The Wicked Wallflower (7 page)

Odds were they would not make it through dinner.

That he and Emma were seated on either side of Aunt Agatha was probably not a mark of favor, but a trap. Many dismissed her as a mad old woman, impervious to logic or reason. Blake knew better.

She had introduced him to the comfort afforded in rules and equations, whether etiquette or mathematical. There was no reason to fuss or fret. One had only to find the formula and proceed. Whether the seduction of a woman, the construction of the Difference Engine, or even the Fortune Games, Blake found and executed the formula.

“Welcome to the twentieth annual Fortune Games,” she declared, standing with a bejeweled goblet in hand. Frail as she was, her voice carried to the far end of the table. “Undoubtedly you all have been shamelessly gossiping about the size of my fortune or the state of my health—­especially you, Dudley. Don't think I didn't hear about what you said to Edmund. I have deducted two points from each of your tallies.”

All heads swiveled to focus upon that wanker Dudley, whose cheeks reddened considerably.

“I can assure you, Lady Grey—­” he began.

“Should you not provide some proof?” Edmund gently suggested to Agatha. “Perhaps a letter from your banker, or your physician?”

Emma gasped at his audacity.

“That would be the honorable thing to do,” Agatha conceded. “But I'm a rich old woman so I can do whatever I please. Thus, if you doubt that there is in fact a fortune—­and there may not be, wouldn't that just be hilarious—­then you may leave at once.”

No one made the slightest move.

Wealthy old woman + devious imagination – restraint = Aunt Agatha

“Some of you have played the games before,” Agatha said. “Some of you have even won. Believe me when I say those years were some of the longest of my life.”

“Then why did you invite us back?” Dudley asked, leaning back in his chair.

“Gives me an incentive to live longer, Dudley,” Agatha remarked. She took a sip from her goblet and then carried on with her decrees. “The games shall last for three days. That is the maximum amount of time I can abide the lot of you. If you bore me, you shall be asked to leave and shall no longer be eligible for the fortune.”

Attention span = (entertainment value * novelty)

“I chose the winner based on criteria I will not disclose. It is non-­negotiable,” Agatha said firmly. “If you do not think this fair, you may proceed to the library and write a letter to someone who cares. Do not address it to me.”

Emotion = x

Do not solve for x

Agatha paused to sip from her goblet. Her footman hovered just behind her.

“Do remember that you are free to leave at any time. Nor was your presence here required. In fact some of your presences were not even requested,” Agatha said with a pointed look at Blake.

Adopting an expression of utter innocence, he said, “Fortunately, we have corrected that appalling oversight.”

“You're lucky you have a pretty face, Ashbrooke,” Agatha said dryly. “Your manners are appalling. I don't know how your fiancée abides you.”

“A little sherry gets her through the day. And night,” Blake said. Emma's mouth dropped open and she shot him one of those looks that spoke of murderous rage and evil intentions. But then her lips curved into an adorably crooked smile.

“It's the only way to tolerate him,” Emma replied as dryly as Agatha, to Blake's surprise and to the amusement of the others.

He saw Agatha's lips quirk into an approving smile.

“Indeed,” she said, raising her goblet before taking a hearty sip. “Fortunately he had enough sense to betroth himself to a woman of wit and judgment. There is hope for your children yet. Now what was I saying?”

“That you are the queen of the Fortune Games, your word is final, and we have the choice to participate, which makes any complaints null and void,” Blake declared.

“Well done,” Agatha said plainly. “Your brain box works after all.”

“Why don't you just declare him and his fiancée the winners and let us all go home?” Lord Pleshette muttered. “He was always the favorite.”

“After everyone has traveled all this way?” Lady Agatha asked, aghast. “Besides, Lady Emma could still commit some unforgivable faux pas.”

“Like Lord Anderson in 1816,” Edmund said, shaking his head. “That was such a tragedy.”

“Was he the one who had been caught in your dressing closet, in your corsets and petticoats?” Lady Copley inquired.

“No, that was Lord Wiltshire,” George said. “Anderson was winning until he used the wrong fork at a luncheon. To be fair, it was a thirteen-course meal with separate cutlery for each course. The table setting monstrous. Not unlike this one.”

