An Infamous Proposal

by Joan Smith

  She shook her head and said, “Goodness, how did we manage to tumble into such a serious conversation when we started out talking about London? Now, tell me what delights await us when the Season is not in progress.”

  The remainder of the visit passed more pleasantly. Emma listened entranced as he spoke of the plays and parties and shops awaiting them. Even Miss Foxworth joined in the conversation.

  “Derek will like that,” she said.

  Nick and Emma exchanged a startled glance. They had forgotten about Derek Hunter. Nick saw the visit turning into a mass invasion of his London home. He had wanted to get Emma away from her unsuitable suitors, but it seemed they would accompany her to London.

  Emma’s smile faded, her lips drooped, and she said, “Perhaps we should make it some other time, Nick.”

  “Nonsense,” Nick said. “We’ll all go. You can’t abandon your houseguest.”

  As he drove home he was hard put to account for having involved himself in this scheme. It could not possibly be anything but a prolonged headache. He had pitched himself—and Emma—from the frying pan into the fire. London offered a good many more chances for James to misbehave than Whitehern did.

  Emma was also surprised at his generosity. In the end she decided that Nick must be doing it to foster the new romance. Having brought James and herself together, he wanted to show her a true, balanced picture of her suitor. He drew her attention to James’s little faults, as he had mentioned the advantages to the match earlier. Nick was the sort of gentleman who would do that. Just so would John have behaved, had he been here. She decided she had underestimated Nick. He did care for her. Not as a lover, but as a friend. It was nice to have a good friend, especially at this critical time in her life.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Very kind of Hansard,” Derek said, when Emma told him of the invitation to London. He had never before been invited to visit such a tonish establishment as Hansard House. He was thoroughly aware of the honor and strongly inclined to accept, but common sense told him a gentleman would be seen as cadging if he stayed in another man’s house when he had a place of his own in the same city.

  Then too, the visit was only for a short while. Emma might expect him to remain in London when it was over, whereas he planned to make an extended stay at Whitehern. By September, he felt, he would have exhausted the town’s resources and be ready to move on. All things considered, he was very well situated at Whitehern for the nonce, even without his hostess.

  “I’ve been thinking, Emma,” he continued. “Why don’t I stay here and keep an eye on things while you’re away? Someone of the family, you see, to keep the servants and that bailiff of yours on their toes.”

  “That’s not necessary. My bailiff has been with us for years, but if you would like to remain here, then by all means, do so.” She gave him a wary look, fearful of offending him, yet determined to protect her home. “But no wild parties, mind. No women and no gambling for heavy stakes.”

  “I promise,” he said, perfectly unoffended. “This is dashed good of you, Emma.” Then he remembered he had put the notion forward as a favor to her and added, “I shall keep a sharp eye on everything for you. About a carriage ...”

  “As I shall be going in Hansard’s carriage, I would be grateful if you would exercise my team from time to time.”

  “That will be no trouble at all,” he said, grinning from ear to ear.

  Lord James also had a few reservations about the visit. “You’re doing it on purpose, Cousin. You think I’m not good enough for Emma and are planning to throw other partis in her path,” he charged.

  “Would I invite you to join us if that were the case?”

  “You could hardly do anything else. You are a gentleman, after all, and I am an invited guest at your home. But you shan’t keep us apart. I can hold my own against all comers where my Emma is concerned.”

  “Then you’ll be joining us?”

  “Certainly I shall, but I must have a word with a certain Fifi at the Rose and Thistle before we leave. I have an arrangement with her for the evenings. A charming chit, by the by. When you’re ready for a change from Mrs. Pettigrew, I highly recommend Fifi.”

  “Yes, I can tell by the name she’s a charmer,” Nick said with a look of loathing.

  The travel arrangements were made; Lord Hansard notified his London household of his plans, and two mornings later his traveling carriage left for London, carrying Emma, Mrs. Foxworth, Lord James, and himself. Derek Hunter waved them off with a slight pang. It would have been something,

  staying at Hansard House. Then he borrowed Sir John’s gun and mount and rode out to enjoy a spot of hunting.

