Something About Emmaline (7 page)

Alex was taken aback by her brass. She’d shaved two pounds off the price, yet if Mr. Starling corrected her, he risked the baron’s ire and the loss of the entire commission.

And it worked like a charm, for the man just gulped and nodded in agreement—to her assessment and the new price.

Gads, if he let her stay another day, she’d have him convinced she was indeed his lawful wife.

“It looks perfect, Emmaline,” he said, bowing slightly to her and then to the tradesman.

Hubert had followed close on his heels and Alex soon discovered Lady Lilith wasn’t far behind. Usually he wasn’t too pleased to see the pair of them descending upon him, but there was no time like the present to get rid of them.

Oh, yes, and Emmaline as well,
he reminded himself. “Hubert, actually I was looking for you. I have an errand that requires your expertise.”

“Whatever you need, cousin. I am always there to help you. You have but to ask and I am at your disposal. Just say the—”

“Yes, I know,” Alex told him. “I would like you and Lady Lilith to travel with all due haste to…to…Cornwall and visit a property I obtained this past season. It is a matter of some importance, so if you would leave immediately I would be most obliged.”

Hubert glanced over at his wife and then back at Alex. “’Fraid we can’t.”

Alex shook his head. Perhaps he hadn’t heard Hubert correctly. “You what?”

“Can’t go,” Hubert said. “Can’t leave town just yet. At least not for a fortnight.”

“Whyever not?” Alex asked, trying to recall if there had ever been a time when Hubert had naysaid anything he’d been asked to do.

“My brother’s wedding,” Lady Lilith said, coming up to stand beside her husband. “I am so sorry, Sedgwick, but we couldn’t possibly leave town until after the wedding. Mother is in a state over the arrangements.”

Hubert nodded. “That’s why we came to town in the first place.”

“A wedding,” Emmaline said dreamily. “I adore weddings.”

From the sly tilt of her head and the mischievous smile on her lips, he realized she’d known all along that his efforts to evict the Denfords would come to naught.

Why, of all the unscrupulous, underhanded…

Lady Lilith, in the meantime, was picking her way through the tarps and scaffolding to inspect Emmaline’s latest choices. More likely, trying to gauge the expense. She looked at the paper and sniffed. “Of course, you will be invited to the wedding breakfast—that is, if your business keeps you in town that long,” she said. “You can let Mother know tonight at her supper party.”

“Tonight?” Alex asked. “What supper party?”

“Mother is having a little party for Miss Mabberly, my brother’s betrothed, to introduce her to a better sort of company,” Lady Lilith explained. “I believe she sent around an
invitation this morning when she heard you were in town. Of course, I informed her you would be there, for I knew you would never want to slight my mother.”

Alex felt his control once again slipping through his fingers. “I don’t think that we can—I mean to say, Emmaline’s health prevents her from—”

“Oh, you can’t avoid society forever, you two,” Hubert said, nudging Alex in an overly friendly manner. “No one will think less of you, cousin, when they discover how truly besotted you are with your bride.”

Besotted?
He was no such thing. And he certainly didn’t need that bit of nonsense being bandied about by whatever limited society was in town. All it would take was one gossipy matron, one spinster with a bent for chatter, a Corinthian in search of a new
on dit,
and everyone would know.

Meanwhile, Emmaline was peppering Lady Lilith with questions. All he heard were the words he dreaded.
A supper party…a wedding…a fortnight?

Hadn’t any of them heard a word he’d said?

“We are not going,” he announced.

The banter stopped and three pairs of eyes stared at him.

“I’ve already accepted. Mother is expecting you,” Lady Lilith said, her tones as haughty as her manner. “It will cause comment if you are in town and don’t deign to make an appearance.”

He wasn’t used to being countermanded under his own roof, especially not by relations who owed their livelihood to his largesse. Yet he felt the challenge of her words right down to his toes. She was daring him to take Emmaline out into good company.

He slanted a quick glance in Lady Lilith’s direction,
ready to deliver his final word on the subject, yet something in her smug smile stopped him. Right there and then he realized his cousin’s sharp wife suspected something was amiss.

He didn’t even want to think of the price he’d pay if Hubert and Lilith discovered the truth.

“Yes, of course, it would cause unseemly comment if we didn’t attend,” he said. Comment he could ill afford. “Thank you, Lady Lilith, for pointing that out.”

“That’s my girl,” Hubert said, beaming at his wife. “Always looking out for the Denford name.”

Maybe more so than Alex thought necessary.

