An Infamous Proposal (8 page)

“If you have lived so close to that enchantress all these years and not seduced her, you are invincible. How do you control your passions?”

“I bear in mind that I am a gentleman, and Lady Capehart is a lady.”

“And a woman,” James said softly. “I shall have her—in marriage, I mean. When confronted with two evils, I always choose the prettier.”

“And the other evil?”

“Work, Cousin, in the field of the Lord, harvesting souls. I never really felt it was my calling. The jackets are so unbecoming, and all that fustian about truth and honesty. But with Lady Capehart by my side, I could be a saint in my own way.”

Nick decided that he would give his young cousin a chance at reformation, but the lad would want watching. If he veered down the garden path, he would be dispatched home at once.

Nick spent a few moments in the stable speaking to his groom when they returned to Waterdown. Lord James said he would go to his room to read the sermons. When Nick went inside, he went to the library to hide the copy of John Donne’s love poems. He couldn’t find the book. He called his butler and asked about it.

“I believe you’ll find Lord James has it, sir. He asked for it the moment he came in.”

“Will you please tell him I need it, immediately.”

Nick waited, pacing the length of the marble-floored hall while his butler went abovestairs. He told himself the churning in his stomach was due to the possibility of James offending Lady Capehart. It would be unconscionable if she were seduced by his cousin and houseguest. Really! Why hadn’t Lady Revson warned him of this ungovernable streak in James?

The butler returned empty-handed. “It seems I was mistaken, your lordship. His lordship says it was John Donne’s sermons that he borrowed from the library. Odd, as he borrowed them earlier and didn’t return them,” he added, with a raised eyebrow.

“Thank you, Simms,” Nicholas said, and darted up to pound on James’s door.

“Enter,” Lord James called. “Ah, it is you, Nicholas, vigilant to prevent my falling into errant ways. What an excellent cousin you are.”

He handed Nick the book of poems. “Unfortunately,” Lord James said, “I have my favorite poems by heart. Perhaps if I apply myself diligently to the sermons, I shall overcome this weakness.”

“You bloody well better!”

“I make you a solemn promise, Hansard, if I— forget myself with Lady Capehart, I shall do the right thing by her.”

“Very kind of you!”

“Noblesse oblige,” Lord James said, and smiling vaguely, he pulled the sermons out from under his pillow. “And now, if you would leave me, I shall apply myself to the sermons.”

Chapter Nine

Emma didn’t have time to get the green silk made up into a gown before the rout party. She had to wear one from before John’s death. As he had liked her to cut a dash in Society, however, her greatest problem was deciding which of the many hanging in her closet to choose.

After examining half a dozen possible choices, she chose a low-cut rose taffeta gown that was flattering to her raven hair and creamy skin. With it she wore the diamond necklace that had belonged to John’s mama. It was not large, but the stones were particularly fine. They dazzled like concentrated rainbows around her creamy throat.

She felt a little pang of regret when her carriage wheeled up through the whispering oaks and elms of Hansard’s park, with the hall rising in splendor against the purpling sky of twilight. It would have been fine to call Waterdown home, to stand in the entrance of the grandest home in the county by Lord Hansard’s side, welcoming their guests.

His shocked “Marry
you!”
echoed in her ears. What had she been thinking of to offer for him?

As the party had been assembled on short notice, Lord Hansard was not having any guests to dinner before the rout. It occurred to him that he could ask Emma to be his hostess, but in a provincial society, that would lead to marital expectations. As the locals had two hosts that evening, they were well satisfied.

Hansard was almost sorry that Emma looked so ravishing when he greeted her. To see her back in colors after her long mourning carried him back to the first time he had met her, after her marriage to John. He had been astonished then that John had landed such an Incomparable and imagined future trouble for his aging neighbor with so extraordinarily beautiful a young wife.

The trouble had never come during John’s lifetime, but when he glanced at Lord James, he had a sinking sensation that it had arrived now. The loose-lipped smile on the young lord’s face told clearly that he had forgotten all about the sermons of John Donne.

“You came!” James exclaimed in reverent accents, when Emma came forward to be welcomed.

Emma curtsied and said, “Good evening, Lord James.” But she said it in a very satisfied way.

