The Wild Wellingham Brothers: High Seas To High Society / One Unashamed Night / One Illicit Night / The Dissolute Duke

Say yes, her body screamed. No ties. No promises. Just the simple act of union. Here in the barn. Now.

Another voice countered the first one. The sensible voice of a woman who had been around men all her life and knew the easy empty promises they made when the bloodlust consumed them.

He was a duke, for goodness’ sake, and his suggestion was that of a man who was used to women saying yes. Such men did not offer more to one whom they suspected of being a thief. She had seen Asher Wellingham in the ballrooms of London, seen the hooded glances of a hundred women with more impeccable credentials than she had. A richer family. A fairer face. Titles of equal standing to his own. And that was before she even considered their shared past.

Her eyes fell on his left hand as she shook her head. She noticed the knuckles whiten around the reins and a small voice inside her wished that he might just reach over and take what he had not been offered, a complete abnegation of any decision on her behalf. But he didn’t. The gentleman in him, she mused.

‘I have never—’ She broke off. Horrified. What had she been going to tell him? That she was a virgin? That she had never lain with any man before? Given her behaviour of late, she was certain he would not have believed her.

‘Never?’ The golden chips in his eyes darkened. ‘I don’t usually accost women so blatantly and I—’ He halted in mid-sentence as he pulled on the bridle and, dismounting, walked the horse towards a barn perched in the trees.

Accost. Such a harsh word for what he had offered, she thought. And telling. An interpretation of motive? ‘I will wait here while you change.’ He used the briefest of contact to help her down from the horse.

Formal. Proper. A definitive shift from the suggestion he had just voiced. Clutching her clothes, she scurried into the building, angry at herself for caring.

An easy lay and an easy leave. She remembered her father talking of the women he had bedded and left. Heartened by the memory, she bit back further introspection and finished dressing, tying the laces on her boots with hands that shook. Damn it. Why was it that she became a wanton in the company of Asher Wellingham? She thought of his glance ranging across her naked body and shivered. What had he thought? The butterfly on her breast had been plainly visible, as had the long curling scar across her right thigh. She had seen the surprise on his face when he had offered the jacket.

Surprise, speculation and lust.

Taking a breath, she walked outside. He stood with his back to the barn. Jacketless and shirt open, his dark hair fell across his collar, long from behind and slightly curly, the fabric of his shirt outlining well-defined muscle. Not a sedentary man, she mused. When he turned, she saw in his eyes that which she imagined must be reflected in her own.

Wariness.

‘Thank you for your jacket.’ Traces of seawater darkened the light brown fabric as he slung it carelessly across the pommel of his saddle.

‘You are welcome.’

The English distance in his voice made her wince. In Jamaica, difficulties had always been settled through argument. So eminently practicable, everything said and no chance of ambiguity. Here, problems simmered beneath a more polite façade, the bubbling undercurrent of dispute left unsolved and unspoken; as he offered to help her mount, she wished that he might ask her again to consider this dalliance with at least a semblance of love in his eyes.

The very thought made her heart race. ‘I shall walk home from here, your Grace, for it is an easy stroll.’

Nothing would make her climb on to his horse again and feel his thighs next to hers and his breath on her neck. Nothing.

He bowed his head slightly and dug his heels into the flanks of his big black stallion, gone before she had the nerve to call him back.

Signalling Azziz with her candle at midnight Emerald joined him on the road that swung between Falder and the sea. He did not look pleased.

‘Have you bedded him?’

‘Have I what?’ Even in the darkness she knew he must see the mounting blush on her cheeks at his question.

‘Bedded him? Toro said he saw you leave the water today in the company of Asher Wellingham. He said you were naked.’

‘I’d been for a swim. He found me there.’

‘I will kill him.’

Laying her hand upon his sleeve, she pulled him back. ‘It was my fault. I should not have gone in without clothes and he did not touch me. He was a gentleman in all of his actions.’ She mentioned neither Asher’s suggested dalliance nor the barn to him.

