“Ebberling had breakfast at the Tantalus this morning.”
Damnation.
Something heated and dark wrenched to life in his gut. He reached out to grip her folded hands. “Did he see you?”
Portsman shook her head. “No. Lord and Lady Haybury saw him first and warned me away. They thought you might have sent him there. Haybury wanted to shoot you.”
Nathaniel narrowed his eyes. “So they know about me. It seems both of us are spilling secrets every which way.”
“I trust them.”
Her expression was defiant, daring him to question her despite the fact that she’d just done the same thing to him. Rather than turn this meeting into a wrestling match over whose friends and family were more trustworthy, he inclined his head. There were other questions he had for her. “Very well. Is it Haybury who knew I was a spy, then?”
“No. And I’m not telling you who it was.”
“Ah. Because you trust this person, too?”
“Yes. Now, th—”
“With my life?” he interrupted. “And my brother’s life?”
“You were Nate Stokes, spy. Is there any other spy who doesn’t know who you are?”
“I was not Nate Stokes, spy,” he grated, tightening his grip on her hands. “For God’s sake, Portsman. Wellington knew that, and my direct superiors. And me, of course. There were times I had to remind myself that that was my name. To the world at large I was Nate Stokes, wastrel and gaddabout with the lack of common sense and patriotism to go abroad during a war and look for nice, fat old books to purchase and study. To sundry and various people of interest to England I was John Cobbins, Adam Genning, Heathrow Parks, Mohammed Ziffari, and so many damned others I just wanted to forget after I shed their skin.
“I had scars and beards and accents and languages and gray hair or black hair or blond hair and names and stinks and fat and gristle that I put on and took off every other week, every other hour, sometimes,” he went on in a torrent of words that he wanted to stop but couldn’t, “and I still wake up every morning and have to lie there and try to remember who I am today. That is who I was. Am.”
So bloody much for keeping his own secrets from her. He’d blurted them out like a schoolboy with his first whore. Glaring at her, breathing hard, he shoved her hands away and slammed to his feet. He needed some damned air.
As he stalked to the window and pushed it open he flung his spectacles onto the floor behind him. He hated the damned things, sometimes, as much as he felt like he needed them. Nate Stokes. They told him he was Nate Stokes, and he needed to remember that, now. Whoever he truly was, the world had come to know him as absentminded, bumbling Nate Stokes, accidental Earl of Westfall. And so he was.
Supposedly confession was good for the soul. It left one feeling lighter and freer or some such nonsense. Mostly what he felt as he breathed in the air of his garden, spiced roses mixed with the smell of horsehit from the stables and the city beyond, was fear. He’d told her everything. And now his life was literally in her hands. Why? Why would he do that?
Part of him wanted to answer that it was because he was tired of living twenty different lives and of never knowing which one was actually him. The other part was shouting that he’d spoken because he trusted her—which was idiotic because he didn’t even know who she was. She’d said she hadn’t killed anyone, but Rachel Newbury was as much her real name as Emily Portsman was.
He heard her stand up, but he stayed where he was. The next sound would be her opening the study door, and then he would have to decide—not whether to turn her over to Ebberling, but whether he could let her leave at all, knowing what she did. It wasn’t just about his life, but Laurie’s, as well. There were men who wanted Nate dead. Or rather, there were men who wanted Heathrow Parks and the others dead, and now she knew that all of them were him.
A hand touched his back. A second hand joined it, and both together moved around to circle his chest. Her cheek pressed lightly against his shoulder.
“Eloise Smorkley,” she whispered. “My mother was a washerwoman, and my father was a poacher. I ran away when I was twelve because I knew I would end up as some gentleman’s fancy girl at best, and an alleyway whore at worst. I lied and stole my way into finishing school, and because I was pretty and witty I got away with it. The governess position at Ebberling Manor was my first. And then I saw him kill her, and it was my last.”
He stood unmoving, listening, his hands braced against the windowsill and her arms quietly around him. All the power he’d given her, and she was giving it back to him. Not because she was angry and couldn’t stop her tongue from wagging, but because she chose to do so.
