Pretty Poison (9 page)

“You didn’t recognize me?” she repeated as realization dawned. “When you kissed me, who did you think you were kissing?”

Nicholas cringed at the question.

“Who?” she demanded desperately.

“The stable master’s daughter,” he admitted with a wry shrug.

Emily opened her mouth, snapped it shut again. There were no words. No words for the ridiculousness of the situation in which she found herself.

“What’s your name?” he finally inquired with what she supposed was meant to be a charming, self-deprecating smile.

But Emily didn’t feel like being charmed and she wasn’t for a moment fooled by his attempt at boyish humility.

“Good Lord, you really are a stallion in search of a mare,” she finally said, amazement lacing the words.

“No.” He lurched away from the tree trunk, tripped over a gnarled root, righted himself. But Emily was already turning away from him, turning toward the path that would lead her back to her aunt’s house, back to face his family, who had made her into a joke.

“Wait, Miss Calvert,” he called as he ran to catch up to her.

He laid a hand on her arm as if to halt her. She shrugged his hand away and picked up her pace.

“Please, just let me explain,” he said as he fell into step beside her.

“There’s nothing to explain, I understand perfectly,” she said, proud of how calm and controlled her voice sounded. “You are in need of a broad mare and any lady will do. And while you are making up your mind, you will kiss whomever you please.”

“Stop,” he ordered.

Emily ignored him, her mind already on packing her bags, on what she would tell her father and her aunt.

As they approached the door Aunt Margaret’s butler Jackson pulled it open, allowing her to march inside without delay.

“Thank you, Jackson,” she murmured as she passed him.

“Miss Calvert,” Nicholas growled behind her.

Emily made it onto the third step of the long winding staircase before curiosity got the best of her. What could the man possibly have left to say to her?

She turned and planted both hands on her hips and glared down at him. He stumbled to a stop, obviously surprised by her sudden capitulation.

“Yes, Mr. Avery?” she fairly barked at him.

He hesitated, took one step toward her and halted once more.

“You called me Mr. Avenue,” he said and there was the strangest look of defiance in his eyes.

“I beg your pardon?”

“When we met, at the theater,” he clarified. “You called me Mr. Avenue.”

Emily had only a vague memory of that night but thought that what he said was likely true. “And your point is?”

“You didn’t remember my name. You don’t see me in an uproar about it.”

Emily looked away from him, looked to her right and found Veronica Ogilvie watching them curiously from the open doorway to the music room.

“Esperanza,” she said, turning back to face him. “Mi chiamo Esperanza.”

Chapter Ten

Nick was still berating himself for his stupidity hours later as the party guests congregated in the parlor before dinner.

Miss Calvert — he knew perfectly well her name was not Esperanza — had yet to appear. She’d been noticeably absent all day. She hadn’t joined the other guests for luncheon or tea. She hadn’t participated in any of the indoor amusements Lady Margaret had arranged when the skies opened up and rain poured down for hours.

It wouldn’t surprise Nick if she didn’t appear for dinner either.

“Was that French Miss Calvert was speaking to you earlier?” Veronica Ogilvie asked as she sidled up next to him where he stood looking out at the dark, rainy night.

“Italian.” He thought about asking her what Miss Calvert’s given name was but quickly rejected the idea.

“Really?” she murmured. “How odd.”

He had no desire to engage in idle chatter with the lady but couldn’t see a way to politely walk away. “How so?”

“It’s not a language ladies normally learn,” she all but purred as she leaned toward him, presenting him with an unobstructed view of her bosom where it nearly spilled from her gown. “I suppose it’s different in the Americas. They are a bit backward.”

“I don’t know that learning Italian makes one backward,” he replied as his brother approached them.

“Good evening, Miss Ogilvie,” Ollie greeted. “May I have a word with you, Nick?”

“Certainly,” Nick agreed, nodding to Veronica before turning to follow his brother out into the hall. “Thank you for saving me.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Ollie warned. “We’ve been summoned to a meeting in Lady Margaret’s study.”

They found Lady Margaret in deep conversation with their father before the fire that roared in the massive fireplace. Joan sat quietly on a long leather sofa, a shawl pulled tight around her shoulders.

Margaret looked up when they entered. “Close the door.”

“Brandy?” Viscount Talbot asked his sons.

When they were all seated with snifters in their hands, Margaret pinned Nicholas with a hard green gaze. “I don’t know what you did to my niece. And I don’t want to know. But whatever it was, you’ve upset her dreadfully and that I will not stand for.”

