The Forbidden Lord by Sabrina Jeffries (5)

Of all the wretched luck, Emily thought as Jordan waltzed her deftly through the throng of fashionably dressed lords and ladies. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Or recognize her. Or waltz with her. No, definitely not.

She should have protested more strongly when he’d asked—no, commanded her to waltz with him. Lord St. Clair’s sudden defection had confused her. Was it acceptable for one man to hand a woman off to another? She rather thought it wasn’t. Still, who knew what rules applied to men like the Earl of Blackmore and Viscount St. Clair?

Worse yet, Jordan was a fabulous dancer. In her practice sessions with the awkward Lord Nesfield, she’d fallen all over her feet. The marquess had blamed her and she’d woefully accepted the blame, but now she wished she hadn’t. With Jordan, she was as graceful as a swan. Somehow he lightened her feet until the steps of the waltz seemed as natural and easy as walking. She forgot to count the measure, didn’t even need to count the measure.

Curse him for that, and for holding her so intimately. If he held her any closer, she’d make a complete cake of herself. As it was, she was near enough to see his clean-shaven jaw and the Blackmore crest on his gold cravat pin, to feel his thighs brush hers in the turns.

As usual, he looked handsome and very male. None of those silly satin breeches for the Earl of Blackmore—oh, no. His coat and breeches of expensive cashmere and his figured gray waistcoat and snowy cravat were more commanding in their simplicity than any of the extravagantly embroidered waistcoats worn by the other men in the room.

Did he know how dancing with him affected her? Of course he did. His broad hand rode her waist with shameful familiarity, and his other hand clasped hers possessively, reminding her of their night in the carriage. No wonder Papa thought the waltz too scandalous for decent people. No woman with an ounce of self-preservation would willingly put herself this near to an attractive, virile earl.

Especially after having shared intimate kisses with him. Memories plagued her—of his hands in her hair…his breath warming her skin…his mouth anointing her cheeks and neck with secret, thrilling kisses.

Goodness gracious, now she was turning red! Please, God, she prayed, don’t let him notice.

She might as well have been howling at the moon. When she risked a peek at Jordan, she found him quite obviously aware of the heightened color in her cheeks. His dark eyes seemed to miss nothing, more was the pity.

“I like making you blush, Emily,” he whispered wickedly.

“Emily? Why do you persist in thinking I’m this Emily person?”

“You can lie to those others, but not to me,” Jordan said in that low, husky tone she remembered all too well. “Why are you here? Why are you pretending to be some deuced Scottish lady?”

She hated deceiving him, truly hated it. Still, she had no choice. “Lord Blackmore, your little joke has grown tedious. I don’t know why you persist in confusing me with this Emily Fairfax creature.”

“Fairchild! Her name…your name is Fairchild, not Fairfax, as you well know, goddammit!”

“You needn’t curse at me,” she chided automatically.

The flickering light from the candles overhead played over his gloating expression. “Seems I’ve heard you say that before—one night in my carriage.”

Dear heavens, she’d slipped up already. “Your carriage? I have no idea what you mean.”

The music crescendoed, preventing him from answering at once, but his smug expression stayed firmly in place.

This was futile. How could she possibly succeed? All her life she’d been taught how not to lie, and now she was expected to lie like an expert. Perhaps she should just reveal everything…

Yes, and then Lord Nesfield would have her hanged. She couldn’t trust Jordan to keep her secret, since Lord St. Clair seemed to be a close friend. Lord St. Clair had spent half the ball asking her about Sophie, and he was her most likely suspect. For all she knew, Jordan could have helped the man plan an elopement with Sophie.

“Come now, Emily, tell me what this is all about,” he demanded as soon as the music allowed him to speak again.

Suddenly, Lady Dundee’s words came to her: Lady Emma is your masquerade, merely an amusement. It doesn’t change Emily Fairchild.

This was a masquerade, not a deception. And why should it matter if she had to lie to him? That night in the carriage, he’d made it quite clear she was nothing but a fleeting diversion. He too had played a role with her—flattering her, saying sweet things, when he knew all the time he never intended to see her again.

