Notorious (16 page)

There were two boatmen. One had come forward to assist the ladies into the skiff. The other was checking that the mooring ropes were secure. Miss Bell and Miss Annie Bell were giggling as they climbed into the boat. Silly girls. Emma scowled.

“A beautiful day, my lady.”

Emma jumped and dropped her parasol. She knew
that voice. Normally she did not look at servants, which was why she had completely failed to notice that the man tying the boat to the bank was Tom Bradshaw. He straightened up, strong and lithe, and handed the parasol to her with a little mocking bow. When she took it from him he covered her fingers with his own. Emma’s throat dried and her heart started to bang against her ribs.

“What are you doing here?” she gasped. She glanced around to see if her mother had noticed but Lady Brooke was talking to Lady Bell and had her back turned.

Tom was laughing at her. She could see it in his eyes. The expression in them made her stomach melt. “I come and go as I please,” Tom said, “and today it pleased me to find you.”

“I’ve looked for you—” Emma began, then clamped her lips tight shut.

“I know,” Tom said. He was standing very close to her. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up and Emma could see the fine hairs on his forearms and the play of his muscles under the skin. His arm brushed hers and Emma felt the warmth of it through the thin cotton of her sleeve. She felt a little dizzy, too hot, her blood hammering in her veins.

Lady Bell was settling herself in the boat now, making a great fuss and taking up at least three seats as she smoothed out her skirts. Emma held her breath but still Lady Brooke did not turn around.

“I’ll come to you tomorrow night,” Tom whis
pered, his lips brushing Emma’s ear. “Be waiting for me.”

A shiver took Emma, raising the goose bumps all over her body. Tom was smiling, his eyes so dark, his expression so wicked that Emma felt as though the ground had fallen away beneath her feet and she was stepping into empty air. She felt Tom slide an arm about her on the pretext of guiding her down to the jetty. She felt the press of his hand at her waist; his fingers brushed the underside of her breast and she gasped aloud.

Her mother had noticed nothing and was waiting for Emma to join her in the boat. Tom held out his hand to her to help her aboard. Emma hesitated before touching him and felt her senses jolt as his hand closed about hers. It was as though someone had dropped hot wax on her naked skin. The heat enveloped her whole body. She was burning up yet she felt chilled to the bone at the same time.

Emma took her seat on the cushion beside her mother and watched in a trance as Tom cast off and seated himself in the bow. He was facing directly toward her and she watched him pull on the oars, watched the muscles in his thighs tighten as he rowed and the way the wind flattened his shirt against the contours of his chest. She felt transfixed, her mother’s conversation rolling over her like a soundless reel, whilst her ears were full of the splashing of the water and the sun beat down on her parasol and in her belly was a hot, demanding ache she had
never imagined before. She did not understand why no one else seemed to notice her discomfort when it was so acute. Yet everyone was behaving perfectly as normal. Only she was caught up in a painful spiral of lust and wanting. Only Tom knew.

They were drawing up at Westminster Quay. Tom jumped ashore. Gravely he helped the ladies up onto dry land and to their carriages. He was all that was proper and deferential. Emma saw her mother graciously hand him a tip and felt obscurely ashamed. Once again she hung back and felt his touch on her wrist and his lips brush the corner of her mouth in the briefest of caresses.

“I’ll take payment from you tomorrow, Lady Emma.”

She was in the carriage and she felt limp and boneless with the tension and the tight desire inside her.

“You look done up, my love,” Lady Brooke said, viewing her flushed face with some concern. “Too much sun, I suppose. It was unconscionably hot.”

“Yes,” Emma said. Her skin felt feverish and sticky. “When we get home I think I might lie down for a little.”

She had promised herself that she would not look back to see if Tom was watching but she could not help herself. As the carriage turned the corner and headed away from the river she craned her neck to catch one last glimpse of him but he was nowhere to be seen.

