-name basis with her guest and now felt he could use that familiarity as a reason to call regularly at her house. Her conscience prodded at her again. The bloody nuisance had been busy today. It probably served her right for stranding Dryden at the docks. She’d left him to his own devices and this was what she got.
Having the new partner befriend Sherard was not what she needed, considering the other rumours swirling about her. Never mind most people didn’t believe the rumours wholesale about her, the mere presence of those rumours was enough to still cast a certain cloud on her reputation. It called attention to her, something no decently bred woman deliberately sought. Nor did Sherard’s presence help her disposition towards her new house guest. Sherard already acted as if Dryden were in charge with his damnable fifty-one per cent, no matter that he technically was. She was the one who’d been here. She’d seen to the planting and nurturing of the crop. If Dryden had been a few days later he would have missed the harvest too. How dare he swoop in here, unannounced, at the last and claim any sort of credit for her labour.
Emma tamped down her roiling emotions and led her guest through the house to the back veranda. She liked that word, ‘guest’. It was precisely how she should think of Dryden. It was a far nicer term than ‘Mr Fifty-One Per Cent’ and, better yet, guests were temporary. She would make sure of it.
* * *
He could stay forever! Ren let the lemonade slide down his throat, cool and wet. He didn’t think anything had ever tasted as welcome, or any breeze had felt as pleasant. Things were definitely looking up. When Kitt had pulled up to Sugarland, Ren had been more than pleasantly surprised with the white-stucco manor house, threats of witches and magic receding. He’d felt an immediate sense of affinity for the place. This was somewhere he could belong, somewhere he could thrive.
Such an intuition was an odd sensation for a man who prided himself on logic, yet Ren couldn’t deny it was there. Possession, pure and primal, had hummed through his blood; his, his, his, it had sung. Then she had appeared at the top of the steps and his blood had hummed a more familiar tune of possession, a lustier tune. It was hard to mind being Trojan Horsed when it looked like Emma Ward. ‘She doesn’t look like a witch,’ he’d murmured to Kitt.
‘They never do.’ Kitt had laughed as he leapt down from the wagon. ‘Witches wouldn’t be nearly as effective if they did.’
But Emma Ward did look like something else just as worrisome and perhaps more real, Ren thought as they sipped their lemonade. Trouble. She had a natural sensuality to her. It was there in the sway of her hips as she led him through the airy halls to the veranda, it was there in her dark hair, in the exotic, catlike tilt of her deep brown eyes. It emanated from her, raw and elemental; a sensuality that coaxed a man to overstep himself if he wasn’t careful.
This
