The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance (53 page)

Thankfully, Jane interrupted whatever her mother might have said next. The maid tapped at the door and came in. “You’ve a caller, ma’am,” she said. “A gentleman.”

Emma blinked in surprise. Gentlemen never came to call on her. Across from her, Mother’s head came up and her eyes sharpened, like a hound scenting a fox. “Indeed,” Emma said quickly. “Who is it?”

Jane hurried over to hand her the card.

“Oh!” She gave a little relieved laugh as she read it. “Captain Quentin! Jane, you gave me such a start, when it’s only my neighbour.”

“But I never seen him in uniform,” said Jane mulishly. “He looks much finer than a neighbour ought …”

Mrs Hayton turned to look at Emma, eyebrows arched in enquiry. “I did not know you had a new neighbour.”

“Oh, yes. He bought Number 14 a few months ago.” Emma kept her expression placid. “A retired naval officer.”

“Is he …?” Mama paused, eying Emma expectantly. “Amiable?”

“Perfectly, the few times I’ve spoken to him.” She got to her feet. “I wonder why he’s come to call. Mama, would you mind—?”

“Oh yes, I really must be going.” Mrs Hayton rose with a smile. “Will you walk me out, dear?”

Emma took a deep breath. “Of course.”

They met Captain Quentin in the hall. Jane was right; he did look finer than a neighbour ought. Finer than she had expected him to look, Emma realized. He wore his uniform, which made him look very tall and impressive in her narrow hall. Although, to be honest, she had only met him a handful of times outside of their garden chats. Even though she felt fairly well acquainted with him, she had almost never seen him so clearly or so close, with his dark hair brushed neatly back, his shoulders broad in his dark-blue coat, his legs long and powerful in his white breeches. He looked overwhelmingly male, and Emma had to consciously divert her mind from that fact.

She introduced her mother to him, and then Mother left, acting suspiciously uninterested in the Captain. Emma said a quick prayer that was so, and ushered her guest into the parlour. Jane had hastily whisked away the tea tray, and Emma asked her to bring a fresh one. She didn’t know if the Captain would like tea, but she didn’t have much spirits in the house. Not that she knew he drank spirits, either. She had some port; perhaps she should offer that? But it wasn’t even noon yet …

She gathered her scattered thoughts. “How nice of you to call, Captain,” she said as they sat down.

“I ought to have done so much sooner.” He sat in the chair by the window, where the sun fell full and warm on him, and smiled at her. Emma felt the room tilt around her. He had blue eyes, the same blue as her heavenly bedroom walls. Her neighbour was a handsome, impressive figure of a man, much more so than she had realized. For a moment she stared, transfixed.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

She jerked her gaze away from his and smiled. “Not at all! It just seems odd to speak to you face to face. We have talked so much over the fence, and so rarely called on each other.”

“The failing is mine,” he said with a rueful laugh, “and one I mean to correct.”

Still cringing from being caught staring, Emma barely heard him. “Of course,” she said, then blushed in realization as speculative surprise lit his face. And his eyes. “I m-mean,” she stammered, “that would be lovely. Of course we should feel free to call on each other more, as neighbours.”

“Yes.” He regarded her thoughtfully. “As neighbours.”

She took a deep breath. “And as more, I hope. I do so enjoy our conversations in the garden.”

“I do, Lady Bowen.” Again he smiled at her. Fine lines crinkled around his eyes. “Very much so.”

Well. Her heart skipped a beat. Why had he called on her today? She found herself smiling back. How silly she would feel if he had merely come to tell her Jane dumped the dishwater too near his steps.

But before she could hear why he had come, the door opened. “Dear me, I seem to have forgotten my gloves,” announced Mother. Her eyes darted between the two of them. “Please forgive me.”

“Not at all, Mrs Hayton.” Captain Quentin was on his feet already.

“I was some distance down the street when I realized I didn’t have them.” She smiled prettily at the Captain. “I am so sorry to disturb your visit.”

“Of course not,” said the Captain.

“Where did you leave them?” Emma asked, trying not to glare at her mother. She should have expected this. “I didn’t see them after you left.”

“Well, let me see …” Mother turned her head from side to side, her eyes large and limpid. “I don’t see them — oh dear, they are my favourites, I shall be so distressed to lose them …”

“Nonsense,” said Captain Quentin gallantly. “They are sure to be here somewhere. Let us look for them.”

