The Harlow Hoyden (22 page)

Emma watched Trent walk away with an awful ache in the pit of her stomach. Although she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, she had the strangest feeling that something
momentous had just happened. Something momentous had just happened—and she missed it.

She knew her behavior had been for the best. Even if she had given in to her weakest feelings and admitted that their moment in the carriage had meant something—and it did mean something to her—no good would come of it. Emma would not find her own happiness at the expense of her sister’s. And she wasn’t convinced
that happiness lay with Trent. He was dashing and charming and a wonderful, trustworthy friend, but he was also a man about town. His behavior and beliefs were commensurate with the behavior and beliefs of every other man who lived in London. It was acceptable for a man to be unfaithful. It is within his rights to keep a mistress. Emma knew she would chafe under such conditions. She couldn’t
maintain the comfortable fiction of ignorance, as she was expected to do, especially if she were to marry Trent. Her heart could not bear his betrayal and her self-respect would not allow it. She would have to divorce him or take him and his mistress to task in public or something equally scandalous that would have her family forever frowning on her with disapproval. No, it was better this way.
It might hurt for a little while, but Emma was convinced that the pain would eventually go away. If he and Lavinia eventually made a match of it, then she would be happy for them. She was a grown woman who was in control of her life. She would not be done in by so meager a thing as love.

CHAPTER NINE

Although Emma never
said anything to the contrary, Lavinia knew instantly that something disastrous had happened between her and Trent. She had seen them walk out onto the balcony together and return separately. When the duke had left she’d caught the defeated look on his face and tried to discover its cause. But try as she might to capture the duke’s attention, he avoided her
eyes with single-minded dedication. A few minutes later, he left the ball. He did not pause to say good-bye. Almost a half hour after this strange episode, Emma returned. For all intents and purposes, she looked exactly the same as she had earlier, but Vinnie could swear that something was different now. Emma had changed on some imperceptible level.

Vinnie didn’t expect her to talk about Trent
during the carriage ride home because Sir Waldo was with them, but as soon as he said good night, she prepared herself for a barrage of questions. It never came. Instead, Emma complimented the food and the music and the decorations. She had a nice thing to say about everything, except Trent. She had nothing to say about Trent. When Vinnie herself had tried to raise the issue, she was left high
and dry. Upon hearing his name, Emma yawned widely and excused herself.

In the morning, Emma looked well rested and healthy. She partook voraciously of breakfast and chatted mindlessly through the entire meal. Vinnie didn’t know what to make of this. She had expected listlessness and a chalky appearance like the last time. That Emma seemed so untroubled troubled her sister greatly, and she
wrote to Trent requesting an interview. Vinnie knew better than to try to learn anything from her sister. The duke had been extremely helpful and good-humored on other occasions. She assumed he would be so now, but a note came back from his secretary informing her that his grace was out of town on business. She wrote back asking when his return was anticipated, but the unsatisfying reply was imprecise.
He was expected back anytime in the next four weeks.

Now Lavinia felt deep concern. That her sister was acting oddly by not acting oddly was only to be expected but for the duke to behave in unusual ways was a twist that Vinnie had not foreseen, and it made her cross. She relied on him to be the sensible one. What could have sent him off for four weeks in the middle of the season? She considered
the very real possibility that some great emergency had called him away but quickly dismissed it. The duke would not have left under those circumstance without a note. No, for him to disappear like this meant that Emma did something very stupid. Vinnie racked her brain for an answer. Again and again she came back to the Northrup ball and the defeated look on the duke’s face. She recalled the
determination with which the duke had tried to get an audience with Emma. The Northrup affair was the first chance he’d had to speak privately with her. Vinnie wondered what he’d wanted to talk to her about. Could it have been an offer of marriage? No, she dismissed, even Emma would not be such a fool to turn down an offer from a man like Trent.

Or could she?

Vinnie thought about her sister
and how she had always been adamant about never marrying. Although Vinnie respected Emma’s convictions, she hadn’t really expected her to stick to them, not when confronted with a prospect. It was one thing to toss away marriage as an abstract idea and quite another when a man was attached to the offer.
But this is Emma,
Vinnie reminded herself.
Emma, who never does things like other people.

Having come to the conclusion that Emma must have rejected the duke, Vinnie turned her thoughts to Trent. She could understand her sister’s behavior but what explanation could there be for his? The Duke of Trent was not the sort of man to run away without provocation. He was an experienced man of the world who had courted a great many experienced ladies. Surely he could overcome one green girl’s
fears? He knew her well enough to choose the right words, to assure her that when two people love each other marriage was a sort of freedom. Emma was a passionate creature and could never deny his heart. All he had to do was tell her what was in it. How could he have botched it so thoroughly?

Sitting at the escritoire, Vinnie made a vow to interfere one last time. If she had misread the situation
and Emma and Trent were not fated, then so be it. But she must first hear it from the duke. He must convince her that he was
not
in love with Emma. She would gladly abandon the field under those conditions. But if there was some misunderstanding between them, she would not rest until it was sorted out. She couldn’t let her two favorite people throw away their one chance at happiness. Happiness
was too rare an animal to play fast and loose with.

She chose the wording of her letter carefully, assuring him it was a matter of great importance. She purposely kept the details vague, hoping that the duke’s curiosity as much as his concern would bring him to her doorstep. And she was reasonably confidant that he’d be turning up on her doorstep soon. Trent was too much of a gentleman to ignore
a lady’s cry for help and would respond instinctively. In a few days time, she would have him in the drawing room, and she would sit him down and tell him about Emma’s fears of marriage. No doubt he would renew his suit.

Vinnie signed the letter, put it in the post and went about her daily business, confident that in a little while everything would be nicely sorted out.

