The Harlow Hoyden (6 page)

This argument was nothing new to Emma. Sarah, Roger and even Lavinia herself had been saying the same thing to her for weeks now. But they were wrong. “Bah, you do not know Windbourne as I know him. Nobody does.”

The duke tried to be patient. “How do you know him then?”

“As an awful man, a tyrant
who would seek to dominate his wife,” she said in tragic tones, “who would isolate her from her family and not let her indulge in her most beloved pastime, raising orchids.”

“If your sister has told you this, I wonder why she still wants to marry him.”

“Lavinia would never be so indiscreet. Windbourne himself told me when he thought I was Lavinia. He said that my, or rather her, willful ways—which,
I might add, is a ridiculous statement to begin with, since dear Lavinia has never done a willful thing in her life—would be tempered once she stopped spending so much time with her hoyden of a sister,” she said, outrage shining from her eyes. Recalling the scene brought back the anger of the moment. How dare he criticize Lavinia’s behavior! Lavinia, who had never done a wrong thing in her
entire life! “And that’s not all. He also said that he hoped she would forget ‘this silly hobby’ of hers. Silly hobby! Growing flowers is not a silly hobby. It’s her passion. At home in Cromford, she spends hours in the nursery and she’s very happy there. Her skill with flowers is unparalleled. Perhaps if I could make such beautiful things come to life I wouldn’t get into trouble quite so much.
But now Sir Windbag has decided that it isn’t proper for his wife to dither around in the dirt. Dither around in the dirt!” Emma knew that she was raising her voice, but she was unable to help it. “I swear to you, Trent, those were his exact words. That pompous twit would dare call my sister’s talent dithering. You should have seen him, puffed up with his own conceit, telling her—
me
—that she mustn’t
worry about raising anything but his children. Really, your grace, if that isn’t a villain, then I don’t know what is.”

During this impassioned speech, the duke’s gaze had softened and in a gentle voice he said, “My dear girl, that doesn’t make him a villain. It makes him a husband.”

Miss Harlow was taken aback by this intelligence and stared at the duke for long moments in silence. “Well,
then,” she said quietly, with little of the usual spirit, “husbands are very wretched things, and I should wonder why anyone would want one.”

“Come, my dear, it’s not all bad,” he insisted, fearing that he might have done more damage than he intended with his offhand comment. “There are some advantages to marriage.”

“Advantages?” she scoffed. “What advantages are there to losing one’s freedom,
for having someone else tell you what you may or may not do?”

As an devoted eluder of the parson’s mousetrap, the duke saw little advantage to marriage, but he was a man. It was different for women. “Children, for one.”

“Bah,” said Emma.

“Bah?” Trent echoed, unsure what to make of this response.

“Yes, bah.”

“Children are a treasure and a joy.”

“To a man, maybe, who would stick his
head into the schoolroom once a sennight to flirt with the pretty governess. It’s the woman’s responsibility to see to their educations and their health and their care—and her unfair burden.” Emma thought of her parents’ marriage. “A man’s life continues in the same vein, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened, while a woman’s is altered irrevocably. I’m not sure that’s an advantage.”

“Miss Harlow, you are being ridiculous.”

“Am I, your grace?” She raised an eyebrow and gave him a very disgusted look. Emma Harlow was used to being called ridiculous—by society, by her family—but for some reason, his saying it was different. She had been so looking forward to their dance, and he had ruined all her lovely plans by being a duke. And now he was ruining them again by being intractable.
“Or perhaps you just insult that which you don’t understand. You are a man, after all, and will one day be a husband. You are all villains in my book. Now excuse me. I shall remove my ridiculous self from your presence.”

She was several steps away when she heard the duke say, “What about this plan of yours? You will give it up, I trust.”

Emma had no intentions of giving it up. “That, your
grace, is none of your business.”

