There were several books on the bedside table, including a volume of Texas history and a biography of Theodore Roosevelt. A few golf magazines. The one on top had a picture on the cover of someone familiar. Someone she recognized.
Odd. Who would she know—
She looked more closely and felt all the blood drain from her head.
Chapter 4
Emma didn’t remember picking up the magazine, but it was in her hands, so she must have. As she stared down at it, the words on the cover swam before her eyes.
PGA BAD BOY KENNY TRAVELER
TALKS ABOUT HIS GAME, TOUR POLITICS,
AND HIS MILLIONS
“Uh . . . Emma?”
She dragged her legs over the side of the bed farthest from him and, with her free hand, clutched the robe together.
The photograph was an action shot, with Kenny in the middle of his golf swing, body turned, club angled back. PGA BAD BOY KENNY TRAVELER . . .
Fingers of rage uncurled inside her. She hadn’t thought anything could be more painful than the humiliation she’d suffered when she’d shared her feelings with Jeremy Fox, but this was a dozen times worse. She was the stupidest, the most naive woman on earth. He wasn’t a professional escort! He was a millionaire athlete who’d seduced her.
She flung down the magazine, vaulted from the side of the bed, and blindly made her way to the bathroom to reclaim her clothes.
“Don’t you think we should talk about this?” he said from behind her.
She hurried past him, clothing stuffed in her arms, and headed for her bedroom.
“Lady Emma?”
She shot inside, twisted the lock, and began pulling on her underwear.
He tapped at the bedroom door. “I know that magazine cover must be piquing your curiosity, so why don’t we finish our bottle of wine while I answer all your questions?”
She ignored his blather, threw her clothes in one suitcase, and snapped the latches on the other. Then she gathered them up along with her carry-all and purse and marched through the door.
He was standing on the other side. Although his pants were zipped, he hadn’t bothered with a shirt. Hatred, spurred on by self-disgust, rushed through her. She pushed past him and hurried down the stairs as fast as her awkward burden would allow.
“Emma!”
A terrible drumming echoed inside her head. She reached the front door and fumbled for the knob.
“Emma, it’s dark. You can’t go out there.” He came up behind her and grasped her arm.
She tore it free and slammed the corner of one suitcase into his crotch. He let out an oof of pain and staggered backward.
She dashed outside.
The humid night air enveloped her. She had no idea where she was, and she didn’t care. She only knew she had to get away.
She nursed her anger until it drove out her need to weep. He hadn’t been dense or dull-witted or any of the other things she’d thought about him. He’d simply been manipulating her for a night’s amusement, and she’d fallen for it.
The heavy suitcases dragged at her arms as she made her way to the end of the court, but she didn’t feel their weight. What if she hadn’t seen the magazine? What if she’d gone through with it before she discovered who he was? It didn’t bear contemplating, so she distracted herself by gazing down the street that intersected the court. She needed to get to a phone and call a taxi, but she saw only expensive homes, some with luxury cars parked in the drive. No one was walking about, and, other than the hiss of underground sprinkling systems, everything was quiet.
She listened harder and thought she detected the faint sound of traffic far in the distance. The suitcases banged against her legs as she turned toward the noise. She kept walking until she had to set the bags down to rest her arms, and that was when she heard the purr of a luxury car coming from behind her.
She snatched up the suitcases and dragged them on. From the corner of her eye, she saw a familiar champagne-colored Cadillac. The driver’s window slid down. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting just a little bit?”
Her cheeks burned. She looked straight ahead and didn’t slow her pace even though her shoulders had begun to throb.
“There isn’t a hotel within ten miles of here. And, in case you haven’t noticed, there aren’t any taxis passing by, either.”
She kept walking.
“God, I hate sulky women.”
“Sulky!” She whirled on him. “Leave me alone! Or haven’t you had enough amusement for the night?”
He pulled ahead of her, angled his car so that it blocked the street, then stopped and got out, leaving the motor running and the warning bell dinging. With his shirt hanging open and his bare feet stuffed into loafers, he approached her.
She felt a flicker of satisfaction as she saw that he wasn’t standing completely straight, along with a shiver of panic. Although she didn’t physically fear him, she had only the most fragile hold on her composure, and she had to escape.
Waddling slightly from the weight of her luggage, she hurried to the far side of the street. He closed the distance between them and manhandled both suitcases away from her.
“Give those back.”
Ignoring her, he grabbed her carry-all and purse, then took everything to the car. He opened the rear door and tossed it all into the back seat as if it weighed no more than a handful of beach pebbles.
“You owe me a thousand bucks for that.”
She bit her lip, blinked her eyes, and began walking.
He dropped his hands to his hips. “Tell me how far you think you’re going to get without your passport, your money, and your clothes. Not to mention those umbrellas.”
She had clearly been wronged, but instead of apologizing, he was making things worse. She tried to review her options, but they were so limited as to be nonexistent. Her steps slowed. “Drive me to a hotel at once,” she finally managed.
“Gladly.”
