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

young man who helped my sister yesterday evening. My servant followed him when he did not stay to be thanked, and it was to this house that he returned. This morning at around the hour of five after sending his carriage on.’

      Miriam looked so flabbergasted that Emerald felt bound to break across her silence. ‘Perhaps he means Liam, Aunt Miriam?’ she prompted and hoped that her aunt might take the hint, though as blankness and silence lengthened she realised she would have to brazen this out by herself. ‘Yes, it must be Liam that you speak of. My cousin. He was here for two days only and left this morning for the country, but I shall tell him that you came to relay your thanks. Now,’ she added as if the whole subject was decidedly passé and she wanted no more discussion, ‘would you like tea?’

      The Duke’s returning glance was so cold that Emerald felt her heart tremble, and his voice when he spoke was fine edged with anger.

      ‘My sister said Mr Kingston had an unusual accent, Lady Emma. Would this accent be the same one as your own?’

      ‘It is, your Grace.’ She did not elaborate, but as he swiped his hair back off his face she saw that the two last fingers on his right hand were missing and the stumps where they once had been were criss-crossed in scar tissue.

       He has become a ruthless warrior because of the actions of my family.

      She made herself stop. She could not feel sorry for a man who had stalked her father and run him through with the sharp edge of his sword. More than once, it was said. And more than what was warranted.

       Warranted?

      Therein lay the rub. She had heard the story of Asher Wellingham’s hatred for her father from every camp except his own. And if life had taught her anything it was the fact that things were seldom black and white. Aye, grey came in many shades. Her father’s dreams. Her mother’s disappearance. Her own childhood lost between the scramble for easy gold and the rum-soaked taverns of Kingston Town.

      Lord, she had to be careful. She had to appear exactly who it was she purported to be or else he would know her. Expose her. Consign Ruby to the care of the nuns in the Hill Street Convent for ever. Ruby. Her heart twisted as she remembered the last sight of her little half-sister being bundled away by the dour and formidable Sister Margaret. How long had it been now? Over a hundred days. The time of passage to England and the weeks waiting for Carisbrook to appear. Without the map she could provide neither home nor sustenance, the squalor of the Kingston Town port streets no place for a fey and frightened child of eight.

      Accordingly she schooled impatience and, catching the rough gist of her aunt’s conversation, observed the man opposite carefully.

      This morning he was dressed in fawn trousers and a brown jacket, the cravat matching his white shirt loosely tied in a casual style she had not seen before. With one long leg crossed over the other, he gave the impression of a man well used to power and unquestioned authority and his confidence was contagious after years of living with a father who had little of either.

      Damn it, but she must not think like this either. Beau’s choices had been foisted on him by his own self-doubt and excessive introspection. If at times he had made decisions that were suspect, he had still tried through it all to provide a home for her and Ruby. A home Asher Wellingham had shattered when he returned to the Caribbean bent on revenge.

      Revenge.

      His revenge and now her revenge? And what difference lay between them as the thin veneer of right and wrong tumbled under the greater pressure of need? She shook her head and poured the tea. When he stood to take the cup from her, their fingers accidentally met, and everything slowed.

      Time.

      Breath.

      Fear.

      The beat of her heart narrowed as she felt the warmth of his skin. Reaching out, she grabbed the arm of the sofa. To stop herself falling. Into him. For ever.

      Whatever was wrong with her? She was acting like the simpering misses so prevalent in London and she did not even recognise these constant, damning blushes that seemed to consume her from head to toe. Her resolve firmed.

      ‘Excuse me,’ she said when she saw his pupils widen. ‘The accident at the ball yesterday has left me rather poorly …’ Leaving the explanation in mid-air she noticed that he had placed his cup on the side table as if making ready to catch her again.

       Poorly?

      When in her life had she ever used such a word? In the fading light of day she suddenly saw herself as he would see her. Vulnerable. Delicate. Feminine. She almost had to repress a smile. So easy to make men believe exactly what you would want them to. So simple to become a person of such little account. Lifting a fan from the table next to her, she was pleased for the cooling breeze it engendered and used the moment to take stock.

      Asher Wellingham was older and harder now and the icy brittleness that coated his eyes was disconcerting. Here, in the blandness of a London drawing room, she could feel a barely concealed danger, a thread of the warrior only lightly clothed beneath his well-pressed jacket and pantaloons. Untamed. Ready to pounce should she put a foot wrong. Oh, God, she blanched, she had already put a foot wrong, last night in her haste to get home, and she was worried by the way he watched her now.

      How could he not know me?

      She almost smiled at the whisper of the words as she took a sip of sugary tea, the quick infusion of sweetness bolstering her confidence further. With the practice of one well used to schooling her expression into the shape of something she wasn’t, she placed her hand across her mouth and stifled a yawn. Effortlessly.

      Asher watched Emma Seaton with an ever-growing feeling of speculation. He could not understand this woman at all. Nothing about her quite made sense. She still wore the same gloves she had had on last night, which was odd given that they were stained. And this morning, although the scar above her eyebrow was still unhidden, a nasty bruise on her cheekbone had been smothered in thick beige face paint in an attempt to conceal it. From whom?

      ‘You have hurt yourself?’

      ‘I fell against the side of a door. Miriam treated it for me just an hour ago and I hoped it was not too … too noticeable.’ Her hand hovered across the mark and he was touched by the movement. She wore the oldest clothes he had ever seen a woman dare to at any social occasion and her hair today was as badly tended as it had been yesterday. Yet she was embarrassed by the bruise upon her face? Nothing about Emma Seaton made sense.

      Nothing.

      She always wore gloves. She had the same accent as the mysterious and absent Mr Kingston. And she was frightened and decidedly delicate.

      Looking around him, other things jarred. The furniture was as badly down at heel as her clothing, yet in the shelf by the window sat well over a hundred books, leather bound and expensive. Kingslake. Wordsworth. Byron and Plato. English was the predominant translation, though many were embellished with the script of the Arabian world. Who the hell here would read those? Defoe stood in company with John Locke, non-conformist authors who chided the establishment with an underlying hint of something darker.

      Could the books be Liam Kingston’s? He was about to question the Countess on the matter when the doorbell rang and his sister and her maid swept in.

      ‘I am so awfully sorry to just drop in on you like this, Lady Haversham, but I had to come. I am Lady Lucinda Wellingham, and I was informed that Mr Kingston returned home here last night. After he helped me?’ The final enquiry was murmured somewhat breathlessly. ‘It’s just that I would so like to thank him, you see?’

      Asher crossed the room to stand by his sister. ‘Liam Kingston has departed, Lucinda. Back to …?’ His voice was filled with question.

      ‘His home.’ Miriam’s hesitation shrieked volumes.

      ‘But he will return?’ Lucy could barely contain her interest.

      ‘I do not think so. No.’ Emerald had regained her wits