What a willful girl, he thought, as he watched her disappear among the glittering crowd of dancers. Yesterday afternoon when he had met her in the conservatory, he has been charmed by her frank demeanor. He had been looking very forward to their dance this evening and had even been thinking to set up a mild flirtation. Nothing that her mama—or his—could take
exception to but a light dalliance that would distract him from the tedium of yet another season. Emma seemed like an interesting little imp—being where she didn’t belong, taking flowers that weren’t hers—but now he knew the truth. Emma Harlow’s epithet was well earned. Only a hoyden would think such scandalous thoughts about children and a husband, much less utter them in the presence of such an
esteemed personage. The duke admired her honesty and the way she thought for herself, even though they revealed a naiveté he had not thought possible in a young woman of today. She would learn in time that marriage was a woman’s only option. There was nothing worse than dwindling into an old maid. She would realize one day that it was a far better thing to be in the nursery than on the shelf. It
would be an unpleasant discovery for her, but she would adapt. All ladies did in the end.

But in the meantime he would stay out of her way. She would learn these lessons someday, but he was certainly not the man to teach them to her. The Duke of Trent was not interested in green misses. He didn’t have the patience for their flights of fancy. Seduce her sister! He’d never heard such an outrageous
proposal in his entire life. How dare she think that he would do something so infamous. And to call him a libertine! The duke was not a libertine. Perhaps he had too much of a free and easy way with fashionable impures and ladies of easy virtue—could he help it if women found him irresistible?—but he had never played fast and loose with an innocent. And he wouldn’t now. No matter how much the
Harlow Hoyden fluttered her lashes at him.

Returning to the ballroom, the duke saw Philip still at the side of Sarah Harlow. He was looking at the older woman with something akin to worship on his face. The duke felt a flicker of concern. Whatever could Andrew’s sister be saying to put such a face on his hayseed cousin?

“…and then I tried reeling him in, but the boat was unequally balanced
because my brother didn’t believe that I had enough strength to do it myself. Of course the boat tipped over and the trout got away. I was very cross with Andrew for days. Not only had he ruined my chances of catching the largest trout in Lake Muir—and I haven’t completely dismissed the notion that it was intentional; poor Andrew could barely stand it if I hunted
and
fished better than he—but
the unexpected dip in the frigid waters left me with an awful case of the sniffles,” Sarah finished with a laugh that was echoed by her companion.

“That is very similar to what happened to me and my brother,” said Philip eagerly, “only the water was more muddy than frigid and I ruined my best pair of Hessians before I was able to extricate myself from the pond.”

“Well, cub, that’s what you
deserve for fishing in your Hessians,” said the duke to his cousin before devoting his attention elsewhere. “Tell me, Sarah, how did this scamp of a cousin manage to turn the conversation from drawing rooms to unpleasant things like muddy ponds?”

Philip took offense at this. “Dash it, sir, just ’cause Mrs. Harlow and I were talking about fishing don’t mean that I
made
her talk about unpleasant
things. I was just saying—”

“Philip, I believe Lord Sanderson is gesturing to you. See what he wants.”

The young cousin turned in the indicated direction and looked in vain for Lord Sanderson. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. Lord Sanderson isn’t there,” he said.

“Nevertheless, you’re wanted over there.” Trent’s tone would brook no arguments.

Looking confused and a little bit
disappointed, the young man took his leave of Lady Sarah. “It was a pleasure, ma’am, a real pleasure.” He then tried to sketch a bow as he had often seen his sophisticated cousin do. Alas, it was a poor imitation and he wound up bumping into a curmudgeonly dowager who had no patience for the queer starts of callow youths. Amid a cavalcade of exhortations to behave himself, a red-faced Philip slinked
away.

Sarah held her laughter until he was out of earshot.

The duke said, “Sarah, please accept my apologies. If I had known you’d be subjected to a horde of rural tales the whole while, I would never have left you alone with him.”

“Pooh, your grace. I brought the horde of rural tales down on my own head,” she said in defense of the awkward young man. “Upon discovering that Mr. Keswick was
from Yorkshire, I mentioned that I’d been up there once. That led to a lively discussion of fishing.”

The duke didn’t look convinced. “Nevertheless, he’s an exuberant youth and needs to learn some manners.”

