In order for her plan to succeed though, she would have to accept his offer of help. But how could she, yet not appear forward by agreeing to his rather scandalous suggestion?
She lowered her gaze. “I appreciate your generous offer, my lord, but I would not wish to impose.”
“Perhaps not,” he remarked with a slight gruffness in his voice, “but I don’t see that you have much choice in the matter. Where else are you to go?”
Her eyes flew up to meet his, her brows knitting.
“My apologies if I seem unduly blunt,” he said, “but this is no time for missishness.”
Missishness? She was not missish!
“I am simply stating facts.” He drank the last of his tea before setting the cup aside. “And the facts are that you are without funds or lodgings at present and your friend isn’t expected back in the city for a week at least. I could put you up in a hotel, but that seems as bad an idea as you being on your own in Covent Gardens. We both saw firsthand how well that worked out this morning.”
“That,” she declared, “is extremely ungallant of you to mention. I can hardly be blamed for the actions of those thieves.”
He shrugged. “Ungallant or not, you have no business being out in the city alone. So let’s have no more debate on the matter. You need help and I am offering to provide it. Just for this week, of course,” he added, “until your friend returns from her journey.”
As if I would care to remain longer, she silently retorted.
Suddenly she wasn’t sure that she wanted his help at all, even if it meant having to leave London. And to think she’d been looking forward to exploring the city with him. Perhaps she ought to refuse his offer and go to the embassy after all. Only imagine how surprised he would be if she tossed his generosity back in his face.
But the very idea of being sent back to the estate stopped her cold. Even pride wasn’t enough to make her say the words that would set him back on his heels and end her acquaintance with him forever. She really did want to see the city in her own way and on her own terms, not from the inside of a royal coach. But was a smattering of such freedom worth residing in this man’s house? Pshaw. If only Mrs. Brown-Jones hadn’t been away visiting relations, none of this would be necessary.
“From your silence,” he stated, as if the decision were already made, “I presume you agree to my plan.”
Again, she struggled against the temptation to refuse him. But even as she considered her options one more time, an image of Duchess Weissmuller smiling cruelly at her while she rang a peal over her head convinced her that his suggestion was indeed the wisest course.
“If you are certain you can bear my company for a week, then yes, my lord. I accept.”
A faint smile crossed his mouth, his eyes twinkling with an irreverent light. “Oh, I believe I can endure the inconvenience, if you are able, Miss—?” He broke off, tilting his head at a quizzical angle. “I’ve only now realized that I know you simply as Emma. What pray is your surname?”
Whyte, she thought automatically, of the imperial and most majestic house of Whyte. But she wasn’t about to tell him her real last name any more than she planned to tell him she was a princess. Then again, she wondered a moment later, why should she not be honest about her name?
Quite naturally, he would assume her name was “White,” a common enough surname in English. Who would ever associate supposedly plain, ordinary Miss Emma White, unemployed governess and penniless houseguest, with Her Royal Highness, Princess Emmaline Adalia Marie Whyte of Rosewald? So why not tell him the truth? It would be far simpler for her to remember anyway.
“White,” she said. “Miss Emma White.”
He reached out and took her hand, raising it so his lips just barely brushed the top. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss White.”
A shiver tingled over her skin, her earlier irritation with him melting away. For a moment she lost herself in the beautiful smoky gray of his eyes. His hand tightened fractionally around hers before he released her.
Strangely disoriented, she withdrew her hand to her lap and looked away.
A short silence fell between them.
“Well, seeing that you are to stay the week,” he said, “why do we not get you properly settled? My housekeeper will find you a suitable bedchamber. After the morning you have had, I expect you would like to rest and refresh yourself.”
Actually, now that he mentioned it, she could do with some time alone and a place to wash and relax and slip her stocking feet out of her stiff leather half boots.
“But what of your aunt?” she questioned. “Should I not remain here in order to make her acquaintance?”
