In her room at the Savoy Hotel three days after her ice cream escapade, Emma opened her eyes to her youngest sister’s impatient glare. The remnants of her dream evaporated as reality intruded, and she recalled the business before them. Yes, she
did
want to be late. She wanted to be entirely too late. “This is such a bad idea.”
“You’re not backing out, so just hush,” Kat McBride said.
Sitting up, Emma took a good look at her sister. Always the actress, Kat was costumed and ready for the farce—a buxom, gray-haired woman wearing an ugly dress and wire-rimmed glasses that failed to hide the gleam of excitement in her eyes. Emma flopped back down on her bed. “I can’t believe I agreed to do this.”
“I can’t believe you’re acting like such an old fuddy,” Kat responded, tugging her sister from the bed and onto her feet.
“Really, Em. Where’s your sense of adventure? Don’t tell me you used it all up playing pin-the-tail-on-the-mannequin the other day. That was an amusing prank, true, but this plan…it’s McBride Menace material.”
Emma scowled at Kat. “We’re not children anymore. We need to think before we act. I was lucky I didn’t get caught.”
“Oh, stop being realistic. That totally spoils the mood.”
Emma rubbed her eyes and took a longer look at the woman literally beaming with excitement. Was this really her youngest sister? The same sister who’d seldom shown enthusiasm for anything in the years since tangling with a bigamist liar who’d “married” her, got her with child, then died at the hands of an outlaw? The same Kat McBride who’d hardly smiled since losing her daughter in a wagon accident? Why, Emma could hardly believe it.
“You know what?” Kat continued. “You’re right. We’re not children anymore. But then neither is our grandmother. I’d like to think we at least can be as adventuresome as Monique Day.”
“Oh, my.” As adventuresome as Monique? There was wicked, and then there was Monique. Their grandmother changed men and lifestyles at the drop of a bonnet. “This is worse than I thought.”
Kat adjusted her wig, then carefully rubbed an itch at the end of her nose so as not to displace her face paint. Staring over the top of her eyeglasses, she added, “It’ll be exciting, Emma. You’ll see. Now, go put on your dress. The yellow one, remember? You look delicious in that gown.”
An hour later, standing in a line of women outside of Bankston House in St. James Square, Emma recalled her sister’s comment and smothered a snort. “You were wrong, Kat.”
“Hmm?” Kat frowned down at her bosom and surreptitiously shifted the stuffing.
“Standing in line with a dozen other women competing for the chance to marry a man I’ve never met, all the while accompanied by my younger sister who is dressed in a wretched disguise is not exciting. It’s humiliating. Demeaning, even.”
“
Wretched?
I’ll have you know this is a wonderful disguise.” Kat smiled smugly and patted her prodigious, well-padded bosom. “People get out of my way. You’re approaching this entire exercise with the wrong attitude. Maybe it could be considered demeaning if you truly were here in answer to Jake Kimball’s advertisement for a wife, but we’re here for a bigger purpose.”
“We’re here to steal from him!”
“Shush!” Kat snapped, casting furtive glances over her shoulders. Then, lowering her voice, she added, “But only because he stole from me first.”
“But what if you’re wrong? What if Kimball doesn’t have your necklace? What if we get caught snooping? Do they still transport felons to New Zealand?”
“I’m not wrong.” Kat folded her arms. “He has it and I want it back. I’ll get it back.”
The item in question was one of a trio of unique jeweled pendants given to Emma, Mari, and Kat McBride years ago by an unusual woman under curious circumstances. The necklaces were the McBride sisters’ most prized possessions, and Kat’s had gone missing almost five years ago—shortly after Jake Kimball had tried to buy it from her.
Last week during a visit to the London Zoo, Kat stumbled across both Jake Kimball and a piece of information that led her to believe he was in possession of her prized piece of jewelry. Then, upon learning that he’d placed an advertisement for a wife in the newspaper, Kat had concocted her plan.
Kat and her concoctions. Emma shook her head and despite her best intentions, a smile played upon her lips. How long had it been since Kat concocted anything? Emma couldn’t deny that this was nice to see.
