“What’s in the book?” he asked, nodding at the large red leather volume she clutched to her chest.
“You are following me. Why?” She seemed genuinely annoyed, judging by the depth of the furrow between her eyebrows. At Clareford Manor, he’d wanted to erase that furrow. Now, he took a perverse pleasure in invoking it.
“You are not the one who gets to ask the questions,” he informed her coolly, resuming his task of moving the gardener.
She must have just caught sight of the poor man because she gasped and one hand flew to her mouth. “Who is that? Have you killed him?”
“I will answer those particular questions. This”—he nodded at his charge as he heaved—“is the gardener who was about to discover you breaking into the home of his master. And, no, I have not killed him. At the moment, I’m saving my store of murderous rage for you, Miss Mirren. I’ve merely ensured that our friend here will take a nice long nap. He’ll wake with a wicked headache, but it can’t be helped.”
As he spoke, he dragged the gardener, and she followed, her rosebud lips formed into a disbelieving O.
“I have to go,” she whispered, even as she continued to follow him.
“And here I thought perhaps you were going to say, ‘Thank you, Lord Blackstone, for saving my hide.’” They’d reached the shed and he tilted his head at it. “Open the door.”
She obeyed, and he pulled the gardener in and arranged him in what he hoped was a comfortable position. Even after all these years, he still felt a twinge of regret when his espionage activities caused innocent people to suffer. He straightened and stretched his back. Well, he’d inflicted worse on innocent people in the name of the cause before, and no doubt would do so again.
Without a word, without even looking at her, he took Miss Mirren’s elbow and stalked out of the garden.
She had the sense to keep quiet until they’d reached the lane, but once there she yanked her arm back and began peppering him with angry questions. “What in heaven’s name were you doing here? Why are you following me? How long until that gardener wakes up?”
Ignoring her perfect mouth, and those barely restrained curls, he allowed his eyes to bore into hers, striving to convey a mixture of anger and authority. “As I said, you are not the one who gets to ask the questions.” He offered his arm, the perfect picture of a gentleman, though it was a charade meant to cover the anger pulsing though him. After a moment’s hesitation, she took it. They did not speak as he settled her in his carriage, or as they bounced over the cobblestones to her own more modest section of town. He wanted very much to take the red book from her, but it didn’t matter exactly what it contained. No doubt she was collecting the “hard evidence” to incriminate Manning that she’d referenced in her speech. He’d get to the bottom of that after they were married. Which they would be. Soon.
He knew she was waiting for his rage, for the questions he kept threatening to ask. There was really only one that mattered, and he was saving it for the ball. When they pulled up in front of her house, he finally spoke. “I gather that Mr. and Mrs. Burnham will be coming to fetch you. If that is not the case, I will do so myself.”
“They are coming,” she said calmly, as if she hadn’t just risked her life in pursuit of her wild cause.
He nodded. “Then I will see you soon.”
Chapter Thirteen
There was no way to get people to answer questions when they didn’t want to. Emily stood against the wall in the Hollingberrys’ grand ballroom and scowled. Especially when by “people,” one meant the Earl of Blackstone.
Unanswered questions about why he’d been following her—for surely his appearance in Mr. Manning’s garden hadn’t been a coincidence—had plagued her since he’d unceremoniously deposited her on her doorstep an hour earlier. As Catharine cooed over her new gown and bundled her into the carriage, Emily had fulminated, growing angrier with every jostle and more indignant with every jolt.
A cup of lemonade appeared under her nose, drawing her back to the ball. “Is everything all right, Miss Mirren?” inquired James Burnham, handing a glass of champagne to his wife. He didn’t wait for her answer as he shot Catharine a grin. Emily sipped the cool, tart drink and regarded her new friends. Catharine met her husband’s grin with one of her own, and they now seemed to be locked in a silent combat, a test to see who would look away—or laugh—first. It was easy to see that they were besotted with each other.