“I’m an ass,” Nick admitted.

“We’ve gone through a lot of trouble to get you two together again.” This from his father, who was looking uncharacteristically somber.

“What do you mean?” Ollie demanded.

“I think that what our father is trying to say is that this entire party was nothing but an excuse to throw Miss Calvert and I together and hope that love blossomed.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Margaret reprimanded him. “Love is the least of our concerns.”

“We had hoped that under the right circumstances you might see that Miss Calvert would make you an ideal wife,” his father said.

“And her fortune an ideal solution to our current woes,” Nick replied, suddenly angry at his father who had brought them all too this miserable pass.

“Too true,” his father agreed.

“She won’t have me.” Nick said the words that had been rolling around in his head all day. “She’d sooner marry Mr. Boone than speak to me.”

“Are you certain?” Margaret asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Aren’t there two or three other ladies joining the party for the second week? Perhaps one of them will take Nick’s fancy,” Joan suggested.

“The point of this entire endeavor was for my niece to take his fancy,” Margaret said with a withering glance at Joan.

“Even so, if she won’t have him I think he should choose Miss Sanderson,” his sister-in-law replied.

“Miss Sanderson was invited for another purpose altogether,” Margaret admitted. “Her mother would like to see her matched to Carmichael.”

“You seemed to have made some headway with Miss Calvert yesterday and this morning,” his father said.

“What is her name?” Nick demanded.

“Who?” his father asked.

“Miss Calvert,” Nick growled. “What the hell is her given name?”

“Don’t take that tone with your father,” Margaret reprimanded.

Nick closed his eyes, prayed for patience. “Margaret, please, what is your niece’s name?”

“Emily,” the lady replied. “Emily Ann Calvert.”

“Emily.” He rose and walked to the window, staring out at nothing but darkness. “Emily.”

“If you are sure Emily won’t forgive you for whatever nonsense transpired today, perhaps you should set your cap on Miss Sanderson. I’ll persuade her mother to steer the girl in your direction,” Margaret offered.

“No,” he replied, turning to face them.

“I understand we are asking a lot of you,” his father said. “But really there is no other option open to us at present. You need to find an heiress and marry her post haste.”

“I don’t want Miss Sanderson,” Nick said.

“Lucinda Davis brings a tidy settlement with her,” Ollie said helpfully.

“Not Miss Davis,” Nick said.

“Good Lord, you can’t mean to have Miss Ogilvie to wife,” Joan cried. “Oh, Nick, I’m sure I speak for us all when I say I’d rather live in the poor house than have that woman in our family.”

“If he wanted her, we’d all grin and bear it,” Margaret said. “But he doesn’t, do you Nicholas?”

“No,” Nick agreed.

“Then who?” Ollie asked.

“If you mean to have her, you’d best fix the mess you made earlier. She’s talking about leaving tomorrow after the hunt.” Margaret eyed him.

“I don’t know how to fix it,” Nick admitted.

“Fix what?” his father asked.

“Perhaps you’d best tell us what happened,” Margaret suggested.

And so Nick told them. Most of it. He left out the part about his heart feeling as if it had been torn from his chest when Emily had stepped away from him in mortification when he’d mistakenly called her by the wrong name. Two wrong names.

He neglected to tell them how humiliated Emily had looked when he’d told her that his family had turned his childish guessing game into a joke. Or how just the thought of the shuttered look in her eyes sucked the air from his lungs and made him cringe in shame.

He ended his tale by telling them how remarkably noble and proud she’d looked standing above him on the stairs, her head held high as she’d given him the false name in Italian so that Miss Ogilvie would not bear witness to her embarrassment.

“Good Lord,” Margaret whispered when he’d finished outlining what an ass he was. “Your son’s an idiot, Andrew.”

“Yes,” his father agreed.

“Now, to be fair, I didn’t recognize her at first either,” Ollie offered in his brother’s defense. “You must admit your niece looks decidedly different than she did when we met her in London.”

“She was ill,” Margaret replied.

“But she is recovered?” Joan asked.

“Completely.”

“Was it some sort of brain fever?”

When Margaret shot her a glare, Joan defensively replied, “She acted most odd when we met her at the ball.”

“She took ill on the ship and we simply did not realize that her illness lingered. She’s put on a good stone or more since her recovery, and exercise and fresh country air have returned her to her previous robust state.”

“Well, yes, she’s quite bronzed from the sun. No wonder we did not recognize her,” Joan agreed.

“Still,” Ollie said. “Nick can’t be blamed for thinking she was a groomsman’s daughter.”

