Marrying Mischief

Oh, sweet heaven, the gentleness, the heat of that mouth. It had been so long since he had touched her, held her. His tantalizing scent clouded her mind and his breath warmed her face. Fire rushed through her veins, obliterating all caution. He had not changed. She had not.

“My dearest Emily,” he whispered, breaking the spell he’d woven as effectively as if he had doused her with a bucket of icy water.

She shoved him away. “Dearest, is it? Get out of this room, Nicholas. Do it now!”

He had the audacity to look surprised. “What the devil is wrong with you, Em? I only meant to—”

“I know exactly what you meant to do!” She backed away, her arms crossed over her chest, wishing they could shield her heart. The foolish thing had barely begun to mend from the last time he broke it.

Though he turned to go, he faced her again when he stood in the doorway. “You have no cause to fear me, Emily. I would never do anything to cause you further pain.”

She remained silent, far from certain she believed him, and unwilling to lie about it. Though Nick’s intention would never be to inflict any deliberate hurt upon her, Emily knew he could do so without even trying, maybe without even knowing.

He searched her eyes for her answer and seemed to find it there. “I did care for you then, Emily. And whether you can accept the truth or not, I still do.”

There was little she could say to that. He might still desire her. But hunger was a common thing for a man to feel toward any female. Even if Nick did not recognize the difference, she now knew better than to confuse desire with true caring. At least he said nothing of loving her.

Without further words, he went out of the room and gently closed the door. She heard his measured footsteps on the stairs and felt as bereft as she always did when deprived of his company. That had not altered at all, unless she counted the fact that the deprivation cut even more deeply now.

With Nicholas residing continents away, it had been somehow easier to accept that he did not love her. How was she supposed to bear it when they were living under the same roof?

No matter how much she wished it, there seemed no way out of this conundrum. Though she wanted nothing more than to sneak back out the gardener’s gate with her brother and double her efforts to forget Nicholas Hollander, she knew that she and Joshua had no recourse but to remain here until the quarantine was over.

Emily straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. “Running is the coward’s way,” she muttered vehemently to herself, pounding one fist soundly into the opposite palm. “And you, Emily Loveyne, have never resorted to such behavior in your life. Where is your courage?”

She had overcome the snide remarks and polite censure of the whole village of Bournesea, as well as that of the old Lord Kendale, when she was hardly more than a girl out of short skirts. Never once had she doubted her eventual success in that endeavor.

Now she was a woman with the blinders of first love torn away and a much better understanding of people in general. Of men, in particular. Clearly, she could stand what she must and weather this storm, as well.

There was certain to be one, she realized. No one in the entire county would ever believe she had spent a whole fortnight in this manor with the man she once adored without surrendering to his charms.

It would likely take her more than seven years this time to convince them of her innocence.

Emily used the bellpull, after all. During the hours alone in the countess’s old chamber with nothing to read but a well-thumbed book of poetry, she grew desperately bored.

One could only dwell so long on the ramblings of Byron. Was this what Nicholas’s mother had endured day after day? Lying abed, pondering the rather pointless meanderings of a dissolute poet? Small wonder she always seemed so glad to greet the vicar and his tagalong.

Emily recalled the occasions she had come here with her father while the countess was alive. Lady Elizabeth’s dark beauty had always left Emily awestruck, as had the woman’s unguarded opinions expressed so openly to a man of God. Many of Emily’s own views of life were colored by that ready candor.

She had also noted that when her father led them in the requisite parting prayer for improvement of the lady’s health, the countess neither bowed her head nor closed her eyes. Once she had even winked and smiled at Emily who had been sneaking a look up at her.

Though they had rarely spoken to one another, the motherless Emily had imagined a bond between them.

“Well, here I am again, my lady,” Emily said aloud to the room where the countess had breathed her last. “Best lend me some of that wry humor of yours. I feel I might need it when this little visit with your esteemed son is over.”

Byron’s little book, lying forgotten on the edge of the mattress suddenly slid off and hit the floor with a thump. A chill ran up Emily’s spine. “Thank you, that is quite enough to set me laughing,” she muttered. “Keep your humor to yourself now.”

