by Anne Gracie
He slid back into bed, gathered her against him and tried to give words to the jumble of feelings inside him.
“A man’s wife and children should not be punished for what he has done. It’s bad enough during a war, when innocents get caught up, their homes looted and destroyed, their crops ruined, robbed of their livestock, their women despoiled and their children—” He broke off as images came to mind that he’d tried for years to forget. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply.
She hugged him, stroking his skin, pressing herself against him, not seeking anything, not trying to comfort him with empty clichés, not saying anything. She simply listened.
The soft warmth of her body, the grave, sympathetic attention she gave to his words was more comforting than any words could be.
Savagery and destruction and the ruination of the lives of innocents were inevitable in wartime. It had sickened him at the time, but he’d become resigned to its inevitability.
But the war was long over. This was England in peacetime.
Theater, not war.
“But it wasn’t theater today for those women and their children,” he said. “They were terrified, distressed, taken away like criminals with the whole world watching. The memory of that—the shame of it—will stay with them the rest of their lives. Perhaps not the little ones, but the women. And that boy . . .” He would never forget the burning shame in that boy’s eyes and the youthful dignity with which he bore it.
He remembered thinking when he’d first returned to England how green and pleasant and peaceful his country was. But it wasn’t the England he thought it was, not anymore, not since he’d embarked on the search for the assassin.
He’d seen a different side of his country then. Oh, there was wealth and abundance and beauty—for some—vast estates and glittering mansions. But behind all that, beneath the prosperity and the glamor, there was poverty and desperation and despair.
“Cal?” she said softly. He looked down at her. “Don’t blame yourself. You did what you could. It’s not your fault. And now it’s time to sleep.” She drew him down and kissed him.
They made love again, slowly, tenderly, without words.
It was a kind of healing.
Emmaline fell asleep almost at once. Cal lay spooned around her, breathing in the scent of her skin and hair, and thought about their conversation. He’d told her more about his life and shared more of his private thoughts with her than he had with anyone else in his life. And he’d only known her a few weeks.
He’d never talked about this kind of thing with any of his male friends. Men turned such concerns into a joke, or didn’t mention them at all, shoved the doubts and fears and questions—and feelings—down deep as far as they could go. Pretending they didn’t exist. Or didn’t matter.
Women were different. No, that wasn’t right; he’d never talked to any other woman like this. Maybe it was wives who were different. That wasn’t right, either. He thought of the females who’d pursued him since he arrived in England. He couldn’t imagine talking like this, sharing such thoughts, with any of them.
It was Emmaline who was different.
He pulled her closer, closed his eyes and slept.
* * *
“I thought you said you’d hired a few hacks for us to go riding this morning,” Rose said, staring as a couple of grooms led five horses up to the front door of Ashendon House. “They don’t look like hacks to me.”
“And look! That’s my Sultan—and Jem’s with him!” George exclaimed, and ran down to greet them.
Cal shrugged, trying to hide a grin. “Well, we couldn’t borrow Sir Alfred’s horses from this distance, and I couldn’t let Georgiana outshine us, could I?”
Rose turned to him breathlessly. “Do you mean to say these horses are for us?”
He nodded. “The gray one is for Emmaline, and you and Lily can decide between you which of the other two you want.” The two girls immediately began to confer in low voices.
Emm looked down the road at the approaching horses and gasped. “The gray—you mean that beautiful Arab mare is for me? Cal! But when—?”
“Yesterday. I called in at Tattersalls after I bought the theater tickets, saw the mare, took one look at her and thought—well, that you would need a horse. And the girls too, of course,” he added hastily, but they weren’t listening.
Emm struggled for words. He’d seen this beautiful creature and thought of her.
“Do you like her? She’s spirited, but I tried her out and her paces are lovely. She’s fast too. She might give Sultan a run for his money.” At a signal from her husband, the groom leading her brought her up at a trot, and oh, the high-stepping elegance of her gait.
Emm was breathless with admiration. And emotion. “She’s graceful as well as beautiful. She moves like she’s floating.” The mare was silvery white, with soft clouds of light gray dappling, large dark expressive eyes, and a silky dark mane and tail, held high and carried proudly like a banner.
“I never did give you a wedding present,” he said gruffly. “Go on and see how you like her.”
“Come with me.” Emm grabbed his hand and they hurried down to meet her new mare. She was exquisite—dainty, aristocratic and strong. Emm had a quartered apple in her pocket. She proffered a piece on her palm.
Her mare tossed her head and eyed Emm and the apple coquettishly from liquid, dark, long-lashed eyes, then stretched out her neck and sniffed, her velvety black lips whuffling delicately against Emm’s skin. She downed it in two crunches, then came back for more, nudging Emm’s arm suggestively. Emm laughed with delight.
“Well, will she do?”
“Will she do? She’s a darling.” Emm threw her arms around her husband and kissed him warmly. “Thank you, Cal. I’ve never had such a wonderful present in all my life.”