“Oh, you’ll make her acquaintance. Never fear,” he said. “As for waiting, there’s no telling when she’ll arrive. It could be ten minutes; it could be two hours. Aunt Felicity is unpredictable at best, and I learned long ago not to bother making the attempt to foretell her actions.”
Emma sent him a troubled look. “If that is true, are you certain she will agree to aid me and take up residence here for the week?”
“I’m sure. Just leave it to me,” he said with an unconcerned shrug. “Although,” he added contemplatively, “it might be best if I discuss the plan with her first. The two of you can meet this evening at dinner.”
“Oh, but surely we should meet before then?”
“No,” he stated firmly. “This evening will be soon enough. Trust me.”
Trust him, she thought. She had already trusted him far too often today. Was she being foolish to put so much faith in a man she barely knew? Once again her instincts told her that she had nothing to fear in his company, and that he would keep her safe.
“Very well, my lord. As you wish.”
He grinned, his white teeth flashing in a way that sent her pulse thundering unsteadily again. She forced herself not to show any sign of the emotions careening inside her. Instead she simply watched as he rose and crossed to ring the bell.
“Right this way, miss,” an upstairs housemaid told Emma a few minutes later. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to your room.”
Casting a last glance toward Nick where he stood near one of the drawing room windows, sunlight coaxing forth tempting hints of red in his dark sable hair, she turned to follow the servant from the drawing room. It seemed her week of adventure was truly about to begin.
Her bedchamber, when she reached it, proved charmingly attractive, if a bit old-fashioned—the furnishings likely from the same era as the drawing room, and once more chosen by Nick’s late mother. Still, Emma couldn’t fault the other woman’s taste, approving of the cheerful yellow draperies, wide walnut tester bed, and wallpaper covered with tiny bluebirds soaring in midflight.
Having spent the past six years of her life attending school in a medieval Scottish castle that was dark and drafty in the autumn and freezing cold come winter, she was delighted with the warm, eminently comfortable accommodations. A wood fire crackled in the hearth, the chamber neat and clean with the scents of linen starch, lemon polish, and beeswax drifting on the air. Once Nick’s housekeeper had learned that her master would be entertaining guests, she must have ordered the room made up and thoroughly freshened. His servants might conduct themselves in far more casual a manner than she was accustomed, but they were clearly proficient in their duties.
And happy, Emma mused, as she caught the kindly smile of the maidservant as the girl crossed to pour fresh water into the washbasin and lay out a set of plump white towels.
I shall be happy here too, she thought. A week of refuge and exploration that is all mine to enjoy.
“Bell done brung up yer case a while ago, miss, and I took the liberty of unpacking yer dresses and hanging them in the wardrobe,” the servant said helpfully. “If there’s anything ye’d like pressed for this evening, ye’ve only to say.”
So the outspoken footman with the eye patch had been given instructions to carry her valise upstairs to this bedchamber, had he? Of all th
e high-handed arrogance, she thought, certain the order had been issued directly by Lord Lyndhurst.
Rather too sure of himself by half, isn’t he? she thought of her host. Assuming she would say yes to his plan before she had even been asked. It almost made her want to tell the maid to pack everything up again, just on principle. But she’d been over that particular issue before and her decision to take up residence was made.
“I believe I will freshen up first,” she said, “then have a bit of a lie down. I shall choose a gown later and ring when I am ready.”
“Very good, miss.” The girl bobbed a curtsy.
“A question before you go,” Emma said, stopping the servant as she turned to leave. “His lordship recently inherited, did he not? He lost his brother, I understand.”
An unmistakable sadness dimmed the girl’s bright smile. “Yes, miss. Lord Lyndhurst, that is the late Lord Lyndhurst, passed away most sudden-like. Terrible thing, it were, him coming down with the typhus. We were all in a right shock, we were. To think of a fine young man struck down in his prime. Don’t seem right nor fair, it don’t. But the sickness takes all kinds, I suppose, with no regard for age nor wealth nor kin.”
