Carla Kelly (29 page)

“I could ask why, John,” Sir Augustus interjected as he reached for the bottle.

Ragsdale shook his head when the baronet offered him more. “I know that prison was involved. You should have seen her face when we made that trip to Newgate! The only thing that got her to put one foot in front of another in that dreadful place was her single-minded determination to do my business for me.”

“A rare quality in a woman,” Sir Augustus commented, filling his own glass and leaning back again to stare at the flames.

“I suspect you are right.” Lord Ragsdale leaned forward. “I could make her tell me more, but I honestly think that she would begin to bleed before my eyes. There is something here so terrible …”

“Then why do you not just leave it alone?” the other man asked quietly. “You don't have a reputation as someone who takes much interest in others, John.”

Lord Ragsdale leaned back, finished his brandy, and threw the glass into the fireplace, where it shattered and sparked. “I'm a fool, Gus. Why not just say so?” He touched his companion's arm. “But do you know something? I am changing.”

Sir Augustus downed his own drink. “I think I see, John. She dragged you into reformation, and it seems to be taking.”

Ragsdale nodded. “Yes. I expect I will be engaged and married before the Season is out, and living here again by summer.”

“Bravo for Emma Costello, then,” the baronet murmured. “Two words of advice, my friend, neither of which you have solicited, but which I offer because I loved your father and miss him too and want the best for you.”

Lord Ragsdale swallowed and felt unfamiliar tears behind his eye. “Say on, sir.”

“In your zeal at reformation, make sure you do not injure beyond repair what you seek to heal.”

Ragsdale nodded. Sir Augustus stared into the flames and sighed. “There is another bit of advice?” he asked finally when the baronet appeared to be on the verge of drifting off.

The older man smiled at the flames. “I don't know, John.”

“Oh, now, you must tell me. I am a big boy now and can probably take it.”

The baronet stood up and stretched. “Well then, chew on this for your ride home. Just make completely certain you marry the right woman. The wrong one will ruin you.”

He chewed on that for the remainder of the week in Norfolk, chafing at first that he knew he was becoming remote again and then relaxing in the knowledge that Emma was relieved.
She does not want to talk about anything right now, and I am considering Clarissa and have nothing to say either,
he realized as they began the return trip to London.
She can have her mood and I can have mine, and we won't bother each other.

It seemed a fair exchange, except that he found himself wondering, as they rode along, just how he might know if Clarissa returned his regard. He glanced at Emma, who was admiring the wildflowers by the side of the road. Spring had come while they were in Norfolk, creating a path of daffodils along the highway. True, the wind was cutting, but the flowers were there, with a ragged determination to stay, no matter what the North Sea threw at them.

“Emma, tell me something,” he asked suddenly. “How will I know if I'm in love?”

She looked at him in surprise, disturbed out of her contemplation. “Well, I don't know,” she said.

“Come on, Emma,” he teased. “Surely you've been in love before. If I'm to redeem myself, and Clarissa seems a likely repository for my affections, I should have some idea, shouldn't I? What's it like? I cannot imagine that a pretty woman like you has never fallen in love.”

She blushed becomingly, and he had to admire the way the color in her cheeks brought out the green in her eyes.
Emma, you're a rare one,
he thought.
Any other man would envy me right down to my socks, riding along with you.

“Confess, Emma,” he said.

She laughed then, and he felt a momentary relief.
So this is a safe topic
, he told himself and waited for her to speak.

“I suppose I fell in love two years ago in Richmond,” she said finally.

“And?” he prompted.

“He was another of the Claridges’ indentured servants,” she said, her voice soft with remembrance. “A Scot, my lord, a cobbler by trade.” She patted her horse, not looking at him.

“What made you think you were in love?” he persisted.

She flashed her eyes at him then, and it was a look that made his stomach tingle a little.
Emma, those eyes are a dangerous weapon,
he thought as he felt the sweat prickle his back.
Take a care on whom you use them.

“If you must know—and I think you are nosy past all bearing—I felt comfortable around him, at peace, and not at all afraid that anything would ever hurt me.” She returned her gaze to the flowers by the road's edge. “Things were always more fun when he was around.”

He considered Clarissa Partridge and sighed. “I suppose it must be a different feeling for men, then. Ah, well, I was curious.”

“You don't feel that way around Miss Partridge?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Well, it's still early days with you and her, isn't it?” Emma asked.

“I suppose.” He looked behind him. They had been riding slower and slower, and the carriage would have to slow down. He picked up the pace of their travel, and they cantered ahead for a good distance.

“Well, what happened?” he asked finally when they slowed the pace again, and Emma still did not say anything. “I mean, between you and the Scot.”

“Oh, well,” she said, “it came to nothing. His indenture ended three years before mine would have.”

“And?” he prompted. “Emma, you are so tight with information sometimes that I find you singularly exasperating!”

“It might not be your business,” she responded tartly, then repented. “He was going beyond the mountains to take up some land in the Carolinas. He needed a wife then, so he married one of the other servants who was not under an indenture.”

“The cad,” Lord Ragsdale said with some feeling.

Emma laughed. “I was probably well out of that, my lord. If he could be so expedient, then he probably wouldn't have been too concerned about my welfare.”

“I suppose not,” Lord Ragsdale agreed. “I mean, he might have shot you, if you had broken your leg or something.”

