Running from Scandal Page 8

  But Henry was dead now. Surely Emma’s time alone had made her want company? And he found himself strangely eager to see her again.

  ‘It has to do with money, doesn’t it, Phil?’ Betsy said. Usually Betsy was all fun all the time, always up for a dance or a bottle of wine or a romp in the bedchamber. That was why he liked her, why out of all the lightskirts in London he kept coming back to her.

  But now she sounded serious. Hard, even. Philip turned to look at her and she peered at him over the garish satin blankets with narrowed green eyes.

  Green, like Emma’s.

  ‘Why would you say that, my dove?’ he asked. ‘Have I not taken care of you sufficiently today?’

  He glanced pointedly at the bracelet on her wrist, the one his jeweller threatened to be the last one he would get on credit.

  ‘You’ve been worried ever since you got here,’ she said with a little pout. ‘And I know nothing would take you to the blighted country unless it was dire. Must be money.’

  Philip dropped the coat he had just picked up and strode across the room to the bed instead. He couldn’t bear the look of worry and scepticism in Betsy’s eyes any longer. She was the only one who ever thought he could do no wrong. He didn’t want her to think differently, as his family always had.

  At the thought of his family and their demands, a wave of hot anger washed over him. He pushed it away and kissed Betsy instead, devouring her with his mouth, demanding she help him forget.

  But Betsy held him away, staring up at him with her hard eyes. ‘You should marry, Phil,’ she said.

  He choked out a laugh. Betsy was certainly full of surprises tonight. ‘Marry?’

  ‘That’s how toffs like you get money when they need it, right? From what I hear, the streets of Mayfair are paved with heiresses just ripe for the plucking.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ he answered, bemused. Marriage had never been in his thoughts; there was too much fun to pursue in life to worry about such matters. But maybe Betsy had a point, in her own way... ‘And heiresses tend to come with strict guardians.’

  ‘I wager you could charm the guardians as well as the heiresses,’ Betsy said. She lay back down beneath him and stretched her plump white arms over her head as she grinned up into his eyes. ‘You have to marry some day, right? Might as well make it of good use.’

  Philip laughed and kissed her again, feeling the sweet, yielding softness of her lips on his. He would fix this any way he could, no matter what he had to do. And Emma Bancroft Carrington had to be the key.

  Chapter Seven

  Emma drew in a deep breath as she looked up at the assembly rooms before her. During the day, the building was a rather dull, low, squat rectangle of dark brick and green-painted shutters, quiet and still. A place to hurry past on the way to the draper’s or the bookshop.

  Now, in the gathering blue-black twilight, with its shutters and doors thrown open, and light and music and laughter spilling out, it seemed an entirely different place. A place full of life and movement.

  It had been quite some time since Emma went to dance, and even longer since she attended a gathering here at home. She swallowed past a nervous lump in her throat and stared up at the amber glow of the windows as if they were about to swallow her up.

  You can go home, a tiny voice whispered in her head. Run back to the shelter she had made of her little cottage. She glanced back over her shoulder to see that Jane’s coachman had already driven away. She couldn’t flee without chasing him down, or walking home in her satin slippers.

  Besides, Sir David was right. She had to meet people if she wanted to be part of the life of the village, if she wanted them to come to her bookshop. She had to find a way to get them to like her again.

  And, if she was being honest with herself, she wanted to see David Marton again. That was really why she had taken such care with her appearance tonight.

  Straightening her shoulders and holding her head high, she marched up the stone steps and through the open doors into the vestibule. Girls she didn’t recognise, girls who had probably been children when she left, were gathered in front of the mirrors there, giggling together and exclaiming over each other’s gowns. They made room for her with no judging glances—so far so good.

  Emma glanced in the mirror. She had borrowed one of the housemaids at Barton to help her with her coiffure, a girl eager to gain lady’s maid’s experience, and the results weren’t half-bad. Not as elaborate as the stylish young ladies around her, but surely most presentable. Her blonde waves were smoothed into curls and bound with blue-and-black ribbons. She wore one of her black gowns, her only new evening dress of taffeta and a pattern of sheer silk ribbon embroidery. She had added a bunch of blue-silk forget-me-nots at the sash and her mother’s pearl pendant.

