The Education of Mrs. Brimley (38 page)

“We ain’t seen Nick . . . Lord Nicholas Chambers for nigh on six months. I don’t know when I can get a message to him. If tha’ld be a friend of his, we—the other girls and me—we’ll help tha’ out if we can.”

“Well, Daisy, you’re right. I’m one of ‘Nicky’s girls,’ and I’m in trouble.” Emma hated to involve such a child in her scheme, but she saw little choice. “That man downstairs is trying to sneak me across the border into Scotland to marry me to someone I don’t like. Lord Nicholas . . . Nicky . . . is in London, but he would stop—”

“London!” Daisy’s eyes widened before she shook her head. “It’ll take a week or more for us to get a message that far. I don’t suppose thou’s planning to stay a week?”

“No. I think my uncle plans to leave tonight.” Emma glanced at Daisy’s loose attire, a glimmer of an idea taking root. “Maybe you could hide me until the note gets through?”

“No unused rooms to hide thee in.” Daisy studied her. “In that getup, tha’ll stand out like the Queen herself come callin’.”

Emma glanced down at the widow’s garb that covered her as efficiently as a burial shroud. In contrast, Daisy displayed more skin than fabric.

“If I could blend in, my uncle might not notice.” But could she bare that much skin in public? She’d bared much more in private, she reminded herself. She could do this.

“May I borrow some of your clothes?” Emma asked, completing a mental inventory of her appearance. “And maybe you can help me with my hair?”

Daisy’s face split with a toothy smile. “Sounds like we’s got ourselves another girl.”

 
“WHERE IS SHE!” GEORGE HEATHERSTON BELLOWED. Patrons paused in the lifting of their tankards. “I saw her come into this room. Where did she go?”

“There’s only one exit on this side of the inn and you were standing right by it,” the elderly clerk patiently explained for the third time. “If we allowed other methods of egress, we’d lose half of our revenues.”

“Then she must be here somewhere.” Heatherston charged into the public room, rousing some sleeping patrons, who protested the disturbance.

Emma concentrated on pouring ale into the tankard of a lone man in the corner. She had shed her spectacles to complete her disguise, making the task of aiming the liquid more difficult. Her hair, loosened from its braided bun, flowed long over her shoulders. She tilted her head, hoping the curtain of hair would hide her face from her uncle as well.

“What’s up here?” Heatherston asked at the base of steps.

“That’s our entertainment quarters,” the clerk said with a nervous glance upstairs. “I’m sure the young widow would not go up there. No decent lady would.”

“Decent, my foot.” Heatherston stomped up the steps. “Emma, you come down here.”

The man at Emma’s table slipped his hand along the back of her skirt, pressing the backs of her thighs. “Rosie, me love,” his voice slurred. “How about tha’ givin’ a poor sot a free un.”

“Ssh!” Emma whispered. “I’m not Rosie. Mind your manners.” She slapped at his hand.

She could hear her uncle’s heavy tread and billowing voice overhead. Her heart raced. If she made a mad dash for the door, her exit would surely be noted and reported to Uncle George. Besides, he’d be down those steps in a thrice if he had cause. Patience, she cautioned. If she merely worked her way toward the door while he was engaged upstairs, she might be able to slip away unnoticed.

She heard him pound on a door. “Emma, come out of there, you little slut. I know you’re in there.”

Her drunken patron’s errant hand journeyed round her backside, the trespass all the more personal without the benefit of her bustle. “Come on, be a sport.” Although with his elongated “s” and lack of a definite “t,” she could be mistaken as to his meaning.

With a glance toward the doorway, she continued to pour until the ale overflowed the tankard, then spilled over the table and onto the patron’s lap.

“Ey! Whot the devil!” He stood in a hurry, swiping his hand over the damp material.

“So sorry,” Emma crooned. At least his hands were no longer her concern. “Let me get a rag to wipe up.”

