Something About Emmaline (27 page)

“Actually, Lilith,” the dowager said, “Emmaline and I were about to take a ride in the park. Care to join us?”

“A ride? In the park? At this hour?” The lady looked as scandalized as she sounded. “But, my lady, it isn’t—”

“Fashionable? So I hear. But the morning is lovely and the air is still fresh and I’ve convinced Emmaline to come along with me.” The dowager smiled at her. “Isn’t that right, Emmaline?”

All she could do was nod, and hope that Lady Sedgwick’s driver wasn’t being well tipped to dump her in Seven Dials, or some other stew.

The dowager wrapped her arm around Emmaline’s and led her past a gaping Lady Lilith. “Come along, my dear girl. We have much to acquaint ourselves with.”

Emmaline wondered if this was how the poor French queen had felt on her last day as the lady of the realm.

“My lady—” Emmaline began after they were settled in the dowager’s open coach and were riding away from Number Seventeen.

At least it was in the direction of Hyde Park…for now.

“Don’t say a word, you duplicitous girl, until we are well away from the house.”

“If you would but—”

Lady Sedgwick raised one finger and halted any further words.

Emmaline sighed. None of this was turning out as she had thought when she and the dowager had first concocted this scheme.

And all her current troubles were because she’d played one too many hands of parmiel at Lady Sedgwick’s sister’s house.

Joslin Park

Two months earlier

“Do tell us more about the duchess,” Lady Joslin urged the young woman across the table as she dealt out a new hand of parmiel.

“Yes, do tell what she is like,” Lady Sedgwick urged.

With such an eager audience, Miss Doyle did her best to regale her listeners with tales large and small as to every one of the Duchess of Cheverton’s preferences and dislikes, while winning a tidy sum at parmiel. Another fortnight with these ladies, and she’d be able to take the summer off.

If only all the households she stayed at were as comfortable and easy as this one. These two dowagers, sisters by marriage, were delightful company and were lavishing every comfort upon her, if only to hear more about the Duchess of Cheverton.

Miss Doyle obliged them by launching into her favorite
on dits
about the infamous noblewoman. The secret behind Her Grace’s buttermilk face cream. Her particular choice
of modistes in London (not too trendy, but extremely competent), her favorite menu for Sunday dinner with the vicar, her favorite devotional readings.

To her dismay, the touching advice about devotional readings, which had always been a choice piece of information, brought gales of laughter from the two ladies.

“Are you telling us the Duchess of Cheverton has taken to reading devotional books?”

A con always knows the moment when the gig is up, and right then and there, Miss Doyle knew she’d stepped into a mire.

She immediately went to her secondary plan. Make a speedy and undelayed exit from Joslin Park. If she could reach the inn outside the village before eleven, she might make the northbound mail coach and be long gone by morning.

“Oh, dear, oh, my, I fear my megrims are returning. Would you ladies mind if I…” Hand on her brow, she struggled up to her feet but didn’t get any farther.

“Sit,” Lady Joslin ordered, pointing at the chair she’d just vacated.

Miss Doyle did as she was bid. There were some things she’d learned in her years conning the gentry. The first and foremost rule of thumb was never to cross a dowager.

“Really, you were quite convincing until you got to the devotional piece,” Lady Sedgwick told her. “But my dear girl, the Duchess of Cheverton never reads anything but gossip columns and the shipping news.”

“The shipping news?” Miss Doyle said, tucking away that tidbit for future use—doing her best to ignore the fact that her future was probably quite limited.

Then she looked up to find her hostesses in gales of
laughter. Then it hit her—they hadn’t just discovered her duplicity—they’d known for some time. “When did you…?”

“When did we what?” Lady Joslin asked, wiping her eyes.

“When did you realize that I am not…not, well, you know.”

“Employed by the Duchess of Cheverton?” Lady Sedgwick prompted. “Since I offered you a ride in Upper Alton.”

“Oh,” Miss Doyle said. “Then why have you let me natter on for the last two weeks?”

“We were testing you,” Lady Joslin said in a direct and no-nonsense tone.

“Testing me?” Miss Doyle didn’t know if she liked the sound of that.

“To see how good you were at fooling people.”

“Whatever for?”

“We want you to impersonate someone,” Lady Sedgwick told her. “Her name is Emmaline Denford, Baroness Sedgwick, and you are the perfect woman for the task.”

