“Bloody hell,” Melisande, Viscountess Rohan, said succinctly, and at another time Emma would have laughed. For some strange reason her sense of humor had vanished. She’d fallen asleep thinking about Brandon, remembering things she’d done her best to forget, and she awoke late in the morning feeling unaccountably bereft, only to have Melisande swan in an hour later and plop herself in the nearby chair.

“Benedick’s been teaching you terrible words,” Emma said instead, leaning back in her bed. She was actually feeling better. She had the gift of healing quickly, though right now she wanted to hide in her bed rather than join Melisande’s guests. “Don’t let your children hear you.”

“In fact I learn more from the Gaggle,” Melisande countered cheerfully. “I particularly like the word ‘fuck.’ You look better, at least. Not quite so much like death warmed over. Everyone will be glad to hear it. How are you feeling?”

Emma closed her eyes. All things considered, she was feeling more than adequate. Her ribs were bruised, not broken, and the cut above her eye was minimal, despite the fact that it had provided the most gore. Her hands hurt from fighting off the man, but they were strong and used to abuse. Her entire body ached, but she’d do. Clearly her attacker had expected someone with ladylike demeanor, not the sort to kick him in the bollocks. If she’d been that kind of lady she’d be dead.

“Better,” she said. “I believe I might even be able to travel by this afternoon. I must get back to London.”

Melisande gave her a long look. “Maybe that knock on the head did more damage than we thought. You’re not going anywhere. Someone tried to kill you, you ninny! You can’t seriously expect me to believe you just happened to meet up with a brute who spends his time murdering women? On a path that no one takes? I don’t think so.”

“Why in the world would someone want to kill me?” Emma countered patiently. “I have no money, no power, no secrets. . .”

“Oh, you must have secrets,” Melisande protested. “Some particularly juicy ones, I don’t doubt, though you’ve never given in to my entreaties to share them. I have to rely on Mollie Biscuits and Long Polly to hear all the naughty details about the most proper gentlemen of my acquaintance.”

“I’d rather not think about it,” Emma said in a quiet voice.

“My dear,” Melisande said gently, covering her hand with hers.

Emma smiled, quite without bitterness. “It’s in the past, love. I’ve moved beyond it and prefer to keep it that way. But as you can see no one would have any reason to hurt me. If I were the keeper of secrets I would have used them by now. Besides, men tend to discount women—they don’t realize how dangerous they can be.”

Melisande laughed. “True enough. So you’re convinced this was simply random? You were in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

“Of course.”

“Then tell me why Rosie has disappeared,” Melisande said.

Emma shrugged, ignoring the pain in her head. “She’s probably terrified that her bad advice almost got me killed, and she ran off rather than face you or Benedick.”

“Good thing she has,” Melisande muttered. “I’d box her ears.”

“You would not, and you know it. You’re a ridiculously understanding mistress.”

Melisande didn’t deny it. “Not when they put my dearest friend in danger. But you’re insisting this was entirely random?”

“What else could it be?” Emma said faintly.

“Then perhaps you could tell me what in the world is going on between you and my brother-in-law.”

The question shouldn’t have been unexpected, but it felt like a blow. Fortunately, she was quick to recover. “I’ve never met Lord Charles before in my life,” she said, pleased with her own cleverness. “Don’t imagine intrigue where there is none—he’s not some shadow from my working years returned to embarrass me.”

“Of course he’s not—Charles is too stiff, and not in the right way, to ever take himself to a brothel.”

“We’re really having a lowering effect on your language,” Emma said, shaking her head.

“To hell with my language. You know perfectly well I’m not talking about stuffy old Charles. I’m talking about Brandon. And you. What in the world is going on? He was more than politely concerned about you—why, he spent the rest of the evening pacing, refused to come to dinner, avoiding everybody. When I went to look for him he was down in the servants’ hall, questioning the servants.”

She did her best to ignore the treacherously warm feeling that filled her. “Don’t go imagining things, Melly. There’s nothing between us. I imagine he was simply concerned that someone had been hurt. Truly, I’ve never seen Lord Brandon before he arrived.”

“Liar,” Melisande announced succinctly. “I may have been in distress at the time, but I know perfectly well you saved his life that awful night three years ago. You stopped him from hanging himself. Did you think Benedick wouldn’t have told me? Brandon thought it was some angel who’d come, and I didn’t bother to disabuse him of the notion.”

Emma didn’t blush—she had grown skilled at schooling any errant emotions. So he’d remembered that much, had he? What else had come back to him? Clearly not enough. “I prefer not to talk about it.”

