Lady in disguise

by Amanda McCabe

Emma remembered all she had heard of the countess’s active social life in London. She imagined the lack of Russian women to talk with did not really make a great deal of difference, when one was a patroness of the fabled Almack’s. But she just smiled politely and nodded.

  That was really all she had been doing all day. It was all she had the strength to do.

  She was still so tired from her grand adventure of the day before, tired and hollow feeling. There seemed to be a cold core right in the center of her chest that would not melt, no matter what she did. She tried to forget, to concentrate only on what she must do today—be polite and pretty.

  She had thought that if she could have a short time away, she could come back to her real life refreshed. She had been wrong. It only made things harder. Now that she knew there was another way, how could she face another interminable tea party again?

  Her face felt so stiff from smiling that she feared it might crack. She ground her back teeth together and feared everyone must hear the horrid squeaking sound.

  Countess Lieven didn’t appear to notice anything amiss with Emma’s smile, though. She laid her slender, beringed hand lightly on Emma’s sleeve in a friendly, sympathetic gesture. “I was so very sorry to hear you were ill and could not be with us at the ball last night. Are you feeling better today?”

  “Oh, yes, thank you, Countess Lieven,” Emma managed to say, releasing her teeth from their death’s grin.

  “Travel is so very rigorous. I hope you will be up to joining us at Lady Hertford’s ball tomorrow?”

  “I am sure I will.”

  “It will be quite a crush.” Countess Lieven leaned forward a bit and said in a confiding tone, “I am sure there will be one gentleman in particular who will be eager to claim a dance. Or two.”

  Emma felt that dreadful tightness at the back of her jaw again. “I am sure I cannot know who you mean,” she said, even though she feared she did know. Sir Jeremy Ashbey had sent her a huge bouquet of pink roses that morning, with a note expressing the ardent wish that she would still be able to join him for a drive this afternoon.

  “Sir Jeremy Ashbey, of course!” the countess said. “He seems to admire you so much, Lady Emma. And he was so desolate at your absence last night. None of the pretty young misses could make him smile! Today, though, he is all smiles.”

  Emma and Countess Lieven both turned their heads to peer discreetly at the gentleman in question. He was indeed smiling as he talked with Emma’s uncle near one of the high windows.

  Emma had to admit he was handsome. His golden, perfectly arranged hair gleamed in the sunlight. He was stylishly attired in a well-cut bottle green coat and buff pantaloons, his ivory cravat beautifully but not ostentatiously tied.

  He could not compare with Jack, though. No one could.

  There, she had broken her promise to herself not to think of him today. It could not be helped. Watching Sir Jeremy or almost any other man just invited comparison with Jack. She looked at Sir Jeremy’s elegant appearance but saw Jack, with his windblown dark hair, his sun-touched skin and brilliant eyes that laughed down at her.

  Not even the most cleverly tied cravat could compare with that.

  But Sir Jeremy had been most attentive to her, greeting her when she first arrived at the embassy and making certain she had a comfortable seat. He had brought her cakes, made light conversation with her, even told her a joke or two. And, of course, there were the roses. It was all very proper, very flattering.

  Yet, there was something almost disquieting about his attentions. Something almost—almost grasping or possessive. They had only spoken perhaps two dozen words together, which made this feeling harder to understand. She didn’t understand it—he had not made one single gesture to her or said one word that could be construed as improper.

  Emma gave her head a tiny shake. Just because Sir Jeremy was not Jack, that did not make him a bad person. He was just—different, and once they had a chance for more conversation, she would surely like him.

  “He is handsome,” Countess Lieven said, with another of her theatrical sighs. “We are very fortunate that he is to work here in London from now on. I hear that all the young ladies at his former post are pining.”

  Emma laughed, picturing multitudes of young ladies falling prostrate upon the ground, sobbing, because Sir Jeremy was gone. It felt good to laugh again, even for so silly a reason.

  “You are a fortunate girl,” the countess went on. “And I am sure that these tales of Sir Jeremy’s mother are nothing but tittle-tattle. You would not believe the gossip idle minds can produce!”

