Page 38 of His Scandal
Chapter 11
Alex thought for certain that Emmeline was cured of her curiosity, but he was mistaken. When he took in a play at the Curtain with a young woman he frequently escorted, there was Emmeline in the balcony across the theater, her narrow-eyed gaze taking in everything he did.
Alex only smiled at her, bowed his head, and then threw an arm about his companion. Emmeline nodded once in challenge, then left, as if him seeing her was all that mattered.
What was her game?
Even an afternoon spent fencing with Edmund at the Queen’s tiltyard could not keep him free of Emmeline. He felt her gaze before he saw her. He parried Edmund’s blade aside, then shielded his eyes as he searched the balconies at Whitehall. He saw her then, standing alone at a railing justabove, watching him. He swept his hand before him and bowed low.
Was that a glimpse of a smile? What did she hope to achieve by following him?
But still she didn’t go away, so he turned back to Edmund and gave her the show he was capable of. Edmund stumbled back a few paces, eyes wide. He glanced between Alex and Emmeline speculatively, then brought his sword up and attacked. Steel met steel and rang repeatedly through the tiltyard. Soon Alex’s breathing became labored, and his arm felt afire. He had never beaten Edmund before, for Edmund had raised himself up from poverty through mercenary work, and his body was massive because of it. Alex was good enough to survive a duel, but Edmund was good enough to survive a war.
Inside Alex’s focused mind he and Edmund were youths again. Edmund had been the best friend of his childhood, a poor laundrywoman’s boy who’d never shown fear of his masters, only belligerence and stubbornness. After a fight, the two had become fast friends, and as they’d aged, Alex had insisted Edmund be his squire, instead of the noble boy who fostered with the Thorntons. Side by side they’d learned and trained, until Edmund had left to make his own way in the world.
Suddenly with Emmeline watching, Alex was determined to hold his own.
And Edmund knew it. With a grin, he increasedthe tempo, increased the power of his sword thrust. From somewhere Alex thought he heard the sounds of men cheering, the call of bets.
Emmeline gripped the balustrade so hard that the stone scraped her palms. The skill and grace Alex displayed were mesmerizing. She could tell that Edmund would soon triumph by sheer size alone, but Alex was crafty and intelligent, as she already knew.
With a sudden flurry of motion, Alex drove hard at Edmund, who stumbled back and tripped. As he landed on his backside, Alex knocked his sword away, threw back his head, and laughed.
Then he turned and looked up at her, as did all the soldiers in the tiltyard. She was on display, conspicuous beneath the glare of the sun. But it didn’t seem to matter. All she could do was stare at Alex, who wore a sleeveless leather jerkin that bared muscular arms the likes of which she’d never seen displayed. She’d been held tightly in those arms, pressed against that body he now used like a weapon. She felt overheated and overwrought, and very aware that he was a man and she a woman, because his eyes told her so.
Suddenly he dropped the sword and came toward the palace.
With a gasp, Emmeline drew back from the edge of the balcony and fumbled for the door handle. She knew he was coming to her.
All week she’d followed him, taking notes onhis behavior, telling herself she would use it all against him somehow. Yet she’d said nothing to her sister so far, even as she’d watched Blythe open Alex’s letters, or set his gifts next to all the others she’d been sent by various admirers.
All Emmeline had accomplished was to make Alex suspicious, and now he was coming for her.
A little thrill shot through her as she ran through a dimly lit parlor set aside for the Queen’s ladies. Thankfully, no one was about to see her haste. She went out into the corridor, where there were enough people that she was forced to slow to a walk.
“Lady Emmeline,” Alex called in a loud voice, “might I have a word with you?”
She glanced over her shoulder and saw him at the far end of the wide corridor. She picked up her pace, knowing none of these important courtiers would know who she was. No one would care that she was ignoring Alex—except Alex.
She turned down the next hall, then ducked through a door leading to one of the queen’s private gardens. A sudden brisk breeze made her shiver as she pressed her ear to the door. When the handle shook, she gasped and tried to hold the door closed with her body.
“Emmeline!”
His voice was low, intimidating. She could not fight him on strength alone, so she lifted her skirts and ran, knowing the paths that circled the elaborate marble sculpture almost as well as her own gardens. She heard the door slam open, then closed. Her breath came rapidly in her chest, she was almost gasping—but she wanted to laugh, to fling her arms wide at the exhilaration of the chase.
“Emmeline!”
He was close now, just on the other side of the statue. She skirted a pear tree, then ducked through a vine tunnel, which was ripe with the new greenery of spring. She just knew there was a door through the wall somewhere. Queen Elizabeth liked to have more than one exit, in case her life was in peril.
Emmeline came out of the tunnel and saw the door across a patch of blossoming flowers. She had taken one step away from the gravel path, when suddenly Alex caught her arm, spinning her about.
With a cry she tripped and fell backward, tangling her legs with his and landing amidst the daffodils. He came down on top of her.
The weight and pressure of his long body felt dangerously intriguing, touching her in all the places that burned. Wide-eyed, she stared up into his shadowed face. He wore a small smile but said nothing, just used his lazy, dark gaze to roam her face and settle on her mouth.
Emmeline was stunned by how delicious sin could feel. No man had ever touched her like this,and she felt the first inkling of uneasiness. Alex wielded a special kind of power, making her feel like she was the only woman in his mind—at least, for that moment.
The sensation was…overpowering.