She hesitated, but she had little choice, and she forced herself to walk to the car. He opened the passenger door for her. Without looking at him, she slid inside, then tried to make herself invisible by staring out the window. Her lips felt swollen, and she remembered the feel of those deep, insincere kisses.
“Just go ahead and let me have it. I know you’re dying to get it off your chest.” Earlier he’d driven like a demon, but now the car crawled down the street.
She said nothing.
“All right, I was having a little fun with you, pretending I was in the flesh trade. But I didn’t expect you to take me seriously. And then, when you did . . . Well, I’m only human, and before you condemn me for being a man, I suggest you take a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror. Then imagine what you would have done if you were me, and you were faced with somebody who looked like you.”
How cruel of him to mock her because she wasn’t beautiful. She could no longer hold back her words. “I wouldn’t have lied! I would never have humiliated another human being as you did.”
“Humiliated?” He sounded genuinely insulted, but then she remembered what a good actor he was. He pulled out through a set of gates onto a busier street. “Humiliation played no part in it. What I was doing had to do with opportunity—I’ll admit that—but mainly it had to do with lust.”
“Please, Mr. Traveler. I wasn’t born yesterday. This had nothing to do with lust. You’re a rich, good-looking professional athlete. I’m certain you can have any woman you want. You don’t have to settle for an aging schoolteacher.”
“I guess I know lust when I feel it! And you’ve got to admit you made it easy for me. Although why you think you’d have to pay a man is beyond me.”
“Yes, I made it easy for you. Painfully easy.”
He stopped at a flashing red light and looked over at her. “Look, Emma, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s true I got carried away. But you were hell bent on having a fling with a stranger, and I guess I couldn’t see the harm.”
“You lied to me
about everything. You’re a famous professional golfer, not an escort. And according to that magazine cover, you’re a multimillionaire.” Realization struck her. “That wasn’t your friend’s house at all. It’s yours, isn’t it? Everything you told me was a lie.”
“You aggravated me.” He pulled away from the light.
“Me! I didn’t do anything.”
“That’s a bald-faced lie. You started bossing me around the minute you laid eyes on me, making out lists, giving orders, and poking me with that umbrella.”
“I never poked you with my umbrella.”
“It felt like it.”
“I apologize,” she said icily.
“Good. I apologize, too, so now we’re even.”
“Not even close.”
For the first time, she thought of Francesca’s part in this. But as she recalled their conversation, she couldn’t remember Francesca ever telling her that Kenny was a professional escort. Instead, she’d described him as a friend. Still, somehow Emma had gotten the idea that he did this professionally, and she distinctly remembered asking Francesca if seventy-five dollars a day would be enough to cover his fee.
Only now did she remember the way Francesca had laughed. “Tell him I said he’d work for fifty.” Her friend could have had no idea how her small joke would backfire.
She no longer had the energy to fight with him. “This isn’t going to work for either of us, Mr. Traveler. It’s obvious you don’t like me, and I certainly don’t like—”
“That’s not exactly true. When you aren’t pointing that umbrella and telling me what to do, you’re fairly enjoyable to be around.” He swung out onto a four-lane highway. “At least you’re not boring, which is more than I can say for most of the people I meet.”
“How flattering. The fact is we can never recover from the bad start we’ve had. First thing in the morning, I’ll call Francesca and ask her to recommend someone else to help me. We don’t need to see each other again.”
The car slowed. “Call Francesca?”
“I’ll tell her we have a personality conflict. She’ll understand.”
“I—uh . . . I’d just as soon we leave Francesca out of this.”
“I can’t do that. She insisted I call her after I got in to report on my trip.”
“I’ll just bet she did,” he muttered, then glanced over at her. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you a hundred dollars a day if you’ll let me stay on as your travel guide. I’ll do all the driving, take you wherever you want. All you have to do is enjoy the scenery and keep telling Francesca loud and clear that everything’s fine between us.”
The lazy fool had vanished. In his place was a determined stranger with a hard jaw and intense eyes. It took only a moment for the pieces to fall into place.
“Francesca’s got some hold over you, doesn’t she? That’s why you agreed to do this in the first place.”
“You might say.” He pulled off the highway onto a service road, then swung into the parking lot of a luxurious-looking hotel.
“What is it?”
“I think both of us have had enough high drama for tonight.”
“Tell me.”
“A hundred dollars a day. Do you agree?”
Mesmerized, she stared at him. All trace of humor had vanished from his expression, and his perpetually smiling mouth had flatlined. This was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted.
She saw now that she’d underestimated him from the moment they’d met, and she wondered how many other people had done the same thing. It was a mistake she wouldn’t repeat.
“Two hundred,” she found herself saying, just to punish him. “Plus expenses.” One part of her wondered if she’d lost her mind, but the other part of her had gone weak with relief. Whether he realized it or not, he had just handed her the power she needed to control him for the next two weeks. From this moment on, Emma owned Kenny Traveler, and after what he’d done to her tonight, she didn’t have any qualms about using him to get what she needed.
