The Truth by Jane Lark ~ a free book exclusive to my blog ~ part forty-eight

The Truth

Posted as a gift of my time and thoughts to the readers of my books, thank you for the lovely messages of appreciation,

❤

© Jane Lark Publishing rights belong to Jane Lark,

this novel should not be recreated in any form without prior consent from Jane Lark

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18 ,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33,34,35,36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47

Chapter Fourteen

Emerald

Emerald’s hands shook as she flattened the last of her items in her trunk and then closed the lid and secured the buckle. It seemed so strange to be packing with only Rita’s help. A few months ago she had boarded this ship with her mother. She’d never dreamt she would be leaving it alone.

They had reached London last night while she had been asleep. But the day before they had followed the English coast and in the distance she had seen sandy beeches, white cliffs and green fields. But the sky above was a murky grey and the sea below a dirty cloudy green.

Emerald picked up her white leather gloves. The ends of the fingertips trembled as she struggled to pull the gloves on with her hands shaking so much.

The ship had dropped anchor in the Thames estuary last night and then come in to dock this morning. She had watched from the deck as the ship had been towed into port. London seemed crowded in a way that Calcutta had not. The narrow white and black buildings appeared squeezed against one another and they overhung the streets below, crowding in over the cobbled dock.

Everything was so colourless. Bleak. Lacking life. Even the sounds from the dock seemed sullen. She had only seen England for moments from the ship and yet she was decided she did not like it here. She longed for home. For the warmth and sunshine – and Papa. For security. For things she understood.

She had told Richard that she longed for adventure. She had learned to dislike it now. In days she would be passed over to strangers. Her mother’s family. But strangers to her. Richard was taking her to them. Mr Pritchard had come to the cabin last evening and told her that Richard was to accompany her when she left the ship and that she must pack.

Rita held up Emerald’s cloak. Emerald turned so that Rita could put the cloak over her shoulders, then Emerald began securing the buttons as Rita picked up her own cloak.

Emerald had not spoken to Richard and nor had he tried to speak to her for days. But the thought of the strangers he would be taking her to sent a pang of longing twisting through her stomach – she hated Richard, she did not trust him, but at least she knew him and knew what to expect.

Yes, she had been cured of her childish desire for adventure and laughingly it was the adventurer who had cured her of it.

Mr Bishop had told her to be ready to disembark an hour ago and her hands had been shacking ever since. She was unsure though if the reason for her sudden weakness of character was the thought of the family she did not know or being confined in a carriage with Richard, possibly for days, when they were not speaking and so much had happened before that.

She picked up her bonnet from the bunk on which her mother had died and set the bonnet carefully over her hair.

She hoped Richard would ride a horse beside the carriage and not sit inside it. Surely he would not want to be with her in there? He had been ignoring her existence since she had cut him. He was too proud a man to seek any interest when it was denied.

Would he write to his mistress in Calcutta from London and rescind his decision to discard June now that Emerald had refused him? If he did she hoped that June would refuse him too.

That thought was not out of envy, she declared as she tied the ribbons of her bonnet beside her chin.

She had been telling herself for days now that she had succumbed to an image of Richard that she had crafted in her imagination from the loneliness she had felt on this ship. She had not loved him but loved an image she had made of him. She still loved that image, though. But the real man behind the picture she had painted was the man she had thought she’d known when she had boarded. Cold, hard and uncaring. He was a distant untouchable man, who had hidden the truth from her. Not the warm emotive man she had shared her dreams and a bed with. She wanted to forget those hours. Those hours when she had accepted his comfort. They had been false.

To be continued…

The Marlow Intrigues: Perfect for lovers of period drama, like Victoria and Poldark.

