Coward that she was, Emme couldn’t bear to look her mother in the eye as she broke her heart. They’d see each other from time to time, of course, but if her father had his way, it wouldn’t be soon and it wouldn’t be often.
She joined her brother in the carriage, on her way to the last meeting of the Spinsters’ Club she would ever attend. She carried her new parasol, which was edged with Mrs. Carter’s exquisite needlepoint. It was a gift of thanks for a promise Emme would have to break, now that she wouldn’t be joining the Spinsters’ Club or establishing the cooperative.
Edward reached across the cab and squeezed her hand. “I’ll do what I can for Mrs. Billings and Mrs. Carter.”
“Thank you.”
She knew he would, but it wasn’t just about those two women and their children. There were dozens of women she’d already met whose handiwork she’d hoped to sell in the storefront. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands more, she’d dreamed of helping in the years to come. Now she’d sit in Cambridge and write polite letters and less-than-polite treatises and, in the end, she’d help absolutely no one.
By the time they arrived at the London Library on St. James Square, they may as well have been arriving at a funeral, given the melancholy hanging over them. When they stepped into the building, though, she breathed deeply and inhaled the calming scent of books and bindings. She tried to pretend they were just on a pleasant, late-morning outing, and not preparing to separate again. Edward would visit her as often as he could in the countryside, but he could hardly come frequently. And one day, he’d settle down and marry and have children of his own to raise, and the crazy aunt who’d run off to Cambridge would be just another nursery story to them.
Emme and Edward stopped outside the meeting room. It was a cozy, wood-paneled space with tall windows illuminated by spring sunshine and soaring rafters arching into a pointed ceiling. Twelve chairs were arranged in a semi-circle in the middle of the room. The members of the Spinsters’ Club were already there, milling about and chatting like the old friends they were. She had never gotten to know them the way they knew each other, and now she never would.
She squeezed Edward’s arm, then released it. “I suppose it’s time. I can’t delay the inevitable any longer.”
As she stepped away from him, Edward caught her hand. “Emme, wait.”
She saw such sadness on his face, it frightened her. “Edward, what is it?”
“I just want you to know, I need you to know, I love you. I always will. Nothing you’ve done or ever could do will change that. Mother, too, and Aunt Juliana, and your friends. We know you’re a good person, Emme.”
In the days since her father had renounced her, the rest of her family and her two best friends had done everything they could to show her their love and support. In her heart, she knew they believed in her goodness, and they wanted her to believe it, too. Still, hearing it from Edward meant the world.
“Thank you for saying that.” She rose on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.
Edward tightened his grip on her hand to keep her there. “There’s one more thing. Hallsworth.” With his free hand, Edward pinched the bridge of his nose. “Now Edensbridge.”
Emme froze on the spot. No one had mentioned him in her presence since the night of the opera. She never would have guessed how deeply the sound of his name would cut. “That’s good news. He’s reclaimed the title. He promised his mother, and...” She couldn’t think of what else she could say that wouldn’t make her burst into tears.
“Despite what I think of him, what we think of each other, he has one redeeming quality. He loves you.”
Emme took an unsteady breath. “Yes, I think he does.” It’s not enough, she wanted to tell her brother, but there was no point in discussing Daniel. Not with Edward, not with anyone.
“He’s not courting Lady Anastasia. He’s given up courting.” Her brother frowned and looked away from her. “I thought you should know.”
“I don’t understand. Why are you telling me this?”
Edward hesitated, then shook his head. Dropping her hand, her ever-steady brother, her rock, her protector, took up his post on an ornately carved walnut bench a few feet from the meeting room door. Emme was relieved to let the subject of Daniel drop, but she couldn’t help thinking there was something more she needed to understand. However, the moment had passed, and inside the room, the spinsters had taken their seats. There was no more time to dwell on it.
