Rhyme and Reason (18 page)

Damon did not slow as he guided her among the chairs. He smiled, but did not speak to any of the men who paused in their conversations to watch their passage.

Emily’s eyes widened when he paused before a small table where an elderly man sat. Gout thickened his limbs, but his eyes were as bright as a lad’s. Tugging at his coat which was decorated with a star that denoted he was a knight, he asked in a creaking voice, “Who is this fair creature you have brought with you, Damon?”

“Sir Joseph Banks, Miss Emily Talcott,” he replied with a respectful dip of his head.

“Didn’t you sail with Captain Cook on the
Endeavor
to explore Australia and the South Pacific?” she gasped.

The old man did not rise, but smiled. “Miss Talcott, I am delighted that you recall my youthful adventures. It is regrettably seldom that we are able to entice members of your fair sex here.”

“But what is this?” she blurted, then flushed.

Banks laughed, the sound as wiry as his whiskers. “One might call it a
conversazione
, although, I must own you will find it different from those so-called intellectual evenings put on by the misguided matrons of the Polite World. This is a place where people can come to talk. Not converse, my dear, but talk. If my good friend Damon brought you here, I trust you have a brain behind your pretty eyes.” He waved a vein-lined hand at them. “Do take her about, Damon, and see if she can betwattle one of our number with her opinions.”

“Shall we?” he asked.

With a smile for Sir Joseph, Emily put her hand on Damon’s arm and let him lead her deeper into the high-ceilinged room. Now that she understood the purpose of this gathering, she was eager to learn more about what drew Damon here. She had been so certain he was bound for his club and nothing more straining to the mind than the odds of his next hand being a winner.

Kilmartin followed like a disapproving shadow, but Emily forgot her as she listened to the wisps of conversation floating around her. No one spoke of
modistes
or trysts or marriages. Instead, the men discussed the latest advancements in natural science and fine art.

When she overheard a discussion of poetry, she was tempted to linger. No one mentioned Marquis de la Cour or even Byron. They spoke of medieval poets and the constraints of sonnets on modern work.

Damon grinned at her and gave a tug on her arm. “I have had too much of rhymes tonight,” he said. “Let me introduce you to someone who should be as delighted to meet you as you shall be to meet him.”

“Who?”

“Patience, Emily.”

“I am beginning to abhor the sound of those two words together.”

He chuckled as they left the trio of men to argue over one section of
The Canterbury Tales
.

Emily gazed in amazement at the scientific journals scattered across the tables. She had never guessed there could be so many and on so many erudite subjects. Hearing the debate between two animated gentlemen, one with an accent that was decidedly American, on a new variety of animal discovered in Africa, she glanced across the room to discover another man who was dressed in an alien costume that labeled him a Persian. His turban and flowing robes went otherwise unnoted among the guests.

“Damon,” a deep voice said behind her, “you have been absent much of late from our gatherings. I thought perhaps Pipkin had driven you away with his ludicrous arguments.”

She turned to see a skinny man who wore thick glasses. His clothes were as wrinkled as if he had donned them before retiring the night before. When his bushy eyebrows raised almost to the sparse hair on his balding head, she saw her own amazement mirrored in his eyes.

“Ah, here you are, Gerald,” Damon said. “I had hoped you would be lurking about tonight. Miss Emily Talcott, allow me to introduce Dr. Gerald Cozie. Gerald, despite his want-witted prattling, is a respected fellow of the Royal Society.”

Dr. Cozie bowed his head, then straightened, pushing his heavy blinkers back into place. “Miss Talcott?
The
Miss Talcott?”

“I suppose I must be.” Once again, Emily was glad she did not blush. Dr. Cozie’s words suggested this was not the first time Damon had mentioned her name in his presence. She was not sure if she should be pleased or shocked that Damon had spoken of her.

While Damon had the good grace to appear discomfited, Dr. Cozie gushed, “I was talking with Damon recently about my boyhood fantasy of sailing away on one of the ships of the Talcott line.”

