An Early Engagement (17 page)

She was mussed from her struggle with the dress, and she had kicked her shoes off as soon as she entered the room, and she was in a kitten-fit again, so Emilyann looked more like the hoyden he was used to than the cool countess he had been seeing. Stokely thought he might like this fiery woman better. “Does it matter so much to you what a bunch of old quizzes think?” he wanted to know.

“I wanted to make you proud. Oh.” She had not meant to say that at all.

He smiled and moved over to make room next to him on the chaise. He patted the cushion and she sat, just close enough for him to take her hand and carry it to his lips.

“And I am, my dear. I am proud of you with or without anyone else’s approval, with every curl in place at tea or on your hands and knees dicing with the stablehands.” His hand moved to her shoulder, gently stroking.

“You saw!”

“And I wished I could join the game. I have always been proud of you, you must know that.”

“Even when I sound like a fishwife? And you cannot approve of my dumping the syllabub in your lap. I regretted it instantly, you know.”

“You always do, Sparrow. And yes, even then, when you looked so righteous, like a Greek goddess casting thunderbolts at offending mortals.” By now his hand had moved to caress her neck, her back, and damn those pesky buttons, he thought. Why did they make the bloody things so small?

“I am sorry, Smoky, truly. I know I can do better. It’s just that ...”

“I know, I am overbearing and officious, and I should have consulted you first. I am sorry, too, my dear.”

“Oh, but I am headstrong and willful. Nanny has told me so a million times.”

“Only Nanny?” he teased, pressing her head against his chest and kissing the top of her pale curls, incidentally having two hands free to work on the back of the gown. “Why, if I told you not to jump off the balcony, you’d do it just to spite me.”

She laughed, a little breathless. “And you would expect me to obey you even if the house was on fire.”

“What a fine couple.”

Her hands had moved, tentatively at first, along the silky lapels of his robe, then to the dark hair on his chest. Was that warmth from him, or her?

“You know, Sparrow, I think we
could
be a fine couple, if we tried.”

“Hmm,” she agreed dreamily. “We’ll have lots of time to work at it.”

His hands stopped their explorations. “Ah, not much time for now, I’m afraid.”

She pulled back, out of his embrace, where he could see how flushed she was, how utterly kissable. “Oh?”

Oh, hell, he thought. “All those rumors flying around, you know. That’s what we were so busy discussing the entire night. The peace won’t even make a hundred days, it seems. I’ll have to be returning. Soon.” Her brows were raised. “Sooner than I had hoped.”

She stood slowly, uncurling like a stretching cat. “Just how soon?”

More like some wild jungle cat with prey in sight, he decided. “Ah, tonight.”

“Tonight, and you weren’t going to tell me, and you were just going to—”

“Do you want me to fetch some pudding for you to throw? How about that vase of flowers? You notice I did not put on my uniform yet, just in case I had to change again. I wish you would think of poor Rigg, though.”

“How can you tease, Smoky?”

“Why, you were wishing me to the devil not five minutes ago. The devil or Lady Bramby, I forget which.”

“It was Lady Bramby and I would have torn your heart out with my fingers!”

He held her face in his hands. “Then you do care?”

“Silly, I wouldn’t be jealous otherwise.”

“And you know I wouldn’t be angry if I didn’t worry about you so much, don’t you?”

She nodded, and tears started to fill her eyes. Smoky kissed each lid in turn. “I don’t suppose ... ?”

“Would you still leave?”

“God, Sparrow, what a question.”

She stepped back. “Come home soon.”

She was exquisite, like some fairy creature in an enchanted forest, and he wanted her more than he’d wanted anything else, ever. He wanted to wipe away that sad look and make her laugh and blush and get furious and silly. Gads, she was his own wife! He’d hurry home all right.

“Godspeed, Smoky.”

Meanwhile, in that other bedroom:

“Morgan? What do you want? We already did that this week.”

“No, no, just wanted to talk,” he said, pulling a chair closer to the bed, where Ingrid lay with one long, heavy braid like a sword at her side.

She pushed the nightcap out of her eyes and fixed him with a piercing stare. “You’re drunk.”

“No, I swear. Wanted to tell you, Ingrid. I’m a changed man.”

