Samuel couldn’t read her expression, as her face was hidden inside her hood, but she cast more than one glance over her shoulder as she hurried toward him, her skirts clutched in her hands. When she reached the carriage, she climbed inside without a word, and without sparing Samuel a glance.
He climbed in after her, pulling the carriage door closed behind him, but he made no move to signal his driver. Instead, he turned to Emma, who’d tucked herself tightly into the opposite corner of the bench, her head turned away from him. “Where isHelena Reeves?”
No answer. It was as if he hadn’tspoken at all.
Samuel tried again. “I left Helena waiting for you in the library, just as you asked.Where is she?”
Still nothing, or at least, not an answer. Emma made a sound—a strangled breath, or a sigh—but she didn’t speak.
Slow anger began to burn in Samuel’s chest. “We had an agreement, Emma. I trusted you to keep your promise.” Foolishly, it seemed. He should have known better than to believe a word she said, given that she’d lied to him before. But somehow, this time her lie tore at him in a way Samuel could never have imagined, had never thought possible.
Had he truly believed a few kisses in a rose garden would change anything between them? He was as ridiculous as every other gentleman who’d fallen victim to her red lips, her dark blue eyes. “I’m waiting for an explanation, Emma.”
Emma gazed down at her hands folded tightly in her lap, her deep hood hiding her expression, and remained silent, as if Samuel wasn’t even there.
“Nothing to say, my lady?” His harsh voiced seemed far too loud inside the closed carriage. “No wild justifications this time, no lies or excuses?”
Emma turned toward him with her lipsparted. “I-I…”
Samuel waited, but when nothing more emerged, his last shred of patience snapped. “Take off that hood, and look at me,” he growled, pushing her hood back. She tried to flinch away from him, but he caught her chin in his hand and turned her face to his. “I did as you asked, and you—”
The words froze on Samuel’s lips, and his stomach dropped.
All the color was gone from her cheeks, her eyes wide, dark pools in that pale face, fear and shame in their blue depths.
He stared at her, stunned. The vulnerability he’d seen in her face in Lady Tremaine’s rose garden, that glimpse of the truth that had made it impossible for him not to kiss her, had been only the barest hint of what she was hiding from the world, a mere shadow of thedarkness there.
Thiswas what lurked beneath those devastating eyes, that charming smile.
An overwhelming, inexplicableocean of pain.
Dear God, what had happened insidethe Pink Pearl?
A thousand different questions leapt to Samuel’s lips at once, but he didn’t ask them. He said nothing, his fingers gentling on her face, and his thumb creeping up to strokeher cheekbone.
The anguish in her eyes, those scars on her hands, the remnants of a painful, violent past—how could they belong to Lady Emma Crosby, the sheltered, indulged daughter of the Earl of Crosby? How could they belong to London’sreigning belle?
Samuel’s gaze dropped to her hands. They were buried inside the folds of her cloak, covered by the tight silk of her gloves. Hidden, always hidden, but he could see them still, the thin scars etched into her pale flesh. Now he’d seen them once, he could never forget they were there, no matter how she tried to disguise them under layers oflinen and silk.
Samuel didn’t think about what he did next. He didn’t plan it. He simply reached for her, his movements slow so as not to frighten her, and lifted her into his lap.
Emma went rigid in his arms. “I-I can’t—”
“Shhh.” Samuel cupped her neck in warm, gentle fingers. “It’s all right.”
It wasn’t, not at first, but gradually Emma’s hectic breaths slowed, and she began to relax against him, the tension draining from her body bit by bit, until at last she went limp in his arms, and let her cheek rest against his chest.
Samuel closed his eyes then, a long, slow breath leaving his body. He rested his chin on her head, the soft, golden wisps of her hair tickling his skin, and let the truth break over him like a wave unfurling onto the sand, no less inevitable for the slow, gentle drift of it.
I could hold her like this forever.
He traced her jaw, then tipped her face up to his with a finger under her chin. He waited for one breath, two, to give her a chance to pull away, but she only gazed up at him, her blue eyes soft, her lips open, and just like that, he was lost. Time narrowed and contracted until there was just the two of them, her face tipped up to his, their breath mingling.
He pressed his mouth to her forehead and let them linger there, his heart pounding at the sensation of her smooth skin against his lips. He stroked his thumb down her cheek and teased it across her lower lip, the merest brush against that tender skin, once, and then again, and then his lips were on hers, his kiss gentle, coaxing her until she opened her mouth with a soft moan.
He kissed her deeply then, his hands sinking into her hair as he urged her mouth against his, coaxing her lips apart so he could slip inside and tangle his tongue against hers, each slick caress driving him wild until he tore his mouth away at last, his chest heaving. “Emma?”
He met her gaze, and found her looking up at him, her eyes huge with wonder. Then she reached forward with a shy finger and traced the outline of his lips, following the upward curve as he smiled down at her, his heart leaping when she smiled back at him.
