An Infamous Proposal (17 page)

She mentioned her fear to Nick, after the older ladies had left to raid Hatchard’s in search of new novels.

“I noticed,” Nick said. “I fancy he’s trying to win you back by the role that originally attracted you— hardworking, noble cleric.”

“He must think me a simpleton to fall for the same stunt twice.”

“He doesn’t suffer from any excess of brains. Is Sanichton calling for you this morning?”

“No, he mentioned some business at the House. Lady Margaret is taking me to call on her aunt this afternoon.”

“Being vetted as the future Lady Sanichton, eh?” Nick asked, trying for a cheerful tone.

“I expect so,” she said glumly.

Nick excused himself and had his curricle brought around. He didn’t believe for a minute that James was calling on Dean Stanton. The whelp had some trick up his sleeve, and he must scotch the plan.

Nick was curious, but not entirely surprised, to see James’s rig stop in front of Sanichton’s house. Nick drove around the corner and returned to Manchester Square when he saw James’s carriage leave. Had the pup issued a challenge to Sanichton? Nick was happy to learn from Margaret that her brother had already left for the House.

“Lord James wasn’t calling on Sanichton,” she said, smiling archly. “It was me he was calling on, actually. What a rogue he is! He asked me to save him the waltzes at your masquerade, Hansard.”

“Did he mention Emma?”

“Yes, I told him we were going out this afternoon. He didn’t offer to join us when he heard it was Lady Sefton we were to call on. She is on nettles to meet Horatio’s lady. We all adore Lady Capehart,” she added. “Such a treasure, and completely unspoiled. Not like the jaded ladies one meets in London.”

Nick stayed chatting for fifteen minutes to see what else he could glean, then he left. It was unsettling to learn James was trying to discover where Emma was spending the day. He felt in his bones that James was bent on revenge, but a visit to Lady Sefton left little room for misbehavior.

When Nick returned a note from James awaited him. It said that he was taking lunch with Dean Stanton and would be there for most of the afternoon as they found they had so much to discuss. Since James hadn’t called on Stanton, Nick knew his fears were well founded. He’d have to follow Emma when she went to call on Lady Sefton. He didn’t envy Emma her afternoon. The dame was a formidable bastion of propriety.

Emma did indeed look wilted when she came out of the house, but of James there was no sign.

When Nick inquired later at Berkeley Square how the visit had gone, Emma said, “I passed muster. I could see Lady Sefton thought me gauche and provincial, but the estate won her over. She called me ‘well behaved.’ “

James continued his righteous ways over the next days, wearing his subdued vestments and sitting with a book of sermons propped up before him, while the others went about their business.

Between Lady Margaret and Sanichton, Emma was kept hopping. Sanichton regaled her mornings with trips to the historical hot spots of London, an amazing number of which featured deaths and violence. The afternoons were more pleasant. Lady Margaret took her visiting and shopping.

Nick watched as the girl physically wilted, from either fatigue or boredom. He felt still that unsettling feeling that he ought to do more for Emma, but what more could he do? She had decided on Sanichton, and all he could do was help her.

He hadn’t much time to think about it. James was behaving much too well to please him. Nor was he doing it to impress Emma. Emma, in her blunt way, had told him to stop behaving like a gudgeon and go out and enjoy himself, for he was not impressing her by acting like a minister and dressing like an undertaker.

“It will astonish you to learn, Lady Capehart, that I am no longer leading my life to suit you,” James said nobly.

“You never were. If you think running about with the muslin company and getting into brawls suits me, you are very much mistaken.”

James regarded her pale face with satisfaction. “Odd that finding your true love has put you in such a black humor, Lady Capehart.”

“It is you who puts me out of sorts. I wish you will not loaf about, pretending you’re reading sermons. I know very well you have a book of poetry hiding under that black tome. The cover is peeping out.”

When Nick discovered that it was the poetry of John Donne that was being read in secret, his alarm soared to new heights. This was the mood when the day of the masquerade party arrived. James had abandoned his idea of dressing as Ares. He was to go as a coachman instead, like Nick.

“It was the only costume they had to fit me,” he said sulkily. “It robs you of your originality, Hansard, but that won’t bother you as you never strove for originality in anything else.”

In an effort to please Sanichton, Emma had added a shawl to her Aphrodite costume and decent kidskin slippers, in place of the sandals that revealed her toes.

“If you haven’t the courage of your convictions,” James said, staring disparagingly at her outfit when she came down that afternoon for a preview, “you ought to have gone as someone else. Benedict Arnold, the infamous traitor, perhaps,” he sneered.

Emma peered in the mirror. “It does look horrid,” she said, looking to Nick for his opinion.

“Not horrid, just—”

James supplied the word. “A hodgepodge, neither flesh nor fowl. They had a rather nice lady’s Italian Renaissance costume at the shop when I was there. Something along the line of the outfit Juliet wore in the play the other night. A free-flowing gown and a copotain.”

“What on earth is that?” Emma asked.

“You recall Juliet’s headpiece, with a high, conical crown and a lacy thing suspended from it. Very romantic. If you hurry, it might still be there. The gown has sleeves,” he added, glancing doubtfully at Emma’s arms, which were naked below the shawl.

“Perhaps I should hire the outfit,” she said, again looking for Nick’s opinion.

“Suit yourself. My carriage is free, if you want to go and try it on.”

“I shall. This girdle pinches my waist.”

James resumed his reading, and Emma went abovestairs to change into a street dress. Nick went to call the carriage for her. He was relieved that James hadn’t offered to take her. Miss Foxworth had volunteered to accompany her. The butler was just admitting a visitor when Nick entered the hall. Nick took him into his study, as Gertrude was in the saloon, and, so, he could not notice that James slipped quickly out of the saloon.

Chapter Eighteen

“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?”