Rake's Guide to Pleasure. (21 page)

She glanced up to find Lancaster watching her, a sardonic smile tilting up his mouth. He was an attractive man, he made her laugh, and she would undoubtedly have been flattered by his attentions if she weren't so conscious of her lies. He was more open than
Somerhart
, and so she felt constantly guilty. But she needed her falsehoods. If the rumors persisted that the duke was already done with her, she would be fighting off men like Lord Marsh every night.

"I rather think that
Somerhart
was conspicuously
present
a few weeks ago. He has only fallen back into old habits. I'm sure you know he prefers less public company."

Lancaster nodded his understanding. "So he does."

"Did you know his sister?" Emma asked, almost surprised at her own words.

"Lady Alexandra? Yes, I did. She was smart and impetuous. Entertaining. You remind me a little of her, actually. Though she was . . ."

"Younger?"

"Younger, definitely. But I was going to say more reckless. You are more calculating in your risks."

Emma had been wondering about her, about this girl that Hart apparently loved so much even though she courted scandal and rumor at every turn. He had tolerated it, defended her. He hated notoriety, but he loved his notorious sister. He despised scandal, yet he pursued Emma. Or had pursued her.

They'd returned back to the yacht club where their walk had started, but instead of releasing her, Lancaster put his hand over hers. "My carriage is here. I hope you'll allow me to escort you home."

"Thank you, Lancaster."

He waved to his man. "I was thrilled to see you here. We don't often run in the same circles. We are clearly handling our impoverishment in different ways. A good thing, since I have neither your luck nor skill at the tables."

Emma stepped into his landau. He took the seat opposite.

"You've had no luck with heiresses?"

"Not yet. But the Season should solve that problem."

Emma cocked her head and studied the sudden tension around his eyes. "You are so troubled by it. Are you one of those who despises the
cits
and their vulgar money?"

Lancaster sighed and smiled, his brown eyes shining with wry humor. "No, it's not that. It is just stubbornness, I suppose, mixed with a splash of romanticism and perhaps a touch of pride."

"A touch?"

"No more, I assure you." His laughter faded and, facing him like this, the sun at her back, Emma saw true weariness in his eyes and not a little sadness. He shook his head. "He kept us all in the dark, you know." His voice had tamed quiet and serious. "My mother . . . my brother and sister, they all refuse to see the truth of it. But I cannot help but see it. The creditors will not stop showing me."

His sad smile touched her heart. Emma reached out and took one of his hands in hers. "There are just as many lovely girls among the
cits
as there are among the ton. More even."

"Of course."

"You will find someone who will make you forget that she brings twenty thousand a year."

Lancaster laughed again, his normal, open laugh, and Emma smiled and squeezed his hand.

"I do wish your husband had left you some money. Have you not managed to earn your fortune yet?"

"I'm sorry."

"Well, you should be. The perfect woman right before me and not a shilling to her name."

"Perfectly scandalous, at any rate." Emma was still smiling as they turned onto her street. The smile froze when she caught sight of a man's profile in the distance, delicate and pale. He stood almost a block away and the brim of his hat threw a shadow over his face, but she felt a jolt of recognition. Her gut tightened with fear.

"Lady
Denmore
?" Lancaster turned to look over his shoulder. "What is wrong?"

"Nothing," she murmured as the figure turned and walked in the opposite direction. She recognized that walk, she was almost certain of it. Almost. "Nothing," she said again, more strongly.

"I'm not convinced. You must tell me if something is wrong. Ever."

Emma forced herself to meet his eyes and smile. "Someone walked over my grave. That is all."

He glanced over his shoulder again, clearly doubtful. But the carriage had pulled to a halt, and he could do nothing but descend and offer her a hand.

"It has been a lovely afternoon," Emma murmured.

"A beautiful afternoon," Lancaster agreed. He looked as if he wanted to say more, but Emma gently extracted her hand from his and moved up the stairs. She managed to say a happy farewell, but her face fell as she closed the door behind her.

She waited for the sound of Lancaster's carriage moving away before she shouted, "Bess, I need your cloak. Hurry!"

With the hood of Bess's brown cloak pulled low over her face, she could pass anyone without being recognized. It couldn't have been Matthew. It was nothing, just as Burl
Smythe
had been nothing, and she would not live in fear for days because of some stranger's profile. She would search the street and shops and find the man and put her worry to rest within the quarter hour.

She heard a noise from the first story and rushed up the stairs. "Bess, I need—"

Bess emerged from the parlor and held up a hand. "You've a visitor, ma'am. I know I shouldn't '
ave
—"

Emma's heart dropped. She glanced back toward the front door, knowing it couldn't be Matthew in her
home, even if it had been him on the street. It must be . . .

"Hart," she gasped when he stepped into the hallway. Bess's face turned red. She knew she should not have admitted a gentleman without Emma's consent. Then again, she couldn't very well turn away the duke who had saved her from her husband's fists.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Bess offered with a nervous curtsy.

"It's fine."

