Something About Emmaline (20 page)

Emmaline didn’t see how anything uttered by the foppish marquis could be held with such high value, but she listened to her father’s advice as he went on.

“You’ve made an enemy of Lady Oxley, and in due course her daughter and, by that order, Mr. Denford. Nothing worse than a hungry and beholden fox living under your roof.”

Emmaline glanced up at the sky. Heavens, not more of her grandmother’s pithy country advice, never mind the fact that she often herself quoted her father’s incorrigible dame.

But despite the country adages, Elton had a good point about Lady Lilith and Hubert. She was only too aware that the Denfords viewed her arrival with open dismay—especially since they thought Sedgwick and his wife were in a deliriously happy second honeymoon, one capable of producing an heir that would usurp Hubert’s position.

That could very well make even a ninny like Hubert Denford dangerous.

“I see that crease in your brow, Button, and don’t you go fretting none. I’ll keep an eye on them. In the meantime, I want you to promise me to keep well away from Westly.”

Emmaline started to sputter. “I will not be—”

“It ain’t safe for you here in London, considering how many of them toffs you’ve bamboozled the last few years.”

“What do you know of my…my…travels?”

“Been trying to catch up to you, if you must know. Find ye and make sure yer safe.” He wiped his brow and clucked at the horses again. “But I’ve got me other duties for himself, so I haven’t been able to do by you as I’ve wanted. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t heard about your flimflam.” He spat over the side of the carriage. “The Duchess of Cheverton! That woman has the power to see you hang. What were you thinking, Button?”

This last comment came out with more worry than she’d ever dreamt of hearing from Elton. It plunged into her heart and burrowed in, taking root in a spot she’d thought long banished from her life. The part where she believed her father’s promises.

She’d spent so many years listening to her mother lament his wandering foot, and eye, not to mention his haphazard source of employment as a gentleman of the road, that she’d never really been able to believe that he cared more
for them than he did the lure of the road on a moonless night.

But here he was, concerned and caring. Checking up on her. Following Hubert about, if he was to be believed. And she wanted to believe him, believe that he regretted the lost time between them, but she didn’t dare hope that such a foolish dream was possible.

Any more than Sedgwick would ever believe her a lady.

A lady worthy of…

She shook her head at such a thought. “I’ve done well enough…and been very careful.”

Now it was Elton’s turn to snort, and he did so with all gusto. “If you were careful you’d have never got shot in Surrey.” He paused and stared down at her. “Didn’t think I knew about that, did ye?”

She shook her head.

“Spent three months trying to find what happened to ye. Tore me heart out looking for your…your…well, never mind what I was looking for.”

Emmaline didn’t like the way her eyes started to moisten at the notion of Elton searching for her, nor did she want to hear the wrenching pain in his confession. He’d thought her dead.

“Was proud to know that you hadn’t gone down without a fight. Though I can’t say your aim was so fair. I taught you to aim higher, not at a fellow’s parts.”

Emmaline shrugged. “The room was dark.”

He snorted. “Like your grandmam, you are. Like to put a man in his place when you gets the chance. Oh, Button, you don’t know how I rejoiced when I heard there was a young gel playing a fair hand of parmiel about the countryside. Right there and then, I knew you hadn’t died on me. No one
could play parmiel better than you. But I would have thought that once you nearly found yerself done in, you might be more careful. Might try to find a new life.”

“I did,” she told him. “And now I’m at the very end. I have but this one last game. Then I’ll put myself far from all this. Put it all behind me.”

Elton coughed. “So I told yer mother more times than I like to confess. How I meant them words each time I promised her, but the road and the game, they always call you.
One last game.
Those words will kill you one day, Button.”

Oh, dear God. How many times
had
she heard Elton telling her mother the same exact words? Making the same promise that none of them had believed.

But her situation was so very different. This
was
going to be her last game. Her last con. If not because of the money she’d gain from Westly’s piquet challenge, then because of Sedgwick. He’d made her believe in something far beyond that. That love and trust and faith could change a person.

