A Scandalous Proposal (26 page)

At last, the butler seemed to pull himself together. “Yes, Captain. I'll see to having your bags taken up to the west wing and a bath called for. I'll have one of the footmen escort you directly. Dinner is at six.”

“Thank you, Grayson. But before you do that, please summon Lady Emmaline's maid to her and explain that I will rejoin her in an hour.”

“Yes, of course. And again, Captain, our apologies. We will strive to draw ourselves together and carry on.” The butler put his hand to the small of the housekeeper's broad back. “Come along, Mrs. Piggle. I know you can't wait to be the one who tells everyone the terrible news.”

John looked at the closed doors to the main saloon, part of him wishing to rejoin his hostess, while another part of him longed to be out of his uniform and sunk in hot soapy water to his chin. Bathing aboard ship was always a spotty thing, and he was sorely in need of not only soap and water but clean linen and even a razor.

He should have stopped at an inn along the way from Shoreham-by-Sea and made himself more presentable, but he'd believed time was of the essence, that news of the duke's demise—as Lady Emmaline had termed it—must be brought to his estate as quickly as possible.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to just step back inside the room for a moment, to assure himself that the woman was still as bravely stoic as she'd been since first hearing of her now vastly altered family situation.

Giving in to his curiosity, if that was the proper term for it, he opened the door only slightly and peered toward the couches set in the middle of the large room.

Lady Emmaline was no longer seated on one of the couches.

John stepped fully inside, casting his gaze around the room, only to discover that it was empty of all but its furnishings.

Where could she have gone? A quick glance toward the French doors told him that the rain was still coming down hard, so she wouldn't have gone back outside into the gardens.

Then he noticed another door in the far right-hand corner of the room, and he approached it quietly, to see that it was slightly ajar.

“Lady Emmaline?”

“Yes. One moment.”

He stepped back from the doorway and she joined him in a few moments, as promised, a new look of determination on her beautiful face.

“How do I best get a message to Paris?” she asked him without preamble. “Or at least to France. I think Rafe's in France.”

“Rafe. Your nephew?”

Lady Emmaline nodded. “Yes, my nephew. He has to come home, doesn't he? Ashurst Hall cannot be without its master.”

“You should not be alone here, no. I would suggest a personal courier, ma'am. Perhaps a former soldier? A Bow Street Runner? It's an orderly turmoil now that Bonaparte has retreated to Paris, but it is still turmoil, and will be until the man officially abdicates.”

She looked up at him, her eyes fearful. “Is Rafe in any danger?”

“Hopefully not. But as I said, Bonaparte is still in Paris, and one can never consider the man as being entirely toothless.”

“Oh, dear,” she said as she turned and stepped back into the room she'd just left. She crossed to a small table, the top of which was more than completely covered by what looked to be an open Bible. “I want Rafe to be safe. There's no question of that. But there is more than just Rafe's safety that is at stake now.”

John walked over to the table and looked down at the writing on the inside of the back cover of the Bible. “The next in line after your nephew is a real rotter?” he asked, hoping to make her smile.

“Hardly. The next in line after Rafe is nobody. I was certain that is the case, but felt it necessary to check my conclusion by looking at our family tree in the Bible. And there is nobody. The titles, these lands, this estate and others, they would all revert to the Crown. That can't happen, it simply cannot. Someone must be sent to find him, immediately, and bring him back here.” She laid both her hands on his forearm and looked up into his face. “Please, Captain Alastair. Help me.”

“I will. I promise.” He didn't know how he would help, but if she'd asked him to move a mountain he would have agreed to that chore, as well. How could he deny this woman anything when she looked at him with those soulful brown eyes?

CHAPTER THREE

E
MMALINE
SURREPTITIOUSLY
TURNED
her head toward her left shoulder and sniffed. Maryanne, her maid, had sworn to her that the black gown did not smell of camphor after being packed away in the attics these past half dozen years or more, since her father's death, but Emmaline was still not convinced.

