The Marriage Wager (20 page)

“Neither of them is as beautiful as the other one, mistress,” was the reply.

Emma sighed. Ferik had become inexplicably attached to a different pattern at the shop, his interested participation in the choice thoroughly scandalizing the prim proprietor. “I will not have galloping horses and raging storm clouds on my walls,” she repeated for the sixth time. “It must be one of these.”

“The other is more exciting,” he insisted.

“Too exciting. No, it must be one of these. I will not look at another pattern. After just one morning of it, my head is spinning.”

“The things in English houses are in-sipid,” said Ferik.

Emma looked up at him in surprise.

“I have learned a new word,” he informed her proudly. “From that silly little man in the shop.”

When she did not appear to comprehend at once, he added, “He said the yellow paper was in-sipid.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“He meant dull and without life,” Ferik continued. “
He
was in-sipid.”

Emma stifled a laugh. “You must not say so, Ferik,” she admonished.

He grunted. “Not to say, not to do, not to notice—this is the English,” he muttered. Looking petulant, he lapsed into silence.

But Emma was used to his complaints by this time. She merely held up the wallpaper samples again. “It is so difficult to imagine what they will look like on the walls when you have only a small piece,” she said.

“The horses would look very fine,” insisted Ferik. “Strong and splendid.”

Emma imagined lines of snorting blue horses racing along her bedroom walls. She imagined Colin’s reaction to them. “I know, I will ask Caroline,” she decided. She tucked the samples into her bag. Colin’s sister had been very enthusiastic about Emma’s plan to refurbish Trevallan. Indeed, in the week they had been back in London, she had made a great effort to further their acquaintance. Colin’s mother, on the other hand, had done only her duty, procuring the invitations Colin demanded for his new wife and introducing her to the leaders of the
ton
but showing no great enthusiasm for the task.

Approaching the house, Emma sighed. They had attended some evening party or event every night since their return. Obviously, she had been right in thinking Colin was extremely fond of fashionable society. She herself found much of it dull and irritating, but she was determined to do her part. He would not lose the life he loved because of her.

There was a woman standing before the house, Emma noticed, gazing up at the windows as if they held some important secret. She was dressed from head to foot in expensive black mourning clothes, and in one hand she held a formal bouquet tied with long pink ribbons. The odd thing was, the flowers in the bouquet were dead; they were brown and withered to mere sticks. Puzzled, Emma stopped to examine the woman. As if sensing her regard, she turned, and Emma saw that she was much younger than she’d thought, hardly more than a girl, and very pretty.

The unrelieved black of her costume set off shining golden hair, creamy skin, pouting pink lips, and wide blue eyes. The girl was small and delicately made, her head just topping the level of Emma’s shoulder. She looked, Emma thought, like one of the very costly dolls displayed in the most exclusive shops—except for her expression, which was willful and stormy.

Emma walked toward the house. The girl watched her unself-consciously, surveying every detail of Emma’s dress and appearance.

“Are you going to visit
her
?” the girl asked in a high little voice, when it was clear that Emma meant to enter the Wareham town house.

“Her?” repeated Emma, confused. This didn’t look like the sort of girl who would accost strangers in the street. Everything about her, from her stylish gown to her aristocratic accent, suggested a sheltered daughter of the upper classes.

“The new Baroness St. Mawr,” drawled the girl, as if there was something deeply offensive in the phrase.

“Oh, no, I—”

“
I
am,” declared the other. “I don’t care what
anyone
says. I’m going to tell her to her face how she
ruined
my life.” She gestured eloquently with the dead bouquet. A withered blossom broke off and fell to the pavement.

“Ruined?” Emma frowned.

“He was
going
to offer for me,” the girl continued. “I know he was, no matter
what
my mama says. I could tell he meant to. There are little signs, you know. But then my grandmama died, and we had to go out of town for
weeks
and this awful creature came along and trapped him.”

“Did she?” said Emma, beset by conflicting feelings.

“Yes!” The girl’s pretty mouth turned down like a child’s. “And she is a widow and
old
, and probably fat and ugly as well, and it is all just so unfair.” Once again, she punctuated her point with the bouquet. A few more dry fragments floated to the ground.

