Alex froze when he saw Emmeline, her eyes wide and anguished as she clutched the tree. Something inside him almost snapped with pain. He didn’t want to be affected by her, but he was. He was luring away her little sister for no good reason, at the same time as he flirted shamelessly with Emmeline herself.
And his conscience began to roar back to life.
He released Blythe, who looked up at him so innocently.
“Your sister just arrived,” he said.
The girl didn’t look guilty, just turned a smile on Emmeline. “She must be upset I didn’t tell her where I was going. I’ll go speak with her. But don’t worry,” she added in a lower voice. “I won’t tell her about our wonderful kiss just yet.”
Alex wanted to wince as he watched Blythe run to her sister, catch her by the arm, and draw her toward the horses.
Their kiss.
He could hardly call it one. Blythe’s tightly closed lips had touched his for a brief moment, and he hadn’t even wanted to make it last longer. He had felt nothing, not even the arousal of holding a beautiful woman in his arms.
All he could think about was Emmeline, and how it would feel to hold her in his arms, with her mouth beneath his.
Could he not control his own thoughts anymore? he wondered darkly. Even his dreams were dwelling on her with startling regularity. Afterward, he awoke aroused and perspiring and unsatisfied.
Now he watched Emmeline help her sister into the saddle, then she stepped on a rotting log to mount her own horse with graceful athleticism. She glanced at him only briefly, and in her eyes he saw anger and the promise of retaliation, not the hurt he thought he’d glimpsed a moment before.
As the two sisters rode away, Blythe looked back and waved for him to follow. He mounted his own horse, no longer so eager for the rest of the afternoon.
When he returned to Lady Morley’s garden, the first thing he did after dismounting was drain a goblet of wine and ask for another. He told himself not to look for Emmeline. He had done nothing to be ashamed of. Men were bound to kiss her beautiful sister; why shouldn’t he be the first? Why couldn’t Emmeline understand harmless flirtation for what it was? He had spent his life flirting with women—he certainly wasn’t going to stop now.
Emmeline watched Alex swallow another mouthful of wine and shook her head in disgust. She stood beside Blythe, who was chatting with a friend. It was obvious Blythe was waiting for the perfect moment to tell her what had happened with Alex.
Just what she wanted to hear: her sister’s romantic moment with a drunken libertine.
Too soon, Blythe drew her beneath a vine-covered arbor and leaned close.
“Emmy, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you where I was going.”
Emmeline looked into her sister’s sincere eyes and worried that some day Blythe would be hurt by a man—maybe this one. “’Twas a foolish thing to do. You don’t know Sir Alexander well, nor do you know his motives.”
“We’re becoming acquainted,” Blythe said in obvious delight. “That’s a good motive.”
“And what about Lord Seabrook?”
“I’m becoming friends with him, too.”
“Make friendships while other people are around you, Blythe. Until you know these men well, you can’t trust them alone. You can’t trust the situations they might lead you into—like today.”
“Oh, it was a glorious ride, and such a peaceful place for my first kiss from a gentleman!”
“What?”
Emmeline buried her bewildered hurt, beneath an anger the likes of which she’d never felt before.
“Oh, Emmy, he kisses divinely! I wonder how Lord Seabrook kisses?”
“What else did Sir Alexander do to you?” she demanded, gripping her sister’s hand in urgency.
“Nothing,” Blythe replied in a puzzled voice. “He’s always been a gentleman.”
“Perhaps so, but it is best not to push gentlemanly manners too far,” she warned, trying not to sound as angry as she felt. “Please promise me you’ll never again go off with a man alone. You are an heiress, and many a man would kidnap you for the chance to marry such wealth.”
She laughed. “Oh, Emmy, he does not want or need my money. He comes from a powerful family in his own right.”
“Do you see many women lining up to marry him?” Emmeline couldn’t believe how cold and cruel she sounded.
Blythe cupped Emmeline’s cheek in her hand. “You are just saying these things to scare me, and I appreciate your devotion. But look out there—does Alex look like a man who lacks female friendship?”
