An Early Engagement (22 page)

As she told Smoky, she had to keep an eye on Nadine, and, furthermore, it was not good ton for a wife to be in her husband’s pocket.

The Earl of Stokely, for he was already writing letters resigning his commission and was no longer to be called major, scowled and bided his time. As soon as he was able, and before the surgeons thought he should, he was calling on cabinet members, government officials, bankers and brokers, and his tailor. The uniforms were packed away and his other clothes would have to be altered to fit his gaunt frame. He walked with his cane when possible, both to rebuild the wasted muscles and because riding a horse was still forbidden to him and getting up and down into carriages was too painful. He looked with envy at Emilyann’s phaeton, like a child with his face against the glass of a confectioner’s shop, and practiced going up and down stairs when she was not around to say him nay.

He also walked to his clubs to hear the latest news, and found that he was it. Thanks to Nadine and Geoff, all of London had heard of his heroic wounds and Emilyann’s valiant nursing, and the gossips were wondering why the Little Countess was not sitting dutifully by her injured husband’s side. No one forgot, it seemed, the fireworks of their last public appearance together, and the tattlemongers were holding their collective breaths.

Emilyann also got wind of the
on dits,
and found she did not like her marriage being held under public scrutiny. She also resented the speculative looks she received from dissipated libertines. If Stokely wasn’t interested, they seemed to imply, his lady was fair game. She could handle the encroaching toads, but would rather show a handsome husband than a cold shoulder.

“Do you think we might hold some form of entertainment?” she asked Smoky one night as they met for sherry before dinner. “Nothing too strenuous, of course. No receiving line,” she told him solicitously. “Perhaps a musical gathering.”

“Not if Nadine is going to torture the pianoforte,” he answered, “but I think that would be ideal. I cannot get around yet to the balls and such, and there are men I would like to speak with who are too busy during the days. I have been wanting to talk to you about that, Sparrow.” He filled her glass while she waited.

“What would you think if I took my seat in the Lords? Someone has to speak for the returning veterans, and their pensions, and then there is the reform movement. Petersham thinks there may be a position as an undersecretary next year if I prove myself this term.”

Emilyann was pleased to see him looking excited about something again. He was beginning to fill out and looked elegant in his black satin jacket and dove-gray pantaloons, and all the better for the enthusiasm of his plans. “I think that would be wonderful, Smoky. You’ll have to see about the child labor laws and those awful workhouses, and the climbing boys and—”

“Hold, my dear,” he said, laughing. “I have not told them yes yet.” He studied his glass, swirled the liquor around to see the glimmers in the fire’s light. “You do know it will mean being in London most of the year, and you have been talking of returning to the country any time these past weeks.”

Emilyann dreaded his next words. Here would come the part, she thought, when he politely ordered her to ruralize, so he might resume his rakehell ways in town. Behind nearly every profligate in London was a wife in the country, raising babies and roses. She was not about to become one of them.

“I do enjoy the country, but I have always aspired to become a political hostess,” she lied. She never once thought of it until now, but let him wriggle out of that!

He did not squirm a bit, raising his glass to her and saying, “I knew I could count on you.”

“Then you want me to stay?”

“Of course. I want you by me. I would not take the position if it displeased you.”

Dinner was announced just then, and Emilyann, seated at the opposite end of the polished table from her husband, savored his words more than the turbot in oyster sauce or glazed squab. He really did care!

A few nights later Smoky asked if he might accompany her and Nadine to Almack’s.

“Whyever would you want to go there?” Geoff asked. “It’s deuced dull, and you have to dance with all the fubsy-faced females.”

“Not I,” claimed his brother, waving the silver-topped cane. “I have but to limp in, in my knee breeches, of course, then I can adjourn to the card rooms.”

“But they play only for chicken stakes, Ev. You could go to White’s or Boodle’s, or Crocker’s even.”

“Yes, but my beautiful wife will not be at those clubs, so I shall go to Almack’s and practice my fiercest jealous-husband looks.”

Trying to keep her voice as light as his playful tone, Emilyann inquired, “And shall you be jealous?”

He turned serious. “I pray I have no cause to be.”

