She turned and fled to the little bridge that crossed the river, but hardly had her foot hit the wooden planks heading towards home when she suddenly heard him call out her name.
"Emelia."
She turned and he was striding towards her from behind, his face unreadable, his step unhurried. She wondered why her face insisted on blushing; turning her into some silly schoolgirl when she needed to be clearheaded and desperately wanted him to see her as such.
"Yes?" she tried to force calm into her voice.
"I found this for you," he said, holding out a package wrapped in brown paper. "I was going to take it over to you after my little experiments, but then I caught you coming back from my brother's house and I assume this is the best place to hand it over." Something about the way he said "my brother's house" put a chasm between them. "It's nothing really. Just a little something I thought you would put to good use."
All at once the package was in her hands and he was walking away before she could thank him. She tucked the brown parcel under one arm and hurried up the hill towards her own house, passing through the apple trees and up the trail towards the gardens.
At the last grove of Macintosh she looked back and, determining that she was obscured by the branches, she tore the paper off the gift. Inside was A Complete Guide to Coleoptera. She could see, without even opening it, that it was the very same copy she'd examined at the bookkeepers. She slid her hand along the cover and felt the warmth of being known, truly known by somebody.
Suddenly, she remembered that even with her plot to bring Hannah and Brody together she still owed Montgomery a happy wife and life. She took the bit of warmth and tucked it away somewhere far down in her heart, where it couldn't interfere with her duty.
Chapter 19
"What baffles me," Hannah said with a light laugh, "is that you keep inviting her."
They stood together and watched as Montgomery handed Lady Michelle Parker and her visiting friend from France, Annelise, into the open air wagon they were taking up to the lookout for a picnic.
"I didn't invite her," Emelia laughed, her words lighter than she felt. She couldn't pull her eyes away from the way Montgomery's hand lingered on Lady Michelle's; the banter exchanged between them. "Brody did. He wanted to have more diversity in attendance." In reality, he'd told Emelia that he wanted to meet this lovely Annelise, who was a dark-haired little beauty with mousy features that somehow managed to come across as both imposing and delicate.
Emelia didn't believe Brody held any real interest in the girl, but sometimes he got this way, setting his sights on useless little romances that would lead nowhere. Emelia had often thought such things were a distraction for Brody, but she couldn't imagine what he was now trying to distract himself from.
Hannah was smart, though, and she seemed to see through Emelia's lie. "Annelise is very pretty, isn't she?" she said wistfully.
Emelia turned a warm smile on her sister. "It takes a beautiful woman to know a beautiful woman," she said kindly. It wasn't all kindness, either. Hannah looked light and inviting in a pretty blue gown with pale lace around the neck and sleeves.
Her hair was well coiffed as always, and her dark eyes peered up from under the curls with an air of mystery. Brody, however, had ridden up on his horse and dismounted at once, throwing only a light glance towards the sisters and then making for his brother and the two ladies already in the wagon.
"Perhaps I was wrong about him," Hannah said, biting her lip.
Perhaps, Emelia thought. But let us see what I can do about that. She'd dressed in a dark navy gown, something sensible for picnics, and she oversaw the loading of the wagon to make certain that every bit of fine food the cook prepared was in place without any disasters lurking.
When all was as it should be, she climbed up alongside the rest and gave the driver leave to take them off down the road.
"It all seems very scandalous," Lady Michelle said with a raised eyebrow, "riding in the back of an open wagon like we're day labourers."
Brody nudged Emelia when the fine lady's attention was directed elsewhere again and said under his breath, "Didn't she used to say that when we were children?"
But not even teasing Lady Michelle could break Emelia's mind away from the subject that most occupied her. She hadn't had a chance to thank Montgomery for the book. She supposed that it would have been easy enough to go back over to his house and speak with him in person, or perhaps to send a missive of some sort, but somehow she hadn't been able to get anything meaningful down on paper.
Now she sat only a short distance away from him, but she couldn't think what to say. To thank him for the book would raise questions with Brody, who insisted all her attention be on the situation between Montgomery and Hannah. Yet to say nothing seemed rude. But say nothing she did, pressing into the awkward silence with a few askance glances in Montgomery's direction that were not returned.
"Where are we going?" Annelise asked, her accent charming. "I have not seen much of this part of the countryside."
"I don't know that you will be particularly surprised," Hannah said drily. "We have cows and sheep and farmers and estates just like anywhere in a rural English county."
Montgomery had a short little laugh, but Emelia, who knew from whence her sister's spite was born, could not join in. She smiled indulgently at the little French girl. "Have you been much around England?"
"Yes," the young woman answered. "I'm quite acquainted, although I find each farm is different."
