“The best of plans, indeed. Be sure to prepare Swimmer,” the captain said. He gave Emme another surreptitious wink. “I’ll be sure to call on you and your lovely aunt as well, my lady.”
“We’ll look forward to it,” Emme said.
And as long as he didn’t bring his business associate with him or encourage her father’s misguided attempts at matchmaking, she actually meant it.
The captain strode away from them, looking quite pleased with himself, Emme wasn’t sure for what reason.
“We’d better not keep Father waiting,” Edward said.
Emme took his arm. “And Mother. Why did you leave her waiting alone? Is she at a nearby café?”
“Emmeline, she’s not here.”
“Call me Emme. You know how I feel about that. And what do you mean, Mother’s not here? Her daughter returns after a year abroad, and she misses the homecoming? I hardly think so.”
“It wasn’t her intention. When I visited her a month ago, your return was all she could talk about. But we had frightful storms last week that washed out some of the roads.”
“Visited her? What does that mean? And if the roads are washed out, how did you and Father get here?”
“We took the train from London,” Edward said. “You did read my letters, didn’t you? I told you, Mother has moved to the country house. Permanently. And Father is staying in London. Permanently.”
Emme stopped short and whirled to face her brother. “Edward,” she said in a hushed tone, “are you telling me our parents are separated?”
He nodded. “Permanently.”
“Stop saying that word! It can’t be so. We have to do something about this.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder to move her toward the carriage. “It’s a blessing, believe me. You remember how awful it was when they were under the same roof.”
“Yes, I remember. I’d assumed it would improve once I’d left.”
Emme’s thoughts were spinning. Knowing her parents’ deteriorating marriage was proceeding to its natural conclusion only bolstered her belief that she was making the right choice for her life, passionate night with and confusing feelings about Daniel aside. But it also threatened to ruin her plan.
What if her mother no longer had any influence over her father, just as her aunt had suggested during their voyage? Emme was counting on that influence to mollify him. She’d need all the support she could get when told her father his only remaining daughter—at the perfectly marriageable age of twenty-two—was leaving the marriage mart to become a spinster.
Chapter 8
Emme tried to focus on her needlepoint, but her fingers trembled. She laid aside the travesty of wide, looping stitches. She’d always hated needlepoint. She’d only ever taken it up in the first place to please Eleanor and appease her father.
With a deep sigh, she moved from her chair next to the fireplace in the sitting room to the window and stared out at the drizzling London rain. It had been one week since she’d gotten safely off the ship and comfortably far from Daniel, but time and distance hadn’t made her think of him less often. And the nights...the sleepless nights had become unbearable.
“Still missing the sea?” her aunt asked from behind her.
Emme turned and smiled at her only confidante, now that her mother’s journey had been further delayed by the interminably bad weather. “It shall pass, I’m sure.”
“And if it doesn’t?” her aunt asked.
As Emme opened her mouth to respond that things would improve because they simply must, the door burst open and Edward practically flew into the room from the hallway. “We have visitors. Just arrived on the afternoon train, returned from a trip to the countryside.”
With a flourish of his hands, he presented Tessa and Lucinda. Tears welled in Emme’s eyes as she threw her arms wide to hug the friends she hadn’t seen since the day she’d left London for her year abroad.
“You both look wonderful!” Emme said as her friends embraced her.
It was true. Tessa, blonde and petite, still looked and moved like a little yellow bird. Luci, buxom and golden-haired, hovered somewhere between sweet English girl and exotic temptress. Together, they were the most welcome sight for sore eyes.
“We’re sorry it took so long to get here,” Tessa said. “With all this terrible weather, the roads were impossible, and the trains were overbooked.”
“I’m just glad you’re here now.” Emme brushed away a tear, hoping no one noticed it. “Tessa, I’m sorry I couldn’t attend your wedding. And Luci, I can’t wait to hear all the gossip I know you’ll have.” She leaned forward and hugged her friends again.
