The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance (52 page)

Angelique slid her arms round his neck and kissed him deeply. He growled and pulled her against his body, claiming her as his own, finally.

“Shall we go and see if Squire Stillwater’s son-in-law will perform the service?” he asked when they finally broke apart.

“Oh yes, my love,” Angelique whispered. “’Tis all I’ve ever wanted.

Number 12, George Street was a lovely home. It was new, built only in the last ten years, and contained all the modern conveniences, with well-fitted windows and floors that only squeaked a little and chimneys with impeccable draw. It was part of a row of terraced houses, with a neat little garden out back and smart marble steps with a blue-painted iron railing in front. Emmaline Bowen loved her little home, even though it wasn’t nearly as grand as the country manor where she’d once lived as Lady Bowen. Unlike Bowen Lodge, this house was all hers. She liked being able to paint the walls any colour she liked, from the bright yellow of her small dining room to the vivid turquoise of her bedroom walls. It was a joy to open her eyes in the morning and see that blue, brighter than a robin’s egg. She often lay still for a moment, thinking that heaven must be such a colour. She said as much to her maid one morning, when the girl brought her morning tea.

“Heaven, milady?” Jane blinked suspiciously.

Emma waved one hand, leaning back against her pillows and sipping the hot tea. “Just look at the sky! Can’t you see what I mean?”

Jane peered out the window. “I see clouds. Great, rolling grey ones. The blue won’t last today.”

“You’re old before your time,” Emma told her, putting down the tea and rising from the bed. “If there are clouds on the horizon, I’d better get out and enjoy the sun while it lasts.”

“Won’t be long, from the looks of it,” muttered Jane.

Emma ignored her, going to the wardrobe and opening the doors. She took out her favourite dress, the yellow-striped morning gown with pale-green ribbons. “I’ll finish my breakfast in the garden,” she said. Jane merely nodded, with one more jaundiced glance out the window, and left. Emma shook her head as she unbuttoned her nightgown; poor Jane, to be so dour at such a young age. She must not have had a chance to learn one of life’s hard truths — that sometimes the only way to keep from raging in bitterness was to smile and laugh, even if you must force yourself to do it.

By the time she went downstairs, armoured against any greyness of the day with her bright yellow dress, Jane had put together a tray with breakfast. Carrying her own small tea tray, Emma led the way into the garden, where the sun was blindingly bright. Only if she shaded her eyes and squinted at the horizon could she see the line of grey lurking in the distance. Like the sun, she ignored those dark clouds. She set down her tray on a small table in the dazzling light.

“You’ll want a parasol, ma’am,” said Jane. “And a shawl.”

“I shall want neither,” replied Emma firmly. “I mean to enjoy the sun this morning. But since you dread the coming rain, please go open the windows to air the house before the deluge comes.”

Jane peered at the sky. “Before dinner,” she said grimly. “Thunderstorms, with lightning and flooding.”

“Go on,” said Emma, trying not to laugh. The maid cast her an aggrieved look before heading back inside. Emma settled into her seat and picked up her tea. She raised her face to the sun. Just a few minutes couldn’t freckle her complexion too badly, and she would regret missing the chance if Jane’s predictions of thunderstorms came true.

As she sat in peaceful solitude, her ears caught the clink of china and the rustle of a newspaper from over the fence. Her neighbour must also be enjoying his breakfast outdoors. A moment later a deep voice called, “Is that you, Lady Bowen?”

“Yes, Captain Quentin,” she called back. “Good morning.”

“Indeed it is, although my man assures me it will rain later.”

She smiled. “My maid predicted the same thing. Perhaps they are comparing notes before we wake.”

The sound of his chuckle drifted across the high fence. “Ah, but Godfrey looks forward to the rain. It will wash the steps so he does not have to sweep them.”

“He must mention it to Jane, who does not.”

“He will be sure to tell her about the hurricane we encountered in the Caribbean Sea.”

“Perhaps he had better not speak to her, then,” Emma replied at once. “She will be certain it is a hurricane approaching, and wish to board up the windows.”

