Something About Emmaline (22 page)

“So don’t marry the chit.”

Jack shook his head. “If I don’t marry the gel, Parkerton will cut me off. Not another farthing.”

“Jack, my advice is to go home, sleep this off and in the morning…” He paused and eyed his friend. “Make that the late afternoon when you arise, I’ll go with you to your brother and help you plead your case.”

“Won’t do any good,” Jack said. “He’s told me to post the banns immediately…or I must leave the London house. He ordered Birdwell to start packing my bags if I hadn’t seen the archbishop by tomorrow.”

Alex doubted Birdwell, Parkerton’s proper butler, would be so happy to see Jack tossed out of the nest. The man had always seemed to have an indulgent and soft heart for the duke’s rapscallion brother.

“Come now, let me see you home,” Alex offered.

“I think not,” Jack said. “If I’m to be married off like some
cit’s
daughter, I’m going to have some fun before I go to the gallows. One last night to frolic between the sweet thighs of a—”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Alex said, catching him by the arm.

But Jack shook him off. “Going backstage and see if my Giselle is free. My pretty little redhead, my heart’s desire. Demmed fond of redheads,” he declared. “I shall enchant her with my kiss, with my charms until I am leg-shackled and banished to the far reaches of Northamptonshire.” Before Alex could stop him, his friend pushed his way into the crowd and disappeared from sight.

He shook his head and considered going after Jack, but his desire to wed Emmaline drew him out into the night and toward Hanover Square.

Jack stumbled away, blinking his eyes, trying to focus on his plan of attack.

Find that little dancing angel and…

Just then he spied a slight figure at the end of the hallway, near the door that led backstage.

Sly minx,
he thought. Lolling about during the intermission in hopes of…He glanced back at the main hallway and saw there was no one about, for most everyone was in the process of retaking their seats.

He took another gander at her and shook his head.
Odd costume, that,
he thought, looking at her prim muslin. But then again, perhaps there was a dramatic reading during the second act and she was going to be in the chorus.

“Giselle, my dearest goddess, how glad I am to see you,” he said, taking her by the hand and spinning her around. She flew into his chest and without hesitating he closed his eyes and caught her lips in a searing kiss.

She writhed in his arms, her hands coming to his shoulders in tight balls. She pounded at him, as if she didn’t want his attentions.

Ah, Giselle, she did like to make their interludes athletic.

He pulled her in closer, then pressed her against the wall, pinning her in place with his hips, his hardened state riding against her. All the while, he continued to kiss her, teasing her tongue to come play with him, tugging at her bottom lip with his teeth, then deepening his kiss until he heard a soft moan come from her.

It never took long with Giselle, he mused, as his hand traveled up the length of her hip, rising along her waist until it came to cup her breast. His fingers rolled over the nipple, and like a virgin miss, she gasped, as if she’d never been touched so.

He had to give her credit, she was a fine actress, because she was starting to struggle again under his attentions, so he decided to end her complaints as he had the night before—his fingers prying her bodice down until her breast came free and he was able to explore it completely.

His hand roamed over her soft, silken flesh, delighting in the way her nipple hardened and puckered, her knees buckled beneath her. Now that he had his little firebrand teased and hot, it was time for the backstage tussle she’d promised him.

“So my sweetling, show me where we can have a few moments alone,” he whispered into her ear, “and I’ll make good my promise to see you well completed before the curtain arises.”

“Leave me be!” she sputtered, her hands once again pounding at his chest.

Was it the brandy, or did the minx just sound different? Jack opened his eyes and blinked, trying to focus, and to his horror realized the woman he’d been making love to wasn’t his Giselle.

It was then that the screaming began.

Alex arrived at Hanover Square not long after, though he had made two important stops: at Rundell and Bridge—waking the poor shopkeepers in the middle of the night—to obtain the perfect ring, and the archbishop’s office to obtain a Special License.

He’d explained to the man that there were some incongruities with his original marriage to Emmaline and that he wanted to ensure his pending heir’s rightful succession. The archbishop, sensible both to the moral implications of such a state and Sedgwick’s reputation as a generous man, had written out the document and advised Alex to bring Lady Sedgwick before him and have the ceremony completed quickly and quietly.

He’d hastened toward Number Seventeen intent on seeing the task completed posthaste. But when Alex arrived at home, he found the house in chaos. A traveling coach sat at the curb, and every candle in the house appeared to have been lit.

