Amanda Scott (25 page)

They had walked to the pond for the little girl’s swimming lesson, so Emily, knowing they were quite alone, waited only until they were lying side by side on the flat rock, drying their chemises, before putting her first question.

“Are you frightened about tomorrow, darling?”

“Oh, no,” Melanie replied. “Cousin Jack has promised that he will let no harm befall me.”

“He has talked to you about what he wishes you to do, then?”

“Yes, we went for a ride yesterday, and he explained exactly what he wants me to do.” She frowned slightly, remembering. “I am to wait until Miss Brittan leaves, just as I always do, and then I am to walk into the village. I must remember to walk very fast through the woods, even though I am not frightened of them anymore, and then I am to walk more slowly coming back. When she comes out to get the money, I am to give it to her and pretend to be frightened and hurry away. They will do nothing until I have moved away from her, he said. That way, she cannot grab me and will have no time to cast a spell before they catch her.”

“I see. I didn’t know you had ridden out with Cousin Jack.”

“Oh, yes. In fact, we rode on Saturday afternoon too. He said it was time we came to know each other better.”

“But you said nothing to anyone else about your rides.”

Melanie chuckled. “I am still rather quiet at the house, Aunt Emily. Cousin Jack said it would be much better to continue to behave as I did before. Safer, he said, since word gets around so quickly about anything that happens at the Priory.”

Emily nodded. It was odd, she thought, how a grown woman could suddenly feel such intense jealousy toward a small child. Jack had not so much as spoken to her yet about his plan, nor had he invited her to ride with him again. For that matter, she mused, she would have enjoyed riding with them both.

Such thoughts continued to bedevil her mind throughout dinner that evening. Meriden was not at the table, but he was present in her mind as she racked her brain to think what she could possibly have done to offend him. Since she could not ask him, she was left with only her reflections for company and found it difficult to attend to the conversation around her. Since Mr. Saint Just was planning to leave for York the following day, she did manage toward the end of the meal to pretend some small interest in the farewell festivities, but she was grateful when Sabrina gave the signal to leave the gentlemen to their port.

Dolly having airily announced that she meant to retire early, Emily was left with only her sister and Miss Lavinia for company. Sabrina chatted about the lesson for the next evening’s church service, and Miss Lavinia made appropriate responses without looking up from her tatting while Emily flipped through the pages of a fashion magazine in silence. At last she set the magazine down and arose from her chair.

“I think, if you will excuse me, that I will not wait for tea, for I seem to have a headache starting. No doubt an early night will do me good.”

Sabrina immediately expressed concern, echoed by Miss Lavinia’s demand to know if she should order a tisane prepared.

“No, ma’am, I am in need of nothing but rest. Martha will look after me, and by morning I shall be as fit as a fiddle.”

She walked up the stairs, her head still full of thoughts of Meriden. Really, she chided herself, she was behaving more like a lovesick schoolgirl than a woman grown. She ought to know better. If she had any sense at all, she would take herself firmly in hand.

Her meditation was interrupted as she passed the closed door of Dolly’s bedchamber by the sound of angry voices from within. Curious, Emily pushed the door open to discover her elder niece and nephew in the throes of a violent quarrel. Neither noted her entrance for several moments.

“You ought to be thrashed!” Oliver stormed, shaking Dolly.

“And who would do such a thing?” she demanded, wrenching herself free of his clutches and turning, arms akimbo, to glare at him. “Papa is dead and you have no authority over me, Oliver. I shall do as I please. You cannot stop me.”

“The devil I can’t! I dashed well ought to slap some sense into you, Dolly, and by God—”

“You wouldn’t dare. He would call you out if you did!”

“That’s all you know. He can’t call me out. He’s in the wrong, and so you would know if you had a brain the size of a pea in that addled head of yours, but you don’t know the first thing about anything, and so you have been but putty in the hands of the first loose screw who’s ever whispered pretty things in your ear. You ought—”

Dolly’s hand whipped up and smashed against his cheek, bringing flames of wrath leaping to his eyes.

“Dolly!” Emily cried, rushing to intervene before Oliver could retaliate in kind, as it certainly appeared to her that he meant to do. “Stop that at once! What is the meaning of this?”