She cast him a frosty look. “I grow weary of this game, Lord Blackmore. Please find another.”

He glowered at her as if to frighten her into telling the truth, but when she said nothing more, he set his lips into a determined line. “Very well. You force me to take more drastic action.”

She laughed coyly. “What shall you do to me? Torture me? Throw me in a dungeon until I say what you wish?”

For the first time that evening, he smiled, though most devilishly. Angels must cry every time he loosed that smile on unsuspecting women. “I can think of more pleasant ways to get the truth from you.”

Too late, she realized they were dancing along the edge of the room, where doors of cut crystal opened onto wide, marble balconies. Somehow he had maneuvered her there without her even noticing.

He danced her onto the balcony, then stopped. Furtively, Emily looked back into the ballroom, praying that Lady Dundee had seen her, but too many people were dancing for anyone to notice one couple’s absence, especially once everyone lost their initial surprise at seeing her dance with Lord Blackmore.

She tried to wriggle away, but he merely snaked his arm more tightly about her waist and dragged her toward the steps that led down into the garden.

“I thought you wanted to dance,” she said acidly, though her heart was pounding loudly enough to be heard in China. “You behaved in a most rude manner to gain a waltz with me.”

“I require more than a waltz from you, as you well know. And for what I intend, we need privacy.”

Privacy. The last time they’d had privacy, he’d kissed her senseless. If he kissed her again, she was likely to fall apart and confess everything.

But Lady Emma wouldn’t balk at going into the garden with him. She was much too sure of herself to do such a ninny thing. Indeed, the woman would probably delight in a private assignation with an unmarried earl of Jordan’s consequence.

Centering her mind on that thought, she let him draw her down the stairs, her legs moving mechanically beside him. When they halted behind an oak that hid them from anyone who might be watching from the balcony, however, she felt a moment’s panic.

“Now then, Emily.” He released her arm and faced her with the expression of an older brother chastising a child. “What do you have to tell me?”

The condescension in his voice provided her with a jolt of courage. How dared he treat her like some simpleton?

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know what to tell you. This is your little fantasy, Lord Blackmore.” Flipping open the ivory fan attached to her wrist by a slender cord, she worked it with languid motions. “A rector’s daughter? Is that who I’m supposed to be? I don’t guess you’d settle for a gypsy girl, would you? A rector’s daughter is such a tiresome role.”

Her reward was the stunned look on his face. “Deuce take it, woman,” he growled, grasping her shoulders roughly. “Stop this pretense! I know who you are!”

“Oh, I don’t think you do.” Casting him a flirtatious smile despite the somersaults in her stomach, she walked her fingers up his silky coat lapel. “If you really knew anything about me, you’d lose interest in this Emily person at once.”

He blinked, then scanned her again, as if to ascertain where he’d made his mistake. Then his eyes narrowed dangerously. “You won’t mind if I determine the truth in the only way I can think of.”

“Oh? And how is that?”

His hands closed about her waist, drawing her hard against him. “By kissing you as I kissed her.”

She had no time to prepare herself before his mouth caught hers. Though she’d already half expected it, the touch of his lips came as a shock. It was exactly like that night in his carriage…the same dizzy pleasure stampeding over her restraints, the same hot, hard thrill linking her to the man forbidden to her. She melted and sizzled against him like butter in a hot pan.

But when his mouth left hers and he murmured “my sweet Emily” in a tone that left no doubt of his certainty, her heart sank. She was doing this all wrong. Emily Fairchild melted. Emma Campbell burned.

“It’s Emma,” she whispered, correcting him. Then she boldly slid her arms about his neck and drew his head forcefully back for another kiss.

He went rigid at once, though he didn’t pull away. Remembering how he’d kissed her in the carriage, she opened her mouth and ever so lightly touched her tongue to his, then smoothed it along his unyielding lips in a repetition of his actions that night.

For a moment, she feared she’d gone too far. His body was frozen, as unyielding as an iceberg as she stood there on tiptoe, her mouth joined to his with embarrassing intimacy.

