The Reckless Barrister

by April Kihlstrom

  On the way home she waited for Emily to raise the subject once again. Which she did. “Is it always like this?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?” Agatha asked cautiously.

  Emily hesitated. “I know I ought to be thinking of the mill workers and the need to make things better for them. It was, after all, my purpose in coming to London. And I am not even certain Mr. Langford truly supports me in this. But there are long moments when I forget entirely.”

  Her aunt could be seen visibly struggling to keep from laughing. A circumstance that did not improve Emily’s temper in the least.

  “My dear child, I had forgotten what it was to be so young!” Agatha gasped.

  Emily gritted her teeth. “I am three and twenty,” she reminded her aunt.

  “Yes, and entirely inexperienced in love,” Agatha declared decisively. “My dear Emily, what you are feeling is perfectly natural when you love someone!”

  “But I don’t want to be in love,” Emily countered.

  This, of course, was fuel for further amusement on Aunt Agatha’s part. “I told you before, one has no control, or at least very little, over such things. But very well, I shall be serious. Tell me, Emily: if Mr. Langford did wish to marry you, would you wish to marry him?”

  Emily turned wide, bewildered eyes on her aunt. “I don’t know,” she said, the words holding a thin wail of pain running through her voice. “At times I think Mr. Langford wonderful! Everything one could wish for in a husband. At others I wish nothing more than to strangle the man!”

  Agatha nodded. “Very sensible, and natural, I should think,” she said approvingly.

  Despite herself, Emily gave a little gurgle of laughter. “Aunt Agatha, you are outrageous!” she said, taking her aunt’s arm.

  “Why?” Agatha demanded. “Because I speak my mind? Well, I refuse to do anything else! Which is another reason, I suppose,” she said with a tiny sigh, “that I have never married. I have known only one man in my life who could accept a woman as outspoken as I am.”

  “The same mysterious man you mentioned before?” Emily asked dryly. When her aunt nodded, Emily persisted, “Sir Thomas Levenger, I suppose? No, you needn’t frown at me like that—I overheard Papa talking, more than once, when you first came. They thought I wouldn’t understand. But why? He seems a most eligible suitor.”

  “Not then he wasn’t. It is only now that he is a judge that he is everywhere received. His background is not quite the thing, though no one looking at him could ever guess! And so I have always said.”

  There was a sadness, a wistfulness, in Aunt Agatha’s voice that tugged at Emily’s heart and she instinctively slipped her arm around her aunt’s shoulders. “But there must have come a time when you could have married him. Whether your family approved or not.” A thought struck her and she said, with some dismay, “It was not because of me, was it? Because Mama had died and you felt you must take care of me?”

  Agatha looked away. She blinked rapidly and shook her head. “Oh, no, you have not earned the right to question me in such a way. Nor shall you divert me so easily. We were talking about you. And Mr. Langford. I do understand your confusion, my dear. I even think you are wise to be wary. And yet there is something about Mr. Langford that makes one wish to trust him. Makes one believe that all would work out well if one did so.”

  Emily looked down. In a low voice she said, “I do find myself wishing to trust him. But what if I am wrong? As I was with Mr. Canfield?”

  Aunt Agatha snorted. “There is nothing in common between the two! Well, save that they are both men and all men share certain weaknesses. But that is neither here nor there. What you mean is that you fear Mr. Langford may be lying to you and intending to deceive you, just as Mr. Canfield did. But the circumstances are very different, I should say. Mr. Canfield never rescued you, as Mr. Langford has done, more than once. Mr. Canfield set out to trap you so that you would have no choice in the matter of marrying him but I cannot imagine Mr. Langford doing such a thing.”

  Emily said nothing for several moments. Finally, her voice still troubled, she looked at her aunt and asked, “If Sir Thomas were to ask you to marry him, would you?”

  Agatha immediately stiffened and looked straight ahead, her pace suddenly much quicker. “You do not know what you are saying!” she said, her voice unsteady. “I hurt Thomas greatly, years ago. He is not likely to ask me such a thing now, I assure you.”

