"There aren't many chairs," the cook looked around the table. "A dozen?"
"A baker's dozen, counting me," Emelia said with a smile. "Brody Shaw has some glorified idea of a couples dinner, and has therefore asked me to invite a smattering of non-couples over for dinner."
The cook leveled a kind smile on Emelia. "And no one for the miss?"
"No one for this miss, no." Emelia shrugged with a smile. "But that way I can focus my efforts on producing the first flawless party at the Wells home. No incidents."
"I believe in us," the cook said, shuffling away downstairs to set about assembling the necessary ingredients.
Emelia directed the maids to spread a white cloth on the table and then set out her delicate blue and white china, a vase with red roses, and the glassware. It looked inviting enough. Then she went to her father's office and made certain that he was settled with a meal and a book.
"Are you alright, Emelia?" he asked. He looked at her as though he was worried about her. He so rarely worried about her. More often than not she was fussing over him; at least she had been since her mother had died.
"Of course I'm alright." She smiled as brightly as she could. "Just preoccupied, is all. Come and get me if you need anything, Papa."
Then it was off upstairs to put on a gown fitting for a late morning tea. She dressed in a royal blue gown with long, fitted sleeves, and stiff trim around the wrists and collar. She twisted her hair into a braid, pulled out a few strands around her face, and wrapped a ribbon around the lot of it.
She still wasn't certain about this party—the whole business with setting Hannah up—but she knew that it was a beginning, not a complete story. She may be nudging the boat, but in the end Brody couldn't make anything happen that wasn't what Hannah and Montgomery wanted.
When she came back downstairs, Hannah was frowning at the seating arrangement card.
"Emelia, did you put me by Montgomery?"
"Yes." Emelia smiled. "He's only in town for a few days. I thought you might like to catch up with him."
"Catch up with him? I hardly know him, and what I do know isn’t very interesting. He'll either sit silently, or he'll engage me in a scientific discussion, neither of which sounds very nice."
"Well, Lady Michelle Parker is on the other side of you. Just talk with her."
Hannah pursed her lips. She rarely seemed like the spoiled younger sister, but she was doing a good imitation today. She turned on her heel and went to wait for guests by the window. Emelia had hardly finished putting the finishing touches on the arrangement at the entryway when she heard a familiar voice on the steps outside.
Hannah raised her eyes from the blind and nodded. So Lady Michelle was the first. Again. Emelia put a smile on her face and opened the door, standing just behind the butler as the guests began coming inside.
"So wonderful to hear of another event so soon after your last rustic affair," Lady Michelle said as she came into the house in a whirl of white silk and lace. She dropped her gloves into the hands of a waiting footman as though he had nothing better to do but stand and receive. "Although you do know it looks a little lonely to be hosting two events so close together. Perhaps you'd like to get together for a little friend time?" She put a hand gently on Emelia's arm, and Emelia forced a smile.
"How kind of you to ask. Perhaps we can talk about that after the tea party." She knew Michelle would forget by the time the event was over; perhaps within the next few minutes.
The Shaws were the last to arrive, as usual. Brody had sent over a note the day before warning her that Montgomery had not wanted to come to the event, and might very well be in a bad mood upon arrival. Emelia had hoped his brother's distaste for social occasions would call the whole thing off, but Brody was nothing if not persistent. He had decided on the prescription for his brother's woes, and he was not about to back down until that prescription was fulfilled.
Emelia curtsied. "Mr. Shaw. Mr. Brody."
Montgomery seemed to her to be distant. He was not unkind, but he looked as he had the day of her garden party, like a man biding time until it was polite to leave. She swallowed her frustration and led the group of twelve into the morning room.
"We'll be serving tea soon," she said with a smile, graciously pointing to the lettered table placements. "Have a seat and help yourself to the sandwiches."
There was a great scraping of chairs and everyone took their places. Everyone, that is, except Brody. He remained standing and sidled over to Emelia.
"It looks lovely," he said. Conversation was already picking up around the table as the awkward shyness of the initial meeting dissolved into interested conversation. He smiled. "If nothing else, we can at least claim responsibility for bringing half the county together for romantic purposes."
Emelia tightened her lips. "I'm only avoiding rolling my eyes," she said through a forced smile, "because I'm hosting an event and a proper hostess doesn't make her guests uncomfortable with such vulgarities."
"Right on," he said with a wink, slipping into his seat down the table from her.
The footman returned with a pot of steaming tea and poured generous cups to the guests, asking at each turn whether or not tea would be required. Everyone began sipping their drinks as he made his way around the table, and Emelia posed one of the many questions her mother had taught her to tuck away in her mental bank in case of an event such as this.
