The Earl's Entanglement (Border Series Book 5)(10)

She looked exactly as she had in the stables, though with less hay clinging to her velvet gown, and her effect on him was undiminished.

“Emma.” Sara moved toward the vision—the woman—and placed a hand on her back.

“Meet a very dear friend of mine. Sir Garrick Helmsley, the sixth Earl of Clave. Oh, and you are now a Scottish earl as well, are you not?”

Garrick hardly heard the words. The woman’s gaze pulled him toward her, compelling him not to look away, and he was easily swayed.

“Aye,” he managed to reply. Years of training and decorum saved him.

Garrick took her hand in his own, relishing in how small and dainty and warm it felt, as Sara finished. “This is my sister-in-law, Lady Emma Waryn.”

He was just about to place a brief kiss on her hand when Sara’s words penetrated the fog in his mind.

Sister-in-law.

He kissed her hand and released it, not able to let the contact linger. Forcing a neutral expression, he looked at her brother, who eyed them both with the intensity he’d expect of a man protecting his sister.

“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said, looking back to Sara. Anywhere but at Emma.

“And I yours,” she said prettily, as if she had not nearly plowed into him a moment before.

“Linkirk, am I correct?” Sara pressed, naming his father’s earldom in Scotland. He was surprised Sara remembered. He’d spent much more time in England, though his mother, who had inherited the title and property that passed to his father upon marriage, traveled there often. She considered it more of a home than Clave.

“You have a good memory, my lady.”

“Garrick’s father was the Earl of Linkirk, which makes our guest a powerful man indeed. On both sides of the border.”

He said nothing. It was true, after all, and it was also the reason for his current predicament.

“Linkirk,” Geoffrey said. “My family is now related to their neighbors and Clan Kerr.”

“I’ve heard as much,” Garrick said, trying not to look at Emma. “I’m quite interested to learn more about the circumstances around that union.”

He knew Clan Kerr well. As Geoffrey said, his land in Linkirk bordered one of their holdings. But he remembered the Kerr chief as a private man, much like his father. Not one prone to readily accept allies. That he had willingly done so with their southern neighbors was a surprising revelation. Though not as surprising as the fact that the former enemies were now relatives, Bristol back under the control of the Waryn family.

“Then come inside while we tell it.”

He must have sufficiently redirected his attention away from Emma. For if Geoffrey had any notion of the thoughts he was having about his sister, he would not be so welcoming.

One night. That was all. He’d retire early from dinner. Leave early in the morn. He could conceal his thoughts—his attraction—for just a few hours.

With any luck, the two would not be seated together.



Why did he have to be seated directly to her left?

If either Geoffrey or Sara had any inclination of the thoughts flitting through her innocent mind, surely they would have seated him elsewhere on the dais. What poor timing for them to adhere to convention.

An earl. Twice over, from the sound of it.

The revelation made him less attractive, though that wasn’t saying much. Everything about him still made her thoughts—and her knees—as shaky as Cook’s pudding. But when she’d thought him a simple knight, or a minor lord at most, he’d beckoned to her more than any other man ever had, made her want to abandon all of the reasons she’d ever given her brother for rejecting her suitors. But an earl was exactly what she did not want, although her traitorous body did not seem to understand as much.

Emma’s gaze continued to unwittingly turn toward him. Her hands refused to remain still. Her heartbeat persisted in pounding in her ears.

He is an earl, she reminded herself.

Very likely as pompous and pretentious as the majority of the powerful men in his position. Her brother excluded, of course. He had happened into the title, and his disposition was more that of a border reiver than a man of the realm. Even if, by the grace of God, the stranger had managed to remain as humble as Sara despite his station, he had undoubtedly become accustomed to controlling the people around him. She’d met nary a lord who didn’t. Which meant he was perfectly incompatible with her. No need to look his way. No need to be nervous. He was just a man, like any other, passing through Kenshire. Soon he would be gone.

Gone.

“Is he sick?” Garrick asked.

Emma had eaten an entire course without making a fool of herself. But she wasn’t so sure she could continue the deception, especially if he insisted on talking to her.

She’d give it “one hell of a try” as Catrina would say.

“My brother?” she asked as she reached for the goblet of wine in front of her.

She strained her neck forward to glance at her older brother, who was whispering something to Sara.

She took a sip, concentrating on the smooth taste of the red velvet vintage slipping down her throat. Think of the wine. Emma very much loved—

“Your horse.”

“Wine.” God’s teeth, what was she saying?

She looked at him then. Wouldn’t it be rude not to? He appeared quite confused, and rightly so.