A Scandalous Proposal (25 page)

She shot them a look they both seemed to understand, and the double doors were closed. Not that Emmaline didn't feel certain that both servants had stepped no more than an inch away from the doors. Knowing Mrs. Piggle, the woman was probably already down on her knees, one eye to the keyhole.

“This is about my brother, isn't it?” Emmaline asked as she sat down and waited for the captain to take up his seat on the facing couch. “What have he and his sons done? Did they somehow ram and sink one of His Majesty's boats? Has the navy put them under arrest?”

“No, ma'am,” the captain said, reaching for the teapot. “May I?”

“Oh! I should have offered. I'm so sorry...yes, please do. Would you rather some wine?”

He looked across the table at her, those blue eyes unreadable. “I'm pouring the tea for you, ma'am. You might consider it a restorative, unless you'd rather a glass of wine. I'm afraid I'm the reluctant bearer of very sad news.”

“Yes, I believe I've rather sensed that, Captain Alastair. Please forgive me for attempting to delay delivery of this very sad news. I'm trying to keep my wits about me. Unfortunately, I believe I'm sadly failing at the effort. I'm imagining all sorts of things, none of them very palatable.”

“Then please allow me to say this as quickly as I can, and I apologize now for being so abbreviated. Lady Emmaline, it is my sad duty to inform you that your brother and his sons were lost at sea last evening off Shoreham-by-Sea. My own ship arrived on the scene just as the yacht was disappearing beneath the waves with all save one soul still on board. I'm... I'm profoundly sorry we could not save them.”

Emmaline sat very still. She may have breathed, but she couldn't be sure. Her mind objected in the most ridiculous way:
But it's my birthday. Isn't it just like them to do this to me on my birthday?
She twisted her hands in her lap, and then pinched herself, just to be sure she was awake, and not in the middle of a nightmare that incongruously somehow included a man best described as the perfect lover of her more pleasant dreams.

“Lady Emmaline? May I please summon someone now?”

She shook her head, unable to speak. She waited for the tears, but they didn't come. In all, she felt rather numb. What had been the last words Charlton had said to her five days ago before climbing into his traveling coach behind George and Harold? Oh yes, she remembered.
Make me a happy man, sister mine. Run off with one of the grooms before we get back!

Her nephews had laughed hard and long at their father's joke. She could still hear them laughing as the coach moved off down the drive.

Emmaline snapped herself back to the moment at hand.

“Was...um, was there a storm?” She didn't know why she asked this. But she felt it was something at least halfway sensible to say, something to break the oppressive silence.

“No, ma'am. Not anything I'd call a storm, at least. As I understand the thing from speaking with the survivor, a Mr. Hugh Hobart, the captain was intoxicated and belowdecks at the time, and one of your nephews was at the helm. Waves are powerful things, ma'am, even on a day that could only be called choppy from the wind along the Channel. Ride with the waves and you fly across the water. Hit one of them wrong, and even a sturdy ship can crack like an egg.”

He looked at her, wincing. “I'm sorry. That was stupidly clumsy of me. I shouldn't say that the tragedy could be laid at your nephew's door.”

“The yacht was a recent...acquisition. I can't imagine what either George or Harold could have been thinking, to attempt to take the wheel like that. But that's what this Mr. Hobart told you?”

The captain nodded. “The man was rather overset and unintelligible. But, yes, he said his friend Harold was at the helm. That is—was—one of your nephews, correct?”

Emmaline nodded, still waiting to cry. She should be crying, shouldn't she? Clearly Captain Alastair believed she should be weeping, in need of comfort. She was an unnatural sister, that's what she was, and an unnatural aunt.

Because all she could feel, of the little she seemed capable of feeling, was relief...

CHAPTER TWO

J
OHN
A
LASTAIR
WAS
certain he'd felt more uncomfortable in his lifetime, but at the moment he could not recall anything that measured remotely close to the impotence he felt as he sat across from the bravely stoic Lady Emmaline Daughtry.

