Healing Hearts (2 page)

Adam considered the small squares of cloth in his pockets, with their tiny elegant stitches, one of them so horribly stained with blood. Anger akin to the red rage of battle momentarily seized him in its grip, and he wished he had a sparring partner to pummel. But he took a calming breath. If he’d learned nothing else in the last few years, he’d learned the emptiness of violence.

Did Emma have no one to protect her now? What had happened?

“Do not trouble yourself, Riverton,” she said, as if reading his thoughts.

Adam frowned. Should he place her under his protection? He had not taken a mistress since before the war. His soul might be dead but he was still a man. A broken, damaged man, perhaps, but one with needs. He had not had a woman in nearly a year—not since before he was wounded at Albuhera. Better to put some distance between them, he thought.

But he couldn’t remember when he’d last seen a chit this striking. Had his blasted leg allowed him greater agility, he might have leaped on her then and there, dragging her to the hard earth for a satisfying ravishing.

What the bloody hell was he thinking? He had never in his life done such a thing. Not with the prostitutes and women of easy virtue who followed the drum. Not with the Iberian women whose bodies were pillaged along with their homes. He was not about to start now.

Certainly not with
this
woman—no matter how plump and kissable her lips. She deserved better than a man with no heart. No matter how far she had
fallen.
If, in fact, she had.

Adam leaned on his staff and reminded himself he was a gentleman, even if he’d seen things no gentleman should see, and done things no gentleman would do. Things that would haunt him forever. He further reminded himself that the young woman before him—however much she currently resembled a wild-haired, blazing-eyed banshee ripe for his plucking—was a lady, gently reared. Even if her own father had forgotten that.

The honorable Miss Emma Whiteside. Michael Whiteside’s twin.

The corporal’s hair had been light, not this astonishing claret color. And the finely whittled features that seemed to resemble Michael’s at first blush were far different, indeed.

His gaze rested upon cheeks, soft and rounded as plums, that invited the touch of a man’s lips, and then lingered on a sultry mouth shaped for more wicked delights.

The willful, unruly little chit had grown into a diamond of the first water.

Her intriguing gray eyes, silver as a saber, fairly snapped at him, the battle waging in them as intense and wrenching as any Adam had experienced on the Peninsula.

Sparks flew as they stared at each other, like those borne by the clash of Toledo steel.

Emma moistened her lips as if they’d gone dry, the tip of her tongue darting out. Quite different from the calculated flirtations practiced by the fan-wielding ladies of the
ton.
No artifice here. None at all.

Adam’s cock stirred and his balls tightened. He longed to taste those unschooled lips. He ached to invade her mouth with his own tongue, drawing sweet sighs of pleasure from her as he savored her kisses and seduced her with his.

As if she sensed the direction his thoughts had taken, her gaze travelled to his mouth, making him burn. Mixed emotions marched across her face, ragged as raw recruits.

Adam swallowed, trying to squelch his feverish attraction by recalling a long ago tea—a lifetime ago, it seemed to him—and a young lady’s impertinent proposal. But the feisty woman confronting him was decidedly a woman, all of twenty now, not an impetuous eight-year-old suffering a bout of puppy love. Her eyes flayed him as if only by stripping the skin from his bones would she know any respite from her grief. The starch that straightened her spine held her rigid as the chalk that formed the cliffs upon which they stood.

He dipped his head and stifled his groan. She did not yet know the mission that brought him here. Only the thought of the wretched piece of cambric embroidered with the initials
M
and
W
and blotched with her brother’s blood had tempered his irritation when he’d learned the extent of her father’s misdeeds. The man’s worthless paper was popping up all over the county. Adam had sent his batman, Oliver Garrett, on fruitless missions to Whiteside’s favorite haunts, but the squire had not been ferreted out as yet. Now Garrett was searching venues less frolicsome.

Was there some way to shield Emma from what was to come?

Despite her apparent distaste for him, something more than ire animated her. Mutual awareness flared between them like dry kindling under a match. The desire to fan those reluctant embers into flames of passion, blazed through Adam again. His longing grew more intense, more difficult to shake off.

