Kitabı oku: «The Historical Collection 2018», sayfa 7

Not now, not yet. Perhaps not ever.

She’d think she’d woken from a nightmare. She’d shrink from him. Run from the room. Worse had happened before. Unless she was pregnant with his child, he could not take that risk. And once she was pregnant, they were done.

The sooner that happened, the better.

He left her room on wobbly legs, then sank against the door.

Please be fertile, or you’ll be the death of me.

Chapter Twelve

Walking through the streets that night was a novel experience.

Forget stalking and prowling down the darkened alleyways. Tonight, Ash was all but skipping. Gamboling.

He didn’t encounter any enraging specimens of human refuse.

He was no longer sexually frustrated to the point of irascibility.

He felt almost . . . human again.

He even strolled across an open square.

“Say!” someone called. “You’re the Monster of Mayfair!”

And with that, Ash’s lightened mood popped like a balloon. So much for feeling human.

A gangly figure jogged across the green to him. Ash pushed back the brim of his hat, revealing his face, and scowled. That always worked on the children.

For it was, in fact, a school-aged boy who’d approached him. One who’d clearly learned to curse this past Michaelmas term at school.

“I’ll be damned.” The boy whistled low. “You truly are as fearsome and ugly as the papers said.”

“Oh, really. And do they say anything about this?” Ash brandished his walking stick. “Now go home. Your nursemaid will be missing you.”

He turned and kept walking. The lad followed.

“I saw you over by Marylebone Mews,” the boy called out. As if they were two old chums holding a conversation at the club. “You thrashed that gin-soused cur. The one who was beating his wife, remember?”

Yes, of course Ash remembered. It was only two days past.

“That was bloody brilliant.” By now the youth was scampering alongside him. “Just capital. And I heard about the footpads in St. James’s, too. All of London has.”

Ash released a long, slow breath. He refused to be baited. The more thoroughly you ignore him, the faster he’ll go away, he told himself. Like a canker sore.

“So where are we off to tonight?” the boy asked.

We?

Now that was too much.

Ash halted in the center of the empty square. “Just what is it you want?”

The boy scratched his ear and shrugged. “To see you thrash someone new. Give some fellow what’s coming to him.”

“Well, then.” Ash lifted his walking stick and gave the lad a shove with the blunt end, sending him arse-first into the shrubbery. “There you have it.”

Several days later, Emma stood before a terraced house faced with white stone and corniced windows, having made the journey across Bloom Square. As short a distance as it was, she seemed to have dropped her bravery somewhere along the way.

She knew she must not indulge her nerves. She needed to start moving in society, and asking the duke to squire her about Town would be a waste of breath. If Davina wanted permission to visit her at Swanlea, Emma must form acquaintances with ladies of impeccable breeding and genteel accomplishment—not as their seamstress, but as their equal. Today was an important first step.

She looked down at the invitation and read it again.

To the new Duchess of Ashbury—

Warmest welcome to Bloom Square! Every Thursday my friends come around for tea. We’d be most delighted if you would join us.

Lady Penelope Campion

P.S. I should warn you: We’re different from other ladies.

That last line gave Emma hope—and the courage to knock.

“You came!” A young woman with fair hair and rosy cheeks pulled her into the entrance hall. She’d scarcely closed the door before kissing Emma on the cheek in greeting. “I’m Penny.”

“Penny?”

“Oh, yes. I should have said. I’m properly called Penelope, but the name is rather a mouthful, don’t you think?”

Emma was amazed. This was Lady Penelope Campion? She opened her own door and greeted perfect strangers with kisses on the cheek? Apparently her note of invitation hadn’t been an exaggeration: She truly wasn’t like other ladies.

Emma curtsied, probably more deeply than a duchess would—but the habit was ingrained in her. “Delighted to make your acquaintance.”

“Likewise. The others are dying to meet you.”

Lady Penelope took Emma by the wrist and drew her into a parlor. The room was a jumble of unquestionably fine furnishings that seemed to have seen better days.