“This is the best way for me to get my property back,” Kat continued. “Rather than humiliated, Emma, you should feel proud. Just think. Your actions will help strike a blow against a man so boorish as to marry a stranger off the street in order to provide maternal care to five orphaned children so he can ignore the fact he’s their guardian and gallivant off to the far reaches of the world. He’s a scoundrel, Emma. Why…”
Having heard the tirade a number of times already, Emma tuned her sister out. Humiliation. Maybe that wasn’t the right word for the emotion rumbling around inside her, after all. Actually, Emma was feeling a lot of things at the moment. Excitement. Apprehension. Guilt. Envy.
Envy? She blinked. Considered the idea. Grimaced. How pitiful was that? She was jealous that Kat was the one having all the fun.
With a little kick, Emma sent a small rock skittering across the cobblestones. It was true. The silver-eyed Dair and his scandalous dare had fueled her inner imp to life, and she was feeling green-eyed because
she
wanted to be the one wearing the disguise. Pretending to be the outrageous and outspoken Wilhemina Peters sounded so much more entertaining than playing herself—boring old widowed schoolteacher Emma Tate.
Emphasis on boring. And old. Boring and old.
She’d turn thirty this summer.
Sighing, Emma watched a child in the park across the street attempt to get a paper kite airborne. In moments of self-honesty, she admitted the milestone likely lay at the root of her discontent. Her birthday loomed like a dull gray cloud on her horizon. Or maybe more like a buzzard. A big old black buzzard.
Get a hold of yourself, Emma. Pity parties are so unattractive.
Emma eyed another rock, gave it a kick, too, then sighed again. Despite her current discontent, she didn’t want to change her entire life. She enjoyed teaching. She liked living in Fort Worth. She could find a husband easily enough if that’s what she wanted. Since Casey’s death, she’d stepped out with a respectable number of men, and she’d been seriously courted a time or two. No one had captured her heart, however. No one fired her blood enough to risk a relationship. After having known true love in the past, Emma wasn’t prepared to settle for less. She’d have powerful, vigilant and true love or she’d have none.
Right now, anyway. If she changed her mind and let it be known around town that she was looking, men would come calling again. Maybe she’d reach that point someday. Maybe she’d be willing to settle. But not yet. She wasn’t there yet. All in all, life was good. She was a content woman.
Content, except for being bored. And old.
She scowled at a pigeon pecking at the grass beside the walk. Of the three McBride sisters, only she could claim that she’d never had a true adventure.
She wanted one, darn it. Was that so awful? And playing her boring old self in a scheme of her sister’s making wasn’t at all what she had in mind.
Besides, this plan was all Kat’s idea. Kat’s adventure, not hers. Once again, Emma was relegated to a supporting role which was precisely the function she wished to forsake.
That must be the source of her peevishness.
She’s
the one who’d come to England looking for adventure. Leave it to Kat to be the one to find it.
Now that’s mean, Emma Tate,
her conscience chastised.
Stop it. Kat has had a rough time. Her false marriage, losing her reputation. Losing her child, for God’s sake!
Emma’s cynical side fired back.
My own life hasn’t been a bed of roses, either. I know loss, too. Didn’t I lose my husband, the love of my life, at the ripe old age of twenty? Before he’d given me the child I long for?
True, and that was bad. No doubt about it. But in her life since then, the choices she’d made since being widowed were just that. Her choices. She’d chosen to be the good girl, the dependable one. The teacher. The babysitter. The friend. The niece. The sister. The daughter.
What happened to the woman? The companion? The sweetheart? The lover? Whose fault was it that the woman had gotten lost?
Emma sighed. Her fault. Her choice.
Maybe if she wasn’t so lonely, she wouldn’t feel this envy, this discontent. Maybe if the ice cream incident had ended with something more adventurous than pecan sprinkles—like say, a kiss—then she’d be more inclined to sit back and let Kat enjoy her turn at mischief. As it was, she simply couldn’t summon any enthusiasm for the scheme.
Nevertheless, despite her misgivings, Emma wanted to succeed. She wanted Kat to find her necklace. Ever since it had disappeared, Emma had felt a little tug of awkwardness, of incompleteness, each time she donned her own.
“I want this to work,” she announced when her sister’s diatribe finally wound down. “Honestly, I do. I just hope I can do a good job. It’s been a long time since I’ve tried to charm a man. I’m out of practice.”
“You’ll do fine, Em.” Kat reached over and smoothed an errant blond curl back behind her sister’s ear. “You look stunning, and men always find you fascinating. While it’s true there are some pretty girls here and you are older than most of them—”
“Thanks for building my confidence.”