The Captain laughed. Emma felt the rich, deep sound right through her body. Captain Quentin had a very nice laugh. It went well with his voice. It was a lovely coincidence her neighbour liked spending as much time in his garden as she did in hers. He had done so many things she had never dreamed of: sailed around the Horn of Africa, been to India, seen the fantastical creatures who lived far out at sea, weathered storms and pirates and all manner of adventure. When he asked — very politely — about her own life, Emma had to laugh, a little embarrassed. She’d had no adventures. She had married sensibly, not very happily, and never travelled more than fifty miles from Sussex. They often talked over the wall that divided their properties. The Captain would tell her about his adventures, and she would sit and listen, letting herself drift out of her quiet little life and imagine seeing what he had seen.

And if the sound of his voice sometimes seemed to weave a spell over her, and made her think he was taking her with him to these fantastic places … She didn’t let herself think too much about that. He was being polite and friendly, sharing his tales, and she was being an idiot, wondering what it would be like to swim in the tropical ocean. To feel the warm water — as warm as any bath, he said, and as clear and blue as the sky — sluicing over her skin. To lie on the sand and stare at the stars on a moonless night. To feel the wind on her face as they sailed into the unknown.

But that’s what she thought of, and what made her smile, safely hidden on her side of the brick wall. The Captain would never know.

“When did you encounter a hurricane?” she asked, as much to hear him talk as to know the story. “Are they really as terrible as the stories say?”

“They are worse, and yet magnificent. The ocean itself seems to turn on you, as if it would swallow you up, tear you to pieces and fling you to the corners of the world. A man discovers his true feelings about life and death when faced by a hurricane, since he is balanced perfectly between the two, and only the storm can decide which will be his lot …”

Emma settled back into her chair and closed her eyes.

Number 14, George Street was a grim little house, with narrow stairs and low ceilings and all sorts of things meant to be conveniences, which were never very convenient. After a neat, efficient ship’s interior, Phineas Quentin could hardly believe the carelessness that obviously had gone into building this row of terraced houses in the growing city of London, for all that it was almost new. He had bought it upon his retirement from the Navy five months ago, thinking he would soon get used to being settled ashore, and instead found himself missing the ocean more than ever. He missed the wide-open sky above him, and the rolling expanse of ocean below him. He missed the camaraderie of officers aboard ship, and the regimented routine of life on a frigate. Now he found himself living mostly alone, in a dark little house, crowded right up close to its neighbours, penned in from the sun and wind like an invalid.

In fact, one thing alone had kept him from selling the house. Number 14 was directly beside Number 12, and Number 12 happened to house the loveliest woman Phineas had ever laid eyes on. Two days after he’d moved in, when crates and boxes still filled the house and he couldn’t even find the strop for his razor, she’d knocked on the door, bearing a large jar of gooseberry preserves and smiling in welcome. Phineas had opened the door in his shirtsleeves, unshaven and impatient, and been rendered speechless by the sight of her. From the top of her golden brown curls to the tips of her slippers, Lady Bowen was dazzling in the morning sun, and simply perfect in Phin’s eyes. No matter how many times he cracked his head on the too-short doorway at the end of the hall or stubbed his toe on the narrow tread where the stairs turned, he wouldn’t have sold the house for any amount of money.

With the calculation of an admiral, he had set out to learn all he could about his beautiful neighbour. Lady Bowen was the widow of a baronet, a much older man who died of a weak heart. She was too genteel to say anything against her stepson, but her maid was not, and Phin’s man Godfrey had gotten every last scrap of gossip about the new baronet. Tight with money and critical of his stepmother, Sir William Bowen had not wanted her to leave Sussex. The maid was of the opinion that the Baronet had thought to keep her under his thumb as an unpaid housekeeper and hold on to her widow’s jointure. Phin was heartily glad the man was an ogre, for it kept Lady Bowen in London, right next door to him. He liked her humour. He admired her optimistic spirit. He loved the sound of her voice and the way her hair would escape her bonnet and curl madly around her temples when she worked in the garden and he wanted to get her into his bed like he had never wanted anything else in his life.

