The Forbidden Lord (21 page)

He heard a servant in the hall announce that dinner was served. Then Ian said, “Why don’t all of you go down to dinner? I’ll just fetch the others.”

Jordan glanced about the room, looking for an escape. But there was none. Next thing he knew, Ian was sauntering into the room.

The viscount looked around, bewildered. “Where’s Pollock? And Lady Emma?”

“Who knows?” He couldn’t prevent the acid edge to his voice. “She’s probably off ‘comforting’ him the way only a woman can. You might try one of the bedrooms.”

Ian arched one eyebrow. “Your jealousy is showing, Jordan. You know quite well Lady Emma would never go off into a bedroom with Pollock.”

“Wouldn’t she?” He stared unseeing into the fireplace, feeling a sudden childish urge to kick at the embers. “Pollock seems to think otherwise. He implied he’d come close to having her.”

“Pollock will say whatever he can to provoke you. You know that. It’s just lies.”

“Then why didn’t she deny it?”

“You actually repeated Pollock’s words to her?”

At Ian’s incredulous tone, Jordan faced his friend. “Yes. Why not?”

“Bloody hell, have you no sense at all when it comes to respectable women?”

“No,” he growled. “If you’ll recall, I don’t usually deal with them.”

“Well, you don’t accuse a well-bred woman of being free with her affections, unless you deliberately want to insult her. And you especially don’t tell her you heard it from some idiot, then actually believed it.”

Jordan strained to remember the entirety of their conversation. “She admitted she’d been alone with him.”

“And she admitted that he’d touched her?”

“Not exactly. But she blushes every time his name is mentioned.”

“I see. And this is your evidence. I wish you could hear yourself. If any other man had told you such a tale, you would have laughed him out of countenance.” He shook his head. “Why do you care anyway? If you’ve no interest in marrying the girl, what does it matter if Pollock courts her?”

Jordan shoved his hands in his pockets. Emily had said much the same thing. “He’s no good for her. You know that. He’ll take advantage of her, then refuse to marry her.”
When he finds out who she really is
. “Why did you invite the bastard anyway?”

Ian hesitated before answering. “Actually, inviting Pollock was Lady Dundee’s idea. I wouldn’t have, but she insisted upon it.”

Good God. What if Lady Dundee and Lord Nesfield had some strange idea of marrying Emily off to Pollock? “What does Lady Dundee have to do with this?”

“The dinner party was her idea. She promised to press my courtship of Sophie with Nesfield. But first she wanted some idea of my potential as a husband.”

Ian’s words caught Jordan by surprise. “What do you mean? Have things advanced so far with Lady Sophie? Why, you haven’t even seen the girl in weeks!”

“That doesn’t change anything. I still have very serious intentions toward her.”

Jordan remembered what his butler had told him that morning. “I think there’s something you should be aware of, my friend. When Hargraves was asking Nesfield’s servants about Lady Emma, he discovered that Lady Sophie isn’t in town. She hasn’t been for some time. I’m not even sure she’s ill.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You know?”

“Lady Dundee told me. Apparently Nesfield whisked his daughter away to the country to protect her from ‘scoundrels’ like me.” He smiled. “But the countess has decided that her brother is a fool. She says that if I prove acceptable, she’ll find a way to get around Nesfield’s objections.”

“Ah.” That made perfect sense. It was just like Nesfield to do something so dramatic, and just like Lady Dundee to do as she pleased. So Sophie’s absence apparently had nothing to do with Emily’s masquerade. Or else the countess and the marquess hadn’t wanted Sophie around mucking up things while they finished their plot.

But what
was
their plot?

Inviting Pollock was Lady Dundee’s idea
. Devil take it, this had something to do with Pollock. Otherwise, why would Emily ever have gone near the man? And now that he thought about it, she’d spent a great deal of time with Pollock at that first ball as well.

The thought of Pollock and Emily together made his skin crawl.

“Are you all right?” Ian asked. “You’re looking pale.”

“I’m fine. Just a little hungry.”

“Then I guess we’d best go down to dinner.”

Jordan followed Ian out of the room. He was hungry, all right. Hungry to know what was going on.