“He was going to offer for you?” asked Emma.

“Yes! He danced with me at the Boyntons’ ball and again, two different nights, at Almack’s. Susan said he was quite taken with me.”

One of the girls Colin’s mother had urged upon him, Emma thought. “And you with him?” she asked.

“I am
deeply
in love with him,” replied the girl passionately. “I will never love anyone else. I shall pine away and
die
of a broken heart.” She put her free hand over her black bodice as she said this, her doll-like blue eyes flashing. “And so I shall tell the… the
creature
who stole him from me.”

Despite a host of dissimilarities, for some reason, she reminded Emma of another girl who had insisted just as passionately upon marrying Edward Tarrant. “What is your name?” she inquired.

The girl blinked, as if becoming conscious that she had poured out her most private grievances to a total stranger. “Mary,” she answered. “Lady Mary Dacre.”

Emma sorted through her memories of the people she had met or had had pointed out to her recently. This girl was the daughter of a duke, she thought. She was extremely rich, eminently well born, and totally suitable for a nobleman’s wife. In fact, she was precisely the sort of daughter-in-law Colin’s mother had wished for. Emma glanced at the girl’s obstinate expression. Perhaps, she amended silently. “I am the Baroness St. Mawr,” she said.

The girl stared. “You?” She looked at Emma as if really seeing her for the first time. She took in the silver-gilt hair, the lovely face, and elegant bearing. “But you are not fat or…” She bit her full lower lip and fell silent.

Emma gave a little shrug. There was nothing really to say in this situation.

Recovering remarkably quickly, Lady Mary stared at Emma even more avidly, as if analyzing every element of her appeal. “You’re fair, like
me
,” she said at last, as if this explained a good deal.

Emma blinked.

“But too tall,” the girl added complacently. “And your hair is
not
golden.”

She had never encountered anyone quite this self-absorbed, Emma thought. Fascinated, she watched Lady Mary catalog her various features, obviously finding fault with them all.

“
This
is for you,” declared the girl dramatically, shoving the dead bouquet into Emma’s hands. “It is a… a symbol of my blighted hopes.” Rather too artistically, she choked on a sob.

Emma looked down at the dead flowers, pressing her lips together to keep from smiling. “Very appropriate,” she couldn’t help saying.

The girl drew herself up, throwing her head back. “
He
gave them to me,” she informed Emma, and tossed her golden curls.

“For your first ball?” asked Emma. It was the custom for gentlemen to send flowers on such an occasion.

“Yes.” The word was defiant. “And I chose to carry
his
flowers, even though I received a dozen bouquets. And I told him so when he danced with me.”

Emma wondered what his reply had been.

“Pink roses,” added Lady Mary meaningfully. “The card he sent said they were just like me.”

Walking in the gardens at Trevallan, Colin had told her he found pink roses pallid and uninteresting. However, no one would use those words about this girl.

“His mother told me I was
meant
to be his baroness,” the girl added. “She was
prodigiously
kind to me.”

Light began to dawn. “She presented you to him, I suppose.”

“She was determined to throw us together,” replied Lady Mary. “I was her
ideal
for his wife.”

“Were you indeed?” replied Emma dryly. She was torn between annoyance, concern, and laughter. She began to wonder if the baroness had actually sent the bouquet.

“Yes, I was. And now you have ruined everything!”

The girl was glaring at her as if she expected some immediate recompense for her supposed loss. “Do you expect an apology?” Emma wondered.

Lady Mary’s pretty eyes narrowed. Her doll-like face set. She looked like an extremely spoiled child. “I’ll make you sorry,” she replied. “See if I don’t!”

It was a child’s threat, Emma assured herself as the girl whirled and hurried away, but a thread of uneasiness remained. There had been a truly determined glint in those blue eyes. And Lady Mary could certainly do damage if she fed the gossip that still circulated about St. Mawr’s unusual match.

Ferik, who had been hanging back while his mistress talked to the young lady, now came forward. “Not well behaved,” he sniffed.