Emma, who knew very well her mother hadn’t gone anywhere other than the chair where the Captain now sat, set to work, checking the table and looking behind the chair. Under Mother’s direction, the captain looked under all the furniture and behind all the cushions. When Mrs Hayton exclaimed happily that she had found the gloves, Emma was sure Mother had slipped them out of her reticule. Then she thanked the Captain profusely, and before long she was sitting around the tea tray with them. Just as Emma knew she had intended, when she came back on such a flimsy pretence.

She didn’t waste any time getting around to her purpose, either. “How nice of you to pay a neighbourly call, Captain,” she said, smiling at him with an almost adoring air. “I’d no idea my daughter had a new neighbour.”

“Not so new,” he said, returning her smile. “I’ve lived in George Street since early spring.”

“Oh, dear!” Mother glanced at Emma with wide eyes. “And you are just now becoming acquainted?”

Emma opened her mouth to reply, but the Captain didn’t notice and spoke first. “We have spoken often, Mrs Hayton. I hold Lady Bowen in very high regard.”

Emma closed her mouth. Her mother slowly turned her head to look Emma squarely in the face, her expression slightly victorious.

“Mother, the Captain will hardly wish to sit and chatter all day with two women,” Emma said in warning. “I am sure he is a very busy man.” Her mother was at it again, and if the Captain hadn’t been present, Emma would have asked her mother to leave at once.

“Of course, dear, of course.” Mother patted her hand. “But he came to call; that must indicate some desire to converse, surely?”

Emma flushed. Too late the Captain seemed to recognize the presence of a trap; his expression grew more closed and cautious. Mrs Hayton turned to him and smiled again. “Are you enjoying this fine weather, Captain?”

The grey clouds that had alarmed Jane were just visible through the window, although sun still streamed in. Emma glanced at the Captain just in time to meet his eyes, glimmering with wry humour.

“Very much so,” he murmured.

“Until the rain comes,” said Emma.

“Thunderstorms,” added the Captain.

“Fierce ones, I understand.”

“Really, Emma, you needn’t sound so gleeful,” exclaimed her mother, and Emma almost choked on a laugh. The Captain coughed.

“I had come to issue an invitation,” he said. “My sister and her husband have secured a box for a performance of Shakespeare next week. I wondered if you would care to accompany us, Lady Bowen?”

“Well, that is a lovely invitation,” said Mrs Hayton before Emma could speak. “But I do worry that Shakespeare is too clamorous for a lady. This Mr Kean has wrought such a change on the public, with his dramatic, violent portrayals of all those tragic heroes.”

Emma gaped at her, then jerked her eyes back to her cup of tea.
Oh no. Please, dear heavens, no …

The Captain’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Indeed.”

“I find nothing to be so enjoyable as a dinner party among friends,” Mother went on. “There one can enjoy the society of the company and not be distracted by an unruly crowd in the pit.”

“Er … yes,” murmured the captain, staring at her in fascination.

Emma was almost quivering with fury. “I quite enjoy the theatre as well.”

Her mother laughed, her tinkling light laugh that had enthralled so many men. “Nonsense, dear! You had dinner parties all the time in Sussex; she is the perfect hostess, Captain. Emma dear, it’s certainly time you began going about again, but discreetly. You’ve been out of society so long.”

The Captain’s smile was a bit stiff. “Of course,” he said. “A dinner party.”

“Mother,” whispered Emma between gritted teeth.
“Please
.”

“Just a small one would be perfectly acceptable,” Mother said, ignoring Emma. “Don’t you agree, sir?”

The Captain blinked. “Yes,” he said cautiously.

She beamed at him. “I am certain Emma would be delighted to attend.”

Emma wished she had locked the door when her mother had left. Now she had no choice but to raise apologetic eyes to the Captain, who looked almost desperate. He cleared his throat. “Would you honour us with your company, Lady Bowen? On this upcoming Saturday evening?”

She would try to explain to him tomorrow, across the garden wall. For now she just wanted to help him escape, so she could tear into her mother. “You are too kind, sir,” she murmured. “Thank you.” He turned to her mother. “And you, Mrs Hayton?” Mother cast one twinkling glance at Emma as she laughed. “Thank you, but I must decline. I am engaged at the Powells’ that evening.” Emma was sure she didn’t imagine his shoulders easing in relief. “Well.” He shuffled his feet then rose. “I should leave you to your conversation. Mrs Hayton, it was a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Lady Bowen.” He bowed as Emma and her mother made their farewells, then left.