“—as long as you refrain from turning on the frost with Kimball the way you do with most men, I feel certain we’ll walk away with an invitation to his house party next weekend. Just remember, Emma. That’s the goal. Advance to the second round of the bride hunt.”
The bride hunt. Emma had a sudden vision of a fox outfitted in a cummerbund darting across a field with hounds wearing wedding veils nipping at its heels.
She tried to keep the goal uppermost in her mind when her turn to interview arrived. After all, the sooner this task was accomplished, the sooner she could get back to her own interests. She gave her sister’s hand a quick squeeze, squared her shoulders, pasted on a bright smile, and entered the Bankston House study.
A man she assumed was Kimball sat behind a large carved mahogany desk. Dark hair. Blue eyes. He was a handsome enough man for a scoundrel, she supposed.
“Good afternoon, Miss…?”
This is it. The curtain rises. You might not be the natural actress Kat is, but you can do it, Emma.
“Mrs.,” she corrected. “Mrs. Tate. I’ve been widowed for some time now. This is my companion, Mrs. Wilhemina Peters.”
The man behind the desk nodded toward “Mrs. Peters,” then addressed Emma. “My condolences on your loss. I’m Jake Kimball. This is Mrs. Pippin—” he gestured toward an elderly woman seated on a sofa, then nodded toward a figure who entered the room through a side door and came to stand beside Kimball’s desk “—and Mr. MacRae.”
Emma smiled at Mrs. Pippin, then turned to acknowledge Mr. MacRae. The polite smile on her face slipped.
Silver eyes. Chiseled cheekbones. Alasdair.
Dair. I dare you…
Shocked, Emma didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t blink. Her heartbeat pounded. Her blood hummed. A shiver crawled up her spine. Without taking his gaze from hers, Dair MacRae propped a hip on the edge of Kimball’s desk, his movement slow with a jungle cat’s grace.
Then, he smiled. A slow, sensuous, secretive grin.
She tingled in response.
Oh, my. Oh my oh my oh my.
For a long minute, they could have been the only two people in the room. The air thickened. Emma went warm. Everything feminine inside her seemed to lift and swell.
She held her breath, waiting for him to mention their earlier meeting. What would this do to Kat’s plan? Were they ruined before they ever began?
Finally, Dair spoke, his voice a smooth, mellow, intimate sound. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Tate.”
Relieved, she attempted a polite nod. Feared it came off more like a twitch. Clearing her throat, she croaked, “Mr. MacRae.”
His penetrating gaze seemed to see into her soul. “Alasdair, please. Or Dair. My friends call me Dair.”
Though her heart continued to pound, Emma finally managed to drag her gaze away from the man when Mrs. Pippin said hello.
While the woman and Kat exchanged niceties, Emma managed to collect herself. Apparently—for now, anyway—the game continued.
Jake Kimball offered her a wide smile. “So, Mrs. Tate. Judging by your delightful accent, I gather you’re from America?”
Emma tried her best to ignore Dair MacRae’s mesmerizing stare as she responded to Kimball’s questions. Nervous, she tried hard not to fidget and give herself away as she told the stream of lies. Although, it would help if the silver-eyed jungle cat looked somewhere—anywhere—else.
When she stumbled over a falsehood and Kat jumped to the rescue with a lie of her own, Dair MacRae tilted his head to one side, his smoky gaze still intent, but now also considering. Emma felt compelled to reach out and smooth away the thought line in his brow.
Quickly, she sat on her hand.
What in the world is the matter with you? Remember the woman’s scarf he pulled from his pocket? The way he disappeared? The man is a rogue.
As Kimball continued his questioning, MacRae lifted a round crystal paperweight from his friend’s desk and tossed it from hand to hand. His big hands matched the rest of him in size, Emma noted, yet he caught the crystal with a gentle touch. She’d always found gentleness in big men appealing. Growing up in a town full of cowboys, she saw a lot of big men. She seldom considered any of them gentle.
Not that Dair MacRae was necessarily a gentle man. Not at all. His relaxed posture failed to hide his predatory air and by nature, predators weren’t gentle.
Kat launched into a sales pitch enumerating Emma’s good qualities. Emma didn’t appreciate being talked about as if she weren’t in the room, though she guessed she’d brought it on herself. MacRae had distracted her. Was
still
distracting her. She waited on pins and needles for the words
ice cream
to come out of his mouth and undoubtedly ruin her chances to win the invitation so important to Kat.