Chapter Fifteen

IT WAS EMMA'S UNFORTUNATE luck that had the earl repeat his visit to the Daisies on several occasions when Callum MacKenzie was either already there, or just about to leave. Callum did stop by rather regularly, always solicitous of Emma's needs, several times taking Emma and Bethany into Perry Green in the early morning. She considered this unfortunate because there seemed to be something about the simple presence of her neighbor that brought out the beast in Zachary.

He could apparently forget all his good breeding at the snap of a finger, for the introduction of the two men was thick with something Emma could not name, but she felt it in the air; and two encounters after that had the earl nearly growling, all but curling his lip as he only nodded a greeting to Callum. While Callum seemed not immune to Zachary's unmistakable displeasure at finding him again and again at the Daisies, he seemed, on the whole, unperturbed by the earl's aloofness.

It was in Emma to inquire of the earl exactly what his intent was—if he visited solely to harass her and her neighbor with his foul mood, she did not then, desire his company.

On the first day of the next week, when Emma was set to begin her job at the modiste's shop, the earl arrived as was becoming his habit shortly after the noon hour. Emma herself was just arriving home as Callum had driven her and Bethany into Perry Green to visit the butcher. She stepped out of Callum's wagon and lifted Bethany down as well, reaching up to Callum to accept her purchases from him just as the earl's fancy carriage pulled into the small drive in front of the daisies. Emma nearly groaned aloud at this untimely occurrence.

She gave no thought to the sleek vehicle and fine horses of the earl sitting next to the well-used cart and work team of Callum's, but did forgo her thought to invite Callum in to luncheon as she'd thought to do, in appreciation of all the assistance he gave her. She only bid Callum yet another ‘thank you' and ‘good day' and then rolled her eyes as she watched the two men all but square off, skinnying their eyes at each other before Callum pulled his wagon from the yard and headed down the lane.

The earl set the brake on the carriage and jumped down fluidly to stand before Emma, taking up Bethany in his arms as she was ever happy to see him.

"Really, my lord, you must refrain from scaring my company away," she said as they moved toward the door, waving to Henry, who was out in the orchard, though he appeared to have no tool in hand, and seemed to be about no vocation.

The earl held the front door open for Emma and followed her inside, to the kitchen. "I don't like him," was all he said.

Pertly, Emma replied, "I don't care. Callum is a very good friend and he is very kind to us. And correct me if I am wrong, my lord, but I thought I was my own person, who made her own decisions."

Having set the meat down, Emma was surprised to find herself spun around by the earl, his huge hand tight around her wrist. He still held Bethany in his arms but spared her not the frustration in his voice.

"Emma, what the hell are you doing? Are you wanting him or me? "

"What are you talking about?" Her growing frown matched his.

"Emma, you cannot go about being courted by two men. Eventually, you've got to cut one loose."

"Courted? Who said anything about courting?"

"What, in the name of all that is holy, do you think I'm doing?"

"You are courting me?" Her tone alone conveyed appropriately the extent of her shock. She stammered and stalled and hadn't a clue how to answer that, and was peripherally, yet vaguely aware that Bethany was watching them, wide-eyed. Finally she said, "I—I thought you were just trying to...." she didn't know the polite term for what she'd really thought.

Zachary lifted his brow, waiting. "What?"

While her heart flipped and flopped inside her chest, she stalled him by saying lamely, "Well, you have to admit, your technique leaves a bit to be desired. If your idea of courting involves being bossy and controlling and grumpy, then I guess I should have known."

"And kissing," he added. "Don't forget the kissing."

As if she could!

Something occurred to Emma just then. Perhaps what he called courting—and its ultimate goal—and what she knew courting to be—and her idea of the desired end result—were two different things. Now, this made more sense. Now she understood. Oh, she didn't doubt that he wanted her. She was not blind to his watchful and appreciative glances, nor a stone to be unaffected by his kisses, but she felt deep inside her that his desires were to be a short-lived thing, and immediately an image of her sister came to mind. Men such as the earl only embarked on relationships with girls like her for one reason. And, as they so often did, Lady M's cautionary words haunted her just now.

She met his eyes, her own filled with sorrow. "I'm sorry, my lord. I...I have no desire to be courted by you."

His expression did not change. She could well sense that he was trying to read her, while his eyes remained maddeningly inscrutable. A vein in his neck bulged and faded, and then repeated the motion, so that Emma was sure he wrestled internally with something, perhaps holding back words inside his clenched teeth.