  Surely she looked respectable and presentable. Maybe even a bit—pretty?

  Emma sighed. It had been so long since she felt pretty. It seemed like a lot to ask now.

  ‘Mrs Carrington? Is that really you?’

  Emma turned to see a lady hurrying towards her through the crowd that had just swept between the front doors. A purple-plumed turban bobbed above grey-streaked dark curls and bright brown eyes. With a flash of delight, Emma recognised Jane’s friend Lady Wheelington.

  ‘Lady Wheelington,’ she called, trying to fight her way upstream through the swirling crowd to the first familiar face she’d seen that night. ‘How lovely to see you again. Jane said you had recently returned home.’

  ‘I had to, my dear.’ Lady Wheelington reached Emma at last and reached for her hands. ‘My son Mr Crawford is the new vicar. What’s your excuse for coming back?’

  Emma laughed, suddenly more at ease. This was not entirely a foreign land; it was her home, or it once had been. She was the one who had changed, not it. ‘I missed you all too much, I suppose.’

  ‘You mean you missed our thrill-a-moment ways? Why, Mr Price’s pig, who won some terribly important agricultural show just last month, escaped from his pen and ran quite amok in Mrs Smythe’s flowers...’

  Without faltering over a word in her tale, Lady Wheelington took Emma’s arm and steered her neatly toward the doors leading into the ballroom. She couldn’t escape then if she wanted to.

  And she was very glad to have a friendly face beside her as she stood before the gathered crowd. It seemed as if everyone in the village, from the ninety-year-old Mrs Pratt who had once run the draper’s shop, in the corner with her ear trumpet, to a little toddler in leading strings lunging for a tray of lemon tarts, was gathered there. And they all turned to look at her with shocked expressions on their faces.

  Emma held her head high and made herself keep smiling. She had as much right to be there as anyone else. She was their neighbour; she had bought a ticket. And she intended to make her new life here among them.

  Curiosus semper—cautious always. That was the motto of the Bancroft family and Emma meant to live up to it now.

  ‘My dear Mrs Carrington, you remember my son Mr Crawford, do you not?’ Lady Wheelington said as they came to a couple standing near the tall windows at the back of the room. ‘He is finally living here. And this is his new fiancée, Miss Leigh of Brighton.’

  Emma smiled at the two of them, as young and adorable and eager as pretty puppies, and luckily, they smiled back. The approval of the local clergy was always important.

  ‘Best wishes to you both on your engagement. I did enjoy your sermon last week, Mr Crawford,’ Emma said. She had slipped into the back pew of the old church, near her own father’s memorial plaque, and left when the last notes of the closing hymn died away. But Mr Crawford’s sermon had indeed been mercifully short and spiced with hints of humour. She would happily attend his services every week.

  ‘Wasn’t he wonderful, Mrs Carrington?’ Miss Leigh said, gazing up starry-eyed at her betrothed. ‘Mr Cra
wford writes the most eloquent sermons I have ever heard.’

  As she chatted with their little group, Emma surreptitiously scanned the crowded room. The little ripple of shock caused by her entrance seemed to have faded, though everyone who passed would slow down to stare at her. She gave them smiles and nods, which sent some scurrying away, but also brought some to greet her. Soon she found herself in the midst of quite a group, Lady Wheelington leading their conversation about plans for an upcoming garden fête to benefit the church’s efforts to restore some of the medieval monuments that were crumbling away.

  Emma tried to picture Henry here with her, listening to such chit-chat about local affairs as the amateur musicians noisily tuned their instruments in the corner. He would have fled in a panic as soon as they stepped through the doors, running until he found a card room. Only he would have fled there as well, as Emma remembered that only penny-ante wagers were allowed there. And old Mrs Pratt always won anyway.