As the last guests straggled in, James said, “Let us begin the dancing with the waltzes, Cousin. It is not a formal ball, after all.”

“No, let us not,” Hansard replied through thin lips. “And I don’t want you making a cake of yourself over Lady Capehart, James.”

Nick was almost happy to note that Mr. Hunter had secured Emma for the first set. Any romantic menace he represented paled to insignificance beside the greater peril of the “fascinating” Lord James.

Nick glanced around uneasily to see if James was misbehaving himself with any other lady, only to find him glued to the wall, watching Emma with a small, anticipatory smile on his handsome face, as patient as a cat lurking beneath a tree to catch a sparrow unaware. But as Nick glanced at Emma, he realized she was no sparrow. She was aware of James’s attention. Her coquettish glance flickered often in his direction.

William Bounty won Emma for the second set. When James made no move to stand up with any of the young girls who were ogling him, Nick took him by the elbow and led him away from the wall.

“This is a rout party, not a vigil,” he said. “You will stand up with Miss Emery, and you will pretend to enjoy her company.”

Lord James was stricken with remorse. “Was I being rude? Dreadfully sorry, Cousin, but how can a man be expected to do anything but stare when he is in the same room as
her?
I shall be vastly amusing to your Miss Emery to atone for my lapse. My, she’s ugly, isn’t she?”

James danced well and seemed to Nick to make a determined effort not to watch Emma—until the waltzes began. Then he was at her side so quickly one would think he had been shot from a pistol.

“At last!” he exclaimed, drawing her into his arms to whirl her about the floor like a caper merchant. He held her much too closely, he showered her with a hundred lavish compliments, and, as the music ended, he tucked her hand under his elbow and walked off to the refreshment parlor, where he had arranged with the butler to have a bottle of Nick’s best champagne set aside for himself and Emma.

“Bring it to the library,” he ordered, then led Emma down the marbled hall to this spacious chamber, with a servant following them with the wine.

One elderly couple sat by the grate. James settled Emma on a small sofa, well apart from them, snagged two glasses of champagne, and sat beside her.

“To us!” he toasted, adding very quickly and very earnestly, “Do you believe in love at first sight, Lady Capehart?” he asked in his gentle voice.

“No. I believe in fascination at first sight.”

“Surely that is redundant. Fascination is the casting of a spell at a glance—usually reserved for serpents, I believe. We have fascinated each other,
ça va sans dire.
What we must discover is whether it is love.”

She disliked that charge of mutual fascination, but decided not to challenge it. “We shan’t discover that in one evening, Lord James,” she said instead.

“Lord me no lords, and I shall lady you no ladies. Jamie and Emma. It is much too soon for it, but I feel I have known you forever ... in my dreams.” He touched his glass to hers and drank. “The names have a certain
je ne sais quoi.
Euphonious, if not mellifluous.”

“Let us not rush rashly into things, Lord James.”

“Ah, I see Cupid’s arrow has not cut so deeply into your heart as into mine. But it has nicked you, Emma. Say it has. You feel something for me.”

“We shall see about that,” she said, but an encouraging smile peeped out to belie her show of reluctance.

He smiled, satisfied. “I daresay a lady likes to put up a token show of resistance. It is odd that my own back is not arched, for usually when I am dispatched about the country to seek a bride, I dig in my heels and dislike everything about the lady concerned. I came prepared to find you provincial and ugly, and instead I found—perfection.” He drew her fingers to his lips and kissed them.

“And were you dispatched to Waterdown for the express purpose of courting me?” she asked in a calm voice that concealed her curiosity.

“It was rather a case of being summoned on this occasion. The summons came from Hansard. ‘A wealthy, impatient widow in need of a husband,’ he said. What he did not say was that you are an Aphrodite.”

“I see,” she said, and took a sip of her wine while she digested this. “Impatient widow!” He made her sound desperate for a man. She couldn’t decide whether to be angry with Nick or amused at his simple plan.

Nick had seen James lead Emma toward the refreshment parlor. He felt they would be safe there for a few minutes, but uncertainty soon sent him pelting off after them. When he saw they weren’t there, he flew into alarm.

“Have you seen Lord James?” he asked the servant behind the table.