‘Put a knife to Carisbrook’s throat tonight, Emmie, and demand the parchment. Then we can run for the coast and take sail to Jamaica. If we delay our leave much longer, we’ll have no money for the passage home.’

The brutal thrust of Azziz’s argument worried her. Even a month ago she might have suggested the same thing, but now…

‘I’ll sell my pearls. That should tide us over for at least a while.’

Azziz shook his head. ‘They are the only thing of your mother’s you have left. You always said you’d never be parted from them.’

‘Please, Azziz, have Toro take the pearls down to London and find the best jeweller in town. You know where they are hidden in Miriam’s house. Just give me another few days.’

Another few days. Another caress? Another chance?

She shook her head to rid herself of the image of Asher on the horse behind her and felt the hairs on her arms rise up in memory.

‘I could rob a wealthy traveller. It should be enough.’

‘No.’ Horror swamped her. ‘Not in England. Here you are hanged for such an offence. Far better to sell the pearls and buy us some time.’

‘If you let me at Carisbrook for an hour—’

‘No.’

‘His sister, then. Word has it they are close.’

‘Leave the family alone. I mean it.’

‘Lord, you were always headstrong. Beau had more faults than any one man had a right to, but he was your father and Carisbrook killed him in cold blood.’

‘Cold blood? A mid-ocean encounter between two warring ships.’

‘You would excuse this English duke?’

She turned away and looked back towards Falder. From here the lights of the house showed bright against the hills behind it. ‘My father lived by the sword just as surely as he died by it and before I came here I thought that Asher Wellingham was of the same ilk. But now? I think he is as honourable as you are and I would not see him hurt.’ She swallowed as she felt Azziz’s large hand come to rest upon her shoulder.

‘You like him, don’t you, girl?’ His voice was soft. ‘How do you think he would react if he knew of your Sandford blood?’

‘Badly.’ Her response was as honest as the question asked.

‘And if he exposes you, there will be little that anyone could do to stem the damage. Trust him and you could well be as dead as your father and what will happen, then, to Miriam and Ruby? If you will not think of yourself, at least think of them.’

Emerald shivered. For the very first time in all of her life she had met a man who made her feel like a woman. A man who made her imagine things that she had not before even considered.

Naked beneath his jacket and walking into the barn, a part of her had wanted him to follow her in and take away her virginity. She was twenty-one and she had never bedded a man. It was time. It was beyond time. The throb of lust deep within her loins surprised her and she was pleased when Azziz left his warnings at that and turned towards the line of trees that ran across the eastern ridge and away from Falder.

In the moonlight the garrets and turrets of the house were light against the sky and, skirting the pebble-chip pathways beyond the gardens, she saw a silhouette in the bay window. Stopping, she retraced her steps and crept through the undergrowth directly in line with the uncurtained window.

Asher stood against the glass, looking out. Behind him, hovering in the alcove, was the painted image of his long-dead wife. Watching him. Tying him to a sadness that was all consuming and never ending. She could so often see that wounded look in his eyes, like a man who bled from a gash he could not find and had ceased to notice his own hurt.

Melanie Wellingham, the dead Duchess of Carisbrook.

Everything had to do with her and with his broken hand and his blind brother. And it was all intertwined with Falder, a thousand years of history bearing down hard upon his shoulders. She started forward and stopped. What could she say?

Kiss me. Love me. Let me stay here. Here. For ever. Where the names of your ancestors march through the centuries and the shivers of memory are kind.

Kinder than my own memories. Much kinder.

A ship in the midst of an angry sea and the promise of another storm chasing hard on the heels of the first one. The English ship with the promise of well-laden hulls and Asher Wellingham waiting, sword in hand, on his quarterdeck with two dozen men behind him. An easy target. Slow. Cumbersome. The lightning off the sea silhouetting everything.

She had felt his focus and his expertise, but had still been surprised as he had swung through a swathe of sailors to reach her father. It was the whine of a cannonball that threw him into her path, and into the radius of her blade, though he had laughed as her sword crossed his own. ‘You have chosen the wrong pathway, lad. Throw in with me and I will see that you have safe passage back to England—you are too young to be losing your life to the likes of this motley crew.’

