15. Jealousy #3
Emma held up her hand for silence as Everett’s cultured tones carried over. Shaking his head, Michael walked ahead with Lady Amy and her brother.
“The Italian countryside is breathtaking in spring…” Everett was saying from a few steps ahead.
“Alas,” she said, just loud enough to carry, “even such a sight lacks beauty when one is accompanied by a liar and a thief.”
Everett turned his head, his lips curving into that infuriating half-smile. “I recall you were an excellent teacher in both arts. In particular, stealing a man’s wits.”
“Hardly stealing when you had none to begin with,” Emma replied evenly.
Everett fell back and lowered his voice. “Perhaps your scientific rigor was compromised by all that...heavy breathing."
Heat bloomed in her cheeks. She moved closer still, her voice dropping to barely a whisper. "The breathing was purely from boredom. Really, watching paint dry would have provided more stimulation."
“Indeed?” His eyes darkened as he leaned closer. “Strange. My observations suggested quite the opposite. Particularly during our more…practical examinations.”
“Dr Moreland!” Lady Winona took him by the arm and led him to an oak tree. “What a fascinating tree! Do tell us about its medicinal properties.”
Emma barely registered her words, caught in the dangerous current between wanting to slap Everett’s smug smile from his face and yanking him behind the nearest tree to remind him it was her he wanted, not Lady Featherbrain.
The knowing glint in his eyes told her he read every thought crossing her face.
“Careful, Miss Brown,” he murmured as she brushed past him. “Your professional detachment is showing signs of strain.”
Emma kept her face carefully blank, though her hands had curled into fists at her sides. She moved away with deliberate grace, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing how deeply his words had struck.
“Are you well, Miss Brown?” Lady Amy asked quietly, turning from her conversation with Michael.
Emma felt heat creep up her neck. “Perfectly fine. Thank you. Dr Moreland and I merely have an unresolved professional disagreement.”
“Is that what we’re calling it now?” Michael positioned himself between them, his voice teasing. “Because it looked rather more personal than professional.”
“There was never…” Emma’s voice faltered. “That is to say, there was nothing of consequence between us.”
Lady Amy’s bright eyes danced with amusement. “Oh, I rather think there was something of great consequence indeed.”
Desperate to change the subject, Emma seized on a safer topic. “Lady Amy, did you know Lord Kincaid once spent three hours studying a particularly fascinating wound? His dedication to medical research is quite remarkable.”
The diversion worked. Lady Amy’s face lit with genuine interest. “Do you really? How fascinating! I’ve been reading theories about disease transmission in livestock…”
Their group continued down the snow-dusted path, naturally shifting and realigning like planets in orbit.
Emma eventually found herself beside Lord Lex, gratefully losing herself in his tales of travel and passion for blacksmithing.
Still, her treacherous eyes kept straying to Everett’s form, surrounded by his admirers with their bobbing feathers and fluttering ribbons.
When they paused to admire a spectacular view across the frost-covered valley, Emma drifted toward a cluster of ice-laden berries, their colour stark as fresh blood against the snow.
“Winter aconite.” Everett’s voice came low beside her, making her start. “Beautiful but deadly.”
“Like many things that appear harmless at first glance.”
Before he could respond, Lady Winona called him away to examine some “extraordinary” shrubs, her voice carrying a note of possession that set Emma’s teeth on edge.
“You’ll turn those berries into ashes if you glare any harder,” Michael murmured.
“I’m merely appreciating their toxic properties.”
“Of course you are.” His knowing smile softened the words. “Just as Lady Winona is simply appreciating dendrology.”
Their party continued to weave through the winter landscape, separating and reuniting like figures in an elaborate dance.
Emma alternated between engaging in intellectual discourse with Lady Amy, whose keen mind proved a welcome distraction, and Lord Lex who seemed to have lived nine lives at age thirty.
She managed to watch Everett move effortlessly between groups, equally at ease discussing politics with Michael or charming the ladies with poetry.
“He watches you, you know,” Lady Amy murmured, pausing to trace frost patterns with a gloved finger. “When he thinks no one’s looking. His eyes follow your every movement.”
Before Emma could respond, Lady Winona’s voice rang out ahead, high with excitement.
She had discovered animal tracks and required Everett’s expert opinion immediately.
Emma’s stays felt uncommonly tight as she watched him bend to examine the prints, his patience with Lady Winona’s enthusiastic misidentifications only stoking Emma’s irritation.
