Amelia did her best to pretend that she was listening to Frederick as he paced the rear room of her shop, and directly behind her as she was attempting to work at her desk in the slant of afternoon sunlight falling through the window. But sweet Lord, he was bothering her to no end! And right when she was so terribly busy, too, with inventory to take, window displays to arrange, a plan to formulate for convincing Charles Varnham to overlook whatever Freddie had done, and Pearce to avoid at all costs.
Especially avoiding Pearce. He’d already come far too close yesterday to learning the truth. At one point, she’d almost capitulated and told him everything, a part of her longing for the protection he’d offered. The thought of being able to confide in him stirred a comforting warmth in her belly, a familiarity of being with him that colored memories of her childhood and made her ache once again for that same closeness. And that was dangerous, because she still didn’t know if she could trust him with her secrets.
But all that Frederick could think about—
“It’s a turnpike, for God’s sake!”
He paused in pacing to smack his hand in frustration against the desk where she was attempting to update the account ledgers. Her quill jerked and streaked a line across the page.
She bit back a curse, heaving out an irritated sigh instead, and reached for the blotter to clean up the mess.
“How could Sandhurst not be interested? The man should be turning cartwheels of joy that I’d suggested it to him.”
“You met with him yesterday,” Amelia reminded him. For over an hour. She knew because she’d kept herself carefully hidden in the dining room the entire time, hoping to overhear important information as Pearce left, but garnering nothing except his parting appreciation for Freddie’s choice of cognac. Now she feigned disinterest when the voice inside her head screamed for details. “What did he say, exactly?”
“Nothing. I couldn’t pin him down. All he did was ask questions—who the trustees will be, why I chose them, why I would want a turnpike trust in the first place…” He scowled. “Damned suspicious, if you ask me.”
“What ulterior motive would Lord Sandhurst possibly have for delaying?” she murmured as artlessly as possible, not daring to lift her eyes to look at him.
“I don’t know.” He turned hopefully toward her. “You two had a moment alone together in the entry hall before I arrived. Did he say anything to you about not wanting be part of it—anything at all?”
“Not one word.” The God’s truth. He hadn’t said anything to the contrary…but only because she’d been the one doing all the talking. If Pearce had any compassion in him, he would find a way to continue to evade a concrete decision until after Parliament ended. If only for her sake.
“Are you certain?”
“It’s all new to him. He just needs more time.” To string you along until the blackmailer is no longer a threat. “You’re asking the man to place a large chunk of his property into someone else’s control for what could be uncertain profits.” And asking me to hand mine over for a complete loss of control and no profits at all. “Give him time to consider it.”
“We don’t have time.” As he began to pace again, he gestured in frustration in the general direction of Westminster. “The session’s going to end in less than a fortnight.”
Dear God, she hoped so! Yet she calmly reminded him, “But the trust will remain viable, that’s what matters.” Knowing she would never be able to figure the last of the columns with him here, she patiently put down her quill and closed the ledger. “You might have to wait until the next session before the act can be passed, but whoever is forcing you to make these appointments knows it, too. The blackmailer will give you the time you need to put forward the bill next session.”
He slowed in his pacing, only to shoot her an aggravated grimace.
“Pearce will be less likely to decline because he’ll have the chance to think it through thoroughly.” And then decline it.
Frederick faced her. “Do you truly think Sandhurst will be persuaded?”
“I believe so.” Persuaded to decline. She wasn’t certain at all, but every ounce of her soul prayed for exactly that.
She stood and crossed to the worktable, where she fussed with several yards of cream-colored silk that the women who worked in her shop had hand-printed with wooden blocks and paint, the way the silk weaver in Spitalfields had taught them to do. They’d picked up the skill quickly, creating lengths of beautiful silk that could be used for all kinds of projects—wallpaper, pillows, bedding… Amelia could barely keep the fabrics in stock because the society ladies who shopped at the Bouquet Boutique snatched them up as fast as they could be produced. This one of a red damask rose was particularly exquisite and—
“I want you to charm him.”
The fabric slipped through her surprised fingers and piled on the table. “Pardon?”
“Sandhurst. You and he were once quite fond of each other, as I remember.”
Guilt pinched her stomach. Oh, that was a lovely way of stating that they’d behaved scandalously and gotten caught!
