Chapter 14

14

Two days later,Emma climbed from the carriage into a stormy, windy day at Sherbourne Place in Staffordshire. The two-story brick cottage in which she had grown up looked smaller. The garden was, as always, overgrown. Ivy covered the left side of the house, and the two white columns at the central entrance were still chipped and cracked.

The door opened, and her mama ran out, a huge smile on her face. She hadn’t changed, either. She was the same full-bodied, rosy-cheeked woman with her dark curls bouncing from under her white cap. Emma’s chest filled with warmth at the sight of her mama, her eyes tingling with tears.

“Emma!” Mama cried. “Oh, Emma! You came!”

Mama stopped in front of her and took her hands. “Your papa told me he expected you to arrive and collect the contract by yourself, but I do not understand why you and Sir Jasper came separately…”

Emma’s smile died on her face, her whole being filling with cold dread. “Sir Jasper is here?”

“Why, of course. Your papa wrote him to ask why you needed your marriage contract to be sent to an address in London, so he came to collect it himself. Oh, my.” She looked Emma up and down. “Sir Jasper is spoiling you, isn’t he? You look like a duchess!”

Foreboding churned in Emma’s stomach as she walked into the house with Mama, wind flapping the skirts of her expensive teal gown. Sir Jasper was here. And he knew about the contract! Oh, Papa, why did you have to write to him? Emma understood why, though. Her parents were very traditional. In the eyes of Papa, just as with most of society, a woman was her husband’s property. So, of course, her papa couldn’t imagine Emma managing her own affairs and thought it was safer if Sir Jasper did that.

Mama led her through a short, narrow hallway into the sitting room Emma had known all her life. Papa and Sir Jasper stood up from behind the round tea table. Her three sisters, Rose, Evie, and Sophie, jumped to their feet from a large table covered with needlework as well as boxes of thread, scissors, and other embroidery tools. They surrounded her, exclaiming about how pretty she was and what a beautiful dress she wore.

She inhaled their scent, so dear and homey. The smell of lilacs lingered in the drawing room all year round thanks to Mama hiding linen sachets with dry florets in the cushions on the old yellowing sofa. The fireplace mantel with chipped white paint held three vases, and the grate held faintly glowing coal embers. Yellowish drapes that must be as old as Papa still hung around the window. And the round portrait of Emma’s great-grandmother looked at them from above the fireplace.

And amid everything that she had considered home, Sir Jasper stood glaring at her from his hooded, dangerous eyes. She’d had this silly hope that she would never have to see him again in her life. His upper lip curled in a controlled snarl. Despite his fierce expression, he looked smaller to her, a sad little man trying to be more powerful than he was.

But he had information that could ruin her family and completely destroy her sisters’ chances of a good marriage—of any marriage at all.

His gaze slid slowly over her, and she was afraid she was going to empty the contents of her stomach right in front of them all. The memory of standing in filthy, stinking clothes in front of dozens of men… Men who looked at her like at a cow they might purchase, tossing out comments about her body, things no lady should hear… And all the while, a step away from her, her husband had reveled in delight from her distress. The whole thing sent a hot feeling of humiliation through her.

In a flash, she remembered all the days he’d told her every single thing that was wrong with her as a wife and as a woman. All the nights she’d lain in pain while he pounded in and out of her, not caring if she liked it or how she felt. And she remembered how Sebastian worshipped her. Made her feel special. Took care of her every need—even her need for freedom, even if it meant losing her.

The iron cage of marriage Sir Jasper had locked her in was like an oubliette. While with Sebastian, she felt free. Loved. Respected. Appreciated.

“Wife, dearest,” Sir Jasper said.

Wife…she wasn’t his wife anymore. And she wouldn’t let him have any power over her. If he’d come here to tell her family what had happened, to shame her, she’d beat him to it.

“I am not your wife,” she said, straightening her back. “You sold me, remember?”

Her family gasped, and the expression of triumph disappeared from Sir Jasper’s face.

She looked at Papa and Mama. “Sir Jasper sold me at an auction in Clovham. It was his own idea. So I do not belong to him anymore. And, Papa, please do not give him the contract, because—”

Sir Jasper took a large step towards her and grabbed her by her elbow. “Dearest,” he said through gritted teeth. His smell assaulted her—the odor of his skin, the odor of his soap were disgusting to her. “Please, can we talk in private? It is in your best interest, I assure you.”

He mumbled an excuse to her family and dragged her out of the sitting room and into the dark hallway. The wind outside howled through the gaps around the windows, and the first heavy raindrops hit the small fanlight above the door.

His fingers dug into her elbow painfully. His lips pursed like a raisin. His eyes glared, dark and small. He looked like the devil himself.

“Let me go!” She jerked her elbow, but he held her like a vise.

“Go back to the sitting room and tell your parents you’re going back home with me.”

She didn’t reply to him for a while, staring into his eyes, not backing up. She wouldn’t show him how much he actually was frightening her now. “No.”

“You must. You’re still married to me.”

“No. You committed fraud, Sir Jasper. You sold those lands that you promised in the marriage contract before you signed it. Our contract is void.”

He swallowed hard. “Well then. That doesn’t matter because I have something more powerful. If you don’t come back to me, I will write to The Society and tell them the Duke of Loxchester is a bastard. I have evidence. And then he will lose everything. His title, his lands, his income.”

Her whole being went cold.

It was one thing that she’d tarnished Sebastian’s reputation already…well, he was happily tarnishing it himself.

It would be another if his legitimacy was questioned. Sir Jasper was right. Sebastian would lose everything.

And as the whole ton knew his parents had cheated on each other, it would be a very believable thing.

“What evidence?” she asked, already suspecting and dreading the answer.

Leisurely, he let go of her, reached into the inner pocket of his tailcoat, and retrieved the mother-of-pearl box that one of his thugs had taken from her. He opened it—something she had never thought to do in her mad dash for freedom—and took out a folded letter.

“This is the evidence,” he said, the sagging skin on his jaw glistening with sweat as he tilted his head back and watched her with his hooded eyes.

“Let me see,” she said, stretching her shaking hand to him.

He cocked his head and handed her the letter. She unfolded it and turned it so that light fell on the writing.

With elegant handwriting, it said,

To His Grace, Duke of Ashton,

Dear Stuart,

You know I am the last woman that should be married to Loxchester. But I have done my duty. I am with child now, the heir or heiress of Loxchester. My husband is not oblivious. He knows he is not the only man who has known my bed. And I have never loved another man as I love you.

Your affectionate Lydia, Duchess of Loxchester

With a heavy feeling of dread, Emma started to reread the letter, but Sir Jasper snatched it out of her fingers.

“This doesn’t prove he’s illegitimate,” she said.

“No. But it hints enough to make others question it. And it also humiliates the duchess.” He grinned, but joy didn’t touch his eyes. “The Society will love it.”

He was right. And Emma couldn’t do this to Sebastian. Whatever was between them, however close her freedom, she loved him too much to have him declared a bastard because of her. And she refused to have his mother’s name dragged through the mud, no matter how unwelcoming the woman was.

“You got it when you sent those men after me,” she said.

“Yes. And even though the fools failed, I did get you in the end.”

Her stomach dropped. She was back in her old prison cell, when she could see the light of freedom just beyond her reach.

“But why do you even want me, Sir Jasper? You are as unhappy with this marriage as I am. Besides, haven’t you already collected the duke’s payment for me?”

“I did. But it’s gone already. And why I want you, dearest, is simple. Because you’re mine. Good or bad. And I do not lose what’s mine.”