He had known that last bit since the moment she stood on his front steps and smiled up at him with those velvet brown eyes, but he had waited these last five months to be sure he liked the rest of her. He needed to choose the right approach. If she were one sort of lady, it might be only an affair. If she were another sort, he might do well to run the other way immediately, no matter how badly he wanted to have her. But everything about Lady Bowen indicated she was another sort of lady entirely, and somewhat to Phin’s surprise, he was rather pleased when he realized it. She wasn’t the sort a man trifled with, or the sort who squeezed a man by the ballocks for fun; she was the sort a man fell in love with and married.

That was all well and good by Phineas, except that he didn’t know how to court a woman. He had flirted with many and had had a few agreeable affairs, but never had he approached a woman with such serious intent. It was daunting. Every time they talked in the garden, divided by a brick wall that came to his head, he wished he could see her face to know if she really were as interested as she sounded, or if she listened out of politeness. Even as he fell a little bit more every time he spoke to Lady Bowen, he felt less and less sure of what she thought of him.

Did she really want to know about hurricanes, he wondered now, or was it just an extension of that dreadful polite conversation about the weather? He tried his best to make his accounts of life at sea interesting, and left out all the bad parts. But he was describing a storm that had killed five members of his crew and broken his mizzenmast, and left them run aground on a sandbar for a week before they could coax their wounded ship into port. Twice he found himself straying into unpleasant details, and had to stop abruptly. The last thing he wanted to do was to shock and alarm her. If only he could see her face …

Then and there, Phineas decided it was time to stop talking over a garden wall. He would have to call on Lady Bowen and discover her true feelings, and what — if any — chance he had.

Emma never enjoyed her mother’s visits.

Mrs Hayton arrived late that morning, just as Emma finished cleaning the parlour. She was hot and dusty when her mother appeared in the parlour door, looking as cool and dignified as ever.

“Dusting, Emma dear?” she asked with a trace of disdain.

“Yes, Mother. Someone must dust, and Jane is busy upstairs airing the beds.”

“You need more servants.”

“I have all the servants I need.” Emma pulled off her cap and grimaced as dust settled on her dress.

“No,” her mother corrected her, “you have all the servants you can afford. There is a vast difference.”

She shrugged. “Not in this case.” She set aside her cap and dusting cloth, and made herself smile. “How are you, Mother? You’re looking very well.”

“I do not have to dust my own parlour. It is far easier to look well when you haven’t got—” She tsked in dismay. “Emma, you have cobwebs in your hair.”

“They don’t hurt.” She brushed one hand over her head. “Will you take some tea?”

“Yes,” murmured her mother, a jaundiced eye still fixed on Emma’s dusty, cobwebbed hair. “Please.”

The real reason for her mother’s appearance became clear as they sat and sipped their tea in the newly cleaned parlour. “I saw Lord Norton the other day,” she remarked. “He asked me to give you his regards.”

“Thank you,” murmured Emma, steeling herself. She had heard this introduction too many times in the last two years not to know what was coming next.

“His wife died over a year ago,” Mrs Hayton went on relentlessly. “I shouldn’t think he’ll wait much longer to wed again, what with a pair of daughters in his nursery.”

“I wish him very happy.” Emma, too, could be relentless, in ignoring her mother’s hints.

“Darling, you must know he would be a fine match for you.” Mother abandoned subtlety. “He is a viscount — not an old title, ’tis true, nor the wealthiest, but a good step up from a baronet.”

“I don’t need to marry a viscount. I don’t want to marry Lord Norton.” Mrs Hayton drew breath to respond, and Emma tried to forestall her. “I am happy as I am.”

“Happy?” Her mother looked her up and down. “Dusting your own parlour and wearing last year’s fashions?”

Independent, thought Emma. Free. “Yes. I shall wear this dress until it falls apart, and I adore dusting.”

Her mother wrinkled her nose. “Nobody adores dusting, and that dress is horrid.”

“Nevertheless, I like it. And I wouldn’t marry Lord Norton if he were to show up and prostrate himself before me.” Which he wouldn’t, because Viscount Norton thought himself a great deal better than any of Emma’s family. Her mother was scheming above herself again, unflagging in her quest for better connections at any cost.