“Emmaline,” Lady Sedgwick began once they were well away from Hanover Square, “when I overheard Sedgwick bragging about how he’d made up a wife, I swear I wanted nothing more than to punish him for his duplicity. You were supposed to be a rather unpleasant surprise to force him out of his complacency and move him with some haste toward his duty and obligations.” She shook her head. “Making up a wife! Whoever heard of such a thing.”

“I did everything you told me to do,” Emmaline told her. “The clothing, the house, the public appearances.”

“Oh, yes, I know,” Lady Sedgwick said, brushing aside
her words. “But you’ve done a little more than we discussed. You weren’t supposed to…Emmaline, you assured me and my sister that you were not a woman of loose morals.”

“And I’m not!” Emmaline protested. “I…I…” She didn’t know what to say, but rather burst into tears.

Lady Sedgwick sighed. “Oh, dear.” She plucked a handkerchief from her reticule and handed it to Emmaline. “Ma chérie, why the tears?”

“I blame you, Lady Sedgwick!”

“Me?”

“Yes, you and Lady Joslin,” Emmaline said, sniffing into the handkerchief and swiping at a few more errant tears. “You never told me Sedgwick is so…is so wonderful.”

“Alex? My grandson?” The dowager sounded incredulous.

Emmaline nodded and burst into a new spate of tears. Oh, demmit, she never cried, but now…Oh, bother the man. Bother them all.

“But my dear, he is really quite dull.”

“Well, he’s not!” Emmaline told her. “He’s kind and generous, and he’s very good in—” At this she colored, as did the dowager.

“Oh, my,” was all the lady was able to muster. Then she took another long, hard look at Emmaline. “This isn’t more of your playacting, is it? For I won’t be gammoned. We had an agreement. There will be no stake for your piquet challenge if you’ve—”

“I don’t want it,” she told the dowager. “I’m not going to play.”

“But you said with the money from Westly’s piquet challenge, you would be able to start a new life.”

“I can’t now,” she said, glancing away.

“Why not?” the dowager asked.

“For if I were to play and then disappear, it would ruin Sedgwick.”

“Yes, yes, we discussed that, but you’ll fall ill and then die.”

Emmaline shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Can’t die? Of course you can, and you will, that was our agreement.”

Emmaline began to cry anew.

“Oh, dear,” Lady Sedgwick sighed. “Whatever is wrong?”

“I love him.”

“You wha-a-at?” The dowager sat back in her seat and gaped at Emmaline.

“I love Sedgwick. I love him with all my heart. I don’t want to leave him, but I must…”

“You love my grandson?” the lady whispered.

She nodded and sniffed loudly.

“And what are Sedgwick’s feelings for you?” The dowager waved her hand at Emmaline. “Don’t tell me. I saw him with you last night. Hubert was right, he’s besotted with you.”

“He wants to marry me,” she wailed.

The dowager’s eyes widened. “He does?”

Emmaline nodded again.

The lady reached across and took her hands. When Emmaline looked up into her brown eyes, she found delight and joy there.

“Then marry him. With my blessings.”

“You’d want me to marry Sedgwick?” Emmaline couldn’t quite believe her.

The lady nodded. “Yes. The only thing I ever wanted was for him to find someone to love, someone who brought him joy. And you obviously do that. Marry him, Emmaline. Stay with us always.”

“I can’t,” she told her.

“Whyever not?”

“We come from such different backgrounds. I am no lady. I’m not worthy of him.”

“Not worthy! I saw you; you were packing your bags to leave, and you hadn’t taken anything that you didn’t bring with you. I think you worthy.”

“But my father, my mother…”

“Oh, is that what you are concerned about?” The dowager tipped her head. “Who were my parents?”

Emmaline sighed. “The Comte and Comtesse St. Hilaire.”

The old lady shook her head. “My mother was an opera dancer, my father drove freight wagons.”

“But in
Debrett’s
—” Emmaline began to argue.

“Lies. Made up to ensure that there was no talk after we wed. My Alexander didn’t care a whit about my humble origins. He met me at the Revue where I was a singer and he proposed three days later. We were married and my pedigree invented one night on our honeymoon.” The lady sighed dreamily, as if recalling a most likely passionate night. “So you see, Emmaline, while there are those who find bloodlines so very essential, I have always believed it is a person’s heart and character that matter most. And I think you have an abundance of both.”

