Page 5 of If I Loved You
When she stood directly before him, her tray pushed with strategic ambition into one hip while her hand clasped the other, she offered him a flirtatious and hopeful smile, just as she had every time she’d approached him today. “What can I do for you, fine sir?” She asked, aiming for a seductive tone, which proved completely off-putting to Zach.
“You are acquainted with Earl Lindsey?” He asked, his tone informing her that he wasn’t here to seek companionship.
“I might be,” she answered saucily, but with suspicion. “Who’s asking?”
“When was the last time you saw him?” He wanted to know. Zach needed to know how recently this tawdry affair had taken place, for certainly it had a lasting effect on his father.
The wench frowned a bit now, not prettily. “I still want to know who’s asking.”
“The present Earl of Lindsey is asking,” Zach answered curtly. “Now answer the question.”
Sensing now that she’d get no offers from this gent, the wench sighed audibly, looking irritated herself. The false sultriness disappeared from her voice. “I ain’t seen him in months. And I only seen him a few times anyway. He was all about Emma, only wanted her.”
Startled, Zach frowned sharply at the server. “You are not Emma Ainsley?”
“Nothing to confuse between me and the princess,” she said with ill-concealed hostility.
“Where can I find Emma Ainsley?” He wanted to know then.
But she only shrugged her shoulders and made to depart. Wishing to smack her, but needful of her help, Zach grabbed her by the arm and thrust several coins into her free hand. “Fetch her now.”
He watched the red-haired wretch consider denying him, her eyes contemplating the coins in her hand. She might have liked to toss them in his face but with a small huff, pulled her arm from his grasp and left the taproom.
Zach blew out a frustrated breath and set to wait for the real Emma Ainsley to appear. Twining his long fingers around the empty tankard before him, he contemplated his growing fury, and wondered if Emma Ainsley was cut from the same clothas the red-haired woman. Keeping his eyes trained on the door through which the woman had disappeared, he was soon rewarded with her reappearance. But no one had followed her, and Zach’s frown darkened yet again.
In the next instant, however, the frown vanished completely when a woman—a girl, really—walked into the taproom. Stunned by this unexpected turn, Zachary Benedict sat a little straighter upon his seat as he studied whom he supposed now was the actual Emma Ainsley.
The tart gave her no direction that Zach could see so that Miss Ainsley was left to search the taproom for whoever might have summoned her.
Zach’s next breath emerged rather quickly, and it came to him quite suddenly that his father had indeed not lost his mind. If this in fact were Emma Ainsley, he blamed his father not at all for forgoing his well-heeled position in life to take up with her. In all his thirty odd years, Zach could not ever remember being deprived of breath upon first sight.
Until now.
Emma Ainsley’s eyes moved about the room, having started at the side opposite from where Zach sat, affording him several long seconds to appreciate her allure. Beautiful was too tame a word to apply to such a beguiling face and form. She stood perhaps a few inches over five feet, her build slender, yet curved in all the right places. Long gleaming tresses of perfect mahogany were tied in a neat ribbon at her nape, falling then to her hips, while a few stray tendrils escaped to frame a face over which the angels must certainly sigh. She was too far away to discern the exact color of her eyes, but they must be blue, he decided—only blue would do justice to those eyes, large and round and tiltedso charmingly up at the corners, set upon skin perfectly creamy and smooth, just a hint of color from regularly seeing the sun, he guessed. Her nose was small and delicate, and below, her parted lips bowed generously enough to surely tempt a saint.
In the next instant, her eyes did settle upon him, and Zachary determined that Emma Ainsley was just about as enchanting a creature as he had ever seen. As he was watching her and did not look away when her eyes landed upon him, she wisely guessed that it was he who had called her, and began to walk toward him. Something inside him twisted and roiled as she moved, as at least half a dozen hungry eyes followed her with frank appreciation. This, however, recalled the reason for this meeting, and Zachary was miserably reminded of exactly what she was. Strangely, this seemed to lessen her appeal not at all.
But something in his visage must have changed with these thoughts, for her steps faltered—almost imperceptibly—and her ethereal features took on an anxious mien. In a moment, she stood beside his table, her hands worrying the skirt of her apron, which covered a simple and well-worn gown of gray.
“I am Emma Ainsley,” she informed him, her voice soft and slow, nearly exotic the lilt of her tone.
“I am Lindsey,” was all he said, scrutinizing with great intent her face at this introduction. He knew immediately when this clicked in her head, for her lips parted again, her beautiful eyes widening with distress. Slender fingers flew to her mouth to stifle a cry as her eyes watered immediately.
“What—where is...?” She couldn’t seem to form a complete thought, and if Zachary didn’t know better, he’d have imagined that her grief was genuine as she realized that if he were the earl, it could only mean that his father was deceased.
“My father died on the 19th,” he said simply, nearly brusquely, disliking this feigned anguish of hers.
With a small squeak at the harsh slant he applied to his tone, Emma Ainsley slumped into the stool opposite Zach, covering her face in her hands, crying with such trueness he nearly thought her sincere. She tried noticeably to control her sobs, taking huge breaths to stave them off, but they continued to come. She did not cry loudly, as to attract attention, but with seeming true pain, keening softly. After a moment, in which time Zach’s discomfort had grown powerfully, she lifted red and wet eyes to him.
“What happened? He was not unwell,” she protested, waving her hand in agitation. “I saw him a fortnight ago—was there an accident?”
Zach shook his head, beginning to believe that her sorrow might be genuine indeed. “No, he was not unwell,” he answered vaguely, his mind moving ahead, for if this torment before him were real, he needed then to know the exact extent of the relationship between this lovely woman-child and his father. “He, ah...” he said, making an effort then to bring himself back to the question at hand, “he suffered a stroke, that is all. He was gone almost instantly.”
This evoked a fresh wave of tears and Zachary began to feel decidedly uncomfortable, as he knew not what to do to console the poor girl. As they—her vocal sorrow, that is—were beginning to draw undue attention, Zach touched his hand to hers to garner her attention, as she had covered her face again. She startled and jumped at his touch and looked sharply at him.
“Perhaps there is a private room we might use to conclude our business,” he suggested, raising a brow expectantly, “andwhere you might...grieve without so many watchful eyes upon you.”
Surveying the room then as if it hadn’t occurred to her that many eyes indeed did watch her—perhaps often and fixedly, even when she wasn’t beset by grief—she nodded quickly and stood, facing Zach once again. “Um, I have rooms abovestairs,” she said, pointing imprecisely toward the door from whence she’d come. Something seemed to strike her then, some thought made her tilt her head curiously at him. “Had you... other business with me other than... bearing this news?” she asked and then sniffled more.
