To Seduce an Angel (12 page)

Gibbs laughed. “Sounds the way any lad feels about school.”

There was the problem. With nothing to salvage, or scavenge, or steal, with no one to fight or elude, the boys grew quarrelsome and restless. They could not see how sitting still to read a book could help them make new lives. But they had kept Dav alive for two years. He could not simply step into his new position and riches and abandon them. They needed new lives of their own. They had neither his friends nor his enemies. They only had him. There was only one thing to do—find the grinder and bring her back. If he had to confine them all to the schoolroom, he'd do it.

“Come on then, Jay.” He rose. “Let's find her.”

“And sack 'er.”

“Take a pistol if you leave the grounds,” Gibbs advised.

Jay's eyes widened. “Are you going to shoot her?”

“No.” Dav looked at Gibbs. “I'll be careful.”

 

 

HE found her where a ditch marked the edge of a field, hugging the shaggy beast, her faded red cloak the one warm, bright note in the somber landscape. Someone had used a harrow recently, breaking up the clods, so the breeze carried the smell of turned earth. The wind had pinkened her cheeks and freed loose strands of gold to fly about her face. He wished he had seen her gallop. She leaned against the pony, giving and taking comfort, indifferent to wind and cold. She looked up at the sound of his rig approaching, and he noted the turbulent blue of those eyes. Her vulnerability in the mud-flecked cloak maddened him and made him want to pull her up and crush her to him. He tried for civility instead.

“Telling your troubles to Budge, Miss Portland?”

Emma clung to the pony. Daventry read her gesture with uncanny accuracy. She leaned against Budge as if to tell him how lost she was, so far from home that even the dirt had a different smell. Only the pony felt familiar, but ponies were practical beasts, and she could not expect Budge to abandon stall and hay to run away with her. She had nowhere to go, no money with her, and no news of Tatty.

“At least a person can count on a pony's discretion. They never tell secrets.”

“You have secrets then?”

“Don't you?”

“Tie the beast to my rig, and I'll take you back to the house.”

Emma tied the pony as he ordered. He watched her tether the animal, and under that attentive gaze, she was grateful to rely on old habits that required no thought.

When she looked up at him, the man she was to betray, the red glow of the lowering sun turned his angel hair to gold. Except for that hair, loose about his face, he was the perfect country gentleman in a coat and trousers as somber as the darkening landscape.

His scrutiny made her hesitate again at the side of his rig until he extended a gloved hand to help her up, and she felt how easy it would be to put her hand in his and surrender to his strength.

His horses awaited his command. She put her foot on the wheel and let him pull her up, feeling the easy strength of his arm. Emma was surprised at the warmth of his clasp and the comfort it gave her. The urge to flee had been strong as she and the pony raced across the fields, but she had recognized the exhilaration of the moment as a fleeting thing.

She landed next to him. His hand still held hers, warming it, his thumb sliding over her knuckles. She could not look away from their joined hands. She was used to men with their bars and their keys and their weapons, but Daventry had some other power. She felt her body incline toward his and stiffened.

He released her hand with a careless laugh, though her hand, no longer numb, still felt his. Budge snorted to remind them of the stables and oats.

Her cloak fell against his thigh, and she shifted on the narrow seat, pulling the garment close around her. The knot at her throat gave, and Daventry turned at once. “Will I always be tying your cloak about you, Miss Portland?”

He took charge of her cloak strings as if they should obey him. Emma tilted her face up to give him access. The soft leather of his gloved fingers brushed the under side of her chin. Emma released the breath that she had been holding. His hands stopped their motion. A huff of breath escaped him, a white vapor in the icy air as if they made awkward wordless conversation.

A sudden flush of warmth stole over her. His fingers finished their work, and he picked up his reins.

He turned his horses toward the towers of Daventry Hall. She and the pony had crossed open fields, but he would take his rig along the river road as dusk approached. Emma wondered whether Wallop had someone watching in the cold of the waning day.

“Do you want to tell me what happened to send you in a mad gallop across the countryside?”

“How did you know I had gone?”

“Jay came to me, claiming you'd stolen a pony and fled.”

“I went to find the boys in the wood, but when I heard the ponies, I remembered . . .” She paused briefly as a crowd of memories rushed forward in her mind. “We had ponies, my brother and I. We were free to ride them in the orchards and the hills with our cousin. The three of us rode often.”

“So talking to ponies comes naturally to you?”

“It does.”

“More naturally than talking to men.”

Emma glanced sideways at him. How did he guess these things about her?

“Can you tell me how the boys are getting on?”

“Yes.” She seized his offer of the topic. Her wakening memories were leading her to make dangerous revelations. She needed to tell him lies about the vicar's daughter she was supposed to be, not truths about ponies and lost times. “They want to learn to read, you know, but they fear it. It means leaving their old life behind, and they are unsure about that.”

“That old life would have ended badly, if we'd stayed in it. I want them to be gentlemen.”

“Then you have to be present to show them how.”

“At supper, you mean?” Dav turned to her and thought instantly about going back to looking at golden hair and blue eyes and creamy slivers of flesh that he should not touch.

“I can eat elsewhere,” she offered as if she'd read his thoughts.

“Now that's a facer.”

“A facer?”

“Your brother did not care for prizefighting? He didn't teach you the jargon?”

“No. He fenced. What's a facer?”

