Something About Emmaline (13 page)

And to his consternation, he had to admit all those changes were a result of this blowsy, bossy, bothersome chit.

He glanced up at the sound of Miss Mabberly laughing. “It cannot be so…” she was saying.

Demmit, he’d missed whatever Emmaline had been telling her.

Emmaline was laughing now as well. “Oh, yes, why I remember just the other day, Lord Sedgwick was being quite impossible and I suggested that he—”

Alex had heard enough. “Emmaline, are you in there?” he called out, announcing his arrival.

“In here, Sedgwick,” she replied. “The man is utterly
bereft without me nearby,” she said in a loud aside to Miss Mabberly.

The girl giggled, but then turned away, wiping at her cheeks and dabbing at her eyes, restoring her countenance before she turned and curtsied to him. “Lord Sedgwick, good evening. I fear I’ve been keeping your wife from you.”

“Not at all,” he told her. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

“Yes, so it does,” Emmaline agreed. “Actually, I was just telling Miss Mabberly how impossible you are to live with. I hope you don’t mind me tarnishing your perfect image.” She moved to his side and laid her hand on his sleeve.

And he didn’t even want to consider how right it felt to have her fingers resting there, as if she were drawing her strength from him.

What a farce, that. Her drawing strength from him. This woman seemed to possess a magical power all her own that left him pale in her glimmering wake.

One Miss Mabberly also appeared to have fallen under. “Lady Sedgwick, if I may be so bold,” the girl was saying, “would I be imposing utterly if I asked you to…well, perhaps if you didn’t mind, and if you had the time, would it be possible, that is to say…”

“What is it?” Emmaline asked, smiling at her with encouragement.

The girl blushed and said, “Would it be a terrible imposition of me to ask you to stand up with me at my wedding? It is only a fortnight away, and if you and Lord Sedgwick would be available, it would be my wish that you were both there.”

Alex looked at the starry light in Miss Mabberly’s eyes
and knew the girl had few pleasures in her life, and even fewer still to look forward to. As much as he wanted to revert to form and lay down an unequivocal denial, that her ladyship would certainly not be available (and with any luck would be about as far from London as a fortnight’s travel would carry her), he took one glance at Miss Mabberly and then one at Emmaline.

“Sedgwick?” Emmaline asked, looking for his confirmation—or his denial.

Try as he might to harden his heart, he couldn’t find the old familiar words that would have constituted his reply a week ago. Who was he to say no and cast himself as the most perfect curmudgeon who ever lived?

“Don’t look at me so, either of you. I’m not some ogre. Of course Lady Sedgwick can stand up with you, Miss Mabberly, if that is your fondest wish.”

“Oh, Lord Sedgwick, thank you,” the girl exclaimed, catapulting herself into his arms and giving him a fierce hug.

He didn’t know quite what to do. He’d never been the recipient of such a spontaneous act of affection, not even from one of his mistresses when she’d been presented with a particularly fine gift.

“There, there,” he told her, patting her on the shoulder. He glanced over at Emmaline, beseeching her for help, but she was too busy grinning at his obvious discomfort.

With no aid forthcoming, he disengaged himself and set the girl aside. “No more of that now. What if Oxley came in and found you in my arms? He’d call me out and I’d be having grass for breakfast.”

“Oh, Sedgwick, you are a tease,” Emmaline said. “Everyone knows you are a crack shot and would most likely kill Oxley.” She sighed, then winked at Miss Mab
berly. “Think of the very scandal. Why, he’d make you a widow before you were even married.”

“That would be no crime,” Miss Mabberly pointed out, and all three of them laughed.

Just then Mrs. Mabberly arrived, looking utterly apoplectic. “Miranda! There you are. Come immediately. Lord Oxley made mention that you were taking an inordinate amount of time and your father is displeased.” The lady caught her daughter by the hand, bowed her head slightly to Alex and Emmaline and then scurried back to the sitting room with Miranda in tow.

Alex turned to Emmaline. “What you did for Miss Mabberly was very kind.”

“Not really.” Her bitter retort surprised him.

