Miss Fortescue's Protector in Paris

by Amanda McCabe

  Her—go with them to the country? Emily had no idea how she might help there, or what was going on, but she found herself intensely curious to know. It was a dangerous trait in her life. ‘I would be happy to join you,’ she said with a smile. ‘At any time.’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Chris, my most darling brother!’ Diana cried as she opened the door to their hotel suite to let Chris in for their little family dinner party. She went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, leaving a trace of her rose perfume behind, as sweet as her smile. ‘I can’t tell you how excited I was to hear we were all going to be together again. You are looking utterly lovely.’

  Chris kissed her cheek in return. ‘And so are you.’ Di did look lovely, just as Will did lately, glowing with quiet happiness. Chris remembered how his brother used to look, always so solemn and watchful, so careful. Now he had laughter and light in his life.

  Chris thought of Emily, making him dance in the café, laughing up at him as Paris swirled around them. What would it be like to feel that way all the time?

  He pushed away the memories, the feelings that shouldn’t even exist in his heart, and gave Diana another hug.

  ‘I went to Gordston’s today,’ she said, leading him into the sitting room as a footman brought in sherry. ‘It was so wonderful to see Emily and Alex again! We are having them to dinner very soon and you must come back then. We will have such fun, just like our Miss Grantley’s days.’

  ‘Maybe Chris won’t have time for much fun, darling,’ Will said, coming in from the small office he used. ‘I hear he will be hard at work here in Paris.’

  Diana threw Chris a wry glance, as if she doubted he could be ‘hard at work’ at anything. Not that he blamed her. It was a role he carefully cultivated. ‘You sound just like Emily, business all the time. But I’m sure everyone has time for fun, Will. Especially Chris. And I have heard he has plenty of time for our Em lately.’

  Chris did not trust the sly smile she shot his way. ‘I’ll try to come, Di. It would be nice to see all the old crowd together again.’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ Diana glanced down into her wineglass, a wistful look coming over her usually merry face. ‘Did I tell you, Alex is in the family way! She looked positively glowing. So it won’t be quite like Grantley’s days.’

  Will gently touched her hand and she smiled up at him. For a moment, it was as if the two of them were alone in their own small world.

  There was a knock at the suite door and the butler came and spoke in Will’s ear. Will nodded and turned to Chris.

  ‘I need to take care of a bit of business from the office before dinner, Di,’ Will said with an apologetic smile. ‘It won’t take long.’

  Diana waved him off, obviously used to such things. ‘No matter, the hotel kitchen is always running late. I’ll just work on my new article.’

  Will kissed her again and gestured for Chris to follow him to the small library. Chris couldn’t imagine what emergency work had been sent so late at night and hoped it wasn’t a true emergency. To his surprise, it was Lady Smythe-Tomas who waited for them, her violet-silk evening gown glowing in the windowless office.

  ‘Sir William, Mr Blakely,’ she said with a smile. ‘So sorry to interrupt your dinner! I was just on my way to meet a lovely old comte for the opera, but I thought you might like to hear about the Friedland meeting this afternoon.’

  ‘Of course,’ Will said, shutting the door behind them. ‘Lady Smythe-Tomas is our contact here in Paris, Chris, connected to the Women’s Franchise League.’

  ‘Yes, and you’re terribly lucky to have me here,’ Lady Smythe-Tomas said merrily. ‘Mrs Hurst and her ladies can be rather suspicious of men like you, no matter how handsome. But I did think the meeting went rather well. Miss Fortescue does seem wary, of course, but Friedland has certainly learned his lines. I was almost convinced he did know the Princess. I do think you might consider recruiting Miss Fortescue, she is so very clever.’

  Chris felt a flash of concern, a protective instinct towards Emily. ‘Surely she has her own work to worry about. She shouldn’t be dragged into our messes, as well.’

  Lady Smythe-Tomas and Will exchanged a glance. ‘Quite,’ she said. ‘But Miss Fortescue did agree to go with me to the country in a few days, to meet Herr Friedland again and the mysterious Madame Renard. I shall certainly like hearing her perspective on them.’