“I wish I’d stepped into the room quickly enough to be in the midst of that embrace.”
Emme jerked her head up at the sound of the familiar voice. Captain Granville stood framed in the doorway. In her last week on the ship, she’d grown so accustomed to spotting Daniel in his company, albeit always from a safe distance, that now she was prepared for the shock of seeing him enter the room.
Still, when he actually did, she realized she hadn’t prepared enough. It took her several seconds to remember how to breathe.
“I would take credit for delivering your friends, instead of just precipitously finding them on your doorstep, if I thought it would curry favor with the ravishing Lady Emmeline,” the captain said.
He smiled as he looked past Emme and her friends. “And Lady Kendall.” He stepped forward and took her aunt’s hand, gallantly lifting it to his lips. “It is indeed my lucky day. You remember my business partner, Mr. Hallsworth, of course.”
“I didn’t know you’d returned to England, Mr. Hallsworth,” Edward said.
Daniel nodded, but his face remained unreadable. “I have, Lord Meriden. I have pressing business.”
“And how are you finding London?” Aunt Juliana asked him before Edward could say something cutting, which he looked for all the world about to do.
“More crowded than ever, and I do miss the Spanish sun on days like today,” Daniel said. He glanced at Emme. “But England has its charms.”
Emme hoped she wasn’t blushing as she fixed him with a steely-eyed stare.
“Ladies, Granville, Mr. Hallsworth, since we’re all here, let’s move to the sitting room and have a proper drink,” Edward said.
“Perhaps just one, before we spirit Meriden away for a night of...respectable gentlemanly pursuits,” the captain said as he held an arm each to Tessa and Luci.
“Yes, strictly respectable, I’m sure,” Luci said with a laugh.
Edward led the way out of the room with the captain and Emme’s friends following close behind him. Daniel held out his arm to Aunt Juliana.
“You young people run along without me,” Aunt Juliana said. She picked up her needlepoint and busied herself over it.
“Shall we?” Daniel held out his arm to Emme.
She swished past him. “I’m perfectly capable of walking unescorted through my own home.”
When they reached the hallway, she slowed down enough to keep pace with him. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.
“You already know, Lady Emme, I have business with the House of Lords in a few days’ time.”
“Not in England.” She resisted the urge to point out he was being a ninny. “What are you doing in my home?”
He glanced at Edward, now well ahead of them. “Visiting an old friend.”
“Who seems less than happy to see you.”
Daniel’s smile faded. “I suppose there will be a lot of that these next few weeks. But while I’m working out the conditions for restoring my title, I’ll need to ingratiate myself with respectable members of the ton.”
The hint of melancholy in his voice gave her a twinge of contriteness. She clasped her hands behind her back as she walked more slowly beside him. “I don’t envy you that. I’m doing my best to avoid that lot myself.”
“Ah, the luxury of an unimpeachable lineage.” He smiled again as they reached
the entryway of the sitting room, and he stopped to let her step past him.
He had no idea just how precarious her own reputation was, and she wouldn’t bore him with the details, no matter how much she longed to confide in him. She put the irrational desire down to foolish nostalgia for what they’d once been to each other and the secrets they’d once shared. Their confidences had been innocent then. Now they were both burdened with a history of terribly consequential transgressions, and the less said about them, the better.
Two footmen had appeared without needing to be summoned, a testament to the disciplined household her father ran, and quickly set out scones and portions of sherry for them.
As they drank a few toasts and made polite chit-chat, the gentlemen—including Daniel—were charming company, but Emme longed to be alone with her best friends. More than that, she longed to be alone with Daniel, but that desire was another sin she would bury and never show in the light of day, and she wished him away from her so she could regain her equilibrium.
“How are you finding life back in London, my lady?” Daniel asked her.
She should give a polite and vague answer, but her nerves were too on edge to keep up that great a lie. “It’s rather stifling. The poorer parts of town are even more overcrowded and lacking in the basic necessities than when I left a year ago, and the blasted rain won’t let up long enough for me to join the other spinsters to visit our charges—the women and their families we help.”
