Sweet Deception Read Online Free Page A

not have decent tailors in upper Derbyshire? That coat was designed for someone much taller than she.
    “Emma,” he called out, his longer strides eating the ground between them. The shuffle of Billingsly’s footsteps fell away. No telling what the old butler thought of his and Emma’s unorthodox behavior.
    “If you would like to help”—Emma’s voice floated back to him—“then stay here and mark off the map when the searchers return.”
    “That would be no help at all,” he countered, almost offended that she thought him thick enough to be pawned off by such a useless task. He shouldn’t be, however. Didn’t he want her and everyone else to view him as feckless?
    She stopped abruptly then, without even acknowledginghim, and placed her hands on a panel of wood wainscoting beneath the grand staircase.
    The passageway.
It had been used as an escape when the castle functioned as such in medieval times—and when he’d wanted to avoid his mother. It was a service passage now.
    The panel slid away, creating an opening in the wall that Emma stepped through. The wood slid closed behind her with a
snick
.
    That was rich. Not only was she barely attempting to placate him, she was trying to lose him. Well, he’d be damned before he would allow Emma to get away so easily. His intent to shadow her aside, what kind of man would he be to let her traipse through the countryside alone during a storm, no matter how imperative she thought the reason? She’d pointed out herself how dangerous that could be. The question struck him again about why he cared so much. What was it about this chit of a girl?
    When he reached the panel, Derick pressed it as he’d seen Emma do. Nothing happened. The damned wainscoting bore an intricate checkered pattern and he couldn’t remember exactly which squares tripped the lever. He’d been too far away to see which ones Emma had pushed.
    He tried them all in turn, stewing with frustration. When he reached the last, he slammed his palm against it with an annoyed growl—which earned him nothing more than a smarting palm. He fisted his hand to soothe the sting.
    Which was, of course, when Billingsly finally caught up to him. “Press these two together, milord,” Billingsly suggested, not by expression or tone acknowledging that he’d just witnessed his employer acting like a petulant child. The butler’s gnarled hands trembled slightly as he reached out and touched offset squares. The panel slid open, revealing a narrow but well-tended hallway.The man nodded his head to the left. “Miss Emma’s likely gone that way, to the servants’ entrance at the back of the house.”
    “Thank you, Billingsly,” Derick said. He ducked to clear the tapered beam and stepped into the passage, looking in the direction the butler had indicated. Emma must have already turned the corner.
    Derick shot down the hallway, not exactly at a run, but not far from it. The irony wasn’t lost on him. After ten summers trying to ditch little Pygmy, here he was chasing after her—and through his own house, no less.
    Natural light greeted him at the next turn, fading as a closing door shut it out. Derick sped up, pushing through the exit. Cold rain met his face as he burst outside. Damnation.
    The sky held a pinkish gray cast—pink to the west where the sun had begun its gentle descent into the horizon, gray to the east where dark, swollen clouds forced the light away. It was to the east that Derick spotted Emma, her determined steps carrying her through the stable yard and toward the forest.
    He did run then, cursing as his foot slipped in the mud. He frowned, dismayed at how dangerously slick it had grown in such a short time. The spongy consistency spoke of oversaturated ground, not simply rain from this storm. It must have poured here for several days prior.
    Already moisture soaked his clothing, conspiring with the brisk wind to chill him through. A little thing like Emma would be reduced to a shivering heap