First Season / Bride to Be (29 page)

“I am beginning to have serious doubts about you.”

“What?”

“You do understand that I have no fortune whatsoever. In fact, I can scarcely support a household of my own. It will be a very poor one.”

“I don't care…” began Emily, then was stopped by the expression on his face.

“I am not known as a pleasant or a generous man.” His scrutiny intensified.

She tried to keep her expression blank.

“Yes, I can see that you've heard that.”

He was watching her as the hawk does a rabbit. She needed to say something sensible, Emily thought, to divert him. But nothing occurred to her.

“So, we have a man of uncertain temper and no resources. And we have a beautiful young woman who is likely to attract many admirers.”

She glanced at him, and quickly away. The look in his eyes was making her breathless.

“Miss Crane, precisely why did you become engaged to me?”

She looked down. “The…the scandal. My aunt said…”

“Yes. She alarmed us both with her hysteria over the scandal, didn't she?”

Emily risked another look. He seemed exhilarated, like a man on the trail of a promising quarry.

“Or did she?” He was staring as if he wanted to see right through her. “When you first came to London, you took instruction from the duchess.”

“She knows all about society,” Emily protested, understanding just how the fox feels.

Richard was nodding. “She does indeed. And so you followed her advice.” He looked triumphant. “And it was a dead bore, wasn't it?”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“No?” He shook his head. “I couldn't fathom the difference in you—from the decisive young woman I met in the country to a simpering ninnyhammer.”

“I was not!”

“Oh, you were.” He smiled mockingly at her. “I assure you, you were.”

“Young ladies of fashion…”

“Are simpering ninnyhammers. I will certainly grant you that. And the duchess would be just the person to mold one.” Richard looked as if he were having a wonderful time. “So you found it a dead bore. And you fixed on these…incidents.”

“Attacks,” corrected Emily.

He made a dismissive gesture. “And you began to think about them, because they were vastly more interesting than a London season.”

“I enjoy going into society. Having new gowns and meeting new people.”

“You did for a while.” He smiled at her. “A short while.”

Emily tossed her head. “You know nothing about it.”

“Don't I?” His smile was more like a grin now. “So you asked these mysterious friends for help, and busied yourself in other ways. And then there was the carriage accident.”

“Attack,” she corrected again. She was beginning to be angry at his teasing.

He nodded. “And the night in the fields.”

He looked a little self-conscious then. Emily felt her cheeks warm at the memory.

Richard cleared his throat. “The duchess reacted predictably. And you accepted my suit.” His gaze sharpened. “Why?”

“She told me I would be ruined if…”

“Yes, yes.” He brushed this aside. “I cannot believe that Alasdair Crane's daughter would give a snap of her fingers for that.”

“Let him find out about it, and see how wrong you are!”

He digested this. “Well, yes. But it was extremely unlikely that he would find out. Your aunt would never tell him, and he sees no one in society.”

“Someone would have told my mother,” she protested. But she knew it sounded weak.

“Possibly. But from what I have seen of your mother, she would be inclined to listen to your side of the story. And she appears eminently capable of handling your father.”

There was no denying this.

“You wanted to stay on the trail of the attacks,” he mused. “And it would have been almost impossible to do so unless…” He watched her with deepening fascination. “Do you have the slightest wish to marry me?”

“No!” declared Emily, goaded beyond endurance. “And I have no intention of doing so.”

For the first time in the conversation, he appeared at a loss. “Yet, you did accept me.”

“I intended to break it off as soon as…”

“You had solved the mystery. I knew it!”

“You don't know anything!”

“Indeed? Are you claiming that I'm wrong?”

She would have liked nothing better. The fact that she couldn't made Emily even angrier. He was so despicably smug.

“So you weren't trying to get your hooks into me. It all begins to make sense.”

“My…?” Rage choked her for a moment. “I hope they do kill you!”

“Now, now, when you have made such efforts on my behalf?”

“You don't deserve them.” She smoldered at his amused expression. “I should have let those men throw you in the pond.”

“And miss everything that has happened since? You can't mean it.”

He was laughing at her. Emily folded her arms and gritted her teeth. “I am declaring the engagement at an end as of this instant.”

This penetrated his mockery. “Just like that?”

“Precisely like that.”

He considered.

In a moment, he would show his relief at being rid of her. Despite her anger the idea stung.

“There's no need to be hasty,” he said.

