Belatedly Emma recalled that she didn’t want to think about her mother having sex, or know the names of her lovers, let alone Dersingham’s lovers. She pulled herself together. ‘Mother, surely you didn’t call merely to inform me that the world believes me to be engaged in an affair with Huntercombe.’ She’d be damned if she’d tell Louisa why Hunt was calling on her. It was none of her business.
Louisa’s mouth thinned. ‘Your father—Dersingham, that is—is renewing his offer to take you back. We both feel that you have had sufficient time to come to your senses. He is willing to reinstate your dowry.’
Emma stilled. ‘In return for what?’
‘That you sign over guardianship of both children to him.’ Louisa’s lip curled. ‘Hardly a sacrifice one would think. Then you may make a marriage of sorts. Dersingham has some merchant in mind. You will have to be a great deal more discreet than you have been with Huntercombe and Pickford, of course.’
‘Pickford?’ She had stamped on Pickford’s insulting offer with less thought than she would have accorded a cockroach.
Louisa sighed. ‘My dear Emma. Everyone knows that Pickford was your lover earlier in the year. He certainly makes no secret of it. Now, this merchant has agreed to the marriage, but he refuses to be bothered with the children. You couldn’t expect that.’
‘No?’ She heard the snap in her voice and took a steadying breath.
Louisa shrugged. ‘A widow in your circumstances cannot be choosy. Dersingham will arrange schools for them.’
Emma was startled to find herself on her feet, fists clenched. Fury burned in every fibre of her body. A clear, cold voice spoke at a slight distance, telling her mother that she might go to hell and take Dersingham, along with his offer, with her.
Chapter Five
Georgie lagged behind. Thinking her shorter legs couldn’t keep up, Hunt adjusted his stride, but nearing Chelsea Common a glance at her small, flushed face and over-bright eyes told him otherwise. For the second time her right glove was off and her thumb in her mouth. His heart twisted as he stopped, stripped off one glove, and held out his hand. ‘Too fast for you, Georgie?’ She said nothing, but removed her thumb from her mouth and tucked her small, cold hand into his. He closed his fingers gently, fiercely aware of the weight of trust as they started walking again.
Harry came racing back with Fergus as they reached the Common. He took a careful look at his sister’s face. ‘You can throw the ball first, if you like, Georgie,’ he said, all generosity.
No answer.
Hunt raised his brows at Harry, who looked at Georgie again. ‘Is your throat sore?’ He cast a glance up at Hunt. ‘She gets awful colds, sir.’
Another shake of the head and the little fingers in his clung tighter. ‘Does...does backward mean I’m stupid?’ The very wobbly whisper ripped straight through him.
Hunt bent down and swung Georgie to his hip in a move he’d thought he’d forgotten. ‘Certainly not. It means your grandmother is stupid.’ Then, as Harry’s eyes widened, he heard what he’d said and waited for the heavens to fall or at least produce a healthy thunderbolt. One should not criticise other adults to a child.
Georgie’s lower lip trembled and he consigned Louisa to the devil in the need to comfort and reassure. ‘Tell me, sweetheart—how often does your grandmother visit?’
Georgie stared. ‘She doesn’t. That’s why I didn’t know.’
‘Well, she has once,’ Harry said apologetically. ‘But you were just—’ He cleared his throat. ‘It was ages ago. At the old house, just after Papa died, and I know you don’t remember that.’
Once? Their grandmother had visited once? He’d realised Louisa wasn’t a frequent visitor, but once? Even his own parents, formal though their lives had been, had adored their grandchildren.
‘How old were you when your papa died, Harry?’ He knew the answer, but he wanted it spelt out for Georgie.
‘Six.’
And he was ten now.
‘So your grandmother has a perfectly charming granddaughter and—’ he gave Harry a considering look ‘—a quite reasonable grandson—’ Harry just grinned ‘—but she hasn’t visited you in how long, Georgie?’
She thought. ‘Four years,’ she whispered.
