To Seduce an Angel (22 page)

“If Xan thinks it can be done, I'm for it.” Daventry steered Emma toward a woman with a kind of beauty that could never be ignored. She was dressed in figured plum silk bordered with black lace with jet beading on the bodice. Her beauty must attract, must call attention to itself, must bewitch. At the woman's side was a lean, gray-haired man obviously devoted to her. Daventry introduced them as his mother and a Major Luc Montclare.

Emma did her curtsies. No one seemed alarmed to have the Frenchman in their midst, but Emma could not repress a little shudder to hear him named. Of course Daventry saw it.

Then she met an older, more severe version of Daventry, a man with broad shoulders, black hair, and an austere carved look to his face. He gave Emma a polite welcome. More polite introductions followed as they made their way through the room. Will Jones's wife, Helen, another beauty in an amethyst gown, with deep brown eyes and tawny gold hair, smiled at Emma and told her, “You are a favorite with Robin, you know. He says you can whistle and ride ponies and aren't afraid of mud or toads. High praise, I think.”

Emma murmured her thanks at the undeserved kindness. Once the civilities had been observed she could watch Daventry in the midst of his people. His family was handsome and quick and stirred each other to ready laughter, and they all touched. But they didn't touch him. Everyone turned to him, talked to him, but no one touched him, nor did he touch them while Emma still felt the touch of his arm as they'd entered the room.

Later as they took their seats in the dining room, Emma looked from the dark windows to the blaze of candles within. They would present a lighted tableau to anyone outside in the dark. It seemed to her a mad indifference to danger.

Cleo Jones, the sister-in-law with the lively green eyes, leaned toward Emma and said, “Don't worry, Miss Portland, we've got Adam Digweed in the corner, and a small troop of footmen and grooms outside. After last night, my husband has posted servants to watch the house at all hours.”

Dav took his place at the head of the table. He did not think his coolness toward Emma fooled anyone in the room except Charlie Spencer and Lark and Raven, who had been permitted to join the adult party. With Mrs. Creevey's help, he had arranged to have Emma seated between Charlie and Lark and across from Raven so that she would not be subject to grilling by either of his brothers or his clever, charming sisters-in-law. He had to be content to let Charlie engage Emma in conversation. Charlie, his head full of world-changing inventions and needed reforms for injustice, was not likely to notice the undercurrent in the room of suspicion of Emma.

It was more difficult for Dav to control his own wayward glance that wanted to stray to her end of the table and fix itself on her as if by looking he could satisfy his desire to touch her again. He thought he was perfectly attentive to Helen Jones on his left when she tapped him lightly on the wrist.

“Dav.” Will called him to order. “We can't have our host woolgathering. Xan is about to announce his decision.”

“
His
decision?”

“He's your trainer. It's always the trainer who says when a man's ready for the ring.”

“He needs a name, doesn't he?” suggested Cleo Jones. “Don't all your famous prizefighters have names?”

“You mean, like ‘Destroyer' or the ‘Trojan Terror'?” Dav could see that Will was enjoying the moment. “I say everyone should propose a fighting name for the Marquess of Daventry.”

Lark, Raven, and Charlie Spencer immediately took up the challenge. His mother cast a dismayed look at Xan.

Raven got a fair amount of applause for “the Masher Marquess.”

But Lark objected that the name didn't fit Dav's style. Charlie suggested they needed a name that implied speed like “lightning bolt.”

It was Nate Wilde who satisfied the crowd with “the Somerton Stinger.”

“That'll do to put his name in,” agreed Will with a salute of his glass to Wilde. “Xan, your announcement.”

Xan rose and encouraged them all to take up their glasses. “To ‘the Somerton Stinger.' There's talk of an amateur open around East Thorndon. We'll get the Stinger a bout.”

“That's thirty miles from London. You'll have to stay in an inn the night before,” His mother objected.

Dav smiled at her. “I can't hide here forever, Mamma.”

“It's an easy coach ride, Aunt Sophie, and Thorndon's perfect if the magistrates get wind of it, because there are two counties to bolt to,” Charlie added.

“Why am I not comforted by the lack of magistrates?” Sophie wondered out loud.

“Dav'll be fine if he keeps his guard up, shifts sharp on his feet, and brings that hard, fast left of his.”

“What about Lark? He's ready, don't you think?” Dav asked.

Will turned to Lark. “Oh yes, and he needs his cork drawn to give some character to that face of his.”

Emma turned to smile at Lark, and her shawl slid from her arm. She reached to retrieve it, and Lark reached as well. His narrowed eyes noted the bruise above her elbow and the scrape below it.

He frowned and turned back to the table. “Not me. I like the mufflers on. In a real bout, I want to be on the sidelines, making odds.”

“Spoken like an entrepreneur,” Xander Jones offered.

When the toasts and clinking of glasses subsided, Emma saw the major rise to speak. He lifted his glass. “Gentlemen and ladies.” He turned to Sophie, took her hand, and faced the table. “Your mother has accepted me, and I respectfully request your blessings. We will be wed by Michaelmas in London.”

The three brothers exchanged glances and rose from their seats, glasses in hand. Xander cleared his throat. “To our mother and her major, much happiness.”