“The stable master’s daughter,” Joan corrected.

“Right,” Ollie agreed.

“I’m certain it’s not Nick’s lack of recognition Miss Calvert finds most offensive,” Joan said. “It’s the fact that he kissed a girl whose name he didn’t even know.”

Nick turned to look at his sister-in-law.

“It says a lot about a man,” she explained. “I certainly wouldn’t have married Oliver if I thought he was the sort of man who ran around kissing women willy-nilly.”

Nick remembered Emily saying much the same thing to him.
You can’t run around kissing every lady who takes your fancy.

And idiot that he was, he’d turned that into a joke as well.

“And truly,” Joan continued. “If you’d not told her that nonsense about her forgotten name becoming a family joke, I believe she would have come to understand how it was that you didn’t remember.”

“Yes.” Nick rubbed a hand over his face, suddenly exhausted by the endless questions and comments. He knew he’d made a muck of his chances with Emily. What he didn’t know was how he was going to fix it.

“So, we are all in agreement,” Margaret proclaimed. “Nicholas is a moron.”

Nick looked at her and had to smile.

“That being said, I suggest we go in to dinner before my guests become restless and rumors begin to abound. We shall ponder the situation and in the morning we will meet again after the hunt and come up with a solution.”

As they filed out of the room, Nick heard Joan whisper to Ollie, “I don’t understand that business about the stallion and mare.”

Chapter Eleven

Emily was eating breakfast with her father when Nicholas Avery walked into the dining room with his brother and father.

She felt her face begin to flush as they all three stopped when they saw her. Good Lord, was it not enough that she’d been the butt of their family joke? Surely he hadn’t shared yesterday’s debacle with them?

Lady Joan followed her male relations into the room and came straight toward Emily.

“Miss Calvert, good morning,” she sang out cheerfully as her family of buffoons went to the sideboard. “May I join you?”

“Of course, Lady Avery,” Emily replied.

“Oh, please you must call me Joan,” the lady insisted as she took the empty seat next to Emily.

Emily knew what her response must be, but she just could not do it. It was probably a family wager to see who could learn her name first.

“Only if you call me Edwina,” she replied with a patently false smile.

“Oh, but I thought your given name was Emily.” Joan looked so confused that Emily took pity on her.

“I was only funning with you. A long standing family joke, right Da?”

Nicholas looked at her in surprise as he sat down across the table, a mountain of food piled on the plate before him.

“Whatever you say, Em,” her father agreed with a rumble of laughter. “My Emily’s a regular jester. Keeps her brothers and sister in stitches.”

“One must wonder if she also keeps them in britches,” Veronica muttered as she sat down beside Nicholas.

“What?” Da barked.

“Nothing, Mr. Calvert,” the lady replied, hiding a small delicate yawn behind her gloved hand.

“In my day a lady didn’t mumble,” her father groused.

“Ah, but times have changed,” Viscount Talbot agreed. He took the empty seat beside Da and the two began to loudly commiserate upon the sorry state of young people today.

“Are you riding to hunt?” Joan asked.

“Yes,” Emily answered. “And you?”

“I’m afraid I won’t be riding for some time.” Joan gave her stomach an affectionate pat and Emily glanced at Nicholas long enough to see him looking back at her with a chagrined smile.

“Congratulations,” Emily said with her first real smile of the morning. “I know you and Mr. Avery must be very happy. And Viscount Talbot, of course.”

“And Nicholas,” Joan added. “It was an awful burden upon his shoulders, thinking he alone carried the responsibility to ensure the title continued.”

“Yes,” Emily agreed. “A terrible burden for him and his future wife.”

“Exactly,” Joan exclaimed. “Now he may take his time choosing just the right wife.”

“As long as he does so before the family coffers run dry.” Emily regretted her words as soon as they left her mouth. “I apologize. That was terribly rude of me.”

“No, it’s no secret that we are experiencing some difficulties in that regard,” Joan hurried to reassure her.

“That’s no excuse for my poor manners. If you’ll excuse me?” She rose and kissed her father on the head as she made her way from the room.

Nicholas sighed as he watched Emily walk from the dining room, her back held unnaturally straight and stiff. He had his work cut out for him if he was to get back in her good graces.

“She won’t have you.” Veronica Ogilvie’s soft words so mirrored his thoughts that it took him a moment to realize she had spoken. He turned to find her watching him with a decidedly false look of concern.

“I beg your pardon?” He had no desire to discuss his current romantic woes with her. To think he had considered courting this cold, calculating female.