“I was going to say that we’re alike, you and I,” she continued, “but that isn’t so. You’ve lived your lies for the sake of king and country. My lies were because I didn’t want the life I’d been handed and I decided to make another. I don’t have any right to drag you into my troubles, and I’m sorry I ever tried to. You’re a good man, Nate Stokes. That’s the part you should be remembering.”
Her touch left his back, and he heard her walking for the door. And then it struck him. “Eloise Smorkley?” he said, facing her. He laughed. He couldn’t help it, any more than he could help the torrent of words a few minutes earlier. “Smorkley? Really?”
Emily lifted her hand off the door’s handle and turned around.
For heaven’s sake.
She’d just bared her soul to the man, just as he had for her, and now he wanted to laugh at her very unfortunate name? The sound of his laugh, though, deep and rolling and genuine, stopped the retort she’d been about to make. She found herself grinning back at him.
“It’s awful, isn’t it? And I had the poor fortune to be tall as a child. Smorkley the Storkley, the other children called me. Oh, I hated that name.” Emily chuckled.
Nathaniel’s shoulders lowered, and he crossed the room to stop in front of her. “I swear I will never call you that, Portsman,” he returned, still laughing. “If you’ll let me help you, that is.”
She studied his gaze for a moment. Humor touched his light eyes, but there was determination there, as well. Flight still seemed the wisest choice, but at the moment she didn’t feel in the mood to discount the brave, devious, troubled man currently gripping her shoulders. “I will take a chance,” she said, sobering. “Because I don’t want to have to begin all over again.”
Nate leaned down and touched his mouth to hers. “I’ll hold you to that, Portsman.”
Chapter Eleven
Nathaniel swung down from Blue and retrieved his cane, then limped up the drive of Velton House. The last time he’d been here, he’d wondered if Lord Ebberling had told him the entire truth about Miss Rachel Newbury and the events that had befallen his wife, Katherine. This time, he knew he was about to speak with a murderer.
He’d done so before, of course, back when the information he was after outweighed the crime of the moment. Today he needed to tread even more carefully.
The butler pulled open the door as he topped the shallow marble steps. “Good morning, Lord Westfall,” he said politely.
“Good morning. Is Lord Ebberling in?”
“If you would care to wait in the foyer, I shall inquire, my lord.”
Once the butler had closed the front door he vanished up the stairs and into the bowels of the large house. Nate stayed where he was, his back to the wall, and listened. Every household had its own peculiarities and quirks, and they all meant something.
What he noticed first about Velton House was that it was silent. No servants chatted about the weather or about his lordship’s request for fresh flowers. Young George, wherever he was, seemed to be going about his morning in silence. An odd thing for an eight-year-old boy.
Mentally Nate shrugged. It was entirely possible, he supposed, that the lad was out of doors, the servants were finished with their morning duties and were in the kitchen having breakfast, and he was reading sentences onto blank pages.
The butler reappeared at the top of the landing. “This way, my lord, if you please. Lord Ebberling is in his library and will see you now.”
Ebberling sat before the fireplace, a thick book resting in one hand while he flipped pages with the other. Curious, Nate dipped his head as he adjusted his spectacles.
Grain Supplies in Europe during Bonaparte’s Conquest
. Ah. The book was only meant to look impressive, then—a serious-sized tome for a serious man.
“Good morning, my lord,” he said, inclining his head again.
The marquis lifted a finger, evidently intent on finishing a paragraph before he could tear himself away from the book. “Westfall. Have a seat.”
Taking the chair on the opposite side of the fire, Nate leaned his cane against the arm and sank back into the soft cushions. Emily was afraid of this man. She hadn’t said so directly, but her expression and her tone of voice had spoken volumes to anyone who knew how to listen. The heavy jaw, the straight line of his back even while seated, the immaculate, expensive clothes, all bespoke a man of wealth and power. There was more, though—the lack of laugh lines, the clenched jaw, the slightly narrowed eyes, things he’d noted before but put to the man’s anger at a thief and murderer escaping—that he now saw as marks of a foul temper, or even possibly of cruelty.
If he was now seeing things from Portsman’s point of view he needed to stop, however; whatever and whoever Ebberling was, Nate wanted to see him clearly. Facts only, body language only. Anything else was dangerous and counterproductive.