He still smelled of yesterday’s mutton and still had hair growing out of his ears. She raised herself up on her elbows and said, “Yes?”

“I got to thinking at that ball, seeing my niece and her husband so well set, seeing young Bobo doing the pretty with the young girls, how fortunate we were. As a family, you know. And I got to thinking, maybe we should do more for other people, other, ah, families. You know, charity.” He had trouble saying the word; it was not much used in his vocabulary. He looked at his wife for signs of approbation and went on although she looked at him blankly.

“Well, you are always nattering—uh, going on about doing your duty, bringing true belief to us lesser mortals. Savin’ souls, Ingrid, couldn’t be a finer ambition. Now, I say to myself, Morgan, you need a goal like that, doing something for others. Charity, that’s it, good deeds to atone for the wrongs you’ve done.” He checked to see if she was swallowing this. She was nodding, so he continued.

“And I asked myself, where can I do the most good? Lot of causes around London, you know. Climbing boys, crippled veterans without pensions. They’re always debating such in the Lords, you know, always asking for money for ‘em.”

She wondered how he knew what was debated in Parliament at all, since he never went and hardly read a newspaper beyond the racing journals to her knowledge. She decided it was money he wanted, thinking he could get another check out of her by appealing to her generous nature. “I already contribute, Morgan,” she told him to dampen that dream. “I send two pounds every month to Brother Blessed’s Orphanage and Boardinghouse for the Needy.”

Great gods, she sent good blunt to a bunch of dirty rug-rats? “Very bountiful, m’dear. I’m sure the little tots remember you in their prayers. But it was more practical help I was thinking of, not just the cash. Too easy to write a chit and forget about the need.” He was certain he’d heard her say that.

“I am sure Brother Blessed would appreciate if you went down and helped care for the orphans, though I cannot see what—”

“No, no. There are so many people devoting their energies to the foundlings. I was thinking of other charities, you know, workhouses, dole hospitals .. . homes for unwed mothers.”

“You want to send money to encourage women who are no better than they should be?”

“Not the money, recall. Practical help, that’s what those unfortunates need. Food, medical care, shelter. I, ah, thought we could offer room to a few of the girls. Heaven knows we have enough space in this old barn.”

Ingrid sat up straight at this. “You want me, a Godfearing, churchgoing woman, to take one of those, those soiled doves into my home?” she shrieked. “Do you know how those women got that way?”

Morgan thought he remembered.

“It’s a sin, do you hear me, and I won’t let any light-skirts cross my door. Even the housemaids know I won’t tolerate such goings-on, walking out with footmen and such. I know where that leads, and I won’t have it.”

“Uh, and if the girl wasn’t such a stranger, do you think you could reconsider?” Her frigid silence told him the chances of that, so he tried another tact: “Wouldn’t you like to hear the patter of little feet again? Those nurseries upstairs have stood empty for a long time and ...”

When he finally got around to it, confiding Stokely’s grand scheme, the money, the title, and all, Ingrid had only one comment to make. Very succinctly, very sincerely, and with every chance of success, she uttered: “Go to hell.”

Smoky left, not knowing of her love. Emilyann could not tell him she loved him, not when he hadn’t said it, not when she could hardly say it to herself. She whispered it into Pug’s soft fur when she went to visit, as if telling the little dog a great secret. Dogs were good for that, they never gossiped and they never laughed, even when the secret was such a piece of silliness.

Of course she loved Smoky. She always had. Her hero-worship had evolved all it could—he was a hero, after all—but without the blinders of infatuation. She saw Smoky for what he was, kind and courageous, strong and warm-hearted—and pig-headed, overbearing, used to command, devilishly handsome—and gone.

Emilyann thought of the gentle, biddable husband she had thought to marry, and laughed. Pug wagged his tail. Smoky was none of those things, and she would not have changed him for the world, even if she could, except possibly to make him less overprotective. He left so many instructions—for her well-being, he said—that she may as well be a china doll wrapped in cotton and placed on a shelf until his return. As if she did not know to check her saddle girth, or was widgeon enough to ride out unaccompanied by Jake or one of the new grooms. She was not to attend masquerades or walk on the balcony during balls, although she did not think this was entirely for her safety, and hugged to herself the thought of his jealousy. She was not to spend time alone with Uncle Morgan, ever, and mostly she was not to travel to Belgium, where the ton was assembling.