* * * *

Lady Stokely’s maid was putting the finishing touches to her mistress’s toilette that evening when Smoky rapped on the door. Toinette curtsied, giggled, and left. Emilyann was in a gown of soft blue crepe with a gauze overskirt that had sequined butterflies embroidered on it. Another butterfly rested in Emilyann’s cloud of tousled curls. Stokely had to catch his breath a moment.

“What are you doing here? You should never have attempted the stairs!”

It was definitely not the stairs that had him breathing so hard. “I brought you something,” he managed to say, handing her a long box. “I realized I’d never seen you in the family diamonds. You had the combination to the safe, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but I never felt I should—oh, Smoky, they are exquisite!”

“I’d rather see you in the sapphires, your eyes, of course, but your maid thought these would be more suitable for this gown.”

“That’s why the wretch was acting like a schoolgirl with a secret all night.” She lifted out a bracelet and he came to help her do up the clasp, kissing her wrist while he held her hand. Emilyann gasped at the delicious sensation, and blushed when he chuckled, turning away in confusion.

With her back to him he placed the necklace around her throat, and kissed the nape of her neck. She trembled.

“Let me see, Countess.”

She turned, and now he was shaken to see how perfectly the center stone nestled in the curvature of her breasts, above the gown’s low neckline.

With his eyes fixed on that diamond, Emilyann worried that he intended to kiss her there, too. She nervously turned back to the mirror, admiring the effect. “And they are even real,” she surprised him by saying.

“Of course they are, widgeon. Did you think the family heirlooms were Austrian glass?”

“The Aylesbury ones are. Uncle Morgan has been turning the gems into paste, for the money.”

“That old court-card will stop at nothing. How you got such a loose screw in your family is beyond me.”

“How you got Thornton in yours is just as strange.”

“Touché. But what are you going to do about the jewels?”

“Oh, I have taken care of that. I have an arrangement with Uncle’s, ah, jeweler.”

Smoky adjusted his cuffs. “I assume you mean his pawnbroker, and I most assuredly do not want to hear how you came to do business with him. I have enough gray hairs as is.”

She smiled and told him, “But you look so distinguished. Anyway, I have been buying the pieces back whenever I could, and the trip to Brussels gave me the opportunity to poke around Aunt Ingrid’s jewel box and switch them for the copies.”

“You’ll make a politician’s wife yet. But tell me, poppet, did you mind not having the Arcott heirlooms?”

“I minded seeing them go out of the family, but I never expected to have them, you know, and I do have my mama’s things.”

“And the Stockton heirlooms. Why did you never take them out of the safe?”

“They were yours and I, ah ...”

“And I forgot to give them to you, slowtop that I am. Forgive me, Sparrow. They are not mine, however; they belong to the Countess of Stokely.”

“But I didn’t think I ought to wear them.”

“I cannot imagine why. You are the loveliest Lady Stokely ever, and I could not be more proud to have you wear them.”

* * * *

There were no juicy tidbits for the talewaggers at Almack’s to chew that night. Lord Stokely was the lion of the evening, and his wife, the sparkle in her eyes matching the glitter of her jewels, hovered at his side. She urged him to sit down, to use his cane, to rest, nagging “like an old married couple.” He teased and carried her hand to his lips again, just to see her cheeks grow rosy. She danced with some of her admirers, but mostly she made them known to her husband if they were unacquainted, and the glow between the lady and her lord discouraged the most self-confident seducer.

She was also determined to bring Smoky to the attention of her father’s cronies, those men with influence in political circles. Uncle This and Dear Lord That were brought to Smoky’s chair. Stokely’s evident chagrin at his wife’s meddling did more for his career than his war record. Those hide-bound old men who used to dandle little Lady Em on their knees saw her dimples and her tender affection for this hero of hers; they saw Stokely’s eyes follow her every movement when she was gone from his side, and their own hearts were glad. Their old friend, the late Duke of Aylesbury, would have been happy with this marriage, as proud as if he’d arranged it himself.

