The marquess tugged at his collar and turned away without another word.
As his bedroom door closed, Emily looked up to see the duke regarding her closely.
“But one must commend the marquess on his excellent taste,” he said softly, and Emily, her hands going to her cap, discovered that her hair had escaped its severe bun and was falling down in disarray. She flushed but spoke up bravely.
“I must thank you, your Grace, for coming to my rescue,” she said as she curtsied, trying to control her uneven breathing. She did not miss the way his eyes traveled so insolently up and down her figure in its neat gown and lace-trimmed apron. She wished it did not fit so well.
“What is your name, girl?” the duke asked, stepping closer.
“Nelson—Margaret Nelson, your Grace.”
He reached out a careless finger and tilted her chin, and Emily did not realize how her emerald-green eyes flashed at the intimacy. Suddenly, the duke laughed softly. “Go to bed, Margaret Nelson. It is very late. And I would advise you to eschew dark hallways until the marquess has left the hall.”
Emily curtsied again and ran to the stairs to the attic. Her heart was pounding in earnest now, for she knew the duke was infinitely more dangerous than the marquess. And why had she had such an urge to tell him she was Emily Wyndham? It had almost slipped out before she could stop herself. He was an alarming man—thank heavens he would be leaving on the morrow with the other guests invited especially for the ball.
Emily was careful to avoid the Marquess of Benterfield for the remaining days of the house party, and she sighed a heartfelt sigh of relief on the morning they took coach again for London. She had not seen the duke again, and although her thoughts often strayed to him, she told herself she was glad that their encounter had been limited to that one meeting in the dark hall.
Life in London resumed its usual pace, and then, toward the end of February, Lady Quentin's mother, the Countess of Ridgely, arrived for a visit. With this lady came her maid, her own footman, and her coachman, and a vast amount of baggage.
Emily saw the lady the next afternoon when she was drying and curling Lady Quentin’s hair. The countess settled herself in a straight chair and began to talk. It was difficult to see any resemblance between mother and daughter except for their slimness. Indeed, the countess was thin to the point of gauntness. She had a cold, dignified manner that became evident after she had stared at Emily and then promptly forgot her as she told her daughter the news of home.
“Your father sends his remembrances, Alicia,” she began, “and of course your brothers. I am delighted to inform you that your sister Agatha is about to make a most satisfactory match—Lord Dale, so well-to-do and of such a good family. Even though he is several years older than Agatha, we are extremely pleased. Well! I have also to tell you that your grandmother has succumbed to the gout once again and has retired to her own estates.”
“Oh, Mama, how fortunate! I do hope you will make a long stay with us in that case.”
Her mother stared. “Can I have heard you correctly? To be pleased when your grandmother is suffering? As for making a long stay, I am sure your husband will have something to say to that. With a new bride he will be wishing me away in a week.”
“Not Tony, Mama,” Lady Quentin protested. “He is so busy now we are back in town that I scarcely see him. I did so hope that now the war is over he would be able to be with me more often.” She sighed and the countess looked at her shrewdly.
“You will remember what I told you when you were married, Alicia,” she said firmly. “It is fatal to hang on a man’s sleeve, even as a bride, for there is nothing that gives a husband such a disgust of a female as her constant begging for his attention.”
“I know, Mama, indeed I remember,” Lady Quentin said, hanging her head and making it difficult for Emily to continue to brush her hair. “I have done just as you told me. In fact, in the beginning, it was often Tony who begged for my company, but I kept your precepts in mind and did not allow him to see me more than once or twice a week.”
“Good! That is the only way to keep a marriage happy.”
