Sweet Deception (11 page)

“I refuse to upset them more than they already are,” Emma whispered fiercely. To speak any louder might draw attention from the mourners who’d come to the castle to pay their respects before Molly Simms was laid to rest later in the day.

“There is no
need
.” Emma finally did raise her voice
just a bit when Derick didn’t respond, though she knew from the way the dratted man seemed to hear every little mumbled whisper—especially those most likely to embarrass her—that he was far from deaf. “I have a particular memory for these things. I can repeat verbatim what each person said to me.”

As seemed to be his way, Derick ignored her statement and instead drawled a question. “Verbatim. Really?”

Emma huffed, but in spending the better part of two days with the infuriating man tagging along as her
oblige
assistant, she’d learned that it was quicker just to answer his myriad questions. “Yes. I’ve always had a peculiar memory. As a very young child, I would watch my father work, scratching equations and formulas on his boards. One day—and I don’t remember it myself, but I’ve heard the story many times—I snuck into his rooms and wrote a series of numbers out on his boards long after he’d erased them.

“My father was furious that I dared play in his workroom, of course, until he looked closer. Apparently, I’d regurgitated a rather complex theorem precisely. So he began to test me. No matter how detailed of an equation he’d write out, I could study it for a few moments and duplicate it exactly.”

It hadn’t been long before she could expound logically on what he’d given her. It’s what finally convinced Emma’s father to deign to teach her, even though she was female.

Emma swallowed against an unpleasant tightness. Her father had been dead nearly nine years now, yet anytime she thought of those years spent at his side, she was left with a sad, sort of anxious knot lodged in her chest. She’d always known that while her father sometimes seemed reluctantly pleased with her abilities, he’d resented her at the same time for not being a man. A son. Much as he’d reviled George for not having her abilities.

But that wasn’t relative now, was it? “I’ve found I can do the same with spoken words. They have a certain lyrical cadence, a pattern, which my memory seems to inherently latch on to.”

Derick stiffened. Emma glanced over to find him looking fixedly at her. “You can remember anything said to you?” he asked.

“Yes, as well as anything I’ve read or written.”

Derick shot her a disbelieving glance. “What were the first words I spoke to you?”

Emma closed her eyes and focused her attention, rubbing the thumb of her right hand in circles against the pad of her middle finger. What
had
he said? She opened her eyes. “‘You look like a deerfly.’”

“I never said—”

“You most certainly did. The first time we met. You were seven and I, five. The very next thing you said, by the way, as your mother reprimanded you, was, ‘But she does! Her eyes are too big for her face. And they’re
yellow
,’” she repeated, perfectly mimicking the sneering tone of a young boy.

She rather enjoyed the combination of awe and embarrassment on his face.

“I can dredge up any conversation we’ve ever had. But perhaps you were thinking the first words out of your mouth the other night? They were ‘What the devil are you doing?’” she intoned, trying to sound as ridiculously pompous as he had, “and ‘Do you mind telling me just who you are and why you are vandalizing
my
property?’”

If she weren’t mistaken, didn’t his eyes narrow a fraction, almost as if in speculation? But just as she was certain they had, the impression vanished, so quickly that she might have imagined it.

“That’s one hell of a gift, Emma,” he mused.

She huffed. “Sometimes. Other times it’s a curse.” At that thought, hurtful words assaulted her, in the voices
and spiteful titters of her past: her father.
“Why would God squander such talent on a damnable female?”
The not-so-subtle whispers of London society.
“How gauche she is. Simple. Country. Unsophisticated. Odd.”
Her onetime affianced, Mr. Smith-Barton.
“I only asked you to marry me because your brother pressed me to. I thought I’d solidify his friendship by taking you off his hands and that there would be money in it for me, but now? His friendship isn’t what it used to be and I’ve found someone who will be a proper wife to me, not one who thinks and acts more like a man than I do.”

She took a deep breath. “There are many things that have been said to me that I wish I could forget.”