And so they were on good terms again as they rode into London.
If I keep a light touch, and do not poke and prod about her family, we seem to rub along all right,
he considered as they entered the house on Curzon Street again.
But dash it, that gets me no closer to finding out anything, and I still don't know if I love Clarissa Partridge.

He paid Clarissa a morning visit the next day, armed with a pot of violets because Emma assured him that ladies loved violets, his eye patch on straight, and his clothes as orderly as Hanley could make them. He was not disappointed in his reception.

Clarissa cooed over the violets, just teetering, to his mind, on the edge of excess, then redeeming herself by sitting close to him on the sofa. Their knees touched once or twice, and he realized that it had been a long time since he had made love to a woman. Well, a long time for him. He dragged his mind along more appropriate lines then and thought he faked an impressive interest in her needlework. It was good, he had to admit, when she rose to put it away, affording him a particularly fine glimpse of her shapely hips and delicate walk.

I am being diddled,
he thought and grinned to himself.
By all that's holy, it is fine.

“Clarissa—may I call you Clarissa?”

Blush, blush. Titter. “Why certainly, my lord.” She had a breathless voice, and he wondered if her corsets were too tight.

“You may call me John,” he offered.

Another titter. Another blush. “Very well … John.”

Take a deep breath, my dear,
he thought,
or you may have to summon your dresser to loosen your stays. Of course, if you like to sit so close, I might want to do that myself.
“Clarissa, if I may be so bold, would you care to tour Hampton Court with me tomorrow?”

She cared to, and he left happily, feeling pleasantly randy and wishing that Fae Moullé had not moved to Bath to set up her millinery establishment.
Emma would not approve, he thought. I will take a brisk walk home and behave myself.

She was busy in the book room, catching up on his correspondence, when he returned and stood lounging in the doorway. “Yes, my lord?” she asked, her eyes still on the paper before her.

“Congratulate me, Miss Costello,” he said as he came in and flopped into a chair. “We are Clarissa and John now, and she will go riding to Hampton Court with me tomorrow.”

Emma put down the pen and clasped her hands in front of her. “Bravo, my lord!” She smiled at him then, and his stomach did another tingle. “I think Manwaring will not be finished with that addition on your manor a moment too soon.”

He nodded, not altogether satisfied with her reply and wondering why not. He also wished she would not waste those fine eyes on him.
You should get out more, Emma,
he wanted to tell her,
and meet some young men.
He regarded her a moment more, reminded himself that she couldn't because she was in his indenture, and felt vaguely silly.

She appeared not to notice but cleared her throat. “My lord, tomorrow is my day off …” she began.

He made an expansive gesture, grateful to cover his stupid thoughts. “Of course, of course. Just don't come home so late this time, and I will not scold you.”

“I won't.” She was brief, to the point, withdrawn again, and looking at the correspondence in front of her. He eased himself out of the room, hoping that she would return in a better mood this time from her day off.

She was gone in the morning before he left, leaving neat piles of his correspondence in the book room, with directions on what to sign, and what to tell Lasker to set out for the post. He initialed the little receipt for yesterday's violets, and on impulse added a note for another pot and directed it to the florist.
This one's for you, Emma,
he thought as he tucked that receipt with the others in the envelope for his banker and folded the note to the florist.

The weather was fine so he drove his curricle, leaving his tiger behind this time to fret. Since traffic was light, he turned toward the city first, thinking to drop off the note to the florist himself. Emma would probably enjoy a little surprise when she returned that evening.

He hurried through his errand and was moving into traffic again when he noticed Emma, her eyes straight ahead, moving swiftly along the sidewalk not fifty feet in front of him. He almost hailed her, thinking to invite her to ride with him to her destination, then thought better of it.
I will follow her instead
, he considered.

It was an easy matter to travel behind her, moving slowly with the traffic, always keeping her in sight, but not dogging her heels, either. She had no notion she was being followed but hurried along with that purposeful, swinging gait of hers that he had admired on occasion. She walked like someone used to walking, someone who was going somewhere. It was a healthy walk, and one that stirred him, somehow.

She led him deep into the City to a row of government buildings not far from the Admiralty. The traffic was thinning out now, so he drove to the curb and left his horse and curricle under the watchful eye of a street urchin and his little sister. “Mind that nothing happens, and you will have a crown,” he admonished as he tied the reins and continued after Emma on foot.

He recognized the Home Office and waited on the sidewalk until she was inside. He sprinted across the road then, determined not to lose her in the building, and remembering it, from a visit years ago, as a regular rabbit warren of offices and cubbyholes.

There she was, walking slower now, almost reluctantly, as she had during their visit to Newgate. She appeared to hesitate before an open door. As he watched, she squared her shoulders, appeared to take a deep breath, and held her head up as she walked into the room. The gallant gesture went right to his heart.

He knew he dared not follow any farther, some instinct telling him that she would be unhappy to see him there. She appeared to be in a lobby or antechamber, and there were others standing and waiting. He turned to go and collided with a clerk, his sleeves rolled up, his expression harried, carrying stacks of papers that flew out of his hands and slid across the cold marble floor.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” the clerk gasped, going down on all fours to retrieve his papers.

“Oh, my fault, my fault,” Lord Ragsdale insisted and dropped to his knees to help. They gathered up papers in silence for a moment, then he sat back on his heels. “Tell me, what is that office?” he asked, gesturing toward the door where Emma had disappeared.

The clerk, his face red from exertion, took the documents from him. “It's the Office of Criminal Business,” he said. “Mr. John Henry Capper is chief clerk, sir.”