Heartless (The House of Rohan 5)

“She’ll get a crick in her neck if she keeps trying to avoid the sight of you,” Noonan said with a certain malice. “I’ve always told you that if someone won’t look you in the face then they aren’t worth knowing.”

Brandon grinned, turning from the mirror. “You think I’m pining for my lost beauty, Noonan? I mind my bad leg more. And I’m more than used to people staring at my shoulder instead of meeting my gaze. It no longer bothers me.”

“I know, laddie,” Noonan said, and there was an unexpected note of sympathy in his scratchy Irish accent. “You know one thing that’s odd? That woman—the pretty one, what used to be a doxy. What’s her name?”

“Emma Cadbury,” Brandon said in an expressionless voice. For some reason he’d bristled at the word “doxy” but it was nothing more than the truth, and a man like Noonan would pass no judgments.

“Aye, that’s the one. That one looks you straight in the eye and— she doesn’t flinch. To my mind she’s worth ten of anyone else here, saving your family.” He took a step back and ran his eyes over Brandon. “You look as pretty as you’re going to, though I don’t know why you bother. I’m going down to the kitchen to get meself a drop of good whiskey and maybe an armful of that plump scullery maid while you have to sit all stiff and proper. When you come to your senses and are ready to head north all you have to do is say

the word and I’ll have our horses saddled.”

It was tempting, so tempting, just to run away from this mess his once simple life had become. Running away from Emma Cadbury made even more sense—she upset his hard-won equilibrium.

“Soon,” he promised. Turning away, he moved toward the window as the door closed behind Noonan. It was still raining—did he need to build an ark to get out of here? He was used to rain in Scotland—liquid sunshine, they called it, and then ignored it, going about their business anyway. Here it seemed to call a halt to everything, and he was ready to explode.

Damn, damn, damn. Why had he kissed her? She was broken, perhaps as broken as he was, and despite her prickles she needed to be treated gently, and instead he’d been on her like a teenage boy, ignoring her injuries, perhaps even ignoring her dislike of the whole situation. He’d been so aroused, had been fighting it for so long that once his infernal lust had slipped its bonds he might have been too far gone to notice her dislike.

But no, she’d put her hands on him, closer than he’d expected, and her body had melted against his, and he’d felt, absolutely felt her own longing. He wasn’t a man who deluded himself, and he knew that, despite her antipathy, despite her very rough history, she was as deeply attracted to him as he was to her. Strange—he’d never had such an instantaneous feeling that someone was important to him, someone seemingly so strong, yet he suspected was far more vulnerable than she let on.

He’d once had a baby hedgehog when he’d been a boy—he’d always been collecting animals back then. His mother had told him his room was like a zoological garden, but she never forbade him to bring in the wounded birds, the motherless rabbits, the companionable ferret with the missing leg.

Emma was like a broken bird, he thought, staring out into the rain. A raven in a wren’s costume, that mesmerizing beauty banked down and hidden.

She was neither a raven nor a wren. She was a robin—bright and smart and strong, but she was hiding, and he wasn’t the man to lure her out into the sunlight, not when he lived in darkness himself.

She’d tasted so good, so right. It had felt like coming home, that kiss, all those kisses behind the door of the salon, and his head kept filling with fantasies so depraved he should be ashamed of himself. He wasn’t. He’d always had strong sexual appetites, ones he’d done his best to bank down since the horror of his time with the Heavenly Host, but Emma Cadbury woke something in him he’d forgotten.

A visit with the discreet Widow MacKinnon would take care of it, he told himself. All cats were gray in the dark, and Fiona MacKinnon was a talented and enthusiastic lover. If anyone could put Emma out of his mind it would be Fiona. If anyone could.

In the meantime he had to go downstairs and be attentive to his meek little fiancée, unless someone had been kind to her and set her at a distance from him, and he’d try to remember his duty, when all the time he was wishing he was in the kitchen drinking whiskey with Noonan. No, he didn’t miss the whiskey, he thought, prodding that old desire like one prodded a sore tooth to see whether it still hurt. He just missed his simpler life.

Would Emma even come down to dinner? Could he sit, expressionless, pretending? He had no choice in the matter, and Benedick would skin him alive if he knew he’d kissed his wife’s best friend.