“It's completely unforgivable,” Agatha said. “I couldn't possibly leave my estate to someone ignorant in the most basic of table manners.”

Everyone glanced nervously at the array of silverware, china dishes, and multiple etched crystal glasses upon the table. Dinner had not even begun.

“To the twentieth Annual Fortune Games,” Aunt Agatha declared, bejeweled goblet raised and voice booming. All the guests raised their glasses as well. Emma, nerves getting the best of her, was the only one to drop hers, shattering the crystal on the china plate and spilling wine upon her best dress and the epic table setting before her.

Chances at winning the games = null

“Ah, the games have only just begun and we must already deduct six points from Lady Emma's tally. Angus, do make that note.” Her footman wrote it down in the red leather volume. Emma's cheeks burned. And the games began.

T
HEY HAD NOT
even survived the first course when disaster struck for the second time, in the form of a polite remark and simple question that caught both Blake and Emma utterly and foolishly unprepared.

“Lady Emma, Duke, I think I speak for all the guests when I offer my congratulations on your betrothal,” Miss Montgomery said kindly from the far end of the table. Though she was a
Miss,
she was clearly at least forty years or more. A spinster.

Miss Montgomery was her, Emma thought, if she didn't play this game right.

“The news was such a surprise,” George said with a sharp smile, reminding Emma of daggers drawn. “We never thought cousin Blake would be the marrying kind. We are all eager to know how you met.”

“Indeed, we are all perishing of curiosity,” Edmund said, and everyone murmured their agreement. Emma felt like a fox at a hunt. Surrounded. The snarling dogs closing in.

Emma looked to Blake, hoping the alarm she felt was not apparent in her expression. She thought of all those hours in the carriage when she deliberately avoided his conversation—­and any temptation—­by sticking her nose in a book.

They ought to have concocted a story. Instead they ignored each other.

When Blake did not rush to her rescue fast enough, Emma knew she would have to save herself. The games had hardly begun and she already had negative points—­fewer than anyone else. She had to act daringly or risk falling further behind.

“It was the most romantic encounter,” she said, and everyone at the table fixed their attention upon her. She took a deep breath and drew courage from Blake's curious gaze. Then she took the opportunity to commit them to the romantic story
she
wanted, and it was straight from the pages of
Miss Darling and the Dreadful Duke.

“We met at a ball,” Blake declared at the same time Emma stated, “We stumbled upon each other in an abandoned gazebo in Hyde Park during a sudden, severe thunderstorm.”

“That's just like in
Miss Darling and the Dreadful Duke!
” exclaimed Miss Dawkins, a young debutante and fellow wallflower.

“Quite a coincidence, I assure you,” Emma replied, smiling weakly. She nervously sipped her crisp white wine, gripping the glass securely.

“Where is there an abandoned gazebo in Hyde Park?” inquired Lady Copley, half of a bickering middle-­age ­couple.

“Oh, it's on the far side,” Emma answered, having no idea if one even existed. “I do enjoy a good constitutional walk in the morning.”

“One wouldn't think Ashbrooke would,” said Lady Bellande, who was the sort of painted widow that was every woman's worst nightmare. “One would think he were engaged in other pursuits in the morning.”

“It was on my way home from an exclusive gaming hell,” Blake explained, which tested the imagination of no one.

“How excellent you both enjoy long walks at first light,” Lady Agatha said. “For I had planned a tour of the grounds tomorrow.”

“Not all four hundred acres, I hope,” Lord Pleshette quipped. “I should hate to wear my boots. They're from Hobbs, which makes the King's boots as well.”

No one cared about his boots. Surely Emma wasn't the only one who felt ashamed of her unfashionable attire after he had given her a dismissive glance.

“What else have you planned for us, Aunt Agatha?” Blake asked. “Dragon hunting? Another game of Dueling Debrett's? Perhaps some jousting? It's just not done enough these days.”

“A musicale. Perhaps a ball. Perhaps a circus,” she said, sipping her wine and grinning devilishly. “I've heard some ­people are having the most remarkable luck training bears to do tricks! Wouldn't that be a wonderful talent to have?”

