Teresa Medeiros (33 page)

He walked out on her, his gait oddly uneven, like that of a wounded man. Emily sank down among the ruins of the dinner party and buried her head in her arms.

Emily Claire Scarborough was a very bad girl. She had heard it whispered for years, and in some small corner of her heart she had come to believe it. So when Justin again shut himself away from her behind a wall of cool reserve, she set out to do the one thing she did best. Misbehave.

She swaggered around in an old pair of Justin’s trousers and a discarded jacket from one of Edith’s riding habits, her curls an uncombed tangle.

But Justin’s calm was imperturbable. When she began
to sprinkle her speech with careless profanities, he blithely retaliated by hiring a tutor, an art teacher, and a dancing master, all of whom resigned in hysterics within the week. When she shortened the legs of all of his trousers, he summoned a tailor and ordered new ones. When she stuffed the chimney in the study with her discarded petticoats, layering the room in coal dust and soot, he moved his work to the library until the room could be aired.

To both servants and family Justin was no longer caustic, but only distant. Music stopped flowing through the darkened rooms at night. The grand piano in the drawing room gathered a thin layer of dust. The servants attributed his brief burst of good cheer and subsequent mood change to a brain fever he had suffered during his exotic travels. No one knew what to attribute Miss Emily’s behavior to, although Jimmie the stablemaster, a devout Roman Catholic, was the first to whisper of demon possession. He swore he had glanced up at her lighted window at night and seen objects flying about, spurred on by curses so uproarious, they made even his worldly ears burn.

The formal apology the duchess sent Cecille and her mama after the disastrous dinner party bought their stilted forgiveness but not their silence. Gossip spread through London that the Duke of Winthrop had a madwoman on his hands, a wild creature he’d do well to shuffle off to Bedlam before she harmed someone. People scrambled for invitations to the ball the duchess was throwing to introduce Emily to society, hoping to catch even a glimpse of the duke’s eccentric ward.

It was a bitterly cold January morning when the door of the study burst open and Emily marched in on him and Penfeld, trailed by a shouting contingent of servants.

Justin barely glanced up from his ledger. “Good morning, Emily.” His deep voice carried over the cacophony.

“Good morning, sir,” she replied evenly.

Penfeld busied himself with straightening a perfectly aligned stack of papers. Emily stood stiffly, danger smoldering
in her dark eyes as her domestic captors mobbed the desk.

“Sir, I must insist on a moment of your time—”

“—cannot be tolerated, Your Grace, not for another day—”

“Ye must take action, my lord, afor she burns the ’ouse down ’round our bloomin’ heads!”

Justin lifted a hand in a plea for silence. “One at a time, please.”

It was Gracie who stepped forward. The other servants subsided to murmurs in deference to her age and years of loyal service to the Connors. “I’m not one to be stickin’ me nose into family affairs, Yer Grace. I know the child has a good heart an’ all, but …”

“Get on with it, Gracie. I’m listening.”

The cook honked into her apron. “I left the pie on the windowsill only for a minute, sir, and now we’ve no rhubarb for lunch a’tall.”

A horse-faced maid poked her long nose over Gracie’s shoulder. “There won’t be no need for the rhubarb, sir, for ’twas the curate who was to partake of it and the girl sent him packin’ by tellin’ him he could take his prayer book and put it—”

At a titter from one of the younger groomsmen, she cupped her hands around Justin’s ear and whispered something that made his eyes widen with interest.

“Mmm. I didn’t know that was possible.”

Emily rolled her eyes and tapped her toe in obvious boredom.

The valet shared by Harold, Herbert, and Harvey shoved past her. “That’s nothing, Your Grace, look what she did to the hat my master bought for the ball next week.”

He thrust the top hat into Justin’s hand. An odd squeaking and mewling rose from its silk confines. When Justin lifted his head, he was smiling. “She had a litter of kittens in it?”

