Something About Emmaline by Elizabeth Boyle Read Free Book Online Page B

about some matter.
    “You must never fear for Sedgwick,” she said, coming to stand behind his chair. “He’s extremely capable when it comes to an altercation. Why, he saved me from three such wretched villains the day we met. Do you remember, Sedgwick?”
    Villains? The day we met? A premonition of disaster ran down his spine. And it certainly didn’t help that she now had Hubert and Lady Lilith’s full and rapt attention.
    No, demmit, he wanted to tell her. Cease this immediately.
    But he soon discovered that having given her a small white lie to work with, under her obviously skilled tutelage it was blossoming into a Banbury tale that would make a Covent Garden tragedy look simpleminded.
    “He saved you?” Lady Lilith asked. She set down her knife and fork and folded her hands in her lap. “How remarkable.”
    “Oh, yes, it was a most desperate day,” Emmaline told her, her hand going to her brow.
    “Desperate, you say?” Hubert asked, finally looking up from his paper. “As dire as all that?”
    “Oh, yes. I hadn’t been in England more than a day whenmy coach was set upon by thieves. The driver and footman were overcome, and my dearest chaperone, Mrs. Woodgate, swooned immediately.” Emmaline sighed and shook her head, while her hands wrung at her handkerchief as if the danger were right outside their door.
    Alex, for his part, wished she had been set upon and therefore had saved him from ever having to listen to this bouncer.
    “How terrible for you,” Lady Lilith said, though her tone suggested she didn’t believe a word of Emmaline’s dramatic rendition.
    “Terrible indeed!” Hubert chimed in, once again with more enthusiasm than his wife shared—which garnered him a dark look from Lady Lilith’s side of the table.
    “Yes, but as terrifying as it was, it was what brought me to my dearest Sedgwick,” Emmaline said, her hands coming lightly to rest upon his shoulders. “The last thing I remember was the sight of him riding up over the crest of the hill, his pistol drawn, his great black cape swirling in the wind as he rode to my rescue.”
    “Sedgwick with a pistol?” Lady Lilith asked. “Why, this is quite news to all of us.” She turned her skeptical gaze on him. “I didn’t know you were so proficient.”
    “It wasn’t anything,” he said quite truthfully.
    Not willing to yield the floor just yet, Emmaline continued. “All I remember was the sight of Sedgwick riding forth, for just then I was struck by a stray bullet and rendered unconscious. Sadly, I can’t recall anything else until I woke up some time later, Sedwick’s handsome visage, so filled with concern, the first thing I saw.”
    Hubert sputtered, as if he’d never heard such rot.
    Granted, neither had Alex, but he didn’t like Hubert’s rude suggestion that his wife was lying.
    No matter that she wasn’t his wife.
    But Emmaline wasn’t about to give quarter to the likes of Hubert Denford. Her brow rose in a regal arch as she turned her face toward him. Slowly her hand went to her brow and she drew back the artful and fashionable curls arranged around her face.
    And revealed a scar both hideous and alarming.
    Sedgwick blinked and looked again. Christ, she had been shot.
    Who was this elegant, delicate-looking creature, that she had such secrets? Had lived such a life?
    “O-oh, gracious,” Hubert managed to stammer, looking like he was about to lose his breakfast.
    Lady Lilith’s face mirrored her husband’s shock; then, like the proper lady that she was, she glanced away. But not before her eyes narrowed with a calculated estimation.
    Emmaline patted her curls back into place and her pretty mouth began to open as if she had every intention of adding to this spectacle, so Alex stopped her before she showed them anything else.
    “You know, perhaps I could use a cold compress,” he announced.
    “If you think you need it,” she said, clearly disappointed at his interruption.
    “ Yes, ” he said firmly,