Page 57 of The Devilish Pleasures of a Duke

Adrian heard his friend murmur something about a previous appointment. In truth, he was not paying attention—his thoughts had shifted forward in anticipation of seeing Emma. He knew it was unlikely that he would be allowed any unsupervised conversation with her. At this time of day she was most likely giving lessons.

“Come inside, Adrian,” Heath stood at the door his butler had just opened to admit them. “We do not want any of the ladies to see us looking so disheveled. My dear sister does love a lecture.”

Adrian realized what Heath meant by that remark as he followed him into the drawing room and caught a glimpse of his reflection in the over-mantle mirror.

He grimaced. Tousled hair, cloak askew, his muslin shirt damp. “Dear God,” he muttered. “No wonder that lavender seller almost dropped her basket when she saw me outside Angelo’s.”

Heath laughed. “You might want to unroll your cuffs. I look no better than you, I fear. In fact, I shall leave you for a moment to change my own shirt. There’s brandy in the cabinet. I’d prefer a coffee, myself. I’ll ring Hamm.”

Adrian stood in the middle of the room for several moments. He couldn’t believe that Heath had actually left him alone. Of course the clever fellow had to know that Adrian could hardly approach Emma looking as if he’d just survived a street brawl.

He stared at the closed door, slowly unrolling his cuffs, slowly losing the battle against common sense. He wondered whether he could see her without her seeing him. Just a glimpse of her. After all, she’d nursed him when he had looked worse, hadn’t she?

The door opened. Hamm, the gigantic footman who had served in the war under Heath, appeared. “May I bring you something, my lord?”

Adrian hesitated. “Coffee, please, for Lord Heath.”

“Nothing else?”

“No. Unless—unless the ladies are joining us.”

Hamm’s scraggly eyebrows lifted. “The ladies, my lord?”

“Yes.” Adrian shrugged nonchalantly. “Lord Heath’s wife. And his sister. They may wish for tea.”

“Ah.” Hamm nodded in understanding. “I believe that the ladies have gone shopping.”

“I see.” And, apparently, so did the footman. Adrian felt suddenly like the biggest bufflehead in all England. Why had he ever promised Emma he would not openly pursue her?

Hamm bowed. “I shall bring the coffee, my lord.”

Adrian pulled off his cloak as the door closed and had just realized he was still wearing his sword when he heard a muted scream from the rear of the house. It did not occur to him to ignore it, even though neither Emma nor Julia were at home.

But the scream, which held a note of genuine alarm, had definitely been issued by a female.

He left the drawing room, fully expecting that he would discover nothing more threatening than one of Emma’s students standing on a chair because a mouse had run across her slipper.

And that he would probably catch hell from Emma for making another indecorous appearance at her academy.

Emma nearly dropped her etiquette manual at the short-lived scream that arose from the library behind her. Harriet again, she thought in vexation. What mischief had the troublemaker brought upon herself this time?

She could not trust that Gardner girl for one hour. It was fortunate Emma had decided at the last moment she would not accompany Julia shopping today, although Emma could not honestly say that she had done so from any virtuous motive.

She enjoyed buying a new bonnet as much as any other lady; Charlotte and Miss Peppertree could manage the academy for a few hours. The fact, however, was that she had stayed home in the secret hope Adrian would pay her brother a visit.

She missed her disreputable duke’s heir more than she’d anticipated when she had virtually banished him from her life. She missed Adrian more in these past few days than she had missed her late husband in the year following his death.

She raised her shoulders as she approached the library door to investigate the cause of Harriet’s latest mishap. Rarely did she wish she had not begun the academy. It filled her lonely hours and gave her a great deal of satisfaction.

How gratifying it would be to guide Harriet into the graceful ways of womanhood. At least the perplexing girl had not emitted another of those blood-curdling screams.

She hefted her beloved manual onto her hip and opened the library door. For an incalculable interlude she was too shocked at the scene she beheld to wage a response. Indeed, there was no precedent in her life to prepare her to handle the shocking tableau in progress and, as a Boscastle, Emma had suffered more than her share of shocks.

Two of the scruffiest young ruffians she had ever had the displeasure of encountering were in the process of hauling Harriet through the garden window. A neckcloth, dirty, of course, had been tied across the girl’s mouth to silence her.

This indignity apparently did not discourage Harriet’s strenuous struggle for freedom. Although each of her abductors claimed an arm and leg apiece, Harriet fought them with the astonishing bodily contortions of a monkey and a spate of muffled curses that gave Emma a moment of guilty thankfulness for the neckcloth that gagged the unfortunate girl.

“How dare you!” she said in a soft growl that not only startled the abductors but herself.