Carla Kelly (40 page)

There was no need to read it again and search for hidden meanings, for there were none. She managed a smile and chided herself for being an idiot.
We are talking of Lord Ragsdale,
she told herself,
he who loves to kiss women. It was that and nothing more. I am only chagrined that I caused such a kind man any embarrassment. I trust he will soon forget it, if he has not already.

His kindness to her continued through the days of his absence. Her next visit to the bank was more in the way of a command performance, as the custodians of a major portion of Lord Ragsdale's wealth assured her that she was to take the enormous sum of two hundred pounds with her. She could not imagine such largess and told them so, but the senior partners only looked at each other and chuckled.

“He told us you would say that,” they assured her. “Lately, he is so well-organized and sensible that we do not argue with him over paltry sums.”

I have created a monster,
she thought with amusement. “Very well, then, sirs, so it will be. Never let anyone say that I don't know when to save my breath to cool my porridge.”

She also knew better than to argue when Lady Ragsdale insisted that they visit the cloth merchants and purchase yards and yards of muslin goods, and silk stockings, and bonnets of a practical nature. “I cannot imagine where you will get these things if we do not buy them now,” she said, explaining away her own generosity. She paused in front of a boll of handsome burgundy wool. “Do you suppose …”

“No, my lady,” Emma said hurriedly. “I fear it is rather hot in the antipodes. Let us confine our enthusiasms to muslin.”

“It seems so ordinary,” said Lady Ragsdale with a sigh. “Do you not suppose there will be balls there occasionally or even musicales?”

I could never tell this dear lady what I fear I will find,
she thought as Lady Ragsdale cast a longing eye on a nearby bolt of pale yellow silk.
We are going to a convict colony, a place of harsh rule and desperate men. She, who had been coddled so gently, would be horrified if she knew how hard it might be. I shall never tell her.

“Do you know, you may be right, my lady,” she said, choosing her words carefully as her own fears returned. “I think that silk would be entirely in order.”

“I knew it!” Lady Ragsdale declared in triumph. “With that and a pair of Morocco leather slippers to match, I will pronounce you fit. You may keep my paisley shawl,” she added generously.

“Where can we squeeze it all?” she grumbled to Tim several times in as many days when Lady Ragsdale continued to add to the contents of the sea chest. Her largess spilled over into another trunk and then another, each requiring the strenuous efforts of the footman to close them, with Lasker sitting on top, dignified to the end. “This has to be enough,” she said firmly on her last night on Curzon Street as Lady Ragsdale met her on the first-floor landing with another nightgown.

“Certainly, Emma,” Lady Ragsdale agreed. “And if I think of anything else, I can send it ’round later.”

Emma turned away to hide her smile.
Lady Ragsdale, you have no concept of geography,
she thought. She took the nightgown from Lady Ragsdale, said good night, and went into the book room for one last look around. She could hear Tim and the footman bringing the trunks down two flights of stairs. Lasker had made arrangements with a carter to pick them up at first light.

And we will follow,
she reflected. A penny post from the dockyard had informed them of their departure with the tide in the early afternoon. She went to the window to stare down at the street below, rain-slicked from a sudden squall and washed clean of the day's commerce. Soon there would be only months and months of waves and wind, and small ships. “And wormy food and sea biscuit,” she said out loud as she opened the window for a deep breath of flowers in the window box. “And serious uncertainty, as you would say, Da. I wonder what I will find at the end of my journey.”

She tidied the room, hopeful that Lord Ragsdale would be able to discover everything in order when he returned. She was about to turn out the lamp, but suddenly she knew it wasn't right to leave without even a farewell note.
There can be no harm in expressing myself this last time
, she thought,
no harm at all.
She sat down at the desk.

It was easy to tell Lord Ragsdale thank you on paper, to thank him for putting the heart back in her, for making her angry enough at times to keep her from melancholy, for finding her family, for tying up the ragged strings of her life. She labored over the page, wanting to express her whole heart and mind. “I do not know whatever good I may have done you, my lord, but you have given me back my brother,” she wrote, then hesitated.
I could tell you I love you,
she considered, the quill poised over the inkwell.
It would be true, probably the most true thing I ever wrote.
She put down the quill and rested her chin on her hands.
There will always be some part of me that longs for you, but should I say that to a man so soon to be tangled in the toils of matrimony?

“How fortunate I will be so far away,” she said, and picked up the quill again. “I can be no possible threat, Clarissa Partridge, bless your pouty hide.” She wrote swiftly then, telling him of her love, leaving nothing out, not mincing a single word. Nothing could be safer; she would be in the middle of the Atlantic before he returned from Norfolk. She picked up the letter, still frowning over it, wondering why even that declaration was not enough.

And then she understood and laughed out loud, sticking the quill back in the ink.
Not only do I love you, Lord Ragsdale,
she told herself as she wrote the words,
I also
like
you.

It looked silly on the page, like something you would say to a friend from childhood, or a schoolmate. She almost tore up the letter.
He will think I have lost all reason to say something so childish,
she thought. She stared at the note for a long while, then sighed and tucked it in under the paperweight. She blew out the lamp, took another look around the room, and closed the door on her career as a secretary.

Leaving the house on Curzon Street was harder than she could have imagined. Lady Ragsdale cried, the footman looked decidedly forlorn, and even Lasker showed a glimmer of some expression besides patient condescension when he helped her into the hackney, nodded to Tim, and told the driver to take them to the docks. When she looked back, she even thought she saw him dab at his eyes. She may have been mistaken; it was a blustery day, and there were cinders in the air.