“Do you have news for me, then?” the marquis finally asked, closing the book and setting it aside.
“I have news that I have no news, I’m afraid,” Nate returned in his most harmless tone.
“Rycott said you were competent.”
“Yes, well, I’ve never attempted to find someone who’s been missing for three years, and could well be anywhere in the entire world. For a moment I thought I’d tracked her to London, but that young lady had green eyes and a shortened left leg. In fact, I have found no trace of her at all. No one of her description that anyone recalls has boarded a ship, or taken work, or turned up dead, or married, or … anything.” He pulled the uncashed banknote from his pocket. “And so I cannot, in good conscience, take your money.”
“You’ve only been looking for four weeks. Are you so certain she’s completely vanished?”
“If I thought there was a reasonable chance of locating Miss Newbury, I would continue looking.”
Ebberling gazed at him levelly. “What is your fee, then, for looking and finding nothing?”
Nate smiled, pushing at his spectacles again. “This is my hobby, Ebberling. It was entertaining, attempting to find a ghost. But I won’t take your money when I have no results.”
“Not even a penny?”
“I haven’t earned it.”
“But you know that she hasn’t boarded a ship or married or died, do you not?”
The low arrogance permeating the room chilled into a tense hostility. Nate shifted his elbow, checking that his cane and the rapier inside it remained within reach. “No, I don’t know that. I could not find anyone who recalled seeing someone of her description. In three years people leave positions or die or simply forget.”
“You offered bribes?”
“Where they seemed appropriate.”
The marquis sat back again. “Then I do owe you some money. Tell me how much you spent, at least, and I will recompense you.”
Nathaniel didn’t want his money. Not a shilling, not a penny. But Ebberling was after something, and he didn’t quite know what it was, yet. “The amount came to twenty-one pounds, if you insist, but it isn’t necessary. I was looking for the woman you believed may have killed your wife. With no results, I won’t—”
Pulling money from his pocket, Ebberling counted out exactly twenty-one pounds and set the blunt on the table beside him. “Then we are finished here. I will hire someone who can produce results and find me Rachel Newbury. Good day, Westfall.”
Rising, Nate set the banknote on the table next to the cash, which he scooped into a pocket. “Good luck to you, Ebberling,” he returned, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.
If the marquis found Portsman, he would kill her. Of that, Nathaniel was certain. Which left her with two choices—running again, or striking first. Legally, or physically. That was a question he would leave up to her, though he had his own preferences. He’d killed for his country, and while he hadn’t enjoyed it, he hadn’t hesitated, either. This was the first time that the idea of removing someone from the equation, as Wellington tended to put it, was something he could look forward to.
He found a groom holding Blue, and climbed back into the saddle with his practiced lack of grace. His first thought was that he wanted to go see Portsman, or Smorkley, or Newbury, or whatever name she chose to go by.
Smorkley.
He couldn’t conjure a less likely name for a more interesting, elegant, clever woman. No wonder she’d left it behind.
Instead, though, he turned for Teryl House. He’d promised to let Laurie know how the meeting had gone, and he needed to find some perspective where Portsman was concerned. He liked her. He wanted her. But were those things worth further tangling himself into her life? She’d confessed to being a poacher’s daughter, after all. And while that might have done for bumbling Nate Stokes, bookish cousin to an earl, he wasn’t that man any longer. He’d never regretted his cousin’s death more than he did at that moment, either.
This past winter the Duke of Greaves had raised eyebrows all over England by marrying a Tantalus girl, and she’d been a duke’s daughter. An illegitimate one, but even so, half aristocrat. Because he was now an earl, he’d be expected to marry and father little heirs himself, though he’d already half decided to pass the title on to Laurence and let him have the worry of procreation and parenthood.
Nate shook himself. He’d bedded Emily Portsman on several occasions, and had enjoyed each and every one of them. She wasn’t his first lover, however. So why the devil had the word
marriage
popped into his head? Because she knew who he was? That only made her dangerous. Except that he didn’t think of her that way, however much logic urged him to do so. In his mind she was simply Portsman, of the deep brown eyes and witty, sinful mouth. Someone with whom he no longer had to pretend to be anyone but who he was—whoever that might be.