She didn't have to feign mournfulness, only attempted to project it on to him, and not at herself. "I may have given you the wrong impression," she lied, "that I...desired or enjoyed...your kiss. I have only my inexperience to blame, and I hope you'll pardon my lapse in judgment, and certainly anything else I may have done to give you the idea that I would want to be...courted." Dear Lord! As thrilled as she was to have been able to utter those remarks with some conviction, she was sure no words have ever tasted more grotesquely false coming from her lips.

He continued to stare at her. Glare, really. He was glaring at her.

After several moments, when she'd become very afraid that holding her breath so frantically as she was might prove deadly, the earl stepped forward and passed Bethany over to her. Surprised, Emma received her daughter, and then felt immediately a modicum of peace, that the child created a bit of a barrier, to which she clung.

The earl strode to the door, his steps measured and stark. He turned and said to her, "Of course, you are lying to me," which shattered any peace she might have gained. "But I'll give you time to get used to it. Cut MacKenzie loose, Emma. You are mine."

It wasn't right that a man could do that—woo you with promises he hoped you'd believe, and all in an effort to effect your own demise, in the end. She would not be a party to her own downfall.

AT SIX-THIRTY IN THE evening, Emma and Bethany set out on foot for Perry Green, Emma having dressed Bethany in her nightclothes, assuming the child would fall asleep before they returned home. They had barely started down the lane when Callum MacKenzie pulled up alongside them.

He didn't bother to pretend that he was here for any other reason but to drive Emma to her job. She smiled happily at him—he truly was a fine gentleman. "Honestly, Callum, you are too good to me," she protested as he lifted Bethany up onto the seat next to him. "I don't expect you to cart me around everywhere." She climbed up as well, and Callum gave a "Git on," to his team and they were off.

"I don't like the idea of you walking into Perry Green even at this hour, Miss Emma."

Emma laughed, holding her hat in place as it was a bit windy tonight. "Callum, when are you going to drop the ‘miss' and just call me Emma?"

If she didn't know better, she'd swear the big man sitting on the other side of Bethany actually blushed before he answered, turning his sheepish smile upon her. "That depends on you, I guess."

"On me? I've already given you leave to do so."

"It'd not be any of my business, Miss Emma, but exactly what is the fancy earl to you?"

Emma removed her eyes from him, just the smallest hint of guilt coloring her own cheeks. "He is nothing to me," she said and knew, even as she spoke the words, that they were false. "Absolutely nothing."

"Methinks she doth protest too much," Callum said gently. "Frankly, Miss Emma, if you were mine, I'd call you Emma. But I've a feeling your heart lies elsewhere."

She suspected as much as well, dreadful as the very idea was to her. She cast her misting eyes to Callum, who watched her carefully with a wan smile, and could do nothing more than shrug, that one motion expressing a wealth of turmoil and sadness.

They pulled up in front of the modiste just then and even before Emma could move, she felt his hand upon hers in her lap. "I'll be here at ten," he said.

Emma shook her head. "You needn't be. I don't want you to think—"

He squeezed her hand. "You're still my friend. True, I'd wish more, but I can see that your affections are otherwise engaged."

Sadly, Emma nodded, "And that, I wish otherwise."

"Can't tell the heart whom to love," he said sagely and let go of her hand.

EMMA ENTERED THE SHOP on High Street just before Madam Carriere might have locked up for the night. The little French woman was coming down the stairs of the beautifully appointed shop, a tape measure thrown around her neck, and a plump pin cushion cinched at her wrist. She stopped, near to the bottom of the stairs, staring at Emma with a confused expression on her face.

Emma smiled and greeted the woman, who slowly descended the remainder of the stairs. "I'm here to start working for you," Emma said, when the woman seemed to not understand why she might be here.

"Non, ma petite ," Madam Carriere said. "The big man—the earl—he was here to see me. He said you wouldn't be taking the job after all," she went on in heavily accented English. "I've hired a girl—even now, she is upstairs, scrubbing."

Emma's jaw gaped. How dare he! So absorbed was she in her fury, she paid no attention to Bethany, who was beginning to climb all over the modiste's fine furniture. Madam Carriere's widening eyes, trained on the child, alerted Emma of trouble. She scooped Bethany up and apologized hastily to Madam Carriere, making a quick exit before her tears ran fully down her cheeks.