Her voice trailed off at the pitying look Derick gave her and she wished she could bite back the words. Why did she always blurt such intimate thoughts? It was as if her brain could contain only so much, and therefore couldn’t hang on to her actual words once she formed them. Emma pressed her lips into a thin line, as if by exerting enough force she could seal them in a way that could never be breached.

“Can you remember only conversations you’ve had?” he asked, gratefully letting the moment slide. “Or do you think if you’d overheard things, you might recall them?”

Emma frowned. “It depends on how closely I paid attention. I’ve also noticed that I don’t recall as well when I’m with my intimates. It’s almost as if when I’m with someone I trust, my brain…relaxes, I suppose would be the right word. That’s hardly the point, however. I only told you about my memory so that you’d see there is no need to upset Molly’s poor loved ones right now.”

Derick looked down his long, straight nose at her. “I disagree. I prefer to speak to them myself.”

Emma gritted her teeth until her jaw ached. She turned a glare on him, but Derick had already resumed watching
the mourners who milled about in Aveline Castle’s drawing room, nibbling funeral biscuits or sipping burnt wine as they waited for the procession to the church.

“What could we possibly gain?” She continued to keep her voice low. She’d hate anyone to overhear. They might find her and Derick’s conversation tasteless, given the occasion. “I spoke with each person within hours of Molly’s disappearance. Do you suppose their memories have gotten
better
over the past two days?”

“Do
you
suppose Molly’s murder was random?” he asked, rather than answer her once again.

Emma scoffed. “Of course not. That’s impossible. Random selection implies that all options are given equal weight. The killer would have had to have considered each and every potential victim in Derbyshire.”

Now why was Derick looking at her with that confused frown? She reconsidered his question. “Oh. I think you must have meant ‘arbitrary,’ which is very similar in meaning but would take into account human…bias…”

The vee between Derick’s brows had deepened and his lips had quirked into an amused twist.

Emma’s cheeks heated in embarrassment. She was being literal again, wasn’t she? “You were asking if I thought Molly
knew
her killer,” she said, a bit sheepish.

“Yes.”

“Statistically speaking, she must have.”

Derick shot her an odd look. “Statistically speaking? Who would keep track of such things?”

“I would,” she said. “I’ve compiled years of magistratorial and other parish records from all over England.”

“You’re not going to tell me you have all of those memorized, are you?” he said.

Emma shrugged. “Not
all
…There are reams of them.”

“Why would you—”

“It doesn’t signify,” she said. “We were discussing Molly’s
murder
.”

Derick eyed her for a moment as if he were a schoolboy and she were a geometric proof he didn’t quite understand. “We were,” he said finally. “Given what a close community this is, the person who killed her is most likely in this room.”

Emma’s own gaze shot out over the crowd, to her friends and neighbors. Nearly the entire village was here. Surely…But she knew Derick was right. She shivered, looking around at the grim faces. “I can’t imagine anyone in this room as a killer. I’ve known these people my entire life.”

Derick slanted his eyes to her, and Emma couldn’t shake the feeling that he viewed her as naive. “I’d wager the person who killed Molly knew her very well,” he said. “We start with those closest to her and work outward from there.”

“But if one of them is the killer, they’re not going to tell us, just because we ask nicely,” she said, frustrated. “
Now
who’s being naive?”

Derick huffed with amusement at her loose tongue. “They may not tell us with their mouths, Emma, but they very well may with their bodies.”

“With their bodies?” Emma scrunched her face. “How in the world would they do that?” she asked.

Emma waited for Derick to answer. Instead, he ignored her, his gaze taking in the small group of villagers hovering around Molly’s parents. She pinched the underside of his jacketed arm. Not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to show her displeasure.

“Damnation, Pygmy!” he growled, rubbing at the spot, his face almost comical in his shock and indignation. “If you were a man—”

Emma snorted. “Well, I’m not,” she said, not even taking him to task for calling her Pygmy this time. “And what’s more, Derick Aveline, I’ve known you since before
you
were one. Just because you have the advantage right now doesn’t mean you have the right to treat me as
though my opinions and questions are a bother to you. I demand you start answering them when I ask—with real answers, not another question. You owe me that respect.”

