The Regency Season: Gentleman Rogues. Margaret McPhee

in sleep his face was etched with exhaustion.

      ‘Papa,’ she whispered and brushed a butterfly kiss against the deep lines of his forehead.

      ‘Jane?’ Her mother’s name.

      ‘It is Emma.’

      ‘Emma. You are home safe, my girl?’

      ‘I am home safe,’ she confirmed and thought again of the man who had ensured it. ‘Let me help you to bed.’

      ‘I can manage, my dearest.’ He got to his feet with a great deal of stiffness and shuffled through to the smaller of the two rooms.

      The door closed with a quiet click, leaving Emma standing there alone.

      She touched her fingers to her kiss-swollen lips and knew she should not have kissed Ned Stratham.

      He was a Whitechapel man, a man from a different world than her own, a customer who drank in the Red Lion’s taproom. And he was fierce and dangerous, and darkly mysterious. And she had no future here. And much more besides. She knew all of that. And knew, too, her mother would be turning in her grave.

      But as she moved behind the partitioning screen and changed into her nightdress, in her nose was not the usual sweet mildew, but the lingering scent of soap and leather and something that was just the man himself. And as she pulled back the threadbare covers and climbed into the narrow makeshift bed, in her blood was a warmth.

      Emma lay there, staring into the darkness. They said when the devil tempted he offered a heart’s desire. Someone tall and dangerous and handsome. She closed her eyes, but she could still see those piercing blue eyes and her lips still tingled and throbbed from the passion of his kiss.

      When exhaustion finally claimed her and she sank into the blissful comfort of sleep she dreamed of a tall, dangerous, handsome man tempting her to forbidden lusts, tempting her to give up her struggle to leave Whitechapel and stay here with him. And in the dream she yielded to her heart’s desire and was lost beyond all redemption.

      * * *

      Tom did not come to the Red Lion the next night, but Ned Stratham did.

      Their gazes held across the taproom, the echoes of last night rippling like an incoming tide, before she turned away to serve a table. Butterflies were dancing in her stomach, but she knew that after what had happened between them, she had to rectify the matter. She emptied her tray, then made her way to where he sat alone.

      Those blue eyes met hers.

      She felt her heart trip faster and quelled the reaction with an iron hand. Faced him calmly and spoke quietly, but firmly enough that only he would hear.

      ‘Last night, we should not have, I should not have... It was a mistake, Ned.’

      He said nothing.

      ‘I’m not that sort of a woman.’

      ‘You’re assuming I’m that kind of a man.’

      ‘Lest you had forgotten, this is a chop-house not so far from the docks. All the men in here are that kind of a man.’

      He smiled at that. A hard smile. ‘Not gentlemen, but scoundrels.’

      ‘I did not say that.’

      ‘It’s what you meant.’

      He glanced across the room to where Paulette was working behind the bar before returning his gaze to hers.

      Nancy’s curses sounded from the kitchen.

      And she knew he knew that Tom had not come in again, that there was no one to see her home.

      Ned looked at her with eyes that made no pretence as to the man he was, with eyes that made her resolutions weaken.

      ‘Emma!’ Nancy’s voice bellowed.

      ‘It is not your duty to see me home.’

      ‘It is not,’ he agreed.

      As their gazes held in a strange contest of wills, they both knew it was already decided. Ned Stratham was not going to let her take her chances with a kitchen knife through the Whitechapel streets tonight.

      ‘Get yourself over here, Emma!’ Nancy sounded as if she were losing what little patience she possessed.

      Ned did walk her home. And he did kiss her. And she gave up pretending to herself that she did not want it or him.

      * * *

      He came to the Red Lion every night after that, even when Tom had returned. And every night he walked her home. And every night he kissed her.

      * * *

      Ned tumbled the token over his fingers and leaned his spine back against the old lichen-stained stone seat. St Olave’s church clock chimed ten. Down the hill at the London Docks the early shift had started five hours ago.

      The sky was a cloudless blue. The worn stone was warm beneath his thighs. His hat sat on the bench by his side and he could feel a breeze stir through his hair. His usual perch. His usual view.

      His thoughts drifted to the previous night and Emma de Lisle. Two weeks of walking with her and he could not get her out of his head. Not those dark eyes or that sharp mind. She could hold her own with him. She had her secrets as much as he. A lady’s maid who had no wish to discuss her dismissal or her background. She was proud and determined and resourceful. There weren’t many women in Whitechapel like her. There weren’t any women like her. Not that he had known across a lifetime and he had seen about as much of Whitechapel as it was possible to see.

      Life had not worn her down or sapped her energy. She had a confidence and a bearing about her comparable with those who came from a lifetime of wealth. She had learnt well from her mistress. A woman like Emma de Lisle would be an asset to any man in any walk of life; it was a thought that grew stronger with the passing days.

      And he wanted her. Ned, who did not give in to wants and desires. He wanted her with a passion. And he was spending his nights and too many of his days imagining what it would be like to unlace that tight red dress from her body, to bare her and lay her down on his bed. Ned suppressed the thoughts. He was focused. He was disciplined. He kept to the plan. It was what had brought him this far.

      The plan had never involved a woman like her. The plan had been for someone quite different. But she was as refreshing as a cool breeze on a clammy day. She was Whitechapel, the same as him, but with vision that encompassed a bigger view. She had tasted the world on the other side of London. He had a feeling she would understand what it was he was doing, an instinct that she would feel the same about it as he did. And part of being successful was knowing when to be stubborn and stick to the letter of the plan and when to be flexible.

      His gaze shifted.

      The old vinegar manufactory across the road lay derelict. Pigeons and seagulls vied for supremacy on the hole-ridden roof. Weeds grew from the crumbling walls.

      Tower Hill lay at his back. And above his head the canopy of green splayed beech leaves provided a dapple shelter. He could hear the breeze brush through the leaves, a whisper beside the noises that carried up the hill from the London Docks; the rhythmic strike of hammers, the creak and thud of crates being moved and dropped, the squeak of hoists and clatter of chains, the clopping of work horses and rumbling of carts.

      A man might live a lifetime and never meet a woman like Emma de Lisle.

      Ned’s fingers toyed with the ivory token as he watched the men moving about in the dockyard below, men he had known all of his life, men who were friends, or at least had been not so very long ago, unloading the docked ship.

      Footsteps drew his attention. He glanced up the street and recognised the woman immediately, despite the fact she was not wearing the figure-hugging red dress, but a respectable sprig muslin and green shawl, and a faded straw bonnet with a green ribbon hid her hair and most of her face. Emma de Lisle; as if summoned by the vision in his head. She faltered when she saw him as if contemplating turning back and walking