Emmaline glanced up at Elton.
As perhaps coming face to face with the noose had done for her father.

But before she could say anything, he turned into Hanover Square and came to a stop in front of Number Seventeen.

“Here you are, Button, just as I promised. Now all I ask is that if ye get into trouble, ye send for me.”

She nodded, though she had no intention of doing so. For what if she did call for his assistance and the changes he claimed in his life and intentions he offered were nothing more than the gammon and cant that was as much a part of him as that notorious patch over his eye?

Simmons had the front door open, and one of the foot
men was coming down the steps to take her packages and assist her from the carriage.

“Thank you,” she called up to Elton, and walked inside without looking back.

Toiling in the past won’t put supper on the table,
her grandmother always said.

Still, when she got to the top of the steps, she chanced a glance at him, but all she saw was the back of the elegant Setchfield carriage rolling out of the square. A wild impulse tugged at her heart, nearly had her fleeing after her long-lost father, when a voice from within the house stopped her in her tracks.

“Well, that was an enlightening sight,” said Lady Lilith, coming down the staircase. “My, my, my. The virtuous Lady Sedgwick riding about in the Marquis of Templeton’s carriage. I wonder, who will vouchsafe for you now? You’ve quite broken your fine reputation today, not to mention how it makes your husband look.”

Emmaline stiffened. Sedgwick! How would she ever explain this to him? Perhaps she should just follow her instincts and race after Elton and be done with this entire crazy scheme—before it was her heart, not just her reputation, that was broken beyond repair.

But then something amazing happened. Simmons spoke up, with that patronizing, nobbish sort of tone that only a London butler could perfect. “Mrs. Denford, there is nothing circumspect about Lady Sedgwick’s mode of transportation. She was left to use a hired conveyance for her errands for Lady Rawlins, because Mr. Denford had already taken the carriage and Lord Sedgwick was obliged to use his phaeton.” Simmons sounded as put out as if it
had been him left stranded. “Rather than see her ladyship have to ride in some questionable hackney on her return, I sent a note over to the Duke of Setchfield’s butler to see if arrangements could be made for her to return in His Grace’s carriage.”

Lilith’s brows drew together as she first shot a hot glance at Simmons and then at Emmaline. Then she turned on one heel and marched back up the steps, muttering a rather loud, “Well, we’ll see about that.”

Once she was well out of earshot, Simmons began his own scolding. “I hate to say it, but Mrs. Denford is right—what were you thinking, riding about in the Setchfield carriage? Everyone knows Templeton uses it, and with
that
man driving, it looks highly improper.”

“He simply offered me a ride home because I had so many packages,” Emmaline said, as she handed him her evidence, the bundle of purchases she’d made, followed by her pelisse and bonnet. “Besides, I don’t think the Marquis of Templeton is exactly the most rakish fellow about town. Hardly the sort capable of compromising another man’s wife.”

“Madam,” he said, “be that as it may, you cannot forget that a proper lady doesn’t ride about in another man’s carriage. Not even one as harmless as the marquis. People will assume…” He sent a significant glance upward. “Certain people will assume the worst and use it to their advantage. I wouldn’t like to see her carrying tales to Lord Sedgwick.”

Emmaline cringed. “I didn’t know,” she confessed.

“Now you do.” He nodded toward the pile of packages. “Would you like Thomas to deliver Lady Rawlins’s items to her?”

“No, he doesn’t need to go to all that bother. Besides, I’ll
probably pop over there later to see how she’s getting on this afternoon.”

“Very good, my lady.” He bowed to her and went about the tasks of putting away her bonnet and pelisse.

Emmaline continued through the foyer, then stopped and turned around. “Simmons?”

“Yes, my lady?”

“Why are you helping me?”

“I would think that is obvious,” the man demurred.

She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head at him. “Not especially.”

Simmons heaved a great sigh. “You are the mistress of this house, and it is my honor and privilege to serve this family.”

She crooked her finger for him to come closer. “Simmons, why are you helping me? And none of that flimflam about the honor of the household and such. Why are you helping
me?
Is it because I’m, well, offering some assistance with your piquet problem?”