Then a growl erupted from his throat as he opened his mouth over hers, hungering, needy. Grasping hands anchored her against his taut, lean body, and his mouth began an assault so wild and furious it stunned her.

She rose to his kiss, a fever gripping her blood. It was easy to become Lady Emma, the bold half-Scottish lass. Forgotten was Emily Fairchild’s shy uncertainty and virgin manner, blown into the distance like a bit of goose down. He’d primed her for more, and it took only a tiny shove to thrust her over the edge into passion.

So when he drove his tongue deeply, she tangled her own with it, then went further, slipping her tongue between his open lips to explore the warm, silken dangers of his mouth. His kiss grew almost brutal, as if he couldn’t get enough of her. Over and over he devoured her mouth, and when that no longer seemed to satisfy him, he stamped hard, possessive kisses along her cheek and down her neck. His rough skin rasped against her, and his musky scent mingled with the flowery perfumes dancing in the garden air.

His hands roamed where they wished, gliding down her ribs and over the contours of her hips. No longer bound by any restraint, he left off kissing her neck to scatter kisses along her collarbone, then lower, along the neckline of her bodice until he reached the dip between her breasts.

She nearly pushed him away, surprised by his forwardness. Then she caught herself. Forcing herself to arch back, she allowed him to explore the inner curves of her breasts with his firm, knowing lips.

Pleasure pooled low in her belly like warm honey. Goodness gracious, why must wickedness be so delicious? The more his hot mouth caressed her, the more she wanted it against parts of her body that only some future husband should be allowed to touch. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She was rapidly losing control of this battle.

Then he tugged at the ribbon-trimmed neck of her gown, edging it down the slope of one breast and shocking her to the core. Shoving hard against him, she backed out of his embrace and crossed her arms protectively over her bodice.

A thousand reproaches sprang to her lips as his gaze shot to hers, hard, male, and ravenous. Then she caught herself. Lady Emma wouldn’t reproach a man for being a man.

It took all her will to paste a coy smile on her lips and lower her hands from her chest. “I doubt your Emily could ever kiss like that, Lord Blackmore.”

She fervently prayed that the dim light dappling the garden walks hid the full effects of their encounter. If he could hear her pulse beating triple time or see her desperate attempts to draw air into her lungs, he’d know at once she wasn’t truly a flirt.

Thankfully, he didn’t seem to notice. As he stepped toward her, his expression slid from hot desire to pure astonishment.

Quickly, she caught up her fan. Brandishing it playfully in front of her, she danced away. “That’s enough of that, my lord. I think I’ve proven sufficiently that I’m not this rector’s daughter of yours.” When he merely continued to gape at her, she added, warming to her role, “If you’ll excuse me, I’d best return to the ball before my mother finds me being naughty again.”

“Again?” he choked out.

“Surely you don’t think you’re the first man I’ve kissed? I may be half-English, but I’m half-Scottish, too. And in Scotland, ladies are much more free to…um…enjoy themselves.”

The look on his face was priceless. Lady Dundee was right. Flirting with a man—especially one who’d nearly tossed her out of a carriage in his eagerness to get rid of her—was enormously satisfying.

Turning her back to him, she cast him one last teasing look over her shoulders. “But don’t worry. You rank with the best of the men I’ve kissed, I assure you.” Then she strolled away, smiling to herself in triumph even as she prayed he wouldn’t follow her.

But Jordan was completely incapable of following her. What the devil? Who the deuce is that woman?

That seductress masquerading in Emily’s body had acted like one of the Fashionable Impures auditioning a new lover, not like the virginal innocent who’d kept him tossing restlessly in his bed for months now. He rubbed his lips. He could still taste her sweet, spiced breath and smell the lavender in her hair.

Lavender—Emily had smelled of lavender!

But many young women used lavender water. More to the point, could his sweet rector’s daughter have put on such a performance? She’d balked at telling one small lie. And she’d certainly never kissed like that.

Good God, he was hard as oak from that kiss. Taking out his handkerchief, he wiped away the beads of sweat on his brow. If she were Emily, where had she learned how to flirt and kiss and drive a man to utter distraction? He’d nearly deflowered her right here in Merrington’s garden.