Lord, here she was imagining ghosts and talking to the dearly departed. If half a day in this place had her speaking to the walls, she could only imagine how she would be faring after two interminable weeks of it.

Unlike some women who said they could not touch a bite of food when in distress, Emily craved chocolate. At the moment she would have wrestled someone to the floor for a cup of the stuff. And cakes to go with it.

It had grown dark outside. For the third time in less than an hour, she gave the intricately braided cord a firm yank, imagining a bell jangling somewhere below. With all of the servants gone to London, she doubted there would be anyone there to hear it. She could not imagine any of the ship’s crew hanging about in the butler’s pantry.

Though Emily had been fairly well acquainted with the kitchen and service areas of the house at one time, she was not inclined to venture down the stairs and make herself at home there now.

Still fully dressed except for her boots, she curled up on the wide feather bed and drew the coverlet over her. If eventually, someone did answer her summons, she would request her sweets, a stack of books from his lordship’s library and a bucket of coal to fuel the small fireplace. It was mid-May, and the evening had brought a chill with it.

A loud knock woke her from a sound sleep. Emily jerked upright and brushed her tousled curls out of her eyes. “Yes? Who is it?”

The door opened. “Emily? I’m afraid the captain took a turn for the worse last evening and I quite forgot to send anyone with your dinner.” Nicholas balanced a silver tray on one arm as he approached.

Carefully, but hurriedly, he set it upon the mattress beside her hip and gestured to the room at large. “I also neglected to offer you the use of Mother’s things. Please avail yourself of the clothing, writing materials, and anything else you find that you can use.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“By the way, your brother is feeling quite the thing today.” He began to back toward the door.

“Wait,” she said, reaching out, almost upsetting the teapot. “Don’t go yet! Tell me more of Joshua, please?”

He stopped where he was. “He is fine, the doctor says. No fever at all last night or this morning. And his appetite seems quite normal.”

“I cannot tell you how that relieves my mind.” Emily sighed. “Could I trouble you for something to read today? And perhaps some coal?”

“Certainly, anything you wish.”

He smiled then and seemed to deliberately shake off whatever had caused his abruptness. “Look, I know this waiting is damned hard for you, Emily. What if I make a compromise and allow you to see Josh for a few moments? Just from the doorway to his room, you understand. Would that help?”

Emily burst into tears, covering her face with her hands.

“No, no weeping, please,” he said softly, approaching the bed again. “Hear now, if you hush, I will let you visit him directly after supper.”

“Truly?”

“Yes, truly.” His hand lightly caressed her hair and rested on the back of her neck. “Shall I take Josh a message from you this morning?”

She nodded vigorously and sniffed. “Tell—tell him I cannot wait to see him again. That I love him so. And that Father and I missed him dreadfully.”

Nicholas pushed the tray aside and edged one hip onto the bed, beside her. He pulled her close so that her bowed head rested against his chest while his long fingers brushed over her curls.

“I have a feeling all will be well,” he told her. “You know, even after that small setback last evening, Captain Roland feels much better this morning than he has at all since coming down with this? And George Tuckwell, the purser, is nearly as well recovered as Josh.”

“No one else has had complaints?” she asked, looking up at him.

He wiped the tears from her cheeks with one finger. “Not a soul. I have had each man report the state of his health to me three times daily. Other than the occasional gripe of being landlocked, not a one has suffered so much as a bellyache. I believe we have almost weathered this.”

She didn’t dare to hope, but she asked anyway. “Will you still insist upon our remaining enclosed here for the entire fortnight?”

“I must, Emily, for safety’s sake. Please understand.”

Oh, how she wished they could remain as they were. How marvelous to feel his strong arms around her, his hands cradling her back, her shoulders, threading through her hair. She inhaled deeply, drawing in the scent of him, wanting more…

Carefully, he disengaged himself from her and stood again, replacing the tray so that she could reach it. “Breakfast now, and you may go below. The library is yours for the day. I shall work elsewhere.”

