Something About Emmaline (10 page)

Demmit,
he swore silently. How could he take her out tonight? Any man who saw her wouldn’t forget her easily. Alex heaved a sigh.

“My lord?”

“Simmons, what do I know about taking a wife out in good society?”

“Just do what comes naturally, my lord.”

Naturally
? He didn’t dare tell Simmons what natural thoughts he was having about the lady across the hall. It had nothing to do with taking her across town to Lady Oxley’s elegant house, but rather dismissing the entire staff for the night and making love to her until dawn.

“Never fear, my lord,” Simmons was saying. “Lady
Rawlins spent the entire afternoon preparing Lady Sedgwick. She’ll be a credit to the household.”

Alex gulped. “Don’t tell me that flibbertigibbet knows the truth about Emmaline?”

Simmons frowned and shook his head. “Certainly not. Lady Rawlins believes that Lady Sedgwick’s upbringing is the reason behind her occasional deficiencies.”

“Her upbringing?”

“In Africa. With her father, Lord Haley.”

Alex closed his eyes. “Of course!” That was why she was so sure she could convince them she was Lady Sedgwick—her failures and missteps would only lend more credit to her background.

Lies and cover stories he’d embellished over the years.

Egads, the little minx had known it all along. She’d outwitted him at his own gammon.
Again
.

“She tricked me,” he muttered under his breath.

Simmons looked him in the eye and smiled. It was probably the first time Alex had seen the ancient man turn his lips in that direction. “As she will everyone tonight. Have no fear, my lord. She will be a credit to your name.”

That was exactly what Alex feared.

Lord and Lady Sedgwick departed from Hanover Square fashionably late, but looking like the very first diamonds of society. There wouldn’t be a more handsome couple at the dinner party, of that the Sedgwick staff was positive.

“Do you think he noticed?” Mrs. Simmons asked as her husband closed the door.

“He noticed,” he assured her.

“Good. We need an heir around here,” Mrs. Simmons
huffed, as she went to see to the long list of demands Lady Lilith had left behind.

While the staff was feeling sure of the impending success of their lord and lady, Emmaline didn’t share their confidence.

Sedgwick didn’t think she looked like a lady.

Which meant he thought she looked like a…

She pursed her lips and stared out the window. How many country houses had she stayed in over the last six years? How many of the people she’d met in her travels had ever thought of her as anything but a gentlewoman?

Well, perhaps there had been one or two, she conceded, who might have suspected she wasn’t quite what she seemed. But besides those few sharp-eyed crows and country lotharios, she’d made a tidy living impersonating a lady, albeit one of limited means.

Not a lady, indeed,
she thought, glancing over at Sedgwick’s stony visage. Why, she’d like nothing more than to tell him a thing or two.

First and foremost, exactly why she
did
look like a lady.

Her gown had been purchased on Bond Street, while the shawl around her shoulders had come from a shop of very exclusive and expensive Huguenot weavers—both of which were of the latest fashion. Her hair had been dressed by Malvina’s French maid, whom the viscountess had lured away from the Marchioness of Madley, who’d brought the girl back from France just before the outbreak of the Revolution.

She couldn’t look more like a member of the
ton
than if she had been born the daughter of a duke and listed in
Debrett’s
.

But that was the problem. She wasn’t. The daughter of a duke, that is. There wasn’t even the barest hint of a Right and Honorable in her lineage.

No matter the clothes, no matter the manners she aped with practiced perfection, beneath it all, she knew the truth.

She was nothing more than the daughter of a highwayman and a lunatic.

There it was. Her sorry past. She wondered what Sedgwick would say to that.

She knew exactly what he’d say. He’d recant their bargain and toss her out of the carriage without a glance back, wiping his hands of this entire wretched chapter of his life.

For he was right on all counts: She certainly was no lady. Ladies didn’t roam about the countryside, conning and gulling respectable people.

She spared another furtive glance in his direction. And he was worried about how she’d appear! Why, if one didn’t know better, one might mistake him for some brawler from the docks, what with his once-handsome face at half mourning. But dash it all, even with this new arrangement of his features, no one would ever mistake him for anything but a gentleman. He could forgo the perfectly tied cravat, the fashionably cut coat—it was in his bearing, his very stance that declared to one and all that he carried generations of noble blood in his veins.

Twenty-one, to be exact.

Emmaline sighed, and when he glanced over at her, she tossed her curls and stared out the window.

So why was she suddenly having these ridiculous fantasies of him ignoring centuries of noble tradition and declaring her his perfect baroness? Of being able to tell him everything about herself, and know that it would matter naught to him.

Oh, but it would
. For Alexander Denford, Baron Sedgwick, would never see her as anything but…Demmit, what had he called her?
A thieving little
—

Emmaline closed her eyes and leaned her head against the carriage wall. If only he hadn’t been so close to the truth.

