The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne (36 page)

Face flushed with exasperation, she marched away. He caught up. She spied him falling into step again, closed her eyes, and groaned.

“I cannot leave you in peace, Emma. I am sorry.”

“Then you are more conceited than I knew.”

He stopped her, and pulled her into his arms. She startled at the abruptness of his movement, and struggled to break away. He held her firmly in a tight embrace and her resistance slid away, but she would not turn her face up to him.

“I cannot because I will not give you up so easily. I refuse to believe that you know your own mind on this yet. Not completely.” He tipped up her face with a finger below her chin. Her expression touched him. She appeared so distraught that tears flooded her eyes.

He kissed each damp cheek, then her mouth. “I must insist on the right to try to change your mind, Emma.” Arm around her, he guided her down the hill.

It took several steps before she fully understood what he was doing. “What are you—Do you expect me to go with you? I cannot.” She tried to squirm out of his arm’s embrace.

He held firm and sped her forward. “As always, I promise the highest discretion.”

“Discretion be damned. I insist you stop this.” She tried to dig in her heels but her feet slid along with him. She hit him on his arm to try to break his hold, and began lowering herself to the ground so he could not force her to walk. “If
you desire a discussion on the matter, I will engage in one after I have rested for several days.”

“I would much prefer it be settled now.” He lifted her physically into his arms and walked toward the open door of his carriage. His coachman and two footmen did not move or flinch, but stood in place like blind statues.

Emma’s eyes widened. She twisted and flailed and hit him again, this time on the face. “You do not understand. I
cannot
go with you now.” She glared with shock and fury when he did not stop walking. When he reached the carriage she hit his shoulder and pushed against his hold. “Stop at once, or you will be guilty of abduction!”

“Then abduction it will be, Emma.”

E
mma clung to the window’s edge as the world sped by. Each minute took her farther from where she needed to be tonight.

Her mind raced. If she did not signal with the lantern, it would be interpreted as a warning that the coast was not clear. How often could that happen before there were other interpretations, and she was suspected of betrayal? And Robert—how horrible if night after night they put him in that boat headed for home, only to bring him back each time because his sister had not done as she was told.

She sank back on her seat, too frightened to think. Southwaite reached for her hand. She slapped his away.

He tried to gather her into his arms and she hit him again and again while she wept tears of helplessness. “Stop. Do not touch me. You do not know—this is just a game to you. A man’s prideful game. I am just a game to such as you.”

“You are no game, Emma.” He retreated, however, and moved to the seat facing her.

She refused to look at him. She gazed out the window until the coach stopped in the drive of Crownhill. As soon as she was handed down, she strode into the house. She ignored the servants and mounted the stairs, seeking the chamber she had used the last time he brought her here.

She found the room easily enough. She entered, slammed the door, and rested against it while she turned the key. Then she ran to the window.

The terrace below looked terribly distant. There was no way to jump or climb. She would have to give him the slip somehow, if not today, then tomorrow. She wondered how long it would take to walk back to her father’s cottage.

“Emma.”

She froze. He spoke through the door but she heard him clearly. “Go away, Lord Southwaite. There will be no seductions in ballrooms this time.”

Silence. She prayed he had left. She did not want to insult him. She wished…She wished he had accepted her letter for what it said, and not conceived this game. He had no way to know how dangerous this delay that he created for her could be, and how terribly confused his presence made her.
Go away, go away, so I do not have to break my own heart by being cold and cruel
.

“Emma, I know.”

The wood of the door did not muffle the warm resonance of his voice. Nor its inflections. He did not say, “I know,” as if he responded to what she had yelled at him. He said it like
he knew
.

Her heart beat so hard that she felt it in her head. She walked halfway back to the door. “What do you know?”

“I know why you are at the cottage, alone, without even your coachman. I know why I found you on the cliff walk, at the spot where your father fell.”

Each word he said chilled her more. She experienced the worst fear then. It was the terror of a person in flight who had just been caught.

“I know almost everything,” he said. “Open the door now. I am no danger to you. You have no reason to be afraid. You have not done anything wrong.”

Not yet, but it was not for lack of intention. Had he not stopped her— Even now, if she could escape—

She was not sure she had the courage to face him, if indeed he knew almost everything.

“Open the door, darling. I cannot bear that you are alone with the unhappiness I have seen in you.”

Her vision blurred and her eyes stung. She could no longer hold her composure together. Defeated, and miserable with grief that she would fail her brother, she stumbled to the door and worked the key.

One look at Southwaite, at the sympathy in his eyes, and she fell into his arms sobbing.

“I
thought it was about smuggling. That is wrong, of course, but it is a very commonplace crime.”

Emma whispered while her head lulled on his shoulder. Her outpouring of emotion had given her some peace. He felt little strength in her while he held her on his lap on the edge of the bed.

She wiped her eyes. “I knew that you could not excuse even that. When I learned much more was involved, I dared not tell you, or even see you again. Even now, just knowing what I planned to do compromises you, doesn’t it?”

That remained to be seen.

“You must let me go, Southwaite. Please, I beg you. These people have Robert. Once I have him back, once I see him, I will find a way to undo this. I will—I will shoot the man who brings him over, if you want. Just please, let me do what I must so they will bring him back.”

He did not know what to say to that, so he said nothing. Both Maurice and Emma had been badly deceived, however. No matter what they paid or what they did, Robert Fairbourne would not be restored to them.

“You do not believe me,” she said. “You do not trust me either.”

“I trust you, Emma. I think you would shoot him, if that was the bargain you struck with me. And I believe that you and your father truly thought you were saving your brother.”

“I not only think it. I
know
it. I insisted on proof, and they let him write a letter to me.”