Emily felt dizzy, light as air, as if a huge lead weight had been removed from her shoulders. Surely he did care, at least a little. “Is there anything I may do to help out…my lord?”

He cocked a brow and pursed his lips. “For one thing, you might cease the my lord foolishness and call me Nick as you always have done.”

She smiled and busied herself pouring her chocolate. “I should have used your honorary address all these years, but no one saw fit to correct me. Except your father. He was appalled that I should speak of you at all.”

“You talked with Father? When was that? He rarely spoke to me, let alone any other child about the place.”

She stirred the chocolate and took a heavenly sip, then another before she replied, “Oh, I was no longer a child when he and I had our first and last conversation. He considered me a full-grown Jezebel, ripe for a set-down.”

“The bloody old bastard!” Nicholas’s sharp intake of breath surprised her, as did the epithet. “I hate that he spoke rudely to you, Em.”

“Yes, well, he minced no words.” She waved off his concern. “But that’s over and done and of no consequence. You have enough to worry about. Go and see Joshua, if you will. Tell him I shall expect a detailed travelogue, so he is to be arranging it all in his mind for the telling. That should occupy him for the day and relieve his boredom.”

“A wonderful idea. How wise of you,” he remarked.

“My wisdom knows no bounds. Nor my humility. For your information, age has improved me considerably.” She daintily set down her cup, shooting him a look that challenged him to disagree.

Nicholas shook his head and laughed. “You have not changed at all, Emily.”

She watched him go.

“How wrong you are, Nicky. How woefully wrong you are about that.”

Without so much as a jiggle of the tray, the serviette that was perched upright beside her plate tumbled itself over and unfolded.

Emily caught her breath, then exhaled sharply. “Well, it is true,” she announced to the spirit she fancied lurking about her. “I am no longer that docile child I was then.”

Emily imagined she heard a trill of muted feminine laughter. This time she was not frightened at all for it seemed to ring with distinct approval. And besides that, a properly bred vicar’s daughter did not credit the existence of ghosts.

To prove it to herself, Emily wolfed down the remainder of her breakfast, shucked off her wrinkled dress and went directly to the countess’s armoire. There she selected an out-of-date morning gown of sky-blue chintz trimmed with delicate white embroidery. On a shelf at the bottom, she located matching kid slippers.

“You see?” she muttered as she dressed. “If I feared you were hanging about to object, I would not dare appropriate anything belonging to a Kendale. Not the dress,” she declared, yanking it off the hanger and threading her arms through the sleeves. “Or the shoes,” she added, sliding her feet into the slippers.

Or the son? The teasing whisper of thought piqued Emily’s mind like a dare.

“Oh, no, ma’am. That never occurred to me. Not this time,” she said with a roll of her eyes and a short laugh at the fanciful turn of mind boredom had inflicted. “Believe me, I have learned my lesson there.”

Chapter Three

The day had crawled by like a fly through molasses, Emily thought as she thumped down yet another tome of dreadful prose. Her patience with the printed word was scant at best, and pared even thinner by the scarcity of anything interesting in the earl’s library.

She jumped when the enormous ormolu clock struck the first chime of seven. Would Nicholas never send for her? Surely all the men had eaten by now.

He had promised she could see Josh after dinner. Her own meal had been delivered half an hour ago. The plain fare had little to recommend it, or else excitement had diminished her hunger so that she could scarcely taste a thing.

“Are you ready to visit?” Nick asked as he stuck his head around the door. “That brother of yours is demanding your presence.”

“It’s about time!” she exclaimed as she rushed to join him. “How is he this evening?”

“Doing exceptionally well, but dreadfully anxious to see you.” Nicholas took her arm, more to prevent her unseemly haste than to lend escort, Emily decided. “That blue you’re wearing does wonders for your eyes.”

“You’re very kind,” she said, using her most formal tone. Determined to project her most ladylike behavior and do justice to her attire, she adopted a slower, more graceful gait that would have done the countess proud.

