Six weeks later

 

Another damned book.

Arthur stared at the seat of the chair at the breakfast table. Her chair. He picked up the tome and opened it. Pride and Prejudice. He’d purchased this book for her on their outing to Hatchards. He’d purchased a number of books for her in the first two weeks of their marriage. The only two weeks. Haunting reminders of Emmaline smiling, joyous all for the simple gift of a book. Gifts she’d left behind when she’d departed Berkeley Square in the early morning hours after Sir Stirling’s ball.

He placed the book beside his plate and dropped into the chair at the head of the table. In the six weeks since she’d left for his Hampshire estate, Arthur had been finding selections from her library everywhere. In the parlor. In the drawing room. In her bedchamber, where he’d taken to sleeping when he slept at all. He’d even found a book of Da Vinci’s drawings in the carriage. He did not know which was worse—finding them whilst alone, so he might give in to the sharp shards of recrimination lancing his chest or finding them in the presence of servants, whose pitying eyes infuriated him so.

She’d bewitched him. No other explanation sufficed. Every waking moment he saw her, and when he slept, she haunted his dreams in ways that awakened him begging for mercy. The scent of lavender set him to searching the house. It was madness to hope she’d returned. Madness or something far worse. Something he refused to contemplate.

The footman placed a perfectly appointed plate of kippers, steak, and eggs and a steaming cup of coffee before him. When the young man reached to remove the copy of Miss Austen’s novel, Arthur waved him away.

“Thank you, George. That will be all,” he muttered absently. His fingers traced the gold-embossed title. The book fell open easily. Emmaline had read it in an evening. They’d sat in the green drawing room together—he on the long, comfortable brocade sofa and she curled up in the green velvet armchair by the fire. In the first few weeks after she’d left he’d found six books on tables and tucked into chairs in the green drawing room alone. Which was why he avoided the room now. His house had become a battlefield, with cannons of memory firing around every corner. Had she truly only lived here two weeks? Had she truly only been his—

“Sir Stirling James has come to call, my lord.” Hobbs, his butler, had slipped into the room without Arthur’s notice and stood at his chair, a small silver tray in his hand. Arthur glanced at the elegant card on the tray.

“Tell him to go to hell.”

“My lord?”

“Judging from the look of your master, I am already there.” The architect of Arthur’s misery strode into the room. “His lordship will see me, Hobbs. Whether he wishes to or not.”

Arthur waved the confounded butler from the room. He picked up his cup of coffee and walked down the other side of the long cherry-wood dining table in an effort to avoid the Scotsman. He stopped mid-step and walked back to retrieve Emmaline’s book.

“I trust you can see yourself out,” he tossed over his shoulder as he left the dining room and headed for the room that was both his comfort and his torment.

The arrogant arse followed him. To add insult to injury, Arthur stepped into the library to find Thaddeus Warren seated before the large mahogany desk. Sir Stirling took the chair beside him.

“Why is it the only people who feel the need to call on me are the very people I have no desire to see?” Arthur took a sip of his coffee, grimaced, and placed the cup on the mantel.

Sir Stirling steepled his fingers and rested them on his stomach. He raised a questioning eyebrow.

“His brother came last week,” Warren offered. “His lordship tried to pitch the marquess down the stairs.”

“Winwood can be rather provoking.”

“So can his lordship. He called his brother an interfering sod. Told him if he went anywhere near Lady Emmaline he’d murder him.”

Sir Stirling snorted. “Sounds as if the lady is well rid of both of them.”

“His housekeeper said the same thing. Right after she boxed their ears.”

“I am standing right here, you nattering old women.”

“And there is the question,” Sir Stirling declared. “Why are you standing here, Lord Arthur, when your wife is rusticating in Hampshire? Alone.”

“She has chosen to rusticate.” Arthur pressed the heel of his hand to the center of his chest. “What must I do to persuade you two to leave my house and not come back?”