Hart inclined his head with a completely remorseless smirk. There was no way to be rid of him in time to follow the man, so Emma just took the last two steps up to the first floor. "Bring tea," she sighed.

Hart's soft huff of sardonic laughter almost made her smile.

It hadn't been Matthew on the street, Emma told herself as she swept off her cloak and handed it to Bess. And she found her fear was easy to forget as Hart followed her into the parlor, his presence a warm shadow at her back. She could not have thought of anything else if she'd tried.

They were silent, studying each other until the tea tray arrived. Hart felt uncertain as he took in her
pinkened
cheeks and wind-mussed hair. A few strands had escaped her chignon and they curved toward her mouth, drawing his eye. He hadn't seen her in weeks and had resented every moment he'd spent thinking of ways to run across her.

She'd shocked him with her casual dismissal of children and motherhood. She had seemed cruel and selfish, but he should not have been surprised. His own mother had had similar feelings. After three children she had declared herself quite done with the whole wretched business and had never bothered herself with her children if she could help it.

Perhaps that was why he'd reacted so strongly. He had disliked his mother in self-defense of her distaste for him. But he'd had time to think over the past three weeks. Emma's few words about her childhood had eventually filtered past her shocking statements.

Emma broke the silence. "I thought you had finally resolved to be done with me."

"So had I."

"And yet you are here." She offered him a cup of tea and dropped a sugar into her own.

"And yet I am here."

Her eyes rose to meet his. "Why?"

God, she was beautiful. He didn't know why. She shouldn't be. But the sight of her hazel eyes staring him down . . . He felt himself relax even as something inside him tightened.

"My father was a cruel man as well," he finally said.

She blinked and the certainty vanished from her gaze. "Pardon me?"

"What you said about your father, his treatment of your family . . . It is no wonder that you do not want children."

She set her tea down and creased her napkin. "It is not so dramatic as all that, I'm sure."

"But it is. There is nothing worse than being betrayed by someone who is supposed to love you."

Her eyelids fluttered. She pressed her hands flat to her thighs. "As you were?" she murmured.

His jaw tightened, but he had known that she must say something like this. He had invited it. So he nodded. "As we all have been."

"Yes, well. . ."

"You were trying to drive me away, Emma. I let you. But time heals all wounds, even those of pride and outrage."

"Not all. You have never healed, not completely."

He inclined his head in acknowledgment. "Some-times there are scars."

"Will you tell me the story?"

"I am sure you've heard it all."

"I have no idea what is true or false."

"It's simple, Emma. I fell in love with the wrong woman."

"But that is not the whole of it. She betrayed you, made a fool of you. I don't know how . . . I don't know why she would do that."

Her eyelids rose, and Hart saw true distress there. Even past the familiar rage he felt at the topic, he could see that her interest was not prurient, her concern bordered on pain.

And he had missed this illogical connection between them. He wanted to talk with her. So he sighed and gave in. Slightly. "Perhaps she was a bad person. Perhaps she was simply bored and I was her entertainment. I have no idea. I did not think much about it afterward."

That was the truth, at any rate. Because her betrayal had hardly been the worst of it. Her betrayal had been only the beginning.

"She had been deceiving you the whole time?"

"She had. She and her lover. Those rumors were true. He was a voyeur, it seemed. And I was the young, debauched nobleman they chose to involve in their game. The other rumors were not true. I did not know he was watching. He stayed hidden." Hart shrugged the stiffness from his shoulders. "Not that I was morally opposed to much. Regardless, all I could see were her and her considerable charms."

"But she let you fall in love with her."

"Oh, yes. She encouraged it. It gave them ample fodder for amusement."

"The letters."

"The letters." Hart waited for the faint, familiar buzzing in his ears to stop. "But I am no longer so vulnerable. And I never write love letters to women."

Emma offered a faint smile, but it quickly fell back to a serious line. Her brow furrowed and she clasped her hands together. One thumb rubbed over the other. "You became a different person. Harder."

"Yes. You understand that."

She nodded, but didn't look up from her hands. "I do."

"Emma, I have no intention of hurting you."

"Unlike your experience, Hart, there is rarely bad intention. People just happen to get hurt." She finally met his gaze. "And I am already too changed."

"Your father."

Her frown wavered for just a moment, but she smoothed it out before Hart could even think that she might cry. "Yes," she said, and left it at that.

A little horror darted through his mind, a shadow of a thought, but he refused to chase it. He did not need to know her past to know that he liked her, that he'd missed her turbulent presence in his structured life. Perhaps, in time, she would change her mind about their relationship. In fact, he was counting on it. She was far too sensual to live with an empty bed.

So he only leaned back in his chair and crossed his booted foot over his knee. "I have heard disturbing rumors about you, Lady
Denmore
. I came here today to chastise you for your dangerous behavior."

She relaxed at his change of topic. "Rumors are rarely true, as you know. What have you heard?"

"Betting on the change of weather. Horse races in the park. Games of brag that go on until dawn. Less than respectable soirees put on by questionable hosts."