Rhyme and Reason

by Jo Ann Ferguson

  Taking her bonnet from Kilmartin who wore an anxious expression, Emily settled it on her hair that refused to stay in curls around her face. “I thought you could set aside your distaste of Damon’s company when he was kind enough to offer to escort us to Mr. Homsby’s shop.”

  “Why do we need him? We can take the carriage—”

  “Papa used it to go to his club.” She almost had to spit out the words. His club! In the past week, Papa had not come home once before dawn. When she had hinted she was interested in how much he had won or lost, he had merely patted her cheek and told her to let him worry about such things. That was like telling her not to think about Damon. Impossible.

  Miriam picked up her fan and slapped it against her palm, threatening the thin ivory spines. “I do not understand why the delivery of the carriage you ordered to replace Papa’s phaeton is taking so long.”

  “It has not been very long.”

  “More than three months!”

  Emily sighed as they walked, with the abigail following, down to the foyer. She had hoped that Miriam would not take note of how long it had been since Papa had come nearly to disaster when he crashed the phaeton in an accident he refused to discuss. There would be no new carriage, because Emily had not ordered one. The household accounts did not contain the money to pay for it.

  “Be patient, Miriam,” she said when her sister continued to grouse.

  “I am trying.” She looked toward the door Johnson was opening.

  Emily wondered if everyone could hear the way her heart beat when her gaze met Damon’s. The elegant cut of his coat complemented his white breeches. When he took off his black top hat, his hair glistened in the day’s last light.

  She rushed forward to halt him, aware of Kilmartin’s gasp as he was about to enter the house. “We are ready to leave now.”

  Puzzlement ruffled his brow. “Emily, what is amiss?”

  She motioned for Miriam and the abigail to follow down the steps. Turning, she saw Damon still standing on the topmost one. “We do not want to be late.”

  “Late?” he asked, resting his hand on the iron railing. “We could drive around half of London and still arrive before the reading begins.” A smile curved his lips when he came down the steps toward where his elegant, closed carriage waited by the walkway. “Although I must say that is not a bad idea. I shall be the envy of every man—gentleman or no—who views me in the company of such exquisitely beautiful ladies.”

  “Miriam and I are pleased with your generosity this evening.” Emily flashed an encouraging smile at her sister.

  “Yes,” Miriam said with all the enthusiasm of a convicted conveyancer facing the deadly nevergreens in Tyburn.

  “Are you pleased enough,” Damon asked, “so you will explain why you are hurrying me away from your door as if I were a hell-born hound coming to take you to the old gentleman in black?”

  Emily began, “I told you—”

  “I know.” He drew her hand within his arm as he led her toward where Miriam and Kilmartin had already climbed into the coach with the tiger’s assistance. “But I had hoped for honesty.”

  “I never know when you are being honest and when you are not.” The words slipped out before she could silence them.

  He turned her to face him. His hands on her shoulders were caressing, but the intensity in his voice lashed her like a flogger. “If we were not here in view of everyone on the square, I would be glad to show you how honest I can be when I say I want to kiss you so deeply your reputation would be damned forever.”

  “You should not say that.”

  “Why are you abruptly afraid of the truth?” He brushed one of her recalcitrant curls back from her face. “Or is it abruptly, Emily? I suspect you are less than honest at times, and I am beginning to wonder what you are trying to hide.”

  “Nothing!” She cursed the panic in her voice when his eyes became silvery slits.

  “Then why are you acting so oddly?”

  “I am worried about this evening.”

  “Your sister and the marquis?”

  She nodded.

  “But why? Simply because he lathered her at Lady Fanning’s is no reason to suspect he will do so tonight. From what little I saw of de la Cour, and that sample was more than enough, I must own, he will not confine himself to one woman. He will wish to woo them all.” He smiled ironically. “He is French, after all.”

  “Is he?” she asked under her breath.

  “What did you say?”

  “I do not want to be late, for I intend to have a seat right next to Miriam tonight.” She must be careful not to betray her suspicions about the marquis, because they could divulge her own secret.