Sighing, Emily turned her attention to the room and patted her hair. Angela had done a wonderful job, and her coiffure was holding its shape remarkably—for goodness’ sake, she’d committed a crime earlier in the evening, and her hair was no worse for it! Still, she was not accustomed to wearing jewels in her hair, and kept worrying that the tiny paste stones—cunning approximations of aquamarines if she did say so herself—would fall to the floor.
While Angela dressed her hair, she’d quizzed Emily about the eligible gentlemen who would attend the ball.
“I’m not looking to marry,” Emily had protested. “I’m not attending the ball in order to find a husband.”
“It can’t hurt to look,” Angela said, dusting Emily’s cheeks with some pale pink rouge, “If you meet the right gentleman, you might change your mind.”
Instead of answering the question, Emily posed one of her own. “Are you certain I should be painting my face?” She could not deny that the subtle wash of color made her look bright and vibrant, but it felt so scandalous.
“Absolutely certain.”
Emily was startled out of her reverie to realize her maid’s phrase was the same one being uttered right now by Catharine.
“Absolutely certain. I won’t leave Miss Mirren,” she said to her husband. “If you want to dance, ask one of the debutantes. It will be good for their image to be seen with a scandalous reformer.”
“But I don’t want to dance with a debutante.” Emily swallowed a giggle as Mr. Burnham pouted, looking very much like a little boy. “I want to dance with my wife.”
She sensed him coming before he arrived. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and her intuition was confirmed by the wide smile Catharine flashed over Emily’s shoulder.
“You’re saved, James. Look, here’s Blackstone, and he can dance with Miss Mirren, leaving me free to partner you.”
Lord Blackstone came to stand beside Emily, placing his hand against the small of her back. The touch was brief, but strong enough to signal that it was not an accident. It was as if he’d pressed an invisible button that sped up her heart. After greeting the Burnhams, he turned and bowed formally to Emily. “My first question: may I have this dance, Miss Mirren?”
“You don’t dance, if I recall correctly.” She didn’t bother with his title. Or with a curtsy.
“I’ve been known to, when the situation absolutely calls for it.”
“I can’t see how the current situation absolutely calls for it.”
“Perhaps you recall that you agreed to answer some questions at this ball, Miss Mirren.”
“You did?” said Catharine incredulously. “When did you do this?”
Emily ignored her. “There you are mistaken. You are simply assuming—”
“Miss Mirren, I will ask again, but this time I will be so bold as to inform you that phrasing this request as a question is merely a courtesy on my part. May I have this dance?” He took a rather firm hold of her elbow as he spoke.
“You’d best go,” Catharine whispered. Emily shifted her gaze to the older woman, only to find that she looked very much like she was trying not to laugh.
Emily hadn’t danced for at least a year. And the local assemblies she and Sarah attended in Somerset paled in comparison to this glittering affair. The crowd roared. Strangers stared, hardly bothering to disguise their almost clinical regard. It was all quite overwhelming, and though she’d tried to discourage Lord Blackstone, now that he was towing her determinedly toward the dance floor, she had no choice but to follow or risk getting lost—or tram
pled—in the crush. Emily thought she might prefer the more modest Somerset parties, where one knew most of the attendees, and if one’s best gown was a simple moss-green muslin, one still looked perfectly presentable.
A minuet was winding down and he stopped suddenly, causing her to nearly crash into him. He glanced up at the musicians seated in a balcony above them. The violinist made eye contact, nodded, and struck up a waltz. Apparently the world simply bent to Lord Blackstone’s will.
“I don’t know how to waltz!” said Emily, blurting out the first thought that came to mind as they approached the floor. “Even if I could, I couldn’t! Don’t I have to get permission or something?”
Ignoring her protest, he dropped her elbow and took her hand in his. “I’m meant to press my other hand against your back, but you’ll have to make do with the stump.”
