Mr. Yale’s face went blank.
Emily did not bat an eyelash. “Is Mr. Worthmore really a fat duck?”
“Mais oui! All men three times your age that wish to wed ma petite are les gros canards. And he is
… how does one say? The dandy! The collars up to here.” She jerked the edge of her hand against her chin. “But how do you like my plan?”
“It will not go over,” Emily said, returning her attention to her book. “Everyone in society knows Lord Blackwood will never marry again on account of the tragic loss of his young wife shortly after the birth of their son, and Mr. Yale does not like me.”
“You are too modest, ma’am.” To his credit, Mr. Yale sounded sincere.
“And I don’t like him.”
“Haven’t the funds for a wife at present, in any case.”
“It wouldn’t matter. My dowry is grotesquely enormous. My parents wish to make a statement.”
“No no, monsieur! Ma petite! ” Madame Roche lifted a forefinger and tapped it twice on the table top with a click of her nail. “No one will marry. It will be only for—how do you say?—the display.”
“For show, Clarice.”
“Oui. For the show. Your parents, they will send away le gros canard , and you and I, Emilie, we will return to Londre where you may choose from all the gentlemen that admire you.”
Emily laid down her book. “My parents are quite vain and admire people who spend a great deal on carriages and clothing and what have you. They will not seriously consider a suitor who is not in possession of a considerable estate or at least an ample income. Lord Blackwood is quite wealthy, but Mr. Yale has no funds.”
“I said, at present.”
“Well, do you wish to pretend to court me or not?” She frowned at him.
He lifted his brows.
Kitty felt queasy. The earl appeared to be studying the floor planking.
The notion of marriage to him had not repelled her. It made her heady with alarm and—even more alarmingly—pleasure. Had he offered the same to every woman with whom he had made love since his wife’s death, despite his vow to remain unwed? Had he recited poetry to those women too?
Kitty’s queasiness redoubled, shifting upward beneath her ribs.
“Then it is all settled. Monsieur Yale and Monseigneur Blackwood will be les galants extraordinaires.” The Frenchwoman clapped her hands. “What fun we shall have!”
Mr. Yale leaned back, closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers.
“If you do it,” Emily said to him, “I might begin to think more highly of you. It would be a selfless gesture and prove you are not entirely motivated by vanity.”
He cracked open an eye. “I am all gratitude, my lady.”
“You are odiously narcissistic.” Her voice lacked its usual conviction. “But I will appreciate your help, nonetheless. And Lord Blackwood’s.” At that moment, she sounded as young and uncertain as Kitty had ever heard her.
Kitty placed her hand in her friend’s. “We will not allow them to force you into an unpalatable marriage, Marie.” She squeezed. “We will do all we can, won’t we, gentlemen?”
Mr. Yale bowed from his chair. “Your servant, Lady Katherine.”
She steeled her courage and looked across at the earl. He leaned against the edge of the mantel, eyes hooded.
A whorl of cold air rushed into the parlor, stirring the hearth flames. Mr. Pen stomped into the chamber, his jowly face ruddy with cold
“Road’s passable, miss. A coach and six passed long ’bout a quarter hour ago. Driver said it’s fair going all the way to Oswestry.”
“Oswestry? So distant.” Emily’s voice had not yet recovered.
“The melt’s happening right quick. We’d be better to set off now before there’s floods on the road.
I’ll go ahead and hitch up the teams and we’ll be at the Hall this evening.” He tromped back outside.
Madame Roche’s face wreathed in smiles. “Bon. Then the project of the courtship, it will commence! The handsome gentlemen, they will sweep ma petite off her feet before the eyes of her parents, and all shall be well.”
“Then I suppose we must pack.” Emily released Kitty’s hand and headed toward the stair with purpose. Kitty followed, imagining the earl’s gaze on her and wishing she were not about to be obliged to watch him flirt with another woman, even her friend, and even in play.
Especially not in play.
Her Christmas idyll was over. Her fantasy of escape had been played out to no one’s harm but her own.