Recognizing a probable ally, Oliver said bitterly, “She thinks she is going to York with that rattle Saint Just, that’s what. All for that stupid assembly. Perhaps you can talk some sense into her, ma’am. I cannot. But I promise you,” he added with a grim look at his sister, “she is going nowhere with him tonight. Not if I have to tie her to her bedpost.”

Dolly snapped, “You cannot do that, Oliver. No one will allow you to tie me to my bed, will they, Aunt Emily? Tell him!”

“Not only will I not tell him any such thing,” said Emily, holding on to her temper with great difficulty, “but I will hand him the bindings myself. No, do not say another word, Dolly,” she commanded when the young lady drew a deep indignant breath. “I tell you, I cannot be held responsible for my actions if you speak. Where is Mr. Saint Just now, Oliver?”

“You needn’t concern yourself with him,” Oliver said. “I left him in his cups, which is how I came to learn of this mischief in the first place, and he can thank my upbringing for the fact that I didn’t take further advantage of his condition to drown him in the lake. But I can handle Mr. Bloody Saint Just.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “God, to think I brought him here. I promise you, he’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

“No!” Dolly cried. “You cannot, Oliver. He is the only person here who cares about me.”

“If I didn’t care about you—” her brother began.

But Emily interrupted brusquely, saying, “Never mind that now, Oliver. Just go make certain your erstwhile friend is not down at the stables attempting to make arrangements for a pair of fast horses. It would not do for him to prate of this disgraceful nonsense before the grooms or anyone else.”

“Good Lord, I never thought about that. But what about Dolly? You ought not to have to deal with her alone, ma’am.”

“Do you think I cannot do so?” Emily demanded.

“No, of course not! That is, perhaps I ought to fetch my—”

“Your mother? Don’t be a nodcock, Oliver. Your mother would promptly succumb to a fit of the vapors, and I haven’t got a supply of feathers by me to burn. Nor do I require the services of Miss Lavinia. Do you go now and attend to Mr. Saint Just and leave your idiotish sister to me.”

He regarded her doubtfully, but only for a moment. Then, with a final glare at Dolly, he took himself off, prudently shutting the bedchamber door behind him.

Dolly sniffed. “Since I have no wish to hear what you have to say to me, I shall go to bed.” Turning away with a flounce of her muslin skirt, she moved to ring the bell.

Emily said quietly, “If you so much as touch that rope, Dolly, you will awaken in the morning to the news that Meriden desires to speak with you in the library. And if you think that, having got yourself into this kind of scrape, you will escape with no more than a tongue-lashing, you would do well to think again. He has not been in the best of tempers of late.”

Dolly stopped where she stood. For a long moment Emily was uncertain as to whether her words had really sunk in, for the girl’s spine was stiff and her shoulders hunched forward. She seemed poised on her toes, uncertain of what to do. Tempted though Emily was to add to what she had already said, she remained silent, waiting.

Finally Dolly turned. “You will not tell him anything if I listen to what you have to say?”

The answer to that question was easy. “I will certainly tell him if you do not; however, I will make no other promise. You have done very wrong, Dolly, and you deserve to suffer the consequences of your actions.”

“Well, I think you would be very mean to tell him when you must know that he will be furious with me,” Dolly said, pushing out her lower lip.

Strongly suppressing the familiar urge to throttle her niece, Emily said patiently, “What occurs must be on your own head, Dolly, not mine. It is you, not I, who have done this foolish thing.”

“I do not see what is foolish about wanting to have fun.”

“That is not the point. What is unconscionable is your plan to travel with no other escort than Mr. Saint Just.”

“But he is the only one who would take me to York!”

“Dolly, it is improper for an unmarried young lady—or a married one, for that matter—to travel with an unmarried gentleman who is not related to her. Surely you know that.”

“Fustian, that’s all such rules are. What could possibly happen when Mr. Saint Just is Oliver’s friend?”

Balked for a moment by the simple fact that she felt strangely unequal to the task at hand, Emily tried a different tack. “Dolly, you were forbidden to go to York at all. That is the fact of the matter, plain and simple. To entice Mr. Saint Just into helping you defy not only your mama’s orders but also your Cousin Jack’s was very wrong. You know it was.”