“A facer, a leveler, is a direct hit, Miss Portland.”

“I do want to be honest with you.”

Oddly, he believed her, though he knew she was hardly telling him the truth about her past. He had seen the inner debate darkening her blue gaze, as she hesitated to take his hand.

“You left because of me, didn't you?” she said, turning toward him. They were approaching the bridge and the turn, and he could scarcely drive and look at her and think of the question she was asking and the matter of that dress.

“Where will you eat?”

“I can eat in the servants hall, can't I?”

His jaw was too tight to answer. It was a rational decision. It removed temptation. He should be grateful to her for her plain speaking. So why didn't he like the idea? He knew why, because it suggested that she had no interest in him, suspicious or otherwise. That was rub.

In the gathering dark that closed in around them, he had touched her and spoken with her and their shoulders had brushed. Agreeing that she could eat elsewhere was not what he wanted next.

 

 

HE met the boys as they stood in a sheepish line at the stable door.

“Did we miss tea?” Robin asked. His face was mud-streaked, and a dry brown leaf clung to his straw-colored hair above one ear.

“You know Mrs. Wardlow's rules.”

“Because of 'er.” Jay blamed Emma.

“Not because of 'er.” Swallow elbowed Jay. “See, Lark, she does know something useful.” They watched her lead the pony into the stable.

“Wot, riding a pony? A circus trick.” Lark could not be persuaded.

“Faster'n walkin'.”

Dav walked on, falling in beside Lark. “Have supper with me tonight.”

“Not Miss P.?” Lark cast him a suspicious glance.

“Not tonight.”

“Supper with Dav tonight, lads,” Lark called.

He owed it to them. He had commanded them and sheltered them and depended on them. He could not let them down because of a dress that hinted at a sweetness and softness for which he felt starved.

EMMA was suffocating, pinned down. Her limbs strained against the hot smothering weight. Her throat worked, but she could not unlock her jaw to cry out. Wordless moans filled her ears.

A pony screamed, and she woke, tangled in linens, breathing hard, a thin gown clinging to her sweat-dampened body. She saw black, as if the world had been wiped from a slate. A faint high-pitched cry filled her ears, the tantalizing residue of some sound that had just ceased.

She lurched upright, straining to hear, but her heart thumped in her chest and her breathing gusted in her ears. Whatever had wakened her was maddeningly silent. She heard nothing except her body's own fear.

At last a knock came. The plain, homely sound of knuckles on wood gave immediate dimension to the darkness. It was the darkness of a single room not eternity. She pressed her fist to her mouth to stop a sob.

A muffled voice spoke her name, and the doorknob turned. A fall of light split the darkness and spilled across the cream-and-gold carpet. In the open doorway a candle illuminated a man with loose wheaten hair around his shadowed face.
Daventry
.

“You had a nightmare, Miss Portland.” His voice broke the spell, and she came back to herself. The present moment connected itself to the long thread of moments that had gone before. She was Emma Portland now, in England, in Daventry Hall. Tatty was gone. The spy was dead. Leo was dead. Beyond that she could not go. A shuddering breath escaped her.

Daventry crossed the room on bare, silent feet and set his candle on the table at her bedside. His open-throated white shirt caught the light and glowed. His solemn lake eyes regarded her, cool as moonlight, but under his gaze she grew conscious of her damp nightgown. She dare not look down at herself. The delicate lace-edged silk clung.

He reached out his hand, and Emma took it and let him draw her onto her knees. He gathered her to him, pulling her head against his chest, and she gave herself up to being held.

His body was heated like her dream, but the contact made her press closer. Her breasts flattened against his chest, and his muscles tightened under her cheek as if their bodies spoke a common tongue. His heart beat an urgent tempo in her ear, but one hand made steady sweeps across her back.

“I heard a scream.” She tried to explain herself, but a violent shudder cut off the words.

His chin rested on her head. “You may have heard a peacock cry. We have them on the grounds.” One hand cupped the back of her head. The hand on her back went on stroking.

“You're in the blue room,” he said. “The color suits you I think. Some lady must have chosen the chintz drapery. There's a tester bed, a gilt chair, and a oval mirror in the corner to flatter you.” His voice, low and rough, went on naming ordinary objects as Emma's pulse slowed.

“I'm sorry I disturbed you.”

“I was just reading. What do you know about tithes, Miss Portland?”

“Nothing.” Her mind was blank. But she felt the change in him, a stiffening that signaled his intent alertness to her words.

“Your father the vicar never spoke of them?”

Oh, another mistake
. Emma realized she was supposed to be the daughter of a man who lived on tithes. She shook her head against Daventry's chest, incapable of lies or fictions. Her lips brushed his collar, and he seemed to catch himself. His hold stiffened more as if he could no longer bear to have his arms around her.

He pulled back, and she waited for him to denounce her as a fraud. A damp strand of her hair stuck to his rough cheek. His fingers freed it. At the gentleness of it, she couldn't keep her fists from closing on his shirt to keep him there. Beyond his shoulder the room assumed shadowy dimensions. A wall coalesced around her dressing room door and another appeared around the fireplace.

“I'm just learning about tithes myself.”

“What have you learned?” Emma thought that to make him answer would keep him there with one hand in her hair and the other sweeping across her back. Beyond the candle's wavering flame the black corners of the room shifted, as if the dream lay in wait for her.

“Honey is tithable, but salt is not.”