Fall From Lace

by Emily Claire

  Her hand twitched inside its bandages.

  “You’ll have earned Isabella’s most sincere thanks with your heroics tonight,” Lydia said, pressing her hands into her lap. “Heaven only knows what might have happened to me if you hadn’t come along when you did.”

  Mr. Pemberton rested his hands awkwardly against his knees. “You scarcely needed my assistance. You managed to fall clear of the carriage, and Mr. Buxton ended up so thoroughly pinned he’d have frozen to death before he managed to free himself.”

  “Even so, I’m glad I didn’t have to attempt to wrestle him to the constable myself,” she said with a slight smile. “We work well together, you and I.”

  A dimple appeared at the corner of his mouth. “Is that an admission of friendship, Miss Shrewsbury? Do you think better of me now?”

  “I think you’re less of a flirt than you pretend to be,” she said. “Additionally, I’ve had time to reflect on the strange contempt in your voice when you first told me about Mr. Stewart’s gambling habit and debts. I am beginning to suspect the tales of your gambling have been greatly exaggerated.”

  Her guess was correct; the truth of the matter became immediately apparent in the pained expression on his flushed face.

  “Why do you pretend to be such a scoundrel, Mr. Pemberton? People might regard you better if you were to demonstrate your true character more often.”

  “Will you think me very frivolous if I admit it amuses me to play the part of a rogue?” he asked.

  She fixed him with a stern glare. “Exceedingly frivolous.”

  “Will it help if I add that I am a sensible gambler, but prefer to play the part of a daring one in order to win heaps of money from fools?”

  She scowled. “Mr. Pemberton, that is worse.”

  “What if I give all the money to hungry orphans?”

  He was teasing her. She shook her head and reached for her tea. A lock of hair fell over her face.

  “I will tell you a secret, Miss Shrewsbury, only because we are now bound to be friends after this adventure. I do win heaps of money from fools, and I have set aside the majority of my winnings to pay for the schooling of my housekeeper’s son.”

  Lydia’s eyebrows flashed up. “Are you in earnest? No, you are mocking me.”

  “I would never,” he said, eyes sparkling. “The truth is that I am not so wealthy as to be able to afford tuition for the lad out of my own pocket, not without some detriment to my own eventual children, but by the time he’s old enough to train as a barrister, I should be able to send him to university and outfit him respectably for the endeavor with very little trouble.”

  Of all the scenarios she had expected for Mr. Pemberton, him gambling to promote the welfare of a servant’s child had not been among them. “Why?”

  He shrugged again. “The boy is intelligent and has a keen interest in the law. He’d be wasted as a footman.”

  She leaned back and examined his face. There was no hint of mirth there; indeed, if anything, Mr. Pemberton looked proud.

  “You are not at all what I thought you to be when we first met,” she admitted, brushing the hair from her face with one of her bandaged hands. The stray lock tumbled back down.

  Mr. Pemberton leaned in. “You may wish to leave tasks requiring nimble fingers to your family and friends for a time,” he said. Carefully, he lifted the hair from her cheek and secured it with a pin.

  She held her breath while her heart pounded in her ears. When he put his hands back on his knees, she let out an enormous sigh. She had to be as red as Justina’s hair. Her face felt as if it were inches from the fire instead of halfway across the room.

  “As I said,” she breathed. “We work well together.”

  The sitting room door opened, and Mr. Pemberton leapt back from Lydia as if he’d been caught in the middle of something heinous. Mrs. Shrewsbury looked from his rigid posture to Lydia’s overheated face, and the tiniest smile appeared at the corners of her mouth.

  “The doctor advises Lydia to get as much sleep as possible,” she said.

  Mr. Pemberton shot to his feet before Mrs. Shrewsbury had finished speaking. He reached for his hat and bowed awkwardly. “In that case, I’ll bid you goodnight.”

  Mrs. Shrewsbury’s smile widened. “I do hope you’ll be gracious enough to join us for dinner tomorrow,” she said. “I have ordered a fine roast, and we should very much like to thank you for rescuing our Lydia in such a gallant manner.”

  Lydia sent a panicked look in her mother’s direction.

  Mrs. Shrewsbury studiously ignored her.

