The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne (12 page)

“I think she may be an artist,” Emma said. “She had smudges on her hands that appeared to be paints, or something else it would take time to remove, since she had not done so.”

Cassandra turned her head toward Emma, interested now. “Might they have been ink stains?”

“Possibly. Yes, that makes sense now that I see them in my memory, but they were larger than one would get from carelessly blotting a letter.”

“Then I may indeed know who she is, although I have never met her. I believe you were visited by the mysterious Marielle Lyon. What did she want with you?”

“She had questions about consigning items to auction.” It was not a lie, although it was definitely one more deception. “I could use more lots, and I thought if I could find her, and offer a commission, she might point some of her countrymen toward Fairbourne’s.”

“It is said she is the niece of a count who was lost to the guillotine. Her family’s fate is unknown. She escaped on her own during the terror.”

“How horrible.”

“Mmmm. Except some of her own people do not believe her story and whisper she is a fraud. Jacques was sure she was a shopkeeper’s daughter who assumed another’s past.”

“Small wonder you called her mysterious. Do they all suspect her?”

“Only some. Others treat her like a princess. I am sure that she does know some émigrés who seek to convert treasures into coin.”

That was what Emma hoped, but she had other reasons for wanting to find her mystery woman. “Do you know where she lives?”

“No, but perhaps I can show you how to find her.”

A short while later Cassandra pulled a large mezzotint out of a bin at a print shop. She pointed to the inscription at
the bottom. “This is from her studio. ‘M. J. Lyon’ is how she obscures that she is a woman.”

Emma examined the mezzotint. It showed a rather tame view of the Thames near Richmond, and bore the name and address of the printer, M. J. Lyon. “The smudges on her hands could be the inks used in printing, I suppose. At least she has found a way to support herself, without going into service.”

“It is said she makes others, with a fictitious name inscribed, that are less…formal.” Cassandra carried the print to the proprietor, and opened her reticule for some coins.

“Scandalous ones?” Emma whispered. She knew there were very naughty images to be had, although she had never seen them.

Cassandra accepted the rolled print, and handed it to Emma. “Mocking ones. Humorous prints that poke at society’s foibles and hypocrisies. Satires of government leaders. Jacques said he had seen them, and knew they were hers. He would not give me the name she uses, however.”

“Why not?”

“It appears that one of her satires had my brother as its subject, wearing an ass’s ears and tail. How silly of Jacques to think I would mind.” Cassandra linked her arm through Emma’s and guided her out of the shop. “Now, tell me about this idea you have, of offering commissions if someone brings consignors to you. I am insulted you did not think of me if you sought to recruit such agents, instead of some woman whose name you did not even know.”

Before Emma had a chance to respond, they were distracted by a grand coach stopping in the street right beside where they walked. Even before the wheels stopped rolling, the door swung and Lord Southwaite stepped out, blocked their path, and bowed.

“Miss Fairbourne, how happy an accident to see you as I rode by. I was on my way to call on you.” He added another bow in Cassandra’s direction. “Lady Cassandra.”

Cassandra bestowed the tightest of smiles. “It is always
a joy to see you, Southwaite. May I ask how your sister fares?”

Expression amiable, but eyes narrow, he maintained the pretense of friendship. “She fares very well. Indeed, she flourishes. And your aunt, Lady Cassandra? Has she been out of late?”

“My aunt finds that the comforts of her own home surpass those of anyone else’s these days.”

“I am sure that your company is a great comfort to her.”

“I like to think so.”

Emma all but groaned. She disliked when she was with Cassandra and was treated to these meaningless greetings. Neither of these people cared for the other, and it had been perverse for Southwaite to go out of his way to engage in such useless conversation.

“Lady Cassandra, I hope you will not mind if I steal Miss Fairbourne away from you,” Southwaite said, still smooth and politely bland. “There is a conversation that she and I must have that should not be delayed.”

Cassandra turned curious eyes on Emma, who now tried to appear as blasé as the two of them. She attempted a tiny shrug that only Cassandra would see.