“Are you well?” he asked.

He needn’t sound so hopeful that she was about to fall ill. “Yes. I’m fine.”

“Because if you want to—”

“No,” she shot back. She’d prove to this handsome, stuffy fellow that she was every bit as much of a lady as his fictional, imaginary Emmaline could ever have been. Why, she’d—

Before she could finish that thought, the carriage came to a sudden halt, jolting her forward and throwing her into Sedgwick. He caught her with those oh-so-steely arms, even as she slammed into the wall of his chest.

They were nose to nose, their lips but a breath apart, and Emmaline thanked every one of her ignoble ancestors that she wasn’t a lady.

Because she couldn’t help but believe that ladies never had the scandalous thoughts that were assailing her this very moment.

He looked about to say something and she feared the worst. He’d deny her. Tell her again she was a fraud, even while the warmth of his touch scorched her bare arms, sent fiery memories through her limbs. Memories of how those fingers had burned as they’d caressed her earlier.

She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think, assailed by very unladylike desires to have him do more than just stare at her.

Then she knew she wasn’t alone in her passion, for she was pressed intimately against him.

Very intimately.

Even through all the layers between them, she could feel that telling hardness, that very masculine length of unyielding and unrelenting promise of rapture.

“Hmmm,” she purred happily, without even realizing she’d done it, or that she was leaning closer, her hips rocking toward him, as if to gain their own estimation of just what he had beneath all that wretched wool and silk between them.

Then just as suddenly she realized what she was doing. Heavens, she was acting like the worst sort of doxy. What was it about this man that had her so transfixed by desire?

“I—I mean to say, I’m so sorry…” she stammered.

“I’m not,” he said, tipping his head until his lips caught hers, stealing the kiss she’d vowed never to offer.

Yes, well, she’d reconsider that vow tomorrow, because right now there was no denying him. Not when his lips caressed hers, when his teeth pulled at her bottom lip, suckling her, drawing her toward him with the same greedy temptation that her hips had found but a few moments before.

Emmaline opened herself to his heady exploration.

Certainly this was no time to be a lady.

A
lex should have known better than to kiss Emmaline.

How had it happened? One moment she’d looked positively ill and the next thing he knew she was in his arms and gazing up at him with those innocent blue eyes.

Innocent, indeed! Her body had molded to his until it had been impossible to deny her—like a cat stretching and purring, waiting and oh-so-willing to be scratched.

From the scent of her perfume to the press of her full breasts against his chest to the provocative way her hips rode up along him, there was nothing innocent about this minx.

Just pure sensual intoxication.

And amidst this rising tide of passion, a chorus rang in his ears.

Well tumbled…you’ve had her…mussed…what comes naturally…

All the ill-gained advice he’d received during the day suddenly made sense. At least that was what he told himself
as he lowered his mouth to hers and tasted what further devilment could be found in this wretched tangle.

Yet, the moment his lips touched her silken pair, he knew he was lost.

Bloody hell, a wife shouldn’t taste so intoxicating…like fine brandy on the tongue. Neither should a woman fit to a man like she’d been measured and cut to his design.

But Emmaline did. She was all these things.

Alex continued to kiss her, drawing her closer, one hand cupped to the small of her back, while the other rose to cradle one of her breasts, full and rounded in the confines of her corset.

His thumb rolled over the nipple, and it hardened beneath his touch, reminding him of his own rampant arousal.

“Sedgwick,” she gasped. Her back arched and her shoulders rolled back until it felt as if her breasts would spill from her gown, fall into his eager grasp like ripe fruit. As he stroked her anew, this time she sighed. “Oh, Sedgwick.”

The sound of his name on her lips only made him want to hear her say it over and over, until she found her release with him buried deep inside her.

Lord, he should have tossed her out of his house the instant he’d arrived in London.

But there was something about Emmaline that kept him at sixes and sevens. Had him brawling in the streets. Had him kissing a woman he barely knew and wishing there was a way to stop time, to keep her in his arms forever.

“Ahem, milord,” came Henry’s discreet cough, followed by a knock on the carriage door. “We’re here.”

“Um, yes, thank you,” he managed to say as he wrenched himself away from her, tossing her onto the other seat. He’d quite forgotten where he was, that he was in a carriage in
front of Lord Oxley’s town house. Then he glanced up at Emmaline, her lips swollen from his kisses, her eyes wide and full of passion. Her breasts rose and fell with her ragged breathing, while her once-perfectly-done curls fell down around her shoulders like those of some intoxicating nymph.

Gads, he’d done all that? Whatever had come over him?

“I…I…” he stammered. What the hell did one say to a woman who was supposed to be his wife yet whom he shouldn’t be kissing?

She said it for him. Emmaline reached up, cupped his face in her delicate gloved hand and smiled at him, a sad, tired light in her eyes. “I know, Sedgwick. I know.”