* * * *

The current Duke of Aylesbury was at
point non plus.
During his wife’s absence, when he could have been free of her pontificating and pestering, his own incapacitation kept him at home. He was thrown into his own company more than he liked, and found he could not even play cards with himself, left hand against right, because both hands could read the shaved decks. His only consolation was in dismissing half of the household staff—nobody ever went in all the rooms anyway; who cared if they were clean?—and using their wages to buy gin. There was nothing left in the cellars, he had checked them ages ago. Gin it was, cheap gin, and lots of it.

It came to pass on one cold, dark night when no one came to light a fire in his room, likely because he had fired anyone who could, Morgan Arcott gave his body to the bottle and sold his soul to the devil.

Funny, he thought, Satan looked like one of those crouching gargoyles he remembered from his grand tour. Notre Dame, maybe. Ugly memories were all he got out of the grand tour anyway, that and the French pox. The devil’s eyes were fires—cheap help in hell, Morgan mused—and his voice was like coal rumbling down a chute.

“What do you want?” Morgan asked.

“It’s not what
I
want,” came the reply, as if from a distance, “it’s what you want. I heard your prayers, and I came to help.”

“I know about your help. You helped Adam right out of Eden, didn’t you?”

The devil waved a taloned hand. “This ain’t Eden, Morgan, and I can do better for you.”

Now Morgan knew he did not have a snowball’s chance in, well, hell, of going to heaven, so what did he have to lose? If Old Nick didn’t already hold markers on his soul, the system was in trouble. “So what do I have to do?”

“Remember that old saying about the Lord helping those who help themselves?” The archfiend did not wait for a reply; he was off on a gripe of his own. “It’s a lie.
I
started the myth. Get people thinking for themselves, I told Him, and they are bound to stray. ‘That’s a gamble I am willing to take,’ He said.”

Morgan gaped. “God gambles?”

The devil smiled, not a pretty sight, all yellow fangs and threads of saliva. “I cheat, of course. Is it a deal?”

When Ingrid came home, she was on a tear: the house, the servants, her beloved Beauregard led off the straight and narrow. Home? She would have been at home in the Inquisition. Hell, she would have been at home in a hair shirt, even if she was looking better, from what he could see through bloodshot eyes. Something about her dresses, maybe, or else she was wearing her hair in a softer style. Her heart had not grown any softer, that was for sure. Morgan found himself and a packed bag at one of his clubs before the cat could lick its ear, certainly before he could ask for a loan.

“I think I shall ask Rigg to move my things upstairs today,” Stokely announced at breakfast. Geoff was already off for a few days to a horse fair at Epsom and Nadine was gathering sustenance and the last of the Bath buns for a shopping expedition with some friends.

“How is it you can go up the steps today when we had to come home so early last evening?” she asked around a mouthful of muffin.

“Almack’s can weary anyone, minx,” he told her, but Emilyann, sipping her chocolate, wondered if it was wise. “You really were quite done up by the evening, it seemed.”

Smoky detected a note of disappointment in her tone and grinned. “I intend to have an easier day, so I think I’ll be able to manage by tonight.” The look he gave his wife said he’d crawl if he had to.

“I don’t see what all the pother is about,” Nadine said on her way out. “Your room downstairs is closer to everything you need, after all.”

Smoky choked on a bit of toast, and Emilyann excused herself hurriedly to see Cook about the menus. She kept busy all day, going over her accounts and making lists for the musical reception she planned. If her mind was not fully on her tasks, she told herself, it was merely due to the distraction of things being moved and commotions in the hallway. It had nothing to do with Smoky’s knowing smile or the tender kiss he had placed on her lips before breakfast. Nothing whatsoever.

No one noticed that Nadine did not return from the shops until teatime. “Dratted girl,” Emilyann fumed, “she knew I invited those Durhart twins just for her. I cannot even tell them apart, and they haven’t ha’pence of conversation between them.”

Luckily the Durhart brothers did not stay long, with the object of their call not present, for shortly Aunt Ingrid rushed into the room, offending Mr. Butler by slamming the door behind her. She was waving a note in the air and shouting, “Ruined, ruined. My baby is ruined.”

Stokely and his lady exchanged glances. Someone had finally clapped Bobo in gaol for prigging their watch or something. No one except Aunt Ingrid would be surprised, or distressed.