“Madam, you insult me. Your assistance with that difficulty is only one of your unique charms. But if you must know, I am helping you because—”

Upstairs, Lady Lilith started bellowing for a maid to attend her.
Immediately.
As her strident cries pierced every corner of the house, Hubert strode into the foyer from the back hallway, muttering to himself.

Emmaline knew from the pinched expression that arose immediately on Simmons’s face that Hubert had come into the house via the mews and through the kitchen. Again. Making one of his surprise inspections of the staff, to ensure that they weren’t robbing his good cousin blind and to make recommendations for economies on any derelictions he spied.

“Simmons, there you are,” he called out. “That Thomas fellow changed out the candle stubs again. I don’t see why they have to be replaced so often. Someone is making a tidy profit behind the scenes, eh?”

Emmaline’s mouth fell open. One of the privileges of being a butler was that he received all the candle stubs—which could be sold on the side for remelting. It was a common enough practice, but what Hubert was saying was as good as accusing a longtime family retainer of theft.

Simmons stealing, indeed! Well, one good deed deserved another, and there was no doubt she was in Simmons’s considerable debt.

“Cousin, it was I who asked Thomas to replace the candles,” she said. “Lord Sedgwick doesn’t like them sputtering on him halfway through the evening.”

Hubert pursed his lips, then stomped off in the direction of the library.

“Off to count the volumes again, I daresay,” Simmons muttered.

Emmaline barely suppressed a grin. “I thought you said you served this family.”

“I do,” he said adamantly. “But my lady, there is family and then there is
family.
”

Emmaline understood that one only too well. Her father was the perfect case in point. Still, she needed to understand why the butler was risking so much to help her. “But Simmons, why me? Especially when you know…well, you know that I’m not…”

“Not without your charms, my lady,” he told her, bowing his head slightly.

Upstairs, Mrs. Denford was still shrieking at the top of her lungs for a maid to come attend her.
Now.

Simmons closed his eyes and shuddered. When he opened them, his gaze fell on her and a smile rose on his usually stern lips. “This house needs a mistress. And more importantly, an heir.”

Emmaline shook her head. Had she heard him correctly?

An heir? Was he mad?

Oh, no,
she thought as the truth hit her harder than if she’d been run down by a mail coach. Simmons didn’t care who she was, had most likely been overjoyed at her arrival. He’d risked all this in order to see Sedgwick truly married. Married and besotted. Married and producing an heir so the Denfords’ hopes of inheriting wouldn’t be so…so obvious. The bride could have been plucked from Newgate, or Bedlam, or right off of the nearest convict ship, and Simmons wouldn’t have cared, as long as he could be rid of the Denfords for once and for all.

“But I’m not…I couldn’t…” She shook her head at him. As adamantly as she dared without ruining the riot of curls that Malvina’s maid had arranged for her earlier in the day. She leaned closer to him and spoke in a whisper. “Simmons, I’m not going to be here long enough to solve
that
problem.”

“Madam, that remains to be seen.”

She shook her head again. “Sedgwick doesn’t want a wife, which is why he made one up. And he certainly doesn’t want me.”

Simmons smiled again. “Doesn’t he? Madam, you underestimate yourself. And while I’ll deny to my death that I’ve ever agreed with anything Mr. Denford has said, I do believe you have Lord Sedgwick besotted.”

“B
esotted,” Jack said, leaning back in his chair. He had joined Alex at a corner table at White’s. “’Tis on everyone’s lips that you have gone around the bend for your wife. So is it true?”

Alex cringed. He never wanted to hear that word again. He’d come to his club to seek some peace from the painters and paper hangers and the Denfords…

And his desire for Emmaline.