S
USANNA WOKE LATE, HAVING
slept deeply through sheer exhaustion. She only awoke when Margery came in, flustered, with a cup of tea and a copy of the
Gazette
. The hall, Margery said, was full of flowers. The Duke and Duchess of Alton had sent a footman with a note that they would be hosting an engagement party for Susanna and Fitz that very evening. Margery had taken the liberty of sending for the hairdresser. Several modistes had called to offer their services in the design of the wedding gown. They had left gifts, samples…

Susanna resisted the urge to pull the bedcovers over her head. After Margery had gone out to draw her a bath she got out of bed and went across to the balcony, opening the long doors, remembering with a lurch of her heart how she had closed them the previous night after Devlin had gone. It was a beautiful morning. The sky was a clean bright blue and the sun was high and the air was fresh. Susanna rested a hand on the stone balcony and looked down into the street below where another flower cart had arrived and John, the footman, was struggling under the burden of a huge arrangement of lilies that looked more appropriate to a funeral than a wedding. No doubt they were from Fitz, Susanna thought. He was given to the grand gesture when he knew that people would be watching. Poor Francesca Devlin. People would be watching her, too. Today, with the announcement of Fitz’s engagement, her humiliation would be complete.

With a sigh Susanna closed the doors shutting out the shiny new day. She felt hollow and lonely. The prospect of going to the Altons’ party, of accepting the congratulations of the ton, of acting the role of Fitz’s fiancée was almost intolerable. She missed Devlin acutely, as though she were seventeen and had lost him all over again. She had wanted to avoid this pain. Instead, for the first time in years, the hard carapace that she had built about her heart to protect her felt as though it was breaking. She did not know why it hurt so much. She knew that she had no future with Devlin, knew, too, that at the end of this charade she would slip away, pay for the annulment and be gone. In a month she could very courteously end the betrothal—she did not flatter herself that Fitz’s feelings would be touched: only his pride and his wallet—pocket her payoff from the Duke and Duchess and slip away. She would never see any of them again. A month seemed an unconscionably long time.

She took her bath in the rose-scented water that Margery had so thoughtfully provided, dressed listlessly and wandered downstairs. Underneath all the notes of congratulation that had already accumulated on the hall table were the letters that she had dreaded finding the night before. Her heart did a small, uncomfortable flip. She took them out of the pile and went into the drawing room, closing the door behind her.

Her hand shook as she opened the first one. The
moneylenders were not so polite this time, which was not surprising since she had ignored their previous missive. Susanna thought of the possibility of them going to Fitz and telling him that she was in debt and was not the rich widow he thought her. The delicate structure of her charade shivered a little. One word out of place, one false step and the delicate pretense she had built would be ruined and she would tumble back to the poorhouse, and take Rory and Rose with her. He heart swooped. How she hated this tangled web. She was so desperate to be free of it all.

There was another anonymous note. She recognized the bold black capitals and the arrogant strokes that said her mysterious correspondent had a hold over her and was determined to use it.

“If you wish me to keep your secrets meet me in the Bell Tavern in Seven Dials on Saturday night.”

Susanna stood up, crushing the letters fiercely and throwing them into the grate. She had no intention of keeping so dangerous an assignation. Yet if she did not there was no telling what her blackmailer might do. She thought of Devlin. Her heart was full of doubt and uncertainty. Surely it was not possible for Dev to make love to her with such passion and such tenderness, and then to pen a letter threatening to hurt her. They were locked in conflict equally as much as desire and yet she could not, she would not, believe Dev so dishonorable that he would threaten her like this. But if not Devlin then whom? Had he told his sister her secret? Could Chessie be black
mailing her out of jealousy and revenge because she had stolen Fitz from her?

Whoever the blackmailer proved to be, Susanna knew she could not ignore them, for they held her future in their hands. They could destroy her, plunge her back into the nightmare of poverty and ruin. She felt the flutter of panic spread through her, setting her shaking. She had nowhere to turn and no one to help her.

Then she paused. There was one other person who knew who she was and perhaps—just perhaps—he might be able to aid her. Ignoring Margery’s protests that she could not possibly go out when there was so much to be done, she asked John to call a hackney carriage and set out for Holborn.