What she was convinced of, however, was that the gown, never a favorite, was woefully out of fashion. According to her sister-in-law, Helen, it had been out of fashion the moment it had been stitched up by the seamstress in the village, as anyone with any sense knew there was no hope of cleverness to be found in Mrs. Watley's hamlike fingers. To Emmaline, that had meant that Mrs. Watley had flatly refused to lower Helen's bodice another two inches for fear that the deceased would take one look at those exposed bosoms and sit up straight in his coffin.

The last time Emmaline had worn this gown (the one with the depressingly
ordinary
neckline) had been during her year of mourning for her father. That grief, although not overwhelming by any means, had been genuine, as it was difficult to fault the twelfth duke for being the man he had been: rough, gruff and fairly oblivious. Summoning up authentic grief for her brother and his sons was still proving problematic, however, and she'd once again felt a fraud as she'd come down to dinner in this gown.

Emmaline paced the main saloon, unable to settle herself, wondering where she'd summoned the courage—no, the audacity!—to enlist a complete stranger's assistance in dealing with the repercussions of her brother's death. But there was something about Captain John Alastair that instilled confidence in him and his ability to, if not make things right for her, at least shepherd her through the next difficult days.

She closed her eyes and thought about him, and the way he'd looked as he'd approached her out in the gardens. His tall, handsome form so splendid in his impressive uniform, his bicorne hat neatly tucked beneath his arm, the slight shadow of an evening beard on his lean cheeks. He'd looked weary, and more than a little nervous, most probably because he was certain he would momentarily be presented with a wildly hysterical, weeping woman.

Emmaline walked along behind one of the couches, lightly running her fingertips over its curved back, and then stopped to look up at the portrait of her father that still hung in its place of honor above the fireplace. Yes, she'd wept when the twelfth duke had died. Why couldn't she seem to weep for the thirteenth duke and his two sons?

There had to be something unnatural about a woman who would see their deaths as a problem to be solved rather than the tragedy that it was. There had to be something perverse about a woman whose primary occupation since hearing of those three deaths had been to worry for her own future...when she wasn't peering into every mirror she could find to assure herself she and this horrid gown wouldn't frighten Captain Alastair when next he saw her.

“Emmaline?”

Emmaline turned in time to see Charlotte Seavers racing into the room, tossing her shawl in the general direction of Grayson, who was now wearing a black armband and a suitably stern expression.

“I just heard the news,” Charlotte said, approaching Emmaline and taking her hands. “Is it true? Harold's dead?”

Charlotte, who lived on a small estate that bordered Ashurst Hall, was not only Emmaline's dearest friend. She had also recently been betrothed to her younger nephew, a fate Emmaline had considered worse than death for that beloved friend. Indeed, for the past month, since Charlotte had become betrothed to Harold and she had learned the circumstances behind that engagement, Emmaline had lost any remaining love she'd harbored for her brother and nephews.

“All three of them, yes. It's over, Charlotte. You're free.”

“Oh, but I...that is, I shouldn't...” Charlotte shook her head and sighed. “Surely I'm going to hell, Emmaline. I want to dance a jig!”

“Oh, thank God,” Emmaline said, pulling Charlotte down on the couch beside her. “You're the only one who understands how I feel, and I don't have to pretend with you. We can travel to hell together.”

“Perhaps not. Lord knows George and Harold and your brother are already there. Perhaps we'll go somewhere else. Would you like to see Paris, Emmaline?”

“I know you're joking, but perhaps we could. It is imperative that Rafe be informed of his changed station as quickly as possible. Would you like to see Rafe, Charlotte?”

The younger woman colored, her eyelids fluttering shut for a moment. “No. I... I wouldn't know what to say to him. It has been six years. We're no longer children, are we?”

“He will be coming back here as the new duke,” Emmaline reminded her friend. “You won't be able to avoid him. And if you were to tell him the truth, he'd certainly understand. Or I could explain everything to him for you.”

