Another tear plopped onto her report, and with an impatient sigh she wiped it away. With his cryptic murmurings, all he’d done was prove that she couldn’t trust him, that he cared more for his own pride and comfort than he did for anything else. More than he cared for her, certainly.
She was quiet and glum all through breakfast and the distribution of the day’s mail, despite her efforts to forget the silly, stupid man even existed. The Duke of Wycliffe was neither silly nor stupid, though, which was why she could think of nothing else.
“Emma?”
Isabelle sat down opposite her, an opened letter in her hand. Henrietta stood at her shoulder, the girl’s face pale.
“What is it?” Emma asked, straightening and actually thankful for any problem that might take her mind off Grey Brakenridge.
The French instructor handed her the letter. “We have a disaster.”
Tobias paced at the front gate as Grey and the barouche approached. Tristan sat opposite him, though the viscount had wisely foregone any attempt at conversation this morning.
“Your Grace,” the troll said, his expression even more dour than usual, “you’re expected.”
“I should hope so, by now,” Tristan muttered.
Expected or not, only Lizzy stood on the front steps as Simmons stopped the barouche. The sprite hurried forward and grabbed Grey by the hand before his feet even touched the ground. “We have trouble,” she said, tugging him toward the doorway.
His chest tightened as he followed her inside, Dare trailing them. “Is Emma well?” Damnation, he shouldn’t have offered to concede and then pulled it away like that, especially when he knew damned well that he would never take the Academy from her.
“Shh,” Elizabeth said, making for the stairs at her fastest walk. “I can’t tell you here. But it’s bad.”
Was she pregnant? He’d been such a fool last night. Grey shook himself, trying to clear his head. Even if she were carrying his child, she couldn’t possibly know it yet. And it wouldn’t be such a catastrophe, anyway, because he would simply marry her.
He nearly missed a step, and grabbed onto the rail to keep from falling. Marriage? Where in God’s name had that come from? Yes, he enjoyed her company—when he didn’t want to strangle her. Yes, he’d barely been able to breathe at the thought of her in another man’s embrace. When and how that had translated into the thought of marrying her, he had no idea. Dukes didn’t marry headmistresses. And besides, he wasn’t falling into that trap ag—
“Hurry up,” Lizzy said, grasping his hand again and pulling him into Emma’s office.
As he stepped inside his gaze immediately found Emma. She was pacing, hands clasped behind her back, her expression tired and somber. He’d done that to her. Grey made up his mind right then: the damned wager was over. He would have ended it last night, if her haughty independence and lack of gratitude hadn’t antagonized him so much.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
Emma jumped, looking up at him with her expressive hazel eyes. “Lizzy, thank you. Will you please give us a moment of privacy?”
“Should I flee, as well?” Tristan asked, as Elizabeth curtsied and backed out of the office, closing the door behind her.
“I…actually, I do need a private word with His Grace.”
The viscount nodded and pulled open the door. “I’ll be in the hallway.”
As soon as the two of them were alone, Grey crossed the room to her. “Tell me.”
Emma folded her hands together and took a deep breath. “Henrietta received a letter from her father.” She pulled a folded missive from her pocket. “In the letter he…informs Henrietta that he has heard some disturbing rumors that…” she cleared her throat, “that ‘your headmistress has been engaging in highly improper conduct.’” A tear ran down her cheek. “He also says that Henrietta is to pack her things, and that he will be here on Friday to collect her.”
Grey wanted to curse and smash his fist into something, but he restrained himself. Emma was upset enough. “Why,” he asked slowly, “would Henrietta tell her family anything about this? And why would she say you’ve done anything improp—”
“She said she never mentioned anything about you or the wager.”
“Well, she must have! How else would Brendale know—”
“I don’t care how he knew anything!”
“I—”
“Don’t you understand? The Academy is ruined! Lizzy—the other internally tuitioned students—what will happen to them?”