But Frederick had been away at school the night when Papa caught Pearce in her bedroom, and she would have sworn that Papa wouldn’t have told him for fear that her brother would have revealed it to his cronies during some drunken rout. No, he must have figured out on his own how much she and Pearce had once meant to each other. Dear heavens, had they been that obvious?
She leveled her gaze on him. “What, exactly, are you asking of me?”
“Oh, don’t pretend naivete with me.” He cut her an accusing glare. “Surely, he still has an attraction for you. After all, beneath the uniform and finery, he’s still just a former tavern rat.”
“Frederick!” How dare he! To insult Pearce like that—
“Use your feminine charms, Amelia! Men like Pearce fall for that sort of nonsense all the time.” When her eyes narrowed to slits, he added, “You don’t have to let him do anything untoward, of course.”
“Well, thank goodness,” she drawled sarcastically, so furious that her hands trembled as she picked up the cloth and shook it out. “Someone more mistrusting might think you wanted me to compromise myself.”
He placed his hands on his hips in aggravation. “Why can’t you be serious?”
She’d never been more serious about anything in her life. Her world was about to come crashing down around her—again. But this time, no one would be there to help her pick up the pieces.
Except possibly for Pearce. If he’d truly been sincere in his offer to help her.
“Smile at him, flatter him, laugh at his comments, twist your hair around your finger—”
“Twist my hair?” The calmness of that question belied her simmering anger.
“Just be nice to the man, will you?” Exasperated, Freddie ran a hand through his hair. Fitting. Because she wanted to yank it out of his head. “For God’s sake, half the wives in the ton pretend for their entire lives that they like the men they’re married to. The least you can do is pretend to like Sandhurst for the next fortnight.”
No. That wasn’t the least she could do. The least she could do was let Frederick go to the dogs.
But that meant letting herself—and the shop—go down with him. She could never do that.
“I will try,” she half-heartedly promised.
“Good. Because I hope to see him tonight at the Black Ball.”
She let out a surprised squeak. “Pardon?”
When Frederick had purchased tickets to White’s grand gala six weeks ago, she hadn’t known that Pearce was back in London, let alone would be attendance. As the sister to an MP, her presence was expected—mandatory, if Freddie had any say in the matter. But seeing Pearce again was the very last thing she wanted. She’d come too close to confiding in him yesterday. If she saw him again, if old memories stirred—
No, she had to keep away from him. Avoiding him completely was the only way to ensure that he wouldn’t learn Freddie’s secrets. Or hers.
“The earl is attending?” Trepidation panged hollowly in her belly. “Are you certain?”
Her brother grunted in answer, clearly distracted by thoughts of cornering Pearce at tonight’s ball. But from everything she’d discovered about him since the masquerade, he wasn’t the type of man who let himself be trapped. Several thousand dead French soldiers proved that.
“I’ll pull him aside at some point and demand an answer,” Freddie mumbled to himself. “Perhaps in the game room when he’s distracted by cards and drink.” He waved his hand dismissively and once more began to pace. “You know how these evenings are for gentlemen.”
She sighed a bit mockingly. “No, not really.”
“Don’t, Amelia.” He leveled a quelling look at her. “Do not minimize the importance of this. Everything we have is at risk.”
“I am well aware of that.” For heaven’s sake, she was standing right in the middle of it. War widows who depended upon her charity to survive were most likely out in the shop at that very moment, whispering about the two of them and this latest argument they’d gotten into.
“Good.” He tugged at his cuffs, then at his waistcoat. That same nervous gesture that Papa had done whenever he wanted to remind himself that he was a wealthy businessman who had risen so far in the world that he nipped at the heels of the aristocracy. One of her brother’s inherited traits which she despised. “Then we’ve come to an understanding. You’ll do whatever you can to bring Sandhurst over to our side.”
No. She hadn’t agreed to anything of the kind.
He picked up the silk cloth she’d been examining. “You have a lovely shop, Amelia, you truly do.” He released the panel and let it fall to the table. Then he wiped his hands together, as if ladies’ things disgusted him. “But you won’t be able to save it if I’m ruined.”
Was that a threat? All the tiny muscles in her stomach twisted, and for a moment, she feared she might cast up her accounts. Wouldn’t it be a shame if she ruined his shiny new shoes?
