Something About Emmaline (5 page)

No, demmit,
he wanted to tell her.
Cease this immediately.

But he soon discovered that having given her a small white lie to work with, under her obviously skilled tutelage it was blossoming into a Banbury tale that would make a Covent Garden tragedy look simpleminded.

“He saved you?” Lady Lilith asked. She set down her knife and fork and folded her hands in her lap. “How remarkable.”

“Oh, yes, it was a most desperate day,” Emmaline told her, her hand going to her brow.

“Desperate, you say?” Hubert asked, finally looking up from his paper. “As dire as all that?”

“Oh, yes. I hadn’t been in England more than a day when
my coach was set upon by thieves. The driver and footman were overcome, and my dearest chaperone, Mrs. Woodgate, swooned immediately.” Emmaline sighed and shook her head, while her hands wrung at her handkerchief as if the danger were right outside their door.

Alex, for his part, wished she
had
been set upon and therefore had saved him from ever having to listen to this bouncer.

“How terrible for you,” Lady Lilith said, though her tone suggested she didn’t believe a word of Emmaline’s dramatic rendition.

“Terrible indeed!” Hubert chimed in, once again with more enthusiasm than his wife shared—which garnered him a dark look from Lady Lilith’s side of the table.

“Yes, but as terrifying as it was, it was what brought me to my dearest Sedgwick,” Emmaline said, her hands coming lightly to rest upon his shoulders. “The last thing I remember was the sight of him riding up over the crest of the hill, his pistol drawn, his great black cape swirling in the wind as he rode to my rescue.”

“Sedgwick with a pistol?” Lady Lilith asked. “Why, this is quite news to all of us.” She turned her skeptical gaze on him. “I didn’t know you were so proficient.”

“It wasn’t anything,” he said quite truthfully.

Not willing to yield the floor just yet, Emmaline continued. “All I remember was the sight of Sedgwick riding forth, for just then I was struck by a stray bullet and rendered unconscious. Sadly, I can’t recall anything else until I woke up some time later, Sedwick’s handsome visage, so filled with concern, the first thing I saw.”

Hubert sputtered, as if he’d never heard such rot.

Granted, neither had Alex, but he didn’t like Hubert’s rude suggestion that his wife was lying.

No matter that she wasn’t his wife.

But Emmaline wasn’t about to give quarter to the likes of Hubert Denford. Her brow rose in a regal arch as she turned her face toward him. Slowly her hand went to her brow and she drew back the artful and fashionable curls arranged around her face.

And revealed a scar both hideous and alarming.

Sedgwick blinked and looked again.
Christ, she
had
been shot.

Who was this elegant, delicate-looking creature, that she had such secrets? Had lived such a life?

“O-oh, gracious,” Hubert managed to stammer, looking like he was about to lose his breakfast.

Lady Lilith’s face mirrored her husband’s shock; then, like the proper lady that she was, she glanced away. But not before her eyes narrowed with a calculated estimation.

Emmaline patted her curls back into place and her pretty mouth began to open as if she had every intention of adding to this spectacle, so Alex stopped her before she showed them anything else.

“You know, perhaps I could use a cold compress,” he announced.

“If you think you need it,” she said, clearly disappointed at his interruption.

“
Yes,
” he said firmly, taking her by the arm and steering her from the room.

“Oh, if you wish,” she sighed.

“I do.” He dragged her out of the dining room and up the stairs to the first landing, quite forgetting his plan to evict the Denfords. “I thought we agreed you were going to seek
your bed today. Feign ill health.” Despite his best manners, his gaze traveled back up to the line of curls at her brow.

Shot? She’d been shot?
He didn’t think he knew anyone who’d been shot. Not shot and lived. Glancing over at her, he wondered what trouble had beset her to meet such a fate.

Suddenly his earlier ideas of tossing her back into the streets didn’t seem so well thought out. For there was something about Emmaline that touched him—not just her infuriating
joie de vivre,
but something so utterly unexpected and vulnerable in the way she’d defiantly given the Denfords a glimpse into a past that none of them could imagine.

“I fear taking to my bed was impossible,” she told him, shaking loose his grasp, her hand rising self-consciously to her hairline once again.