He looked a little self-conscious. The whole street could see her kissing him, and it was not done to do such things in public—but Emm didn’t care. She was torn between being thrilled and being moved, and kissing him was better than bursting into tears in public.
She was so touched that he’d done such a generous and thoughtful thing for her and the girls, especially after his miserable, shameful morning.
Rose had chosen the black gelding, and Lily chose the pretty bay mare. “Come on, girls,” Emm called gaily. “Let’s try out their paces. Cal, your services, please.” She put out her booted foot. He cupped his hands and tossed her into the saddle, and they rode off in a cavalcade with Kirk, the new Scottish groom her husband had hired for the girls, coming up in the rear.
Emm did her best to appear carefree, but this, coming after the thoughts and feelings he’d shared with her last night . . . On the outside he was a hard, stern soldier, but beneath that disguise—and she was starting to think it was indeed a disguise—he was a sensitive, thoughtful and deeply honorable man.
He’d ached for that family—the family of his enemy. And for that little boy.
And then, having no power to change their situation, he’d turned his mind to how he could make his own little family happy, taking them to the theater and buying them horses. Saying not a word about his own deep unhappiness and frustration.
And despite his anger, he’d made love to her—twice—with unbelievable tenderness.
They reached the park, and the girls raced off joyfully on their new mounts, the silent dark man who’d made this possible quite forgotten. He kept a protective eye on them, but as soon as he saw Kirk, the new groom, following them, he turned to see how Emm was getting along with her beautiful new mare. The quiet concern, the protectiveness in his expression . . . It was this in him she wasn’t proof against.
It wasn’t the gifts, the quiet kindnesses or the bone-melting pleasure he gave her in bed; it was nothing she could put a finger on or explain away . . . But the barriers she’d erected around her closely barred heart we
re slowly unraveling.
Chapter Nineteen
To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.
—JANE AUSTEN, NORTHANGER ABBEY
Lady Salter was waiting for them when Emm and the girls returned home. “Like a crocodile at the river,” George muttered.
“Be nice, George,” Emm said, her look taking in all the girls. She supposed such a glorious morning had to be paid for in some fashion.
Cal had gone with the grooms to check on the horses’ accommodation. The stables, except for Hawkins the coachman and Jem the stableboy from George’s old home, were also newly staffed and he wanted to ensure all was to his liking there. He’d be back shortly expecting breakfast and a little more laughter and nonsense.
They were becoming a family.
And this elegant, bone-thin old woman looking down her nose at them was part of it. But Emm would not allow her to destroy the fragile happiness they’d achieved so far.
She mentally girded her loins and entered the sitting room with a warm greeting. “Aunt Agatha—how delightful to see you this morning. Have we kept you waiting again? I hope not for long this time. You really must let us know when you plan to visit.”
“So we can be out,” muttered Rose sotto voce.
“You don’t mind if I call you Aunt Agatha, do you?” Emm hurried on. “My husband told me I should, now we are related by marriage.”
“You’ve been out riding!” the old lady said accusingly. She pulled out her lorgnette and raked Emm and the girls with it. “Those habits are atrocious! Yours, Emmaline, is positively shabby, that one”—she pointed the lorgnette at Rose—“is dowdy and out of date. That one”—she pointed to Lily—“is just as dowdy and too tight. And as for that one”—she fixed her beady gaze on George—“I cannot believe that habit was made for you at all.”
“It wasn’t,” George said cheerfully. “It used to belong to Lady Chisholm’s daughter, but she grew out of it, so Lady Chisholm gave it to me.”
“A Rutherford—wearing castoffs from the village squire!” Lady Salter closed her eyes in horror and shuddered delicately.
After a moment she opened her eyes and fixed Emm with a gimlet gaze. “You must never be seen in public in those, those garments, again—none of you! You will order new habits at once.”
“We intended to do so this afternoon. Now that we have horses of our own.” Emm sent a swift smile to the girls, reminding her of Cal’s wonderful surprise. They grinned back.
Lady Salter pulled out a visiting card, turned it over, scribbled something on the back of it and handed it to Emm.
Emm glanced at it. “Madame Vestée?”
“My habit maker. She will provide you with all that you need—and everything of the first stare.”
“Thank you, but my patronage in that area will go to George Meredith and son,” Emm said. “He made all my habits when I was a girl, and my mother’s before me.” Meredith’s might not be “of the first stare,” but it was an old and highly respected firm, and their habits were beautiful.
“Loyal, are you?” the old lady said mockingly.
Emm gave her a direct look. “In all matters.”
There was a short silence. She sniffed. “So you refuse my advice?”
“In this case, yes. But thank you for thinking of us.”
Lady Salter gave her a narrow look. She took the card back, crossed Madame Vestée’s name off and wrote something else down. “That,” she said with aweful majesty, “is the name of my mantua maker, Hortense”—she pronounced it ’Ortense—“the foremost dressmaker in London. Show her my card when you order your gowns and she will give you special treatment. Of course it is ridiculously late to be ordering your gowns for the season—and bringing three girls out at once!” No one was left in doubt of her disapproval of that scheme. “But she will wish to oblige me and will do her best to fit you in.”