Overhead, her uncle’s insistent knocking was followed by the sound of splintering wood. Emma used a corner of her apron to wipe off the table, casting a furtive glance to the inn’s entrance.

Sounds of a scuffle erupted overhead. Before she could move toward the door, a body tumbled down the steps to land in a heap at her feet. Emma quickly glanced at the man on his backside at precisely the same moment that a gleam of recognition lit her uncle’s eyes.

“Enough of the table. Whot about me pants!” Her customer grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face him. “Yur not Rosie. Who are you?”

She tried to pull her arm out of his grasp, but his grip tightened. A drunken leer spread across his face.

“You’re a feisty one, ain’t ya? How about being feisty with me upstairs?”

She could hear Uncle George scrambling behind her. But the harder she struggled against her captor, the tighter he held. “Please!” she begged. “Please let me go.”

“Not till ya wipe off me pants.” The drunkard sneered. “Wipe them off real good.”

“Let her go,” Uncle George said from behind her.

“I saw her first,” the stranger protested.

“Well maybe I’ll let you have her when I’m through with her.” Uncle George pushed some shillings into the man’s hand. “Here. Buy yourself another whore.”

The man’s face lit up. He released Emma’s arm and walked at a tilt toward the middle of the room. Emma tried to turn and run, but her uncle was faster. He grabbed both her arms and held her in front of him.

“You cheap bit of trash.” His foul breath heated her ear. She turned away, fear racing through her. “Perichilde is too good for the likes of you.”

He piloted her further into the room’s shadows. “You with your head buried in books. You and your mother always thought you were too good to wait on the likes of me. Now look at you. I have a mind to take you upstairs, strip off those rags, and teach you just what you are good for.”

“I think you’ve taught her enough for one day.” Nicholas! Her heart recognized his voice. She tried to twist round to see him, but her uncle blocked the way.

Apparently Uncle George hadn’t her talent of recognition. “I thought I told you to leave us alone.” He growled over his shoulder. “You’ve got your money. Now get out of here.”

“Let the lady go.”

Uncle George laughed. “You must be blind. This is no lady. This is nothing but a bloody whore.”

Emma heard the sound of splintering wood and a cry of pain, then felt her uncle releasing her arms. She spun about in time to see Nicholas’s fist crash into Uncle George’s face. Her uncle sank to the floor in a sprawl alongside a broken walking stick.

Nicholas stepped awkwardly toward her, then lightly took her arms. “Are you all right?”

His voice poured over her like warm chocolate. Her heart threatened to burst from her chest with its fierce pounding. Emma fumbled in a pocket to retrieve her glasses. Once she could see clearly, she threw her arms around his neck.

He staggered back half a step, then wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. His fingers pulled back her curtain of hair, exposing her neck. His light kiss on her sensitive skin sent tremors of ecstasy straight through to her toes.

“Did he hurt you?” he asked, holding her tight.

“No, but I think he might have if you hadn’t arrived.” Giddy with relief, she could barely stand.

“That’s me.” The soft chuckle in his voice rekindled a spark in her that had lain dormant for several weeks. “Always in the nick of time.”

“How did you find me?” She pulled back so she could see his handsome face. Latent desperation caught her, an awareness of what almost had happened. Her hand trembled where it rested on his shirt. Her throat burned, making speech difficult. “I . . . I thought I’d never see you again.”

A shadow of uncertainty flashed across his face. He squeezed her arm, then released her. “We’ll have time for answers later. Let’s get you out of here before your uncle wakes up.”

She hesitated. “Are we just going to leave him here?”

Chambers looked down his nose at the bundle at his feet. “Yes,” he said simply. “I think he can find his own way back to London.”

She looked down at the stained garments that barely covered her chest. “What about my clothes? I can’t leave like this.”

Chambers pulled off his riding jacket and wrapped it over her shoulders. He leaned close to her ear. “Are you still wearing that pink corset?”

