But the footsteps behind her were very clear. Slow, stately, unrelenting. Not hurried at all, not a panicked run like hers, but always moving closer.
Her lungs ached, her breath was strangled in her throat. Her hair tumbled into her eyes, blinding her.
She tried to run faster, but the alley was now choked with cobwebs, wrapping around her ankles, pulling her back. Making her trip. The footsteps grew louder and she fell, toppling towards the ground. He would surely catch her now and she was helpless, cornered like a fox pursued by baying hounds.
She was falling...
‘No!’ Emily cried, sitting straight up. For an instant she was sure the cobwebs had trapped her, holding her limbs immobile. Then she realised it was only the blanket, tangled around her. She was on her bedroom chaise, where she had gone for an afternoon rest, safe in her own chamber.
It was only that nightmare again.
With a cry of frustration, Emily pulled the blanket free and tossed it on the green-and-white-flowered carpet. She lay back on the tufted velvet cushions and closed her eyes.
For a time, after the event, the dream had plagued her almost every night when she tried to sleep. It had got so bad, she would just stay up every night and go over all the business ledgers in her father’s library. Her hard work, and begging pleas, had finally convinced her father to let her stop with her social Season and go into business full-time with him. With work, lots of work, the nightmare stopped and she almost forgot that one stupid event.
But it seemed it didn’t want to be forgotten. Not entirely.
She had been a foolish girl, thinking a man like Gregory Hamilton—handsome, highly connected, known for being something of a rake—would be truly interested in her. Yet it had been her first Season, fresh out of school, and she had wanted to dance and flirt, to laugh. Then he’d got her out on the terrace at that ball and she’d realised how foolish she really had been.
She had got away then and Gregory had gone away to Ceylon. Work had made her forget that cold fear, but still the dream came sometimes.
It was the last time she would ever be foolish over a man, Emily had always vowed, and she kept that promise to herself now. She’d had lots of suitors, some of them just as handsome and rich as Gregory had been, all of them quite dull. None of them could tempt her. She threw herself into her work, into making her father’s business even more successful than before.
Except whenever she saw Chris Blakely. When he came near, her vows to be sensible seemed to just fly out the window. They quarrelled every time they met, the last time at Alex’s wedding to Malcolm Gordston, and then Lady Rippon’s garden party. Chris was quite hopeless, given up as a wastrel by everyone. But when he kissed her...
‘No more,’ she cried, kicking at the blanket.
‘Miss Emily,’ she heard her maid Mary call out, as Mary knocked at the door. ‘Are you quite all right? Edna thought she heard you cry out while she was dusting down the corridor.’
‘Oh, yes, Mary, I’m fine,’ she answered, reaching for the dropped blanket. ‘It was just a bad dream. I must have fallen asleep.’
Mary hurried in, Emily’s dinner gown of blue silk and chiffon draped over her arm. Emily glanced at the half-curtained window and saw that the light was dark amber now, almost evening. Her father would be expecting her soon for their shared meal.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sleep so long,’ Emily said, trying to smooth her rumpled hair.
Mary laid out the dress on Emily’s green-brocade-draped four-poster bed and searched the wardrobe for the matching shoes. ‘It’s no wonder, Miss Emily. You were gone before breakfast this morning.’
‘I had to check that the Gordston’s shipment was ready to go,’ Emily said. Alex’s husband, the owner of two, soon to be three, very successful department stores, was one of their best business partners.
She sat down at her dressing table and reached for her silver-backed hairbrush. She tried to pull out the knots in her thick, chestnut hair, but it was hopeless.
‘Here, let me do that, Miss Emily,’ Mary said, taking the brush with a tsk. ‘You’ll have no hair left if you keep on like that. And then what would we pin your hats to?’
Emily laughed, some of the tension of her dream dissipating. She thought of the rows and rows of hats that sat on their own shelf in the dressing room, feathers and bows and fruit on straw and velvet and silk. It was part of her job now to be always super-stylish, to advertise the latest fashions, and she had to admit it was a part of her job she rather enjoyed. ‘True. I leave myself in your capable hands, Mary, as usual. Is my father already downstairs?’