She struggled to keep her smile in place. Ships? There had not been more than one ship afloat under the Talcott name during her lifetime, although she had heard tales of when the line enjoyed its heyday. When that final ship had been sunk by a Caribbean hurricane within a fortnight of her stepmother’s death, she had feared for Papa’s mind. He had recovered. Or had he? If she had not had the good fortune to get her small books of poetry published, the Talcotts would have been all to pieces last year.

“Now I understand what has occupied you while we noted your absence, Damon,” the doctor continued.

“You need not show your usual lack of polish,” Damon returned with a laugh. “Emily is no blind buzzard concerned only with assemblies and routs. You shall find she shares our interest in the study of the natural world. I suspect, if you had the good fortune to view the garden she has carved out of the most unforgiving conditions here in Town, you would be impatient to hear her opinions on growing roses.”

Astounded at the compliment, Emily hurried to say, “Damon is being too kind. My studies have gone no farther than my own garden, Dr. Cozie.”

“Which is why I brought her here.” Damon smiled. “She should not have to waste her mind on the bibble-babble of the
ton
.”

Dr. Cozie laughed. “For one who counts himself among that species, you have an unending contempt for them.”

“I cannot change the facts of my birth, Gerald, only of my life. Now tell Emily what you have discovered about grafting roses.”

As Damon drew her into the conversation, treating her as if she were an equal to a fellow of the Royal Society, Emily was thrilled. She had no time to savor her happiness, for she was caught up in an intense discussion where no quarter was given for uncertainty.

Emily guessed her head was choke-full of new ideas when, three hours later, Damon walked her to her door. Kilmartin went in, leaving the door open so there would be no question of indiscretion. The blending of light from the foyer and the carriage lamp created a glowing bubble in the fog.

Damon rested his shoulder against the doorframe. “I trust by your smile that you enjoyed yourself tonight.”

“Thank you for taking me there.” She rocked from her heels to her toes like a child about to erupt into a dance. So many new and exciting ideas roamed through her brain that she could not be still. “I had a wonderful time.”

“I did as well, not in the least because you gave Pipkin a bit of his own sour medicine when you corrected him about Mr. Cobbett’s latest thesis.”

“He was a bit disconcerted by my visit.”

“He was furious because he was shown to be a pompous ass by one of the very sex he ridicules on every possible occasion.”

She tilted her head, so she could see him more easily past the wide brim of her bonnet. “I find such posturing distasteful.”

“And I found his humiliation delightful.” Laughing lowly, so their conversation would not reach anyone within, he said, “I thought you would be diverted by an evening filled with conversation of things other than the drivel penned by that Frenchmen.”

Emily fought to keep her smile. Why did Damon have to bring up that blasted poetry now? As he lifted her fingers to his mouth for a chaste kiss, she told herself his inadvertent insults might be a blessing, for they kept her from edging into his arms. Even as she thought that, a mesmerizing smile tilted his lips, and she wondered when she had begun lying to herself, too.

Her heart had filled with joy in Lady Murrow’s garden when Damon mentioned marriage, even in jest. But falling in love with Damon would lead to heartbreak. Hadn’t she learned from watching her sister? If Damon had a
tendre
for her to match hers for him, that made everything more tragic. Then she would be dooming both of them to grief, for she could not involve him in her life and the secret that was buried even more deeply in her heart than the truth about Marquis de la Cour. The secret the
ton
would find appalling. The secret even Miriam did not know.

The secret that must never, never be revealed.

Chapter Thirteen

“Miriam, be reasonable.” Emily guessed she had repeated those words five times in as many minutes.

But Miriam refused to listen as she prowled about the garden. “How could you be so oblivious to my feelings and agree to this jobbernowl idea of going to Wentworth Hall?”

“I thought you would enjoy a sojourn in daisyville.”

Miriam rolled her eyes in disgust before stamping to the door leading into the house. “Why would I wish to leave Town in the midst of the Season?” She whirled to face Emily, revealing that tears now glittered in her eyes as brightly as the sunshine on the freshly painted arbor. “Why do you never think of
me
, Emily?”

“I think often of you.” She swallowed the truth that would create even more problems. Miriam would be in an even greater huff if she were to suspect how often Emily thought of her sister while composing those poems she now wished had never been penned.