“What?”

“You had a certain plan in mind,” he went on slowly. He seemed to be working something out in his head. When he met her gaze she felt an odd sort of tremor. “You won't introduce me to these useful friends of yours?”

“I can't.”

He ruminated further. “Why shouldn't we work together?”

“Together?”

“You appear to have some valuable…acquaintances. I am more able to act on their information.”

She felt a thrill of excitement. She did want to see the thing through to the end—even if he was the most infuriating man on the face of the earth.

“The engagement is in name only,” he added.

Emily nodded. “Absolutely.”

“We will find a way to end it when the game is up.”

“I will certainly do so.”

He gave a nod, and after a moment, held out his hand. “We are agreed then?”

She hesitated. “We will pursue the attackers together?”

“In our individual spheres.”

She wasn't sure she liked this.

“You appear to have the only information on how to begin,” he added.

Slowly, she took his hand. It was very large, and warm.

He eyed her with something like admiration. “You are very like your father after all.”

“Don't be ridiculous. I am nothing like my father.”

Richard's answering smile was as irritating as ever.

The following morning, Emily set off right after breakfast to visit the Fitzgibbons. She found only Mary at home. Daniel was holding a dancing class at the mansion of one of his noble patrons.

“Did Daniel speak to the…Bruiser?” Emily asked her.

Her hostess nodded placidly. As usual, her hands were busy with knitting needles. “The poor boy's wits are a bit addled by this time, but he said he would see what he could discover among his friends.”

“Addled?” This didn't sound promising.

“It happens to the best of them, which I'm afraid the Bruiser never was. No one can take that sort of punishment forever.”

“Punishment?”

Mary nodded, then noticed Emily's confusion. “He is a fighter, my dear. Fisticuffs.”

“Oh.” Emily had heard of the bare-knuckle matches that were so popular with the sporting set.

“Not a very successful one. That's why he may be useful.”

“I don't understand.”

“It's men like the Bruiser who would be engaged to do someone harm. They have no other profession, you see, and if they do not win their matches…they are discarded by the Fancy and must turn to other shifts.”

“It sounds dreadful. Perhaps I shouldn't have asked you to speak to him.”

“Oh, we've known the Bruiser since he was a lad. He'll be all right. Some of his friends now”—she made a disapproving sound—“we steer clear of them.”

Emily nodded. “But if his wits are addled…”

“He has enough left to ask a few simple questions. He was a right sharp little boy.” She sighed. “We tried to keep him out of the ring, but he was mad for boxing as soon as he saw it.”

Suppressing her doubts, Emily thanked her for their efforts. “You will tell me as soon as he finds out anything?”

“Of course, dear.”

Emily sat with her a few minutes longer, chatting about Daniel's success in London and some old friends. She was just rising to go when there were sounds of an arrival below. They heard voices outside the room, and then a slight brown-haired girl walked in, grinning when she saw the two of them.

“Sarah,” exclaimed Emily and Mary at the same moment.

“I didn't expect you this morning,” added the latter.

“Herr doktor isn't feeling the thing. He's laid up in bed.”

“Is it serious?” asked her mother.

Sarah shook her head. “A feverish cold, though you'd think it was the cholera from the way he carries on. Hullo, Emily.”

“How are you? I've been hoping to see you.”

Sarah grinned again. “Could have come to one of our ‘evenings.' My gentleman could call up a spirit for you. Maybe Rex, eh?”

“He was a dog.” With a nasty temper and yellow fangs. She had no desire to see him again.

Sarah made an offhand gesture. “Schelling does dogs, cats, people, whatever you like. We had a pony once, come to think of it. This weepy cove loved it when he was a little lad.”

“Language, Sarah,” admonished her mother.

“This ‘melancholy gentleman' had loved it,” she amended.

“You are working for this…?”

“Student of the Adepts of the East,” Sarah supplied. “That I am. I nursemaid the visitors. Talk up his powers and tell them stories of what he's done for other poor souls. The usual line of patter. And I keep them out of the way of…things they don't need to see.”

“Do you like it?” wondered Emily. She remembered Sarah as an enthusiastic child actress and an endlessly inventive playmate.

“I've learned some new dodges. Dad doesn't like it, I know. Says we're taking advantage of the bereaved. But some of them find it real comforting.”

“What sort of people come?”

“All sorts.” Sarah gave her a sidelong look. “That fiancé of yours has been to see Herr Schelling.”