Emmaline started to cry anew, for she didn’t know how to tell the lady that even with her blessing, a marriage was still impossible.

“Milady,” the dowager’s driver called out, then nodded at the road ahead.

“Botheration,” the dowager said, looking up at the carriage approaching them.

“Who is it?” Emmaline asked, not able to discern the person’s identity.

“The Duchess of Cheverton.”

Emmaline sank into the seat and wished for all her heart the dowager’s driver had taken them to Seven Dials.

“Genevieve?” the duchess called out. “Is that you, and in town? I am quite put out by Sedgwick. Why, I saw him last night and he didn’t mention a word of you. Probably knew I’d call first thing in the morning.”

The dowager put on her best smile. “Your Grace, how wonderful to see you again. But you mustn’t be cross with my dear Alex, for I just arrived last night as a surprise.”

“Bah! You’ve come to town to see that wife of his.” The duchess peered into the carriage. “Is that her?”

Lady Sedgwick elbowed Emmaline to sit up and she did, albeit reluctantly.

The introductions were made and the duchess offered her advice on several points as to Emmaline’s choice of tradesmen.

Apparently the duchess knew all about the renovations taking place at Number Seventeen, and as a neighbor felt it her duty, nay, her obligation to come over and see that the work and quality were being done to the standards one expected in their part of Mayfair.

Before Lady Sedgwick or Emmaline could demure, Her Grace made an appointment for tea with them at three o’clock, and then instructed her driver to continue on.

The Duchess of Cheverton let out a loud breath. “Well, Sedgwick’s bride is nothing like I expected.” She said this to no one in particular, but as her staff was used to her odd outbursts, no one offered a reply.

Save the footman in the tiger’s seat. The fellow was new and therefore thought he should return her conversation.

“Isn’t she rather old to be married to the likes of Baron Sedgwick?”

The duchess turned a regal eye on the man. “Did you say something?”

He hadn’t been in her service long enough to realize this was another of her questions that really didn’t need an answer.

“I said, Yer Grace, that the lady looked old to be Sedgwick’s wife. I thought he was a young sort of toff.”

Really, she needed to talk to Gatehill about these footmen he was hiring in her absence.

“The older lady was his grandmother,” she told him. “The
other
woman was his wife.”

The man had the cheek to shake his head at her. “Oh, no, that wasn’t his wife, but her maid. Though she looks a fine sight better in daylight than—”

“What are you blithering on about?” the duchess demanded, turning around and casting a cold eye on him.

The fellow gulped. “That woman isn’t Lord Sedgwick’s wife, but his wife’s maid.”

“And how do you happen to know this?”

“Because she was at the Queen’s Corner last night. Recognized her by the ring on her hand. Cleaned out every one of us, playing a mean hand of parmiel, she did.”

“Parmiel?” the duchess demanded, shooting a glance at the Sedgwick carriage. “She plays parmiel?”

“Like a regular sharp, she does,” he said, an air of regret to his words.

The Duchess of Cheverton was for once truly flabbergasted, her mouth falling open and her hand floundering to the side of the carriage for support.
Parmiel?

Her driver dared a glance over his shoulder. “Are you well, Your Grace?”

“Rogers, turn this carriage around. Take me to Number Seventeen, Hanover Square right this very moment.”

Sedgwick stood outside the bachelor lodgings of the Marquis of Templeton for most of the morning waiting for Elton to return.

He hadn’t been able to catch up with either him or Hubert and without any idea of where they were headed, he decided his best course of action was to go to the next place the marquis’ driver-cum-valet was likely to appear.

“Sedgwick?” came a droll voice from the doorway. “What are you doing about? Don’t tell me that lovely wife of yours evicted you already and now you must seek new apartments?” The marquis came down the steps. “For I would warn you, these apartments are fine enough, but the landlady smells of garlic and vinegar most of the time.” He waved for him to come up the steps. “But then again, I assume you’ve come to see Elton, not me. Been waiting for you to arrive since Lady Oxley’s dinner, so I must assume you finally discovered the truth.”

Sedgwick didn’t know quite what to make of the odd fellow. At times the
ton
’s favorite clown, and at others spot on
with his observations. It was impossible to know who the man was for certain.