  “I’d be glad to join you,” Mr. Pemberton said, fumbling over the words in a way Lydia had never seen. “Very glad indeed.”

  28

  Lydia shot daggers at her fork. It wasn’t the utensil’s fault that she was so clumsy, but she found it very difficult to wield the tool with her hands wrapped in so many layers of muslin. She glanced up and found Mr. Pemberton’s gaze fixed solidly on her.

  Her cheeks flushed pink.

  So this was what it felt like to be Diana, turning the color of raspberries at every opportunity. She was too old for this sort of thing, but she couldn’t seem to do anything to draw the heat back down from her face.

  Her mother, who had cast more than one speculating glance in her direction yesterday evening and today, took pity on her. “Please, Mr. Pemberton, tell us about yourself,” she said. Whatever her feelings about recent events and Mr. Stewart’s myriad failings, she acted determined to make this dinner a pleasant one.

  Ordinarily, Mrs. Shrewsbury ordered only simple meals during the whole season of Lent, even on Sundays, but today the table practically creaked under the weight of a full roast, a dish of French beans in a creamy béchamel sauce, and macaroni topped with a decadent layer of browned cheeses. Lydia had also smelled the enchanting scent of an orange torte rising from the kitchen earlier. Mrs. Claymore, whose skills at cookery were not often put to good use this time of year, had entirely outdone herself.

  “I’m afraid I am not nearly so interesting as one might hope, Mrs. Shrewsbury,” Mr. Pemberton said.

  Lydia could not help but shoot him a skeptical look across the table. Where had this modesty been throughout the whole of their previous acquaintance?

  “Start with your family, then,” Mrs. Shrewsbury said with a motherly smile. “Who are your parents?”

  Lydia watched him carefully as he gave the requested history. His father was a landed gentleman with a sizable estate, which he, as the only son, was set to inherit. His mother was a gifted pianist and devoted parent, and he had two younger sisters and a cousin who had lived with him so often growing up that he considered her a sister, too. One of his siblings was already married; the other was in the midst of her first Season, and he had spent the majority of the winter so far with her in a London townhouse.

  “You’d like Katherine very much, Miss Shrewsbury,” he said. “She shares your keen mind and high spirits.”

  Mrs. Shrewbury’s eyebrows jumped up in surprise, and she pursed her lips. Lydia didn’t have to hear her speak to know her mother longed to say: High spirits? Our Lydia?

  Mr. Pemberton had such an incorrect view of her, Lydia thought. He caught her eye and smiled, and the heat rushed back to her face.

  Perhaps it was her mother who had the incorrect view—or maybe they were both correct and Lydia simply hadn’t recognized her own complexity until now. She had thought her character fully established at eight-and-twenty, but it seemed her heated words to Mr. Buxton had been right after all: even her life still had room for new sensations and experiences.

  “You remind me a bit of my own father, sir,” Mr. Pemberton said, nodding respectfully to Mr. Shrewsbury. “I noted during Mr. Stewart’s funeral reception that you own a number of books on botany.”

  Lydia remembered the way he’d barely seemed to notice the volumes filling her father’s shelves. He’d been more observant than she’d thought. It shouldn’t have surprised her. After all,
he’d seen things in her she hadn’t even known were there.

  “My father is a scholar of nature,” Mr. Pemberton continued. “He often brought us out of doors when I was young to study and identify the different plants growing on our estate. I confess I never quite caught his love of the subject, but I have a good deal more appreciation for Creation than I might have had without his tutelage.”

  Mr. Shrewsbury’s eyes lit up behind his spectacles. “If you have any interest in it still, there’s a volume in my study you ought to see. Are you at all familiar with the plants of India?”

  “I cannot say that I am, no.”

  “The book contains a remarkable number of colored plates, and the sheer variety of the plants contained within is enough to give one a real glimpse of how beautiful such things can be in warmer climes.”

  Mr. Shrewsbury, having found a topic worth discussing, continued on with more than his usual degree of animation, and Mr. Pemberton seemed genuinely absorbed. From her end of the table, Mrs. Shrewsbury caught Lydia’s eye and smiled. Startled, Lydia focused again on her fork as it began to slip from her grasp.