He took another glance at the coach and realized it was his grandmother’s berline.

Grandmère? Impossible. She never came to town. Ever.

But here was her carriage, which could only mean—

“My dear boy, there you are!” she called out from the front steps, her bevy of pugs barking happily at his arrival.

Alex closed his eyes and groaned.

“Grandmère,” he said, kissing her cheeks and forcing a smile to his lips. “What a surprise!”

Never had he meant a greeting more. And as he looked at her, seeing her anew, he loved her all that much more.
Grandmère an opera dancer?
It explained so much.

“I don’t see why,” she declared, picking up one of her
cherished dogs and giving it a scratch on the ears. “I decided to come meet this wife of yours. I couldn’t stay away any longer. I was letting my grief for your grandfather keep me from being a guide and champion for your beloved Emmaline. Why, after you left I realized the poor girl was left in town with only Hubert’s wife and mother to introduce her to society.” She glanced around and then steered him into the house. “You know I detest speaking ill of family, but Lady Lilith and her mother would be more likely to feed your innocent Emmaline to the gossips than to see her well situated. I knew right there and then that it was up to me to screw up my courage, face my dear memories and return to this house.” She wiped a solitary tear from her cheek, then glanced back at his carriage. “But where is Emmaline? Isn’t she with you?”

“No,” he said without thinking. “She’s—” He came to an abrupt halt and glanced up the stairs. Emmaline wasn’t home? No, of course not. She was up to something and had deliberately wanted him gone for the evening.

Against his better nature, Lady Oxley’s gossip plucked at his heart.
Riding in Templeton’s carriage.

No, he thought, he was letting the lady’s malice eat at his better judgment. If Emmaline was out, it was for a good reason. At least it had better be. “I mean to say, where is Simmons?”

“It’s Thursday,” she said, shushing him like a child. “He’s probably at that card game he likes to think no one else knows about.” Leave it to his grandmother to still have her finger on the pulse of a home she hadn’t set foot in in over fifteen years. She was smiling indulgently at him, then said, “Now, where is your wife?”

He ignored her inquiry. “You are probably exhausted
from your travels, Grandmère,” he said. “Why don’t I see you up to your room and in the morning you can meet Emmaline?”

“Bother that,” she said. “I didn’t come all this way to be put off for another twelve hours. Now tell me straight, Alexander, where is your wife?” Like the Duchess of Cheverton’s earlier request, his grandmother’s question was no polite inquiry but held the weight of a general’s order. But as luck would have it, when she entered the house, Emmaline’s changes distracted her. “Oh, my goodness, where did you find those paintings?” she asked walking toward the stairs.

“My lord, if I could have a word with you,” Mrs. Simmons said in a whispered aside. “In private.”

Alex nodded, and with his grandmother engrossed by the newly hung watercolors, he tipped his head toward Mrs. Simmons.

“Lady Sedgwick is not at home.”

“Not home?” he asked. “Then where is she?”

At this, his grandmother glanced up. “Is there something wrong, Alexander?” From the look on her face, Alex knew this wasn’t a conversation to be had within earshot of the dowager.

“Grandmère, I’ll be with you presently,” he called out. “Mrs. Simmons has need of my assistance.”

His grandmother eyed them both skeptically, then went back to examining the new furnishings, the pugs seated on the steps around her like china figurines.

Alex followed the housekeeper back to the kitchen. It was empty save for a deck of cards on the table.

The image of Emmaline in the kitchen earlier with Thomas and Simmons flashed into his head. The cards. Emmaline had been holding cards.

The card game.

He looked at Mrs. Simmons and found her crying. “I begged them not to take her along, but her ladyship promised me no harm would come. I’ve never liked Simmons’s penchant for cards, but a man has to have a vice or two or he isn’t happy. And what with all the money that’s been lost, it seemed she was our only hope.”

Alex shook his head. If what she was saying was true…Egads, no. He’d rather have her riding about with Templeton. At least then he could shoot the marquis and flee the scandal with his honor in tact.

“It’s all that Duchess of Cheverton’s fault,” Mrs. Simmons was saying. “She let them hire that sharp, and he’s gone and stole all our money.”

“A sharp?”