  Emily was not able to ignore the tension in Damon’s arm as he walked her to the carriage. Nor could she dismiss how his fingers lingered against her while he assisted her in to sit on the scarlet seat across from her sister and Kilmartin. When he sat beside her and reached up to tap the roof, she was overmastered by his strength so close to her.

  “Isn’t this a lovely carriage, Miriam?” she asked, hoping again to draw her sister into the conversation.

  She failed. Miriam nodded if Emily spoke to her, but ignored Damon. Emily had no idea what he thought of her sister’s want of manners, because his face was without expression. Even when they reached Old Bond Street, Miriam’s disapproving silence did not lessen. Kilmartin seemed as unwilling to speak. Emily wondered why she had ever agreed to come to this blasted reading.

  The walkway before Mr. Homsby’s shop overflowed with people, although the reading was not to begin for nearly an hour. Disconcerted, Emily stood by the carriage as Damon handed her sister out.

  “Wentworth!”

  He grimaced. “If you ladies will pardon me for a moment, I shall see what Newsome wants.” Bowing to them, he added, “Unless you would like to speak with him, too.”

  Emily glanced at the pudgy earl and shook her head. Lord Newsome had been the only man more obnoxious than Lord Lichton about collecting her father’s debts. “We shall gladly excuse you.”

  Damon shot her another glance which warned her simple words had roused his curiosity, but said nothing as he went to where the earl was holding court on the walkway and calling to more of his acquaintances to join him.

  “I had no idea the marquis had so many admirers.” Miriam smiled when Kilmartin adjusted the paisley shawl over her shoulders.

  “Nor did I,” Emily answered glumly. Reminding herself she must be especially cautious tonight or she could shatter everything she had labored to create for her family, she forced a smile. Someone bumped into her. Turning, she stared into Mr. Homsby’s face, which was awash with a storm of emotions of dismay, then amusement, then a return of anxiety. He mumbled and pushed past her to speak to his other guests.

  “How peculiar!” Miriam said. “I never have seen Mr. Homsby in such a dither that he forgot his manners. He may be surprised by the response to this reading.”

  “Why should he be? He sent the invitations.”

  “I shall go and find seats for the three of us, Miss Emily,” Kilmartin interjected.

  “Four,” she corrected gently.

  The abigail’s face lengthened with her frown. “Forgive me, Miss Emily. I did not mean to exclude Lord Wentworth.”

  Emily flinched as Kilmartin pushed through the crowd. She had not broken her pledge to Papa. She had not received Damon at home, although arguably the front steps still were part of the house.

  “Oh, my!”

  At Miriam’s soft gasp, Emily followed her sister’s gaze toward a carriage stopping behind Damon’s. The bright orange door announced it belonged to the Fanning family. The door opened to reveal Graham Simpkins. He held up his hand to assist Valeria, who was resplendent in purple and gold.

  Tears blossomed in Miriam’s eyes. No matter what Miriam professed, she still must have a tendre for Mr. Simpkins.

  “Let us go and greet them,” Emily said, prodding her sister with her elbow.
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  “He—I mean, they are coming this way.” Miriam choked back a sob as Mr. Simpkins looked directly at her and away.

  Valeria waved her fan, but let Mr. Simpkins lead her into the shop. Emily put her arm around her sister’s shoulders.

  Miriam shrugged them off. “Don’t pity me, Emily!”

  “Why would anyone pity such a très belle creature?” came an unmistakable French accent behind them.

  Emily groaned. Why hadn’t she hurried Miriam inside so they could have found seats far from this fraud? Now was the worst time to have to speak to the marquis, but it seemed she had as little choice in the matter as her sister did in the state of Mr. Simpkins’s heart.

  “Mademoiselle Talcott!” Marquis de la Cour grinned. He wore an elegant coat of navy-blue velvet and breeches as silver as Damon’s eyes. Gold glittered on his fingers beneath the fall of lace at his wrists. “And Mademoiselle Talcott. May I express my great delight in seeing both of you here? I had hoped you would attend, for I know you to be lovers of poetry.” He grasped Miriam’s hand and bowed over it as he murmured, “It takes a special person to see beauty in words.”

