Page 103 of The Forbidden Lord

A sick wave of fear gripped Jordan. Good God, if he’d gone to Nesfield first … no wonder she’d told Jordan to trust her. He might have risked her very life. Of course, if she’d confided all this to him in the first place …

But she hadn’t trusted him enough for that, not knowing how he would react. Could he blame her? It was her life at stake, after all. Still, he fervently wished she could have trusted him with her life.

“What do we do now?” Lady Dundee said. “If Randolph has made the kind of threats I suppose, they aren’t idle threats.”

“No, they wouldn’t be.” Jordan thought a moment. A sudden idea struck him, so simple that he wondered he hadn’t thought of it before. “Wait! I have the perfect solution to this.” In a few words, he described his plan.

Lady Dundee regarded him with obvious admiration. “I believe thatwouldwork!”

A mere boy of a footman suddenly burst into the room, followed by one of Jordan’s servants who was remonstrating with him.

The footman spotted Lady Dundee and hurried to her side. “Milady, you must return to the town house at once! Lady Emma has come back! She’s brought an old man with her, and there’s all sorts of strange doings and …” Suddenly conscious of four pairs of eyes on him, he trailed off. “A-Anyway, Mr. Carter thought you and Lord Nesfield should be sent for.”

“I’ll come at once,” she told the footman, then pivoted to face Jordan. “What do you make of this?”

He shook his head. “I suppose Emily impressed upon her father the gravity of the situation, and he’s come to lend a hand. Though I don’t know what either of them can do. Our plan seems the best solution.”

She started toward the door, then paused. “You’re coming, aren’t you, Blackmore?”

“Of course. I’ll be there shortly.”

When Lady Dundee was gone, Jordan leaned on the desk for support, suddenly weak in the knees.

“Are you all right?” Ian asked.

Jordan shook his head vigorously. “What if I burst in there, and she takes that to mean I’ve gone against her wishes? Or God forbid, what if I make matters worse?”

“You’re abiding by the spirit of her wishes, if not the letter. You promised her not to question Nesfield about her masquerade, and you’re holding to that. And I don’t see how you could make it any worse than it already is.”

“Yes, but she might not see it that way, and if she doesn’t—” He broke off, the very thought evoking an unfamiliar tightness in his chest. “I could lose her.”

Ian looked bemused and pitying, all at the same time. “So the Earl of Blackmore is finally in love,” he said softly.

Jordan started to utter his usual denial, then realized he couldn’t. He literally could not speak the words. “Love? Is that what they call this detestable physical state? The cold sweats, the pounding heart, the absolutely choking fear that I might have to live without her?”

“So I’ve been told.”

He stared at his friend, then groaned. “Then it’s a damned nuisance, and I was right to be against it all this time. Good God, I don’t think I could go through this more than once in a lifetime.”

Ian smiled. “With any luck, you won’t have to.”

Chapter Twenty

Be plain in dress, and sober in your diet,

In short, my deary, kiss me, and be quiet.

— LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU,A SUMMARY OF LORD LYTTELTON’S ADVICE

Emily sat down near the fireplace in the Nesfield drawing room, then jumped up again and paced in front of it, twisting her shawl into a labyrinthine knot.

“Emily, dear, calm down,” her father said. “It’ll all be over soon.”

“I know.” And then what? Marriage to Jordan? When he didn’t love her? For goodness sake, she didn’t even know how he’d react to the news about her mother’s death. He might not even want to associate with her family after this.

Where was he, anyway? Had she and Papa actually reached London before him? She could hardly believe that. “Papa, I’m going to speak to Carter.”

“The butler? Why?”