Carla Kelly (17 page)

The door swung open then, and she gasped out loud. Lord Ragsdale stood there in his shirtsleeves, staring back at her. When she did not move, he took her by the arm and pulled her inside.

“I saw you from the upstairs window, you silly nod,” he scolded. “Don't you have door knockers in peat bogs? Really, Emma.”

She wished her face did not look so bleak. She shook herself free of him, wishing she could just bolt the hallway and leave him standing there. She could only shiver and look him in the eye, daring him to say anything else.

“We had a door knocker,” she said simply.

She didn't know what it was about her words, but he touched her arm again. “Emma, what's wrong?” he asked, bending closer to look into her face.

Startled, she looked at him.
Can you possibly care?
she thought first, wild to tell him, wild to tell anyone, wanting to talk out her misery until it didn't hurt anymore. Perhaps when it had all been said, he could help her. She opened her mouth to speak when Lady Ragsdale's voice came lightly from the sitting room.

“Johnny, are you ready yet? You promised.”

Emma closed her mouth.
That was close,
she thought.
I almost wasted my breath telling my story to someone who would only shrug when I had finished. Thank you, Lady Ragsdale, for reminding me that this is my burden alone.
She took a deep breath and pulled Fae's list from the front of her dress.

“Miss Moullé offered these conditions, my lord.”

Lord Ragsdale took them from her. “That's not what you were about to say,” he commented, his voice mild as he scanned the list.

“No, but it will do,” she replied candidly. “We had a rational conversation, and I presented your offer, and asked her what would make her the happiest.”

She started down the hall toward the stairs that would take her belowstairs. The marquess sauntered along beside her. “And she decided that a hat shop would do. Women are strange, Emma.”

“No stranger than men, my lord,” she said without thinking.

He laughed. “I have it on good authority that men are simple.”

“Whoever told you that has cotton wadding for brains.”

“It was Fae, dear Fae, Fae with the round eyes, round bottom, and probably round heels, for all I know,” he retorted, and chuckled when she blushed. “Emma, you're too old to blush.” He took her arm. “Well, tell me: what would make
you
happy?”

Locating my father and brother,
she thought,
but I don't want you to know that.
She thought a moment, standing there with the rain dripping off her. “I would like a bed of my own and a chance to hear Mass.”
There now. Make something of that.

Lord Ragsdale nodded. “Too bad you were not my mistress, Emma. Think of the savings to me!”

“My lord!”

He laughed and held his hands to his face as though to ward off a blow. “Just kidding, Emma. I'd as lief kiss the devil as bed an Irish woman.”

I doubt one would have you,
she thought. “Now remember, sir, you are to become a model of deportment, if we are to proceed with your reformation,” she said instead.

“Of course, Emma, how can I forget?” he murmured, and then grimaced. “And now I must gird up my loins—so to speak—and accompany my mother and cousin to Almack's.” He sighed.

“… Where you will find any number of unexceptionable young ladies to choose among,” she said. “One of them may even like you.”

“Emma, I don't even know what I want in a wife,” he protested.

“Johnny! You have progressed no farther than your shirt and breeches?” his mother said, coming from the sitting room and starting purposefully toward him down the hall.

“Emma distracted me,” he hedged. “There she was, shivering on the front step, with no idea how to use a door knocker, bless her black Irish heart. What could I do but let her in?”

“Wretch,” Emma whispered under her breath. To her amusement, he leaned toward her and cupped his hand around his ear.

“Hmm? Hmm?”

She continued toward the servants’ stairs, and so did the marquess. “Emma, get me up by ten tomorrow morning,” he ordered. “We need to discuss what I should be looking for in a wife; and I want to sign this list of Fae's over to you so my banker can deal with it.”

She curtsied as Lady Ragsdale bore down on them and took her son by the arm. She shrieked when he flipped his eye patch up and grinned at her. “Mama, should I leave this off tonight or wear it? It's not fashionable.”

Lady Ragsdale looked at Emma, who was struggling not to laugh. “Don't encourage him, Emma,” she scolded. “Johnny, you would try a saint! Come along now, before I lose all patience.”

Lord Ragsdale shuddered elaborately and grinned at Emma as his mother tugged him along the hall. “Tomorrow morning at ten, Emma. Find a tablet and pencil. And by the way, nice gloves.”

“Yes, aren't they?” she agreed as she started down the stairs for another evening of cold stares and solitude.

E HAD NOT DANCED IN YEARS, SO IT DID not greatly surprise Lord Ragsdale that he dreamed about Almack's. It was a pleasant enough dream, even though the sound was magnified and the events speeded up until he woke up dizzy with too much waltz and tepid conversation. He lay there, his hands behind his head, loitering somewhere between half-asleep and full-awake, reflecting that conversation with women was stupid.