Grasping her sword tighter, she had fended him off, though his proficiency was a revelation. He had been playing with her. The realisation had come with a great rush of amazement, given her own ability at swordplay, and she had been pleased to see the amusement harden as she had cut across his left sleeve and drawn blood. If she was going to die, she had wanted it to matter, though his sudden feint had her fighting arm pinioned against the mizzenmast.

‘Drop the sword and I will spare you. It’s not my way to slaughter innocents.’

His breath had mingled with her own and it was then that their eyes truly caught.

Tight and close.

‘Lord, you’re a girl.’ Amazement narrowed his eyes as he brought his hand across the quivering fullness of her lips. Even now through the gathering years of time Emerald could still feel that caress, still feel the way her body had simply melted into heat.

Unexpectedly sweet. Undeniably woman. In the middle of an ocean, in the middle of a battle, she had run her tongue across the saltiness of his thumb and shock had claimed them both.

She had seen it in the shards of his eyes, the paler ring of brown flaring golden. And she had felt it in the sudden rush of blood beating in her throat, though her father’s shout had broken the spell as he advanced upon them, murder in his eyes. In a quick protection she had rammed the hilt of her sword hard across Asher Wellingham’s temple and upended him into the sea. A chance at least to cheat death. Ten summers of sailing with Beau had at least taught her that.

‘Lord,’ she said aloud and banished such memory, running her hands across the knife tucked into her belt.

Right. Wrong.

Good. Bad.

Aboard the Mariposa she had been her father’s daughter. But here she was no longer sure of anything at all.

‘Asher.’ She whispered his name and held her fingers up against the warmth of sound.

A home. A family. Responsibilities. Accountability. Unlike her father, the Duke of Carisbrook took these things seriously and she admired him for it, the questionable morality they had lived by in Jamaica less certain here.

Stepping back into the shadows, she cursed her father and headed to the sanctuary of her room.

Asher paced up and down and remembered the sight of Emma Seaton coming unclothed towards him, the water slick upon her body and the sand marking her feet.

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

His eyes flicked to the painting of his wife in the small alcove and for the first time he found it difficult to remember her face in life. The exact colour of her eyes, the sharp line beneath the bridge of her nose.

Instead the image of Emma Seaton walking from the water towards him kept replaying in his mind, the butterfly tattoo as surprising as the deep curling scar upon her right thigh. He had enough wounds on his own body to know the mark of a sword when he saw one.

Where had she got it? When had she got it? And why, despite taking everything else off, had she not removed her gloves? What was she hiding there?

He began to smile as he lifted a glass of water to his lips.

Water?

Today even his choice of beverage was different. Emma Seaton made him different. More alive. She made the very air of Falder ring with a vibrancy long missing.

And what might have happened had he followed her into the barn? He would have taken her hard and fast without a care for who was around or what the consequences might have been. She did that to him with her sun-browned skin and her turquoise eyes. Made him careless and reckless. Brought out the man he used to be. The man who had loved and risked and lost.

Lord. What the hell was happening to him? He had to stop it, for she was dangerous to everything he had made himself believe in.

Rules. Regularity. Carefulness. Control.

In chaos came loss. Of all the men in the world, he should be the best to know it.

He flicked open the casement of his timepiece.

Four o’clock. Outside the wind was mounting and the quarter-moon was high. He glanced down at the atlas in front of him and traced his fingers across the ragged outline of Jamaica. Emma’s home. The place where she had been formed. His eyes wandered further west into the shoals of the Yucatan Channel.

His ship had come through the mist there on to the Sandford vessel with remarkable speed and silence and no trick of intent, either, just the cold hard slice of revenge and then an ending. He thought he would have felt more than he did as he had run Beau Sandford through the guts with the sharp point of his sword. But he hadn’t. God. After a year of captivity and another year to recover, he should have allowed himself to feel more. He stretched out his right hand and swore, the stumps of his missing fingers outlined against the light of the lamp. Even now the hate still festered.

