by Kate Moore
“And the papers?”
“The shah’s letters to the prince were in Walhouse’s traveling case, every last one.”
“Now, see here,” said the doctor, drawing himself up to face Goldsworthy.
Emily found the room very full of men and their assumptions.
“Broth,” she said to Lynley.
Offering her love a cup, Emily left the men to sort their differences and slipped away to the little barn. She found and lit a lamp from her candle, and turned her attention to Sultan.
She removed his saddle and bridle, pumped water into a pail for him, and began to brush him down with what tools she could find. She stood in the murky barn stroking the silky coat, talking to the stallion about Lynley, explaining their partnership, and feeling the horse begin to relax under her hands.
“You’ve missed him and fretted about him, haven’t you?” she asked. “He’ll mend,” she promised.
When she returned, Goldsworthy had convinced the doctor to accept that they were on the side of law and order, and to take Wilde with him to procure them a chaise for their return to London. The idyll of seduction was over.
* * * *
In the morning Goldsworthy delivered Emily to her father’s London house, saw her in the door with his oversized courtesy, and took Lynley away, because he could, because Lynley was a spy in the service of his country before he was the fiancé of some spoiled London miss who had had little to trouble or vex her in nearly twenty-nine years of existence, but who must now learn patience.
She went at once to beg her father’s forgiveness for the worry she knew she had caused him.
It was only when she stood before him, as he sat staring unseeing at his newspaper in the morning room, his food untouched, that she realized the awkwardness of her position. There would be no explaining that she had been part of a vital mission to recover missing letters from the ruler of Persia to his son. In Russian hands, those letters, which detailed the military arrangements on which Persia depended as Russia threatened, could involve England in a war to defend Persia.
“Papa,” she said. “I’m home.”
He started and looked up at her, his expression rapidly shifting from glad relief to stern disapproval.
“Do you know how worried, how distraught, how wretched we’ve been, not knowing where you were?”
“I do, and I am sorry to have caused such distress.”
“But wherever have you been?”
Emily took a deep breath. As long as she and Lynley had been together, she had not felt any fatigue, but now a great weariness washed over her, threatening to buckle her knees. “I went to find Lynley.”
“Am I to understand, Emily, that in defiance of all sense and propriety, you pursued this man and his...lover across the English countryside for two days?”
“Papa, Lynley did not run away with Lady Ravenhurst.”
“He never came to your engagement party. He left you to be embarrassed by the most scandalous rumor circulating around London.”
Emily nodded. She wished she could say that he was on government business, saving the nation from war. “It will turn out that everyone was misled by rumor. No doubt Lady Ravenhurst was called away to her family just as Mama went to Grandmama. And no one will wonder at my absence. Everyone knows I was there for the birth of Roz’s baby.”
“And what of Lynley? What excuses him for leaving you?”
“He has apologized to me.”
“Apologized to you! I should horsewhip him for the insult to my daughter.”
Emily smiled at her father’s desire to protect her. “I think I should marry him at once, Papa.”
“We’ll see what your mother has to say to that when she returns.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
In the public mind, such is our world, a wedding’s brilliance may always be measured in the quantity of lace and white satin, the number of attendants accompanying the bride, and the number of fashionable people crowding the church. However, in the minds of those most nearly concerned, who find themselves transformed by the love they’ve found, and who embark on a journey together in the course of which each hopes to grow more worthy of the other’s love, the true measure of the ceremony’s worth lies in the perfect felicity of the union.
—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London
Emily slept through the day. Light was fading from the sky when Alice, her maid, roused her. A number of notes had arrived for her as she slept. She had a bath and a bite to eat, and feeling moderately refreshed, sat at her desk to answer the most pressing of her correspondence.
She wrote first to Roz to assure her sister that she and Lynley were safe and sound, and to beg to come round to see and hold her sweet nephew.
She wrote to Lady Silsden to encourage her to disregard any rumor that connected Lynley to either of the Ravenhursts and to inform her that Lynley was safe and that she could expect to attend their wedding soon.
And with perfect satisfaction she wadded into tight balls those notes filled with rumors of Lynley’s duel and his liaison with Lady Ravenhurst.
It took longer to write to her mother. First she went in search of the little blue and gold book that had started her on the path to adventure. She read its closing pages again and took up her pen.
Dear Mama,
I hope this letter finds Grandmama much recovered, and you relieved to see her so. You must be gladdened to hear such a happy report from Roz and Phil about the birth of their son.
I haven’t thanked you properly for giving me The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London. Though I have always had you and Papa as models of what a husband and wife may be to one another, your little blue book opened my eyes about husbands and changed my thinking about what to look for in a partner for my life.
You will, perhaps, have heard some wild, and really quite baseless, rumors about Lynley and me. I am sorry for any distress such talk may have caused you; however, considering the source of such reports, you will understand that none possesses a grain of truth. Lynley and I get on much as we have from our first meeting.