Seething, she glanced up and down High Street, wondering if Callum were still about, but he was not. Walking so briskly, Bethany had to skip to keep up with her, Emma began to head home, her anger at this moment greater than any she could ever remember. He had no right! He didn't own her!

When she realized what she was doing to poor Bethany, she slowed her pace straight away and kept her fury to the activity in her mind. And when the sky above, roiling with clouds for most of the day, opened up upon them when they were not halfway home, her tears became sobs and she and Bethany were quickly soaked through. She picked up Bethany and began to run, a difficult task when the road was now slick with mud and her gown waylaid her efforts and Bethany was just getting too big to be carried for any great distances.

Thankfulness flooded her when she spied the Daisies coming into view nearly half an hour later. Emma winced then, thinking she might as well keep going—she would have to tell Callum that she didn't need to be retrieved. She kept on in the rain, cursing Zachary Benedict with every step she took and trudged up to Callum's front door, pounding heavily to have her raps heard above the rain. There wasn't even an overhang to offer them protection here, and no one was answering the door. Bethany had begun to cry, miserable in her wet clothing, and Emma continued to cry, sure as she was that the earl was the dastardliest man she'd ever met.

She gave up in this endeavor to notify Callum, as glancing around showed neither he nor his cart anywhere, and began to walk again, back up the hill toward the Daisies. She met Callum about halfway home. She knew when he spotted her for his gig picked up speed and pulled up sharply beside her. She wasted no time with pleasantries but handed Bethany up to him and followed quickly herself, crying to him that she hadn't a job after all .

Her very kind neighbor beat himself up over this as he turned the wagon around to bear her home. "I should've waited to make sure you were well settled—"

"No, Callum," she called back over the rain, "this is not your fault and please don't ask me to explain. I just want to go home and have a good, long bath."

Callum was ever a gentleman and so did not ask questions but sped up the team again and within a very few minutes they were pulling up to the Daisies. She thanked him profusely once more and cursed again the Earl of Lindsey.

AN HOUR LATER, EMMA had bathed Bethany and warmed her by a fire in the parlor before putting her down to bed. The storm still raged outside, seeming to grow worse by the minute. She'd removed her own wet clothes when they'd return but had yet to rid herself of the chill of the rain. Bucket by bucket, she emptied the shallow bath she'd prepared for Bethany and then refilled the copper tub with the steaming water she'd set to boil over the hearth. It was probably unwise, but it made sense for Emma and Bethany to have their baths in the kitchen, as it kept Emma from having to trudge up the stairs with many kettles of water.

In the dim light of late evening, the kitchen aglow with only the small flames of the hearth's fire, Emma discarded her heavy night rail and stepped into the knee-high tub. She'd stopped crying quite a while ago but there still remained a sniffle or two. Exhausted now, drained as well, she laid her head against the higher back of the tub and closed her eyes .

She woke—she didn't know how much later, though the water was only lukewarm now—to the sound of her name being called. Eyes widening in alarm, recognizing the voice of the earl, she scrambled to stand and reached for her night rail, just as the swinging door to the kitchen opened to present the man.

Emma squeaked, aware of her disastrous state of nudity and clutched the cloth of her robe tightly to her.

Zachary Benedict stopped in mid-stride, his eyes riveted to her wet and naked form, as startled as she. Instantly, Emma was aware that a change came over him. She didn't know his intention upon coming to her home, but she saw a purposeful glint enter his dark eyes as he studied her unabashedly.

"Get out!" She tried to scream, but it emerged as only a croak.

His eyes met hers, she only half aware of the ticking of a muscle at his jaw. Trying to keep the night rail covering the majority of her bare skin, she stepped from the disadvantageous position of the bath and ordered again that he leave. But being then nearer to him seemed to spark some greater force in him and he strode resolutely toward her, his eyes not leaving hers. He ignored her apparent outrage and the wetness of her skin and gathered her into his arms, having come at her without stopping at all. His lips found hers, his need urgent, devouring her at once, giving her no time to adjust to this intrusion, or gather the wherewithal to resist him. His desire enveloped her now like a warm blanket, Emma being completely conscious of exactly where his bare hands touched and burned her naked flesh.

Zachary's tongue traced the softness of her full lips, then pushed within, tasting the recesses of her mouth, while his hands began to caress her in places that only she had ever touched. She wasn't entirely aware of when her robe was dropped but knew soon the full heat of him from head to toe. There wasn't a thought in her head but a recognition of the feel and taste and scent of him, and too, her own body's response to him. She shivered in reaction to his coaxing kisses and thrilled at the feel of his hands upon her skin, moaning when his hand closed around her naked breast.

