Playing the Rake's Game Read online

  She breathed in the scent of the linens. They smelled like him, all vanilla and sandalwood. She looked around the room, noting the little changes he’d made with the furniture, seeing the personal effects he’d set out. It was tempting to get out of bed and look at those items up close. Emma talked herself out of it. If she was going to earn back his trust, the last thing she needed to be caught doing was going through his belongings.

  Waiting was boring. Snooping was starting to look more appealing. She had to do something. Emma opted for the book on his bedside table. She hoped for poetry, or a novel. What she got was an agricultural treatise on the Caribbean, interesting as far as research went. In other circumstances she might have enjoyed it. But in terms of keeping a girl awake, Emma had her doubts about its effectiveness. She made it through two pages before she began to yawn...

  * * *

  The sound of booted feet woke her with a jolt. She experienced a moment of panic, a sense of being invaded before she realised where she was and who was coming through the door. Ren! He was home. A surge of elation replaced the panic. She rose up on her elbows. ‘Hello, stranger,’ she said in her best sultry tones.

  Ren grinned. ‘You make coming home worthwhile. I could get used to a sight like that. I was starting to think I’d never make it back.’ He came over to the bed and sat down. He did look exhausted. She couldn’t recall ever having seen him look so entirely unkempt even after a day of riding the estate. His clothes were wrinkled, his shirt cuffs looked dingy where they peeped out from his jacket sleeve.

  He leaned forward to pull his boots off. ‘Those were the longest five miles ever. I misjudged how much time I’d need and I left it too late to get home before the sun set. I misjudged the darkness, too, that’s pitch black out there. No lamplights, no nothing.’

  Emma smiled and scooted over to him. ‘I’m just glad you’re home. You are right, though, the darkness can be dangerous. People get lost, wander into the interior, stumble on to a snake, and it’s too late by the time we find them.’ She meant to put her arms about his neck, to hold him close, let him feel the press of her breasts and remind him of what they could share but she recoiled at the last moment. ‘Eww, you stink! Ren Dryden, you’re drunk!’

  Not even on the good stuff either. His clothes reeked of cheap ale and brandy—well, maybe the brandy was higher quality, it was hard to tell. No wonder he’d misjudged the time, no wonder he looked so dishevelled. Emma threw back the covers and slid out of bed. ‘I’m disgusted with you! You left here and went straight to Bridgetown for a drinking binge without even telling me how long you would be gone. I’ve been here, worrying while you’ve been out doing who knows what with who knows whom.’

  But she did know with whom—with the disreputable Kitt Sherard. And she probably did know what, too. Had he really left her bed and found another so quickly? Her heart sank, her visions of a happy reunion fading. Could she blame him? He’d left Sugarland believing she’d used him, believing there was nothing between them that required any loyalty.

  She started towards the door, only to feel Ren’s hand close over her arm. For a drunk man, he moved fast and in a straight line. ‘Em, wait. It’s not like that. Yes, I’ve been with Kitt. He spilled an ale, it got all over me, and, yes, things got a little wild, but I wasn’t on a binge. I was at a meeting Kitt set up.’ He forced her to turn and look at him and those beautiful blue eyes, which were clear. It would be easier to stay angry if he had been drunk.

  ‘Em, listen to me. I found a way to increase our revenue. I have a contract with the British Navy to sell them rum, casks and casks of it.’

  She stared, her brow knitting as she tried to process what he had said. Then the implications hit her and she felt her mouth drop. ‘We won’t have to rely solely on sugar any more. Ren, do you know what this means?’ She hardly noticed his smelly clothes as her mind raced with the possibilities. ‘We could branch out, make a special label for a finer-quality rum.’

  Ren laughed. ‘You might not like Sherard, but you sound an awful lot like him. That was his suggestion, too.’

  There was hope after all. She wasn’t fighting a losing battle. Ren had come back and he’d brought an answer with him. She threw her arms about his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. But Ren did not respond. Instead, he put his hands on her hips and set her away from him.

