The Harlow Hoyden (38 page)

“Emma, are
you and the duke…” Before she could finish the sentence, Emma was nodding happily. Sarah felt a lump form in her throat and fought the surge of emotion. Imagine! Emma a duchess. “That is above all things wonderful, my dear. Come, let me give you a hug.”

Emma willingly complied and then stood back as her sister-in-law subjected Trent to similar treatment. “Your brother will be very pleased. Where
is he? I sent Ludlow up fifteen minutes ago.” Sarah sat down in a large armchair by the fire. “This is such a lovely surprise. I had given up on either one of you girls getting married and now both of you are betrothed.”

Vinnie blushed. “Ah, not exactly, Sarah.”

Sarah turned to Vinnie. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve broken off my engagement with Sir Windbourne.”

“But why?”

Vinnie looked so abashed
by this question that Trent stepped in to answer. “That’s what we are here to discuss. As soon as—” The doors opened and admitted Roger, who was strong enough now to climb down the stairs on his own. “Ah, there you, my good fellow. We were just about to start telling our tale.”

Roger accepted Trent’s hand, greeted his sisters with surprisingly strong embraces, inquired after Philip’s health and
took a seat. “Well, you are an unlikely party. Emma, wherever did you get that horrid dress?”

“Roger!” admonished his wife, who thought that Roger should not point out how awful Emma looked on the off chance that her betrothed had not yet noticed.

Roger sent Sarah a confused look.

Emma laughed. “The dress is a cautionary tale of what happens when you leave town without luggage.”

“Yes,” said
Sarah, “do tell us why you had to leave town without luggage, without a companion and without advising your family.”

“It’s not a pretty story,” stated Emma. “It starts with Roger.”

“With Roger?” repeated Sarah.

“Me?”

“Yes, you,” she told her brother. “Does Sarah know about your work for the government?”

“How do you know—” He coughed. “I mean, what work for the government?”

Emma smiled thinly.
“It is too late now, Roger. The cat’s out of the bag. We all know, as did Sir Waldo.”

“What work?” asked Sarah.

Roger looked distinctly uncomfortable. Emma felt little sympathy for him. When one lied to one’s wife and put oneself in danger, one must be prepared to suffer the consequences. “Should you tell her or I?” she asked.

He straightened his shoulders and turned to his wife. “I’ve been
doing a little work for the government. Nothing very important, really, just passing along information from the Home Office to some of our operatives in the field, here and in France.”

“But why?” Sarah asked, hardly able to digest this information. “The war is over, is it not?” Reading Sarah’s expression, Emma knew that Roger would have to give a more thorough account of himself when they were
alone.

Roger shook his head sadly. “We know that Napoléon is planning to escape St. Helena, but we don’t know when or how. His most trusted generals have gathered in Corsica and are even now scheming to invade England.” He looked at each of their shocked faces. “This is top-secret information, you understand. It doesn’t leave this room.”

Emma nodded. “Your messages were being intercepted by
Windbag.”

“Impossible!”

“Not quite,” said Vinnie with wry humor. “He had a key to your private drawer, and as my fiancé, he had free run of the house. Indeed, it was rather easy for him. Emma caught him in the act.”

Roger looked at Emma for confirmation. She nodded. Still, he could scarcely credit it. “But how did he know?”

“Someone in the Home Office betrayed you,” Emma said.

“Who?” he
asked, his voice low and dangerous.

“We don’t know that yet,” answered Trent, “but we have a plan.”

“A stupid plan,” muttered Vinnie.

“I think it’s a fine plan,” said Philip, who had been quiet until now. “Emma’s the best choice. I’d do it myself, only I ain’t so agile with this cane. And no one in his right mind would go after Trent. Everyone knows he’s a master shot and good with his fists.”

“What’s this plan?” Roger asked, a suspicion already forming.

