Page 52 of The Forbidden Lord (Lord Trilogy #2)

Chapter Nineteen

We are wrong to fear superiority of mind and soul; this superiority is very moral, for understanding everything makes a person tolerant and the capacity to feel deeply inspires great goodness.

— MADAME DE STA?L, CORINNE

Jordan had to make a decision. After another two torturous days of travel, they were nearing London, and he still didn’t know what to do.

It would have been so much easier if he’d been able to find Hargraves before he left Willow Crossing. The man might have told him something that explained Emily’s desperation. But a cursory search of the inns had revealed that the only man who’d recently come from London had left at dawn.

Jordan had faintly hoped to meet up with his servant on the road, but that hadn’t happened. Now he had to decide. Should he go to the Nesfield town house at once and confront the snake in his hole? Or should he wait until he heard what Hargraves had to say?

The carriage hit a rut, one of endless thousands plaguing it on the road home.

He remembered the road north as having been smooth, without a single jolt to mar it.

Amazing how lust could lend a rosy hue to one’s surroundings.

Except for the incident at the Warthog, their trip had been as pleasant as a day’s sail when the wind is exactly right and the waves are playful.

He groaned. Good God, he was waxing poetic again.

That was what Emily’s talk of love had done to him.

He felt it again, the heart-stopping blow to his gut.

Love. She loved him. But she wouldn’t marry him if he questioned Nesfield.

After a day and a half of listening to her theories about what comprised a good marriage, he knew she meant it.

Deuce take her and her ultimatums! He could either open the door of Nesfield’s nasty closet to see what secrets about Emily the bastard had stored up.

Or he could keep silent and let her deal with Nesfield alone.

For God’s sake, she was no match for the marquess.

She had no power, no wealth, no title … nothing with which to threaten him.

She ought to be grateful that Jordan was willing to step in on her behalf.

Yet she wasn’t. In her twisted perspective, his interference merely reflected a lack of caring.

The truth was, he cared far too much, so much that the thought of Nesfield knowing dark things about her chilled his blood. They couldn’t be anything substantial. His darling Emily had never done anything truly wicked. He couldn’t believe it.

But she’d been willing to ruin herself and behave in a way she abhorred merely to keep Nesfield silent.

For God’s sake, what could prompt such behavior but something awful?

He had a right to know what lay in her past. If he was going to give her his name, he ought to know what he was getting himself into.

You refuse to trust my judgment, do you? Well, if you can’t do something as simple as that, then I don’t see how we can marry.

Devil take her! Devil take her bizarre logic and her pleas and her refusal to see that he had only her welfare at heart!

What gives you the right to decide what’s best for me when you don’t know the entire story?

He groaned. She wouldn’t tell him the entire story! How could she expect him to simply stand by and watch Nesfield ruin her life?

Well, he would find out the truth from Nesfield and she would marry him, no matter what she thought. She’d never make good on that ultimatum. He was the Earl of Blackmore, for God’s sake! Her father would be insane to let her refuse such an advantageous proposal!

But what if he did? What if the rector was as principled as his daughter claimed? What if he stood by her and refused to countenance Jordan’s suit?

Jordan snorted. Then let her be ruined. Let her live her life in shame. It wasn’t his fault if she were such a fool. He’d done more than anyone could expect. He didn’t need a wife. He hadn’t wanted one, and he’d be better off without one.

He half-believed that. For about a mile.

Then he drove his fist into the cushioned seat with a curse.

The truth was, he couldn’t bear the thought of not marrying her, of never having her in his life again.

It made him almost physically ill. Call it fate, but from the moment she’d stepped into the wrong carriage in Derbyshire, she’d been linked to him forever.

The thought that he might lose her over this ate at him like an ulcer.

Damn her! This was what happened when a man let frivolous emotions control his destiny instead of reason.

She thought to wrap him about her finger by speaking a few words of affection to him.

She thought to use the enticing appeal of love to make him want her so badly he would do anything for her. Father had made that mistake—

He sat up straight. That wasn’t true. Father had never heard words of love from Mother. She’d treated her husband with nothing but contempt. She’d ignored the incredibly valuable gift he was offering, taking it for granted and never offering it herself.

