by Joan Smith
“I wish Derek were here for the party tonight,” Miss Foxworth said, as the carriage took them to the costumers. “How he would love it. I wrote and told him about it, but have had no reply.”
“I haven’t heard from Papa for days,” Emma said. A wince of guilt stabbed her. She still hadn’t answered that letter. “I do hope Derek is forwarding the post.”
“Your letters would have been delayed, as they have to be forwarded from Whitehern.”
“Yes, that is deceitful of me. I shall write to Papa from Nick’s house tomorrow and tell him I am in London. Worrying that he’ll find out spoils half the fun.”
“Always best to be truthful when you can,” replied Miss Foxworth, who had smiled and called Emma “a sly minx” in approving accents when Emma first discussed the plan with her.
The costume shop held half a dozen customers, who were looking over the outfits. The costumes were arranged on racks according to sex, size, and quality. When Emma made her request, the clerk went immediately to the correct rack and brought out the Juliet gown. It was a fine muslin, pale gold, embroidered down the front and halfway up the wide-bottomed sleeves. Its modest fashion pleased her, and the loose style made a perfect fit unnecessary.
“Do you have the hat to go with it?” she asked. “The one with the high, pointed crown?”
The clerk removed it from a shelf behind the counter, where the various hats were kept covered in muslin against the dust.
Emma thought it looked rather foolish, and when she tried it on, it was uncomfortable besides, towering like a giant steeple above her head. She would wear it to greet the guests and remove it for the dancing. The clerk wrapped up the outfit, and Emma paid and left the shop.
She and Miss Foxworth had no sooner set foot on the street than they saw a crowd gathered on the corner and heard exclamations of alarm.
“Is he hurt bad?” one woman asked.
“Not dead, I hope?” a man exclaimed.
“Shockin’ the speed these bucks drive at. Knocked the poor soul clean off his feet and didn’t even bother to stop.”
Emma said, “I wonder if anyone has sent for a doctor. We’d best inquire.” She could spot no gentlemen in the throng and feared the crowd had gathered to gawk rather than help. The crowd parted to let the ladies through. When she got a view of the victim, she blanched. “It’s James!” she cried.
Her first thought was that he had come to make mischief, but when she saw him lying in the road with blood on his forehead and his face dreadfully white, she chided herself.
She ran forward and leaned over him. “James, are you all right?” What a foolish question. He was very obviously not all right.
He was not dead, however. His eyelids fluttered open, and he gazed at her without recognition. She turned to try to discern which of the throng could be trusted to send for a doctor and was relieved to see Lord Hansard’s coachman hurrying forward. She ran to him.
“Lord James has had an accident,” she said. “We must get him home.”
“Is he hurt bad, your ladyship?”
“I’m not sure. He didn’t seem to recognize me.”
The clerk who had served Emma came pelting out of the shop. He proved to be the proprietor. “Bring him inside,” he said. “We can’t leave the poor soul lying in the street. I’ve a set of rooms behind my shop.”
Even as he spoke, he summoned a couple of young men in the crowd to carry James inside.
Emma said to the coachman, “You’d best send for a doctor to come here—and Lord Hansard. Hurry! It might be serious.”
The coachman left, and Emma darted into the shop. The men carrying James had already disappeared through a curtained archway at the back of the room. She noticed the proprietor closing the door to the street and putting up a “Closed” sign and thought it very considerate of him.
“Where is Lord James?” she asked.
“He’s in the bedroom, your ladyship.”
Emma looked around for Miss Foxworth and discovered that she hadn’t come in. “My friend has got locked out. Would you mind opening the door?”
“The lady in the blue pelisse?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll fetch her.” But when he returned a moment later, it was to announce that the lady had left. Someone said she had got into a carriage.
Emma gave a sigh of exasperation. Miss Foxworth had hopped into Hansard’s carriage. It was just like her. She grew faint at the sight of blood, but she might have waited in this outer room. It wasn’t proper for a lady to be here unaccompanied, but at least Hansard would arrive soon.