  ‘Emma, this is an answer to one of our problems, not all of our problems. Even if we’re successful with the rum, the cartel will not be happy. Gridley has suggested quite openly they will retaliate if we don’t comply.’

  Emma shook her head. ‘Tonight I don’t care. Tonight I’m just glad you’re home. Ren, I’m so sorry.’ She reached for him again and again he sidestepped her advances.

  Ren looked at her, his eyes serious. ‘Are you? Are you excited about the rum, or about me? I need you to be sure. No man wants to be appreciated solely for his fifty-one per cent.’

  Emma answered his stare with an even gaze of her own. ‘I came to this room to wait for you. You know it’s true because I had no knowledge of your deal with Kitt, or if you would be back tonight. I don’t know what we can be to each other, or even what we want to be to each other. You’re right. That remains to be sorted out. But I do know what I want from you has nothing to do with your fifty-one per cent and a hundred per cent to do with the man.’ Emma took his hand. ‘I want you naked in bed, Ren Dryden. But before your ego gets too inflated, it’s because you’d stink up the sheets otherwise.’

  Ren swept her a bow. ‘Your wish is granted. Naked I will be. It’s no trouble since I sleep naked anyway.’ He winked.

  ‘Yes,’ Emma said drily, climbing up on the bed to watch. ‘I seem to recall it was one of the first things I learned about you. You were so eager to impart that piece of information at the time.’

  Ren pulled off his coat and tossed it to a corner. ‘I will bathe if you want me to,’ he offered, his fingers working the buttons of his shirt.

  Emma shook her head. ‘Here’s a little something you should know about me. I’m impatient and I’ve waited too long for you already.’ To prove it, she pulled her nightgown up over her head and tossed it into the corner with his coat.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dryden was back. Gridley’s little spy had reported first thing in the morning. He wasn’t surprised, but he’d hoped to get a lucky break. The mail packet was due in soon and it would be perfect timing for Dryden to make his exit.

  Gridley drummed his fingers on his desktop. The fact that Dryden had returned worried him. It meant there’d been a reason to come back even after the nudge he’d given the man. What more could he do to convince Dryden? He’d shown Emma to be a woman of loose morals, a manipulator of men. He’d all but opened the books and put them under Dryden’s nose to round out the impression Emma had deluded him. All the things Dryden had come to believe in had been exposed and found wanting. Yet he’d come back. Did it mean he was going to join the cartel? Or did it mean he’d found a way to revive Sugarland’s flagging profits outside of the cartel? Or worse, there was always an outside chance Dryden had come back for Emma. If he had, it was only a matter of time before Dryden knew Gridley’s dirty little secret. He couldn’t rely on Emma keeping that quiet forever.

  He looked up as a servant announced the arrival of Hugh Devore. Normally, Arthur liked to plan alone and announce his intentions after the fact. Today, he’d felt the need for reinforcements.

  ‘Dryden has certainly thrown a wrench in our plans.’ Devore settled into a chair and crossed a leg over one knee, cutting straight to the heart of the matter. ‘It was one thing when we thought he’d be gone, or that we could rely on Emma helping us along with her own desire to be rid of him. But it seems that has changed. He means to stay and Emma has figured out he can be an ally.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Arthur agreed with Devore’s assessment. ‘The problem is what to do next?
Anything we do, short of ignoring Sugarland’s choices, will commit us irrevocably to a path of division. It will openly be us against them.’ He preferred more covert tactics that relied on assumed friendships, the building of trust and then the ultimate betrayal with him riding to the rescue, no one the wiser as to his part in bringing the crisis about in the first place.

  Devore thought for a moment. ‘We need to reshape the way we’ve looked at our options. We have always built our assumptions around the premise that Sugarland had to be factored into our plans. We’ve tried to buy it, tried to marry into it, tried to partner with it. None of those options have worked. What if it was just gone, no longer a variable to contend with?’

  Interesting and risky. Arthur leaned forward. ‘How would we do it? Eliminate the players or the thing we’re playing for?’ He was a little nervous, too. He’d always engineered the plots, making sure he was in a position to use Sugarland as leverage to force Emma. ‘With Sugarland gone, I would lose a powerful piece of persuasion.’