She stepped down outside the discreet door of Churchward and Churchward, lawyers to the noble and discerning. The Duke and Duchess of Alton, naturally enough, had no desire to pay her directly and so she had been instructed to submit her bills to Mr. Churchward and also to go to him should she have any financial or other matters that required attention. Susanna hesitated for a moment then set her hand to the knocker. She did not want to trouble Mr. Churchward. She was accustomed to dealing with her own problems, had done so all her life. But she needed assistance urgently. There was no alternative. Squaring her shoulders, she knocked decisively on the door. It seemed an inordinate amount of time
before the door swung open and a man Susanna assumed to be a clerk stood in the doorway.

“I would like to see Mr. Churchward, if you please,” Susanna said in a rush.

The clerk looked down his nose. “Do you have an appointment, madam?”

“No,” Susanna said, “but it is very important.” She could hear the desperation in her own voice. “My name is Lady Carew. Please tell Mr. Churchward that it is extremely urgent that I see him.”

For a moment she thought that the clerk would refuse but then he stepped back reluctantly to allow her inside. She followed him up a polished wooden stair and was shown into a neat waiting room. She found she could not sit. She was too agitated. Fortunately Mr. Churchward did not keep her waiting long.

“Good morning, Lady Carew.”

Mr. Churchward was all that was civil. Not by a flicker of intonation did he suggest that he knew she was not all she pretended to be, least of all Caroline, Lady Carew, relict of a scholarly recluse. Mr. Churchward placed a chair for her before resuming his seat on the other side of the desk. There was a copy of the
Gazette,
neatly folded, in front of him. Susanna realized that he must have read about her engagement to Fitz. The whole of London would have read about the engagement. She felt a little sick.

Mr. Churchward moved the paper aside and leaned forward, steepling his fingers. His eyes were pierc
ingly shrewd behind the thick spectacles. He waited politely for Susanna to state her business. Despite the physical warmth of the room, though, and the courtesy of his manner, Susanna was sharply aware that Mr. Churchward disapproved of her. No doubt he undertook whatever business his noble clients required of him but that did not mean, she thought, that he agreed with it. And in the matter of entrapping Fitzwilliam Alton into a false betrothal and ruining Francesca Devlin’s hopes, Mr. Churchward most certainly did not approve.

She opened her reticule and took out the letters that she had retrieved from the grate. Her hands shook a little. She knew that Mr. Churchward had noticed.

“I am in a certain amount of difficulty, Mr. Churchward,” she said, “and I am not at all sure where to turn. I wondered if you might help me.”

“I will, of course, do my best, madam,” the lawyer said austerely.

Silence fell. Susanna reread the letters although she knew the wording exactly. She looked up and met Mr. Churchward’s gaze.

“I am sure that you must disapprove of me,” she said in a rush. “Indeed, who could not if they knew the truth? But despite that I must throw myself on your mercy because I have nowhere else to turn.”

Mr. Churchward was silent. Susanna felt his gaze on her face, thoughtful, noncommittal, and felt her heart sink like a stone.

She stood up. “Excuse me,” she said rapidly. “I made a mistake in coming here. I am sorry to have troubled you.”

Mr. Churchward did not try to stop her. He stood, too, and came forward to open the door for her. Susanna felt a large fat tear drop on the paper and furiously bundled the letter back into her reticule. She turned her face aside so that the lawyer would not see her distress. Another tear fell, thwarting her. She made a sound of combined exasperation and misery and scrabbled for a handkerchief.

Mr. Churchward pressed his own large, white handkerchief into her hand. He shut the door.

“Dear me,” he said. “I have never seen a lady make such strenuous efforts not to cry.”

“I’m not a lady,” Susanna sniffed, burying her nose in the handkerchief, “so no doubt I do not have the requisite self-control.”

“My dear… Miss Burney,” Mr. Churchward said. “If Miss Burney is your real name—”

“Actually,” Susanna said, “my real name is Lady Devlin. And that, Mr. Churchward, is part of the problem.”

To her astonishment she saw a gleam of amusement come into Mr. Churchward’s eyes. “If you are the wife of James Devlin and have just become betrothed to Fitzwilliam Alton, then I can see that you do have a problem,” he agreed. He paused. “Does Sir James know?”

Susanna gave a snort that was somewhere be
tween a laugh and a sob. “Yes… No. That is, he thinks our marriage was annulled years ago…”