The Rogue's Proposal (11 page)

This was the utterly forbidden. These were thoughts she’d never, ever dared allow
herself to dwell upon.

“Like what?”

“Once…I saw horses in a meadow once…and…and…I wondered what it would be like to be
on my hands and knees while—”

Luke inhaled sharply. Somehow, the sound of the air rushing through his teeth strengthened
her.

“I wanted to be on top,” she admitted, the words coming easier now. “I wanted to be
standing against a wall or leaning over the edge of the bed while you—while
he
,” she corrected quickly as flames leapt to her cheeks, “took me. I…I wanted him to
have his wicked way with me. To tie me up and tell me what to do and how to do it.
I wanted to please him.” A note of desperation rang in her voice with the final sentence.

“Bloody hell,” Luke muttered. And then he drew her into his arms and was kissing her,
and his lips were strong and soft against hers, his tongue nudging into her mouth.
With a little gasp, she wrapped her arms around him and gave in to it, opening and
allowing him access, feeling him sweep through her as if her mouth belonged to him.

Her knees finally gave way, but his arm, that steely band, was around her back again,
holding her firm against him.

His arousal touched her stomach. Flutters trembled through her, starting at the spot
where that hard ridge pressed against her.

He sucked at her bottom lip, trailed his tongue over her top one. His kisses slowed,
the urgency softening into exploration. She moved her hands up his back, feeling the
hard ridges of muscles below her palms.

His hand cupped her jaw, moving her face this way and that, covering her skin with
languid, soft kisses as though he needed to taste every inch of her. His lips moved
up the side of her face, then pressed down on her closed eyelid.

“Emma,” he whispered on a groan. “God, Emma.”

He stopped kissing her, his hand dropping from her jaw to join the other hand behind
her back. He held her close, and she pressed her face to his chest, feeling the rapid
beat of his heart against her cheek, the rise and fall of his torso with each quick
inhalation.

Then there was a knock at the door. Slowly, hesitantly, he pulled away until he stood
facing her, arms at his sides.

“Yes?” he called.

“Excuse me, sir,” a woman’s voice said softly. “I’ve the washing water and breakfast
you ordered.”

He raised a brow, and Emma nodded, signifying that last night, she had indeed requested
these things to be delivered at eight o’clock this morning.

“Come in, please,” Luke said.

Three servants dressed in black dresses with white aprons entered, carrying trays
of food and a basin of steaming water.

As the servants bustled about, Emma gazed at Luke. He hadn’t moved from where he stood
facing her. He looked shaken.

She swallowed back the huge lump that had formed at the top of her throat. She glanced
at the servants who had finished their tasks and were waiting with downcast eyes for
further instruction. “Thank you, that will be all,” she told them. They curtsied and
left.

She turned back to Luke, resolve straightening her spine. “We should eat and dress.
Then…we need to go find C. Macmillan.”

I
t was a half-hour drive out to Duddingston Parish. As Luke drove them through the
village of Wester Duddingston, he slowed the horses. When Emma glanced over at him,
she saw that he was gazing at a middle-aged woman who was emerging from behind the
church, staggering under the weight of what appeared to be two very heavy baskets
slung over her forearms.

“Here we go.” Luke halted the horses and handed Emma the ribbons. “Stay here. I’ll
be right back.”

Bemused, she held the horses and watched him saunter up to the woman. Emma was too
far away to hear anything more than snippets of their conversation, but she could
tell by the woman’s quick speech and fretful motions that she was overcome by Luke’s
handsome bearing. And perhaps also by the fact that he was English and very clearly
of the aristocracy.

“Do ye mean Colin Macmillan? Oh, aye,” the woman said, and went on chattering in a
lower voice, her tone conspiring. She was probably telling Luke everything she knew
about the man.

Emma had to admit that watching Luke flustered her, too. Even now, after spending
almost every moment with him over the past several days. She mused over this as she
watched him. At first, perhaps, it had been simple lust. A product of her innate and
unwise attraction to rogues and scoundrels that she’d been trying to suppress. But
now, even though the lust had grown into something so powerful it threatened her control,
there was more to it than that. Much more.

“Och, aye, sir,” she heard the woman say. “’T’isn’t far. Over that hill, yonder, and
through the grove of yews.”

Luke reached down and retrieved the two baskets the woman had been carrying but had
lowered to the ground in order to speak to him. “May I help you with these? Where
were you going?”

Emma shook her head, smiling wryly. And the man claimed he wasn’t a gentleman.

The woman protested, saying it was too far, that he “shouldna fash” himself over her.
But Luke gently pressed her until she gestured to the other end of the street, where
Luke and Emma had entered the village.

Luke walked by the curricle carrying the heavy baskets, winking at her as he passed.
She grinned at him, then smiled at the woman, who gave her a respectful curtsy before
hurrying after Luke.

Moments later, Luke returned alone. “Well, she told me a little about C. Macmillan,”
he said as he climbed up and took the reins from her.

“Do tell.”