“Yes, the new footman at Cheverton’s has been playing for high stakes and winning all the wages from every house servant in Mayfair. And her ladyship, well, she said—”

Alex knew what Emmaline had said. How she’d leapt in and decided to help his staff. But it stung. Not the fact that she’d broken her vow not to gamble, but that she’d lied to him. Betrayed his trust.

Hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him the truth.

Then again, if she’d come to him and said she was going to go cheat at cards before all the servants in Mayfair, he would have locked her in the cellar.

“Where is the game tonight?” he demanded.

“The Queen’s Corner,” Mrs. Simmons said. She burst into another spate of tears. “They are playing at the Queen’s Corner around the square and near the public stables.”

He started for the door, then turned and said, “Keep my grandmother occupied until I return.”

“Milord?” she called out.

“Yes, Mrs. Simmons?”

“If it is any consolation, Lady Sedgwick is going to return the honor of the game to this house,” she told him, like that put everything to rights.

Alex knew the only way to save the family honor was to fetch Emmaline home without delay.

T
he Queen’s Corner, though located in Mayfair, wasn’t the most reputable of establishments. Located next to the public stables, it tended to draw a clientele of drivers and carriage lads, street cleaners and chimney sweeps.

And on Thursday nights, the servants from the great houses throughout Mayfair. Butlers and footmen, pot boys and valets, even a few housekeepers and maids who had a fancy for a fellow from another house.

They came one and all to play piquet and commerce, whist and
vingt et un.
While the stakes were nowhere near what their masters and mistresses tossed down ever so haphazardly, the risk was no less.

And so it was that Simmons, Thomas and Emmaline arrived at the pub just after ten. Emmaline had spent the entire walk over to Queen’s Corner explaining what she needed them to do.

“Thomas, do stop grinning,” she said. “This isn’t the
time for smiling. That will come when we leave with all their quarterly wages.”

The footman furrowed his brow and did his best to look serious, but the sparkle in his eyes would surely give them away.

She brought the heel of her boot down on the top of his foot.

The man howled in pain, hopping about. “What the—”

“Now remember how that feels,” she told him. “For I’ll do worse if I catch you looking like my grandmother’s cat in the cream.”

He nodded, this time his face a mix of pain and serious intent.

“Cards are not to be trifled with, gentlemen,” she told them as they paused on the corner opposite their destination. “But tonight, may lady luck smile upon us.”

Then they crossed the street and entered the pub.

There were greetings all around, for it appeared that Simmons and Thomas were both popular and frequent visitors.

“Eh, Simmons, who’s the new gel?” an older man called out to them as they waded their way through the crowded room.

“Miss Trotter, her ladyship’s maid,” Simmons replied.

Emmaline bobbed her head shyly, then from beneath her mobcap began taking stock of her competition. The tall narrow man holding his cards close to his chest. His hands shook as he picked up the cards dealt to him, but as he put them into his hand, the shaking eased.

Must have got the cards he wanted.

One by one she catalogued the players, filing away their mannerisms and sorting them out by the game they favored.

Simmons continued through the room and didn’t pause until they got to the table hosted by the Duchess of Cheverton’s servants.

“There he is,” Thomas whispered. “The rascally one with the blue vest.”

Emmaline glanced over at the Captain Sharp who had become the dread of Mayfair’s serving classes.

She hadn’t quite believed that a true sharp would be found playing ha’penny stakes with servants, but as she glanced at the piles of coins on the various tables, she saw there were plenty of brads and even a few crowns being tossed about.

Why, the right player
could
gain a stake in such a place, and from the looks of them, these servants were ripe for the picking. It was a wonder someone hadn’t come along and plucked them all clean years ago.

At the table before them, their suspected enemy was dealing cards and, for the uninitiated, appeared preoccupied with his task.

Oh, he did his best to look like a fair to middling player, but to a trained eye the man was a sharp, no doubt about it. He did a good job at hiding his skill by dealing the cards awkwardly and smiling overmuch at passersby, but Emmaline didn’t trust any of his maneuvers.

She hadn’t played against some of the best not to spot one of her own. So, the true test would be being able to conceal her skill from him.

“Gatehill,” Simmons said in greeting to a man about his own height and age.

“Simmons,” the man returned in the same proper London tones.

Emmaline knew, from quizzing Thomas and Simmons about who would be there, that Mr. Gatehill was the Duchess of Cheverton’s butler.

