Page 10 of If I Loved You
If his peers, those starchy-collared bluebloods he met with in parliament, could see him now, they’d like as not question his very—well, maturity, if nothing else.
In the middle of Bethany’s latest tumble, he heard the door to the parlor open, and the unmistakable sound of a quickly drawn-in breath. Bethany righted herself once more, clappingher hands with enthusiasm, unaware that her mother watched from the doorway.
“Again!” Bethany insisted.
“Good heavens, no!” Emma called out sharply, striding across the room to the pair on the floor. “Bethany, love,” she scolded gently, “you mustn’t...wrestle with his lordship.”
Zachary laughed out loud, partly amused by Emma’s horrified mien, and partly because Bethany screwed her face up with such distaste over her mother’s reaction. She might not completely understand her mother’s admonition, but she understood the gist of it—she was not to be doing what she had been doing.
Zach pulled himself easily to his feet, sweeping Bethany along with him in one smooth motion, swinging her out and above him while she giggled yet more until he settled her neatly at his chest. But she was ever her mother’s daughter and reached almost immediately to be taken by Emma. Zach then gave his full attention to his sister’s mother. Her changed appearance had not initially gone unnoticed by him, but his perspective from the floor had not been this engaging.
Dressed as a lady, Emma Ainsley assuredly rivaled any of the fancy misses of theton.More intriguing, perhaps, for her complete lack of artifice. She was a natural—an incomparable, thetonwould say. Beauty such as this was not bestowed with any kind of regularity, not that Zach had ever seen. She was fresh and lovely and had about her a vitality to her features that was vastly appealing, and Zach once again thought he understood his father’s absorption with this girl.
At Zach’s prolonged perusal, and his attended silence, she grew uncomfortable and shifted a bit on her slippered feet.
“My lord, someone seems to have misunderstood something—somewhere,” she said nervously. “I have been given rooms upon the second floor and they appear to be family apartments. And Mrs. Conklin delivered this frivolous piece,” she went on, holding out the very flattering gown she wore, “and I’d not spend a moment upon my knees in this thing; the fabric would shred in no time at all.”
An electric jolt went through Zach at her words, a tormenting and provoking picture forming in his mind, until she spoiled the craved image by adding innocently, “I haven’t a clue how work should be accomplished in this, my lord. I cannot scrub and dust and such, wearing such fine things as this.”
Shaking himself mentally, blinking twice to assist in the purging of that image of her upon her knees, Zach drew a deep breath and thought to clarify to her, “Miss Ainsley, the only misunderstanding seems to be your own. You’ve been brought to Benedict House, as my father had wanted, to ascend to this life as it is naturally Bethany’s due.” He considered her a continually perplexing miss—all that she desired, and swindled from his father was within her grasp, yet she balked at every turn. Did she not fear that overplaying her game of innocence might come back to bite her? What fun it might be to acquiesce to what she pretended to want; he might shrug and tell her that yes, a mistake had been made and naturally her rooms were to be below stairs and her workload would be heavy. How might she react to that?
But for now, it was Emma’s turn to appear nonplused. Absently, she straightened the hem of Bethany’s gown over her arm. “Bethany’s due? My lord, if I might ask, exactly what did Michael’s—excuse me, your father’s—will declare?”
“All that I have previously mentioned,” Zach explained, having a hearty dislike of discussing finances and trivialities with her. He would have continued, just to have this business out of the way, but Thurman arrived to announce that dinner was served, and Mrs. Conklin was fast on his heels, announcing that she would see to Bethany while they dined, scooping the child out of the girl’s arms and trotting off through the door still held by Thurman.
Zach watched Emma’s jaw tighten and suspected that she hadn’t a great fondness for the ease in which the child was repeatedly removed from her. He imagined that at the inn, Bethany was rarely out of Emma’s sight, and rarer still, he guessed, were the instances when her care was seen to by someone else. He watched her cross her arms over her bosom, as if she didn’t know what to do with them if she weren’t holding her baby.