“Bears?” Miss Dawkins echoed in a very hollow voice.

“A musicale shall be lovely. Perhaps I might sing,” Lady Bellande offered. “Ashbrooke could accompany me . . . on the pianoforte.”

She said this in the sort of voice that led one to understand that she meant his accompaniment
literally on top
of the pianoforte, and not for a musical endeavor.

Emma felt her lips purse in a decidedly spinsterish fashion. An unexpected surge of possessiveness stole over her. She did not want her fictional fiancé to be unfaithful to her, nor did she want anyone to think so. Her pride revolted at the prospect.

Certainly the feeling of possessiveness had nothing whatsoever to do with wanting him for herself.

She was the first person to say that she and Blake made an odd and unexpected ­couple. She was a plain wallflower. He was a man so handsome that he sucked all the attention in the room toward himself, as if he possessed his own personal force of gravity.

But at the moment she fiercely wanted it to be true. Though she was still in love with Benedict and playing this game for her future with him, in the moment she longed to be something other than
not quite.
She didn't want to battle with the likes of Lady Bellande for her betrothed's attentions.

If she had the fortune . . .
No one would overlook her then.

“Do you enjoy musicales, Lady Emma?” Lady Agatha asked.

“I do,” she answered truthfully. Anything where she did not have to stand against the wall, awaiting a dancing partner while trying not to seem desperate for one.

“Do you play?” Lady Agatha asked, but Emma was distracted by Lady Bellande leaning in close to Blake. To
her fiancé.

“I do play the pianoforte.” Emma declined to mention she did not do so very well. She looked to Blake, hoping he might change the conversation before she was invited to perform. But she saw that Lady Bellande's hands had disappeared under the table and he did not meet her gaze. Oh, he could not ignore her now! He could not abandon her now!

She might be London's Least Likely to Misbehave, but she would not be the first loser in the Fortune Games.

“Speaking of musicals, Ashbrooke has taken up the flute,” Emma told everyone. “I have encouraged him to learn in time for our wedding.”

Lady Bellande removed her hands and gaped at the duke. Ashbrooke caught Emma's eye across the table. He gave her a wicked smile and her stomach flip-­flopped. As if she had called him out, he rose to her challenge.

“Emma thought it would be romantic, and I live to please her,” he said smoothly. “That's why I hope I may make a small request, Aunt Agatha. She is ever so fond of sherry. Perhaps we should be sure to include some at each meal.”

“Even for breakfast?” Lord Copley asked.

“Especially for breakfast,” Blake answered.

That rogue! Aware that everyone was looking at her, Emma smiled sweetly at him, when really she wanted to toss her wineglass in his beautiful face. He smiled in return, his eyes meeting hers over the flickering candles.

“Ashbrooke, you are too attentive to my every desire,” Emma said darkly.

“That's what all the women say,” he said with a grin. Lady Bellande bit her red lip and gazed longingly at Blake. Emma fought the urge to roll her eyes.

“After your chance encounter in the Abandoned Gazebo in Hyde Park, did you propose immediately, Ashbrooke?” George asked smoothly, a grin quirking at his lips. “Or was there some courtship of Lady Emma that managed to escape the notice of the entire ton during one of the duller seasons in recent memory?”

“When a man knows he's found the woman for him, why should he wait?” Blake mused. A romantic sentiment? Or evading the question?

Definitely the latter.

“Perhaps he might like to know her better,” Lady Copley said. “One should take the time to know their spouse before committing to a lifetime of marriage. It would save ever so much agony.”

“Indeed,” Lord Copley said strongly. “Though it pains me to agree with my wife.”

No one else at the table knew quite where to look or what to say to that.

Save for Blake, of course.

“We know each other very well, “ he said after a sip of wine. “For example, we all know Emma is fond of reading. So fond, she has earned the nickname the Buxom Bluestocking.”
How dare he
mention her hated nickname! Her temperature began to rise, and it had
nothing
to do with a possible fleeting pang of desire for Ashbrooke. More like a slow boiling rage. And then he went on: “She loves sherry morning, noon, and night. She loves nothing more than to wake at dawn and take long walks at first light.”