Emma stayed close to
home in the days following the Northrup ball. While Sarah and Vinnie were out shopping, she spent hours with Roger talking about the war in France and their childhood and favorite authors. Emma left her collection of Sir Walter Scott adventures for her brother, and when she observed that he hadn’t touched them, she began reading them aloud. Although this was a new experience for Emma, she had a knack
for it. She read long passages without ever once losing her place, and she had a variety of voices to call upon. Roger carelessly remarked that her talent would come in handy when she had children, and Emma chose that moment to excuse herself. Roger did not notice that anything was the matter.

As long as something did not remind her of Trent, Emma was as happy and content as she’d ever been.
During those long hours by Roger’s bedside, she had convinced herself that nothing had changed. But if something made her think of him—and this did not require much, for his name need not be mentioned—she would be overcome by an almost uncontrollable feeling of sadness. Sometimes it took all her strength to return to her room before the tears began slipping down her cheeks. Emma was not used to tears
and only gave herself a further disgust by indulging them.

She knew the problem was inactivity, but she was trapped. It was the middle of the season and no one would countenance her returning to Hill Crest Park, where she could take her horse, Titan, on blistering rides through the fields. Never one to be idle in the best of times, Emma longed now for an occupation. She would no longer interfere
with Vinnie’s business—at least not for the time being. She would observe from a quiet distance her courtship with Trent, but she wouldn’t do anything to further it. She admitted there was only so much a concerned sister could do, and she resolved to be more supportive of Vinnie’s choices, assuming she made the right ones. If the plan with Trent did not work out, she would devise another one.
But not for another few months yet. She would wait until they were back in the country, where things were clearer and less complicated. Once they were back at Hill Crest it would all make sense. They still had seven months until the wedding. Anything could happen in seven months.

Checking in on Roger now, Emma was disappointed to see that he was sleeping. She would have preferred company than
to be alone with her thoughts, but she knew sleep was the best thing for him. His recovery had been going smoothly, and the doctor had just yesterday pronounced Roger healthy enough to get out of bed. He had spent much of the early morning downstairs in the dining room taking breakfast with his family. It had clearly worn him out.

She decided to go to the study, to read quietly by the fire.
One was rarely disturbed in the study, and she chose a large wingback chair facing the window. It was an unusually sunny day in London, and she could hear the sound of birds chirping. She smiled, curled up in the chair and started to read.

Emma passed many undisturbed hours in this fashion and when she heard the door to the room open, she furrowed her brow in annoyance. She planned on doing
the polite thing and announcing her presence immediately, but when she caught Sir Waldo’s reflection in the glass window, she help her tongue. She was in no mood to be mistaken for Lavinia this afternoon. She curled up into a ball, so that Windbag wouldn’t see her blond tresses from above the chair and waited for him to leave. Once he had assured himself that his fiancée was not here, he’d look elsewhere.
Sir Windbag was not the sort of man who liked quiet introspective afternoons in deserted studies

But the next sound Emma heard was not of a figure departing but of a drawer opening. Emma assumed he was looking for writing paper, and she wished he’d get on with it. Really, if it was writing paper he was looking for, he needn’t have come so far. There were plenty of note cards in the escritoire
in the drawing room. Impatient now, Emma silently shifted positions and curled her head around the side of the chair. She saw the baron flipping through a file and wondered what he was about. Her family’s private documents were none of Windbag’s business. When he took a document, folded it up and stuck it into his coat, she could barely choke down a shout of protest. Really, the gall of the man
was insupportable. She herself had rifled through his private papers but had the decency not to take a thing.

The baron returned the folder to its drawer, and to
Emma’s amazement, he locked the cabinet. She stayed in her knotted position until she was sure that he was gone and would not return. Then she straightened her stiff arms and legs and ran to the drawer to try to open it herself. It
was locked.
How dare he have our key?
she thought, irate at this development.
And how dare he steal from us!
The truly baffling thing for Miss Harlow was Windbag’s motivation. Why would he be poking around in their things and what could they possibly have that he’d want? Her own late-night prowling had been spurred on by a desire to discredit him. Why would
he
want to discredit the Harlows? Even
if he was searching for a reason to jilt Vinnie, she could not condone it. What right did that pompous jackanapes have to end an engagement with her far superior sister?

Emma decided there was only one course of action open to her. She would not know more until she had laid eyes on the paper he had stolen. There were two options. She could get her hands on the sheet now, while it was still in
her house, or she could wait until Windbag brought it home and put it in his file cabinet. The latter approach was clearly the less attractive one: It required a greater amount of risk and offered no guarantee of success. There was no assuming that he’d file the document right away. It could remain in his jacket pocket for several days, and she was not foolhardy enough to try to invade his dressing
room. There was nothing for it. She would have to look at the document today, right this minute. She could not take the chance of his leaving with it.

Straightening her hair and flattening the wrinkles from her dress, for Vinnie would never appear in public in a wrinkled dress, she left the study in search of Sir Waldo. She found him in the front parlor standing by a window.

He smiled in
greeting. “Ah, there you are, “ he said, coming to take her hands. Emma was confused by this show of affection, but she played along, grasping his sweaty palms without a word a complaint. “I was just about to take my leave. Ludlow said you were away from home.”

“Ludlow was confused,” she said. “I was visiting with Roger.”

“Ah, yes, young Roger. I trust he’s recovering well?”

“Very nicely,”
answered Emma, wondering if she’d have the courage to follow through with her hastily conceived plan. When she had entered the room, she’d had no thought as to how she would achieve her goal. Part of her had hoped that he’d taken off his jacket, thus making the task an easy one. But the room was cool and Windbag wasn’t the sort to undress in another’s parlor. However, the hand holding had given
her an idea. “We expect he’ll be participating in the social whirl again by the end of the month.”