Something About Emmaline (4 page)

“Most disturbing,” Hubert rushed to agree.

Lilith eyed him as if she were considering if he needed another smack. “I don’t believe for a moment that they were simply seeking a midnight supper.”

“I thought the same thing,” Hubert said. If he had a wife as gorgeous and so obviously willing as Emmaline, food would be the last thing he’d desire.

“Dear God, this is a disaster,” Lilith complained. “That woman could produce an heir. Why, that would ruin everything.”

Bother, Lilith was right. Hubert hadn’t gotten that far yet. He was still trying to recover from the sight of Emmaline in that negligee.

Though his cousin’s marriage to the sickly Emmaline had at first seemed a boon, especially since Sedgwick hadn’t shown the least bit of concern for his ailing wife, now that her health appeared to be on the mend, so was Sedgwick’s interest in her.

Lilith was over at the desk, rummaging around in the drawers. After some searching, she pulled out a sheaf of paper and set up the pen and ink. “Write your grandmother immediately. She’ll be able to put things to right.”

Hubert knew exactly what his wife meant and nodded in
agreement. No one could sow strife in the family like Grandmère. She’d have Sedgwick and the delectable Emmaline back to living apart in no time.

Downstairs, Emmaline wanted to bite back the seductive words that had come out of her lips.

Is there anything else you require?

Was she mad? She knew men, and she knew what it meant when they got
that
look in their eyes. And right now, the hot light burning in the baron’s steely gaze said only too clearly he was of a mind to demand his marital rights—from the appreciative glance that raked over her figure to the way his gaze strayed over her breasts like a hungry caress.

It wasn’t like she’d never been looked at by a man, admired by one, but most of them sent the same coveting glances that seemed to be Hubert’s domain. However, it appeared that Sedgwick coveted nothing. He was a man who knew what he wanted and was used to demanding it—if not just taking it outright.

Oh, bother! Where was the staid, dull man she’d heard so much about? This Sedgwick was nothing like his reputation. No, the way he looked at her said that if she was willing, the taking would be unforgettable.

One very unforgettable night. She cocked her head and gave him another once-over. Make that a night and a day, with his apparent stamina.

Steady, Emmaline,
she told herself.
Remember, you are a proper lady now. A fortnight is all you need. A fortnight and you’ll have the stake of your life.

Yet her gaze strayed once again to his chiseled features, the pair of firm lips pursed in a hard line—ones that prom
ised breathless, staggering kisses. Now, that was a way to pass the time. It wasn’t hard to imagine what two weeks spent in this man’s bed would be like…

The silence in the foyer had grown terribly uncomfortable, and thankfully he broke it.

“We are going to settle this right now.” Sedgwick caught her by the arm and started dragging her back upstairs.

She pressed her lips together. Tightly. Gads, she could only imagine what wayward suggestion would come out of her mouth next—unnerved and borne by his sure touch.

Up the stairs he pulled her. Now, that was a fine sight better than out into the street as he’d promised earlier.

However, while she was here to impersonate Emmaline Denford, that didn’t mean she should expand her reign as the lady of the house to the man of the house.

It would complicate matters. Utterly. Completely. She continued to convince herself of that fact as he towed her up the stairs.

Not that she wasn’t going willingly, but she didn’t want to seem too eager.

“Well, that just makes this a fine mess,” he was sputtering, as they got to the bedchamber and he shut the door behind her. “Inviting yourself to breakfast.”

“I do live here,” she countered, stopping before the bed. Truly, she hadn’t chosen that spot on purpose. Not completely.

Whatever was wrong with her? He was just a man, and an arrogantly noble one at that. She abhorred those types. Absolutely.

Yet why did his eyes have to be so green…his shoul
ders so broad and imposing? He quite stole her breath with all his magnificent brooding and posturing.

That is quite enough, Emmaline,
she told herself.
You have a task to attend to.
Tipping her nose in the air, she said, “If I didn’t arrive downstairs in the morning, don’t you think your cousins would find that odd?”

“The point is that you shouldn’t be here!” His glance went from her to the bed behind her and then back to her again. His jaw worked back and forth, and then he caught her by the hand and hauled her through the bedroom into the private sitting room beyond.

“And why shouldn’t I be at breakfast?” she asked. “I am your wife.”

Through clenched teeth he sputtered, “The point is, you are not.”

“Not invited to breakfast?” she asked coyly, settling herself onto a settee. She hadn’t spent a lifetime avoiding being evicted without learning how to change the subject. Besides, the key to any deception was believing utterly in your guise. And she wasn’t about to drop this one—not when it afforded her the chance to leave her life of guile and deceit behind forever. “Someone has to act as hostess, and who better than your own dear wife?”