“Then tonight is looking up already,” Hubert enthused. “It will be quite a feather in Lady Oxley’s hat to be the first hostess in London to present Lord
and
Lady Sedgwick together for all to see.”

Alex wanted to groan. Instead, he turned on one heel and stormed from the room, fleeing before he found himself in the wedding party or hosting the breakfast.

“Sedgwick, where are you going?” Emmaline called out.

“My club.”

“We are expected at eight,” Lady Lilith added, a wry smile on her face.

Eight it would be then. And they’d leave promptly at half past before any further mischief could be wrought on his life.

E
mmaline let out a deep breath as Sedgwick left the ballroom. She’d been granted a reprieve. And she had Lady Lilith and Hubert to thank. Why, she could have almost hugged the imperious woman when she’d said that they couldn’t leave. Almost, that is. Lady Lilith’s pinched expression probably kept even the unruliest of small children and unrestrained dogs at bay.

Still, another day here was another day closer to the end of her career conning the
ton.
In two weeks’ time, she’d pluck a passel of fat purses at the Marquis of Westly’s annual piquet challenge, and then she’d retire someplace quiet and picturesque.

She could almost hear the happy jingle of gold coins in her pockets.

“What has you smiling like a cat in the cream?” came a sweet dulcet voice near the doorway. Hubert and Lady Lilith were gone, and in their stead Malvina Witherspoon,
Viscountess Rawlins, stood there grinning at her. “Why, you look like you’ve just made off with half the diamonds at Rundell and Bridge!”

Emmaline couldn’t help wondering what Malvina would say if she knew how close to the truth she’d come.

Then again, she doubted it would bother the viscountess in the least if Emmaline
had
robbed the well-appointed jewelry store. Anything for a diversion.

Take for instance, Emmaline’s unexpected arrival at Hanover Square. The viscountess had descended on Number Seventeen the morning after she’d arrived and immediately made herself a fixture in Emmaline’s daily life.

“I am so glad you’re here,” Malvina had declared as if they’d known each other for ages. “I hope you don’t mind my presumption, but I had to call. I haven’t a friend in town right now, and I am dying for some company.”

And then, before Emmaline could utter a protest, Malvina had declared her gown a disgrace and promptly called for her carriage to transport them both to Bond Street for a day of shopping to bring Emmaline up to par.

“The cats would have a field day with you, my dear, if they saw you in that wretched gown. Why, you look like someone’s cast-off companion.”

How right Malvina had been, not that Emmaline dared tell her the truth.

Besides aiding and abetting Emmaline’s rather tenuous use of Sedgwick’s credit, Malvina had also done something Emmaline would never have been able to accomplish in such short order. With the indomitable Viscountess Rawlins at her side, Emmaline had gained an instant and immediate cachet within society.

Thus was born their unlikely alliance. Though as each
day passed, Emmaline found it was less and less easy to reconcile the guilt she felt each time Malvina introduced her as her “dearest friend.”

The viscountess strolled into the ballroom, studying first the ceiling, then the paper Mr. Starling had left on the work-table. “Emmaline, you have the most engaging eye. How do you do it? If you weren’t so charming, I’d declare you horribly annoying to anyone who would listen.”

“I haven’t done anything you couldn’t do.”

“Oh, bother me. All I seem fit for currently is scaring small children with my great girth.” She folded her hands over her enormous stomach, full with a baby that was due any day now. Because of her
enceinte
state, she and her husband, Viscount Rawlins, hadn’t traveled to the country for the summer. Bored without the company of the rest of the ton, Malvina had declared Emmaline’s arrival at Hanover Square “heaven-sent.”

“How are you feeling today?” Emmaline asked, casting an awestruck glance at the lady’s bursting waistline.

“Dreadful. Simply dreadful. Bother this child. I can’t sleep. I have to use the necessary every half hour. And I swear some Seven Dials cutthroat made off with my ankles last night, replacing them with a pair of barrels.” She plucked up her gown and revealed once-delicate ankles now ballooned in width. She sighed, then dropped her hem back into place. “But thank you for asking.”

Emmaline laughed.

Malvina breezed forward, moving gracefully despite her figure, and wound her arm around Emmaline’s. “Come invite me for some of Mrs. Simmons’s tea cakes and tell me what
he
said.”

“Who said?” Emmaline teased.

Malvina swatted her with her fan. “Sedgwick, you dolt. Tell me what happened last night when he got home. I want to hear all the details.” She winked. “La! Rawlins retreated to a cot in the dressing room three months ago and I wonder if he’ll ever return to my bed. So indulge a poor lonely woman—what happened?”

