A Lady's Guide to a Gentleman's Heart

by Christi Caldwell

  Emilia stuck her tongue out. “Oh, hush.”

  “What? I said ‘spinsterish in age,’ which is vastly different than calling you a spinster.”

  They shared a smile.

  “Twenty-two minutes,” he pointed out, lifting his timepiece.

  “Thank you, Barry.”

  “Oh, and Emilia?” he said as he opened the door. She stared quizzically back. “If I might suggest, in the future you might consider choosing an altogether more reliable hiding place than your rooms.” With a wink, her brother left.

  The moment he’d gone, Emilia scrambled to gather up her book and two of the pencils her mother’s thumping had scattered over the desk. Her belongings tucked in her arm, Emilia abandoned the guest chambers.

  Using the servants’ stairway, Emilia made her way down the darker, more narrow space until she reached the second level of the duke and duchess’ sprawling manor house. The moment her slippers touched the plush crimson carpet, Emilia took off running.

  Despite her parents’ desire to see her married to, really, anyone at this point, Emilia had every intention of not only preserving her freedom, but also helping other young ladies to avoid making the same mistakes she had.

  The problem with being a woman—of any station—was that the world, her parents included, had their own expectations about what said women wanted.

  Emilia reached the end of the corridor and peeked around the corner.

  Empty. She raced off once more.

  Yes, everyone trusted they knew what a lady wanted:

  A husband at eighteen.

  A parcel of children to soon follow.

  A career as Society’s leading hostess.

  Everything came down to marriage: Who would make one the best union? Which familial connections were most valuable? Would one settle for security or risk all on a love match?

  What Emilia really wished for… was freedom.

  That discovery had come compliments of the broken heart she’d suffered at the hands of a feckless cad. Her family, also Society, would not dare to believe her, because to all of them, all women invariably wished to marry. It was a lie perpetuated by the world, many women included.

  Slowing her steps, Emilia crept down another one of the Duke and Duchess of Sutton’s endless corridors.

  Voices drifted from the intersecting corridor. Voices that grew increasingly closer—those of Lady Lauren Grace and Lady Ava Smith, two of Society’s leading diamonds and nastiest gossips.

  Oh, bloody hell. She abruptly stopped.

  “They say Lord Whitworth ran off and married the first woman he could find.”

  Emilia’s face pulled.

  So that was what they were saying about the Duke and Duchess of Sutton’s youngest son and his wife.

  “Why ever would he do that?” Lady Lauren piped in.

  Yes, it was, in fact, a fair question: Why would a notorious rogue rush off to marry… anyone?

  Lady Ava lowered her voice to a still-loud whisper. “They said he did it so he couldn’t be forced into marriage”—there was a pause—“with her.”

  Emilia froze.

  “Lady Emilia Aberdeen?”

  There it was.

  “Of course, who else?”

  Yes, who else? What other lady present for the gathering was almost thirty and lacking in suitors and seemingly reliant upon familial connections to make a match?

  The pair of footfalls stopped.

  “Well, that hardly makes sense.” Lady Lauren, who’d ceded all superiority in the current discussion, spoke with far less confidence than before. “Why would they marry her to Lord Sheldon?”

  “They wouldn’t anymore, silly.”

  Emilia would have wagered her coveted freedom that Lady Ava had just given an impressive roll of her eyes.

  “Because he’s married now. But he was… is the lesser of the brothers.”

  Lesser?

  Emilia furrowed her brow. And then it dawned.

  “Ahh.” Lady Ava’s tones indicated she’d also quite caught on to her friend’s thinking. “Lord Heath. Because he is—”

  “A future duke,” Emilia mouthed as the busybodies spoke in unison.

  “A future duke.”

  Yes, because that was what every lady craved: marriage to a duke. Emilia stared blankly at the crimson silk paper adorning the wall across from her with faint spadelike shapes etched in gold. She traced one of those almost-hearts beside her.