  The trip to London, in a well-sprung carriage drawn by a team of deep-chested matched bays, was enjoyable on a spring day. By leaving in the morning, they arrived late in the afternoon. As they drew into the city, Emma lodged her nose against the carriage window and goggled like the veriest Johnnie Raw.

  “So many people!” she exclaimed, staring at drovers and pedestrians and ramshackle commercial establishments, eking out a living for their proprietors on the fringes of the city. “It’s not very elegant, is it? I expected it to be grander.”

  “This is only the outskirts,” Lord James informed her.

  When the carriage entered the purlieus of the West End, the grandness Emma anticipated was there in full measure. Stately homes sat behind iron fences, looking out on the broad cobbled streets. Windows sparkled, brass door knockers positively gleamed. Elegant carriages of all sorts went to and fro. Landaus, barouches, chaises, curricles, and high-perch phaetons, some of them driven by ladies, wheeled past, lending a lively touch to the scene. Footmen in assorted shades of livery darted about, looking more haughty than the lords and ladies they served.

  “It is just as I imagined.” Emma sighed. “Which house is yours, Nick?”

  “The next block.”

  The carriage soon pulled up in front of one of the stately brick houses. The house was not so large or so grand as Waterdown, but it was in the very heart of polite London. The butler admitted them to a carved hall, with doorways like triumphal arches leading to grand chambers beyond. Overhead was a massive girandole hung with cut-glass lusters, beneath their feet a glistening floor of scagliola.

  Emma entered with her heart pounding to be welcomed by Lady Gertrude Philmore, a more noble version of Miss Foxworth. It was difficult to assimilate at first that this hawk-nosed dame in the elegant mauve gown with a huge amethyst at her throat was another romantic, but so it was.

  She called for tea to refresh the travelers, showed them into Lord Hansard’s elegant saloon, and demanded roguishly, “And which of you is the gentleman who is in love with Lady Capehart, eh?”

  James smiled softly. “It is I, Auntie. Have I not chosen well?”

  “I knew it! So romantic. But it cannot be a runaway match, or Nick would not be here.”

  “Oh, we might manage to escape him,” James said mischievously.

  “Don’t put ideas in his head!” Nick exclaimed. He glanced at Emma to see the laughter glinting in her eyes.

  The travelers were tired from the trip, so it was decided the ladies would rest until dinnertime, and the party would attend Drury Lane that evening. Lady Gertrude, who had already seen the performance twice, declined. Nick had a box for the Season, but with the Season just over, he had to send out for tickets. As the box held six, he wrote to invite his eligible bachelor friend, Lord Sanichton, to join them and bring his sister along.

  In her room Emma found it impossible to rest. She examined the fine furnishings of her bedchamber—the bed hangings of rich blue and gold brocade, the Persian carpet, the carved mahogany dresser—and was glad she wasn’t staying at some impersonal and vastly expensive hotel. She went to the window and sighed in pleasure at the busy street below. This was the life! And this evening she would be attending the fabled Drury Lane Theater to see a production of Romeo and Juliet.

  Mr. Milmont had never allowed h
is family to attend the theater, which he called Satan’s parlor. Thus Emma had never seen Romeo and Juliet. She read a good deal, but found Shakespeare’s archaic language too daunting to tackle alone. Even without reading it, however, she knew the play to be the quintessential romance and looked forward to seeing it with the keenest pleasure.

  She had brought with her her most fashionable gowns. For the theater she selected an Empire style gown of sea green. Its silken underskirt was covered with a roller skirt of gauze, edged in Belgian lace that billowed about her green kid slippers like foam. At her creamy throat, a diamond and emerald necklace sparkled. She piled her silken curls on top of her head, fastening them with jeweled combs. She felt like a princess when she went belowstairs for dinner.

  “Venus, rising from the waves!” Lord James exclaimed, when he greeted her at the bottom of the stairs, where he was lurking in anticipation of her descent. “I feared you would not have any gowns stylish enough for London, but I might have known!”