Emme smoothed down the front of her skirt and adjusted her jacket, then stepped into the meeting room. As Lady Abigail stepped out from behind the lectern several feet in front of the chairs, Emme slid into one of only two empty seats, nodding and smiling at the other women. They were all dressed in finery, with sumptuously feathered hats and starched white gloves. It appeared the spinsters maintained a certain standard for their monthly meetings, and if Emme had thought she had any hope of joining them, she would have regretted the underwhelming impression made by her buttercup yellow suit and crisp white blouse, much as she loved them.
Lady Rachel stood, remaining in front of her chair. “Shall I read the minutes of our last meeting now, Lady Abigail?”
“I think I should like to break protocol and begin with our second order of business today.” Lady Abigail beamed.
Emme couldn’t remember ever seeing anything close to such excitement in the elder stateswoman of the club.
Lady Rachel clapped her hands together and shot a quick glance at Emme.
Lady Abigail waved Emme forward. “Lady Emmeline, would you join me, please?”
Emme pressed her trembling hands to her belly as she stood and stepped toward Lady Abigail. This was the moment of reckoning, the moment when her dream of committing herself to cause greater than her sad, small life disappeared in a puff of smoke. The time had come to say goodbye the ladies of the Spinster’s Club, and to the hope she’d once had of redeeming herself in the eyes of her parents and the world.
Lady Abigail turned to Lady Rachel, who opened a leather-bound tome and drew out a loose leaf of paper. Lady Abigail took it gently and ceremoniously, then turned to Emme.
“Lady Emmeline Radcliffe, it is my great honor to bestow upon you this certificate of membership in the London Spinsters’ Club. You have proven yourself worthy and devoted to our cause of seeing to the welfare of women of lesser means, helping impoverished families, and contributing to the greater good of England under her Royal Majesty, Queen Victoria.”
“God save the Queen!” said Lady Rachel.
“God save the Queen!” echoed the rest of the club.
“I don’t understand. I didn’t secure the necessary funds to join you, and by tomorrow, I won’t even be living in London.” Emme’s voice cracked on the last word. She reached for the certificate, but stopped short of taking it in her hands.
Lady Rachel handed Lady Abigail a few more papers, and Lady Abigail held those out to Emme as well. “This, Lady Emmeline, is the deed to a property on Bond Street, and this is the summary of a trust that has been set up with you as steward, with enough funding to keep up your cooperative and the women working there for years to come.”
“This makes no sense. Who would do this.”
Her mind swirled with possibilities. Edward had been unable to do this for her. Perhaps her father...she shook her head. As much as some aching part of her heart wished it would be so, she knew with every fiber of her being that he had not changed his mind about her. Perhaps the duchess, although she supported multiple charities through the duke’s own trust.
Even as her mind sifted through the facts, trying to make sense of what was happening, her heart knew. Edward’s words, the ones said and unsaid, suddenly made sense. And her muddled mind caught up with her sure heart.
Emme took the certificate from Lady Abigail and balanced it delicately on her gloved fingertips. She surveyed the roomful of smiling faces, a room full of pious women, where dear Eleanor herself might have felt at home. How proud her sister would be t
hat Emme had finally found her place, her own pious, purposeful place.
But it was a lie.
Emme’s vision blurred and she blinked to hold back the tears. It wouldn’t work. Drop after drop fell onto the certificate so that the ink smeared on the proclamation in Lady Rachel’s finely-drawn hand. For all her belief in the cause, she wouldn’t thrive here. She would wither and die like a garden without sun, as she’d been doing since Eleanor’s death, save for her too few stolen hours with Daniel.
Daniel. This was his last gift to her, his final act of acceptance of the life she’d chosen. It was always Daniel, supporting her even when she’d refused to let him stand by her side. Daniel, believing in her innate goodness and ability to make a difference in the world, even as her father’s damnation made her doubt it herself. Daniel, offering her unconditional love even if it meant abandoning his dream of marrying her to protect her secret.
She’d been afraid of the truth all along. It had made her unable to overlook his split-second hesitation, to take him at his word that he would marry her despite the danger it posed to him. And because of her fear, he was gone from her life forever.
Over her dead body. And she was pleased to assess she still had life in said body and breath in her lungs. With those came the opportunity to set things to rights.