“I mean it,” he warned as he moved toward the door. “Do not do anything to dissuade Sandhurst.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she mumbled as he left.
When he was out of sight, she hung her head in her hands and let her shoulders sag, gulping down mouthfuls of air to calm her roiling stomach. For this one moment only, she let the anguish sweep over her about the mess life had become, the loss of control, that despised feeling of helplessness that was once again descending…
But only a moment. She’d learned long ago that feeling sorry for herself solved nothing.
Gathering her strength with a deep inhalation, she ignored her trembling fingers as she reached for two of the silk panels and spread them out across the table.
That was it—lose herself in her work, just as she’d always done…when Pearce was forced away, when Papa died and she’d been left to suffer Frederick’s anger about the will, then again when Aaron left her. Plans for a better future had always sustained her. Just as they would now.
After this mess was over, once her charity and Bradenhill were both safe, she would never let herself be under another man’s control again.
“Which is better, hmm?” Talking to herself, she turned her attention back to deciding which of the silk pieces to keep in stock and which to rotate out of inventory. “The red roses with their green leaves or the pretty peonies?”
“I prefer the roses myself.”
With a surprised gasp, she wheeled around. Her eyes landed on Pearce as he stood in the doorway, leaning casually against the frame.
“But then,” he drawled with a shrug of a broad shoulder as his gaze wandered over her, “I’ve always been fond of scarlet.”
The silk slipped through her fingers and puddled on the floor at her feet.
Like a cake of a girl, she stared at him, all dusty and rumpled from riding, his posture both rakish and defiant. Good God…he so easily took her breath away.
The dark-green jacket that stretched over his shoulders only served to make him look more dashing than usual, impossibly broader and more muscular, from his shoulders all the way down over the tan riding breeches hugging at his hard thighs. Unlike how other gentlemen dressed, he wore no hat or neckcloth, as if he couldn’t be bothered with unnecessary bits of clothing or dandyish fashion trends. The slightly open shirt collar that just peeked out from beneath the plain tan waistcoat scandalously revealed his bare neck, making him look like nothing more than a common worker or ruffian drifting in from the docks. He knew it, too, based upon the defiant gleam in his eyes.
But of course Pearce would snub both fashion and decorum. When had he ever followed society’s rules? That he was part of it now would make no difference.
She swallowed hard as he shoved himself away from the door and stepped into the room, uninvited. His eyes left hers only when he stopped in front of her and bent down to pick up the silk. But the reprieve was short-lived, and heat streaked through her when he rose to his feet, his gaze traveling slowly up the length of her and lingering in all kinds of places it had no business being.
She would have told him so, too, if he hadn’t left her speechless. And aching.
“Good afternoon, Amelia.” His deep voice played like warm fingers down her spine.
“Pearce,” she forced out breathlessly. The world was spinning beneath her, and she reached out to grasp the edge of the table to keep from falling away. “What are you doing here?”
“I went to your brother’s house. The butler said you were both here.” He cast a leisurely glance around the room before landing his gaze on her. “I’m not surprised you run a shop. Your father was one of the most successful businessmen in England. It must be in your blood.”
“No, it’s not.” She laid the silk panel aside. She never wanted to be compared to Gordon Howard. “And it’s not a shop.”
“Could have fooled me,” he mumbled dryly, reaching for a small vial of perfume containing a new scent that one of the women had recently concocted and which Amelia was considering offering for sale.
“It’s a charity.” She sounded defensive, even to her own ears, but she couldn’t help it, feeling like a mother protecting her child. “I give employment to women who otherwise have no means of support.”
“That doesn’t surprise me either. You always were caring.”
He removed the cork and wafted the scent beneath his nose, then curled his lips in an appreciative expression that spun through her all the way to the ends of her hair. The same way he used to look at her when they were younger. Right before he proposed some wild scheme that undoubtedly ended up casting them into trouble. Like the time they’d sneaked into the Twelfth Night celebrations and drunk so much punch that she’d gotten sick. Or when he’d asked her to go sailing on the boat he’d made, only for it to sink in the middle of the river, forcing them to be rescued by the ferryman. And all those times when they’d gone off alone into the fields for picnics or stargazing, lying on a blanket in each other’s arms… She’d thought they’d always be like that, always going from one adventure to the next. Together.
But fate had never been her friend.
