Running from Scandal by Amanda McCabe

Author:Amanda McCabe
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarlequinUKLtd
Published: 2013-01-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

‘Philip, put me down!’ Emma cried, hating the thread of desperation in her voice. ‘This instant.’

‘It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, though, Emma,’ Philip protested. ‘Haven’t you missed me just a bit? I...’ Then he looked beyond her and saw David standing in the doorway. His teasing grin slowly faded and he lowered her to the ground. ‘I didn’t realise you had company. I thought that horse there was yours.’

Emma staggered back, trying to pretend to at least a modicum of dignity. She really just wanted to scream, or run away, or rewind the clock to take her back an hour before this all happened. Or really, if she had such a magic cloak, she should turn it back to before she made the supreme mistake of marrying Henry Carrington.

But all of those things were quite impossible. She straightened her shoulders and said, ‘Philip, this is my neighbour, Sir David Marton. Sir David, may I present my late husband’s cousin, Mr Philip Carrington?’

‘A neighbour, eh?’ Philip said as he offered David a bow. ‘You have settled back here quickly, Cousin.’

‘Is that not what home is for, Mr Carrington?’ David said quietly. ‘A place to belong, no matter how long we have been gone from it?’

‘I’m sure my late cousin would want his wife to be with family, no matter what,’ Philip said.

‘And yet his own family has taken so long to call on her?’

Emma felt as if a conversation in some foreign language was going on over her head as Philip glared at David. She didn’t like that feeling at all. And she couldn’t like the solemn, watchful way David studied Philip. It made her feel like she had done something horribly wrong, when for once she had not.

‘Mr Carrington has quite taken me by surprise today,’ she said. ‘I thought he was travelling on the Continent.’

‘You were the one who left in such a hurry,’ Philip said, a thread of querulous irritation darkening his sunny demeanour.

‘Then I will leave you to be reacquainted,’ David said. ‘Thank you for the tea, Mrs Carrington. I am sure either my uncle or I will contact you regarding the books very soon.’

He gave her another bow and hurried down her garden path toward the gate where his horse was tethered. He moved with such swift, elegant dignity, so quick to leave her.

As if their dance, their kiss, had never happened.

Emma longed to run after him to catch his arm and tell him everything. To beg him to believe her when she said she was not expecting Philip. But she knew she couldn’t do that. It would surely only make him think worse of her and he wouldn’t believe her anyway. Why should he? She surely looked the veriest wanton now, just like his wife.

With David, she always felt like one baby step forwards—or one great kiss forwards—pushed her ten steps back. She wanted so much more from him, even though she knew that was foolish indeed.

‘Good day, Sir David,’ she called as his horse turned on to the drive that led away from Barton land.

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