I do have a favor to ask of you as Lynley and I anticipate setting up a household together. Do you think we could have that green damask sofa you gave to Roz? It would perfectly fit our plan of decoration.
Your loving daughter,
Emily
* * * *
The next afternoon, feeling much restored in body and spirit, Emily went to see how Roz and Phil and the baby were doing. She sat with Roz in a sunny corner of Roz’s bedroom, while, against common practice, Roz put the baby to her breast. Roz explained with a blush how much she delighted in the closeness with her baby and how he went from eating to sleeping and back again. She sounded so competent, so knowledgeable about her child that Emily again marveled at her sister.
“He’s demanding then,” Emily said as she watched her tiny nephew doze off in his mother’s arms. Roz had a happy tired look, but a tired look nonetheless.
“Very, but he will sleep now for an hour or more.”
“Then you should, too. Let me take him while you rest.”
“Would you like to, Em?”
“I would. I’ll leave you to yourself and call the nurse if I need help with him.”
Roz agreed, and Emily took up her sleeping nephew and descended to Roz’s drawing room. The body, she thought, continued to offer unexpected pleasures like the feel of a trusting babe asleep on one’s chest.
She stared at the back of the green damask sofa and lost track of time trying to fix in her mind the impressions of the previous two weeks. After a little time, however, she realized that the sofa had been restored to its original place in the room, and that it was occupied. Her heart gave a little skip, and the sleeping babe jerked his arm and settled again.
Emily rose slowly, her legs a bit shaky under her, and crossed the room
to peek over the sofa back.
Lynley looked up at her with a grin. “I knew you’d come here.” He rolled to his feet and stood. “I’ve been to see your father,” he said. “You and I have some business to attend to.” He looked solemn.
“Oh?”
“And—” He reached for her hand. She lifted it from the baby and Lynley guided her back to her seat. He held her hand a moment longer to remove the ring he had given her a fortnight earlier. She didn’t cry out, though her hand felt instantly bereft.
“I’m going to propose again,” he said, kneeling down on one knee, still holding her hand. “I’ve compromised you irreparably. Even I know that. But that’s not the reason I’m proposing.”
“It’s not?”
“No. This time I’m proposing because I love you wholly, completely, without reserve.” He looked very solemn. “You are necessary to my happiness.”
Emily’s heart skipped in little country-dance steps of joy. The baby turned his head against her chest. Lynley spoke of happiness, and she knew he would not do so if he had not driven away the demons of the past. She smiled encouragingly.
“I want you to be my partner in life,” he went on, “long after we finish catching spies.”
“Are we going to catch more spies?”
“We are. You made a strong impression on Goldsworthy. He’s willing to admit you as the first female spy in the club.”
“I’ll have assignments?”
“We will,” he insisted. “As partners.”
“And? There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Well, you do have to agree never to write to the Times about the club.”
“I see.” She looked down at her hand in his large, strong one.
He gave her hand a little shake. “Can we get back to the matter before us?”
“Which is?”
“My proposal. Will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
He slipped the ring back on her finger and stood, leaning down to kiss her over the sleeping baby. The kiss was full of longing and promise. When he broke it, he glanced at the sofa.
Emily blushed to understand him. “We can’t,” she said.
“That doesn’t stop me from wanting to,” he said. “When does the baby go back to his mother?”
“When he needs her,” Emily said firmly.
“I’ll wait.” He dropped a light kiss on her cheek, and flashed a grin at her before he disappeared once more behind the high arching back of the sofa.
Emily kissed the baby’s head. “Would you like a cousin?” she whispered. “I think it can be arranged.”
After a time of perfect contentment in which the diamonds on Emily’s ring winked up at her and the sleeping baby breathed against the lace at her collarbone, the drawing room door opened. A businesslike rustle of skirts sounded, and Emily’s mother came to a halt, looking down her.
“Hello, Mama,” Emily said. “Roz is having a rest.”
“Emily dear, I’m quite confused. Are you engaged or not?”
“Very much engaged, Mama.” Emily smiled over her nephew’s little head.
Her mother looked harassed and skeptical. “Your father seemed to think that your betrothal was a jest, and he had no idea what to make of your continuing it after your fiancé did not attend your engagement party.”
“Oh, Mama, I have a great deal to tell you, and I do have to thank you for the little blue book. Will you sit down? Should I ring for tea?”
Her mother sat opposite her. “But what is he like? How can there have been all these rumors?”
“You shall meet him presently, Mama, and see that other than his height, which is a little out of the ordinary, and his habit, acquired I believe in Spain, of napping where no one may detect him in the middle of the day, he is a most respectable young man.”
From the green sofa came Lynley’s laugh, warm and happy. “Enough,” he said, coming to his full height and bowing, as Emily’s mother gaped at him.