Dolly shrugged. “I do not know that I enticed him at all. He suggested attending the assembly when first he arrived, and I agreed that it would be the very thing to cheer everyone up. Then fusty Harry told Oliver it was not to be, and Cousin Jack flew up into the boughs—as though he has never bent the rules himself, which everyone knows he has—and everyone was cross with me, but Mr. Saint Just laughed at them and said he was mad about me and that we’d think of something else. We could have been in York before morning, and though Lettie has vexed her mama and is not to go, after all, Mr. Saint Just knows of an inn where I can rest and change to my ball gown—”

“Dolly, you cannot want to be ruined,” Emily said desperately.

“I don’t know that I would be. When Lettie went to stay with her Aunt Catherstoke in Bath, everyone said she would be ruined, but she had a wonderful time and set up any number of flirts, so that when she went to London for the Season this year, she already had lots of friends, and she said that that made everything much nicer than if she had known no one.”

“Goodness, Dolly,” Emily said testily, “I have met your friend Miss Bennett but once, and even I could see what a flighty little puss she is. I do not doubt that people hereabouts expected her to ruin herself. I daresay she may thank her Aunt Catherstoke that she did not. But that has nothing to say to the purpose. Has no one ever explained to you what can happen to a young woman who has no one to protect her?”

“She will be ruined,” replied Dolly complacently.

“Oh, we are talking in circles,” Emily said, barely stopping herself from pushing a hand through her hair as Oliver had done. “Look here, have you any idea what that means? Have you any idea what men and women do? When they are married, I mean? No,” she said, answering her own question when her imagination boggled at an attempt to envision Sabrina discussing such a subject. “Of course you do not. Well, you are about to find out.”

“But how do you know? You have never been married.”

“I have sisters other than your mother,” Emily said, hoping her smile hid the fact that she, too, would prefer not to discuss such a subject. “Sisters who talk about everything. And I have friends too, for that matter, who clearly discuss more interesting matters than you discuss with your friends. Now, sit down in that chair and listen to me carefully.”

Twenty minutes later, there fell a heavy silence in the room, and Emily found herself wondering if she had gone too far. Sabrina would certainly not thank her for putting Dolly in possession of the facts of married life. Indeed, at the moment it did not look as though Dolly, who was shocked to silence for once, would thank her either. Emily leaned forward in her chair. “Do you understand all that I have said to you? Do you realize now that by traveling alone, at night, with Mr. Saint Just, you would have been laying yourself open to just such treatment?”

“He wouldn’t,” Dolly said in a choked murmur, but for once doubt sounded in her voice.

“It wouldn’t matter if he didn’t,” Emily said brutally, “because after you had spent so much time in his company, everyone in England who knew about it would assume that he had, and that, my dear, is the nut with no bark on it.”

Dolly burst into tears, leaning over to hug her knees while she sobbed, “It isn’t fair!”

“Life is often unfair,” Emily told her, then grimaced and looked at the ceiling when she remembered her own reaction after Jack had made a similar, equally sanctimonious statement to her. Fortunately, from her point of view, Dolly neither looked up nor reacted as Emily had done. She sobbed louder instead, setting her aunt’s teeth on edge. Emily bit her tongue and let the girl cry, but when Dolly straightened a few moments later in an attempt to catch her breath, Emily said bracingly, “That will do now. You will ruin your complexion if you keep on this way.”

Dolly hiccupped but made an effort to regain control.

“That’s better,” Emily said. “Take a few deep breaths now, and you will be composed again in no time.”

While she obeyed, Dolly watched her aunt with wide, disbelieving eyes, and when she could speak without stammering, she said, “Was that all true, Aunt Emily, or did you make it up to shock me?”

“It is true, darling, every word. I do not know from my own experience, of course, but I am told that with the right husband the whole business will be very pleasurable.”

“Whoever told you that must have been lying,” said Dolly flatly, making a moue of distaste.

Emily’s eyes twinkled. “That is entirely possible, I suppose. One will simply have to wait and see. But I hope that now that you understand the matter better, there will be no more talk of forbidden assemblies or of dashing off into the night with only a single inebriated gentleman to bear you company.”