“If you know that he’s home, then you probably know everything I could tell you.”

“You dreadful tease,” Malvina replied, leading her from the ballroom. “Now you must tell all. According to my upstairs maid, your servants were quite tight-lipped this morning. I’ve been in a state all day, waiting for Sedgwick to leave for his club so I could come over and have a good coze with you.”

Emmaline shot a sideways glance at the woman. “How did you know Sedgwick would leave for his club?”

Malvina laughed again. “Emmaline, my dear Emmaline, how much you need to learn about marriage.”

They left the ballroom and settled into the garden salon at the back of the house. The doors and windows had been thrown open and the roses growing in profusion beyond scented the room.

Emmaline rang the bell and ordered tea and cakes, and then settled down on the chair across from Malvina.

“So? What did he say about the house?” the viscountess asked. “More to the point, what did he say about you? Obviously he didn’t toss you into the streets for beggaring him with all your redecorating.” Malvina laughed at her jest, and Emmaline joined in, though for different reasons—mostly that she wasn’t in Newgate or on her way to Botany Bay.

“No, luckily for me, he didn’t,” she said. “Though I thought he might for a moment there.”

Malvina shook her head. “Men! They haven’t the least idea the work and effort we undertake to make their lives infinitely more comfortable.”

The tea and cakes arrived, the maid leaving them on the low table between the ladies. Emmaline poured a cup for her friend and offered her a plate of cakes.

As Malvina happily munched through several, avowing that they were all for the baby and chatting away about nonsensical gossip she’d picked up from her servants, Emmaline found herself silently recounting Sedgwick’s entry into the ballroom.

She’d caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye and been too nervous to do anything more than cast furtive glances in his direction.

Emmaline’s only hope had been that the blush she felt heating her cheeks wasn’t noticeable across the room. Gads, what was it about him that had her turning as pink as the roses outside?

Oh, she knew what it was. The memory of his kiss. His scorching, devastatingly passionate kiss. The very thought of it took her breath away…

And yet Sedgwick had appeared so unaffected. So demmed indifferent. And then their gazes had met, and she swore that she’d seen that heat flare to life in his green gaze. A memory shared, a memory that now bound them together, until they could find a way to douse that flame.

She’d glanced away then, unable to continue looking at him and not have her knees melt beneath her. But her curiosity, her need prodded her to spare a peek in his direction again, only to find his gaze had roamed upward, cast in the direction of the ceiling.

Holding her breath, she wondered at his thoughts—until
she’d been rewarded with a look of complete awe and then appreciation for the painting that was being done.

She’d followed his gaze as he’d looked around the room, and she just knew he’d understood what she was trying to accomplish. He’d known, and he’d approved of it.

And when Hubert had come in, like a weasel, wheedling up to Sedgwick’s elbow with his penny-pinching comments, she swore she’d heard Sedgwick defend her work.

Defend her? Oh, what was it that he’d said?

From what I’ve seen, she’s done nothing but improve the house.

Emmaline could only wonder what had induced him to say that. Let alone agree to take her to dinner at Lady Oxley’s, though she suspected Lady Lilith’s sly comments had something to do with his change of heart.

A London dinner party.
She took a deep breath. However would she manage to pull that off?

It wasn’t that Emmaline didn’t understand the workings of society. She’d made a study of them, for heaven sakes, made her living aping noble manners and taking advantage of their rules and needs to support herself.

But country gentry and the London leaders were two different ponds. Coming to London was like navigating the ocean in a punt.

Without the pole.

“…And then I hear tell that Lady Tisbury had twin goats yesterday,” Malvina was saying. “Much to the earl’s delight.”

“How lovely for them,” Emmaline said, considering what she would wear, let alone how she’d make it through a formal dinner. For what the devil was she going to do if she
actually knew someone there? Worse, what if someone recognized her?

“Emmaline Denford,” Malvina said, leaning forward and snapping her fingers. “Are you listening to a word I’ve said?”

Sitting up, Emmaline nodded. “Yes, you were saying…um, I do believe you were…”

Malvina shook her head. “What has you worried? You sat through my perfectly delicious story about Lord Templeton without even batting a lash. You are woolgathering like my great-aunt Mary and I want to know what has you so distracted. Is it Sedgwick? Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No, it isn’t him. It’s just that…well, tonight…” Emmaline felt guilty enough about her less-than-honest relationship with Malvina, but having to ask her for help—make that more help—just didn’t set well. “’Tis nothing. I’m perfectly fine.”