‘He’s in his library, I think, Miss Emily.’
Where he always was when he was at home in Cadogan Square. ‘Working, no doubt.’
Mary tsked again as she swirled Emily’s hair into an elaborate coil at the nape of her neck and secured it with tortoiseshell combs. She handed Emily a pair of aquamarine earrings. ‘You both work much too hard.’
‘What else is there to do?’ Emily murmured as she slid the jewels on to her earlobes. She thought of what her friends did: Alex with her charity work in Paris as she helped Malcolm run his stores, and Diana writing her magazine articles in Vienna, where she hosted diplomatic receptions for her husband Will. They were busy all the time, too, doing useful things. Emily had to do the same. One day, her work would no longer be hers to do and she would have to find something new. She rather longed for what Diana and Alex had, but such longings did no good. Work was what she had.
Mary frowned disapprovingly, making Emily laugh. Mary had been with the Fortescue household for years, starting as a tweeny when Emily’s mother was still alive, and Emily knew she had opinions about how they should run their lives. Mary always thought Emily should follow her friends’ examples and marry. Emily knew her father felt the same way, though he rarely said so. He would love to see her settled with a good husband, a son-in-law to help carry on his work.
But Emily knew that was impossible. After Gregory Hamilton and his cold hands on that terrace, she couldn’t face intimacy with another man—except for Chris Blakely, who was impossible for entirely different reasons. And she could never give up her work.
‘For now, I suppose, Miss Emily,’ Mary said. She helped Emily out of her brocade dressing gown and into her dinner dress. ‘Is there anything else you need?’
Emily reached for her gloves. ‘Not now, Mary, thank you. After dinner, I’ll need to change into a tweed suit, though, something sturdy. I’ll be off to the meeting of the Women’s Franchise League.’
* * *
By the time Emily hurried downstairs, her father was waiting in the drawing room, a pre-dinner sherry in hand, reading through the day’s newspapers. The financial pages, no doubt, Emily thought as she crossed the room to kiss his cheek. After a day visiting suppliers, checking accounts and lunching with clients, Albert Fortescue liked to know what his rivals were doing.
Emily glanced over her father’s shoulder as the butler handed her a cut-crystal glass of the ruby-red liquor. She saw an advertisement, a full half-page, for Gordston’s Department Stores of Paris, London and now Brighton.
‘I’m very glad to see Gordston’s is doing so well,’ she said. ‘I see he is carrying the latest hats from Madame Fronde’s! Anything about the expansion of the Paris store?’
‘Not here, but I was looking over the café accounts; we are at beyond capacity there every day. It was an excellent idea of yours to go into such a venture with Mr Gordston, Emily. We will be opening one in the London store any time now, I am sure.’
Emily gave a satisfied smile, remembering the hard work of setting up the elegant café in the Paris store. ‘I am certainly glad to hear it. It was a stroke of genius on our parts, I must say, for both us and Malcolm. Ladies can shop even longer if they’re properly fortified for the day. Not to mention having a place to meet their friends
for a cosy chat, without you men and your dreadful cigars stinking it all to bits.’
Her father laughed and folded his newspapers as he sat back in his armchair. Emily was a bit worried he was looking thinner than usual, his moustache showing traces of silver in the chestnut, and she wondered if Mary was right that work was not everything. Maybe her father could use a holiday, to Cannes or Portofino, some place warm. She did worry about his health and she knew that this caused many of his worries for her, for who would take care of her one day.
‘It was a brilliant idea,’ he said. ‘Cafés in department stores, it’s sure to catch on. In fact, that is something of what I wanted to talk to you about, my dear.’
‘The cafés?’
‘Paris. I had a note from Mr Gordston asking if we could have a meeting soon, to talk about the possible expansion.’
