“You can’t stay for supper?” Emmaline inwardly winced, wondering if her lack of disappointment was evident in her voice.
“No, I’m sorry, I can’t. Oh, but I forgot!” Charlotte reached into her pocket and pulled out a small package wrapped in ivory paper and tied with a small red bow. “Happy birthday, Emmy. It’s only a silly bookmark, and I’m afraid my embroidery isn’t what it should be. But please know I give it with love,” she said, and then kissed her friend’s cheek. “Captain,” she said, dropping into a quick curtsy, “it was a pleasure to meet you, and I thank you for being so considerate as to offer your support to Lady Emmaline during this trying time. I’m sure I’ll see you again, at the memorial service?”
The captain looked to Emmaline, who realized she was suddenly holding her breath, and then back to Charlotte. “Why, yes, Miss Seavers, I shall look forward to that.”
Emmaline watched the captain as he watched Charlotte depart the room, and then she quickly looked away as he turned back to her, so that he shouldn’t know that she’d been staring. But who could resist staring, when the man’s presence seemed to fill the room with light, charging the very air with an excitement she could not name, yet knew she had never before experienced.
“May I add my congratulations to Miss Seavers’s sentiments, ma’am, and wish you as pleasant a birthday as possible under the circumstances,” he said, inclining his head toward her.
She didn’t know where the words came from, what part of her normally reticent self had allowed such a thought to enter her head yet alone escape her lips, but suddenly Emmaline heard herself saying, “Captain, I would consider my natal day to be more of a blessing and less of a reminder of my continuing gallop into old age if you could please resist addressing me as ma’am again.”
His low chuckle sent hot color flooding into her cheeks. “A thousand apologies, Lady Emmaline. Are you feeling quite decrepit? Surely you’re not anything so ancient as ma’am would suggest. At six and thirty, I believe I have some years on you.”
“Good Lord, yes,” Emmaline shot back, suddenly willing to give as good as she got. “You’re positively tottering on the brink of the grave.” Then she realized what she’d just said. “Oh, dear. No matter what anyone says, we seem to keep circling back to Charlton and the boys, don’t we? I still imagine they’ll all come storming back in here at any moment to put the lie to what I know is true.”
Did she sound as if that was a prospect much to be wished, or the thing she would dread most in the world? Really, she had to take control of her tongue, and quickly, or the captain would wonder if he’d blundered into a madhouse.
“May I?” Alastair asked, indicating with a small gesture that he’d like to join her on the couch.
“Oh, yes, please do,” she said, tucking her horrid black skirts more closely around her just as if he’d planned to plop himself down right next to her when the couch could easily accommodate a half dozen people. “And would you care for some wine?”
“Thank you, no,” he said as he sat, and then bent down to pick up something that had fallen to the floor. “Yours?” he asked, holding up the ruby ring.
Denying the dratted thing would open up questions about Charlotte, and as the story could only reflect badly on her brother and Harold, she quickly claimed the ruby as her own. “Thank you, Captain,” she said, reaching for it. “It was my mother’s, and always much too large for me.”
And then the dratted ring made a liar out of her by stopping at her second knuckle as she attempted to slip it on her finger. She resisted the urge to fling it across the room.
“Ma’am—Lady Emmaline …?”
“Just Emmaline, please,” she said, sighing. “And I shall call you John, since we’re just the two of us here. And then, John, I should tell you that I just quite blatantly lied to you, shouldn’t I?”
“About the ring. Yes. But you don’t have to explain.”
She relaxed. “Good, because I really don’t want to.” She slipped the ring into her pocket and picked up the small wrapped present. “Shall we open this instead? I love presents, and Charlotte is always so inventive with hers, even if she insists she has no talents. Just this past Christmas she gave me a small, smooth rock she’d painted to look like a toad.”
Actually, Charlotte had given the toad a face that greatly resembled that of her nephew George, but the captain didn’t have to know that.