  ‘Would you?’ Devore queried. ‘She’d be completely exposed without the plantation, her source of income gone, her source of stability gone. She’d be homeless, nothing more than a rabbit flushed from the brush running without cover. Perhaps she’d see what you have to offer differently. Right now, a home doesn’t mean much to her because she has one. Neither does an income, or a lover,’ Devore said pointedly.

  ‘We could have done without the last,’ Arthur growled. It galled him to know Dryden had superseded him in all ways.

  Devore steepled his hands over his stomach. ‘It’s a simple case of supply and demand. Everything is in the end.’

  Arthur gave Devore’s advice a considering nod. ‘We get rid of Dryden, we burn Sugarland. But Emma remains unharmed. I must have that last condition. I promised Albert Merrimore...’

  Devore gave a harsh laugh. ‘Right before you put a pillow over the old man’s face. Don’t get sanctimonious on me, Arthur. You’d make promises to the devil if it advanced your cause. Not that I have a problem with that. I understand you and you understand me. We’re businessmen, cut from the same cloth. We’re both ruthless when it comes to something we want. Still, I want the cartel, you want the girl. I think that can be arranged.’

  ‘When do we do it?’ Arthur was warming to the idea now that he could see the benefits. Really, the plan was almost too good to be true. They would get their cartel, sugar prices would go up, Dryden would conveniently go away, Emma would be his either by coercion or by persuasion.

  ‘I think soon. Crop Over happens at the end of the week. All the workers will head to Bridgetown for the celebrations.’

  ‘It should be a fire,’ Gridley said. He didn’t want Devore calling all the shots, it would give the man an exalted sense of his own power and make him forgetful of who led their exclusive coterie. ‘They’ve already had one fire with that chicken coop. There’s precedence.’

  ‘Precedence for arson.’ Devore gave an evil grin. ‘I don’t believe for a moment that coop burned on its own.’

  Gridley returned the grin. ‘It had help.’ Never mind that the ploy hadn’t worked as effectively as he’d hoped. The plan had been to have a minor catastrophe that would scare off enough of Emma’s work force to subvert her ability to harvest. But Dryden had chosen that day to show up unannounced. Dryden had taken charge. There’d been little Arthur could do to work up panic among the workers by the time he’d arrived, short of making sure everyone saw the obeah doll he’d planted among the ashes. It had cost Emma a half day’s labour, but nothing more. Until now. That fire was going to be useful after all.

  ‘How do we take care of Dryden?’ Devore enquired.

  Burn him along with the house, lose him in the interior, set him aboard a ship sailing for parts unknown. Arthur could devise any number of unfortunate accidents. This would be one area, however, where he wouldn’t mind Devore taking the lead. He’d handled Merrimore, clearing the way to leaving Emma open to the next layer of their attempts. Now it was someone else’s turn. Devore could handle Dryden. Then, if it became convenient to expose Devore to Emma in the future to win her affections, he’d be able to turn on Devore. Ah, yes, things were starting to come together nicely.

  * * *

  The morning was starting well: Emma tucked against him, his body replete with sexual satisfaction. Two out of three wasn’t bad. Any gambling man would take those odds. Unfortunately, Ren wasn’t so much a gambler as he was a perfectionist. He’d prefer three out of three, but he couldn’t get his mind to conform, to accept the here and now without looking forward to the future. How would the here and now affect the later? He was an analyst, too, along with being a perfectionist and both of those qualities were wreaking havoc with his mind at the moment.

  Emma stirred against his shoulder, her dark hair grazing his chest. Ren looked down at his sleeping beauty. What was he going to do with her? She’d stirred his passions from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. But it had all happened so fast. In many ways she was a stranger still. Every revelation proved it. The very idea that Gridley’s insinuations had the power to at least sow doubt reinforced that proof as did her own reticence to be forthcoming with him. And yet, he was drawn to her. He didn’t want to let her go, but to what end?