“She’s roasting you, ma’am, as you’ll see when we become better acquainted.”
“Oh my,” said her mother. “You are tall.”
Lynley dropped a kiss on Emily’s head. “I will let your daughter tell you all about us, ma’am. And”—he turned back to Emily—“will you come for a drive with me tomorrow, Em? There’s something I wish to show you.”
Emily nodded and hid a smile as her mother gaped after Lynley’s retreating form.
“Mama, Roz will be down in a moment. Do you want to hold the baby?”
“I’m dying to,” said her mother.
Epilogue
My dear husband hunter, if you are reading this page, I must thank you for your attention to my small volume. It is my hope that its lessons will serve you well. Perhaps you have come to see that happiness in marriage is not entirely a matter of chance, but rather that young women and men of sense and character may so conduct themselves in this great million-peopled city of ours as to find the sort of lasting love that makes a great joy of the marriage union.
—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London
They married on the morning of Emily’s twenty-ninth birthday. Lynley and Emily left the small family breakfast that followed their nuptials, in a chaise and four bound for a brief wedding trip.
“There’s a place I’d like you to see,” he said simply as he handed her into the chaise.
As they traveled, he held her hand and gave her further details of Walhouse’s capture and the restoration of the missing papers. It seemed a lazy journey. Emily felt no impatience. She understood him better now. The tangled feelings that had driven him to help Lady Ravenhurst did not arise from the lady’s beauty but only from her resemblance to the woman who had betrayed his boyish faith in love.
Emily watched him to see how he held himself and how he adjusted to the movement of the chaise. If she felt any impatience, it was only to know about the state of his wounds. He had joked that they might make use of the green sofa, but she did not know what their wedding night held.
Before midday they left the main Aylesbury Road and shortly reached a lodge at the gated entrance to an avenue lined with tall beeches. The lodgekeeper admitted them, and at length a view opened up, and she could see an expanse of lawn before a sprawling gray stone house. He now watched her with some trepidation.
“It’s Lyndale, isn’t it?” she asked. “Your home. It’s lovely.”
The coachman pulled the chaise to a stop at the entrance, and a proper butler emerged from the columned portico to usher them inside. Emily was conscious of a bustle of servants and a babble of tongues, not only English, but something else.
She admired the soaring, light-filled entrance hall and grand staircase. “My father will approve,” she said.
“Do you?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Come,” he said, his face sober.
He led the way, and they stepped into another room, as dark as the entry was light, its walls lined with crimson damask and hung with paintings, its velvet drapery pulled closed. A white wainscot ran around the base of the walls, but the whole impression was of gloom and suffering.
Beside her Lynley had gone quiet. She moved to examine the paintings on the nearest wall. In front of her were three saints undergoing martyrdom or agonizing distress—one shot with arrows, another fasting in the desert, a third fleeing persecution.
She glanced at him. He waved her on. She moved down the length of the impressively long room, looking up at saints and sinners in torment or exile, and she could not help but notice the flaw in Lady Silsden’s plan of moral instruction.
When she had dutifully completed her circuit of the room, examining every painting, and returned to Lynley, she could not hide a smile and a bit of impatience.
“Lynley,” she said, waving a hand to indicate the splendid
collection of art, “was this your aunt’s idea of quelling your...natural instincts?”
He nodded. She took him by the hand and led him to stand in front of the first painting she’d examined. “That explains her failure then. How could she hope to repress your earthly desires while surrounding you with such a display of flesh? They’re all quite naked, you know.”
She tugged him by the neckcloth and pushed his jaw up to examine the first of the paintings. “Look at this fellow dressed only in his halo.” She pointed to the next one. “And that one, who seems to have got his neckcloth around his nether parts.”
She waited, watching as quick comprehension sprang up in his eyes. Then he let out a laugh, a great gust of joy released from long constraint. He picked her up and waltzed her madly around the great room in defiance of all the gloom and suffering on its walls.
When he set her on her feet again, breathless and trembling, she looked up into his happy gaze and reached up to touch his imperfect mouth—and chose the future.
“Lynley, I’m ready for you to get me out of my clothes. Now.”
Upstairs in another red-damasked room with a long-dead pope looking down on them from above a white marble mantel, they made a laughing ceremony of undressing each other and fell into the bed.
And Emily discovered that the paintings hardly told the full story of flesh, for one could only look at them, and it was necessary to touch. Touch they did, shyly at first, so that Emily might notice and record in her flesh the sensation of his hands on her breasts and the pull deep in her belly, then more boldly, her hands moving as freely as his, their flesh warm and slick and sliding together, sensations coming fast, like dozens of bells taking up a peal, setting the air trembling and quivering, until an urgent need she had never known left her open and clinging to him.
He held himself above her, and shifted so that his shaft slid across the entrance of her slick cleft. Emily lifted her hips to meet his. A shudder wracked them both.
“Now?” he asked.
