An Infamous Proposal (13 page)

“You have charmed the cream of Society, Lady Capehart,” he complimented.

“I called the duke ‘milord,’ “ she confessed. “He sounded very haughty when he told me a duke is called ‘Your Grace.’ Such an odd name for that graceless ogre. He looks like a gargoyle.”

“The title is a compliment to his position in Society, not his physical appearance. He was more favorably impressed with your appearance. His Grace noticed a physical resemblance to Lady Hamilton. Only a physical resemblance, of course. She is counted a great beauty, you must know. We shan’t mention her character in the same breath as yours. Imprisoned for debt, due to her own extravagance. Wretched woman! Hansard has assured me of your sterling character.”

Emma was fully alive to the subtle condescension in his compliments. She had heard Nick protest at the harsh treatment accorded to Lady Hamilton. She could hardly come to cuffs with her host, however, so she smiled dutifully.

“And is His Grace a connoisseur of beauty?” she asked playfully, for there were rumors in that direction.

“Yes, by Jove! He has the prettiest—but I ought not to speak of that.”

“I’m a widow, milord, not a deb. You may speak quite openly to me about worldly matters.”

“Well,
entre nous,”
he said uncertainly, “no secret after all, His Grace likes the ladies. But he is discreet, mind. He would never embarrass the duchess. A fine gentleman.”

It was a relief when the waltzes were finished. Emma felt her face becoming tired from smiling when she wanted to raise her voice and complain. Had it not been for her duty to Nick, she would have spoken more openly to her host.

A smile of genuine pleasure lit her face when she saw Nick coming forward to rescue her. He had watched the progress of Emma’s waltz with some trepidation. He knew her well enough to know that her tight smile often presaged some outrageous speech.

“Shall I take you outside for a good scream?” he asked, taking her elbow and leading her out of the ballroom.

“Was I that obvious?” she asked, laughing.

“I recognize the signs of frustration. What happened?”

She gave him a quick resume of her disgrace with the duke and conversation with Sanichton. “I fear your friend is a tad high in the instep for me,” she said.

“I expect you’re right, but he’s a good fellow, you know. Just the usual prejudices of his class.”

“But you don’t despise Lady Hamilton, and you’re of the same class.”

“She was younger and less experienced in worldly matters than Admiral Nelson. My own feeling is that
he
ought to have known better. Actually, it’s usually the ladies who despise Lady Hamilton as a wrecker of marriage. Sanichton was probably trying to please you by denigrating her.”

“I always prefer honesty in my dealings. If anything is to come of this match you are hatching, I shall have to give Sanichton a clearer view of how I feel about things.”

Hansard looked at her in alarm. “Then you are serious about him?”

“He’s handsome, rich, titled, and of good character. One cannot dismiss such a match out of hand.”

“Quite,” Nick said uncertainly. He had handpicked Sanichton and was hard put to now find a fault in him. “You would certainly want him to know your prejudices don’t match his,” he added. “What, exactly, did you have in mind?”

“His hypocrisy. He complains of Lady Hamilton for carrying on when she was married. Well, it was wrong of her, yet he praises the duke for his discretion in a similar matter. Surely the more important point is not the lack of discretion, but the wrongdoing in the first place.”

“Society feels differently, Emma,” Nick said simply. “The duke’s marriage was arranged by his papa. Where there’s marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.”

“I’m familiar with that cynical bit of French philosophy,” she said. “I disagree with it, as I disagree with the French on many other matters, like executing their monarchs and eating frog legs. People oughtn’t to be forced into marriage if they’re not in love, but if they do marry, then they should obey the vows they take before God.”

Nick wondered if her papa had pressured her into marrying John. He said, “I fancy you and Sanichton would agree about the French at least. He is a firm royalist.”

She listened with interest. “Actually, it might be interesting to sound him out on that other matter on which we disagree. I rather enjoy a good argument. But I don’t have to tell
you
that. You have been my sparring partner long enough to know my horrid ways.”

After a half hour of Lady Margaret’s cloyingly agreeable company, Nick was ready for some friendly squabbling.

“You seem to have put our James in a pelter as well,” he mentioned, handing her a glass of wine.

“I fear he is turning against me. He shook his head sadly and prophesied my ruin if I don’t watch my step. He said I would end up making my curtsy at St. James’s.”

