First Season / Bride to Be

by Jane Ashford

Emily fought to hide her agitation from the people around them. Eventually, Richard would understand. She took another calming breath and rushed on before he could stop her again. “Some…friends of mine have heard rumors about the attacks on you. Ruffians may have been hired to harm you.”

  Richard stared down at her.

  “They are trying to find out who this may be,” Emily added hurriedly. “If we could find them, then we could discover who is behind…”

  “We?”

  His gaze made Emily falter. “Well, that is…”

  “I have told you it is none of your affair,” he continued, but he said it as if he were mystified, rather than offended, by her persistence.

  “You admit that someone is after you, then?”

  His frown didn’t seem directed wholly at her. “I have been forced to acknowledge that something odd is going on.”

  “Thank God,” replied Emily, feeling immense relief.

  “Why should you care?”

  He really had the most piercing gaze, she thought. It took her a moment to gather her faculties. “I care about anyone who is in trouble.”

  He obviously found this unsatisfactory.

  “And I was there at the beginning, you know. When those two men were trying to drown you. I have some…some responsibility, since I chased them off.”

  “You?”

  “The dogs and I.”

  He looked bemused.

  “And it’s interesting,” she finished.

  “What?”

  Instantly, she regretted that final phrase. “It’s an…an obligation.”

  He examined her as if he had never seen such a creature before. “Having, as you see it, saved my life, you now feel obligated to safeguard it?”

  “That’s it.” Relieved, Emily smiled at him.

  “Ridiculous,” he pronounced. “The obligation—if one did exist—would be on my side.”

  “But if you save something, you cannot just abandon it afterward.”

  He looked offended. “We’re not talking of a half-dead kitten, or an injured fox.” There seemed to be amusement in his voice as well, though she couldn’t be sure.

  “So I should just let you be killed?”

  “I assure you I am exceedingly difficult to kill.”

  “But a systematic attack…”

  “Where did you hear of such a thing?”

  “I told you. Friends of mine…”

  “What sort of friends would be privy to that kind of information?” He looked around the crowded room, his lip curling a little. “Certainly not those you have made in London?”

  “Old friends.”

  “Miss Crane, you are being deliberately unhelpful.”

  “I cannot tell you who they are. They would not wish to be known to you.” The Fitzgibbons would be exceedingly unhappy if she betrayed their true identity, or their connection with some of the town’s more unsavory elements.

  “Indeed. But I am to take the word of these mysterious individuals…”

  “Well, what other clues do you have?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “How else will you find out who is after you?”

  “I have certain resources of my own.”

  “Are you going to refuse help just because it comes from me?” Emily was horrified to hear her voice break slightly as she spoke.

  He seemed to be trying to formulate an answer when a low musical voice interrupted with, “I beg your pardon.”

  Emily turned, and almost collided with a tall attractive woman bearing down on them. Emily stepped out of her way.

  “Richard, you must rescue me,” said the newcomer. “I believe your mother has introduced me to everyone here, and I have forgotten all their names.”

  Emily watched Richard smile down at her. The woman was dark haired and quite beautiful, and she had an enviable ease and confidence.

  “And some mad earl smashed the painter’s easel,” she continued. “He threatened to slather the hostess in red paint for ‘mocking creative life blood.’ I had no idea that ton parties were so…active.”

  A small sound escaped Emily. That had to be her father, though he was only the son of an earl.

  The woman was looking inquiringly at her, as if wondering why she didn’t take herself off.

  “This is Emily Crane, Lydia,” said Richard. “Miss Crane my, er, cousin Lydia Farrell.”

  “Ah. Miss Crane, I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. I’ve just come up to London. May I offer my felicitations.” Her gaze was speculative and appraising.

  “Thank you,” answered Emily faintly.

  Lydia looked from her to Richard. “Am I interrupting? I don’t mean to intrude on your tête-à-tête.”

  Emily had a strong desire to say yes, but she held her tongue as Richard assured his cousin that she was quite welcome. He certainly seemed to find her so. The conversation had been a fiasco from start to finish. It was hard to see how it could have been worse.

  “Sheldon,” bellowed a deep voice behind her.

  Emily closed her eyes in despair. Things can always get worse, she reminded herself.

  “Or Warrington, whatever you call yourself,” continued her father, descending on their little group like the wrath of God. “I want a word with you.”

  Richard merely waited. He didn’t look the least intimidated.

  “I have not given my consent to this engagement!”

  Was that a spark of hope in Richard’s eyes? It certainly looked like one. People were starting to turn and listen. A few were drawing closer as if part of the entertainment was beginning.

  “And I don’t like it above half,” her father went on. “Puffing it off in the papers without consulting me.” Alasdair Crane huffed like a goaded bull. “Not quite the thing, eh?” He waited for an answer, but no one gave him one.

  Emily watched a series of expressions pass across Richard’s face. To her, they looked like temptation, compunction, and regret. She wondered what the crowd made of them. “Have you, er, spoken with the duchess?” asked Richard finally.