“You haven’t been very subtle in your regard for Miss Calvert,” she explained slowly, her condescending attitude grating. “I can’t say that I understand why you did not offer for her months ago before it was too late. But perhaps it’s for the best.”

“What makes you think it’s too late?” he asked, giving up any pretense that he did not understand her meaning or that she was incorrect in her assessment of his intentions.

“She means to return to America with her father in the spring,” Veronica replied with a careless shrug.

“I didn’t realize Miss Calvert had taken you into her confidences.”

“Oh, she hasn’t. It’s no great secret that she does not care for me. No, I have it from my maid who came by the information from one of Lady Morris’s servants. You know how gossipy servants are.”

Nick refrained from pointing out that she was spreading that gossip about. Who was he to cast stones? He was listening to it.

“She was in some sort of trouble when Lady Morris whisked her away from London.” She leaned close to whisper in his ear. “It was kept very hush hush, only a few of the servants saw the lady for weeks. The general consensus is that she arrived from the Americas in a delicate condition and took some sort of potion to reverse the situation. She was seen wandering around with a blue glass bottle clutched to her bosom at all hours of the day and night. Then one night there was some sort of commotion in Lady Morris’s bed chamber. A physician was called in and terrible screams filled the house for hours. The next morning, bloody linens were burned in the incinerator, but not before a number of servants saw them.”

Veronica Ogilvie shuttered in horror, and perhaps morbid fascination.

Nick leaned away from her cool lips against his ear, her warm breath on his neck, but found himself leaning forward again as she continued.

“There was a broken betrothal at home before she sailed. Miss Calvert had apparently created some sort of terrible scandal. That is why her father brought her to England. He could not find a husband for her amongst the gentlemen there, so he thought to foist her off on some unsuspecting Englishman. But since that terrible night her father has relented and will allow her to return home to hide in his stables working as a stable hand.”

Nick almost laughed at that last little bit. Charles Calvert would no more hide his daughter from the disapproving eyes of his neighbors than he would abandon her in her time of need to go gallivanting across the country inspecting railways.

As for the rest of the tale, there was just enough plausibility to make him wonder if it wasn’t true. It would explain much.

“Perhaps that is why Miss Calvert was so odd and listless, sleeping wherever she found a seat or bench.” Veronica again echoed his thoughts. “And it would certainly explain the rush to see her wed.”

As if she didn’t know that the hurry had been entirely on his side. Or had it?

“In my day young people didn’t whisper in company!” Charles Calvert’s bellow from across the table brought Nick to his feet.

“I apologize, sir,” he said with a nod. “You are quite right.”

“Stop hollering like a dockworker,” Lady Margaret admonished her brother as she stood at the head of the table. “Come then, you restless souls. To the hunt.”

She marched from the room with no need to look back to make sure that her guests followed. Only Nicholas dared to defy her as he hung back, contemplating Veronica’s story.

Two hours into the hunt, Emily stopped and dismounted atop a small rise, her dappled gray mare waiting patiently beside her. She surveyed the woods that lay in the valley before her where she’d seen a white-tailed deer dart into the trees not five minutes past. She hesitated to go into the dense forest alone. She didn’t know these woods, wasn’t sure what other creatures lived within its dark labyrinth.

“I may be impulsive,” she said to her mount, a well-mannered mare named Clover, of all things. “But I hope I’m not reckless.”

Just then she heard the pounding of hoof beats and turned to watch Nicholas astride a big sorrel gelding cantering across the open fields behind her.

Perfect
, she thought, turning back to the forest before her. She hadn’t meant to stray from the rest of the hunting party, yet here she was alone atop a hill like a beacon just calling out for him to join her.

Well, no time like the present to face her humiliation. She didn’t intend to flee from her temporary home, never mind what she’d told her aunt. So the Avery clan had amused themselves at her expense. It wasn’t the first time seemingly decent people had made sport of her and likely it wouldn’t be the last.

So a man she had foolishly hoped might be different had revealed himself to be just as fickle and faithless as the rest. And really, it wasn’t as if they had any sort of understanding between them. No, they had only a broken
Almost Betrothal
behind them. And when it came right down to it, he hadn’t kissed another woman in the stables. He’d kissed her in the stables.

Ridiculous, that’s what it was. Her entire life had taken a most ridiculous turn and she was at a loss as to how to go about righting things. She’d arrived on this island firm in her knowledge of who she was and what she wanted in life but she would be leaving it lost and confused. She stood alone on a hill in a foreign land longing for home. She watched a man she yearned for ride toward her knowing she would not entrust him with her heart.