‘Really? I thought the Gordstons were not in the city now. My last letter from Alex was from their country chateau outside Versailles.’ She smiled to think of Alex and how happy she was now with her department-store millionaire husband, adored and pampered, just as she deserved. Emily rather envied her.
‘Yes, it seems they don’t plan to make it back to England any time very soon and I am so caught up in that business with the new spice company out of Madras. I was thinking you could go to Paris in my place. You did such a grand job last year.’
Go back to Paris? Where she’d last seen Chris? Last did such a foolish thing and kissed him in the maze at Lady Rippon’s garden party? Emily turned away as she felt her cheeks turn hot.
Her first instinct was to say no. Paris had such an intoxicating effect on her. But Gordston’s business was very important. And she had heard that Chris was still gadding about the Continent somewhere, doing who knew what. Perhaps he was in Austria with Will and Diana. She would surely not even see him in Paris again.
The butler announced dinner before she could answer and she took her father’s arm to make their way towards the dining room. She glimpsed her mother’s portrait, as she did every night, hanging near the doorway. Maude Fortescue smiled down at her husband and daughter serenely, always young, always perfect. How Emily wished she could ask her advice now!
But she could not. She never could. Growing up without a mother had made her keep her own counsel, find her advice in books and from her friends. That couldn’t change now. But Alex and Diana’s marriages, the way they did something different from most of the women in their world, made her wonder if there could be a way for her, too. Probably not. Will and Malcolm were unique husbands.
The dining room was a grand space, meant for entertaining and impressing business associates. With a long, polished mahogany table lined with blue-and-white-striped satin chairs, the silk-papered walls lined with valuable Old Masters, the sideboard gleaming with silver, it spoke quietly of her father’s success and good taste. But with only herself and her father at dinner, it seemed full of shadows, echoing, empty.
But two places were arranged at one end of the vast table, a cosy oasis of candlelight glowing on the Wedgwood porcelain, the heavy old silver. Their own cosy world, made just for themselves. What would she do one day when there was only one place laid at her table?
‘How lovely it is to get to spend the evening with my beautiful daughter,’ her father said as the footman ladled out the salmon bisque. ‘It is much too rare. You’ve become quite the social butterfly lately!’
Emily laughed. Parties were one way to outrun herself, to be sure. ‘You are the one who always taught me the value of connections, Father. I’m finding future customers wherever I go. You are no slouch in that direction, either. Were you not at the Criterion with Lady Musgrave’s party last week? I am sure I read about it in the paper.’
Albert’s cheeks flushed just a bit above his silvering whiskers and Emily wondered if there was more to the contact with Lady Musgrave than a visit to the theatre and a restaurant. She certainly was a handsome lady, widowed and energetic and cultured. Maybe that was the sort of rest her father needed? A new companion? Where would Emily’s place be, then? Yet she would love her father to find a friend.
‘You are quite right, my dear,’ he said. ‘Connections are all. And Lady Musgrave does serve the best wine in town, her cellar is beyond excellent. I should see about selling her a few cases.’
Emily laughed. ‘See? Always working. But, yes, it is very nice to have a dinner to ourselves.’
The footman brought in the fish course, a trout in lemon sauce. ‘Perhaps a hand of piquet after?’
‘I have to go out after dinner.’
Her father chuckled. ‘Another dance?’
‘Not at all. A meeting of the Women’s Franchise League.’
His laughter turned to a doubtful frown. ‘Not Mrs Hurst’s group?’
‘Yes, of course, Father. She is the president of the League. You know I go every month. It’s most fascinating and her speakers always have such excellent arguments to make.’
‘Emily, I do wish you would not associate with people of such radical and dangerous ideas,’ he scolded. ‘It’s dangerous.’
Emily sighed. They had indeed had such conversations before. She knew her father did not think her or any other educated woman incapable of voting; she knew he had supported the measure quite wholeheartedly when women householders were given the vote in local elections and two were even voted on to the London County Council in 1889. But he disliked tales of riots and arrests at meetings of union leaders and worried such things could happen with the League, as well. It was one of the reasons he was always trying to find a good husband for her, a son-in-law to take care of her and keep her away from such ‘radical’ interests.
