Embroidery? Samuel glanced at the frilly white scraps in her lap.
Lace. Lady Emma was tatting lace.
Well. He hadn’texpectedthat.
“Good afternoon, Lord Lymington.” Lady Emma set aside her busywork and gestured gracefully to the chair across from the settee onwhich she sat.
Samuel’s eyes narrowed on her, but her expression gave nothing away. The panic he’d seen in her face last night was gone, hidden once again under the smooth masque she wore, the surface so exquisite no one bothered to lookunderneath it.
Disappointment, sharp and unexpected, squeezed his chest.
“Lord Lymington?” Lady Emma raised an eyebrowat his silence.
Samuel offered her a belated bow. “Good afternoon, Lady Emma.”
“I beg your pardon for receiving you alone, my lord. My grandmother’s exertions at Lady Swinton’s ball last night caught up with her, I’m afraid. She’s retired to her bedchamber with a headache.” Lady Emma offered him a serene smile. “I daresay she would rather have remained downstairs for your call this morning, but here we are. Won’tyou sit down?”
Samuel took a seat and met that cool, blue gaze, a humorless smile on his lips. She might pretend all she liked, but Lady Emma knew what they had to say to each other was best said in private.
Still, if she wished to act as though this was an ordinary call, he’d oblige her. “I came to enquire after your health and your grandmother’s. It’s customary for a gentleman to doso, I believe.”
“How kind. As I said, my grandmother is a trifle fatigued, but I’m very well today.”
Samuel let his gaze rove over her, not bothering to hide the way he lingered on her lips and the curve of her neck, the flutter of her pulse just visible above the modest cut of her gown. An unwelcome heat surged through him, and he dragged his gaze back to her face. “You look very well, but then I think you always look well, don’t you, Lady Emma?”
With her prim bodice, the restrained hairstyle, that sweet scrap of lace that drew attention to her long, elegant fingers, she was every inch the sweet, demure young innocent.
So ladylike, untouchable.
It only made him want totouch her more.
His lips twisted as they took each other’s measure, neither of them speaking as they searched for chinks in the other’s armor, and planned their strikes accordingly. The tension crackled between them, tightening and lengthening, until inexplicably Samuel’s cock began to thicken, pulsing with every thundering beatof his heart.
Oh, she was dangerous. Evenhefound it difficult to tear his eyes away from her. How had he ever imagined she was only a danger to Lovell?
“I recall from our dance at Almack’s, Lord Lymington, that you’re not fond of aimless chatter. Shall we get to the purposeof your visit?”
So cool, so composed, the tiny tears he’d seen in her façade last night carefully patched and smoothed over. “My purpose, Lady Emma, is to find out what you were doing at the Pink Pearl three nights ago.”
It was a swift, brutal strike, a frontal assault designed to leave her shuddering, so the real Lady Emma he’d glimpsed last night would appear again, seeping through the cracks.
But she gave no sign she’d been hit. Samuel searched for any change in her expression, but she merely cocked her head to the side, a faint crease in her brow. “The Pink Pearl? Yes, I believe you mentioned that place last night. I beg your pardon, my lord, but I don’t knowwhat that is.”
“On the contrary, Lady Emma. You do know it, and rather well. You sneaked into the library at the Pink Pearl three nights ago, to meet with a courtesan called Letty. I’m afraid I didn’t get her surname.”
She blinked, and there it was, the shift in her expression he’d been waiting for, but it was there and gone again in an instant. “A courtesan? My goodness, Lord Lymington. You think me wicked, indeed. I wouldn’t have suspected you of entertaining such intrigue. But tell me, what do you base yoursuspicions on?”
“You’ll recall that when we danced at Almack’s I mentioned you had a distinctive voice, my lady. As soon as I heard it again, I knew it at once.”
She let out an amused laugh, but Samuel was watching her closely, and he saw her knuckles go white as her fingers tightened around the scrap of lace. “Myvoice? Rather flimsy evidence, isn’t it? Tell me, Lord Lymington. This lady at the Pink Pearl, who had my voice. Did she alsohave my face?”
“Alas, my lady, your face was hidden by a hood.”
“You mean to say you came here today to accuse me of sneaking into a London brothel because you caught a fleeting glimpse of a lady in a hood, and you’ve decided that lady was me?”
“I caught a glimpse of a lock of your hair, as well. A fleeting glimpse, admittedly, but that honey gold shade is as distinctiveas your voice.”
“On the contrary, Lord Lymington. Dozens of young ladies in London have fair hair.”
