Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Antonia’s parlor was bright despite the autumn gloom outside.
A fire roared in the grate and, with several candelabras, gleamed off delicate porcelain on the low tables.
The Hope House girls perched stiffly in their new gowns.
Rose was quite pleased by their gentle manners, if still a tad uncertain, until Antonia—round with child and radiant—settled them with her easy warmth.
As one of the middle daughters, she excelled at such.
“You must forgive me if I remain seated,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve reached the stage where standing for too long has become a losing battle.” She beamed a smile at Kadida that hinted at conspiratorial. “Wouldn’t you agree, Miss Botha?”
“Indeed, Mrs. Tatton,” she whispered. “Mostly I roam the halls at night because ’tis too uncomfortable to sleep.”
Antonia reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “As do I, Miss Botha. As do I.”
That won several shy smiles, sending a sense of relief and…
gratefulness welling through Rose. Vella offered to pour, and soon the room hummed with the sound of teaspoons and lively conversation.
Rose caught Gabriella’s eyes, and they shared a truly poignant moment.
So poignant, tears prickled. A current of sisterly love arched between them.
Antonia’s smile turned sly. “Do you all know that Lady Huntley and I are the youngest of the Ryleigh clan?”
The girls shook their heads, leaning forward eagerly.
“Well, then, you must hear of the time Gabriella and I decided to run away from home.”
“Antonia!” Gabriella protested, laughing despite herself.
“It’s true,” Antonia said, eyes dancing. “I was twelve and Lady Huntley ten. We were determined to sail for India.
Lena Sharifi gasped. “’Tis where I am from!”
“You are! How lovely,” Antonia exclaimed. “I’m quite beside myself with jealousy. Well,” she went on, “we’d packed a satchel filled with currant buns, two hair ribbons, and Papa’s best spyglass.”
“Ah, so that’s where it disappeared,” Rose said without thinking. Papa had accused Rose of confiscating it, after Sebastian had convinced Papa he’d had nothing to do with its disappearance.
Antonia shifted her surprised to Rose and clapped her hands. “You remember?”
Rose waved out one hand. “Barely,” she murmured, her face heating.
Her younger sister’s nose wrinkled. “Gabby and I made it only as far as the gate before my shoelace broke, and I fell against Gabby, sending her headlong into the hedge.”
Gabriella moaned, and the entire company of Hope House girls gasped.
“Our grand adventure ended in scratches and mud and ruining our best frocks,” Antonia finished.
“Don’t forget the governess dragging us back by our ears,” Gabriella muttered.
A burst of giggles filled the room, even from Inez. It was the first time Rose realized how truly young she was, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed.
Gilly’s eyes had widened to the size of her saucer. “What did your papa say?”
Antonia pressed a hand to her chest, casting her glance to Gabriella before answering, “He declared—”
Gabriella joined in, adopting a deep, pompous voice that sounded remarkably similar to their father’s. “‘Any daughter of mine who wishes to sail for India must, at the least, learn to tie a proper shoelace.’”
Even Rose hadn’t known of this sojourn with their father and found herself joining in the laughter. It seemed to fill her soul.
Such joy rippling through the room lifted the last of any stiffness.
Rose’s heart swelled as she watched them—giggling, relaxed, and utterly charmed, and charming. For the first time since Viola Lockhart had crossed her threshold, Rose felt as if she’d done something right in instigating this occasion.
Before she knew it, two hours had slipped by.
“I fear we must be on our way, darling,” Rose told Antonia, standing. “We have the Harlowe charity subscription soiree tonight, and it cannot be missed since I am the one who convinced Maeve to use it as an opportunity to raise funds for Hope House.”
“Rose has an admirer,” Gabriella said sweetly. “A most persistent one.”
“Gabriella!” Rose choked out.
Antonia’s eyes narrowed with her usual mischievous glint. “Is that so?”
Rebecca smiled and forewent joining in the fray of embarrassing Rose, and she was grateful for it because surely her face was as red as the currents in the scones they’d consumed.
Antonia set her cup aside, sighing. “Next time, we must arrange for an overnight visit.” She struggled to her feet with Kadida’s help.
“Thank you, dear. By the bye, my husband sends his apologies. The man is forever trapped in London regarding that tiresome warehouse business at the docks. I tell him it seems more a front than naught else.” She lifted one shoulder. “But as a woman, what do I know?”
Her tone was light, almost teasing, but the words fell like a stone into still water.
The smile on Rose’s face tightened before she forced the muscles to relax. She bent her head, smoothing her hands over her skirts to mask the sudden thudding thrumming through her.
She barely glanced up, but did, catching Gabriella’s sharpened gaze and Rebecca’s brow creasing faintly.
Antonia blithely continued, completely oblivious. “In any case, it keeps him from my hair, and I daresay you’re all much more amusing company.” She looped her arm through Kadida’s, leading the group from the drawing room to the foyer. “My dear, this soft yellow frock does you great justice…”
The butler—much more agreeable than Winston—greeted them, along with a couple of footmen, and handed out worn pelisses and cloaks that in retrospect should have resembled a veritable rainbow on a lovely spring day. Perhaps she would ask Emerson…
No. There were other more important matters to address that she mustn’t forget.