First Smoky gave orders: she must not become one of those empty-headed pleasure-seekers chasing frivolity at the fringes of war. Then he reasoned with her: Brussels had not enough accommodations for the influx of tourists, with so many fleeing Paris; no one knew where Napoleon would make his final stand and Brussels could be too close; worrying over her would be a distraction from his duties. Finally he pleaded:
Please stay in England,
he wrote,
so I can come home to you.

She had no desire to go abroad anyway, but what about
her
worries? Emilyann asked the dog. Smoky should be safe, she believed, unless the gudgeon volunteered to rejoin the army in France, which sounded just like what he would do. And she had all his other commands to consider. He called them “wishes,” of course, as in “I wish you would be more cautious with your investments,” and “I wish you would discourage that paperskull Bobo from hanging around Nadine.” The first was easy. With the uncertainty of the peace continuing, speculation was too uncertain. There were vast earnings to be made on munitions and grain shipments if war broke out again, but Emilyann thought it indecent to profit from the spilling of men’s blood, especially if even one drop were Smoky’s.

Bobo was more of a problem, or Nadine was. Emilyann sent Geoff home to see about the harvests and replanting for the winter feed, and to find a replacement for that new gamekeeper. Aunt Adelaide went along to keep house for him, she said, and to see her garden again, but they all knew it was a surfeit of Nadine, not a dearth of day lilies, sending her off. Emilyann would have followed herself, except that news reached London long before it filtered to the shires, and she could not bear it if the armies were engaged without her knowing Smoky’s whereabouts.

She tried to send Nadine with Geoff and her aunt, but the minx refused. She adored London and declared she was never going to rusticate with the pigs again. With the foreign diplomats scurrying off, though, all the young officers reenlisting, and every second son hurrying to sign up, the field of eligible gentlemen was shrinking. The nobility returned to their country homes, and London grew sadly flat after the revelry of the victory season. Even that nice Remington boy left town for a country house party at the home of little Miss Whitlaw, she of the squint, stammer, and spots—and three thousand a year, plus a very pleasant personality. There were just enough dinners and parties to keep Nadine on the go, showing off her new clothes, and just enough suitors to admire them.

Stokely had refused four offers for his sister’s hand on the night of their ball, claiming she was too young. Two of the offers were above reproach, a baronet and a plain mister with good prospects. One proposition was not quite respectable, the penniless son of a French marquis, and one laughable, Bobo. Nadine was in alt at the quantity and quality of her court—and preferred Bobo. Now, with the depleted ranks, it was even harder to keep her from him.

Emilyann did her best, inviting Thornton’s shy curate to dinner, begging Lady Vinn and her nephew to share their box at the opera, driving with Nadine in the chaise instead of her phaeton so they could offer rides to gentlemen strollers of their acquaintance. Nadine still preferred Bobo.

“What do you see in that lumpfish?” Emilyann asked one day, frustrated in her not-so-subtle efforts to dislodge the nodcock from her tea table.

“We have so many things in common,” Nadine replied, licking the crumbs of the last crumpet off her fingers.

Yes, like a love for garish colors and a fondness for strawberry tarts. “But he can hardly dance, never brings you flowers or makes pretty compliments.”

“That doesn’t matter. We have such a good time together.”

“What do you find to talk about with him?” Emilyann had never been able to exchange more than five words with the cod’s-head, words like “Put that down” and “Take your hands off me.” She was appalled when Nadine giggled and answered, “Oh, we have better things to do than talk.”

So Emilyann never left them alone, and was forced to attend those dreadful musical entertainments so dear to dowagers’ hearts, where they could show off their daughters’ accomplishments with little expense. The refreshments were just ample enough for the guests, if you discounted Bobo’s pockets, so Emilyann usually came home hungry, in addition to irritable.

She did not dare let them go off riding together, so they were forced to amble along the paths instead of tearing across the greens. Neither one had much of a seat, and Bobo’s poor mount was practically carrying double anyway, so Lady Stokely couldn’t ask it for more exertion. As a result, Emilyann was not burning off enough of
her
energy, and was restless, agitated over her concern for Smoky, and aggravated at the whole situation.