The Trouble With Emma (7 page)

Curious, Emma followed him down the path until the trees and brush thinned out around them and they arrived at a clearing. A lawn, green and recently mowed, stretched away behind the house. From their vantage point atop the hill, Longbourne Bay was visible.

“Oh, how lovely!” she exclaimed, and stepped forward to admire the view. “I’ve never been up here before. I’d no idea you could see the bay from this point.” She watched as a sailboat, white against blue, skimmed through the waves.

“From the top floor you can see Torquay as well. Come along inside,” he offered, “and I’ll give you a quick tour. Although I’ll warn you now, there’s not much to see at present but dust and drop cloths.”

“Thank you. I’d love a tour.”

She followed him across the lawn and up the terrace, and into the house itself. French doors opened into a large reception room, once beautiful with its carved plasterwork and coffered ceiling, thick now with sawdust and dirt and its floors covered with tarpaulin and buckets of paint.

“Excuse the mess,” he apologised as he led her through to the kitchen. “As you can see, we’re in the process of renovation. Ah.” He came to a stop, and Emma nearly ran into him. “Just as I thought – here’s your culprit, being lavishly spoilt by my housekeeper, Mrs Fenning.”

She peered around his shoulder. Elton had his head in a plastic bowl, crunching on dog kibble.

“With some leftover beef gravy ladled on top for good measure,” the housekeeper said, and smiled fondly down at the dog. “He yours, miss?”

Emma nodded. “He got loose from the lead and squirmed his way in through the gate. He’s led me on a merry chase.”

“He’s a cute little thing.”

“Do you mind terribly, Mrs Fenning,” Emma asked as she snapped the lead back on his collar, “if I leave him here for a few minutes longer? Mr Churchill –”

“James,” he insisted with a smile.

She blushed. “James,” she amended, “has offered to take me on a tour of the house.”

“Go right ahead, miss. I’ll just find another dish and get this little fellow some water,” she added, and turned away to begin searching the cupboards.

“I’m so sorry.” Emma trailed behind Mr Churchill as he took her through the library, drawing room, and study. “I’m sure you have other things to do.”

“Not really.” He paused at the bottom of the steps. “It’s no problem at all,” he assured her. “It’s nice to talk to someone besides a sweaty bloke with a clipboard in hand and his bum crack showing.”

She laughed and followed him upstairs.

Twenty minutes later, the tour was complete and they returned to the kitchen. Elton, his thirst and hunger sated, was ready to go as Emma led him back outside.

“Thank you so much, Mr – I mean, James,” she corrected herself, and smiled self-consciously. “You’ve been very patient and more than kind. The next dozen doughnuts are my treat.”

“Which reminds me.” He frowned and reached back to pull out his wallet. “This is yours, I believe.” He withdrew a crisp twenty-pound note and held it out between two fingers. “You overpaid me yesterday. I didn’t notice until last night. I intended to stop by the bakery today and return it, but now you’ve saved me the trouble.”

“Oh! Thank you, so much,” she said, and eyed him gratefully as she took the money.
He was not only devastatingly handsome, but honest, as well.
“Boz’ll be so pleased. I came up twenty pounds short when I cashed out yesterday.”

“Boz?”

“My boss,” she explained. “He owns Weston’s Bakery.”

“I hope he didn’t dock your pay.”

“No,” Emma agreed. “He was very understanding. It was my first day of work, so…” She shrugged sheepishly. “He was prepared to overlook it, just the once.”

“I’m very glad that he did.”

His eyes, she noted as she looked at him, were a lovely brown and crinkled attractively when he smiled.

“And I appreciate your honesty in returning the money. Thank you.” She paused. “I wonder…are you free on Sunday? We’re having a welcome home party for my sister Elizabeth. She’s just got married, to Hugh Darcy. I know it’s a bit last minute, so if you’re busy I completely understand –”

“Darcy?” He looked surprised. “I don’t know him personally, but I certainly know of him. Rich as Croesus, isn’t he?”

“Richer.” She laughed. “We’d love you to join us. I can introduce you to some of your new neighbours.”

He bowed. “It would be my very great pleasure to come. Any excuse to see you again is welcome. What time shall I be there? And…where shall I be, exactly?”

“Sorry. Litchfield Manor, at noon. We’re just outside the village, next door to Cleremont.”

“Ah, yes, the former vicarage. I know just where it is. Charming old place.”

