What a Lady Requires

by Ashlyn Macnamara

  “You can learn. Do you think I was born with the ability to balance the books?”

  He’d begun to suspect that very thing, the way she had a ready answer to all his troubles.

  “Yours,” she went on, “are in a sorry state. Entire columns not ciphered properly. Sums gone missing from one week to the next with no notation as to where they disappeared. They haven’t even been kept up-to-date.”

  “Yes, it’s no wonder I’m beggared.” God help him, he’d nearly used a stronger term. Better that than revealing where the missing sums had gone.

  “You’re not even taking this seriously.” Good Lord, but she sounded like his old schoolmasters.

  “I thought that was your job now.”

  “Eventually,” she bit out, “you will be responsible for an entire estate. You will have tenants, people dependent on you. You need to learn to go over the accounts yourself or else someone unscrupulous could easily fleece you. I could, for that matter.”

  “Only you already hold the purse strings, so where would that get you? At any rate, I’ve already been well fleeced, as you’ve seen.”

  She shook her head. “Why my father thought I could reform you, of all people, I’ve no idea. You don’t even wish to try.”

  That wasn’t true, but he couldn’t let on. The moment anyone started discussing finances, a mild sense of panic set in. He simply didn’t possess the head for this sort of thing. He knew it, because he’d tried in his younger days. Present him with columns of figures all neatly arranged and his heart began to race. The numbers on the page would swim until they resembled a jumbled muddle.

  How much easier was it to hide behind a façade of insouciance, an easy wit, and a free hand at the card table? Not that he let himself play often. His luck at piquet wasn’t much better than his ability to choose a sound investment.

  But then he’d always been the handsome one, known first and foremost for his looks and charm. Given his brother’s nature, no one expected much out of Rowan, either. No one required much of anything from him, for that matter. Emma was the first to do so since his school days.

  So he brushed his fingernails against his waistcoat. “There’s little point in my trying. I’ve proven myself inadequate.”

  —

  The man was insufferable, completely insufferable. Emma fought to keep a rein on her temper, but the leather strap had long since frayed. “Someone ought to have boxed your ears when you were growing up.”

  He laughed, the nerve of him. “And who would have done that? Sparks? It would have taken him all day to decide I needed it, and then he’d have to work up the gumption.”

  The flippant reply only irritated her further. “Sparks? You call your own brother that?”

  “Everyone calls him that.”

  He had her to rights, because she did as well, at least in her thoughts. But this wasn’t about her. It was about the respect Battencliffe owed to—well, everyone, but especially to his older brother, the earl. “Does he not have a proper Christian name?”

  The sound of a throat clearing discreetly stopped Emma cold. She tore her glare away from her husband to focus on the butler hovering on the threshold. He looked singularly hesitant to cross that invisible line into a war zone.

  “Pardon the interruption, ma’am.”

  “Is it another invitation?” She nodded toward the pile that had been growing steadily over the course of the morning. It was beginning to resemble a healthy snowdrift. “You can put it with the others.”

  “No, ma’am, you have callers.”

  Her mouth dropped open of its own accord, but she snapped it shut on an expression of surprise. Who in heaven’s name had come to pass a quarter hour sipping tepid tea and making awkward remarks on the weather? And on the day after her wedding, at that. Certainly no one had deigned to call on her in the past, despite her aunt’s efforts, but now that she was closer to a title, she’d suddenly become acceptable, it seemed. In demand, if the invitations to various routs, soirees, and masquerades were any indication.

  It was almost as if the color of her blood had changed overnight.

  “I’ve shown them to the morning room, if it please you.”

  Grundy’s words were clearly a prompt, one Battencliffe took immediately. “I’ll be off, then.”

  She leveled her gaze on her husband. “Where are you going?”

  “I have business. I thought I’d start at the tailor’s, and once I’ve finished renewing my wardrobe, I thought I’d drop in at my club. That is, if you have no objections.” His tone very much conveyed he expected her to object.

