Chapter Eleven

Emily clenched her trembling hands tightly together in her lap, her heart beating an erratic tattoo. The interior of Nicholas’s carriage had never felt so claustrophobic. His driver slammed the door on them, and the seconds ticked by in fraught silence until the carriage jerked away from the front of Katherine’s shop.

She wished Nicholas would just get on with whatever he wanted to say. His theatrics were becoming intolerable, and her impatience was wearing thin. If he thought for one minute she was going to sit silently while he ranted and raved, he had a surprise coming. There was every possibility Aimee was his child, and there was every possibility when they returned to Royal Crescent she would find Will had gone for good. Both likelihoods added fuel to the already raging fire inside of her.

She cleared her throat. “Nicholas, will you please say something.”

His glare bored down on her. “You want me to say something?”

Emily straightened her spine and kept her gaze level with his. “Yes.”

“Fine, if you want to do this now, we will. I will not stand for it. Neither would my father have.”

“You will not stand for what?”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “You know exactly what. Samson.” His eyes snapped open and blazed with anger. “Our marriage contract does not state at any juncture I should tolerate third-party involvement.”

In an attempt to still her temper, Emily shook her head. What did he consider Katherine if she were the mother of his child? A figment of their imagination? “You are giving far too much credit to Mr. Samson by calling him a third party. He is a guest in my father’s home, nothing more, nothing less. Another week or so and he will be gone.”

Nicholas narrowed his eyes. “ ‘Nothing more, nothing less,’ she says. I am not stupid, Emily. I see the way he looks at you.”

A flush of satisfaction pinched her cheeks, and Nicholas’s scowl showed he’d seen it. She huffed out a laugh and looked through the window at the passing town houses. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

He gripped her wrist, and Emily turned. His face was flushed, and a vein throbbed like a lightning bolt down his forehead. “Do not laugh at me.”

Fear burst behind her rib cage, and she swallowed. It would be foolish to further anger him. If he were to strike her, his driver would undoubtedly turn as deaf as a doorpost. “I’m sorry, but the notion that Mr. Samson is interested in me…” She slid her wrist from his hand, relief shuddering through her when he released her without a fight. “It shouldn’t anger you even if it were true. It should make you proud to have me on your arm. To show the world I am yours despite another’s admiration.”

A flash of what could be deemed as jealousy shot into his eyes, turning them almost black. He tipped his head back, and the rare laugh that emitted from his open mouth sent a shiver down her spine. The sound was eerie in its execution. Dangerous.

“You are quite the clown, my dear.” Nicholas dipped his head, his gaze hot and intense. “There is clearly a need to sidestep manners and just say what I see.”

Emily smiled, in the hope she took his laugh for humor, rather than intimidation. “What do you mean?”

“You, my dear.”

Her smile faltered. “What about me?”

“How you look at him.”

The laughter was gone, his tone icy-cold. Emily’s smile froze. Her mind blanked of all thought.

“Nothing to say for once.” Nicholas smiled. “Well, then what I suspect must be true. You have feelings for Samson.”

Say something. Anything. Lie. Deny.

Emily cleared her throat and plucked at a nonexistent piece of lint on her skirt. “I really do not like what you are suggesting. If you are accusing me of some sort of dalliance with Mr. Samson, you are insulting me.” She met his gaze directly. “Is that what you are suggesting?”

Their eyes locked in silent battle as the sounds of the street filtered through the window. Emily gathered her resolve. He would not win this battle. She’d done nothing wrong. Well, if she excluded her and Will’s kiss, of course.

“Fine. I do not suggest a dalliance.” His jaw tightened. “However, I will no longer tolerate the man’s presence around you. I demand he leave your house immediately. I am a patient man, but you must deem me without a backbone if you think I will consider that man staying there another day. If we return to your father’s home and find Samson there after our heated exchange at the milliner’s, he clearly has no respect for your wishes and your thoughts are wasted on him.”

My thoughts…oh, if only you knew the depth of my thoughts as far as Will is concerned. “His concern is for his nephew. Not me. Father will want him to stay until the boy is found.”

Nicholas glared. “Rubbish. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn the boy doesn’t even exist. I do not trust Samson as far as I could throw him.”

“Maybe so, but Papa will not like being told who he can or cannot invite to stay in his own home. Until such time as he passes, it is his decision who stays there and for how long. As you have already said, neither of us knows for certain Mr. Samson has not gone of his own free will, so I think we are wasting our breath discussing him.”

Nicholas narrowed his eyes. “If we find him gone, will you be pleased or saddened? That is the question.”

Emily turned to the window once more. “Mr. Samson has done nothing wrong beyond this afternoon’s events. For that outburst, you are both equally guilty of putting poor Katherine in the most awful situation. If he is gone, then so be it. We will all get on as we were before.”

“So you still do not see he is trouble?”