“He seems to dabble in industry, dipping his fingers in many different pots. He owns
a great deal of land along the shore and manufactures salts there. He’s a partial
owner of the Duddingston Coal Works and employs most of the workers here in Wester
Duddingston. And he owns a soap manufactory nearby.”

“Goodness. A busy man,” Emma murmured.

“Yes.” Luke frowned. “I am curious as to why such a man would associate with someone
like Roger Morton.”

“Well, I can think of one way we might find the answer to that.”

“By asking him,” Luke said.

“Exactly.”

Ten minutes later, they rode through the iron gates of a mansion that reminded her
of her father’s house in Bristol. But this one was older, its modern design belied
by round fairy-tale towers, topped by battlements and arrow slits at each end of the
façade.

Luke pulled the horses short and gazed at the house. “It’s a little early for a social
visit.”

“Our visit isn’t particularly social,” she mused.

A stable boy ran toward them and took the reins from Luke. Luke jumped down with practiced
ease, then came around to help Emma.

“Ready?” he murmured.

She nodded and blew out a measured breath. “I am.”

He smiled at her and led her to the massive entryway. As they approached, a man opened
the door. A butler, certainly. He was older, and very thin, and stood straight as
he gazed at them impassively.

“Sir. Madam.”

Luke looked at him with an utterly bored expression. “Lord Lukas Hawkins and Mrs.
Henry Anderson. Here to see Mr. Macmillan.”

She released a breath. She’d asked him to use her maiden name, afraid that Macmillan
would become suspicious if he heard Henry Curtis’s wife had come to see him.

“Have you a card, sir?” The butler sniffed, and Emma noted that he didn’t have any
trace of a Scottish accent.

Luke rolled his eyes. “No. No card.”

“Very well, sir. I shall see if Mr. Macmillan is at home. Please excuse me.”

The butler retreated, and the door closed with a low, resonating boom.

She glanced at Luke. “What if he refuses to see us?”

Luke shrugged and spoke without inflection. “My name gets me into most of these kinds
of homes.” He grimaced. “Not because it belongs to me, of course, but because it is
linked to the Duke of Trent.”

“Oh,” she murmured.

“Everyone knows Trent. Of him, anyhow. And everyone wants to wheedle their way into
his good graces.”

“Do you often use your name for the benefit it can give you?” She asked the question
without rancor; she was truly curious, because she hadn’t seen him do this before.

“No.” His voice was flat. “I despise doing it. I did it for your sake today. And for
the sake of my mother.”

She reached out to touch his arm but dropped her hand quickly, because the door was
already opening again.

“Mr. Macmillan was on his way to the manufactory, but he will see you now,” the butler
announced with a sniff. “Follow me, if you please.”

They followed the man into a cavernous marble entry hall. Everything inside was white
marble except the glints of gold in the chandelier and the few pieces of gilded furniture
placed against the wall.

Their footsteps echoed ominously as they traversed the wide space. Beside her, Luke
shuddered and said under his breath, “Just like Ironwood Park.”

That surprised her. She’d imagined his childhood home to be grand and imposing but
not cold and barren. There wasn’t time to ask him about that now, though.

They followed the butler through an arched doorway and up a winding oak staircase.
At the landing, he opened a monstrous carved door and announced them. “Mrs. Anderson
and Lord Lukas Hawkins, sir.”

He stepped aside, allowing them to gain entry into the room.

It was an elegant drawing room designed with dark furniture and enhanced by marble
tabletops and gilded sconces, not unlike the drawing room where her father had received
visitors—back in the day when visitors had come to their house in Bristol.

A man stood in the center of the room. He was thin, like his butler, but old and grizzled,
with a shock of thick gray hair. He grinned and held out his hands in welcome as if
they were old friends he’d been expecting for days.

“Well, good morning,” he said warmly to Emma. His voice contained a soft Scottish
burr, but his accent was very slight, as if he had spent many years in England. “Ye
must be Mrs. Anderson.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” she murmured, somewhat mystified. She’d expected a
very unpleasant man, but his vocal tone was nothing like the tone of his letter to
Morton.

“And Lord Lukas, how fine it is to finally make your acquaintance. I had the honor
of meeting your brother the duke at a dinner in London last spring.”

Luke slid her a glance, and beyond the mocking expression on his face, she didn’t
miss the glint of pain in his eyes. At that moment she realized how much he truly
hated how people treated him as an extension of the Duke of Trent rather than as his
own person.

“A pleasure to meet you,” Luke said politely. But a muscle worked in his jaw, and
she could practically hear him grinding his teeth.

“I was pleased to hear of his recent nuptials as well. I sent a letter of congratulations
a few weeks ago. Do ye know if he received it?”

“Sorry,” Luke clipped. “No idea.”

Macmillan didn’t glean Luke’s mood from his tone. “I wrote also about the measure
in parliament providing some relief to those of us merchants who lost our salt at
sea in last winter’s storms.”

“Mmm.” Luke’s expression darkened.

“I hope ye will convey to your brother that it is a start, but no’ enough, if Britain—Scotland,
in particular—is to see future growth in its salt trade.”