Not for the first time, Emma noted that Ferik had a very rigid sense of propriety for one who had lived in the teeming streets of Constantinople. “She is in love, Ferik.”

“Love!” He snorted.

“You do not believe that she is?” Emma wasn’t at all sure whether to believe it herself.

“I do not believe in love, mistress,” was the giant’s reply.

Emma gazed up at him, curious. “Not at all?”

“It makes nice songs,” he allowed. “It is a thing for singers and poets.”

“But not you?” Was Ferik lonely? she wondered. Did he wish for a wife and family of his own?

He shook his head. “Me, all I ask is a big dowry and a nice firm bottom.” He pursed his lips, considering. His huge hands drifted up in front of his chest. “And maybe two—”

“I get your point,” said Emma hastily.

“Yes, mistress. Shall I take that to throw away?”

She was still holding the withered bouquet. Emma looked at the brown petals and leaves. “No, I’ll keep it for a little longer,” she replied, mounting the steps to the front door. Inside, Emma asked the footman in the front hall whether Colin was home.

“In the library, my lady,” was the reply.

After leaving her bonnet and wrap in her room and tidying her hair, Emma went down to the library, carrying the bouquet with her. Colin was bent over a sheaf of documents at the desk. He looked up when she came in and smiled in a way that made Emma’s heart beat a little faster. “Have you found your wallpaper?” he asked.

“I am trying to decide between two patterns.”

“I hope you have not come to show them to me.”

“No. I will try Caroline when we dine there tonight.”

“Just the thing,” he agreed. Noticing the dead flowers in her hand, he raised his eyebrows. “Some new fashion I’ve not heard of?” he asked.

Emma turned the thing in her fingers. “Do you know a girl named Lady Mary Dacre?” she answered.

Colin considered. “One of Morland’s daughters? I may have met her.” His expression grew wry. “In fact, I must have. That family would have been high on my mother’s list. I don’t remember anything particular about her.”

“Really? I… I met her today, and she seems out of the common run of debs.”

“Indeed? Is she the reason you’re carrying dried-out roses?” Colin joked.

He really had no memory of her, Emma saw. As she’d suspected, the romance between them had been all in Lady Mary’s mind, nurtured no doubt by the marked attentions of Colin’s mother. She debated whether to tell him about her encounter, and decided against it. “I was just taking these to throw away,” she answered.

“Is something wrong?”

“No,” she replied quickly. “I should let you get back to your work.” She eyed the piles of papers that lay before him.

“I brought these from Trevallan,” he said in response to the look. “I’m following your lead in setting the place to rights. The estate has not received the attention that it should have had these last years.”

“What are you planning?” she asked, curious.

Leafing through one stack of documents, he pulled out an architectural drawing. “The steward suggests we pull down that row of cottages to the south and rebuild. The foundations are unsound.”

Emma bent over the plans. “If you’re going to rebuild, you should move them into that hollow close by,” she said. “They would be out of the wind and much more comfortable, I imagine. Their gardens would probably grow better, too. It was much more lush there.”

Colin gazed at the drawings. “A very good point,” he murmured. He made a notation on the drawings. “I see that you will be a great help to me in estate matters,” he added. “Remind me to hand along all these documents so that you may read them and give me the benefit of your advice.”

He was teasing her a little, but he meant it, Emma saw. He actually respected her views. Her throat tightened with pride and a touch of astonishment. She was not much accustomed to having her opinion heeded. No chit of seventeen could match this, she thought.

“What time are we to be at Caroline’s this evening?” Colin asked.

“Seven.”

“Will the young terror be in bed by then, do you think?”

“You mustn’t speak so of your nephew,” admonished Emma.

“Wait until you have known him a little longer,” responded Colin. “Wait until he pours milk on one of your gowns or drops honey in your hair.”

“Did he…?”

“Strawberry jam rubbed into my best coat,” he said. “Reddings was furious.”

Emma laughed. “I suppose he will improve as he gets older.”

“Do you?”

“Most of us did.”

Colin cocked an eyebrow. “Are you saying, my dear Emma, that you were such a demon child?”