Chapter 7
Her opponent, Lord
Chestershire
, aimed his small eyes in her direction and sneered with triumph. Marsh was there as well, licking his lips at her. Emma wished that
Somerhart
would make himself useful and lurk behind her chair again, but he had wandered off an hour before.
Marsh leaned close and spoke to her breasts. "It appears your luck has taken a sad turn, Lady
Denmore
. May I offer the comfort of my arm for a stroll about the room?"
Idiotic cur. Even
Chestershire
slanted the man an incredulous look. If there had remained any doubt among society that
Somerhart
was her lover, it had disappeared over dinner. They'd been seated at nearly opposite ends of the table, but the distance hadn't stopped
Somerhart
from staking his claim. He'd aimed several smoldering looks in her direction, not to mention the occasional wicked smile. Some of the guests had stared at her in openmouthed wonder.
Winterhart
was not known for displays of affection.
But Lord Marsh was apparently not averse to making open advances to a duke's mistress. Perhaps he just considered it another gamble. And he was right about one thing; Emma's luck hadn't held. She'd lost exactly one hundred and eighteen quid in the past hour. Marsh might as well have been poking at a badger with a sharp stick.
"Well?" he drawled, face angling closer to her cleavage. "Are you available for a bit of. . . exercise?"
"Lord Marsh . . ." She spoke through clenched teeth, though she smiled for the audience. "Kindly remove your face from my bodice."
He drew back and shot her an arrogant look. "You were not so cold this morning."
The conversation at the table stopped at his overloud words. Emma's jaw creaked. "I was on a winning streak this morning, Marsh. I could afford to be indulgent with lesser players. Excuse me, gentlemen."
"Fool," she heard
Chestershire
whisper as she walked away. "You could at least be quiet about it." Marsh was still protesting when Emma quit the room.
The tension in her shoulders had built up to a steady, sharp ache over the day. Not only did she have to deal with her unrelenting thoughts about
Somerhart
and temptation, but her fellow guests had begun to treat her differently. At luncheon, the few other ladies attending had ceased to speak whenever she drew near. They'd smiled benignly, so it wasn't that she'd fallen completely out of favor, just that their conversations were either about her or
Somerhart
or both.
Since dinnertime, the men had begun acting strangely too, sneaking sideways looks when she passed. Emma was growing worried that someone had espied them in the card room this morning. But no, she told herself, there wasn't enough tittering.
Her annoyance edging to anger, Emma swore off the tables for an hour and headed for the conservatory. It opened onto the music room, where delicate piano playing signaled the presence of ladies. Real ladies. Emma stole through the sweet green leaves of orange trees and orchids. The curtained glass doors of the music room were closed, so she eased the latch up and let the door fall open an inch. Music chimed into the air, followed quickly by the chatter of female voices.
There weren't many women in attendance at
Moulter's
retreat: most were wives of some of the older gentlemen, though there were also two well-to-do widows and a dowager countess. The countess was quite fond of piquet. And gossip, it seemed. Her voice rang out above the others.
"I can't begin to imagine what it is about her."
A gruff male voice interrupted. "Just what I've been wondering all evening."
"Well," the dowager countess pushed on, "there must be something, though she seems exceedingly average. He's been the Duke of
Winterhart
for over a decade, now suddenly he's thawing as quickly as snow in spring rain."
Another woman cleared her throat. "Not entirely. I commented on the uncommon blue of his eyes and he brushed a piece of lint from his coat and walked away without a word!"
The countess descended into gales of laughter. Emma was sure she could actually hear the other woman seething. "It was quite rude," she bit out.
"Oh, my poor Lady
Worster
! I
am
sorry!" Despite her apologies, the countess continued to laugh for several more seconds. "I once heard the duke comment that if there were one lady in the country who hadn't mentioned the color of his eyes, he’d pluck them out and hand them to her."
"Such rudeness should not be tolerated!"
"Ah, but it will be. Did you hear he's acquired another railroad? Is that three now?"
The man cleared his throat. "Well, there must be something about her. The duke seems almost, dare I say, human?"
The dowager snorted. "Ha! He used to be quite human back when I was Countess Shrewsbury. Or perhaps not human, but more of a satyr!"
An ancient female voice cracked with laughter. "Yes, goat hooves and all. That letter. . . my word."
"The letter! Did you see it?"
"Oh, I did."
Emma leaned closer, lip caught between her teeth. The letter. She'd heard whispers about it, unsatisfying snippets of information. It was the staff of legend, this missive
Somerhart
had penned to his lover.
She was sure the story must be exaggerated, despite that the occasional speaker claimed to have seen the actual note. The man was
Winterhart
, after all. Notoriously icy and controlled. And even though she'd recently seen him in his old incarnation, Emma found it hard to believe that words like
lush
and
thrust
and
worshipped thighs
had ever fallen from his pen. Surely he'd never woven lust into poetry. Even after the morning's debacle she could not believe that the man had ever proposed marriage to a woman ten years his senior who'd played mistress to half a dozen of his peers.