“Very well. Take me to Lord James,” she said.
“Right this way, ma’am.”
She followed him through the arch, down a longish, dark corridor to a door. He tapped, but didn’t wait to be let in. He opened the door, ushered Emma in, closed the door behind her, and said in a gloating voice, “Here she is.” No polite “your ladyship” or “ma’am” now.
Emma looked across the room—it was a small, shabby parlor—to see James sitting at his ease on a horsehair sofa, wiping some red coloring from his forehead. Red stage blood, or perhaps ordinary paint, from the difficulty he was having in removing it. Of the other men there was no sign. Just James and the proprietor who had brought her here, smiling triumphantly at each other.
Emma realized in a flash what James had in mind. He had made his arrangements with this Eddie, and then told her about the Juliet outfit to lure her to the shop. He couldn’t close the shop, or she wouldn’t have been able to get in, so he arranged that “accident.”
Whether Miss Foxworth had actually left was a moot point. In any case, it hardly mattered. She would not be much help, and Nick would soon be here. As she ran her mind over the street scene, she recalled that neither James nor his helper had heard her telling the coachman to send for Hansard. They thought they had an hour or more before she would be missed at Berkeley Square.
All she had to determine was whether James meant to carry her off to Gretna Green, or have his way with her without benefit of clergy. And, of course, she must delay him until Nick arrived. She set aside the costume she had been carrying and went a step closer to him.
“Well, James,” she said, smiling. “I congratulate you on a remarkably speedy recovery. I’m so happy your wounds are not serious.”
“It is my heart that is wounded, but it will soon be better, when I make you mine.”
She sat down on a chair beside the sofa and said in a civil voice, “What, exactly, do you have in mind?”
He gave her a chiding look. “I promised Hansard that if I compromised you, I would do the right thing by you.”
He looked at a decanter of wine and two glasses on the table. His eyes, at close range, betrayed a fevered glitter of excitement that suggested trickery. Emma noticed that one glass was already full. Which one had he drugged, the glass or the decanter?
“That was decent of you,” she said.
“I am a gentleman. One must consider family. Can I pour you a glass of wine, my dear?”
“Thank you.” He smiled smugly as he poured, and she accepted the glass. It was the decanter that was drugged, then. “I’m sure Lord Revson will be delighted at your latest escapade,” she said. She raised the glass to her lips, but was careful not to take any into her mouth.
“He will! Don’t think he’ll get his back up at the irregular nature of our marriage, once I waltz home with a dashed heiress.” He looked at her warily and added, “Though for both our sakes, it would be better if you came along quietly.”
“Came along where? To Gretna Green?”
“If you like, Emma.” His eyes turned to her glass, as if measuring the level of wine.
“What is the alternative?”
“We could be married in London.”
“Ah, a special license, I expect?”
“Just so. I have friends in the clergy. It can easily be arranged.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t arranged it already.”
She glanced around the room in a disapproving way. “But then all your arrangements are shabby, to say the least. I’m disappointed in you, James. I had thought you would carry the thing off in better style.”
“It wasn’t easy, with Hansard guarding you like a hawk.”
“Surely I merit a headache powder at least.” She massaged her temples. “My head is splitting with all this fracas.”
“Eddie will have one. You can take it with your wine,” he suggested.
“Yes.”
While James went to the door to call Eddie, she exchanged her glass for his. James locked the door behind him and was back in a trice; he emptied the headache powder into her glass, smiling all the while. He whirled it around until the powder began to dissolve.
“There you go, my pet,” he said. “Drink it up. You’ll feel better in no time.” He took up the other glass.
She lifted her glass to his and clinked them together. “To our happy future,” she said, and drank. James also drank.
He couldn’t conceal his triumph. His voice had a gloating quality when he said, “I must say, you’re rather jolly under the circumstances, Emma.”
“I like a man with initiative. You haven’t finished describing the alternative to Gretna Green, James. What did you have in mind?”