"In their own way," Emelia nodded. "And yet it is the similarities that hold that whimsical charm, don't you think? Do you miss France?"
"All that fighting and disruption? No. Although people can be cruel here when they hear my accent." Annelise dropped her head in an affectation of distress. Emelia could see the fine lace at her neck and wrists, the rich gems hanging around her neck, and the cut of her dress. Yes, perhaps people could be cruel—but Annelise was also not living the life of a refugee.
"I cannot imagine anyone holding such a sweet way of speaking against you," Brody said gallantly. Emelia wanted to reach over and push him out of the wagon. Now that she knew Hannah's secret, all the things that she'd formerly brushed off as harmless flirtations now cut her as she knew they must be cutting Hannah.
They turned down a lane and the trees overhead cast languid, lacy shadows over them as they rolled along. Annelise began humming a quiet tune, and after a moment Michelle joined in. Emelia bit her lip, listening. It was a fine, pretty little melody, but she wasn't familiar with it and no one else in the party seemed to know it either.
Therefore, it became something of a production, and she was forced to watch Hannah's face as Brody admired the sweet harmonies of the two girls. When it was done at last, Emelia spoke quickly before the girls could steal the conversation once again.
"What are your plans, Dr. Shaw, during the rest of your stay here? Are you intending to linger long in the area?"
"Everyone keeps asking him that," Brody said airily, "yet he never has a straight answer."
"I have no leaving date as of yet," Montgomery said, looking to Emelia with a light smile, "and that is as straight of an answer as I can give you at present."
"A man of mystery," Brody said wryly.
"If the good doctor desires to keep his movements a secret to build intrigue, who are we to blame him?" Michelle smiled and fluttered her eyelashes. "Above all else, I enjoy a man of mystery."
Emelia resisted the urge to roll her eyes, but before she had a chance to bite back a retort she saw Montgomery hide a smile and speak up for himself. "Above all else, madame? I should hope that oxygen and sustenance would top the list. Perhaps even true love or affection, rather than merely mystery."
"It is good that you speak of love," Michelle said, clearly not even realising the note of sarcasm in Montgomery's voice. "For that is precisely why I enjoy a man of mystery. There is no love and passion like that shared with a man who keeps his thoughts and motives to himself. It
is far more exciting that way."
"But what if he turns out to be a villain?" Hannah ventured, speaking at last. "Then you attached all your passion to a person who could hurt you. Many a girl has been ensnared in just that way."
"Ensared." Michelle scoffed. "Hannah, dear, you must try and live a little."
Emelia's skin prickled in anger, but again Montgomery interjected before she could speak. "Aside from the very worthy fears Hannah has shared, I must also protest that love cannot come at all unless you know somebody to some extent. Attraction, perhaps, but not love. Therefore, my lady, although I hate to argue with one so fair, I would say that loving a man of mystery is nearly impossible, unless you first remove at least some of the mysterious layers and know some part of the man first."
Emelia was amazed. Montgomery had such a quiet and somber way about him that she had often thought him to be dull or at least lacking in eloquence. On the contrary, he had shown himself on multiple occasions to be very interesting indeed, and his rebuttal of Michelle's argument had been both beautiful and to the point.
Michelle cleared her throat and tossed her head, saying only, "Well, I don't think it's a point against me if I share a difference of opinion now, is it?"
Emelia smiled to herself, but in the next moment she caught a glimpse of Hannah's face, turned inquisitively towards Brody's, and her heart fell a little again. Brody wasn't exactly interested in Annelise—he seemed distracted—but whenever someone was turned in his direction he reached out towards coy flirtation the way a child would reach out for the safety of a nurse.
"Your ball was very nice," Hannah ventured to him now. Emelia could see the way her sister's pale fingers clung to the fabric of her skirt. "I don't know when was the last time that I danced so long and felt so free. I think it was a gift that we were able to stay as long as we did."
"It was nice, wasn't it?" Brody cast a look over at Montgomery. "I saw that you and my brother had a long turnabout on the floor. Did you find him to be a better dancer than he is a conversationalist?" He winked at Hannah, and Emelia cringed inwardly. The redirection was painfully obvious, and thankfully Montgomery seemed to be otherwise engaged and unable to pick up on his brother's machinations. Hannah, for her part, was too entangled in her own web of romance and desire to notice Brody's attempts to connect her with his brother.
"I was just glad to see your hall alight with laughter again," Hannah said simply.
Brody looked at her steadily for a moment, and then turned to meet Emelia's gaze across the wagon. There was something new in his eyes; something almost guilty. She wondered at it, but they were to the lookout by now and she wouldn't have asked him in the back of this wagon with listening ears all about anyway.