“How dare you!” Emma whispered furiously the moment the door closed behind him. “Mother, that was unpardonably rude!”

Mother waved one hand. “Unpardonable, pish. He fancies you, my dear; who are his people? Where is he from? What are his connections?”

“He is my neighbour,” she snapped. “He is a gentleman, and that is all I know about him. I shall have to apologise tomorrow — how could you do that?”

“Emma, my dear, you are such an innocent.” Mother was unmoved. “Sir Arthur left you a pittance. You shall have to marry again, and it might as well be to a man of means and station.”

“You mean someone unlike me,” she retorted. “Because
I
have modest means and modest station.”

“And you don’t want to sink lower, either!” Mother rounded on her suddenly. “You don’t know what it’s like to be watched with pity and scorn,” she said in withering tones. “Wearing your clothes until they are practically rags because you can’t afford a new gown or gloves. Dusting your own parlour so you look like a servant — and then receiving a caller in that state! I want more for you, dearest, and you should, too.”

Emma met her mother’s fierce gaze. Mother’s father had been a baron, but a destitute one. Mother had told her many times how the family went hungry after her father lost at the races or the card tables. There had been no money for fine clothes or servants, and that poverty had shaped Emma’s mother into a woman of endless ambition. With her beauty she had caught one husband, Emma’s father, who was a prosperous mill owner, and then a second. Mr Hayton had been an MP, and a decent man, although thoroughly under his wife’s thumb. Even now, twice widowed and with a healthy annuity, Mother was constantly thinking how she could improve her situation, by any means necessary.

Emma had learned early on that her mother would happily use her to do it. Mother had contrived to have her compromised by a wealthy viscount, even though he was three decades older than Emma, and then tried to persuade her to seduce Mr Fitzwilliam, who had no title but owned one of the largest estates in north-eastern Sussex. In desperation Emma had wed Sir Arthur, who was kind and genial and managed to keep her mother from overrunning their lives.

“Mother, I am content as I am. I do not need a new husband so that I might wear new gowns and keep my own carriage and dine on fine china. Sir Arthur left me enough to be comfortable, as I am,” she said, raising her voice to forestall her mother’s impatient protest. “Now you have gone and manipulated Captain Quentin just for fun, and he was too polite to say nay! He is my neighbour, and a kind man, and you have humiliated me.”

Mrs Hayton cupped Emma’s cheek in her hand. “You are so like your father,” she murmured. “Satisfied with so little.”

Emma clenched her jaw. Her father had been an affectionate papa. “Is that what you were to him?” she whispered. “What I was to him?”

Mother released her. “The Captain is a handsome man,” she said, picking up her reticule. “He is young to be retired; he must have made his fortune in the wars. I shall see what I can learn about him. Do not do anything until I speak to you again.”

“My feelings, whatever they may be, wouldn’t be affected in the slightest by anything you say.”

On her way to the door, Mother glanced back at her. “You would ignore a man of fortune, right on your doorstep, just to spite me?” She shook her head. “Emma dear, sometimes I wonder how you can be my child.”

“I do, too,” she replied quietly as her mother closed the door.

Phineas walked slowly down the steps of Lady Bowen’s house. That had not gone as expected. Mrs Hayton was a beautiful woman, but Phin thought he’d be careful not to be drawn into conversation with her again. She’d manoeuvred him right into throwing a dinner party when he suspected Lady Bowen would have rather accepted his invitation to the theatre. And now he would have to go tell his sister Sarah they weren’t going to the theatre after all, but that she must help him plan a dinner at his house. He’d never done such a thing. Sarah would have such a laugh at his expense over this. Whom could he even invite? Sarah and her husband, of course; perhaps he could get his old mate Hakeham to come, and Morris and Campbell were genial fellows …

No, too many gentlemen. Phin felt a flutter of panic. Just Hakeham, then, and … and … he could ask his mother, he supposed, or ask Sarah to invite another lady. Instead of going on to his club, as he had planned to do, Phin jogged up the steps of his own home and let himself in. “Godfrey!”