Chapter 13
Willows Hall rested on a gentle hill not five miles distant from the town and castle of Shrewsbury and only two from the tiny inn in which Kitty had spent Christmas making love to an exasperating Scot. Built sturdily of gray stone, with a single Tudor-style gable rising above the front portal and a well-proportioned portico of limestone columns and rails, it seemed far too modest a manor for Emily’s fashion-conscious parents.
The carriage approached along a circling drive, the park spreading along the slope through copses of oak and willow. Draped in snow, a terraced garden spread off to the manor’s south side, evidenced by a fountain and statuary poking out of the drifts. In the distance the wide Severn sparkled as it made its way slowly south and east.
As Pen handed them down from the carriage and the gentlemen dismounted, six girls, all in white frothy skirts and pinafores, and of descending heights and ages, burst from the house and tumbled down the slushy steps with vociferous glee. Each of them but one sported delightfully pale gold locks like Emily’s, the sixth and apparently eldest, with hair the color of fire.
“Sister!”
“Emily!”
“You are home!”
“Reesey!”
“Hooray!”
“Oh, Madame!”
They swirled about Emily and her companion, hugging their waist and legs, a jumble of white and gold and arms and smiles.
“The petticoat set,” Mr. Yale murmured at Lord Blackwood’s shoulder.
“Behave yourself, whelp.”
“Especially with the redhead, I daresay.”
“Most especially.”
Stomach hot, Kitty moved out of range of the earl’s undisguised voice. For that it must be; he spoke to his friend as an Englishman. She ought to be furious. But, foolishly, she hurt. Her capacity for hearing what she was not intended to hear was not doing her service now.
Emily’s parents appeared at the top of the stair. They were a handsome pair. Lord Vale was perhaps a decade his young wife’s senior, at one time probably athletic but now going to seed, and dressed to the nines in collars to his ears and wasp-waist coat with enormous gold buttons. He made a leg and drew his wife forward. Lady Vale extended small hands dripping with Italian lace and encrusted with gems to grasp Kitty’s.
“Dearest Lady Katherine, how we have anticipated your visit.”
Kitty allowed her hostess to kiss her on the cheek, momentarily sucked into a cloud of pale curls, organza, and lily.
“Your home is quite lovely. How do you like the snow?”
“It is tiresome, to be sure! But Lord Vale sees that I am happy.”
Generally, Kitty found Emily’s mother to be silly, with little sense and less conversation. Her single accomplishment seemed to be doting upon her doting husband. But they appeared at least as enamored of each other as of their own reflections, so she admired them. They were honest.
Emily came up the step. “Hello, Papa. Mama.” She allowed herself to be embraced by her mother.
“My darling Emily! And Madame Roche, of course.” Lady Vale bowed her head to the older, striking Frenchwoman, her employee.
Emily went into the house, followed by the little girls and her companion, leaving only the sister with the fiery hair. The girl lingered, casting shy glances toward the gentlemen who followed the footmen bearing their traveling trunks up the steps.
“My lord and lady,” Kitty said, “may I pre
sent to you the Earl of Blackwood and Mr. Yale? We met them upon the road and they kindly escorted us here.”
Lady Vale’s lashes flittered. “My lord, do not tell me you must go on any farther today! Lord Vale and I would be so happy for you to remain as our guests.”
“Not only for the night, I trust.” Lord Vale bowed. “I have been cooped up in this house for far too many days with seven females and now it shall be more—begging your pardon, Lady Katherine.” He bowed again, and Kitty heard the distinct crack of stays. “I’ve only Mr. Worthmore to keep me company. We would be glad for a third and fourth at the table, and, Lord Blackwood, I know you are a fine card player.”
“’Twoud be ma pleasure. Thank ye. An maleddy.” The earl bowed to Lady Vale. No stays. Nothing but pure muscle and sinew, Kitty knew.