The valet sputtered. “Of course she didn’t have a litter of kittens. She hid it in the stable, where the mama cat would be sure to find it. Why, Master Harold will be livid!”

Justin’s smile spread. “Master Harold, you say?” He handed the hat back. “Return it to the stable for now. Perhaps when Master Harold finds a suitable position, he can buy a new one. As for now, you’re all dismissed.”

“But, sir—”

“Your Grace, there’s no time. With the ball next Friday!”

“My lord—”

“Good day,” Justin said with utter finality.

Emily stood in sullen silence as her disappointed accusers filed out. Penfeld slipped out behind them, shaking his head and muttering under his breath.

The door whispered shut, leaving them alone. Justin drew off his spectacles, leaned back in his chair, and surveyed his young charge from boots to crown. If she was trying to look boyish, she had failed dismally. The trousers only emphasized her slender waist and hugged the ample curve of her rump. Edith’s jacket had not been tailored for a bosom as generous as Emily’s. Unhindered by corset or chemise, her breasts strained against the worn fabric.

Only a hint of color in her cheeks betrayed her response to his casual perusal. Her spine was stiff with that terrible pride that made her seem so fragile yet so unreachable.

He steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “Have you anything to say for yourself?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and blew a stray curl out of her eyes. “Damnable liars, every one of them.”

“You didn’t swear at the curate?”

“Hell, no.”

His lips twitched. “You didn’t eat the entire rhubarb pie?”

“Of course not. I gave it to Pudding. Bulldogs love rhubarb.”

“And you didn’t allow the stable cat to birth in Harold’s new hat?”

“Cats are notoriously stubborn. They birth where they please.”

Sighing, he slipped on his spectacles and went back to scrawling in the ledger. “Very well. You may go.”

Emily slammed her palms on the desk. “Aren’t you even going to punish me?”

“Punish you?” He nibbled on the end of his pen. “If it pleases you, you may take supper in your room.”

She spoke through gritted teeth. “I take all my meals in my room.”

“Then you may take supper in the dining room.” He flipped a page of the ledger.

“Damn you,” she whispered, her voice husky with thwarted emotion. He didn’t even look up.

She spun around and marched for the door.

“Emily?”

She turned, her hand on the doorknob.

The pen kept up its even scratch. “Nothing you do, no matter how horrendous, is going to change the way I feel about you.” His hand stilled. He slanted her a look over the rim of his spectacles. “Nor the fact that I am not free to act on those feelings.”

Emily threw open the door, horrified by the betraying sting in her eyes. She closed the door and slumped against it, pressing them shut against the burning pressure. When she opened them, a black mountain blocked her vision.

She blinked the tears away and found herself face-to-face with Penfeld’s starched lapels. “Penfeld? What the devil—”

She was totally unprepared when the valet fastened his meaty fingers around her earlobe in a pinch that would have made Doreen Dobbins swoon with envy. Emily’s mouth fell open, more from shock than pain.

Penfeld thrust his face into Emily’s. “March, little missy,” he hissed, “or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

“How dare you—!”

Emily’s cry of protest was cut off by a vicious yank that almost dragged her off her feet. Needles of pain shot through her skull. Wherever Penfeld was going, he was obviously intent on taking her ear with him, whether it was attached or not. Emily’s feet slid on the polished wood floor, but he never faltered. A grinning footman swept open the door to the foyer.

A mobcapped head appeared around the corner, then another. Doors flew open. Grubby faces popped up in the windows. The servants gaped as their master’s mild-mannered valet dragged a howling Emily across the foyer and up the stairs.

When Justin emerged from the study to investigate the distant smattering of applause, he found nothing but a bevy of servants industriously polishing the gleaming banister.

Chapter 23
 

P
enfeld gave her a less than genteel shove into her bedroom. Emily groped for her ear, surprised to find it still in place, then stood with fists clenched.

The valet planted his bulk between the bed and the door. “I had seven younger brothers, all bigger and meaner than you, dear. Think about it.”