‘Well, there you are,’ he said calmly. ‘You aren’t stupid at all. She is. How should you know her if she doesn’t have the good sense to visit you? Now, are you going to throw that ball for poor Fergus?’
‘Yes, but Mama would be awfully cross if we called a grown up stupid.’ Georgie laid her head on his shoulder and Hunt held her a little closer. Right now he would cheerfully have dumped the principles of a lifetime and slapped Louisa Dersingham. And not just for her unkindness to Georgie. What mother, living close enough, didn’t visit her widowed daughter in four years? Didn’t try to help her when she so obviously needed help? However angry the Dersinghams had been over Emma’s marriage, surely they didn’t have to be this vindictive?
‘You didn’t,’ he said. ‘I did. So your mama will be cross with me.’ If she had room for more crossness with what she was probably feeling towards her mother.
Georgie shook her head against his shoulder. ‘No, she won’t. We won’t tell. It can be a secret.’ She wriggled and Hunt set her down, laughing.
‘Worse and worse. Now we’re keeping secrets from your mother. Don’t worry, Georgie. If I confess properly, she may forgive me.’
Harry nodded. ‘She never gets really cross if you just own up. I mean, she’ll still make you go to bed early, or miss pudding, but she’s not mean about it.’
Hunt chuckled. ‘A very reasonable approach. Now, who’s throwing this ball?’ He handed it to Georgie, trying not to think of ways to have Emma order him to bed early.
* * *
There were a thousand and one things she ought to be doing, but Emma could not persuade herself to get up from her chair and do them. She felt drained, exhausted. She did not understand why her mother’s visit, and Dersingham’s offer, had hurt so much. Dersingham—was he even her father?—had made it very clear when she married Peter that he was cutting her off. After Peter’s death he had made the same offer—that she grant custody of the children to him and marry according to his wishes. She had shown him the door, as she had just done to her mother.
So none of this was surprising, really. And yet it still hurt.
Pickford! Emma shut her eyes. He had made a complete nuisance of himself. Buying posies, pestering her in Hatchard’s and in the park when she walked there with the children, offering to set her up in style. She had declined, but no doubt people had noticed him. He had persisted for a few weeks, but she had refused to admit him when he called and eventually he had given up. Apparently he had boasted of success rather than admit to failure with her.
She was still sitting, numb, when she finally heard the uproar of the children’s return.
‘Mama! Mama!’ They rushed into the room with the dog bouncing around them and Hunt bringing up the rear.
‘Safe home,’ he said, removing his hat. ‘We braved the wilds of Chelsea Common, but saw nary a single highwayman. Very disappointing. Harry assured me it was infested with masked bravoes.’
‘Silly!’ Georgie wriggled on to Emma’s lap. ‘He said they only come out after dark.’ Her warm weight was a tangible comfort.
‘Is that what he said?’ Hunt’s twinkle made Emma’s heart ache. ‘Sit, Fergus,’ he said to the dog who was sniffing around the table where a single biscuit remained. ‘We do not beg for biscuits in a lady’s parlour.’
Fergus sat, panting, and then curled up with an exhausted sigh.
‘I wish you’d come, Mama.’ Georgie sounded tired but happy. ‘I thought we’d have to throw the ball for ever, because Fergus just kept running.’
Emma laughed. ‘A spaniel will do that. I imagine in season Lord Huntercombe uses Fergus to put up b
irds. He can probably run all day.’
Harry scowled. ‘I wish Grandmama, I mean Lady Dersingham, had not come.’
‘Harry.’ Emma could not find it in her to say any more in reproof. She wished her mother had not come. Quite apart from anything else, she could not forgive what Louisa had said to Georgie.
Harry flushed. ‘I’m sorry, Mama. But we wanted you to come. It was fun and you missed out.’
‘Perhaps...’ Hunt sounded perfectly diffident ‘...you might permit me to take your mother for a walk now?’ He looked at the dog. ‘I think poor Fergus is far too tired for another walk. Maybe you could look after him for me?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Georgie sat up so suddenly that she bumped Emma’s chin. ‘We could do that. Please, Mama?’