“What?” Emily was dumbfounded.

“Warrington, isn't it? That's what the paper said.”

“Yes, but…”

“He was escorting his mother. And he seemed right put out about it.”

“Lady Fielding came to Schelling's?”

“Oh, she's one of our regulars. Herr doktor uses her case as a draw.”

“Her…?”

“Her son was lost at sea. Well, you must know all about that. Lady Fielding was broken up about it. Schelling gave her a good show, and then his lordship up and walks in on one of the sessions! Scared the living daylights out of everyone there and made Schelling's reputation, I can tell you.”

Richard must have hated that, Emily thought.

“So you're actually getting married?”

For a moment, Emily thought she had somehow divined the reality behind her engagement. Then she realized that it was just the amazement of a childhood friend.

“I don't intend to get leg-shackled for a good long while.”

“Sarah,” exclaimed her mother, who had been calmly knitting through this conversation.

“Contract a suitable alliance,” corrected Sarah with fond mockery. “The other says it a lot better, Ma.”

“I don't want you to use…”

“Vulgar cant phrases. You didn't send me to school so I could talk like a navvy.” Sarah grinned at Emily, who couldn't help grinning back.

“Well, we didn't.”

“Your lord's a big handsome fella,” said Sarah teasingly.

Emily nodded uncomfortably. She didn't like deceiving her friends.

“When's the wedding?”

“Oh…not for a while.” Struck by inspiration, she added, “Mama and Papa have come up to town to meet him.”

“They're here in London?” cried Mrs. Fitzgibbon.

She nodded. “Papa's already created a small scandal at a
ton
party.”

Mary laughed. “Mr. Crane has his own ways. But he's always been very kind to us.”

“I'll tell him you're here. I'm sure he will want to see you.” It would be a relief for her father to spend time with old friends like these. Then a reservation surfaced. “I'd rather you didn't tell him about the inquiries we are making. He might not… That is…”

They gave her identical shrewd stares, which showed Emily that Sarah had been brought fully up to date on her previous visit.

“Men are much happier if they don't know
everything
,” replied Mrs. Fitzgibbon.

“Their brains are limited,” agreed Sarah. “It doesn't do to tax them.”

Relieved, Emily nodded.

“He and Daniel will be too busy reminiscing to worry their heads about anything else.”

“Do you recall that time Dad and your father were lifting a pint at the pub?” Sarah paused. “Don't recall what town it was. We were always on the move.”

“And so were we,” said Emily. The Fitzgibbons' acting troop had always found them in whatever house they had shifted to from year to year.

“It was Kent, I think. Anyway, the local vicar came in, and it seemed he was very low church.”

Emily nodded in recognition. “He started haranguing them about the evils of playacting and wanton actresses parading their ‘nakedness' on the stage.”

“We certainly never had anything like
that
,” huffed Mrs. Fitzgibbon.

“And so Dad told him,” supplied Sarah.

“But he didn't listen. That sort of person never does.” Emily was smiling broadly by this time.

“They can't hear for talking,” put in Sarah's mother.

“And so your father stood up and gave him one of his ‘earl' looks,” continued Sarah. “Told him he wasn't wanted and to take himself off.”

“Which didn't set well with the vicar at all.”

“He called your father a maker of graven images.”

“And Papa upended a pint of bitter over him. Someone else's pint.”

“It's fortunate the townspeople didn't like that vicar above half,” commented Mrs. Fitzgibbon. “Otherwise both of them would have ended up in gaol.” She was smiling, though, at the girls' laughter. “Aye, we did have some good times.”

“I'll send Papa over soon,” said Emily, rising to go. They would be starting to wonder where she was.

Saying her good-byes, she left the house with a smile. She was still in a mellow mood when she reached the duchess's house and heard that a “family party” had been arranged for that evening. Richard would be bringing his mother to see them. The possibilities in such a gathering were enough to sober her most thoroughly.

* * *

Richard barely listened to his mother chatting with Lydia Farrell. As their carriage made its way through the streets to the duchess of Welford's house, he was thinking about Emily and the odd succession of events that had brought them to this moment. He had never known a woman like her. Most probably, considering her eccentric upbringing, there was no other woman like her. He could imagine her, he realized, at his side in South America, hacking her way through the jungle vegetation, eating whatever they managed to capture with their own hands.

