“Immie.” Her childhood name.
“Emmy. Very nice. My name’s Tony.”
So he’d heard wrong. It didn’t matter. His head must be buzzing after receiving a bump like that. “Where do you live?”
“In a big house about a mile away.” Better if he didn’t know she was the mistress of the house. After all, she was a property owner, if not a great one, and if he was, despite appearances, a ruffian, he might attempt to abduct her or hold her to ransom. It happened a great deal in society, and while she wasn’t a prime target, she could prove a convenient one for a man in need of money.
He clapped his uninjured hand to his side. “As I thought. My purse has gone.”
“You think they were thieves?”
“What else could they be?”
He stared at her and she caught her breath. He had beautiful eyes, expressive and well-shaped with sweeping black lashes. They’d appear even better if they weren’t bloodshot, but that was to be expected after an experience like his.
Nothing more. Except they were a shade of heavenly blue she’d rarely seen before. When their eyes met, an emotion stirred deep inside, one she didn’t immediately understand. She recognized it with astonishment. Desire.
That didn’t happen to her. She identified it by instinct alone, not experience. And with a man who was half-dead and filthy to boot? Oh yes. She wouldn’t deny the inconvenient heat swamping her body. However she would conceal it, being a civilized woman.
He held up his relatively uninjured arm. “Would you help me up? I hate to ask you, but I don’t think I can do it on my own.”
He was right. He had to stand if she was to help him. She spread her feet on the floor, bent her knees, and gripped his arm with both hands. It was a strain, but once he was sitting, he planted his feet on the ground and pushed himself up.
He released her hand to prop his arm on the wall nearest him. It swayed alarmingly, creaking loudly. He sprang upright with a curse, and the movement dislodged something from what remained of his coat.
A bunch of white satin ribbon formed into a shape Imogen knew well. A white cockade, the symbol of the Jacobites.
* * * *
Tony let the cockade fall to the ground. Emmy paled, and immediately he felt sorry for his subterfuge. She’d done everything she could to help him. “I’ll accept your kind offer, thank you.” His head swam alarmingly, and he would give a great deal for a soft bed and a glass of brandy.
He’d suffered injuries before, and seen worse. In his profession, he could hardly avoid it. His old profession.
Recollecting his usual life helped to keep the dizziness at bay. The only big house this close was the one he’d headed for with a particular aim in mind, so although he hadn’t banked for someone shooting at him, he had achieved his objective of getting inside the house. Even worse that he’d enter it as a guest, when he’d planned to enter it as a thief. He tried to smile, but feared it turned into a grimace. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re a Jacobite,” she whispered, dread in her tones.
Tony fixed all his attention on her face. She’d gone white, and she was staring wide-eyed at him. He couldn’t tell if she was appalled or awed. Which? Was she a loyalist to the Crown or a rebel? He wouldn’t agree to or deny her statement. Since he’d hoped the cockade would get him into the house via the servants’ entrance, he couldn’t be sorry she had seen it. “Does that give you a problem?”
“The magistrates will hang you if they find you with one of those things.” She nudged the piece of white ribbon with her foot.
“You’ve seen a lot of these hereabouts, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
At least she didn’t deny it. Jacobites riddled this part of Lancashire. Most of them were licking their wounds after the defeat of the ’Forty-five. Others considered it a setback and carried on with their plotting.
By inserting himself in their midst, Tony anticipated discovering more about the plot that threatened his family, irritatingly known as the Emperors of London. His own name explained the reason for the sobriquet. Antoninus. Damn stupid name. His brother, Nicephorus, was another example of their mother’s warped sense of humor.
For the first time in months, Tony felt alive. The edge of danger in this self-imposed assignment gave him a thrill he thought he’d left behind.
Not to mention a pretty servant girl.
But Emmy was more than pretty. She was stunningly beautiful. An appropriate description, considering the circumstances. He didn’t know if she was aware of the effect of her exquisitely pointed chin and her liquid brown eyes. If anything, the cloud of dark hair at present untidily straggling down in tails and curls only acted as a frame. And he wasn’t being partial, even though when he’d first opened his eyes to see her he’d wondered if angels had brown eyes. If he’d said it, she’d probably have left him, and he didn’t fool himself. He’d come close with this one.
He glared at the blood he’d left on the floor. Weakness filled his bones. He could use a good night’s sleep before he got to work.
Emmy took his elbow, and he felt the same jolt of awareness that he had when she’d touched his head. That had come as a profound shock. Women had a place in his world, but here and now, he didn’t have time for that. Unless he’d found an ally.
Hurting someone who’d done nothing but help him went against the grain. From the way she was dressed, in a drab riding habit that had seen better days, and her attitude, with no maidenly modesty, he’d guessed she was a servant at the house.
Tiredness swept over him in a swamping wave. He still couldn’t believe he’d nearly ended here, in the English countryside instead of one of the battlefields of Europe. The vagaries of fate never failed to amaze him.
When he moved, he staggered, and he decided against picking up the cockade. Instead, he scuffed it into the ground with the toe of his boot. His valet would probably faint dead away if he saw what Tony was doing with the boots meant to grace Hyde Park. Well, they were good boots, and they deserved a better fate than prancing around town.
“In truth, I don’t think I could go much farther today,” he said, passing a hand over his forehead. The dramatic gesture wasn’t altogether undeserved. Heat washed over him and he knew from experience that was part of his condition. A soak in a bathtub to get all the dirt out of his wounds and a good night’s sleep would see him right. If he was fortunate, he’d get one of those.
He was damned lucky not to have suffered a broken bone. That bullet had come out of nowhere and he’d only had time to jerk to one side before it struck. The retort and the pain weren’t that far apart, so his attacker must have been close. A footpad? Maybe, but he hadn’t been robbed, and the ruffian had every opportunity to do so. He’d lost the contents of his saddlebags, but only because the horse had bolted.
No, someone had shot him for a different reason. The devil was, he didn’t know which one. Either because he was a Jacobite, or because he wasn’t. At the last inn, he’d ensured the landlord had seen the cockade when he’d asked for directions, so maybe the innkeepers weren’t pleased to see him. Certainly, the nag he’d allowed the landlord to fob him off with wasn’t the sprightly mount the landlord had promised. A lively mount, but only when a bullet zipped past its ear.
A mile wasn’t too far. Not when he’d been lying in that run-down hut for the best part of a day, blood seeping out of him. He’d been unconscious for half of it, and when he’d woken, one movement had told him his head was broken and he’d swum in and out of consciousness.
He had to get to shelter, whatever that was. Now he pushed away from the wall that threatened to collapse under his weight and took a step toward Emmy. “Shall we go?”
Unfortunately,