  Nay, that isn’t what you craved. You wanted the heart of a duke. Altogether different, and yet, at the same time, not. Because Emilia should have, even then, known that those lords just a smidge below royalty weren’t men to entrust one’s heart to. They lived for their own pleasures and thought nothing of breaking hearts or even legal contracts, such as the betrothal the Duke of Renaud had severed.

  Someday, I shall have the heart of a duke.

  Giving her head a shake, she forced aside foolish thoughts of the cad from her past. It had been all the talk of marriage that had brought the memories back this night. She’d heard enough gossip from the pair.

  “Yes, I have it on the authority of my mother that the Duke and Duchess of Sutton didn’t wish to waste the ducal heir on a spinster.” The ducal heir also happened to be the best friend of the man who’d stomped all over Emilia’s heart. “Which quite means—”

  Again, the girls spoke as one. “He is available.”

  And they were welcome to Lord Heath. Even when she’d been betrothed to Connell, his closest friend in the world had been as aloof as Lady Jersey welcoming a courtesan to her soiree. Distant. Always turning on his heel to make a hasty retreat. Increasingly so the closer she’d gotten to her wedding day.

  How happy he must have been when his friend threw her over.

  The miserable blighter.

  “He is quite… handsome.”

  They dissolved into a fit of giggles.

  Ah, giggles. The sounds of innocence and naïveté and childish dreams.

  In fact, Emilia would have managed to feel a modicum of regret in knowing that these two would one day have their hearts crushed by life—if they hadn’t already been horridly unkind.

  Even with that, there was a sliver of sadness for the inevitable fate that awaited them. It awaited them all.

  Emilia sighed.

  “What was that?”

  It took a moment to register that the giggles had faded, and then the footfalls resumed, coming closer. More quickly.

  Bloody hell. Springing into movement, Emilia darted in the opposite direction, her skirts whipping around her ankles.

  “…I saw,” one of the gossips was saying, and by the direction of her voice, the young woman was at the corner. Oh, hell. “It was her skirts. I’m sure of it. The Ice Princess in her ice blue.”

  Heart racing, Emilia grabbed the nearest door handle. It gave way with a satisfying click. Relief flooded through her as she stumbled into the room and hurriedly closed the door behind her.

  Safe.

  And then she went absolutely still.

  Oh, bloody hell.

  Of all the three hundred and twenty-six rooms in the Duke and Duchess of Sutton’s property, Emilia had chosen the one that was occupied.

  By him.

  Hovering over the billiards table, frozen midway through his shot. Sans jacket, no less.

  Lord Heath Whitworth, the Marquess of Mulgrave.

  By the horror settling on the angular planes of his face, the marquess looked about as pleased to see her as she was to see him.

  For the briefest of moments, she considered taking her chances with the enemies on the other side of the door rather than with the enemy within.

  After all, she and Heath had been anything but friendly toward each other… ever.

  “…she was listening,” Lady Lauren hissed from outside the billiards room. Or mayhap it was Lady Ava. With the high whine muffled by the panel, it was nigh impossible to sort out who was who.

  In that moment, it was also sett
led—she chose the enemy within.

  Emilia locked the door.

  Pressing a finger to her lips, she urged a still motionless Lord Heath to silence.

  “…in there,” the other friend said. “Hello?” The impressively bold creature gave the door handle a jiggle.

  Even knowing she’d turned that latch, she felt a brief moment of panic. Keeping close to the wall, Emilia inched slowly away from the door.

  When it became clear that her hiding space was safe after all, some of the tension went out of her.

  “We saw you eavesdropping,” one of the gossips charged from the opposite side of the panel.

  Her stomach sank. Bloody hell. They knew it was her. She was rubbish at this subterfuge stuff, after all. It wasn’t her work for the London Post that would be her downfall, but rather, being caught sneaking about.

  “I’ll have you know,” Lady Ava schooled, “it is quite bad form listening in on two young women in the midst of a private discussion.”