He'd taken his mouth from hers, showering kisses down her neck and over her shoulder before settling those lips devastatingly on her nipple, tightening the peak to marble hardness. A delicious shudder racked her body. The sight of his dark head lowered over her breast enlivened her, and she dug her slim fingers into his thick crop of hair, holding him to her nipple, reveling in the insane swirling inside of her. But he lifted his head, came back to her lips, scooping her up in his arms in one fluid motion, not having to remove his mouth from hers as he strode through the door and down the hall and up the stairs.

"Which one?" He asked raggedly, still so close to her lips.

Emma, imbued with desire, had to glance around to get her bearings. She pointed vaguely toward her bedroom door and he proceeded easily enough through it. Inside, he kicked the door closed with the heel of his boot and gently lowered Emma onto the bed.

He paused now, ever so slowly unbuttoning his shirt as he gazed upon her. She knew instinctively that this pace was not set to entice her, but was necessary while he looked his fill, the hunger in his eyes a fierce thing to behold. She had all she could do to not cover any part of herself from his ravenous gaze. Only the bare light of the room, provided stingily by the moon, and filtered through the barely-covered windows, kept her still. Holding her breath, she watched him pull his shirt away from his impressive form, then made quick work of his boots and the rest of his clothes until he was as naked as she. And he paused no more, but having stood at the foot of the bed, now crawled up toward Emma, pressing kisses onto her ankle and her shin, and further, upon her knee and then her thigh.

When his hot mouth touched the triangle of hair at the juncture of her thighs, Emma nearly jumped off the bed. "Easy, love," he murmured, his voice deep with passion, husky and bearing its own bit of titillation. Hands settling upon her hips soothed and stilled her momentarily until his tongue touched her there . Her hips rose off the mattress, her embarrassment as large as she could ever recall.

"Shh," he purred against her and continued his tormenting assault. Soon she lifted her hips, not to stop this tantalizing madness, but seeking more. Zachary did not disappoint, sliding one arm under her bottom while the other hand attached again to her nipple, just as his tongue flicked against her once again. His touch was smooth, just the slightest pressure over her nub, back and forth, over and around, until Emma was moving rhythmically up against his mouth, her hands finding again his hair, threading her fingers through it, her supplication.

Inside her, waves rose higher and came faster with each thrust of his tongue. Emma began to moan aloud, the sound deepening with the furtherance of her desire. When he slipped one long finger inside the very core of her, she purred for him, craving something unknown, somehow knowing he would give it to her.

And then he was gone, and Emma cried out for the loss of him, but he had only moved, coming fully atop her, settling between her legs, his lips again finding hers. She gloried in the hot length of his flesh press so intimately against her, felt the hardness of him pushing between her legs, and excitedly caressed the hard muscles of his chest, while he held himself still for only a moment before he began to enter her.

"God, you are passionate," he breathed into her face, his gaze, even in the darkness, seen to be worshipful.

She looked away at that moment, kissing his shoulder to hide her sudden and searing doubts. But then it was too late as he was rooted inside her. Emma had not expected the pain and cried out against him just as he stiffened.

He seemed equally surprised, his voice emerging not without some hint of sorrow when he said, "I'm sorry, Emma. I—"

Rather than say more, he kissed her again, kissed her rather decadently, and began to move in and then out, slowly, again and again. The sensation of him inside her had not been imagined, could not have been imagined. Intimate, thrilling, fascinating. Her heart hammered in her ears. Every inch of her body was on fire with the feel of him.

The pain receded quickly enough and just the smallest shift of her hips to better accommodate the size of him reignited those burning coils of heat throughout her. Her breasts tingled with each scrape of his chest against them. Experimentally, Emma moved with him, and there it was, that building fire. She matched his rhythm, even as it increased, until this thing rose to such a degree that she wordlessly begged for release. And it came, cresting and slamming upon her, opening her eyes with the wonder of it, tightening her thighs around him, pushing her beyond reason or reality .

Zach slipped one hand again under her bottom, shifting her, pressing his long fingers into her burning flesh. He moved faster and faster while she could barely recall her own name. Emma felt him shudder several moments later, and heard his cry given into her hair before he slumped against her.

When their breathing had returned to relative normalcy, Zachary lifted his head and looked down upon her. Gently, he kissed her lips, and her eyes, caught the tears at her cheeks. Her hands lazily traced patterns over his back, even as she struggled to keep at bay the threatening shame and remorse.