When they reached the hallway leading to her brother’s room, however, she almost broke into a run. The door stood open and she would have dashed through it to hug him if Nicholas had not grasped her arm. “Wait. You should not approach too closely just yet,” he warned. “Let’s be prudent.”

“Joshua, darling!” she said, so desperately happy to see him, gripping the doorjamb with one hand and Nicholas’s arm with the other for support.

How tall Josh had grown these past months! Her eager gaze traveled from his beloved face to his skinny arms and then the length of his legs beneath the covers. She’d been twelve when he was born. With their mother a victim of childbed fever shortly after that, Josh’s care had fallen to her. He was more like a son than a brother. And now her dear boy was nearly grown.

“Tell me how you are,” she pleaded. “I would hear it from you.”

“Well enough.” He crossed his lanky arms over his concave chest and deepened his frown. “And I am bound to tell you, sister,” he announced, his voice much deeper and more forceful than she remembered. He pinned her with a glare. “You have sealed your fate by coming here.”

“No, no, my dear, you must not worry about that,” she said, holding out one hand as if she was touching him, soothing him. “Lord Kendale assures me that the danger of contagion is no longer of much concern. You must not fret—”

“Contagion is not the problem I am addressing, Emily,” he declared. “It is your very presence among us that will do you worse than a bout with the cholera.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “What in the world could be worse than that?”

He took a deep breath, his glare whipping to Nicholas, then back to her. “You will be damned by everyone you know if he does not marry you. Am I not correct in this, my lord?”

She heard Nicholas clear his throat. At first, she believed he would not answer Josh’s impertinence, for the silence stretched on for what seemed too long. Then he sighed. “You have the right of it, Loveyne. Indeed. She has been compromised beyond help, through no fault of her own.”

“Or of yours!” Emily exclaimed. “Nicholas, you cannot possibly be considering—”

“That marriage between us would solve matters. Joshua has a perfect right to make the demand,” he said without inflection.

“But he doesn’t understand,” she argued. “Josh cannot possibly realize the complications such a mésalliance would involve.”

“He is your brother, Emily,” Nicholas replied as if that justified the matter of Josh’s interference. “No one can force you to accept, of course, but I shall make my offer. Will you marry me?”

As proposals went, she found it sorely lacking in emotion. His expression was devoid of feeling, his voice too carefully controlled to betray a jot of either satisfaction or anger. She could in no way discern what Nicholas was really thinking about all of this. Small wonder. He was caught in a trap of her making with only one honorable way out of it unless she refused him.

She should refuse. Her heart sank in despair. On the one hand, she would have to render useless her brother’s demand and risk both his pride and his good opinion of her.

Judging by the look on Joshua’s face at the moment, he would never forgive her if she spurned his effort to protect her.

On the other hand, she could agree to a marriage that was almost certain to founder upon the rocks of Nicholas’s resentment and their social inequality.

He did not really love her. She had been nothing to him but a youthful indiscretion, easily discarded and all but forgotten.

His father had said that he was betrothed to Dierdre Worthing. However, Emily knew he did not love Dierdre, either, or he would have come back to England and married her long before now. Despite her apparent suitability, that one would make Nick a terrible wife, Emily thought wickedly. How tempting it was to know she could prevent that with a word.

Nicholas’s strong fingers tightened on her arm. In warning or encouragement? she wondered.

“Emily, this is not open to argument,” Joshua declared, sounding for all the world like their father in one of his rare attempts at disciplining them when they were younger. As if he had read her mind, he added, “You know very well what Father will say. You have no damned choice. None.”

She gaped at him. “Joshua James Loveyne, you mind your language!”

He glared back. “Then you mind your reputation!”

“Here now, there’s no cause to quarrel,” Nicholas admonished. “Emily will do the right thing. She only needs a few moments to adjust to the idea,” he said to Josh, as if she were not there.