“Make sure he’s not along, if you do. Queen Charlotte has taken him in dislike since he helped himself to a pinch of her snuff.
One does not dip into the royal snuffbox without invitation. I haven’t seen him since the first dance, by the by. Where is he?”

“Haring off after actresses, I expect. He looked as if he’d been at it all night when he turned up for breakfast this morning. At least he makes no bones about it. He admits he’s a rakehell.”

Again Hansard’s lips moved. “I recommend you limit such country talk to the country, Emma.”

She blinked in surprise. “I thought I was being uncommonly discreet! I was careful not to say
what
he had been at all night. At least there would be no danger of Sanichton cutting up like that.” She peered up at Nick. “Would there? He is not a secret lecher, is he?”

“No, no,” Hansard said at once. “I wouldn’t have introduced you to such a character.”

She gave him a sly look. “Unless he happened to be a cousin and in need of a fortune.”

“I had no idea James was such a wretch. We were discussing Sanichton. He is aboveboard in that respect.”

Emma listened and thought for a moment before speaking. “He has asked me out to drive tomorrow. I shall give him some notion of my true feelings at that time. If he is too weak-stomached for my views, then I shall drop him. Or more likely he will drop me,” she added.

“How do you plan to shock him?” Nick asked.

“I expect a word against the duke should do it. Just how lascivious is His Grace?”

Nick didn’t hesitate a moment before giving her details. “He was lascivious to the extent of a five-thousand-pound set of diamonds for Lizzie Malton before giving her her congé and taking up with her younger sister. Lizzie was getting too old for him—she was nineteen.”

“But he’s ancient! He must be at least fifty.”

“He prefers younger ladies.”

“And Lord Sanichton called him a fine gentleman!”

“Well, the duke always votes the Tory ticket.”

Nick felt a warm glow when he saw that wicked gleam in Emma’s eyes. He felt the affair with Sanichton was about to come to a halt. James was pretty well past history. His conscience was easy on the matter of Lord Ravencroft. He had discovered that Ravencroft had left London.

“We haven’t had
one
dance, Emma,” he said. “Shall we?”

“Yes, it will be nice to stand up with someone I can talk to without walking on eggs,” she said, setting aside her glass and taking his arm.

Chapter Fourteen

That morning Emma received a letter from her papa, forwarded by Derek from Whitehern. She read it with a sinking heart. He suggested that she hire a cottage by the sea for the summer. This would serve the double purpose of aiding Hildegarde’s health, while removing Emma from the hammer blows on the roof of her home. As an extra bonus, he invited himself along for the sojourn. He enclosed half a dozen advertisements for cottages, each numbered in order of preference. Emma read the letter twice, then put it in her reticule, where it skulked like an ogre, threatening her happiness.

As luck would have it, Lord James was at home that morning when Sanichton came to call. James had decided that the proper treatment to bring Emma to heel was a frosty silence. That his left eye was swollen and discolored detracted somewhat from his dignity. No one asked how he had acquired the black eye. It was assumed that the actress’s husband had shown up inopportunely the night before.

“Ah, Sanichton,” James said, smiling grimly. “Taking Emma to look at more churches? I recommend Lambeth Palace. Perhaps the archbishop of Canterbury will invite you to tea.”

“Actually, we’ll be driving through Hyde Park,” Sanichton replied.

James’s young face colored alarmingly. “But that is
our
place, Emma!” he exclaimed. Then he leapt to his feet and left the room, muttering dire words of betrayal and treachery. From his limping gait, Emma assumed the blows last night had fallen on more than his face.

She was embarrassed, but Hansard just smiled vaguely. “James is always excitable as quarter day approaches,” he said. “Enjoy your drive, folks.”

After seeing them off, Hansard went to his study and tried not to think of Emma, driving out with Sanichton. What if Sanichton proved to have a sense of humor? What if he took Emma’s scolding about hypocrisy in good form? It might be all that was needed to nudge her into accepting him. After half an hour Hansard began glancing at his watch. At the end of one hour he was at the saloon window, watching out for their return. After ninety minutes he convinced himself Sanichton had overturned his rig and called for his own carriage to go after them.

