Page 40 of The Spy Who Loved Her
And that very uncertainty would lend itself to yet more desperation, and desperation would feed into recklessness. Sir Roger had already made mistakes, thinking himself secure after ten years of safety.
“Jenkins will need to be taken care of,” Rafe said. “Confined, perhaps, if you’ve somewhere sufficiently secure and remote.” If only to sell the story that the man had fled into the night, never to return.
Chris scoffed. “The bastard had the gall to come to Em’s house with a knife upon his person. He’ll get what he deserves, and that’s not confinement in a cozy cell.” His voice dropped to a sinister snarl as he turned to leave. “Pity it’d attract too much attention were he to be found floating in the Thames. But there’s other rivers in England.”
Chapter Thirteen
What do you think, Emma?”
The direct address snapped Emma from the clutter of her thoughts with all the unwelcome intrusion of a slap. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, yes, of course.” Though she hadn’t the slightest inkling of what she’d agreed to.
Phoebe exchanged a baffled glance with Lydia, and Diana—Diana stared directly at Emma, as if the lenses of her spectacles might confer some extraordinary ability to see straight into her soul. And she smiled. A smug, knowing sort of smile.
By the heavy silence that settled over them, Emma supposed that whatever had been under discussion had notbeen a yes or no question, and she had revealed her lack of attention to it in a rather embarrassing manner.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, flushing. “I’m afraid I have—”
“A good deal on your mind?” Diana suggested archly. “Well. That settles it.” She gave a polite wave to the footmen waiting in the wings in a silent request for privacy, and once the door of Lydia’s drawing room had closed behind them, Diana said, “Go on, then.”
Go on?Go on? “I—that is—I couldn’t possibly—”
“You certainly couldpossibly and now youmust,” Diana insisted. “Come, now, Emma. What are friends for, if not badgering one another into untoward confessions? You have got at least one to make, and it had better be a good one.”
“Oh,” Lydia said, her brows lifting in interest. “Are we to learn what pulled you so swiftly from the ball? Goodness, I had hardly even caught a glimpse of you before you were rushing out the door. One would almost think you had somewhere pressing to be.”
Phoebe pursed her lips into a pout. “What have I missed?” she asked. “Mama practically catapulted me into the path of any gentleman she even suspected might have been unattached. I spent the better part of the evening dancing.”
Praying for patience—and reprieve—Emma covered her hot cheeks with her hands. “I wouldn’t know how to begin to explain,” she said on a groan.
Lydia slanted her a sly smile. “Here, dearest, I’ll help: When a widow of some years grows weary of her empty bed…”
With a start, Phoebe sat bolt upright, nearly upsetting her teacup as her hands flailed in shock. “Emma!” she gasped. “Have you taken a lover?”
“It’s…complicated,” Emma said weakly.
“It reallyisn’t,” Lydia replied. “But you must tell us everything, of course. I insist upon every salacious detail.” She paused to take a bite of biscuit, and proceeded with her interrogation: “Who is he, then, and how did you meet? Shall I jot him down as a guest for my next ball? I should think you’re long overdue for a proper illicit tryst. If you’re taking suggestions, balconies are quite nice. And carriages. Oh—and libraries. Libraries are lovely.” She gave a little shiver, as if recalling some delicious memory.
“Lydia,” Diana chided, with a wrinkle of her nose. “I do love you dearly, but I have never once been at all curious about your amorous exploits with my brother. There are things a sister simply neither needs—nor even wants—to know.”
And while they engaged in a good-natured bickering, for a moment Emma allowed herself to imagine just what Lydia had suggested: attending an event to which Rafe had also been invited, risking a dance—or two, if they were truly daring—and perhaps even slipping out unseen for a rendezvous in the darkness of someone else’s garden, or upon a deserted balcony. “No,” she said, and it wasn’t only regret in her voice, but longing. “He isn’t…the sort of person you could invite.”
“Rubbish,” Lydia said, wrinkling her nose. “I can invite anyone I please.”
Which was true. Mostly. She was openly involved in the theatre, and called any number of actors and actresses friends, despite their lowly position within society. But Rafe was another thing altogether.
“He’s an associate of Kit’s,” she admitted at last in a whisper, and the room went deathly silent. She didn’t speak of Kit often—and never to justanyone—but Diana, Lydia, and Phoebe were her dearest friends. They were, of course, aware of the connection she shared with one of London’s more unsavory characters. But they could not quite understand why a woman of her position would claim a brother in a man of Kit’s.
“Is that safe, do you think?” Diana asked hesitantly. “I mean to say, is he…like your brother?”
A common criminal, Emma guessed she meant to imply. Or—a not so common criminal, then, if the rumors swirling around Kit were to be believed. The sort of man no one decent would ever wish to be caught in a dark alley alone with. The sort of man more comfortable with violence than with pleasantries.
A dangerous man.But not to her.
She said, “I don’t know. I don’t even know his surname.”
“What!” Lydia cried, aghast. “He didn’t even bother to introduce himself properly before he took you to bed?”
Emma could not quite suppress a flinch. “I was glad of it, really,” she said. “That I did not know him, I mean to say. The truth is, I asked Kit to send someone to me, someone not of our social set, whom I would not have to face in public.” Her breath shuddered out on a sigh. “I have a great deal to lose beyond just my reputation,” she said, “and fortune hunters abound.”
