Endearing Young Charms Series

by M. C. Beaton

  He was about to ring for a servant when he noticed a beautiful girl descending the staircase. She was holding a candle in a brass candlestick and had an evil-looking mongrel at her heels.

  At the same moment, Emily caught sight of him and stopped on the half-landing, looking down. At first glance he looked like the most handsome man she had ever seen. His hair was worn longer than the current fashion and was tied by a black velvet ribbon at the nape of his neck. His hair was so blond it was nearly white, and his face was deeply tanned. He had light-gray eyes under heavy drooping lids, a patrician nose, and a square chin. He was wearing a swallow-tailed coat with the tight-fitting evening trousers pioneered by Brummel that fitted the leg like a second skin and reached to just above the ankle, displaying an expanse of striped silk stocking.

  His cravat was intricately folded and starched, and a single sapphire pin blazed against its snowy whiteness.

  He stood watching her in silence until she became aware that she had been staring at him and blew out her candle—for the hall was brightly lit—and made her way down the stairs toward him.

  Her silk gown rustled about her, and the gold fringe from the curtains that she had used to embellish it fluttered as she moved.

  He made her a deep bow and said in an attractive, husky voice, “I am Storm. I was about to ring for a servant, but perhaps you may save me the trouble, Miss…?”

  “Winters, my lord.”

  “Miss Winters, will you show me to the drawing room?”

  Emily swept him a low curtsy and murmured, “Certainly, my lord.”

  She fought down a little twinge of disappointment. His eyes were hard and cold, and he seemed very haughty.

  He held out his arm, and she tentatively laid her gloved hand on his sleeve, indicating the drawing room with a little nod of her head.

  A footman suddenly materialized and rushed to throw open the doors for them, and Lord Storm, not knowing whether this young lady was a guest of the house or no, gave the footman both their names.

  “Miss Winters and Lord Storm,” announced the footman.

  The party in the drawing room, with the exception of Sir Peregrine, rose to their feet. From the looks on the ladies’ faces, Emily realized she was being damned for having stolen a march on them.

  The drawing room was a blaze of gold and crimson; gilt furniture with crimson upholstery, gold-painted ceiling, crimson curtains, and two fine Waterford chandeliers.

  “Come in! Come in!” cried Sir Peregrine. “No need to stand on formality, heh? Your name’s Bartholomew, I believe.”

  “My friends of long standing call me Bart,” said his lordship pleasantly. “But others address me by my title. You may call me Storm.”

  Insufferable, thought Emily, who had detached herself from him at the earliest opportunity.

  “Hey, well, well,” said Sir Peregrine, looking slightly taken aback. “I’d better make the company known to you. This here is m’sister, Harriet, and the thin one in the dog collar is m’brother, James. He’ll save your soul for you, heh?” He let out a bellow of laughter while Lord Storm eyed him coldly.

  “And the ladies?” queried Lord Storm in a tone that plainly implied Sir Peregrine should have introduced them first.

  “Heh, what? Eh, yes. Well, this here dasher is m’cousin, Clarissa Singleton. And those two charmers over there are m’nieces, Fanny and Betty Kipling. And now, since you’ve met everyone, we’ll have some refreshment.”

  The ladies clustered around the distinguished visitor. Lord Storm raised his quizzing glass and looked pointedly in Emily’s direction. “And Miss Winters is…?”

  “Dog’s companion,” said Harriet with a harsh laugh. Emily stooped quickly and patted Duke’s head. “Oh, by the by,” said Harriet, “did you find my work basket, Miss Winters? Got to earn your keep, you know.”

  Before Emily could reply, Sir Peregrine said gleefully, “Pay her no heed, Emmy. She ain’t got a work basket. Just out to humiliate you. I got Emmy from the orphanage,” went on Sir Peregrine. “She looks after Duke.”

  “The duke?” asked Lord Storm. “Which one?”

  “My dog Duke, that’s who,” said Sir Peregrine. “Only one who ain’t after my money. They’re all after my money, ’cept Emmy, which is strange, since she’s the only one who could do with it.”