Emily opened her mouth to object, but found she could summon no response. What could a lady say that wouldn’t make her seem an insensitive beast when a gentleman proclaimed that he was going to rest his stump against her back?
“Just follow my lead,” he whispered, nudging her right foot back with his left.
“I am familiar with the dance in theory.” Huffing in resignation, she looked down, trying to focus on the required footwork and not on the heat emanating from the very broad chest only inches from her bosom—which, though Angela and Catharine had assured her was appropriately covered, now felt a little too vulnerable.
“You’ve read a book about the waltz, no doubt.”
His smirk ignited a spark of irritation. “Merely a newspaper article,” she informed him. “The papers can hardly report on the scandalous nature of the dance without describing what makes it so.”
While she spoke, the infernal man started stroking his thumb over her wrist. It was an absent sort of stroking—a tic, really—so he probably wasn’t even aware of it. But she wished he would stop. They were picking up speed, which no doubt explained the slightly breathless feeling that had overtaken her. She could feel his eyes on her as she watched his thumb move back and forth. Even covered as it was by an evening glove, the skin beneath his thumb grew hot and prickly.
“I know I’m not supposed to look at my feet, but I don’t know where I should look.” Drat! Why did proximity to Lord Blackstone always cause her to simply blurt whatever nonsense flitted through her head?
“Look at me.” His eyes found hers, and it was as if an invisible cord was being knit between their gazes as they twirled. Despite the discomfort his searing gaze caused, she could not have looked away if she wanted to. He pulled her closer—not quite scandalously close, but enough to make her pray that no one was watching them too carefully.
“Everyone is watching you.”
Not only could Lord Blackstone bend the world to his will, it seemed he could read minds, too. “If that’s true,” she informed him, “it’s no doubt because I’m dancing with the infamously hermetical Earl of Blackstone. You know, the one who doesn’t dance.” Her confident tone belied the fluttering of her heart.
“No, it is because you are unknown to them, and you are a beautiful woman. They don’t know what to make of you.”
She dropped her eyes, looking for respite from his unstinting regard.
“Look at me.” The repeated command was harsher this time.
She grudgingly obeyed. His eyes fixed on hers again. The cord between them grew tauter, drawing her in even as she strained against it.
“Will you marry me?”
It was cruel, really, for him to ask again. Part of her wanted desperately to accept, to open her mouth and utter the one syllable that would change everything. Who cared what his motivations were? Marriage could mean children, a family. Love—if not from her husband, then from the children he gave her.
But, she reminded herself, he’d quite clearly suggested the first time he asked that they wouldn’t need to live together as man and wife. He couldn’t have been more plain about his lack of desire to have her for a true wife. And there was Sally to worry about, and Billy—the family she already had.
Besides, she’d seen marriage. Her own mother, had she lived, would have been alone all the time while her father was on campaign, her life organized around the machinations of a far-away military she had no control over. And, worse, she’d seen Mrs. Manning literally cowering beneath her husband’s fury. Emily wondered if the consumption she’d succumbed to hadn’t been a blessing after the years of abuse she’d suffered.
Blinking, she snapped the invisible cord that connected her to the earl.
“Is that another of your questions that’s actually a command?” She didn’t wait for his reply. “Regardless, the answer is no.”
…
“It was a question,” Blackstone murmured into Miss Mirren’s ear, trying to tamp down his annoyance as he thought of her “Reasons Never to Marry” list. “But clearly, I’m going to have to change my tactics.” He smiled in spite of his perturbation—picturing all the ways one might force Miss Mirren’s hand made for entertaining thoughts. But then, really all that was required was the addition of an audience to any of their encounters. He’d already kissed her—and more—several times. Polite society was funny that way. A man could swim with an unmarried woman, barely clothed, in the middle of the night, and yet to be caught alone in a drawing room, a foot of space between himself and said woman, would mean ruination unless they subsequently married.
“Change them how?” she asked.