“I do wish Tony would talk to me more, Mama. He never tells me why it is important for me to attend this party or that, or be sure to talk to certain people in my most charming manner, and he never tells me what he is doing at the War Office, or why—”
The countess interrupted. “That is none of your concern, daughter. That is man’s business, and of course beyond your understanding. You must not pry.” Then in a lower voice, she added, “I am sure you remember what I told you about gentlemen and their lady friends. It is especially important for you to bear in mind, for the captain is such a handsome man, and you, my dear, are not at all beautiful or captivating, nor do you have much of a ... of a shape. So if you see him in attendance on one of the demireps of the town, you must look the other way and never show him that you think his behavior disgusting.” She sighed and added repressively, “Men are different from women. Their amusements are such that no decent woman would indulge in them. Besides, you must keep your own reputation above reproach. What is sauce for the gander is most definitely not sauce for the goose.”
“How very unfair, Mama,” Alicia exclaimed, but at the sight of her mother’s horrified face, she added, “Not that I have any desire for a lover. My dear Tony is everything a woman could want.”
“It is of course gratifying that you feel that way, Alicia,” the countess said dryly. “But on no account must you let him know it. No silly raptures, no languishing looks—you know the form. You will submit to your husband, Alicia—I am sure I do not need to tell you your duty—but there is no need to pretend any enjoyment in the act. That is why men go with women of loose character; from their wives they expect only a dignified passivity. If you would be a good wife, heed me.”
“But ... but Mama! Is a woman never to enjoy—I mean, well—sometimes it is so beautiful and overwhelming—”
“That is quite enough! To think I should ever hear one of my daughters make such a disgusting statement! You seem to forget the captain only married you for your money. He does not love you.”
Lady Quentin paled at her sarcasm and nodded her head. “I know you must be right, Mama, but Arabella says I should stop going about town on my own and be with Tony more often.”
“Hmmph!” Lady Kinsley sniffed. “I did not realize Miss Quentin was still in town. When does she plan to retire to Burton-Latimer?”
“I have no idea; never, I imagine, as long as Tony is in London,” Lady Quentin said tartly, shaking her head.
Lady Kinsley rose. “I can see it is a very good thing that I have come to town, Alicia. I did not expect to hear you speak so of one of your husband’s relations, who has, after all, done everything in her power to assure your happiness. Why, Miss Quentin, if she has any weakness, it is that she does not perfectly understand the married state, never having been so blessed herself. But in other matters”—she shook a bony finger at her daughter—“do not be setting yourself up as an authority, Alicia, it ill becomes you: rather, listen and obey when older and wiser heads take the trouble to advise you. I shall go and rest now before dinner. It has been a fatiguing day, and I see I have quite a task before me to bring you to a correct state of mind.”
“Yes, Mama,” Lady Quentin murmured in a soft, discouraged voice as her mother went majestically to the door.
Emily tightened her lips. She was horrified, for never had she thought to hear a mother speak so to her daughter. It was obvious now why Lady Quentin behaved as she did. No wonder she ran around town, filling her days with shopping and parties. Emily wanted to put her arms around the bride and tell her her mother was wrong, for she was a very pretty girl and in a few years, with more experience, would be a lovely woman. As she took some mending away with her and left her mistress to write a few notes, she shook her head. Between Lady Kinsley and Miss Quentin, they were in a fair way of ruining the girl, for she had little self-confidence and no
way of standing up to her elders. Emily wondered what Lord Kinsley was like, and what he thought of his wife’s ideas of marriage, poor man.
Now that Lady Kinsley was visiting, Captain Quentin was seen even less than before. He left early for Headquarters, he played cards with his friends, he had engagements at his club. Through it all, Emily watched Lady Quentin fade into a meek submission, as her mother nodded at each new instance of her son-in-law’s indifference.
She was also privileged to see both the countess and Miss Quentin taking her mistress to task one morning in the drawing room. Miss Quentin had called to welcome the countess to town. When Emily came in with the handkerchief Lady Quentin had dropped in her room, they were deep in a lecture on the responsibilities of the modern wife.
“I must tell you, dear Lady Kinsley,” Miss Quentin was saying in what she considered a playful tone, “that Alicia has been very naughty. Indeed, she is fast gaining a reputation as a gadabout, care-for-nobody!”
“Indeed?” Lady Kinsley asked frigidly. “I find it hard to believe of one of my daughters. Perhaps you exaggerate?”
