A Summons From Yorkshire (Regency Christmas Summons Collection 1) Read online

  ~*~

  How was Emma to get Sir Thomas to kiss her if Mama wouldn’t let her have a minute alone with the man? That question rolled around in her mind as they traversed the corridors of the castle. She’d have to distract her mother. That was the only answer. But how? How? How? How?

  An idea popped in her head just as they entered the portrait gallery. If she could get Mama’s attention turned to Izzy, as it often was in frustration, she could be free of her mother’s watchful eye. Heaven help her when Izzy learned of her plan. Emma would have to fall on her knees and beg forgiveness of her sister, but what other choice did she have?

  “Mama—” she began, but was interrupted by the arrival of Betsy, one of the castle’s maids.

  “Lady Norland.” The maid rushed forward. “Vicar Whitton and Miss Louisa have just now arrived.”

  Sir Thomas cocked his head in Emma’s direction, a question in his eyes.

  “My uncle and cousin,” she explained quietly, though she hadn’t seen either in a very long time.

  “A day early.” Mama heaved a sigh. “Thank you, Betsy. I’ll be right there to greet them. Please make certain their chambers are prepared. They must be exhausted after their journey.”

  “Yes, milady.” Betsy scurried off to do the marchioness’s bidding.

  Mama shook her head. “What would inspire that man to arrive a night early?”

  Emma shrugged. She didn’t know her uncle terribly well. Certainly not well enough to answer that question.

  “He and Norland don’t even get along,” her mother grumbled.

  No, they didn’t. Emma bit back a smile. This was perfect! She could kiss her Uncle Henry for so soundly distracting Mama. He’d done a much better job of doing so than she could have ever done. “I do hope he and Papa don’t get into another argument,” Emma replied, planting the seed of impending doom in her mother’s mind.

  “Oh, heavens.” Her mother cringed. “I’d best make sure everything is all right.” She spun around and started back the way they’d come. “When you finish showing Sir Thomas the portraits, please join everyone in the drawing room.”

  “Of course, Mama,” Emma called to her mother’s rapidly disappearing swish of skirts.

  Then Emma smiled up at Sir Thomas. This was it. Her chance to get Sir Thomas to kiss her. Her chance to wipe Lord Heathfield from her memory forever. She batted her eyelashes at the magistrate.

  His dark eyes widened in surprise, then he nodded to the portraits that lined the far wall. “So, um, which ancestor is your favorite?”

  Which ancestor was her favorite? Heavens, shouldn’t he take their unchaperoned opportunity to try and kiss her? Heathfield had insisted Sir Thomas was paying her court. Perhaps the blasted viscount was mistaken. Or perhaps the magistrate just needed more encouragement. Emma forced a giggle she didn’t feel from her throat. “Do you truly want to discuss my ancestors, sir?” She batted her lashes even faster.

  “Is there something in your eye?” he asked, a frown marring his face.

  Blast it, she was doing this wrong. How did a lady go about getting a gentleman to kiss her? Lord Heathfield had just tipped her chin up and done so. She hadn’t even tried to get him to do so. And he certainly hadn’t asked permission. Why was Sir Thomas being so difficult? “Of course not, silly.” Heavens, she sounded like an idiot.

  Sir Thomas’s frown deepened. “Lady Emma, are you flirting with me?”

  Apparently not very well, if he had to ask. Emma heaved a sigh and decided for honesty. “I thought you might try to kiss me,” she admitted, hating the desperation she heard in her own voice.

  The magistrate’s mouth fell open, and one hand touched his heart in alarm. “Do I strike you as an unconscionable lothario?”

  She wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. “Um, n-no.”

  He dropped on his knees before her and clasped his hands in hers. “I promise you, my lady, I am a gentleman. While I would like nothing better than to kiss you, I feel we should be betrothed first. I shall hurry forth and ask Lord Norland for an audience.”

  An audience? Emma nearly swallowed her tongue. She didn’t want to marry Sir Thomas, she’d just wanted a kiss. One simple, little kiss. Was that too much to ask for?