  “Julia has nothing to do with the matter. We’re talking about my daughter.” He glared at the other guests, who now surrounded them in a clump. “All of you hear me?” he demanded. “Did I speak loud enough for you jackals?”

  Emily was shaken by a crazed desire to laugh. Since she also felt utterly humiliated and unaccountably afraid, what came out was more like a bleat.

  “And you, my girl. You ought to have known better than to accept him without consulting your parents.”

  The laugh was in her throat, side by side with a moan. She gulped and nodded.

  Her mother came gliding up and put a hand on Alasdair’s arm. She whispered something to him.

  “I’ve said what I meant to,” he answered aloud. “You come round and see me,” he commanded Richard. “I have some questions for you.”

  Richard was actually smiling, Emily saw with incredulity. He bowed his head in acknowledgment.

  “Come along,” added her father peremptorily to Emily. As she followed her parents through the murmuring crowd, Emily saw Richard’s cousin thread her arm through his and smile warmly up at him.

  * * *

  When Richard presented himself at the duchess of Welford’s splendid town house the next day, he found he was looking forward to the visit with a surprising amount of anticipation. He had been summoned by Alasdair Crane, after all, and he could only foresee the unexpected.

  The butler ushered him into a small parlor near the back of the house. It was well away from the main rooms, he realized with a smile. The duchess must have given orders to keep her unpredictable brother-in-law as far from her as possible.

  The door opened, and Alasdair Crane came in. But the bluster and outrage of their last encounter was gone. The man looked
almost forlorn, Richard thought.

  “I have no studio here,” he said, as if this would naturally be Richard’s first concern. “I cannot paint. And Olivia is making me buy new clothes.” He fingered the lapels of his coat—which did indeed look new—as if the mere sight of it pained him.

  “That…that is too bad.” Richard had to hide a smile.

  “It’s intolerable. She knows that.”

  Was he supposed to offer some sort of solution? “Perhaps you could use a room on the upper floors for a studio?” The place must have thirty rooms.

  Crane shook his head. “Julia claims the smell of paint makes her ill.” He grimaced. “I’ve always doubted that she and Olivia were really sisters. Old Shelbury’s such a dry stick. I shouldn’t wonder if their mother played him false.” This idea seemed to cheer him. “Olivia’s father must have been a different sort altogether—an artist even.”

  Richard couldn’t contain a short laugh.

  It attracted Crane’s full attention. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “You summoned me, sir.”

  “I did? Oh yes.” He shook his head again. “Can’t think clearly when I’m not painting. It’s this engagement, isn’t it?”

  “I believe so,” answered Richard, making an effort to keep his voice steady.

  “Yes, that’s it.” Emily’s father walked over to a sofa near the fireplace, his steps heavy. “May as well sit down.”

  He did so, and Richard followed suit. Silence fell.

  “Look at that light,” said Crane suddenly.

  Turning to follow his gaze, Richard saw a shaft of sunshine streaming through one of the windows and pooling on the yellow carpet.

  “Like butter. Butter spangled as an opera dancer’s tights.”

  A bit surprised, Richard nodded. The motes of dust floating in the light did make it look rather like that.

  “It’ll be gone in half an hour and I won’t have touched a brush to canvas.”

  “I’m sorry.” He actually was, Richard realized. The man’s deprivation was so real, his face so forlorn. Moved by a sudden impulse, Richard said, “When did you know you wanted to paint?”

  Alasdair didn’t look the least bit surprised by the question. “I was four years old. I was playing with some building blocks in the nursery when my sister’s governess began a lesson in watercolors.” His dark eyes bored into Richard’s. “Her brush swept across the paper like a bluebird’s wing, and suddenly I couldn’t see anything else. She let me try, and…” He made a gesture signifying that everything had flowed from there.

  “So it was a gift, a talent. You didn’t have to struggle and wonder what your purpose might be.”

  Alasdair Crane shook his head, his attention fully on Richard for perhaps the first time in their short acquaintance. “You don’t want to paint?”

  Richard smiled slightly. The man’s obsession was almost endearing. “No, I’ve never wanted that. But I do want…something like that,” Richard blurted out. Part of him couldn’t believe he was confiding in a stranger, but another pushed him to get any guidance he could. “A task or a pursuit that compels me.”

  Alasdair nodded as if this were the most reasonable statement in the world.

  Richard felt a curious relief, along with satisfaction. He had known Alasdair Crane would understand this desire.

  “What do you love?”

  Richard frowned, at a loss.

  “Think about it. Find what you love, and follow it, and that will be enough for you.”

  “But…” This seemed both too simple, and immensely complicated. “How will that tell me what to do?”

  “The doing’s not the problem.” Crane waved a hand. “Or, it is. But not the main one. When you have the passion, wrestling with the details of the work is a splendid fight.”

  Richard puzzled over his words. They sounded good, but he was no further along in finding a next step.

  Giving the shaft of sunlight a longing look, Crane said. “So you want to marry Emily?”

  Richard gathered his wits. There was no suitable reply to the question. It would not be honest to agree, and to disagree would create considerable havoc. He could understand the duchess’s decision not to tell the Cranes the circumstances behind the engagement. Emily’s father would probably try to call him out. Or just shoot him.

