Page 37 of If I Loved You
“And this would normally be the moment when you revealed your secret mission,” he prompted.
“Sir Mr. Right Honorable Tristan Noel, it wouldn’t be very secret if I bandied it about now, would it?”
“It would not. Unless, of course, you knew for sure that the ears into which you might speak it, would not, in turn, speak further of it.”
“I know of no ears that can speak, Sir Mr. Right Honorable Tristan Noel.”
“Oh, Miss Ainsley,” he uttered, his grin at the moment devilishly handsome. “I am so glad you’ve come to London on a secret mission, but we are wasting time just now, and we must desist with this tomfoolery that I may—”
Emma clamped a hand over her mouth, stifling a burst of a giggle.
“What have I said?”
“Tomfoolery. What a fabulous word. I wish people used it more. Thank you for doing so, Sir Mr. Right Honorable Tristan Noel.”
“Anything to please you, Miss Ainsley.” He stopped walking and took her hand to hold her near. When next he spoke, and while Emma still smiled at him, he moved his gaze back and forth from her face to something over her shoulder. His own smile faded, his tone became serious, and his speech came quickly. “I fear our time is about to be abruptly and sorrowfully cut short. I will call on you on the morrow. Tell me where and say that you’ll receive me.”
“I will be gone on the morrow.”
“You must not be.”
“But I will.”
“I will find you—”
“Beckwith.”
Emma froze, the sound of the earl’s voice behind her causing quite a panic, and no small amount of guilt.
She and Tristan Noel turned at the same time. He released her hand as they did. The earl stood there, glaring at them, having watched their hands separate. Well, more specifically, he glared at Sir Mr. Right Honorable Tristan Noel, who must actually bemy lord Beckwith.
“Lindsey,” Beckwith returned, employing the same frosty tone.
“Hello again, my lord,” said Emma.
The earl spent a few more seconds leering with malevolence at Lord Beckwith before saying, “Come, Miss Ainsley, Lady Marston requests your presence.” He lifted his hand.
Emma stared at his hand, actually debating refusing him. But no, she could not. She’d come to London to help him, not cause him...whatever it was that had hardened his expression and lit that fire in his eye.
Placing her hand in his, she turned to Lord Beckwith and smiled at him once more. “It has been a pleasure, my lord.”
Beckwith’s gaze held hers. He nodded but she could see that he wanted very much to say more. She made note of the pulsing cords in his neck, above his creamy silk cravat. With a fierce scowl that he bothered not to hide, he glanced again at the earl, and then bowed to Emma, his gaze softening.
“The pleasure was entirely mine, Miss Ainsley.”
And then the earl pulled her away from the man, and the ballroom, leading her downstairs, where Emma assumed Lady M waited.
His hand upon her arm was firm—not painful, but rather noticeably weighty—as he steered her down the steps and then, surprisingly, into a darkened room upon the first floor, nowhere near the buffet and his godmother. Once inside the room, lightedonly by the bare moonlight spilling in through a wall of windows, the earl closed the door and spun her around.
Through gritted teeth, he declared, “You may not—must not!—find yourself alone, and holding hands, and giggling for Christ’s sake, with any man. And never—not ever!—with Beckwith. And you absolutely may not allow him or any other to avail himself so easily of your charms.”
“I did not—”
“You did,” he clipped. “You smiled at him, and goddammit, he ate it up, took it as the invitation it was meant to be.”
Emma stared, aghast. And very angry. He was being unreasonably ridiculous. “You have accosted me and stolen me from the public room, and whisked me away into a darkened and vacant room, and have used this wretched tone with me, and now think to instructmeon what I may or may not do...because I smiled at a person?”
And here was that famous scowl again, the breathing through his nose, tick in his cheek, stormy-eyed look of which she been the recipient on too many occasions to count. My God, did he dislike her that much? As noted previously when he’d favored her with so many similar looks, his eyes moved from her angry gaze to her lips and back again.