Slowly, she took the bottle out of his hand and replaced the stopper. She had no time for memories of a past now best left to the shadows.
“Freddie’s not here. He left about ten minutes ago, most likely for Boodle’s. So you don’t have to stay just to be polite.” She set the bottle aside before he could see her shaking hands. “I’m sure you have more important things to do than visit a ladies’ charity shop.”
Instead of leaving, though, he folded his arms and leaned a hip against the table beside her in a pose of such masculine confidence that her belly tightened with desire. The memories of giving him her first kisses as a girl, and other intimacies, came flooding back unbidden. And mercilessly.
“We were interrupted in our conversation yesterday,” he said. “I think we should finish it, don’t you?”
No. Finishing that conversation was not at all what she wanted. Instead, she smiled, dismissing his concerns by turning to show him out of her shop. “I asked you to help me by delaying and declining the trust, and you agreed. So there’s nothing more to—”
“I didn’t agree.”
She stopped. Holding her breath in a silent prayer that she’d misheard, she looked at him over her shoulder. “What did you say?”
“That I didn’t agree to scuttle the trust.”
Dread rushed through her as she turned to face him. “But you did. That’s why you haven’t given Freddie your decision yet, because you’re delaying.” For me.
“I haven’t given my decision because I need more information.” He tilted his head slightly to the side, studying her. “About your brother’s reason for wanting this trust so badly, about the trustees he’s picked…and you, Amelia.”
“Me?” Instead of the squeak she’d expected, the word emerged as a throaty rasp. Drat the man for having this effect on her! “I don’t want that turnpike.”
“I know. What I can’t figure out is why.”
He pushed away from the table and straightened to his full height. Good Lord, she’d forgotten how tall he was, how she’d had to tilt back her head to look into his eyes whenever they’d stood as close as they were now. And to let him kiss her.
Clearing her throat, she stepped away. “I told you. I have other plans for Bradenhill.”
“What plans, exactly?”
“For my charity.” She would surrender this small bit to keep the rest hidden. Sometimes the best place to hide was straight behind the truth. “I want to expand it by starting a trade school and workshop at Bradenhill where women from all over England can learn skills. Weaving, lace-making, pottery—whatever we can teach them, and give them a safe and quiet place in the country to live while they master those skills.” She couldn’t hide the pride she felt in her charity, or the determination to make it even better by helping more women. And by helping them, help herself by giving her life a purpose. “That’s why I don’t want a turnpike across my land. I’d rather dedicate it to helping people than making a profit.” She quietly added another truth beneath her breath, “But these days, apparently, Frederick cares only about himself.”
Nothing visibly changed in his expression, but she felt a tension rise in him. A familiar pang sent it pulsing through her, the same way she’d been able to discern his moods when they were children. As if he were merely an extension of her. Apparently, to her foolish heart, he still was.
“I didn’t realize that charity work meant so much to you,” he murmured. His eyes roamed over her as if attempting to reconcile the girl he’d known with the woman she’d become.
“You wouldn’t have.” She gave him a reprieve from any self-blame. If any of the boy she’d known still lurked within the man, he’d be chagrined at not knowing about that part of her life when he’d always had access to the rest of it. “I was only able to dedicate myself to it after we moved to London.”
“After your father died.”
“Not immediately after,” she answered, reaching past him to fuss with the silk. “He died unexpectedly when I was eighteen. We were still in Birmingham then. I had just returned from Scotland and—”
“Scotland?” Genuine surprise colored Pearce’s voice. “I was told you went off to school.”
“I did. In Scotland. Papa banished me all the way to Aberdeen, as far away as he could.” She smiled grimly. “If Calcutta had had a boarding school for aristocratic young ladies, he would have put me onto the first ship bound for India.” She picked up the silk panel and shook it out, holding it in front of her like a rose-covered shield. He stood far too close for comfort. “I thought your uncle would have told you.”
“My uncle was glad to have me gone and no longer his responsibility.” To her surprise, no bitterness came from him. Just acceptance. “His letters were few and far between.”
And most likely not at all concerned with the whereabouts of the daughter of a neighboring factory owner, not knowing the reason why the Earl of Sandhurst had so graciously—and expeditiously—bestowed Pearce with an officer’s commission. Her father had made certain that no one but the four of them knew what had happened that night, including Pearce’s uncle.