“‘A few moments?”’ she snapped, yanking her arm out of Nick’s grasp. “‘The right thing’? Since when? It might have been the right thing seven years ago after what you did! Now, I’m not altogether certain I would have you if you went on bended knee and begged, Nicholas Hollander! Oh, excuse me, my lord,” she said with all the sarcasm she could muster. “I should use your title, should I not? Have you thought of that at all? How do you think I would answer to my lady?” She threw up both hands for emphasis. “Your esteemed father vowed I would be laughed out of the country should I even aspire to become a countess!”

“My father would have said anything to drive a larger wedge between us, Emily. You know he had another bride in mind for me.”

She shook with rage. “A flaming pity she so conveniently escaped your mind when it most counted! I should like to have known of her myself before I fell into your arms like some shameless trollop!”

“Wait! What’s this?” Joshua demanded, springing upright in the bed.

Nicholas strode over to him and braced his hand on Josh’s shoulder. “You stay right where you are, young man.”

“Fetch your weapons, sir,” Josh growled, “I demand satisfaction for my sister’s honor.”

Emily could have laughed at Nick’s expression of dismay if she had not been so worried Josh truly would do something foolish. Nick would never allow a duel of any kind, but her brother’s beet-red face and clenched jaw told her he would neither forget nor forgive until he had acquired some sort of satisfaction.

“Josh, he didn’t—Nicholas did not dishonor me,” she hurried to explain. “I spoke only of the kiss. You’ve known of that for ages. Everyone knows of it. Nothing else happened, I promise. Not ever.”

Except for Nicholas making her feel treasured, acting as if he loved her, actually saying how he would never want anyone else but her. However, she couldn’t let herself dwell upon those lies at the moment or she’d be demanding the pistols herself.

“Just the kiss? You swear?” Josh directed his question to Nick.

“On my honor, I swear,” Nicholas replied. “And I would have married her then if circumstances had not prevented it. I will marry her now, so there is no need for all this uproar. Do you want a relapse when you are nearly well?”

He would have married her then? What an outright lie! How dare he say such a thing? She wanted to scream at him for it, but Emily could tell Nick’s patience was already thin enough to read a book through. Josh’s trembling now looked more a result of exhaustion than anger.

Her brother was not up to this. Nor was she. And Nicholas ought to be more careful where he flung his half-baked proposals.

“When?” she asked, commanding their sudden and undivided attention.

“Tomorrow,” Josh answered without pause.

“As soon as your father comes here looking for you,” Nick amended. “I regret I cannot allow anyone to go and inform him and request his presence. You both know the reason. He will come tomorrow or the next day, surely, for there are too few places you could have gone other than here.”

“Very well,” she agreed, sounding as reluctant as she felt. Once they were married, she fully intended to be a good wife to Nicholas, but she could not help regretting how the marriage was to come about.

The main problem was, she had not realized just how frightfully angry she still was with him. For several years now she’d believed she had forgiven him for the most part, and that he no longer mattered so much to her. Now that she’d seen him again, she knew that neither was true.

Pride insinuated its ugly head, as well, she thought. It galled her that he acted as if he had done nothing to ruin her life thus far and was now doing her a huge favor.

Also, she did not relish explaining the necessity of the marriage to her father. It only underlined her greatest fault, her impulsiveness. “You will make the explanations,” she told Nicholas in no uncertain terms.

“I expected to do so,” he assured her. “I will ask for you as is right and proper.”

“‘Right and proper,”’ she repeated to herself, shook her head at the irony of it all, and turned away from the doorway to Josh’s chamber. She did not even wish them good-night.

It would serve them both right if they didn’t sleep a wink. She was certain she would not be able to close her eyes.

“A moment, Em,” Nick called as she crossed the garden to the house. She kept walking. “Wait, I say! We need to talk about this.”

“Why?” Emily asked over her shoulder. “You have my consent. What else is required?”

He caught up to her and fell in step. “Look, Em, I am sorry things have turned out as they have. I want you to know—”

“That you wish I had kept myself outside your walls,” she interrupted. “I realize that. So do I, but I did not, and now we are stuck with the consequences.”

“No,” he protested vehemently. “That’s not what I mean at all. Marriage is not such a dire fate, now is it? You have already admitted there’s no other man whom you wish to wed.”