Before it arrived Emma came storming into the saloon, wearing a heavy scowl. Nick’s heart lifted. He swallowed a grin and asked, “How did it go?”

“Wretchedly!”

“Gave him a good bear garden jaw for his hypocrisy, did you?”

She threw herself gracelessly onto a sofa. “Yes, and he forgave me! He blamed it on my innocence and was impressed at my high morals. He thinks ladies should be blind and stupid. Nick, I have the most horrid feeling that he is going to propose.” She turned a tragic face on him. “What shall I do?”

He sat beside her. “If you don’t care for him, then you must refuse.”

She frowned as she drew off her gloves. “He’ll write to Papa and ask permission. I know he will. He’s the sort who would do things properly. And he is really an excellent
parti,
you know. I can hardly hope to do better. Papa would approve of him. What excuse could I make for refusing? I had a letter from Papa this very morning.”

She mentioned the scheme of removing to a seaside cottage. “There is no point talking up a smallpox scare. He sent six advertisements, all for different parts of the coast.” She drew a deep sigh and, after a moment, said, “I daresay I could manage Sanichton. One senses that sort of thing. Perhaps it would do after all.”

“It was your scolding him for his hypocrisy that led to the bizarre notion you’re a saint. You are hardly innocent of all wrongdoing, Emma. Give him a preview of your true nature. There is the matter of misleading your papa regarding Hildegarde’s proposed visit to Whitehern, for example. I wager that subject didn’t arise?”

“Indeed it did! I told him all about it when he began praising my innocence. I fear you got dragged into it,” she said, biting her bottom lip and glancing uncertainly at Nick.

“I?”

“He took the notion you had put me up to it. What he actually said was, ‘I would not have thought it of Hansard, leading a young girl astray. You would never be so underhanded, Lady Capehart. I shall ring a peel over Hansard.’ I’m terribly sorry that you got dragged into it, Nick. I told him it was no such thing and begged him not to speak of it to you. Then he decided I was loyal to a fault. I hope you aren’t very angry?” she asked in a small voice.

Nick was so far from being angry that he laughed aloud. “I shall soon set him straight if he broaches the matter to me.”

“He won’t believe you. He’s putting me on a pedestal, blaming my wretched faults on everyone else except me, as John did. That can only mean he loves me,” she said, in a voice of doom.

The butler came to announce that Lord Hansard’s carriage had arrived.

“Send it back. I shan’t be needing it,” Nick said.

Emma immediately apologized. “You’re going out. Do go ahead. Don’t let me detain you with my stupid problems.”

“It wasn’t important. This business of Sanichton is. We must devise a scheme.”

She looked with interest to hear what he had in mind. “A plan to make him dislike me, you mean, so he doesn’t write to Papa?”

“Exactly. As Sanichton has already tarred me with deceit, I have no compunction in abetting you.”

“What do you suggest?”

After a frowning pause and a few turns up and down the room, he lifted his right hand and announced, “A masquerade party! Sanichton despises them. He dropped Miss Englehart when he learned she had attended the Pantheon masquerade. We shall have a masquerade party here at your insistence. I shall be against it, but you shall force me to it, buckle and thong, as only you can, my sweet shrew.”

An impish grin seized her features. “Lovely! I really would love a masquerade. But would it be terribly infra dig, Nick? I don’t want to give your friends a disgust of you, if it is not the thing.”

“I wouldn’t do it if it were ‘not the thing.’ It is only Sanichton’s notion of debauchery. He fears folks will take advantage of their disguises to do things they shouldn’t.”

“Typical thinking of a hypocrite. Of course, we must invite him and Lady Margaret.”

“Naturally. When he refuses you pout in your adorable way and tell him if you and he have such different ideas of what is enjoyable, then there is no point in continuing to see each other.”

“It would put you to a great deal of bother,” she pointed out. “You must let me help defray the expense.”

“The expense will be minimal, and Aunt Gertrude and Miss Foxworth can attend to the preparations—the invitations, and so on.”

“It’s very kind of you,” she said, overwhelmed at his cooperation, especially as it was all in aid of turning off the suitor he had chosen for her. “I never meant to saddle you with so much bother when I proposed to you. I daresay you would like Sanichton very well for a neighbor, too, and are only doing this to help me.”