Chapter Thirteen

What do you think, Emma?"

The direct address snapped Emma from the clutter of her thoughts with all the unwelcome intrusion of a slap. "Oh," she said. "Oh, yes, of course." Though she hadn't the slightest inkling of what she'd agreed to.

Phoebe exchanged a baffled glance with Lydia, and Diana—Diana stared directly at Emma, as if the lenses of her spectacles might confer some extraordinary ability to see straight into her soul. And she smiled. A smug, knowing sort of smile.

By the heavy silence that settled over them, Emma supposed that whatever had been under discussion had not been a yes or no question, and she had revealed her lack of attention to it in a rather embarrassing manner.

"I'm so sorry," she said, flushing. "I'm afraid I have—"

"A good deal on your mind?" Diana suggested archly. "Well. That settles it." She gave a polite wave to the footmen waiting in the wings in a silent request for privacy, and once the door of Lydia's drawing room had closed behind them, Diana said, "Go on, then."

Go on? Go on? "I—that is—I couldn't possibly—"

"You certainly could possibly and now you must," Diana insisted. "Come, now, Emma. What are friends for, if not badgering one another into untoward confessions? You have got at least one to make, and it had better be a good one."

"Oh," Lydia said, her brows lifting in interest. "Are we to learn what pulled you so swiftly from the ball? Goodness, I had hardly even caught a glimpse of you before you were rushing out the door. One would almost think you had somewhere pressing to be."

Phoebe pursed her lips into a pout. "What have I missed?" she asked. "Mama practically catapulted me into the path of any gentleman she even suspected might have been unattached. I spent the better part of the evening dancing."

Praying for patience—and reprieve—Emma covered her hot cheeks with her hands. "I wouldn't know how to begin to explain," she said on a groan.

Lydia slanted her a sly smile. "Here, dearest, I'll help: When a widow of some years grows weary of her empty bed…"

With a start, Phoebe sat bolt upright, nearly upsetting her teacup as her hands flailed in shock. "Emma!" she gasped. "Have you taken a lover?"

"It's…complicated," Emma said weakly.

"It really isn't," Lydia replied. "But you must tell us everything, of course. I insist upon every salacious detail." She paused to take a bite of biscuit, and proceeded with her interrogation: "Who is he, then, and how did you meet? Shall I jot him down as a guest for my next ball? I should think you're long overdue for a proper illicit tryst. If you're taking suggestions, balconies are quite nice. And carriages. Oh—and libraries. Libraries are lovely." She gave a little shiver, as if recalling some delicious memory.

"Lydia," Diana chided, with a wrinkle of her nose. "I do love you dearly, but I have never once been at all curious about your amorous exploits with my brother. There are things a sister simply neither needs—nor even wants—to know."

And while they engaged in a good-natured bickering, for a moment Emma allowed herself to imagine just what Lydia had suggested: attending an event to which Rafe had also been invited, risking a dance—or two, if they were truly daring—and perhaps even slipping out unseen for a rendezvous in the darkness of someone else's garden, or upon a deserted balcony. "No," she said, and it wasn't only regret in her voice, but longing. "He isn't…the sort of person you could invite."

"Rubbish," Lydia said, wrinkling her nose. "I can invite anyone I please."

Which was true. Mostly. She was openly involved in the theatre, and called any number of actors and actresses friends, despite their lowly position within society. But Rafe was another thing altogether.

"He's an associate of Kit's," she admitted at last in a whisper, and the room went deathly silent. She didn't speak of Kit often—and never to just anyone—but Diana, Lydia, and Phoebe were her dearest friends. They were, of course, aware of the connection she shared with one of London's more unsavory characters. But they could not quite understand why a woman of her position would claim a brother in a man of Kit's.

"Is that safe, do you think?" Diana asked hesitantly. "I mean to say, is he…like your brother?"

A common criminal, Emma guessed she meant to imply. Or—a not so common criminal, then, if the rumors swirling around Kit were to be believed. The sort of man no one decent would ever wish to be caught in a dark alley alone with. The sort of man more comfortable with violence than with pleasantries.

A dangerous man. But not to her.

She said, "I don't know. I don't even know his surname."

"What!" Lydia cried, aghast. "He didn't even bother to introduce himself properly before he took you to bed?"

