Chapter 3 #2
“Um.” She strolled away and stopped in front of one of the bookcases, then ran a delicate tipped fingernail across several spines. No gloves. “They might have speculated on how you, er, acquired your funds.”
He narrowed his gaze on her. “Speculated?”
“It may have been tossed about that you are swindling the East India Company.” She glanced at him and winced. “Are you?”
He let that roll off and ignored this question as well, so ridiculous it was.
Ben had resented Emerson since the day Father had learned of his existence and brought him into the household.
“The Martindales are hosting a musicale on Thursday.” He went to the window and glanced out at the host of carriages lining the street.
“Did you hear what I said?” A huff of exasperation touched her tone.
“I heard you, and no, I am not swindling the East India Company. We share a mutually beneficial relationship.”
“What kind?”
“They provide me with goods, and I sell them. All legal and aboveboard,” he assured her.
“Silks? Muslin?”
He turned and faced her. “Of course,” he said without any modicum of patience. “Now, if that is the end of the inquisition, I shall ask again. Would you consider helping me?”
A long pause ensued, then she inclined her head. “I’ll help you. Provided you allow me a reduced amount on some of your finer fabrics.”
“You’re bribing me?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t call it that. I’m…er, bartering.” She started across the room toward the painting he’d been examining when she’d burst in on him.
“Bartering,” he muttered under his breath. But it was a way in. “Fine.” He stalked in her direction. “You’re certain you can wrangle an invite into the Martindales’ home?”
Amusement tipped her lips. “Oh, yes. I’ve already accepted my invitation. Baron Stanford was my late husband.”
The name was markedly familiar as snippets of the London Times headlines filtered through him. “Stanford was stabbed in the chest—” Mortification stalled the rest of his response, and he stared at her.
“Yes. That Stanford.”
“You’re the baroness.”
“For now.” She turned back to examining the painting. Correction, the frame of the painting. “But I have other plans. I’ll help you locate your cousin. Assisting you lauds me first crack at the earl with no competition. I’m not so young any longer.”
“Take off your mask,” he said. “I wish to see this harridan for myself.”
Her fingers stilled, and she slowly turned back to him, her gaze never wavering.
The silence built between them was fraught with his anticipation and her…unease? He waited, not convinced she would actually do as he requested. Requested? Laughable.
If she were smart, she would run for the door.
But long, delicate fingers crept up to the ties behind her head. A second later, the mask dangled from an index finger through one of the cutout eyes.
The sight of her creamy skin, defined cheekbones, perfectly arched eyebrows, and pert nose punched him in the belly as if it were James Stokes’ own fist who delivered the blow.
He couldn’t tear his gaze away. Add those riotous curls and the stark memory of that quick kiss…
Taken together, all garnered the effect lethal.
A blaze of red flamed her face. “Your disappointment is noted,” she said, lifting the mask back in place.
“No.” He was across the space in a shot.
“I mean…yes, you should put your mask back on. Only should someone burst in again.” His finger brushed her cheek with a light touch.
“I can honestly say I’ve never been less disappointed.
” The husky growl emitting from him caught him by surprise.
He took her mask, spun her about, set it in place, and tied the ends—fumbled, rather, until he had to strip off his gloves to do the deed. Appallingly, his hands trembled.
The subtle fragrance of orange blossoms wafted up and he couldn’t resist taking a fistful of her hair and bringing it to his nose. He closed his eyes to steady himself against another onslaught of sudden lust.
He dropped her hair, quickly tied her mask in place and stepped back. He hadn’t been ruled by lust since he was fourteen, and he refused so now.
“Look at this.” Her excitement rippled the air.
He opened his eyes.
She’d parted the painting from the wall, exposing the safe behind.
“Well, well, well,” he said softly. “Well played, Lady Stanford. Well played.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and gently moved her aside.
“Hey!”
Urgency gripped him. “Lock the door.”
She hurried over and twisted the latch.
Emerson pulled the painting fully away from the wall and studied the safe. It was a Chubbsafe. He glanced at Lady Stanford. Her lips were pressed in a stubborn line. There was no hope for hiding his intention, and he wouldn’t have another prime opportunity as this.
~~~
Rose couldn’t believe it. She had literally stumbled into a path to the Earl of Hallandale.
Her scalp tingled at such deliciousness.
Oh, my. She wondered if the earl kissed like his cousin.
It certainly enlightened her regarding Huntley’s and Gabriella’s relationship—in a most illuminating light—not to mention that of her paltry marriage.
What a fool she’d been. She cut a gaze to this most intriguing man.
Mr. Whitmore was difficult to overlook. Taller than even her brother, the duke, and far broader through the shoulders.
She imagined it was the result of years spent overseeing ships and warehouses rather than lounging in drawing rooms and White’s.
He seemed to carry the solid strength of a man who did what he proclaimed—worked for his living.
That dark hair looked perpetually in danger of unruliness and framed a face made more arresting by equally dark eyes, sharp and assessing.
There was nothing of the idle gentleman about him; every line of his frame spoke of purpose, industry, and an independence Rose had no business finding so… distracting.
A sigh escaped her. It was a shame and a waste he was only a merchant.
Whitmore reached inside his pocket once more and this time pulled out a small packet of…tools.
All thought flew from her head with her gasp. “Good heavens. Do you just poke the pointed end in? Why do you have to fiddle with it so? Could you instruct me on how to do that?”