Emily drew in a shaky breath and turned. “There is trouble at every corner of our society, Nicholas. We face it when it comes and then try our best to put it behind us. I refuse to waste any more time talking about this. You talk of respect, so please, extend some to my father. If Mr. Samson returns and wishes to stay, and Papa would like it so, and we would both do well to accept that. Also, he saved my father’s life this morning.”

“What?”

“He was choking on some food, and Mr. Samson managed to dislodge it. Can you really imagine my father banishing him from the house after that?”

His green eyes blazed. “Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Fine. I will say no more of it. Clearly my hands are tied.”

Emily fought the trepidation that raised the hairs at the nape of her neck. This was far from over. Nicholas never gave in to anything he didn’t want to happen. The realization that he would no more walk away from his inheritance than she would burned bright and clear. She stared ahead lest Nicholas detect the shiver of fear that swept over her.

He shifted beside her. “I have one more question.”

Sending up a silent prayer for strength, she met his eyes. “Yes?”

“What am I supposed to say to my peers when asked why a man I know nothing about is escorting my fiancée about town?”

Emily tilted her chin. “You will tell them the truth. That I was hit to the ground in the park, and when neither Papa nor you are able to accompany me, Mr. Samson does so at Papa’s request.”

“I see.”

Unease rippled across the surface of her skin. He wore the expression of a cat poised to strike. Her heart picked up speed.

“So, if Mr. Samson returns, your father intends the scoundrel escort you for as long as it takes him to find his nephew…or us to marry. Correct?”

She nodded. “Yes. I believe that’s what he said.”

“Hmm. Well, then, there is only one solution should we find Samson there when we get back.”

“Which is?”

“We are not set to marry for another two months. Even if we assume this boy is real, it could take weeks to find him. If he’s not already dead.”

Emily flinched. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

Nicholas lifted his shoulders. “We do not know Samson, my love. He may not have any family. He could be a criminal. Have you not considered his past?”

No. Just his future. “Of course I have, but one cannot accuse people of things. He has done nothing to make me fear or dislike him and until such time—”

“You are happy for me to be ridiculed for my lack of control over you.”

Anger washed through her veins. “You are sadly mistaken if you think I will stand by and let you control me, Nicholas. Do we really have to keep having this conversation?”

He glared, two spots of color darkening his cheeks. “It seems we do. This is not the way things were done in my father’s household, and it is not the way they will be done in mine. My father expected my mother to love and obey. As it says in the Church’s marriage law.”

Frustration burned. The limited freedom of her future tightened around her as she met his fiery gaze. “Be that as it may, I am proud of who I am and hope you will be too. However, if you think you will struggle with such a notion and my assertiveness is too much for you to tolerate, why not reconsider Papa’s notion of you refusing the marriage?”

“If you’re suggesting I walk away—”

“I understand you daren’t walk away for fear of breaking your word to your father. You are a good man. A man who stands strong and firm in his family’s ambition and values. A man who has made his father very proud. Yet, if you wish to withdraw from the contract and not marry me because you find my conduct intolerable, then I will accept that.”

A wry smile twisted his lips. “You must really think me a fool.”

“I think no such thing. I am merely reminding you no one is forcing you to marry me. If you do not wish to spend your life with me, then you are free to break our engagement.”

The silence stretched even as the carriage came to an abrupt halt outside her house at Royal Crescent. As the clip-clop of passing horse hooves and the calls of children playing in the park resounded, Emily prayed for his surrender.

When he finally spoke, Nicholas’s tone was icy cold. “You are more stupid than I thought to mess with me. All you have succeeded in doing is pushing me into finding a way to bring the wedding forward. I will never break the contract. Never!”

Emily’s stomach plummeted. “Nicholas, that’s impossible. There is no need—”

His smile stretched to a grin. “There is every need and better, it is entirely possible. I am owed favors all over the city. There isn’t a priest in Bath who wouldn’t help a churchgoing man—and generous donator at that—to cure his heart-wrenching impatience to marry the woman who vowed to be his wife nine years before.”

The determination in his eyes left Emily in little doubt of his ability to not just deliver on an earlier date but to make sure everyone in town knew about it, too. She stared, her body devoid of feeling.

“Nothing to say, my dear? How refreshing.”

She was trapped like an animal in an invisible cage. There was no escaping her situation or Nicholas if her children were to ever have a future of possibility. The door swung open, and Nicholas’s driver stood waiting outside.

“If you are determined to marry me, so be it,” she said, finding her voice. “But by doing so, you are accepting Papa’s wish to have Mr. Samson escort me before such date as I become your wife whether you like it or not.”

Nicholas shook his head. “That is not a condition of the contract, and never will be. This is merely a pathetic attempt at igniting my temper enough that I will sever our agreement. You are determined and wily, Emily. I will give you that.” He pushed to his feet and stopped by the open carriage door to face her. “I will respect your father’s wishes and condone Mr. Samson’s escorting you, my love.” He smiled. “After all, the man’s time with you is merely a moment in the rest of our lives.”