she had appeared at the top of the steps and his blood had hummed a more familiar tune of possession, a lustier tune. It was hard to mind being Trojan Horsed when it looked like Emma Ward. ‘She doesn’t look like a witch,’ he’d murmured to Kitt.
‘They never do.’ Kitt had laughed as he leapt down from the wagon. ‘Witches wouldn’t be nearly as effective if they did.’
But Emma Ward did look like something else just as worrisome and perhaps more real, Ren thought as they sipped their lemonade. Trouble. She had a natural sensuality to her. It was there in the sway of her hips as she led him through the airy halls to the veranda, it was there in her dark hair, in the exotic, catlike tilt of her deep brown eyes. It emanated from her, raw and elemental; a sensuality that coaxed a man to overstep himself if he wasn’t careful.
This woman was no virginal English rose. She was something much better and much worse. Maybe she was a witch, after all. He would have to reserve judgement. Ren raised his glass and stretched out an arm to clink his glass against hers. ‘Here’s to the future, Miss Ward.’
For someone who’d wanted to talk, she was awfully quiet, however. Perhaps he had misunderstood. He took the opportunity to learn a bit more about her. ‘It is Miss Ward, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Miss Ward is fine.’ She supplied the bare basics of an answer and the briefest of smiles. Ren noted that smile didn’t leave her mouth. Her eyes remained politely impassive. Perhaps her coolness was a result of his surprise arrival. She hadn’t known he was coming and she was wary. A stranger had just arrived on her doorstep and announced his intention to live there.
‘I am sure all of this comes as quite a shock...’ Ren began congenially. He fully believed in the old adage that one caught more flies with sugar. It wouldn’t do to put Miss Ward on the defensive without cause. ‘It’s a shock to me as well. Cousin Merrimore didn’t mention anything about you in his papers and here we are, two strangers thrown together by circumstance.’ He gave her a warm smile, the one he reserved for the ton’s stiff-necked matrons, the one that made them melt and relax their standards. It didn’t work.
‘In all fairness, Mr Dryden, I believe I have the upper hand. I knew of you by name. Merry did mention you in the will quite specifically.’
Intriguing. Ren’s critical mind couldn’t overlook the self-incriminating evidence. She’d known of him. She could have contacted him, something his lack of details had prevented him from doing on his end. He could be forgiven for a surprise arrival having no information about who to contact in advance, but she’d known. She’d had the ability to send a letter with the copy of the will. She’d chosen not to.
Ren gave her a wry smile. What would she do if he confronted her? ‘There is that, Miss Ward. You had my name. You were quite aware of my existence and yet you left me to find my own way here in my own time.’ He would have to tread carefully here. It seemed Miss Ward was already on the defensive, a very interesting position for a woman. Given her circumstances, he would have thought she’d be quite glad to see him, to have him remove the burden of running the place alone. The past four months must have been daunting for a woman alone.
She flushed at having been called out. Good. She understood precisely what he was implying, a further sign Miss Ward was an astute opponent. ‘It’s nearly harvest season, Mr Dryden. There’s hardly time for someone to sit for hours at the docks waiting for a ship to come in when it might possibly not and even if it did, it might not carry what you’re waiting for.’
Touché. She had him there. ‘Even for a relative?’ Ren probed. It was a shot in the dark, but he was curious to know how Emma Ward clung to the family tree. Undoubtedly she was more familiar with ‘Merry’ than he was. Where did that familiarity come from? Was she a lover? A mistress? Or merely a distant cousin like himself? Ren had met Cousin Merrimore, as his family called the old man, perhaps three times in his entire life, the last time being eight years ago when he’d finished his studies at Oxford.
Emma Ward gave a short laugh at the reference, but it was not warm. Ren had the distinct impression things were not getting off on the right foot. ‘You and I are not family, Mr Dryden. Merry was my guardian for several years until I attained my majority. After that, he was my friend.’ There was no help for him there. In his experience, ‘friends’ came in multiple varieties, bedfellows included. But if Merrimore had been her guardian, he could assume nothing untoward had followed.
‘Ren, please,’ he suggested again, making the most of the opening the conversation provided. ‘I should like for us to be friends as well.’ If there was any naughty innuendo in his response, he would let her relationship with Merrimore be the measuring stick.
‘We are business partners at present,’ she replied firmly, moving the conversation away from the personal, although there were a host of questions he wanted to ask—how had a confirmed bachelor like his ancient cousin ended up as someone’s guardian? Why hadn’t she left the island? Surely Merrimore would have sent her to London when she came of age?
Those questions would have to wait until she liked him better. It was an unsettling, but not displeasing, discovery to make. In London he was accustomed to making a favourable first impression on women when he had to make one at all. Usually it was the other way around. Women sought to make a good impression on him. Not Emma Ward, however.
Then again, his title didn’t precede him in Barbados. The York heiress had made it abundantly clear his antecedents were all she wanted. Her father would pay an outrageous sum for those antecedents to bed his daughter and give him a blue-blooded grandson. Ren had an aversion to being used as an aristocratic stud. A woman who didn’t want him for his antecedents would be quite an adventure.
Ren grinned and set down his glass, ready to try out his theory. Emma Ward had been attempting to disconcert him from the first moment, now it was his turn. ‘Miss Ward, I think you have not been entirely truthful with me.’ He was gratified to see a flash of caution pass through her dark eyes.
‘Whatever about, Mr Dryden?’ she replied coolly.
‘Contrary to your words earlier, you are not glad to see me. Since we’ve never met, I find that highly irregular.’ It was not a gentleman’s path he trod with that comment. But as she’d noted, this was business. More importantly, it was his business and quite a lot was at stake.
Miss Ward fixed him with the entirety of her dark gaze. ‘I apologise if you find your reception lacking.’
‘Really? I find that hard to believe when you don’t sound the least bit penitent.’ Ren pressed his advantage. If she meant to defy him, she would have to do it outright. Defiance he could deal with, it was open and honest. He would not tolerate passive aggression, not even from a pretty woman.
Her eyes flared with a dark flame, her mouth started to form a cutting rejoinder that never got past her lips. Boom! The air around them reverberated with sound that shook the windows and rattled the glasses on the table. Emma shrieked, bolting out of her chair, her eyes rapidly scanning the horizon for signs of the explosion.
Ren saw it first, his stomach clenching at the sight of uncontained flame. ‘Over there!’ He pointed in the distance to the telltale stream of smoke, clamping down on the wave of panic that threatened.
Emma had no such compunction for restraint. ‘Oh goodness, no, not the home farm!’ She pushed past him, racing down the steps, calling for her horse.
Ren bellowed behind her, ‘Forget the saddles, there’s no time!’ But no one was listening. The stable was in chaos,