“Aha! That proves there’s something more to it! If you simply met him then, there’s no reason you would want to avoid the subject. What is it between you and Brandon?”

Emma sighed with false ennui. “Nothing! How could there be? As it is, I only saw him that one time and he was barely conscious. He has no memory of me, and I have only the faintest recollection of him.” The moment she spoke she cursed herself. If she’d had her wits about her she could have said “Oh, is that the man I helped?” in an artless tone. Not that it would have done any good—her friend knew her too well.

“I doubt you’re disgruntled about that,” Melisande said judiciously. “And now that I think of it, you’ve always seemed a bit more interested when we’ve discussed Brandon than anything we’ve said about Charles or Miranda or their parents.”

“Well, isn’t that only logical? I hadn’t met the others.”

Melisande was like a terrier with a rat, and she wasn’t about to let go easily. “You met his parents at my wedding, you met Miranda and the Scorpion when everything exploded with the Heavenly Host. Charles is the only other one you’d never seen before—he wasn’t sure he approved of me enough to make the journey to our wedding, so that won’t wash. You’ve been on edge ever since the christening, when Brandon arrived, and you ran off when Charles mentioned Brandon’s fiancée.”

“I hadn’t realized he was betrothed. It surprised me.”

“He’s not betrothed!” Melisande corrected her automatically. “And simple surprise isn’t enough to make you go haring off in a storm like that. Not only is he not engaged to that pathetic little girl, I doubt he ever intends to do such a thing, ever. This is just some scheme that Charles has cooked up. I told Benedick he needed to put a stop to it, but you know Benedick. He’s the opposite of Charles—he doesn’t want to interfere.”

“It scarcely matters. Your brothers’ matrimonial plans have nothing to do with me,” Emma said.

“I wonder.” Melisande was eying her speculatively. “In the end it’s just as well, I suppose. Brandon will simply say no, and Charles will sulk. There’s no way Charles can compel him to do anything. I’m sure Miss Bonham will be much relieved—she looked quite terrified when she saw Brandon, and he deserves better than that. It will be up to us to make the poor girl feel comfortable. Charles hinted there was some sort of scandal attached to her name—well, there’d have to be, wouldn’t there? For her to come out here to meet an unknown fiancé? She and her companion are very close, but we must do our best to help the situation.”

“I need to get back to London, today. I’m sure you’ll provide excellent support, and the smaller this house party is, the better.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Melisande said firmly. “Not until you can provide me with a good enough reason.”

Emma couldn’t still a desperate laugh. “You can’t keep me hostage here, Melly.”

“Of course I can. I have the Rohans at my back. So tell me why you ran. Why you’re still so desperate to run. It’s not like you—you’re the bravest woman I know.”

“Hardly,” Emma said, but she knew that look on her friend’s face, that stubborn, determined expression. Melisande’s determination had served her well in the face of public disapproval—she had established the Dovecote, both here and in London, she had embraced a former whore and madam without question, giving Emma her first experience with unqualified love and acceptance. Emma owed her the truth, or at least a good portion of it.

“Perhaps I. . . might have met Lord Brandon before that night he tried to hang himself,” she said carefully.

Melisande’s eyes lit up. “Oh, my goodness! Never tell me he was one of your customers? I gather he was quite the wild one before he went into the army, giving his dissolute ancestors a run for their money. I’ve even had a hint or two that he was a favorite of the ladies. Apparently, he was particularly adept with his. . .”

“No!” Emma said in a strangled voice. “He was never one of my. . . um. . .”

Melisande sat back, staring at her. “Why are you being so missish?”

“I didn’t fuck him, if you prefer me to use more colorful language. It’s a word I know particularly well; I just don’t happen to like it very much.”

“So?” Melisande was unabashed. “If it wasn’t in your professional capacity, how did you meet him and when? And why is he acting like you’re a complete stranger?”

Emma’s head pounded, her heart ached, and she just wanted Melisande to go away. There were times when she wished she could cry—if she could just burst into tears Melisande would go into maternal mode, comfort her and stop with these incessant, painful questions. But Emma was not about to beg for mercy. She made it through life by facing difficulties head on and that wasn’t going to change.

“To him I am a complete stranger.” She took a deep breath. She’d learned that when something would be painful it was best done quickly, and she went on. “I used to volunteer at the soldiers’ hospital, remember? That was how I discovered my affinity for the medical arts. Your brother-in-law was one of the men I looked after when he first came back from the Afghan War. He was very ill, and he had no memory of who or what he was.”

“And?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“No. Taking care of an unconscious man is not the sort of thing to make you react like this. It’s most uncustomary.”