  Sir Jeremy’s mother? Emma could not recall ever hearing one word about the woman, whoever she might be. What tales could be going around about her? She opened her mouth to ask but was interrupted by the arrival in their little corner of Lord and Lady Osborn.

  Countess Lieven turned to them with a glad greeting and held her hand out to Lord Osborn. Emma smiled at them and added her own greeting. She remembered them from the reception. Lady Osborn had seemed then a sweet little sparrow, her husband a bit loud and rather full of his own consequence, as aging statesmen sometimes were, but generally pleasant.

  Nothing changed her impression today. Lady Osborn wore a well-cut but not very dashing gown and pelisse of gray silk with a pale blue bonnet, which seemed to fade into the wallpaper along with her die-away little giggle. Lord Osborn was all smiles and bluff heartiness as he bowed over Emma’s hand.

  “Lord Osborn, Lady Osborn,” Emma said. “It is very good to see you again.”

  “The pleasure and privilege are entirely ours, Lady Emma!” Lord Osborn answered. “We were sorry to hear you were not feeling well yesterday evening.”

  “Thank you, Lord Osborn. I am quite recovered now.”

  “Travel can be so difficult on one’s system,” Lady Osborn said, with a delicate flutter of her handkerchief. “I remember…”

  “Quite, my dear,” Lord Osborn interrupted. “Quite. Well, I do hope we shall see you at Lady Hertford’s ball tomorrow night, Lady Emma.”

  “I hope very much to attend,” said Emma. She tried to smile at Lady Osborn, but the lady was now staring at the floor.

  “Good, good,” Lord Osborn said. “I hope we may have the honor to present our son, Viscount St. Albans, to you there. He was meant to accompany us this afternoon but was unhappily prevented.”

  “I would be happy to meet Lord St. Albans tomorrow,” Emma answered politely. Lord Osborn had mentioned his son at the reception, too. Emma wondered why he was so very keen for her to meet him. Probably the viscount was yet another spoiled young Englishman, like so many of the ones she had met in the embassy drawing room today, concerned only with horses and their clubs and the cut of their coats.

  Ah, well. Surely she could stand another introduction and perhaps a dance with this Lord St. Albans.

  She did not have long to speculate on the Osborns’ son, though. She saw that her uncle and Sir Jeremy were walking toward her. It was time for her drive.

  ———

  “What do you think of London thus far, Lady Emma?” Sir Jeremy asked.

  “Hm?” Emma murmured absently. Her aunt would have been very disappointed in her lack of manners, but the truth was Emma had not really been attending. She had been watching the people gathered in the park. Just as she had thought they would, the people on foot backed away from Sir Jeremy’s elegant phaeton, bowing respectfully.

  It was nothing like when she had been here just yesterday, going for a row on the pond.

  Emma sighed and turned to Sir Jeremy with a polite smile she hoped apologized for her lack of attention. “I am so sorry, Sir Jeremy, but I fear I did not hear your question.”

  He smiled at her, too, the indulgent sort of smile one might give a rather slow child. It irritated Emma to no end, and she felt a sudden urge to slap it off his face. She tightened her gloved grip on the carved handle of her open parasol.

  “I merely asked what you thought of London, Lady Emma,” he sa
id.

  Hadn’t he already asked her that? Oh, no. That had been Countess Lieven who asked her a similar question, along with a dozen other people.

  And she gave the same answer she always gave. “I think London is charming.”

  He smiled at her again. “A charming setting for a charming lady.”

  Ugh. “You are far too kind, Sir Jeremy. We have truly not had enough conversation for you to know if I am charming or not.”

  Sir Jeremy tugged on the reins, turning the carriage so that they ran along a path beside the pond. Emma tried not to look at the happy couples in their rowboats. She turned her parasol to block the view.

  “I know you quite well enough to know that you are very charming,” Sir Jeremy said. He looked down at her for a moment before turning his gaze back to the path, suddenly unsmiling. “We have met before, you know, Lady Emma.”

  She frowned in puzzlement. “Of course we have. At the reception…”

  “No, I mean before that. When you lived at Weston Manor.”