Emma could not quite suppress a flinch. "I was glad of it, really," she said. "That I did not know him, I mean to say. The truth is, I asked Kit to send someone to me, someone not of our social set, whom I would not have to face in public." Her breath shuddered out on a sigh. "I have a great deal to lose beyond just my reputation," she said, "and fortune hunters abound."

"What do you know of him?" Phoebe asked, her brows arched toward her hairline.

"Not much," she admitted with a wince. "I think he is perhaps a few years older than me. He's the middle of three children. He…he lives in Soho." He had not told her that—she had learned it from Dannyboy, who had at breakfast recently attempted to impress the other children with his navigational prowess, which he had proved with his recitation of various landmarks that guided him through the city streets. He had, briefly, described Rafe's home: a small house with a green-lacquered door, and a bronze knocker shaped like a fisted hand, with a shiny number 3 hung above it to mark the street address. Absently she sketched the number upon the tablecloth with the tip of her finger—backwards, just as Dannyboy had done.

"Emma, that could describe dozens of men. Hundreds, perhaps," Diana said patiently. "For God's sake, my brother fits that description."

Emma sighed. "I know how dreadful it sounds, how distasteful—" But it wasn't. At least, it didn't feel distasteful. It didn't feel sordid or tawdry. She had expected at least a little shame, but there was none of that, either. "He has been…very kind to me," she said. "I didn't expect it—"

"You didn't expect kindness?" Phoebe inquired, horrified.

Emma shook her head. "I didn't expect to find more kindness, more consideration, in a veritable stranger than I had ever had from my husband," she corrected. A stranger—and yet the depths of his kindness had surpassed even that which friendship could reasonably expect. "Even if I could tell you the details of his life," she said, "they would explain what he is, but not who he is."

And who he was, stripped of all of those details—the house in Soho, the siblings older and younger, the plain clothing, and the odd association with her brother—was kind. Honest. Generous and humble. A natural protector; guardian of children and frightened women both. A man who listened more than he talked, and who didn't brush away her thoughts and opinions with a careless hand, as if she were the witless bit of fluff that women were often expected to be.

"I know his character," she said softly. "I know what is most important." And perhaps the rest of it would come in time.

"You love him." This from Phoebe, who had muffled the words behind the very tips of her fingers. "My God. You love him."

"I—I don't know," Emma demurred. But even the hesitation sounded like a lie. She could love him, she thought. If she let herself. It would be as easy as taking a tumble. One tiny slip, and she would fall headlong into it. It wouldn't be the same desperate love she had once held for Ambrose; the love of a child desperately seeking the affection she had always lacked. It would be the love of a woman who understood now, at last, that love was a connection to another that was nurtured and cherished, built of a collection of tiny moments shared, and of respect and warmth, passion and friendship. It was fun and laughter, safety and honesty. It was being understood and valued for the very heart of one's being.

It was a glorious and terrifying realization. She hadn't expected it, hadn't wanted it, but—here it was, the possibility that with very little prompting she might be moved to place the whole of her heart into Rafe's hands.

But she could not make him surrender his own.

∞∞∞

There it was. Midway down the list that Diana had provided over breakfast; Rafe's suspicions brought to life.

Sir Roger Banfield and Lady Banfield.

Chris stared down at it with a curious blend of disgust and fury, flexing his fingers until his knuckles produced an ominous crack. "Why in ‘ell would she invite him?" he asked. "She couldn't know—"

"No," Rafe said. No one did. He had been so bloody careful. "Diana couldn't have known our connection. Neither could Lydia."

"Then why invite them?"

"Lady Banfield is a renowned patron of the arts," Rafe said. And Lydia was half-owner of a theatre company which had so far achieved some moderate success. Of course she would wish to curry favor with those most likely to support her business venture.

One ball, one damned event, and everything had gone straight to hell. Sir Roger had enjoyed an entire decade free of suspicion, comfortable in the knowledge that whatever nefarious actions he had been involved in, they had remained undiscovered. Hell, Rafe and Chris might very well have assisted him entirely by accident. They had rounded up Ambrose's co-conspirators one by one with information that had been fed to them straight from Sir Roger. Swift imprisonments and executions had followed, all very cloak-and-dagger, owing to the gravity of the situation.

