Brentwood's Ward (27 page)

Then immediately released her hand and looked past her, out the window.

An odd sense of loss shivered through her. Following his line of sight, she turned and peered out the glass into the night. This far from town, no streetlamps lit their route. Fear that had never really packed its bags and departed knocked against her ribs. She turned her face back to his. “Do you think we’ll be followed?”

“It’s happened before.” He returned his gaze to her, though a smirk lightened the intensity. “But don’t fret. Flannery’s more skilled in evasion than your Wilkes.”

“Flannery?”

“The fellow who’s driving. I’d have told you,” he shrugged, “but I didn’t want you to worry.”

His words in the garden barreled back with astonishing speed. He’d been about to tell her something when Henley groaned. Something she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to hear, for whatever it was couldn’t be good.

But she had to know.

She shifted on the seat, allowing the fullest measure of moonlight to fall upon his face, intent on listening with more than just her ears. “There’s more you’ve kept from me. You said so yourself.”

A muscle rippled at the apex of his jawline, as if words he didn’t want to speak were shouldering their way to break an escape.

Emily swallowed. Suddenly she didn’t want to know why. Not really.

But words tumbled out her lips before she could catch them. “What did you mean when you said my father was gone?”

A shadow darkened his face, though hard to tell if it came from without or within.

“I’m afraid I’ve sorely underestimated you. You show a rare courage, the caliber of which I don’t see in half the officers of Bow Street. So bear up. What I’m about to tell you will no doubt hit you broadside.” He paused long enough to reclaim her hands and cradle them both within his. “Your father is dead, Emily.”

Dead?
The word exploded into a thousand pieces. There was no way to gather in all the implications, for they traveled too fast and too far. She wrapped her fingers tight around Nicholas’s and held on.

He squeezed back. “You have suffered much. It’s all right to weep.”

She gasped. No, it wasn’t all right. It was impossible. Unspent sobs clogged her throat and a wealth of tears burned her eyes, but she could no more cry than speak. So she stared into the black wall of the carriage opposite her, refusing to look at the light in Nicholas’s eyes or the glimmer of moon outside the window. Either would be her undoing. For now, darkness was her friend.

How long she sat, she could only guess to be an eternity, but at last, Nicholas spoke.

“Emily?” Worry poked holes into his voice. “I vow before God I’ll find out what happened to your father. Justice will be served. You have my word on it.”

She turned her face to his. Lines creased his brow. Lines put there by her. After all he’d been through on her behalf, she owed him. At least a little. Especially truth, for dearly did he value it.

“He…” Was that squeak her voice? She cleared her throat and tried again. “He wasn’t my father.”

Chapter 23

W
hat the deuce are you talking about!” As soon as the heated words spewed out his mouth, Nicholas clenched every muscle in his body. Control. That’s what he needed. Breathe in, breathe out, subdue the tremor running along every nerve. Anger led to mistakes. And it was no mistake he’d lived through war on two continents or survived the thugs terrorizing London’s streets for this long. Not that he hadn’t gained scars, but how big of a jagged red mark would this woman leave on him?

Emily flinched and edged away from him, stopping only when her back hit the carriage wall. “You’ve no right to be so cross. You’ve not been straightforward with me, either.”

Unlocking his jaw, he forced a calm to his voice he didn’t feel. “Do not think to play me like a flash game of wicket. If I am to help you, I must be told everything.”

Spare starlight from the clear night streamed in through the window, casting a ghostly glow upon half her face. Her eyes were wide. A loose curl trembled over her brow, begging to be brushed aside. Besides a darkened smudge of dirt on her cheek, her skin was the pale hue of exhaustion.

She’d been through a lot this evening. He’d grant her that. Blowing out a long, slow breath, he softened his tone further. “I will have the truth, and I will have it now. All of it. Am I clear?”

Her hands clenched together in her lap, bunching the fabric of her already ruined skirt. “All?”

He nodded. “If we’re to sort through this mess, then yes. Indeed.”

Fine, white teeth nibbled her lower lip before she answered. “Very well. Go on. Tell me if you’re keeping back any more information from me.”

His first thought was to smile. The second, to throw her over his knee and supply the sound thrashing she deserved for such cheek. He went with his third impulse and merely eyed her with a growing admiration. “A gentleman always allows a lady to go first.”

“A gentleman also keeps a lady’s secrets, and so I ask…” Her eyes sought his, looking deeply into one then the other. “I know I said I trust you, leastwise I did in the heat of the moment, but can I? Really?”

He cocked his head and studied her in return. “If I am to continue to protect you, then I’m afraid you must.”

Her lips, yet swollen from Henley’s abuse, curved downward. “And I am afraid you’re right.”

Though she’d agreed with him, she fell silent. A faraway glaze shone in her eyes. Only God knew what thoughts she chewed on, though judging by a poorly concealed wince, none were sweet. As he waited for her to continue, he took to counting the seconds then moved on to tallying how many times the rolled-up window shade banged against the top of the glass. Still, he waited. Sometimes truth ripened at a rate slower than the plodding horses Flannery guided.

The grit of wheel upon gravel changed to the smoother grind of cobblestone as they drew closer to the inner city, and at last, Emily’s lips parted. His every sense heightened to full alert, a skill honed to a sharp edge by countless interrogations—as both the examiner and the examinee.

“Quite honestly…” She started slow, her words picking up speed as she spoke. “I have no idea who my real father is. I was raised as Mr. Payne’s daughter, for he dearly loved my mother, so much that no one suspected she’d carried anyone’s child but his own. Oh, he loved her all right, but the truth is—” Her lips flattened into a straight line. “He never loved me.”