  Emma almost laughed to imagine Henry’s reaction if she had asked him to live this life with her. Then she glimpsed David Marton just coming into the ballroom and her smile faded.

  He was taller than everyone around him, so for a moment she could see him quite clearly. He looked so different than when he had leaped out of that tree, in his fashionably sombre dark-blue coat and impeccably tied cravat skewered with a small pearl pin. His dark hair was combed back to reveal the austerely carved lines of his face, the metallic glint of his spectacles. Emma felt a warm rush of excitement flow over her to see him again.

  For an instant he was very still, studying the gathering as if they were a scientific experiment that was not going quite as he hoped. But then he bent his head and smiled, and his face softened.

  Emma saw that it was his sister, Louisa Smythe, on his arm. Mrs Smythe went up on tiptoe to whisper something frantically in his ear as she tapped his sleeve with her fan. As Emma watched, Mrs Smythe used that fan to wave someone over. It was a lady in a pretty pink-sprigged muslin gown trimmed with fluttering pink ribbons, with more pink ribbons in her fashionably tumbled pale curls.

  The two ladies embraced as if they were long-lost bosom bows and then the pink lady curtsied to Sir David.

  The lady half-turned as she smiled up at David and Emma saw she was as pretty and spring-fresh as her dress, with blushing cheeks and a dimpled chin. She swayed close to him as he talked to her, her eyes wide as if she could see only him. Finally he held out his arm to her and she took it with a soft laugh. He led her towards the gathering dancers, while Mrs Smythe looked after them with a cat-in-cream smile on her face.

  And Emma felt foolish for feeling that warm rush of excitement on seeing his face again. It seemed as if she had been catapulted back to the last time she was there in those very rooms. Watching Sir David dance with Miss Maude Cole.

  This lady, whoever she was, seemed to be the image of his late wife. The perfect pretty bride, where Emma had long ago blotted her copybook beyond any hope of being such a thing.

  ‘That is Miss Harding,’ Lady Wheelington said close to Emma’s ear, pulling her back to where she was. Who she was.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Lady Wheelington?’ Emma said.

  ‘The young lady whose gown you seemed to be admiring. Her name is Miss Harding and she is a new arrival to the village. Her uncle, Admiral Harding, retired here last year and she has come to stay with him for a time. She and Mrs Smythe are always seen together of late.’

  ‘Are they?’ Emma murmured. An admiral’s niece and best friends with his sister. Of course Sir David would want to dance with her.

  And smile at her. Emma watched as the music started and the dancers skipped down the line, David hand in hand with Miss Harding. They twirled around, perfectly in step with each other.

  ‘I shouldn’t trust it,’ Lady Wheelington said. ‘Look what happened last time poor Sir David listened to his sister’s marital advice.’

  Last time? Poor Sir David? Emma turned to Lady Wheelington, concerned. ‘Whatever do you mean, Lady Wheelington?’ she asked, but her question was lost as Lady Wheelington turned to greet Mrs Smythe as she joined their small group.

  ‘Mrs Carrington!’ she exclaimed with a little flutter of her silk-gloved hands in front of her obviously enceinte belly. ‘Such a surprise to see you here tonight. I’ve seen you rushing around the village here and there, but I didn’t think to see you out in society just yet. But then, you always did have your own way of doing things. Just a joie de vivre.’ She gave a trilling laugh.

  Emma politely smiled. She could see echoes of Sir David in Mrs Smythe’s pretty face and dark hair, in the blue-grey eyes she squinted slightly as if she eschewed her brother’s spectacles even though she needed them. But Mrs Smythe had none of his calm stillness, his careful observation. She was like a bird, fluttering around, always looking for the next moment.

  ‘It was getting very lonely at Barton with my sister gone, Mrs Smythe,’ Emma said. ‘I wanted to see old friends again.’

  ‘But I see you have been making new friends, Mrs Smythe,’ Lady Wheelington said. ‘Was that Admiral Harding’s niece you were greeting? Such a pretty girl.’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ Mrs Smythe cried with another of her trilling laughs. ‘And she is quite as sweet as she is pretty. I have quite come to admire her in the short time we’ve known each other. Such an asset to our little community.’

