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“Need it, no.” He stepped even closer to her so that she was forced to look up in order to continue meeting his eyes. “But what harm does a nickname do a little boy?”
She inhaled, realizing as she did so that she could smell him, a combination of gunpowder, starch, and gun oil. The scent should have been repulsive, but she found it strangely intimate instead. And the intimacy was arousing. How awful.
“It was his father’s name,” she blurted. The ribbon broke.
He stilled, his big body poised as if to pounce. “Your husband?”
“Yes.”
“It reminds you of him?”
“Yes. No.” She waved the suggestion away. “I don’t know.”
He began a slow prowl around her. “You miss him, your husband.”
She shrugged, fighting down the urge to twist and face him. “He was my husband for six years. It would be very odd if I didn’t miss him.”
“Even so, it doesn’t follow that you would miss him.” He had meandered behind her and now spoke over her shoulder. She imagined that she could feel his breath against the spot behind her ear.
“What do you mean?”
“Did you love him?”
“Love is not a consideration in a fashionable marriage.” She bit her lip.
“No? Then you do not miss him.”
She closed her eyes and remembered laughing blue eyes that had teased. Soft, pale hands that had been unbearably gentle. A tenor voice that had talked and talked about dogs and horses and phaetons. Then she remembered that pale face, unnaturally drawn, all the laughter gone, lying against black satin in a casket. She didn’t want those memories. They were too painful.
“No.” She turned blindly to the house and a way out of this too-close garden and the man who stalked her. “No, I do not miss my husband.”
Chapter Six
Well! The king was very grateful to the guard who had saved his life single-handedly. All hailed Iron Heart as a hero, and he was immediately made the captain of the king’s guard. But though everyone asked the valiant captain his name, he would not say a word. This stubborn refusal to speak rather vexed the king, who was a man used to having his own way in such matters. However, even that little worry was put aside when one day the king was out riding and a terrible troll decided to make the king his lunch. Clang! Thump! Iron Heart charged forward and soon separated the troll’s head from his body....
—from Iron Heart
Emeline awoke to the curtains being pulled back on her bed. She blinked sleepily up into the face of Harris, her lady’s maid. Harris was a wooden-faced woman of at least five decades with a large, bulbous nose that dominated the rest of her more-petite features. Emeline knew of many ladies who complained that their personal maids spent too much time gossiping and flirting with the menservants in the household.
Such was not the case with Harris.
“There is a Mr. Hartley waiting in the downstairs hall for you, my lady,” Harris said stonily.
Emeline glanced blearily at her bedroom window. The light seemed quite pale. “What?”
“He says that he has an appointment with you, and he will not leave until he sees you.”
She sat up. “What time is it?”
Harris pursed her lips. “A quarter of eight, my lady.”
“Good Lord. Whatever is he about?” Emeline threw back the covers and searched for her slippers. “He must be mad. No one comes calling at eight o’clock.”
“Yes, my lady.” Harris bent to help her with her slippers.
“Not even nine o’clock,” Emeline muttered, thrusting her arms into the wrapper Harris held for her. “Really, anything before eleven is suspect, and I myself would never bother before two o’clock. Quite, quite mad.”
“Yes, my lady.”
