took a breath and addressed his housekeeper. ‘Lady Emma Seaton will not be back.’
‘Oh, dear, your Grace. Well, all as I can say is that it’s a shame, it is, for a nicer guest we have not had, or a tidier one. And what should I do with all the shells that she collected?’
Asher began to laugh even as he stood.
Five minutes later he took to the stairs leading to Emma’s room and opened the wide oak door.
A nest of blankets sat near the French doors, the sheets folded on the bed in a neat pile. And unused, as was the thick felted quilt.
Emma Seaton travelled light and rough, he thought and crossed to the balcony. Two heavy chairs had been moved and placed together to form a platform that one might stand upon. With care he mounted them and before him, through the green fold of a hillock, lay the sea.
The sea.
If he closed his eyes, he could hear it, as she must have done. My God, every single thing he ever found out about her confused him. She was not used to sleeping in a bed and she liked the sea. And the only thing in this room that had been used while she inhabited it was a candle.
A candle used to signal her men in the wood in the very dead of night. A candle used to search his home. He ran his fingers through his hair and wished she were still here.
Near him. Safe. And then he cursed himself for thinking it.
It was late when Asher and Taris and Lucinda arrived back in London, and Jack Henshaw, who had been waiting for them at Carisbrook House, had worrying news.
‘The Countess of Haversham is ill and Lady Emma has sent away the doctor and taken full charge of the situation herself. Unusual, but dutiful,’ he added and leant forward to his drink. ‘Gregory Thomas, the physician, is an acquaintance of mine. He said he saw the Countess last in the company of a burly black man lighting a sweet-smelling fire of oil in a copper basin while the niece pushed hot pins into the side of her aunt’s neck. Many are saying it to be witchcraft.’
Asher swore. Lord, if that was the case, Emma was going to be sore pressed to re-enter the narrow world of society. Clothes a little odd or outdated were one thing, but it was quite another to be accused of practising sorcery. And so blatantly. ‘Why the devil would she have done that? Why would she be negligent with her reputation?’ The answer came to him immediately.
Because Emma Seaton did not mean to stay in England at all. Because the search of Falder was a means to an end and that end was to be once again ensconced in the place she called home. Jamaica.
When Jack left Taris lingered and Asher could tell that he was disturbed by something, though as his brother began speaking the subject was very different from that which he had expected.
‘If you have an Achilles’ heel, Asher, it is your love of control.’
‘You’re speaking of Emma Seaton, I presume?’ he bit back. Tonight he was tired.
‘She is not like the other women here. She is strong and independent and would not thank you, I think, for seeing to her reputation.’
‘You do not think I should help her?’ Real anger reverberated in his question.
‘I do not think that you should judge her by the standards of society.’
‘Because she so obviously is from somewhere else?’
‘No. Because she is very much her own person. Like I am mine. Sometimes, even despite my lack of sight, I can feel you watching me and worrying about the next person with too loud a voice who will inadvertently hurt my feelings.’ He laughed and softened his tone. ‘What will you do, Asher? Fight them all because you feel responsible? Don’t you see? I came to the Caribbean to find you on my own accord and Emma Seaton has come to London on her own accord. It is not you who needs to calm the waters to make sure that she fits. She doesn’t and she probably doesn’t want to either.’
Asher slapped his hand against the wood in the wall. Hard. ‘And where will she fit, then? Jamaica has hardly nurtured and protected her.’
Taris laughed. ‘Lord, Asher. It’s more than a feeling of responsibility for her, isn’t it?’
Turning away, he mulled over his brother’s last question and was glad when he did not demand an answer, but left the room in that particular way he had of moving around objects.
More than responsibility?
More than friendship?
For a moment Asher imagined Emma Seaton as the Duchess of Carisbrook, immune against all criticism just because of who he was. He could protect her. From everyone.
But would she want him to?
Without a doubt he knew that she wouldn’t.
‘Lord help me,’ he muttered and was wondering what the hell he was going to do when his eyes fell on a cane near the door. Uneasy conjecture caught as he remembered the conversation in the coach on the way home from Longacres. Canes. Questions. The quick flare of interest.
In the corner of a room off the blue salon was a stand set in the wall, hidden behind the thick fold of a velvet curtain. Two canes sat inside it and, as his fingers reached for the black-and-ivory stick studded in jewels, memory turned.
He’d taken this from the Mariposa after he’d returned to the Caribbean and killed Sandford. A crutch to aid his damaged leg. Could this be what Emma was after? The stones were valuable after all, and it was a fine piece of carving. Intrigued, he examined it closely and noticed that the handle was not quite round, the ornate twists of wood hiding a catch beneath the lip of ebony stones. Perhaps she had been interested in this particular cane not for its value, but for something else! Something hidden. Swearing, he ran his nail across a ridge and shaved off parings of wax, the sealant hindering the downward motion of the clasp. A dull click and the handle parted company with the body of the wood, a hollowed compartment inside becoming plainly visible.
He smiled at the ridiculous ease of it all as he ironed out a parchment under the light.
A map, he determined. An old map of the Eleutheran inlets and with much more than the gauge of depth shown. A map delineating caves of gold! Contemplation sparked discomfort. What would a woman like Lady Emma Seaton want with such a map and how could she have known about it?
Slipping the parchment into a secret drawer in his desk he sat down to write a note.
The noise came later, much later, as he sat in the darkened library before the embers of a dying fire. A small scratching at first and then a larger bang. Someone was in his office down the hall.
Emma? His heartbeat surged as he moved forward into the passageway that divided the rooms. When the heavy wood of a baton hit him square across his shoulders and sent him to the floor, the parquet was cold beneath his cheek. For a moment he felt winded by shock and disorientated.
‘Where’s the bloody map?’ the larger one of the two men demanded, his accent somewhat similar to Emma’s. The lilt of an island cadence. Lord, were these her men, tired of the more gentle persuasion? Dizziness dissipated under the larger threat to his life and, surging forward, he knocked the man nearest to him off his feet. The sharp