“Impossible?” he asked. “How so?” What was there to feigning a megrim or some female ailment? Her performance just a few moments earlier proved she was a dab hand at acting.

“Sedgwick, my dear, it is a ridiculous notion. How could I feign an illness? Look at me—do I appear ill?”

She stepped back so he could do just that, look at her. And he felt himself taking her in like a tonic. Never before had he ever seen anyone or anything brighten his Hanover Square house as Emmaline did. When she smiled, her eyes sparkled, her cheeks brightened and pinked. Her vivacity was infectious, a fever of life that defied the bedridden existence he’d instructed her to partake.

There was no way Emmaline looked the least bit ill.

Which only added to his problems.

Alex leaned forward and lowered his voice. “My wife is not supposed to be of such a strong constitution.”

“But don’t you see,” she said, her lashes dipping flirtatiously, “it was your love and admiration that helped me make a complete recovery from my maladies?”

He groaned. “That hardly fits with our agreement for your immediate removal from this house.”

“Don’t you think my leaving so abruptly would raise questions you don’t want to answer?”

He ground his teeth together. Smart, impertinent minx.

She edged closer to him and whispered, “Keep me, Sedgwick. For the time being.”

Keep her? His body tensed at the enticement she offered. She was like a blithe wind through his dusty life, and all of a sudden all he wanted to do was throw open the windows and welcome her in.

What had Jack said?
As long as she is in your life, no one will call you dull.

“I promise I won’t be any bother,” she added, sweetening the temptation.

Bother? Oh, she’d be more than that. Another twenty-four hours in the house and she’d have him tangled up like a fish in a net. Have him believing that men actually had wives as beautiful and intoxicating as the one before him. And then he saw himself, waking up beside her, brushing her hair aside to kiss her rosy lips, feeling his body stir and wake and knowing that she…

“No,” he sputtered. Good God, keep her? What was he doing even considering such a notion. Alex wasn’t too sure what brought him to his senses, whether it was his still-wet clothes or perhaps the wafting odor of horse trough that finally cleaned his befuddled senses, but he knew one thing for certain. “As I said last night, the moment I remove Lady Lilith and Hubert, I want you out.”

“Yes, Sedgwick,” she said, like the obedient, docile Emmaline he’d always imagined. If only the sparkle in her eyes hadn’t revealed her true thoughts.
Good luck in trying that one.

Alex squared his shoulders. “I am still the master of this house. And when I tell the Denfords to leave, they will.”

Again, she nodded, then leaned forward. “In truth, I can see why you would want them gone. They are dreadfully tiresome.” She paused, her teeth nibbling at her lower lip. “I suppose that is unkind, to speak so ill of your relations, and I suppose if I had any—relatives, that is—I wouldn’t appreciate anyone speaking ill of them. But in truth, if I possessed cousins like Mr. and Mrs. Denford, honestly, I don’t know if I’d own up to having them.” Then the cheeky little minx winked at him.

Despite his best effort, Alex smiled. Once again, her blithe spirit was coaxing him into her mayhem. He did his best to recover, trying to think of his loyalty to his family, but even that was impossible to muster. Instead, he told her, “I am going to seek a bath and then my bed.”

She looked about to offer to help, but that kind of help he didn’t need. He staved her off with a shake of his head. “Can you stay out of trouble until I arise and devise a plan to remove my cousins?”

With you following right behind them.

She waved her hand at him. “Of course, Sedgwick. I have more than enough to occupy myself until you are rested.”

He didn’t know if he liked the sound of that. “No more Banbury tales.”

She had the nerve to appear affronted. “Sirrah, I never—”

“Yes, yes, I know—”

“It was an excellent story,” she said, patting her brow again. “Far better than some dreary tale that you acquired me through a debt of honor or some other bit of dull nonsense.” She turned to go back down the stairs, then stopped. “By the way, how did we meet?”

He flinched. “I offered for you after your father died. I felt it was a matter of honor.”

She shook her head. “Oh, Sedgwick, you are terrible at these sort of things. How have you managed to keep me so well concealed for so long?”

“It wasn’t a problem until you decided to move into my life,” he shot back. The story had been adequate enough for him and the rest of the
ton.
“And far superior to that bouncer you told about being set upon and shot.”

