“But you love me, Emily. What more is there for you to want?”
Emily drew a deep breath. “Godric, have you learned nothing about me at all since we met? I need my freedom, the ability to control my own life. I cannot agree to marry you simply because you decree it.”
“This isn’t about your freedom, it’s about your safety.”
Emily looked away. “I understand that you think so. But know this, I don’t have to marry you. I could find a willing bridegroom who would ignore the scandal you’ve created and take me to wife. I would rather marry a desperate fortune hunter than you, if it was the only way I could have control in my life.” It stung her soul to say it, but she meant it. There was something terrifying about the prospect of marrying a man she loved, knowing he didn’t love her back, simply because he was trying to do the noble thing. It would only result in unhappiness for them both. She couldn’t have it.
“You really don’t wish to marry me?” He jerked back as though her words had struck him like a sword. His grip loosened, and then he dropped his hands, severing the connection between them. The loss of his touch chilled her.
“It is not a matter of wishing. I want to marry you, I do, but I won’t, not at the cost of my freedom.”
Godric turned away from her, a tic working his jaw.
“And you think some fortune hunter will allow you that freedom?”
“You would have me live by your terms at your whim. Any man I choose will have to agree that he’ll let me be and live my life as I choose after we’re married. Which would you choose?”
Emily put a hand on his shoulder from behind. He flinched and jerked away, spinning back around to face her.
“Why would you do me this great hurt? Why?” he asked, voice thick with emotion, eyes blazing.
“Because.” Emily’s throat constricted, burning with the pain of those awful words, but they were true. “Because you will tire of me and I can’t bear to think about losing you. If I don’t marry you, you will never be mine to lose.”
“But you must marry me! You aren’t safe if you aren’t tied to me by marriage.” Mere moments took him from rage, to bargaining.
“Precisely. You only wish to marry me to secure my safety. You are a true gentleman in all the ways that matter, Godric, but I can’t let you suffer binding yourself to me when it will make us both unhappy in the future.”
“We would be happy—”
“For a time. But it isn’t enough. I need to be loved. I could stand to be married to a man who didn’t love me if I didn’t love him. But I love you and it would break my heart to not be loved back.” Emily couldn’t believe she was holding up so bravely. That she hadn’t collapsed in grief.
“Emily…I love you.”
Emily shut her eyes, wishing they could live forever in the past. Losing him now, even though he was never hers, might yet rip the life from her body.
“You think you love me, but you don’t. I don’t want to live my life under that illusion.”
Her words sparked his temper. “My love for you is not an illusion!” His jade eyes flared and the darker side of Godric reared its head.
Emily backed away. Her pulse raced. “I think we should discuss this later, when you aren’t so upset.”
“Upset? What possible reason could I have for being upset?” Godric’s voice rose sharply. “The woman I love doesn’t believe me and won’t marry me!”
Emily winced, hoping the others wouldn’t hear him shout.
“Hear me, Emily. You will be my wife, or you will be someone else’s, but you will be married. Cedric and Ashton have both offered to wed you. Is that what you want?” He grabbed her by the shoulders and jerked her up against the length of him.
Emily’s breath caught in her throat, his face was mere inches from hers.
“You speak as though I’m chattel to be traded about. I won’t marry them either. Do you understand?” She tried to pull away from him. As much as she loved him, longed to say yes to him, her heart wouldn’t allow it. She might have survived the rest of her life as his lover but not his wife. But she couldn’t put him in a position where someday he’d betray their vows or worse, come to an “understanding” as many of the men of his standing did.
Godric captured her chin, forcing her face back towards his and growled low in his throat. “Emily, I have no patience for this—”
She stomped her foot on his boot. “I have no patience for you!”
“I swore to never let you go, and I won’t. You belong with me.” Godric fisted a hand in her hair, and slanted his mouth down over hers. She fisted her hands against his chest.
“And when you tire of me? When you desire someone else? I will be chained to our cold, empty, marriage bed. Will you punish me then? Will you rip my inheritance from my hands and dispense with it?” She knew she’d gone too far. Godric’s eyes glittered with rage, with pain, and a dangerous lust she’d seen only once before.
He slammed his lips down over hers. His kiss was bruising, fiery, hungry and punishing. Its ferocity made Emily buckle and collapse in his embrace. He wound an arm around her waist as he assaulted her senses; his lips stole her breath and robbed her of her sanity. It was just the way every kiss should be, full of fire and light, splintering one’s soul and merging the pieces with another’s until theirs beat as one, mighty heart.
When he finally released her, she staggered back a step, and he reached to steady her.
“No! Don’t touch me. I can’t think when you do.” Emily tore away from him, running towards the door. She collided with Charles, who had been loitering outside, along with Jonathan and Cedric.
Charles caught Emily’s wrists, holding her still despite her frantic struggles. “Everything all right?”
Godric appeared in the doorway. “No, it isn’t! Take her upstairs and lock her in a room. She needs time to calm down.”
“Me?” Emily shouted back. “You are the one who—”
“Charles, get her upstairs now!”
A crowd gathered as the others vacated the parlor and came out into the hall.
Charles took hold of Emily. She fought back, not caring whether she made a spectacle of herself. Charles huffed in irritation, and then dipped down, and hauled her up over his shoulder. “This seems familiar,” he said.
Emily curled her fingers into fists and struck him on the back, but his muscled back seemed impervious to her blows. “Put me down at once. I’ve had enough of this!”
Horatia stepped forward. “Really, Charles! Put her down this instant! I will not have my guests treated in such a fashion!”
“Sorry, I have my orders,” Charles said, curt but not unkind, and headed up the stairs with Cedric and Jonathan following behind.
Horatia scowled and started to chase after them, but an iron hand closed around her wrist, dragging her back from the stairs.