“You are not my wife.”

She leaned back and tapped her chin with her finger. “Ah, now that is a problem, isn’t it? If I’m not Lady Sedgwick, then where is she?”

He glowered at her. It actually made him more handsome, that fierce mien of his. “My wife is none of your business,” he told her, pacing about the room, his hands folded behind his back.

“I think she is.”

“Fine, have your breakfast,” he offered, “but then you are going to leave.”

“Tomorrow?” She shook her head. “I fear that won’t work. The draper is coming with the fabrics for the ballroom.”

Sedgwick closed his eyes. “Madame, there will be no more drapers, no more bills, no more of this dalliance. Your time as Emmaline Denford is over.”

“I hardly think you should cancel the draper’s work. He sent a note around that he found the most perfect Chinese brocades to match the new carpets.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and let his sharp green gaze bore into her. “How much?”

She glanced up from her examination of her nails. “For the carpets or the drapes?”

This time, she could spy a vein in the side of his head that looked ready to explode.

“
No,
” he said. “How much are you being paid to ruin my life?” The words ground out with an impatient air.

“I hardly think a few alterations and knickknacks are going to ruin your life.”

“How much are you being paid?” he repeated.

Well, she’d give him one thing. He was dogged. But as much as he wanted her gone, she had every reason to stay.

“Nothing,” she said. “A wife does all these things purely to make her house a home for her dear spouse.”

“But you are not my wife.”

“There you go again, making a bad situation worse,” she said, rising from the settee and making her way toward him. “Really, Sedgwick, if I’d known you were such a dour man, I would never have married you.”

“The point is, you didn’t.”

She smiled. “Prove it.”

This time she overplayed her hand. You’d think that after so long taking such risks, she’d know when to fold her hand and run. For in an instant, Sedgwick took her in his arms and hauled her close.

“Would you like me to?” he offered. “Prove it, that is?”

Up against his chest, Emmaline found herself assailed with memories, memories of what a man with some charm and skill could do to a woman.

How could this be? Where was the dull, stuffy baron she’d been promised? For this man appeared not only quite capable, but would relish the task at hand.

No matter how tempting it was to prove her dedication to her employment, she had sworn off such temptations. They only led to ruin, and ruin was what she was trying to avoid.

Of course, she’d also sworn off gambling, drinking, and all sorts of other vices at one time or another
…

“Oh no, you don’t,” she told him, pushing at his solid chest, trying to twist out of his muscled arms. “If you think you can just assert your…your…”

“Marital rights,” he said, looking down at her as if he had every right, and then some.

“Yes, those,” she said, struggling some. “That would hardly help your case that I am not your wife.”

“Yes, but it might satisfy my curiosity.”

“I wasn’t paid to—”

He quirked a brow at her.

“What I mean to say is that I’m not that kind of woman.”

“The kind of woman who poses as a man’s wife, runs up enormous bills for clothes and other extravagances, and then refuses to make good her status as his wife?”

Much to her chagrin, he let her go.

“You make it sound as if I’m not a lady.”

“And you are…?”

“Here to help,” she said as she straightened out her nightrail and patted the ribbons on her robe back into place. If only she could erase the way her body tingled, cried out to return to the pure masculine heaven of his embrace.

He laughed. “Help? How? By driving me straight into the same cell in Bedlam that you came from?”

She tipped her chin up in the air. “I am not infirmed.”

“But that’s the point,” he told her. “Emmaline is. My wife is ill, infirmed, sickly, and more importantly, indisposed.”

Emmaline sighed and smiled at him. “Ah, but I’ve been cured. Consider it a miracle.”

He shook a finger at her. “I have no room in my life for miracles or a wife.”

“I beg to differ.” Her hands went to her hips.

“You would.” He groaned again. “The point is, I want you gone and this is what you are going to do—”

“I don’t see what you could possibly offer me that would induce me to leave.” She planted her feet and stared at him.

“An opportunity to avoid transportation,” he said, a murderous glint glowing in his eyes.

There were some things Emmaline had learned in her life, and one of them was when one’s quarry was ready to deal. Sedgwick was most definitely in that position, despite his outward confidence.

He couldn’t just toss her out. Not immediately. He knew it and she knew it.

That’s why it was a good thing she knew how to gamble. Sitting as she was with a rather fine hand, she knew her best
chance of winning was to play it right up front and unnerve her opponent before he had a chance to set the stakes.

“I can’t possibly leave while the Denfords are still in residence,” she said. “They would be rather suspicious if I departed so abruptly.”

His brow furrowed, as if he knew that as well.