The captain put his hand on her wrist. “Lady … Emmaline,” he said, so that she forgot all about Charlotte’s present. “I should leave.”
“Leave?” Emmaline squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, hating that she had seemed to squeak out the word. “But … but why? I know the rain has stopped, but it’s coming on to dark soon, and we’ll be called in to dinner at any moment, and—”
“I didn’t mean tonight,” he said, cutting her off, thankfully, before she could say something so silly as to mention how much she really wanted him to stay. “I would go only as far as the nearest inn, if you still wish my assistance for a few days, until we can summon your brother’s solicitor, set up a search for your nephew and anything else I might do for you.”
“You’re saying without saying it that we are unchaperoned here.”
“No, I’m saying without saying it that you are unchaperoned here. I would suggest that Miss Seavers come bear you company, but as she is quite young, and there’s the problem of her mother being unwell …”
“John, there are twenty-seven servants in this house, at least three of whom, I have every certainty, are spying on us even now. I hardly call that being unchaperoned.”
“No. However, Society would. You’ve just been dealt a serious shock, Emmaline, but one of us must think clearly.”
She nearly let her shoulders sag as she realized what he was saying. “You feel responsible for me. Because it was you who brought me the news about Charlton and the boys. And I did nothing to dissuade you of that impression, absolve you of your gentlemanly impulse to protect a clearly helpless woman.”
His slow smile sent her stomach to doing a small flip inside her. “That sounds so very noble, doesn’t it? Actually, I came here to deliver my news and then depart as quickly as possible. Until I saw you out there in the gardens and thought you the most exotically beautiful woman I’d ever seen. You’ve had the most immediate and remarkable impact on me, Emmaline. I am in no hurry to leave.” “Oh.”
“Yes—oh. And, hopeful idiot that I surely am, I don’t think you have taken me in disgust. Now do you understand? The proprieties must be adhered to, no matter the circumstances. I won’t go far, unless you’ve now decided that I should, but I cannot remain here, the two of us beneath the same roof.”
“There are sixteen bedchambers under this roof,” Emmaline said, as if that meant anything to Society, that same Society that had condoned Charlton’s behavior, George’s and Harold’s behavior, but would condemn her, a confirmed spinster, for the most minor infraction of their silly rules. “There’s no need for you to be put to the expense of staying at the inn.”
His smile in response to that statement had her looking at him strangely, and she quickly attempted to explain what she’d said.
“Not that I’m intimating at all that you might be … that you cannot afford, um, that is—oh, stop that! I’m not saying anything in the least amusing.”
He took her trembling hands in his and raised the right one to his lips, turned it over, and pressed a bone-melting kiss against her palm. Just for an instant, the tip of his tongue lightly stroked her sensitive skin. And then, holding her hands against his chest, he looked at her with those soul-destroying eyes. “Now, Emmaline? Now do you see why I need to take myself off to an inn tomorrow morning?”
“Yes … I rather suppose I do.”
CHAPTER FOUR
JOHN DIDN’T KNOW if Grayson’s entrance into the main saloon to announce that dinner was being served had been fortunate, or if it had been the worst timing in the history of Affectionate Old Family Retain
ers. Probably the former, as John hadn’t known what in bloody blazes he was going to do next, once he was looking so deeply into Emmaline’s glorious eyes.
He had wanted to kiss her. No, he had needed to kiss her. He would kiss her before this night was over. As a man who had spent many years at war, he knew that opportunities were just that, and often fleeting. For too many years of his life, he’d put his own wishes aside in the name of the Better Good. Now it was time for him to think about what John Alastair wanted.
And he wanted Lady Emmaline Daughtry.
Curiously, knowing this, he was finding it best suited to his purpose to keep his true identity hidden just a little while longer. He wanted Emmaline to see him as Captain John Alastair, accept him that way … perhaps discover feelings for him that way; the simple man, the man she could be concerned about if he had to pay for his lodgings at the local inn.