The mental picture surprised him considerably. Why should he be thinking such a thing? That was the past, and Emily Crane had nothing to do with it. She had nothing to do with anything. She might be of some small use in this matter of the supposed attacks on him. He ought to be thinking about those.

“You're very pensive,” commented Lydia.

Richard looked up to find her watching him.

“I suppose this first family party is enough excuse,” she added.

“First…? Oh, yes.”

“You have met Miss Crane's parents before?”

He nodded.

“I have heard they are exceedingly odd,” complained his mother. “And of course there was that scandal, years ago. This really wasn't a very wise choice, Richard.”

He repressed a grimace.

“They are staying with the duchess, and she is the best of good
ton
. But after his behavior at Geraldine's artistic evening, I declare I am afraid of Mr. Crane.”

“It was only an easel he broke,” Richard reminded her.

“Yes,” agreed Lydia in an ironic drawl. “He only threatened to cover the hostess with paint and box her ears.”

Richard's mother groaned.

“Don't worry, Aunt. Richard will protect us.”

She seemed to enjoy mocking him, Richard thought. Apparently he hadn't convinced her that the old reprehensible Warrington was a thing of the past. “I'm sure that won't be necessary.”

“You must stay by me, Richard,” demanded his mother. “Don't leave me alone with him.”

“I confess I am looking forward to this evening with the liveliest anticipation,” commented Lydia.

“It will be a perfectly conventional visit,” Richard assured her. “I daresay you will be rather bored.”

“Surely not. I've never met anyone who eloped to Gretna Green, let alone the daughter of a marquess.”

Richard's mother groaned again.

* * *

They were conducted upstairs to a large reception room in the duchess's house—not the main drawing room, Richard noticed. Nor was there any sign of the Welford family. Emily came forward to greet them and made the introductions with a certain constraint. Everyone sat down. There was a short silence.

“So, you are an artist, Mr. Crane?” said Lydia.

He scowled. “When I am allowed to be.”

“Allowed?”

Richard could hear the amusement in his cousin's voice. He hoped she could restrain herself from doing mischief.

“I cannot paint here,” Crane declared belligerently.

“The landscape of London does not inspire…?”

“Inspire?” He made the word a curse. “I am always inspired. Olivia's damn sister won't have the smell of paint in her house.”

Richard heard his mother gasp.

“She can't be any kin of yours,” Alasdair complained to his wife. “I mean to say—the smell?”

“But Mrs. Crane and the duchess resemble each other so closely,” said Lydia.

Richard tried to signal her to silence.

“Are
you
enjoying London, Mrs. Farrell?” said Emily.

“Prodigiously.” Her lazy smile implied that the current scene was a rich source of this enjoyment.

“It is my first time in London.” Emily's tone and expression showed a determination to avoid explosions.

“Yes, I know.”

“Lady Fielding,” said Emily's mother, “I understand you have attended a number of spirit calling sessions.”

Richard gave her a sharp look. Where had she heard that in her short time in town? He noticed that Emily was gazing at her mother with exasperation. His mother was nodding with more enthusiasm than she had shown so far.

“Have you found them convincing?” Olivia added.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I believe these people employ all sorts of tricks.”

His mother drew herself up. “Herr Schelling is a gifted man. He has no need of tricks.”

“Nonsense,” answered Mr. Crane. “It is impossible to communicate with the dead. They're…dead.”

“Just so,” murmured Lydia with a laugh in her voice.

“Herr Schelling can reach beyond the veil,” insisted Richard's mother. “He brought Richard back.”

Everyone turned to look at Richard. Even Emily, he noticed with annoyance. “I wasn't dead,” he said curtly, feeling ridiculous.

“You were the next thing to it,” argued his mother. “In that dreadful jungle.”

“Jungle?” said Alasdair. “I have always wanted to see a jungle. Astonishing variety of color, I hear.” He gazed at Richard.

“Very colorful,” he muttered.

The door opened. At precisely the same instant, Richard and Emily both said, “Ah, here is the tea tray,” and rose, bumping into each other as they moved toward the footman carrying the tray.

Lydia stifled a laugh. Olivia Crane looked at her with raised brows.

Refreshments were offered and poured, occupying a few minutes. But all too soon, everyone was settled again. Richard was searching his mind for a safe topic when his mother addressed Emily's. “How do you occupy yourself in the country while your husband is painting, Mrs. Crane?”