“Please enlighten me, Lady Amy,” she said. “Why would those young women pay any attention to Dr Moreland when Lord Kincaid and Lord Lex are just as handsome with titles to boot?”
Lady Amy’s eyes twinkled. “I’m certain their mamas would agree with you, but for young women…” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I believe it may be because Dr Moreland appears to be a man of experience while my brother and Lord Kincaid exude an air of boyishness.”
“Mind your step,” Lord Lex cautioned as he approached, his hand settling at the small of Emma’s back. He steadied her just as her foot slipped on a patch of ice. “The path turns treacherous here.”
But Emma barely noticed the terrain, too focused on Everett’s rich laugh at some inane observation about rabbit tracks.
Her distraction proved costly as her next step caught a hidden root, pitching her forward.
Strong hands caught her from behind—Lord Lex’s, she realised—but not before her ankle wrenched with a burst of pain.
Lord Lex supported her as she leaned heavily against him. Everett materialised beside her as if conjured, all pretence of casual acquaintance vanishing. His hands went to her ankle, fingers probing with gentle precision through her boot.
“I’m perfectly fine,” she insisted, though the throbbing suggested otherwise.
“You need to rest it.” His voice carried that distinctive blend of professional authority and personal concern that made her pulse skip. “I’m taking you back to the house.”
“That’s hardly—”
“I insist.”
Before she could marshal further protest, he swept her into his arms.
“Please, continue your walk,” he addressed the others with calm authority. “I’ll see Miss Brown safely home.”
As Everett carried her away, Emma caught the varying expressions of their companions: Lord Lex’s puzzled look, Lady Amy’s sympathetic smile, Lady Winona’s crestfallen pout.
The last should have given her some satisfaction, but instead only heightened her confusion about the turmoil in her own heart.
Once they rounded the first bend, Emma found her voice. “Put me down this instant.”
He continued walking, leaving the path to venture deeper into the woods where the snow lay unmarked.
“Where are you taking me?”
Only when they were well hidden among the trees did he set her carefully on her feet, though his hands lingered at her waist.
“I said I’m perfectly fine—”
“Are you?” His voice was soft but intense. “Because you’ve barely looked at me all morning, yet you nearly broke your neck watching me with Lady Winona.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” But her voice lacked conviction. “I was simply marvelling at your patience with such obvious manipulation.”
“The only manipulation I care about is yours.” His fingers traced the line of her jaw. “Using Lord Lex to make me jealous…”
“I did no such thing!”
“No?” His eyes darkened. “Then why does every laugh, every smile you give him feel like a knife in my chest?”
Emma’s breath caught at the raw emotion in his voice. “You are the one who ignored me.”
“I can’t bear it,” he said, his eyes boring into hers. “Watching you with others, Lex’s arms around you when they should’ve been mine… Pretending I don’t want to claim your every smile, every laugh, every brilliant observation as my own…”
“You lost that right when you betrayed me.” But she didn’t pull away. She couldn’t.
“I know.” His thumb traced her lower lip. “I know I have no right to feel this possessive, this desperate. But Emma…” His voice broke slightly. “You must know it’s killing me.”
She should step back. Should remember his lies, his theft, all the reasons to guard her heart. Instead, she found herself swaying toward him, drawn by the heat in his eyes and the promise in his touch.
“We need to talk,” she whispered, fighting the urge to close the last distance between them.
“Yes.” But his gaze had dropped to her lips. “We absolutely should discuss everything rationally…”
“Everett…”
He swiftly tossed his hat on the fresh snow and dipped his head.
His mouth claimed hers with desperate intensity, and for one burning moment, Emma let herself forget everything except the taste of him, the solid warmth of his chest under her palms, the way his hands tangled in her hair as if he couldn’t bear to let her go.
“God, I’ve missed you,” he breathed against her lips. “Every minute, every hour. I can’t sleep for thinking of you.”
Reality crashed back as she remembered all his trickeries. Emma jerked away, her chest heaving.
“This changes nothing,” she said, though the tremor in her voice betrayed her. “I still don’t trust you.”
“Marry me.”
Emma staggered back. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Possibly.” His smile held a hint of desperation. “But I love you.”
“Love me?” She laughed bitterly. “You’ve lied to me, stolen from me—”
“To protect you!”
“How convenient that protecting me aligns so perfectly with your father’s interests.”