Whatever had he been thinking, making love to her? The press of her lips, the silk of her skin were now like a fever he couldn’t shake. One he couldn’t resist. So he’d fled the house before he spent another afternoon whiling away the hours in her magical company, in her arms…

Much to his chagrin, his club was offering no respite. Every fellow who arrived had to come over and wish him happy returns as to Emmaline’s much-improved health. It seemed Lady Pepperwell had made good her promise to tell
all of Emmaline’s miraculous recovery. Giving every rake, Corinthian and would-be blade an excuse to slap him on the back and make some jest about his being besotted over his bride. Including Jack, who had not only wished him “happy,” but ordered a bottle of Madeira (on Alex’s account) to celebrate Sedgwick’s good fortune.

“Can’t let this besotted image of yours come under scrutiny,” his friend had said.

“I am not besotted,” he told Jack as the fellow poured the expensive wine into a pair of glasses. “Why, it was utterly ridiculous.”

Jack snorted. “So explain to me why you drove her out to Clifton’s for an afternoon of…now, how shall I phrase it? Marital privacy?” He laughed. “Don’t try to deny it because I saw you driving home wearing Clifton’s bottle-green jacket and your Emmaline sitting beside you looking all pretty and mussed. Now, if that isn’t telling, I don’t know what is. Though I would like to know—”

“Jack…” Alex warned.

The rascal had the audacity to grin. “Now, don’t get your cravat in a knot, I was only going to ask if they have another bottle of this stuff in the back,” he said, waving his hand at the dusty bottle. “Besides, it wouldn’t be gentlemanly to pry.” He glanced around for the waiter, then signaled the fellow to bring another bottle.

Alex was all too happy to pay if it kept Jack diverted. But even the Madeira failed him utterly.

“But since we both know I am no gentleman,” Jack said. “I demand a full accounting.” Then he launched into a rapid-fire litany of questions. “Who is this paragon? Did you find out who hired her? And if you don’t mind me saying, what the devil are you doing bedding her? Never mind
that question, she’s a pretty chit. I’d worry about you if you hadn’t found a way to tempt her into your bed.”

“I have you to blame for all this,” Alex told him.

“Not this again,” Jack said, reaching quickly for the newly arrived bottle, lest it be nudged out of his reach.

“I’m in over my head with all this Emmaline business,” he confessed.

Jack studied him for a moment. “You don’t look the worse for it. And if you don’t mind me saying, Lady Sedgwick wasn’t the only one looking contented the other afternoon.”

For a time, the pair sat in silence, Alex musing what to say, and Jack having the good sense to keep quiet and drink the Madeira.

This was what came of all his smug boasts about careful planning and intelligence—look where it had gotten him. Tangled up with a woman who wasn’t supposed to exist.

“Demmit, Jack, what am I going to do?” Alex threw up his hands. “This is more your territory than mine.”

Jack laughed again. “Oh, aye. Not like you to go off without weighing all the consequences, considering the finer points of propriety. What
has
this chit done to you?”

Alex considered all his answers and then offered the honest one. “She makes me laugh.”

His friend’s gaze narrowed, then he shook his head. “Never thought you’d say that. Lord, you are in deep.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Alex said, then explained what he did know of Emmaline’s past—that she was a con artist who made her living gulling old ladies by cheating at parmiel.

“A cardsharp?” Jack sputtered. “You’ve gone and married some Captain Sharp?”

“I haven’t married her,” Alex protested.

“Not yet,” Jack muttered, topping off Alex’s glass and then his own.

“Don’t you see,” Alex said, “that is exactly the point? I certainly can’t marry her.”

Why hadn’t he just cast her out that first night, found some reasonable explanation for her departure and then washed his hands of this entire affair?

But now he couldn’t. Not now that he’d made love to her, listened to her plans for the house as they lay before the warm embers in the fireplace, naked and content. Spent nights with her cradled in his arms. Taught her to drive in the park. Done a thousand things that married people took so much for granted.

She’d become more than Emmaline in these all-too-short-lived days. She’d become a…

“Sedgwick?” Jack was saying, snapping his fingers at him. “You’re woolgathering. I’m going to have to cast my lot with the rest of London and declare you besotted if you don’t get that look off your face.”

“I have no such look,” Alex complained.