She wiped away the last stubborn tears. “Thank you, Lady Abigail, ladies. But I can’t.” She handed the certificate back to Lady Abigail. “I truly hope I can use my new trust to continue to work with the club, but I can’t join your organization, as I’m soon to be betrothed. Happily betrothed.”
Several of the spinsters gasped. Lady Abigail placed her hand over her heart. Lady Rachel smiled at Emme.
Emme returned Lady Rachel’s smile, then fled the room. She found Edward still on the bench where she’d left him.
He jumped to his feet when he saw her. “What’s the matter?”
She grabbed his hand and pulled him with her toward the front entrance of the library. “I need your help to put my plan in motion.”
He tugged her hand to stop her beside him. “Not another of your plans, Emme, please. They’ll be the death of me.”
“Not to worry, brother, this is a very good plan. I’ve come to realize I can help women in need, oversee the trust Daniel has put in my name, and be a happy wife.”
Edward’s eyes widened as her meaning dawned on him. But he didn’t look happy.
“I know you’ve had your differences with him, Edward. But you’re the one who reminded me how much he loves me. Surely you can—”
“It’s not that, Emmeline. Hallsworth is leaving.”
“Leaving what?”
“Leaving England,” he said. “At the end of the week. He’s going back to Spain.”
“Spain! Wherever did he get such a ridiculous idea?”
Her brother pressed his lips together and let out a deep sigh. “He realized Lady Anastasia, and every other lady of the ton, would never make him happy, so he decided he couldn’t stay here any longer. I might have encouraged his decision. Quite strongly.”
“Oh, Edward, really. Sometimes I think I need to watch over the two of you like children.” Emme focused on the next step of her new plan. She wasn’t about to allow such a small problem as an exodus from the country dissuade her. “It seems we might have a bit more work to do, then. You’ll have to arrange for me to see him.”
“I already have.”
“And you’ll have to—What did you say?”
“The duchess’s garden party,” Edward answered. “He’ll be there. He made me promise to bring you there so he can say a proper goodbye this time.”
“Hm.” She gave one curt nod. “It seems at least one of you is thinking like an adult, then. But we have to go now.” She tugged on his hand again. “I’ll need Luci’s advice on my hair. Oh, and I’ll need a prettier dress than this, although I probably don’t have a decent thing to wear.”
“No need to run.” Edward took her arm and escorted her out of the library at a respectable pace. “And don’t you have several perfectly lovely new dresses mother just bought you?”
“Yes, but none of them are the right dress. How often does a woman get proposed to, after all, by the man she loves?”
Thrice, to be exact. But the last two times she hadn’t been wearing any clothes. She wouldn’t mention that to her brother, though, as for the first time in weeks, he didn’t seem hell-bent on pummeling the man she intended to marry.
Chapter 20
Emme rested her hand in the crook of Edward’s arm as they stepped onto the veranda at the back of the duke’s London house. In the wide expanse of lawn before them, there were tables nearly overflowing with finger foods and delicacies, bowls of punch, and bottles of wine, each sheltered by its own large, blue-and-white-striped umbrella. Beyond the lawn and the dozens of guests milling about among the tables, the early roses were blooming in a riotous garden bursting with pink, yellow, and red flowers. Off to each side of the lawn were copses of tall oak trees strung with faerie lights that glowed under the slightly overcast mid-afternoon sky, looking even more beautiful than they would have on a gloriously sunny day.
“Oh, the garden is lovelier than ever today, isn’t it, Edward?” Emme said.
She glanced to her right, where her mother and aunt sat on lawn chairs under the oaks with the duchess and the two society mavens who had attended the duchess’s tea on the day that Daniel had announced he should like to marry a blonde. Emme smiled. Today would be the day she foiled that ridiculous plan for good. But her own plan wasn’t without risk. What if she were wrong about Daniel, about what he truly wanted?
“Do you suppose the duchess ordered the clouds just so her faerie lights could sparkle that way?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light to obscure her apprehension.