Deflowered her! He snorted. As if that woman could possibly be a virgin. Emily Fairchild had most certainly been a virgin, but he had his doubts about Lady Emma.

Or had she merely been trying to confuse him? If it hadn’t been for that kiss, he would’ve sworn the woman was Emily. She tasted and looked and smelled like Emily. And she had a connection to Lord Nesfield.

His blood ran cold. Yes, there was that.

Muttering foul oaths under his breath, he adjusted his clothing to cover his still-obvious arousal and walked slowly toward the house. He glimpsed a human shape in the shadows of a nearby tree, but assumed it was another couple dallying in the dark garden, and walked on, deep in thought.

If it had been Emily, she’d been awfully stubborn in her lies. Could even Nesfield have coaxed the prim rector’s daughter into pretending to be his niece? And why? The man would need a strong reason for giving a nobody like Emily both a new identity and a lavish coming out.

A nasty thought cut viciously through his mind, stunning him with its ugliness. What if Emily were Nesfield’s mistress? Nesfield would never marry a rector’s daughter, but he might try to arrange an advantageous marriage for her once he was done with her…as payment for services rendered.

He shook his head. That was absurd. Nesfield could hardly have taken Emily as a mistress, then discarded her in two months’ time. Nor could Jordan believe that the Earl of Dundee and his wife would cooperate in such a scheme.

Nonetheless, Emily couldn’t have done this without Dundee’s cooperation. And Nesfield’s.

The thought of Nesfield and Emily plotting together was enough to make him doubt his suspicions. How could Emily, the girl who’d quoted scripture at him and refused to lie, be capable of such a deception?

But how could two women be so much alike? And how could he be attracted to them both?

Devil take her, whoever she is, he thought sourly as he climbed the steps to the balcony, then crossed to the ballroom. She’d knocked him back on his heels with her little display out there, then left him craving her voraciously.

He entered the clamor of the ballroom and paused, searching the roiling knots of dancers for the little chit. She’d infected him with some disease to make him want her like this—that was the only explanation for such insanity. If he had any sense at all, he’d leave at once and put her out of his mind.

Instead he stood there, scouring the room for a glimpse of her pearl-twined hair and shimmering white gown, the gown he’d pawed only minutes ago in his eagerness to taste her bare flesh.

“You look as if you’ve been hit on the head with a mallet,” came a familiar voice at his side.

He glowered at Ian’s grinning expression. “It wasn’t a mallet. And the spot was a bit lower, unfortunately.”

Returning his attention to the ballroom, Jordan finally spotted Lady Emma. She was waltzing with young Radcliffe as cool as you please, without a hint in her sweet expression of the scene she’d played with him in the garden. The puppy was holding her close enough to imprint his lecherous body on her skirts. Where was the chit’s chaperone, for God’s sake? Somebody ought to put a stop to her outrageous behavior!

Ian followed the direction of his gaze. “It’s not like you to be interested in an innocent.”

“She’s no innocent, I assure you,” he snapped.

“So you don’t still think she’s the rector’s daughter you mistook her for?”

“I don’t know what to think.” White anger seared Jordan when Radcliffe lowered his head to whisper something in her ear and she laughed.

“Come, man, I met her mother, a formidable matron if ever I saw one. Why would a woman of Lady Dundee’s social status put an impostor forward as her daughter, risking her husband’s reputation and the future of her other daughters?”

Why indeed? “I don’t know; perhaps the countess grew bored in Scotland and this is her entertainment.” His eyes narrowed. “And what about Lady Emma’s speech? If she’s from Scotland, where’s her brogue?”

“She wouldn’t have one, not with an English mother like Lady Dundee. The countess probably worked with her for years to prevent her from developing an accent.”

“You can’t eliminate an accent that easily. She ought to have some trace of it.”

Ian sighed. “Even if Lady Dundee were foolish enough to pass off a nobody as her daughter, Nesfield says the woman is his niece, too.”

“So why do Nesfield’s niece and the daughter of his rector resemble each other so much?” Except in their experience with men. “Strange coincidence, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps. How did you come to meet a rector’s daughter, anyway?”