It was Lucien.
“Don’t interfere, Horatia. You’ve done enough of that already.” His warning carried an undercurrent of the past, a reminder that she had often interfered where she shouldn’t.
Godric growled and stomped down the hall to another room, where he slammed the door shut. He stumbled back out a moment later, a broom toppling to the floor behind him.
“Who moved the closet there?” he thundered, then entered the next room down and once more slammed the door.
Chapter Eighteen
Jim Tanner lingered in the alley just off Curzon Street, and bided his time. A blade lay in his palm, which he kept in the pocket of his long black coat, ready to sink it into the flesh of those pompous lords across the street if they interfered with his mission.
Soon, he promised himself.
His employer had urged him to wait, to snatch the girl without a fight. The order had been issued not out of any need to prevent violence, but to give Tanner time to get away before the alarm was raised. Bloodshed would shorten his exit strategy.
Blankenship was a fool to want nothing more than the little chit. The house he stared at now was probably filled with expensive items he could fetch a fair price for on Shoe Lane or Saffron Hill. The
nouveau riche
were only too happy to buy aristocratic items that would fool the
ton
into thinking they weren’t the descendants of lower or middleclass men.
He’d been only too eager to steal the Parr girl away from Essex when Blankenship agreed to his hefty price. He knew what lay in store for the girl, but that wasn’t his concern. This was a commission, nothing more.
Tanner’s extensive connections reached from the sewers to the houses of power, from valets to night watchmen and toshers. Word had come almost immediately when Essex and his friends had arrived in London. The coach went straight to Curzon Street where Viscount Sheridan lived and the Parr girl hadn’t left the house since she arrived.
From his spot in the alley, he had watched through one of the windows as the Parr girl quarreled with Essex. Unable to hear words, he read their body language, and it was clear enough that trouble brewed between the lovers.
Evening wore into night and shadows melded into black pools across Curzon Street. Tanner scanned the night sky, but clouds had blotted out the moon.
Tanner spat into the darkness of the alley. What woman was worth five hundred pounds, Tanner didn’t know. The old man should have saved his money and brought a classy whore. But no, his employer wanted some innocent untrained lamb who would spend the whole night screaming in pain while Blankenship violated her. Pity. But again, not his concern.
He ran a hand through his hair and scowled. How would he get the girl out of the house with all of those men watching her every move? Jewelry, paintings, he’d even stolen a prized King Charles spaniel once. But a woman? With half a dozen guards? Tricky, but not impossible.
Tanner ducked back into the alley as he caught sight of a footman who left the side door of the townhouse to empty a bucket of dirty water by the gutter. The footman headed back inside.
Tanner escaped the shadows, flipped the handle of his blade, and cracked it over the footman’s head.
The footman crumpled, bucket crashing into the marble floor just inside the doorway. Tanner grabbed the unconscious man’s arms and dragged him behind a counter in the small entryway.
With the house dark, most of the other servants were no doubt asleep.
Tanner took the man’s coat and pants—enough to avoid suspicion inside if seen at a distance. He stepped over the footman’s body, leaving the man alive. He didn’t kill servants. They too suffered under the oppression of the rich.
As he moved through the lushly decorated townhouse, his mood blackened further. A dark part of him would have been happy to slit every noble throat in this house, if he’d been paid for it.
He heard voices above him, and Tanner ducked beneath the main staircase.
“Is she finally asleep, Cedric?” a man asked.
“She cried herself to sleep, poor thing. I didn’t know women were so full of tears. I thought she’d flood the upstairs rooms.”
“She still won’t agree to marry Godric?”
“No. She won’t have him, or anyone else.”
“Bloody hell. Is she daft?”
“Don’t ask me to explain the workings of the female mind, Jonathan.”
The first man sighed. “Where’s Charles?”
“He’s gone to catch a few hours sleep. Why don’t you have a rest yourself? It’s been a long day for all of us.”
“You wouldn’t mind? What about Blankenship?”
“Tomorrow we’ll lead his lackeys all over London while those love birds get some sense beaten into them.”
Tanner grinned.
Good plan. Pity it was too late.
He heard only one pair of footsteps walk away and a door clicked open then shut. Tanner counted away a few minutes waiting for the second pair. Eventually he dug into his coat pocket for a spare coin. He flicked the shilling out away from him. It clinked loudly across the marble, rolling away from the stairs. The floor above him creaked, and he heard a grunt as the remaining guard resumed his position.
Tanner swore under his breath, seeking another coin. He threw it further out, and the clink resounded more deeply, almost to the point of an echo.
Someone rose, and came down the stairs, step by step.
Tanner waited in the shadows. The guard had only just reached the bottom when Tanner launched himself at the man.
But his adversary had quick reflexes. He spun as Tanner attacked.
Blood splattered as Tanner’s blade slid across the man’s arm.
Before the guard could shout, Tanner rammed his elbow into the his face. Blood dribbled down his face as he staggered back, fell and ceased to move.
Tanner considered finishing him off, but he couldn’t waste time. He needed the girl.
Light on his feet, he sprinted up the stairs and eased the unguarded door open.
A young woman lay curled up on the bed, her knees tucked up under her chin. The curtains of the window were wide open, allowing a pale blanket of moonlight to cover her sleeping form. Her hair was loose and fanned out on her pillow. Tanner was not a man to ever think of heaven or angels, but this sweet creature was beautiful. No wonder the old fool wanted her so much.
He thought of his Lacy, of what it had been like before she’d been taken by his master. For one eternal second Tanner was tempted to take the girl and keep her for himself. He imagined her being grateful, rescued from two horrible fates. Would she feel the same as his Lacy had? But no. That was simply a fantasy. He needed the money she would bring, more than any illusions of love.