“I wouldn’t put it past her, Lady Emmeline,” said a man from behind them.
Emme turned to see Lord Fairbank, with Luci on his arm. Luci gave Emme a quick hug. Then she stepped back and surveyed her handiwork, as she was the one who had insisted Emme wear the bright green silk with voluminous folds and layers lace over multiple petticoats.
“Oh, you look ravishing, Emme! Doesn’t she look ravishing, Papa?”
Emme had thought the outfit too much when her mother had insisted they buy it, and again yesterday when Luci and Tessa had suggested she wear it for this momentous occasion, but even the normally stoic Lord Fairbank gave a slight nod and tip of his hat.
“You do look particularly lovely today, Lady Emmeline.”
As the Alcotts joined them, Tessa caught both Luci and Emme in a quick hug. “Oh, she’s right, Emme. You look positively aglow!”
Luci reached behind Emme to pick up the tail of the green ribbon in Emme’s hat. “I added the matching ribbon. I have quite a talent, if I do say so myself.”
Tessa fluttered her fan and sighed. Luci’s father frowned. But Edward grinned. And if Emme wasn’t mistaken, his cheeks colored the slightest bit.
She had no more time to ponder it, as the duke joined them on the stone terrace, with Captain Granville just behind him. And there, too, was the man who, unbeknownst to himself, was about to propose to her for the third time. Daniel wore fashionable tan trousers with dark brown stripes that matched the color of his waistcoat and frock, and he looked a bit pale, which only served to make his blue eyes more striking.
The duke approached them. “Meriden, you’ve arrived. Good to see all my fellow reprobates here.” He bowed in the direction of Emme and her friends. “Ladies, you look lovely, as always. Fairbank, good to see you.”
Fairbank greeted the duke, then shook Daniel’s hand. “Congratulations to the Marquess of Edensbridge.”
The greetings continued all around her, but Emme was dumbstruck. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the newly restored marquess, who was able to go through all the motions of polite sociability while making her feel as though he never quite took his eyes off her.
The duke cleare
d his throat, breaking the spell that had kept her attention riveted on Daniel.
“Fairbank, I’d hoped to discuss something with you.” The duke laid his hand over his heart. “Ladies, please forgive me. It’s a political matter of some urgency. Perhaps these fine gentlemen would escort you to greet my mother.”
Lord Fairbank’s face darkened for a moment. “These fine gentlemen would be the reprobates you just mentioned?”
But even Lord Fairbank couldn’t refuse a private audience with the duke. As they stepped away, Mr. Alcott held out his arm to his wife and Edward held out his arm to Luci. The four of ambled onto the well-manicured lawn.
Now Emme and Daniel were left alone. With Captain Granville. Who glanced between them as though he had something desperately important to tell them.
Daniel looked at his friend. “Granville, were you about to greet our hostess, as well?”
The captain sighed. “Damn it, Hallsy, why don’t you just…” He shook his head and looked at Emme. “Lady Emme, can’t you see…” The captain sighed again, quite dramatically.
“Is he all right?” she whispered to Daniel.
“No,” the captain answered. “I’m not sure I am.” He turned on his heel and followed behind the Alcotts.
Emme looked at Daniel. “What was that about?”
Daniel didn’t answer for a few heartbeats, instead holding her gaze. Then he shook his head. “I can’t say for sure, but I suspect it has something to do with his true nature. Granville has a secret, you see.” He dropped his voice, as they always did when they shared confidences. “Deep down, underneath all that flirtatious, obnoxious bluster, he’s a hopeless romantic. I think he had quite high hopes for a romance.”
“I see. And you’ve disappointed him.” She glanced at the crowd milling about on the lawn and tsked. “And nary an unmarried blonde of marriageable age to be had today. I fear you’ll disappoint him yet again.”
“Well, with the lawn safely free of blondes, might I interest you in a walk about the grounds? Otherwise, I’m afraid we’ll make a spectacle of ourselves, standing up here alone for all the duchess’s guests to see.”
One Kiss From Ruin: Harrow’s Finest Five Book 1 Page 22