Emma took a careful breath. What she needed to say to Hunt had to be said privately. ‘I should like that, sir.’ And, oh, if only the pleased expression on Hunt’s face didn’t lure and beckon. It made this even harder. How pathetic to be so...so needy as to want someone—an adult someone—who wanted to spend time with her. Someone who liked and accepted her. A lover.
How was it that she had grown accustomed to Hunt so quickly? To his smile. To the way he tucked her gloved hand into the crook of his elbow and set his own gloved hand over it. Not possessive in any proprietary way, but somehow protective. And there was that knot of need in her. The need to feel his arms about her, to know his weight upon her, to know his body with her own.
After Peter’s death she had ached for him with her whole body, wept for his loss in terrible loneliness and grief. That grief was, incredibly, a memory now. Had been, she realised guiltily, for a long time. Still painful, but it was memory. The loneliness remained. She knew the difference now because she wanted Hunt, knew he could banish that loneliness, and that made her feel even guiltier. But there was no need for guilt now. Her decision was made.
* * *
Patches of watery blue shifted and danced between dark, scudding clouds. Leaves, dying yellow and red, whirled ghostly in the breeze as they fell to earth. It had rained that morning and the lane was slippery, but Hunt’s arm held her safely. Somehow she felt warmer just having him beside her and Harry and Georgie had enjoyed their walk so much. She knew it wasn’t just Fergus, although that was part of it; it was Hunt himself. They liked him, accepted him. He had intervened with her mother, deflecting whatever Louisa might have said after Harry leapt to Georgie’s defence. She could have hit Louisa for what she had said to Georgie. Georgie had gone out silent and upset; she had come back glowing, happy again. Hunt, she suspected, had been responsible for that.
‘Thank you for taking them out, sir. And...and for everything.’
The moment she had mentioned fetching her pelisse, gloves and a bonnet, Harry had rushed upstairs at Hunt’s raised brows and the jerk of his head and brought them down. She wanted to thank him for that; for taking Harry a little further along the path to manhood. But if she said that, how could she explain the decision she had made?
Hunt glanced at her, his expression quizzical. ‘Were we not agreed that friends might use each other’s names, Emma?’
‘Yes.’ Oh, God. How could she do this if he persisted in looking at her like that? As though he wanted her, not just a convenient wife who wouldn’t bother him overly.
‘Good.’
His smile shook her heart. It was just a smile, for heaven’s sake! How could a smile—his smile, the one that started in his eyes—brighten a grey day so that it seemed the sun had come up with a shout at dawn and been shining ever since? She had to remember that he needed a bride society would accept. Not her.
They strolled on towards the river while she tried to think of some way to broach the subject of his proposal. She could not simply let this drift on when her decision was made. But how did you ease into such a conversation?
‘Hunt?’
‘Have you given any thought to my proposal?’
He laughed. ‘I’m sorry, Emma. You first.’
She dragged her courage together and forced it to the sticking place. ‘That was what I wished to speak to you about.’
‘Ah.’ He cocked his head, looking at her. Then his mouth twisted and the smile died from his eyes. ‘I think from your expression that you do not have the answer I want.’
She shook her head, a lump in her throat. A gentleman to the core, he was making it easy for her. Or as easy as it possibly could be.
‘I am very sorry, Hunt, but I... I cannot marry you.’
There. It was out and please God he would not ask why not. She wasn’t sure she could explain the tangle of emotion and shame Louisa’s visit had left behind. She was not even quite sure who she was any more. Was she Eltringham’s, Havelock’s or Dersingham’s daughter? How many others had speculated on that over the years? Only one thing was clear: Hunt’s reputation would be severely dented if she allowed him to marry her. The world might overlook the Marquess of Huntercombe marrying his mistress—might brush it off as a mere anticipation of marriage vows, but he could not marry a woman of soiled reputation, and if the world believed she had been Pickford’s mistress, her name was mud. She knew Hunt did good work, conscientious work, in the House of Lords that would be compromised if he married unwisely. Worse, he might call Pickford out. She would not allow him to risk that for her.