“Emma, I do not think—”

“
It was from Robert
. I know his hand. I could hear his voice saying the words as I read them.”

“They could have—”

“It was not a forgery.” She pushed off his lap and stood. She looked at him as if his lack of belief made him less of a friend. “Do you think I would agree to do such a thing for anything less? Do you believe I would not recognize a letter written by someone else in his name?”

He took her hand and cajoled her back to him. She sat beside him, distressed once more.

“Tell me what you were told to do, in order to get him back.”

“I thought you knew everything.”

“Almost everything.”

She weighed what she would say. He knew her well now, and he could almost hear her thoughts.

“Am I a prisoner? If I confide, is it a confession? I know that you concern yourself with doings on the coast. You have made it your mission to catch people like me.”

He tried to swallow his sense of insult. He told himself that she was afraid, and for good reason.

“You do like your plain speaking, Emma. I have brought you here, and will keep you here, to ensure that you do not do anything that will leave me with an impossible choice between my honor and the woman I love. You must accept that you will not complete this mission. I have stopped you now, and if you manage to leave here, I will stop you again.”

She looked at him, her gaze penetrating the way that could make him forget himself. He wondered if she searched for evidence of his resolve or for proof he would protect her.

“This week, every evening, I am to go to the cliff walk on that high rise,” she said. “I need to be there in late evening, right before night falls, so there is still light to see the coast and the sea.”

“You were to check that there were no ships?”

She nodded. “And that the sea is calm enough. Papa was doing this that night.” She blinked the thought away. “If
there are no customs’ cruisers visible, I am to wait for night to fall, then take my lighted lanterns and walk back and forth on that walk. For an hour I am to do that. Then I can return home and wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“For Stupid Man—that is the name I gave the man who delivered instructions—to bring Robert to me. And to bring someone else too, perhaps. A guest, for a night or so. That was how I knew for certain this was not only about smuggling—when the chance of this secret guest was broached.” She wiped her eyes with her hand. “I know what you mean about a horrible choice, Southwaite.”

He embraced her with his arm. “That guest would have come, but not your brother. Even if he is alive, they would not have given him back. After you did this once, they would have demanded it again and again. The night your father fell was probably not the first time he spent an hour on that cliff walk.”

She neither agreed nor disagreed. She looked around the chamber. “How long will I be here?”

“I do not know. Until I am sure you are safe.”

“Will you be here too?”

“Some of the time. I would like your word that you will not try to leave.”

“I cannot give it.”

“Then I will have to keep a close watch on you.”

Her color rose in a lovely flush. “Did you mean it, when you spoke of me as the woman you love?”

“I meant it.”

“Then I must make sure you are never faced with that horrible choice, Southwaite. That may require some plain speaking that is not in my own interests.”

“How so, Emma?”

“You must know that if I ever tried to escape from here, it would be at night. I wish I could swear that the idea has not entered my mind, but I regret that it already has.”

“I will have to keep a very close watch of you at night, then.”

“I think that would be wise.” She leaned into him, until
her face was an inch from his. “I think that you should kiss me now, if I am not only your prisoner, but the woman you love. It would bring me great comfort if you did. I might not feel helpless and alone and so afraid if you held me in your arms.”

He was happy to kiss her and hold her, for whatever reason she wanted him to. His worst fear upon reading that letter she had sent was that he might never be able to do so again.

It could never be a simple kiss anymore, even if it were only one. There was too much between them now. She thwarted his intention to be very careful with her, however. She responded to his kiss with a fierce outpouring of passion that finally released her fears.

She destroyed his restraint with fevered kisses and impatient caresses. She clawed at his cravat and shirt until she bared his chest to her teeth and tongue. Her aggression incited an unbearable hunger that darkened his mind to anything except having her, taking her, and possessing her forever.

He cast off his coats easily enough. He loosened her dress closures and they both stripped off her garments while managing to remain bound together with grasping embraces and furious kisses. As soon as her chemise flew away, she lay back on the bed and pulled him with her.

“Now.” She gasped. “All of you. I want all of you with me, so I feel something besides worry and fear.”

He rose above her on outstretched arms so he could look at her. He reached down and moved her legs until they bent and her knees hugged her body. He caressed the soft flesh that her position exposed. She moaned with pleasure again and again, and each sound pierced what was left of his mind and urged him toward a violent release.

She reached low and devastated him with caresses of her own, then guided him to her body, making her desire clear. He entered her slowly. Her long inhale, full of wonder and relief accompanied the silent groan that his soul made at the perfect sensation.

He was relieved then that she had not wanted him to be careful, and thankful that her wildness matched his. In her abandon she relinquished all control, all modesty, and exposed her heart even more boldly than her body.

He took her hard and she urged him on until they shared a rare union, one of joy and fear and of pleasure so intense it almost made him insane. When his climax broke it was a lightning bolt, splintering his awareness, and she was the only part of the world that remained in the deep thread of consciousness where he momentarily dwelled.

E
mma leaned against the rough fence, watching Southwaite ride a young stallion in the large pen attached to the long, half-timbered stable. She admired the animal’s lines and spirit, the latter of which Southwaite coaxed into submission through subtle control. She also admired the rider, who appeared very rustic in his muddy boots and shirtsleeves.

The last two days had been erotic. Seductive. Loving. Their passion had dulled her fear, but it had not obliterated it. Whenever she thought about Robert, her failure to help him saddened her. There were even times, like right now, when she contemplated how she might still get away so that boat came to shore the way it had been planned.

Escape would do no good, of course. Southwaite knew exactly where she would go, and why. She knew that he had abducted her so she could do nothing that would be seen as treason, no matter what her intentions. If she went near that cliff walk now, he would have to hand her to the authorities himself. He still might have to, if anyone else knew what she had planned.