Another tremor racked her, though she could not say if it were lingering passion or a sob thwarted. Under him, she closed her eyes. They'd adjusted well enough to the darkness that she dared not look into his eyes to note his emotion just now.

Thankfully, Zach withdrew from her and rolled away. He lay on his back, an arm flung over his head, the other scratching idly at his chest. He said nothing. Not for the longest time. And he did not look at her.

Fearing that a great weeping was imminent, for everything that was wrong about what they had just done, Emma turned away from him, onto her side, facing the wall and the pretty and dainty flowers that covered it. A long, long time seemed to pass before he said anything.

His voice was husky yet, the words were slow, reflective. "That wasn't really the plan."

She hadn't any idea of what he spoke and made to lay as still as she could.

"But now you are mine, love," he said tenderly, his breath tickling at her ear as he shifted onto his side behind her, pressing himself warmly against her .

Emma closed her eyes at this, the full complexity of this enormous mistake crashing into her with all the force of a damaging storm. "Oh, God," she moaned, "what have I done?"

She felt him stiffen behind her, felt it upon the entire length of her body.

His words, when he spoke next, came cautiously. "You have, I hope, been struggling with the same desires as I, which led to this."

She shook her head miserably against the pillow. No. No. No! This was all wrong, and Emma began to cry. It was not an outright sob, but a soft keening noise she made while inside she railed at herself for having let this happen. He has won, she thought. She was no longer her own person. She didn't know herself anymore. "Please leave," she implored on a ragged indrawn breath. When he moved not at all, save to rub his hand up and down her arm, she wriggled away from his touch and shrieked at him, "Just leave me be!"

"Emma—"

"Get out!" She raged.

And he did. Slowly, with careful movements, he left the bed. She heard him gather up his clothes, donning a few before letting himself out of her bedroom.

Emma pressed her face into her soft pillow and sobbed as she never had, for her own loss of innocence, for her foolishness in all things regarding the earl, for having learned nothing from her dear sister's own heartbreak. She cried mostly for the very truth that she loved him too much to simply be his mistress, even though she'd just unmistakably aided and abetted him, and she was, if only for this moment, just that.

ZACH CLOSED THE DOOR , staring for several seconds at the barrier between them. He acknowledged that more than a door separated him from her, it seemed. Sighing, while the taste and feel of Emma still enveloped him, he angrily jabbed his arms into his shirt and threw it over his head as he descended the back stairs.

He stalked around the darkened first floor, unable to return his boots to his feet as he'd left them in her room. He seethed and stormed, exactly as the night did the same outside. Thrusting his hands onto his hips, he paced up and down the hall.

Having no experience whatsoever with virgins, he could only wonder if this were normal. Supposing the loss of innocence, something never to be recovered, was an emotionally raw wound, was this then a natural aftermath?

But shouldn't he be with her, if that were so?

Good God, or had she been telling the truth when she'd insisted that she had no desire to be courted by him?

Zach swiped his hand across his face, over his stubbly chin. "Christ," he groaned, at a complete loss. His pacing had brought him again to the front of the house. Glancing up the stairs, he considered his options just now, but every question seemed only to be answered by, you cannot leave her .

Purposefully, he pivoted and took the stairs three at a time, though his bare feet were quiet upon them, and slipped silently into Emma's bedroom. She cried still, was the first thing he noticed, though she'd turned onto her stomach and now had her face hidden in her pillow. She'd pulled the bedcovers over her naked body. She did not lift her head and rage at him, so was likely yet unaware of his return.

Grimly, Zach approached the bed, on the side in which she lay and sat beside her, his hip butting against hers. She jerked and jumped, quickly scrambling onto her knees, wiping clumsily at her tears.

"I want you gone."

Quite possibly, she'd only exhausted herself, but not yet her venom, that had her demand sounded only weary and pitiful but not at all as desperate as her initial edict.

"I cannot leave you." He reached up his hand.

She smacked it away, scrambled from the bed and fussed dramatically inside her wardrobe, withdrawing some heavy wrapper in which she covered herself, tying the sash with such virulence as to send the edges flapping smartly.

