they were clearly seamen.
She shook her head in consternation as she rounded the tall hedges flanking the walls and made for the servants’ quarters. That’s surely where her brother would be, not in the manor house itself. She was infinitely glad she wouldn’t have to approach that place. As familiar as she was with it, she had no wish at all to enter there and risk an encounter with the new earl.
How dare he keep Josh on duty here now that the ship had laid anchor. The double-masted brig had been there, well off the coast, for at least two days before she heard of it or she would have come sooner. Why, she wondered, was it not in the harbor?
Her brother was only thirteen and must be homesick after more than six months away. Their father needed to see his only son, and Emily had missed Josh terribly.
No matter how much she had objected at the time, Father had allowed Josh to sign on as cabin boy with Captain Roland for the unhappy voyage all the way to India. They had gone to inform Lord Nicholas of his father’s death and to bring him home to assume his duties.
Lord Nicholas. He had always possessed the honorary title, of course, since he was the earl’s son. Now he had inherited the earldom and, things being as they were, she must remember to call him lord if she ever saw him again.
But, earl or not, the man had no business keeping her little brother under lock and key in this place, and would do that no longer if she had to bring it down around his noble ears. Why the devil were there guards on the gates? They had told her nothing. They had just stood at a goodly distance behind the lacy ironwork and ordered her away.
She lifted her skirts a bit higher, stepped around the puddles standing in the gardens and made for the door to the outer building adjacent to the carriage house.
Other than the guards she had seen, no one was around, she noticed. Today’s village gossip held that the skeleton staff remaining after the old earl died had been ordered away when Nicholas arrived.
No one in the village had seen him yet. Isolating himself this way seemed to be taking his grief a bit too far, considering the animosity between father and son. Must be Nicholas’s guilt working, she reckoned, and was glad of it. He ought to feel guilty, leaving as he had.
She pushed open the door to the half-timbered, two-story building that she knew was home to the male servants in the earl’s employ.
“Anyone here?” she called hesitantly, ducking her head in all the rooms that stood open. Nothing but dusty furnishings. Then she heard voices down the hallway.
Never a shy mouse, Emily quickly headed in that direction. As she did, she passed a chamber with the door ajar and stopped to peek inside. There on the bed lay her brother, sound asleep. Imagine that, in the middle of the day!
He was not even dressed. His sleeveless undershirt revealed his skinny arms and shoulders. So pale, she noted.
“Josh?” she said softly, so as not to startle him awake. When he didn’t answer, she went straight to the bedside and put her hand on his arm, shaking gently. “Darling? Are you ill?”
His eyes flew open. First he appeared overjoyed, but then his expression turned to one of stark horror. “Em, get out of here!”
“Nonsense, I’ve seen you in your smallclothes before and—”
Two men suddenly rushed in and grasped her by the arms. Without a single word of explanation, they hurriedly dragged her out of the building and across to the manor house.
Terrified that the entire place had been invaded by a horde of pirates and thieves, Emily fought them all the way to the door to the kitchens and across the hall inside the main house. “Let me go!” she screamed, struggling and kicking to no avail.
One let go of her arm long enough to open a door and the other thrust her unceremoniously into the earl’s library.
She grew still when the men no longer held her and looked around.
The man behind the huge cherrywood desk rose. She almost did not recognize him. He looked so much older, so much larger, so absolutely furious that she was here. Blue eyes that had held such warmth seven years ago now rivaled arctic ice its chill. Dark brows lowered, giving him an almost menacing appearance. The beautifully shaped mouth that had once pressed so fondly against her own drew into a firm and disapproving frown. His nostrils flared.
“Nicholas?” she gasped, unable to credit how much he had changed.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded, his expression promising retribution for her trespass. “Who allowed her in?”
One of the wretches who had dragged her here cleared his throat. “No one admitted her. She sneaked in somehow, milord. We caught her in young Josh’s room out back.”
Nicholas grimaced as if in pain and pressed his temples with a thumb and forefinger. “Damn!” His deep voice grated on the vehement, solitary word.
“Well, damn you, too!” she exclaimed, her own ire rising to meet his. “I had not expected to trouble you with my presence, my lord. I merely came to fetch my brother home. If you will kindly excuse me, I shall do just that.”
“You cannot,” he said, his voice gruff.
“Watch me,” she replied, whirling around to leave. The men blocked the door. “Move aside,” she ordered in her best schoolmistress voice. She had been practicing it for her new position and thought it quite effective. It obviously did not work on adults. They stood firm.
Nicholas had come around the monstrosity of a desk. Emily heard him move and could now feel his presence there, invading the space just behind her. She jerked around to face him.
“Emily, we must talk. Would you please have a seat? Wrecker, pour us a brandy,” he said in an aside to one of the men.
She propped one hand on her hip. The other rested at her throat, hopefully hiding the rapid pulse in her neck. “You know very well I do not take spirits, my lord. Say what you have to say, then permit me to leave and bring Josh home with me. He looked ill when I saw him.”
He reached for her hand. She ignored the gesture. His frown grew darker. “Leave us,” he said to the two men, “and find out how she got past the guards. See that no one else does, or you will answer for it.”
She heard the door close. “Now what will you do?” she demanded, determined to show no fear even though she felt very nearly petrified. This was not the Nick she knew. That smiling, witty suitor had disappeared. In his place stood this disheveled, intimidating stranger who frightened her silly.
“Please sit down, Emily,” he said.
She did not. Instead, she swiftly stepped around him, afraid of his nearness.
He must not have shaved his beard for several days and was in his shirtsleeves. Those sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, exposing strong, sun-browned forearms. His rich dark hair fell tousled across his brow and curled over the back of his collar. That same collar stood open at his neck, revealing a glimpse of chest covered with a mat of even darker hair.
The forbidden sight perturbed Emily. Never before, even in their youth, had she seen him look so rumpled. Like an unmade bed. Thinking of Nicholas in conjunction with a bed of any kind upset her even more. For someone she disliked so wholeheartedly, he certainly could provoke some highly dangerous thoughts.
She backed against the desk, putting as much space between them as possible. Her heart galloped like a runaway horse.
His expression changed from anger to what appeared to be regret. “You should not have come here,” he told her.
Emily expelled the breath she’d been holding and rolled her eyes. “You need not worry, my lord. It is not as if I came to confront you. Even I have more sense than to hound a peer of the realm for an explanation of his actions, past or present. Get out of my way and I will trouble you no longer,” she snapped.
“Would that I could believe that. Does your husband