  Which she did. “We are not finished discussing your financial situation. You may have some money now, but you ought to look into spending it more judiciously. I haven’t even started on your extravagances.”

  “Rest assured, I will pay my outstanding debts.”

  “You mean if you have anything left over—” She cut herself off. The morning room was close enough for her guests to overhear, if she spoke loudly enough, and she felt like shouting. It seemed the only efficient means of penetrating her husband’s thick skull.

  She followed the insufferable man from the room, but not before he snatched a pair of calling cards from the butler’s salver and handed them to her without so much as a glance. She blinked at the names. Mrs. Henrietta Sanford and Lady Cecelia Lindenhurst.

  She’d never even been introduced to either one, but the second name—or, rather, title—gave her pause. That very title was embossed on the journal in her bedchamber. So there was a new viscountess, but why would she come to call? To ask for the former viscountess’s journal? But why wait so many years?

  Emma paused to paste on her brightest social smile—one that Miss Conklin had badgered into her—before greeting her guests. At her entrance, both ladies inclined their heads. One stood tall and slender with pale blue eyes that sparkled beneath the brim of her bonnet. The other was dark-haired and brown-eyed, but an air of liveliness draped her like a shawl.

  “You must forgive our presumption,” said the slender woman, “as we have never been properly introduced. We’ve only just arrived in Town, but we heard the news.”

  The dark-haired woman waved her hands. “It took ever so much convincing to prod Lind off his estates in the first place. You have no idea how that man is set in his ways. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I am Lady Lindenhurst, and this is my sister-in-law, Mrs. Sanford.”

  Emma bowed her head in turn. “My lady…”

  “Oh, none of that. I was just getting there. I insist you call me Cecelia. We have no choice but to become the closest of friends.”

  “We don’t?” Emma raised her brows. Good heavens, she hadn’t the first clue how to be friends with a woman. Since her first foray into society, she’d drawn the conclusion she simply didn’t know how to deal with female companionship. None of the other young ladies were interested in the things she was. Men, on the other hand—she was far more at ease in masculine company, with the exception of her husband, ironically enough. “And why is that?”

  She couldn’t help her skepticism. She’d met too many daughters of the ton who extended a false hand only to turn around a moment later and disparage her humble origins the next. Still, a part of her yearned toward Cecelia and the friendship she offered.

  “Forgive her,” Henrietta said. “When she gets her mind set on something, it is difficult to dissuade her. But do we not have the honor of meeting Miss Emma Jennings, who is to marry the Earl of Sparkmore’s younger brother?”

  Emma gestured to the settee before settling herself into an armchair. “Please do sit. I am afraid you’re only partially correct. I married Mr. Battencliffe yesterday.”

  Henrietta pressed a gloved hand to her lips. “Oh, then we are intruding.”

  “Not at all. Mr. Battencliffe has just left on his errands. Now, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?” She hoped they hadn’t come to hear the latest gossip. Even if they were newly arrived in Town, they’d likely heard
more recent on-dits than she had.

  “My goodness.” Cecelia perched forward in her seat. “I had hoped you’d recognize our names straightaway.”

  If not for the journal, no, but something told Emma that was mere coincidence. “I cannot say I did.”

  Henrietta and Cecelia exchanged a look. Some sort of silent communication passed between them before Cecelia turned the full force of her smile on Emma. “Tell us about your engagement, then. How did Mr. Battencliffe propose to you? I’m sure it was terribly romantic. He can be very charming when he chooses.”

  Had Miss Emily Marshall made that request, Emma would have been positive the entire point was her humiliation. But she didn’t suspect any malicious intent on Cecelia’s part. Her words rang with warmth and sincerity, and she did not so much smile as beam without a trace of the smug superiority that Emma had come to expect from titled ladies.

  Still, she approached the unknown with caution. “Do you know my husband so well?”

  Again, a look passed between Henrietta and Cecelia, but nothing nasty lay behind it. Only a vague sense of surprise and uncertainty.