“His lordship had a bottle of champagne taken to the library, milord.”

“Did he indeed!” His best champagne no doubt, the scoundrel! He darted off to the library, hardly knowing what he might find, only to see Emma and James sitting quietly at the side of the room, with an elderly couple seated by the grate to play propriety. He slowed his pace as he walked toward the sofa.

“Well, and what are you up to?” he asked.

“We were just discussing love,” James replied.

“At first sight,” Emma added with a glinting smile. “Or should I say at first reading?” Nick realized James had revealed the letter dispatched to Lady Revson.

“Emma doesn’t believe in it,” James said. “She says it is only fascination. It would be interesting to hear an older gentleman’s opinion on the matter. What do you think, Cousin? Draw up a chair and give us the benefit of your decades of experience among the petticoats.”

Nick’s jaw tightened. “Decades of experience” indeed! He made him sound like an old lecher.

“I think such deep, philosophical discussions shouldn’t be held at a rout party. I threw this do to introduce you to the local Society, James. You aren’t meeting anyone in here.”

“I am meeting with everyone who matters to me—Emma,” James replied, with a languishing look at her.

“Hansard is right,” Emma said. “We shall continue this fascin—this discussion—another time.”

Lord James laughed softly. “The heart is quicker than the tongue. I, too, found it fascinating, Emma.
À
demain.”
He rose, touched her fingers once more, and bowed.

Nick assisted Emma from the sofa, took a firm grip on her elbow, and ushered her out of the room. “I wouldn’t encourage him,” he said, rather grimly.

“Strange, I thought that was exactly what you hoped for, since you summoned him here to court me.”

“
Is that what he said?”

“Do you deny it?”

“If I had realized he was such a loose screw I never would have invited him.”

“The man is a menace. He could talk a cow out of her calf.”

“I hope he hasn’t been—annoying you?”

“Oh no! I am seldom annoyed when a gentleman finds me irresistible. It is quite a novelty for me. And I had to overcome a severe handicap as well. Jamie usually digs in his heels and bucks when he is sent off to court a lady.”

“Jackass!”

“You are too hard on yourself, Nick.”

“I didn’t mean me!”

“Oh, sorry.”

He glared. “He mentioned seeing you tomorrow. It would be unwise to go off alone with him. He’s been reading John Donne.” Emma frowned. “Don’t ask,” he said wearily.

At the door of the ballroom, Emma stopped. “You brought him here in the hope of making a match between us, Nick. Now that your plan shows some sign of success, you seem unhappy with the notion.”

“The boy’s an idiot!”

“There is that, but he’s rather a sweet idiot,” she said with a forgiving smile. “I think I can lead him. He seems biddable. And as you said yourself, his papa is an earl; Lord James has expectations, and there is the family mansion in London....”

Nick hardly knew what to say. It was all true. James had expressed an interest in marriage, not an affair. Surely an excess of passion for one’s intended bride should be no deterrent to a happy marriage. Yet he was deeply dissatisfied with the notion of James marrying Emma. The boy was unstable, he told himself. He’d soon tire of his bride and be haring off after other girls.

“I thought you were in no hurry to marry,” he said.

“Oh, I am not in a hurry—unless I hear Aunt Hildegarde is on her way, despite the leaking roof,” she added, for she was enjoying Nick’s discomfort.

Nick had the cotillion with Emma, but it was James who escorted her to dinner. He also secured her company for the country dances that came later. That rowdy affair gave little opportunity for dalliance, however, and he behaved himself moderately well.

Nick and James went to the door to say good night to the parting guests.

“Will seven tomorrow be too early for me to call?” James asked, clutching Emma’s hand.

“Seven?” Emma exclaimed. “Why—it is almost too late, if you wish to ride or drive.”

“Ah, you misunderstand me, Emma. I meant seven in the morning.”

Her lips quirked in a smile. “That is a little early for me. Shall we say, ten?”

“But that is eight hours away!”

“Well, we have to sleep,” she pointed out.

“True, but not together.”

“James!” Nick cried.

“Sorry, Cuz,” he said perfunctorily, then he returned his besotted gaze to Emma. “To sleep, perchance to dream...”