in a voice that sounded nothing like the one she had last heard him use.
‘Who are the men camped in the wood?’
‘I am not certain what you mean—’ she began, but he interrupted her.
‘The men you brought with you from Jamaica. Does that make my query any clearer?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Peter Drummond just now and Tony Formison a few days ago. His father owns the ship you came on and he remembers you disembarking with a black man and an Arab, four chests of books and your hair a damn lot longer than it appears to be now.’
‘I see.’ There was no point in denying it, so she regrouped her defences and tried to look contrite. ‘They are here to see that I am protected.’
‘Protected against whom?’ He had the answer even as he asked it. She could see the flint of disbelief on his face.
‘And if they caught us like now, alone? What would happen then?’
‘I suppose they would have to kill you.’
He laughed and then cursed. ‘What makes you so certain that they could?’
‘You strike me as a man who could easily protect himself, but if there were two of them, then, perhaps—’
He didn’t let her finish.
‘Who exactly are they?’
‘My servants,’ she ventured. ‘When I left Jamaica for England it would have been dangerous to travel alone. They offered to accompany me to London.’
‘And then they offered to follow you up here?’
‘Yes.’ Even to her ears the explanation sounded implausible.
‘And you did not think to ask me to house them at Falder, in the servants’ quarters?’
‘They like their independence. Once they saw I was safely at your house and that you were a gentleman—’
He interrupted her. ‘How do you contact them?’
‘By the signal of a candle at night.’ She was honest in her answer, for he looked as if another lie might well incite his anger.
‘Through the window of your room?’
‘Yes.’
‘And should I worry that they may frisk Falder with even more competence than you have?’
Because his summation of the situation was so close to what she had just been thinking she blushed, giving him his answer.
‘I see.’ He ran his fingers through his hair. Or what was left of his fingers, she amended.
‘It is not as you think,’ she began.
‘Then how is it, Emma? Explain to me exactly how it is.’
‘I cannot,’ she said simply and turned away. In the shimmering glass her reflection was barely visible, a thin reminder of the person she purported not to be.
‘You cannot because the truth is that you are a liar, Lady Emma Seaton. A beautiful liar, but a liar none the less.’
‘Yes.’ She faced him directly and left it at that. Tonight the untruths just would not come and his kisses still burned on her lips and hands and neck.
Lady Liar.
Pirate’s daughter.
There was some sort of symmetry of verse in the expressions and both left her with a completely groundless counter-argument.
She was a liar. And would be a thief if she could only find the damn map. Regret swamped her. All she wanted to feel again was the warmth of his lips against her own.
And know again the safety he offered.
She could not remember ever being truly safe. Not since her mother had left and not for a while before then too.
Blood.
And screaming.
The sounds of cold arguments on the warm winds of Jamaica. She tilted her head and tried to catch the glimpse of something elusive. But she couldn’t, and when the Gravesons’ house came into view she was pleased, for it released her from the close confines of the carriage.
Dinner was horrible.
Oh, granted, Annabelle Graveson had gone to an enormous amount of trouble and was the most gracious of hostesses, just as her son Rodney was the very epitome of excellent manners and careful conversation.
But Asher barely looked at Emerald and when he did she could see only a veneer of distrust in his eyes and a good amount of distance. She missed his banter. She missed his smile. She missed the breathless possibility that he might lean across and touch her and she would feel again the slow rise of passion and the quick burn of excitement.
What was she coming to? She was at dinner, for goodness’ sake, with a widow woman and her son. With an effort she tried to listen to what it was that Rodney was talking to her about.
Guns. She’d never liked them.
‘I can now hit a target at thirty feet. Sometimes more. We often hunt in the grounds of Falder.’
‘We.’
‘Carisbrook and I. He’s teaching me.’
‘The Duke of Carisbrook is teaching you?’
His eyes swivelled around at the mention of his name.
‘Is there a problem with that, Lady Emma?’ he asked in his frostiest voice. A voice that implied she thought he could barely hold a gun, let alone shoot it.
‘Certainly not.’
‘I am pleased to hear it,’ he returned and his smile was strained.
Annabelle Graveson seemed oblivious to everything as she leaned forward and placed her hand on Emerald’s. On the third finger of her left hand was a ring bearing a diamond the size of a large rock. The house. The jewellery. The clothes she wore. Annabelle Graveson had become a rich woman on the death of her husband.
‘I would like to make you a gift of some gowns, Emma. Would you accept that from me?’ Her voice quivered.
‘Gowns?’ She did not umderstand the reason for such an offer.
‘For your Season in London.’
‘Oh, no, Lady Annabelle.’ She went to say more, but could not.
‘Is it because I am a stranger to you? I am hoping we may change that.’ The fingers on her forearm tightened.
He looked as puzzled as she felt.
‘Lady