Emmeline turned her head, and across the lawn she could see that the dancing had resumed. Alex was in the thick of it, moving with an abandon that seemed forced. Couldn’t Blythe see that?
They returned to the gathering, and Emmeline allowed her to go off with her friends to the bridges between the ponds. Emmeline seated herself on a stool beside Lady Morley, who held court as if she were the queen herself. More and more Emmeline was one of the elders, sitting off to the side while the young people danced.
“He looks so like his brother ’tis uncanny.”
Emmeline could not help listening to the conversation going on a few feet away from her. The speaker was an older woman she hadn’t met before, whose nose was so high in the air that it was amazing a bug had not flown in.
“But he’s not like his brother,” cautioned a younger woman whose perpetual frown already marred her brow. “Do you remember that dreadful statue he presented to Her Majesty?”
Emmeline held her breath, fascinated despite herself.
“Yes, young lady, I do, though we should not be discussing it. Imagine sending a naked statue of oneself to your Queen!”
Emmeline was so busy choking down a horrified laugh that she almost missed their next words.
The young woman leaned closer to her companion, and Emmeline unashamedly leaned nearer as well.
“Tell me truly, Lady Boxworth, did it honestly have wings, like an angel?”
“Or the very devil himself,” Lady Boxworth intoned. “After displaying it rather vulgarly, the Queen gave it back to him. I understand he uses it to decorate his brother’s home.”
The two women turned to look at Alex, and Emmeline did the same. Oh, how she wished she’d known that the statue was at Thornton Manor, because she surely would have looked for it.
When Emmeline realized how improper her thoughts were becoming, she fanned herself vigorously to disguise her blush.
To make everything worse, Alex came over to the ladies and flopped down on his side on a blanket, propping his head in his hand. Those dark eyes were alive with such mischief that Emmeline braced herself for the worst as she allowed her anger to simmer. Even worse, his fingers casually rubbed the lace on her hem, and she could feel every tug of the material across her knees and up to her waist. Appalled, she wondered if anyone could see. She wanted to kick him, or step on those groping fingers, but such behavior would only call more attention to his antics.
Soon the other gentlemen joined them, and as the sun began to wane, Alex said, “Ladies, I fear we have not much time left of our lovely afternoon.”
Blythe came to sit beside him, holding her skirts down with her arms.
“What amusements can we poor gentlemen provide you?” he continued.
Emmeline straightened with sudden inspiration. “Sir Alexander, I have heard you say more than once that you are a gifted poet. I am certain we’d all enjoy hearing your work.”
Though the smile never left his face, Alex’s gaze was riveted to hers, and she barely withheld her own smile of glee. Ah, what a wicked repayment for treating her sister so lightly.
Sir Edmund choked on his tankard of ale. “Poetry?” he managed to say, before succumbing to a coughing fit.
There were titters of laughter, and even Blythe grinned. Alex slowly sat up, every muscle rippling into the next like the stretching of a wild wolf. Emmeline caught her breath, refusing to do the sensible thing and back down.
“Ah, Lady Emmeline, I would not want to make anyone uncomfortable with my deepest feelings.”
“Sir Alexander,” she replied sweetly, “you do us a grave injustice if you believe we would not appreciate your thoughts.”
She could not believe her own nerve, and she knew some of the women would be looking at her in a new light. She usually said little at parties, except to her few friends. But something about Alex brought out her daring, and she relished the heady power of it.
“Very well, I accept your challenge,” he said.
“Challenge? Whatever do you mean?”
“You of all people know how private poetry is.”
She felt the sting as if slapped. How dare he allude to something she’d said in private!
“But I will gladly bare my soul to entertain you, Lady Emmeline.”
She thought of what else he’d bared before the whole court, and willed herself not to blush again.
“Thou young swan, be ever true,” he began, leaning back on his hands as if the impromptu crafting of words came easily to him.
Blushing, Emmeline hoped no one had overheard him calling her a swan earlier.
“Thy flock of chicks needs all thy mothering. Temper thy…temper when one does stray.”
When his audience laughed, he shrugged. Emmeline pinned him with a narrow-eyed stare.
“For the black swan’s wiles cannot be denied.”