Looking at the reflection of himself in the window, he frowned. He had been so certain of his course in life until lately…Lately, the sharp focus had dimmed and another reality had brightened.

Emma. She was taking up all his waking thoughts and sliding into his dreams. Effortlessly.

And he could not let her with her mystery and secrets. Balling his right fist, he closed his eyes. The only way to protect himself was to never feel again.

Emma Seaton would be at Falder for three more days and then she would be gone. He resolved to spend as many of those as he could well away from her.

Chapter Nine

They tiptoed around one another at breakfast the next morning with polite smiles and bland words.

‘Is the food to your satisfaction?’

‘Would you mind passing the strawberry jam?’

And beneath it all ran an undercurrent of mounting desperation.

Emerald was glad Taris and Lucy were both at the table.

‘I saw Malcolm Howard yesterday at the Red Lion. He said you had been swimming, Asher, down in Charlton Bay.’

‘I took Artemis for a jog along the sand. Perhaps it was that he meant.’ His voice and eyes gave absolutely nothing away as he reached across the table to help himself to some toast.

Taris changed his tack. ‘Do you swim, Emma?’

‘She does,’ Asher answered for her, brown eyes flinting a warning, and Lucy, who caught neither the amusement of one brother nor the irritation of the other, jumped into the fray.

‘Then you absolutely must teach me, for I have always longed to swim. What do you wear in the water?’

Emerald flushed deep red at the question and bent to cut up the omelette on her plate. ‘The temperature of the water in England is a lot colder than that of Jamaica. If I were to venture in here, it would be merely a case of testing the water to the ankles,’ she said finally when she had her heartbeat in some sort of check. She did not dare to chance a look at Asher.

Lies were one thing when the recipient had no notion of their falseness or otherwise. But Asher had been there. He had seen her, touched her, run his fingers across the bare skin at her shoulder…The heat in her cheeks did not abate and she took in several breaths to at least try to calm herself.

Damn it. She barely recognised this shrinking violet she had suddenly become and Lucy’s puzzled frown only added to her discomfort. Suddenly the day stretching before her seemed indeterminably long. When Asher rose from the table and pushed his chair back, she was glad for it.

‘I will be in Rochcliffe till the evening, Taris, and if I stay the night I will send word. Ladies.’ His glance barely encompassed her and then he was gone, striding darkly through the dining-room portal. The sun slanting in from a nearby window gave the black of his hair a bluish light and highlighted the hard planes of his face.

She was in her bed by the window by ten o’clock that evening after spending an hour or so in the library with Taris, playing chess. Asher’s absence had been a godsend, for under the simple pretext of exploring Falder further she had used the afternoon to search for any sign of her father’s cane. And come away with nothing. Lord, she muttered to herself as she lay on her blankets and looked up at the sky, her time here was running out and, if she did not find the map soon, she had little chance of being invited back.

Where could he have hidden it? Where would she have hidden it?

If Falder had been a smaller home, everything would have been immeasurably less difficult, but with its numerous salons and bedchambers and nooks and crannies it was like a labyrinth, much of it joined through a series of inner passageways that defied reason.

Bolstering the pillows behind her back, she plucked her harmonica from beneath them and began to play, the gentle melody relaxing the strain of the day, and the tunes of Jamaica strangely comforting in the colder climes of Fleetness. Azziz had taught her the ways and whys of the instrument ten years ago on the slow watches of the Mariposa and ever since she had added songs to her repertoire that she could play by heart. Ruby had often sung along and danced to the music in the room they had shared off the Harbour Road in Kingston Town and the squalor of that time still haunted her: the danger, the lack of money, the dreadful yearning for the sea.

Here at Falder everything was easy and beautiful: the house, the furniture, the food and the people. A little money softened the rawness of life and a lot removed it completely. She smiled at her musings and then tensed as she heard footsteps in the corridor outside her room and a knock.

Tucking her hair back behind her ears and donning a nightrobe left in the wardrobe, she opened the door.