“Thank you. Well – it’s time I left,” Emma said. “It’s been lovely. I look forward to seeing you on Sunday.”

“I can’t wait. Oh – and by the way, no one has ever worn mud with quite so much élan as you, Miss Bennet,” he called after her.

“Thank you,” she said, and bestowed a dazzling smile on him before she turned to go. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Mr Churchill.”

Chapter 12

Clothing – dresses, scarves, trousers and shirts – covered Emma’s bed the next morning as she rooted through her closet. Martine sat perched on the bench in front of the dressing table with an anxious expression.

“You don’t ’ave to do this, Miss Em,” she said. “I’ve already got plenty of clothes thanks to you and your sisters.”

“But you don’t ever
wear
them.” Emma thrust her head out of the closet and regarded her quizzically. “Why is that?”

Martine picked up a tube of face cream and fiddled with it. “Because I wear regular clothes to work in, not dresses and twinsets, to be honest. And because most of the things you give me don’t fit properly,” she admitted. “I don’t mean to complain, truly; but you and Lizzy and Charli are skinny, tiny little things. I’m…fat.”

Emma regarded her in dismay. She hadn’t really thought about sizing; but Martine
was
at least a half a stone heavier than herself. Nevertheless, “You’re not fat,” she said firmly.

“I’m not skinny, neither.”

“You only need a bit of exercise…and so do I, come to that. I’ve an idea. Why don’t we start going for a run on the days you’re here?” she suggested.

“A run, miss?” Her expression was wary.

“Yes – a brisk twenty-minute jog down to the village and back. I’ll find you a pair of tracksuit bottoms to wear. You have trainers, don’t you?”

She nodded. “They’re a bit beat up, but they’ll do, I reckon.”

“Perfect.” Emma unearthed a pair of trackies with an elasticised waistband and handed them over. “We’ll start on Friday.”

“But…Lizzy’s party’s on Sunday,” Martine pointed out. “And there’s all them cakes and tarts and trifles to be made, and the house to be cleaned.”

Emma was forced to concede that the girl was right. “Well, then – we’ll start next week. And since my clothes won’t fit you, I’ll find some hats and scarves and show you how to accessorise your look.” She closed the closet doors and studied Martine with a thoughtful expression. “Right, let’s focus on your makeup in the meantime, shall we?”

“My makeup?” the girl echoed. She stared at her reflection, at her glossy lips and lashings of blusher, and admired the cat’s-eye flick she’d painstakingly copied from a recent issue of
Bliss
. “What’s wrong with my makeup?”

“Where to begin?” Emma murmured, and took a deep breath. “Let’s start,” she said as she came to stand behind Martine on the dressing table bench, “with your eye makeup. It’s fine for a party, but during the day you want to look more natural. As if you’re not wearing any makeup at all…”

With a sigh – and despite her misgivings – Martine leaned back and let Emma get on with it.

“Blimey, I wouldn’t let anyone else but you mess with my slap,” she grumbled, and closed her eyes as Emma began to wipe away all traces of her carefully applied cat’s-eye flick.

“You’ll love the results, I promise,” Emma assured her. “Just trust me.”

With another sigh, Martine muttered, “Right, I’ll try.”

“And please don’t frown,” Emma scolded. “I need to groom your brows a bit.”

“But I
like
my brows,” Martine protested, and her eyes flew open in alarm. “What’s wrong with ’em?”

“They look like caterpillars.” Emma reached for a pair of tweezers. “Now,” she ordered firmly, “I want you to sit back, relax, and close your eyes. This won’t hurt a bit.”

***

Twenty minutes later, Emma led Martine downstairs in search of Mr Bennet. They found him in the kitchen, a newspaper open on the table before him and a cup of tea at his elbow.

“Good morning, daddy,” Emma said.

“Good morning! Hello, Martine.” He glanced up at them with the briefest of smiles. “I didn’t realise you were here already.”

“Hello, Mr Bennet.”

“Distressing news in the paper this morning,” he said, and frowned down at the newspaper. “Our neighbour is selling his property to an investment group from London.”

Emma’s eyes widened. “Not Lord Darcy, surely –?”

“Oh, no. Sorry, I meant Sir Cavaliere. With no heir to be found and his health deteriorating, the old boy can’t keep the place up any longer and finds himself forced to sell and move into a care home.”

“What a shame! What will the investment group do with the property?”