“It concerns your father’s estate,” Southwaite said to Emma.

“Oh,” Cassandra said. “I did not realize that you had a role in settling that, Southwaite.” She peered at Emma with undisguised curiosity, and looked a little hurt.

“I am sure Lord Southwaite’s conversation can wait until tomorrow,” Emma said.

“It really should be today,” he corrected. He opened the door of his coach.

Cassandra’s eyebrows rose a fraction. “Southwaite, I am handing my friend over to your protection, not for you to subject her to scandal. You of all men should know better.”

Southwaite did not so much color in anger as blush. Emma wondered if she would ever see such a thing again.

“You must stay with us, Cassandra,” Emma said.

“Southwaite’s instincts for discretion are telling him that would be worse. Is that not true, sir?”

“Then tomorrow will have to do,” Emma said triumphantly.

“Not at all,” Southwaite said. “Lady Cassandra, perhaps you would take Miss Fairbourne to the park. I will follow, and once there we can all stroll where we want and have conversations as needed.”

Cassandra pondered the idea at length. She mumbled about such an outing not being in her plans and how she would rather not be diverted. Finally, however, with much muttering about the willfulness of certain lords who think the entire world should accommodate them, she agreed to his plan.

Emma had strong words for her once they were in her carriage. “You could have gotten me out of this. You almost did.”

Cassandra turned those big blue eyes on her. “That would have been a disservice to you, Emma. Whatever the earl wants to say, it could have been said on any day. It could have been said by his solicitor, if you think about it.”

“Quite true. That is why you should not have let him trap me into this, let alone become his accomplice.”

“Darling, I do not care for him, but he is
an earl
. If an earl goes out of his way to spend time with a woman, she should at least find out why.”

Emma knew why. He wanted to have that conversation about the auction house that she had thus far dodged.

“If you want my opinion,” Cassandra mused, “I think Southwaite is pursuing you.”

“What a mad idea. As you just said, he is
an earl
.”

“He is without a mistress now. He sent the last one packing a month ago. So he has to pursue someone. Why not you?”

Emma thought the answer to that was obvious. She was not about to list the many reasons why men, and especially earls, did not pursue her.

“How delicious if I am correct,” Cassandra said. “I hope
so. I am sure you will be unable to tolerate him, Emma, so he will pursue in vain. I would not mind seeing him get his comeuppance. I think, however, that you should practice your flirting on him before you reject him outright. Since you will not like him much, there will be no danger, but his frustration will be all the greater for it.”

Emma avoided blushing only by keeping every memory of her experiences with Southwaite out of her mind. She managed that only by changing the subject. “I think that you understated the situation when you said the two of you do not rub well together.”

“He has never forgiven me for befriending his sister. She is a dear young woman, but a bit odd. Since I am a bit odd too, she and I got on very well. Then Southwaite forbade the friendship.” She made a face. “So now poor Lydia has no friends at all.”

“How cruel of him.”

“I am confident that the more you know him, the less you will like him. I anticipate that comeuppance with secure delight.”

“You will be disappointed. He is not pursuing me.”

Cassandra laughed, and patted Emma’s hand like a mother might.

S
outhwaite was indeed waiting in the park, standing where his carriage had stopped on Rotten Row. He did not appear to be a man in pursuit. Emma thought he looked more like a man who had just eaten spoiled food. While evidence he pursued her would have been bad news, the true reason for his interest struck her as far worse.

Cassandra strolled with them no more than fifty feet before she saw a friend and diverted her path in that direction. Emma paced along beside Southwaite, taking two steps to each of his strides.

“It is time for us to address the reason I first called on you, don’t you think, Miss Fairbourne? Whenever I raise the matter, you manage to deflect it. However, the future of your father’s business must be settled. It gives me no pleasure to disappoint you or to thwart your carefully laid schemes, but I have concluded that the business must be sold as soon as possible, for your sake.”

It all came out at once, as if he had rehearsed it in front of a looking glass to ensure he communicated his resolve in both tone and expression.