“I wish you had told me where you were,” he said quietly.
I wanted to, so very much! “I couldn’t. If I tried to contact you, Papa would have punished both of us. You know that.” That old feeling of helplessness came flooding back. Dear Lord, how she hated it! “Even if I’d dared try, I had no idea where you were, what regiment you were with… I didn’t know how to reach you.”
“And after your father died?”
She flinched, unable to steel herself against the pain. Or keep her hand from rising to her throat and to the locket dangling from its blue ribbon, which she’d replaced five times over the years when it had worn and frayed from wear. He waited for her answer, but her throat tightened too much for her to find her voice.
“That was ten years ago,” he pressed gently. “Why didn’t you try to contact me then?”
The desolation of that time flashed over her with a vengeance, so strongly that she had to hide her face by turning her head away. To hide her shame of having to beg Frederick to help her find out what regiment Pearce was in, to beg him to help her write to him. “I did… I wrote you letters…” And letters and letters—Dear God, so many confessions of her love and pleas for him to return to her! Not one of them answered. In little more than an aching breath, she scratched out, “You never replied.”
He went deathly still, holding his breath as what she was revealing registered inside him.
“I never received them.” His voice was strained, suddenly hoarse. “The wars… Mail was sporadic. I didn’t even know that your father had died until last year.” A drawn and bleak expression darkened his features. “We were constantly marching across the Peninsula back then, from battle to battle. Supplies could barely keep up—”
“I know.” She cut him off gently, unable to bear the truth that swept through her like an icy wind. He hadn’t refused her letters, hadn’t simply thrown them away into the fire as she’d always believed. She pressed her fist against her bosom, to keep her heart from shattering anew. All these years…
He simply hadn’t known.
“I wish you had tried again,” he said quietly.
The agony of all she’d lost enveloped her until she could barely breathe, until she could barely force her numb lips to form the soft confession, “I would have, but…”
But by then, when she’d considered pressing Freddie a second time for help, she’d already met Aaron, and she would never tell Pearce what happened after that. The way he would look at her if she did, with such pity at her utter stupidity in trusting so blindly, at so desperately wanting the life she’d been denied with him that she’d allowed herself to be robbed and abandoned… She couldn’t have borne it.
“I’d moved on,” she whispered, those three words encapsulating the grandest mistake of her life. One that still punished her every day. Even now—especially now—it ate at her. “And so had you. You had a new life in the army, a wonderful future ahead of you. The last person you needed to be bothered with was me.”
Desperately needing to believe that so she wouldn’t break down in tears, she picked up a red paper poppy that one of the women had made to decorate a hat and tucked it into the first buttonhole of his waistcoat with a light pat of her trembling fingers. To dismiss the past and its mistakes. To make him believe that she’d been fine. And conveniently, so she didn’t have to look into his eyes.
She stepped around him, circling to the other side of the table to pick up a long wooden rolling pin. She laid the silk across the table and placed the roller on one end. Work—work had always gotten her through. It would help her survive this new pain, too. So she focused on the cloth and carefully began to wrap it around the roller so that it could be stored without being folded. If the silk were folded, then the paint would flake off and—
“That’s why you think I’m your enemy, isn’t it?”
His deep voice came from directly behind her and sent a hot shiver of remorse curling inside her. She stilled, except for her hands, which tightened on the rolling pin so hard that her knuckles turned white.
“Because I never returned your letters.”
She turned to look at him over her shoulder, only to find him standing behind her. Right behind her. His nearness tingled across her skin and raised goose bumps in its heated wake.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth, which lingered so close to hers that the warmth of his breath tickled her lips. She could kiss him simply by lifting onto her tiptoes. There would be solace there, she knew, an easing of the pain that made her long to simply lean back and bring herself into his arms. That’s all it would take, just a simple shift of her body. Not even turning around… And if she did, she would be lost.
“Because of the turnpike,” she corrected softly. “If you join Freddie in advocating for it, I’ll lose Bradenhill.”
She held her breath, waiting for him to assure her that he would do exactly as she’d asked of him—
“If the trust is causing so much tension between you and your brother, then let him have the property and build your school elsewhere.”
Her shoulders sank in equal measure disappointment and exasperation. Was he going to help her at all? Had she completely misread the man he’d become? Desperation scratched her voice. “Bradenhill is all I have.”