  “I’m not sure how Mr. Blommen would feel about that.” Lord Heathfield appeared out of the darkness with a dangerous look flashing in his eyes. Blast him for still making Emma’s heart flutter with just the sound of his baritone voice.

  ~ 7 ~

  Heath forced the scowl from his face as Sir Thomas Mason scrambled from his knees back to his feet.

  “Who is Mr. Blommen?” the magistrate asked.

  Emma’s face flushed a pretty pink that was quickly becoming Heath’s favorite hue. How he would enjoy seeing it every day—and thinking up new ways to achieve the perfect splash of color. But first he’d have to dispense with the toady Sir Thomas.

  “No one you would know, sir,” she hastened to explain. “He’s just...”

  “He’s Flemish,” Heath added for good measure. “Keeps to himself.”

  “Ah, well that explains it.” The magistrate smiled blankly, as though the explanation didn’t make any sense at all but he had no intention of stating as much.

  “Mason.” Heath nodded towards Emma. “I need just a moment of the lady’s time. Do you mind?”

  Sir Thomas raked a hand through his dark hair. “I, well… That is… I mean to say, that would be highly irregular for you to speak with Lady Emma alone.”

  “And yet you are alone with the lady. I do hope you don’t think I am less of a gentleman than you are, Mason,” Heath said with a cool steeliness that belied the boiling blood coursing through his veins at having found the man actually proposing to Emma. “If you have some qualm about my honor, I’m certain we can come to some understanding at dawn. Shall I send Mr. Lockwell to meet with your second? Just give me the man’s name, and I’ll send my friend in search of him this very hour.”

  All the color in the magistrate’s face drained away. “I… Lord Heathfield!” he gasped, looking positively nauseated at the suggestion. “That is not what I meant at all! I have no reason to question your honor.”

  No, he didn’t. Until now, Heath had always been the epitome of an honorable gentleman. But he was fast shedding his honor as though it was an old, worn, out-of-fashion cloak. After hearing Emma practically beg the magistrate to kiss her, Mason was fortunate Heath was allowing him to keep all of his appendages attached to his person.

  “Perfect,” Heath held out his hand for Emma. “We have something to discuss.”

  She frowned at his offer, reminding Heath at once of the way his one-time governess always looked at him when he’d been particularly unruly as a child. Well, Emma could frown at him all she wanted. She was the one, after all, he’d overheard trying to coerce that damned toad-eating magistrate into kissing her. All things considered, Heath ought to be the one frowning. How could she kiss him the way she had, then run out on him and throw herself into Mason’s arms?

  “Come along, my lady.” Heath impatiently wiggled his fingers to gesture her forward.

  “It’s all right, my dear,” Sir Thomas urged. “It will give me the opportunity to search out your father.”

  “But…um… I mean… Please.” Emma sagged forward. “Please don’t say anything to Father quite yet, Sir Thomas.”

  “What the lady is trying to say,” Heath began “is that she is already betrothed, and your further pursuit would be an enormous waste of your time.”

  Emma gasped, and Sir Thomas took a step backwards as though he’d been struck across the face. “Betrothed?” The magistrate turned his horrified gaze on Emma. “Is this true?”

  She glanced from Sir Thomas to Heath and back again before slowly nodding.

  “Well,” the magistrate shook his head, “I am shocked, Lady Emma. Truly shocked. I had thought you were the most virtuous of ladies. But now…”

  Heath stepped towards the lady in question. “No one
blames you, Mason. Any man would have fallen under Lady Emma’s spell.”

  Sir Thomas nodded. “Spell, indeed. Quite right.”

  “Perhaps,” Heath added quietly, “you might allow me that word with Lady Emma alone now, sir.”

  The magistrate straightened his spine and nodded once, very curtly. “Just be careful, Heathfield. She does cast a spell on unsuspecting men.”

  Heath let his eyes drift up and down Emma’s delectable form. “Excellent advice, my good man.” Then he lifted his arm once more to the little auburn-haired seductress. “My lady.”