Then, with an elegant ladylike grace, she got down out of the carriage and walked into the Oxley town house like a duchess, leaving him in her wake.

Leaving him to wonder how the hell he was ever going to let her go.

Because letting her go was the only practical thing he could do.

Having dined with country gentry, baronets and even a few newly elevated peers, Emmaline soon discovered that none of it had prepared her for a London supper party.

The Oxley town house was a study in noble elegance. Italian marbles, damask and velvet curtains, rich gilt trims. The house was aglitter in all its splendor, a house meant to dazzle the eye and put the guest on notice that this was a higher realm.

She took a deep breath.
I am a baroness now, a member of this rarefied company
. If she wanted to continue being Lady Sedgwick she needed to comport herself accordingly.

Head up, shoulders back, a slight smile on your lips,
she told herself as she handed her wrap over to one of the bevy of servants lined up to assist the arriving guests.

Now all she had to do was maintain this haughty, ladylike composure the rest of the evening and she’d as good as have won her bargain with Sedgwick.

Yes, that would be quite easy if her lips weren’t still swollen from his kisses, her body not burning with the passion of his heated touch.

Bother! How was she ever going to maintain any sense of decorum if she had to live under the same roof as that man for another two weeks without…well, without! Oh, she was in worse straits than when she’d been shot and left for dead.

Certainly this wasn’t her fault in the least, she reasoned. She’d been assured the baron was a predictable sort, overly honorable and rather dull. Certainly she’d been deceived on those accounts. Or perhaps it was Sedgwick who’d fooled the
ton,
gulled his family and servants for all these years, hiding his true nature behind duty and honor.

But who couldn’t see that his eyes held a rare fire of intrigue, that he had the mercurial temper of a Greek god or that hidden behind all his stuffy manners was the passionate heart of a lover waiting to be discovered? If only she didn’t see him so clearly, desire him so utterly.

As if on cue, there he was at her side, a model of noble composure and not a hint of the passionate man who’d nearly ravished her in the carriage. He held out his arm to her, warm and steady, and she placed her palm on his sleeve, ignoring the way her body thrilled in recognition.

Emmaline glanced up at him, even as he looked down at her. In that instance, their gazes met and she felt his confi
dence in her. Knew she had won before the evening had even begun.

All she had to do was smile and keep her opinions to herself. No meddling, no Banbury tales.

How hard could that be when there was so much at stake?

Everything went perfectly until the ladies left the gentlemen to their port and cigars and retired to the drawing room.

Emmaline continued to press her lips together and maintain her vow not to say anything untoward. All too quickly though, it became like the time she’d promised herself never again to play piquet. While her resolve was genuine, she failed utterly.

“You will not believe what I heard about Lady Bennett,” their hostess, Lady Oxley, was saying. “She’s gone and left her husband.”

“No!” several of the ladies gasped, sounding properly shocked while their faces were as eager as a bevy of alley cats outside a fishmonger’s shop.

Emmaline held her tongue. She’d once spent a week at the Lord and Lady Bennett’s and knew for a fact that Lord Bennett was a beast. He thrashed his staff for the least little offenses, and when there was no one else left to discipline, he took the remainder of his venom out on his defenseless wife.

“’Tisn’t surprising,” Lady Oxley said. “Her mother was a Thorpe and that family is highly irregular.” She said this with a pointed glance at Mrs. Mabberly and her daughter, who both sat like a pair of proper statues on the edge of the sofa.

As she said the word “irregular” Emmaline could see
Miss Mabberly flinch. It wasn’t the first time during the evening that Lady Oxley had gone out of her way to send a pointed, but oh, so discreet barb at her future daughter-in-law. Miss Mabberly wasn’t even married to the earl yet, and already Lady Oxley was putting her on notice that she didn’t find his choice up to par.

Meanwhile, the ladies around them were already discussing the Thorpes and their propensity for flighty behavior.

“It comes from marrying beneath you,” Lady Oxley was saying.

“Not all of us are lucky enough to escape such a fate,” Lady Diana Fordham commented dryly, though Emmaline sensed the woman was in sympathy with Miss Mabberly.

“At least you discovered the truth about that awful Captain Danvers, my dear, before you wed him,” Lady Jarvis offered. “Turned traitor,” she explained in an aside to Emmaline.

“Still, it is unfortunate how haphazard marriage has become,” Lady Oxley was saying.

Emmaline glanced over at Miss Mabberly and felt the girl’s discomfort as if it were her own. It was on the tip of her tongue to point out to the countess that while Miss Mabberly’s father was a
cit,
her mother descended from a noble lineage that went back to the times of Edward III. Her nobility far exceeded Lady Oxley’s own heritage.