“I didn’t say he was unconscious,” Emma muttered. “He was in a great deal of pain, but he was able to talk. And we did. Talk that is. It helped him get through the long nights.”

For a long time Melisande looked at her, saying nothing. “I see,” she said eventually. “And what happened?”

“Absolutely nothing. I came back to the hospital and he was gone. His family had discovered him, and he was whisked off to be properly cared for like the aristocrat he is, and his memory came back and he forgot all about me.”

“So you had this connection with him all this time, while Benedick and I were going about trying to stop the Heavenly Host, and you never said a word to me?” Melisande’s voice was prosaic, but Emma knew her too well not to miss the well-hidden strain of hurt.

“What was the point? He’d forgotten me, he was doing his best to kill himself with opium and anything else destructive he could find. There was nothing I could do, and you had enough going on. You didn’t need an unimportant fact like that distracting you.”

“An unimportant fact like you’d fallen in love with a lost soul who was bound up with licentious, murderous degenerates?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Who falls in love with someone they barely know?” Emma’s mouth twisted in a grim smile. “Whores know better than to fall in love.”

Melisande slapped her. The blow was swift and unexpected, though more shocking than painful. “That’s my dearest friend you’re talking about,” she said sternly. “Don’t you dare call her names.”

Emma managed a shaky laugh. “You’re far too good to me, Melly.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” There were bright tears in Melisande’s eyes, and the ache in Emma’s heart deepened. Melisande was uncharacteristically silent for a few moments, and then sighed. “You know, it would probably be better if you weren’t in love with him. And don’t waste your breath saying that you’re not—I’ve known you for many years—I can tell when you lie. If he ever did marry, his wife would have a lifetime of emptiness.”

Emma shot a glance at her. “She would not!” she said, knowing it was unwise of her.

“No intimacies, no children. . . his wife would have little useful role in the household.”

“No intimacies, no children,” Emma echoed, perplexed. “What in heaven’s name are you talking about?”

“Why, his injuries. I hadn’t realized they were quite that extensive until Charles told me. He cannot perform a husband’s duties, he cannot father children. He’s a eunuch. But if you tended him you must already know that.”

Emma stared at Melisande in shock. “What?”

Even outspoken Melisande blushed slightly. “His wounds. He lost his. . . that is to say. . . well, Benedick was most upset.”

“I imagine he was,” Emma said grimly.

“I expect Charles managed to communicate the distressing situation with great delicacy to Miss Bonham,” Melisande said doubtfully. “Though a small, evil part of me would have loved to have heard him try.”

“Hmph,” Emma said.

“You don’t find the situation at least somewhat tragic?”

“Not particularly. I helped bathe him. He’s not missing a thing, and all would have been in working order. He’s been having somebody on.”

Melisande looked nonplussed for a moment. “Really? How odd. He must have been desperate to avoid Charles’s matchmaking skills. I shall have to reassure Benedick. . .”

“You will say nothing!” Emma shot back. “Brandon has forgotten who I am, presumably he’s forgotten his entire time in hospital. There’s no earthly reason why I or anyone else here would know whether he was intact or not.”

“But Benedick is so distressed!”

“The perhaps Brandon will tell him the truth. In the meantime, you are not to say a word! Promise me?”

“I promise,” Melisande muttered in a grudging voice, and Emma was content. Whether her friend liked it or not, she would never break a promise. “So you aren’t going to say anything either?”

“I’m going to be gone, I told you. The entire situation is much too complicated. I think that it’s better if I leave and let the family work this all out. . .”

“You are family, Emma. You’re my sister, just as important as Benedick’s assorted siblings. And you love Brandon.”

“Would you stop saying that? Of course I don’t. I just. . . I just. . .” Words failed her.

“Exactly. And you’re in no fit state to travel. You’re going to stay right here for the next few days while you recover and we find where Rosie ran off to. The girl has some questions to answer.”

“I’m not the frail flower you imagine me to be. I’ve survived a lot worse than this and been back on my feet in less than a day.”

Melisande shook her head. “When did you. . . I don’t want to know, do I?”

“You do not. I’m better off not remembering. Just leave it. I promise you I’ll be fine.”

“And I promise you that you aren’t going anywhere.” There was a stubborn set to Melisande’s jaw. “Don’t worry—you won’t have to see anyone. I can have a tray brought to you.“

“You are not to say or do anything,” Emma said fiercely, and there was no missing the edge in her voice. “Do you understand me, you are not to interfere in any way. I would never forgive you. That is not hyperbole, that is the simple truth. I would still love you, but I would never forgive you.”