  They all turned to look at where Miss Harding was dancing with Sir David, graceful and light in her little hopping steps as she turned under his arm and smiled up at him.

  ‘I am hoping she can somehow be persuaded to stay here much longer than the planned visit with her esteemed uncle,’ Mrs Smythe said. ‘It is so hard for my poor brother to find dance partners who match him so well in grace. Especially after my poor darling sister-in-law.’

  Mrs Smythe sniffled and Lady Wheelington gave her a sideways glance Emma couldn’t quite read. She did, however, read Mrs Smythe’s intentions quite well. She was set that her brother should marry the pretty Miss Harding.

  Emma watched the two of them dancing, so well matched, like the picture of a perfect couple in a novel. She suddenly wished there was a wall nearby in need of being held up so she could hide there.

  She didn’t know why her spirits should sink at the thought of Sir David standing at the altar with Miss Harding, kissing her, holding her, taking her to Rose Hill to take her rightful place as the second perfect Lady Marton. Emma had so little in common with Sir David. She shouldn’t even want to be in his company, let alone feel sad he should marry again. She had made such mistakes with her emotions before, with Henry and long ago with Mr Milne, the dance master. She could not be trusted now.

  And yet—and yet there was the way she felt when he held her in his arms. So safe, so right, so full of excitement and peace all at the same time.

  ‘Excuse me for a moment,’ Emma murmured to Lady Wheelington and Mrs Smythe. ‘I suddenly feel in need of some refreshment.’

  ‘Are you quite all right, my dear?’ Lady Wheelington asked with a concerned frown. ‘You do look rather pale.’

  Emma made herself smile to hide her confusion. ‘Nothing a glass of punch can’t cure. I will return directly.’

  She threaded her way through the thick crowds around the edges of the dance floor. A few people even greeted her and issued tentative invitations to tea, a sign of some progress, she hoped. Yet she was always aware of David dancing with Miss Harding so nearby. It was a distraction she couldn’t afford.

  At last she reached the refreshment table and gratefully sipped at a glass of cool, sweet punch. She noticed Mrs Smythe’s portly, usually absent husband lurking nearby, putting away a silver flask in his coat pocket. She wished he would splash some of it into the punch bowl for the rest of them.

  The room suddenly felt too warm, too close-packed. The music and laughter and indistinct voices bl
ended into a blurred roar that made her head spin. She closed her eyes and imagined her little sitting room waiting for her, a fire in the grate, a pot of tea and some toasted cheese, a pile of books and Murray snoring at her feet.

  But then the contented image shifted and someone was sitting in the chair next to hers, reaching for her hand. He raised it to his lips for a warm, lingering kiss and whispered, ‘Now isn’t this so much better than going out on a chilly night?’

  In her daydream, Emma shivered at the kiss and looked up—to find David Marton smiling at her in the firelight, his beautiful eyes full of promise.

  Emma’s own eyes flew open in shock. She was still in the crowded ballroom, still standing by herself. And David was finishing his dance with Miss Harding.

  Emma quickly swallowed the last of her punch and scanned the room for some escape route. Tucked in a darkened corner she saw a door that she knew led out to a small garden attached to the assembly rooms. She hurried towards it, hoping no one would notice her hasty exit, and slipped outside.

  The garden, a formal expanse of winding gravel paths past orderly flowerbeds and groupings of stone benches, was usually a place for resting between dances, exchanging whispered secrets—or for gentlemen to escape their wives for a few minutes. Even though Emma could tell such escapees had recently been there by the faint smell of cigar smoke in the air, the space was nearly deserted. Except for one young couple sitting close together on one of the benches, staring into each other’s eyes, she was alone for a moment.

  Emma made her way to a low iron railing that divided the garden from its neighbour. There was a cluster of tall old trees there where she could hide. She could hear the echo of laughter from where the coachmen waited in the narrow lane behind the building, but where she stood was blessedly quiet and dark.