Sir Roger had lobbied on their behalf to his superiors within the Home Office, negotiating security for Emma, and Rafe and Chris—they had followed his orders to the letter, imagining themselves working toward the same goal. A quick, quiet resolution to what they had imagined to be a shared problem.

He'd used them to further his own ends, used them to remain undiscovered; a traitor hiding in plain sight. His ruse of loyalty had produced exactly that which he had expected—his two best men covering up his crimes. He had made them both complicit.

He'd used Rafe to search Ambrose's study the very damned night Ambrose had died, gathering up any and every document that might have proved consequential. And Rafe had done nothing more than glance at the pages. He'd simply turned over the armload of papers he'd gathered, delivering them straight into Sir Roger's hands, trusting the man implicitly to safeguard any state secrets, to act upon any evidence of wrongdoing that might be contained within them.

"We aided ‘im," Chris said, his voice lowered to a muted murmur. "We ‘elped the bastard."

"We weren't to know," Rafe said, but his hands trembled in an echo of the way they had that wretched night. He could see them even now, those phantom stains of blood that had never quite washed free of them—Ambrose's blood, which had remained crusted beneath his fingernails even while he had picked the lock of Ambrose's study, while he had rifled through the dead man's desk.

The pounding of his heart, as if it might beat straight out of his chest. His own quick, reedy breaths. The tinny hum inside his ears leftover from the fierce report of his pistol not an hour before. Emma's horrible, grief-stricken wail, resonant and haunting.

Shock, he thought. He'd been in shock. Probably only years of training had saved him from catatonia. Probably only concern for Emma had kept him moving, kept him working. He and Chris had worked together, followed orders as they had been trained to do, and done the necessary as defined by their superior officer.

For Emma's sake, they had done what had to be done. And they had thought Sir Roger a good and decent man for his stalwart defense of Emma, for his interference on her behalf. Only it had never been for Emma. It had been to save his own hide. To grasp at what information he could before other hands could get to it. To destroy any evidence of his own misdeeds, laying the bulk of the blame upon Ambrose.

Emma had been only the tool he had used to make them dance to his tune. It had taken just the subtle suggestion that Emma would be ruined alongside her traitorous husband, and there—two young men had pushed straight through the chaos that had enveloped them to do his bidding.

"We weren't to know," Rafe repeated, though it would never excuse his ignorance, his folly. "We weren't to know—but now we do." But they had no damned proof.

"Christ." Chris rubbed at his jaw. "What ‘ave we got, then? A journal we can't read? Suspicions we can't prove?" He made a rough sound in his throat. "I could snatch ‘im," he said. "Toss the bastard into the Thames and be done with ‘im."

"You'd never get close enough," Rafe said. "Probably even now he is shoring up his defenses. Planting seeds of suspicion, poisoning the well against us as a safeguard against a potential threat." It was what Rafe would have done. It was what he would have done because it was what Sir Roger had taught him, taught all of them. More than once, such tactics had saved him—at least temporarily. Diverting suspicion just long enough to get away clean.

Sir Roger was a master of strategy, an expert at springing a trap closed only when it was too late to avoid it. Once again Rafe had failed to see it before he'd blundered into it. This time, he would not just lose his rook—he could lose his queen. Emma. A single reckless misstep could spell the end of everything he held precious.

"So what are we meant to do, then?" Chris asked. "Just—wait?"

"Yes," Rafe said. "We wait. Sir Roger doesn't know what we know. He doesn't know what information we have. So we wait for him to make a move." If there was anything Sir Roger enjoyed more than winning, it was gloating of it, reveling in it. Too often he had used his skill in chess to chase Rafe around the board, picking off pieces and prolonging the game for his own satisfaction. Perhaps his one true weakness—his hubris—might goad him into a mistake.

∞∞∞

Rafe had left before Emma had woken, before the first light of dawn had drifted over the horizon. Vaguely, she remembered a soothing stroke to her hair, down her back—but she had still been caught within that twilight state between waking and dreaming, and she hadn't managed to rouse herself even so much as to mumble a farewell before he had been off.

She hadn't expected him back this evening. He hadn't sent Dannyboy with a note, hadn't arranged in advance for another visit. But he had arrived nonetheless, earlier than she might have expected even had she known to expect him.