Melisande nodded, the light fading. “I know. I still wish. . .”

“Don’t,” Emma said flatly. “Wishing is a waste of time.”

Benedick was standing impatiently at the head of the breakfast table when Brandon came down in search of coffee, and three other men were in attendance, including Charles, dressed for riding. “What a slugabed you are, Brandon,” Benedick greeted him. “It’s good to know that some things never change. Mother used to make me try to get you up in the morning and you resisted every effort.”

For a moment Brandon remembered those long-ago days of youth with the three of them tumbling around their country estates. He’d been the youngest, of course, and he’d made it his mission in life to annoy his older brothers. “I believe I even slept when you poured a bucket of water over my head. Mother wasn’t best pleased with that.”

“You weren’t asleep,” Benedick said. “You were feigning it.”

Brandon’s mouth curled in a seraphic smile. “You’ll never know. What are we all doing here?”

“We’re going to continue our search for Mrs. Cadbury’s attacker. Also, Rosie, one of our maids, has disappeared. She’s the one who told Mrs. Cadbury to take that roundabout way, where it appears that the man was waiting for her. I want to know who paid her and why.” His face was grim.

“Give me a moment and I’ll join you,” Brandon said, tossing his coffee back ruthlessly.

“I need you to stay here.” Benedick was as autocratic as only an older brother could be. “With the rest of us gone, I’d like at least one Rohan on site to make sure the women feel comfortable.”

Brandon nodded, accepting the decree without pleasure. “And you believe I’m less able bodied than the others.”

Benedick’s laugh was unrestrained. “Hardly. I may not have been a soldier, but I know how to apportion my troops, and one leaves one’s most powerful weapon in charge of one’s most precious assets. If that man shows up here I want you to be the one he has to face, not Charles here.”

“I say,” one of the other men objected, clearly not wanting to be relegated to the rank of less dangerous.

“Put a sock in it, Duckworthy,” Charles grumbled. “It’s bad enough we have to go out.”

That explained why Charles was going—Benedick hadn’t given him any choice. Brandon accepted his fate with more grace.

“Just promise me one thing,” he said, pouring himself another cup of the strong coffee and seating himself.

“What’s that?” Benedick demanded.

“Let me kill him.”

If Melisande thought Emma would remain meekly in bed then she didn’t know her nearly as well as she thought she did, Emma decided, pulling on her clothes with minor difficulty and only a few curses. She’d dispensed with all but the lightest of corsets years ago—they constricted her movements— so she had no difficult laces to deal with, just a general stiffness. She glanced around her comfortable bedroom. Someone else had come in and laid her fire, another had dealt with her ruined clothes. Where in the world was Rosie?

She had no difficulty understanding yesterday’s mistake—Rosie was fresh the city, coming out only a few weeks ago and taking up her first position at Starlings Manor. She would hardly be the one to know shortcuts, and she must have gotten the directions wrong. Although, considering that the one place she’d go would be to the Dovecote to visit her old friends, it seemed odd that she’d be so mistaken about it.

It also made sense that, realizing her mistake, she’d run off. Rosie had been one of the youngest they’d found on the streets. By her age she was well-experienced—at sixteen she’d been selling her body for five years—but she’d retained a curious sort of innocence that would have been unusual in a ten-year-old, and God help them, they’d recovered ten-year-olds on the streets.

The younger girls were sent to schools and decent families, and only half of them returned to the street. Melisande bewailed that so many did, but Emma viewed the matter more pragmatically. When they’d first begun they’d only saved a handful.

Her shoes were nowhere to be found, and she vaguely remembered the squelching mess as she’d picked her way through the muddy field. She slid on stockings and tied them, then looked down. She could go into Melisande’s dressing room and filch a pair of slippers, but Melisande’s feet were smaller, and she’d end up hobbling. She didn’t bother with the small bustles that were just going out of style, nor was she tempted by the new, wide crinoline cages, so her lone remaining gown—a simple one of an unfortunate rose color that flattered her much too well—hung close to her body and down to the floor. With luck no one would ever notice she was without shoes.

“Ha,” she said out loud, the sound startling in the stillness of the early afternoon. Brandon would know. The man was the very devil.

It would be too late to leave today, and she had no choice but to accept it. Her arrival downstairs would, however, signal her recovery. She would leave the next morning if she had to walk all the way back to London. The longer she remained here the more likely it was that Brandon would remember, and she doubted he’d be happy about it. She should have told him, she should have brushed it off as a stray coincidence. Instead she’d held the truth to her breast and yet treated him with far too much intimacy. She’d been an idiot, but then, it hadn’t been entirely her fault. The moment she’d seen him she’d tried to leave. He had never been at any family gathering, not in the last three years since Benedick and Melisande had fallen in love, and apparently not much before that. He’d been a soldier, never at home. His sudden appearance in the church had shocked and numbed her. If only she could still maintain that deadness of spirit, instead of the roiling, twisting ache deep inside.

