Rake's Guide to Pleasure. (35 page)

Emma backed a step away.

"In your father's home—" he started.

"Don ‘t
"

He closed his mouth, but his eyes stayed the same, telling her things, making her
feel.

He had wanted her body before, but now she was
different.
Now she wasn't like his other women, she was pure and vulnerable and weak. She was a damsel in distress. A little girl wandering the dark halls where monsters roamed.

In his eyes was everything she'd ever wanted as a girl, everything she'd given up on years before. Emma had grown weary of waiting for rescue. She'd had to rescue herself and she would never forget that.

"Emma—"

"I may have been a virgin, Hart, but I was not the least bit innocent, so wipe that regret from your eyes. If that's all you came to express, then you've done it. I absolve you. You may leave."

"That's hardly why I came,
and you
do not have the power to absolve me, so—"

"Why did you come? Why? Just tell me. Say what you need to say so that we may both—"

His soft voice broke through her tantrum. "I need to know."

She froze, hand caught midair in its dramatic sweep. "Know what?"

"I need to know why you did it. Why did you come to London and pretend to be
Denmore's
widow? Why gamble your way through London and masquerade as a scandalous woman? Why . . . why did you come to my house that night, Emma? And why did you
leave?"

His eyes wouldn't let her go. They begged for answers and sympathy. She could give him one but not the other.

"I came to London for money, Hart, nothing else. I'd inherited a small amount from my great-uncle and I needed more. Gambling seemed the best way to get it."

"The
best
way? To become a fraud? Lie and cheat? Risk imprisonment?"

"Would you have had me become a courtesan?"

"As if that were your only option! You were a young noblewoman in need. And the
Osbournes
adored you. If you had only explained, asked for assistance, they would have been happy to sponsor you, give you a place to live."

"Oh, what a glorious idea from the wealthy man. To live as a supplicant, begging for scraps. Yes, they liked me well enough, I suppose they would have taken me in as a pet. And then what? A short career of obedience until they found a gentleman desperate enough to marry me? And what an ingrate I would be to turn him down."

He shook his head. "There are hundreds of noble-women of limited means. None of them take up gambling as a form of support."

"Yes, it seems I am the only one with the correct combination of skill and gall. I'm quite proud."

"And this was your plan?" Oh, his sweeping gesture held a world of scorn.
This.
This pitiful cottage. This small life.

"Yes,
this.
This is what I want."

"I don't understand. You worked for weeks, collected hundreds of pounds, a small fortune." His eyes swept once more around the room, one last dismissive glance. He didn't notice the walnut sideboard she'd found in town and bought with her own coin. Didn't see the fine tapestry she'd hung on the wall to brighten the room with blues and greens the exact shade of the ocean. It was all nothing to him, just a life less than his own.

"Yes, Hart," she whispered. "Yes, this is what I was working for. Just this. So please have mercy on my small life. Don't call on the magistrate or expose me to my neighbors. Don't ruin me. Just leave me be. I promise I'll never return to London."

He stood. She thought he was leaving and felt a small twinge of regret. But he only paced over to her front window and stared out at the smudge of blue that was the sea.

"You love the ocean."

She stared at his back.

"Are you happy here?" His shoulders were nearly wide enough to block all the light. He turned to her. "Emma? Are you happy?"

Her lungs were so weak, her word just a whisper. "Yes."

"Because I am not happy. You had to know how I would feel. You left a scandal in your wake and I am the undying focus of it. Me. The idiot duke once again."

"I'm sorry." She was sorry, but she could hardly force the words out. Emma cleared her throat and gathered up her courage, false as it was. "I'm sorry, Hart. I never meant that. Never."

"I hated you. Despised you. If I'd found you in those first few days I would've seen you thrown in
Newgate
with no regret."

"I'm sorry."

His strong shoulders rose in a shrug. "It seems it has all gone away. Perhaps because I am not in the city, but . . . I do not care about that. I only care that you are well, Emma. And out of danger. And somehow . . ."

Emma shook her head, not quite knowing what she denied. But Hart provided the answer.

"I feel responsible for you. And we have passion. There is one way to fix this. Fix the scandal as well as your future."

"No."

"Marry me." He looked confused by his own words, almost as confused as Emma was.

"No."

"There would still be talk, of course, but it would end. We are comfortable with each other, alike in more ways than not."

"That is not true." She did not want it to be true. She wanted it all to be lies. His offer, his logic, and most of all the sincerity in his eyes.

Emma's heart was twisting back to life, trying to free itself from the stone she'd built around it. It wanted the freedom to swell with hope or beat harder in despair. It wanted to feel something, but Emma held tight to it, squeezed it until it stilled. She needed him gone. Now, before she broke into a million pieces.

"No," she said again.

"I understand that this is sudden."

"Yes, it is sudden, not to mention completely unwelcome."

"Emma—"

"I am not suffering. I need nothing. Hard as it is to believe, this is exactly the life I want. I am not interested in the disgusting cruelty of the ton. I will not return to London with my tail between my legs, hoping that one day they will accept me. I do not need a vast, echoing castle and heavy, uncomfortable gowns. And I certainly do not need you as a husband."