“Thank you so much. It’s very kind of you.” Emm took the card and tucked it in her reticule.
“And do it soon,” the old lady ordered. “The dresses you and the girls wore the other day were quite provincial.”
Emm stiffened. She loved those dresses, the first new, fashionable dresses she’d had in years. And the girls always looked lovely. She lifted her chin and said proudly, “They were made by Madame Floria, in Bath.”
Lady Salter was unimpressed. “As I said, provincial. Go to Salon Hortense. Give those other dresses to your maid. Or burn them.”
Burn her lovely wedding dress? Over her dead body. Emm gritted her teeth and tried to think of something polite to say. “Thank you for your advice and your recommendation, Aunt Agatha. The girls and I will certainly consider Salon Hortense.”
The old lady’s fine-plucked brows rose. “Consider?” Her voice was brittle ice.
“Yes, indeed we will consider her.”
The thin breast swelled. “You do understand that I am held to be one of the best-dressed ladies in London.”
“I can see that for myself,” Emm said pleasantly. She could see that Lady Salter didn’t think much of a compliment from a country nobody with, apparently, no dress sense. “But tastes differ, after all, and the girls are young and are bound to have ideas of their own.”
“Young people should have no opinions,” Lady Salter declared magisterially. “They should be guided by their elders.”
“Do you think so? I like hearing young people’s thoughts and ideas—they’re often less rigid and hidebound than their elders, I find. As for finding the girls a suitable dressmaker, what suits an older lady—fashionable as she might be—is not necessarily flattering to a young one.”
Lady Salter had no difficulty detecting the barb in that one. She glared at Emm. “You should be grateful if Salon Hortense even gives you an appointment.”
“As I said, thank you for the recommendation. We will definitely consider her.” For all Emm knew, Hortense might be the perfect choice for her and the girls, but Emm was not going to be bullied.
All three girls were being launched at the same time; all were rich and titled. They’d make a splash on the London scene if Emm were any judge. Rose was a beauty. Dressmakers would be falling over themselves to outfit her for the season. George was tall, slender and very pretty and would wear any dress with grace—as long as she was prevented from wearing her breeches under it, a habit Emm had not yet broken her of.
Lily was not so simple. She was very pretty, but she needed the kind of dressmaker who would appreciate her curves and make the most of them, not try to drown them in frills and flounces, as she’d seen happen to some girls. Dressed properly, Lily could shine, and Emm was determined to find her a dressmaker who would appreciate her potential and make the most of it.
She very much doubted Hortense would be that person.
There was a short tense silence in the sitting room. With gratitude Emm heard male voices outside in the hall. Cal must be back. Thank goodness. He could deal with his aunt. She’d had enough. And the girls were looking restless as the scent of breakfast wafted in. They’d been very good.
Emm rose to her feet and said brightly, “We were about to go in for breakfast, Aunt Agatha. And judging by that delicious toast and bacon smell, it must be ready. Would you care to join us?”
“Thank you, no. I have broken my fast already.”
“Probably wasps on toast,” George muttered.
Emm pretended not to have heard. “Then you will not wish to stay any longer.” She rose. “Delightful as always to see you, Aunt Agatha.”
* * *
Over breakfast the girls related the conversation to Cal, with much laughter and joking. “At least she acknowledged George’s legitimacy this time,” Emm said.
George laughed. “Yes, today I was a Rutherford, t
hough not one who met with her approval.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“She called me ‘Henry’s bastard’ the first time I met her.” George reached for another piece of toast and spread it lavishly with marmalade.
Cal turned to Emm. “You didn’t tell me that!” To George, he said, “She knew you were entirely legitimate. I informed her weeks ago, long before we came to London.”
George shrugged. “I’ve been called a bastard before.”
“Not in my house,” Cal growled, clenching his fist. “And never again.”
Emm could see from his expression that he was quietly furious.
He leaned across the table and took his niece’s hand. “My late brother did you a grave injustice, Georgiana. The way he treated you—and your mother—was disgraceful. Shameful. You should have been known to us—to the family—since your birth, if not before. You should not have had to struggle to support yourself—and others—should not have been so alone—” He broke off, his voice a little ragged, and took a mouthful of coffee. Recovering his composure, Emm thought.
“In short, George, this family owes you a massive apology, and I will do everything in my power to make it up to you.”
She glanced at George, who was regarding Cal gravely, her gray eyes, so like his, shining with liquid emotion. “Thank you, Cal,” she said huskily.
Emm was glad now that she’d mentioned it, glad Cal had taken the opportunity to say what he felt—show what he felt—to George. She didn’t think he’d truly explained to the girl before. He tended to do things quietly and not draw attention to them.
Now, hearing him like this, nobody could doubt his sincerity. It was clear to them all that his fine sense of honor had been flayed by his brother’s neglect of his daughter.
“Once probate is finalized, I’ve instructed my lawyer to arrange the same settlement for you that my father made for my sisters. A sum of money that will be yours—to be kept in trust until you marry or turn five-and-twenty.”