The Lost Love of Soldier ~ The Prequel #1 ~ A Christmas Elopement began it all

The Illicit Love of a Courtesan #2

The Passionate Love of a Rake #3

The Scandalous Love of a Duke #4

The Dangerous Love of a Rogue #5

The Jealous Love of a Scoundrel #5.5

The Persuasive Love of a Libertine #5.75 now included in Jealous Love, (or free if you can persuade Amazon to price match with Kobo ebooks)

The Secret Love of a Gentleman #6

The Reckless Love of an Heir #7

Coming soon, the last part in the story, The Tainted Love of a Captain

Jane’s books can be ordered from most booksellers in paperback and, yes, there are more to come

Go to the index

For

the story of the real courtesan who inspired The Illicit Love of a Courtesan,
another free short story, about characters from book #2, A Lord’s Scandalous Love,
the prequel excerpts for book #3 The Scandalous Love of a Duke

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional Historical and New Adult Romance stories, and the author of a No.1 bestselling Historical Romance novel in America, ‘The Illicit Love of a Courtesan’.Click here to find out more about Jane’s books, and see Jane’s website www.janelark.co.uk to learn more about Jane. Or click ‘like’ on Jane’s Facebook page to see photo’s and learn historical facts from the Georgian, Regency and Victorian eras, which Jane publishes there. You can also follow Jane on twitter at @janelark

A new dark contemporary erotic thriller

The Truth by Jane Lark ~ a free book exclusive to my blog ~ part forty-seven

The Truth

© Jane Lark Publishing rights belong to Jane Lark,

this should not be recreated in any form without prior consent from Jane Lark

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18 ,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33,34,35,36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46

Emerald

Emerald’s hands were balled so tightly into fists her fingernails pressed into the skin of her palms as she glared at Richard. Hateful man! Liar!

His expression had shifted into that look that was all business and all powerful. Not to be challenged. Richard Farrow owner of the world. He was not her owner!

He was not powerful, he was cold and and empty and cruel!

“You said you loved me!” He did not love her. He did not even know what love was. “Love protects and it cares, it does not lie and hurt!” she concluded with a desperate cry.

She stared at his brown,unfathomable, eyes as he stood as stiff as stone. Did the Richard Farrow she had known in the privacy of his cabin even exist or was he a part of the lie.

“I am going now, Emerald,” he was speaking in his curt business voice. “We will talk when you are calmer.”

He was domineering and arrogant, scolding her as though she was a child. How could she have loved him? “I do not want to speak to you. I shall not. And I shall not dine with you. I do not even want to see you!” How could she have loved him?

He turned to the door. “As you wish.” Then he opened it and walked out with that blank look of his, tall and stiff as a board, as though anything could be thrown at him and it would not be able to touch him.

“Miss Martin will have her dinner served in her cabin, Mr Bishop!” She heard Richard shout across the deck.

A realisation whipped hard at her. That was it. It was over. Whatever had been between her and Richard Farrow was done with.

She sat on the edge of the bunk that had been her mother’s as Rita watched her, and then the anger turned to tears. She had loved him. She did love him. But he had lied and betrayed her. She had been caught up in his whirlwind and now she had been dropped down. She did not cry because she had lost him, though, she cried because she had lost her mother and she longed to be at home with her father.

It was probably an hour later that Mr Bishop knocked, when she opened the door he held out a tray with her dinner on it. “I am not hungry but Rita will be grateful for it. Thank you,” she said as she took the tray. Then she shut the door on Mr Bishop’s guilty expression.

“Miss Martin?” Dr Steel knocked soon after that. “Mr Bishop expressed some concern…”

“I do not wish to speak to you, Dr Steel,” she responded defiantly but Rita still rose and opened the door for him. When he stepped in Emerald did not get up from the bed but only looked up. “Please leave me alone?”

“Miss Martin,” he began “do try to understand. I know why you are upset, but there was no intent to distress you. Shall I fetch you some laudanum, it–”

“I am grieving, Dr Steel, not ill, is grief not natural. I do not need to be drugged into silence.”

“That is not what I meant, I–”

“Leave,” Emerald stated impatiently, pointing at the door. “I do not want your help, you have given me enough of it, thank you.”

Her evening was spent with Rita, in an unbearable quiet, as next door the men talked. She trusted none of them. They had all played their part in Richard’s farce. While Rita ate, Emerald lay on the bunk listening to the men talk in deep tones. Richard laughed thrice, but it was only Richard laughing, the sound taunting her through the wall. He knew she could hear which meant he did not care.

When the men had retired the sounds in the dark cabin were the creaks of the wooden boards and ropes of the ship as it rocked back and forth and to and fro. Her eyes looked through the darkness to the door into the day cabin. Had Richard been arrogant enough to go in there and await her? Or was he in his bunk, naked under the sheet and fast asleep uncaring whether she was there or not.

