“No,” said Emily, reflecting that at least the man only seemed interested in the matter as it would affect him. “I mean, I am not planning to marry anyone, Mr. Edwards. I will manage the estate until my brother comes home.”
She saw the skeptical look flash between the man and his wife, but nothing was said other than a noncommittal grunt. Did they not believe Marcus to be safe? That was reasonable. Emily’s sensitivities, however, were all turned towards Piers Verderan and she was sure they were skeptical about him.
After that stop, she could not think of another errand, so she merely took a long way home and took her time about it.
She was trotting along a lane down to the village when she heard a shout. She looked up and saw three riders on a rise—Lord Randal, his wife, and Piers Verderan. Verderan set Beelzebub into action to canter down towards her.
In a spurt of pure panic, Emily hauled Nelson around and urged him flat out in the opposite direction. After a little while she glanced back, half hoping that Verderan would have taken the hint and gone his way. He was hard in pursuit.
Was it fear she felt now? Or was it challenge? Whatever it was, it burned in her blood like a fever.
“Right, Nelson,” murmured Emily. “We can take that black devil.” She turned the horse towards a gate into a field, cleared it, and set across towards the next fence. Nelson stretched, and the horse’s thrill of the race seemed to surge through into her. Emily leant forward and encouraged him on.
Another glance showed her Verderan clearing the fence with elegance. Beelzebub was a fine mount and probably fresher than Nelson, but Emily knew this land like her own back garden. She rode Nelson fast at a hedge and cleared it ready for the unexpected dip in the ground beyond. As they flew on through a field of cows to the next barrier she glanced behind her and saw Beelzebub peck on landing and be masterfully collected.
She felt a twinge of guilt at putting the horse in such danger, but hoped it would teach Piers Verderan caution and slow him down.
The next barrier was an oxer—two fences with space between. An in-and-out. Nelson took it in style and then set off up a gentle slope. Emily had to ease him a little, for this was the end of a long day for him. A worried glance showed her Beelzebub cruising up the hill as if it was the flat.
Once over the top, though, she raced down towards an unusual obstacle—a hedge with a ditch on both sides. It could be jumped from this side by clearing both ditch and hedge at the precise spot where the latter was low, then taking precarious footing on a bit of firm ground to leap the far ditch. She and Marcus had mastered it once, and she knew she could do it again. Verderan would have to go a quarter mile to the gate.
She set Nelson firmly at the barrier despite his doubts, and he cleared it. The horse faltered slightly at the far side when he saw the second ditch, but she held him steady and took him over it.
“Good boy,” she praised the fidgety horse once they were on firm ground. Nelson was obviously having grave doubts about her sanity.
She turned to wave a cheery goodbye to her pursuer.
And saw Piers Verderan setting his horse at the jump.
“No!” she cried.
He’d obviously watched her technique. Beelzebub hopped over the fence short, which was the only way to land right on the far side, then tried to jump the ditch. His footing slipped and he pecked badly, sending his rider crashing to the ground even as the horse recovered and found firm ground.
Verderan lay still. Beelzebub stood close by, head lowered as if apologizing.
Emily cantered Nelson down, flung herself off, and ran to Verderan’s side.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, as she searched his body with her eyes and hands for broken bones or swellings.
His blue eyes opened, smiling, his arms came around her, and he dragged her on top of him. “There’s no place you cannot get over with a fall,” he said with a grin. “Tom Assheton-Smith definitely knows his stuff.”
Emily struggled. “You crazy man! You could have killed yourself!”
“Then I’d have died for love of you,” he said.
Emily stopped fighting and lay plastered over him, head to foot. “You can’t really love me,” she protested.
“And you can’t be such a widgeon. Love isn’t rational or ordered, Emily. It’s mad and wonderfully crazy.”
“Then you don’t want to love me,” she said sadly.
He kissed her. “I didn’t sit down one day and say ‘I want to fall in love with Emily Grantwich.’ But I am in love with you, and it is utterly delightful. Are you in love with me?”