The whole group piled out of the wagon and the driver turned to Emelia with a tip of his hat.
"Are you still alright to walk back, ladies?"
"Yes, thank you." Emelia pulled the two picnic baskets out of the back of the wagon. "It's downhill, and not a long push at that. The exercise will do us well. You go on back, and thank the cook kindly for all that she's given us to prepare for the day."
The driver nodded and the wagon creaked away down the hill as the assembled picnic goers made their way to the top of the overlook. The ground met at a rocky peak and damp moss covered the stones.
"I'm sure I won't be able to sit there," Michelle said with her nose in the air. "I don't know what kind of picnic doesn't have chairs and a canopy."
"The kind that wants to walk back on their own afterwards," Emelia answered curtly. "And don't worry. I would never dream of making anyone sit directly on the ground. I had cook pack some blankets in the bottom of each basket, so that we can sit with ease."
"Then the moss will be added cushion, and not a nuisance at all," Brody said archly.
The group opened the baskets and pulled out cold meats, two rounds of fresh, sharp cheese, and a bowl of cut fruit. There were two loaves of bread and a small bottle of sherry with the wax cork still sealed and fresh.
Emelia had been careful not to offer tea of any kind, or food that could in any way be thought to stray from normal fare. She pulled out the food and set each item upon the rocks, but when her fingers brushed the bottom of the first basket she looked up in mild alarm.
"She must have packed all the blankets in one basket."
Hannah rifled through the second basket, and then shook her head. "No," she said slowly. "I think she overlooked the packing of the blankets entirely."
Emelia closed her eyes for a moment, frustrated that even in this simplest of events something had gone awry yet again.
"'Tis no matter," Brody said quickly, "we'll just stand."
"Stand, while eating?" Michelle exchanged a look with Annelise. "I'm sorry, but we're not hired hands to be consuming food in such a risen estate. It's not good for digestion, and it's certainly not befitting of a lady."
Emelia blinked. "I'm sorry, but unless you're willing to sit on cold stone, it's the only option available to us."
Just then there was a sound on the hill below them, and up the road came a small phaeton with four. In the front was riding a single man with a dapper hat and a brilliant red coat. Brody recognised him first as one of the young men from the city who had come down for his ball a few nights before.
"Geoffrey!" He waved a hand and the young man pulled up the wagon close at hand.
"Brody, lad!" Geoffrey had the foppish air of a dandy, perfected even more so than Brody's after years of growing up in a metropolis with the world at his fingertips. "Fancy meeting you here. I was just out for a ride, and I hardly expected to stumble upon a group with such lovely people. Ladies—" and he tipped his hat to them all.
"Geoffrey, you don't happen to have any blankets in that phaeton, do you?" Brody stepped forward, peering into the small vehicle. "We've packed a picnic without any. You're welcome to stay and share our fare."
"Alas, I haven't the time and I haven't blankets. I'm headed into town after this—I only wanted to go around by the overlook for a bit of fresh air and a view. We don't have much of that in London, I fear. I wish I could be of more assistance, though—there's nothing I like better than to rescue young ladies in distress."
Emelia gave a little shrug, but Michelle seemed to have her interest piqued by this proposition. "Well," she said with a coy smile. "Perhaps you can rescue us after all. I was already worried about trekking across the country on foot back to the Wells' estate—and now that we've no blankets to sit on, I can't think of a more fortuitous thing than that you should arrive now in a carriage fit for three. Could you take me and my friend, Annelise, back now?" She turned to Emelia, who, as much as she would have liked to lose these ladies' particular brand of company, was shocked nonetheless that the girls would bail on a planned picnic with so little care for their host's feelings. "You understand, don't you Emelia? I just can't suffer another event that didn't go to plan, and this gentleman happened upon us at precisely the right time."
Emelia felt her face burning, and she tried to keep her voice as even as possible, looking neither to Brody nor Montgomery for fear they would see her embarrassment. "Of course, Lady Michelle. I would not want you to have to submit to anything less than perfection on a day such as today. How fortunate we are that Geoffrey happened upon us when he did. Please, take the opportunity presented to you, and when we have another chance we shall do this again."
"Marvelous." Michelle gathered her skirts and parasol and, linking arms with Annelise, made for the carriage. Geoffrey seemed delighted enough, and after he reached down to help Annelise up, he did the same for Michelle. She, however, spurned his aid and turned instead to Montgomery. "Dr. Shaw," she said sweetly, "since I will be deprived of your presence later, could you offer me some assistance now?"
A Lady's Perfect Match: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 14