“But you eased her fears,” he said, glancing over at her, only to find all her kind smiles were gone.

“I convinced that girl to sell her soul into a marriage she has no desire to enter. I don’t call that doing her any favor.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I should have—”

“No, no, no,” he sputtered. “No more interfering.”

Her hands went to her hips. “Are you telling me that you think it is wise for Miss Mabberly to marry…to marry—”

“Our host?” he offered.

Her gaze rolled upward. “Yes,
our host,
” she conceded.

He could well imagine what sort of colorful and imaginative adjective she might have chosen. “It’s a good match for Miss Mabberly,” he said, reverting to the safety of honorable intentions. “She is young and may not understand yet that she’ll have a good position in society.”

“Thus says the man who made up a wife to avoid matrimony.”

Alex rose to his own defense. “My situation was entirely
different. It was a matter of self-preservation.” And that had been the case.

“Bah!” Emmaline scoffed. “It was utter selfishness, pure and simple.”

“I hardly see how. You obviously don’t understand the difference between my situation and Miss Mabberly’s. One must consider the nature of your alliance when contracting a match.”

“Listen to you! You would think that you were hiring a new stable hand.” Emmaline shook her head, a frown marring her fair brow. “I think I understand the situation more clearly than you would like me to. You have the means and power to avoid an unwanted marriage. However, Miss Mabberly does not.” Emmaline pointed at the doorway that led to the salon. “For that dear child to be forced to wed Lord Oxley is a precursor to disaster, if not a moral crime. Would you align yourself so…so purely for financial and political gain? Without any thought of your future partner’s happiness or feelings?”

Alex glanced away. Anywhere but in Emmaline’s direction. He’d always thought of marriage as nothing more than a social union—with happiness, much less love, a matter of chance, only found by fools and professed by those of little wit.

Up until today, he would have been as blind as Oxley obviously was to his betrothed’s sensibilities. The earl had no idea his bride loathed him, and most likely didn’t care.

Suddenly such a marriage held little warmth for Alex. Perhaps it always had and that was the real reason he’d allowed Emmaline to come into his life, like a seawall against the unhappy tides he saw in so many marriages, arranged marriages, marriages of financial and political union. Up
until now, he would never have admitted, even to himself, that he had perhaps always held a small dream that he would add his own romantic notation to the family annals, to live a life like that found in the sunny pictures of Sedgwick Abbey.

For sensible as he was, he knew that such a dream was hard, if not nearly impossible to find in the false world of the
ton
. In all these years, after watching glittering parade after parade of young eligible ladies waltz through their Seasons, he’d never once felt that stir, that elation that love promised as he watched the ladies go by.

Love was a miracle after all. His own parents had met in a roadside inn. His unspoiled mother on her way to her first Season, his father on his way home from London, fleeing the arriving onslaught of bridal hopefuls like one might the barbarian hordes. His mother never made it to London.

And hadn’t his grandfather met Grandmère in Paris at a corner café, his grandmother fresh out of convent school, unsullied by the jaded ways of the world? Another chance meeting that changed the course of family history.

Yet Alex’s life had always seemed so ordinary, so lacking in magic that he’d never thought such a wonder of happenstance would ever cross his staid path.

Emmaline stood there, her lips pursed, shooting him a wry look.

How was it that this woman who had known him for less than a day had spotted such a dream in him without so much as a by your leave? As if she’d known the truth all along and thought it was high time he realized it as well.

Who the devil was she?

Not your wife,
was the haunting reproach that came springing to mind.

Well, that was a good thing, wasn’t it? Who would want a wife who could see inside one’s dreams, one’s transgressions? One’s soul?

And demmit, if she could see that much, she might also know that in the course of this evening, he suspected that his father’s good fortune, his grandfather’s rare luck may just have fallen into his lap.

A
few hours later, Lady Lilith and her mother stood in the bow window and watched the guests depart.

“I don’t know what is to become of you, my dear,” the countess lamented. “That woman will be the ruin of Sedgwick, and in turn, your husband.”

“You should have let me refute her, Mother,” Lilith said. “How dare she imply that we are related to the Thorpes.”

