He glowered up at Nicky. "Who the hell let you in?" He drew back fearfully in his chair. "Are you a native? Penfeld! Check the brush. It's crawling with savages, you know. I can scent them."
Penfeld dutifully parted the fronds of a palm plant. His face emerged like a broad moon on the other
side. He gave Nicky a conspiratorial wink. "No savages, sir. They're all locked in the water closet, just
as I promised."
With Justin's hand stroking her so possessively, it was no challenge for Emily to summon an embarrassed blush. "Perhaps you're right, Mr. Saleri. Perhaps this isn't a good time." She rose. "If you'll keep an eye on His Grace, Penfeld, I believe I shall accompany Mr. Saleri for a walk in the garden."
"That's my girl." Justin grinned. "Run along now and play like a good child." Emily choked back a yelp
as he gave her bottom a fond pat, his hand lingering an instant too long on its rounded curve.
As she escorted their guest from the room, her cheeks burning from more than the stifling heat, Justin's querulous voice rose to a shout. "I don't want a frigging cup of tea, Penfeld. I want my soldiers. Fetch them for me posthaste, or it's off with your heads for the bloody lot of you!"
* * *
Emily chose a muslin shawl from the coat rack and accompanied Nicholas Saleri into the garden. After the stifling gloom of the smoking room, the cool, sunlit air sparkled with iridescence. A gentle breeze
blew from the south and the plain little wrens hopped and twittered across the softening earth in a poignant reminder that winter would not last forever.
They strolled in companionable silence for several moments before Nicky sighed heavily. "He's much worse than I feared. How do you bear it?"
She lifted her shoulders in a delicate shrug. "On his good days he flirts with amnesia. On his bad days, insanity itself. I fear the shock of seeing you yesterday put a terrible strain on his mind."
His voice oozed polite sympathy. "I'd heard rumors about his more bizarre incidents, but I didn't suspect the worst of it. Did he really threaten to eat one of your suitors?"
Emily bit her lip to keep from laughing. "I'm afraid so. But that wasn't nearly as devastating as the night he tried to end his life by throwing himself out of our opera box."
Saleri shook his head. "Tragic. Simply tragic. He was such a talented young man. It breaks my heart to see so much promise wasted. It's astounding what guilt can do to a mind of such fragile, artistic bent."
Emily sank down on a rustic garden bench, hugging her shawl about her in a protective gesture. "Perhaps we shouldn't speak of him so, Mr. Saleri. He did take me in and give me a home. I feel disloyal."
"You, disloyal?" He folded himself beside her, propped his walking stick against the bench, and cupped her hands in one of his own. "Surely you must be the most forgiving of creatures."
He tilted back his hat with one finger. Emily forced herself to meet his dark, hypnotic gaze. "Forgiving? How could I not forgive him? He explained everything to me in one of his brief moments of clarity."
Frowning as if deep in thought, Nicholas freed her hands and withdrew his cigarette case from his
pocket. "I'm afraid my encounter with your guardian has shaken me deeply. May I?"
She inclined her head demurely. "By all means."
He lit the cigarette, his hands steady, and took a deep draw. His lips puckered to blow out a flawless smoke ring. "I suppose Justin told you that ridiculous story about shooting your father to spare him a gruesome death at the hands of the natives."
"Ridiculous?" Emily echoed, trying to ignore the icy pounding of her heart.
"A charming fiction, I assure you, although perhaps he's grown to believe it himself over the years. I always told him he should have been a novelist instead of a pianist." He slanted her a look as if to assure himself of her full attention. "Justin's ambitions unbalanced him long before he shot your father. David suspected him of cheating us both and, sadly enough, chose to confront him while I was visiting with the natives."
"The Maori," she said softly. "I know of them. I spent some time with my guardian on the North Island."
"A kind and gentle people, as I'm sure you discovered. Hardly the devils with long forked tails of Justin's absurd tale." Trini's beaming face floated in Emily's vision. Saleri tapped away a cylinder of ash before continuing. "I heard Justin and your father quarreling when I approached from the bush that night. From what I could gather, David had caught Justin altering our land grant, erasing our names in favor of his own, all the better to cover the mysterious disappearance he'd planned for us." Emily remembered the ornate sheet of paper she'd found in Justin's cubbyhole. The sheet of paper she'd never bothered to examine.
"David was threatening to expose him to the governor general. Justin panicked and shot him. I had no choice but to flee for my own life. "
"How terrible for you!"
"It was. After the murder Justin fled and I sought shelter with the Maori until I could be sure he wouldn't return. Then and only then did I dare to claim the gold mine. But I spent years looking over my shoulder, knowing Justin still had in his possession that altered land grant and a motive for murder. You can imagine my shock to discover he was once again living in London."
"And what brought you to London again after all these years, Mr. Saleri?" she asked, fearful she was treading on dangerous ground.
"You."
His answer so closely mirrored Justin's that it shook her to the core. "Me?" she whispered.
"I've been holding David's share of the gold mine in trust for you all these years. I would have returned much sooner, but I feared my very presence might put you in jeopardy. I had no way of knowing you were already living with the man who had gone unpunished for your father's murder."
Emily wrung her hands. "Perhaps the price he has paid for his treachery is worse than imprisonment."
"Perhaps," he said, skepticism thick in his voice. He dropped the cigarette and ground it into the sparse grass. His gaze floated over her like silken fingers. "He could still be dangerous, you know. I hate to
think of a sweet, fragile creature like yourself living under his influence."
Emily stood abruptly, as if his bold look had shied her. "Your concern touches me."
He stood, his big, masculine shadow dwarfing her. "I've arranged for my solicitor to call on you to
discuss your inheritance. I cannot help but feel somewhat responsible for your present situation.
Perhaps if I had not waited so long to return …" He cupped her chin in his hands.
His smooth thumb grazed her lower lip. "May I call on you again as well, Miss Scarborough?"
She gazed up at him, softening her lips with the hint of a provocative pout. "I should be wounded if you did not, Mr. Saleri."
He snatched up her hand and pressed it to his lips. "I would rather destroy myself than wound you."
With that passionate declaration he gathered his walking stick and started toward the drive, pausing only once to look back and doff his hat to her in gallant farewell.