Derick sighed. “People talk with their bodies all of the time, Emma. More than they do with their mouths. I’m amazed you’ve been successful as magistrate this long without knowing that,” he said.

She lifted her chin. “I’ve been successful because I’m thorough and I analyze things logically,” she argued. “And you still haven’t answered my question sufficiently. Do you have any evidence that what you say is true?”

“The way you just pinched me tells me you’re angry with me.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “The words that accompanied that pinch told you that.”

“True,” he said, and a strange light glinted in his emerald gaze, “but your body is also telling me that, while yes, you are angry with me, you also want me.”

“W-want you?” Emma sputtered, drawing herself away from him. He couldn’t possibly know that, could he? She’d been trying so hard to hide her inconvenient feelings.

“Yes. Want me. Shall I tell you how I know?”

His voice had dropped into a raspy baritone that made Emma’s mouth go dry. She found herself nodding, as if her body did
indeed
want to know how he knew such a thing, even though her mind rebelled against the idea. Did her traitorous body truly communicate secret private desires to him?

“Well, the first tantalizing cue is your shoulders,” he said, dropping his lips closer to her ear so she might hear him better. She tried to focus on his words, but his warm breath dancing across her skin proved a mighty distraction.

“See how they are angled just so, open to me, facing me squarely so that all you have to do is open your arms to welcome me to your bosom?”

Emma instinctively crossed her arms. She didn’t miss Derick’s quick, flashing grin.

“Next is how you tilt your head toward me when we speak,” he said, “as if placing your delectable lips as close as you can to mine, hoping I’ll bridge the gap and touch my own to yours.”

Emma jerked her head back. “That’s outrageous,” she said. “I only lean closer so that you might hear me.” She pursed her lips on a frown. “Fat lot of good that does me,” she muttered, “since you refuse to answer five-eighths of the time.”

She nearly jumped out of her skin when he brought a hand up behind her back and ran a finger lightly over the soft nape of her neck. Her eyes immediately sought the crowd, but no one was watching them. Derick’s hand was behind her, anyway…It was unlikely anyone would have seen that he’d touched her so.

But oh, did she feel it. Gooseflesh popped out in waves over her skin, only to be chased away by a rolling heat.

“But what really gives you away,” Derick murmured, “is the way you stroke your neck after you’ve tilted your head. It’s as if your body is begging me to do the same.” One long finger stroked her neck then, as if on cue, starting just below her earlobe and running down the side, stopping to caress that raised freckle she so hated just above her collarbone. She couldn’t control a shiver. “You don’t even know you’re doing it, do you?” he murmured.

Emma swallowed, mesmerized. No. She’d had no idea.

“Your neck is one of the most vulnerable places on your body. It carries your breath to your lungs, your blood to your brain. It can be easily broken,” he whispered. “When you expose your neck to me so, your body also tells me that you trust me—”

Emma jerked away from his touch, from him, taking
a step back that brought her backside up against the wall. “I absolutely do not trust you.”

“Yes you do. You may not think so, but your body doesn’t lie.”

“No. Numbers don’t lie. I’m sure bodies lie all the time,” she said, feeling a bit inane. But was he right? How she detested this feeling that he knew her better than she knew herself. It was rubbish, wasn’t it? How could she trust him? She didn’t know him…not anymore.

Something in her proclaimed that thought a lie—as infuriating as he’d been these past days, she had found herself more and more comfortable with him, despite the fact that she still suspected his true personality was at odds with who he was being.

Her protest brought a warm chuckle that sent her receding gooseflesh back to full prickle.

“And what’s more, Emma, you’re relieved I’m here.”

God help her, she was. For so long, she’d been handling everything on her own. While she relished the sense of accomplishment and responsibility, it was also a burden. It might irk her to have him question her at every turn, but she had to admit that Derick had proven to be more insightful than she’d expected. And didn’t he tend to have his own sort of logic behind his arguments, even if he wasn’t forthcoming in sharing it?

Derick dropped his hand from her neck so swiftly she felt the cool breeze. “Now that that’s established, let’s go question Molly’s affianced first, shall we?”