“Marry me under false pretenses?” Sir Stirling quipped.

“Accuse me of abetting a notorious swindler?” Warren added.

Arthur stormed to his desk and rummaged through the drawers. He dragged the wrinkled drawing of the lottery ticket from a drawer. “You accused her as well, damn you!”

“I wasn’t married to her.” Warren leveled him with an unforgiving stare. “And I was wrong.” He took the drawing and spread it over the desk. Sir Stirling rose to get a better view.

“What are you talking about?” Arthur’s belly turned to stone. What had he done?

“I showed this to my friends at the Bank of England. I never asked how they caught Peachum.”

Warren pointed to the corner of the perfect rendering of a lottery ticket Emmaline had created. Her father had used this to print hundreds of useless lottery tickets. He’d sold them to scores of people and pocketed the money. People like the men who had sailed under his command. She had helped her father to take all the money these men had in the world. Arthur stared at the place to which his man of business drew their attention.

She’d signed it. There in the corner, a perfect image of her artist’s signature. He knew it as well as he knew his own name. Especially after the last six weeks. He’d spent hours in the rooms she’d chosen for her work. Rooms with floor to ceiling windows across two walls to let in the light. Arthur had wandered from easel to easel admiring her talent, her ability to see people as they truly were, and to find the nobility in everyone from an old naval officer to the potboy in his own kitchen. He’d sat on the floor and leafed through her sketchbooks over and over again, especially the ones she’d taken to the Royal Academy and on their outing to Kew Gardens. Each work of art bore the exquisite EP he saw now on the lottery ticket.

“Clever girl,” Sir Stirling mused. “She is the reason he was caught.”

“She did it deliberately.” Arthur dropped into the chair Sir Stirling had vacated. “She betrayed her father.”

“We will probably never know why she did as he asked, but—”

“You have no idea the things a person will do to try and earn a parent’s love, Warren.” Arthur shook his head. How could he have doubted her? She knew her father’s arrest meant her own destruction, yet she’d ensured it with a stroke of her artist’s pen.

“I asked you why you were so keen to marry Miss Peachum, Lord Arthur.” Sir Stirling folded his arms across his chest and leaned a hip against the desk. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me the truth, now you’ve cocked it up in such a grand fashion.”

Warren grinned and whistled softly as he wandered toward the windows at the far end of the room.

Arthur told him everything. His promise to his men. Warren’s investigation of Emmaline and of Sir Stirling himself. The letter he’d intercepted from Peachum to his mistress and the reasons he’d acquired every stick and bowl to come out of the Sloane Street house, most especially Emmaline’s beloved library. A library she no longer wanted because he’d ruined it for her.

Sir Stirling gave a heavy sigh. “You have wealth to spare, man. Why didn’t you simply pay your men and be done with it? Why saddle yourself with an unwanted wife? You cannot shed her like last season’s coat. And I fully intend the lady to cost you far more than fifty thousand pounds.”

“She can have whatever she wishes.” Arthur straightened. Hands clasped behind him, he tried to walk past the man who’d brought Emmaline into his life. Part of him wished he’d never met her. Part of him thanked God for every moment of their all too brief weeks together. The Scotsman studied him.

“They made you swear. Your men made you swear you would not give them your own money.”

Arthur nodded. “They might only be common sailors, but they have their pride. I swore on my honor. They expected me to find their money. I had no choice.”

Sir Stirling snorted derisively. “I wish you and your honor very happy, my lord. Do not worry over Miss Peachum. My wife and I will see to her.”

“She is not Miss Peachum,” Arthur roared. “She is Lady Arthur and she can take care of herself.” He shoved Sir Stirling against a wall of books. From the corner of his eye he saw Warren turn from the windows and stride toward them. “She is my wife.” Never had he allowed himself such anger, such mindless rage. “I will see to her care should she need it. I will see to her every need.”