Lightly, he touched his hand to her arm to guide her into the dining room. He’d instructed his staff that they would make use of the smaller of the two dining rooms this evening, the larger being occupied by a table that comfortably sat forty guests, which would prove awkward as there was only the two of them.
The small dining room—the Paneled Room, his mother had always called it for the rich and dark paneled walls—sat at the rear of the house, overlooking the vast rose gardens for which the Benedicts were known. Inside, Zach pulled out the chair at the foot of the table and watched as Emma uneasily sat herself within it. He moved to the other end of the table—this one sat only twelve and was thus more informal—and took his seat there, nodding to Thurman that he should begin to serve.
Sensing that she remained perplexed by his father’s desires, Zachary explained the terms and desires in a straightforwardmanner. “Miss Ainsley, it apparently was my father’s wish that his child not be raised at the King’s Arms Inn. Possibly, the inn is less unsavory than most, but it remains that—“ he stopped and gave her a questioning glance for she had begun to stare at him, her eyes widened to alarming proportions, as if he’d announced the sun might never rise again. Briefly, she closed her eyes, her frown now heavy upon her brow and then those blue orbs appeared again, and she directed a pointed stare again at him.
“Please repeat that, my lord,” she said in a carefully neutral tone.
Zach lifted a hand, silently asking what had stunned her so, but did as she desired. “I’ve stated that it seems obvious that my father desired that his child not be—“
“Please stop.”
Now Zach frowned, at her flagrant disrespect, and at her puzzlement. Wherein came the difficulty? It seemed a simple enough theory to him.
“Bethany is not your father’s child,” she told him finally.
If it could ever be said that the new Earl of Lindsey had ever been dazed and bewildered, it should be said now. He made three attempts to ask a question, and three times his lips clamped shut on his stumbling words. Finally, a simple “What?” emerged clearly.
“I don’t know how you might have come to that conclusion, my lord,” she said, her voice growing anxious with unease. “Had your father intimated such... in some regard?”
Zach could only shake his head blandly in the negative, his gaze on her but his eyes unseeing. It wasn’t possible, was it? He’d just assumed the baby was his sister. No, he hadn’t specificallyinquired if this were true, because—well, he supposed the obvious overtook him.
He was brought back to attention when her slender hand clamped nervously over her mouth momentarily, her eyes widening with a sudden realization. “Oh, my. You brought me here—you brought Bethany here!—only because you thought she was—oh.” She stood abruptly, unbalancing the chair for a split second, while her features took on an embarrassed and hot flush. “Dear Lord, how mortifying,” she mumbled, fleeing the table with a careless, “Excuse me,” but not before Zachary caught sight of the brightness of tears in her eyes.
Chapter Six
IT TOOK HIM A MOMENT, but Zachary did lose eventually the foggy haze of uncertainty that had enveloped him. Thrusting himself from his chair, he followed Emma out of the Paneled Room, but found her not at all in the corridor, nor even midway up the stairs. She must have run, he thought. Tears and fear could often chase a person quickly from one place to the next. Zach took the stairs three at a time and strode purposefully down the second floor, rapping loudly upon the door to Emma’s chambers. He waited then, breathing heavily, and not from the exertion of his chase.
Foremost in his mind was,how will I make her stay now?If she wouldn’t even admit to him that Bethany was his father’s child, what inducement could he level at her to keep her here? He didn’t think he had misread the innuendoes of his father’s will; he didn’t know why she lied about Bethany’s parentage, but he did know that something inside him did not want Emma Ainsley gone from Benedict House. He thought, while he rapped again when no one answered, that his desire to keep her here was kindled not half so much by her very real allure, but more so by that haunted, ethereal look about her that made a man want to protect her.
“Miss Ainsley!” He called when there remained no answer to his knock. Eschewing propriety, he pushed open the door and found her standing once again in only her shift, the discarded gown and stockings and slippers chaotically littering the carpeted floor. She appeared fretful, and then further unnerved when she realized his presence.