Lady Oxley waved her hand. “That is of no consequence.” Her eyes narrowed as she watched Sedgwick hand his wife up into the carriage and then get in beside her.

“Goodnight and good riddance,” she said under her breath.

“Mother?” Lilith asked.

Lady Oxley smiled and patted her daughter’s hand. “You need to see that Lord Sedgwick and his wife return to their previous arrangement.
Apart
.” She turned her gaze back toward the retreating carriage. “A child from that union would be most inopportune.”

“I don’t see how we’ll be able to get him to set her aside,” Lilith complained. “You should have seen them last night.” Her daughter clucked her tongue. “It was a disgraceful display.”

Undoubtedly,
Lady Oxley thought.

“Shameless pair,” Lilith continued. “I had Hubert write his grandmother, demanding that the dowager come to London.”

“Bother the dowager. She’s French and they are never reliable. Given her flighty nature, she may declare that woman the perfect wife for Sedgwick and use her Gallic wiles to help his bride.”

Lilith’s eyes widened. Obviously she hadn’t thought of that possibility.

Just then, Hubert came up behind them, his greatcoat and hat in hand, along with Lilith’s cloak.

Lady Oxley had never thought much of her son-in-law, other than his likelihood to inherit the Sedgwick barony. But Hubert was about to surprise her, more so than she’d ever thought possible.

He glanced out the window at his cousin’s carriage and shook his head. “Something not quite right about Sedgwick’s bride.”

“Mother was just saying as much,” Lilith said. “She thinks we need to do something more than just summoning your grandmother.”

Hubert nodded in agreement. “Never fear, ladies, I already have.”

The Denfords and Lady Oxley weren’t the only ones watching the Sedgwick carriage pull away. The Marquis of Templeton strode across the street toward the barouche he’d
liberated from his grandfather’s stables for the night, his thoughts filled with the events of the evening, of spending it so close to Diana, and yet…

He came to an abrupt halt before his borrowed conveyance, from which his driver had as yet to get down to open the door or even make an attempt to notice his arrival. “Ahem,” he coughed.

Instead of making any attempt to act like a regular servant, Elton just sat in the driver’s box staring down the street. “Who was that? In that carriage?”

Temple shot a glance over his shoulder. “That one?” He pointed at the vehicle turning the corner.

Elton nodded, his one good eye never leaving the carriage.

“Sedgwick. Baron Sedgwick,” Temple told him.

“And the woman?”

The marquis cocked a brow. “Gawking after a married woman? At your age? Elton, I’m shocked. And you know demmed well that it takes a lot to make me scandalized.”

“Who was that woman with Sedgwick?” Elton repeated, his voice deep with intent.

Temple stepped back and eyed his servant. “My good man, in all the years that you’ve been in my employ, this is the first time I’ve ever seen you look twice at a woman. Besides, it is highly irregular for servants to be dallying after a married noblewoman.”

“You don’t pay me regular enough to be considered a servant, so I’ll ask ye again, milord:
Who is that woman
?”

Temple felt a chill run down his spine. He’d never seen this fierce side of Elton, and he wasn’t foolish enough to cross the man given his dark past. “The lady is his wife. Lady Sedgwick.”

“His wife?” Elton didn’t sound like he believed a word of it.

“Now don’t do anything foolish there,” Temple said, giving up any hope that Elton was going to open the door to the carriage and doing it himself. He climbed in and leaned back in the seat. “Sedgwick is a dull sort, but I have a feeling that when it comes to his wife, let alone his honor, he wouldn’t take kindly to being cuckolded.”

“That woman isn’t his wife,” Elton said, spitting over the side of the seat and then picking up the reins.

“Not his wife? You’re mad.” Temple glanced up at the sky and wondered where his driver had found the blunt for drink, because he must be half pissed to think otherwise.

Elton turned around and shot him a level look. The kind Temple imagined he’d used when he’d been engaged in his former profession—as a highwayman.

Undaunted, Temple crossed his arms over his chest. “If she isn’t his wife, then who is she?”

“My daughter.”

Emmaline sat stock-still in the Sedgwick carriage. She knew her best course of action was to say nothing. Not a word.