‘May I continue to call?’ he asked. ‘As a friend? If I promise not to pester you?’
Longing trembled deep inside. To have a friend. A kindly, undemanding friend. She put temptation behind her. ‘Hunt, you must see that is not possible. You have to—’ She forced words past the choking lump in her throat. ‘You have to find another woman to court.’
His mouth flattened. He actually scowled at her. ‘At least allow me to meet you when you change your books.’
She could hardly stop him entering Mr Hatchard’s shop, but—‘Hunt, the children are already fond of you. If they continue to see you, when you disappear from their lives, as you eventually must, it will be much harder for them.’
‘That,’ he said, ‘was a low blow.’
‘But true.’ She clung to the knowledge that he would do nothing that might hurt the children.
His mouth twisted as he inclined his head. ‘Very well. Neither of us wants them hurt. But—’ He stopped, gripped her shoulders and swung her to face him and her heart stuttered at the sudden fierceness in his eyes. ‘You certainly have the right to refuse my offer and even to refuse to see me.’ His jaw hardened. ‘You do not, however, have the right, much less the ability, to make me court some other female until I’m damned well ready to do so.’
He cast a quick glance around, hauled her into his arms and his mouth was on hers. The reticent gentleman had been swept aside and something wilder unleashed. For an instant shock held her frozen and then everything in her leapt to meet him as it had the first time they kissed. This was heat and fierce demand, his mouth possessing hers deeply, his taste flooding her, igniting every forbidden delight, skimming along every nerve. Madness. But she clung to him, returned his kiss and offered her own, letting her tongue dance with his until she thought she could never forget the taste and heat of him, the strength of his arms or the hard press of his body.
At last he broke the kiss, his breathing as ragged as her own, and set her away from him.
‘In case that didn’t make it clear; I’m not ready.’
Not ready? Her wits had scrambled and she could only blink up at him, every defence melted, scorched, desire an open flame. Heaven help her, but she was.
With a muttered curse he swung her around and started walking. Movement, the lash of the wind on her cheeks, cleared her wits.
Not ready to court another woman.
* * *
He might never be ready.
Walking home with Fergus trotting beside him, Hunt realised he’d been a fool and a coxcomb to boot. Not for one s
ingle moment had it occurred to him that she might not accept him. He could have kicked himself—an arrogant fool at that. He had trotted out his offer as though all he had to do was ask and a woman like Emma, proud, capable and independent, would fall at his feet. As though he were the Lord God Almighty offering salvation.
He saw that now. But how else could he have couched his offer without dishonesty?
She does not want what you are offering.
He could understand that. What he didn’t understand was why it bothered him so much. Why the idea of courting any other woman, let alone Amelia, revolted him. It wasn’t as though he had formed an attachment. He just...wanted Emma. Physically. Perfectly convenient, if she hadn’t refused his suit. But how could he court another woman when he wanted Emma in his bed, Emma’s taste in his mouth?
He reached Hyde Park Corner and turned north in the dying light. Link boys were lighting lamps and a light rain drizzled. He turned up his collar, opened his umbrella and walked faster. Logically, Emma was perfectly right. If she were set against marriage to him, then she had made the only possible decision.
And yet... Was he really coxcomb enough to imagine a woman’s liking and attraction? He bit back a curse. She was attracted to him. Her response the first time he kissed her, and just now, had been real. He had believed she would accept because she had seemed in favour of the marriage. Understandable that she had wanted time to consider it, time for them to know each other better. He’d suspected she had wanted him to be perfectly sure. But between his last visit and this afternoon, something had changed her mind.
A month. That would bring them to early December. He would call on her again before leaving London after the autumn sitting. He had promised not to pester, but he would call in a month. One calendar month. No cheating and calling four weeks a month. It wasn’t February. One visit. If she refused again...well, he would take the children for a walk, say goodbye to them and that would be that. He would return to London in the spring for the Season. By then he should have forgotten her taste, her fragrance and the wild, bone-deep response between them.
His Convenient Marchioness Page 7