"Has anyone been to London recently? This tea is from there, and whenever I enjoy something from the city it just makes me so eager to return."
"Oh, I went just last week." Of course, Michelle spoke first. "I find it so wearisome to be in the country as much as we are. The estate has so little in the way of conversation or social opportunities." She smiled around the table as though everyone was watching her perform some sort of poem or song. And, in fact, Emelia had to admit that every time Michelle spoke she had an arresting quality.
Her skin looked the same cream as the pearls dangling from her ears, and her hair fell in soft waves around her face. Despite her frustrations with Michelle and, perhaps as Brody predicted, jealousy, Emelia couldn't help but admit that Lady Michelle Parker looked the part of a modern Aphrodite.
"Really?" Emelia asked her. "Tell me about your visit." Beside her, she saw Montgomery sniff the tea that had been poured him and then set it aside. She tried to focus on the subject at hand and not take the insult personally, but his actions were beyond grating. Furthermore, he seemed to be virtually ignoring Hannah.
Michelle took another sip of tea and bit delicately into a sandwich. A woman like her could afford to make people wait to hear her thoughts. Emelia knew from experience that everyone would hang on her words, waiting to hear what Michelle had to add to the conversation, no matter how long it took.
At last she spoke. "It was nice enough. You know, it's so hard to go during the season. Everyone's having balls and events that they want me to go to, and I'm just in the area to do a bit of seasonal shopping. My tailor's working up something in the new French style." She raised her eyebrows. "I know it's a bit revolutionary, but I think the politics are less important than the larger social impact of fashion."
Emelia cast a frustrated glance at Brody and saw him hide a smile.
"Lady Michelle," he said, taking a sip of his own tea. "It's so good to hear that you have an interest in world events and the influences upon culture."
"I think it's important to stay informed," she said demurely, popping a berry into her mouth.
Emelia turned to the girl next to her and asked in a slightly lower voice, "And you, Maryanne? How long will you be visiting your family in this part of the country?"
It was a signal to the rest of the table to go about their own business, talking to the partner next to them, and it was a chance for Emelia to see if Brody's plan had actually worked. She listened to the girl beside her, but spent the majority of her brain energy eavesdropping on her sister and Montgomery. She couldn't hear what they were saying over the low hum
of conversation around the table, but she saw her sister's face was growing increasingly distressed.
Emelia wondered what Montgomery could have done to so quickly bring out discomfort in Hannah, who usually kept such emotions well under the surface, but just as Maryanne was launching into another long litany of what she did at the house—sewing and practice of the musical arts seemed to rank fairly high in her accomplishments—Emelia saw her sister leap up from her place at the table and flee the room.
This attracted some attention from the other guests, and so Emelia herself rose as sedately as possible and made her way outside.
"I'm sure it's nothing," she said to the worried people. "Please, just give me a moment. "
The hall outside was empty. She called Hannah's name tentatively and then a maid came around the corner with a basket of linens.
"Have you seen Miss Hannah?" she asked the maid.
The girl curtsied. "Yes, ma'am. She just went running by to her room, ma'am."
Emelia took off down the hall, then turned and took the stairs up to the upper floor two at a time. Outside her sister's room she knocked twice before Hannah answered the door. She looked absolutely terrible. Emelia had expected to find her sister crying about some comment Montgomery had made, but in fact she looked legitimately ill. She had a pale grey sheen over her skin and watery eyes. She was clutching her stomach.
"I can't stay long," she said miserably. "I'm so sorry to ruin your party, but I'm in desperate need of a chamber pot. Something didn't agree with me."
"Oh," Emelia said awkwardly. "I thought—I thought Montgomery had said something disturbing to you."
"I don't have any idea what that morose gentleman said. From the moment I started eating and drinking I felt ill, and I was focusing all my attentions on making it out of that room without a disaster." She stepped away from the door, her face desperate. "Please, Emelia. Send up a maid to help. I'll be fine." And she shut the door in her sister's face.
Worried, Emelia walked back downstairs. Sometimes it seemed to her that parties were just opportunities to guess at what would go wrong, and now she no longer had to wonder. Hannah's sudden illness was today's blunder, surely. When she reached the bottom of the stairs and saw the hallway, she realised she couldn't have been further from the truth.
Four women were crowding around the powder room, demanding entrance, two men were holding their stomachs, and out of the window Emelia could see a third man was vomiting in a garden plot.
"Is everything alright?" she asked one of the women.
"Don't." The woman looked miserable. "Can't. Talk."