  A stunned and embarrassed silence met these family revelations.

  “Miss Winters is not then a relative of yours,” said Lord Storm, looking over the heads of his court of ladies to where Emily was standing.

  “Oh, she’s some sort o’ kin,” said Sir Peregrine carelessly.

  “Your lordship should know that poor relations are a feature and fixture of every gentleman’s home,” said Clarissa Singleton merrily.

  “Indeed I do,” he said, smiling down at her. “Fortunately, humiliating them openly in company is not.”

  Clarissa flushed.

  “Tell us about the fighting in the Peninsula,” fluted Fanny, delighted at Clarissa’s set-down.

  “I do not like to talk about the war.”

  There was another silence while everyone drank feverishly and wondered what to say next.

  Lord Storm began to stroll across the room toward Emily. Emily tried not to shrink back. She would have preferred to be ignored.

  “What kind of animal is that?” demanded his lordship, leveling his quizzing glass at Duke. Duke began to growl softly, and his ruff went up.

  “Duke is a mongrel,” said Emily, amazed at the calmness of her own voice, for she was beginning to find Lord Storm quite terrifying.

  His cold eyes looked down at Duke. Duke slowly curled his lips back from his teeth and stared up at Lord Storm with a reddish glint in his close-set eyes.

  “Amazing,” said Lord Storm, letting his quizzing glass drop. “I find it very strange. I consider the place for a dog to be in the kennel and the place for a cat to be in the kitchen. Obviously you do not agree, Sir Peregrine. I trust Miss Winters is fond of animals?”

  “Yes, my lord,” said Emily, staring at the floor.

  “Dinner is served,” announced the butler, and a sigh of relief rose from the assembled party.

  Sir Peregrine was carried in by two footmen. Lord Storm followed next, with Harriet on his arm; Clarissa Singleton came next, on the arm of James Manley; Betty and Fanny escorted each other; and Emily and Duke brought up the rear.

  Since dining in the sun was considered far more unpleasant than gloom or chill, the Manley Court dining room faced northeast and was freezingly cold. With its heavy somber furniture it was as solemn as a courtroom. A huge oil painting of a carcass with its innards hanging out embellished one wall, and on the other a highly colored saint was shedding scarlet blood as he was flogged by muscular Romans in bright-blue togas. At the end of the room, a small coal fire sent all its heat straight up the chimney.

  Lord Storm was placed next to Harriet, with Clarissa Singleton on his other side. Sir Peregrine took the opposite end of the table from his sister, and the rest arranged themselves as best they could.

  A smaller dining room was usually used for family meals, and this particular room had not been used for two years. It had an enormous oblong table, meant to seat a whole banquet of people. The party found themselves a long way away from each other and realized they would have to shout to be heard by the person next to them.

  No sooner was the turtle soup served—thick or clear—than Mr. James Manley arose to say grace. Sir Peregrine rapped lightly on his plate, and Emily’s heart sank. That rap meant Sir Peregrine was not in the eating vein and therefore James had permission to make the grace as long as he wanted. Although James was a minister of the Church of England, Emily had often thought he might have been happier had he chosen one of those sects that delighted in preaching hellfire. She was sure his histrionic abilities were wasted on the Anglican church.

  James took a deep breath and began. “Dear Father, we beseech thee…”

  Just then, Emily felt Duke’s wet nose push
ed into her hand. This was his signal that he wanted to go out. But how could she rise in the middle of grace? Emily gave the dog a little rap on the nose, which was her signal that he could not go out, and he slunk away under the table.

  The turtle soup began to cool on the plates as James went on and on, working himself into a religious sweat.

  “So my dear brethren, we must work and strive and pray to be worthy of the food we see before us. Strike humility into our hearts this evening, oh Father, so that we may kneel and say… damn! Hell! Blast! Rot it! Rot it! Oh, double, double, double rot!”

  Everyone looked up in surprise. James was weaving his head around inside its clerical collar like a demented tortoise. “Anythin’ the matter, James?” asked Sir Peregrine.