He stared at her with one eyebrow cocked.
“I shouldn’t have said any of that.” She did her best to offer him a fake smile. “I should say it’s lovely to be home.”
Daniel scowled. “Please don’t. Then I’ll feel more the heel for my own opinions of the place. You were gone one year. Imagine if you hadn’t seen the city for five years.”
“I suppose it hasn’t aged well in that time,” she said.
He shrugged a shoulder. “Perhaps my memory of it was too charitable. And speaking of charitable, I’ve been very impressed by the good things I’ve heard about the charitable work done by the Spinsters’ Club.”
“Are you?” she asked.
It was hardly an organization discussed much at society events. The women they assisted hardly lived up to society’s expectations of those deserving of help, but she wouldn’t flatter herself to think he’d gone out of his way to inquire about it. What good would it do her—or him, for that matter—to know he was thinking about her even half as much as she was thinking about him?
“And about the work Lady Tessa and her husband, my old friend James from Harrow, do with their scholarship foundation,” he said. “It’s allowed me some measure of optimism about this place that’s supposed to be our home.”
Her heart tripped when he said “our home.” It was private and intimate, and she wanted to step closer to him and speak in whispers and share confidences.
She took a few steps to her left to move closer to the loose circle made by their friends. Daniel shifted a bit to his right, immediately caught and responded to something the captain said, and just like that, their intimate conversation was finished. It was the right thing to do. She just couldn’t fathom why the pain of it had to cut so deeply.
The captain glanced at Emme and flashed a smile. “We’ve made plans for your brother this evening, Lady Emmeline, but you and your friends are such charming company, perhaps we should stay a bit longer.”
“Oh, that would be delightful,” Tessa said, rolling her fan opened and closed. “We’re going to discuss Darwin’s theory of pangenesis, and I would so love your input.”
“Pan what?” The captain widened his eyes while Daniel and Edward grinned.
“But we also have to discuss the latest fashions,” Luci said, “and who looks terrible in them.”
Tessa nudged Luci in the ribs.
“And who looks lovely in them,” Luci added.
The captain looked more horrified. “I’d hoped we’d have a friendly game of cards. I’ve learned a fascinating American game. Poker.”
Luci clapped her hands together. “Oh, I’ve heard of it. I’d love to learn it.”
Tessa nudged her ribs again.
“Another time,” Luci said.
Emme reached for Tessa’s hand. “And we’re going to discuss the work Luci and James are doing with your scholarship foundation. I’ve been reading up on conditions in the workhouses and—”
“They can’t be serious,” the captain said to Edward.
“They can and they are,” her brother answered with a look of pride on his face.
Daniel patted the captain’s shoulder. “Perhaps the ladies are best left to their own devices, after all.”
“Besides, the rest of London would be so chagrined to be deprived of your charms much longer,” Edward added.
The captain polished off his sherry and ceremoniously set the glass back on the serving tray. “I’m afraid my compatriots are correct, ladies.” He touched his forehead as though tipping his hat. “And so, sadly, I bid you adieu.”
As the servants retrieved the gentlemen’s coats, hats, gloves, and umbrellas, the small group said their goodbyes. Edward stepped into the hallway, followed by Captain Granville. Daniel left last, shooting one quick look at Emme as he reached the door. They locked eyes, but didn’t smile. Then he was gone, and the noise of the three old Harrow friends eventually faded into the street.
Tessa pulled Emme into a quick hug. “I hope it wasn’t too terrible for you.”
“Terrible?” Emme smoothed down her skirt and did her best to appear unfazed. “You mean because of Mr. Hallsworth?” She shook her head. “That was so long ago. Who even remembers?”
“We do, as do you,” Luci said. “Your brother said there’d be dinner when he fetched us from the train station, but I suppose that won’t be for at least another hour. That gives you time to tell us everything.”