  “But if he did?” Emily persisted.

  Agatha drew in an audible breath. The hands clutching her parcel of embroidery silks shook. And when she did answer, her voice was pitched so low that Emily had to strain to hear her reply.

  “If Sir Thomas were ever to be willing to overlook the past and ask me to marry him, I should agree at once. Yes, and,” Agatha added, turning to Emily, her eyes flashing with an unaccustomed defiance, “I shouldn’t care a jot what your father or anyone else thought. For once in my life, I would follow my heart!”

  And then, as though appalled by what she had just said, but unwilling to take back her words, Agatha pressed her lips tightly together and tilted her chin defiantly upward.

  Oblivious to and undaunted by any interested eyes, Emily gave her aunt a quick hug. With a fierceness that surprised both of them she said, “I hope Sir Thomas does propose, Aunt Agatha!”

  But this was too much for her aunt who shook her head and said, “Oh, no. It has been too long and he cannot still feel the same way about me that I feel about him.”

  “He was kind to you at Lady Merriweather’s ball.”

  “It was the kindness of an old friend,” Agatha said with a tremulous sigh. “That is all it was, all it could be. I will not, I must not, refine too greatly upon it! But you must not make the same mistake as I did, Emily. If your Mr. Langford should offer for you in earnest, you must accept him. The both of you will be miserable for the rest of your lives if you do not!”

  Emily did not argue. It would only have distressed her aunt even more if she did. But it did not matter. Mr. Langford would not propose to her in earnest. And no more than her aunt did she intend to deceive herself with foolish, wishful thinking.

  Emily had long since come to terms, she told herself, with the knowledge that she would never marry. It ought to be enough that she and Mr. Langford were friends and that he was willing to help her.

  But there was a part of Emily that could not be sensible. A part of her that wondered where he was, this very moment, and what he was doing, and whether he was, perhaps, thinking of her.

  Chapter 15

  At that precise moment, Philip was glaring at his law books and cursing them for the sin of not being able to hold his attention. Unfortunately, a certain face kept intruding into his thoughts whenever he tried to concentrate on Sir Francis Bacon’s treatise on the Statute of Uses. And a certain voice seemed to whisper in his ears.

  And then, of course, there was Harry. What had seemed a victory they were now hearing was actually a defeat. Philip had read the latest lists and not seen Harry’s name on any of them. That proved nothing, of course. He was somewhat reassured to have the letter in Harry’s own hand in his desk, but how could he be certain it had been written after the battle was over? The devil take it, where was his brother now?

  With a sigh Philip shoved his law books aside. Sir Thomas was hearing a case in court today and Philip had promised to be there to observe. Later they would talk it over and discuss the case endlessly, with Sir Thomas pressing him to find faults in how it had been presented.

  Perhaps, he thought as he walked, he could speak of Miss Ashbourne to Sir Thomas, as he could not with his own brothers. Perhaps he would have some way of looking at the matter that had not yet occurred to Philip.

  But first he had a case to observe. Sir Thomas was a judge now, but Philip found himself remembering the first time he had heard him speak. Even then he had instantly recognized Sir Thomas to be a master of oratory.

  As Philip had slipped into the courtroom, he had tak
en note of the rapt faces around him, hanging on Sir Thomas’s words as he thundered his outrage. And then softened his voice to speak of things almost too painful to bear.

  Around him, Philip had heard a sniff and noted the discreet use of handkerchiefs. He had almost smiled, cynically, for Sir Thomas, when he invited him to come and observe, had described just how he would evoke such emotions. But Philip had not smiled.

  Instead he had watched and listened and learned. It had been no surprise to anyone in the court when Sir Thomas won his case. And yet the man had not allowed a trace of triumph to cross his face, though that must have been what he felt. Instead he kept a sober mien and spoke, when he spoke at all, on his way out, of the seriousness of what had just occurred. He reminded those who asked, that a man’s life had been at stake and that knowing it was now forfeit was not a matter for rejoicing so much as a matter for regret.