Rose tuned out the excited chatter, staying back, waiting on her own pelisse. She lingered in the hall, tugging on her gloves, grateful the visit had gone so well, but anxiety simmering below the surface. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten her last visit with Antonia.
Surely it wasn’t Emerson. He was much too successful to deal in nefarious fronts. Of course it wasn’t him. She was right, she just knew it.
Gabriella’s voice cut across the hush. “Rose.”
Her shoulders fell, and she lifted her head. Both Gabriella and Rebecca had hung back as well. Their expressions were polite, but their eyes carried the weight of…accusation.
Rose’s pulse tripped. “Yes?”
Rebecca glanced toward the door, ensuring the girls were out of earshot. Then her gaze fixed on Rose. “That warehouse Antonia mentioned…”
Rose forced a light laugh, though it felt brittle and fell flat. “A trivial matter, surely. Mr. Tatton is always dabbling in something. You both know that.”
Gabriella stepped closer, lowering her voice. “Trivial? You went rather pale when she spoke of it.”
“I didn’t,” Rose said sharply—too sharply.
Rebecca’s brows rose. She was becoming quite adept at that duchess-of-the-manner persona.
Gabriella crossed her arms, studying Rose with unnerving calm. “Rose, you must not keep things from us. If Mr. Whitmore is entangled with that place—”
“That is his concern,” Rose snapped, then caught herself. She fastened her outer cloak, her voice softening. “It’s true Mr. Whitmore owns a warehouse near the docks. But there are many companies who do as well.”
Gabriella exchanged a glance with Rebecca, silent but full of meaning. Then she sighed. “I suppose. But remember this, dear: Secrecy will destroy trust far quicker than any scandal ever could.”
Rose’s throat tightened. She lifted her chin, determined not to flinch.
“We shouldn’t keep the girls waiting. Tonight I shall talk to Mr. Whitmore of these unwarranted accusations.
I have no doubt he is innocent of any nefarious doings.
” She swept past them to the carriage, though inside, her chest was tight with unease.
Emerson might think the evening his to manage, but her sisters had already pried at the first seam.
~~~
Emerson tugged his cravat into something resembling order, though it seemed determined to strangle him no matter how precisely Amir affixed the knot.
With a muttered curse, Amir pulled it free and tossed it atop three others.
“You must remain still if I am to ready you in the manner of a gentleman,” he said with exaggerated patience.
“That is the third cravat you’ve ruined in as many minutes. ”
“I abhor the very idea of hobnobbing with a pack of titled fools.”
Amir held up another starched method of strangulation, along with one eyebrow. “Shall I?”
Emerson’s gaze shot to the top of his vanity where Lady Stanford’s note lay, beckoning him.
A note that had been presented to him via an immaculately attired Yates, as always, with a silver tray balanced in his gloved hands.
Emerson had plucked it from the tray, fully braced for silence, or worse, a curt dismissal.
Rose Stanford’s refusals, he was finding, could cut more sharply than a saber.
The words seared his brain with an indelible ink that had startled a bark of laughter out of him earlier that day.
Mr. Whitmore—
You presume. Nevertheless, I shall be ready. At nine, not eight. Do not be late.
—R.S.
“Yes,” he said, softened by the recollection. A slow smile tugged, then deepened until he gave up the pretense entirely.
“The lady has your heart?”
His smile dissipated like a puff of smoke. “She’s playing me, Amir.”
Ben reclined in a chair in the corner, dressed to the nines, watching the scene with unconcealed zeal. “Definitely playing you, Emerson. No sensible woman could see through that facade you bluster about like a medieval shield.”
Amir draped the cravat about Emerson’s neck with a short grunt, which could have been disguised as a laugh, and began weaving the cloth into a complicated bit of twists and turns. “The question is, why do you enjoy it so much?”
That was certainly the question Emerson had been asking himself the last few hours. “Because she hasn’t run. And because at nine o’clock tonight, God help me, I intend to enjoy myself.” The words spilled from him unencumbered, surprising himself and Amir.
A knock sounded at the door, and Yates entered. Holding the dreaded tray with yet another missive.
“Don’t tell me,” Emerson growled.
“Apologies, sir.”
Emerson snatched it off the tray and broke the seal and read it aloud.
Mr. Whitmore,
You mistake silence for strength. It is not. Pray continue, if you dare. Your baroness makes quite the tempting prize, does she not? Keep her close…if you can.
The second note had been worse than the first. This third, however, was not merely a demand for blunt. The fool had the unmitigated gall to taunt. Him. The hand was the same jagged ink blot as the others.
Ben frowned. “That’s quite brazen, isn’t it?”
But Emerson saw things differently. The blood in his body surged. Medieval shield indeed. “This isn’t just a taunt,” he clarified with a grim smile. “It’s a cornered rat. The tables have turned, gentlemen.” And the culprit would regret it, he vowed.
At precisely nine o’clock, boots gleaming, cravat mangled in flawless order, black coat set precisely to his frame, Emerson ascended the steps to Stanford House. Anticipation reeled through him, a smile tugging at his mouth.
Winston admitted him where Rose awaited him in the entryway, more radiant than he had braced himself for. Without a word, she swept past him toward the waiting carriage with all the hauteur of a queen.
Inclining his head at the butler, Emerson turned and quickly followed her.