“So let us come to an agreement,” she offered. “As long as they are in residence, I can remain.”

He cocked his head and stared at her. “Just like that?”

She nodded.

He looked taken aback by this, but recovered quickly. “I’ll have them gone by breakfast and then I expect you to follow suit.”

Emmaline used every bit of demure acquiescence she possessed to lower her lashes and look ever so thankful. “If you think that is best.”

“Yes, I do. And I don’t want you to go down to breakfast. Send your apologies and let the servants know you are not feeling well.”

“I doubt the Denfords will believe I am in ill health.”

“They are my concern. Just keep to this room until they are gone.” He took one last glance at her, as if weighing a choice, then shook his head. “Now I have another matter to see to,” he said, before he swept from the room, leaving her once again in the solitude of the boudoir.

She grinned at the empty space.

So he thought that was it? If Sedgwick really believed Hubert and Lady Lilith could be so easily dispatched, he was in for a shock. The pair had arrived earlier in the day and it hadn’t taken them more than five minutes to start fussing over her expensive changes to the house, as well as peppering her with a bevy of pointed and overly inquisitive questions.

No, that pair was up to something and Sedgwick would have his hands full disengaging them from Hanover Square.

Then again, she was also willing to wager that he was in for more than his share of surprises if he thought she’d be leaving before her fortnight was completed.

I
t took Alex nearly four hours to discover Jack’s whereabouts. He’d tried Camilla’s house, rousting the lady and the gentleman in her bed from a sound night’s sleep.

Only the man in her bed hadn’t been Jack, but old Ambercrombie. Apparently Alex’s bracelet hadn’t been enough to retain the lady’s affections.

Ambercrombie had been furious over being interrupted and had threatened to send over seconds in the morning until Alex explained that he had thought to find Jack in the lady’s company. Then, and only then, did Ambercrombie relent—on the promise that Alex told his friend that Camilla looked well pleased.

A promise Alex made with relish, vowing to regale Jack with the tale…right before he killed him.

As he left the house, Camilla came downstairs and confided that she thought Jack had been sending flowers to a Mrs. Gannett on Thornton Street.

“Oh, and my lord?” she called out as Alex stormed down the front steps.

“Yes?”

The lady raised her hand and patted a few stray strands of reddish hair back into place. “Thank you for my bracelet.” There on her wrist sparkled the bauble that Jack had insisted was paramount to keeping his ladylove’s affections.

So she’d kept the token and traded her heart.

Smart woman,
Alex conceded, as he made his way around the corner to Thornton Street.

As it turned out, Camilla hadn’t been wrong about Jack. He was at Mrs. Gannett’s, warm and cozy in the lady’s comfortable bed.

What the pretty coquette was doing with Jack, Alex wouldn’t wager. Perhaps she’d seen Camilla’s bracelet. That seemed the likeliest reason, considering the way she cast an appreciative glance in his direction after his unwanted entrance and hasty introduction.

He made a note to tell the light-skirt there would be no more bracelets from his accounts. Right after he got done thrashing her lover.

Jack wasn’t as pleased to see his friend, nursing the foul aftermath of a night spent carousing and a lack of sleep from the rest of his evening’s active entertainments.

“Sedgwick, what the devil are you doing here?” he’d complained groggily, just before Alex caught him up by the scruff of his shirt and dragged him from the lady’s bed.

“What the devil,” Jack sputtered, twisting and turning in Alex’s intent grasp. “Have you gone mad?”

“I would ask the same of you.” Down the stairs and out the front door, Alex hauled his protesting friend.

“Come now, my good man. Just unhand me and have
Mrs. Gannett fetch us a pot of coffee. We can discuss this with clear heads. I fear I’m still a bit squiffed from last night.” Jack tried again to shrug off Alex’s grasp to no avail. “Is this about that wager I made with Clifton? I promised him you were good for it.”

Ah, wonderful. Another vowel wagered in my name.
Alex glanced up and down the street until he spied the perfect cure for Jack’s self-induced plight.

The poor sot never saw it coming in his befuddled state. But once Alex tossed him into the horse trough, the elegant rake came up clear-eyed and furious.

“Demmit to hell, man!” he sputtered. “What is wrong with you?”

Alex caught him by the collar and shoved him down again. Jack came back up, spewing dirty water and curses like a Versailles fountain.

“You bastard, unhand me.” His fists swung impotently as Alex gave him another dunking.

But this time, Jack didn’t come up. In fact, he started to sink to the bottom of the trough.

Against his better judgment, Alex heaved a sigh and reached in to pull his friend out.

Even as he caught hold of Jack, his friend exploded in fury, catching Alex’s arm and pulling him into the muck-filled water.