"I've shocked you. I apologize. But whatever you think of London and the ton, I hope you will consider my proposal. Because I think it is possible . . . Emma, I think I could love you."

"Nonsense," she snapped, shocked that she could even manage that. His words were swimming toward her through dark water. She'd heard them come from his mouth, but now it seemed they were approaching again, the reality of them, the feel.

Her face tingled and went numb, then her neck and her chest. Soon her whole body was a husk, lifeless and dead. "Nonsense," she tried to whisper.

Hart was moving toward her and she could not stop him. Her limbs were paper, weak and useless.

His hot hands rose to cradle her face. Long fingers eased into her hair, spreading tingles over her scalp. "I could love you, Emma. I could. If we married, it would not be an arrangement, a means of creating heirs and legacies. It would be more. We would argue and laugh and love. You would drive me mad and I would irritate you to no end. We have so much passion. We would scandalize the ton and enjoy every minute of it."

Each word had snuck closer to her lips, until he breathed her name into her mouth. "Emma . . ." He brushed a delicate kiss, then pressed into her, his tongue offering a small, slow taste.

Her heart bloomed, the stone cracked, and pain poured deep into her soul. Emma jerked back, pushed him away. "Stop it.
Stop."

Those damned beautiful eyes stared at her, still swimming with tender lust, soft and hot as sin. Emma wanted that softness gone before it swallowed her whole.

"You are ridiculous," she spat. "You speak of my childhood as if it were horrid, yet you would drag me back into that kind of hell. I know who you are, what you are. You are just like my father."

"No! No, I never was."

"You think I would deign to marry a man like you? How long before you would be sniffing after some other woman, or two or three for that matter?"

The softness was fading but there was no anger yet. "I would not—"

"Don't deny it. You are a rake and a reprobate. A connoisseur of women. Do not even claim that I would be your last."

"I will not deny that I have had lovers, but I have never been married, never even betrothed. I know what your father was like, but I promise—"

"You know what my father was like because you were well acquainted." She saw the ice forming over his eyes, saw the way he'd drawn straight, holding himself with rigid dignity. Emma moved in for the kill. "You are just like him, Hart. Do you know how I know? Because you showed me in your chambers. You whispered it to me in your bed."

Shutters of blue metal seemed to snap into place over his gaze. Any semblance of the man who'd just spoken of love vanished with those few words.

Emma smiled. "And in case that is not enough evidence for either of us, let me make it even simpler. I would never love you. My childhood was no childhood at all. There were far too many predatory men prowling down the halls, searching for any thrill they could find. Do you know what it is like to lie in bed in the darkest part of night and listen to a monster test the knob of your door? Do you know what it is like to pray for that lock to hold?

"And then . . ." She took a deep breath. "Then I'd wake in the morning, and those parties did not end at dawn. So sometimes I'd spy, because it seemed better than wondering. But I shouldn't have. Those men, those parties, they ruined my world, Hart, and you were part of that."

Horror and fury warred for control of his face. "I was never one of those men."

"Not at my door, perhaps, but I remember you quite clearly. In my father's home. In a dark hallway. I saw you there. I saw you. So you see, Hart, it's simple. We could never marry, because you disgust me."

Even past his shield she saw the bright, stunning shock of pain that flashed over his face. Then it was gone, locked tight away from the world. He was gone, vanished without taking a step.

"Now please leave here," she managed to say. "And if you ever cared for me, never come back again."

He stood, not even breathing. Seconds passed, dragged on like years, until finally he inclined his head. His jaw ticked forward. "As you wish."

He took a few steps across her small home and he was gone. Out of her life. Him and his ridiculous, horrible promises. Gone.

Emma waited for the sound of his carriage pulling around in a circle. Once the wheels had crunched away into silence, she opened the door and walked slowly to the cliff path. Rocks tried to trip her. Gravel rolled beneath her shoes, but Emma stumbled on.

She did not slow at the bottom of the trail, but walked straight into the creeping tide. The water chilled her feet and legs, but she dropped to her knees and let the waves lap at her waist.

So many dangers had loomed over her for so long. She'd tempted disaster when she'd become Hart's lover, risked so many things. But she'd never anticipated the chance that someone could love her. Or that she could love him back.

Yes, they could love each other. And that would make the inevitable betrayal so much worse when it came. A man like Hart, beautiful and sexual and always given what he wanted . . . he would be the worst kind of husband. Exactly the husband she'd always feared.

So she knelt and waited for the sea to numb her breaking heart and wash her sins away.

The day had faded to the purple haze of dusk before Emma dragged herself back to the shore and up the path. The sea had offered no peace, and Emma wondered if it ever would again.

Emily.

Emma grimaced and brushed the whisper away, but it came again, that name she hated. Unwilling to wake up and face her fears and regrets, she turned to her stomach and pressed her hands to her ears. The night swallowed her back into sleep.

Emily.
A touch now, tracing the edge of her jaw. Emma's eyes snapped open. Hart was here. Hart.