“No,” said Emily, instinctively keeping her head down on his chest. He said nothing and she eventually had to peep at him.
He raised a skeptical brow. “I’m the world’s most conceited fellow,” he said. “You’ll have to work hard to convince me of that.”
She struggled again, but the angel wings had turned to bands of iron. “I don’t want to love you,” she said, collapsing once more onto his chest. With a smirk she added, “You’re going to be awfully muddy.”
“I’ll doubtless get rheumatics,” he agreed. “Will you minister to me, Emily? Rub liniment into my shoulders ...” His hands moved to massage her shoulders, sending a shiver of pleasure down her spine. “. . . My poor aching back ...” His hands moved down to press and rub in the small of her back.
Emily took a deep shuddering breath and wriggled. He took a deep shuddering breath beneath her.
“And lower?” he murmured, moving his hands lower to cup her bottom.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Getting carried away,” he admitted softly. “One of us is going to have to put a ruthless stop to this, or take the consequences. And you’re on top.”
Emily began to scramble off him, but then she looked and saw his darkened eyes, the touch of color in his cheeks, saw the way he breathed. A sense of power came over her that she could do this to a man, to this man. Slowly, against the screaming of her conscience, she lowered her lips to his.
His hands came around her again, and the fire burst into flame. He rolled them halfway, and her hands sought the lines of his back, the smooth skin of his nape, the crisp edge of his hair. She felt a hand slide around her and up to her breast . . .
Then he was up and away from her, breathing as if he’d run a race. He went a few steps and leant on his horse. Emily scrambled to her feet and looked down helplessly at the muddy mess all over her habit.
He turned to face her. “When are you going to marry me?” he asked.
She looked up helplessly. “I’m not,” she said. “I can’t. I don’t belong in your world.”
“I will make my world whatever you want it to be.”
“Respectable?” asked Emily with an edge.
He sucked in a breath. “That’s a low blow, Emily. I think I can create a degree of respectability for you if you wish. Though why you’d wish, I don’t know. Think of all the people you’d have to spend your time with. Respectability’s like heaven. The big problem with heaven is the people who are so certain they’ll be there. Hell has always seemed more promising to me.”
“There you are, see,” said Emily in despair. “I can’t marry someone who wants to go to Hell.”
She walked blindly over to Nelson and looked up, unable to mount such a big horse without some kind of aid.
He came over and offered his linked hands. She put her foot in and was tossed up. She settled into the saddle.
“I could give you heaven on earth, Emily,” he said.
She looked down and knew he could. “That’s blasphemy.”
“Religion again.” He put his hand up and covered hers on the pommel. His face was serious; his eyes dark and intense. “I can show you delights of mind and body, and learn them from you, too. I will set you free to explore the world, and yourself, and me. And I’ll be a secure haven when you need one. Marry me, Emily.”
It was as if he truly laid heaven on earth out before her as temptation, but a heaven she could hardly believe in. Life wasn’t like that. Life was duty and responsibility and trying to live up to other people’s impossible standards.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
She saw the pain wash briefly over his beautiful face and that made it worse. She’d believed, despite the evidence of her senses, that this was a game for him, a passing fancy. Now she saw the truth . . .
Then he masked it with a smile and ran his hand down Nelson’s neck. “A fine horse. I’d like to match him against Beelzebub, both fresh, one day. And,” he added pointedly, “over a fair course.”
“All’s fair—” Emily stopped herself completing that saying.
“—in love,” he supplied.
“You’ll doubtless be able to match Beelzebub against Nelson,” she said quickly. “He’ll be hunted at the first Quorn meet next Tuesday.”
“I rarely ride Bel in a hunt,” he said.
“But you were the one who lectured me about keeping fine horses to tame work!”
“I was, wasn’t I,” he admitted ruefully. “I’m too fond of Bel to risk him in a rough field, but I take him along as a second horse and run him if it’s not too wild.”
Emily patted Nelson’s neck. “Do horses get injured often?” she asked.