A sob wrenched from her throat. Without even thinking, Grey pulled her into his arms. She collapsed against him, sobs wracking her slender body.
For once, Grey had no idea what to say. “He’s just one stupid man, Em,” he murmured into her hair. “Whatever he thinks he knows, he can’t be sure, or he would have come in person instead of sending a damned letter.” Her crying and shaking terrified him, and he abruptly realized he would be willing to do anything—anything—to make things right for her. “We can fix it. Don’t worry, Em.”
She hammered a fist against his chest. “Henrietta’s mother is the biggest gossip in London. Half the ton is probably chatting about how that idiotic headmistress in Hampshire is…is ‘engaged in highly improper conduct.’ And I am! I have no business running this Academy!”
“You have done nothing wrong as far as those girls are concerned. Nothing.”
She lifted her face, looking up at him. “I think Mr. Brendale has already made up his mind.”
“Nothing’s happened except for some dim-witted correspondence,” he murmured, brushing at her tears with his thumb. “All we need to do is have Henrietta write her father back that he’s completely mistaken.”
“No. I will not ask any of those girls to lie.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Grey responded, stifling a scowl. That would have been the easiest course of action, but he obviously couldn’t expect Emma to go against all of the principles she’d taught her students; she actually believed in them. “But you can’t give up without a fight.”
“I don’t see how I can fight without…hurting my students even further.”
Grey looked at her for a moment, an idea tickling at the back of his mind. “Only Brendale has written, right?”
“For now, yes. I’m sure there will be m—”
“And only to say that he’s heard rumors that you’ve been misbehaving.”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He doesn’t know about the wager.”
Emma frowned at him. “And you think his knowing that I’ve been wagering with the Duke of Wycliffe will improve matters?”
“As far as your students know, the wager is the only reason I’ve been calling on you and the Academy. We’ll have Henrietta explain that to her father, and invite him here for the judging.”
Her gaze became even more skeptical. “How will that solve anything?”
“I made a wager with you. And I never lose. Never.”
For a moment he thought she would kick him in his nether regions, but then her expression sharpened. “Go on.”
“I obviously forced you into this, because what female could stand up to me?”
“Grey—”
“Wait.” He strode to the window and back. It was brilliant. Well, perhaps not brilliant, but it was better than Emma’s broken-hearted sobbing. “What sort of upstanding gentleman would want to cause the Duke of Wycliffe to lose a wager?” he continued. “And to a female, yet. Besides practically being a crime, it would be decidedly…unhealthy for anyone to interfere.”
The door opened. “It’s gotten quiet in here. You haven’t killed one another, have you?” Tristan drawled, leaning into the office.
The viscount’s smooth tone didn’t fool Grey for a bloody minute. He was genuinely worried for Emma. Feeling his hackles rise, Grey stepped between them. “Henrietta’s parents think Emma’s turned the Academy into som
e sort of bawdy house.”
Her face turning white, Emma abruptly took a seat. “Everything’s ruined,” she muttered, lowering her face into her hands.
“No, it isn’t, because we came up with a plan.”
“No, we didn’t,” Emma said, looking up again.
That stopped him in his tracks. “Yes, we did.”
“No, we didn’t. You spouted off some half-witted drivel about using the wager to keep the Academy open. It won’t work.”
He folded his arms. “And why won’t it work?”
“Do you,” she said, slowly and distinctly, as though asking her students an essay question, “intend on winning or losing this wager?”
“I—”
“Because once everyone knows about it, ending the wager will prove the gossips right and ruin this Academy. Your winning the wager will cost the Acad—”
“I’ll lose it,” he said, daring her to argue with that.
“You’ll lose,” she repeated, her tone dripping with skepticism.
“Yes.”
“Intentionally.”
“Yes.”
“Well. Even if I were to swallow my pride and the notion that you might lose whether you plan to or not, I don’t understand how my winning will serve any positive purpose whatsoever.”