Jack used what little discretion he did possess and said nothing. Instead he took a long draught. “I don’t see that you have any other course but to keep her.”

“Keep her? Are you mad?” Alex sputtered, as if such a thing could be done.

Could be dared.

He shook off that notion. No, he couldn’t do it. “Can you imagine what my forebears, let alone my family, would say if it became known that I’d married a woman of questionable breeding?” Alex said. “Never mind the fact that she has a decided lack of morals when it comes to cards.”

“Demmit, Sedgwick, don’t be so dull-witted. Half the
ton
cheats at cards. And I’ve never understood why one had to, when choosing a wife, consider the opinion of one’s ancestors. Stodgy, stuffy fellows who have long since gone aloft. It’s not like any of them are going to turn up and complain. And if they did, they’d have to first get past that ridiculous grin you get on your face each time the chit is mentioned. Why, I’ve ordered two bottles of this Madeira and you haven’t even noticed, let alone complained.”

“I noticed,” Alex told him. “And I will concede that Emmaline is an uncommon lady. But I can’t let my heart make this decision. Marriage is about duty and obligation—not personal feelings.”

“If you really believed that,” Jack said, “then why haven’t you just married some dour-faced heiress and been done with this entire business years ago? You can go on and on about ‘making a good match,’ but you and I both know what a good match means. Your cousin Hubert marrying Lady Lilith. This Miss Mabberly leg-shackling Oxley. But that isn’t what you want. Never has been, I daresay.”

“I have a title and a legacy to consider,” Alex said. “I can’t just choose any bride I want.”

“Why the devil not?” Jack argued. “I would think that a title and fortune such as yours would buy a fellow a measure of eccentricity now and then. Marry the chit and spend the rest of your life grinning at all the naysayers.”

Alex drew a deep breath and shook his head. How could he?

Jack shrugged. “Do with it as you will. Demmed waste of a title and fortune, if you ask me. But what do I care? As long as it means you continue to pay for my drinks.”

Alex arrived at Hanover Square some time later. Jack and his cheeky suggestions! Keep Emmaline, indeed! Why, such a notion was ridiculous.

Yet that stodgy sentiment didn’t slow his pace as he took the steps up from the curb two at a time.

He could only wonder what mischief Emmaline had gotten into while he was gone, and demmit if he wasn’t curious to hear about her exploits—harassing tradesmen, gossip she’d collected from Malvina, Lady Lilith’s latest complaint. Alex couldn’t help but grin. Why, even Lady Lilith’s complaints were amusing when it was Emmaline relating them to him.

He paused for a second at the door and glanced over his shoulder at Tottley House. Once again he realized that Rawlins’s words from the other night were haunting him.

…
Know in your heart that there was something about her that would make your rather ordinary life complete, give you a reason to get up in the morning and see what mischief she was up to.

What the devil would he do when Emmaline was gone?

He pushed open the door and decided not to dwell on that notion. “Emmaline?” he called out as he walked into the empty foyer. “Emmaline, are you here?” The gloomy silence that greeted him was as desolute as a Scottish moor. A cold reminder on a warm June day of the dull routine his life would return to when she was finally gone.

“Emmaline?” he called out again. “Simmons?” No one returned his greeting, but his moment’s pause revealed the sound of laughter coming from the back of the house.

Her laughter.

Now what is she about?
his curmudgeoning side growled, but Alex did his best to banish such thoughts. Wouldn’t it be
a fine hour, to know that all his dull days were well behind him? To always have Emmaline about?

As he made his way down the hall, he heard the shuffle of cards and her voice again.

“No, no, Thomas. That’s not at all proper,” Emmaline was saying.

Not proper.
What the devil was that cheeky footman doing with his wife? Not my
wife,
he reminded himself.
She is not my wife.
Still, he picked up the pace and strode into the kitchen.

Inside sat Emmaline at the great table, with Thomas and Simmons across from her. There wasn’t anyone else about the large room.

She bounded to her feet. “Sedgwick! What are you doing here?”