But Emily liked what she heard at the meetings, liked not being dismissed for her brains and ambition. She had to believe her mother would have agreed, as well.
‘Oh, Father, I know you do not believe women making their own decisions for their own lives to be radical,’ she said. ‘Have I not done a fine job with you in the business? Have I not a brain and ideas, useful things to offer the world, just like anyone else?’
Her father gave her a gentle smile. ‘I could not have done without you these last few years, Emily, and you know that is true. You’re a natural at the business, my own daughter, but you are your mother’s daughter, as well. I’m afraid I have not reminded you of that often enough.’
‘Oh, Father,’ Emily said softly. ‘I do think of Mama so often. But whatever do you mean?’
‘I mean, you have her kind heart as well as her beauty. You should have your own family to appreciate that.’ It was an argument he made often and one she knew came from his heart.
Emily stared down hard at her plate, trying to swallow past the knot in her throat. Trying not to think about why she had vowed not to marry. ‘You know I don’t wish to wed anyone. Not right now, anyway.’
‘I know you have said that. And it’s quite true I know of no man worthy of my lovely daughter. But there must be someone, someone strong and intelligent and kind, who could possibly come into the business with us.’ He reached out and gently touched her hand. ‘I’m not a young man, Emily. I want to leave everything in capable hands—and not leave you alone.’
‘Oh, Father.’ Emily covered his hand with her own, trying not to cry. ‘You needn’t worry about the business, or about me. I am not alone. I have friends.’
‘Friends like Mrs Hurst and her group?’
‘Yes. And like Diana Blakely and Alexandra Gordston. I am quite well, just as I am, Father. I promise.’
‘Just keep an open mind, Emily. That’s all I ask. Meet new people. Consider the future.’
Emily gave him a reassuring smile, though she didn’t feel at all steady herself. ‘I will, I promise. If you will consider taking a holiday yourself.’
‘A holiday? Why on earth would I do such a thing?’ he scoffed.
‘Maybe go to
the seaside. Read books. Go for walks.’ She smiled at him. ‘Maybe Lady Musgrave might enjoy a holiday, as well? You two could go on wine tastings. I do hear Burgundy is lovely this time of year.’
‘Minx,’ Albert said with a laugh. ‘Maybe a holiday isn’t such a bad idea after all. But let’s talk about you and Paris...’
* * *
When Emily left the house after dinner, changed from her silk gown to a tweed walking suit and small felt hat, and journeyed towards the hall where Mrs Hurst and the League met in Pimlico, it had been decided she would go to Paris to see to the Gordston business and her father would take a holiday as soon as she returned. Emily tried to tell herself that it was only a short visit to Paris and Chris was sure to be gone from there. She wasn’t quite sure if the idea was reassuring, or disappointing. Whenever she thought of Paris, she thought of Chris and the kiss they had shared there the last time they were together in the city. The kiss that made her feel so very much it was frightening.
She took her father’s carriage through the city streets, crowded with people making their way to theatres and supper parties, but then sent the coachman away once they arrived at the hall, much to his dutiful chagrin. She promised she would find a ride home from one of the other ladies’ carriages, but she didn’t mention that they would probably go to a coffee house first to talk about suffrage issues. She waited on the pavement until the carriage had rolled out of sight. Then she hoisted the ledgers she kept as the League’s treasurer into her arms and made her way inside.
The League’s headquarters didn’t look like anything remarkable or radical at all from the outside. A plain brick building, narrow and tall, identical to its neighbours, shutters drawn over the windows. There was no sign by the black-painted door, but a small brass bell. Ever since the League’s president, Mrs Hurst, had published a pamphlet titled Is Marriage A Failure?, they had been forced to move a couple of times.
Miss Fortescue's Protector in Paris Page 3
