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“Don’t forget the part where I said he’s trying to do to us what the… solicitor did to him.”
“Oh, we won’t forget that,” Emmie said, trying to keep her jaw from clenching. Thank goodness she and Will had been honest with the little ones from the beginning. Thank goodness they’d arranged for an exchange of beneficiary services, and doubly thank goodness for that agreement.
“I don’t want him to hang, though,” Rose said, putting her hands around her neck. “I just want him to go away.”
Clearing his throat, Will abruptly turned down the hallway. “Perhaps we should slip in a dance lesson.”
“Beg pardon?” Evidently Emmie had just lost the plot again.
“I could dance,” Rosie agreed, and turned to follow him.
They made their way to the east ballroom, and Will walked over to wind the music box before he opened it. “We don’t want anyone to realize we’re plotting,” he said as the waltz tinkled into the air, “and this should keep anyone from overhearing.”
He held his hand out to Emmie, lifting an eyebrow at George until the boy took his sister’s hand. Once the siblings had begun rocketing about the room, he put a hand on Emmeline’s hip and swung her into the dance.
“If we see him arrested, he will hang,” she whispered. “And aside from that, he’s already threatened to wag his tongue about our plans to anyone who’ll listen.”
“The trick would seem to be to get him to run, and to not make it profitable for him to return or to gossip.” Will bent his head close to hers.
His nearness aroused her. Just his presence had been enough to distract her lately, but it was more than that. He was her dear friend Will Pershing again, but he was also a man grown, an honorable, witty, scheming, and supremely desirable man. She’d wasted eight years figuring that out.
She swallowed, trying to turn her thoughts back to the very serious problem at their feet. “All we need is a corrupt solicitor whose services we can purchase to frighten the devil out of him, and a handful of determined but inept Runners to catch him and then lose track of him.”
His steps faltered before he caught up to the rhythm again. “By God, Emmie, have I mentioned lately that you are a brilliant, beautiful woman?” he murmured, and kissed her on the cheek. “Give me two days, and I think I may be able to keep Winnover for you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Will closed his pocket watch and put it away. Half three, which would put the children a good way through their music lesson. After that it would be reading for George and should have been fencing for Rose—an appointment he’d informed her that he would be missing.
The little girl had been very understanding, considering that he’d promised to make up the lesson first thing in the morning, before they went riding. It helped that he’d implied this was in regard to James, but he wasn’t going to say anything more until he had actual results.
The idea of leaving any of them in the house with James still there made his blood boil, but he couldn’t be in two places at once. Asking Billet and Roger the coachman inside would hopefully discourage Fletcher from doing anything more than snatching some jewelry, but Winnover could not be maintained as an armed camp. Hence his destination now.
Kneeing Topper, he sent the bay gelding down the left-hand fork in the road and over a small stone bridge. The village of Brockworth was perhaps twice the size of Birdlip, right in the pretty center of the Cotswolds, and he had two reasons for being there. Emmeline knew about one of them, and he felt damned guilty over not telling her the other.
Having the children at Winnover, having this scheme together, had changed more than their daily routines. Previously their lives had barely intersected. Now they chatted, looked, and touched more frequently every day than they’d likely done over the past five years together. Hell, he’d knocked on Emmeline’s bedchamber door last night for a good-night kiss, and for God’s sake, he’d felt it. She wanted him. Him. A lack of patience had hurt them before, though, and this time he meant to do it right. This time, the next step had to be hers. And he hoped to the devil she would take it.
Crossing through the center of Brockworth, he turned up a side street and stopped in front of a small building that housed a tobacco shop on one end and a solicitor’s office on the other. For a moment he almost sent Topper on his way again, back through the village and back to Birdlip.
Instead, he blew out his breath and swung to the ground, looping the reins around the cast-iron hitching post and walking up to the solicitor’s door. It had a little bell set at the top, which rang tinnily as he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
“I’ll be with you in a moment,” a male voice called from one of the two back rooms separate from the small desk and chairs in the narrow front of the office. “Mrs. Garvey?”
“No,” Will said, noting the faint smell of tobacco that evidently crossed the barrier between the two shops.
A chair scratched against the floor, and a stocky man appeared in the doorway of the right-hand office. “Pershing? Will Pershing?”
“Hello, Michael,” Will said, stepping forward to take the solicitor’s outstretched hand.
“By God, Will Pershing.” Michael Fenmore shook hands for a moment longer than called for by custom, before he gestured at one of the two chairs in the foyer. “Sit, sit. What brings you to Brockworth?”
“How are you and Caroline?” Will responded. “It’s been what, two years since we last spoke?”
“Three, I think. We’re fine. Little Patrick is five now. You and Emmeline?”
“We’re well, thank you,” he said, trying to shake off his impatience with the idle chatter. Small talk was his forte, for God’s sake. A little bit of nonsense about the weather or the Derby to create a solid foundation for a more serious discussion. This time, though, nerves jangled along his arms and up his spine, and he had a ridiculous desire to flee the premises. “I should ask you and Caroline to join us in London more often. It’s been too long since Oxford, and you were a good friend.”
“Likewise. But not all of us crave rubbing elbows with the rich and influential.” Michael gave a short grin. “My last efforts were for water rights for a local farmer, and he paid me in pigs.”