“You haven’t finished your headache powder, Emma. Best drink it up and let the powder do its job.” She lifted her glass and took a long sip. James did likewise.
“Well?” she asked. “Where is the wedding to occur?”
“I thought a small, private do at Papa’s house tomorrow morning,” he said.
“But where do we spend tonight?”
“At Papa’s house.”
“Without being married!” She thought she had better begin yawning and covered her lips in a simulated yawn, while peering to see if James was showing any signs of sleepiness. He yawned, too, and shook his head.
“If I’d thought for a moment you would be so agreeable, I would have had the license ready and got married today. But I shan’t molest you tonight, Emma. That is a promise.”
“Are there any servants at your Papa’s house?”
“The housekeeper and one—” He shook his head in confusion. Then he peered sleepily at Emma. “What did you—”
She picked up her glass and finished her wine. “My headache is feeling much better,” she said brightly, as James crumpled to a heap on the sofa.
Emma shook her head, then went to lock the door in case Eddie came to investigate. It was another fifteen minutes before the front door of the shop began trembling from Hansard’s assault. Eddie came to the parlor door and called in, “There’s people at the front door, Lord James. What should I do?”
“Let them in, Eddie,” Emma said.
“Is Lord James all right?”
“He’s fine. He says to let them in.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“Do as I say! Lord James is indisposed.”
There was no further sound from Eddie. He knew something had gone amiss and darted out the back door, to disappear into the teeming streets of London. Emma waited a moment to make sure Eddie had left before opening the parlor door. Even as she did it, she heard the front door burst open and Hansard’s loud voice calling, “Emma! James!”
Before she could answer, he was there, with his face pinched in anxiety and his eyes burning fiercely. “Emma!” he cried, and crushed her in his arms.
The absurdity of it was too much. Emma was overcome with an undignified fit of giggles, which she tried manfully to suppress. Men! James and his idiotic scheme to seduce her, Hansard rushing to rescue her from her comatose pursuer.
Hansard’s lips were at her ear. His voice was tense with anxiety. “My dear, are you all right?”
The effort of choking back the laughter brought tears to her eyes. Hansard lifted his head and gazed down at her. Emma saw such concern and love in his eyes that she felt humbled. He did love her, even if he didn’t know it yet. A man didn’t feel that desperate anxiety for a mere friend. She melted against the warm, hard wall of his chest, as his arms held her safe in an iron grip.
Her choking laughter turned to a whimper in her throat as she met his gaze. For a long moment they looked at each other as if hypnotized. Emma’s lips trembled open, just as his head lowered. She waited for his kiss, but he merely brushed his lips gently against her cheek.
“This is all my fault,” he said, in a shaken voice. “If he’s touched you, I’ll kill the bastard.” He released her and turned to look about the room. He saw James sprawled out on the sofa with the red paint smeared over his left eye.
“Is he—Did you have to—”
“That’s stage paint on his forehead. He’s not dead, Nick. He’s drugged,” she said, half sorry to have to tell him. She felt that if Nick could have been her rescuer, he might have realized he loved her.
“What happened?” he asked, reaching for the wine decanter.
“Don’t drink that!” she cried. “It’s drugged.”
She briefly outlined what had happened. Nick listened, nodding and asking a few questions. When her story was told, he felt rather foolish, running to rescue a lady who had already rescued herself. Emma saw his mood change and tried in vain to recapture that first flame that had flared between them.
“I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come,” she said.
“I expect you would have hired a hansom cab and brought him home. I’ll have John Groom help me carry him out.”
“Why don’t you take him to his papa’s house? There are a few servants there.”
“No, I’ll send word to Revson to come and carry him back to Revson Hall. It’s not safe to let the wretch run loose.”
James was stashed on one banquette of Hansard’s carriage; Nick and Emma sat on the other.
“Did Miss Foxworth get home?” Emma asked, trying for an unemotional subject.
“She arrived as I was leaving. She said she was locked out of the costume shop and didn’t like to loiter about the streets alone. She found a cab to bring her, fortunately.”