She’d made a muddle of the evening. First she’d incurred Lady Oxley’s ire by revealing a few unsightly branches in her family tree, then she’d broken her promise by telling that outlandish story and finally she’d come to Miss Mabberly’s aid, when obviously no one else was going to stand up for the girl.

Of all her sins, that was the worst. She’d done the girl no favors. The meddling promise was the one she should have
broken, and sent Miss Mabberly out in search of a worthy second son.

Then again, she still had two weeks…

Most likely not, she realized, glancing over at Sedgwick’s arched brow and the cold, icy set of his jaw. She had to wonder if he was going to allow her even the courtesy of going inside Number Seventeen long enough to fetch her belongings.

No, best that she not say a thing.

Oh, bother, that was never going to work. “Sedgwick,” she began. “If I could just—”

“Is it true?” he asked, interrupting her.

“What?”

“What Lady Neeley said. Are you this Miss Doyle?”

Emmaline flinched. She’d never thought that the discovery of her other identity would be the least of her problems.

“Are you this Miss Doyle? The Duchess of Cheverton’s companion?”

She was in dun territory now.

“The truth, madam,” he said, “or I’ll haul you back to the duchess and damn the consequences.”

“The truth?” she managed to quip. “Really Sedgwick, it was such a debatable subject.” Then she glanced up at him and knew for perhaps the first time in her life, the truth was the only answer. “Oh, bother. Yes, that was me.” She shifted in her seat, setting her reticule and fan down beside her. “However, I wouldn’t recommend taking me to the duchess.”

“And why not?” He had that tight, stuffy tone to his voice that she really abhorred.

“I’ve actually never met the duchess,” she confessed.

His eyes narrowed. “But Sir Francis said—”

She smoothed out the folds of her gown. “Yes, well, perhaps he was slightly misled on that point.”

“So how is it that you are this Miss Doyle, the Duchess of Cheverton’s companion, but you’ve never actually met the woman?”

Emmaline wrung her hands. “It might have been implied that I was connected to the duchess and unfortunately it was a misconception that I forgot to rectify.”

He groaned and covered his face with his hands, shaking his head back and forth.

“’Tis hardly as bad as all that,” she argued.

“All that bad? From what I heard tonight, you’ve gulled the Shackleford-Demsleys, Sir Francis, and Lady Jarvis’s sister. You’re a
swindler
.”

Emmaline straightened her shoulders. “You make it sound like I’ve done something wrong. I’ll have you know, I never…” One glance into his stormy gaze and she faltered. “Never intentionally—” His dark brow arched again. “Fine then. It was me. I’ve spent the last six years posing as the Duchess of Cheverton’s companion. But I am no thief.”

“Six years?” he exclaimed. “I don’t believe it. How is it that you haven’t been caught?”

She bristled. “Because I am demmed good at what I do.”

He couldn’t deny that. Look how easily she’d slipped into her role as Emmaline. Still…“How can you say you aren’t a thief?”

“Because I never took anything from anyone that wasn’t freely offered.”

He could believe that as well. Emmaline had a way about her that could charm the worst curmudgeon.

Well, nearly the worst one, he concluded, thinking of
Lady Oxley. Then again, he doubted a host of angels could turn that old battle-ax’s heart. But that was beside the point.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why what?”

“Why did you pose as the Duchess of Cheverton’s companion?”

She heaved another sigh and glanced out the window. “Because the alternatives were less appealing. I shouldn’t have to tell you what choices are available for a woman alone in the world, without the protection of name or family.”

Like any other nobleman, Alex did his best to ignore such chasms in society. Yes, there were few choices for women, but how could he be held accountable if they chose the wrong path? Besides, this was an issue of right and wrong. “While your choices may have been rather limited,” he conceded, “can’t you see what you were doing was dishonest, not to mention unlawful?”

“How so?” she asked, defiant in her defense. “I never took anything from anyone. I only accepted what was offered—a place to stay, food and, more often than not, a ride to the next posting inn.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Have you never offered hospitality to strangers?”

