Page 10 of Dukes Do It Better
Emma sat, folding her hands in her lap primly. Malachi took his seat, observing the exchange between the siblings. He and George had never been so relaxed, yet confrontational, with one another. As children, they’d been playmates until their mother drove them apart with cruel favoritism. As adults, they’d been polite. These two? They were friends.
“The man was a horrible person who hurt a friend, and I took care of the situation to make sure he couldn’t hurt her or anyone else again,” Calvin said.
Emma cocked her head. “Does Phee know about this?”
Calvin frowned. “Of course she does. If I kept secrets from my wife, she’d murder me in my sleep.”
The triumphant look Emma shot them sparked an alarm in Malachi’s head. “So it wasn’t Phee the man hurt. Has to be Lottie, then. That’s the only other woman for whom you’d dispose of a whole man in her defense. And you’d do anything for Ethan.”
Malachi swiveled his head to watch Calvin’s reaction to her deductive reasoning, then returned to the much more pleasurable option of staring at Emma. Seeing her ferret out the information was appealing to him on a level beyond his fascination with the plump mouth he’d nearly kissed again a moment ago. Emma was clever, and the longer Malachi sat in this Fabergé egg of a room, the more he enjoyed her company beyond the possibility of ending up in bed together.
Emma pressed, “Did you and Ethan hatch this plan together, or was this a solution you came to on your own? No, he has to know. I can’t imagine you keeping a secret from your best friend. You and Ethan are so inseparable you practically share a brain—tiny as it sometimes appears to be.”
Calvin’s cheek worked, and Malachi suspected the man was literally biting his tongue.
“If you don’t tell me, I can always shout out the window and ask.” Emma turned to Malachi. “Their drawing room window mirrors ours. Lord and Lady Amesbury live next door when they aren’t in Kent. Their knocker is hung, so I know they’re home.”
Calvin pressed his palms over his face, and a pang of sympathy tugged at Malachi. Any hope of Calvin keeping the truth to himself died as they watched. Her brother leaned back and sighed, giving in to the inevitable.
“No need to shout across the lane like a hoyden. Ethan knew.” Calvin said the words with clear reluctance.
Emma clapped. “Ha! I knew it!” She turned the whole of her attention on Malachi. “Don’t look so smug, Captain. Or Your Grace. Whatever you are.” She wagged an admonishing finger at him, but her eyes sparkled with mirth. “He called you a pirate, and you somehow made an entire man disappear at my brother’s request.”
“A bad man,” Malachi and Calvin said in unison, then exchanged a surprised look.
Emma rolled her eyes, and Malachi glimpsed how she might have been as a young girl. This woman must have run circles around her brother with her wickedly quick mind.
“Fine. A bad man. The fact remains, you made someone disappear. What’d you do with him?” She straightened on the sofa and turned to her brother. “Is he dead? Calvin, did you pay a pirate to kill a man?”
“Again, not a pirate,” Malachi protested, a thread of amusement threatening to make him laugh inappropriately. “And I didn’t kill him. He survived the voyage.”
“Did he?” Calvin asked. “Pity.”
“Taking money to make someone disappear sounds distinctly piratical to me,” Emma said with a teasing grin.
“I was stuck with the prisoner route because I’d annoyed someone at the Admiralty. England wasn’t at war, so His Majesty wasn’t compelled to pay the sailors under my command. I was on half-pay, which is bad enough, but my men often went without wages altogether. Under those circumstances, one must get creative to see one’s crew compensated for their labor. Such as doing paid favors for people like your brother. See? Nothing piratical.” Malachi spread his hands in a gesture of innocence.
Emma again swiveled her head between Malachi and her brother.
Calvin threw his hands in the air with a short laugh. “Imagine walking up to all…that…in a gloomy pub in Scotland, then handing over a bag of gold for a shady favor.”
Emma’s gaze turned speculative, and by reflex Malachi glanced down at himself. Breeches, polished boots, a coat over a patterned waistcoat. The only remarkable thing was that he’d managed not to spill breakfast down the front of himself this morning, so his cravat wasn’t spoiled by even one drop of coffee. Before calling on the pretty widow, he’d made an extra effort with his dress to appear as respectable as possible. Possibly to balance out the unrespectable thoughts she inspired. “I see nothing amiss.”
“I don’t think he’s talking about your clothes, Mal,” she said. “You are rather a lot to take in. Which is a compliment.”
The clock on the mantel chimed. Calvin said, “Is your call over yet, Sir Pirate? I still need to find the Times, and the way you two look at each other is distressing me.”
Emma stood, shaking out her skirts. “I’m a grown woman and a widow, Calvin. I may look at Lord Trenton however I choose.”
Her brother rose with Malachi. “You mean you really are the new Duke of Trenton?”
Malachi blew out a sigh. “I almost prefer being called a pirate to the title.”
Emma dimpled at him and offered her hand. “You’ll get used to it, Your Grace.”
He bowed and gave her fingers a brief squeeze. Her nails were short, filed smooth. A white paste marred the crevice where nail met cuticle, but her fingers were long and tapered. Delicate. There were quite a few delicate parts of her. She was just a little bit of a thing, although the direct speech and healthy laugh he’d witnessed in the village made her seem larger than she was.
Acting on impulse, Malachi brushed a thumb over the white paste. The movement made her chuckle, but the sound held a touch of embarrassment.