  The Wycliffes’ dinners, decadent though they could be, had never shared quite this much easy warmth. Mr. Pemberton seemed already to be at home within the vicarage, and he quickly caught both of her parents up in an animated discussion of Indian spices and herbs.

  Lydia’s entire body ached, but she didn’t want to retire, even if her face did keep burning like she’d spent too long under unseasonable sunshine. She stretched out her leg, trying to find a moment of relief for her throbbing ankle, and her slippered toes bumped against Mr. Pemberton’s shoe under the table. He froze as she jerked her foot away, and his words faltered on his lips.

  “My—my father was fortunate enough to taste the fruits of that shrub,” he continued, quickly regaining his composure. “The fruits are plum-like, but he said the leaves smell strongly of almonds.”

  He glanced toward Lydia, and the intensity of his hazel eyes rooted her to her seat. Her heart drummed in her ears, and dizzying tingles swept their way across her skin.

  “How peculiar,” Mr. Shrewsbury said, leaning forward. “Olax zeylanica is a member of the same family, I believe, although I believe the leaves of that plant are eaten rather than the fruit.”

  “I believe you’re right,” Mr. Pemberton said, not taking his eyes from Lydia’s.

  “I… Yes,” Lydia said faintly.

  A silence descended, one so long Lydia grew acutely aware of her father’s knife scraping across his plate and the sound of her own suddenly labored breathing.

  Mrs. Shrewsbury cleared her throat. “Does cinnamon grow in India, too?” she asked brightly.

  Lydia didn’t hear her father’s answer. Carefully, slowly, she inched her foot forward again, heedless of the pain rushing up her leg. She touched Mr. Pemberton’s shoe again. He sucked in a sharp breath, and the tiny sliver of skin above his cravat dimpled as he swallowed.

  His lips parted, words seeming to hover just inside his full lips. Slight stubble darkened his jaw, and Lydia squeezed her fork more tightly. The urge to reach across her table and run her fingertips across it gripped her so hard that she had to grit her teeth to keep it under control.

  She had always assumed a woman’s romantic feelings for a gentleman must be soft and tender, appropriate to the fundamental nature of the gentler sex. That had been all speculation, the resigned wonderings of a churchmouse spinster.

  She had been wrong. Nothing about this breathless anticipation struck her as gentle. Fragile, yes. Infinitely breakable, yes. But her heartbeat pounded with a force she wouldn’t have imagined possible, and there was nothing soft about the pressure of her toe against the leather of his shoe, nor the way he was suddenly nudging her slipper in return.

  The dining room door opened, and Lydia pulled away from his burning gaze with a rush of relief. Air flooded into her lungs, and she turned to stare instead at the maid, who was bringing in the torte with its generous sprinkling of orange zest.

  Mr. Pemberton was not a murderer.

  That didn’t mean he might not kill her yet.

  29

  Mrs. Shrewsbury rushed to the window the next morning, the ruffles of her mobcap fluttering.

  “Lydia, who is at our gate? Surely that isn’t the Wycliffes’ carriage?”

  Lydia stood and followed her mother, somewhat more slowly. The bumps and bruises she’d suffered in the phaeton crash seemed determined to make their presence felt at every moment. She nudged the muslin curtains aside just as a footman opened the grand carriage door.

  Lady Huntington alighted, her spencer coat snugly fastened and her hands buried in a large, fashionable muff. Isabella descended behind her, and inside, Mrs. Shrewsbury bustled about the vicarage sitting room, ensuring everything was in its place before seating herself as calmly as if she received such grand callers every day of the week.

  A housemaid announced the guests with a curtsy, and Mrs. Shrewsbury rose to greet them.

  “We have come to ask after the health of Miss Shrewsbury,” Lady Huntington said with uncharacteristic warmth once tea had been ordered and everyone was situated comfortably. “Mr. Pemberton informed us of the details of her heroic efforts in catching and apprehending Mr. Buxton.” She looked over at Lydia and smiled. “I felt it incumbent upon myself to deliver my thanks in person.”

  Lydia’s eyebrows raised before she had a chance to order herself to remain neutral.

