Emma gave a languorous stretch, letting the morning sun caress her body. She’d slept better last night than she had since Merry passed away. She felt rested, in both body and mind. It was the first morning she could recall where she hadn’t awakened with her mind an immediate riot of lists full of things that had to be done. She gave another long stretch and stopped mid-action. Something didn’t feel right. She felt confined as if she was wearing a tight garment instead of her loose nightgown.
That was funny; she couldn’t remember putting her nightgown on last night. Emma ran hands down her body, her fingers halting when they met with satin instead of cotton. She looked down and confirmed her suspicions. She was still in her dress. Ren! The latter part of the evening came back to her in hot, vivid flashes; Ren’s naughty game in the carriage, Ren taking her hard and swift up against the hall wall. All the pent-up passion that had lurked beneath the surface of their interactions since his arrival had been given its head last night to the delight of them both.
There was no ignoring that what had happened last night had been rough and spectacular. There was also no ignoring that she’d started it. She’d been the one who had slid her hand up his leg, who had boldly straddled his lap. But he’d not been resistant. He’d been more than ready for her when her hand had found him through his trousers.
Emma sighed and sat up, ringing for Hattie. She couldn’t get out of the dress on her own. She’d have to tell Hattie something to explain it. She’d have to tell Ren something, too. She doubted she could let the interlude go unremarked. One didn’t have sex against the wall with a guest living under one’s roof and not address it.
Hattie came and exclaimed, as expected, over the crumpled gown. Emma murmured a vague excuse about being late and tired and not wanting to wake her. ‘I just laid down for a moment...’ Emma offered an apologetic smile ‘the next thing I knew, it was morning.’
‘Well, I can press most of the wrinkles out.’ Hattie undid the fastenings in the back and helped her slide the gown off but the scowl of disapproval on her face suggested she suspected far more had happened.
Emma offered no further discussion of the evening. Her mind was already examining and discarding possible explanations she could give Ren for her behaviour as Hattie combed out her hair. She could blame it on Arthur Gridley. No, she would sound weak, desperate for a man to solve her problems. Ren would take that opening to further increase his involvement at the plantation.
She could blame it on the wine. That would sound irresponsible, but plausible. It would be better than blaming it on her curiosity, her physical attraction to him, or on the idea she’d been alone too long. All of which implied she wanted him to stay, even needed him in ways that superseded the practical tasks of running the estate. She had started this with the intent of using it to bind him to her, but she had to admit her plans were only a part of what had compelled her boldness last night. There’d been other, selfish, personal reasons, too. Those reasons also implied she might want to continue what they’d started in the hall.
A little shudder went through her at the thought: Another night with Ren? Is that what she’d wanted? He’d been a lover nonpareil, giving her exactly what she’d been after, a rough, impetuous joining, and doing it most thoroughly. She’d been completely lost. She might have started it, but he’d taken control almost immediately. Instead of satisfying her curiosity, the encounter had merely made her hungry for more. What would it be like to lie with him, skin to skin, to linger in the act of lovemaking instead of sharing a brief, heated encounter?
‘Miss Emma, are you all right?’ Hattie was staring at her in the mirror. Emma focused, embarrassed to see twin pockets of colour rising on her cheeks.
‘I’m fine.’ Emma stood up from her dressing table. ‘I’m just hungry.’
Hattie nodded, giving her a considering look. ‘There’s breakfast downstairs. Mr Dryden already ate. He had a big appetite this morning, too.’ Ah, she wouldn’t have to face Ren right away.
‘Where is he now?’ Ren was up early for such a late night.
‘He said he wanted to look through some of his cousin’s personal belongings. Michael showed him where Mr Merrimore’s room was.’ Hattie paused. ‘I hope that was all right?’ Merry’s chamber had been shut up since his death. At first, Emma hadn’t been able to bring herself to enter the room. Later, she simply hadn’t had time, at least that’s what she told herself. Perhaps she still wasn’t able to face it. It seemed she’d have to, though, if Ren was in there.
She smiled at Hattie to relieve the other woman’s concern and maybe her own. She’d not planned on bearding that particular lion today. ‘It’s fine. I’ll go see how Mr Dryden is doing.’