“Why have you come
now?
” Emma demanded. “I wrote and wrote, after that first brief letter you sent us from the Peninsula. You did not deign to answer.”

“How do you fare, Miss Whiteside?”

“How do you think I fare, my lord? My brother is dead and my father…”

Her voice trailed off and Adam noted her wince. But he decided this was no time for sugar-coated sentiments. Even in London drawing rooms he had never minced his words. And this harsh, windy bluff was hardly a Mayfair salon. Emma Whiteside’s stiff back and unwavering glare convinced him she was made of sturdy stuff.

“Your father is a drunken lout who gambled away property not his to wager,” he finished for her with a tight-lipped lack of diplomacy. “
That
is why I am here.”

Emma’s hand fluttered to her throat. Did his blunt words shock her? Had she been unaware of what her father had tried to do? “Not his?”

“You did not know?”

“I do not believe you.”

Adam stared at her in disbelief. “I am not in the habit of lying, Miss Whiteside.”

Emma’s posture lost some of its starch and Adam caught a furtive mote in her silvery eyes, before her long lashes descended and her glance slid away. She swiftly regained her composure, tilting her chin with a defiant air as she returned his gaze. He admired her spirit. More than her hen-witted twin had possessed.

“I thought perhaps you had come to apologize for taking my brother from us. For leading him into a battle from which he would not return.”

Adam’s guts wrenched as if she’d stabbed him and then twisted the blade. But he bore her words without comment. What was one more assault upon a heart so bruised and battered it had turned to dust?

The loss of his men would haunt him into eternity, their faces appearing in nightmares that gallons of brandy could not wash away. He punished himself for all of them. Including the foolish Michael Whiteside. Emma did not need to know that her brother’s death had been more senseless than most. But Adam had put off this hard visit long enough.

“Your father’s dissolute nature is not the only reason I’ve come.”

“My father is grief-stricken, my lord. If he has taken to drink, ’tis to ease the ache in his heart. Have you no charity in your soul?”

Adam well understood the oblivion found in spirits. Perhaps the man’s drinking was responsible for his lack of judgment, his indiscriminate play at cards.

“I’ve come, also, to pay my respects.”

“Too little, too late,” Emma muttered, as if to herself.

“Miss Whiteside.” Adam took a step toward her. A nerve-jangling jolt of pain tore through his left leg, setting his teeth on edge. The price he paid. But a precursor, he knew, to the relentless agony that always threatened to lay him low. On occasion, he could overcome the crippling effects of his wounds through sheer force of will. He suspected this morning would not be one of those times. He had pressed himself too hard.

“What is it?” Emma demanded.

“M’leg,” he grated through his clenched jaw.

“Take my arm.”

“No.”

“Have you always been so bloody stubborn?” Her eyes flashed again.

“Some might say.” Such as his father or his equally stubborn batman, Oliver Garrett.

“I don’t remember that about you.”

“The man you remember is gone.”

Emma flinched as if he had struck her but her unwavering gaze held his, challenging him more than any idle wager he’d ever taken up at White’s. “I am sorry to hear that. I quite liked that man. So did my brother.”

Adam’s fingers tightened on his walking stick, and he sucked in a breath. Had it not been for her blasted brother—

He shook his head to repel his dangerous thoughts and muttered a low oath beneath his breath. He refused to shatter the girl’s illusions about the corporal. War had consequences, after all. He’d been Whiteside’s commanding officer. He had no one to blame but himself.

“No one understood why you did it,” she murmured.

He started and then stared at her, his gaze raking over her in a forthright manner, daring her to continue in the face of his displeasure. But she braved his mounting ire and would not be turned from her course.

“You were such a brilliant rogue, cutting so vast a swath through the
ton.
All the fashionable society ladies and their mamas dangled their lures for you, hoping to bring you up to scratch. All the rakish young men wanted to
be
you. And when you inexplicably marched off, they…Michael…wanted to follow your lead, as he’d always done. He followed you straight to hell, Riverton. But you returned. And he did not.”