“Bother that,” Malvina declared. “There is something wrong and I will have it out this moment and I shall not leave until I do!” She plopped her swollen ankles up on the sofa and folded her hands over her belly.

“Really, there is nothing wrong,” Emmaline assured her.

“And I am the Queen of Persia,” came the reply. “I would hate to think what this new sofa would look like if I were to have this child here. Not to mention Lord and Lady Tottley’s dismay that their first grandchild wasn’t born on hallowed Tottley property. Of course, I shall blame you completely.” Malvina’s lips twisted with a wicked smile.

Emmaline grinned back. “Well, if you must know—we are to dine at Lady Oxley’s tonight.”

That ended her friend’s high spirits. A great groan erupted from the sofa. “And you didn’t refuse it?”

“How can I? She’s Mrs. Denford’s mother.”

“Relations! I confess, I find them such a bother.” Malvina sat up and frowned at Emmaline. “If only we could marry and not collect more family.”

By now Emmaline was quite familiar with Malvina’s acrimonious relationship with her in-laws, the Earl and Countess of Tottley. Lady Tottley was considered the bellwether of society and it drove Malvina to the point of fits that she had to live in her mother-in-law’s constant scrutiny, if not social shadow.

“When Rawlins inherits,”
she had said on more than one occasion,
“I swear I shall not be such an old cow, tromping about town pronouncing who is important and who shall marry whom. I will bring a refinement and sense of dignity to the name Tottley.”

“As it is,” Emmaline was saying, “I must go tonight, but I’m—”

“Don’t say another word. You poor thing, I’d be blue as May if I had to suffer through yet another of Lady Oxley’s evenings. Lady Tottley adores her—and that in my mind is no recommendation.”

Emmaline cringed and wondered if Newgate was such a bad place. Surely there were some cells with a view, or ones that could use a bit of new paint.

Malvina, however, wasn’t through. “We got an invitation, purely because Lady Oxley and Lady Tottley are such bosom bows, but I declined. Rawlins insists I stay close to home. But in truth I think he was relieved to have the excuse.”

“Who will be there?” Emmaline asked, knowing full well Malvina would have a complete reckoning. Her
knowledge of the social maneuverings of town life was astounding.

And of course, Malvina did know. “The Mabberlys,” she said, “because Oxley is marrying Miss Mabberly. Lady Jarvis—awful woman that she is. Lady Pepperwell. Poor
ton,
but you can’t exclude her—she’s a terrible gossip. Templeton. The Earl of Lamden and his daughter. Most likely the Marquis of Westly.”

Emmaline’s gaze swung up. “Who?” she asked as innocently as she could.

“The Marquis of Westly. Rawlins mentioned seeing him the other day. I suppose he’s in town for that piquet game of his. I wish someone would beat him and be done with it. His tedious crowing all year as to how he can’t be beaten is decidedly unbecoming.”

Emmaline suppressed a smile.
Malvina, you are closer to your wish than you realize.

Now her reasons for succeeding at this dinner rose. She had to meet Westly, at least to get an introduction so that when she arrived at his challenge, her entrée would be assured.

“Malvina, can I tell you something?”

The viscountess smiled. “Of course. You are my dearest friend.”

“In confidence?”

At this, Malvina’s eyes widened, then her features took a serious turn. “Unlike my mother-in-law, I do not gossip.”

That wasn’t quite the truth, but Emmaline had no one else to turn to. “I’ve never gone to a formal dinner.”

“Never?” Malvina’s hand went immediately to cover her gaping mouth.

Emmaline shook her head.

“Why, of course you haven’t,” Malvina replied. “What with that unorthodox upbringing of yours. I don’t think there would be much call for a formal dinner in Africa. And then with your illness…”

The one thing about the
ton,
Emmaline had learned, was that everyone knew everyone else’s business. Sedgwick’s wife’s “unorthodox upbringing,” as most everyone liked to call it, made Emmaline a point of curiosity and went a long way toward explaining her less-than-perfect manners or knowledge of London society.

She had to give the baron credit, when he’d invented a wife, he’d chosen wisely. Lord Haley and his wife had left England twenty-nine years earlier to investigate the wilds of Africa. Lady Haley had perished in that inhospitable land and there had been no word of Lord Haley for close to fifteen years. Emmaline, their daughter, was apparently Alex’s own invention, and it worked perfectly, for who was there to dispute such a thing when Lord Haley was the last of his lineage?