At Berkeley Square James was carried in by the servants and taken up to his bedroom. Hansard beckoned Emma into his study.
“Before I write to Revson,” he said, “I must know exactly what indignities you suffered at his son’s hands.”
“He didn’t touch me. He simply planned to marry me. And I shouldn’t expect too much from Revson. James tells me that his papa wouldn’t care how he arranged the thing, so long as he married an heiress.”
Nick shook his head. “Quite a family I planned to marry you into,” he said. “That’s an apology, Emma. Word of this is bound to get about. No doubt the young jackass has been boasting of this stunt to his friends. It might be as well if we leave London soon.”
“Oh, yes! I am feeling so guilty about fooling Papa. I’m on tenterhooks to get back to Whitehern.”
“Might as well try to enjoy the party tonight, however,” he said, rather grimly. “If Sanichton comes up to scratch—” He stopped and looked at her questioningly. “I expect James’s caper has made you more determined than ever to accept Sanichton?”
Emma directed a long, searching gaze at him. She read the hope and doubt and something else that might be love in his eyes.
“Would you be awfully angry with me if I didn’t, after all your troubles in finding me a husband?” she asked, and smiled inwardly as his face softened with pleasure. “I fear I might find him dull after our recent adventures.”
“That is entirely up to you,” he said, nodding his acceptance.
“Is it, Nick?” she asked. “I still need a husband.” Then before he could answer, she turned and ran upstairs, smiling.
Chapter Nineteen
Emma’s Juliet costume had been left behind after the escapade at the costume shop. She had to wear the Aphrodite gown with the too tight girdle and the shawl. It seemed vain to go as the goddess of love and beauty, so she decided to leave off the diadem of
stars and say she was one of the Graces. This conformed with Miss Foxworth’s and Lady Gertrude’s outfits. They were going as ladies from classical antiquity as well and were draped in comfortable sheets of colored muslin with crowns of vine leaves, one carrying a small amphora, the other a laurel branch.
They all wore their costumes to the family dinner. Emma had hoped James’s disgrace might be kept quiet, but it was all Lady Gertrude spoke of while they ate.
“So James has lost another heiress.” She glanced sadly at Emma. “I tremble to think what his papa will say when he hears the tale. He vowed not to bail James out of trouble again. I wager he will be packed off to India. He’ll come home when he’s old with a yellow, ravaged face.” She looked hopefully to Emma, to see if this softened her up to accept the lad.
“I pity India,” Nick grumbled, and jabbed at his beefsteak.
Miss Foxworth lamented again that Derek was not here to enjoy the masquerade. “How he loves a masquerade. I wager he would come as a jockey if he were here, though he’s much too big, of course.”
Nick remained behind alone after the meal, musing over the situation as he sipped his port. He had originally thought Emma too lowborn to bring into his family. The thought facing him now was that his family was too outrageous for her to accept.
And on top of it all, it had been his own idea to bring James to Waterdown. If James had succeeded with his harebrained scheme ... He felt a mounting anxiety that something would happen to Emma. A sleeping draft didn’t last forever. He’d have to warn Emma and the servants to be alert this evening. He set aside his glass and went to join the ladies. His eyes flew to Emma. Only when he saw her safely wedged between the two older ladies did he draw a level breath.
Before long the group went to the hall to begin welcoming the guests. Nick and his aunt Gertrude greeted them and passed them along to Emma and Miss Foxworth, who led them to the ballroom. He had arranged only a small party of thirty couples, but they came in an amazing variety of costumes.
Two of the first to arrive were Sanichton and his sister. Lady Margaret was dressed as a shepherdess in a panniered skirt that showed six inches of muslin underleggings and flat slippers with big gilt buckles. She wore a leghorn bonnet with streaming blue ribbons and carried a gilded shepherd’s staff. It was an unfortunate choice of outfit for a tall, rather severe lady. She looked like a mama dressed up in her daughter’s clothes.