  His options were few. There was only one choice really. If he meant to keep her, to make her his, he should marry her. If he didn’t marry her, he’d have to walk away. The island wasn’t big enough for both of them. Walking away would mean returning to England. It was the more logical choice. He could open up an office in England to oversee the rum imports. He could build the business from that end and still be able to run the earldom as he should instead of at a distance through solicitors. He could be on hand to take care of his family, to make sure there were no more disasters, like Sarah marrying Benedict.

  Perhaps he’d always known it would come to this. He’d wanted to believe coming here would be a new start, a new life for him. But deep down, perhaps he’d known it couldn’t be permanent. He was the earl, he had responsibilities. If it came to choosing between Emma and his family, there wasn’t really a choice. There couldn’t be.

  No matter that he honestly liked it here. Kitt was right, one got used to the heat. He loved the beaches, the ocean, the lush colours of sky and grass, the informality of life, the ability to work for that life. Did staying here preclude going home ever? That was the one issue he’d refused to address when he’d left home—would he ever return? It wasn’t that he minded not seeing England again, but he did very much mind the idea that he would never see his family again, that his only contact with them would be through letters. He should have been there to negotiate Sarah’s marriage settlement. He should have been there to head DeBreed off in the first place.

  You could take Emma with you, came the niggling thought. Why not become an absentee landlord like so many in the other parishes? Peter is a trustworthy overseer. With him in charge, you could keep an eye on the business from England. Emma could be his countess in the truest sense. If he married her, she’d be a countess wherever they were, but in London it would count. London would require a certain lifestyle. He tried to imagine Emma there, navigating a ball, turning away the envious gentlemen that would flock to her side. He tried to imagine what his family would make of her. And he failed. Not because it was impossible to see her succeed, but because he couldn’t see her being happy.

  Gone would be the Emma who strode about the plantation in breeches. What would she wake up and do each day? He couldn’t see her happily assimilating into a lady’s routine of shopping, teas and charity work. The Emma he knew would be bored within a month. He knew in his gut, London would be nothing more than a cage for her.

  In the light of morning, his choices seemed crystal clear. Keeping Emma meant staying here, making Sugarland his home and protecting Emma from Gridley. Marriage would be the best protection Ren could provide he
r. It would put her beyond Gridley’s reach. Ren could see himself happily piecing together that life. Although there were trade-offs. Certainly, he might return to England occasionally as Merrimore had done, but he’d become an absentee earl in truth. It was possible to pull it off. He had good solicitors, a regular mail service and DeBreed would be there now with some legal power as a brother-in-law to oversee things until Teddy was old enough.

  If he didn’t marry Emma, it meant leaving and soon. It wasn’t fair to her or to him to carry on this affair indefinitely if nothing was to come of it. He selected a deadline in his mind. The end of August. There would be time to deal with Gridley. He couldn’t begin to think of leaving Emma alone with Gridley on the loose. Their rum business would be up and running by then, too; everything under control to a point where Emma could manage it and he would be waiting on the other side to receive the shipments. He might even make it home in time for Sarah’s wedding if he wrote and told them to wait, that he was coming.

  Emma lifted her head, her hair was tousled, her voice sleepy. ‘You’re awake. You should have woken me. We could have got our day started.’

  ‘There’s no hurry.’ The logic of his earlier analysis started to slip. What man left this behind? What sort of man gave up a woman like Emma? He could almost hear Kitt laughing in his head—only a fool, Ren. ‘Where did you want to start your day?’

  She laughed, a low throaty sound, as she swung a leg over his hip. ‘In bed, the same place I finished it. Then, we should ride out and see the still.’

  It occurred to Ren as she straddled him that Emma was a woman who knew what she wanted and he hadn’t worked that into the equation of his thoughts. He’d been concerned about what he wanted. Did she want to marry him? Maybe she’d be happy enough to see him leave in August? This wasn’t going to be a decision he could make on his own. He would have to discuss it with her and her answers would affect the outcome. But in order to discuss it, he would have to tell her who he was in his other life and why he was really here. Rather belatedly, he realised the shoe was on the other foot now—his foot—and it pinched. Once she knew, she would be justified in pinning on him the same secrecy he’d accused her of.