  It was a very nice touch. Particularly since Philip well knew that though he did it deliberately, it also echoed what Sir Thomas truly felt. Which, of course, was no doubt one of the reasons it worked so well. One more thing Philip had taken note of that day.

  But now Sir Thomas was a judge. A good one. And the Wentworth case far tamer than those he had dealt with as a barrister. But still Philip listened and learned.

  And when court adjourned for the day, Sir Thomas smiled when he spied his favorite protégé standing outside, waiting for him.

  “Well?” he asked when he was close enough. “What did you think?”

  Philip grinned. “You were superb, as usual,” he said promptly. “As you very well know.”

  Sir Thomas chuckled and clapped Philip on the back. “Wise fellow, you tell me just what I wish to hear. Which augurs well for your career as a barrister. Come, let us go and get something to eat. And you can tell me what you think of the points of law you heard argued today.”

  They repaired to a favorite tavern crowded with barristers and those involved in cases in the nearby courts. They managed to find a tiny corner to themselves. Something of Philip’s preoccupation must have shown on his face for, between bites of food, Sir Thomas asked, “Worried about your brother, Harry, are you? Saw the lists. Name wasn’t on them.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Philip agreed.

  “But you still worry?”

  “I always worry.”

  Sir Thomas wisely did not try to reassure Philip but merely nodded. “Let me know when you hear from him,” was all he said. He paused then asked, shrewdly, “So how is the reformer? Still as fiery as ever?”

  Philip sighed. “You know,” he said wryly, “I begin to think you sent Miss Ashbourne to me to be a constant thorn in my side.”

  Sir Thomas chuckled. “On the contrary, I sent her to you to liven up both your lives. Now tell me what is distressing you.”

  Reluctantly, Philip did so, feeling the burden ease slightly as he spoke. Sir Thomas was an excellent listener. Only when Philip was done did the elder barrister speak.

  “You’ve a problem on your hands,” he said quietly. “But one I shall relish watching you deal with.”

  “No advice?”

  Sir Thomas shook his head. “No, on the whole, I think it will do you good to deal with such a thorny problem on your own. And all taken as one, I think you have matters well in hand.”

  Philip would have sputtered, but how did one object to having the person one admired most say that he had complete confidence in one? Still he tried.

  There was a hint of malice in his voice as he said, “You do realize that Miss Ashbourne believes that you, as a judge, could help her cause.”

  Sir Thomas merely regarded Philip sardonically. “If it comes to that,” he said, “I should be perfectly willing to hear the case. If you prepared it correctly.”

  “There is no way to prepare such a thing correctly!” Philip snapped back in reply.

  Sir Thomas merely shrugged. And then, before Philip could argue further, the elder man referred to the case he had been hearing in court today. He leaned forward, as always, and offered his usual opening question.

  “Never mind all that, Langford, tell me about my case. What mistakes were made in court today?”

  Philip sighed, knowing there was no way to deter Sir Thomas or to bring the conversation back around to Miss Ashbourne. So, with good grace, he smiled and leaned forward to answer.

  * * * *

  Several nights later, Lord Darton glanced irritably at his wife. “Another ball? Can we not just stay at home? Or you go! I shall spend the evening at White’s.”

  Athenia merely stared at her husband. “Stay at home?” she echoed incredulously. “When it is your brother’s welfare at stake?”

  “James?” Darton asked with a frown.

  “No, Philip.”

  “Yes, well, Philip can take care of himself,” Darton said irritably.

  His wife smiled thinly and settled herself more firmly in the chair opposite him. “Not,” she said, marshaling her arguments, “according to a number of ladies with whom I have spoken. It seems your brother Philip has taken up with the most unlikely of creatures. A complete provincial! They say he is absolutely smitten. She made a disgrace of herself six years ago when she was first brought out and now your brother, Philip, has made her the object of his attentions.”