He wasn't certain what he'd been expecting from the woman once he'd delivered his terrible news. Tears, protestations that he was wrong, slightly buckling knees or even an outright swoon necessitating burnt feathers being passed beneath her nose to revive her.

He was in considerable awe of the woman, even as he was grateful that he wouldn't have to deal with a hysterical female, as he did not believe playing the role of sympathetic comforter was one of his stronger suits.

Although the thought of having Lady Emmaline in his arms as he comforted her probably appealed to him more than it should.

The late duke's valet, whom John had run to ground at a tavern in Shoreham-by-Sea, had rather grudgingly informed him that Lady Emmaline was the late duke's closest relative, and then gone back to drinking himself under the table, bemoaning the loss of his master. John had asked that the man accompany him to Ashurst Hall, but the valet had demurred, pointing out that there was nothing for him there anymore so he'd stay where he was for the nonce before returning to Ashurst Hall, thank you very much, and then maybe take himself to London to find a new position. When the valet began loudly complaining that he'd have to find that new employment without aid of a written recommendation, considering that the duke was currently fish food, John left the useless man where he was, and good riddance.

He left feeling certain that whatever belongings of the duke and his sons had remained in their rooms at the tavern would soon be sold in order to line the servant's pockets, but it wasn't as if he could command the fellow to show him the way to Ashurst Hall. Instead, he'd commandeered the duke's crested traveling coach and set out to be the Bearer of Sad News.

News Lady Emmaline Daughtry seemed to be taking exceedingly well. What sort of men were the late duke and his sons? The valet had cried...the sister had not?

John studied her as she spooned sugar into her tea and then added cream, her hands steady, her movements graceful. She was a mature woman, little of the girl about her. Her blond hair was styled very simply, swept up and back, away from her face, which showed her smooth chin line and remarkable cheekbones to his admiring eyes. Her brown eyes were rather long, their shape definitely bordering on the exotic, although she did not use them to their best advantage.

Not that he'd expected her to flirt with him. For the love of heaven, what was he thinking? This was probably what happened when a man hadn't stepped foot onshore, let alone been in the company of a beautiful woman, in more than half a year.

“Lady Emmaline?”

“Yes, Captain?” Still slightly bent toward the tea tray, she looked up at him from beneath her curiously dark eyelashes.
Now
she was using her eyes as they were meant to be used. Except he doubted she realized that, even as he was certain she couldn't know how his traitorous body had reacted to the look of vulnerability he saw in those soft brown depths.

“I apologize again for being the one to bring you such disturbing news, and feel I have intruded on your sorrow long enough. I took advantage of having your coachman drive me here in the duke's coach, so I would be most appreciative of the loan of a horse so that I might be installed at an inn before nightfall. I'll see that the horse is returned tomorrow.”

“You...you're leaving?”

It seemed a strange question. But he couldn't ignore the sudden apprehension in her voice. What was wrong with him? She'd told him she was alone here. Alone, and most probably completely at sea as to what she should next do.

As if to help decide the question of his departure, there was a loud boom of thunder just as the skies seemed to open in a downpour that would have had him soaked to the skin in moments were he to step outside.

Lady Emmaline turned to look out through the panes of the French doors, and then returned her gaze to him. “You were very kind to have come here today, Captain. Please, allow me to offer you the hospitality of Ashurst Hall for the night. Unless it is imperative that you return to your boat?”

“Ship,” he corrected with a slight smile. “A frigate, to be exact. But not mine. I was merely traveling with the
Fervant
, as my duties have concluded. I was on my way home via the port of Hove, in fact, when we came upon...when we came upon the wreckage.”

She ignored his mention of her brother's yacht. “Have you been away from your home and family for a long time, Captain?”

“My home, yes, my lady. Four years or a little more, when last I thought about it. As for my family, my three sisters are wed and gone. My parents are also gone—to their eternal rewards. Not to belabor the thing, but as I have spent a solitary bachelor existence at sea for so very long, I will be returning to a home as empty as this one must feel to you at the moment.”