Emme couldn’t even be vexed with Luci, having missed her straightforward manner so much.
“About your time in Spain,” Tessa said. “And the work you plan to do with the Spinsters’ Club.”
“And about Mr. Hallsworth and the voyage home.” Luci arched an eyebrow, daring either of her friends to argue with her.
Emme exhaled a sigh and picked up the sherry. “Fine. But we’re going to need more of this.”
Tessa took the full glass Emme offered her, but she frowned. “Let’s not be injudicious, though. We have all evening, after all.”
Emme hoped to keep any discussion of Daniel and the trip home as brief as possible. Otherwise, Tessa’s warning aside, she might need to drug herself with the rest of the bottle.
* * *
Having survived seeing Lady Emme without being able to touch her and enduring dinner with her less-than-welcoming brother the previous evening, Daniel relaxed in Swimmer’s private room in the Reform. As a servant entered bearing another bottle of fine Bordeaux, Daniel settled back into the deep leather cushions and observed the well-appointed, dark-paneled space. The servant filled the duke’s glass, offered more to Daniel, who refused it, and withdrew.
Daniel smiled, remembering a long-ago night. “This is a far cry from the last establishment where we shared a drink.”
Swimmer laughed, no doubt having only the vaguest recollection of the crowded cantina in Bilbao where Daniel and Granville had celebrated with him on his last night of wild abandon. “To this day, I can’t recall how I made it onto the ship the next morning, although I do remember the rough seas aiding and abetting my hangover for what seemed like a week. It was the beginning of a very long year.”
Daniel hesitated for a moment, then spoke. “I’m sorry I was unable to attend your father’s funeral to pay my respects in person.”
Swimmer waved away Daniel’s regret. “As much as I hated being summoned home for my own wedding to a woman I scarcely knew, I was glad to have that last year with him.” He sighed heavily, and Daniel could see the weight of his title and its responsibilities lay heavily o
n his old friend.
“And of your late wife—”
“That’s enough talk of ghosts for tonight.” Swimmer tossed back half his glass of wine. “Granville tells me you’re on a mission.”
Daniel took the last small sip of wine left in his glass, holding the sublime taste on his tongue, while he considered just how much of a pummeling Granville deserved for his lack of discretion regarding Daniel’s interest in the recalcitrant Lady Emme. Or he could feign misunderstanding.
“Just making a few charitable donations, trying to do my part,” he said. “Seems the least I can do.” It truly was the least, and Daniel had some ideas about how to do more, but those might have to wait until the business with his title was settled.
Swimmer raised his eyebrows. “I was referring to you having the marquessate reinstated. Unless charitable contributions are another stipulation the Committee for Privileges has imposed. Granville told me they’re making some ridiculous demand that you prove yourself worthy.”
The tension in Daniel’s shoulders eased. Granville wouldn’t need a pummeling for discussing Emme with their other friends, after all. “The committee never used the word ‘worthy’, and they didn’t mention ‘charity’, only ‘respectable behavior’. They’ve set out a few guidelines, made a few suggestions. I’ll play their game for a month or so.”
“Tell them to go to bloody hell!” Swimmer said. “There’s no appetite to let the title languish. They’re just trying to extract a pound of flesh for their own amusement. Or perhaps one of their wives is a judgmental old bird and her kowtowed husband is trying to earn her favor. It’s an abuse of their power.”
Daniel grinned. “Thank you for your affront on my behalf, but whatever the reason, their goal aligns with mine. No reason to cause a fuss or challenge them over something I plan to do anyway.”
Swimmer frowned. “Surely the Hallsworth name doesn’t need that much rehabilitation. But if that’s your plan, tread carefully where Granville’s suggestions for entertainment are concerned. You can’t have the first mention of your name in the society pages be for any reason that’s less than pious.”
One Kiss From Ruin: Harrow’s Finest Five Book 1 Page 8