“She was at Dryden’s masquerade ball in Derbyshire two months ago.”

“Was she in costume that night, wearing a mask, that sort of thing?”

Jordan sensed a trap. “Yes.” He added hastily, “But I saw her without her mask.”

“For how long?”

With a black scowl, Jordan returned his attention to the dancers. He could only imagine what Ian would think if he admitted he’d seen the girl’s face in dim moonlight for a mere matter of minutes.

“I take it from your silence that it was a brief glimpse.”

“It was enough.”

Now the deuced woman was dancing with Pollock. With a jealousy bordering on idiocy, he remembered Pollock’s vow to find a woman to love.

Well, it won’t be her, Pollock, Jordan thought. Pollock wasn’t for her. None of them were for her. If anyone had her, it would be him, and he wasn’t about to become entangled with a deceitful, coy flirt.

Unfortunately, his body had other ideas. All it wanted right now was to drag her back outside and lay claim to her like some half-witted stallion.

“My God,” Ian said dryly, “this rector’s daughter must have made quite an impression on you for you to remember her after so short an encounter.”

Jordan met his friend’s speculation with stony silence. How could he explain the way Emily had affected him that night? He didn’t understand it himself. “It was enough to make me almost certain that this woman is not Lady Emma, but Emily Fairchild, engaged in some scheme of Nesfield’s making.”

“That man is the most humorless, self-important creature in all England—why would he indulge in something so risky to his reputation?”

“I don’t know. But I do know the woman I met, and I’d swear that’s her.”

“Well, I hope you’re wrong.”

“Why?” A horrible thought suddenly seized him. Ian was now watching Lady Emma, and at the sight of his intent scrutiny, another ridiculous spasm of jealous anger wracked Jordan. “You’re not thinking of courting her instead of Lady Sophie, are you?”

Ian shot him a sideways glance. “Perhaps. I’m ready to put an end to this search for a wife.”

With a fervency that astonished him, Jordan wanted to tear his best friend into little pieces.

“Judging from your murderous expression, however,” Ian went on with decided amusement in his tone, “I’d best not try it. I’m not the sort to fight over a woman.”

Devil take the man. Ian had merely been gauging his reaction. “I don’t care if you court the chit,” Jordan grumbled, trying futilely to regain lost ground. “But don’t expect me to pick up the pieces when I prove to be right.”

Ian laughed. “Now that I think about it, I don’t believe Lady Emma will suit me after all. Two dances with her told me that. Lady Sophie meets my requirements better. I want an easy wife, not some flirtatious, unruly Scot. I have no tolerance for breaking in wild fillies.”

Jordan wouldn’t mind having a go at breaking in this particular filly. Judging from that kiss in the garden, Lady Emma could make the most devout monk forswear his vows of celibacy. And Jordan was no monk.

But even if she were Emily, he needn’t refrain from seducing her—for it would mean she was a designing, lying wench and not the innocent he’d thought. For some reason, that possibility infuriated him. He’d liked Emily Fairchild exactly as she was.

“Look at her,” Jordan bit out. She’d taken a new partner, that idiot Wilkins. “She’s an incomparable actress. Well, I will expose her little game, whatever it is.”

“Why? What does it have to do with you?”

Ian wouldn’t understand. It was like discovering that the unicorn you revered for its magical powers was really a horse with a horn attached. It made you want to tear off the horn and kick the horse. “If she’s an impostor, people ought to know,” he grumbled.

“What rot! You’re not doing this for the good of society. You want that girl, and you want her badly. You’re besotted with the very sort of woman you’ve always avoided.” Ian’s smug smile broadened. “What a sweet revenge for all those women who’ve tumbled head over heels for you and received nothing for it but a cool glance.”

“Don’t be absurd. I’m not besotted. I’m never besotted.”

“Then it should be a singular experience for you. Beware, my friend; they say it isn’t easy to dismiss love.” He added, only half-facetiously, “Protect your heart if you can.”

“No need,” Jordan retorted. “As Pollock is so fond of saying, my heart is made of granite. No one, and certainly not some pretty chit up to no good, shall change that.”