of course,’ she replied, a semblance of calm once again in place. ‘Of course she is. When is your birthday, my dear?’
The question was so unexpected it took Emerald by surprise. ‘My birthday?’
Annabelle Graveson nodded.
‘It’s on the third of November.’
Tears filled Annabelle’s eyes and she dabbed at them with her handkerchief and waved the attention of her son away. ‘No, Rodney,’ she said. ‘I am quite all right. In fact I have never felt better.’ And with that cryptic remark she bent over the pudding she had before her and demolished the lot.
‘They are unusual people,’ Emerald chanced into the silence as they wended their way home a few hours later. When she got no reply, she amended her observation. ‘Nice and unusual, I meant.’
Still no reply. She was not daunted.
‘Annabelle seems rather a nervous woman,’ she continued.
‘Whereas you, on the other hand, are not.’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘Name one thing that you afraid of.’
She was silent and unexpectedly he laughed. ‘Thank you, at least, for not lying to me.’
‘I did not lie about James.’
‘I know.’
She held her breath and looked out of the window. The clouds against the moon reminded her of her little brother’s curls as he had lain there asleep while she watched him.
Tonight he seemed close. Perhaps that was because it had been so long since she had spoken to anyone about him. And Asher Wellingham had been a good listener.
What else had he been? A would-be lover, a man whom she could trust and respect and like.
Like? Too tame for what now raced inside her and yet with the ghost of her father hanging so baldly between them nothing else could be possible.
Nothing.
She saw he kneaded his thigh with the fingers on his left hand and chanced the opening.
‘Do you have a cane, your Grace?’
‘A cane?’
‘For your leg. Perhaps if you took your weight off it…’
He stopped rubbing immediately.
‘My uncle had a cane once. A fine one, carved in ebony. He had hurt his knee at Waterloo and found the stick to be invaluable.’
God, how many more clues could she safely give him?
One more.
She took in a deep breath and spoke.
‘Walking sticks are actually quite a passion of mine. I collect them, you know.’
She did not let the pained look on his face dissuade her.
‘I have twenty from all parts of the world.’
‘Fascinating.’ The tone he used intimated that he found the subject anything but.
‘Indeed, your Grace, it is.’ She was grateful for the dark and for the movement of the coach. ‘If you had any at Falder, I would be pleased to look at them for you to give you some idea of their value.’ She felt the thick beat of duplicity in her throat when he did not answer and the look in his eyes was one of singular calculation.
She should not have gambled on his intellect. Already she could see the wheels of his brain turning and so she was not surprised by his next question.
‘Would it be a cane by chance that you are looking for at Falder?’
‘No.’ She met his question directly as the lights of his home came into view. As the carriage began to slow he lifted her gloved fingers into his.
‘What happened to your hands? Are they also a part of the mystery of Emma Seaton?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Do you not?’ he chided, the soft light in his eyes hard and flat. ‘If I looked into the records of the Haversham family, where exactly would you be placed in relation to Miriam?’
Taking a breath, she pulled her hand away and tried to rally. Lord, if he was to do that…
‘I am her niece, as I believe you already know.’
‘I see,’ he returned as the lights of Falder flooded the carriage. All around there now stood servants, waiting. Emerald was pleased when the first footman seemed to take her smile as a signal and moved forward to open the door.
An escape.
Gathering the skirts of her gown, she hurried from the coach. The ruse was up. She knew it. When Asher backtracked into the depths of her family history, he would have his suspicions confirmed that there was no cousin called Liam Kingston. And he would also know that Miriam’s only brother was Beauvedere Sandford Louden. It would take him but a moment to work out the rest.
She would have to forgo her searching and be gone from Falder at the first possible opportunity. The map offered riches, but discovery could mean prison. She had failed in her quest and now there was little else to do but return home.
A tight feeling of absolute uncertainty engulfed her.
Ruby and Miriam.
How on earth could she protect them?
Asher roamed the hills above the ocean, cursing the note in his pocket, the note he had found beneath his door when he had returned to his room in the hours after dawn. Emma Seaton was gone.
Back to London.
Back to Jamaica.
Back to God knew where.
The horse beneath him whickered and pranced and he stilled her with a quiet whisper, hating the way his mind kept replaying the feel of Emma’s skin beneath his hands.
He wanted her. That much was plain. He wanted her like he had never wanted any woman before. Even with Melanie he had not experienced this white-hot flash of passion, this desperate uneasiness. And the way she responded to him…
‘Stop it.’ He said the words out loud, surprised by the gut-tearing anger in them. Emma Seaton was a thief and a liar and a threat to his family. He had given her a chance to trust him, after all. More than a chance. If it had been anyone else, she would have been thrown out after the night he had seen her dressed in the lad’s clothes in front of his dead wife’s picture.
Why had he not, then?
He knew the answer even as he posed the question.
Because he admired her. She was so unlike any other woman who had ever