“This is Miss Teague,” she said, swiveling Emma toward a ginger-haired young woman dusted with freckles . . . and a fine white powder that looked like flour. “Nicola lives on the southern side of the square.”

“The unfashionable side,” Nicola said.

“The exciting side,” Lady Penny corrected. “The one with all the scandalous artists and mad scientists.”

“My father was one of the latter, Your Grace.”

“Don’t listen to her. She’s one of the latter, too.”

“Thank you, Penny,” Nicola said. “I think.”

“And this is Miss Alexandra Mountbatten.” Emma’s hostess turned her to the third occupant of the salon.

Miss Mountbatten was small of stature and dressed in unremarkable gray serge, but her appearance was made stunning by virtue of her hair—an upswept knot of true black, glossy as obsidian.

“Alex sells the time,” Lady Penelope stated.

Emma could not have heard that correctly. “Sells the time?”

“I earn my living setting clocks to Greenwich time,” she explained, curtsying deeply. “It’s an honor to make your acquaintance, Your Grace.”

“Do sit down,” Penny urged.

Emma obeyed, taking the offered seat—a carved chair that must have been rescued from some French chateau, if not the royal palace. The upholstery, however, had been worn to threads—even slashed in places, with tufts of batting peeking through.

A bleating sound came from somewhere toward the rear of the house.

“Oh, that’s Marigold.” Penny lifted the teapot. “Never mind her.”

“Marigold?”

“The goat,” Nicola explained.

“She’s sick in love with Angus, and she’s most displeased about being quarantined. She has the sniffles, you see.”

“You have two goats, then?”

“Oh, no. Angus is a Highland calf. I shouldn’t encourage them, but they’re herd creatures. They each need a companion. Do you take milk and sugar?”

“Both, please,” Emma said, a bit dazed.

Nicola took pity on her. “Penny has a soft spot for wounded animals. She takes them in, ostensibly to heal them, and then never lets them go.”

“I do let them go,” Penny objected. “Sometimes.”

“Once,” Alexandra put in. “You let one go, once. But do let’s try to hold a normal conversation, just for a few minutes. Otherwise we’ll frighten Her Grace away.”

“Not at all,” Emma assured her. “I’m happy to be here.” The elegant, imposing ladies would wait for another day. “How did you know to invite me?”

“Oh, it’s a small square. Everyone knows everything. The cook tells the costermonger, who tells the maid down the street . . . so on and so forth.” She handed Emma a cup of tea. “They’re saying you were a seamstress until only last week.”

Oh, dear. Emma deflated. She supposed it was unrealistic to hope she could hide it.

Penny clasped her hands together in her lap. “Tell us everything. How did you meet? Was your courtship terribly romantic?”

“I don’t know that one could call it romantic.” In fact, one could call it just about anything else.

“Well, for a duke to marry a seamstress is an extraordinary thing. It’s like a fairy tale, isn’t it? He must have fallen desperately in love with you.”

That wasn’t the truth at all, of course. But how could Emma tell them that he’d married her chiefly because hers was the first convenient womb to appear in his library?

She was saved from answering when a pincushion nestled in a nearby darning basket unfurled itself and toddled away. “Was that a hedgehog?”

Penny’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Yes, but the poor dear’s terribly shy. On account of her traumatic youth, you see. Do have a biscuit. Nicola made them. They’re heavenly.”

Emma reached for one and took a bite. She’d given up on trying to understand anything in this house. She was a barnacle on the hull of the HMS Penelope—she’d no idea of their destination, but she was along for the ride.

Goodness. The biscuit was heavenly. Buttery sweetness melted on her tongue.

“Please don’t think we’re mining you for gossip,” Miss Mountbatten—Alexandra, was it?—said. “Penny’s only curious. We wouldn’t tell anyone else.”

“We scarcely talk to anyone else,” Nicola said. “We’ve a tight little club, the three of us.”

Penny smiled and reached for Emma’s hand. “With room for a fourth, of course.”