  Darton did not take great stock in the suggestion that the young lady in question had been disgraced. In his experience, Athenia and other ladies were always taking some sort of pet over matters that were entirely unimportant and declaring one of their own sex beyond the pale. Still, he was too shrewd to say so aloud. Instead he chose another approach.

  “What did Philip do?” Darton asked derisively. “Dance more than twice with the girl at one ball?”

  “I trust your brothers, none of them, would ever forget themselves so far as to do that unless they were betrothed to the lady in question,” Athenia replied, smoothing her amber silk skirt. “Nonetheless, I am told his interest in the girl was quite unmistakable.”

  “Well, what the devil is wrong with that?” Darton demanded. “Time Philip was wed!”

  “Past time,” Athenia agreed. “If he chose the right girl. It remains to be seen if he has and it is our duty to see her for ourselves and decide if we wish to encourage the match or whether you must exercise your authority as head of the family to forbid it.”

  George hesitated. He liked the notion of exercising his authority. It was one of the things he liked best about being Lord Darton. On the other hand, this was Philip she was talking about. He had the lowering thought that if he were to try to forbid Philip from doing something he wished, his brother would merely laugh in his face and he had no desire to put that particular fear to the test.

  Still, it was evident, looking at Athenia, that she had made up her mind. And it would have been easier for George to envision crossing Philip than it would be to picture himself crossing his wife.

  So, in the end, Lord Darton sighed and said, mildly, “As you wish, my dear. As you wish. I suppose I had best at least see the girl in question. Very well, you may send our acceptance.”

  Since Lady Darton had done so some three hours since, she merely nodded and rose to her feet without haste. No need to tell her husband that she had anticipated his agreement. Men did so like to think they made all the decisions in a household, even when they patently did not. And Athenia’s mother had been wise enough to teach her to always pander to this weakness.

  * * * *

  Had Emily had any notion what was in store for her, she would have had no hesitation in ripping up the invitation to Lady Jersey’s ball. And she would have cared not a jot what her aunt or father said.

  But she did not. All she knew was that Lady Jersey was inclined to be kind to her and that it was said all the ton would come to her grand event. Emily wished to speak to Lord Beaumont again and also several other gentlemen whose names she had culled from the papers back home.

  To be sure, Papa considered it most unladylike that she had read the p
apers at all, but how else was she to discover who was speaking for what in the House of Lords or the House of Commons?

  So without the least inkling of the disaster ahead, Emily blithely made plans for Lady Jersey’s ball. She took great pains with her toilette, recalling Mr. Langford’s maxim that more battles could be won this way than by direct confrontation. Indeed no one could have found anything to cavil at in her appearance. From the curls on her head to the dashing green satin ball gown to the tips of her satin slippers, she looked every inch the lady.

  Mind you, it did briefly occur to Emily that if she should happen to see Lord Darton at the ball, she ought to try to avoid him. But a moment’s reflection had reassured her that even if they came face to face he was not likely to pay the slightest heed to her. And that even if he did, it was not likely he would connect the young lady at the ball with the hoyden who had tried to storm White’s. And should he realize they were one and the same, even he would surely hesitate to create a scene at a ball.

  So having reassured herself on all the salient points, Emily headed off to Lady Jersey’s ball with a light heart, accompanied by her jubilant father and a very preoccupied Aunt Agatha.

  This was, by far, the grandest event to which Emily had received an invitation. She was not prepared, therefore, for the length of time it required before their carriage could reach the door to let them down. Nor was she prepared for the number of linkboys and footmen and other assorted persons keeping order.

  Of course, it was the number of candles required to light the household to a brilliant glow that captured her father’s attention. Emily could hear him calculating in his head the cost of this single night’s expenditure for the same.

  As for Aunt Agatha, she almost drew back, but then she took a deep breath, tilted her chin high, and with her eyes commanded Emily to do the same.

  It was, Emily told herself, an auspicious beginning for what she began to suspect would be a magical night.