Emma nodded, understanding such grief. She’d had a younger brother who had died at age four from an ague of the lungs. She often wondered what he would be like now had he lived. At present, there was just her ailing father and two older siblings—Rupert, and her sister, Sigrid.
She hadn’t seen her sister in more than five years, learning by letter that Sigrid had been widowed many months ago and had recently returned to Rosewald from her marital home in Italy. Come to think, she hadn’t seen Rupert in a long time either—three years this December. She knew they would find her much changed, since she had been only a girl when last they had met. Would she find them greatly altered too? she wondered. With Rupert’s continued delay, she would obviously have to wait a while more to find out.
For now, she had the incorrigible Nick Gregory with which to deal, she thought. A frisson of warmth chased through her veins at the reminder of the earl—the sensation no doubt inspired by her continued irritation with the man. Yet she couldn’t help but be intrigued by him as well. From remarks he’d made, she sensed he wasn’t necessarily comfortable with his new title, a curious reaction for a man raised in the aristocracy.
“What did his lordship, the present earl, do prior to coming into the earldom?” she asked the maid before she thought better of the question.
“Master Nick?” the maid piped, her expression relaxing. “Oh, he were a captain in His Majesty’s Navy. Decorated any number of times for bravery in battle, though he ain’t one to brag. Way I heard, he were due to be made rear admiral when he got word about poor Lord Lyndhurst. Near broke his heart, I expect, losing his brother and having to resign his commission in a single stroke, as it were.”
A captain of the high seas? Somehow it fit, seeing in her mind’s eye Nick Gregory standing on the deck of a ship, the waves churning blue-gray and foamy white against the vessel’s fast-moving prow. Suddenly she thought again of his unusual footman and wondered if Bell had been one of Nick’s crew.
“Well, I’d best leave ye to rest, miss,” the maid said after a long moment’s silence. “If ye need aught else, ye’ve only to mention it.”
“Thank you. I shall keep that in mind,” Emma murmured, letting the girl withdraw and close the door behind her.
Finally alone, Emma took a few moments to inspect her surroundings again before moving to the washstand on the far side of the chamber. She washed her face and hands, then scrubbed her teeth with the toothbrush and cinnamon tooth powder she found in one of the drawers. Unfastening the buttons on her half boots, she toed them off with a grateful sigh, then turned toward the bed.
Lying back across the mattress, she found the feather tick plump and comfortable, the buttery yellow counterpane soft and smelling ever so faintly of lavender. Considering the scant amount of rest she’d gotten the night before, it should have been an easy thing to drift off. But after ten long minutes, she knew she would not be able to rest.
I’m simply too wound up to sleep, she realized, knowing it was futile to continue trying.
Wondering how to occupy herself, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and gazed around again, taking note of a fine rosewood writing desk placed in a sunny spot near one of the windows.
Why, of course, she thought. She would compose a letter to Ariadne and Mercedes; it would be just the thing. Leaping to her feet, she padded stocking-footed across the room and sank down onto the small rosewood chair at the desk. Inside one of the drawers, she found paper, ink, and pens.
After arranging everything to her satisfaction, she dipped her neatly sharpened quill into the ink and prepared to begin. But in spite of her closeness with her two friends and the need to share her news, she found herself hesitating over exactly what to write. And even more, what seemed safe to reveal under the circumstances.
To her knowledge, Countess Hortensia and the teachers at the academy didn’t normally read student mail. But would they intercept and read a letter from her, she wondered, if the duchess had written first to inquire after her whereabouts? If that were the case, then revealing too much could not only get her summarily returned to the estate, but might put her friends in a very awkward position.
Tapping the feathered end of the quill pen against her cheek, she considered possible phrasing.
Dear Ariadne and Mercedes. I have run away and am living with a man I met only this morning. He helped me after I was robbed in the market, but he’s perfectly respectable… if you consider roguish ex-navy captains respectable. Oh, and he is an earl. Did I mention that he’s mouthwateringly attractive and so charming he could tempt a nun to break her vows? Not that I’m interested in him in that way, since I’m not. Still one cannot help but admire beauty in whatever form it may take.