“But your father was wealthy. Surely, he left you other property that—”
“Gordon Howard was a mean and spiteful old man who caused trouble right up to the end, even from the grave.” She turned to face him and steeled herself against showing any unease at finding herself less than six inches from his chest, his hips even closer. And his mouth…sweet heavens. “Instead of leaving his fortune to Frederick and an allowance to me, he left the fortune to me and gave Frederick the allowance.”
Surprise crossed his face. “Your father left you everything?”
“Except for the land, which was divided between us.” Which was why she was now in this mess. “Papa believed that a man needs land in order to be a proper gentleman, so he gave part to Freddie, and that I would need it to find an aristocratic husband, so he gave Bradenhill to me.”
“Then you have enough money to buy more land and put your charity wherever you’d like.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Why not?”
Not wanting to answer that, she tried to politely move him aside, so she could step away and clear her head. But the man didn’t budge. “Pearce, please—”
“Amelia.” He took her chin and gently lifted her head, making her look directly at him. “Tell me.”
She blew out an exasperated breath and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “I found myself in a spot of trouble,” she admitted, hoping he would accept that whopper of an understatement. Because she’d never tell him the truth. He looked at her now as if he longed to kiss her, as much as she longed for him to do just that.
But if she told him about Aaron, how would he look at her then?
A frown of concern wrinkled his brow. “What kind of trouble?”
“Financial,” she answered vaguely. In the end, though, wasn’t that what it had been? The ramifications of losing her fortune had certainly lasted longer than her marriage. “It happened right before I turned twenty-one, when Freddie was still acting as my guardian and in control of my money.”
“Being passed over in his inheritance for his younger sister, then having to manage it all for her,” he mumbled, his eyes gleaming with amusement at Frederick’s expense. “Your brother must have hated that.”
“He resented it. Quite a bit, for a while. But then—then there was an unexpected problem.” She refused to give specifics and prayed that Pearce was too much of a gentleman to press. “I lost everything except for Bradenhill.”
Concern darkened his face. “Did Howard do something foolish and cost you your fortune?”
“No.” Her voice lowered to a whisper as she dared to put this small part of her trust in him. “It was all my doing. But Freddie stepped in after to take care of me. The town house is his. He lets me stay there, employs my maid, and grants me an allowance. He even helped me start my charity shop. I couldn’t have done it without him.” Guilt clawed at her belly. He had done so much to help her… “I owe him everything.”
“So you would now do anything to help him.”
“No.” She fixed her eyes directly on his. “I won’t give up Bradenhill.” Not to Freddie, not to a trust… She pulled in a deep breath. “Not to anyone.”
A frown creased his brow as he stared down at her, but an inexplicable sensation sparked through her that he admired her for her resolve. Nothing he said told her that, no change in his expression…but it resonated through that connection they’d shared since they were children, like a ribbon that wound around them and joined them even now.
“At least tell me this,” he conceded, letting her keep her privacy. “Are you all right now?”
She warmed at his concern. “I will be, once I know that Freddie won’t build his turnpike.”
He stood close. Far too close. Needing space and air, she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed to make him step back.
But he didn’t move, except for a flexing of his muscles beneath her fingertips. Electric tingles raced up her arms and landed heavily in her breasts. As a young man, he’d been tall and slender with lean muscles that had made him seem so solid then—but nothing as solid and hard as this. She remembered the strength of his young arms when they’d wrapped around her. How would they feel now that he was a man in his prime?
She dropped her hands to her sides, afraid she’d stop pushing him away and instead pull him toward her to find out.
“That’s why you were at the masquerade,” he concluded. “Because you’ve been trying to put a stop to the turnpike?”
“Yes.”
“And you knew your brother planned to approach me that night?”
“No,” she admitted, her voice exasperatingly breathless. “You were a complete surprise.” That was the God’s truth. “I thought I was seeing a ghost.”
“Me too.” He reached up slowly and caressed her cheek. The tender touch rushed liquid heat through her, all the way down to her toes.
“But you are real.” She forced herself to keep from leaning into his touch, into the comfort and warmth she remembered. “So is Freddie’s plan for the turnpike.”
“So is the threat to you,” he warned gently. “The last thing I want is for any harm to come to you.”