“Then I wouldn't be delaying you overmuch if I were to shamelessly beg you to remain here until I...until I can think what next to do. I should be doing something, shouldn't I? Should I be asking you to take me to Shoreham-by-Sea?”

John shook his head. “There's nothing for you to do there, no, my lady. The
Fervant
circled the area for hours, and only Mr. Hobart was located. He'd somehow been lucky enough to free the small boat the yacht had been dragging with it before it, too, was pulled beneath the surface.”

“How fortunate for Mr. Hobart. Will there be an inquiry, do you suppose?”

John didn't have an answer to that question. “I suppose that will be up to the authorities in charge of such things. But Captain Clark has already written his recounting of what we found, what we did. I'm fairly certain the ruling will be death by accident, not misadventure.”

“Yes, I would agree with that. Not misadventure, but adventure. Is that what men call heading out to sea with a drunken captain, and with less knowledge of how to pilot a boat—ship—than a strutting barnyard rooster?” She entwined her fingers together as she looked at John in some surprise. “Why, yes, that's it. That's what I'm feeling. I wasn't certain. But now I know. I'm angry, Captain Alastair. My brother and my nephews are dead, leaving me to do Lord only knows what, and I'm very, very angry with the three of them. Is that wickedly unnatural of me, Captain?”

John lifted his shoulders in a small shrug. “I suppose that, in some ways, you could believe that they've behaved rather inconsiderately toward you. Dying, that is.”

They looked at each other for a long moment, and then John felt the corners of his mouth attempting to embarrass him with a smile.

But rather than be appalled by his inappropriate levity, Lady Emmaline's brown eyes began to twinkle, and a smile played about her lips as well, before she stood, so that he, too, hastened to his feet.

“I need to have Grayson summon all the servants and inform them of the duke's demise. Oh, dear. The duke's demise. That sounds rather like a farce at Covent Garden, doesn't it? Do you know something, Captain Alastair? I think I may be about to become slightly hysterical, after all.”

“I sincerely hope not,” John told her frankly. “I've no experience with hysterical women, and I was hoping to be of some use to you as long as it would appear I am to be your guest for the evening.” He was liking this woman more with each passing moment. Her courage, her strength—her honesty. And those lovely soft brown eyes...

“Very well, then, I won't be hysterical. Not even slightly, I promise. But you'll come with me, won't you? You'll speak to Grayson for me?”

“Would you rather I hunted him down and brought him in here?”

“I suppose. But you won't have to look far, I'm sure. Just open the door. Oh, and be careful Mrs. Piggle doesn't topple in on your feet.”

Lady Emmaline's strange warning had John thinking that the woman still wasn't very far from a complete breakdown, but when he opened the doors that led into the foyer, it was to see a rather red-cheeked, pudgy woman of an indeterminate age attempting to regain her feet just on the other side of the door.

“You could at least have offered your arm in helping me up, Mr. Grayson,” she complained to the butler, who was now eyeing John as if he was some bit of vermin he'd unintentionally let into the house.

“Let me assume that you've heard the news,” John said before turning to close the doors behind him, blocking Lady Emmaline's view. She'd mentioned a farce, and he sought to spare her the one now taking place in this foyer.

“How can we know they're dead? We've only your word for it. And who are you?” Grayson asked, accused, the moment those doors were shut.

John nearly told him, but then mentally bit his tongue. A duke of the realm and his two heirs didn't all perish together without repercussions that would reverberate for weeks, if not months. There was enough turmoil at Ashurst Hall at the moment, without him making some grand announcement. Besides, Lady Emmaline might not be as ready to appeal to him for help if she knew who he really was. As things stood now, she could accept his assistance and retain the illusion that she was in charge. John believed she needed to feel in charge, competent.

“I am who I said I was when I arrived here, Grayson. Captain John Alastair, late of His Majesty's Royal Navy. I'm also the man who would consider your words an insult to his honor if not for the grief that has just settled over this household.”

