“What is it? Why do you hesitate?” He took a step closer, and this time she didn’t flee. “You know, don’t you?” Before his question had scarcely registered, his hands flashed out from beneath the cloak and grabbed her shoulders.
“Please, milord, ye’re hurting me.” She tried to twist free, but his fingers sank into her flesh like talons.
“You saw me, didn’t you?” He gave her a little shake.
It jarred her brain, and the pieces fell horribly into place. “Oh, God! It was ye.”
“It was me.” He sounded sad. “I’m sorry, Lily. Celia’s death was a tragic accident. But yours…I’m sorry.”
“Wait. I didn’t see anything. I heard voices and came to the door. I saw she was dead, but not who’d done it. I didn’t know.”
“Then I am doubly sorry. But I couldn’t take the chance that you’d left Celia’s because you knew something and would eventually tell.” He spun on his heel, tripping over a pile of garbage as he carried her deeper into the stinking black alley.
She opened her mouth to scream, but it was too late even for that. He cut off the sound and her breath with a wide, icy hand.
“Why do ye not let me get rid of him for ye?” Toby asked as they trudged up the steps from the cellar.
“I do not want the death of an innocent man on my conscience,” Emmeline said indignantly.
Toby snorted. “So, he’s charmed ye into changing yer mind.”
“Nay, he has not.”
“Has not what?” Molly asked as they emerged into the small room at the back of the house that served as a kitchen.
“Made me change my mind about him.” But he’d shaken her resolve and a good deal more. To hide her confusion, Emmeline walked over and poked at the pottage simmering in a pot suspended over the fire. Behind her, she heard Toby bolt the trapdoor and slide the woven mat and worktable over it. “I do want him to pay for what he’s done,” she said, half to herself.
Yet she felt a qualm when she relived their ambush in that little glade: the swiftness with which Jamie had charged to the rescue when he’d thought she’d hurt her ankle, followed by a curse as he tripped over Toby’s rope, and the ground-shaking thud of his big body hitting the dirt…the rocks. One of them had gashed open his skull and rendered him senseless during the long journey home in her grandfather’s wagon. They’d stanched the bleeding, of course, and she’d stitched the wound after the three of them had wrestled his deadweight down the cellar steps, but—
“Ye’re certain he’s guilty?” Molly asked.
“Aye.” Calmer now, Emmeline turned to her servants. “Well, he’s surely the greatest rogue and womanizer ever born. Why, he reminds me of that little brown man we saw at the fair, the one who coaxed the snakes from a basket and held them in thrall with the power of his music. Lord Jamie’s magic is in his words. They flow smooth and free as warm oil, slipping around every question I ask. But when he said he was not in London the night Celia died, there was something in his eyes…his eye. I know he was lying. I know it. Is it so wrong to want him punished?”
“Of course not,” Toby and Molly said in unison. They’d been with her family forever and would support her no matter what.
“But he’s a tough one, make no mistake,” Toby added. “A man doesn’t lose an eye or get the kind of scars he bears on his body by being a coward.”
“Scars?” Emmeline said faintly.
“Aye. When I removed his clothes for ye, I saw someone had taken the hide from his back. ‘Twas years ago, but—”
“Oh, dear,” Emmeline murmured. She had no qualms about imprisoning him, but if he didn’t confess, would she have the stomach to apply physical pressure? “He’s anxious to be free and about important business in Cornwall. Mayhap if we just wait—”
“Mistress! Come quick!” Peter catapulted into the room, eyes agog. “’Tis Sir Cedric. He’s here. In your solar.”
“Father?” Emmeline gasped, forgetting she hadn’t called Cedric that since the day she’d discovered the truth about her parents’ marriage. Or non-marriage. “Why?” But she knew why. There was only one reason why Cedric came visiting. Money.
She found him seated in her chair before the hearth, swilling the expensive Burgundy from her only glass goblet. Swine! “How much do you want this time?” Emmeline demanded.
Cedric turned, the handsome features he’d passed along to Celia blurred by drink and hard living. “What a way to greet your father.” The sensual mouth that had cajoled her mother into trusting him now turned down in perpetual dissatisfaction.
“Why lie to ourselves, Cedric. Money, or your constant lack thereof, is the only reason you seek me out.”
“Tut-tut, my dear. Such cynicism is why you’ve reached the age of two and twenty and are unwed.”
“Is it?” She glared at him, seeing through the veneer of polish to the soft, weak core. The only reason he hadn’t wed her to someone was because he didn’t want to lose the profits from the shop, which would go to her new husband. The gross unfairness of the whole thing made her furious. Her mother had left the shop to her. She ran a successful business and was a member of the guild in her own right. But simply by virtue of the fact he was her father, Cedric had control over her life. If he received a lucrative offer, he could marry her to the worst dog in all Christendom and no one would say him nay.
Emmeline curled her hands into fists. Men! A pox on all of them. “Why have you come?”
“Actually, I have got myself in rather a fix.” Cedric sighed, an affectation that always preceded a particularly huge demand. His smooth, supple fingers lazily stroked the arm of the chair. Minstrel’s hands, capable of coaxing a tune from harp or trumpet, but he had wasted his talent.
Jamie’s palms were callused, the backs sprinkled with the same fair hair that swirled over his chest. The capable hands and taut muscles of a man who worked for a living. Or wanted to impress a woman when he undressed for her, a sly voice taunted.
”…could use the money, but what I really need is a place to stay,” Cedric was saying.
“Stay?” Emmeline gaped. “Here? Now?”
“Why not?” One sand brow rose. His bloodshot green eyes grew frankly speculative. “Never say you’ve got yourself a lover hid in the cellar and don’t want your dear father around.”
Emmeline knew him well. One hint he was onto the truth, and he’d pick at her like a dog on a bone. “Ha! As if I’d let a man into my house much less my life,” she snapped.
“Did Margaret and I set such a poor example of wedded life?”
“Wedded, ha! ’Tis called bigamy, and you are lucky Mama was too ashamed to report you to the church.”
He flushed and dragged the lank blond hair away from his face. “I was happy with Maggie as I never could be with the wife my father foisted on me.” He glanced sidelong at Emmeline. “Your mother gave me love and children. We were happy here.”
“Until she found out how you’d betrayed her.”
“I loved her,” Cedric whined.
“You used her.” Margaret Spencer, plain only daughter of a wealthy spice merchant with lofty aspirations. He’d been thrilled to wed his daughter