Shoes or no, she was going downstairs. She paused in the door, glancing back at her room. It was safe, warm, a place of study and reflection and better sleep than she knew anywhere else.

It was also now a place of writhing torment and sleepless nights, and she wondered if she’d ever feel safe here again.

The rare, sunny day was encouraging, though dark clouds lingered ominously in the distance, and there was no sign of Melisande or her guests when Emma reached the main floor, clinging to the railing as long as no one could see her. Melisande’s favorite green salon was empty, as well as the larger drawing room, and looking out the floor-length windows that fronted the house, she could see a rousing and obstreperous game of croquet being held in the still-muddy lawn, the women’s skirts splashed liberally with mud that would take a maid hours of labor to remove. The men weren’t in sight.

“You’re becoming a humbug, Emma Cadbury,” she informed herself out loud. “You’re in trouble when you start finding fault with simple pleasures.”

Emma Cadbury didn’t reply. It wasn’t her real name, of course. She’d taken it in honor of what had once been her sole pleasure in life—cups of steaming hot chocolate. The Quaker, John Cadbury, sold the very best chocolate in town, as well as tea and her other delight, coffee, and when she’d been prodded for a last name it had been the first to come to mind, though her family name, Brown, had been anonymous enough to use safely.

“You should be in bed.”

The deep voice startled her, the words setting up the all-too-familiar churning inside her, and she turned to look at Brandon Rohan. He was dressed casually—no carefully-tied neckcloth, his unfashionably long hair awry—and she imagined that was what he’d look like when he was home in the wilds of Scotland.

“You should be out there playing croquet,” she countered, sinking just slightly to make sure her stockinged feet were covered. He’d kissed her. The memory, which she had managed to put from her mind, came sweeping back, along with so many other memories, and her cheeks felt warm. Impossible, she reminded herself. Whores don’t blush.

His eyes narrowed, as if he recognized her move. “It’s too muddy,” he said. “My leg’s not strong enough to support me if I slid.”

His casual acknowledgement of his wounds surprised her. No one ever talked about anything as personal as scars, of course, but given his rapid descent into self-destruction after he left the hospital she had assumed his leg would be a matter of sensitivity as well. He certainly made a concerted effort to disguise any hindrance or discomfort, but she was too well-versed in the surgery not to recognize just how difficult it might be.

Not sure what best to say, she simply nodded. “I was feeling trapped in my room,” she offered. “I’m stronger than most of the women you know, and I heal quickly. I’m suffering from no more than slight discomfort and hiding in my bedroom was growing tedious.”

He cocked his head, looking at her. “Then why don’t you go out and join the rollicking festivities?”

“I’m not a fool, Mr. Rohan. My ribs are bruised and I feel rather like a large cur has taken me by the scruff of the neck and shaken me thoroughly. I believe spending the afternoon curled up with a cup of tea would suit me very well, particularly since I intend to spend tomorrow in a coach on my way back to London.”

His eyes narrowed. “Is that wise?”

“Of course it is. I’m perfectly fit to travel,” she snapped, then wanted to kick herself. She was angry again, when she really shouldn’t be. As far as he knew she had no reason to be hostile, which was simply the truth. With luck he might have forgotten all about that midnight kiss. . .

What kind of idiot had she become? Of course he hadn’t forgotten, and her only defense was to distract him from that ridiculously potent memory. “Indeed, I’m feeling quite well,” she said, belying her recent assurances. “Though perhaps I should go out and join them.”

“You can’t without shoes,” he said, and she wanted to do something childish like stamp her stockinged feet. She’d known he would notice.

“My shoes have disappeared,” she said stiffly.

“I imagine they have. They were caked with mud and blood. And there’s no way you can be feeling as sprightly as you maintain—I’ve seen grown men laid flat by what you went through.”

“Men are notoriously bad patients.”

There was something ridiculously melting about his rare smiles. Only one side of his mouth turned up, the other frozen in place with scar tissue, the devil and angel in his face incredibly alluring. “I won’t deny it. I imagine I was a baby like all the rest.”

She was about to assure him that he was a far better patient than he supposed, but at the last second remembered there’d be no way she could know. She smiled politely and lied. “I would have no idea.”