“It depends a lot on the rider, how many risks he takes and how skillful he is.” He went over and swung up onto his horse. “I’m the only one who ever rides Bel these days, and I know I sometimes ride wild, so I protect him from my baser nature.” Emily wondered if there was a message there for her.
He walked Beelzebub over to her side. “I purchased him for a mistress who believed a fine black horse would set off her coloring. She proved to be unworthy of him, so I bought him back with a diamond parure. She was so delighted by the exchange that I knew her to be unworthy of me too. Do we take the hedge back?”
This was showing her his baser side with a vengeance. After a moment Emily found her voice. “It can’t be jumped from this side. There’s not enough ground on the other side between the hedge and ditch.”
He rode over and studied it, then came back and said, “Nonsense.”
As he turned to ride at the obstacle Emily shouted, “Mr. Verderan, no! Don’t!”
He swung his horse back. “My name, among friends, is Ver.”
“Your name is Piers,” she corrected.
“I don’t like to be called Piers. Ver.”
“Ver’s a silly name. It’s French for worm.”
“I know. Do you find it appropriate? People don’t seem to make much of it, somehow.”
“Because you’d shoot them,” she pointed out tartly.
“Very likely,” he replied and turned back to the hedge.
Emily tightened her lips, but as he urged Beelzebub forward she shouted, “Ver, for God’s sake, stop it!”
He turned back, eyes bright and laughing.
“Damn you,” she said. “Would you have tried it?”
“Yes, and your language is becoming less ladylike by the day. I live in hope.”
“You live in your own portable Bedlam,” she retorted, and set off for the gate at a canter.
He came to ride alongside her. “Haven’t you ever realized how much fun it is to be mad?”
“No,” she said repressively, though she knew what he meant.
“Let me teach you,” he said seductively.
Emily just urged Nelson to greater speed.
He rode alongside her all the way home without saying another word, and Emily was aware of him as if he were a fire burning there, heating her without touching. This was impossible.
At Grantwich Hall he rode into the stables with her and introduced Beelzebub to Haverby.
“My, he’s a fine one, sir,” said the groom appreciatively.
“Yes, he is. Just water him when he’s cool.”
He strolled around the stalls, assessing the horses. “Sound hunters,” he said at last. “Nelson is the best, I’d say. Worth a fair bit.”
“Yes,” said Emily. It reminded her that he had paid a hundred and fifty guineas for Titania, which was more than she expected to get for any of her horses. She set off briskly for the house.
When he came up with her she heard herself say sourly, “And how is the girl? Worth what you paid?”
He stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Emily, I didn’t pay for Titania to set her up as my mistress.”
“Just a temporary convenience, is she?”
His lips tightened. “Your language is becoming a little too unladylike. I have no interest in the girl at all.”
“It seems to me,” she declared, “you have a hundred and fifty guineas’ worth of interest.”
“For a determinedly decent woman, you have a decidedly
tart
edge to your voice, my dear. She’s free to do as she wishes, and I haven’t touched her. Do you believe me?”
Emily looked at him, feeling slightly ashamed. “Yes.”
“Good. I’ll never lie to you.”
“So,” said Emily. “If I find her a suitable position, you won’t stand in my way?”
He gave a little sigh. “No, of course not, but, Emily, Titania’s views on suitable positions and yours are not exactly in harmony.”
Emily nodded. “I see she’s ambitious and I admire her for that. She has pretty manners when she tries. Perhaps I can find her a position as a companion.”
“I doubt it, but even if you could, a companion will not make the kind of money Titania stands to make plying her trade.”
“Whoring? She can’t
want
to do that.”
“Yes, she can,” he said. “With the right protector it’s as good as being married. She’ll have a house and carriage, servants and jewels. Look at Harriette Wilson. And with luck she’ll get to keep most of it when she changes hands ...”
“Changes hands!” protested Emily.
“Usually when the man marries. It’s not good form for a married man to keep a regular mistress, especially when newly wed. She’ll have a say as to whom she goes to next and it’s not beyond reason that she marry one of them. Emma Hamilton did, after all.”
“But it’s wrong,” protested Emily doggedly.