If only she could believe that! She wanted to trust in her memories of him, in his assurances now to protect her… But Aaron had made assurances, too, only to destroy her life. She couldn’t open herself to wounding like that again by another man. Especially not Pearce. If he did, it would end her.
“I’ll only be hurt if the trust goes through.” Despite the emotion stinging her eyes, she found enough strength to smile, although shaky. “But with your help, Parliament will never enact it. Freddie can find other appointments to fill, and he can stop selling his influence.” The blackmail would stop. They could go on with their lives—
“What your brother is doing is much worse than that,” Pearce murmured grimly. He rested his hands against the table on both sides of her, surrounding her but not touching. Yet he made her heart race just as fiercely as if he were. “Howard is working with an organization called Scepter.”
She didn’t recognize the name. “My brother’s involved with lots of organizations.”
“Not like this. They’re a criminal group with contacts at all levels of society and in all types of crime, from smuggling to prostitution and everything in between. Including murder.” He paused to let that wash over her. “What contact have you had with them?”
She gaped at him. “You think that because I was at the masquerade and Le Château Noir that I—” She choked off in surprise, then bit out indignantly, “I have nothing to do with any criminal group. I assure you that Freddie doesn’t either.”
“But he does. So does every man he’s helped into an appointment during the past few months. And most likely, so will the men he presents to be trustees for the turnpike. Which is why he wants the trust. Not only because of the money a turnpike will bring in, but because it also gives him three Parliament-approved positions he can fill.” His gaze bore into hers. “Your brother is involved with dangerous men, Amelia. Men whom the Home Office believes murdered nearly a dozen government appointees just so your brother could replace them with their own.”
“No…” Her fingers clamped hard onto the edge of the table to keep herself from slipping to the floor. Oh God! What on earth had Freddie done? “No, you’re wrong,” she breathed out. “We’ve had nothing to do with any murders.”
“No. Just with blackmail.”
Her stomach fell through the floor. “How—” She swallowed hard to clear the strangling knot from her throat. “How do you know that?”
He ignored her question, countering with one of his own. “Who’s being blackmailed, Amelia? Your brother into forcing through the trust, or you into stopping it?”
This time when she shoved at him to push him out of her way, he moved—so quickly she gasped with surprise. He slipped his arms around her waist, lifted her into the air, and set her on the edge of the table, blocking her with his broad body so that she couldn’t leave.
“I need answers.” He slowly lifted a hand to brush his knuckles across her cheek.
She closed her eyes against the sweet torture of his caress.
“And I need you to trust in me, just like you used to.”
A soft sound of frustration rose at the back of her throat. To have an ally in this mess, to have someone to confide in—how perfect if she truly could trust in Pearce—
“Freddie’s being blackmailed,” she admitted in a rush, and with that confession came a flood of relief. “You’re right. He’s being forced to place men into government positions, into whatever appointments he can.”
Another caress, stroking his thumb over her bottom lip. This time in reward. “By whom?”
She opened her eyes and stared boldly at him. “Why do you care? None of this has anything to do with you.”
“More than you realize,” he murmured enigmatically. When she opened her mouth to press for answers of her own, he interrupted, “What has your brother done to be blackmailed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does it have to do with your lost fortune?”
“No,” she whispered, the word barely a sound on her lips.
“Then how did you lose it?”
She couldn’t tell him that. Would never tell him— “It’s not important.” But the quaver in her voice easily gave that away for the lie it was.
So did the disbelieving lift of his brow. “A lost fortune, the head of the House Committee of Privileges, a brother who’s being blackmailed by a criminal organization into replacing men who have been murdered, a sister who’s doing everything she can to protect him… Seems to me that everything about this is important.”
Breathe. She forced herself to remain calm, to keep her breath steady and the tremors that gripped her from becoming visible. To keep him from discovering more… Just breathe! “Not that.”
“One.”
She blinked, confused. He was making her head swim! “Pardon?”
“That’s your first lie.”
Her confusion dulled into quick anger. “How dare you accuse—”
“Two.” When her mouth fell open, he drawled, “Now you’re lying about lying.”
Her mouth snapped shut, and she pushed once more at his shoulders. This time with both hands. She had to leave. Now. “We’re done with this conversation. I want you to leave. I don’t want to see you or talk to yo—”
“Three.”
His mouth came down upon hers.