Young Whiteside had taken the king’s shilling because of
him?
Of course, he had known that, in some dark corner of his soul.

Adam swayed and gripped his stick until his knuckles whitened, as another jangle of pain ripped through him. He would not embarrass himself in front of the stalwart young woman confronting him.

“Take my arm,” she insisted. “Unless…perhaps you are too much
man
to accept a woman’s support?”

Adam snorted. “I suddenly recall a bossy little girl who ordered me about as if she had a perfect right to,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “
That
much, madam, has not changed.”

A hint of English rose splashed Emma’s cheeks. Adam could not allow himself a moment to appreciate the pretty blush—or to acknowledge that he was actually enjoying this absurd banter with her in the midst of his increasing discomfort. But something about Miss Emma Whiteside—something apart from her striking looks and his immediate physical attraction—caused his blood to race and all his senses to go on alert.

He shut his eyes and ground his back teeth, hoping to ward off the worst of the attack he knew was coming—at least until he could whistle Champion back to his side and swing himself into the saddle.

But his strenuous exercise and the harsh weather, combined with his horrific memories of combat, blasted him like an explosion of enemy artillery. Thunderbolts lanced his leg, flooding him with agony so intense he nearly doubled over. He felt the blood drain from his face and he staggered.

Emma leaped forward to support him. Concern replaced the belligerence in her eyes, darkened to gunmetal-gray.

“This will not do, Riverton. You
must
lean on me.”

“Still the bossy little harridan.”

She sighed and reached for his forearm. The brush of her fingertips sent a coil of shock through him more stunning than the waves of searing fire radiating from his leg. He’d anticipated
that
pain. But he had not expected the soothing glow generated by the touch of Emma’s hand or the warmth flowing through his linen sleeve. His reluctance to accept her help evaporated.

Nor was Emma unaffected by the contact, he decided. He heard the small hitch when she inhaled, the low huff of breath she expelled with an odd little choking sound. The slightest of tremors shook the fingers that gripped him.

Despite his misery, Adam remained completely aware of her clasping his arm as if her slight frame could prevent a man of his size from toppling. Though wracked by pain, his body still hummed with arousal.

Adam inhaled. The scent of her hair reminded him of the tart fruit of the Portuguese strawberry tree, used to make potent
aguardente de medronho.
He’d often drunk himself senseless on the powerful brandy, trying to numb his physical agony as well as the hollow ache that gnawed the dry bone of his heart.

Now, pondering his reaction to the dauntless Emma Whiteside—and hers to him—he decided he might benefit from the more restorative tonic of her touch. This girl rejuvenated his exhausted spirit more than any forced march over the cliffs helped to rehabilitate his leg.

He slid his arm around her waist, dragging her closer. She fit comfortably against his side, as if she belonged there. Her breath caught again, then settled into a ragged, irregular cadence. Her response seemed to invite a more seductive touch from him. His fingers splayed against her rib cage and slid toward her breast, drawing a gasp from her.

“I don’t think…” Emma’s words trailed away.

“I do.”

Adam’s gaze slid down her, eliciting a sultry flush, a more rapid thrumming of her heartbeat beneath his hand. Her eyes still snapped at him with pique even as his proximity coaxed her nearer.

“Riverton…”

“Yes?”

“I—I am but trying to help you.”

“There are many ways a woman might ease a man’s pain,” he murmured, his gaze locking on hers. She did not look away. She did not move away. But plainly she understood him.

Adam hesitated briefly. She had him all at sixes and sevens. What a confusion of messages she was sending. Did he confound her as much as she baffled him? He chose to swiftly interpret her signals in masculine fashion, responding to the unconscious way she beckoned him closer.

He leaned toward her, curling his larger body around hers as he dipped his head. Emma’s lips parted, her breath uneven on his cheek. His own breath quickened, as he traced the line of her jaw, feathering one fingertip over her smooth flesh while his thumb caressed the soft skin beneath her chin. He wanted to taste her. Slowly and deliberately. Before she realized what he was about and slapped his face.

But of course, he could not be such a bounder.