Charlotte shook her head. “No, don't do that, please. He can't know. I couldn't possibly look him in the eye once he knew, not knowing what I'd see. Please, Emmaline, let's not speak of this anymore. Just take this,” she said, pulling off the heavy betrothal ring and putting it in her friend's hand. “There, that's better. It was as if I had a small millstone circling my finger. From now on, we shall pretend it was never there, and Rafe never needs to know. Are we agreed?”

“Agreed, although I doubt such a secret will stand for long, not once Rafe has returned.” Emmaline examined the fine Ashurst ruby set inside a cluster of diamonds. “This ring has been in our family for untold generations. How often do you think such a pretty thing was employed to hide an ugly truth?”

They sat silently for a few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts, before Charlotte asked what she might be able to do for Emmaline in the coming days.

“I really can't be sure. There are no...that is, there is nothing to be laid to rest in the family mausoleum. I suppose, for the sake of propriety, there must be a service of some kind at some point. The few relatives we have left need to be notified. Nicole and Lydia. Oh, dear. You know whom else that means, don't you?”

“Helen,” they said at the same time, and then Emmaline smiled.

“I could say I sent a letter off to London and it became lost in the post?”

Charlotte nodded, not quite suppressing a smile of her own. “The post has been notoriously erratic recently, hasn't it? Why, by the time your letter arrived in Grosvenor Square, it could be whole days after the service, and with the Season already begun. No one could expect Helen to leave Mayfair in the midst of the Season.”

“Least of all Helen,” Emmaline pointed out, her smile widening, until the two of them dissolved into guilty laughter, which is how Captain Alastair discovered them a few moments later as he entered the main saloon.

“I'm sorry. Am I interrupting?”

Emmaline wiped at her moist eyes and looked up at the captain, who appeared bathed and shaved and positively resplendent in his brushed and pressed uniform. “Oh, no, no. Miss Seavers and I were...we were just reminiscing about a family memory. Captain, may I introduce you to my dear friend and neighbor, Miss Charlotte Seavers. Charlotte, Captain John Alastair, who was kind enough to personally inform me of...of the tragedy.”

She quickly explained the man's continued presence to Charlotte, and his generous offer to help her wade through the necessities that must be dealt with in the coming days.

“Captain, I cannot thank you enough for your kindness to my friend,” Charlotte said, holding out her hand. He bowed over it elegantly, Emmaline thought. And then Charlotte got to her feet after only one quick, interested look at Emmaline, saying she was needed at home and must leave. “My mother is not quite well,” she explained to the man. “I only stole a moment to sneak here once the rain stopped, to see how you were, Emmy.”

“You can't stay for supper?” Emmaline inwardly winced, wondering if her lack of disappointment was evident in her voice.

“No, I'm sorry, I can't. Oh, but I forgot!” Charlotte reached into her pocket and pulled out a small package wrapped in ivory paper and tied with a small red bow. “Happy birthday, Emmy. It's only a silly bookmark, and I'm afraid my embroidery isn't what it should be. But please know I give it with love,” she said, and then kissed her friend's cheek. “Captain,” she said, dropping into a quick curtsy, “it was a pleasure to meet you, and I thank you for being so considerate as to offer your support to Lady Emmaline during this trying time. I'm sure I'll see you again, at the memorial service?”

The captain looked to Emmaline, who realized she was suddenly holding her breath, and then back to Charlotte. “Why, yes, Miss Seavers, I shall look forward to that.”

Emmaline watched the captain as he watched Charlotte depart the room, and then she quickly looked away as he turned back to her, so that he shouldn't know that she'd been staring. But who could resist staring, when the man's presence seemed to fill the room with light, charging the very air with an excitement she could not name, yet knew she had never before experienced.

“May I add my congratulations to Miss Seavers's sentiments, ma'am, and wish you as pleasant a birthday as possible under the circumstances,” he said, inclining his head toward her.