She had only the length of the hallway to decide how she wanted to handle facing Ren after last night. Did she want to excuse the encounter as a one-time slip of moral judgement or did she want to go ahead with her initial thought of seducing Ren as a means of binding her to him?
When she’d had that idea it had been before she actually knew what she was getting into—it had been before he’d carried her up the staircase and put her to bed, before he’d claimed her so thoroughly against that hall wall. She might have meant to seduce him last night, but in the end, it had been difficult to tell who was seducing whom. She needed to remember he had his own gambits in motion as well. If she continued on the path of seducing of him, she’d be allowing him to do the same with her.
Merry’s door stood ajar, making no secret of the room being open and occupied. The coward in her had hoped Ren would have finished before she arrived. She pushed the door all the way open, drew a deep breath and stepped just inside. She could not will her feet to go further than the threshold.
The room was unchanged except for the basics. The big bed was made up. The bureau and the table tops were straightened, the medicines that had marked Merry’s last months were gone, but his personal brushes and other sundry items still decorated the room. Sunlight streamed through the large window, toying with fluttering dust motes. If she threw open the wardrobe and bureau drawers she would find Merry’s clothes pressed and ready. It was as if the room itself was waiting for Merry to walk through the door. But she knew better. This had not only been a place of death, it had been a place of murder.
She spotted Ren seated at Merry’s small escritoire near the window, reading through a book. To reach him, she’d have to cross the room. Emma opted to call out, ‘Good morning, I hear you were up early.’ She tried to sound cheery and nonchalant.
Ren looked up from his reading. Seeing her, his face broke into a smile, his dimple deepening. He didn’t seem nervous at all. Perhaps he had more experience than she with morning-after encounters. And, of course, the room wouldn’t mean the same to him.
Ren held up his reading material, a brown leather journal. Not a book, but a personal diary. ‘I’ve been looking for answers and I think I may have found some.’ Emma knew a different kind of anxiety. She’d never looked through Merry’s personal journals, deeming it too great of a privacy violation when he was alive and not having the heart to do so when he was dead. Had he written about her in there? If so, what? She had her secrets and she preferred to keep them that way.
Emma forced a smile. ‘What kind of answers? Perhaps you’d care to show me over breakfast. I’m starving.’ She wasn’t nearly as hungry as she had been earlier, the room had sucked most of her appetite out of her, but it was a clever ploy to get Ren out of the room and herself, too. Her breath was coming fast. She put a hand on the door frame to steady herself.
Ren rose from the desk, journal in hand, and moved towards her, concern etched on his face. ‘Breakfast is a good idea. You look a bit peaked. Are you sure you’re all right?’
He took her by the elbow and ushered her downstairs. In the breakfast room, he insisted she sit while he fixed her a plate.
‘What would you like this morning? There’s sausage, eggs, fresh toast.’ He rattled off a list of offerings. Her stomach rumbled, her hunger returning.
‘Sausage, please, and some eggs. Breakfast was always Merry’s great weakness.’ The good aromas of morning cooking were triumphing over the evil of Merry’s bedroom. ‘We serve many local dishes for dinner, as you’ve probably noticed, but Merry could never give up his English breakfast.’
She took the plate from Ren. ‘Thank you.’ It was filled perfectly if not excessively with a balance of the things she liked: eggs, two slices of toast, two sausages and a slice of melon on the side. She was impressed. This wasn’t their first breakfast together. Apparently, he’d been paying attention.
Ren smiled at the mention of Merry and resumed his seat with a plate containing his second breakfast of the day. ‘I’m sorry if I was out of line by going into my cousin’s room. It clearly upset you and I must apologise.’
‘No, you have every right,’ Emma stammered. ‘This is your home, too.’ Although it was still hard to imagine it as such, it was a necessary part of her plan that he did see Sugarland that way. He’d be far less likely to want to leave a place he felt a connection with. She needed to foster that connection on any level she could. Emma summoned her courage. ‘What were you looking for?’