“Do be charitable,” he scolded himself as he settled more emphatically in the middle of his bed. He considered charity for a brief moment, then abandoned it. Most of the Season's beauties were uncomfortably young, undeniably lovely, and utterly bereft of idea. He did not require a great deal of conversation while dancing; indeed, country-dancing only permitted the occasional passing comment. The waltz was another matter. While he could not deny that he enjoyed gazing down upon the same beautiful bosom for the duration of one dance, dialogue of at least a semi-intelligent nature would have rendered the whole event more pleasant. As it was, he learned a great deal about the weather last night.

He stretched his charity a little farther.
It is entirely possible that I have forgotten the art of conversation. I will have to get Emma's opinion on the matter,
he thought as he yawned and rested his eye again.

He lay there, rubbing his forehead gently, remembering the brief disappointment last night of arriving home to find the book room dark. There was no Emma, sorting through his correspondence now, throwing away the rags and tatters of his disordered life. He had wanted to tell her about the scene in the card room, when Lady Theodosia Maxwell—she of the red-veined nose and towering turban—had accused her meek little husband of cheating at whist and thrashed him with his own walking cane. The young diamond of the first water he had been waltzing with merely tittered behind her gloved hand. Emma would have done such a scene justice with that full-bodied laugh of hers.

He reached for his watch on the night table, impatient for Emma to appear. The upstairs maid had already delivered the morning coal and the brass can of hot water. He had already convinced Hanley that he did not need help shaving and dressing. It remained for Emma to deliver his morning tea and furnish him with some good reason to rise.

Ah, there it was. She had a firm knock, which he preferred to the scratching of most servants.

“You're late, Emma,” he said to the closed door.

“Your watch is fast,” she countered and opened the door. “Besides that, the postman was late, and I had to sort your mail.” She came closer to the bed and set the tea tray across his lap. “Look here, my lord. You are even getting invitations to places that Lady Ragsdale assures me are quite respectable.”

He looked at her and grimaced. “Emma. I am already tired of orgeat and bad whist, and that was just my first visit to Almack's!”

She went to the window and flung open the draperies. “What you are is bored, my lord,” she said, her tone firm. “I do not know what I can do about that. I would wish that you had an occupation, because you appear—somewhere under your lassitude—to have a great deal of energy.”

He grinned and took a sip of tea. Ah. Just the way he liked it.

“Emma, you are the only person I know who can compliment and condemn in the same sentence. Is this an Irish characteristic?”

It was her turn to look thoughtful. “I suppose it is, my lord.”

He wanted to tease her some more, because he liked the animation that came into her face when he challenged her with words.
I wish that I felt clever in the morning,
he thought, as her demeanor changed and she became all business again. In fact, she was clearing her throat and demanding his attention again.

“My lord, here are your bills outstanding. Please initial them, and I will see that your banker gets them.” She pointed to a smaller pile. “Here are invitations. Your mother has already perused them and has indicated with a small check in the corner that these would further Sally's ambitions, and probably your own.”

He picked up the one on top and sighed. “Emma, these people are boring, they have an indifferent cook, and their daughter is plain.”

Emma was ruffling through the other pile of letters on his tray, ignoring him. Playfully, he slapped her on the wrist with the invitation he held, and she stopped and looked directly at him.

“Then you can study a little patience, not eat so much, and put your patch on your good eye.” She handed his eye patch to him. “Put this on, by the way.”

He set the patch on the tray. “Does my eye bother you?” he asked, trying to keep his voice casual, and at the same time, wondering why on earth he even cared what she thought. “It bothers my mother.”

Emma was pulling out another letter. “Not particularly, my lord,” she replied, her voice absentminded. “I've seen worse sights. See here, I really want you to pay attention to this letter, my lord.”

He took it from her, filled with a strange new charity.
I honestly believe that my eye doesn't bother you,
he thought. “I think you just paid me a compliment, Emma,” he said.

Mystified, she held out the letter opener. “I cannot imagine what it was then.” And there was her dimple finally, that visible expression of humor that gave her face even more character. “I'll make sure that it does not happen again, my lord. Do open that letter. Lady Ragsdale says it is from your bailiff on the Norfolk estate.”

He did as he was told and spread out the letter on the tea tray as he took another sip of the cooling drink. It was Manwaring's usual reminder about the state of the crofters’ cottages and the necessity for repairs that could not be put off, but which he had managed to avoid for some three years, mainly because it did not interest him.

“Something about new roofs for the crofters,” he said, tossing the letter aside.

Emma picked up the letter. “Which are three years overdue, according to your bailiff,” she added, glaring at him over the top of the letter. “And now he writes that some of the floors are rotting too, because of this neglect. He wants you to come to Norfolk immediately, my lord.”

“Too much trouble,” he snapped. “I do not know why the man cannot just attend to it without my presence.”

“You landlords are all the same! I am certain Dante intended a special rung in the Inferno for you,” Emma raged at him, folding the letter and shoving it in the pocket of her apron.