  Lady Smythe-Tomas went on to tell them about the rest of the meeting, though Chris still worried about Emily. He would have to keep his word to her father and watch her closely until the whole German matter was resolved.

  ‘Now, my dears, I must be off,’ Lady Smythe-Tomas said, wrapping her velvet evening shawl around her shoulders. ‘I will send you details of our next meeting soon.’

  Will went to show her out and Chris stared out the window at the Parisian night. He wondered what Emily was doing that night, if she was watching after herself, if she was safe. It was almost all he thought of lately, which wasn’t good for his job. Nor his emotions. Was he failing in his promise to her father, to himself?

  Will came back into the room and poured them out another brandy. He seemed to know what Chris was thinking, in that uncanny Will way of his. ‘She will be fine,’ Will said. ‘She’s a Grantley girl and they’re the strongest ones of us all. I should know.’

  Chris smiled. ‘Yes, they are certainly that.’

  ‘And they’re also insane-making. Beware.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Emily put on one of her new hats and peered at herself in the mirror, turning her head to all angles to study it. It was a Gordston’s purchase, a confection of pale straw, feathers and silk roses in shades of pink, from lightest shell to bright fuchsia, frivolous and pretty, and very French. Was it perfect for a day at the races? She didn’t want to look too—English. It would be bad for business. And somehow she didn’t want to share the hat from Chris yet. It felt like something just for her, not for business at all.

  But Emily suspected it wasn’t business she worried about. It was Chris. Would he think she looked pretty in the hat?

  She sighed and tore off the chapeau to toss it on to the bed. A few curls of hair fell from their pins and she impatiently pushed them back. It was ridiculous to think about Chris that way. He was never serious; she couldn’t be, either, not about him. They were much too different that way.

  And yet—yet she could never quite forget the way it felt when he kissed her, so sweet and light and marvellous, as though she was floating free up into the sky, heavy earth falling away. She closed her eyes, blotting out the bright morning sun from the window, and in that darkness she saw again the summer day by Miss Grantley’s lake. The maze. Chris’s face, all golden like a young Greek god, his smile as he leaned towards her, the feel of his lips on hers...

  Emily shook her head. Once, she had thought herself infatuated with that pig of a man Hamilton, after only one mediocre kiss. Yet Chris’s touch made her feel so very much more than that, made her forget herself entirely. Sometimes it didn’t feel like he was just pretending to court her.

  And that made Chris so much more dangerous than anyone else ever could be. He made her long for things she had never dared think about, things like fun and romance and true understanding, when all she had ever really had, ever needed, was work. And now she had the League, the chance to help other women make better lives for themselves.

  She knew Chris was not like most men. He had a sunny, boyish carelessness about him that seemed to make him see the world differently from most people. He saw people as just people, not men and women, and was interested in them as they were. But all men, all marriages, expected a woman to retreat, to become less, to take care of home and hearth and give up her essence. Di and Alex had found another way to be in love, but it was all so complicated and difficult.

  Emily sighed. A day at the races didn’t seem to warrant such worries, she reminded her
self. It was just a bit of fun. And no one was better at fun than Chris. Surely she deserved a day away from work, from the League? She just had to be careful.

  Mary hurried into the room, Emily’s pink-and-white-striped dress over her arm, freshly pressed. ‘I’m so sorry it took so long, Miss Emily, but these new pleated seams are a bear to smooth out. Whatever happened to your hat?’

  * * *

  The day was indeed a beautiful one at Longchamp, the sun golden and warm in a pale turquoise sky. The stands, and the rolling green lawns around the course, were a sea of lacy parasols, feathered hats, elegant black tailcoats. Laughter, chatter and happy cries rose like a cloud above the carriages packed so close together. The breeze smelled of the spice of expensive perfumes, the sweetness of sugared almonds sold from handcarts, the peaty loam of the earth and the animals. The Ladies’ Box across the way, where all the French ladies in highest society gathered, was a rainbow of colours, satins, feathers, diamonds.