"Emma, that's enough," he said, standing as well, moving to the end of the bed. He tried to imbue a bit of calm, unnerved by her harsh words and tortured expression. "Let's talk and—"

She strode right up to him, across the darkened room, and slapped him across the face. "Talking should have come first! How dare you! You want to talk? Should we discuss your overbearing and imperious self, taking away my job? Shall we speak of your constant disfavor with my neighbor? Let's talk about your control of me! Or, pray tell, would you rather discuss the fact that I specifically said I don't want your attention—"

He shook his head. She wasn't allowed to use that argument, after all. Not when she'd answered every single touch and kiss and sigh with her own.

"Do not shake your head. "

"I will shake my head," he informed her curtly. "Rant and rave at me for the things I've done wrong, but do not lie to me. You did want my attention, and your own response not so long ago right there—" he jabbed a finger at the bed, his voice thundering, "—proves that you lied!"

"I don't want to want you! Why can't you understand that? And...and it doesn't matter now. That's done," she said, her voice breaking on a renewed sob. "I blame myself, for being weak, for being in—" She stopped suddenly, her gaze frantic, fingers covering her mouth while she silenced another sob. Seeming to both mentally and physically gather herself, she took a step backward and presented squared shoulders and a lifted chin. "You had no right to take away my job. You don't get to say who my friends might be. You have no right to me, no claim to me. None at all."

Zach's eyes widened at the coolness of her tone.

"This was a mistake, but it was my own," she continued. "Yet it means nothing, do you hear? You do not own me. And I want you gone."

He lifted his hand in supplication, an imposing mournfulness overwhelming his anger. When he opened his mouth, while he stared, frankly alarmed at such wild hostility from her, as he'd never seen before, he said what he supposed might have been true for some time now, "Emma, I am in love with you."

A breathless and disbelieving cry was her response. Her lips moved for several seconds before words came. "No," she said in a weak voice. She began to shake her head now. "You are not. You cannot be."

"You're going to tell me how I feel?" He stepped closer .

Emma held up her hand, which stopped him from reaching her. "I'm telling you I do not—would never, actually—believe it. And let us focus on the matter at hand—"

"The matter at hand?" He returned sharply, incredulously. "The matter at hand? Is it not this?" Again, he indicated the bed, "What we've just done? Are you supposing I coerced, or—or forced you? Is that why you're upset?"

Emma jabbed her own finger at the bed, and shouted at him, "I've told you it means nothing! The issue here is your high-handedness, and me having reached the end of my rope in all regards to it. I was forced—Bethany and I were forced—to trudge home, the entire two miles, in the dark and in the rain, because you thought you had some right—" she broke off and turned her head toward the side door. Her lips parted while she listened.

Zach's gaze followed hers, and he, too, heard the soft whimper of Bethany's cry. Throwing him an accusing glare, Emma rushed into the next room, where he heard her cooing tenderly and consolingly.

Frustrated beyond words, he ran his hands through his hair, and stared at the floor. He understood her anger to some degree. He shouldn't have acted with such disregard for her desire for that position at Madame Carriere's. But he'd told her it was a bad idea. He'd made clear all the reasons it would not suit. Whatever his methods, he had only her best interest at heart.

After what they had just shared, how could her rage still be so enormous? Zach was at a loss. For the amazing step forward he'd taken with her tonight, he also knew he'd suffered an impossible setback, taking many huge steps in reverse. It did not completely make sense to him. Not that he'd purposefully used it as a means to hopefully lessen her anger over his part in the loss of the damn job, but it seemed to him that their lovemaking should have softened her wrath a bit. She couldn't possibly and actually mean what she'd said, that what they'd just done meant nothing to her.

He turned, lifted his own weary gaze to her when she reappeared, clutching Bethany to her. He supposed this, now, meant their discussion was at an end. Likely to Emma's chagrin, Bethany realized his presence and reached her chubby little hands out to him, whimpering still as she called his name. Zach walked toward the pair, intent on soothing her daughter, but Emma shook her head.

"No, darling," she said, her voice gentled for Bethany, "the earl was just leaving. Say goodbye to him."

Not goodnight .

Bethany accepted this, and turned her head, laying it upon Emma's shoulders, mumbling something, which he guessed was his farewell.

Ignoring Emma's still wrathful mien, he did approach, and pressed a kiss onto Bethany's head. "Goodnight, moppet." Pivoting, his movements angry and brusque, he scooped up his boots and jacket and strode to the door. There, he turned and faced Emma again. "I'll be gone to London for a while. We'll talk when I return."

"There is no need."

"Nevertheless, we shall," he said. With his hand on the door handle, he added, "I meant what I said, Emma." He was keenly aware of the dejected exasperation saturating his tone.