* * *
Good God," said Emilie, as the schoolroom door closed at last behind them. "How the devil could you sit there like that, cracking jokes? We were nearly killed!"
"Oh, I've dodged the odd highwayman often enough, in my time. That leap across the hidden ditch behind North Tor unseats them every time." Freddie reclined in his chair and idled his finger in his Latin grammar.
"That was no highwayman." She stopped. "There really are highwaymen about?"
"Well, not really. Thieves, brigands, what have you. But not the stand and deliver sort of highwayman. The trains, I'm afraid, have done for the poor chaps. Still . . ."
Emilie paced across the room. "In any case, this was no common thief, that far away from the road, and a little-used road at that. No, the fellow knew what he was after. He knew where to find us, and when." She drummed her fingers on her elbows. "This is disastrous. They must know I'm here. I shall have to write to Miss Dingleby directly."
Freddie straightened. "What's that? You really think it was some foreign agent or another?"
"Without a doubt. He was waiting for us. Miss Dingleby said someone was making inquiries in the district. My God! I hope my sisters . . ."
Freddie leapt to his feet. "Well, then we've got to tell Pater straightaway! He can post guards, hunt the chap down . . ."
She spun to face him. "Absolutely not! I can't possibly embroil him in this."
"Why the devil not?"
"Because . . ." She swallowed heavily. "Because it's none of his affair."
"You're his affair." Freddie paused. "Literally."
"I won't, Freddie. Not . . . not yet." She closed her mind to the thought: confessing everything to Ashland, watching his blue eye grow colder and colder as he realized the magnitude of her double deception. Watching the emotion wink out of him, as surely as the wind howled over the moor.
One more evening, and she would tell him. One more meeting of Emilie and Mr. Brown. His kisses, his body linked with hers. She couldn't deny herself that.
And then it would be over. She would wire Miss Dingleby first thing tomorrow. She would warn her that the agents had found Tobias Grimsby, had connected the Duke of Ashland's tutor to the missing Princess Emilie. That her sisters were possibly in danger as well. She would slip away, she would take the train up to London and stay with her uncle, and that would be that.
No more Ashland. No more Tuesday evenings. No more excruciating, half-naked encounters in the basement of Ashland Abbey.
"In any case," Freddie was saying, peering out the window in the manner of a cornered fugitive, "I'll accompany you into town tonight and wait for you in the stables. You're not going off by yourself, not with assassins lurking around every bend."
"Oh, well played. And you'll be doing what in town this evening? Off to the Anvil? Cat's cradle with Rose in the corner? Sipping tea?"
Freddie turned and grinned. "I'll be as good as gold. Word of honor. Her Highness's Royal Guard does not malinger on duty." He performed a strict salute.
Emilie smiled. He looked absurdly young, all of a sudden, as he puffed his chest with assumed manhood. "I am deeply honored," she said.
"Oh, I'm not doing it for you." He went to the door, swung it open, and stood aside for her. "I'm bloody well doing it for poor old Pater."
EIGHTEEN
Emilie arrived first in the Duke of Ashland's private hotel suite. She spent a nervy seven minutes flitting about the rooms, fingering the curtains, adding coals to the fire. A week of steeling herself to him, a week of tempering her heart into hardness, and she had melted like metal in the forge the instant she had seen the duke standing behind his desk in the study, large and powerful and crackling in the exact center of that field of magnetic energy he carried effortlessly about him. His bright blue gaze had burned through her skin, and she knew she wouldn't refuse him. Couldn't refuse him.
She had already undressed to her corset and chemise. She would make no pretense that this was anything but a carnal meeting, a passionate reprise of the week before.
A knock sounded at last on the door. Emilie pulled her blindfold over her eyes and turned.
"Emilie?" His beautiful voice made the blood accelerate in her veins.
She held out her arms. "Here."
She was expecting the touch of his hand, the formal press of his lips on her fingers. Instead she heard his quick footsteps approaching, and then she was hoisted upward and crushed against his endless chest. "Ah, God, Emilie. At last."
She put her arms around his neck and breathed in the warm scent of his skin, just below his ear. "I've missed you," she whispered.
He held her without speaking, as the coals sizzled and the clock ticked discreetly. He must love her a little, she thought. He must. She listened to his heartbeat, to the steady pace of his breathing.
Remember this.
"Mine." He kissed her neck. "My Emilie."
She took his ear delicately between her teeth. "Mine."
The air sucked into his lungs. He hoisted her higher and carried her through space, set her into the cushions-the armchair, the sofa, she couldn't tell-and laid his mouth over hers, kissing her ferociously as his hand dipped below the rim of her corset to stroke her breast.
Now. He would take her now, before even a dozen words had been exchanged between them, and every atom of her body thrilled with wicked anticipation. She wanted to be taken right here, pinned to the cushions by his hammering body. She stroked his mouth with her tongue and arched her back to his caress.
But he pulled back. "Wait," he growled. His chest heaved beneath her hands. "Wait. Before we go on."
He rose, and Emilie struggled upward against the slippery cushions. The armchair, she thought dimly. "Where are you?"
"Here." Something dropped into her lap.
"What's this?" She laid her fingers atop the weight: a sheaf of papers.
"It is a contract, Emilie. A legal vow."
Emilie ran her finger around the edge. Her heart took on weight and sank slowly into her belly. "I don't understand."
Ashland's voice came from somewhere above her, several feet away. The mantel, perhaps. "We are past the point of subterfuge, Emilie. You were quite right last week. This cannot go on as it has, not after what passed between us."
"I don't . . . I don't need . . ."
"Emilie, I am not Anthony Brown. I am Anthony Russell, the Duke of Ashland, and I have spent the past week in London arranging my affairs. I have instructed my solicitor to begin a suit of divorce against my wife, and we will be married as soon as the final decree is issued."
Emilie sprang from her chair, clutching the papers. "What? No!"
"In the meantime, I cannot exist without you. You hold in your hands the freehold title of a house near Ashland Spa, a large and I believe quite comfortable house, which I have transferred to your possession in the name of Emilie Brown. I have already ordered my staff to clean and prepare the house for you. You may furnish it to your own taste at my expense. I have also arranged an initial draft of ten thousand pounds to be deposited in an account in your name, with a yearly allowance of two thousand pounds for your living expenses, to be made in perpetuity from my estate during your life. Should"-his businesslike voice wavered for an instant-"should we be so fortunate as to conceive a child, I have made provision of ten thousand pounds for each of our issue, to be paid at the earlier of marriage or majority, and a corresponding increase of one thousand pounds per annum in your own allowance. I hardly need add that I shall recognize such issue as mine, to be formally legitimized upon our marriage."
Emilie stood speechless as the sterile words whirled past her ears: issue and annum and perpetuity. At his pause, she gasped out, "Your mistress? I am to be your kept mistress?"
"You are to be my wife."
"Your wife? Are you mad?"
He ignored her. "But in the meantime, if we are to share a bed, with all the consequences that may arise from such association, you have the right to my protection. To my guarantee of care and comfort during your life."
"How dare you! How dare you enter this room and issue orders . . ."
"I am not issuing orders."
She held up the papers. "And what do you call these, exactly? Only the means to control me with your money and houses and children."