She didn't know where the words came from, what part of her normally reticent self had allowed such a thought to enter her head yet alone escape her lips, but suddenly Emmaline heard herself saying, “Captain, I would consider my natal day to be more of a blessing and less of a reminder of my continuing gallop into old age if you could please resist addressing me as ma'am again.”

His low chuckle sent hot color flooding into her cheeks. “A thousand apologies, Lady Emmaline. Are you feeling quite decrepit? Surely you're not anything so ancient as ma'am would suggest. At six and thirty, I believe I have some years on you.”

“Good Lord, yes,” Emmaline shot back, suddenly willing to give as good as she got. “You're positively tottering on the brink of the grave.” Then she realized what she'd just said. “Oh, dear. No matter what anyone says, we seem to keep circling back to Charlton and the boys, don't we? I still imagine they'll all come storming back in here at any moment to put the lie to what I know is true.”

Did she sound as if that was a prospect much to be wished, or the thing she would dread most in the world? Really, she had to take control of her tongue, and quickly, or the captain would wonder if he'd blundered into a madhouse.

“May I?” Alastair asked, indicating with a small gesture that he'd like to join her on the couch.

“Oh, yes, please do,” she said, tucking her horrid black skirts more closely around her just as if he'd planned to plop himself down right next to her when the couch could easily accommodate a half dozen people. “And would you care for some wine?”

“Thank you, no,” he said as he sat, and then bent down to pick up something that had fallen to the floor. “Yours?” he asked, holding up the ruby ring.

Denying the dratted thing would open up questions about Charlotte, and as the story could only reflect badly on her brother and Harold, she quickly claimed the ruby as her own. “Thank you, Captain,” she said, reaching for it. “It was my mother's, and always much too large for me.”

And then the dratted ring made a liar out of her by stopping at her second knuckle as she attempted to slip it on her finger. She resisted the urge to fling it across the room.

“Ma'am—Lady Emmaline...?”

“Just Emmaline, please,” she said, sighing. “And I shall call you John, since we're just the two of us here. And then, John, I should tell you that I just quite blatantly lied to you, shouldn't I?”

“About the ring. Yes. But you don't have to explain.”

She relaxed. “Good, because I really don't want to.” She slipped the ring into her pocket and picked up the small wrapped present. “Shall we open this instead? I love presents, and Charlotte is always so inventive with hers, even if she insists she has no talents. Just this past Christmas she gave me a small, smooth rock she'd painted to look like a toad.”

Actually, Charlotte had given the toad a face that greatly resembled that of her nephew George, but the captain didn't have to know that.

The captain put his hand on her wrist. “Lady... Emmaline,” he said, so that she forgot all about Charlotte's present. “I should leave.”

“Leave?” Emmaline squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, hating that she had seemed to squeak out the word. “But...but why? I know the rain has stopped, but it's coming on to dark soon, and we'll be called in to dinner at any moment, and—”

“I didn't mean tonight,” he said, cutting her off, thankfully, before she could say something so silly as to mention how much she really wanted him to stay. “I would go only as far as the nearest inn, if you still wish my assistance for a few days, until we can summon your brother's solicitor, set up a search for your nephew and anything else I might do for you.”

“You're saying without saying it that we are unchaperoned here.”

“No, I'm saying without saying it that you are unchaperoned here. I would suggest that Miss Seavers come bear you company, but as she is quite young, and there's the problem of her mother being unwell...”

“John, there are twenty-seven servants in this house, at least three of whom, I have every certainty, are spying on us even now. I hardly call that being unchaperoned.”

“No. However, Society would. You've just been dealt a serious shock, Emmaline, but one of us must think clearly.”

She nearly let her shoulders sag as she realized what he was saying. “You feel responsible for me. Because it was you who brought me the news about Charlton and the boys. And I did nothing to dissuade you of that impression, absolve you of your gentlemanly impulse to protect a clearly helpless woman.”