The two of them thrashed about, cursing and throwing fists, finally spilling out of the trough and into the street, brawling like a pair of callow youths.

Lights came on in the nearby houses, the ladies of the neighborhood opening their sashes and doors to witness the disturbance. Gentlemen fighting over a lady wasn’t an uncommon sight in this part of London, and if anything, it
gained the object of such fury some notoriety for months to come. Therefore, everyone wanted to have their own accounting of the event.

Jack caught Alex in the jaw with a hooked shot and sent him sprawling. Mrs. Gannett applauded from her front steps, but her enthusiasm was a little premature. It was going to take more than that to stop the baron.

He staggered up to his feet, then with surprising speed landed a facer on the unwitting Jack. Now it was the other man’s turn to find himself lying atop the cobbles.

From there, he heaved a great sigh. “Sedgwick, what the devil is the matter with you?”

Alex caught him by the shirt and dragged him upright. It just wasn’t done to finish a man while he was down.

“My wife,” he said as he punched him again.

Jack swayed on his feet from the blow. “Emmaline? What has that got to do with me?” When the next one came, he managed to dodge out of the way and had time to wipe some of the blood from his nose.

“Don’t play coy with me, you bounder,” Alex said, coming closer and lowering his voice. “I know demmed well you hired that doxy to impersonate my wife.” He reeled back his fist to strike again, but something in Jack’s befuddled expression stopped him.

“Me? Hired her?” He swiped at his bloody nose again. “Where would I find the blunt for such a thing?”

Alex’s fist froze in midair, cocked back and ready to swing.
Good point that,
he realized.

Meanwhile, Jack continued his protests. “Besides, I thought you hired the gel to keep Hubert at bay. Been visiting her and making like a good friend ever since she arrived to make sure no one questioned her.”

He peered through the one eye that Jack hadn’t managed to blacken. “You didn’t hire her?”

“No,” Jack said with every bit of honesty the knavish fellow possessed.

Alex dropped his fist to his side. Then he glanced up and down the street and realized he’d created a regular spectacle of himself.

Baron Sedgwick brawling on Thornton Street. Wouldn’t that make a pretty story.

Luckily, Jack never held a grudge for long. Tugging down the tails of his shirt in a halfhearted attempt at decency, he said, “Are you telling me all this was because you thought I hired that chit?”

Alex nodded.

Jack broke out laughing. “Suppose you’ve been hunting me all over town?”

Alex closed his eyes and nodded. “I roused Ambercrombie from Camilla’s bed thinking he was you.”

Jack snorted. “Hope you gave that old roué heart palpitations. Though if a night in Camilla’s bed isn’t enough to send that fellow into an early grave, I swear he will live to be a hundred—and make a fine cake of it stealing my mistresses.”

Now Alex laughed.

Jack took a playful swing and then wound his arm over Alex’s shoulder and guided him toward the curb. They climbed the stairs to Mrs. Gannett’s house, where the hospitable woman provided a pitcher of warm water, basins and clean towels, and the rest of Jack’s clothes. Then the lady had the good sense to leave the gentlemen to set themselves to rights over a bottle of brandy.

After they’d done the best they could to repair the obvi
ous damage, Jack sat back in a chair and eyed his friend. “Do you mean to tell me that you didn’t hire this Emmaline?”

“No!” Alex said. “Remember, I’m the one who didn’t want some bothersome female interfering in my life to begin with.”

“There are worse things than a female in your life,” Jack said, waggling his brows up at the ceiling, where above them Mrs. Gannett’s comfortable boudoir was situated. “Besides, your Emmaline is a pretty thing—and wouldn’t be such a bad sight to wake up to in the morning.” He grinned. “Why not keep her for a bit?”

Of course Jack would suggest such a thing. The man who never thought of consequences.

Keep Emmaline? Impossible. Wasn’t it bad enough that the sight of her rising from his bed like a Venus would be forever burnished in his memory? He’d be hard put to ever walk into his bedchamber again and not recall the sight of her.

Better to get her out of his life before she had the opportunity to etch even more indelible memories upon his sensibilities.

“Really, Alex, how much damage has she done? So she’s been seen around town—by who? It’s summer, no one of consequence is about.”

“Try Hubert and Lady Lilith.”

“The devil you say?” Jack wrung out a cloth in the basin, and held it to his bloody nose. “Certainly that puts a bit of a crimp in things, but mayhap it isn’t all that bad. They can’t have been in town long enough to discover the truth.”

“Any length of time with this chit mingling with Hubert is nothing less than an unmitigated disaster.”

Jack pulled the cloth away. “Well, it will stop him from skulking about. Now that he’s seen her for himself, maybe it will end all his infernal inquiries and questions about your wife.”