Despite Emma's best efforts, the rumors of his past proved hard to confirm. The voices on the other side of the conservatory door grew hushed as they always did. No one wanted to risk the duke's displeasure. He'd made his ruthlessness quite clear over the past decade.
He kept no one close. No one. But even a nodding acquaintance with
Somerhart
was better than the alternative: frozen disregard, perhaps even outright hostility. Not to mention the occasional infliction of cruelty.
Somerhart
had purchased more than a few gentlemen's debts when he'd heard particularly nasty comments made about his scandalous sister. The debts had been called in, and whatever terms the gentlemen managed to negotiate had changed their faces in some permanent, inscrutable way. One simply did not cross the duke . . . unless one had nothing and no one to lose.
Emma leaned her head against the white-painted doorjamb. Eavesdropping had proven useless, but she did not want to leave, didn't want to resume the night's performance. The confidence and dry amusement, the tolerance for arched eyebrows and moistened lips. And now this other ruse—this pretense of being
Somerhart's
lover. Or worse . . .
Emma pressed her fingers to her eyes as if the pressure would counter the aching tension behind them.
It wasn't the pretense of being his lover that proved so distressing, it was the struggle with herself. The struggle against what she wanted so badly. Something lush and fiery. Thrusting and secret and sacred. Something wrong and unbearably beautiful.
And suddenly Emma could see the impossible: Hart whispering words that could never, never have passed his lips.
But hadn't he already done impossible things? They'd lit his eyes with joy. Ordering her to lift her skirts and spread her legs. Kissing, sucking, risking everything to chance. Oh, he'd enjoyed that, reveled in it nearly as much as she had. He was wicked and cold. Debauched and impenetrable. Sensual and utterly removed. Like opposite halves of two different men.
Lost in thought, Emma breathed deeply of the brightly scented trees and the heavy weight of fragrant blooms. Only a scattering of the sconces were lit, and heavy curtains shielded the room from the cold night. The space felt veiled and protected. A magical solitude. The air shifted like warm liquid against her skin every time she moved and she felt protected even by that. The world was removed from her, not part of her, and for once she was glad to be isolated from every other soul.
This place felt like summer, like a still, sweltering night, and Emma wanted to curl up on a bed of grass and stay here forever. If she couldn't have secret thrusting, she could have some damned peace.
Someone new must have sat down to the piano, because the music swelled to richness, and the last of the tension fell from Emma's shoulders in a great wave. When she closed her eyes, she was gone. Elsewhere. Beside the pond in her uncle's yard, curled into the long grass with a book. Or perhaps farther away, at that
oceanside
cottage with her mother, safe and happy as they were whenever they went away. But that comforting scene—snug next to her mother, the gentle touch stroking her hair—was fraught with foreboding, a fog of horrid knowledge of what lay ahead, so Emma scrambled back from it.
Her eyes popped open and
he
was standing there, arms crossed, watching her. "Hart," she whispered, not knowing if she was happy to see him.
His elegant head tilted slightly to the side. "Emma," he answered. Her name must have felt right to his tongue, because his mouth eased into a half smile. But the smile flitted away, to be replaced by a vague frown. "Are you well?"
Emma let her head fall back to rest against the wall and nodded.
His hard, cold eyes studied her, a close perusal that seemed not to satisfy his thoughts. "I'm intruding?"
Was he? "No, I—" The music ended on a series of faint notes that reminded Emma of her original purpose. She reached over and eased the French door closed before someone overheard them. When she looked back to Hart, his blue eyes glinted with amusement.
"Eavesdropping, Lady
Denmore
?"
She shrugged and pushed away from the wall, let her eyes fall to the sturdy glass in his right hand. "That's for me, I hope."
He finally gave her a real smile. "You are shameless." "Mm. And thirsty."
He handed over the snifter of brandy and Emma saw to its quick demise. Hart plucked the empty glass from her fingers and set it on a low table. "What are you hiding from, Emma?"
"I played badly tonight." She wandered past him, trailing her fingers over glossy leaves.
"I don't mean tonight. I mean every night."
Despite the shock that hit her at his words, Emma smiled. "Don't be dramatic,
Somerhart
. I'm not hiding any more than you are." She shot him a pointed look, and he arched an eyebrow in acknowledgment.
"All right then. What are you hiding from tonight? Or did you sneak in here only to spy on the other guests?"
"Possibly."
"Because I assume if you wanted to enjoy the music, you could simply retire to the appropriately named room."
"Perhaps." She was unable to contain her smile, though she tried to keep her head angled toward the plants instead of the insufferable man.
"Did you hear anything interesting?"
"Mm. Some passable Haydn, a touch of Bach."
"And?"
Emma sighed and sat heavily on a stone bench. "I had no idea you enjoyed gossip so much."
He didn't relent. "I had no idea that
you
did, Emma."
She couldn't help but look up at her name, such an intimacy, and he had every right to use it now.
"What is wrong?" he pushed.
She gave in with a sigh. "People are treating me strangely—"
"Poorly?" he interrupted.
Emma shook her head. "Not at all. Only. . . they seem curious."
"Curious."
Emma met his gaze and held it. "About the woman who could thaw the great Duke of
Winterhart
."
The skin around his eyes tightened. "I see."