The Princess and the Peer(65)

Still, he followed as instructed.

“She said you might pay me a visit,” Mrs. Brown-Jones informed him without preamble as soon as they were away from prying ears. “In fact, she thought your arrival quite likely.”

“Where is she? Where is Emma?” He couldn’t help but glance toward the ceiling as if he could somehow see through the plaster and wood—ridiculous, of course. Still, he couldn’t help but make the gesture.

She sent him another appraising look. “She is not here, if that is what you are wondering. But she was,” she added before he could demand to know more. “She came to see me very briefly this morning to explain a few things and then she left.”

“Left to go where?”

A rueful smile curved her mouth. “She told me you might ask that as well, but I am afraid I do not know.”

“Don’t know or won’t say?”

The smile fell away. “You are very forthright in your statements, my lord. Perhaps you might wish to rephrase that?”

This time he admitted that her reprimand was well deserved. “My apologies if I seem abrupt. It is only that… well, Emma—Miss White—departed from my household rather precipitously this morning and there are certain matters I am most eager to discuss with her.”

She gave him another long look, lines of concern and faint but unmistakable disapproval marring the smooth skin of her forehead. “I won’t presume to inquire as to the origin of your acquaintance with Emma,” Mrs. Brown-Jones said, “or how she came to reside in your home—”

He opened his mouth, but she cut him off before he could speak. “Yes, I am aware your aunt was there to act as chaperone and that all the proprieties were observed.”

Well, not all, he thought wryly. Not the most important ones—such as leaving her untouched.

But that didn’t matter, he told himself, since he had every intention of doing the honorable thing by Emma. Once he found her, he would resolve whatever confusion lay between them and see to it she became his bride.

“I have known Her Hi—Emma—far longer than you, my lord,” Mrs. Brown-Jones continued, her tongue skipping quickly over the slight hesitation in her words.

He took note of the slip. She had been about to call Emma something else before she corrected herself, he realized. She had said her along with a sound he hadn’t quite been able to catch.

Her what?

But then the woman was speaking again, her next words driving his line of questioning straight out of his head.

“—and I can tell you without hesitation that Emma has made the right decision by leaving. She is doing what is best for her and for you as well.”

He stared for a long moment, unable to conceal his astonishment or incredulity. “Doing what’s best?” he repeated. “By running away and leaving me some politely distant note that explains absolutely nothing? I think not, madam. I believe I am entitled to far more of an explanation than that.”

“And precisely why, my lord? She was a guest in your house, I understand, but beyond that—”

“She was far more than a guest. Clearly Emma is unaware of the depth of my regard for her or else she would not have left the way she did. I intend to marry her and if you will simply tell me where she has gone, I shall do exactly that.”

The woman’s gray-green eyes widened and her mouth dropped open before she had time to collect herself; she closed her lips with a snap.

“Please,” he said in a quiet tone, “as her friend, will you not tell me where she is?”

Her face fell then—sadness and, if he wasn’t mistaken, pity, shadowing her features. “I am sorry, my lord, I cannot. I will not betray her confidence. But even if I were of a mind to aid you, I am afraid the act would serve no useful purpose.”

His brows drew tight. “What do you mean ‘no useful purpose’? I don’t understand—”

“Nor do you need to,” she told him, her tone sympathetic. “Forget her. Go on with your life. That is what Emma is doing already—putting things behind her, doing as she must.”

He froze, suddenly immobile.

Doing as she must? What in Hades does that mean?

Yet all he could think about was Mrs. Brown-Jones’s statement that Emma had decided to forget him. That she had left to go on with her life—a life in which he clearly had no part.

Putting things behind her.

Putting me behind her, she meant.

Had he been wrong, after all? Had last night truly meant nothing to Emma? Their lovemaking no more than an impulsive, momentary act of passion from which she preferred to flee?

In silence?

In shame?

Was that truly how she felt? he wondered. Had she been so desperate to escape him she couldn’t even find a way to say a proper good-bye?