Sarah agreed. “That is true, but I wouldn’t be too harsh with him. He means well and he looks up to you. Before we embarked on our rural discussion, we devoted ten minutes to your skill
as a pugilist.”

An amused smile lit his face. “I am well aware of my cousin’s love of pugilism. I had to make him a bargain along those lines to get him to come tonight.”

“Well, your grace?” Sarah said, after a moment.

“Well?” he asked.

“Yes, you certainly didn’t send Mr. Keswick away on a fool’s errand for no particular reason. What do you wish to talk about?”

The duke was not at all
surprised by her reasoning. Andrew’s sister had always been clever. “It’s about Miss Harlow.”

Sarah didn’t have to ask which Miss Harlow. People rarely wanted to talk to her about Vinnie. “Yes?”

“You must watch her carefully,” he cautioned, his eyes sweeping the room in search of the lady in question. “I believe she’s headed for trouble.”

Although she was much distressed to hear this from
the duke, she didn’t show a reaction. She would not discuss family matters with nonfamily members. Still, she was curious. “Oh?” she asked, hoping that alone would convince him to tell more of what he knew.

“Yes, she made the most infam—” The duke broke off. Suddenly it seemed wrong to share privileged information. He had no desire to get Emma into trouble with her family. He just wanted to
keep her from tumbling into another scrape. “Miss Harlow seems unsettled by her sister’s forthcoming nuptials.”

Sarah wondered what the duke had been about to say, but she knew better than to pursue it. “Yes, she is.
Unsettled
is exactly the word.”

“I fear her…unsettledness might lead her into trouble.”

“You needn’t worry yourself, your grace. Emma is just having a hard time adjusting to
the change, which is understandable,” she said with a good deal of the common sense she was known for. “I suspect she’s worried about losing her sister. They’re twins and have been very close their entire lives. There’s no denying that Lavinia’s marriage will alter their relationship some. But once she realizes that these changes are for the better, Emma will calm down and accept it.”

This reasoned
explanation did not reassure the duke at all. “In the meantime, keep a close eye on her. She might do something”—Trent tried to think of a harmless word to describe asking a libertine to seduce her sister—“impetuous.”

He said this in a tone that caused Sarah to look at him sharply. “Your grace, is there something you’re not telling me?”

The duke had no intention of getting drawn into some
other family’s dramas. He had enough of that with his mother and his cousin Philip. “Just watch her,” he said with unusual abruptness before taking his leave.

He walked away knowing full well that Sarah was puzzled by his words and unsatisfied with their talk. He had meant to wash his hands of the whole affair, but when it came time to tell Sarah of Miss Harlow’s scheme, he couldn’t do it.
For some reason, telling had seemed like a betrayal of Miss Harlow’s trust.

In a dark mood, Trent went in search of Pearson. It was time to leave this suffocating place and breathe freely in the smoky room of a gambling hell. What he saw instead was Miss Emma Harlow in the arms of Sir Everett Carson. Now
there
was a libertine, he thought, with disgust. He recalled her intention to find someone
else to help her and marveled at how fast she worked. Not a half hour had gone by and already she had found a suitable candidate, made his acquaintance and charmed him into dancing with her. This from a woman who said her dance card was always empty! The duke watched her with glowering eyes for several minutes, assuring himself that it was not his problem if the silly chit got herself ruined.
He looked around for Sarah. Sarah should be there to warn Emma off a rakehell like Carson. Where was that woman? Why wasn’t she keeping a better eye on her charge? Clearly her own family could not be relied on to keep her out of trouble.

Devil take it,
he thought, his brow blacker than it had ever been,
I’ll keep an eye on her myself!

CHAPTER THREE

Having decided on
a course of action and having been so thoroughly disappointed by the Duke of Trent, Emma decided that the best thing to do was to make up a list of eligible seducers. In order to do that, she needed help. Emma was no more knowledgeable of society rakes than she was of society matrons. Therefore, she called on her friend Kate, an estimable young woman who not
only had entrée to the best drawing rooms but who also had an encyclopedic knowledge of went on in them as well. It was usually Kate who kept Emma abreast of the Harlow Hoyden’s latest exploit.