“You’ve done a bang up to the mark job so far,” Warren remarked as he pushed Arthur back. “You can’t hit him, Farnsworth. He’s a bloody duke in Scotland. His wife brought far more than some natty old books into his life.”

In the blink of an eye Warren crashed to the floor, taking the old globe from Emmaline’s library with him. Arthur’s fist hurt like the devil. “You have no idea what Emmaline has brought to my life.”

“Do you?” Warren asked as he rubbed his jaw and allowed Sir Stirling to give him a hand up.

Arthur spied the gold and burgundy shawl he’d used as a pillow when he slept on the library settee. To be close to her books. To keep her scent of lavender of soap near him. A pair of her slippers peeked from beneath the chair by the hearth. The copy of Pride and Prejudice taunted him from the desk. What had she brought into his life?

Everything.

Everything he never wanted to live without for even a moment longer.

“Gentlemen, look at this.” Sir Stirling knelt down next to the upturned globe.

“I have to go.” Arthur dashed for the doors. Stopped. Ran to the desk and scooped up the leather-bound book there.

“I’ll be damned.” Warren held up a handful of gold sovereigns he’d fished from inside the broken globe. “Farnsworth, we’ve found Peachum’s treasure.”

“I married Peachum’s treasure,” Arthur declared, with no idea or hope of what came next. “I am going to Hampshire to fetch it.”

 

***

 

Emmaline had settled into life at Ivy Hall, the cozy manor house on Arthur’s Hampshire estate, quite nicely. The estate boasted a very efficient steward, a jolly butler and housekeeper, and a staff of servants devoted to seeing to her every comfort. The house was perfectly appointed, his lordship having refurbished it himself a year ago—according to Mrs. Rowe, the housekeeper.

Which meant, Emmaline had not a single thing with which to occupy herself. So desperate was she, after six weeks away from London, to find something to stay her running mad, she sat in the sunny morning parlor and attempted… embroidery. It had the virtue of keeping her awake as she tended to prick her finger at least once every fifteen minutes. Thank God, she’d never had to earn her keep as a seamstress.

She’d never have to earn her keep again. Ivy House was hers. The deeds and other papers had arrived a fortnight past. With them had come a perfunctory letter ordering her to send all of her bills to Arthur’s London solicitor and to spend whatever she wished. It had been signed

Your husband,

Captain Lord Arthur Farnsworth

Your husband.

Emmaline laughed bitterly. What a fool she’d been. One would think over twenty-six years as Reginald Peachum’s daughter might have taught her the folly of trusting her heart to a man. And she had. She had loved and trusted Arthur completely. Perhaps had she held a portion of herself back, she’d not awaken each day to the sort of grief only the slow death of heartbreak could bring. How she despised those first moments of the day, when for a few glorious breaths she lay abed, her eyes closed and forgot she was alone. At least these days she didn’t greet the day in tears. Thank goodness, she wasn’t the lady to fall into the sort of decline that resulted in a loss of appetite. Ivy House’s cook was beyond compare.

No, Emmaline hadn’t the temperament to fade away, a victim of unrequited love. Even if the object of her love was her lying, duplicitous husband. Just as she knew she’d not die of her broken heart, she also knew she’d never stop loving Arthur Farnsworth. She’d live a long, healthy life alone and breathe his name when she drew her last breath.

Did that make her strong or pitiful or something in between?

A smattering of raised voices drew her attention from her distinctly uncreative embroidery. She tossed her frame onto the pretty primrose settee and started down the wide carpeted corridor toward the sparse library of Ivy House.

“If my lady finds you here she’ll have your bollocks for earrings, duke’s son or not.”

It couldn’t be. Birdie and—

“Arthur.” Emmaline stepped into the library. Her breath caught at the sight of him.

Muddy boots, no cravat, wrinkled breeches and coat, windblown hair, and his face thin and pale, but still criminal handsome.

“Birdie, leave us,” Emmaline said softly. When her maid opened her mouth to protest, she waved her out of the room.