Emmeline watched the ladies titter and the men laugh, while her insides seethed at the subtle challenge. Alex stood up to bow, but she was not so easily vanquished. The black swan had better be careful, or he would find himself roasting on a spit.
A short while later, Alex stood beside Edmund, watching the ladies say their good-byes.
Edmund gave a low laugh. “’The black swan’?”
Alex shrugged, his gaze on Emmeline, who was proudly watching Blythe curtsy to the noblewomen. He didn’t know many women who gladly gave center stage to another, even their sisters. “I was desperate. Could you not tell?”
“Oh, I could tell. So is the nest you’re disturbing sundered yet?”
Alex didn’t even hesitate. “No, it is a difficult challenge that you’ve given me, Edmund.”
Such a virginal kiss didn’t count, and he wasn’t ready to be done with the Prescott sisters. “The Lady Emmeline interrupted us. Did you have something to do with that?”
“After I saw you leave, I could not lie to her concerning your whereabouts, could I?”
Alex clapped him on the shoulder. “Never you, Edmund. Would you like to accompany us back to London?”
“You don’t mind my interference?”
“Lady Emmeline is plenty of interference all by herself, so you’re welcome to come with us—unless you have business with Lady Elizabeth.”
Edmund’s face remained impassive. “I’m biding my time with that one,” he said shortly. “So thank you, I accept your offer.”
Once their horses were guided onto the narrow lane, Edmund somehow managed to ride ahead with Blythe, leaving Alex alone in the middle as Emmeline stubbornly rode beside her groom. Alex slowed down until Emmeline had no choice but to ride beside him, or risk leaving Blythe with yet another man.
Emmeline’s face was coolly fixed forward on her sister, who was laughing at something Edmund said. Alex couldn’t help studying Emmeline in her simple gown, so devoid of the ornamentation other women reveled in. Again he wondered if she wanted everyone to see only the shining light that was Blythe.
“My lady, you have crushed this poet’s spirit.”
He saw her lips twitch, but she only glanced at him before turning her gaze back to the village in the distance. The dusk of shadows had begun to darken the fields, and the descending sun was at their backs.
“I could not crush such a monumental conceit as yours, Sir Alexander.”
“You challenged me to poetry, yet you made no comment about all my hard work.”
“But, sir, you have disappointed me. I thought you might be able to embrace subtlety, and it is such a cruel blow to be confronted with the truth.”
“What truth, my lady?” he asked, enjoying their sparring.
“That you are not even capable of pretending competence.”
He laughed. “One cannot master everything, Emmeline. At least I try.”
He could tell she stiffened by the way her horse tossed its head and pranced.
“And what do you mean by that?”
“I don’t settle for only the many things I’m good at. I take risks. I attempt to fly, which swans are usually good at. But perhaps you know something different. Does the Marquess of Kent clip his swans’ wings?”
Alex felt a strange sadness as Emmeline glared at him, blinking furiously.
Her fingers gripped the pommel as she leaned toward him. “Cease stretching your wings. My sister will not be treated as your next conquest.”
“I don’t wish to conquer her,” he said simply.
She didn’t answer, only tapped the horse’s flanks with her heels and rode ahead of him.
That evening, Emmeline’s father asked Blythe to sing again for his guests. Emmeline accompanied her on the spinet, and along with the gathered noblemen, watched how Blythe’s beauty seemed to glow. Part of what made her sister so special was that she had no idea how wonderful such innocence was; it was simply a part of her. With the paneled parlor as her backdrop, Blythe stood confidently.
Too confident, too fearless—and Emmeline had encouraged it.
The scene by the stream unfolded again in Emmeline’s mind, and she saw her fearless, curious sister in Alex Thornton’s arms.
Emmeline knew she herself was at fault, that she had failed to teach Blythe proper caution. Was it too late? Would her sister only learn by taking one risk too many?
She couldn’t allow that to happen. And she needed a stronger approach. Alex was a scoundrel and she had to prove it, even if it meant cataloguing his every sin.
It was time to show him that she would be the winner in their battle—and she had the perfect plan.