“I don’t know. The article doesn’t say, as the transaction isn’t official yet.” His frown deepened. “I do hope they don’t pave it over and turn it into a water park. Or a shopping centre. To have something like that next to Litchfield Manor…” He shuddered.

“Well, there’s no use worrying about it if it hasn’t happened yet,” Emma reassured him. She drew Martine forward and eyed her father expectantly. “Do you notice anything different?”

“Different?” He set his cup down. “Erm…well,” he said after a moment, “I have to say, I don’t. Martine looks as…” he cleared his throat. “As lovely as ever.” With the smile of a man who’s just dodged a rather large bullet, he returned his attention to the paper.

“She’s had a
makeover
, daddy. Look at her face… Don’t you see a difference?”

“Oh. Oh – yes! Now you mention it, she does look, erm…fresh-scrubbed. Like a – a dairy maid from one of those eighteenth century pastoral paintings.”

Martine’s face fell. “Thank you, Mr Bennet,” she said. “Now, if you’ll both excuse me, it’s time I got on with it. This dairy maid has lots of work to do.”

She turned away to grab the vacuum cleaner from the hall closet, and began to attack the Hoovering.

“Well done, daddy,” Emma scolded. “Here I am trying to build up Martine’s shaky self-confidence, and you refer to her as a ‘dairy maid’. You might as well have called her fat.” She let out an exasperated breath and turned away.

“I meant it as a compliment,” Mr Bennet called out after her in consternation. “Truly!”

He looked down at the pug as Emma stalked off. “There’s no pleasing women sometimes, is there, Elton?”

***

On Thursday morning Emma arrived at the bakery bright and early. She shook out her umbrella and put it aside – thankfully, the forecast said the rain would end later today – and wrinkled her nose as she stared down at her wellies.

She’d stepped in a pile of Elton’s poo on her way out the door.

With no time to change, she’d grabbed a pair of espadrilles from inside the front door, thrown them in her handbag, and left. She took the boots off now and replaced them with the rope-soled shoes and left them in the corner.

She’d rinse them off around the back before the shop opened.

Right now she had more pressing matters to deal with. “Boz, look what I’ve got,” she announced as she strode into the kitchen and brandished the twenty-pound note from Mr Churchill triumphantly over her head. “The missing money from Tuesday’s till.”

“I told you, Emma – there’s no need to pay it back,” Boz reminded her as he lifted out a batch of crullers from the frying oil.

“I know you did. But it isn’t
my
money, Boz; it’s my customer’s. He gave me a hundred-pound note, remember? I overpaid him when I made change and two of the notes stuck together. He realised my mistake later and he’s returned the money.”

“Oh! Well.” He eyed her in surprise. “Good job. How’d that come about? You didn’t work yesterday. You were off.”

“I ran into him yesterday morning. Literally,” she added, and smiled. She told him and Viv how Elton had escaped his lead and wriggled through the gates of Crossley Hall. “Mr Churchill introduced himself – he’s the new owner – and said he remembered me from the shop, and –” she beamed. “And he gave me back the twenty pounds. Wasn’t that incredibly decent of him?”

“Decent?” Viv sniffed. “It was only because you ran into him again and ’e had no choice, more like. Bet you’d never of seen that money otherwise.”

Emma bristled. “You’re wrong. Mr Churchill – James – is a lovely man,” she said in his defence.

Boz lifted his brow as he dipped a cooled doughnut into the vanilla glaze. “‘James’, is it?” he said thoughtfully. “‘Lovely’, is he?”

A flush warmed her cheeks. “He
is
lovely! He’s also wealthy. Why would he keep that extra twenty-pound note? He has no need of it.”

“Why?” Viv asked. “Because rich blokes are the worst. Tight with a penny, they are, and never leave a tip. Act like they’re skint all the time when they’re up to their arses in it. How else do you suppose they got all that dosh in the first place?”

“I’ll put the money away in the till,” Emma said, and turned away. “But you’re wrong, both of you. Mr Churchill is a good and honest man.”

As she returned to the front of the shop, Viv let out a snort. “That’s what they said about my cheating louse of an ex-husband. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, duck.”

Chapter 13

Just after nine, the bell jingled over the door.

Emma looked up from her perusal of a bakery supply catalogue with an expectant smile, hoping her first customer of the day would be Mr Churchill.

But the man who stood before the display case was tall, with dark hair. He wore the casually expensive clothes – cashmere sweater pushed up at the elbows, dark-washed jeans, a diver’s watch on his wrist – and the harried expression of a Londoner.