Chapter Twenty-Four
Twenty-Four
Rose took her tea and moved from the desk to the settee and stared into the well-laid fire. She half expected Emerson to return and storm his way into her private sanctum.
The door flew back, and Rose gasped. “What—” Her hand flew to her chest. “Oh! Gabriella, it’s you. Hello, Rebecca. What on earth brings the two of you by?”
“Mr. Whitmore has been trying to find you.” Gabriella grinned.
“Oh?” Rose took a sip of her tea, a little pleased at this revelation. She waved out her hand, indicating they sit and partake.
“I would call him smitten. How is Antonia?” Gabriella plopped down in a matching chair, while Rebecca lowered gracefully onto the settee.
Rose ignored the “smitten” remark, which was certainly not the case. “As large as that house she resides in. She insists she is up to the task of hosting the young women for their special outing.”
“Is she?” Rebecca asked.
“Yes. She is quite excited about it. Her husband is currently in London.” Rose frowned. “I don’t like her being in Amersham alone.”
“She has a house full of servants. She’s hardly alone,” Gabriella returned.
Rose wrinkled her nose. “That’s true, but she would be vastly disappointed if we postpone. I should ring for more tea.”
“We’ve already set Winston on the task,” Rebecca said, then lowered her voice. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Gabriella screamed and clapped her hands. “You’re with child! I knew it.”
“What? No.” The duchess was most insistent, but her face turned noticeably pink. If she wasn’t yet, Rose suspected she soon would be. Lord knew, it was long past time her brother spawned an heir.
Gabriella deflated. Rose hid her smile behind her cup.
Just then, a maid entered with a new service and set it on the low table. No one spoke until the girl left. Rose poured tea for herself, leaving her sister and the duchess to fend for themselves. Family and all.
After a quick sip, Rebecca leaned forward and reached for a card of soft cream Rose hadn’t noticed on the tray, there for all to see.
“What’s this?” She turned it about and read, “Mr. Emerson Whitmore, Whitmore’s Wholesale Warehouse.
Importers of Fine Textiles and Goods. Manchester Square, London.
” She looked up, meeting Rose’s eyes. The mischievous glint did not bode well.
Somehow Rose managed to contain a groan. Not her embarrassment, however, her face flaming that started from her toes.
Rebecca glanced back at the card. “By appointment to several London houses.” She cleared her throat for the final repost. “Discretion assured.”
“Interesting,” Gabriella said, grinning again. “As I said, Mr. Whitmore has been looking for you. He happened by Hope House yesterday.”
Rose snatched the card from Rebecca, vowing silently to sack Winston for allowing this horrid little scene to take place. “I’ll thank you to leave my correspondence be.”
“Of course,” Rebecca murmured with faux contriteness Rose didn’t buy for a minute.
A sense of humor was not something Rose was known for. Once more, she forced back a groan, realizing Adventurous Rose had much evolving to endure.
“We actually came for an entirely different reason,” Rebecca said.
The hair on Rose’s nape raised, but she did her best to steady her voice. “Oh?”
“Someone rifled through Sebastian’s desk.” She continued more softly, “It was quite brazen.” Her voice sharpened. “He’s a bloody duke.”
Rose blinked and nearly dropped her cup, her stomach tightening with an influx of beetles buzzing about.
And not because of Rebecca’s blasphemy. Rose set her cup down lest she spill the contents with her trembling fingers.
“It was ransacked?” Her voice was near to squeaking.
She hadn’t imagined Emerson tearing through Sebastian’s desk like a marauder. The thought infuriated her.
“No, not ransacked,” Gabriella piped up. “It was much more subtle.”
“I don’t understand.” Rose pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead, partly in relief.
“Sebastian doesn’t feel it was a common thief,” Rebecca said. “He believes the culprit was looking for something specific.”
Gabriella nodded. “Huntley and I checked our own papers—so far, nothing seems amiss.”
Rose could barely draw a breath. Because it was she who’d allowed Emerson in. He had promised no harm. He had sworn it. “Did anyone see anything?” she asked, terrified of the answer.
“No.” Rebecca’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she didn’t appear to be seeing anything in front of her. “Whoever it was appeared to have entered through the windows, but Fosse insists they were latched.”
Rose’s throat went dry.
“We thought you should know,” Gabriella said gently. “Sebastian’s wasn’t the only office searched. Shufflebottom’s was as well, during the masquerade.”
Rose swallowed. Hard. “Does Sebastian have any idea why?” She could hardly get the words past the constriction in her throat.