“Brought someone to win back your losses from last
week, eh?” Gatehill asked, chuckling a bit and nodding at Emmaline.

The Sedgwick butler squared his shoulders. “I wouldn’t let her play against your lot, she hasn’t the skills or the money to spare.”

“But that’s not true, Mr. Simmons, sir,” Emmaline piped in. “Her ladyship gave me a little something for luck.” With that she held out her hand and opened it up for all to see the gold guinea that just begged to be won from her fair hand.

Gatehill nudged a young, pimpled man from their table, then wiped the seat with his handkerchief. “Miss Trotter, you will find no finer men of service in Mayfair with which to spend the evening. Lay that coin down, and I suspect you will win not only your heart’s desire, but our hearts as well.”

Smug bastard,
Emmaline thought, though she smiled as innocently as she could and did her best to muster up a blush as she sat down in the proffered chair.

Simmons played his part as well. “Miss Trotter, I would highly recommend you try your hand at commerce with the other maids.” He pointed across the room to one of the other tables.

“But I’ve always wanted to try my hand at a new game,” she said, placing her coin down in front of her. “My grandmam taught me to play parmiel, but lawks, that was years ago. Do you gentlemen know the game?”

“There now, Miss Trotter,” the sharp replied, “I believe you have brought Lady Luck to our table, for I am quite fond of parmiel. An old and venerable game.” Two more servants from Cheverton House who knew how to play were recruited to finish out the table and the cards were dealt.

You are about to discover,
she wanted to tell them as she picked up her first hand,
that Lady Luck has fled in my wake.

Alex pulled his collar high and his top hat down low, and kept his face well hidden from each and every carriage that rolled past him.

Demmit, didn’t she realize the risk she was taking? Not only chancing revealing her deception as Emmaline, but her own safety.

The Queen’s Corner was no place for a lady.

No place for his wife.

Alex took a deep breath. She wasn’t his wife, he tried telling himself. But that wasn’t quite true. Not anymore.

Not once he got done proposing. Then she would be his lawful wife, and there would be no more of these elicit card games, no more of these surprises.

What was he thinking? He was marrying her for exactly those reasons. So he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life in dull routine.

Demmit, Emmaline,
he cursed under his breath,
don’t let any harm come to you. We’ve a life together to discover.

He entered the pub and found the place was crowded hip to jowl. No one paid him any heed, but with his hat dipped low and his collar up high, he was confident that, even if they did take a second look, they wouldn’t recognize him.

From what he could see, most of the crowd seemed to be around a large table in the back of the room. Pushing and pressing his way through, he was finally able to see what was garnering so much attention—a large pile of coins sat in the middle of the table, probably enough to pay the monthly wages of every man in the room.

Alex shook his head. No wonder no one was paying him any heed, for every eye seemed riveted on the two players squaring off for the final hand.

The man he barely spared a glance, but the lady across from him gave Alex pause.
Emmaline.
And yet not Emmaline.

His fashionable, striking wife was hidden beneath a gray mobcap, a pair of spectacles and a dress that made her appear as if she’d gained two or three stone in a matter of hours. Her skin no longer held the rosy bright color, but looked pale and gray.

She’d done a fair job of disguising herself. No wonder she’d been able to pass herself off as a hired companion for so long—she certainly looked the part.

Then he glanced up and found Simmons at her shoulder, ever at guard. And not far from him, Thomas and two other of his footmen, along with the pot boy and several of the maids, all of them gazing in rapt adoration at Emmaline.

“More cards, Miss Trotter?” the man across from her asked.

Emmaline bit her lip and eyed her hand. “I don’t know.”

The spectators around the table all seemed to draw a deep breath, as if they too were in the same quandary.

So she did indeed hold the honor of the house in her hands.

Then she shook her head. “I believe these cards will do.” Then she smiled at the man who held the deck. “That is, unless you need more cards?”

The man appeared to be considering his next move, adjusting the fit of his cravat and staring at his hand. Finally, he looked up and smiled. “No. For, I believe you are beat, miss.”

Emmaline pushed her remaining gold coin in front of her. “Care to match your confidence?”

“Don’t do it, Tuffrey,” the Duchess of Cheverton’s butler urged. “You’ll leave us flat broke.”

The man ignored the plea and slid his final coin into the pile.