“But Sedgwick, I was shot,” she said, her gaze falling to the bottom of the stairs, and once again that calculating, outlandish, storytelling light burned to life in her eyes. The warning bell inside him began tolling the alarm, so he barely heard her muttering, “Oh, bother, what is she doing?”

And like lightning, she struck again, this time throwing her arms around his neck and saying loudly, “My dearest Sedgwick, you will always be my knight errant.” Then, before he could stop her, she rewarded him with the favor of her lips.

Changing his view of marital relations utterly and completely.

E
mmaline caught hold of Sedgwick’s lapels and drew him closer. “Lady Lilith is watching,” she whispered hastily as she rose up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his.

She hadn’t meant it to be anything more than just a diverting eyeful for Sedgwick’s nosy relation.

Never mind the fact that she’d spent the night tossing and turning amidst the sheets, bothered and spent by dreams of this enigmatic man. He was supposed to be dull and rather tiresome, but instead he’d ignited her passions like a match to the flame.

No, she told herself, this kiss is nothing more than a diversion for Lady Lilith’s sake and had nothing to do with her misguided desires.

Yet, who would have thought the stuffy baron would take his performance so to heart?

And so thoroughly.

His lips, warm and strong, bent to hers, covering her
mouth and taking command of the situation. Not that she minded his overbearing nature in this instance—Lord knows she was in over her head with all this being a wife and a baroness—but to her credit, she did know a thing or two about men…

And, while Sedgwick had no talent for prevarication, when it came to kissing, his skills scorched. Gads, if she
were
his baroness, she’d stay in bed and feign anything he asked—as long as she had to spend the time burning beneath his kiss.

When his tongue ventured forth with a teasing swipe, the kind that promised so much more than a quick dalliance, her knees wavered and her mouth opened, in shock or of its own volition—she wasn’t too sure which.

Then he really took command of the situation, winding his arms around her, one at her waist and the other at her shoulders, drawing her closer—not that he smelled all that great, rather like he’d been doused in a horse trough—but none of that mattered, once she found herself hauled up against his solid chest, the length and breadth of him pressed against her.

All of him.

When did barons start having the physiques of an Elgin marble? Most of the barons she’d ever met were toady little fellows with rounded bellies.

Nothing about this baron was squat or round.

Just hard and insistent. Like his mouth. And his kiss.

In the back of her mind, she thought she heard Lady Lilith’s indignant footsteps retreating, but obviously Sedgwick didn’t realize they’d lost their audience.

Honestly, Emmaline wasn’t of a mind to enlighten him.
Besides, if the man could be enticed with a kiss, who was she to object?

Especially when he groaned and tugged her closer. His hands didn’t just hold her—they moved with an explorer’s ardent heart. Tracing the plains of her back, the valleys of her torso, even climbing the full hills of her…breasts.

As his fingers curled up over the hardened peaks, her senses exploded and Emmaline panicked. Suddenly her curiosity became too real, the risk too great. She wrenched herself free and backed away from him. Her breath was coming in ragged, short gasps and her heart hammered in her chest.

Her temple throbbed as well, like a warning bell, a dangerous reminder of the price passion could cost.

“I think we’ve made our point,” she told him. “Mrs. Denford is gone.”

“She could come back,” he said, stalking closer.

“Highly unlikely,” she told him. “Besides, you smell like a…like a trough!”

“You weren’t objecting a few moments ago.”

Oh, this will never do,
she thought. He could kiss like the very devil
and
be astute. “I was trying to be polite, like any other wife,” she told him, knowing her motives had been borne out of anything other than a sense of matrimonial obligation.

He edged closer, his green eyes glittering with wicked intent. “If you were in truth my wife, you wouldn’t still be in this hallway.”

If he came any closer, if he dared kiss her again, Emmaline knew her resolve would crumble. She had to be honest—she had a weakness for men, especially ones who could
kiss her senseless while they stole her garters and her virtue.

Yet she’d always prided herself on knowing when to cut her losses and run rather than risk the temptation a handsome man offered. Careful planning and execution of a well-thought ruse had no room for passion.

Oh, but there was something about Sedgwick that made her feel reckless, restless and willing to play a hand that would have had her piquet-loving grandmother tossing the cards in the fireplace.