  Emily raised her own silk parasol, studying the scene with a rising sense of excitement—and, yes, even of fun.

  She rather enjoyed the races at home, Ascot and Goodwood, but this had something quite different about it all. Something elegant and light-hearted that was so French. She was glad she had worn the new hat.

  ‘What do you think of it all, then?’ Chris asked, returning to her side with the racing papers in hand.

  Emily smiled up at him from under the feathered brim. He had liked it after all, looking rather thunderstruck when she first appeared in her hotel lobby to meet him, and it gave her a lovely little glow of satisfaction. Though she knew she should not care what he thought of her looks, not after promising herself to be so careful around him.

  And he looked rather nice himself. He was dressed like the other men in his dark suit and pale grey waistcoat, his face shadowed by the brim of his tall hat, yet he carried it off as none of them did, with a graceful carelessness.

  ‘It’s all quite festive,’ she said. ‘Tell me, what do those flags over there mean?’

  ‘That’s where the famous hill begins, a true challenge for any thoroughbred. And that’s the starting post for today’s first run.’ He took her arm and led her closer to the railings along the track, pointing out the perils of the hill, the sharp corners where jockeys had to beware. All around them in the stands were bright, laughing crowds, a cloud of merriment.

  ‘Monsieur Blakely!’ a voice cried and Emily turned to see a man weaving his way towards them through the colourful crowd, followed by a gaggle of ladies in vivid satin gowns and beribboned hats, young men in daring striped jackets. All of them held champagne glasses and were obviously enjoying themselves very much indeed.

  ‘Monsieur Jouet,’ Chris answered boisterously. They shook hands, laughing merrily as if they were old friends long parted. ‘Good to see you again! I was hoping to see you here in Paris.’

  ‘Ah, yes, it has been too long,’ Monsieur Jouet, a man with most impressive mustachios, Emily could see up close, and a bright blue jacket quite different from the requisite black. ‘We had such fun the last time you were here, did we not, ladies? The boats on the river you stole...ooh-la-la.’ The ladies all giggled and Emily couldn’t help but wonder what happened in those stolen boats. Which ladies Chris had taken out there before. She was a fool if she forgot what life with him would really be like on an ordinary day. But an extraordinary one like this—that was different.

  ‘I do hope you gave them back to the boatmen,’ she murmured.

  ‘Of course,’ Chris protested. ‘With ample compensation. Em, may I present an old friend, Monsieur Jouet? Jean-Paul, this is Mademoiselle Fortescue, a friend from London.’

  ‘Ah, and the most lovely friend!’ Monsieur Jouet proclaimed, bowing over her hand. ‘Anyone who knows Monsieur Blakely is most welcome. Have some champagne?’

  Chris took Emily’s arm and led her to where Jouet’s crowd waited with bottles of bubbly.

  ‘You do know so very many people,’ Emily said. And it was true. Everywhere Chris went, he seemed to find friends. To know the secrets of everyone. She wondered what he knew that he did not tell. What really lay in his past.

  Chris looked after Jouet and his party with a strangely serious look on his face. ‘Of course. People are endlessly fascinating. You never know what you might discover about them.’

  Emily remembered what she had once thought about Chris, that he seemed to have so many masks. Bright, shining, lovely masks, full of laughter, but concealing none the less. She did so long to know what was behind them.

  ‘Now, who do you fancy for the Grand Galop?’ Chris asked. He tilted back his hat on his tousled, gleaming gold hair, which gave him a rakish appearance, and studied the racing sheets.

  Glad of the distraction, of something else to think about besides the mysteries buried deep behind Chris’s vivid blue eyes, Emily leaned closer to study the smudged ink. But that, too, was a mistake, for that close she could feel the warmth of him against her arm. His scent, that spicy citrus soap of his, wrapped all around her, a stealthy, steel-strong bond that she couldn’t seem to break from. Or even want to break. She just wanted to be closer and closer.

  And that showed she was entirely right to be wary of him.

  She held herself very still and forced herself to focus on the words of the page. ‘Oh, Jeune Fleur, I think.’