At least now he had a way to make Emily tell him the truth. Oh, yes, he had a little surprise to spring on Emily once he could get her alone. And no amount of tears and begging would put him off this time.

Emily glanced across the dining-room table to where Jordan sat beside an attractive and decidedly well-endowed young widow. Thank heaven his attention was drawn to his companion. Perhaps the wretched woman would even convince him to leave the party early. Emily would be quite happy if she did. Truly.

“You want to scratch her eyes out, don’t you?” Mr. Pollock whispered in her ear.

A curse on Lord St. Clair for seating her next to Mr. Pollock. The daughter of an earl was
not
supposed to be taken in to dinner by a mere mister. Perhaps Lord St. Clair, being a bachelor, didn’t know such things. He
had
said this was his first time to give a dinner party. Still, Lady Dundee should have set him straight in the drawing room.

Of course, the viscount hadn’t erred in the least with the rest of the seating. Oh, no. That’s why Jordan was seated between Lady Dundee and the beautiful countess. The countess whose eyes Emily indeed wanted to scratch out, although she’d never admit it to anyone.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she blithely lied to Mr. Pollock as she concentrated on slicing a piece of roast beef.

“The merry widow sitting with Blackmore. She’s just his sort, you know.”

Emily’s hand on the knife shook. She knew only
too well. The woman was perfect for him: sensuous and lush and obviously available, if one was to judge from the way she kept thrusting her ample breasts up in his face and leaning on his arm. Well, let the widow have him. Since the man only seemed to want tarts, he deserved her.

“I know we got off to a bad start,” Pollock whispered again, “but we could put all that behind us. I promise I’d do better by you than Blackmore.” He laid his bandaged hand on her thigh. “Any man who prefers common crockery to fine china is a fool.”

The scoundrel never gave up, did he? Laying her knife carefully down, she slipped her hand under the table to grab his wounded one and squeezed it just until she heard him curse under his breath. “Mr. Pollock, if you touch me again, I will smash a piece of fine china on your head. Do we understand one another?”

Lifting his hand, she dropped it in his lap, then returned to cutting her meat.

“You’re saving yourself for
him
, I suppose,” Pollock said in a nasty voice as he nursed his hand. “Well, he won’t marry you.”

“The last thing in the world I want is to marry Lord Blackmore.”

What a blatant lie. For days now she’d pretended to herself that she didn’t care what he thought or did, that his lack of interest in her as a prospective wife didn’t matter. And all the time, she knew she cared far too much. She wanted to ravage the face of the woman across from her, the one with the good fortune to be an attractive widow. She wanted to rail at Jordan for his coldness and his absolute control over his emotions. She wanted to hate him for believing all the nasty things Pollock had probably said about her.

But she couldn’t hate him. If this had been any other place and time, if she and he had been of equal standing and wealth, she would have risked anything to have him.

Curse him for that!

As if he’d heard her thoughts, he glanced her way, his gaze flicking first to Mr. Pollock, then to her. His jaw tightened. Then he turned his head abruptly and leaned to whisper something in the widow’s ear that made her laugh.

Emily colored, wondering what he was saying and, worse yet, doing. Was he touching the widow beneath the table as Pollock had tried to do to her? Or making an assignation to meet the woman later? Her heart constricted painfully at the thought.

It seemed an eternity before the meal was over and another eternity before she and the other women could retire to the drawing room and escape the men. How wonderful to be away from them all! If this interminable masquerade were ever over, she would never speak to one of their gender again! They were more trouble than they were worth!

Unfortunately, she had scarcely settled into a comfortable chair when yet another male appeared at her side. Everyone looked up as the footman handed her a folded handkerchief and said, “You forgot this in the dining room, madam.”

“But it’s not mine—” she began as she took it from him. Then she saw the Blackmore monogram and felt the stiff crackle of paper inside the cloth. “Oh, I’m sorry. Yes, it is mine. Thank you.”

She waited until everyone’s attention turned elsewhere, then carefully opened the note in her lap.

Make some excuse to leave
, it said.
I’ll meet you in the hall. I have something to discuss with you
.

Cursing inwardly, she balled the paper up into a tiny knot. She could just imagine what he wanted to discuss. No doubt he wished to make more filthy insinuations about her and Mr. Pollock. The wretch! Did he think she was at his beck and call?