Damn her promises to keep the Sedgwick name free of scandal, her behavior circumspect. Surely that hadn’t meant with the man who was purportedly her husband?

Sedgwick caught her chin and looked down into her eyes. “The point is, madame, you are not my wife and I’ll not be swayed by your playacting.” He then turned on one heel and marched up the stairs to the next flight.

Emmaline stumbled into the empty space where he’d been standing.
Playacting?
He thought she was playacting? Well, of all the—

When he reached the top of the stairs, he glanced over his shoulder. “Emmaline, please use care until I arise. And remember our agreement. The Denfords, and then you.”

“Yes, Sedgwick,” she replied to his retreating figure. He strode into the bedchamber and closed the door with a little more enthusiasm than probably was necessary, leaving her standing alone in the middle of his house.

Oh, the devil take him. He still wanted her gone. Even after that kiss. She supposed he kissed ladies like that all the time. All in a day’s work for Lord Sedgwick. Kiss a few birds senseless and then take a respite. Her hands wound into two tight fists at her side. Infuriating man.

Glancing around the empty foyer, she heaved a sigh and flexed her fingers. He wanted her out, and out this very afternoon. Oh, that would never do. She wouldn’t get a farthing if Sedgwick tossed her out too soon.

If only he hadn’t come to town so quickly. Though she probably had only herself to blame for that. Obviously she’d taken to being Lady Sedgwick with a little too much enthusiasm—what with the mentions in the
Post,
the rather horrendous pile of decorating bills that was giving his cousin fits, along with the collection of vowels from the twice-weekly visits to the dressmakers, glovers and millinery shops in which she’d partaken.

Well, moderation had never been one of her finer skills.

What Emmaline needed was help. Or at the very least a miracle. But since she knew miracles were always in short supply, she’d have to make do. Or better yet, improvise.

Glancing down toward the dining room, she knew there would be no aid from the Denfords. Not that she’d want it.

And she couldn’t expect any help from the servants. In the great houses of the
ton,
the servants owed everything—their livelihood, the very roof over their heads—to the master of the house. No, as nice as Sedgwick’s help was, none of them was going to go against the baron’s orders.

That she’d been able to gammon them this far was indeed perhaps indication of a miracle. Or evidence of her superior skills at prevarication.

But Emmaline soon discovered that perhaps she’d been too hasty in her estimation of Sedgwick’s staff. From down below she heard a man’s voice rising up the staircase. It was one of the footmen—Thomas, she thought.

“I tell you, Simmons, that new fellow at the duchess’s can’t be beaten.” The footman was trimming wicks and
changing candles in the sconces, while Simmons followed and collected the spent candle ends. Neither of them noticed her standing above them. “He won five guineas off Franklin, then turned around and pigeoned a quarter’s wages off that stuffy fellow from the earl’s. I say something’s not right about the way he plays.”

Emmaline leaned forward. Sedgwick’s servants gambled? And deep, if Thomas wasn’t using a gossip’s inflated tongue about the amounts.

“A quarter’s wages.” Simmons let out a low whistle. “If I lost half such a sum, Mrs. Simmons would have my head. Not that she isn’t going to ring a peal over my head for the bit I’ve lost to that fellow.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Thomas said. “We can’t face them come Thursday night or they’ll clean us out good. We’ll be living on them candle stubs till next Season.”

The butler nodded. “We’ll just have to come up with an excuse not to play.”

“Play what?” Emmaline asked, leaning over the railing.

Both men jumped, startled to be caught gossiping by the lady of the house.

“Nothing, milady,” Simmons offered. “I’m sorry if we disturbed you.”

“Oh, please, Simmons, don’t fret on my account.” She started down the stairs until she came to the last two steps. There she put her hands on her hips and faced the guilty pair. “Besides, you haven’t answered my question. Play what?”

Thomas’s gaze fell to the floor, his cheeks turning a ruddy shade, while Simmons looked close to apoplexy, given the way his brow furrowed into a deep line.

She tipped her head. “I may be able to offer you some assistance.”

The butler glanced at her, his gaze narrowing and assessing.

Then it struck Emmaline. He knew. Knew she wasn’t Sedgwick’s wife. She’d suspected it all the while, though she’d thought her worried notions impossible—for why would he let her stay if he knew the truth?