  Chris gave her a startled glance. ‘Really? But he’s the longshot. Has a reputation for unreliability, though he can be wondrously fast at times. Cinnamon Trade is favoured to win.’

  ‘But I like the name. Young Flower, so sweet. And it’s so dull to go for the obvious,’ Emily said with a laugh. ‘Low risk, low reward, where’s the fun in that? So much more fascinating to go with the rebellious outsider and watch him astonish everyone with victory.’

  Chris frowned as he studied her. ‘And you think Young Flower is a—rebellious outsider?’

  ‘Certainly he is, or why would he have such a fabulous name? Can’t you just picture it? He kicks against his traces—he runs in the wrong direction, goes places he shouldn’t. But he’s fast, magically fast, and all he needs is someone who understands why he needs to run to give him his wings. To let him achieve his destiny by winning here at Longchamp. And bringing the faithful few, such as us, rich takings.’

  Chris laughed, an astonished, bright sound. ‘Why, Em—who would ever think you’re hiding such fanciful dreams? You do know how to have fun.’

  ‘Of course I have fun,’ Emily said indignantly. ‘Sometimes, when it’s appropriate. What did you think? That I was just made up of dusty ledger books?’

  ‘Hardly that.’ He reached out and gently touched one fingertip to a loose curl coiling from beneath her hat. She leaned her cheek into his touch, unable to stop herself. ‘No one could ever think you were made of dried-up dust at all.’

  ‘But you do think I’m too serious,’ she whispered, entranced by his touch.

  ‘You are responsible about your work, like my brother is. And you’re both all the more admirable for it. Yet I’m beginning to suspect you do know how to have fun, too. That you have hidden aspects.’

  Emily was beginning to think that about him, too. Could they ever understand each other?

  The crowd swirling around them jostled against her and she caught Chris’s arm to keep from falling. His muscles flexed under her touch, hard and lean, the power of him hidden under finely tailored wool. ‘Shall we place that bet?’ she said, her voice hoarse.

  He looked down at her for a long moment and she was sure he was going to say something. She felt terribly breathless, on edge. But he just shook his head and that brilliant, sunny smile, the smile she was beginning to suspect was something of another mask, was back in radiant force.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You wait here, I’ll be right back. I’ll try to find some strawberries, too.’

  Emily watched him disappe
ar into the crowd, his tall figure standing out among all the others, and she sighed. She took a deep breath of the warm, earthy air and tried to compose herself. It was most unlike her to get so flustered and over nothing.

  She tilted down the wide brim of her hat to shade her eyes from the sun, which was climbing higher overhead, and studied the crowd pressed against the railings as they waited for the next race to start. She could hear brassy music from some unseen band nearby, could see the swish of lace fans from the expensive boxes that rose at the end of the track, could hear laughter growing louder as parties became more raucous, as champagne and bright yellow elderflower liquor was consumed.

  A man in a box just across the track from where she stood turned towards her and, with a start, she realised she recognised him. James Hertford, with his glossy dark hair and fine, pale features. He seemed to appear everywhere lately, even here at Gordston’s in Paris. Yet now, as he, too, caught sight of her, his lean, handsome face lit up and he gave her an enthusiastic wave.

  Emily waved back, wondering what had brought him to Paris. Business? What exactly did he do, besides being a gentleman?

  As she studied James Hertford, she heard again her father’s voice saying he wished she was settled and happy, respectably married. She saw Di and Alex and their contentment. Maybe she should consider it. She was no spring deb—what if one day work and the League were not enough? One day when her father was gone and she was alone. A man like James Hertford could be a most suitable choice. He had a fine name, a place in society and seemed nice. Conventional, steady—a girl could predict exactly what sort of life she would have with him. Running a house, having children, doing charity work, the Season in the spring, shooting in the fall. One day like another. Not at all like...

  Not at all like a meteor such as Chris.

  Emily frowned. If she was in the marriage market, Chris would be a poor investment. Quicksilver, full of laughter, uncertain. What would life be like with him?