“Breeding will always tell, won’t it?” Lady Jarvis was saying, adding her own snide comment in the direction of the future Lady Oxley.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Lady Oxley said.

Miss Mabberly turned a bright shade of pink and stared down at her slippers. Why, the girl couldn’t be more than
ten and six, Emmaline fumed, and hadn’t the wherewithal or experience to defend herself. Someone really should stand up for her.

Leave well enough alone,
Emmaline told herself.
This is none of your concern
.

Hadn’t she learned time and time again that meddling in the affairs of others was the surest way to find herself out in the road with no roof over her head?

But she couldn’t help herself—the girl looked to be on the verge of tears, and that would never do. It would give Lady Oxley fuel to make her daughter-in-law’s life a living hell.

Emmaline glanced behind her at the double doors that led to the dining room. They remained shut tight, the men encamped behind them, probably knee-deep in cigars and port or whatever it was that they did when the ladies left them to their own devices, so therefore, Sedgwick would never have to know.

“I’m shocked you would say such a thing, Lady Oxley,” Emmaline piped up, surprising all by suddenly joining the conversation. Surprising even herself.

In for a pence, out for a pound,
she thought, digging into her resolve.

“Perhaps with your savage upbringing and poor health, Lady Sedgwick, you haven’t the opportunity to witness the refinement that careful breeding brings to society.” Lady Oxley’s remark might have been enough to daunt most ladies, but Emmaline didn’t fall under those restraints.

Goodness, not being a lady
was
a blessing.

She squared her shoulders and smiled at her hostess. “I just would think that someone with Thorpe ancestors would
hardly be in a position to cast such stones at another relation, albeit a distant one.”

Lady Oxley’s eyes narrowed. “Are you implying that I am related to Lady Bennett?”

Emmaline smiled. “Not implying, just simply stating fact. Your mother was a Harris, wasn’t she?”

Lady Oxley nodded, her lips too tightly drawn for the woman to speak.

“And her father was the Earl of Whitehead?”

She nodded again.

“The Earl of Whitehead’s grandmother was a Hastings.”

The sharp-eyed matron’s brows knit together. “What has that got to do with the Thorpes?”

“Her father, Baron Hastings, inherited the title from his cousin, Reginald Hastings. That Hastings line was descended from Sir Reginald Thorpe. You and Lady Thorpe are cousins of a sort.” Emmaline smoothed out the folds of her gown and then looked up and smiled. “I fear those sorts of cousinly distinctions leave me terribly muddled. But bloodlines are bloodlines, are they not?”

Lady Oxley went as white as her lace fichu. “That is impossible. I think I know my own lineage.”

“Not at all impossible,” Emmaline replied. “A copy of
Debrett’s
will bear me out.” She sat back on the sofa and sighed. “Breeding, Lady Oxley, is only one facet of a lady.”

Lady Lilith rose abruptly, her face flushed. “I will fetch mother’s copy immediately, and you shall see—”

“Lilith, sit,” her mother ordered. “I am sure that Lady Sedgwick is just confused about the connection.”

Not likely, Emmaline wanted to reply, but she needn’t worry about her assertion. She’d bet her last farthing that
every lady in the room was going to go straight home and spend the rest of the night poring over their copy of
Debrett’s
until they found the wicked bend in Lady Oxley’s family tree.

And find it they would.

But not before they got to witness Lady Oxley sharpen her claws all over Lady Sedgwick.

Emmaline could feel the woman’s malice fill the room. But at least it was no longer directed at a defenseless young girl.

“Lady Sedgwick, how entertaining you are—tell me, how is it you are so familiar with
Debrett’s
? I wouldn’t think such things would matter in the deep reaches of the jungle.”

“I learned to read with a copy left to me by my dear departed mother.” Emmaline did her best to look woebegone for the loss of her saintly parent. After all, that much was true. Her mother’s only possession had been the battered record of peerages that Emmaline still carried today. Though rarely in her right mind, the lady had taught her daughter to read from it and it was there that her talent for memorization had come to light.

By six she’d been reciting lineages like most children sang nursery rhymes. And her enterprising father had seen that this talent would be better served in a more economical fashion, by teaching his daughter to count cards.

But that was a skill for another time.

Emmaline drew her handkerchief up to dab at her eyes. “My dear mother gave so much to stay by my father’s side. Her very life.”

Several other women in the room nodded in agreement.

There,
Emmaline thought,
let Lady Oxley cast stones at the virtuous and dedicated Lady Haley
.

“How touching,” the countess said without a bit of sympathy. “Now here you are with us, quite recovered.” Lady Oxley’s eyes narrowed and Emmaline didn’t doubt for a moment that the woman was moving in for her social kill. “How is that, my dear? How could it be that you’ve been so close to death’s door for so long, and now, why to look at you, one could hardly imagine that you’ve ever been sick a day in your life.”