She tilted her head. “You are one to talk. You have a duty and you will not fulfill it, either. You are willing to go so far as to pretend to court a woman in order to avoid forming a real connection with anyone.”
He looked deep into her eyes. “I think we have a real connection.”
Her lips parted slightly and her eyes glazed with a hint of desire. She shook it away. “But not permanent, Your Grace. So we are both led by the shadows of our fathers. You because you do not want to be like him, me because I fear the consequences of his actions.”
He pulled back slightly at her statement. How did she know about his father? He had barely spoken to her on the subject.
Unless Meg had revealed him.
“What are your father’s actions?” he asked, drawing her away from the subject of his pain.
She sighed. “He gambles, he engages in scandalous affairs, he brawls. He does whatever he likes.”
“That sounds like how you once described me,” he said. “Golden? Untouchable?”
He expected her to laugh at his gentle teasing, but instead her jaw set. “On his best day, my father isn’t half the man you are, James. And he has never been golden. Everything he does has a cost. He just doesn’t always pay it.”
“You do,” James said gently.
She nodded, and her upset was clear. “Thatis why my mother considers him such a danger, even though she forgets all that the moment he comes home and gives her a crumb of attention.”
He shook his head. “She would turn her back on all he’s done?”
“As you said, that is what love does,” she whispered, her voice cracking and her gaze suddenly intense.
He shook off the effect of that pinning look with difficulty. “Makes her forget that she believes him to be a danger?Ishe one?”
He thought of what Sir Archibald had said about Liston’s gambling with Emma’s future. At the time he had believed it was just nasty baiting, but now…now he feared it might be true, Especially when Emma hesitated far too long for him not to know the answer even before she spoke again.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “To himself at the very least.”
The music began to fade and James found himself frustrated by that fact. He had been taken aback by her ability to see him, truly see him, but tonight he had finally gotten a glimpse into her.
He stepped away to perform a bow as she curtsied, then he lifted her hand to his lips and placed a kiss across her gloved knuckles. He felt her tense, saw her pupils dilate with the same desire that coursed through his own veins. The one he had not expected, but had come to crave as much as water or food.
“Thank you, Emma, for trusting me. And I want to help you. I’ll do everything in my power to do so.”
She pulled her hand from his, her face turned as if she didn’t like that answer. “Thank you, Your Grace,” she murmured before she turned and left him.
He watched her weave through the crowd on what appeared to be unsteady legs, and wished he could go after her. But he didn’t. Because to save her, truly save her, would be losing himself.
Emma stood on the terrace, clutching the rock wall and staring out into the dark night. The cool air did nothing to calm her, for her mind kept running back her dance with James.
She had been trying to pretend she could play this game with him without losing. But she wasn’t sophisticated like him. She wasn’t able to guard her heart the way he had clearly taught himself to over the years.
So when she looked up into his dark eyes, she realized how much she cared for him, craved him. Not just his intoxicating touch, buthim. She wanted his heart, she wanted his soul, she wanted to belong to him, not just for a night or for the duration of a party, but forever.
“Idiot,” she cursed at herself, clenching harder at the wall.
“You want him.”
She started, turning to find her mother standing at her shoulder with a smug smirk on her face. “What?” Emma burst out, too loudly. “Who?”
“Abernathe,” her mother said, drawing out the name slowly. “You want him, don’t you?”
Emma shook her head. She didn’t trust her mother enough to make her a confidante. “Don’t be silly, Mama.”
“It isn’t silly,” her mother said, reaching out to cover her hand. All it succeeded in doing was pressing her palm into the cold, rough wall. “You could have him, Emma, and in the process save us both. You know what to do.”