  Emma accepted this ambiguous compliment with good grace. Nick, chewing back a smile, said, “I, on the other hand, had no doubt about the gown. Emma is famous for her fashions, James.”

  James laughed. “Can one find fame among the barns and ricks of Sussex? She was ogled by the provincials, you mean. Now she will be famous. I shall be proud to be seen in public with you, Emma,” he said, taking her fingers and squeezing them. “In fact, I feel I ought to propose to you this instant, before some more worthy suitor steals you away from me.”

  “You look very nice, too, Lord James,” she said. She noticed that James’s coiffure had been rearranged à la Titus, and his modest cravat was worn in a more complicated style. His plain dark jacket had given way to a bottle green one that lent him a touch of sophistication.

  “You noticed,” he said, placing a kiss on her palm. “If I am not to be a clergyman, there is no need to dress the part. I am so glad. I feel those dreary duds did me less than justice, so I sent to Papa’s house for a few things. Come, let us dine.”

  They dined en famille, a pleasant but not ostentatious meal. The silver and china, the food and wine were all of the best, without soaring to Olympian heights of refinement.

  Soon after dinner Lord Sanichton and Lady Margaret came to accompany them to the theater. Emma noticed that Lord Sanichton was cut from the same mold as Nick. He was older than James, and more sensible. She thought him quite good looking, though perhaps not quite what she would call handsome. He was a few inches short of six feet. His shoulders were broad, his hair was chestnut, and his features were well arranged.

  His sister, while younger, was a little old to still be on the shelf. Emma thought it was her somewhat gaunt figure that accounted for it. At five and twenty she was very much a lady of the town. Her gown, her coiffure, her easy manners—everything about her spoke of the ton.

  They had a glass of wine, then left for the theater. Nick led Miss Foxworth to his carriage and suggested that Emma accompany Sanichton and Lady Margaret in their rig. James took it for granted that he would accompany Emma and tagged along with her. The ladies sat together on one banquette and ignored the gentlemen.

  “Nick tells me this is your first trip to London,” Lady Margaret said. “You must let me show you about.”

  “I am to be Lady Capehart’s escort,” Lord James informed her.

  “Of course you are, James, but I am referring to modistes and milliners and coiffeurs and such things that would bore a gentleman.”

  “I have never found them boring. Quite the contrary, but as I still owe several of them money for past favors, we accept your offer.”

  Lady Margaret lifted an eyebrow at Emma, as if to say, “Is this outrageous sprig your fiancé?” Emma smiled and shook her head. For the remainder of the trip, Lady Margaret outlined the shops that must be visited. Sanichton was impressed with Lady Capehart’s ready smile. Nor was he put off by her frequent interruptions.

  “Did you see that!” she exclaimed, when a gentleman driving three horses tandem shot past.

  “That must be the Prince Regent at least!” she cried, when a particularly fine blue carriage drawn by a snow white team pulled past.

  “Actually, I believe that’s Miss Drew,” Margaret said, smiling at her brother. They both recognized the famous courtesan.

  When, at last, they reached Drury Lane Theater, Emma gasped in delight. Torches illuminated the marble and porphyry exterior, lending it the air of a fairy castle.

  “It’s like a temple! I have never seen anything so grand!” she exclaimed, when she was led into the lobby. Along its sixty-foot length of faux porphyry, plaster statues in imitation of marble originals rose in stately splendor above the plush sofas. Uniformed page boys darted to and fro among the early arrivals, outfitted in finery to challenge their surroundings.

  “A theater has much in common with a church, or temple,” James said, gazing about with a cynical eye. “Both give performances to entertain the jaded masses.”

  Emma didn’t hear him. She was frowning at a set of water pipes and great brass water cocks that seemed incongruous in this setting.

  “Those are to insure that the theater doesn’t burn down again,” James told her. “Actually, they are the only authentic things in the lobby. The rest of it is sham finery in the worst of bad taste. But I am glad it pleases you, Emma,” he added, with no notion of casting aspersions on her taste.