  “I suppose we hoped you already knew something of Mr. Battencliffe’s history,” Henrietta said. “My husband and Cecelia’s were friends with Mr. Battencliffe in their school days.”

  “And since Alexander is my brother,” Cecelia added, “I saw quite a lot of Mr. Battencliffe when we were younger—at parties, and he came to stay a time or two.”

  Emma rubbed her hands along the smooth muslin of her skirts. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage. I was introduced to Mr. Battencliffe less than a week ago.”

  Cecelia’s laugh rang with delight. “Oh, a whirlwind courtship.” The smile she sent Emma fairly bubbled with feminine complicity. “I imagine you could convince him to do anything—if you worked your wiles on him.”

  “Work my wiles?” Emma rubbed suddenly slick palms together. “I believe you’ve come to the wrong woman for that.” She probably shouldn’t even admit as much to two near-strangers, but they’d doubtless hear the gossip soon enough. “I hold a singular charm for Mr. Battencliffe, I’m afraid. It has nothing to do with my wiles, and everything to do with my marriage portion.”

  Cecelia reached across and placed her fingertips on Emma’s forearm. “Did you ever ask how Mr. Battencliffe came into such financial difficulty?”

  “Poor investments, apparently. And his books are a chaotic disaster. I’ve just spent the morning with them. The man has no head for business.”

  “I’m sorry to hear of his misfortune,” Henrietta said, “but perhaps that’s about to change. I certainly do hope so. And I, for one, would love to hear more about the young lady who made Mr. Battencliffe change his mind about settling down.”

  Emma swallowed. The pair of them clearly meant to make something more interesting of her marriage than it was. She could only hope the tale would satisfy them. “Shall I ring for tea?”

  Chapter Nine

  What sort of man had she married? Though the conversation had passed to other topics, Emma’s mind kept returning to the hints Cecelia had dropped. Something lay behind the way she’d asked if Emma had ever questioned her husband’s finances. A possible secret. She removed her spectacles to rub at her eyes. She’d tried to return to the study and sort out the books, but her mind insisted on replaying the visit.

  And as for working her wiles…That sounded as if Cecelia wanted Emma to persuade Battencliffe to…What? Their chatter had drifted to more mundane topics, and she didn’t know either woman well enough to ask them directly.

  Perhaps that would change in the future. The two of them clearly wished to become friends with Emma. Over tea, they’d talked about the children under their care. On her marriage, Cecelia had become stepmother to Lindenhurst’s heir, who was apparently thriving under the tutelage of his governess. Henrietta went on about Alexander’s daughters from his first marriage, before confiding she suspected her family might gain a new member sometime next summer.

  Emma drummed her fingers against the desk. The allusion to a new baby made her squirm in her chair. Her husband hadn’t managed to consummate their marriage last night, and his behavior this morning was hardly encouraging.

  She couldn’t very well broach either subject with him now. Not when he’d gone out—to spend money, or so he’d claimed. Drat the man, and how were they to make any headway in this marriage or Battencliffe’s finances if he didn’t stay home and sort through them with her?

  I have faith in you. I’ve taught you all I’ve learned. Her father’s words floated through her mind. “Papa, where does your confidence in me come from?”

  A throbbing started behind her left eye. She rammed the heel of her hand into her temple, but to no avail. The pulse continued its merciless rhythm. She contemplated the decanter of brandy. Less than half full, which meant her husband had likely helped himself to it last night. At any rate, she wasn’t at all sure she could stand such strong stuff. Not when her palate was more accustomed to the subtleties of fine wine.

  A constitutional might serve her better, but one look out the window showed rain pounding down in sheets—which no doubt meant her husband wasn’t about to return any time soon.

  Miss Conklin would have prescribed a nap. As much as Emma hated to lend credence to her former teacher’s notions of what was ladylike, this one might do her some good. So she climbed the stairs to her bedchamber, but in the sitting room, she paused.

