The Wild Wellingham Brothers: High Seas To High Society / One Unashamed Night / One Illicit Night / The Dissolute Duke. Sophia James

of all the London brothels, yet it felt cheap in a way that it hadn’t before. And the churning dread in his stomach had absolutely nothing to do with anticipation.

      In the conservatory, any inhibitions that Brigitte had displayed seemed largely gone and when he felt her fingers suggestively cup his genitals he moved back sharply.

      Lord, why was he here?

      Why was he not home at Falder with the green hills all about him and the beating ocean in the distance? And Emerald Sandford in his bed, warm and willing and beautiful? Because she was a liar and a cheat and the daughter of Beau Sandford and because everything she had ever told him had been based on her skewed version of the truth.

      A room to one end of the structure had been fashioned into a bedchamber, its large four-poster draped in lawn. When Brigitte raised her arms to loosen her hairpins, he marvelled that the sight did not affect him in the least. All he wanted was gold mixed with red and entwined with the lightest of corn.

      Emerald.

      He made himself come forward and draw a finger against the warm smoothness of Brigitte’s skin, trailing his touch along the base of her jaw and down again into the softer places. A swelling bosom and milk-white complexion, the fat abundance of womanhood warm and pliable in his hands as she tipped back her head and groaned.

      Emerald. He wanted Emerald. He wanted her joy and her fierce independence. He wanted the feel of her against him as they lay under the full light of a new moon, his ruined fingers curled into hers. Disorientated, he stood back and looked around. Uncertain. Desperate. To leave.

      ‘I am sorry,’ he said quietly, jamming a coin into her hand before moving away.

      Away from the wrongness of Curzon Street, its inherent loneliness tempered only by rich fine drink and impossible dreams. This was not the way to forget Emerald. This was not the way to claw back a future and find again in his life a place where sheer emptiness did not consume him.

      When he was outside he laid his head against the side of the building and thought.

      The port beckoned as it always had with its freedom and smell and foreverness. The infinite blue of the waves and a horizon that did not finish. Adventure, new lands, the riches of the colonies spilling into his holds, spices, silks, tea.

      As his driver pulled into the curb near him, he walked briskly across and ordered the coach to the docks. His newest sloop was a few weeks away from completion and he would benefit from a good bout of hard work.

       Chapter Fourteen

      She found the map on her bed after returning from a walk around the kitchen gardens with Alice.

      Asher. He was back. He must have waited until he knew her to be gone from this chamber before depositing the parchment. It had been eight days since she had seen him and the exhaustion that had kept her in bed had dissipated into intermittent tiredness, and then disappeared altogether as the wounds at her waist healed into an itchy red.

      Unrolling the parchment, her eyes skimmed across the tangents indicated. True west of Powell Point on the tip of the Ship Chan Cay. And a date. 1808. The year after her mother had gone. The year her father had acquired the Mariposa and dispensed with his life as a lord.

      Tucking the paper into the middle of a book to make certain that the edges were unseen, a new and more worrying thought struck her. Was this Asher Wellingham’s final goodbye gesture? Had he not said he would give her the map and provide transport home?

      A knock at the door made her jump. The footman outside bowed his head as she caught his eye.

      ‘His Grace requests your company, my lady. He asked me to bring you to him directly.’

      Resisting the temptation to go to the mirror and tidy her hair, she pulled at the material in her skirt so that it fell to a more decent length, a slice of pain worrying her side at the movement. Only a scar where the bullet had been extracted, the doctor hurried from London both skilful and competent.

      She had been lucky in more ways than one; the McIlverrays were all dead and no longer a threat and the local constabulary was treating the whole incident as highway robbery. Asher with his wide connections had made certain that no trace of scandal ensued. Nothing to touch her. Nothing to hide from.

      She smiled as she saw him standing against the open French doors. The gardens behind framed the blackness of his hair, and his clothes were casual, breeches tucked into brown boots and his white shirt open. Her heartbeat began to race as she pushed down the familiar, aching, breathless want for him.

      Don’t touch him.

      Don’t let him near.

      Don’t let him see how much he has hurt me, could still hurt me.

      ‘Good morning, Emerald. You look well.’ He made no move to take her hand or come closer. There were no hooded glances or any suggestion of a shared intimacy. Rather he held back, unstintingly correct as he acknowledged her presence.

      Today his eyes were the darkest that she had seen them, not even a shimmer of gold visible.

      ‘Thank you for the map.’ It was all that she could think of to say. After everything.

      Wariness crept into his face. ‘You will return to Jamaica to search for its bounty?’

      ‘Yes. It should be easy to read the co-ordinates.’

      ‘How?’

      ‘How?’

      ‘How will you do that?’ His question was inflected with a controlled impatience and she was silent. What ship could she use? No one would give her credit in Jamaica and, with the loss of St Clair, she had neither property nor chattels to bargain with. A further lump blocked her throat. He would be rid of her this easily?

      ‘I am not certain.’ She made her voice even, indifferent, as though the matter of a vessel in which to travel was but a small and trifling consideration.

      ‘As I said, the Nautilus is due for a sea run.’

      She could not quite understand what it was he was telling her.

      ‘If you needed passage, I could provide it.’ His voice held an iron edge of control as he spoke again.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because you were a virgin.’ So easily said. So dismissive of emotion.

      She marched over until they were face to face. ‘I am not pregnant.’ The sheer stupidity of her remark made her blush, but his detachment was more hurtful than anything else and she didn’t want him to think that he was bound to her by non-existent ties.

      ‘My offer is not conditional on the production of an heir.’ She felt the whisper of his breath on her cheek before he moved back, and wanted to reach out and touch the warmth.

      This whole conversation was so absurd she suddenly felt tired by it all. The hope. The lack of hope. The seesaw of emotion. The second-guessing as to how he felt. Love me? Love me not? Like the old game she had played as a child with the few other children who were allowed in her company. All she wanted to do was to step forward into his arms and feel their strength around her. Keeping her safe. From everything.

      The low wheeling of a gull pulled her attention skywards. Today the weather was fresh, though a bank of clouds sat heavy in the west. There would be rain again later. She was certain of it. Unmindful, she drew her hand across the ache in her side.