“Mmm,” she said from her cloud.
“But not here. My ship’s in London harbor…we sail on the tide. Will you come away with me, my lady fair? And all the wonders of love’s pleasures will we explore.”
“Mmm…what?” Emmeline’s eyes flew open as his words penetrated her haze. A pirate stared back at her, a cocky smile on his lips, his single eye smoldering with the sort of fire she’d avoided all her life. “Sweet Mary!” She yelped, jumped back and yelped again as a few hairs remained in his grasp.
“Don’t be alarmed.” His grin was a pale blur in the dimness. “I realize we’ve only know each other a short time, but I believe in plain speaking. I want you, and I think you feel the same.”
Emmeline gaped at him a moment before finding her tongue. “How…how can you think I’d agree to such a thing? Is it because I am only a common minstrel and you think—”
“There is naught common about you, Emma. What I feel for you is most uncommon, I assure you.”
“Oh, they were right. You are a rogue and a scoundrel.” And a murderer. It occurred to her that he had taken control of her inquisition. And he’d never denied killing poor Celia. Cheeks hot with shame and fury, she leapt from the bench. “You…you…”
“Easy, I meant no offense.” He stood, taking her shoulders in a painless but unbreakable grip.
Determined not to show weakness by struggling, she glared at him. “How could I not be offended by so low an offer?”
“My aim was just the opposite,” His gaze, warm and appreciative, moved over her face. He towered head and shoulders above her, sun-streaked blond hair gleaming like a beacon in the gloom. Even with the eye patch, he was a handsome man, his deeply tanned face set off by a blue velvet doublet that gave him the flash of a songbird. “I meant to laud you, to cosset you and please you. ‘Twould be good between us…I feel it.” His seductive mouth hiked up in one corner as though he knew something no one else did, a secret that would bring her untold pleasure if only she would come away with him. ‘Twas a tempting offer, especially embodied by an elegant, dangerous man. The lure of exploring such a mystery was a siren’s call to which countless women had harkened…including her sister.
Sobering thought, that. Beneath his smooth demeanor and sleek finery, he was as ruthless as a hunting hawk. “Your interest is not returned,” she said coldly. “Kindly unhand me.”
His smile fled. “Why? I know when a woman is interested in—”
“You, sir, are a lecher…a conceited lecher. I’d not share a cup of wine with you, much less a bed.” She tore herself from his grip, picked up her skirts and fled into the night.
Stunned, Jamie listened to her footsteps on the gravel path. What the hell? He had not mistaken the intense connection, the awareness that had flowed like a molten river between them.
“My compliments on the lady’s taste, whoever she was,” grated an all-too-familiar voice. Giles Cadwell strolled out of the darkness.
“What are you doing here?” Jamie demanded.
“I came with my lord of Oxford.” He was Oxford’s tool, a shrewd, ambitious man who would go to any lengths to serve his powerful master. His comely features and courtly polish belied a genius for cruelty, which Oxford exploited. A dangerous enemy, indeed, Jamie thought as Giles’s malevolent gaze cut to the path Emmeline had taken. “An interesting piece, lovely hair. Mayhap she’ll find me more to her taste.”
Jamie schooled his face to betray none of the possessi veness raging inside him. “Only if she has a preference for snakes.”
Giles’s hand went to his sword hilt. “Name the time.”
Anytime, but Jamie could ill afford to kill Oxford’s man and land himself in trouble with the crown. “I’d not want to bloody your fashionable new garments.” He looked Giles up and down. His close-fitting green doublet was cut so scandalously short it revealed the tops of his golden trunk hose and the padded, bejeweled codpiece. The church called such displays sinful. Jamie thought it boastful for a man to wander about with his private parts decked out like a Fleet Street whore.
“I’d be happy to strip them off,” Giles said. Though he looked the fop, he was a dangerous man.
They’d been enemies since their days as pages to rival lords, Jamie with Lancaster, Giles with Oxford. But it wasn’t only political. Giles had a mean streak, a penchant for abusing defenseless creatures, that Jamie found abhorrent. They’d crossed words and swords several times when Jamie had stepped in to protect some hapless victim. But tonight Jamie had to protect himself and his mission. “I’d not want to ruin my mother’s fete.”
“Ever the gallant. I’d forgotten how solicitous you are of women…except for poor Celia.”
Jamie’s hand fell to his sword hilt. “Careful, Giles…”
“I meant that the girl might still be alive had she not shunned me and gone off with you that night.”
The breath caught in Jamie’s chest; his mind whirled. If not for Giles, Jamie never would have met Celia or bedded her. Had the whole thing been staged by Giles in hopes he might use Celia to spy on Jamie? “Are you saying you killed Celia because she had the good sense to reject your advances?”
“Of course not.” Giles looked more amused than affronted. “I was not even in London that night.”
“Nor was I,” Jamie growled.
“Hmm. Your men say you were aboard ship bound for Calais, but they’d tell the sheriff whatever you bid them. I, on the other hand, was with His Majesty’s court in Lincoln…in full view of a hundred noble witnesses.”
Jamie crossed his arms and silently counted to ten…his father’s technique for controlling a hot temper. “Have you proof I was not aboard the Lady, or is this just idle talk?”
“I have no proof…yet. But I know you are up to something. I mean to find out where you keep sneaking off to.”
Jamie’s blood ran cold. Damn. Did Giles know about the ships, or was he merely grasping at straws, trying to bring him down while Lancaster was too faraway to help? If they succeeded, they’d ruin more than they guessed. Stiff as he was, he managed to shrug. “Just a bit of honest trade.”
Giles snorted. “I think you’re trading with the French. I’ve men searching the most likely ports. I’ll catch you.”
Damn. Was he looking as far as Cornwall? “Oxford would be the one to know about such things. Is his man, Roger Salisbury, not negotiating a treaty with the French?”
“King Richard is exploring all means of preventing war,” Giles said hotly. “If a peaceful settlement could be arranged, ‘twould be our salvation.”
“Or our ruin. King Charles would use the treaty as an excuse to gobble us up without having to wage a war.”
Giles’s lip curled. “Brigands such as you would not understand a pledge made between honorable men.”
Jamie glared back to hide the fact he was shaken by Giles’s astute guesses. “You wouldn’t know an honorable man if he came up and bit you in the arse.” He watched anger flare in Giles’s face. “Charming as it has been to cross words with you, if not swords, Giles, I must attend my lady mother.” Jamie walked away, as though dismissing the man as harmless when the truth was just the opposite. Giles was a danger to his plans. It had been a mistake to come here, a weakness to want to see his parents one last time…just in case things turned sour.
“Do ye still want to go through with this?” Toby asked.
Emmeline