“How can you say that?” He raked a hand through his hair, though the action did nothing to reconcile her twisted logic. “The man hired me, for more than a fair amount, to see to your safety. That hardly sounds like the action of a man who doesn’t care.”

“He wasn’t protecting me. He was protecting his name.” She flourished her fingers through the air. “The grand Payne family legacy.”

“Come again?” Leaning back, he watched her, closely, grateful for the streetlamps now adding an extra measure of brightness through the coach windows. From the flash of light to shadow and back again, he searched for any hesitation, the slightest bit of nervousness—a twitch or tic. Any movement out of character that would brand her a liar.

She swept away the loose curl with one hand, but before she spoke, it sprang back again. Was everything about the woman wild and defiant? “The world knows me as Emily Payne, daughter of the illustrious and wealthy merchant Alistair Payne. I am his only heir, albeit counterfeit, so how would it look if he didn’t show some responsibility toward me? Though I suspected all that would change soon enough should the recently widowed Mrs. Nevens have returned his ardor and conceived him a son. Only Uncle Reggie hindered that plan. He and my father may have been business partners, but they were rivals concerning that woman.”

“If what you say is true—” He held up a hand, stopping her rebuttal. “I’m not saying it isn’t, but if you are not the man’s offspring, then I don’t understand why he claimed you in the first place. You once told me all he cared about was business.”

A sad smile—or was it a grimace?—pulled at the edges of her mouth. “As I’ve said, because of my mother. She was the one thing he cherished above money. On her deathbed, she made him promise to look after me as his own. And he did…materialistically. Nothing more. So forgive me if I do not cry a thousand tears of grief for a man who was little more than the business manager of my life. And believe me—” Glistening eyes belied her brave words. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “It wasn’t for lack of trying to make him care. He was the only father I’d ever known, and I dearly wanted him to love me.”

He saw her clearly, then. Like the air cleared of soot by a fresh rain. The confident woman sitting before him, the feisty Emily Payne, was nothing more than a little girl looking for affection. Nicholas sucked in a breath, so stunning was the revelation. Indeed, she’d spoken more than truth. She’d bared a glimpse into her soul.

To him.

He reached for her, every inch of his skin yearning to pull her close. Shelter her. Show her that despite her father, she was worthy of love—and indeed, had garnered all he had to give.

But he pulled back his hand. After what she’d been through with Henley, he’d be a rogue to act in the same manner. So he simply said, “I’m sorry.”

And he was. Sorry that the most important man in her life had shunned her. Sorry her future teetered on a precipice. Sorry that the thought of kissing her overruled common sense and decency.

“Don’t be.” She looked out the window with a sigh. “It’s the way of the world.”

Her voice wore all the starkness of bones left to bleach in the sun. Abandoned. Dead. His heart broke at the sound.

“No one escapes this life without scars, Miss Payne. Not even God.” He kept his tone even and soft. Not that he could heal her hurts, but he knew the One who could. How would she receive it, though?

Slowly, she turned her face to his, one fine brow arched.

It was all the permission he needed to continue. “How you grew up, the coldness of the only father you ever knew, it wasn’t right. And it didn’t go unseen. You will face your Father one day, your true Father. And I can promise you this: He will welcome you with open arms if you but turn to Him now.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You speak as if I am nothing more than an upset child.”

“Is that not what you are?”

Though she didn’t think it possible, a flood of new tears burned Emily’s eyes. Her heart beat loud in her ears. Nicholas’s question pinned her in place, every part of her, like a butterfly skewered onto a display board. The turn of this conversation required a toll she wasn’t entirely sure she could pay, and by this point, she had no more reserve from which to draw.

He was right of course. Mostly. Upset was too small a word to cover the broad river of emotions flowing through her. But one thing was for sure—

She’d never felt more of a child than now.

Her gaze lowered from his eyes to the strong cut of his jaw, traveled past his broad expanse of shoulders, and rested upon his chest. His black waistcoat, once so becoming and stylish, was unbuttoned and torn. The shirt beneath, splattered with blood. Truly, it ought repulse her, yet there was nowhere on earth she’d rather rest her cheek right now. If she could lay her head there, for only a few minutes, would everything be made right?

And if she did as he said and turned to God, would heavenly arms wrap around her?

The carriage jolted out of a rut, flopping the runaway piece of hair back into her eyes. Gathering the loose curls together with one hand, she pulled it all back from her brow and looked him full in the face. She’d think on all he’d said…but not now. “We are not speaking of me, but of my father. So now it’s your turn, Mr. Brentwood. Tell me what happened. How did he die?”

He cocked his head. “You still refer to him as father, though I know the truth?”

She did. She would. For always. She owed him that, at least. “The man may not have loved me, but he did provide for me. I will honor that as much in his death as I did while he yet breathed. What…why are you smiling?”

The gleam of Nicholas’s teeth brightened the dark. “You are an enigma. You know that, don’t you?”

She frowned. “And you are evading my question.”

“If nothing else, you are determined. I’ll give you that.” Nicholas scrubbed a hand over his face then sighed. “I am still trying to piece together all the snippets of facts concerning your father’s death, which is why Chief Magistrate Ford suggested I not inform you in the first place. Suffice it to say, you may take heart in knowing that your father’s end was relatively swift.”

“That doesn’t tell me much.”

“No, it does not.” His eyes glimmered with knowledge—much more than he spoke—yet his lips pressed tight. Was he trying to safeguard her…or himself?

“I was honest with you, sir. The least you can do is the same.” A fishwife couldn’t have sounded more bitter. How on earth did he evoke such extremes in her?

He lifted his chin and looked down his nose. A fine, strong nose. It annoyed her that he could sit there and look so confident, so…handsome. And it annoyed her further that she noticed.

“I assure you,” his voice lowered, “I am being quite forthright.”