Regency Scandals: High Seas To High Society / Masquerading Mistress. Sophia James

that hung from the latticed balcony, she crept around the edges of the lawn, careful to walk where the vegetation overlaid the grass so her footprints would not show. At the wide door that accessed the library from the garden she paused and drew out a piece of wire. Slotting it into the lock, she was glad to hear the mechanism turn and the portal spring open.

      One minute at most.

      Letting herself into the room, she stood against the velvet curtain and waited until her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness before lighting the candle.

      Bookcase upon bookcase greeted her, the leather-bound copies of a thousand volumes lending the musky scent of learning to the air. Her fingers ran across the embossed titles closest to her: Milton, Shakespeare, Webster, Donne and Johnson. A library that embraced great authors and their ideas. She wondered which of the Carisbrooks was the reader and guessed it to be Asher, the thought making her smile.

      A low shelf to one side of the room caught her attention. Rolls of paper were stacked against a cupboard and behind them there was an alcove containing other things. Umbrellas, parasols and walking sticks.

      Her heart began to hammer. Could it be this easy? She held her breath as she sorted through the objects. A stick of ebony, another of some fragrant wood and a third handmade, using the shiny limbs of birch. Her father’s cane with the map inside it was not among them. Neither was it in the next room nor the next one.

      Some time later she knew that she would be pressing her luck to keep searching. Already she had heard the stirrings of the servants in the kitchens and knew very soon other maids would come to set the fires or draw the curtains. Creeping out of the room she was in, she found herself in a smaller salon with a row of windows gracing one wall—it was then that she saw it.

      The first light of pale dawn slanted across a portrait. A portrait of the Duke of Carisbrook and a woman. Her Grace, Melanie, the Duchess of Carisbrook, the title written beneath it said, and she was beautiful.

      Melanie. As in the ship that was ready to launch in London? Asher’s wife? A red-haired beauty with eyes the colour of midnight. Emerald could not keep from studying the face.

      What had happened to her? Where was she? The date on the painting was from ten years ago and she would have been merely the age that Emerald was now. Who could she ask? Lucinda, perhaps. Quietly, of course. She ran her fingers across the thick swirl of paint that made up a brocade skirt and looked again at the painting. Asher Wellingham’s hair was short and he was young. As young as his wife and in love. She could see it in the light of his eyes and in the way his hand curled around hers, holding them together in an eternal embrace.

      And the ring that Melanie Wellingham sported on her marriage finger was the same ring that Asher Wellingham now wore on his little finger.

      An unexpected noise to one end of the room had her turning and she left the house with only the slightest of whispers.

      Asher stood against the door to the small salon and watched Emma Seaton blow out her candle and slide through the opened window with all the expertise and finesse of a consummate thief. Hardly a noise, barely a footprint. He had thought her an intruder at first until the light from the flame had thrown her high cheekbones into relief.

      What the hell was she doing here? He walked across to stand where she had just been, in front of the picture above the mantel, and his heart wrenched with sadness.

      The wedding portrait painted just after they had returned from their honeymoon in Scotland. God. It had been so many years ago now he could barely recognise the man he was then. Cursing, he turned away and went to the window, watching as a shadow, black against the pearly dawn, flitted around the edge of the house leaving no trace of its presence. No sign of what he could not believe that he had seen.

      Who was she?

      A thief? A robber? Something more sinister?

      Another wilder thought surfaced. What had Lucinda said of Liam Kingston? Tall. Accented. Thin.

       Emma Seaton.

      Hell! There was no Liam Kingston. It had always been her. The Countess of Haversham had certainly appeared bemused by Emma’s insistence on a cousin. And now he knew why.

      He almost laughed at the ruse and would have marched to her room then and there and confronted her had not another thought stopped him.

      She had saved his sister.

      She had risked her own life for the well-being of a stranger. The bruise on her cheek. Her embarrassment. Her ridiculous story as to how it had happened.

      She had saved Lucinda from certain damnation and ruination and she had demanded nothing in return.

      Why?

      He would find out.

      But first he had to determine whether Lady Emma Seaton posed a danger to his family. Starting from today.

      The Duke of Carisbrook was still at the table when Emerald went down to breakfast later that morning. Folding his paper, he waited as she gave the hovering servant her preference of beverage.

      ‘I trust you slept well last night.’

      She smiled at his query and helped herself to a slice of toast from the rack in the centre of the table. ‘Oh, indeed I did, your Grace. It must be the country air.’ She yawned widely.

      ‘And your bed was comfortable?’

      ‘Very.’

      ‘You were not disturbed by any noises in the night?’

      She gave him a sideways look to determine where this line of questioning might be leading. ‘No, I certainly was not. Why, as soon as my head hits the pillow I am generally asleep and stay so until the morning.’

      ‘You are most fortunate, then.’

      ‘You do not sleep well?’

      ‘I don’t.’ He raised his cup of coffee to his lips and peered at her over the rim. When his eyes locked on to hers, it was she who looked away, making much of buttering her toast. He might suspect her, but that was all. And tonight, forewarned of his lightness of sleep, she would be far more careful in her searching.

      ‘I was planning a ride across the fields of Falder. Would you like to accompany me? Lucy has a spare riding skirt and jacket and you will find anything else you need in the room off the stables.’

      ‘I’m not certain. It has been a long time since I was on a horse.’

      ‘We will go slowly, Lady Emma.’

      Emerald frowned, for beneath the outward affinity there was a look that held a hint of something much darker. A rage kept only in check by a steel-strong will. She tried to keep the conversation light.

      ‘Lucinda said your mother resides here in Falder but I have yet to meet her. She also said that the Dowager Duchess enjoys keeping bad health.’

      He smiled at that, the white of his teeth startling against the tan on his face.

      ‘That she does. Lucinda surprises me sometimes with her insights into others. Take your cousin for instance.’ A gleam of something she could not quite interpret danced in his eyes. ‘Liam Kingston. She saw him as an honourable man. A man who would not lie. A trait of character to be commended in a person, would you not say?’

      ‘Indeed, I would.’ She hoped he did not hear the waver in her voice.

      ‘Indeed, you would,’ he repeated and lifted a silver knife to take jam from the pot before him. He used his left hand for almost everything, she noted. Writing. Smoking. Eating. The hand that was not ruined.

      Her mind went back to the day they had boarded his ship and she took in a short breath. He had once been right-handed. She was certain of it. The enormity of the realisation made her stiffen. When had the accident happened? Lord, not straight after she had toppled him overboard? Surely not right then.

      ‘My family is extremely important to me, Lady Emma, and as the head of