It came out oddly. His comment had been random, seeking no reassurance, and her denial had been unnecessary. She really had to get away from him.

“I believe I might return to my room after all,” she added. “I can’t imagine anyone would be pleased if they returned to the house and found us together, particularly your fiancée.” Another unwise choice of words, she thought.

“I don’t care.”

Before she could respond the door was pushed open, and Richmond appeared in all his august glory, a maid following behind him with a heavy-laden tray. “Your refreshments, Mrs. Cadbury.”

“But I didn’t request any. . .” she had begun when Brandon spoke.

“I did.”

She was not going to stay and pour tea for the both of them, she was absolutely not. “I’m not in the mood for tea,” she said, torn between not offending Richmond and a desire to stop Brandon.

“Neither am I. Would you prefer coffee or hot chocolate?”

It had taken her that long to recognize the two seductive scents, and her stalwart soul let out a helpless wail. Tea she could have easily turned her back on. Her twin weaknesses were another matter.

She sighed in surrender. “Just one cup,” she said, moving quickly to the sofa by the window. At least the possibility of an audience would keep him from kissing her again, assuming he had any intention of doing so.

The two small silver pots sat nestled in snowy linen, and she cast an inquiring glance at him. “Coffee,” he said in response, taking a seat that was just far enough away, and then moving it closer. “Black like the devil.”

It was an unnerving comment, when she’d just been thinking of him in terms of his Satanic Majesty, but her gestures were smooth and practiced as she poured him a cup and handed it to him before turning for her own. She almost never had the supreme indulgence that lay before her, and there was no way she could resist the rare temptation, filling the delicate Limoges cup with half a cup of thick, creamy chocolate, then filling the rest with coffee and stirring it with one of the tiny spoons. She took the first sip and closed her eyes in quiet ecstasy. And opened them again at the sound of a soft, strangled moan.

Brandon had never been so damned uncomfortable in his life, and his inadvertent sound betrayed it. Her soft, orgasmic expression had turn his awakening cock into a full erection, and his breeches, although loose enough for working in the field, were still too tight for such doings. He leaned forward, folding his hands over his lap as casually as he could manage. “What the hell are you drinking?” he demanded, hoping his voice didn’t sound as raw as he felt.

“I believe it’s called mocha,” she said, still looking at him oddly. “It’s quite sinful.”

“You don’t look like you know much about sin, Emma,” he said. He meant it, but he hasn’t thought it through.

Her mouth hardened, and he wanted to kiss it back to softness. He wanted to taste that wicked concoction on her skin. “I’m a professional at it, Lord Brandon.”

There she went with the damned “Lord” bit again, showing her displeasure. “In actuality, you’ve changed professions. You’re a surgeon, Emma, which makes you more likely a professional at pain.”

Her mouth curved in an unhappy smile. “Who’s to say that wasn’t part of my previous profession?”

And that set off all sorts of thought. Sweet Emma with a whip and shackles, taking her anger out on the flesh of willing supplicants. It was only marginally potent—he’d played with every sexual variant that could be thought of during his time with the Heavenly Host, and after the first time he hadn’t found the whole punishment game that interesting. But every thought of Emma and sex made his current situation more difficult.

He shrugged, managing to look unimpressed. “Well, at least you received some recompense for the assaults you suffered.”

He’d surprised her. But then, that was a central part of their relationship—a battle between them to prove whom could shock the other.

Her smile then was real. “True enough,” she allowed, taking a healthy drink of her concoction. Ladies sipped their drinks, they poked at their food, they had no bodily functions. Thank God Emma wasn’t a lady, though he thought far more highly of her than the very peak of society.

“Why did you kiss me?”

He jumped. That was the very last thing he expected—he’d assumed she’d ignore the incident, skittish as she was, and he wasn’t prepared for her flat question.

He knew he hadn’t shown it though—he was an even better master of his reactions than she was. “That’s an inordinately silly question. I wanted to. There’s something about your mouth, I think. Why? You didn’t seem to mind.”

Her face had whitened, which he found extremely odd “You didn’t give me a chance to mind,” she mumbled, taking another hasty drink. He was going to have to tell Noonan about it. In the north they usually got by on gallons of hot, strong tea, but given that he allowed himself no other liquids, Emma’s drink might be a worthy addition to Noonan’s limited cooking repertoire.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “Should I have kissed you longer? Harder? Deeper?”

She squirmed. He’d been about to call himself an ass for his suggestive talk, but her squirm made his self-respect die a quick death. For all her seeming disinterest in the male sex, she reacted to him. In the far too quick brush of his mouth against hers he’d felt it, the spark of response that she was too startled to hide.