“In that case . . .” Emma thoughtfully chewed her last bite of biscuit, washing it down with a swallow of tea. “May I be so bold as to ask for some advice?”

In a unanimous, unspoken yes, Penny, Alexandra, and Nicola leaned forward in their chairs.

“It’s about . . .” She lost her nerve for honesty. “It’s about my cat. I took him in from the streets, and he hasn’t a proper name. Will you help me make a list of possibilities?”

Ash. That’s what his friends called him, he’d said. It felt like progress to be admitted to that inner circle, but Emma wasn’t certain she liked that name, either. For man who’d survived severe burns, Ash sounded ironic at best. At worst, it felt cruel.

Besides, she was having too much fun with the others.

She needed to draw him out. Gain his respect. If luck was with her, a pregnancy would take root, but could it be assured in time to help Davina? Doubtful. She must convince him to change his mind, if it didn’t.

In the days since their first night together—their first successful night together, at any rate—he’d made every effort to assure her pleasure. A man who cared for her satisfaction in bed could be convinced to honor her wishes outside it, couldn’t he? She had begun to care about him, however unwillingly.

“If it’s pet names you want, you’ve certainly come to the right place,” Penny said.

Nicola took a tiny pencil from the notebook hanging about her neck on a silver chain. “I’ll keep a list.”

“It must be something affectionate,” Emma said. “For the cat. He’s rather untrusting and prickly, and I can’t seem to draw him out.”

“Well, if it’s a sweet little name you want, there are all the delightful words for new creatures,” Penny said. “Puppy, kitten, piglet, foal, fawn, calf, polliwog . . .”

Alexandra reached for her teacup. “Oh, dear. She’ll go on forever now.”

“That’s just the beginning,” Penny went on. “There are the birds. Duckling, eaglet, gosling, cygnet, poult . . .”

Nicola looked up from her scribbling. “Poult?”

“A turkey hatchling, fresh from the egg.”

Emma laughed. “As tempting as calling him a turkey might be, I think it’s polliwog, duckling, and piglet that are my favorites thus far.”

“I can contribute a few astronomical ones, I suppose,” Alexandra said. “Bright star, twinkles, moonbeam, sunshine . . .”

“Oh, Lord.” Emma could just imagine the duke’s reaction to “Twinkles.” “Those are perfection. What do you think, Nicola?”

“I don’t know. I’m surrounded by gears and levers, for the most part. Pet names aren’t my forte.” Her eye fell on the biscuits. “I suppose there are the sweet things. Sugar, honeycomb, tartlet.”

“I’m afraid I’ve tried most of those already.”

“Sweetmeat?” she suggested in perfect innocence.

After a moment’s pause, the rest of them dissolved into laughter.

“Oh, dear heavens.” Alexandra dashed a tear from her eye.

Nicola looked at the three of them. “What?”

“Nothing,” Emma said. “You truly do have a brilliant mind.” She nodded at the notebook. “You must most definitely add sweetmeat to the list.”

A half hour later, she left Lady Penelope Campion’s house with a packet of leftover biscuits and a quiver full of verbal arrows. Hopefully one or two of them would pierce the reserve of laughter in his chest. She knew better than to aim for his heart.

Penny embraced her in farewell. “Do keep trying with your cat. The creatures most difficult to reach make the most loving companions in the end.”

Emma felt a sharp twinge of irony. She had no doubt in Penny’s ability to tame not only cats, but pups and goats and Highland calves and even traumatized hedgehogs.

But the duke she’d married was a different sort of beast.

Chapter Thirteen

Bang.

Ash lifted his head from the accounts ledger.

Don’t mind it, he told himself. Mrs. Norton will see to whatever it is. It’s not your concern.

But when he lowered his head, he found himself unable to focus on the work at hand. He pushed back from the desk and stood, leaving the room in brisk paces.

If he’d ever possessed the ability to ignore explosive noises, he’d left that talent behind at Waterloo.