She had given him a key, and in turn he had made judicious use of it and had come as if…as if he were simply arriving home for the evening. As if he belonged here every bit as much as she did. He had simply walked into her bedroom as she had been brushing out her hair for bed, already shrugging out of his coat.

He asked, "How is Henry?"

Emma blinked, surprised that he had remembered. That he would think to inquire after a sick child he had never met. "Better today," she said. "Miss Finch has prepared a tonic for him—an old family recipe that she swears by. He's seen some improvement." At least the cold had not settled too deeply into his chest.

"Sounds a sight better than a mustard plaster," he said, yanking at the knot of his cravat as he sat upon the edge of her bed.

"I wouldn't be so certain of that. Whatever was in it, it smelled just dreadful." She laid her brush aside, swiveling upon her chair to face him and summoning up a faintly apologetic smile. "Rafe, I do hope you have not come this evening out of some misplaced sense of obligation."

There was the tiniest twitch of a muscle in his jaw. "Obligation?" he repeated, as though he had not quite comprehended the word. "I'm afraid I don't take your meaning."

Emma's hands drifted to her lap, settling onto the voluminous folds of her nightdress. The perfect ladylike posture, which she rather suspected she had learned to wear as an armor of sorts. "I mean to say that—that I am certain you must have better things to do of an evening," she said. Specifically, an evening in which she had not requested his presence. A reprieve, as it were, from whatever loyalty it was that he owed to Kit.

"Do you want me to go?" he asked.

"No!" A nervous little laugh burst from her lips in the wake of her denial. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's not that I don't want you here. It's that I don't want you here if you don't wish to be here."

Rafe's brows drew together, dark slashes carving lines of displeasure above his eyes. "What has brought this on?" he asked, though the nature of the conversation had not prevented him from casting his cravat to the floor or from working the buttons of his waistcoat.

"I just…I have realized that I have rather selfishly monopolized a great deal of your time," Emma said, curling her toes into the plush carpet beneath her feet. "It cannot be convenient for you, to come every night." And from Soho, if Dannyboy had the right of it. At the very least, it would mean a walk of well over a mile—or the fare for the hiring of a hack.

"What has convenience got to do with anything?"

A nameless frustration seized at her throat, clamping around it like a vise. An impossible situation to find herself in; an utterly improper liaison that could live only in the shadows, only by night. Perhaps there was nothing in it any more real than fantasies entertained within dreams, but she could not continue to go on as they had without at least this much honesty between them. Without knowing if the only thing that brought him to her was his association with Kit.

"I only meant," she said, through the thick of the clog in her throat, her voice a little more ragged, hoarser than she would have liked, "that if you would rather be elsewhere, I will not complain of it. And if Kit asks—"

"If he has any sense at all, he damned well won't ask." There was a sharpness to his voice, an edge she had not heard before. Something less than anger, but more than mere annoyance.

"I would tell him," she persisted, her hands clenching wrinkles into the soft linen of her nightdress, "that we parted on friendly terms. And that he is to consider whatever debt you might owe to him fulfilled."

A heavy sigh drifted from his lungs. With his fingers, he pinched the bridge of his nose in clear exasperation. "I don't owe your brother a debt," he said firmly. "If you assumed I did, you assumed incorrectly. He asked, and I accepted. Have you tired of me?"

She jerked as if the question had been delivered along with the slice of a knife. "No," she admitted, though she thought it was perhaps half the truth at best. That the reality was something more like she would never tire of him. "No. I only wished to give you the opportunity to leave. If you have other obligations to which to attend. If you…if you wished instead to be elsewhere."

"I don't," he said, blunt and direct. He shoved himself up from the bed, dragged his shirt off over his head, ruffling his dark hair with the motion. In three long strides he reached her side, and still there was a tension in his jaw, a tightness she could not quite understand. "I do have other obligations, and I will attend to them as needed. But I don't wish to be elsewhere."

Foolishly, her fragile heart wanted to believe he meant something more like, I am exactly where I wish to be.

His fingertips traced the line of her jaw, turned her face up to his. "Come to bed, Emma."

"For how long?" She offered the question almost unconsciously, and he did not pretend to misunderstand the meaning of it.

"For as long as you wish me to be there," he said. But the words were brittle, delicate. As if he could not conceive of a possibility wherein she would want him forever.