Emily did. Penfeld’s hands hung like creased hams from his immaculate sleeves. She sank down on the edge of the bed and gave him a sullen glare.

Returning a sweet smile, he locked the door and slipped the key into the pocket of his waistcoat.

She rubbed her throbbing ear. “What are you going to do? Beat me?”

“It would be a bit overdue, don’t you think? Someone should have cared enough to yank your ear and blister your little bum a long time ago. But no one did, did they?”

It wasn’t the shocking language, but the complete absence of pity in his tone that made it so compelling. He
scraped over the chair from the hearth, turned it backward, and straddled it.

“Why, Penfeld, I hardly know you,” Emily breathed in amazement.

“No, you don’t,” he said briskly. “And I think it high time to remedy that. I was born on Tenant Street, the second oldest of fifteen, three of whom died at birth. My father was a tanner, my mother a drunk. I was commonly known by the undignified sobriquet of Penny. My older sister died of typhoid at the age of fifteen. Before her corpse could cool, I snatched her job at a Bond Street haberdashery, where I met my first master.”

Emily nodded, cautious but empathetic. Ambition. Level-headed thinking. A yearning for independence. These were all traits she respected.

“I discovered that by serving as a valet, a ‘gentleman’s gentleman’ so to speak, I could partake of the finer and more civilized aspects of life and earn wages for doing so.”

“Don’t you ever tire of being on the outside? Don’t you ever want to
be
that gentleman?”

“A gentleman has many responsibilities. I have only one. Ensuring the happiness of my master.”

She traced the gold leaf pattern on the rug with the toe of her boot. “I see. Is that why you dragged me up here? Because I am interfering with that task?”

“Precisely.”

Emily swallowed, bracing herself to hear she was unwanted yet again. Somehow the words would hurt more coming from the gentle valet. Penfeld had never so much as rebuked her. “What would you have me do? Shall I disappear from his life again? For good this time?”

“Would that make him happy?”

She searched his earnest face. “I honestly don’t know.”

Penfeld folded his arms on the back of the chair. “Why don’t we give him exactly what he’s asked for? First, you must stop this infernal misbehaving.”

“I already tried acting like a lady. It made us both miserable.”

A triumphant smile wreathed the valet’s round face. “Ah, but that’s because my master doesn’t need a lady. My master needs a woman.”

Justin had gone stone deaf. He masked it behind a polite smile as he wound his way through the guests in the ballroom. He felt them touch his sleeve, saw them smile in greeting, but only gibberish spilled from their lips. The music of the orchestra seated on the low dais skittered off his ears like rain off oilcloth. Bows sawed madly away at violin strings. Fingers plucked the gleaming strands of the harp. Yet Justin could hear nothing but the terrible silence in his head. Not only had he lost the ability to write music; he had lost the ability to hear it. He wondered how Beethoven in his deafness had kept from going mad.

“Your Grace?” From the footman’s patient tone Justin knew he had repeated the words more than once. “Would you care for some champagne?”

“Thank you, Sims.” His own voice sounded muffled, as if it came from beneath a roaring sea.

He took a fluted glass from the tray and brought it to his lips. The tart bubbles tickled his nostrils.

He had thought this ball an ill-conceived idea from the start, but his mother had pouted until he relented. At any moment he expected Emily to swing past on one of the chandeliers or ride Pudding through the glass doors. She had been sulking in her room all week, doubtlessly planning some horrific revenge for his dispassionate treatment of her. What better place to execute it than at the ball given in her honor? Someone bumped him in passing and he jumped, sloshing champagne on his white-gloved hand. He swore softly, cursing his raw nerves.

He drained the glass. If she only knew the terrible cost of his apathy.

He caught a glimpse of his reflection in a looking glass
hung between two columns. He could almost see his father’s whiskers superimposed over his unsmiling face. Unable to bear the oppressive silence of his head, he had actually gone to the Winthrop Shipping offices yesterday and spent hours in a dusty alcove, poring over meaningless figures.