After tense moments of searching, he discovered the source of the clamor. A brass embellishment had crashed to the morning room floor. That sight, in itself, was nothing particularly remarkable. What took him aback was the other half of the scene: His wife standing on a ladder and clinging to the curtain rod, a good twelve feet above the floor.

She craned her neck to look at him. “Oh, hullo.”

“What is this?”

“I’m taking down these draperies.”

“Alone?” He crossed the room and put his hands on the ladder. Someone had to be near her in case she tumbled and fell.

“Sorry if I alarmed you with all that noise. I lost my grip on the finial.”

She’d lost her grip on the finial. Bully for her. Ash was losing his grip on his sanity.

“Since you seem to need reminding, you are a duchess. Not a circus performer or a squirrel.”

She made a dismissive noise. “It’s a ladder, not a trapeze. And I engaged the wheel lock. I promise, I do know how these things work.”

“Yes, but apparently you don’t know how servants work.” He braced the ladder under her feet, wheel lock or no. If she insisted on risking her neck, he felt entitled to bark at her. “Come down from there, then.”

“I may as well finish what I came up here for. Or else all of this effort will have been for nothing.”

“Oh, do go ahead,” he said in a bored tone. “It’s not as though I have anything else to do. I’m only amusing myself overseeing estates all over the country. Making improvements to the land. Looking out for the welfare of thousands of tenants.”

“I won’t be but a minute.”

“Fine.” He tilted his head. “But as a penalty, know that I’ll be looking up your skirts the entire time.”

He couldn’t see all that much, unfortunately—just a pair of slim legs disappearing into a cloud of petticoats—but the sight stirred him all the same. Her stockings were knitted of plain, pale wool. Demure, innocent. Unspeakably arousing.

“There,” she declared.

A waterfall of blue velvet rushed to the floor. The room flooded with sunlight.

Ash caught the ghost of his reflection in the windowpane. What a picture. Emma, descending from the heavens above him on a cloud of muslin, and him, the monster lurking beneath.

When she neared the last rung, he placed a hand on the small of her back to steady her. He extended his fingers as far as they would stretch, claiming as much of her as he could.

All too soon, her slippers met the floor.

He took a few steps in retreat before she turned around. There was too much light, and she was too close. He didn’t wish to startle her.

She brushed the dust from her hands. “Oh, that’s so much better.”

“No, it’s not. I can’t imagine what you have against draperies.”

“To begin, this house is a cave. We can’t live in the dark.”

“I like the dark.”

“It’s not good to work and read in dim lighting. You’ll go blind.”

“Hah. If frigging myself raw in adolescence and having a rocket explode in my face haven’t accomplished that . . . Doubtful.”

“Well, I’m not doubtful. I’ve seen it. It’s what happens to seamstresses after too many years of fine stitching by weak light. Even I can’t read for more than an hour at a time, and it’s only been six years.”

What an inconveniently affecting statement. It made him want to roll her into a ball and hold her in both hands forever, so that nothing could wound or frighten her ever again.

“Anyhow, these are lovely fabric.” She reached for the edge of the fallen drape. “This velvet could be put to better use.”

“No.” He put his foot down, literally. With his boot, he pinned the river of blue velvet to the floor. “Absolutely not. I forbid it.”

“Forbid what? You can’t even know what I have in mind.”

“Yes. I do. You have the ridiculous idea that you’ll make a gown out of draperies. And I forbid it.”

She stammered and flushed. “I . . .”

“You,” he interjected, “are a duchess. You shop for your gowns. You ask servants to climb ladders. And that is the end of any argument.”

This wife he’d acquired was far too enamored of economy. She’d come by the habit out of necessity, he supposed. Ash could understand that—even admire it, to a degree. He didn’t like waste, either. However, she was under his care now. There would be no “making do” or scrimping for the mother of his heir.

She certainly wouldn’t be caught wearing draperies.

“Tomorrow, you’ll order a full wardrobe. I’ll see that you have lines of credit at all the best shops in Bond Street.”

“Madame Bissette’s is the best dressmaking shop in Town, and the only one I could fathom entering without crumpling into a ball of fraudulence. But how could I return to the shop as a customer, mere weeks after leaving her employ?”

