Devil’s mind. A religious man, you understand, of strong beliefs and an utter conviction in the rightness of them.’
‘Not an easy man to live with, then.’ Asher joined in the conversation and an undercurrent threaded his words. ‘What is it that you are well versed in?’
Emerald struggled to think up accomplishments that would be acceptable to this company. ‘I am a proficient rider and excellent in the preparation of meals.’
The heavy silence around the table lengthened as she realised the extent of her mistake.
‘Surely you mean the planning of menus, Lady Emma? A most salutatory undertaking. Why, I remember my mother enjoyed the art of putting together meat and wine. It quite took up much of her time before a grand meal. Was it that sort of thing you meant, my dear?’ The kind and gracious Lady Flora gave her an easy way out and she gladly took it.
‘Yes. Just exactly that.’
Lady Charlotte leaned forward and laid her fingers along the line of Asher Wellingham’s arm. ‘Your brother Taris was always a connoisseur of fine wines, your Grace. How is he? Has his sight improved?’
‘Markedly.’
‘Well, that is the most pleasing news I have heard in a while. Tell him I was asking after him, and if he is down in London in the near future…’
‘I will.’
Emerald felt that something was not quite as it should be. She knew that Taris was Asher’s brother, for Miriam had given her a vague outline of his immediate family. But the fact that he had some problem with his sight had not been mentioned at all and the mask that shuttered any trace of emotion on the Duke of Carisbrook’s face was intriguing.
A brother with a sight problem and a woman named Melanie who, apart from being beautiful, was also absent from his life. He had many secrets and held every emotion beneath a rigid self-control.
Discipline and governance had etched a hard line between his eyes, puncturing a face of pure masculine beauty into something less easy—whenever she was near him she felt a pull of sadness, the world stretched out of shape. Even here in the bland world of London society he did not relax as the others did, but looked around.
A constant check on safety.
She was certain that if someone had come up unexpectedly behind him he would have used the small knife hidden in the folds of his jacket. And used it well. She smiled. It was intriguing, this mix of mannerisms. The crest of ducal importance counterpoised by a dangerous fighting ability.
She had seen it, after all, and knew what he was capable of. Knew too that these people who fawned over his title and wealth had absolutely no idea: the wash of blood and guts across the deck on the high seas and the wailing agony of hurt.
Her life.
His life for a time.
For the time it had taken her to extinguish honour and send him hurtling downwards into the boiling anger of the ocean.
Asher instructed his driver to go fast through the dark London streets and, opening a window, enjoyed the breeze on his face and the sky above his head. Dotted with stars tonight, he mused. A small respite in a month of rain. His brother would be pleased, for watching the heavens through the telescope he had had shipped over especially from China was a passion he could still enjoy. He grimaced. But for how long?
Taris’s sight was worse. He admitted it to himself and cursed Charlotte Withers for asking. Emma Seaton would be at Falder the day after tomorrow and he did not want her to know the extent of the problem.
He wanted no one to know.
He wanted to keep the world away from his brother until he could fashion a solution. Until he knew for certain what it was they were facing. Total loss of sight? Partial vision?
If only Taris had not come out to the Caribbean to find him after the ransom note had been sent. If only he had stayed here in England and left the danger of rescue to others. No, he could not think like that. Taris had come and he had been saved. The high price of his brother’s sacrifice paid ever since with his own crippling guilt over his brother’s blindness.
‘God, help me,’ he whispered to a deity that tonight felt close, though the vision of Emma Seaton’s lack of underclothing juxtaposed strangely against his request, and for a second amusement filled the more familiar void of loneliness.
Her soft skin on her right breast had been marked with an indigo tattoo. A butterfly. Tiny. Delicate. Unexpected.
Curiosity welled. An emotion he had not felt in years. It was a relief to laugh. Even to himself out here in the night.
Emma Seaton.
Her hair was curly when it was loosened from the pins that tightly bound it. Stray tendrils had worked themselves free at her nape and the ringlets that hung only to her collar were tightly coiled. Red-blonde hair and turquoise eyes. And a body well endowed with the curves of womanhood.
He shook his head and rubbed at the stiff muscles on the back of his neck. He had enjoyed tonight. Enjoyed her humour and her candidness. Enjoyed the view of sun-warmed skin that lay beneath her loose bodice and the feel of her in his arms as they had danced.
What would she look like in silks and satins and with her hair dressed by the best of London’s hair salons?
He swore roundly. He had seldom kept a mistress in the way other men of the ton did. Oh, granted he had occasionally used the services of select women who could be relied on for their discretion, yet tonight, with the dull ache of sexual frustration seeping through his bones, he wanted more.
The image of two rosy-tipped breasts came to mind as the bells of Westminster rang out the hour of one across the slumbering city, and he smiled into the darkness as his horses slowed at the corner between Pall Mall and St James’s Square.
Opening Lucy’s letter on her return home, Emerald found the missive to be full of the adolescent adulation Asher Wellingham had spoken of. After memorising the note for future reference and consigning it to the fire, she walked across to the window to watch the sky.
Tonight the heavens were clear, a half-formed moon low in the eastern horizon and climbing. It would rain tomorrow, she suspected, for a cloud of mist encircled the glowing crescent and the air had a tang of moisture in it.
She wondered where the Duke of Carisbrook was now. Entwined in the arms of the green-eyed woman, she guessed, and wondered why she found the thought so irritating.
Asher Wellingham was nothing to her.
She would be in and out of Falder in a matter of days, hours even, if her searching went to plan. And then she would be gone. Away from here. Away from him.
Her mind wandered to the feel of his arms around her waist as they had danced tonight, the soft music between them. She had leant her head against the superfine of his jacket and breathed in.
‘Lord,’ she said aloud and swore roundly. Is this what England was making her? Soft? Needy? Dependent?
She was her father’s daughter with years of fighting imbued in her blood and drawn upon her skin. Her finger went to the mark that intersected her right eyebrow