Yet there it was—he knew the truth and had held his tongue. For whatever reason.

He glanced around the foyer and lowered his voice. “Piquet. A few of us play piquet every Thursday night.”

“Piquet?” Oh, she was in luck. Or rather they were.

Don’t do this, Emmaline,
an overly cautious voice urged her.
You’re in over your head as it is. Don’t go butting into business that is none of yours. What has meddling ever done for you?

Never mind that she’d recently sworn off meddling. Right along with cards…and men…and…

Thomas, obviously emboldened by Simmons’s confession, spoke up. “There’s a new footman over at the duchess’s across the square. A regular Captain Sharp, he is, if you’ll excuse me, ma’am, for saying so.”

Emmaline nodded solemnly. “How patently unfair.”

Simmons shot Thomas a hot glance to silence the man, then he continued the story in a more dignified manner. “We believe the duchess’s butler hired this fellow while the family was away, if only to get back what they lost this past winter.”

“And you say the duchess’s servants aren’t very good at playing cards?” Emmaline asked, trying to ignore the familiar pounding in her heart.

As much as she knew she should walk away from the servants’ problems, perhaps this was a time to make an excep
tion to her rule. Perhaps, it might even be a way to gain her stake if her gammon with Sedgwick failed.

“The duke’s staff are right awful, ma’am,” Thomas told her. “Always good for a few extra quid, they are. That is until this new footman arrived. Now we’ll have to call off our regular night.”

Emmaline came down off the steps and smiled. “Don’t cancel just yet,” she told them. “I think you might have found a sharp of your own.”

If Emmaline thought Sedgwick indifferent to their kiss, she didn’t know her husband.

He’d walked away from her in a painful state of awareness as to her charms.

She’s not my wife, she’s not my wife,
he repeated with each step up the staircase, even as the thrumming of his blood threatened to snap the taut thread of control he could still claim.

While every bit of common sense he possessed clamored at him not to go anywhere near this imposter, when she’d caught hold of him, pulled him close and offered those rosebud lips of hers to him, he’d had only one thought.

Kiss her.
Kiss her quickly and deeply and thoroughly—for he might not have another chance of it before his sensibilities gained the upper hand and managed to toss her out into the streets where she belonged.

No, this Emmaline was nothing but folly. Pure folly, he thought, recalling her kiss.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d kissed a woman and found himself so undone. So willing to forget that she wasn’t his wife.

And if she were to walk through the door right this
minute, he wouldn’t trust himself not to take her in his arms and finish what his hard and thrumming body cried out for. The passion and pleasure her kiss promised.

Just then there was a knock on the door, and he stopped his reckless pacing and turned toward it. He tried to speak, but found his throat dry.

Gads, this was his house. He was still the master of it. He wasn’t going to be ruled by anything less than common sense. And that meant he could face this pretty imposter and her all-too-kissable lips.

“Come in,” he ground out.

To his utter disappointment, as much as he was loath to admit it, it was only Simmons and a line of footmen, all carrying buckets of steaming hot water.

“Her ladyship thought you might like a bath before your respite,” the butler said, leading the parade of servants into the bathing chamber beyond. One of the maids followed, carrying a tray with his forgotten breakfast.

First her kiss, now this offering. And when he’d stripped himself of his clothes and sunk into his hot bath, a comforting cup of hot tea and buttered toast nearby, he realized this Emmaline was more devilish than he’d first thought.

By the time Alex arose, the day was well spent. And despite a series of fitful dreams featuring a tempting blond vixen, he’d awakened feeling like himself again.

Sensible and ready to conquer the problem at hand—namely, getting rid of Hubert and Lady Lilith.

And then Emmaline.

He opened the clothespress in search of a new waistcoat and suddenly his senses were assailed with the soft scent of violets.

Her perfume.

And upon a closer inspection, he spied a plain brown valise tucked into the back of the armoire.
Her valise.

All her belongings, all her secrets, perhaps even her identity might be found in this innocuous, innocent-looking bag.

“No,” he told himself. “That would hardly be fair.” So he closed the door. It wasn’t seemly to go through a lady’s private possessions.

Yet how was he to learn about her mysterious past if he didn’t do a bit of investigation? Didn’t he have a right to know exactly who was parading about town wearing the Sedgwick name?