She wasn’t his. Not truly. She couldn’t be, thanks to who she was and who he was. He’d do best to remember that. But his prick had never been partial to logic or reason. Such was the plight of a cove.
“I only want her because of what she’s worth to me,” he defended himself quickly. “I need her to force the earl into telling us everything he knows about Loge.”
“You never did say why you think Haldringham would have had aught to do with our brother,” Wolf said, still holding the base of the gin bottle in his hands and giving it a slow, steady spin on the desk rather than taking another sip. “Jasper thinks Loge is dead. He said so again today.”
Rage simmered, happily replacing the longing that rose whenever he thought of Lady Emma. “Loge is alive.”
He had to believe that. He did believe that. Every move he had made for the last few weeks had been with that belief firmly pinned in his mind. Logan was out there, somewhere. He bleeding knew it.
“What if he ain’t?” Wolf asked quietly.
“Then we’ll find out the truth of what ’appened,” he bit out, suddenly tense. “One way or another, I’ll get the answers.”
Even if he died trying.
Spin, spin, spinwent the bottle of gin, the glass dragging on the wood in a sound that had become grating.
Wolf cocked his head, considering Hart in that knowing way only a sibling could possess. “What will you do with the lady if you can’t use her to get what you want from the earl?”
That had never occurred to him. Failure was not something he was willing to consider. He had set on this course with the intention of finding his brother, and by God, that was what he was going to do. One way or another.
“Haldringham will give me what I want, or he’s going to pay,” Hart said.
“And so will the lady,” Wolf said quietly.
And damn his hide, but he was right. He was right, and Hart did not like it, nor did he like the knowledge that he would ultimately be responsible for causing Lady Emma harm. Sweet Lady Emma, who was kind and compassionate, who looked at him with those bright, pretty eyes fringed with golden lashes as if he were some sort of bleeding hero instead of the bastard who had orchestrated her ruin. If she knew the truth about him, she never would have been fretting over him earlier when she had discovered his wound.
He forced the bitter reminder from his mind and reached for the bottle Wolf had commandeered. “If you ain’t going to drink the sky blue, send it my way, will you? I’ve a thirst that needs quenching.”
And a mind and a wound that both need numbing.
He kept that bit to himself.
Ordinarily, he did not get soused this early in the day. Or was it evening by now? Floating hell, ever since the battle in the streets with the Bradley boys and old Papa Bradley himself, Hart hadn’t an inkling what bleeding time of day it was. Could be midnight. Could be the next morning. This deep within the inner bowels of The Sinner’s Palace, a cove never knew the hour anyway, as there weren’t windows. The wall sconces were kept lit until the early hours of the morning when the gaming hell closed its doors.
“Speaking of the lady, I expect you’ll be wanting to return to her side before too long,” Wolf observed grimly, watching as Hart shamelessly gulped down more gin. “She’s been wandering about, causing trouble. Some of the lads were asking after ’er. Besides, you drink too much more of the good old strip-me-naked, and you’ll be crawling back to your room.”
“Who?” The urge to deliver a second round of drubbings was strong.
He did not know where this strange, protective feeling was emerging from, and he had no wish to examine it. He could not afford to indulge in such foolishness, for he had a plan, and he had to stay true to it, or all the elaborate lengths he had gone to so that he could find the truth about what had happened to Loge would have been in vain.
“The guards.” Wolf reclaimed the rapidly emptying bottle. “Not developing tender feelings for the lady, are you, brother?”
Tender feelings.
Hart Sutton had never, not once in his life, had tender feelings for a woman. And he was not going to begin now. Not with Lady Emma Morgan, the woman he was going to use in whatever way he must to get the answers he needed about his brother. It did not matter that she brought him to life in a way he had never known, that she inspired temptation and forbidden desire in him that were so potent and forceful they threatened to swallow him whole. That he knew how sweetly responsive she was to his touch and caress, and God above, to his tongue…
Floating hell.
He did have tender feelings for Lady Emma Morgan. And judging from the sudden, rude state of his cock, he also had less-than-tender ones.
He swallowed against a rising knot of self-loathing. “I paid for her, is all. I’ll not be sharing with Randall and Hugh.”
Or anyone else.
Ever.
Because Lady Emma Morgan is mine.
He tamped down the foolish thoughts, which were likely brought on by the blue ruin rotting his mind. He needed more gin to drown out those bleeding stupid ideas. To forget about how much he wanted her.
He had been about to take her earlier, when Wolf had come to the door. He was damned glad now that he hadn’t, that the interruption had been at the precise moment to keep him from doing something that could not be undone. From bedding her, taking her innocence. From drowning himself in the pleasures she offered.
“If you say so, brother.” Wolf shrugged, but there was a distinct tone of amusement in his voice.
Unless Hart was mistaken, the bastard was enjoying his discomfiture.