  ~*~

  Emma didn’t have much choice, did she? Lord Heathfield didn’t seem likely to let her escape without having his blasted word. Though what could he possibly say after he’d kissed her so thoroughly? Did he mean to apologize for his actions? Clearly he shouldn’t have kissed her, but Emma didn’t think she could take hearing that he was sorry for having done so.

  This must be her punishment for having kissed a betrothed man in the first place, wicked wanton that she was. Emma waited until Sir Thomas escaped down the corridor, then she folded her arms across her middle as though the act would help protect her from the sting that was sure to come from Lord Heathfield’s words.

  “What is the matter with you?” she demanded with more bravado than she felt.

  “Me?” His voice raised an octave in surprise. “What is the matter with me?” In just two strides he closed the gap between them, towering over her like a great, enraged bear. A very handsome bear, blast him!

  Never had the portrait gallery seemed so small. Yet with Lord Heathfield standing so close, Emma could hardly breathe. Instead of speaking, she simply nodded her head.

  Heathfield snorted. “I have been nothing except a pawn in some game you are playing, Emma. A game in which only you know the rules, and I am tired of it.”

  A game? She wasn’t playing any games. She was trying her hardest to be an honorable lady, all the while clutching the pieces of her broken heart to her chest. “Are you in your cups?” He had consumed a rather large amount of wine over dinner, after all. At least it seemed that way each time she chanced a glance at him out of the corner of her eye.

  “No,” he clipped out as his face turned an unhappy red, almost as though his head might burst into flames. Emma took a slight step backward, just in case. “I am quite clear-headed. Hearing you ask that featherbrained dolt to kiss you sobered me well enough.”

  Her heart sank. She had hoped he hadn’t overheard that part. Her mortification was now complete. “Well, I don’t see how that is any of your concern, my lord.”

  “Don’t you?” He closed the small distance between them and tipped her chin up so she had to look him in the eyes, just as he had done earlier that night. “I hope you don’t think I go around kissing every young lady I come across, Emma.”

  “I suppose that should be your fiancée’s concern, not mine,” she muttered sourly.

  “Fiancée?” Lord Heathfield’s brow furrowed as though he’d been presented with a difficult problem to solve.

  Drat it all! She hadn’t meant to let that slip. Emma shook herself from the viscount’s grasp. “I mean, how you normally behave doesn’t matter to me in the least.” Or it shouldn’t, not that she could say as much.

  “It doesn’t?” he asked, with a slight twinkle to his light eyes as his hand slid around her waist, securing her, once again, against his large frame. “I somehow doubt that.”

  Did he? Well that was rather arrogant of him, wasn’t it? Emma spread her fingertips across his chest to distance herself as much as possible from Heathfield, though touching him was probably a mistake. Why did he have to feel so strong beneath her fingers, almost like stone and so very, very male? Why did his mere presence still make her belly flutter and tingles race across her skin? And why was she doomed to love him the rest of her days when she could never have him? Emma mentally shook herself. Had he said something? Asked her a question, perhaps? He was looking at her as though he expected an answer. “I beg your pardon?” she choked out.

  “You were looking for my attention when you summoned me here, were you not?”

  Good heavens! He’d figured that out? And here Emma had thought her mortification had reached its highest possible level. If only the ground would open up and swallow her whole. As it was, she thought she might faint. “I-I,” she stuttered for lack of anything intelligent to say.

  Lord Heathfield caressed Emma’s cheek with his finger, strangely soothing her. “Without a doubt, you have my undivided attention now, my dear.” A slow smile spread across his face. “And now that I’m before you, what do you intend to do?”

  Cry her eyes out until she had no more tears left. That was a good start anyway. Emma tried to extricate herself from his hold, but he tightened his grip on her waist. “Nothing,” she whispered. “It was a mistake to summon you, my lord. I am very sorry for my ruse.”

  “I’m not,” he said, his voice strong and unwavering. “I only wish you’d done so sooner.”

  “That is a horrible thing to say. Please let me go.”

  But he slowly shook his head in response to her request. “So you can chase after that inept Mason again? Or perhaps throw yourself in Lockwell’s path instead?” His light eyes lost their twinkle and he seemed able to stare right into her soul. “I’d really rather not have to call out my own friend, Emma. So please don’t force me to do so.”