“Lady Stanford, please! It takes a delicate touch and a keen ear.” His tone raised her defense hackles and left her speechless.
She drew in a breath, ready to blast him to the devil—
Click.
“Ah, there you are, my sweet,” Whitmore breathed. His words sent a spiral of thrill that wrapped Rose’s spine and raised bumps of awareness over her skin. “Stand aside.” He pulled the small steel door back.
Unable to resist, however, Rose crowded him again and could make out loose sheaves of papers atop a tall stack.
He grasped the loose papers and brought them out.
“Vowels.” He paused at the top one then handed it to her.
“Mr. Collier? Eight thousand, seventy-five pounds,” Rose read, her voice trilling a high C on the pianoforte.
“The point of this task is to keep from bringing the house down around us, my lady,” he growled.
“Er, sorry,” she whispered, taking the next note.
“Earl Stockton: three thousand, twenty-two. Viscount Winchester: twenty-five hundred. Maudsley—” She glanced at him.
“He’s an earl with highly questionable ethics—” She dropped her gaze and her eyes widened.
“Fifteen thousand.” She waved the stack she held in the air. “How many are there?”
Mr. Whitmore snatched them from her and stuffed them back in the safe.
“Several more, and I would advise you to keep what you are seeing to yourself. Men don’t care for their private business being bandied about.
Not for sums of these amounts. Many have gone to great lengths to keep such information buried. ”
She scowled at the back of his head. “I take it these men are funding the masquerade.”
He closed the safe, pushed the painting in place, then faced her with a grin that could only be described as wolfish, gleaming teeth flashing past firm lips. The tool pack disappeared in his breast pocket.
She itched to strip that mask away, shake him. Kiss him—
Erg. Such lascivious inklings toward a virtual stranger showed she was truly bound for Bedlam. She was a widow. A woman in her thirties! A woman who longed for…passion—
Dear heavens, she’d lost her mind.
“We need to get out of here,” her companion said with a sudden urgency. “Shufflebottom will no doubt return and will be determined to learn who was enjoying his private hospitality.”
“Private hospitality,” she sputtered. Oh, right, the drinks. “You have a point.”
“You must leave the ball,” he said.
“What? No!”
“Fine. He will hunt you down, you know.”
The mystery man took her hand within his warm, bare one, stunning her—he hadn’t yet replaced his gloves. She was tugged unceremoniously around the desk. “Do you have a way home?”
“I came with my sister and her husband. Why?”
“All right. I shall return you to them. But you must leave. If your costume was not so distinguishable”—he brought his hand up, clutching a handful of her hair—“this certainly will be.”
He dropped her hair and dragged her to the door, then came to a sudden stop. “Good God. Your shoes.”
Blast, she’d nearly forgotten. She yanked her hand from his and found them behind the door, where they must have been pushed when Shufflebottom burst in. Slipping into them proved impossible, and she nearly toppled over.
With a muttered oath she’d never heard before, he was down on one knee, taking her ankle and sliding her foot into place and tying the strings.
The palm of his hand seared her skin through her stocking—silk, wool could not be borne.
It seemed to rest there for an interminable, dizzying amount of time.
It must have been her imagination, because just as abruptly he was again on his feet and untwisting the locked door.
She didn’t even recall him managing her other shoe.
He glanced over his shoulder at her with such a gleam in his eye, it had her checking her mask was securely in place.
He cracked the door and peered out. “If we run into anyone, be prepared.”
“Prepared?”
He shot her another of those quick grins that twisted her insides into knots. Ah, another kiss. “One last thing.”
“What?”
Quick as a surge of wind, Jane’s mobcap was stripped away and thrown over her head with a powerful thrust. Yet it floated like a cloud, landing softly in the center of the room. “Now, we’re ready.”
To her greatest and most shocking disappointment, they didn’t run into a single soul on the way back to the ballroom. Mr. Whitmore pushed open the door she’d previously escaped through. If the room had been crowded before, it was impossible to navigate now. The crowd looked to have doubled.
“We shall work a path to the door by way of the dance floor,” he said. “If you don’t see your sister by the time we make it across, I shall see you home myself.”
Seconds later, she was swung into a waltz amongst the packed parquet. She would never locate Gabriella in this throng. And then she did at the exact moment Gabriella spotted her. The air went out of Rose’s body.
“What is it?” her partner demanded softly.
Her gaze flew to his.
“Your sister?”
“And my sister-in-law.”
“Excellent.”
“How shall I introduce you?”
“That won’t be necessary.” That grin of his was starting to grate on her. “Where are they?”
“Next to the Duke of Ryleigh.”
He missed a step.
Rose tilted her head up at him, stuffing her own grin. “Oh, you know of my brother?”
“You little minx,” he bit out. He broke their eye contact and surveyed the perimeter.
Tension poured from him. He spun her about and stopped just feet away from Sebastian.
“I’ll see you Thursday night at the Martindales,” he whispered in her ear.
“Open the terrace doors in the library by ten o’clock. ”
“I’ll take my kerchief back now,” she whispered fiercely.
He pulled it from his pocket. Spread it out and appeared to study her initials. He brought it to his nose and breathed in. “Will you?” He stuffed it back in his pocket. “Until Thursday, my lady.” He melted into the horde like a dark specter.