Emmaline held her cards for a few more seconds, drawing out the tension in the room, before she laid her hand down. “I believe I win.”

“Merde!”
cursed the duchess’s cook, who continued to rant in French to all who would listen.

However, his laments were quickly replaced by cheers from Alex’s servants as well as those from the other houses.

“Three cheers for Miss Trotter,” Thomas called out.

A chorus of “Huzzah, huzzah, huzzah!” rang through the room.

“She’s won back our wages, she has,” Alex heard one of his footmen say to another fellow. “She’s put an end to that fellow’s cheatin’.”

Alex glanced at the footman, then back at the table. He didn’t know whether to be furious with her for the chance she took or let the feeling of pride that was welling up in his chest have its day and join the others as they cheered her.

She rose from her seat and threw her arms around Simmons. His usually composed butler hugged her, then, realizing himself, set her aside to start counting out the coins and redistributing them to the Sedgwick staff, as well as to the servants of the other houses.

“She cheated,” complained Gatehill. “It’s the only way she could have—”

“Beaten that cheat you brought to our games?” Simmons asked, rising up and facing the other servant nose to regal nose. “These games were just for us, just a friendly way to pass our evenings out, but you had to bring your Captain Sharp there and cheat your fellow servants out of their hard-earned pay.”

Gatehill colored. But he didn’t deny the accusation, which was more telling. “This isn’t the end of this, Simmons,” the man blustered. “Not by a long shot.” Behind him, the Cheverton servants and their ringer stood dejected and, more to the point, surrounded.

The room now stood divided, and Alex stood at the ready, keeping a sharp eye on Emmaline.

“Harrumph,” Simmons replied with all the imperial airs of a foreign dignitary. “Be gone, all of you. You are no longer welcome here.” He pointed to the door, and to the jeers and cheers of their former peers, the duchess’s servants were escorted out of the Queen’s Corner.

The rest of the Sedgwick staff encircled Emmaline, lending their support and loyalty to the woman who had regained their losses. And it wasn’t just his house, but the staffs and help of nearly every other house in Mayfair, those who served the lofty Tottleys down to the most insignificant lordling, one and all came up to pay her homage.

From the loyal light shining in their eyes, Alex knew, knew in his gut, that not one of these servants would talk if they knew or suspected who she was.

He made his way to the bar and nodded to the owner. The man came over and Alex slid his purse across the bar. “Let them all drink until this is gone.” If anything, several rounds of brandy and ale would make their memories a little more hazy as to the events of the evening.

As for the duchess’s staff, not only did they have their cantankerous mistress to contend with, he doubted they would want their misdeeds bandied any further about town.

The innkeeper hefted the purse, then he looked inside as if he couldn’t quite believe it, and what he saw made him grin. Then he climbed up on a stool and called out, “Drinks for all!”

There were more cheers, and the servants rushed forward, while Alex eased himself back from the crowd and out the door. There in the night air, he took a deep breath and considered all he’d seen.

She’d done it once again. Meddled and risen to the surface unscathed. Was there nothing she couldn’t do?

It took his breath away as he realized how little he knew about this woman.

His Emmaline—a cardsharp. Certainly, he had known that she played parmiel against old ladies and their companions, and the rummy likes of Sir Francis, but he’d never imagined her playing with stakes up to the roof against a man who looked more familiar with the South End hells than the rarefied air of Mayfair. The life she’d led that had brought her to him, he couldn’t imagine.

So he had to wonder how he would ever be able to convince her to stay.

Stay with a dull curmudgeon like him.

Emmaline grinned as she watched Sedgwick’s staff retrieve their wages. Demmit, it had been a close call to get them back, until she’d finally been able to figure out her opponent’s methods and get the better of him—switching cards and cutting the deck twice for a better deal.

Tricks her grandmother, old Mam, had taught her at an early age. Disreputable old slattern that she was, no one could cheat at cards better than old Mam.

“Miss Trotter,” Simmons said in a low whisper, “I think it would be best if we saw you home—the hour draws late and I wouldn’t like to have his lordship return home and find you gone.”

“No, that would be disastrous,” she agreed, catching up
her cloak and throwing it over her shoulders. She didn’t feel good about lying to Sedgwick, but how else would she have been able to help Simmons and the rest of the servants regain their lost wages?

Simmons waved for Thomas to join them, and the footman came immediately. They exited the pub and started for home.