Something about the entire scenario didn’t set well. What the devil was she up to? “This is still my house,” he said, glancing at Simmons and Thomas. They both looked as if they’d spent the day pawning the silver. “I should ask the same of all of you.”

She glanced at her two companions, then frowned. “Cards,” she said hastily, snapping up the deck on the table. “I discovered Simmons and Thomas playing cards.” She shook her finger at the guilty pair. “As I always say, cards are the surest way to find yourself damned for all eternity. I am surprised at both of you. Not to mention what Mrs. Simmons would say!”

She pocketed the deck and sighed. “Sedgwick, I shall leave them for your justice. I fear the sight of such licentious behavior has made me quite dizzy.” She beat a hasty retreat, her curls bobbing in merry denial to the stormy line of her brows.

“What the devil was that about?” Alex demanded of the guilty-looking pair before him.

“Her ladyship has an aversion to card games,” Simmons suggested.

“So I gathered.” He glanced back in the direction she’d gone and shook his head. Perhaps he’d misheard her laughing a few moments earlier, for, apparently she was taking her vow to give up playing parmiel quite seriously. “Just see that she doesn’t find out about your Thursday night games.” No need to put her back onto the path of temptation.

“Of course, my lord,” the butler said.

“Aye, milord,” Thomas added.

He turned and went to leave the kitchen, but then stopped and glanced over his shoulder. There was something not quite right about the scene he had just witnessed, but he doubted he was going to get the truth from these two, and he knew it would take the fires of hell for Emmaline to divulge a word, so he’d have to trust she wasn’t up to her neck in yet another coil.

He left the kitchen to follow her, but when he came back down the hall, he heard Lilith and Hubert both talking at once.

“But you must go, cousin,” Hubert was saying. “You’ll quite ruin our party if you don’t.”

“Yes, Mother will be extremely vexed to find a vacant seat in her box,” Lilith added. “Besides, Sedgwick agreed to accompany us to the opera this very morning, isn’t that right, Mr. Denford?”

“It is,” Hubert said.

The opera? With Lady Lilith and Hubert? And Lady Oxley? He froze in his footsteps. Was that what Hubert had been nattering on about at breakfast? He also vaguely re
called agreeing to whatever his cousin was saying just to get him to stop talking.

Demmit, he had agreed to go with them tonight. He grit his teeth. He could hardly explain his true desires for the evening to his cousin. There were only so many nights before Emmaline…well, before he had to give her up and it just didn’t sit well that he’d have to share her tonight.

So keep her…keep her always.

Alex shook his head. He was going to have to give up drinking with Jack. It muddled his reasoning and left him susceptible to all sorts of impossible notions.

Then, much to his relief, he heard Emmaline saying, “I just don’t think I can go.” Her voice was thin and reedy. “I think my shopping trip might have been more strenuous than I thought, for I believe my fever is returning…I feel ever so hot, and terribly dizzy.”

He peeked out from behind the corner and spied her standing in the foyer with her hand on her brow and wavering on her feet like she was about to topple over. Though she was flanked by Hubert and Lady Lilith, neither appeared ready to jump in and stop her from pitching over.

And knowing Emmaline, as Alex thought he did, the chit would be willing to dash herself onto the marble floor just to avoid an evening out with Mr. and Mrs. Denford. Not to mention Lady Oxley.

He certainly couldn’t blame her. He’d be more than happy to have his other eye blackened right now if it would provide him a convenient excuse. Perhaps if Emmaline was willing…

Really, he needn’t go to such depths just to keep them home. Her illness should be enough to keep them out of Lady Oxley’s clutches.

“Emmaline, are you unwell?” he said, coming forward and catching her just before she did indeed topple over. He hoisted her into his arms, relishing the warmth of her skin, the scent of violets in her hair.

“Sedgwick, dearest, is that you?” Her lashes fluttered, while her head lolled against his chest. That pair of kissable, rosy lips parted ever so slightly.

How he wanted to forget this was all an act and kiss them anew. To watch her go from this feigned illness to a fever of another kind. And he would, once he got her upstairs.