“This was ten years ago?” he asked slowly, a faint frown on his brow.
Emilia nodded. “Nearly.” She sipped more wine, feeling surprisingly at ease, now that the story was told. “I’ve tried to avoid my uncle and Lord Fitchley ever since, as they are somewhat... unforgiving. Fortunately a governess was nigh invisible to them, and I took care to choose positions away from London, in Bath, in Plymouth, in Dorset, which also helped.” She turned to him earnestly. “Lord Sydenham told his solicitor to engage a governess for Lucy. I didn’t even meet the viscount for several weeks. I had no idea he and Fitchley were friendly—indeed, I didn’t think Lord Sydenhamhadany friends—and I certainly never guessed that Fitchley would be Lucy’s guardian. It was a distinct shock to hear his name, after Sydenham died.” She raised her glass as if in a toast. “And that was what set me off in desperate search of you.”
He smiled wryly. “Never say I owe Fitchley a debt!”
She snorted bitterly. “No! Never! He’s every bit as horrible now as he was then.” She drank more wine. “How do you know him?”
Nick leaned forward and refilled her glass. Emilia made no protest. The wine had warmed her, and got her through a recitation of things she’d like to forget. She felt far better than she’d expected to.
It also made the conversation feel... congenial. Easy. Intimate. As if they were confidants, sharing secrets and advising each other. She really shouldn’t feel this way about her employer. It just seemed to happen so effortlessly, over and over again. It hadn’t happened with other employers, and she didn’t know how to react to it.
“Fitchley has been a member of the Vega Club for close to a year.” Nick refilled his own glass and sat back. “He’s an ass, but that’s not unexpected at a gaming club.”
She studied her wine. “You told me you could prevent Lord Fitchley or Mr. Parker-Lloyd from hurting us. How do you plan to do that?”
“I have ways,” he murmured over his glass.
“Yes, but...” She hesitated. “Can you really keep Lucy from him? I took such care to avoid him because I thought the courts would give her to him without question if he demanded it.”
“There is that,” he agreed. “Grantham said the same.”
For a moment Emilia couldn’t breathe. “I won’t let him have her,” she said, her voice low and fierce. “Iwon’t. Even if it means I must take her and go into hiding—another country—anywhere he can’t get her—Nick, he’sterrible, he would never care for her the way she deserves—”
“I completely agree.”
“But what can Ido?” She gripped her shaking hands together. “The only reason I went looking for a Sydenham heir was to protect Lucy. Can’t you petition for her as the head of her family, perhaps citing Fitchley’s inattention since her father’s death...?”
“Oh, I have no intention of fighting Fitchley in court.” He propped his foot on one of the extra chairs. “Answer me this: Why does Baron Fitchley want a little girl, whom he doesn’t know, who is no relation of his, and who has no money? He’s never paid her the slightest attention before now, and it would cost him a considerable sum to raise her for the next decade.”
Emilia felt her face burn. “He wouldn’t,” she whispered. “Except...”
“Except that he’s discovered how attachedyouare to that little girl.” Nick tilted his glass, seemingly absorbed in how the lamplight shone on the liquid. “It struck me that he might believe that, by getting her, he would also get you. I sense you would not let her go to him alone.”
“Of course I wouldn’t!”
He finished his wine and set down the glass. “When does the trust become yours outright?”
Emilia wilted. “When I turn twenty-eight. Just over six months from now.”
Nick nodded contemplatively. “I thought as much. Six months is a long time to resist the demands of a man who holds Lucinda like a hostage.”
She dropped her head into her hands, feeling sick. He had spelled out the deepest, darkest fear in her heart. She could take Lucy and run, but she would have precious little to support them, let alone conceal them; if Fitchley found them, she would be at his mercy. If Fitchley took Lucy, though, Emilia would have no choice but to go with her.
When she’d broken their engagement, he had replied that she would change her mind. That he would be waiting. Her uncle had warned her that he considered the betrothal still binding, and that he wouldn’t consent to any other. Emilia was old enough not to fear that any longer, but Fitchley’s words the other day, in front of Arabella’s house,hadfrightened her. He hadn’t forgotten, nor changed his mind, and now he’d spotted the means to snare her once and for all.
“I make a point of knowing my patrons,” Nick said, almost idly. “I need to know they can afford Vega’s, and Fitchley can. He wagers heavily on the horses, and he wins.”
So Fitchley was wealthy as well as titled and vindictive. There went her last hope, that he hadn’t the means to carry through on his threats. Emilia thought she might be ill. Her stomach roiled and cramped. She shouldn’t have drunk all that wine, she knew it—
“But he’s certainly no saint, the Right Honorable Lord Fitchley,” Nick went on. “He’s got secrets, like all of us, and more than a few sins on his soul. I daresay he would strongly prefer they not become public knowledge.”
She raised her head. “What? Are—do you have blackmail material on him?”
He had slid down on the cushions to rest his head on the back of the shabby settee. One leg was still outstretched, his heel propped on Lucy’s chair from the card game. His hands were clasped on his belly. He looked like a panther lounging in the warmth of the fire, sleek and lethal despite his easy pose. At her dumbfounded question, he angled his head her way and winked.
Emilia gaped at him, her thoughts whirling.
“Don’t fret over Fitchley,” he said in the same lazy voice. “I suspect he’ll withdraw his suit for Lucinda before we return to London.”