She had him there. His grandmother was forever bringing home wayfarers and offering them the respite of Sedgwick Abbey before they continued on their way. And he’d never objected. If anything, the added company in the house diverted Grandmère from her other favorite occupation, nagging him.

“It is just that it seemed…I mean to say, from what Lady Neeley was saying—”

“Sedgwick, believe me,” she told him, “I never took anything from those houses.”

His gaze narrowed. “Just how many of those houses were there?”

Emmaline chewed at her lip.

“More than five?” he asked.

“Does it really matter?”

“Yes!” He had a well-known and well-practiced flimflam artist posing as his wife. He’d like to know how many more people like the Neeleys were out there.

She seemed to be considering her answer, counting on her fingers and gazing at the ceiling of the carriage as she came to her final total. “Twenty-eight, but without pen and paper that is merely an estimate.”

Twenty-eight?
He had a feeling that nothing about her was an estimation, that Emmaline could name the date and place of each of her transgressions.

He’d seen how she’d wrangled with the tradesmen. Twenty-eight households amongst the country gentry must have seemed like child’s play.

And as the carriage pulled to a stop in Hanover Square, Alex knew there was only one thing he could do now.

“My lord, my lady,” Simmons said, coming down the steps to greet them. “Thank goodness you’ve come home. And in time.”

“Whatever is wrong?” Sedgwick asked him.

“’Tis Lady Rawlins.”

“Malvina?” Emmaline’s hand went to her lips and she glanced across the square toward Tottley House.

“Yes, my lady. I fear the news is not good. ’Tis the baby.” Simmons’s mouth pressed tightly shut and he looked away, shaking his head. “She’s been asking for you.”

For me?
Emmaline didn’t know what to say. The sting of
hot and sudden tears burned her eyes. And without realizing it, she reached out and took Sedgwick’s arm. “Please,” she said quietly. “May I go to her?”

He glanced over at Simmons, and the butler shook his head again. “Has the doctor been summoned?”

Simmons nodded. “The man left an hour ago. He saw no point to staying when the midwife could handle such a thing. Sir, Lord Rawlins has been over twice. It seems that her ladyship would find Lady Sedgwick’s company a comfort before…before…”

“Oh no!” Emmaline gasped. How could such a thing happen so quickly? To her dearest friend. Her only friend. “Please, Sedgwick.”

“Yes, of course,” he told her, turning with her and helping her down the steps.

To Emmaline’s dismay, they were met by the just-arrived Lady Lilith and Hubert.

“I would have a word with you, Cousin Emmaline,” Lady Lilith began, blocking their path, her nose pointed in the air. “I know you aren’t familiar with London ways, but I must say your behavior tonight was simply appalling. Your conduct toward my mother—”

“Not now,” Sedgwick told her.

Lady Lilith was not to be averred. “I disagree. I will not be so easily silenced. Sedgwick, you were not there. You didn’t hear what—”

“Stow it, Mrs. Denford,” he barked at her. “We are needed elsewhere.”

Hubert wisely drew his wife back and allowed them to pass.

They made their way off the curb and continued into the street. Emmaline glanced up at the sky and wondered how it
was that a night that had started so starry and full of magic now seemed so cold and empty.

To lose Malvina? Emmaline couldn’t think of her illustrious friend as anything but full of life, full of her undeniable passion. The tears stung anew.

Not since her father’s desertion, since her mother’s death, had she let herself care for another person. Her very profession lent for a solitary life.

And then into her life had come Malvina. Like a hurricane, she’d forced her way into Emmaline’s world and become…a friend. And now Malvina needed her.

Sedgwick marched along beside her. “Do you know anything of childbirth?”

Emmaline stumbled to a halt. “G-goodness, no,” she stammered, staring in horror at the looming town house before them. All she knew of the process was shrouded in mystery. A mystery she had no desire to meddle in. Not even for a dear friend.

But there wasn’t time to retreat, for the door burst open even before they reached the steps. A disheveled and distraught Rawlins rushed down to meet them. “Lady Sedgwick, you’ve come in time.” He clasped her hands in his. “I thought…I feared…And now you are here for my Malvina. Bless you.”