shook her head. None of this made sense. Asher Wellingham was her enemy and she would be gone from England as soon as she found what it was she sought. It was the heat in this room that was making her flush and the shock of the fall that had set her heart to pounding. If only she could escape outside and take a breath of fresh air or feel the wind as it made its path along London’s river, a hint of freedom on its edge.
Raising her voice to the discordant and high whining tone she had perfected under the tutelage of Miriam, she pushed into her cause.
‘I suspect that it was the soles of my shoes that made me falter and the floor itself is highly polished. I do hope that the gossip will not be too unkind.’
‘I am certain that it shall not be.’ His tone was flat.
‘Oh, how very good of you to say so, your Grace,’ and although the flare of darkness in his eyes was intimidating she made herself continue. ‘Whenever things went wrong at home, Mama always said the strength of a woman’s character was not in her successes, but in her failures.’
The tilt of his lips was not encouraging. ‘Your mother sounds like a wise woman, Lady Emma.’ The sentiment lacked any vestige of interest and she knew that he was fast approaching the end of his patience.
‘Oh, she was, your Grace.’
‘Was?’
‘She died when I was quite young and I was brought up by my father.’
‘I see.’ He looked for all the world like a man who’d had enough of this discourse, though innate good manners held him still. ‘Rumour has it that you are from the country. Which part exactly do you hail from?’
‘Knutsford in Cheshire.’ She had been there as a child once. It had been summertime and the memory of the flowers of England had never left her. Her mother had pressed one in the locket she now wore. A delphinium, the sky blue dimmed under the onslaught of many years.
‘And your accent. I can’t quite place it?’
The question startled her and a vase balanced on a plinth near her right hand toppled. A thousand splinters of porcelain fell around her feet. Bending to pick some up, the china pierced through her glove and drew blood.
‘Do leave it alone, Emma. This is hardly proper.’ Miriam’s reprimand was sharp and Emerald froze. Of course, a servant would tidy up after a lady. She must not forget again.
‘Is it expensive?’ More to the point would she have to pay for it?
Henshaw stepped forward. ‘The plinth was shaky and I have never been overly fond of ornate things.’
Wellingham’s bark of laughter behind him worried Emerald; looking around, she could also see that this last statement was patently false. Everything in this room was overly embellished and elaborately decorated. Still, given the fact that eighty pounds and a few pieces of jewellery were all that stood between her and bankruptcy, she could hardly afford to be magnanimous.
‘I am so terribly sorry.’ Desperation stripped her voice to its more familiar and husky tone. She wanted to be away from here. She wanted the wide-open spaces of Jamaica and enough room to move in. She wanted to be safe with Ruby and her aunt and far, far away from a man who could ruin her completely.
But she needed the cane first.
Without the cane, nothing would be possible. Squeezing her eyes together, she was pleased to feel moisture. These Englishmen loved women who were fragile and needy. She had seen this to be true ever since she had arrived here. In the ballrooms. In the drawing rooms. Even in the park where women sat beside their men and watched them tool horses Emerald thought so docile that a child in Jamaica might have managed them. It was just the way of things in England.
She was surprised, therefore, by the Duke of Carisbrook’s withdrawal. She had done something wrong, she was sure of it, for his amusement now fled and awkwardness hung between them. Re-evaluating her options, she bit at her lower lip. He was not as the others were here. In looks. In temperament. In size.
Damn it.
Another month and her funds would be spent. Another month and the servants they had hired would be demanding payment and all of London would despise them.
For herself the prospect was not as daunting as the effect such hatred might have on her aunt, for Miriam was old and deserved some comfort in her last years, and her title, although venerable, carried little in the way of income.
Money.
How she hated the fact that it always came back to that. If it had been just her she would have managed, but it wasn’t just her anymore. She shivered and pulled the shawl more firmly around her saturated bodice. ‘It’s cold.’ She needed to think, needed to mull over the reaction that the enigmatic Duke seemed to inspire in her, needed to get away and rethink her strategies in this endlessly grey and complex land.
‘I will have a footman call up my carriage.’ Asher Wellingham was turning even as Miriam stopped him.
‘It will not be necessary, your Grace. We are quite able to procure a hackney.’
Emerald, however, having suddenly devised a plan, jumped in.
‘We shall be delighted to accept your most generous offer, your Grace, and I trust that the time taken should not inconvenience you.’ She glanced at the ornate clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Twenty past one, sir. You should have your conveyance back easily before the clock strikes two.’
His shadow dark gaze ran across her. Taking in everything she suspected, and finding her lacking. Face. Manners. Dress. Hair.
‘Then I will bid you both good evening.’ As she watched him go, she noticed for the first time that he walked with a limp.
The cane, she thought. The cane with the hidden treasure map that Beau swore concealed a fortune. The cane she had come to London for in a last bid to shake off the debtors from her heels and reclaim at least a little of life as it had been.
Doubt passed across her, but she dismissed it. She had to believe in the story Azziz had heard twelve weeks ago in the taverns of Kingston Town. The story that the Duke of Carisbrook had been seen in London using a distinctive carved ebony cane.
Her father’s cane, encrusted with emeralds and rubies, the secret catch hidden beneath an overhanging rim of ivory.
Lord, it was all so nebulous, but she had to have faith that it was here, because if it wasn’t…? She shook her head. Hard. The alternative didn’t bear thinking of and with the covering of darkness the night was still long.
Long enough to waylay a duke?
Her first real chance?
Dressed as a lad, she might be able to shake some clue from Wellingham as to the whereabouts of the map, and if Azziz accompanied her…? Excitement flushed her cheeks as she threaded her hand through her aunt’s and helped her from the room. All they needed to know was the location of the cane. With this in hand they could find it and be gone from England on the next outgoing tide. Disappearing was easy when you had the promise of enough money to cover your tracks.
Chapter Two
Two