“Mr. Macmillan,” Luke growled, “I am not a message boy for my brother. Tell him your
damned self.”

Oh, dear.
Emma stepped forward as Macmillan’s eyes widened. “Mr. Macmillan, thank you so much
for seeing us today, and for your generous welcome into your home.”

Macmillan turned his now-wary gaze to her.

“We were hoping you could be of assistance to us in a very important matter.”

Macmillan studied her for a moment, and in his assessing gaze, she found a hint of
the man who’d written that letter to Roger Morton. But then he smiled and made a grand
gesture toward a cluster of sofas and chairs on one side of the room. “Please, sit
down, and we’ll talk. May I offer you some refreshment?”

“Thank you,” Emma murmured. Luke was still glowering, so she touched his arm and mouthed,
Sit
, as Macmillan spoke to the servant who’d been standing at attention by the door.

Luke puffed a breath out of the side of his mouth and gave her a slight nod.

She lowered herself on a sofa upholstered in rich shades of burgundy and gold. Luke
sat beside her, a little closer than would generally be considered proper for acquaintances,
but they were so much more than that now. And she didn’t care a whit what Macmillan
thought.

Still, she saw his assessing gaze take in her and Luke’s proximity as he returned
from speaking to the servant.

He sat in a matching chair across from them, laying his forearms over its tasseled
arms. He gave them a polite tilt of his head. “Now, then, how may I be of assistance?”

She flicked a glance at Luke. His clenched jaw told her that he was still annoyed,
so she steeled herself. It looked like she would be the one to explain.

“We are looking for someone who might have information pertaining to the disappearance
of the Dowager Duchess of Trent.”

Macmillan’s brow furrowed. He, like everyone else in the country, must know by now
that the dowager had been missing since spring.

Luke shifted uncomfortably beside her. She wanted to touch him. But she was in a strange
man’s house, and he was watching them carefully. Her desire to soothe Luke would have
to wait.

Macmillan’s gaze moved to Luke. “I had heard about the dowager. Unfortunate business,
that.”

“Yes,” Luke ground out. “Unfortunate.”

“We have evidence that the duchess’s disappearance might be connected to a man named
Roger Morton,” Emma said softly. “We have reason to believe you might know this man.
That you might know where we could find him.”

At the mention of Roger Morton, Macmillan went very still. His gaze strayed from Luke
to Emma and back to Luke again. His fingers tightened over the arms of his chair.

“Aye, I do know the man. What’s led you to believe he was involved in the duchess’s
disappearance?”

She glanced at Luke again. When he didn’t seem like he was going to respond, she said,
“There were many eyewitnesses who saw them together. In particular, the family located
one of the duchess’s servants, who claimed that the duchess left her home with Mr.
Morton and went with him to Wales, where he procured a house for her and where they
lived for several weeks over the summer.”

Macmillan stared at her, then he shook his head and muttered, “Just like Morton, to
involve himself in such business.”

Emma hesitated, then decided not to ask him about Roger’s association with Henry just
yet. The link to the duchess seemed to be enough for now.

“Would you mind telling us in what capacity you know Mr. Morton, sir?”

“Aye, of course. He worked for me several years ago at one of my offices in London.
He was an ambitious man, and very intelligent. He made a few excellent investments,
and five years ago, he told me he was leaving my service to engage in certain potentially
profitable prospects of his own.”

“But you have communicated with him since then?”

“Indeed. I kept my eye on him, as it were. I was interested in his progress, as I
am in all men of ambition who prove their talents to me.”

Luke stared at Macmillan with narrow-eyed interest. “Did you find him to be an honest,
honorable sort of man?”

Macmillan gave a humorless chuckle. “Honest and honorable perhaps have different meanings
in my world than yours, my lord.”

Luke glanced around him. “Hmm. Last I noticed, Mr. Macmillan, we were residing in
the same world.”

“True, true.” Macmillan’s tone was gracious. “However, what I mean to say is that
in order to find success and riches, one must not only be willing to work for it day
and night, but one must also fight for it. Sometimes that requires a kind of fighting
that might not be considered strictly admirable.”

“I see,” Luke said. Emma wasn’t sure if he truly understood. She certainly did. There
was something very intrinsic—deeper than money—that separated people like Luke from
people like her and Macmillan.

Two servants came in bearing trays—one covered in sweet-looking little cakes and the
other with a teapot and cups.

When the tea was poured, and Emma held her cup in her hands and was sipping at it,
Macmillan said, “In spite o’ that, I never was given any reason to believe that Morton
was involved in anything untoward, or illegal.”

“When did you last hear from him?” Luke asked.

“About a year ago. During the spring a year prior to that, he’d told me of a new scheme
he’d been considering investing in—a brewery near Bristol. He asked for a loan to
assist him and his partner with the cost of investing.”

Two years ago—that was the Season she’d spent in London. When she’d met Henry.

“And you gave him the funds he requested?”

“I
lent
him the funds. As I said, he was a man of competence. I analyzed the information
he sent me regarding the business he was considering and deemed it a fine investment.
However, his partner was a fool—”