“I will make it so.”
“You’re very arrogant.”
“I’m never wrong.”
She nodded. “You’ll have to change that little declaration to ‘seldom wrong’ after your intentional loss. And everyone in London will know that you lost, but not that you did it on purpose.”
Grey narrowed his eyes. “As I have suggested before, you might just say you’re grateful and shut up.”
Emma stepped toward him. “I just want to make certain you understand that people…other men, especially, might very well laugh at you.”
“At the risk of getting my jaw broken, she’s right, you know,” Tristan said in the abrupt silence.
“I know.” To his surprise, the notion really didn’t bother him. “More important, Emma can’t have been doing anything improper if she’s spent all her time chaperoning the class and devising a brilliant estate plan.”
“That’s a flimsy argument, at best,” Emma countered.
“First things first. Have Henrietta write her letter. Have all my students invite their parents. We have nothing to hide here. And it’ll give us ten days to come up with something better, anyway.”
Strangely enough, Emma felt better as Grey and Tristan left the Academy. Something in his eyes had been very…reassuring.
“Em, are you all right?” Isabelle pushed open the office door.
“Not yet. Oh, Isabelle, how could I have been so very, very stupid?”
“It is Henrietta’s father who is stupid even to think of accusing you of such things.”
Tears burned at the back of Emma’s eyes again. If they only knew how guilty she was. “I can hardly blame anyone but myself. I am the Academy’s headmistress, and I am responsible for any disaster that befalls it.”
“As His Grace was leaving, he said he would take care of everything,” the French instructor countered. “Perhaps you should just let him. The wager was his idea, after all.”
“Oh, yes, that would be wonderful, wouldn’t it? The Duke of Wycliffe, famous for his enlightened benevolence toward all female kind, charging in to the rescue.”
Isabelle turned her palms upward. “Why not?”
“Because neither his benevolence, nor his enlightenment, is likely to last past the point where the Academy becomes a public embarrassment. We will rely on those we can trust always to have the Academy’s best interests at heart. And I’m afraid that just leaves us.”
“So you have some plan in mind, yes?”
Emma sagged into her lonely desk chair. “Not yet. But I will.”
As Grey had said, announcing the wager to the parents would hopefully give them ten days to come up with a plan. For once she wished the London mail wasn’t quite so prompt and reliable. They might claim never to have received Mr. Brendale’s letter, but he wasn’t likely to believe it. And if they didn’t believe it was the wager alone which had concerned Wycliffe and her, the parents would take the five girls home with them. And then by twos and dozens, the rest of the parents would follow to take their daughters away from the Academy.
As for Grey, she was simply not going to rest all her hopes on his promises, noble and generous though they might be. She knew enough of men to understand that concern over his position and his pride would take precedence over any temporary feelings he might have toward Lizzy—or her. They were lovers, yes; but he’d had lovers before, and from what Vixen had said, he never kept them for long.
She shook herself. “I’m going for a walk.” A long stroll would clear her head of thoughts of Grey for a few moments, anyway. Heaven knew she had more dire things to worry about.
Nodding at a worried-looking Tobias, she passed through the gates and started up the road toward Basingstoke. Of course she could write Mr. Brendale back and inform him that nothing untoward was going on, but no one would believe her protests of innocence. Therefore, she needed to accept that London would know that the Duke of Wycliffe had entered the halls of Miss Grenville’s Academy, and with her permission. All right. That was a given fact.
The logical part of her brain, the part she hadn’t been using nearly enough lately, slowly began to churn into motion. Increasing her pace, she continued working at the next step of the problem. Any backlash for her idiocy would come from the families of her students. She couldn’t stop it, so therefore she needed to counteract it.
With what? Well, obviously it would take a noble’s support to counteract a noble’s wrath. Wycliffe immediately came to mind, but she brushed the thought away. He was too entangled with her and the Academy for his protests of blamelessness to have much credence.
