Carla Kelly (8 page)

As he stood in the rain, several lights came on. He didn't want to go in. Grandmama would be there to pounce on him and scold him. Heaven knows she probably had plenty of charges in her arsenal. Sally would probably cry some more, and there would be Robert, pouting and looking ill-used. Mama would smile at him as though she knew something he didn't. And Emma? Oh, dear.

At what point did I lose control of my life?
he thought as he started toward the front door.
When did everything become an exertion?
He rubbed his forehead and wished that the rain did not slither down his clothes and onto his back. He knew that he could not face his grandmother.

He stared hard at the house again, and there was Emma standing in the window. She stood as he was already used to seeing her, with her hands folded in front of her, the very stillness of her impressive to him, for all that he disliked her. He could not make out any of her features, but he knew it was Emma.

As he watched, he thought she raised her hand to him in a small gesture of greeting. He could not be sure, because the light was so dim, so he did not return the gesture. Besides all that, she was his servant.

My servant!
he chided himself as he lifted his hand to the knocker, and Applegate—grayer but supercilious-looking as ever—allowed him to enter.
Why on earth didn't I just let Robert lose her at the turn of the card? He might even have won, and either road, I would still have my horses.
“Yes, what, Applegate?” he asked in annoyance.

“I merely wished you good evening, my lord,” Applegate repeated, sounding, if anything, even more disdainful than Lord Ragsdale remembered.

“Oh, very well,” Lord Ragsdale snapped. “Applegate, am I in my usual room?”

“Of course, my lord,” the butler replied as though he addressed a dim-witted child. “My mistress wishes to see you first, however. If you will follow me, my lord?”

“I'd rather not,” John said honestly as the footman grasped the back of his coat and helped him out of the wet garment.

It was Emma. “She especially requested that you visit her in the blue room, my lord,” she reinforced as she held out her hand for his hat.

He handed it to her. “No relief for the wicked, eh, Emma?” he asked, no humor in his voice.

“Not in your case, my lord,” she replied promptly.

Applegate coughed and looked away as Lord Ragsdale nailed Emma with a frown. John slapped his gloves in her hand. “I should have left you at the Norman and Saxon,” he murmured.

“It's a mystery to me why you did not,” she responded, the lilt in her voice so prominent.

He shook his finger at her, ready to give her a share of what remained of his frazzled mind. Applegate coughed again, so he swallowed his angry words and followed the butler down the hall. He looked back at Emma once to give her another evil stare, but there she stood again, as calm as usual.
Curse me, but you are irritating
, he thought.

To his infinite relief, only Grandmama waited to pounce on him in the blue room. He was spared more of Sally's tears and Robert's distemper. He would have liked a pitcher of whiskey, but his grandmother handed him a cup of tea.

“Well, John, what do you have to say for yourself?” she demanded after the maid fled the room.

He took a sip of the tea and pronounced it insipid. In silence for a moment, he gazed back at his relative, wondering what imp was suddenly at work in his brain. “Grandmama, why do you always greet me that way?” he asked, determined not to be afraid of her this trip. “I cannot remember a time since I was out of short pants that you addressed me otherwise.” He sat down beside her. “It is not my fault that our American relatives are sadly wanting.”

There
, he thought,
I have counterattacked.
He took another sip and regarded his relative, noting that all the females of the White-acre side of the family were blessed with pretty faces, from Grand-mama to Sally.
I wonder why I never saw that before
, he thought as he took another sip, winked at the old lady, and set down the cup.
Of course, they don't have Emma's high looks, but—
what
is in this tea? I must be losing my mind. Emma has put an Irish curse on me.
He stared into the tea, his hastily acquired aplomb in serious danger already.

If he was going insane right there in the blue room, Grandmama did not appear to notice. She choked over her tea and glared at him. “It is ill-bred to wink, John,” she reminded him.

Recovering, he smiled to himself, happy to have set her off guard. “Tell me what you think of the Claridges, my love,” he said, delighted to watch her choke again at his unexpected endearment.

She scowled at him. “Pathetic!” She wagged a heavily ringed finger in front of his face. “And so I told my daughter it would be when she insisted on marrying that American.” She snorted in disgust. “Sally cried until my ankles started getting wet, and Robert could only say how ill you had treated him.”

“Silly of me, wasn't it?” he commented. “I wouldn't let him gamble his servant away to a lecher.” He paused and took a thorough, if covert, look at his grandparent. It was always hard to measure her mellowness, but Lord Ragsdale turned on his most blinding smile and ventured. “By the way, Grandmama, how would you like another maid around the place?”

Grandmama let out a crack of laughter. “Not so easy! She's all yours, John! I hear from my daughter that you spent a fortune in horseflesh for her.”

“I didn't have any choice!” he shouted, his desperation returning. “Grandmama, what am I going to do with Emma Costello?”

“Buck up, John,” she retorted. “I never would have taken you for a whiner.”

She finished her tea, refilled it half full from the pot at her elbow, and handed the cup to him, gesturing with her head to the cherry-wood cabinet against the far wall. “Put in a drop of brandy before your mother returns,” she ordered. “I expect you'll think of something to use Emma for, if you're any grandson of Lord Whiteacre. Besides all that, she's prettier than your mistress.”

He stopped at the sideboard, his hand on the brandy, and then poured in more than a drop. “Madam, pigs will fly before I get in bed with Emma Costello!” He doused his own tea with enough brandy to cause a blaze if he sat too close to the fire.

She took the tea and nodded at him, triumphant to have the upper hand again. “It doesn't surprise me that you should mention pork when you think of your light-skirt.”