  Emily was startled when her sister laughed. “How sweet of you to take note of us!” Miriam said, too loudly in Emily’s opinion, when the marquis pressed her sister’s hand to his lips.

  “Only a chien—How do you say?—a cur would be indifferent to a glorious creature like you, Mademoiselle Talcott.” When she flushed, he added, “I hope I have said nothing wrong, for it would be a shame if I must depend on a poorly chosen word to bring such captivating color to your face.”

  When Miriam glanced to her right, toward where Valeria was standing at the bookshop door with Mr. Simpkins, Emily wanted to groan. No, it could not be. Miriam must be hoping to make Mr. Simpkins jealous of the attention the marquis was showing her.

  He is not the real Marquis de la Cour, she wanted to shout. This was simply too bizarre.

  If Valeria would look this way, mayhap Emily could motion for her to join them and bring Mr. Simpkins with her. Valeria was focused on Lady Murrow, who had made no secret of her dismay that Valeria had been the first to host the marquis. The bald-ribbed dowager’s hands flew about, warning her distress had not diminished.

  “Do let me sit you near where I shall be reading, mademoiselle.” The marquis’s request pulled Emily’s attention back to him.

  Miriam giggled and wafted her fan in front of her face. “I would be delighted, my lord.”

  “My lord? You don’t speak French?”

  “Only a word or two.” Miriam tapped Emily’s arm. “Not like my dear sister.”

  “Yes, your sister.” He looked at Emily, his smile never wavering, but his eyes cold. “You speak French with a unique accent, Mademoiselle Talcott. You did not learn it in Paris, that much is clear. Where did you learn to speak it?”

  She hesitated, then squared her shoulders. Although too many ears might be listening, she must be honest, for Miriam might, however innocently, dispute any tale she told. “In America, mon seigneur.”

  “America?” He ran his finger beneath his mustache, spiking out the thin hairs. “I had no idea you were so well traveled, Mademoiselle Talcott.”

  “My father’s business took us there.”

  “How intriguing! And what does Mr. Talcott do?”

  “The Talcott family has been involved in the shipping business for generations.”

  “Is that so?” She was unsure what he meant and had no chance to ask, for he added, “No matter where you learned it, you speak it so well.”

  “Emily does many things well,” came a deeper voice, “as you shall discover, de la Cour, if you remain long in Town.”

  Why had she thought this could not become more higgledy-piggledy? As Damon came to stand beside her, she bit her lower lip. Anything she could say right now was certain to cause more trouble.

  “Lord Wentworth, isn’t it?” The marquis’s sneer wrinkled his nose.

  “Yes.”

  “I thought I recalled you from Lady Fanning’s soirée.” He scowled. “You left early.”

  Damon’s smile was as cold as Emily’s hands. “I regret not hearing Emily’s reading, for I am sure her voice could have but enhanced the poetry.”

  “True, but—” He clamped his lips closed.

  Wondering why the impostor took insult at Damon’s words when she had written the poems, Emily wanted to remind both of them how many ears were heeding this conversation. Slipping her arm through Miriam’s, she said, “Let us go in and find a seat.”

  “Oui, let us.” The marquis’s voice was smooth once more. He took Miriam’s hand and placed it on his arm. A single arched brow dared Emily to try to pull her sister away from him.

  As she watched Miriam walk to the door with de la Cour, Emily tried to ignore the dread descending on her. This fake poet was something she was going to have to deal with … somehow.

  Before it was too late.

  “Merci. Merci beaucoup.” The marquis bowed his head toward his applauding audience.

  “Isn’t he wonderful?” cooed Miriam. “Have you ever seen anything like him?”

  Emily almost laughed as she said with sincerity, “Never.”

  The poetry reading had been going on for more than an hour in the increasingly stuffy shop. In a hard chair near where de la Cour stood by the counter, she could find no comfortable way to sit. Any way she might move would bring her in contact with an elbow or a knee or a fluttering fan, for the attendees were packed in as close as a court plaster.