He did not know how to love, but he had known how to love her body and how to make her body love him. Her body ached to the depth of her bones for him. But his mistress was probably still aching for him in Calcutta too. That was a part of the lies he had told. He was not real, nothing about him had been real. You do not hurt someone you love! You do not lie to them!

She did not think she would ever forget their short affair. She would never be free of Richard in her mind. But she would be physically free of him – because if she did not break this tie to him now his sort of love and desire to conquer would destroy her entirely.

It was when dawn broke that she finally fell asleep, while she remembered the nights of her illness, when Richard had held her hand as her mother lay close, still alive. Now she knew that he had sat beside her knowing her mother was dying and he had not spoken of it.

Richard

When the sun rose Richard had hardly slept. He’d spent the hours of the night staring at his internal cabin door waiting for it to open – praying it would open and his siren would slip through it. The ethereal creature he would never be able to capture in his hand.

You will never have her now. His mind had continually whispered. But he refused to heed it. She had come to him before, she would come back, she could not hold out against him. The feelings they had shared could not be denied. And besides, how the hell could she be hurt by his relationship with June? What he’d had with June had been more like a business agreement a matter of the head, and other places. But what he had shared with Emerald has touched his soul not only his heart. But the girl shifted like sand under his feet. He never knew where he was with her. Perhaps that was the draw – she spoke of adventure but she was an adventure.

“An adventure that is over.” He said the words to the man who shaved his chin as he looked at himself in the mirror. No, she would break.

She did not join them at the table for breakfast. Mark said she was still asleep. But later Richard saw her walking on the deck beside Mark as he stood on the poop deck. She did not look up to see if he was there, she looked at Mark, her fingers clinging on to the cloth of his coat sleeve. Emerald was a coldly determined beast when she wished to be. Richard, however, was not inclined to ignore her. He gripped the rail and watched her as she walked back and forth.

As soon as Miss Martin’s exhibition in stubbornness was over Richard invited Mark into the day cabin and told him that for the rest of the journey he could eat with the men below deck. “As Miss Martin is no longer joining us at table.” Joseph’s eyebrows lifted when he heard about what had been said but Joseph may be the Captain, yet Richard owned the damned ship. He may not be able to control Emerald but he could control all else.

He set about stamping his authority on them all then. Ordering Joseph to tasks, just to remind the man who was really in charge here. And yes it was with a vindictive desire to make Joseph and Mark pay for the loss they’d forced upon him. It was their fault that Emerald had turned her back on him.

For God sake she could be carrying his child. The bloody woman. He doubted even if she had fallen with child that the scandal would persuade Emerald Martin into anything she did not wish.

On the second day of her cuts his seething turned its direction on to the crew. Any man who looked at him for a moment too long was threatened with a flogging. He was also tempted to stop Mark from the duty of looking after her and setting Philip to the task. But Richard did not go that far that would have been punishing Emerald and even in his anger he knew this was not her fault.

He should have waited and not let her into his bed. He should have spoken of his feelings and not acted upon them. He should have persuaded her mother to tell her. He should. He should. He should! The words rattled through his head at night, a hundred things he should have done differently and often he physically itched to go to her, to knock on her cabin door and persuade her to forgive him. He often imagined how he would do it. How he would kiss her and feel her succumb to his pleas for forgiveness, whispering the words against her throat. He did not go, but he often woke in the night, sweating and wrapped in his sheets, with the image of Emerald’s naked body instilled in his mind’s eye.

The days passed and she held out against him. Ignoring his existence. He watched her less, cutting her as she was slashing at him.

Occasionally as she walked with Mark she would laugh in a carefree way, as if she wanted to draw Richard’s attention. It was forced of course as his humour was when he sat at the dining table amongst his judgmental sour faced senior crew. She did not want to draw his attention, she was only doing it, as he was, to pretend that all was well.

The foolish thing was, had his men not interfered, all would have been well. She had promised to marry him. But now he had taken her innocence and that was all.

When he did watch her with Mark he could not believe but days ago she had been naked beneath him. It had become a thing of dreams and not fact . And each day they drew closer to England where he would have to let her go.