Grayson's chin lowered slightly, the older man seeming to understand that he had spoken out of turn to a gentleman who didn't take insolence lightly.

“I'll have one of the grooms ride to the village to summon the vicar. Lady Emmaline will wish for spiritual guidance.”

“Hummph,” Mrs. Piggle snorted, and then quickly covered her mouth as she turned her less than laudatory reaction into a cough. “Suppose someone'll want the chapel taken out of Holland covers. Ain't been a Daughtry in there since the last duke was carried in feetfirst. I'll set the maids to it first thing tomorrow.”

“We all worship the Almighty in our own ways, Mrs. Piggle.” Grayson quelled the woman's insolence with a stare that would have made any sergeant major proud. “Lady E. attends services in the village, you understand. His Grace and his sons...preferred to worship our Lord in their own way.”

“You don't need to explain. I will tell you that I'll be staying here tonight at Lady Emmaline's request,” John said, not wishing for any more confidences from the servants at the moment. “See to it that a chamber is made ready for me. My bags are still in the coach, I imagine. I'd like to bathe and change into a fresh uniform before the dinner bell is rung.”

“Oh, laws, Lady E.'s birthday! Mr. Grayson, we forgot. Lady E.'s birthday celebration. And Cook has prepared all of her favorites, and now we're all at sixes and sevens, what with the duke and those horrid boys drowning and all. Ah, what a misery this day is. Poor little dab. What a misery...”

John cocked a look at the butler. “It's Lady Emmaline's birthday?”

“Just as Mrs. Piggle said, yes. She's had more than her share of birthdays under this roof, that's what His Grace would always say. He may have forgotten this one, I'm afraid.”

“They'd all still be alive if he'd remembered this one. Excepting he probably would have gone sailing at any rate.” Mrs. Piggle took a step away from the butler as Grayson frowned. “I'm only speaking the truth, you know. I can't remember the last birthday any of them paid a bit of mind to. Poor little dab.”

John took a step toward the butler. He was beginning to feel rather proprietary toward Lady Emmaline Daughtry. “But we're not going to forget it, Grayson, are we? Whatever has been planned shall go forward. So, what is planned?”

Mrs. Piggle answered. “Just her favorite meal, sir, and a simple confection she also favors. And all to be served in the main dining saloon, with the table shining with all the silver and candles and such. The staff is quite fond of Lady E.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Piggle. It all sounds lovely and thoughtful. I would ask that another place be laid, as I will be joining Lady Emmaline at table. There's time enough for the vicar tomorrow, Grayson. For tonight, we will discuss the duke's death only if her ladyship wishes it. Agreed?”

Grayson nodded. “Agreed, sir. And I will inform the staff. Her ladyship should not have to worry her head about a thing, not if we can be of assistance.” He frowned, hesitated and then added, “The new duke will be here soon enough, if he's not dead, too.”

“And who might this new, perhaps deceased duke be, Grayson?” John asked, anxious to get back to Lady Emmaline, who probably shouldn't be left alone with her grief for too long.

Grayson sighed. “The most unlikely person, that's who. The late duke's brother's son. One Rafael Daughtry, and a captain serving under Wellington. I cannot imagine anyone less suited for the title.”

“And don't be forgetting the mother,” Mrs. Piggle said, rolling her rather bulging eyes. “There's one would make a stone statue blush, what with her outlandish ways. We're to be taking orders from the likes of her?”

“Shush, Mrs. Piggle. That will be quite enough.” Grayson turned to John once more. “Forgive us, sir, the both of us. We've had quite the shock. We've known the late duke ever so long, and the boys since they were born. And then, of course, Lady Emmaline holds all our hearts. It's...it's a trying time. But we will overcome it, sir.”

“Then you're all finished with being shocked now, aren't you, and from this moment on you will all do whatever is in your power to assist Lady Emmaline during this trying time—without further comment. Am I correct? Very good.” What a poorly run household this was, John thought. He'd never met the Duke of Ashurst or his sons, but he felt fairly certain he had nothing to regret in not making their acquaintances.