It’s not love that destroys. It’s the lack of it.

A sudden chilling realization gripped him. All this time he’d considered himself a wiser version of his father, a man who’d learned from his father’s example that emotions were dangerous. But it wasn’t Father he resembled. It was Mother.

No matter what he’d told himself, he’d been as starved for love as Emily had claimed. He’d reveled in her admissions that she loved him. He’d soaked up the affection like a greedy sponge. Like his mother, he’d wanted it all, without giving it back. All the fun, and none of the responsibility.

Yes, he’d offered Emily marriage, but that was a trifling thing.

The way he’d envisioned it, she would give him her body and her heart and yes, her love, and he would give her …

what? His name? Money? She didn’t want either one.

Children? He didn’t even know if she liked children.

His companionship? A woman like her would never lack for companionship.

What she wanted, amazing as it seemed, was a real marriage.

To him. But giving her that was a great deal harder than giving her his name or his companionship.

He knew what a real marriage was like—his father and stepmother had shared one.

Real marriage was difficult. It meant an exchange, an equal union.

It meant sometimes compromising one’s wishes for the other person.

It meant letting a person know you so intimately that he—or she—could destroy you if she chose. Trust. It meant trust.

If you can’t do something as simple as that …

“Milord?” came Watkins’s voice wafting down from the perch. “You said you’d tell me where to go once we reached the city.”

Jordan hesitated only a moment. Then he took the first leap of faith he’d ever taken in his life. “Home, Watkins,” he called out. “Take me home.”

Clutching Blackmore’s note in her hand, Ophelia called for her carriage, then paced impatiently while it was fetched.

The summons to Blackmore Hall didn’t surprise her in the least. She’d guessed almost from the beginning that Emily was with him.

Of course, she’d told Randolph that the girl had taken off for home and would return in a few days.

It was the only thing she could think of to prevent him from taking drastic action.

She’d even prayed it wasn’t a bald-faced lie.

But in her heart, she’d known that the girl had gone to Blackmore. And he, damn his hide, had kept her.

Where, she didn’t know. She’d been to Blackmore’s house countless times in the past three days. His servants had protested that he’d left the city, and they’d not said where he’d gone. But wherever he was, Blackmore had Emily. Of that, Ophelia was certain.

Now the blackguard had returned, destroying Ophelia’s faint hope that he’d taken Emily to Gretna Green.

She should have known better. Why marry the girl when he thought he could have her without benefit of clergy?

After all, since he knew her true identity, he held all the cards.

He knew only too well that neither Ophelia nor Randolph was in any position to publicly protest his actions.

That didn’t mean, however, that Ophelia intended to let him get away with it. Oh, no. She’d make him marry the girl if she had to hold a pistol on him to do it.

The carriage arrived, and she climbed in, her voice shrill with impatience as she gave the order to drive on.

As it clattered off, she opened the card with its terse message and read it again.

The only thing she didn’t understand was Blackmore’s insistence that she come alone and not tell Randolph where she was going.

That was curious. And for heaven’s sakes, where had Blackmore been for the past three days?

By the time her carriage reached Blackmore Hall, Ophelia was in high dudgeon. She ignored the footman who handed her out of the carriage and brushed right past the servant who held the massive oak door open for her. “Where is the scoundrel?” she demanded as the man took her cloak.

He quaked beneath the look she gave him, but he didn’t need to direct her, for she heard voices coming through an open door upstairs. Recognizing one of them as Blackmore’s, she hurried up the stairs toward them.

Just as she reached the door, she heard him say, “Where the devil is Hargraves? He should have been here before me. I fully expected him to be waiting here—”

When she burst through the entranceway, effectively cutting him off, she was startled by the sight that greeted her. Blackmore was there, pacing before the fireplace in what appeared to be his study. He looked most unkempt and certainly weary.

But St. Clair was present as well, and Emily was nowhere in sight.

Ignoring St. Clair’s frigid gaze, she fixed all her attention on Blackmore. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”