When the idea finally occurred to her, she couldn’t believe it had taken her so long. Two of her dearest friends, fellow graduates of the Academy, had recently made very notable marriages. The Countess of Kilcairn Abbey and the Marchioness of Althorpe were definitely forces to be reckoned with.
As she reached town, she headed for Sir John’s offices, and more specifically, for his writing desk. Emma allowed herself a slight, hopeful smile. Let the girls write their letters, and let Wycliffe conjure his plans. She was going to call in her own reinforcements.
Chapter 16
Uncle Dennis’s skill at chess had improved over the years. Grey stood alone in the earl’s office, looking down at the pieces arranged beneath the window. In one move, or a maximum of three if he attempted a delay and counterattack, he was going to lose his queen. Grey reflected that if Dennis only managed his estate with the same degree of cleverness, none of them would be in this mess.
“Did they send the letters?” Dare asked, strolling into the room without bothering to knock first.
With a slight frown, Grey shifted his remaining bishop. Better to delay the inevitable and hope for a miracle than to concede defeat. “Yes. By special messenger this morning.”
“So you really intend to go through with the wager?”
“It’s the only way I can see to save the Academy. If you have a better idea, please enlighten me.”
Tristan sat behind the desk. “You’ve already become surprisingly enlightened over the past few weeks. When we arrived here, you’d have been happy to set a torch to Miss Grenville’s Academy—and Miss Emma Grenville—yourself.”
He felt more enamored then enlightened. Not just of Emma, but of the whole blasted school. “I may have rushed in without knowing all the facts,” he admitted, glancing through the window as Alice and Sylvia, accompanied by Blumton, climbed into Haverly’s phaeton for their afternoon tour of the countryside.
“Just out of curiosity,” Tristan said, playing with the brass duck paperweight, “what will you do if you can’t contain the damage to Emma’s reputation?”
Grey fac
ed him, leaning back against the edge of the gaming table. “That won’t happen.”
“Because you’ve already decreed a victory? Even if Brendale and the other parents wait for the end of the wager before they storm the school, it’s only because they expect Emma to lose. Nasty rumors are better than facts, and they may well have both.”
“I’m not an idiot, Tris. At least the ruse will give us a few more days to come up with a solution.”
“And what about Emma?”
The duke met Dare’s gaze, warm anger touching him at the viscount’s proprietary tone. “What about her?”
“I couldn’t help noticing yesterday that a certain item of your clothing was in the doorway of her bed chamber. Unless she’s being visited by someone else wearing fine silk cravats with sapphire pins stuck through them, that is.”
Grey clenched his fist, fighting to keep himself from hurtling across the room and pounding Dare while he explained that no man touched Emma but him. “I suggest you not repeat that observation to anyone,” he growled.
Tristan looked offended. “I wouldn’t. But the fact is, the rumors are true, aren’t they?”
“Mind your own affairs, Dare, and I’ll mind mine.”
“That’s all well and good, but who told Brendale? Emma swears it wasn’t Henrietta.”
Grey shook his head. “Emma got another letter this morning, from Jane’s father. He’d heard the rumors, too.”
“He wrote directly to Emma?”
“Yes. And he was even less polite in his phraseology than Brendale was.” Emma hadn’t cried this time, but her quiet acceptance of all blame in the fiasco had upset him even more than her tears.
The viscount cleared his throat. “I do want you to know that, your own likely heroic performance aside, I am available to assist your rescue of the Academy should the need arise.”
Grey wanted to do it himself, to prove to Emma that she could trust him. Even so, the offer was something of a relief. “My thanks, Tris. I may take you up on…”
The phaeton rattled back up the drive. With a frown, Grey looked through the window as his traveling companions returned. He had enough to sort through without the prying lot of them about all afternoon. Then a coach trundled up behind the phaeton, a second vehicle following it. Grey’s scowl deepened.
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