“We have so much to look forward to,” she told Tim, who grinned at her.

“You sound like you're trying to convince yourself,” he teased.
I suppose I am,
she thought, struck by the truth of his observation.
Leave it to a little brother to define my own melancholy. If I did not know better, I would accuse him of taking lessons from Lord Ragsdale.

They arrived at Deptford Hard in plenty of time to catch the tide that even affected the oily swells of the Thames, far upstream from the ocean. The
Atlas
rode low in the water, full of supplies for the seven-month journey, and more victuals for the convict colony that still needed food from home to take the ragged edge off hunger. She looked closer, frowning. There was no bustle of activity on deck to signify a ship about to sail, no one but the captain, who stared at a long list as he paced the deck.

Tim noticed the strange silence too. “Emma, was it today or tomorrow?”

Before she could add her questions to his, the captain of the
Atlas
spotted them and came to the railing. “Miss Costello!” he shouted to them on the dock. “Go home. Something has happened, and we cannot sail today.”

“What?” she shouted back, dreading a return to Curzon Street and another round of farewells tomorrow, or the day after.

“The lord inspector died last night. We won't sail until the end of the week.”

Trust the lord inspector to be so thoughtless,
she told herself as they returned to Curzon Street in silence. Now we must go through all this again. She leaned back and drummed her fingers impatiently on the seat, too irritated for rational conversation with Tim.

By the time they were approaching the turn to Curzon Street, she acknowledged the hand of providence in this event. At least she would have time to reclaim the letter from the book room and replace it with something more dignified. That hope crawled up her throat and then flopped back into her stomach as they turned the corner to see the Ragsdale carriage at the front door.

“Heaven and all the saints help me!” she gasped.

Tim looked at her in surprise. “Don't you want to have a chance to say good-bye to Lord Ragsdale?” he asked. “I know I do.”

“I'm not so sure,” she wailed, wanting to leap from the hackney, run back to the dock, and hide there.

Tim peered at her. “Don't you like him? After all he's done for us?”

She nodded, kicking herself for her own folly, and hoping that Lord Ragsdale's indolence would lead him to avoid the book room altogether, now that she was no longer there. “Of course I do,” she muttered.

“Good,” Tim said. “He told me he likes you.”

Emma groaned and closed her eyes.
That word has come back to haunt me,
she thought, then stared at her little brother. “He said what?”

“That he liked you,” Tim repeated patiently, with that sly look that brothers reserve for especially dense sisters. “I told him of course he did, and he just laughed.”

Well, you won't be laughing now, Lord Ragsdale,
she thought as she grossly overtipped the jarvey in her confusion.
You will think I am such an idiot.

She contemplated sneaking around to the servants’ entrance, but Lasker flung open the door, an actual smile on his face as she started to tiptoe away.

“Miss Costello! You have changed your mind! Lord Ragsdale, can you imagine who has returned?”

To her everlasting chagrin, Lord Ragsdale stood in the doorway too, his mouth open in amazement. “I thought you would be gone by now …” he began.

“I did not know you would return so soon,” she started to tell him at the same time.

Tim laughed and hurried inside. Emma came up the steps slowly. She tried to observe him without being obvious and could see no sign of disgust on his face, or exasperation. There was nothing beyond a deepening of the crease between his eyes, and a certain dullness in his expression she had not noticed when he left. As she watched, he made a visible effort to appear cheerful.

“Change your mind, Emma?” he asked as he held open the door for her. “If it's any consolation, I think I would have.” He shuddered. “All that water moving up and down! I would probably get calluses from kneeling over a bucket for seven months. Wise of you to reconsider.”

She shook her head. He walked with her down the hall. She glanced at the book-room door, which was closed. His trunk was still at the foot of the stairs.

“Did you just return, my lord?” she asked, her voice hopeful. “Only just,” he agreed. “But you have not answered my question.”

Good. He cannot possibly have seen the note yet,
she thought with relief. “The lord inspector has died suddenly, apparently. We will sail in a few days, my lord,” she explained.

Lord Ragsdale managed a rather mirthless chuckle. “I never thought he was a man for the rigors of Australia, myself. He probably is only pretending until the ship leaves without him.”

She laughed because she knew he expected it.
Go upstairs like a good man,
she thought, willing him to move away from the book room, where he stood now with his hand on the doorknob.

“If you do not mind, then, my lord, we will remain here a few more days until we sail,” she said, when he continued to just observe her.
And for heaven's sake, don't go in there,
she thought.

“You know I do not mind, Emma,” he replied, then opened the door and went in, closing it firmly behind him.

I think I will die of embarrassment,
she thought as she stood at the door. She held her breath, expecting any moment for Lord Ragsdale to come bounding out, note in hand, to scold her for being an idiot. Nothing happened. She let out her breath and quietly climbed the stairs.

She spent the rest of the afternoon lying on her bed and staring at the wall, Tim curled up beside her, asleep. She dreaded every sound on the stairs and panicked when darkness came and someone knocked.

“It's only me,” said the footman.

“Come in then, Hanley,” she said, hoping the relief in her voice was not too obvious. Tim sat up and rubbed his eyes as she opened the door.

“Lady Ragsdale would like you and Tim to have dinner with her,” he said, then added, when he noticed the hesitancy on her face. “She does not like to dine alone, Emma.”