  The journal lay on the writing desk, its bright red cover nearly mocking her with its cheery color. If Battencliffe had been friends with Lydia’s husband, there might be some indication of whatever Cecelia had been hinting at between those pages.

  Emma might take a look, and then she’d know. You’re here to set the man’s finances in order. Simple, easy, emotionless. Prying into the man’s past might imply a sentimental attachment, and her marriage was never intended to include anything so untidy as sentiment. Business, ledgers, pure fact. Emma dealt so much more easily in those domains.

  And look at the mess Battencliffe had made of his finances. Perhaps he couldn’t arrange his life any better.

  Despite her internal arguments, the journal beckoned. Emma sat and ran her palm over the cool leather. The binding was smooth and supple, the very highest quality.

  Emma opened the cover and scanned the first pages. They gave the impression of a breathless girl, excitedly preparing for her wedding to a viscount. A long-anticipated offer. Ball gowns, ribbons, laces, all the trappings a young bride might need. A glimpse of pre-wedding nerves. A fit of pique at her mama, who insisted on inviting her great-uncle Walpurgis in spite of his unfortunate propensity for pinching young ladies in scandalous places.

  Perfectly ordinary, the entire account—everything Emma’s wedding to Battencliffe was not. From all appearances, Lydia had known her intended well. They’d grown up in the same social circles. She might have even fancied herself in love…

  Barely a mention of Battencliffe at all. No, the entries were all about Lindenhurst. Nothing to be gleaned here, then. In setting the journal aside, Emma dislodged a loose paper. Mr. Hendricks’s letter, the one Battencliffe had all but forbidden her to answer.

  But she needed to formulate some sort of reply to placate Mr. Hendricks. The truth would do quite nicely. It explained her silence as well as the difficulty she would face in pursuing the correspondence. She pulled a fresh sheet of paper toward her. Dipping the quill in the pot of ink, she considered before scratching out the beginnings of her reply.

  Dear Mr. Hendricks,

  I pray you will excuse my silence this last week. I have quite unexpectedly found myself wed, and amidst all the preparations, I have sadly neglected your most recent letter. I beg your forgiveness. At the same time I must advise you that I shall be obliged to cease our correspondence.

  —

  It was far too early to head to his club, but Rowan set his feet in that very direction. An icy wind from a lowering pall of clouds whipped
the lapels of his overcoat as he set off for St. James Street at a steady clip. Most of his cronies were doubtless still abed, sleeping off the effects of a late night of social functions that ended at a gaming hell or three.

  But Rowan had to escape that townhouse and the memories it held. His jibes to Emma about visiting the tailor and the haberdasher had been just that—jibes. He shouldn’t give in to the temptation, but she was too easy by half to wind up, and some devil inside prodded him onward.

  He had to admit the sight of her flushed cheeks, her snapping eyes, and her considerable bosom heaving was an enjoyable one. But he also knew he must face facts. He’d been handed a singular opportunity to get back on his feet. He must not blow this chance, for certainly there would be no other.

  And that meant taking Emma’s advice. It meant not spending funds he no longer possessed, especially not on frivolities. He could manage without a new pair of Hessians—but damn if he could continue to live in that house when it still looked as it had more than six years ago. Lydia’s old bedchamber hadn’t changed a whit, but what were the chances he could talk Emma into redecorating it?

  The reply came to him immediately, borne on an image of his wife glaring an admonishment to watch his spending. Bloody hell, but there was something not quite natural about a woman who took possession of a dwelling and didn’t promptly see about changing it to suit her own tastes.

  But Emma was too practical. Beneath the veneer of silks in which she clad herself to satisfy society lurked a woman who preferred serviceable linens and cottons and wools. Even if she could afford better. And here he stood, a man of elegant taste who hadn’t the funds to hire a valet—yet.

  And if you’d kept better control of yourself, you wouldn’t be in this mess. True, but he refused to think about the night when he’d ruined everything.