Coats and cloaks shed, they entered an overheated drawing room appointed in the latest stare with white and yellow striped wallpaper and claw-footed chairs and tables trimmed in gilt. Kitty welcomed the chamber’s excessive warmth, moving as close to the hearth as possible. Then anyone might attribute her flushed cheeks to the fire, and perhaps she would not even feel the heat jumbled inside her at the memory of his naked body.
Madame Roche and Emily appeared at the door, a gentleman in their wake.
“Ah, Worthmore! Come meet our guests.”
“He is only a guest too, Papa.” Emily moved swiftly into the chamber. Mr. Worthmore traced her progress across the room with round, protruding eyes. Otherwise his appearance was unremarkable.
He was over middle age and not at all handsome like his friends, but just as smartly dressed, with gleaming Hessians capped with white and a gold quizzing glass hanging from his waistcoat pocket, glittering with diamond chips.
“Emily, come make your bow to Mr. Worthmore,” her father said pleasantly, but with a firm edge.
“You and he must become well acquainted.”
She recrossed the chamber to Mr. Worthmore.
Mr. Yale followed her.
Madame Roche grinned like a cat and glanced at Lord Blackwood.
And so it would begin. Kitty wished to flee, but a treacly fascination held her. The earl would join the game and she would have to watch how he would fool them all just as he had fooled her.
“How do you do, sir?” Emily curtsied. Mr. Worthmore took her hand and lifted it to his mouth.
Her nostrils flared, her fine-boned jaw tight.
“My dear, your parents have told me so much of your beauty, I am your humble devotee already.”
“Worthmore, I’m Yale.” Mr. Yale thrust out his hand. Mr. Worthmore was obliged to leave off making love to Emily’s fingers to shake it. Discreetly Emily wiped hers on her skirt.
Mr. Worthmore looked the handsome young Welshman up and down in a leisurely fashion. “How do you do, sir? What brings you to Willows Hall?”
Mr. Yale took a noticeable breath and said rather firmly, “Lady Marie Antoine, if you must have it. She and I have formed something of an attachment and I’m not fond of the notion of you getting in the way of it.”
Lady Vale gasped.
Lord Vale choked.
Madame Roche tittered.
Lord Blackwood chuckled.
Mr. Worthmore’s round eyes rounded yet further as he looked from one member of the party to another. “Who in Nancy’s goat is Lady Marie Antoine?”
“It was priceless. I shall never forget his face.” Kitty sat down before the dressing table to plait her hair into a long braid for the night.
“He looks like a fish. And his voice is horrid, squeaky and far too certain of his welcome here.”
Emily plopped onto her stomach on Kitty’s bed, a high four-poster in the style of feminine froth Lady Vale seemed to favor in clothing and everything else. “I cannot understand what my father likes about him. His conversation at dinner proves he is not a clever man. Papa usually likes clever men, as long as they are rich.”
Her fingers moved deftly about a tangled mass of ribbons, picking here and unthreading there. It was the most domestic activity Kitty had ever seen her young friend perform, and yet seemed so natural. Beneath the veneer of studious plain speaker, Emily Vale was just a girl. As Kitty had once been. As she had felt for a few precious moments in a Shropshire inn, until the man she was infatuated with told her he would marry her if it became necessary.
In fact she was no longer a girl. Far from it, indeed.
“I was not speaking of Mr. Worthmore. I meant your other suitor’s face.”
Emily’s emerald eyes rolled. “He was odious.”
“He was charming. And very kind to do what he did.”
“He made a cake of himself, and of me.” She sat up, dropping the ribbons into her lap. “I have no doubt, Kitty, that he wishes me to squirm with discomfort through it all.”
“It is possible. But he didn’t look very happy about any of it either.”
“Hm.” Emily seemed to seriously consider. “At least Lord Blackwood has more sense than to be that silly.”
Kitty could not respond. At the inn, he had not assented to or declined his part in Madame Roche’s plan. But Kitty assumed he would agree. Yet tonight he had shown no indication of intending to play along.
A golden-red head peeked through the door. “Lady Katherine, may I enter?”
“Of course.”
“Amarantha, you should be in bed by now. Is Nurse not looking for you?”