  It took every last shred of restraint she’d mastered over the years to keep from pointing out that private discussions were better off not conducted in a hallway. Regardless, Emilia rather thought she might have too hastily judged that particular gossip. Anyone bold enough to call out a stranger, sight unseen, in a duke’s household had more gumption than she’d credited.

  The girl jiggled the handle once more. “Show yourself.”

  From the corner of Emilia’s eye, she saw Lord Heath motion to her.

  Hurriedly tugging his jacket from the chair resting at the sideboard, Lord Heath pointed in the direction of the door.

  Emilia followed the gesture.

  For one horrifying moment, she believed he was ordering her to face the women on the other side.

  With his right arm partially within the sleeve of his black evening coat, he impatiently jabbed his finger.

  She widened her eyes. The French Louis XVI three-fold giltwood floor screen. Collecting her skirts, Emilia darted behind the panels just as one of the gossips tried the door handle again.

  Then there was the faint whine of the door being opened. “May I help you?” he asked in cool tones.

  A long silence met the query. Emilia’s heart pounded so loud she was certain the two women could hear it.

  One of the women broke the silence. “My lord,” Lady Ava whispered with such an obsequiousness in her voice that Emilia rolled her eyes. “We didn’t… We believed…”

  “I was listening in on your gossip?” he asked in icy tones.

  “No…” the young woman was saying. “We were… That was… mistaken,” she squeaked. “We were mistaken.”

  Lord Heath’s impressively frosty inflection must have been passed on from duke to ducal heir. Lord Heath wielded it with the ease of one who’d been born to this world knowing precisely what fate one day awaited him. Had she ever before heard those tones from Connell’s best friend? She wrinkled her brow. For that matter, had she even heard him speak more than a handful of sentences? He’d always been in a haste to be free of her and Connell’s company. Granted, her own friends had been rightfully nauseated by Emilia and her then-betrothed’s fawning.

  After a flurry of stammered goodbyes and no doubt deeply dipped curtsies from the women, Lord Heath closed the door and locked it once more, shutting Emilia in with him.

  She remained hidden by the folding screen, her book clutched tightly to her chest, long after the pair had gone.

  Waiting for an indication that it was safe to emerge from her hiding place.

  Craack.

  Emilia puzzled her brow.

  Why… why… had the gentleman simply just resumed his game?

  As if in confirmation of the wonderance, there came another craack.

  Why… why… the bounder intended to play his damned game as if she weren’t even there.

  At last, after she’d been struggling with her latest column, inspiration struck.

  Sinking to her haunches, Emilia opened her journal, and after tucking one of the pencils behind her ear, she began to write.

  Chapter 3

  If a gentleman treats you as though you are invisible, you are better off with his disinterest.

  Mrs. Matcher

  A Lady’s Guide to a Gentleman’s Heart

  Heath rather suspected Lady Emilia Aberdeen had no intention of emerging from behind that screen.

  After three well-played strikes, he was rather certain of it.

  Leaning over the velvet table, his arm drawn back, he briefly lifted his gaze in the direction of that screen and, for a longer moment, contemplated his escape.

  The young woman who’d stalked the halls of Everleigh as if they were her own and dueled quite wittily with her mother and father at countless family gatherings, was not one he’d have taken to hide as a grown woman.

  And yet, hiding she was.

  Just then, rule four—or was it five?—on his mother’s list intruded.

  If Emilia does seem upset, it is your gentlemanly responsibility and duty to somehow cheer her up.

  Heath tugged at his cravat. She wasn’t necessarily upset. There could be any number of reasons she remained behind that screen. She could be… Or…

  Bloody hell. Nay, there really wasn’t any reason she’d be behind there other than ladylike upset. There had been the two angry harridans and the obvious fact that she was even now hiding behind that screen.

  Damn it. Not for the first time, Heath lamented not having more of his brother’s effortless ability to charm. “Are you awaiting permission?” Heath completed his next shot. “If so, you needn’t.”

  There was a beat of silence.

  And then…

  “My lord?” she asked tentatively.