Emelia took off down the hall, wondering what mysterious plague had hit her home. In the drawing room Brody was leaning against the wall looking decidedly green and Montgomery was feeling Maryanne's wrist for a pulse. She looked ill as well, and embarrassed. Everyone else had already vacated the dining chamber.
"What happened here?" Emelia asked.
Montgomery stood, peering at her. "Wait," he said. "Do you feel alright?" She nodded. He turned and scanned the table. Come to think of it, she realised, Montgomery himself looked okay as well. "I wonder if it was food poisoning," he said musingly. "You didn't get a chance to eat."
"But you did eat," Emelia said.
"And I didn't," Maryanne said apologetically, looking as though she was about to run. "I never can eat at functions like this. I get too nervous." She leaned over, gripping her stomach in distress.
Montgomery's face was creased in thought. Suddenly, his eyes brightened. "Come with me," he said to Emelia. Commanded, more like it.
"I think I ought to stay with my guests," she said firmly, but instead he turned and opened the servants’ quarters and beckoned.
"No, I need you. You're the only able-bodied guest left."
Annoyed, Emelia followed him downstairs to the kitchen where the cook was putting the finishing touches on a fine cake that was to have been the crowning achievement of the party. It was white with pearled icing and tiny roses around the base. The woman looked up in surprise.
"Is everything to your liking, Miss?" she asked, clearly worried.
Montgomery strode right into the kitchen, apparently having no concern for the impropriety of the whole thing and took a small tin off the shelf. He snapped it open and smelled the inside. "Is this the tea you used?" he asked.
The cook shook her head. "No, this." She pulled a box from the side table and held it up wonderingly to the doctor's eyes. "It's newly ordered from London. A fine herbal brew."
Montgomery took the box, smelled it, pulled back in alarm, and held it out to Emelia. "That's what I thought. Turmeric and Lobelia. This isn't a daytime tea—it's medicinal to induce the body to void. I've only ever used anything like it with poison victims or people who've taken too much opium. And I never, ever would brew it full strength." He winced and looked at Emelia. "The good news is that aside from a good deal of discomfort, it's not likely any of your guests will suffer permanent effects. The bad news is that none of them will be able to make it to their carriages, much less home. Do you have enough rooms to set them up with beds and chamber pots?"
She nodded, thinking that the bad news actually had nothing to do with the distance between her front door and a guest's carriage—the bad news was that she'd served tea that had poisoned an entire guest list.
"And you," Montgomery said, turning to the cook. "Prepare eleven glasses of clear water and a normal, chamomile tea. Can you do that and have it brought up with one of the maids?"
The cook nodded.
Emelia looked down at her hands, feeling miserable. "I poisoned them," she said shakily.
"Actually, you didn't." Montgomery raised his eyebrows in her direction. "What you did was the opposite, although I'm not sure what you did was much better."
He turned and strode from the room, leaving Emelia in a pool of guilt behind him.
***
It didn't take long to settle the guests in their rooms. Two men decided to brave the journey home, and Emelia watched them walk away knowing that it was the last she'd see of them.
Brody settled in a room at the far end of the hall, Maryanne and two other ladies shared a large guest room with multiple cots, two other girls crashed in the sitting room to the side, and the remaining gentlemen took the solo room.
Hannah had fallen asleep in her bed after a violent round of voiding, and Emelia was glad of it. At least her sister, for the time being, was out of her misery.
She followed Montgomery around in a haze of embarrassment and chagrin. She felt like a child, a foolish child that hadn't taken the time to make sure her cook's new tea was appropriate for a large group. The best thing she could do now was keep her opinions to herself and give Montgomery aid wherever she could.
She didn't have time to change, so she wrapped a long tea towel around her slim waist as an apron, tied a small kerchief around her hair to keep the wisps out of her face, and rolled up her sleeves to her forearms.
"May I help you?" she asked Montgomery in the first room she entered, where all the men but Brody were sweating miserably on cots.
Montgomery looked up briefly. His clothes were tousled—he'd taken off his outer coat and had his sleeves rolled up past his elbows; his medical bag was open on the floor and he was working quickly, moving from patient to patient as they talked. There was something about him, though, that seemed perfectly neat for the first time in a long time. Emelia looked closer and realised that his eyes weren't distant anymore: he was focused; intent on what he was doing, quick to act.
"I don't think this is a place for a lady," he said quickly, looking back down to his work.
Under ordinary circumstances Emelia would have been annoyed by this, even outraged, but as it was she felt only more chagrin. It was her fault that everything had been ruined, after all. She stepped forward and knelt quietly by Montgomery's side, watching what he was doing.
A Lady's Perfect Match: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 6