“For
my
sake? Are you so bold as to try to make this sound as if you are doing me a favor? That is rich, Lord Southwaite, when more likely you are seeking revenge for the embarrassment you experienced due to those presumptions you had.”

“You will not succeed in distracting me with a row by dragging that up now. It will not work this time.”

“I think we should wait to talk about this until after the next sale.”

“Do not dare to treat me like a fool, Miss Fairbourne. I know what you are up to. After that sale, you will plan another, and another. Each one will decrease Fairbourne’s prestige. I have no confidence that Riggles can manage the business as you claim.”

“I do. He is very competent.”

“Indeed? He seemed incapable of answering the smallest questions that I posed about the accounts, and reacted as if he had never heard of Andrea del Sarto. No, I have made up my mind. I will seek a buyer at once, and we will be done with it.”

And that was going to be that, his tone said. The lord had spoken.

“T
he proceeds will ensure your future,” Darius said, to emphasize the benefits of his intentions.

Miss Fairbourne reacted badly in ways that could not be missed. Brittle white lights glinted in her clear blue eyes. Unfortunate pink blotches marred her otherwise flawless complexion.

“You are welcome to sell your half if you choose,” she said. “Indeed I hope that you will, for
my
sake, because you are becoming a pest.”

He halted mid-stride at the bald insult. Miss Fairbourne calling him a pest was rich indeed, coming from a woman who probably spent hours each day plotting just how biting she would be.

“You should be grateful someone is looking out for you,” he said.

“Dear heavens, is it not bad enough that you want to ruin my life and destroy all my memories and make me compromise my duty? Do not make it worse by pretending to be a protector. You have already shown your natural colors where that is concerned, and I would be a fool to think you had my welfare at heart.”

He wished he had not seen her on the street and arranged for this talk in a public place. Emma Fairbourne’s bluntness and high emotion were not in the least inhibited by her knowing she would be visible to others. He, on the other hand, was all too aware they were not alone in the park. He did not feel free to release or reveal his building annoyance in any way.

He forced a smile and a casual stance so anyone watching might believe this was a friendly chat. “I am sympathetic that you probably think of the auction house as embodying your father’s spirit, Miss Fairbourne. However, his entire fortune was that business and its property. If anything of value is to be salvaged for you, if you are to have any income, it must be sold.”

“You are wrong there. Fairbourne’s itself will provide me with an income. Furthermore, that is my only option for having one. Selling it will do nothing to provide for my future, for the same reason it cannot be sold at all,” she said. “The part of Fairbourne’s that you do not own was not bequeathed to me, but to my father’s oldest child. It now belongs to my brother, Robert.”

Her stubbornness was about that? It was inconceivable that she held to this view. “I am aware that your father harbored a hope that your brother would return. However, you must know that will not happen.”

“What I know is this—my father’s heir is my brother, and it is my duty to preserve my brother’s inheritance for when he comes back.”

Darius controlled his simmering anger but it was becoming more difficult with each word she spoke. He had sought
this meeting after long debate with himself. He had concluded that it was time to resolve a simple matter, and, damnation, he would do so.

“You are determined to force me into being cruelly direct, Miss Fairbourne.”

“I have never objected to forthright speaking. I prize it.”

“Then give this the value it is due. Your brother will not be coming back. You must go and ask the courts to declare him deceased and you must claim the inheritance. Then the auction house
will be sold
. I advise you to put your proceeds into bonds so you have an ongoing income. My solicitor will arrange that purchase, and set it up with the bank.”

Her hard expression increasingly softened with each word he said. Before he was finished she appeared sad and vulnerable. Her glare suddenly sparkled and her eyes took on new depths. Her bold, direct gaze mesmerized him for a moment, during which, once again, he lost hold on his anger, and even his thoughts.

Then he realized the effect had been caused by tears flooding those blue pools.

Hell, she was going to weep.

She composed herself rather than succumb completely to her emotion. That both impressed and relieved him, but he was at a disadvantage now anyway. Again.