“He only told me to keep my eyes and ears open. It’s perfectly outrageous,” Rebecca bit out.
Gabriella chimed in. “You might mention it to Winston in the event some miscreant is casing Mayfair.”
Oh, dear. Rose’s gaze drifted to her own windows, where the pewter-colored sky was spewing rain. The card between her fingers seemed to singe her fingertips.
The Adventurous Rose wanted nothing more than to dash to her bedchamber and pull the covers over her head. But now, she must speak to Emerson.
Learn exactly what he was about.
~~~
Rose paced the library on the ground floor, hands wringing, awaiting an appropriate amount of time after Gabriella and Rebecca’s departure before dashing out into a sloshing October day.
She had every intention of storming Ten Manchester Square despite what the etiquette books insisted were ruinous, as she’d read to the Hope House women.
Ten minutes crawled by. That’s it. Adventurous Rose could wait no longer.
She started for the door, but the windows crashed back. Blowing rain slashed inside. Rose’s hand flew to her chest, her mouth opened, poised for a scream to bring down the house at the caped fellow pausing on the threshold.
Heart in her throat, she cursed herself for the stuttering that shifted from fear to anticipation. “Emerson?”
He stepped inside and shed his coat, draping it over a table near the windows. “Damn you, Rose. I’ve been trying to talk to you.”
The fury was fast, a ferocious jolt through her body.
“You had your chance yesterday.” She brought her arms up to fold over her body, but that felt like…
defeat. She steeled her spine and drew on her anger like a shot of potent whiskey, placing her arms to her sides in a deliberate move.
“Leave at once,” she bit out, completely having forgotten her need to speak to him.
“Your days of crawling through windows ends now—”
Like a jungle cat, he stalked her across the room. It seemed an eternity crept by before his hands whipped out and latched on to her shoulders and yanked her against his chest.
Broad. Warm.
This was no gentleman pampered by a valet to dress him, a servant to draw his bath, a tiger to run his errands. This was a man who lived by his own hand, his own rules—one who expected no other to bear the weight of his world.
“Rose?” he whispered.
“What?” she whispered back.
“Look at me.”
She shook her head, doing her damnedest to remember her anger, her hurt, his disregard.
His thumb brushed at the corner of one eye. “Look. At. Me.”
“No.” But unable to resist, she opened her eyes, and to her abject horror, a few drops escaped.
“I’m sorry,” he said. The words cracked from him as though he’d never uttered them before, breaking through her ice-encased heart. “There was an urgent matter to attend in Sussex.”
This was not what she wanted to hear. He didn’t mean it. They never did. Never.
“But you—you—demanded the meeting yesterday morning, and you never showed up. Without. A. Word.” She hated how it…hurt.
“I know, darling. It was remiss of me in not apprising you of my change in plans. I was set to head to Buckinghamshire after you, but then I learned you’d returned.”
“You did?” She also hated how her heart lifted at his declaration. She compressed her lips.
“I came straight here once I returned and then learned that you had left town.” He moved to her side, going down on one knee. “You drive me…wild. Do you realize?”
“No. No, I don’t.” She brought her hands up as if to protect her heart from his words, yet rested them on his shoulders.
He framed her face within his large hands.
“I don’t understand myself these days. It’s quite unnerving what you do to me.
” He leaned in and took her mouth. No sweet caress in that of a nobleman, but a demand, harsh and unrelenting—one that stole her very breath, the bone and muscles that supported her ability to stand.
His tongue stroked hers with a purpose that turned her brain to nothing but a bowl of… of watery porridge.
Any recollections of her late husband’s mealy, half-enthusiastic attempts were obliterated by Emerson’s searing touch.
She clutched his shoulders and jumped full body into the fray, applying what tutelage he’d offered the night of the masquerade.
The fullness of those firm lips that appeared at first glance so stern, so…
unrelenting. But, oh, how they tasted so right.
Her fingers curled…and her toes. It seemed as if her head—no, her body—floated.
On air.
She didn’t even require her knees…
He’d lifted her, carried her to the settee, dropped her, left her in an undignified heap.
He tore open his waistcoat, jerked his shirt from his breeches.
She watched, her lips swollen and burning from his. A laborer’s hand rested at the flap.
“Rose?” His voice, a husky resonance, went deep beneath her skin. Gooseflesh prickling.
She lifted her eyes to his and swallowed hard at the desire that shimmered from him. She was barely aware of her head moving, acknowledging her consent.