Sophie stood and signaled to the footmen to fill the glasses again. “If I had some sweet drug of forgetfulness, I might put it in all your glasses, so that past follies and trials were blotted out of mind. But how can I regret those follies when I see what they have given me—you as you are? My dear sons, know that I am happy in this new beginning with this good man.” She toasted her major with brimming eyes and turned again to the table. “Be happy all.”

Emma raised her glass with the others. She thought they would be happy, except Daventry. It struck her that his two families were breaking up. His brothers and even his mother had found partners for their lives. His boys were changing and rebelling. He remained alone, detached, their angel warrior, a being set a part from others, meant to protect them, but not to mingle with them.

 

 

LARK spun Dav to a stop by his elbow before they could enter the drawing room to rejoin the women and the younger boys.

“You took her to the roof,” he hissed. The boy shook with suppressed rage.

Dav didn't deny it.

“The roof is our place. She's not one of us.” Lark's fists were clenched.

“Taking her to the roof doesn't make her one of us.”

“But you chose her over us.” Lark pulled at his neckcloth, undoing the knot, fumbling to uncoil the linen around his neck.

Dav wanted to say that he had not betrayed them, that old friendships could allow for new ones, but he could not deny what he felt for Emma Portland.

“She doesn't change us.”

“She's changed you. You aren't one of us anymore.” Lark tossed his neckcloth aside and stalked off down the gallery.

 

 

IN the morning Emma gathered her charges in the schoolroom and handed each boy his slate. Lark and Rook were missing. They had not slept in their beds or come for breakfast.

She was not surprised that Lark would absent himself from the classroom today when the boys were going to take the plunge and admit their new reading ability. He had tried to hold them back for nearly a fortnight. But it made her uneasy that they were missing in the wake of accident.

She would have to read their words herself. The other boys sat in a circle, their slates on their laps.

“Do you remember how it went?” she asked.

“The woodcutter's sons had to go out in the world because they had no food,” Finch said.

“And no one gave them work,” Jay added.

“And the ogre trapped them in his cellar,” Raven concluded. “Because they had no words to say.”

Robin looked up from his slate. “You're all forgetting the birds.”

“The older brothers didn't feed the birds, but the youngest gave them his crumbs, so the birds came back and set up a squawk.”

“Just where we left off.”

The door opened, and Helen Jones entered. The boys made a space for her in their circle, scraping chairs across the floor. Emma passed her Rook's slate while Robin whispered what they were doing. Emma had each of the boys write a number on his slate.

“Ready?”

They nodded.

“As the birds swirled, the ogre swung his cudgel in the air. With great”—Emma pointed at Finch, who shouted, “Courage”—“the tallest brother smote the ogre in his knee with a stick. The ogre bent double, and with swift”—Emma pointed at Raven, who shouted, “Daring”—“the quickest brother snatched the keys from the ogre's belt and tossed them to the cleverest brother, who with”—Emma pointed at Helen, who laughed and read, “Skill”—“opened the cellar door. Out came the four brothers who had been locked inside, blinking in the light of day. The ogre roared, and with”—Emma pointed at Swallow, who shouted, “Decision”—“the oldest brother told them all to scatter to the four corners of the compass. The ogre began to chase the slowest brother, who with noble”—Emma read from her own slate—“generosity led the ogre to the edge of a tall bluff, while with”—Emma pointed at Robin, who shouted, “Wit”—“the youngest of all summoned the birds.

“Then the great flock circled the ogre's head each with a thread in his beak. When the birds finished circling the ogre, his head was wrapped like a mummy in the threads of their mother's dishrags. He staggered around, clawing at his bonds. The brothers darted around him, shouting from the edge of the bluff, and he spun, grabbed blindly at the voices until he toppled like a mighty tree over the bluff with a crash that shook the ground. He lay still as the brothers looked down at him. Then with one final twitch, he died.”

For a full two minutes the boys leapt and collided with one another as they shouted their hurrahs. They only subsided when Helen Jones asked Emma to tell the happily-ever-after.

Emma smiled. “What with the ogre's forests supplying wood, the boys' skills at making furnishings, their mother's cooking, and the gratitude of all the people passing safely along the road, the family lived happily ever after. And twice a year they spread out a feast for the great flocks of birds winging their way north and south.”

The boys sat flushed with pride, and Helen Jones came forward to congratulate Emma.

“They've resisted learning to read for three years, Miss Portland; you are to be congratulated.”

“Thank you. I think they've been afraid that Daventry would send them away once they learned to do it. He is their family.”

“Then you are to be congratulated all the more—for understanding them. I understand that this is an afternoon off for you, but I wonder if you would let my husband and I take you as far as the village. I would like him to understand the good work you're doing in the schoolroom here.”

Emma felt the smile freeze on her lips. Kindness could trap a person as easily as hatred.

BY noon carriages lined the drive and servants scurried to load bundles and help the passengers embark. Emma found herself sharing a carriage seat with the formidable Will Jones and a two-year-old with eyes as big and dark as pansies. Her fear of being subjected to questioning gave way to the recognition that Will Jones might frown fiercely at her, but he would not test her in the presence of his wife and children.

When he helped her alight in the village, he did tell her that his man Harding would soon smoke out whoever in the town was behind the sabotage of the chimney pots.

Emma smiled and encouraged him to act swiftly in his investigation.

One of his dark brows quirked up. He laughed and promised he'd do his best.