“I can assure you that I do not,” Miss Quentin replied, her high color even more prominent. “I wish it were not so, for you must know it is repugnant for me to find fault and have to report such behavior to Alicia’s mother.”
The two older ladies glared at each other as Emily handed Lady Quentin her handkerchief and could not resist pressing her hand warmly as she did so. Lady Quentin looked up to see her maid smiling at her in complete understanding of her predicament, and her expression brightened a little and she sat up straighter on the sofa.
“This is all a farradiddle and you know it, Bella,” she said. “I am very disappointed that you would repeat such untruths to my mother. I am not a gadabout. I attend the parties of the beau monde with my husband’s friends when he cannot escort me himself, and as for being a care-for-nobody, that is also untrue. I care very much for my husband. Thank you, Nelly, that will be all.”
Emily curtsied, but as she left the room, she heard Miss Quentin say, “Well, I see I have been put firmly in my place.” Her tone was disbelieving and a little stunned. As Emily shut the door, Lady Kinsley said, “I knew I could not be mistaken in my own child, but on the other hand, Alicia, it is the outside of enough...”
Emily frowned as she made her way upstairs. Lady Quentin’s independence was not to last long, by all accounts.
Two weeks later, as Emily was putting away some clean laundry in the dressing room while Lady Quentin enjoyed her usual breakfast in bed, the captain threw open the bedroom door and rushed in, throwing his gloves and sword stick down before he approached the bed.
“My darling Alicia, I came at once to you. I have the most exciting news, just wait till you hear.”
“Do you, Tony?” Emily heard her mistress ask. “Whatever can it be?”
Emily put down the pile of chemises and petticoats that she was holding and prepared to slip out the dressing room door to give them some privacy when she heard the captain exclaim, “It is famous, pet! Napoleon has escaped from Elba.”
Emily froze, her eyes widening as she heard Lady Quentin put down her cup with a snap.
“Napoleon has escaped, Tony?” she asked. “And that is famous? Why—why, we will be at war before the cat has time to lick her ear.”
“That is what is so famous, Alicia. Don’t you see, I will be sent abroad again; the battle is not over, as I feared.”
“Oh, Tony,” his wife wailed. “How can you wish to leave me—to go where your life will be in danger?”
There was a pause, and then Emily heard the captain say, in slightly less-excited tones, “Now, my dear, you married a soldier, and a soldier is never happy unless he is fighting. Nothing will happen to me, and this may well be the means to advancement. It is not that I wish to leave you, but that I must. Besides, you will be so busy with all your parties, I vow you won’t even know I’m gone.”
“Tony, how can you say so,” Lady Quentin asked, her voice injured. “I shall miss you quite dreadfully.”
She began to cry and there was another pause, and then the captain asked in a strained voice. “Do you love me so much, then? I did not know. Do not cry, my love. Perhaps you would like to go to your father’s estate until I return? Or if you want to remain in town so as to be near the news, I am I sure Bella would be delighted to bear you company.”
“No! Not my mother, and never Bella!”
Emily heard the captain rise from the side of the bed and begin to pace the room, bewildered at his wife’s vehement weeping. “But I do not understand. Come, my dear, be calm. There is no need to make any hasty decision, for I have to get an appointment to Wellington’s army. No one knows if the Guards will be included.”
“You mean there is a chance your regiment will not be called?”
“Well, it is nowhere certain, which is why I shall have to bustle about, for if they are to remain here, I must get myself appointed an aide-de-camp to some general. I have it in mind to ask General Raklin this very day, just in case. All this disbanding of the army after Napoleon was exiled last year, and now we see the result. There is no army left, no real army ready to fight.”
Completely ignoring this diversion, Lady Quentin said crossly, “So that is why I had to be nice to him and his wife. No wonder you did not tell me what was in your mind, for I would surely have given the general a disgust of you if I had known to what purpose I was being used. Help you to the fighting, indeed.”