  Had Lady Emilia ever been tentative? Some of his most vivid recollections of the lady were of her minxlike escapades of chasing after gypsies and legends on her family’s estates, all the while doing so over her mother’s lamentations and pleading. Time had changed her. “Permission,” he repeated, eyeing his next shot. “To emerge.”

  “P-permission,” she sputtered, still in her hiding place. “I do not…” As if she too realized the inherent silliness of debating that point from behind the folding screen, the young woman stepped out. With a toss of her honey-blonde curls, she scowled at him. “I do not need permission to emerge.” Nonetheless, it did not escape his notice that she remained rooted alongside that screen.

  “I didn’t presume you did. I just couldn’t account, however, for why you’d opted to stay there.”

  It was likely the pattern she’d displayed over the years of being anywhere… well, anywhere he wasn’t.

  Not that he could entirely blame her. There was the whole awkward matter of her broken betrothal to his best friend.

  “Yes, well…” She gave another toss of her curls. “Seeing as how two gossips hunted down my—”

  “Hiding spot?”

  A pretty blush climbed her high cheekbones. “Whereabouts,” she settled for. “I thought it would be prudent to not simply rush out and engage you in a discussion.”

  She’d managed to deliver two insults in that charge—one challenging his prudence and two with that slightly overemphasized word. Even being the recipient, Heath was hard-pressed to not appreciate the effortless retorts.

  “Furthermore,” she went on, stalking over with a peculiar brown leather book and a pair of pencils clutched close to her chest. “Opening the door could have proven disastrous.”

  Being caught alone with Lady Emilia Aberdeen? Yes, there would have been a scandal there, indeed.

  “Had you remained silent,” she went on, “they would have eventually gone on their way, and neither of us would have risked discovery.”

  “Ah, yes. But then they would have gone on believing you had been listening in on their conversation.” Heath returned his focus to the billiards table. Bringing his shot forward, he sent his white ball flying for another. They collided with a loud crack. “Which I trust is, in fact, what y
ou were doing?” He straightened and glanced over in her direction once more.

  The glow cast by the row of chandeliers overhead bathed her face in light and put her deepening blush on display. “I wasn’t… listening in, per se.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not intentionally.” She shifted her book in her arms. “Rather, I was avoiding—” Her lips immediately formed a tight line as she considered the door.

  He arched a brow. “My mother’s festivities?” he ventured, staking out his next shot. “You are not alone on that score.” Solitude had been that elusive gift he’d craved before his mother had stormed this space and given him his marching orders for the remainder of the house party. “I trust you’ll find the halls now safe for you to—” He cut off abruptly, noting that he was in the midst of conducting a one-on-one conversation—with himself.

  Brow puzzled, Heath looked up and started.

  Lady Emilia was in the midst of setting the burden in her arms on the sideboard, and he blanched. By all intents and purposes, it appeared as if… “My God, you intend to… stay.”

  Connell’s betrothed.

  Nay, former betrothed, but really, it was all the same. Not only had she invaded his sanctuary, she’d laid a damned claim to it.

  Her lips formed a small moue of displeasure. “You needn’t sound so horrified about it.”

  He’d sounded horrified because he was horrified.

  “You most certainly cannot stay here.” He’d done his good deed where Emilia Aberdeen was concerned that night. Saving her from gossips surely counted for something. It was one thing assisting a young woman seeking to escape a pair of busybodies and unwanted gossip. It was an altogether different matter keeping company with that same woman. Alone. “You’ll”—his mind worked—“miss the fun planned by my mother,” he said.

  “Charades?”

  “You quite excelled at it as a girl.” A memory flitted in of her crawling on all fours around his mother’s parlor, one arm dangling from her nose as she trumpeted the great elephant’s sound.

  “Pass,” she said cheerfully and then marched across the room with determined footsteps.

  He followed her every movement. What in blazes was she doing now?

  Emilia grabbed one of the lattice-backed chairs and proceeded to carry it over to his sideboard. “You see, no one would dare search for me here. It is, in fact, the last place I would be.”