“Hardly.” She was trying for asperity, but her choice of word was unfortunate. She looked flustered, and she didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who flustered easily. She rose suddenly, setting down her empty cup, and there was just the faintest bit of chocolate on the corner of her lip. “I really need to go back upstairs,” she said hurriedly. “I feel unwell. That is, if I’m to leave tomorrow I should probably rest. . .”

She’d been backing away from him, with good sense, since he’d risen as well and was moving toward her. He caught up with her just before she reached the door and casually pulled her away from it, backing her into the corner of the room away from the windows. Near a divan.

“I’ll let you go,” he said softly. “In a minute.” And he set his mouth against hers, his tongue licking out to taste that tiny bit of chocolate.

She shuddered, but it wasn’t in disgust. Her hands had come up to his shoulders, but they’d moved beneath his jacket, clutching the soft cloth that covered his shoulders, and the sound she made was one of soft, unexpected pleasure.

It was simple enough to slide his tongue into her mouth, kissing her with such thoroughness it could have melted the bones in his body. He lifted his mouth for a second, and her gray eyes were staring up into his with glazed wonder, making his need even more powerful. He could lock the door to the hallway and take her there on the divan, but the silly women noisily playing croquet outside would be certain to come back at the most inconvenient time. He kissed her again before she could protest, pressing into her, wanting to absorb her into his very bones.

He tried to coax her tongue into play, but she was either very reluctant or simply ignorant of the intricacies of kissing, but that could hardly be possible. She’d been paid for this, a fact which bothered him not in the least. This wasn’t a commercial encounter—she was reacting to him on the most basic, carnal level, pushing her soft breasts against him, and he wanted to cup them with his hands, but he didn’t dare release her arms. She had relaxed into his hold but it wouldn’t take much to make her skittish.

Using his teeth, he tugged at her lower lip, trying to draw her closer still into the late day shadows, and she moved, eager, seeking him, until she froze, and some sound intruded on his carnal haze.

There were voices, noise coming from the adjoining front hall, men’s loud, excited voices, and he wanted to groan in frustration. He lifted his head, looking down at her, hoping she’d show some of that same emotion, but she’d already drawn her defenses back around her, and she pushed at him. For a moment he didn’t move.

Her smile was cool and acid and for some reason it made him want to kiss it off her set mouth. “I can’t wait to get back to London to report on your miracle, Lord Brandon.”

He blinked, confused. “Miracle?”

“I’ve been informed that your war wounds were more extensive than outward appearance. Apparently that essential part of your anatomy that was blown off in the war seems to have regrown and is now pressing into my stomach.”

He stared at her for a long, incredulous moment, and then he threw his head back and laughed, releasing her, his amusement almost stripping away his desire. Almost. God save him from a woman like her—she was the kind of woman he could love.

Even that hideous prospect couldn’t deflect his laughter, not her stony expression, not the women herding in through the French doors as the day turned stormy, not the men crowding in from the hallway, looking grim and curious. He wanted to collapse on the sofa, but that was impossible with ladies and older men present, so he simply stood there, trying to contain his mirth.

And then Benedick spoke, his face dark with disapproval. “What do you find so entertaining, Brandon? I could use a laugh at this point in time.”

Brandon had known his brother all his life, and he knew the difference between simple bad temper and real trouble. This was real trouble, and the last of his delight left him.

“Nothing of any import. What’s happened?”

“Don’t miss a thing, do you?” Benedick muttered. “We found the missing maid.”

“Rosie?” Emma spoke up, ignoring protocol. “What did she say?”

“Nothing,” his brother Charles interrupted, practically sneering with disapproval, and Brandon had the errant desire to punch him in the face. “She was dead.”

There was a piteous shriek, and he turned to see his sapskull of a fiancée swoon into her companion’s tender arms, as all the women surged around her.

All except Emma, who stood still as a statue, her face white, her mouth, that mouth he’d just kissed so thoroughly, grim. “How?”

Charles grimaced. “She’d been. . .”

“Charles!” Benedick snapped. “There are ladies present!”

Charles didn’t have the grace to look abashed. “Well, then, perhaps we should wait until the ladies depart and then I can relate the gruesome details to Brandon’s doxy.”

Melisande’s soft cry of barely registered in Brandon’s blood-maddened haze as did just what he’d been longing to for so many years and punched Charles. Someone pulled him away as Charles crumpled to the floor, shrieking that his nose had been broken, and there were various cries of distress from the women, sounding more like a flock of silly birds than anything else.