The captain laughed at her. “Be glad for me, Alicia. It is what I am trained for and the only way for me to make my way in the world. If I get a promotion, I shall not have to live in your pocket anymore.”
“And what does that mean?” she asked.
“Only that I have not liked being dependent on you, my love. I did not marry you for your money, you know, but in spite of it.”
“Really, Tony?” Lady Quentin asked eagerly. “I am sure I never knew. Well, what I mean is—But truly, it does not bother me, and I am so glad you told me, I cannot say.”
He laughed again. “That sounds more like the wife I know.” Emily heard the bed creak as he sat down again, and then there was silence. In a few minutes, the captain was on his way, calling cheerfully over his shoulder, “I shall return as soon as I have news, love. Pray for my success.”
The door of the bedroom banged, and when Emily heard Lady Quentin begin to cry as if her heart would break, she slipped out of the dressing room and went away until her mistress should summon her again.
3
The days sped by, and for a while it seemed that the captain was to be frustrated in his desire to make his way to Belgium so as to be ready when the summons came for battle. Every evening that he returned home with a dark frown on his face, his wife was sure to be all smiles, although she tried to restrain her relief. Most unexpectedly, she was joined in all her feelings by her sister-in-law. Miss Quentin was not slow to learn the news, for all London buzzed with it, and there was very little else discussed no matter where you went. From the balls to the parks to the circulating libraries and the shops, the news was all of Boney and what Old Nosey would do to him this time for having the temerity to escape his exile. Not that anyone was at all sure that the duke would be appointed head of the army, for he had been in Vienna for the Congress since early February, and if Napoleon chose to march at once, there would be no time for him to travel north and assemble his army.
Napoleon had arrived in France on March the first, and the allies waited breathlessly for the news that the king’s troops had stopped his march on Paris, but it never came. Even Marshal Ney deserted the king in favor of throwing in his lot with his newly returned former master. And then, on the twentieth, Napoleon entered Paris, and King Louis XVIII fled.
Now, as Captain Quentin tried desperately to get himself reassigned, all England waited to hear that Napoleon was on the way north, and Bella told Alicia that they must both pray that Anthony would be unsuccessful an
d remain in London.
“But we must not let him know we feel this way, Alicia,” she warned. “He would be most displeased.”
Lady Quentin was quick to agree, but then Miss Quentin ruined this budding camaraderie by adding coldly, “You, of course, did not even know my brother when he was wounded at Talavera in the Peninsula campaign; I was out of my mind with worry before he returned to recuperate. There was some talk that he might lose his arm; indeed, he was lucky to escape with his life, and until now there was no thought of his returning to the war. His wound was so slow in healing. I felt sure he would remain here in London, where he is a most valuable asset to the War Office.”
The Countess of Ridgely was making plans to return to her home. She had had a letter from her husband, and it appeared that there was some delay in Agatha’s accepting the suitable Lord Dale, and so she did not feel she could remain. She confided coldly to Alicia that Agatha was being very silly, but she was sure she would be able to put her in a more amenable frame of mind. Lady Quentin spared a sympathetic thought for her sister as she waved her mama good-bye.
Emily was glad the countess had departed and fervently wished there was some way that Miss Arabella Quentin could also be banished. The young couple were so much happier on their own, without her interference. Emily had a premonition that the captain was going to be successful in being sent abroad and she wished they might have this time to themselves. There was, after all, a distinct possibility that it would be their last.
All through April, the captain fretted and fumed, and Lady Quentin smiled. He was gone from morning to night seeing this colonel, that general; trying in every way he knew to convince his superiors that the wounds he had received in Portugal had in no way incapacitated him from the fight that everyone was sure would come. No one of the military expected Napoleon to remain quietly content in France, even though the days passed and he made no move to renew the fighting. Wellington had left the Congress at Vienna on March 20, and when Captain Quentin learned he had arrived at headquarters in Brussels on April 4, he renewed his efforts. With Wellington in position, surely the action could not be far off.
The Emerald Duchess Page 5