“That would be the best part. Think of the envy you’ll inspire. The vindication after being undervalued.”

“No doubt other women might enjoy gloating. But I wouldn’t. Madame gave me a post, and she taught me a great deal. And the other girls in the shop were my friends. I don’t want to embarrass them. Besides, paying a modiste to make me a wardrobe would be a waste. I have nothing if not time. I know the latest fashions. I’ve made gowns for many a fine lady.”

“Yes,” he said tightly. “I’m well aware of that.”

She cringed. “Of course you’re aware of it. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up Miss Worthing. I know how it must pain you to—”

“What pains me is the thought of my wife going about clad in draperies. You will not sew your own wardrobe.” He tugged on his end of the velvet.

She tugged back. “Aren’t ladies encouraged to do needlework?”

“That’s different.” He yanked with both hands, pulling her off balance. She stumbled toward him a step. “Fine ladies make useless things, like wretched pillows, and samplers no one wants, and disturbing seat covers for the commode. They don’t use their skills to perform common labor.”

“This isn’t common labor. I enjoy it, when it isn’t a twenty-hour-a-day task. There’s a creativity to it. I never had any talent for music or painting, but”—she clutched her end of the velvet and leaned back, putting her full weight into resisting him—“I’m good at this.”

With a flick of his wrist, he wrapped the fabric around his left forearm, just as he’d do with the reins when driving a team. And then he braced his legs, flexed his arm, and gave a full-strength pull.

She came reeling toward him. He caught her in his arms.

His brain promptly went to porridge. Their little tug-o’-wills suited her. The exertion made her cheeks pink, and her labored breathing did delicious things for her breasts. Ash had to admit, she would look lovely in a dress of that sapphire velvet.

Nevertheless, it was out of the question. Emma would not sacrifice the pleasure of reading in favor of sewing her own gowns. He’d allow her to go about naked before he consented to such a thing.

Damn. Now he was picturing her naked.

“Listen to me. I know very well you can stitch a gown. You could be the best dressmaker in England, and I still wouldn’t permit this.” He reached for her hand and turned it palm side up, like a fortune-teller. With meaningful intent, he brushed his thumb over the calluses on her fingertips, lingering over each proof of her labor. “There’ll be no more of these now.”

She was quiet for a moment. “That’s shockingly caring of you.”

“It’s not caring.”

“Then how would you describe it?”

“As . . . something else.” Anything else. Imagining her naked was only natural. Protecting her was his duty. Caring was much too dangerous. “I don’t know. I’m not a dictionary.”

She gave him a chastening yet affectionate look. A wifely look. “No, you aren’t. You are very much a man.”

His heart kicked and thrashed like an unbroken colt in a stable.

A man, she said. Not a title. Not a fortune. Not a twisted monster formed of scars. She couldn’t know how those two simple words affected him.

She looked down at her hand, cradled in his. Then she turned it over, so that their palms pressed together and their fingers interlaced in a tight clasp.

Sunlight gilded the wisps of hair framing her face. Her dark eyes were wide, sincere. Unafraid. So lovely. Her gaze met his and held it, never straying to his patchy hair or his twisted cheek.

The moment was glorious.

And wonderful.

And accompanied by soaring orchestral music.

And exceedingly, unforgivably imbecilic of him to allow. This sort of thing could not happen. This kind of closeness was too great of a risk.

Ash cleared his throat. “This, uh . . . This thing we’re doing is probably a bad idea.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. Precautions.” Her hand slipped from his. “I’ll order a wardrobe tomorrow.”

He stepped away. “You’ll order a wardrobe later in the week. Tomorrow we’re taking an outing.”

“An outing? To where?”

“Swanlea. Your future house.” Before she could grow too excited, he held up a hand. “Not to stay. Just for the afternoon, so you can make a list of what needs to be done.”

They had an agreement, and for the good of them both, he needed to remember and adhere to it.

“Be ready tomorrow. We’ll leave at dawn.”