  “No!” screamed James. And in a quieter voice, he hurriedly said, “Amen,” and bent his head over his soup. Emily, looking for Duke, leaned back in her chair a little. And then she saw the cause of the rector’s distress. He had one silk-stockinged leg stuck out beside his chair. A pool of liquid lay on the floor at his heel, and the silk of his stocking was damp.

  Oh, Duke! thought Emily in distress. Couldn’t you have waited? She knew well that James would not dare tell the reason for his outburst. Sir Peregrine would brook no criticism whatsoever of his dog.

  She looked around the table, hoping that no one had noticed. Lord Storm caught her eye and gave her a mocking, teasing smile. That smile so changed his face, made him so blindingly handsome, that poor Emily felt her insides tremble. She breathlessly reminded herself that his lordship was rude and haughty and overbearing and stared fixedly at her plate.

  When she looked up again, Lord Storm was listening to Harriet, who was shouting about plumbing. His face was a mask of boredom, and Emily was able to concentrate on her dinner and at the same time try to persuade herself that she was not freezing to death. Mrs. Singleton’s white shoulders were turning a delicate shade of blue. Duke was standing, blocking the fire.

  What an unconscionably long meal it was!

  Remove followed remove.

  The turtle soup was followed by turbot with lobster sauce, followed by mutton, followed by turkey, and then the game began to circulate—grouse, woodcock, partridge, snipe, and all with the accompanying punch, hock, white hermitage, sparkling moselle, and burgundy. Then came creams and jellies and puffs and pastries, and still the meal was not over.

  “Do try a little fondieu,” Fanny begged Lord Storm.

  “What on earth is that?” shouted his lordship, since Fanny was about an acre of polished mahogany away.

  “Miss Kipling means fondue,” called Emily before she could help herself.

  “That’s what I said,” snapped Fanny, waving away a water ice.

  At long last, Harriet arose to lead the ladies from the room and so leave the gentlemen to their port and all those nasty “warm” stories that ladies were not supposed to hear.

  Emily decided to make her escape, but Harriet said coldly, “I want a word with you, Miss Winters,” and so Emily had to follow her meekly into the drawing room.

  “Now, Miss Winters,” began Harriet as the other ladies rushed to warm themselves at the fire, “I think it is high time to remind you of your place. You are a penniless incumbent. You are tolerated as a kind of kennel boy to that disgusting animal. I fear my poor brother is not long for this world, and when he departs it, you, miss, depart Manley Court and that excuse for a hound goes with you. Do I make myself plain?”

  “You are indeed very plain as it is,” said Emily with a rare burst of spirit. “Do not, I pray you, endeavor to make matters worse.”

  “Jade!” fumed Harriet, quite beside herself with rage. Duke ambled over and stood looking up at Harriet, his ruff rising ominously.

  “Furthermore, you have no right to be aping your betters by wearing silk. That gown is too rich for you, miss. Furthermore, you were very forward in encouraging Lord Storm’s advances—for gentlemen will always make bold advances when their object is not marriage. Furthermore…”

  But Duke decided he had heard enough. He seized Harriet’s skirt in his teeth and began to worry it.

  “Shoo!” screamed Harriet, pulling her skirt one way as Duke began to pull it the other. “A pox on you, you hairy fleabag! You useless monster!”

  There was a great rending, and Duke sat back triumphantly on his haunches with a good piece of Harriet’s skirt in his teeth. Fanny and Betty began to scream as well, and Mrs. Singleton calmly helped herself to brandy.

  Emily seized Duke by the collar and dragged him from the room. “Oh, you impossible dog!” She sighed. “But how can I scold you when I am so in need of a champion? We’ll go for a walk and hide until they are all gone to bed.”

  Duke, hearing that magic word “walk,” followed her eagerly up the stairs.

  Once in her room, Emily debated what to wear, for she knew the night outside was probably frigid. She rapidly changed into an old wool gown and a shabby mantle and wrapped a heavy shawl around her head. After a moment’s hesitation, she pulled the quilt from the bed and slung it over her arm.

  She led Duke quietly down the back stairs and out into the night.