  “Olivia reminded me what it was like to have one’s wishes opposed.” Crane sat a bit straighter on the sofa. “I would have killed anyone who tried to keep her from me. I still would.” He gave a sharp nod.

  “You are to be envied, sir.”

  “I know it.” He grimaced. “It was damned unsettling, finding myself in Shelbury’s shoes, acting just like him.”

  “I’m sure you could never be like the marquess.”

  “You would have thought so, but now that it’s a daughter of my own…” He scowled. “Hostages to fortune, that’s what the bard called them. And with only the one child…” He sighed. “The important thing is to see her happy. That’s what Olivia says, and I agree. So if it’s you she wants…” He examined Richard and seemed to find him wanting. “You’re mighty cool about this.”

  Richard groped for words.

  “In your place, I’d’ve made it clear by this time that I didn’t give a rap what her parents thought—or anyone else.” He peered at Richard. “I’d’ve consigned them all to perdition.”

  “Perhaps we are of different temperaments.” Oddly, Crane’s accusations stung.

  “You’re not afraid of me. I can see that.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t much care what I think.” He frowned.

  “I hope for your good opinion, of course.”

  Alasdair snorted. “Fustian.”

  “Not at all. You have shaped your life to your own design. I admire that.”

  “Trying to turn me up sweet?”

  Richard shrugged, letting him take or leave his remarks. He had meant them, though.

  “I don’t understand you.” Crane leaned forward as if decreasing the distance between them would help. “You’ve said nothing about Emily in all this.”

  They were back to the sticky part. To tell the truth would be to go back on his word. It occurred to Richard that this was the first time in his life that he had seriously inconvenienced himself for another person. He had a sudden sense of vertigo.

  Crane sat back, resting his hands on his knees. “Well?”

  “Not everyone can…express himself as fully as you do.”

  This brought no break in the hard scrutiny.

  “I’m not an artist. It is not so easy to say how I feel.” That was certainly true.

  The older man continued to watch him, though his gaze seemed slightly less hostile.

  “You will be wondering about my prospects,” said Richard, attempting a diversion. “I have to admit they are not good. My estates in Somerset are heavily encumbered, and one in Wales left me by my stepfather is mainly rock. My income is…limited.”

  Crane shook his head as if bewildered.

  “The cottage at Morne is Elizabethan. There are some beautiful vistas. Very paintable.” Paintable? he thought incredulously. This eccentric man was reducing him to idiocy.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” replied Crane. He sounded pathetically bewildered. “I’m not some sort of old Roman paterfamilias.” He blinked at Richard, then rose. “I need Olivia. Where is Olivia?” He made his way to the door, leaving Richard alone in the small parlor.

  It was a relief. He felt as if he’d been interrogated, though he hadn’t really. It would have been enormously satisfying to declare a great love, to fling his passion in the face of all opposition, to dare anyone to thwart him. He longed to have such feelings, such certainty…

  There was very little sound here at the back of the house. The silence enveloped
Richard. He wondered if Crane meant to return, or if he should go? Sitting back on the sofa, he waited.

  * * *

  In her bedchamber upstairs, Emily had been enduring a similar trial. Her mother had come to her about the time Richard arrived and settled in for a cozy chat. “It seems so long since we had a chance to talk,” she began.

  They didn’t talk very often at home, Emily thought, and braced herself for difficulties.

  “I didn’t expect that you would become engaged so soon. I thought you would have a season at least.” She made a deprecating gesture. “Of course one cannot control these things. When you fall desperately in love…”

  She paused, giving Emily the opportunity to profess her passion. Emily swallowed. Should she tell her the truth?

  Looking a little concerned, her mother went on. “I remember the first time I spoke to your father. It was a rout party. His mother had made him go, and he was so magnificently angry.” She smiled. “He tried to be quite savage with me, reviling my dress and the petty emptiness of society.” Her blue eyes twinkled. “And I told him it was all a kind of art. I had heard about him, you see, and made it my business to meet him. It wasn’t two weeks before we…” She broke off with a self-conscious laugh. “Well, never mind that ancient history. We were talking of you.”

  Emily had to tell her something. When I met Richard Sheldon, two men were trying to kill him, she thought wildly.

  “I suppose you found Mr. Sheldon—Lord Warrington, that is—ah, interesting when he was at our house?” Olivia prompted finally.

  “Yes.”

  “And then you met again in London.”

  “At a ball. We danced.” That had been quite unpleasant, she remembered. “And walked in the park, and…” In a sudden panic, she wondered whether her aunt had confided the whole story to her mother. She hadn’t told Papa, of course. No one would do such a silly thing as that.

  “And you fell in love,” said her mother. “He is a handsome man.”

  The concerned look that accompanied this spurred Emily to action. She nodded vigorously. “He…he was shipwrecked in the jungle and had to fight his way out. It took months and months. There were huge snakes and, er, panthers.”

  “Really?” Her mother was looking a bit puzzled.