Nicholas dismounted at the base of the hill and walked his mount slowly up to join her.

“Hullo,” she greeted when he stood beside her. She turned her head and met his eyes, startled by the somber look in their usually merry depths.

“Hullo, Emily,” he replied quietly.

She gifted him with a quick smile at the use of her name before turning back to the scenery laid out before her. “Who did you finally ask?”

“Lady Margaret.”

“I was afraid you might have asked the Nasty Baggage.”

“I thought about it, but only very briefly,” he admitted with a soft huff of laughter.

“Smart man,” she replied.

“Not so smart,” he countered. “I have it on good authority that I’m a moron.

“That seems a bit harsh.”

“No, it’s true. I’m an idiot. An ass.”

“I might have overreacted,” Emily offered. “Really it’s quite funny. Why should you know my name?”

“I kissed you. Repeatedly. A gentleman would have learned your name first.”

“I thought we’d already established…” she allowed her voice to fade away while her heart rate increased from the simple joy of talking with him, teasing him. She liked the way he kept up with her jumps from subject to subject, the way he gave back as good as he got, the way he seemed to appreciate her mind.

“Yes, we have,” he agreed. Then, very softly, “I’m sorry, Emily.”

“It’s just that I hate knowing that you and your family were laughing at me.”

“That’s not how it was,” he murmured as he turned to face her. “The joke wasn’t on you. It was on me, on the whole lot of us who couldn’t remember the day of the week if the butler didn’t greet us each morning with the information.”

“Good morning, Mr. Avery. And a fine Tuesday it is.” Emily allowed herself to turn toward him, to admire the way his golden curls danced in the breeze, the way the sun warmed his bronze skin and the way his eyes showed the smile before his lips even moved.

“Something rather like,” he agreed, the smile blooming across his face.

“Really, you mustn’t make a habit of kissing unknown women,” she admonished. “Had I really been the stable master’s daughter you would surely have found yourself flat on your backside from the burr under your mount’s saddle.”

“I don’t… I have never…” he stammered, a blush spreading over his cheeks. “There was just something about you. I’d seen you from the carriage window when we arrived, you and Danny Boy soaring over the fields, and then in the stable yard. The next thing I knew I was following you, the rest of it just sort of happened. Kissing you just seemed such a natural thing to do.”

Emily closed her eyes and savored his words. She didn’t think he could possibly have said anything more perfect to her if he had taken a year to think about it.

“Can you forgive me?”

“I already have.”

“Open your eyes, Emily,” he whispered and he was closer now, his warm breath washing over her upturned face.

She opened her eyes to find him smiling down at her. And his smile was different, soft and tender and somehow just a little bit wild.

Then he was leaning down and she knew he intended to kiss her, up on a hill overlooking miles of rolling fields, where anyone could, and likely would, see them. And she just didn’t care, not about the possible scandal, not about the repercussions, not about the way it would likely change her future.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement and turned to see a giant buck standing on the edge of the woods, his neck stretched up as he sniffed the air around him.

“There he is,” she cried as she spun away, shoved her foot into the stirrup and hoisted herself up to Clover’s back. She disliked the side saddle but had been hesitant to open herself to further ridicule by riding to the hunt astride in breaches. She spurred her mount forward and down the gentle slope as Nicholas sprinted for his horse.

He caught up with her just as she reached the flat ground at the outskirts of the woods. The buck had already disappeared into the lush darkness. She grabbed her rifle and jumped to the ground in one agile movement. She draped the train of her riding habit into the hook at her waist, showing off tall black boots to the knee.

“He’ll veer to the west,” she told Nicholas. “Into the very center. Which do you want?”

“I’ll cut across and move him your way,” he answered immediately. “Move in a sharp westerly direction so I don’t lose you. God knows what’s in there.”

Emily leaned up on her toes and pressed a quick kiss upon his lips before disappearing into the shady thicket. She made her way quietly and carefully over fallen logs and around tall trees with thick trunks and younger sprouts that tugged on her hiked skirts. Honestly, you’d think Maggie would thin out these woods. The others she’d seen had definitely been cut back.

She’d been in the forest for a good forty-five minutes before she finally admitted she’d lost the buck’s trail. No wonder, the ground was marshy in the clearing she’d tracked him to, her boots sinking into two or more inches of mud and decomposing leaves. Slimy moss grew on hidden boulders and fallen trees. After she’d fallen on her bottom twice in the gooey sludge, she gave up the cause.