  White frost glittered on the spiky grass and rimed the trees on the lawn. The air was still and cold, and winter stars blazed in the blackness of the sky above. Duke ran around and around and around in a sort of ecstasy of freedom. One would have thought he had been chained up in a kennel for days.

  Emily walked across the great expanse of lawn that fronted the house until she was at the edge of the home wood. There was her favorite log, near the drive and far enough from the house to allow her to sit peacefully and dream.

  Duke plunged into the wood in search of rabbits, and Emily wrapped herself up in the quilt and gazed up at the stars and dreamed of having a cozy little home to go where she could call her soul her own.

  After some time, she noticed a carriage being brought around to the front door. A figured jumped up into the box and shouted something in the way of adieu, and then the coach started to roll down the drive toward her.

  Lord Storm was driving himself. She watched as he approached, seeing the glimmer of his face in the faint starlight. To her surprise, he reined in his horses and climbed down. Emily waited breathlessly, huddled in the quilt, sure that he could not see her. But he shouted to his tiger to hold the reins and then began to walk toward her.

  Chapter 2

  When he was quite close, he paused and made her a courtly bow, then, without waiting for permission, sat down on the log beside her.

  He removed his curly-brimmed beaver and placed it on the grass at his feet. The starlight glinted on the thick fair whiteness of his hair and glinted in his eyes as he looked down at her.

  “What are you doing here, Miss Winters?” he asked.

  Emily looked up at Lord Storm with a certain degree of irritation. For she had decided his lordship was one of them, that little army of people put on this earth for the sole purpose of baiting her.

  “I wanted to be alone, my lord.”

  “I cannot blame you,” he said lazily. “The company was rude, boring, and dreary. I shall not call again.”

  “And your lordship was not rude, boring, and dreary?”

  He looked at her with some hauteur. “Do you not think that you go a great deal too far, Miss Winters?”

  “Oh, you mean, why don’t I remember my place,” said Emily. She gave a little sigh that expelled itself in the frosty air in a cloud. “It does not matter, you see. I am tolerated by Sir Peregrine because of the dog. When he dies, his sister says she will send me from the house. She and the others are forced to tolerate me because of Sir Peregrine. I realized tonight when she was berating me in the drawing room that I really did not need to guard my tongue. In the common way, I am polite and civil. But of late, the provocation has been great.”

  “Who were your parents?” he asked abruptly.

  “I do not know. I am some relative of the Manleys, that is all I do know. My
stay at the orphanage was paid for by some relative who left express instructions that his name not be revealed to me.”

  “And what will you do when they turn you out?”

  “I really do not know,” said Emily wearily, “and at this time of night, sir, I confess I do not really care.”

  “Odso! Then what shall we do with pretty Emily?”

  His voice was suddenly warm and caressing.

  “It is not your concern,” she said breathlessly.

  He took her hand in his and, turning it over, pressed a kiss into the palm. “I could make it my business,” he said, smiling down into her eyes.

  The sudden aura of strong sexuality that seemed to emanate from him had the effect of striking her dumb. Her lips parted in bewilderment. Her mouth was young and soft and almost not quite formed.

  Before she could find her voice, he had bent his head and trapped her mouth in a kiss. His lips were cool and firm, and therefore she found the violent reaction of the rest of her body quite unaccountable.

  For one brief seconds, she realized all her churning thoughts and frustrations had found a focus, and it was as if some great rising tide of passion in her body had just reached her lips. When her brain screamed warning, she pushed him away, appalled at having been so near the edge of surrender.

  The night was bitterly cold. His eyes were once more hard and cruel.

  “Leave me alone, my lord,” said Emily in a cold, thin voice. “I may not know my parents, I may be penniless, but that should not give you license to take liberties.”

  “I subjected you to an excess of civility, that was all,” said Lord Storm, standing up and drawing on his York tan driving gloves, then stooping to pick up his hat.

  He wheeled about and strode away from her. She did not wait to see him reach his carriage, but stood up on shaky legs, calling for Duke, who came scrambling helter-skelter out of the woods. Huddling the quilt about her, she began to run toward the house, the shaggy dog loping at her heels.