“You did not think of me when you agreed to go with that
man
to that godforsaken wilderness.”

Emily smiled. “Lincolnshire is no wilderness. It is not so far from London, and many families of eminence have country seats there.”

“Including
his
family?” She sat on the garden bench.

“Damon was generous to invite us to Wentworth Hall.”

“Invite you!”

“And Papa and you.”

Miriam shook her head. “I do not wish to go. Why don’t you and Papa go without me?”

“Miriam, you know you cannot stay here alone. You must be reasonable.”

“Why should I?” She jumped up, a swirl of white muslin flowing about her. “I know why Papa agreed to this. He is so determined to win back what he lost to Demon Wentworth—”

“Please do not call him that.”

The tears flooded from her eyes. “You would agree to almost anything to keep Papa happy, even if it means you will be destroying my life.”

“Miriam, be …” She did not finish, for her sister clearly would not be reasonable now. “I thought you would enjoy this chance to travel. It shall be fun.”

“Impossible!” Wringing her hands, she whispered, “How could you choose Papa’s happiness over mine?”

Emily grasped her sister’s hand and drew her down to sit on the bench again. Wiping the tears from Miriam’s face, she said softly, “I would never do anything that I thought would hurt you, Miriam. You must know that.”

“Yet you agreed for me to leave London just now when I have never been happier.”

“Never been happier? You cannot mean—?” She could not even speak the name which once had been amusing.

“Of course. André asked if he might escort me to the next reading he is giving.” Standing again, she scowled at Emily. Tears fell in a rapid shower along her face as her voice broke. “Now I shall not be able to go to his reading because you are dragging me away from Town to that dashed viscount’s dirty acres. You care nothing for me. Nothing at all.”

“Miriam, you know that is not so.”

“I swear I shall never speak to you again! You have ruined my life!”

Before Emily could speak, her sister fled into the house. She stared about her garden. Once this had been sanctuary, but now her troubles buzzed about her like bees among her flowers.

“Emily,
ma chérie
?”

She affixed a smile on her face as she looked at Papa, who stood in the doorway. He was wearing a saucy grin that suggested he was well pleased with himself. “I trust you are dealing with everything so we might leave for Wentworth Hall as planned.”

“Yes, Papa.” She almost winced as she spoke the words Damon had chided her for.

“Good.” He settled his hat on his light hair and smiled. “I knew I could depend on you.”

“Papa?”

“Yes?”

“Miriam is—um—” She was not sure how to explain, for she did not want to distress Papa over what might be no more than calf love.

He patted her arm. “I know Miriam regrets missing the duchess’s party, but she will come around.”

“I am not so sure of that.” Her stomach cramped, for she understood why Miriam was doubly distressed. Miriam had been hoping for an invitation to that gathering for the past month.

“Do not fret,
ma chérie
. You always manage to work things out.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Smile, for you do not want to etch frown lines into your face, do you?”

“No, Papa.”

“Are you unwell?”

She knew her wince must have been visible. How could she tell Papa what Damon had said? Such words were certain to wound him.

“I am fine, Papa.”

“Good,” he said again.

She followed him into the parlor. Untying her bonnet, she said, “Papa, we must talk.”

“Of what?” He gave her no chance to answer. “Bollings, where’s my walking stick? I cannot call on His Grace without proper accoutrements.”

His harried valet rushed up the stairs.

“Papa,” Emily tried again, “I need a few minutes of your time before you go out.”

“Drat! Where did I put my
cartes de visite
?” He looked at her and smiled. “Be a good girl,
ma chérie
, and tell Bollings I need my calling cards, will you?”

Emily took one step toward the stairs, then faltered. She squared her shoulders and motioned to a serving lass.

“Caroline,” she whispered, “please have Bollings bring Mr. Talcott’s calling cards.” As the girl went up the stairs, Emily added, softly, “Papa, what I have to say to you will take only a few minutes.”

“That is good, for I have but a moment before I must leave.” He brushed a speck of dust from his gray gloves. “What is putting that uncomely frown on your face?”