There was some sense in that.

Reaching for another cloth, Jack dipped it in the water and handed it over to Alex. “That eye of yours looks like the very devil. Sorry about that.”

“No, my apologies for thinking the worse of you,” Alex told him, wincing as he put the cloth to his quickly swelling eye.

Jack grinned. “I do admit, it does seem like something I would do.”

“Yes, it did have your air about it.”

His friend nodded, then went back to dabbing at his nose. “Well, if you didn’t hire her, and I certainly didn’t hire her, who did?”

Alex glanced over at his friend. “I don’t know. But I mean to find out. Right after I get her out of my life.”

“Well, one thing is for certain,” Jack declared. “As long as she’s about, no one will pall you dull.”

By the time Sedgwick returned to his London house, the sun had risen and the day shone brightly.

Though the same couldn’t be said of his mood. He was sodden and battered and hadn’t had a good night’s rest in four days.

And he still had to see to the matters at hand. First thing, the removal of the Denfords, and then Emmaline. As he started up the steps, he straightened his shoulders for the battle to come.

Jack had been right when he’d said he was in a fine pickle. He couldn’t just toss Emmaline out without questions being asked.

Especially not with Hubert and Lady Lilith in town. No, the only solution was to send his relations on an extended trip, then undo the damage wrought by Emmaline’s untimely arrival.

And more importantly, find out who hired her.

He strode into the house and into the dining room, where Emmaline, Lady Lilith and Hubert were breaking their fast with a sumptuous spread. The smell of ham and kippers reminded him that as well as sleep, he hadn’t had a decent meal in days.

Simmons, at first taken aback at Alex’s disheveled state, reverted to the safe realm of his station and said nothing. Instead, he caught up a plate and began filling it with the baron’s favorites.

At least, Alex noted, some things in his life still proceeded in an orderly fashion. But even as he stood in the doorway staring at this macabre scene of domestic bliss, a shriek broke out from the end of the table.

“Sedgwick! My darling! Whatever happened to you?”

Emmaline was at his side in a thrice, staring in horror at his face. Then just as quickly, she stepped back, wrinkling her nose.

Obviously, she had caught a whiff of him, for Lord, he stank to high heavens. “Do you need a cold compress? A surgeon?
A hot bath?
”

“None of that,” he said.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m fine,” he told her, brushing past her toward the table. She smelled of violets and looked as pretty and bright
as a summer morning. Her blond hair danced in curls down the back of her head. Her gown, simple and modest, did nothing but remind him of the lush curves and lithe limbs it managed to conceal. He glanced over at her again and winced.

Demmit! He needed to stay focused. First the Denfords, then Emmaline.

“However could this happen?” she asked, staring at the wreckage of his face.

“I was…set upon,” he said, as matter-of-factly as he could muster. Better another small lie than the truth. The last thing he needed was it being nosed about town that he’d been fighting with Jack on Thornton Street.

Not that the ladybirds of that less-than-reputable address wouldn’t be busy fluttering about with delighted titterings of the spectacle they’d witnessed this morning—but it would take a week or so before their gossip would rise to the lofty reaches of the
ton.

By that time, he’d be well on his way back north and all this trouble would be but a distant memory.

“The villains!” Emmaline gasped, her hand and handkerchief coming to cover her mouth and nose. “Are you sure you are unhurt? You didn’t kill them, did you?”

Lady Lilith cocked an elegant brow at this statement.

“No, nothing so dire,” Alex said, noting that neither of his real relations appeared overly beset by his announcement. “Suffice it to say that they were dispatched and I am unharmed.” Her concern would be touching if she had been his wife, but as it was, her performance only added to the drama he did not want to play out before the household.

“How frightening,” Emmaline said. “How dreadful for you.”

“Yes, quite frightening,” Lady Lilith echoed, her horror most likely drawn from the fact that he survived his ordeal.

Perhaps that was the answer—he’d do himself in and let the Denfords deal with this impossible Emmaline.

Serve the pair of them right, he thought as he settled into his seat at the head of the table. Though he would like to live long enough to see Hubert’s face when his cousin surveyed the wreckage that was her bills.

Meanwhile, Emmaline had poured him a cup of tea and was having a conference with Simmons about some matter.

“You must never fear for Sedgwick,” she said, coming to stand behind his chair. “He’s extremely capable when it comes to an altercation. Why, he saved me from three such wretched villains the day we met. Do you remember, Sedgwick?”

Villains? The day we met?
A premonition of disaster ran down his spine. And it certainly didn’t help that she now had Hubert and Lady Lilith’s full and rapt attention.