He shrugged. “There are so many situations a woman could find herself in that could lead to ruin.”
She raised her eyebrows, daring him to continue.
“For example, she could be caught conversing in the library in the middle of the night with a gentleman.” Pausing, he waited for the veiled threat to sink in. She gave him no satisfaction. Her face did not change beyond a slight pressing together of her lips. “Or,” he lowered his voice so much that he was practically breathing in her ear, “she could be caught swimming with a gentleman, late at night, in nothing but a drenched chemise, one that leaves nothing to the imagination.”
An almost undetectable hitch in her breath told him he was getting somewhere, so he pressed on. “But it wouldn’t even take that much. She could be at a ball, say, and find herself suddenly alone with a gentleman in a parlor, a library—it doesn’t even matter where. All that need happen is someone else stumble onto the scene. Then our young lady must hope the gentleman in question is prepared to do the honorable thing.”
The music stopped, and she slipped out of his embrace. “But this all assumes that the lady in question is threatened by the prospect of social ruin.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “but it’s difficult not to be, isn’t it? Ostracism can’t have much to recommend it.”
It was her turn to shrug. “I can only speak for myself, and not for your hypothetical lady. Though of course I would not welcome ruination, it wouldn’t be enough to induce me to marry.”
Damn her. She’d called his bluff—and he had the sinking feeling she meant what she said.
“It might be different if I’d grown up among the ton,” she said, further skewering his plan. “But I’m a newcomer, and I’ve spent most of my life outside polite society. So social ruin is no great loss. Certainly not worth giving up my freedom.”
Couples were queuing around them for a country dance. After delivering her final blow, Miss Mirren curtsied, turned, and walked away, ever so slightly faster than was called for. The swooshing of her silk skirts roared like a storm in his ears.
Dammit. What ammunition did he have if she was immune to ruin? He hadn’t decided whether to follow her when Catharine glided over. “Abandoned on the dance floor, Blackstone?”
He merely scowled.
“I’ve sent James for drinks, so I’ve a few minutes alone. Therefore, this would seem the perfect time for you to tell me what’s going on between you and Miss Mirren.”
What was going on was that he needed a Plan B. And he needed i
t now. But Catharine didn’t need to know that. Would deepening his scowl scare her off?
No. She just raised her brows expectantly. “Would it be enough for me to tell you that it’s imperative I speak to Miss Mirren alone?”
“That might be enough if your intentions were honorable, but—”
He cut her off. “My intentions are honorable.”
She waved a dismissive hand. “Not intentions in the broad king-and-country sort of way. That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it. Miss Mirren is a lovely girl and she can aim high, despite her age. I won’t have you mucking up her prospects.”
“Did I not serve four years under Captain Mirren? You of all people should know that. My intentions toward his daughter are entirely honorable.”
Catharine’s face did not change, but she said, “I will refrain from expressing my true astonishment, but I assure you my jaw is hitting the ground right now. Metaphorically.”
“Will you help me?”
She cocked her head at him. “Yes. Reservedly. But I’m watching you, Blackstone.”
…
Thanks to Catharine’s machinations—the woman had been a hell of a fine spy—Miss Mirren was seated next to him on a bench on the Hollingberrys’ back terrace. Catharine and James lounged against the wall, taking in the moonlit gardens. Twenty or so feet away, they were close enough to provide the illusion of chaperonage, but not close enough to hear. He hoped.
Miss Mirren was not happy about this arrangement, her jumpiness betraying her agitation. “I’ve said no, and I fail to see the point of repeating this exercise.”
“That’s not what I mean to ask. I’m sorry. I thought we might rub along together well enough, but I won’t ask you again.” Correction—I won’t ask you at all. “I want to speak frankly about something else.”
She took a deep, resigned-sounding breath, as if she were summoning the patience to deal with a recalcitrant child. “Very well.”
The Miss Mirren Mission Page 16