Before explaining her plan, Emma went back to the beginning, to the afternoon in the study when Windbourne came in to do his dastardly business. The telling took a while, for everyone broke in with different remembrances, and Emma, fed up with the interruptions, insisted that Trent finish the story.

Roger didn’t like the plan any
better than Vinnie, but he reluctantly admitted that telling his superiors that Emma knew the name of his betrayer was the surest way to learn his identity.

“I do not like it,” said Sarah.

“None of us like it,” said Trent.

“But she has already been through so much horror.”

“Pooh,” dismissed Emma, glad that her sister-in-law could not see the awful-looking bruises on her neck. “What I have
been through can only be categorized as discomfort. And with our country’s safety at stake, how can I cavil at a few more moments of discomfort?”

Sarah knew it wasn’t that simple. “But your life will be at stake!”

“Trent will protect me, and besides, as I’ve demonstrated in the past, I can take care of myself.”

“Fending off a few overeager suitors is not the same as confronting a murderer,”
Sarah said, making what she thought was a very good point.

“We do not know that he’s a murderer,” Emma reasoned. “He might only be a traitor.”

Sarah was unimpressed by this argument. “A man who would betray his country is without conscience.”

Emma threw up her hands. She’d never known Sarah to be so difficult. “All right, then provide us with another plan and we will happily abandon our imperfect
one.”

Sarah had several ideas that she thought were quite good, but either Roger or Trent or Emma—or all of them together—shot each of them down. It seemed that anything they did put someone’s life at risk. She finally agreed.

“Excellent,” said Emma. “So first thing in the morning Roger will visit the Home Office and make them aware that Windbourne told me the name of his informant. However,
to everyone’s dismay, I passed out from a head wound before I could reveal the name but the doctor believes I should wake up within the next twenty-four hours.”

Roger nodded. “A specified amount of time will ensure that the villain will move swiftly.”

“And be sure to mention the part where I am lying in bed unattended in a largely deserted house,” Emma added.

“Good,” said Trent standing up.
“I think I should get Philip home. No doubt my family is wondering what happened to us, and I’m sure that Emma and Vinnie haven’t had much rest since their adventure began.”

Emma fought a blush as images from her night with Trent played in her mind. She seemed to have developed the habit of recalling her fiancé’s naked body at the most inopportune times. She faked a yawn to hide her embarrassment.
“Yes, I’m thoroughly exhausted. And I’m longing to get out of this awful dress.”

Now Trent’s eyes blazed as he recalled how close he himself had come to getting her out of that awful dress. He cocked his head to the side, indicating that he wanted a quiet word with Emma. They stood in the corner of the elegantly appointed room surrounded by her family.

He lowered his head and said softly, “I’ll
hardly be able to sleep tonight without you in my bed.”

Her color rose. “Alex,” she said, wanting him to stop and continue at the same time.

He smiled, pleased by her charming response. “I will be back here tomorrow before Roger leaves. I do not want to take any chances.”

“Excellent, then we’ll spend hours and hours in my bed chamber. Whatever will we do to pass the time?” she asked innocently.

“Nothing distracting, imp, and I don’t think we’ll be alone, so abandon your lascivious thoughts. I suspect Roger will be taking a pistol and hiding behind a curtain, too.”

“Oh, well, a girl can dream, can’t she?”

“Yes, and I hope she does—of me.”

His betrothed thought this was rather likely.

Emma tied her dressing gown around her waist, luxuriating in the feel of her own clean clothing
against her skin, and knocked on her sister’s door.

Vinnie’s maid opened the door to reveal Vinnie sitting in front of the mirror brushing her hair. “That will be all, Emily. Thank you for your help.”

“Tis luvely to have ye back, miss,” said the soft-spoken girl. She smiled thinly at Emma. “Ye too, miss.”

When the maid had closed the door Emma said, “Liar.”

“What’s that?” Vinnie put down
the brush.

“I was calling into question the veracity of your maid,” she said, sitting down on the edge of the pink-covered bed. “I know for a fact she isn’t happy I’m back.”