He straightened his shoulders. He was a Rohan, more than anything. He did what he had to do, by conventional or unconventional means, and he tried not to let anyone bear the results of his wayward desires and morals but himself. His grandfather Francis would approve, the old satyr.

There was a definite pall over the group gathered for dinner that night. Charles was gone, and Brandon neither knew nor cared where. To the devil, he hoped. His absence was about the only good thing about the evening. He entered the grand dining room, Miss Frances Bonham’s tiny, gloved hand on his arm, looking around for Emma. He couldn’t decide whether her absence was a blessing or a curse.

He’d done his duty with the perfect air of courtesy and amiability, meeting with his intended to give her a chance to get used to him. After the debacle in the reception room he’d been sure she’d cry off, but his hopes were in vain. She didn’t like this any more than he did, but she had fixed her gaze on his shoulder, determined not to see the ruination of his face, and she made the proper responses as if she’d memorized them, while the dragon beside her kept a strong, comforting hand on the heiress’s shoulder. She seemed to like their proposed marriage even less than the bride and groom did, and he wondered if there was something she could do that would put an end to this. Miss Marion Trimby was in her mid-thirties, and she looked like someone who was used to being in charge. If he really was forced to marry Miss Bonham, there’d be a battle over who controlled her. It was quite clear that young Frances had no interest or ability to assert her independence.

The other guests had already been seated when he escorted her into the dining room, and they all immediately rose, applauding politely as he led Frances to her seat between Benedick and one of the chowderheads who’d gone in search of the maid and apparently became violently ill over her remains. He settled the girl carefully, the perfect husband-to-be. The word was out, then, not that it made any difference. Once a Rohan agreed to something he didn’t renege—he had promised to give this terrified young creature the protection of his name, what little protection it was. As a married woman she would exist on a completely different level of society, and while there was no way to erase his hideous accusation, the fact that he married her would speak for something. This was her only way to return to the kind of life she’d been born to.

“Is something wrong?” his nervous fiancée whispered when his arm jerked.

He smiled down at her with determined benevolence. “Nothing at all, my dear.” He couldn’t call her Frances, and Miss Bonham seemed ridiculously formal. He looked up, and there were two empty seats at the table. Correct social behavior was automatic, and he headed toward the proper seat, wondering who could be even later than he had been, when there was a shadow at the door, and whom he had been looking for, whom he had been dreading, had arrived. Emma Cadbury stood in the door, murmuring abject apologies, never sparing him a single glance.

She had her thick black hair scraped back away from her face, and the bruising near her temple did not show as prominently, although he thought she had helped that along with rice powder. There were still shadows under her eyes, her mouth was tight and thin with determination, and the gray dress she wore was even frumpier than her previous ones, something he wouldn’t have thought possible. She was breathtaking.

He moved behind her chair, ready to pull it out for her, and for a moment the memory of their afternoon kisses flared in her eyes before it was quickly extinguished.

Everyone had, of course, risen again, including his sister-in-law, and for some indiscernible reason Melisande had a truly miserable expression on her face. “Emma!” she cried, and there was an odd tone in her voice. “I didn’t think you’d be able to join us for dinner.”

Emma looked suddenly alert. “A short rest improved everything,” she said, and Brandon could attest to it. He wanted to cross the room, take her hand and pull her out into the hallway, back to the salon with the divan and the door to hide behind, or back to his vast room and his empty bed. He didn’t blink, his face impassive.

Melisande had already started around the table in Emma’s direction. “You cannot be too careful, my love. You’ve been through an awful experience—I can’t imagine even being out of bed, much less coming downstairs twice in one day. Why don’t you retire and I’ll have a plate brought to you?”

The extreme oddness of the conversation didn’t escape the other couples at the tables, but then, Melisande was known to be eccentric and egalitarian in her views and behavior. For some reason she seemed intent of sending her friend away from the dinner table. All eyes swerved back to Emma, awaiting her response. As he was, he realized, not even glancing at Frances.

Emma narrowed her magnificent eyes for a moment, as if trying to understand what Melisande was hinting, and then she did something very interesting indeed. She cast another glance at him as he stood there waiting, as if he had something to do with Melisande’s very odd behavior.