  He led her to their box, seated Emma in the front row, and sat beside her. Nick nudged Sanichton into the seat on Emma’s other side. He need not have worried that Emma would fall into a flirtation with James. She was so entranced by the play that she didn’t shift her gaze from the stage until the first intermission, and then it was only to praise the performance and gawk about at the audience.

  “I hadn’t realized there were so many rich people in the whole kingdom,” she said, marveling at the sparkle of jewels and the sheen of silks and satins. “There must be thousands of people here.”

  “The theater holds twenty-eight hundred. Perhaps twenty-eight of them are actually wealthy,” James informed her. “The rest of us are here to provide an audience for the twenty-eight.”

  “It is almost as good as the play onstage,” Emma said. It was the way she had dreamed London would be, all those years at home, pining for it.

  At the second intermission, Lady Margaret drew her out into the corridor to ogle those who were having wine and walking about to stretch their legs. Lord James made a quick dart to the greenroom to try his hand at meeting the actress who was playing Lady Capulet. She was half again as old as himself, but not too old to be of amorous interest. She had a well-preserved figure.

  Nick was not tardy in pushing Sanichton forward as his friend had expressed a warm interest in the young widow.

  “I don’t want to interfere if she and James—”

  “That is exactly why we are here, to introduce Lady Capehart to some eligible partis. James has her in his eye.”

  “He would, of course. Pity he dropped in on you and discovered her. He is exactly the sort of here-and-therein you would not want her to meet, if you feel some responsibility for Lady Capehart. You heard about his fracas with the actress?”

  Nick felt doubly guilty for having encouraged Lord James. “I heard nothing of it until James told me himself, after I had invited him to Waterdown.”

  “It occurred in early April, before the Season opened. His papa had to come down heavy to rescue him, I believe, but it seemed for a while that it did the lad some good. I heard he had reformed his ways. It don’t look like it now, however. He darted back to the greenroom between acts. What are Lady Capehart’s feelings for him?”

  “She’s interested, but by no means has decided to have him. She’s not a fool after all. I hope to introduce her to some more plausible gents.”

  “In that case, put me at the top of your list!”

  “You’re already there, Sanichton,” Nick said.

  Sanichton smiled. “I’m off then. You amuse
Maggie, will you?”

  Nick dutifully joined Lady Margaret, but when he saw Sanichton tuck Emma’s hand under his elbow, he felt again that worm of discontent. A little gnawing, nagging worry that something was not quite as it should be. What could it be?

  There was nothing amiss with Sanichton. He was an excellent fellow and would make a fine landlord for Whitehern. Of course, he would not live there himself. He had his own larger estate in Devonshire, but he would keep an eye on it, see it was well run.

  Nick shook away the wisp of worry and applied himself to the task of entertaining Lady Margaret. When they returned to their box, Emma said quietly in Nick’s ear, “I like your Lord Sanichton. I am to drive out with him tomorrow afternoon. Does that please you?”

  “Very much,” Nick said, but he had to force a smile.

  Lord James returned late to the box, wearing a suspiciously smug expression, and disappeared entirely after the performance. James always could be counted on to bite the hand that fed him. He had arranged to meet Lady Capulet and join a little party that was going out to eat and drink.

  “You will see that Emma gets home safely, Nick,” he said. “She looks so ravishing this evening that I cannot trust myself with her.”

  “Don’t fall into a scrape with your new actress friend,” Nick cautioned. “Your papa won’t pull you out a second time.”

  James took offense at this little lecture. “I’ve learned my lesson,” he said. “It is perfectly safe. She’s married.”

  That being the case, Nick offered no further instructions. When he went to offer Emma his arm, he found her hiding in a dark corner, with tears flowing freely down her cheeks. The only thing he could think of was that she and James had had a tiff. He sat beside her, to conceal her grief from Sanichton.

  “Emma,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders. “He’s not worth it, my dear. Come, the rest of us will go out for supper.”

  She sniffled and accepted the handkerchief he pushed into her fingers. “Oh, it was awful, Nick. I had no idea.”