  “You may well be surprised, Miss Shrewsbury,” Lady Huntington said, her expression unchanging. “Our last discussion on this matter was… Well, perhaps I may have been less than cordial. I have no shame in admitting that I was wrong to doubt you. You are a sensible woman of good instincts, and you have my gratitude.”

  “It’s gracious of you to say so, my lady,” Lydia said awkwardly. “I cannot blame you for questioning me. None of us suspected Mr. Buxton. I wonder if Mr. Pemberton might have been put at less risk if I had thought of Mr. Buxton sooner.”

  “You thought of him at all, which did a service to everyone involved in the matter,” Lady Huntington said. “Mr. Stewart’s death has weighed heavily on me these last weeks. I’m glad to put the matter behind us.”

  “Not that you have put it behind you,” Isabella said, picking up one of Lydia’s hands and examining the bandages. “Mr. Pemberton said you were bruised and battered, but I didn’t expect it to be this bad!”

  Lady Huntington and Mrs. Shrewsbury blinked at one another, perhaps reining in the urge to chastise Isabella into more polite behavior. Lydia smiled and gave over her other hand to her friend’s inspection.

  “I believe I got off easy, all things considered,” Lydia said. “Mr. Buxton would have preferred to see me in much worse straits.”

  Mrs. Shrewsbury shuddered and offered to refill Lady Huntington’s tea.

  The conversation moved to standard inquiries and answers—yes, Lady Huntington was about to begin her journey home; yes, she would be very sad to leave Lanceton and hoped to visit again in the summer with her daughter and new grandchild; no, she hadn’t found the weather too intolerable and indeed it was very much as she had left it at home. Isabella tapped her toes impatiently as the older women talked.

  At a respectable interval, Lady Huntington set down her tea. “I had better begin my journey, since I hope to reach home before dark.” She stood and tied her bonnet back over her dark hair.

  Lydia stood to curtsy, and Lady Huntington surprised her with a quick, affectionate hug.

  “You have done us all a great kindness,” she whispered into Lydia’s ear. “Thank you.”

  Lydia couldn’t find the right response, so she smiled and nodded, then curtsied as Lady Huntington took her leave. Mrs. Shrewsbury escorted her to the door, and the moment the older ladies had vacated the room, Isabella turned to Lydia with fire in her eyes.

  “I’ve been waiting for weeks to talk to you!” she exclaimed.

  Lydia patted her on the hand and ga
ve her a pitying expression. “This is Monday. You saw me Saturday.”

  “Yes, and the Sunday in between was interminable. Did Buxton really throw you from the carriage?”

  “I threw me from the carriage. Mr. Buxton intended me to still be in it when we crashed.”

  “I cannot believe he’d destroy that gorgeous phaeton just to kill you,” Isabella said. “Poison would have been much neater. Although I suppose he tried that as well. It was wickedly clever of you to throw the chocolate overboard. Mr. Pemberton was full of admiration when he related the story.”

  Lydia flushed and busied herself with rearranging the cushions Mrs. Shrewsbury had earlier placed behind her back.

  In the parlor last night, after the dessert had broken the strange tension between them, and after Lydia’s parents had given the young people a little room to speak quietly between themselves, Mr. Pemberton had pressed her for more details and promised to share everything with the Wycliffes over breakfast the next morning.

  Besides her attempted murder, they had talked about science—Mr. Pemberton had followed with interest the discovery of a bright comet the previous year—and poetry—Lydia preferred the classics and Mr. Pemberton was skeptical of all poetry as a rule—as well as a variety of other subjects.

  Lydia had kept her foot and every other part of her anatomy well away from him, and, all in all, it had been one of the nicest conversations she’d had in what felt like years.

  “Diana is desolate, as I’m sure you can imagine, and even I can’t muster up the will to tease her for it. Poor thing. Mr. Buxton did seem like such an amiable gentleman! I cannot believe I looked forward to having him for a brother. It’s ridiculous to think of now, the monster.”

  Mrs. Shrewsbury poked her head back into the room. She took in Isabella chattering away with her knees half-drawn up onto the couch and Lydia lounging back on the cushions beside her. She caught Lydia’s eye, smiled, and retreated again.