“Emmaline.” He dropped the books in his hands and took a step toward her. After everything he’d said and done his eyes still offered her safety and danger, passion and peace.

She took a step back. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come for the book.”

“Book? What book?”

“I have searched those you left behind and it is not there. I can only surmise you have brought it with you. Where is it?”

Her eyes scanned the room, from book to book, shelf to shelf. It looked as if a group of marauding children had ransacked the meager library of Ivy House. “Are you mad? What damned book?”

“Mad? Most definitely. What knowledge, what ancient spell did you find in the pages of these books to make me fall so irretrievably in love with you?”

“Fall in…” Her heart, traitorous beast, danced and thundered. “What are you talking about?”

“I can’t eat. I can’t sleep.” His voice tumbled to a harsh whisper. “I can scarcely breathe without you. My house is cold and empty. I am cold and empty. What magic did you weave to steal my very heart from my chest? I haven’t felt it beat since you left me. Not until the moment you walked into this room.” He took a step closer and then another.

Her feet refused to budge. “Arthur…”

“There is no other explanation. You must have some Lady’s Book of Love and I am helpless against it. I surrender, Emmaline. Just don’t send me away.”

“Don’t send you… You sent me away. You lied to me at every turn. You didn’t marry me for love or even to offer me a home. You married me to search my library for the money my father took, money you believe I helped him take.”

He took her hands in his. “I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. I will tell you everything.” He hung his head and when he looked at her again, his eyes shone with such love she nearly gasped. She knew the look. She saw it in her own eyes when she glanced in the mirror and thought of him. “You are the bravest, most beautiful, talented, and clever woman I know. You brought down England’s most notorious swindler, Emmaline. You did. He was your father and you did the very last thing he expected of you. I am in awe of your strength and courage. I want that for my children, my love. With a horse’s arse for a father they will need a mother like you.”

“You hurt me, Arthur.” Why then had the pain of the last six weeks begun to fade. Why did her blood fairly sing in her veins?

“I am an idiot,” he declared, his expression so contrite she nearly laughed.

“It isn’t your fault. Your kind usually are. Idiots, that is.”

“My kind?”

“Men.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I married you, didn’t I?”

“I didn’t say you were a complete idiot.”

He let loose a bark of laughter.

“You are the last in a line of men who were supposed to love me and yet, betrayed me.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“I’ve heard that before. So many times before, Arthur.”

“If I do, I give you full leave to shoot me.”

“I still don’t know how to load a gun.”

“I’ll teach you.”

“Sir Stirling did not think it wise to allow me custody of my grandfather’s gun. How much greater the fool would he think you to teach me to load it?”

“I don’t give a damn what he thinks. What anyone thinks. I love you, Emmaline. I trust you with my heart, my soul, and my very life. I don’t care if you don’t love me. I’ll settle for you not leaving me.”

“Is that enough for you?”

“You are more than enough for me, my love. Give me the chance to be enough for you. I promise I—”

“You talk too much, Captain. You have been enough for me since the moment I saw you lurking about in St. Pancras Cemetery. Stubble it and kiss me.”

He snatched her into his arms and laid siege to her lips. Every touch, every whisper of his lips on hers sought to destroy her doubts and show her this man meant what he’d said and he always would. Tears pricked her eyelids. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. There was no way to tell where his trembling began and hers ended.

“Come home with me,” he murmured when he finally released her just enough to allow her to breathe.

“When a man kisses a lady like that, she really has no choice but to love him forever.”

His eyes lit up. “Thank God for that.” He rested his forehead against hers. “Let’s go home, Lady Arthur.”

“To London?”

“Too far. I am taking you to my estate in Kent before you come to your senses.”

“And do I have any say in this, Captain?”

“It has one of the largest libraries in the country.” He raised an eyebrow and gazed at her expectantly.

“A huge library and you? What else does a lady need?”

 

###