Asher stood there, wind-blown hair and drink-bruised eyes, the shadow of a twelve-hour stubble on his jaw. Carefully she edged the material of the sleeves down across her hands.

‘I need to talk to you.’

‘Here? Now?’

‘It should only take a moment.’

‘Very well.’ She was not certain whether to invite him in or not. Granted, she knew enough about the social mores in England to also know that asking an unmarried man into your bedroom was unheard of. But did the rules apply when the same man was also the owner of the house? A refusal might look as if she imagined herself as feminine game or as if she suspected his intentions to be less than honourable. He solved the worry for her by staying on the threshold even as she gestured him to enter.

‘No. I should not come in—’ He stopped, clearly perturbed.

‘Where did you get the tattoo? The butterfly.’

‘Jamaica.’

‘Is it normal there? Normal for the daughter of a devout father?’

‘I think we both know the answer to that question,’ she replied.

‘I would like to hear it from you.’

‘My father was not quite as you may imagine.’

‘What exactly was he like, then?’ His golden gaze flared in the candlelight.

‘He was a man whom life had disappointed.’ Pride kept her from saying more, and she was pleased when he changed the subject.

‘Taris said that you are a fine chess player. It is not often that he loses. To anyone. Where did you learn?

‘On the—’ She stopped, horrified, as she realised what she had been about to say. On the Mariposa. Just like that.

‘An uncle taught me,’ she amended and held her breath as the awkwardness of the moment passed.

‘I thought I heard music before, in here?’

‘You did.’ She brought the harmonica from her pocket and watched a range of emotions play across his face.

Puzzlement. Amusement. Interest.

‘My family likes you, Lady Emma. Every time your name is mentioned, Taris and Lucinda sing your praises and it is not often that my brother waxes lyrical about anyone. Especially these days.’

‘How did he lose his sight?’ She asked the question quietly and was surprised by his sharp expression.

‘An accident that should never have happened. If I hadn’t been—’ He stopped and caught at control, the muscles on the line of his jaw quivering.

‘I do not think he blames you, your Grace.’

He smiled at that and moved back. ‘No, he doesn’t.’ Tight words rising from the depths of despair.

‘But you blame yourself?’

Suddenly everything was crystal clear. His lack of help for Taris on the road to Thornfield. It was not anger at his affliction that held him back, but guilt. Guilt. The sheer knowledge of it made her insides weaken.

Such a complex man and so masculinely vulnerable. She swallowed back her pity, knowing that at this moment he would not want it, and, as if he could read her mind, he stepped away.

‘We are due over at Longacres tomorrow for dinner with the Gravesons. After yesterday, if you would rather cancel, I would quite understand.’

‘No, I would like to go.’

‘If you could be ready at five, then we would be back before midnight.’

The noise of voices from the stairs that joined this floor to the next had him turning, and, drawing his coat against the draughts of cold in the passageway, he was gone.

She had nothing to wear and two hours to be ready to leave for the Gravesons. Grimacing she pulled the last of her dresses from its hanger. She had never been bothered before about the state of her clothes, but this gown was hardly salubrious wear for any occasion, let alone a dinner date with a duke. She would give anything for a dress that actually fitted her and had a colour in it that was neither pastel nor brown.

And her gloves? The grey silk pair she wore constantly was fraying not only at the wrist but at the base of one thumb now, and the seam was so narrow that she could not reunite the cloth without also altering the fit.

A knock at the door and Lucinda was in the room, her face falling as she glanced at the gown.

‘Is this what you were planning to wear tonight? Perhaps I should warn you that Annabelle puts much stock in the dress sense of others.’

‘Then she will be sorely disappointed with me, I fear.’

Lucy laughed. ‘You do not enjoy fashion?’ she asked at length.

‘You sound like your brother.’

‘Asher asked you about your gowns?’

‘He did. And I told him that I would rather buy books.’

‘And is that true?’

Emerald’s telling hesitation brought Lucinda to her side. ‘I knew that of course it would not be true.’ She walked across to the wardrobe and firmly shut the door. ‘Nothing in there will do, Emma. May I call you that?’