She nodded. Indeed, she had selected it this morning in memory of him.

“Then you’re wearing all the clothes you need.”

Delicious ripples tingled through her chest. She wasn’t convinced her attire was appropriate, but they had no time to argue. She wrapped her arm around his waist so she could assist him in their progress to the front door. After a moment’s hesitation, he accepted her help.

As they approached the entrance arm in arm, a withered old man stepped up to the clerk’s desk.

“My name is Perichilde,” Emma heard the man say behind her. “I believe I am expected.”

ONCE OUTSIDE, EMMA IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZED Lord Byron tied to the rail. A gruff man stroked the horse’s head with great affection. Nicholas helped Emma up into an open two-wheel gig before speaking privately with him. The man nodded approval and waved them off.

The vehicle hadn’t the shine and sparkle of one of Nicholas’s well-kept carriages, but held more of the country sturdiness that defined Northern England. Nicholas climbed up next to Emma, clicked the reins, and engaged the horse in a brisk trot back through the arch and over the stone bridge spanning a nearby river.

Emma stared at the back of an unfamiliar bay. A million questions bubbled from her brain, but the one that raced to her lips surprised even her. “Why are you leaving your horse?”

“I rode him hard to reach you in time. He’s gaining a well-deserved rest while we put some distance between you and your uncle,” he said, expertly guiding the bay away from the inn.

“You intend to return?” Bile rose in her throat. Was this to be a temporary reprieve?

“In due time, of course, but only after the threat from your uncle has been dispensed. I must return the gig, Emma.”

Nicholas directed the horse to turn onto a side road.

“I can’t go back to Pettibone,” Emma stated, panic near the surface. “I fear the Higgins sisters know that I am not, and never was, a widow. I’m afraid their opinion of me has been irreparably altered.”

She remembered the look in Beatrice’s eyes when Emma acknowledged Uncle George. He obviously told them he was seeking his innocent, unmarried niece. Even if her uncle had not mentioned the painting on display in London, and he very well could have while she was unconscious, it would not take long for the two sisters to question, then condemn her visits to Black Oak. Tears blurred her vision, but she hadn’t even the comfort of her mother’s handkerchief to blot them away.

“Perhaps Lady Cavendish will permit my temporary residence,” she said, grasping at a faint hope. “But even she might turn away a social pariah.”

“Emma, I swear to you, I never meant for that painting to go on public exhibition,” Nicholas pleaded.

Emma’s heart softened with compassion, but his sincerity did little to alter her situation. She still had no home. She glanced quickly over her shoulder, half expecting to see her uncle in hot pursuit.

“I may have begun with that purpose in mind,” Nicholas admitted, “but as I came to know you, to respect you, I planned to substitute another painting for
Artemis
. I had crated up a landscape for London.”

The catch in his voice twisted her heart; she placed her hand on his arm. “Your painting deserves the accolades it received,” she said, softly reassuring him. “Your talent belongs on the walls of the Royal Academy. It will be my honor, in the years to come, to say that I knew one of the Empire’s finest talents.”

She managed a smile for him, even though her world looked as bleak as a Yorkshire winter. His star was rising, even as hers had flamed out. “You have a brilliant future before you.”

She squeezed his arm in support before she let go, taking a moment to quickly glance over her shoulder. “I, however, cannot seriously be considered a steward of young girls.”

“Nonsense,” he exclaimed. “You belong at Pettibone. You were meant to teach. Have you not noticed the change in spirit you brought to that school? Have you not noticed how the girls look up to you?”

He glanced her way. “No, I suppose you haven’t. You’ve been so busy maintaining that false charade of yours that you haven’t noticed how much has changed since your arrival.” He hesitated. “How much you have changed since your arrival.”

She twisted around again to check the road behind them.

“You can rest easy,” Nicholas said. “He won’t follow for quite a while. The manager at The George promised to lock him away in his room. That should give us an advantage.”