He glared at her in exasperation, wondering why he could not ever win an argument with this feeble old woman. “Fae is a fine-looking woman,” he said, trying to inject the proper amount of injury into his voice and avoid any suggestion that he was getting a little tired of her. “I
prefer
women with a little
avoir du pois
,” he stated. That was true enough. Not for him slender women like Emma Costello, with nothing to hold onto. However, the Irish woman did have a pleasant shape, even if she was a trifle thin.

But this was no time to allow the mind to wander, and his cause was not being served by the fumes that rose from his teacup. “If you will not help me, m'dear,” he said after a long, thoughtful sip, “give me some suggestions. Mama has already arranged to have a lady's maid waiting for Sally when we return. You know, someone who knows the ins and outs of life here better than Emma would. And I assure you I will not leave Emma within ten miles of Robert Claridge, no matter how she irritates me.”

“You could put her in the kitchen, John,” Grandmama said, taking another sip of her brandied tea, and held out the cup for more. “That's a good place for the Irish.” She giggled.

“Not Emma,” he said, wondering how she would fare belowstairs with the servants he employed. Besides that, as much as he disliked her, he couldn't ignore Emma's obvious intelligence anymore than he could overlook her trim shape. The kitchen was no place for Emma, no matter how much she richly deserved to be sentenced there.

“This becomes difficult,” he told his grandmother as he laced their tea with a little more brandy. “I don't want her in my bed, Mama and Sally don't really need her, the kitchen would be better off without her …” He went to the window and grasped the frame as the room wobbled. “Maybe she can clust and dean. I mean, dust and clean.”

Grandmama made no reply. He looked over his shoulder and smiled. Her head drooped on her chest, and she was beginning to snore. He sighed and rested his head against the window frame. What was he going to do with Emma?

To Lord Ragsdale's infinite relief, Robert Claridge allowed himself to be taken quietly to Brasenose College in the morning. The two of them rode in silence through the narrow streets of Oxford, which already bustled with scholastic purpose. Lord Ragsdale introduced his sullen cousin to the warden and gave him his back without a qualm. After Robert had been ushered away, he spent more time with the warden, urging that worthy to let him know of any infractions.

“He's a worthless young man, sir,” Lord Ragsdale concluded. “Had I known the extent of his worthlessness, I would never have moved heaven and earth to foist him upon you at this juncture of the term. But here he is, sir.”

The warden regarded him with some amusement. “Do you have any sons of your own yet, Lord Ragsdale?”

“I do not, sir.”

The warden smiled at him. “You cannot imagine then, how many variations of your conversation I have heard before.”

He paused and Lord Ragsdale understood. “My own father, eh?” he asked, with just a ghost of a smile playing around his lips.

“Yes, my lord. Somehow we managed to turn you into someone acceptable to the world at large. I suspect we will succeed with this American too.”

Lord Ragsdale managed a reluctant smile. “The Brasenose touch, sir?”

“Exactly, my lord. I think we can render him sufficiently busy to keep him from the gaming table.” The warden rose and held out his hand. “I will attempt to warn him with the perils of serving in the ranks, should he choose to indulge in a gaming career within our walls. Good day, my lord.”

Grandmama Whiteacre kindly loaned him a horse and saddle for the return to London so it was not necessary to stifle himself inside the family carriage this time. The day was no warmer than before, but at least it did not snow. His horse, serviceable if somewhat elderly, plodded sedately alongside the carriage where Mama read, Sally slept, and Emma continued her everlasting stare out the window. He watched her and resolved to turn her over to his butler. Emma Costello could polish silver or clean out drains, for all he cared.

London was already foggy with the light of many street lamps when the carriage turned onto Curzon Street and released its grateful occupants. Lord Ragsdale remained on his horse. “Mama, I am off to White's,” he told her. Lady Ragsdale, shaky and pale from a day's travel, nodded to him as Emma helped her from the carriage. The front door opened, and Lasker stood there with the footman and Mama's dresser behind him.

He left them without another qualm, praying that traffic would not be so terrible on St. James that he would be kept long from the brandy he had been thinking about all day. He would sink into his favorite leather chair, a full bottle near his hand, and pronounce himself liberated from all further exertions. Fae would be glad enough to see him later, he was sure. In her own practiced fashion, she would remove any rough edges that remained from the day. That was what he paid her for.

As he was dismounting in front of White's, he was struck by the thought that this was what he had done the day before yesterday, and the day before that. Barring any unforeseen eventualities, he would do it all again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. The thought dug him in the stomach, and he clutched the reins tighter, ignoring the porter who stood by to receive them.

Something of his unexpected agony must have crossed his face. In a moment, he heard the porter ask, “My lord, my lord, are you all right?”

He looked down at the little man, and after another long moment, handed him the reins. “I am fine,” he said, fully aware for the first time that he was lying. He had never been worse. As he went slowly up the steps and into the main hall, he realized that he would probably never be better, either. This was his life.
Mercy
, he thought to himself,
mercy.

The milkmen were already making their rounds when he returned to Curzon Street. His head was large as usual. He had drunk too much brandy at White's and then compounded the felony at Fae's by attempting exercise far beyond his capacity. The results had left him embarrassed and Fae irritated, muttering something she refused to repeat.

The house was dark and silent. In another hour or so, the kitchen staff, with yawns and eye rubs, would gird itself for another day of cooking, and the upstairs maids would answer tugs on the bell pulls with tea and hot water. Lord Ragsdale listed slowly down the hall toward the stairs, which loomed insurmountable before him.
I think I will sit down here until they shrink
, he thought as he grasped the banister to keep it from leaping about, and started to lower himself to the second tread. To his relief, it did not disappear. He sank down gratefully, leaned against the railing, and closed his eyes.