‘Cousin Merrimore’s thoughts.’ Ren paused to take a drink of coffee. ‘It was suggested to me last night that my cousin would have supported the sugar cartel Gridley has in mind. But you don’t. I am hard pressed to reconcile the idea that Merrimore would have sided with Gridley over you, but I have no real evidence for that.’ He held up the journal. ‘I was hoping this might provide some objective illumination.’
He studied her, his face sombre. ‘It is difficult to be the newcomer. Everyone is eager to share their versions of the truth. In most cases, that truth is no more than a pretext. I have no context for assessing its value or validity except my own intuition.’
Emma swallowed, moved by his admission. He was vulnerable in that moment. He was letting her see how exposed he really was. She’d not thought of him that way. He’d been in command since the moment he’d arrived, never showing an ounce of self-doubt, never backing down from her or from Gridley, or hard work, never once showing weakness as he adjusted to a new life. As a result, it had been easy for her to overlook what he’d given up to come here: the family he must have left in England, his home, his friends, all of his comforts. She’d been so focused on herself, on what his arrival meant to her, she’d not thought about what it meant to him.
Careful, Emma, her conscience warned. This might all be part of his game. If he shows you vulnerability, perhaps he hopes you will show him your vulnerable side, too. She’d almost made it easy on him. Emma set aside her napkin. ‘Did the journal provide you with any answers?’ She kept her tone businesslike.
Ren gave a polite, tight smile, disappointed in her response. ‘Yes. Cousin Merrimore makes it clear he had concerns over the cartel. He saw it as temporary success with no likely long-term viability.’ Ren opened the journal to an early entry about a third of the way through the book and passed it to her. A footman came in to begin clearing away the sideboard.
‘Is that as far as you read?’ Emma scanned the date— February of last year.
‘Yes.’ Ren hesitated, his voice dropping in deference to the lingering servant. ‘Is there more I should know?’
‘I don’t know what Merrimore wrote about,’ Emma answered vaguely. She could guess though. ‘I have never made a habit of reading someone else’s private journal.’
Ren shook his head. ‘That’s not what I meant. What else do you know that I don’t? What is really going on with Gridley?’
Emma shot Ren a warning glance. Her servants were loyal, but she didn’t like them worrying over bits and pieces they might overhear. In the last year of his life, Merry had made it a practice to discuss business with her away from Sugarland. She supposed that ritual had rubbed off on her.
In a louder voice, she changed the conversational direction entirely. ‘There’s nothing like a good breakfast to set things right. Thank you for suggesting I eat something.’ She gave Ren a broad smile.
He took his cue admirably. ‘I must say that I agree. After Oxford, I did a grand tour through Europe. Nowhere else did breakfast rival the English version in my mind. Elsewhere it was a small meal: some bread, some cheese, maybe a piece of fruit.’
‘You’ve travelled then?’ He’d not mentioned it when they’d talked of her travels with her father.
‘Just the usual venues.’ Ren wiped his mouth with his napkin. ‘Paris, Vienna, Rome, Greece, Ephesus.’ Usual venues? Hardly. They sounded far more glamorous than the destinations her father had been posted to. Ren leaned across the table, a handsome smile on his face, a little spark leaping in his blue eyes. ‘I’ve been a lot of places, but I’ve not seen much of the island since my arrival. Why don’t we take the day and you can show me around? We’ll pack a lunch and explore.’
The suggestion caught her off guard. Nothing this morning had happened the way she’d envisioned it. Her first thought had been to confront the issue of the prior evening, but they had yet to do that. They had instead addressed other concerning issues of business: the cartel and Gridley. It was just a matter of time before Ren asked her about the unpleasant conversation with Gridley last night. ‘I don’t know, there’s work to be done—’ Emma stalled.
‘There’s always work to be done,’ Ren interrupted before she could begin to list all the things that needed doing. ‘I’ve checked with Peter. There’s nothing that can’t wait, nor is there anything that needs your especial attention. Peter can handle it, it’s his job after all.’ Ren leaned back in his chair. ‘When’s the last time you had a day off?’
She hesitated too long and Ren laughed. ‘That’s what I thought. You can’t remember. I’ll give you twenty minutes to get ready and then I expect you in the front hall.’