“Enough!” Benedick thundered. “Melisande, my dear, perhaps you might escort the ladies to the salon for tea, while Miss Trimby sees to Miss Bonham. Brandon, your behavior is inexcusable; Charles, you deserved it. How dare you insult a guest in my house? First, I must apologize to you, Mrs. Cadbury, for both my brothers’ boorish behavior. They shame themselves and they shame me. Let me apologize to all my guests for my deplorable family, but we are, after all, Rohans.”

It was just the right thing to say, and as Brandon’s fury lessened to a cold anger he had to marvel. The other men were chuckling knowingly, his family’s excesses over the decades well-known, and even the fluttering women were tittering. His hand hurt, which seemed absurd, and he couldn’t bring himself to look at Emma.

When he did, she was already gone.

Emma was running. Running away from the scene in the salon, the women who looked at her with their sideways, pitying glances, from the man who lay crumpled and shrieking on the floor, blood gushing from his nose, from Melisande’s concern, from Benedick’s grim knowledge. Most of all she was running away from Brandon.

Brandon, who’d kissed her so thoroughly, his hard body pressing her against the wall, and she’d wanted to kiss him back, so badly. She didn’t know how. Men didn’t kiss whores—she knew nothing about it. She was aware that tongues were used, and it all seemed part of the general messiness of the business, but she kept tasting him, wanting more of him, wanting his mouth on hers once more, his long, lean body against hers.

What in God’s name was happening to her?

And he’d hit his own brother. No one had ever done that, defended her with a violence that was both shocking and arousing. Not that any other guest had dared be that rude in front of Benedick and Melisande, but with any other confrontation she was on her own. It was dangerously seductive to be championed, almost as seductive as those kisses had been.

She could sleep with him. She could give him her body and the pleasure men seemed to take from it. There was no possibility that she could enjoy it, but with Brandon she could endure, as long as he kissed her like that. It was a frightening, enticing thought.

She reached her bedroom, slammed the door and went straight to the window seat overlooking the courtyard. It was raining again—the brief sunshine had been only a small respite—and she leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes, catching her breath, letting her racing heart return to normal. She could still feel his hands on her, and she crossed her arms to touch where he’d touched. She wanted to cry, but her eyes were stubbornly dry. If Melisande and Benedick didn’t let her leave tomorrow she would run, and keep running, until no one could find her.

Common sense returned like a slap in the face. Of course she couldn’t run and hide. She was a woman who had always dealt with life head on—she didn’t run.

She let her head rest against the cold window, closing her eyes in weariness. Why was she fussing about Brandon Rohan? In the scheme of thing he was no more than a peripheral distraction. Dismissing him would be easier when she was back in the stimulating atmosphere of Temple Hospital, her mind absorbed in work. No, her problem was far greater than Brandon Rohan.

Someone was trying to kill her.

She couldn’t believe how dense she’d been. The fire at Melisande’s house in London had started when she was alone in the building. It had seemed like a random coincidence—there’d been threats for years about the place. No one had any charity for the soiled doves who took shelter there, and men with power never liked living with the fact that women knew their secrets. Once they no longer served their purpose, those women were disposable, and there’d been threats aplenty. That had been one of the reasons all the women had been relocated to the country, thank God, so no one else would have died but she.

Except it was starting to look like she’d been the target in the first place. That hadn’t been an accidental push into the Thames, as she’d conveniently believed. She had no idea who had pulled her out, but Dr. Fenrush’s man had been in the crowd, and if he’d known about Benedick’s plan to have her supplant his master he probably would have thrown her back in again.

And now the attack in the secluded field, one she’d wanted to convince herself was random. Random, except that Rosie had told her particularly to take that path, a longer, more out of the way path, and now Rosie was dead.

Emma might prefer to ignore inconvenient distractions, but she wasn’t stupid. When you put all those incidents together it meant only one thing, and if she continued to dismiss it, other people might get hurt as well.

She sighed. There was always the possibility that the London attempts had no connection with the danger she’d faced six hours to the northeast, that those incidents were, as she’d first believed, mere accidents, and she’d somehow run afoul of a deranged killer when she’d come here.

She hadn’t endured and survived without a willingness to face ugly truths. It had become even more urgent that she return to London—the answer must be there, somewhere. She could talk to Fenrush’s man, Collins, his name was, and see if he’d noticed anything odd that day by the river.

And she could be secure in the knowledge that her escape from Starlings House would have absolutely nothing to do with the man who had just kissed her so thoroughly that she felt. . . claimed. There was no claiming going on, not by anyone, she reminded herself, and the sooner she got home and concentrated on this mess the better.