  “For my final poem this evening,” the marquis intoned in his self-satisfied voice, “I would like to read my favorite. It is so personal, I hesitate to share it like this.” His gaze focused on Miriam. “But it seems somehow appropriate tonight when I am surrounded by so much amitié.”

  Miriam half hid her face with her fan. “Isn’t he just grand, Emily?”

  “He is—”

  “Hush! Listen!”

  Emily was tempted to say she had listened too long already. Despite requests from his devotees, the marquis refused to read in French. That solidified her suspicions. The fraud was not even French!

  “Before I read this final selection,” de la Cour said with a broad smile, “I wish to thank Mr. Homsby for his generosity in allowing me to use his shop tonight. He and my publisher, Old Gooseberry Press, have—”

  Emily gasped. Old Gooseberry Press? She never had heard that name mentioned. In the books, the only listing below the title and her pseudonym was the name and address of Mr. Homsby’s bookshop.

  When she looked at the quarto, Mr. Homsby was staring at the marquis with fury. Mr. Homsby’s hands opened and closed at his side as if he already had his fingers at de la Cour’s throat. What else had he told the impostor? An icy laugh battered the back of her throat. Mr. Homsby should have taken a page from his own book and been guided more by reticence than greed.

  A motion at the back of the shop caught her eye. When her gaze locked with Damon’s, she saw no emotion on his face. He must be disturbed by something as well; otherwise, he would be jesting with the fellow beside him about the ineptitude of de la Cour’s reading. She wanted to see him smiling, to have his irreverence steal the absurdity from this night.

  He looked past her as de la Cour opened the book and began to stumble through what had been her favorite poem, too. She gazed down at her hands folded over her fan. Where was this going to end? She dared not think.

  Emily should not have been surprised when Lady Murrow invited all the attendees at the reading to an informal gathering at her townhouse on Berkeley Square. She considered using the excuse of her headache not to attend, but Miriam accepted the invitation before Emily could speak.

  “I am sure Lord Wentworth will be delighted to escort us there,” Miriam gushed as if she had never shown anything but affection for Damon.

  “Miriam!” Emily whispered, aghast.

  Her sister turned, and Emily saw her eyes were too bright. With more tears or
with excitement? “Dear Emily, Lord Wentworth must plan to take us home. Why not take us home by way of Lady Murrow’s supper?”

  “Then ’tis all settled,” the rotund dowager said before she rushed off to invite the rest of the attendees.

  Miriam preened as she ran her finger through the feathers on her fan. “She was very, very anxious for us to attend, wasn’t she?” With a giggle, she squeezed Emily’s hand. “I never knew it could be like this.”

  “Like what?” she asked, although she shuddered at what she feared the answer would be. She was not disappointed.

  “Others have noticed how André is so attentive to me.”

  “André?”

  “The marquis, of course.” Pretty color splashed across her cheeks. “He asked me to call him that.”

  Emily put her hand over her stomach. She feared she would be ill right here. The marquis should not have a first name, because she had never given him one.

  When broad fingers settled on her arm, she looked up at Damon’s smile. It faded into concern. She longed for his arms around her to hold back the insanity. So easily, within that sturdy sanctuary, she could pour out the secrets pillaging her heart. She would rest her head against his chest in the moment before his fingers tipped her lips toward his. Then the madness would be as sweet and dangerous as the flame of his passion.

  “Emily?” he asked softly, but his voice resonated deep within her.

  Before she could answer, Miriam said, “Lord Wentworth, I hope I was not too presumptuous when I told Lady Murrow you would be escorting us to her supper.”

  Damon glanced from Emily’s ashen face to her sister’s high color. No one could doubt that Miriam was aglow with sharing the admiration heaped on de la Cour. That might explain Emily’s apprehension.

  When he folded her hand between his, he was astounded that her fingers were icy. Her eyes avoided his, and he knew something beyond her sister’s enthusiasm distressed her.

  “I would be delighted to escort you,” he said, “if that is Emily’s wish as well.”

  He almost recoiled when Emily jerked her hand away. The scathing glare she fired at him would have daunted him, if he had not known how her fingers trembled. He had no chance to ask her to explain because her sister pleaded with her to go to Lady Murrow’s townhouse.