  “My parents’ home?” Emma studied him a bit more closely, hoping a closer look would somehow nudge her memory, but of course it did not. She had been six when she left to live in Russia, and Sir Jeremy would have been not a great deal older. It was perhaps possible that they had met then, but she had no recollection of it. “I am sorry, I don’t remember. I was very small when I lived there.”

  “My family’s estate marches with Weston Manor, as I am sure you know. My parents sometimes attended social functions there, and once I came along for a picnic. I was twelve, home for a school holiday.” Sir Jeremy still looked at the path, but it was obvious his thoughts were far away, in another time. A time Emma had shared but could not recall.

  “A picnic?” she said.

  “Yes. It was a beautiful day, summertime. All bright and warm, with flowers everywhere. Weston Manor had such splendid gardens,” Sir Jeremy said, going on in that same distant voice. “And you were there. You wore a yellow frock, and you offered me lemonade and a cake.” He suddenly turned to her, his previously flat gray eyes wide with the remembrance. “You were the loveliest thing I had ever seen, Lady Emma. You are still— lovely.”

  Something in his expression, in his manner, made the fine hairs on Emma’s neck prickle. She edged back on the seat until she felt the hard wall of the phaeton against her back. This was not just a casual reminiscence of a childhood afternoon, she sensed. But she did not know what it was. She did not even know how their dull, conventional afternoon had turned so confusing. So—so menacing.

  She wanted to jump down and run back to the hotel, but even as she thought of it, she knew it was foolish. Even if she did not injure herself in the leap, she would cause an on-dit.

  They were in a public place, she told herself, so she was safe. And besides, he had hardly threatened her. He was just making conversation—albeit rather odd conversation, to a woman he had just met.

  She tried to laugh it away. “It sounds a most charming day! I wish I could remember it.”

  “I have always remembered it. All these years.”

  Emma cast about in her mind for a way to answer that. “You—you said your family used to visit mine. Do your relatives still live on your estate?”

  Sir Jeremy’s jaw tightened, and the misty light of remembrance lifted from his eyes, leaving them empty again. “Only my mother and sister. My father died several years ago, leaving the estate to me.”

  “Your mother? Does she ever come to London?”

  “No. She is not suited to town life,” he answered shortly.

  Indeed? Emma thought. A very curious description to offer of his mother. And Emma remembered now that Countess Lieven had said something about Lady Ashbey. She wondered what could be so wrong with her.

  But Sir Jeremy now no longer spoke to or looked at her, and she did not intend to change that by pursuing the subject. She settled down to get what enjoyment she could out of the rest of the drive and determined to tell her aunt and uncle that she did not care for Sir Jeremy as soon as they returned to the hotel. She wasn’t certain what their motives had been in promoting him as a desirable suitor, but she knew that they would not insist that she continue the acquaintance.

  She stared out over the park. They had left the pond behind and now followed a carriage path that ran parallel to a pedestrian walkway. Several people strolled there, couples, families, nurses with their charges, ladies with dogs on leads. There was even a child with a hoop who reminded Emma of the one who had bumped into her yesterday. She smiled at the little memory.

  Then her gaze was caught by a man who hurried along past all the strollers, obviously intent on his own destination. He was very well-dressed in a beautifully cut coat of burgundy-colored superfine and dark trousers, his boots so highly polished the sun glinted off them. A tall hat was set rakishly atop perfectly styled dark hair, and he carried a carved walking stick.

  It was not the man’s sartorial splendor that captured her attention, though. It was the way he walked, the set of his broad shoulders that spoke of boldness and confidence. The—familiarity of that walk.

  Emma leaned forward, clutching at the handle of her parasol until it bit into her hand, pressing the lace of her glove against her palm. Was it—could it be… ?

  Her heart beat so loudly she could hear it drumming in her ears, feel it pounding against her bodice. She longed to jump from the carriage again, but in joy this time rather than trepidation.

  She nearly called out Jack’s name, just to see if it was he. But the man turned a bend in the path, out of her view, and Sir Jeremy turned the carriage toward the hotel.