No, that wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t do at all, she thought, as a slight warmth rose in her cheeks. Although she would love to see her friends’ expressions if she wrote them just such a missive.
Mercedes would be shocked but intrigued, spinning fantasies in which Nick fell madly in love with Emma and pledged himself to her service as a most faithful and devoted servant. To Mercedes’s romantic way of thinking, Nick would take on the guise of a chivalrous knight of old, who sought only his lady’s chaste and gracious approval and nothing more.
Ariadne, on the other hand, would highly approve of the adventure, but warn her to protect her heart at all costs. Men were fine for dalliances, she would say, but love one and you risk becoming his slave. At least that would be Ariadne’s hypothetical opinion, Emma knew, since Ariadne was as innocent and untouched as herself and had never indulged in a dalliance in her life. Even so, Ariadne adored scandalizing them with her radical notions about marriage and sex and how one need not take wedding vows in order to enjoy the delights of a man’s bed. Knowing Ariadne, she would probably urge Emma to do a bit of “exploration” while she had the opportunity. “Just don’t get caught at it,” she would warn her.
But she wouldn’t be providing Ariadne with enough detail to elicit such an opinion, since she wasn’t going to tell her or Mercedes about Nick—at least not until after she left Nick’s house for Mrs. Brown-Jones’s abode.
Sighing, she tapped her quill against her chin again and further considered what to say. A minute later, a slow smile crept over her mouth.
Dipping her pen nib into the ink, she began to write.
Chapter 4
A few minutes past seven o’clock that evening, Nick waited with his aunt in the drawing room where they had gathered before dinner. His aunt sat in a comfortable armchair near the roaring fire, complaining about the “chill” in the air, the high-necked lavender wool evening gown she wore apparently insufficient to ward off the mild autumn night. As extra protection, she’d swathed herself in no fewer than four cashmere shawls, which ranged in color from deepest plum to dove gray, each one
tucked carefully around her plump shoulders. A turban of dark aubergine sat perched atop her wispy steel-colored hair, the entire ensemble putting Nick in mind of a grouse tucked amid the heather.
For his own part, Nick was comfortably attired in a coat and trousers of dark brown superfine, a starched white linen cravat tied in an uncomplicated knot around his throat. He crossed to the liquor cabinet positioned along the far wall.
“Sherry, Aunt?” he asked, once she’d paused to draw breath between sentences.
“Harry?” the old woman piped, a frown on her thin brows. “Harry who?”
Nick resisted the urge to sigh. “Not Harry—sherry,” he said in a patient voice, noticing that her hearing had grown worse since the last time they had met. “Would you care for a libation before dinner?” Picking up a small crystal glass, he waggled it slightly in explanation.
A tiny smile crossed her aged lips and she nodded. “A small dram of something vaporous might be just the thing to warm my old bones. A sherry would not go amiss, Dominic.” Pausing, she rearranged the edge of one of her shawls. “Now who is this Harry person you are on about?”
Rather than reply, Nick poured the drink, pausing with the decanter poised above a second glass as he thought of Emma.
She ought to have been down by now. He’d sent a note to her some while ago to let her know that his aunt had agreed to take up residence for the week and that they looked forward to seeing her in the drawing room before dinner. Perhaps he should have one of the maids check on her again, he mused, as he set down the sherry decanter and poured a draft of whiskey for himself.
He’d just picked up the glass of sherry to take to his aunt when a faint noise drew his attention. Glancing over, he discovered Emma poised on the threshold, looking lovely as a blush rose in a satin gown of the same hue, a single woven shawl of palest green hanging from the corners of her elbows.
He couldn’t look away as she strolled gracefully into the room, the drink temporarily forgotten in his hand. He remembered it a moment later and set the glass down again on the tray.
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