  Heavens! He had threatened the magistrate with a dawn appointment, hadn’t he? What if Lord Heathfield had been wounded or worse? “Would you really have dueled with Sir Thomas?”

  “Would you really have let him kiss you?” Heathfield countered.

  That had been the plan, hadn’t it? Emma shrugged instead of answering him.

  “Tell me why were you so dead-set on kissing that featherbrained dolt?”

  Blast him! A trickle of tears threatened behind her lashes and Emma tried to blink them away.

  “Emma,” he said softly and smoothed his hand up her back. “Tell me the truth. All of it. And I’ll reward you with a truth of my own.”

  “The truth?” she echoed, not even recognizing the croaking sound of her own voice.

  Heathfield nodded. “There is no Balthasar Blommen, is there?”

  He knew that too? Emma’s eyes dropped to his expertly tied cravat as it was much easier than looking him in the eyes. Heavens, she was the worst liar ever born. She really should have had more practice prevaricating before now.

  “Tell me all of it, love,” he continued. “There is no Blommen, is there?”

  “Well, there might be.”

  “Emma.”

  She shook her head. “But if there is, I don’t know him,” she whispered. “I’m certainly not betrothed to him.”

  “I didn’t think so.” He sighed. “What I don’t understand in all of this mess is why you were tempting Mason to kiss you.”

  Emma raised her gaze to meet his. He knew everything else, after all. “I didn’t want to remember your kiss. I thought…” She let her voice trail off rather than finish her sentence.

  “Ah.” Heathfield nodded as though all of his answers had been answered. “Emma, I think you have been under the misunderstanding that I have a fiancée.”

  Emma’s mouth fell open. Was he serious? The first bit of hope she had experienced all evening bloomed in her heart. “Misunderstanding?”

  He had said he had a fiancée, hadn’t he? She couldn’t have possibly misheard that. The word had echoed in her mind like the toll of an ominous bell ever since she heard him utter it.

  ~ 8 ~

  Heath couldn’t help but grin at Emma. She was so adorable, her brow all furrowed as she tried to reason out the situation in her mind. “But you said…”

  “What did I say?”

  She shook her pretty head and her auburn curls bounced about her shoulders. “You said you’ve avoided the marriage mart because you were already betrothed. That you had been betrothed since you were a child
.”

  When she put it like that, the situation did sound bleak. Poor girl. Heath squeezed her hand and dropped a kiss to her brow. “Sunshine, I did say that, and it was true—up until Lady Marianne eloped across the border during the last season.”

  Emma blinked at him as though she didn’t quite believe his words.

  Heath glanced around at the portraits of her ancestors. They definitely needed to find a more suitable location for this conversation. Preferably a place that didn’t have her dour, long-deceased relations staring at him. It had been years since he’d spent any time at Danby Castle, however Heath did remember one place they would be assured absolute privacy. “Come with me,” he said, towing her slightly towards the exit.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Someplace no one will find us.” He winked at her. “Well, until we’re ready to be found.” Then he led her back down the corridor and around the maze that made up Danby Castle. Once they reached the library, he opened the door slowly, listening for anyone inside before they entered.

  Emma giggled. “Izzy lives in the library, my lord. She will definitely find us in here if we’re hiding. She won’t even mean to look for us.”

  Heath tugged her closer to his side and gazed down at her, all sweetness and innocence. “Did you never wonder, my dear, why you, Isabel, and Philip were never able to find Drew and me when we played hide-and-go-seek?”

  “You were in the library?” She frowned as though that made no sense in the world. “I suppose I would never think to find Drew in the library, but certainly Izzy—”

  “Shh.” He held a finger up to his lips. Then he stepped over the threshold and tugged her along with him. “Your sister should still be entertaining the other guests, shouldn’t she?”

  Emma shrugged. “Unless she escaped.”

  “Well, then let’s hope Lady Norland keeps Isabel in her sights then.” Heath nodded towards a lit taper atop the large mahogany table in the middle of the room. “Fetch that candle. We’re going to need it.” Then he turned his attention to the fireplace at the far end of the library.