The Gentleman Spy: A Guardian/Ward Historical Romance

Chapter 21

‘What think you of these gloves?’

With a questioning murmur, Emerald looked towards her friend Esther. ‘I beg your pardon. I was wool-gathering.’ Emerald hadn’t been doing any such thing, but she wasn’t going to confess how much her mind had been occupied by her guardian since she left him for London several days prior, turning over whether he’d meant what he’d said about claiming all her firsts. What her heart wished for and what her mind convinced her to believe were two different things.

‘These gloves, aye or nay?’

He had handed all three ladies into the carriage, but neither she nor he had been wearing gloves. The feel of his warm skin against her own had felt like a tiny fire built between their hands. Emerald blinked to clear her mind of Beau and looked at the pair of yellow kid gloves her friend was holding. ‘Not so complementary to your colouring as the light green.’

‘Shopping with you is far superior to shopping with other young ladies. Most are either too polite to tell me the truth or wish for me to buy something unflattering to make themselves appear to greater advantage.’ Miss Lyon set down the yellow gloves and picked up the other pair. ‘Besides, if I purchase these, I don’t see how I can avoid also taking home this charming hat,’ she said of the satin and straw bonnet with a flat crown, delicate pink and white flowers, and light green ribbon perched on a nearby hat stand.

‘Oh!’ exclaimed Emerald. ‘You’ve reminded me I need new silk gloves for the theatre tonight.’

‘What will you wear? I shall never forgive Mama for engaging us in some dreadfully boring evening playing cards with her dowdy friends. It would not be so bad except Mrs Kettleman plays for stakes so low even a clergyman could sit at the tables. No one would mistake me for a gamester, but I find if I must sit through such an evening, I’d at least like the opportunity to walk away with enough coins for some fripperies. Never mind that. I asked a question and am desperate for the answer.’

With a chuckle, Emerald described her gown of pale blue satin with a matching tulle overlay embroidered with large blue and cream flowers and speckled with iridescent pearls. ‘There’s a band under the bust as well that appears as if it’s shimmering when caught by the candlelight.’ She looked around and picked up a ribbon from another table. ‘Similar to this.’

Miss Lyon cocked her head. ‘It’s quite pretty. As if a frozen lake has been woven into fabric.’

Emerald felt a whisper of heat creep up her neck as she studied the ribbon in her hands. Without realising, she had selected an entire ensemble in the same shades as Beau’s eyes.

‘What I wouldn’t give to be there this evening. Lord Avon has one of the best boxes. You will have a great vantage point, although I suspect it’s you who will be the object of most interest.’

From the day she’d been plucked from Whichwood, Emerald had known how unusual it was for a girl who clung to the bottom rungs of the gentry to be sent away to live with a grand family. When she’d first arrived at Oakmoss, there’d been sidelong looks and curious whispers behind hands. But the Calverleigh family was one of power and wealth, both of which had smoothed the road to Kent.

London was something else altogether, where lords and ladies old and young shopped for a spouse who could improve their connections or fill their coffers—and where all her knowledge of weather patterns, hothouses, greenhouses, kitchen gardens, animal husbandry, crop rotations, and the like would be both useless and a cause for scorn. ‘I confess, to be an object of such intense interest and scrutiny is a situation with which I am a little familiar, but here in town I feel much more exposed and find myself fighting off the remnants of unease.’

‘Emerald.’ Miss Lyon stepped forward and put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. ‘There is no one I know who can wield composure like a weapon as well as you. If there is a benefit to your personal history, it must be the way it has taught you to face uncertainty with courage. All you have to do is go on as you started. That is to say, be brave and brandish kindness as if it were a rapier.’

As the carriagecarrying Emerald and Lady Avon slowly moved through the long queue towards Covent Garden, Emerald first fidgeted with the diamond and pearl bracelet that sat on her wrist over her long white gloves. After she spun it and spun it again, she moved on to the necklace at her throat. One large pearl was at its centre, nestled in a cluster of diamonds, and a pearl drop dangled just above the swell of her breasts. The dowager had given her the exquisite piece as a come-out gift when they had arrived in London.

‘Get your fidgets out now, dear,’ the dowager said, looking out the window with a playful smile tugging her lips.

Emerald coloured, the flush on her cheeks matching her dress of pale pink satin. Her maid had laid out the blue dress, but after her unfortunate epiphany at the modiste’s, she’d requested the pink instead. The puff sleeves were decorated with the smallest rosettes Emerald had ever seen, and spangles and pearls rose from the hem like a firework over the skirt of the dress. Louisa had been waiting at the foot of the stairs to see them off, and she had declared Emerald the loveliest creature she’d ever seen. It was a silly exaggeration, and Emerald had said as much, but the sentiment was genuine, and she’d kissed the younger girl’s cheek before saying her goodbyes.

Stepping from the carriage in front of the theatre, she brought her head up to find at least half of the patrons moving towards the doors had craned their necks to look behind them as word spread of her and the dowager’s arrival.

Lady Avon took Emerald’s hand and threaded it through her arm, giving it a little pat as she did so. Emerald kept her chin high and chose to be fascinated rather than embarrassed. It was, in fact, a wonderfully wild sensation to know so many people were interested in her.

Speaking through the smile on her face that never faltered, Lady Avon addressed her. ‘The ton is nothing if not meddlesome. Officiousness was inevitable, whether we took you to town years ago or now. Pay it no mind. You are a novelty at the moment, but fascination wanes as quickly as it comes on. Ah, Lady Lane and her niece, the new Duchess of Hazelhurst, come this way. Quite the stir that young lady caused last year. I couldn’t open a letter without some mention of Miss Emory, as she was before marriage. You will like her exceedingly.’

The mention of the duchess perked Emerald’s ears. She recalled the dowager reading bits from the letters she received while they took their breakfast or sat by the fire after dinner. Emerald most often let the information wash over her. To hear of persons living grand lives in town was entertaining, but not something to which she could feel any connection. As the women approached, she wished she’d paid better attention or stored some of the intelligence away in her mind.

In a sea of stares and whispers, Emerald was pleased to be greeted with a genuine smile and captivating green eyes that sparked with amusement rather than speculation.

‘It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,’ the duchess said as Emerald dropped a curtsey. ‘I’ll admit I’m enjoying the stir you’ve caused. It’s much more pleasant to be a spectator rather than a participant.’

Such a statement left Emerald at a total loss, as did the curious way the duchess was looking at her. A thousand questions swam in Emerald’s mind. The woman couldn’t have been more than four- or five-and-twenty, but there was something about the Duchess of Hazelhurst, a quiet confidence, a sureness in herself which Emerald wished to possess.

‘Let us pretend we are the best of friends and walk to our seats together. The Avon box is situated near our own, and if I don’t appear there soon, no doubt my husband and his very broody countenance will come looking for me,’ the duchess added, slipping her hand around Emerald’s arm. ‘As it turns out, this has become a poor habit of mine, one I’ve no interest in correcting.’

‘What has, Your Grace?’

With a mischievous smile, the duchess clarified, ‘Stoking the fire, Miss Doubleday.’