Yes, he did. And with good reason. He held the knowledge of her real identity in his hand. He could make her dance to his tune whenever he wanted, and he knew it.

She waited until Lady Dundee’s attention was diverted, then murmured to the woman nearest her that she was going to use the necessary. Thankfully, no one paid her much mind when she slipped out the door.

There he was, in the hall as he’d promised, leaning against the wall with his hands shoved deep in his coat pockets. Pushing away from the wall, he caught her with a look designed to strip away her defenses.

She wrapped her lace shawl protectively about her body. “What do you want?”

Gripping her arm, he led her down the hall a short distance. “We must talk. But not now. Tomorrow morning I shall come to take you riding, and you will go with me, do you understand? Find some way to leave your maid and Lady Dundee at home. You and I shall have a very long, very private chat, and you will tell me the truth at last.”

“Will I indeed? Why do you think I’ll be more likely to do that now than I was before?”

A smug smile touched his lips. “Because now I know more about what you’re up to. This has something to do with Pollock, doesn’t it? If you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll tell Pollock everything I know.” His smile faded abruptly. “That ought to put an end to whatever your scheme is.”

So he’d figured that much out, had he? Or was
he just guessing? She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to hide her trembling. “Tell him what you wish,” she bluffed. “It doesn’t matter. I shan’t go riding with you tomorrow, and I certainly shan’t tell you anything.”

His mouth thinned into a grim line. “Very well. I’ll speak with Pollock in the morning. But first I shall confront Nesfield. I know that he’s behind this. Perhaps he won’t share your nonchalance when I tell him I’m planning to reveal your identity to Pollock.”

Horror swept through her. Lord Nesfield! If he told Lord Nesfield—

“You can’t! You mustn’t!” she protested, dropping all pretense of unconcern. “Please, Jordan, don’t do this!”

“Why? Just tell me that, and you have my silence.”

She was tempted, oh so tempted to tell him everything. But that was impossible. Once she told him that this concerned Sophie, he would realize that it concerned Ian as well. He’d never stand for having his friend’s chances for happiness destroyed. He’d go to Lord Nesfield anyway, and then Nesfield would make good on his threats.

The thought made her shudder. “I-I can’t.”

“Then tomorrow I’ll pay Nesfield a visit.”

“But you promised me you’d keep silent! What kind of honorable man reneges on his promises?”

He scowled. “The kind who sees the sort of danger you’re getting yourself into. The kind who wants to protect you from the likes of Pollock and Nesfield.”

“Pollock? That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You’re jealous of Pollock and the other men around me, so you—”

“I’m not jealous!” he bit out. But his rigid stance
and angry expression belied his words. “My reasons don’t matter. Either you tell me everything, or I go to Nesfield. It’s as simple as that.” When she stared at him, frantically wondering how to change his mind, he added, “You have tonight to make your decision. But in the morning—”

“In the morning, you will ruin my life!”

His jaw tightened. “Don’t be so melodramatic. Any connection between you and Pollock would be far more ruinous to you than my mild interference.”

Mild interference? Oh, if only he knew. “It’s not…this awful thing you’re imagining, I assure you. You know I could never engage in something truly distasteful.”

“Do I? What do I really know about you? You’re adept at masquerades, and you can quote scripture when it suits you.” His gaze flickered over her body. “And you have a talent for making men want you. That’s all I know. You’ve toyed with Pollock, and God knows you’ve toyed with me. And for what? Tell me that.”

“You…you make it sound so…sordid.”

“From where I’m standing, it certainly looks that way.”

Curse him! He had a right to be suspicious, but what more could she tell him? How was she to escape this thorny mess?

Suddenly a voice called to them down the hall. “Blackmore, is that you?”

It was Lord St. Clair. She cast Jordan a pleading look.

“Don’t worry, I won’t say a word to Ian. But tomorrow, I will reveal your identity to whomever I wish.” He strolled past her toward his friend, as casually as if he’d been carrying on the most insipid conversation with her. “I was just coming to
see you, Ian. Sorry, but I have to leave.”

“So early? Don’t you wish to stay for the dancing?”