  Emma fell back against the seat, her heart still fluttering like a wild trapped bird. She was so disappointed she could cry. “Oh!” she sobbed, before she could stop herself.

  Sir Jeremy turned to her, his face all polite concern, his earlier intensity vanished. Emma was glad; she did not think she could face it right now, not when she was so close to tears anyway.

  “Are you ill, Lady Emma?” he asked, in great solicitude.

  “I—just a touch too much sun, I fear,” Emma murmured. “I think I need to go back to the hotel.”

  “Of course. We are going there now.”

  Emma smiled at him weakly. When he turned his attention back to the horses, she craned her neck to try to catch a glimpse of the man again. It was in vain, though. Whoever he was, he had quite disappeared.

  ———

  Jack ducked quickly around a turn in the path and stood plastered flat against a tree. He felt rather foolish, especially when a couple with a small child paused to look at him quizzically. He gave them a quelling gaze in return—hadn’t they ever seen a man hiding behind a tree before?

  Obviously not. They moved off with a laugh, and he leaned his head back against the rough bark. Indeed, he had never had to hide in the park before. But—blast!— who would have expected Emma to be driving here right when he decided to cut through the park on his way to Bertie’s lodgings?

  He peered cautiously around to see that she was driving away from him. Being driven by that bloke who had been escorting her at the reception, too, Sir Jeremy Ashbey.

  Damn his eyes.

  Jack knew he should not be staring at her, not when he was dressed in his own expensive clothes. He was not quite ready to reveal himself to her yet; that was why he had made his excuses to his parents for the embassy tea. He needed to plan this carefully.

  Yet, he could not help but stare at her. She looked like summertime today, in a pale blue-sprigged muslin gown and butter-yellow spencer. The blue and yellow ribbons on her chipped straw bonnet fluttered in the breeze, past the lace-trimmed edge of her yellow parasol.

  Suddenly, that parasol tilted, and she looked in his direction. Jack ducked back behind the tree.

  He waited for a few moments, until he could be certain they were out of sight, before he continued on his way. He was already late; he and Bertie were meant to call at Mr. Thompson’s headquarters,
and that was not something one could be tardy for. Jack was usually quite punctual—it was the army in him; certain things became engrained. Today, though, he felt almost as if he was walking underwater. Everything around him seemed in a haze. It was probably because he had not been able to sleep last night after he returned to his rooms; not until dawn was already lighting the sky.

  He had never expected the feelings that filled him yesterday. He had felt young, lighthearted, as he had not since—well, since long before he had joined the army. Emma had made him laugh, really laugh, not just a fashionable, cynical chuckle. She had made him see the world, the city he had always lived in, in all new ways.

  She had made him want to see everything like that, through her wide, dark eyes.

  He slapped his walking stick hard on his leg as he climbed the steps to Bertie’s lodgings. There was no time for that now. He had to be at Mr. Thompson’s meeting, and he had to focus absolutely on everything that was said. The security of the society they had fought to protect on the battlefields of Europe for so long was still very precarious. They still had work to do.

  And protecting Lady Emma Weston was no longer his task.

  He pounded his stick on Bertie’s door. The wood opened, and his friend stood there, every dark gold hair in place, cravat impeccably tied in complicated whorls. He looked focused, alert, serious, despite the fact that he had no doubt been awake late with Miss Lottie.

  Bertie was Jack’s best friend, but sometimes he hated the man. He was a consummate actor, and nothing ever distracted him from his work.

  Once, Jack had thought he could say that about himself as well. Now he knew he could not.

  That just soured his disposition further.

  “You are late,” Bertie said. He tipped his own hat onto his head and stepped out onto the pavement.

  “Then you should have gone on without me,” Jack answered shortly, and strode off.

  “I wanted to talk to you before we got to Thompson’s.” Bertie kept stride with Jack, unperturbed. “Did you deposit Lady Emma safely back at the Pulteney?”

  “Safely, yes. She was no doubt tucked up safe as a little lamb in her own chamber long before midnight.”