The grim set of his features as he pulled beneath the hotel’s porte cochere told her it hadn’t taken him long to figure out that the balance of power had just shifted. Tension clipped away the soft edges of his Texas drawl. “I’ll get you a room. And I want your word that you’ll be down in the lobby waiting for me at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, I’ll be there.” Her new confidence must have been reflected in her eyes because his own narrowed, and, right then, she made up her mind to find out exactly what hold Francesca had over him.
Ten minutes later the bellman escorted her to a lavish suite on the hotel’s concierge floor. For a moment she almost felt guilty, but the emotion quickly vanished. She knew a bribe when she saw one, and Kenny Traveler was trying to buy her off. It wouldn’t work, but perhaps he didn’t have to know that just yet.
The next morning, the ringing of the phone awakened her. She pushed her hair from her eyes and glanced at the clock as she reached for the receiver—6:18.
“Hello.”
“Hold, please, for His Grace, the Duke of Beddington.”
She sank back into the pillows. She’d wondered how long it would take him to find her. As she waited, the events of last night swept over her, and she was almost glad when a too-familiar voice interrupted.
“Emma, my darling gel. Where have you been? You’ve put me through my paces finding you.”
She recoiled from the nasal tones of Hugh Weldon Holroyd, the eleventh Duke of Beddington, and a man who resembled Henry VIII in more ways than his appearance. He also happened to own the land on which St. Gert’s was built, as well as becoming the school’s primary benefactor when his mother, the dowager duchess, had died eight months ago.
“Good morning, Your Grace.”
“Now, none of that, my dear. You’re to address me as Hugh, although only in private, you understand.” He paused for a moment, and she envisioned him stuffing a crumpet through those fleshy lips. Not that Hugh would actually stuff anything. Even as he consumed vast quantities of food, his manners were impeccable. He’d once demolished an entire tray of her tea sandwiches without dropping so much as a single crumb. The appearance of propriety was as important to him as his title.
“Emma, Emma, we seem to have had a slight miscommunication. You were to ring me yesterday when you got in. I must tell you that it’s been quite difficult tracking you down.”
“I’m sorry,” she lied. “I was so exhausted it slipped my mind.”
“Perfectly understandable. I do hope you had a sound sleep.”
“Yes, quite.” His amiability didn’t fool her. She’d already learned that the Duke of Beddington was a man who’d do anything to get what he wanted. She thought of his two dead wives and shuddered. Not that there had been anything suspicious about either death—one had lost her life in childbirth, the other had been caught in an avalanche during a ski holiday in the Alps. But between his physical resemblance to Henry VIII, the deaths of his wives, and the two young daughters he’d tucked away at a school far more prestigious than St. Gert’s, he made her skin crawl.
“You’d told me you hired a driver, but you didn’t mention he was one of the most famous professional golfers in the world. I know how naive you are, my dear, so I’m certain it hasn’t occurred to you that this arrangement won’t do at all.”
She experienced a small stab of satisfaction. “Please don’t concern yourself, Your Grace. My friend Francesa recommended him.” She didn’t bother asking him how he’d learned that Kenny was escorting her, since Hugh Holroyd wasn’t a man to leave anything to chance. From the moment she’d announced the trip, she’d known he would hire someone to keep track of her.
“I’m sure you didn’t stop to consider how this would look. I know you enjoy Francesca’s company, but she’s in television, my dear, which makes her barely respectable. And as the future Duchess of Beddington, you need to think about such things.”
She curled her fingers tighter around the phone cord
. “Oh, I’m certain it won’t be a problem. I only have two weeks to finish my research, and I needed someone reliable. Mr. Traveler is very familiar with the area.”
“Darling, that’s not the point. We’ll be announcing our engagement as soon as you return, and it’s not at all the thing for you to be spending so much time with another man, even though he’s only your escort.”
They weren’t going to be announcing their engagement, but he didn’t know that yet. Just as he didn’t know she was going to do everything in her power to protect St. Gert’s from his blackmail. “I’m in Texas, Your Grace. None of your circle of acquaintances will ever know.”
“You forget that I have business interests all over the world. As a matter of fact, I have to go to New York just when you’ll be on your way home. I’d hoped to meet you in London as soon as you returned, but I’m afraid we’ll have to postpone that. Actually, my dear, the more I think about this, the more I believe that you need to come home right away. From the very beginning, this trip has displeased me.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I’m afraid that’s impossible. I know you don’t want me to continue as head-mistress after the engagement is announced.”
“Quite right. It would be most inappropriate.”
Only in the seventeenth century, you awful man!
“Then you see why I must stay. I’ve promised the editors of the New Historian I’ll have my paper finished for them by the first of May, and I’m sure you agree that I can’t go back on my word.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Only think how it would look if the future Duchess of Beddington didn’t meet an obligation.”
She knew she’d made her point when she heard the fretful note in his voice. “Still, I don’t fancy having you escorted by a man who’s so notorious. I know I sound like a doting husband, my dear, but I couldn’t forgive myself if I let the slightest breath of scandal attach itself to your name.”
“It won’t, Your Grace.” She narrowed her eyes at her blatant lie. If all went well, she would create a scandal just large enough to put an end to any idea of an engagement and, at the same time, ensure that St. Gert’s would remained a safe, comfortable haven for another generation of girls.