He also wanted to know more about the late duke and his two sons, but would she find it as easy to confide in him if she realized his true rank? Emmaline had been shocked by the news of their deaths—anyone would have been shocked at the suddenness of it—but John felt certain he’d also seen a measure of relief in her eyes.
Having experienced much the same feelings when he’d opened the letter from Warrington Hall, informing him of his father’s departure from this earthly coil by way of collapsing after a hard ride on one of the local tavern wenches, John wondered what sort of man the late duke had been. What sort of brother he’d been to Emmaline. Obviously not a beloved one.
John sensed that applying to Grayson for enlightenment would get him nowhere, but he had higher hopes of Mrs. Piggle, and planned to speak to the woman in the morning. In the meantime, he would not press Emmaline for details, not knowing how painful it might be for her to share them with him.
This decision left him free to concentrate on Emmaline herself, which was what he’d much prefer to do in any case.
He entered the cavernous dining room with Emmaline on his arm, only to see that their places had been set at opposite ends of a table that could easily serve as a bowling green. Once he’d assisted her to his chair and Grayson had withdrawn his disapproving face, John picked up his gold charger plate, utensils, serviette and wineglass and carried them all down the length of the table, placing them to Emmaline’s right.
“This way we won’t have to shout at each other,” he said as he sat down. “And I might add that I cannot think of more pleasant company than you in this, my first meal in months in which I won’t have to worry about my wineglass sliding off the table as the ship cuts through the waves.”
“Grayson will not be pleased,” Emmaline told him as a young girl entered, two bowls of soup balanced on a tray. “He’s quite the stickler for propriety.”
“Among other things, yes, I can see that propriety would be one of his sticking points. Does that worry you?”
Emmaline cocked her head slightly to one side, as if considering the question. “No. No, I don’t think it does. Thank you, Mary. It smells delicious.”
“Yer fav’rit, milady. Cook remembered. All yer fav’rits tonight. All whats yer likes best, right here.”
“Yes, I believe you’re right,” Emmaline said, sneaking a quick look at John from beneath her lashes, a delightful flush coloring her cheeks.
The soup was country thick and flavorful, or so John remembered it later, even though the rest of the courses were eaten without him tasting them. He was much too well-occupied answering Emmaline’s intelligently probing questions about his service in the Royal Navy, much too enthralled by the way the candlelight danced in her golden hair, the grace with which she patted her lips with the snow-white serviette … the way she listened to him as if he was reciting words he’d brought down from some mountain on stone tablets.
He did remember the dessert course, because it seemed that Emmaline’s favorite sweet consisted of a simple dish of strawberries and heavy cream. Whenever some of the cream clung to her upper lip, and she surreptitiously employed the tip of her tongue to swipe it away, John began to wonder if taking himself off to the inn the next morning could be seen as in the way of cruel and unusual punishment for a man who definitely had another destination in mind.
At last the meal was over, and John suggested they take a stroll in the gardens now that the rain had disappeared and a setting sun still lent enough light for a pleasant inspection of the grounds.
Good Lord, he sounded so stiff, didn’t he?
“Emmaline—I want to be alone with you,” he whispered in her ear as he pulled out her chair for her. “And to hell with the posies.”
She looked up at him, her smile tremulous, and laid her hand on his as she got to her feet. “The herb garden is well away from the house at the bottom of the gardens. And fenced,” she said quietly. “With rather tall shrubbery.”
“I’ve always liked herbs,” he said as, together, they departed the dining room through the French doors conveniently placed there so that gentlemen could end their meals by stepping outside to blow a cloud, spit or relieve themselves over the railing of the stone terrace. John’s father used to hold contests as to who could aim best and shoot farthest, much to his son’s embarrassment. He pushed the memory from his mind.
“Rosemary is one my favorites,” Emmaline told him as they descended the flagstone steps into the gardens.