“What ridiculousness.”

“Lucy says Emily hates doing the mending and that there’s always twice as much when I’m in residence.”

“Well, you won’t be here for long.” Vinnie fluffed a pillow against the headboard and sat down
across from Emma. “I get the feeling from Trent that you’ll be bothering other servants with your torn dresses before the week is out.”

“Yes, he does seem eager to leg-shackle himself to the infamous Harlow Hoyden. You’d think a man of his age and experience would know better.”

“He does, which is why he is so determined to see it done right and proper as fast as humanly possible.” Vinnie sighed
and fell silent for a moment, suddenly reflective. “It’s funny, isn’t it?”

“What?” asked Emma, lying back on the bed and turning her head to face her sister.

“Well, here you are getting married, after you swore up and down that you never would, and I, who always longed for children, am suddenly thinking that the role of spinster aunt might suit me fine.”

Emma sat up and took her sister’s hand.
“Vinnie, just because your first fiancé turned out to be a villainous traitor doesn’t mean that you won’t find someone else. You mustn’t start thinking again that you’ll wind up on the shelf. You won’t, Vinnie. You’re smart and interesting and passably pretty and funny and you can have any man you want.”

Vinnie laughed and extricated her hand. “Not quite any man I want but I will agree that I
stand a reasonable chance of catching a husband if I want one. See,” she said, a hint of pride in her voice, “I’m not quite as insecure now as I was before I met Windbourne. But I’ve realized that my flowers are so much more than a hobby, and I can’t give them up. Trent suggested that I write some pamphlets for the—”

“Trent suggest it?” she asked.

“Yes. They’d be just for the Horticultural Society
and the topic would be boring drainage systems,” she rushed to explain, “but it was very flattering to be asked, don’t you think?”

“Yes, very flattering indeed.”

After a long pause, Vinnie said, “I’ve been thinking of writing a book on how to grow orchids.”

“You have?” She turned away so that her sister wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. Vinnie would only ask what was wrong, and she’d be at
a loss to explain. Indeed, she didn’t know why she was crying. Perhaps it was because Trent was so good or because her sister was finally realizing her own worth.

“Yes, I even have a few chapters already done. I’d be honored if you’d read them. One or two pages are a little scorched. Sir Waldo dropped them into the fire by mistake.”

She wiped away a tear. “Of course, although I’m sure I won’t
understand half of it.”

“Oh, but you should. I’ve written it with people like you in mind.”

“Simpletons who don’t know a trowel from a rhizome?”

“Beginners. Really, Emma, you are attaching yourself the finest orchid grower in the country. I don’t think you’ll stay disinterested for long.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” said Emma, thinking how dreadfully dull it must be to watch plants grow.
“And you have it the wrong way around, my dear. It is Trent who is attaching himself to the finest orchid grower in the country.”

“And
I’m
not so sure about that. But no matter, I will devote myself to my flowers for a few years, and if I happen to meet a man who sets my head spinning the way Trent does yours, then I’ll consider the prospect. Until then….”

“Trent does not set my head spinning!”
she protested. “What a perfectly ridiculous phrase.”

“Really? Only a girl whose head isn’t on straight goes down to the wine cellar in order to escape hearing about her sister’s ride through the park.” Vinnie giggled.

A thought struck Emma. “You did it on purpose!”

“If you can’t torment your lovesick sister, then who can you torment?”

Emma couldn’t quite raise the proper amount of outrage.
It had been she who cast the first stone when she’d formulated her plan to have Trent seduce Vinnie. The clock on the wall struck ten and Emma rolled off the bed. “I’m thoroughly exhausted, my dear, and want nothing more than to sleep for hours and hours.” She kissed her still laughing sister on the forehead. “I will see you tomorrow, and we’ll talk more about this torment you imposed on me. I’m
suddenly suspicious of a whole host of incidents.”