“I am no longer under Nurse’s governance.” She jumped up on the bed and curled an arm about her sister’s waist. “Mama says I am old enough to have my own room. Yours!”
Emily petted her sister’s shining hair. “I rather like town, with all its museums and such, and hope to remain there. You are welcome to my bedchamber here.”
“Only to share with you, Emmie.” Amarantha popped up on her elbows. “You simply mustn’t like Mr. Worthmore. He is nasty.” A shy smile crept across her lips. “And Mr. Yale is so agreeable.”
Kitty watched a war of thoughts pass behind her friend’s spectacles.
“I am glad you admire him,” Emily finally said.
“He is very handsome.”
“One might think so.”
“How old is he?”
“It has not occurred to me to ask.”
“Emmie! A lady must always discover her suitor’s age and birth date.”
Emily’s eyes widened. “Whatever for?”
“So that she may send him a note wishing him happy upon the day each year.”
“Who told you that?”
“Mama. She does so with Papa. Every year.”
Emily seemed to digest that information with some degree of discomfort. Kitty’s chest felt warm.
To see her friend lying to her family now did not sit well with her, and she knew perfectly well why.
She could not run away forever. That night after Lambert told her he would never marry her, her mother held her while she cried for hours. Kitty had not told her everything that happened, but from the dowager’s comforting words it seemed she had understood. Why else would she have allowed her daughter to remain unwed, unless she knew she was in fact unweddable?
But now, for the first time in years, she could no longer bear the silent understanding her mother had given her for so long. She wished she had told her the truth immediately, before she had plunged into revenge and discovered her inability to conceive. Perhaps nothing could have been done then, anyway. Kitty was ruined. What man would have her? But at least she would not have been alone in her grief and anger. Perhaps her mother might have helped her free herself of it, and she would not have had to wait for the glance of a Scottish lord to do it herself.
“Mr. Yale might send you a posy, Emmie, so you must inform him of your birth date as well, but not your age,” Amarantha cautioned her sister. “You will not want him to think you are too old to marry.”
Too old and misguided and barren. But maudlin musings would not aid her now, and she had Emily’s situation to see to.
“And he is so handsome.”
“You said that already, Amy,” Emily muttered.
“And tall. Not as tall as Lord Blackwood, but the earl is an old man, nearly as old as Mama, I daresay! He cannot help that streak of white in his hair, although it is dashing for an elderly gentleman, and I suppose he is handsome nevertheless. But Mr. Yale’s hair is entirely black, isn’t it?”
“I haven’t the foggiest.”
The fifteen-year-old peered queerly at her sister.
Emily blinked. “Yes. All black. Very nice hair.”
Kitty stifled a laugh. Emily slid off the bed and went to the door, casting her a narrow look.
“I am going to sleep. Amy, are you coming?”
Amarantha jumped to the floor. Emily opened the door. Gentlemen’s voices sounded in the corridor and then the gentlemen themselves walked past. They paused. Mr. Yale seemed weary; nothing in his erect carriage gave a sign to it, but his silvery eyes looked somewhat sunken.
Lord Blackwood bowed. “Leddies.”
Amarantha giggled. Emily pursed her lips. Kitty pulled the wrapper over her breasts and endeavored not to notice his gaze dipping there.
“My lord, Mr. Yale,” she said as smoothly as her voice would allow, “thank you for your fine company tonight. Lady Marie Antoine and I are so grateful.”
Mr. Yale bowed rather stiffly, then continued along the corridor. The earl met Kitty’s gaze and there was nothing of hooded indolence there, only pleasure. She stood in the middle of her bedchamber and wished Emily and her sister away and the earl on her side of the door, with it closed and bolted.
Misguided wishes. She did not need more deception in her life, from herself or anybody else.
“Good night, my lord.”
He nodded, gave Emily’s sister a lovely smile, and went along. Kitty ushered the girls out, shut the door, and sank against it, praying that Emily and Mr. Yale’s courtship would go very swiftly.
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