“Mine, as well. Along with parsley and sage and …”
“Thyme,” she finished for him. “I’ve always thought Scarborough Fair a most confusing poem. If you wish someone to be your true love, why would you then make impossible demands on that person in order to become that true love?”
John bent and broke off a perfect pink rose, stripped it of its thorns and then bowed as he handed it to her. “‘Love imposes impossible tasks,’“ he quoted from memory, “‘though not more than any heart asks.’“
“Oh? And do you think that sounds as asinine as I do, John? Why should a heart that cares make demands?” Emmaline asked as she held the rose beneath her nose and sniffed. “Ah, nothing complicated about a rose, is there? It is pretty, it smells heavenly, and if you aren’t careful in the way you handle it, it pricks your finger. Still, you can see the thorns, so it isn’t as if you weren’t warned, correct?”
They threaded their way along the curving brick path. “Am I being warned, Emmaline?”
She stopped, turned to look up into his face. “Someone probably is, but I’m not sure which one of us that person might be. John … I think you should know that I’m not a very … nice person.”
“Is that so?” He cocked one eyebrow as he offered her his arm once more and they continued down the pathway. “Do you abuse kittens? Snore in church? No, wait, I have it—you pull faces behind Grayson’s back.”
“Well, sometimes—that last bit about Grayson. But I’m attempting to be serious here, John. I’m … I’m an unnatural sister, an unnatural aunt. I’ve been trying all day long to work up even a single tear over Charlton and the boys, and I simply can’t manage it.”
“You didn’t love them?”
“No, no, of course I loved them. One doesn’t have much choice in that, seeing as we’re related. The question is, did I like them? And I didn’t.”
John kept moving toward the tall thick shrubbery that he was sure concealed the herb garden. “They weren’t likeable?”
“I suppose that would depend on whom you applied to for their opinion. Their friends seemed to like them well enough.”
“And did you like their friends?”
They stopped at a slatted wooden gate and John opened it. “No, I didn’t. Why would you ask that?”
He ceremoniously bowed her through the entrance to the herb garden, where they were immediately cast in the shade of the towering evergreens. “I don’t know. It simply occurred to me that, if you didn’t care for the people who cared for them, then perhaps the only reason you cared for your brother and nephews at all was because of an accident of birth. We can’t choose our relative
s, Emmaline. Only our friends.”
“You’re only trying to make me feel less guilty.”
“I know,” he said, leading her to a curved stone bench at the center of the small garden. “Am I succeeding?”
She sat down, gracefully arranging her skirts around her, and looked at him. “Why, yes, I believe you are. Charlton and his sons are dead, and I’m sorry they didn’t lead better lives while they had the chance. I think I could weep for that.”
He joined her on the bench. “Now?”
Emmaline was slowly twirling the rose stem between her fingers, and looked up at him in some confusion. “Pardon me? Now what?”
“I was asking if you were going to weep now,” he explained, biting back a smile.
“Oh. Oh, no, I don’t think so. But at the service it will be better if I don’t disappoint Vicar Wooten. So then I shall think about what might have been.” She sighed. “What might have been is always so sad, isn’t it? What we could have done, what we should have done. What we missed because we didn’t dare to—”
John brought his mouth down on hers, cutting off any chance that either of them would ever look back at this moment and think, If only.
He pulled back slightly, smiling into her eyes. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t seem to resist. In fact, I still can’t …”
This time when he kissed her he also slid his arms around her, pulling her closer against his chest. She responded by sliding her arms around his back, signaling without words that she didn’t dislike what he was doing to her.
What she was doing to him.
A kiss. A simple kiss. And yet his world was tilting on its axis. He prodded at her with his tongue, and she responded by opening her mouth to him, and the flame she had lit inside him the first time he’d seen her threatened to consume him.
He kissed her hair, her perfect shell-like ear, her throat. He heard her quick intake of breath as he moved his hands forward, to her rib cage … and then slowly slid them upward, to cup her firm breasts.